Times and Places

by Keith Anthony

  “Come on, back to our books!” Sylvie said decisively, emptying the last dregs of coffee from the glass.

  And so they continued reading out on deck, at first only peripherally aware of the breeze blowing balmily against their faces. Occasionally, they would lift their heads from their e-readers and gaze across the ocean, tracking a sun which was imperceptibly arcing down towards the horizon, until eventually it disappeared into a low lying haze. The wind no longer felt so companionable in the faded light, blustering around them more wildly, billowing out their clothes. Realising they were cold, they finally retreated indoors.

  After resting briefly in their cabin, they changed and headed to the Midships Lounge for an aperitif. This time there were no mobile phone conversations to intrude upon the string trio, whose delicate music combined with the soothing motion of the ship (and perhaps the drinks) to lull Fergus and Sylvie into a blissful calm.

  Alas, it was such that comes before a storm.

  On their arrival in the restaurant, the arachnid lady and her silent husband were already seated, waiting to be served. Fergus nodded to them as he passed but had the impression that she just gave a malevolent shudder in response. And then, was it his imagination, or were her eyes redder than ever, as if to get to her evening meal she had had to exit through the fiery gates of hell itself?

  “Awwww, where’s our starters?!” The shrill, loud voice grated on Fergus and he prayed hard that Richard and Cressida would arrive quickly, creating a barrier between him and his nemesis… as if by miraculous response, he noticed them approaching down the restaurant.

  “Awwww, Fergus, had a bad day have we? You look a real grumpy chops… give us a smile my darling? Awww, you can do it if you try…” Why were their dining neighbours walking so slowly? Fergus forced a smile…

  “Awwww, isn’t he sweet. We love you Fergus, you know we do… Where’s our starters?!”

  Mercifully, Richard and Cressida finally took their places, exchanging sympathetic glances with Fergus and Sylvie as a piercing rendition of ‘Why are we waiting?’ rose from the table beyond, until at last a waiter brought a prawn cocktail, which temporarily silenced her.

  As Fergus watched her eat, he could hear her long tongue slurping up the poor prawns – what a way to end up, he thought sympathetically towards the mercifully already dead creatures! The arachnid lady wiped her mouth with her sleeve and leaned over, cupping her ear, to hear what her neighbours were saying…

  “Awww, Bar-Bay-Dos… you’ll luv it! We went there last year, the men are goooooogerous, even more gorgeous than Joseph here!” She feigned to give the unfortunate waiter a slap on the backside.

  “Hey!” he said, startled at the prospect and regretting he had ever been persuaded to swap restaurants with Frederico.

  “Awwwww Joseph, it’s only me-ee!” Joseph retreated behind the doors to the kitchen and, by this stage, the Maitre D’ himself was looking on as if he were about to intervene, but somehow never quite reaching that stage.

  In this way, the meal continued until, at its end, the woman’s table was a catastrophe of spilled food and drink and she gave the most enormous belch.

  “It’s a compliment!” she roared, outraged that anyone could think differently.

  To Fergus, the transmogrification was now complete. Her squat body sat splayed on the chair, her lower limbs curled around its legs. Her abdomen was distended with the excesses of her meal, yet her spiderish arms still darted across the tablecloth, gathering up the last pieces of half finished baguette and transferring them machine-like into her mouth. Her jaws smacked noisily until, with an almighty swallow, the bread was gone and she was left there, sitting behind the detritus of her meal, looking around defiantly with her red eyes, as if for further prey, and sinisterly running a finger around her gums to dislodge any final remnants of dough.

  Fergus couldn’t stand it a moment longer and, getting up suddenly, he fumbled his way to the exit, crashing into the dessert trolley as he departed and with an astonished Sylvie left trailing in his wake.

  “I could kill her!” he exclaimed to his shocked wife as she finally caught up with him outside the restaurant.

  “She’s awful… but you must calm down!” She said it firmly, standing directly in front of him, holding his upper arms in her hands, as if both to steady him and to hold him in place until, as quickly as it had been lost, his composure was restored. “Come on, let’s get some fresh air outside, before the show,” she suggested, finally relaxing her grip. Picking up jumpers on the way, they headed out on deck, where the wind resumed its indifferent blustering against them, uninterested in their petty dramas and placing them in perspective against the vastness of the ocean.

  A little later, in the Poseidon Theatre, for the first and only time, they had seats in the front row. This felt a little perilous lest part of the act involved grabbing an unsuspecting audience member and dragging them up on stage. However, it also gave a spectacular view, not just of legs and feet flying around, but also of the dancers’ faces and expressions. Those in the first row, from the light-dazzled stage, were the only passengers the performers could really see and Holly spotted Fergus early on, definitely now giving him a smile. He didn’t quite know where to look and, by the time his brain had told him to smile back, it was too late, she had turned away. The singers, meanwhile, joined in with some of the simpler dance moves, but otherwise concentrated on their songs, often performing them solo from one position.

  Towards the end of the show and by chance, Nicole moved to the part of the stage immediately in front of them and, standing there in a soft spotlight, she began singing “Roam”. Fergus fell into a trance, perfectly focussed on nothing but her face and the familiar words of a song that had been his companion for eleven years, since his daughter had danced to its video; its words like a prophecy he was fated to live out after her death a few months later.

  “You’re lying awake, can’t go to sleep,

  The grief too profound, the pain far too deep,

  The tears that you cry the sole crop that you reap,

  You were happy, but now you just weep.

  Her bright light is gone and your heart starts to crack,

  But your mind still returns to the love that you lack,

  And all that’s around in this world spun off-track

  Is just darkness and blindness and black.

  In the mountains she’s absent

  And she’s not out at sea,

  She’s not lost in a forest,

  Nor in the city,

  And you know that you may as well roam,

  ’cos she’s not coming home.”

  As he looked up at her, Fergus again felt an overwhelming intensity: he was suffocating, but strained to remember how to draw in oxygen; he felt a surge of panic, he needed to breathe, he needed to breathe! He was hot, his body taut; air, air, he had to get air! He knew that he would surely die if she were to look down at him now, surely die if… and then she did. He was paralysed, hypnotised, mesmerised, as she smiled at him through the sad lyrics and as his asphyxia tightened its grip, until finally… finally… after an eternity and just before he was sure he would pass out, she looked away again, and then (and only then) with an enormous in-take of breath, he automatically filled his lungs and the hot, sticky oxygen of the theatre cleared his head enough for him to regain some control and his body at long last began to relax.

  But why, oh why, did they give her the sad songs and why, oh why, did she sing the saddest of them all to him?

  26

  Lancashire – May 2013 and Galilee – AD31

  On retreat in Lancashire, a fifty-eight year old man was sitting in a chapel, meditatively, in silence. If he had been listening, he would have heard the birds singing as they flew to and from their nests in the eaves of the building, and as their young called out for more food. If he had been looking, he would have seen t
he sun streaming through the chapel window, illuminating the stained glass images as if, at any moment, they could spring to life. If he had been breathing deeply, he might have smelled the salt in the air, perhaps even tasted it on his tongue, as it blew in under the chapel door and through the cracks and crannies of the old building. But Fergus noticed none of these things as he travelled through space and time to be with John the Baptist, on the banks of the river Jordan, along with Andrew and another of John’s disciples.

  They were resting there, that’s all. Yes, there were people around, but not that many, and John wasn’t baptising, just relaxing in the sunshine. He had told them that, only the previous day, he had seen the Messiah, knowing it was Him because the Holy Spirit had descended upon Him as he walked. It was Him whom Fergus had come to Galilee to see… but he was getting hot and so he hoped there was time for a swim first.

  The stones crunched as he made his way to the water’s edge and then, as he stepped in, he felt the coolness, first under his foot and then rising above it. He waded in deeper, gingerly, both because it was cold and for fear his bare feet might hit a stone. Once the water had reached his chest he started to swim and, finding his courage, he ducked his hot, dusty head under the water. He refreshed himself in the river for a few minutes before finding a submerged rock, about a third of the way across, and, heaving himself up, he sat on it, facing upstream, with the Jordan’s waters flowing coolly around his waist.

  After a while, he swam back to the side and, without towelling himself, put on his robe, tying it with a cord and knowing the sun would quickly dry him off. He walked back up to his three companions, sand and dust immediately sticking to his damp feet and ankles as he went. Shortly afterwards, John pointed up the shoreline to his left:

  “Behold the Lamb of God whom I saw yesterday!” The man was walking down the side of the river and at one stage took His sandals off to step in, also to cool His feet.

  Yes, Fergus had transported himself to Galilee, and back nearly two thousand years, all at the suggestion of his guide on the sixth day of his retreat. Until then he had, each day, been given short Bible passages to mull over; however, she had that morning suggested a new meditative technique, taking a whole Bible story and imaginatively placing himself squarely in it. It turned out that this was something Fergus could do and, while his physical body was indeed sitting quietly in one of the chapels of the retreat centre, his consciousness was very much watching the ‘Lamb of God’ step back out of the water and continue His way down the riverbank past them, as described in the text from St John’s Gospel given to Fergus by his retreat guide.

  Andrew, the other disciple and Fergus followed Him and suddenly He turned around:

  “What do you want?” He asked. Taken aback, Andrew fumbled for his words:

  “Rabbi, where are you staying?” To which the man replied:

  “Come and see.” And they followed Him. As they walked, Andrew or the other disciple asked:

  “Are you the son of God?” To which the man responded:

  “There will not always be time, but for now there is – I am Jesus of Nazareth.”

  They arrived at Jesus’ little encampment, a short way back from the river, in a sheltered spot beneath a palm tree. Here it was cooler and Jesus prepared a fire, lighting it with ease and the wood cracking as it burned fiercely. He put a stone over the flames and heated some breads. There were some containers nearby from which they drank, while, later, Jesus made them a hot drink that tasted a little like tea.

  Afterwards, Andrew went off to find his brother, Simon. The other disciple also stepped away and Fergus found himself alone with Jesus. Fergus was aware that once Simon arrived he would dominate, so this was his own opportunity to speak with Jesus. He took it:

  “Lord, I am at an advantage. I know who you are. I am praying to you from a long way away and a long time away. Help me to know you here.” And Jesus immediately replied:

  “I am in all times and in all places.”

  For a fleeting moment, it felt to Fergus as though he knew that, although not with him physically, Jesus was every bit as much present as when, all those years ago, he had been with his disciples in body by the Jordan. He felt sure that Jesus had just spoken to him directly, and it was so vivid that, for those few seconds, he had genuinely not known whether he really had been at that camp fire or in the Lancashire chapel or somewhere else entirely. Before he could ponder this any longer, Simon rushed breathless into the encampment and Jesus turned to him, and away from Fergus, and said:

  “You will be known as Peter and on you I will build my church.”

  The scene melted away and Fergus definitely was now very much back in the chapel and beginning a mental and spiritual wrestle with what had just occurred: he felt as though he may indeed have had an encounter with God, something that others experienced but that he had always believed would never happen to him, until now, when it miraculously had. The words “I am in all times and in all places” had hit him profoundly, he was amazed by how his real and imagined worlds had merged so powerfully, but most of all he was left with a clear recollection: in the moment that He had spoken and the immediate seconds thereafter, Jesus’ physical presence had not been the key thing at all, because, in fact, it had felt beyond doubt that He was as much with Fergus as he sat there in the chapel as ever He had been anywhere.

  Fergus spent the rest of the day contemplating this mystical experience and its intensity, doing so while walking the grounds or the labyrinth, or while sitting in one of the chapels again. He grew a little scared as doubt began to creep in. Wasn’t there a prayer that went “We should at all times and in all places give thanks unto thee”? Is this where the words had come from rather than from some unlikely divine encounter? But Jesus had said “I am in all times and in all places” not “we should at all times and in all places” – they weren’t the same. Furthermore, the answer had come instantly, without Fergus’ brain having had time to conjure it up. And it wasn’t just the reply, it was the feeling of presence too.

  Fergus went round and round in circles, until he reached his conclusions: the experience had felt real, but he knew that with time that certainty was bound to fade, he knew that what Jesus had said was similar to the words of a common prayer but… and here was the conclusion… God wants faith, He doesn’t give you certainty, you have to meet Him, if not half way, then at least somewhere in the middle… certainty requires no faith at all. Fergus had spent six days in silence listening for God, and now that he had heard Him he doubted it… in which case, why had he bothered coming at all? So, he decided to choose to believe that Jesus had spoken to him by the banks of the Jordan and, as he accepted that, it dawned on him that this meant those few seconds had therefore been the most important moments of his entire life.

  The next day, he told all this to his retreat guide who listened carefully, without either sounding amazed by the miracle or disbelieving of it. Her advice was simply not to doubt it. She said that sometimes, after such an episode, you could revisit through another meditation and gain greater insight. Fergus, however, was a little reluctant to make a further attempt, he felt that what he had experienced probably could not be repeated and certainly could not be bettered. He did try though, albeit perhaps half-heartedly, but he just couldn’t get into it again, at least not this soon. Nevertheless, the previous day’s experience had been powerful, and it felt incredible to think that, if ever he wanted to do so in the future, he could, through silence and imagination, transport himself back there again.

  What did the miracle (if that is what it indeed was) mean? Well, he hadn’t gone to Lancashire in search of Justine… of course he had thought of her and prayed for her, but, however hard to admit, the truth was that he had actually felt her presence less on retreat than he had at any stage since her death. Perhaps this was because he knew he could find her at home, but he had come to Lancashire looking for God, and the ‘Seek and y
e shall find’ promise seemed to have been fulfilled. If God existed, if, if, if… then it meant there was hope: hope for him, hope for Sylvie, hope even for Justine and hope that one day they would be reunited.

  Fergus felt sure the intensity would ease over time and that ordinary life would resume, that he would tell nobody else about this experience, probably not even Sylvie; he was certain he wasn’t going to metamorphosise into a Bible-thumping evangelist, but that his faith would remain a quiet one. He would continue to grieve for his daughter and he accepted that there would be moments when this would still feel almost unbearable. He was under no illusion that he was now a saint, rather (judging himself a little harshly) he knew he would still have his grumpy, impatient, anxious, lazy, antisocial personality… but he also knew (or as close to knowing as the requirement for at least some faith would allow) that, whatever his flaws, in the silence of the retreat, and contrary to his expectations, he had finally heard God.

  27

  North East Atlantic – Thursday 8th December 2016

  Fergus was feeling a long way away from his Lancashire miracle as he lay wide awake in his bed for a second night running. It was two thirty and his head was spinning with different thoughts: nostalgic ones for Holly and how she reminded him of his daughter with her dancing, and even with how she played with her shoulder length brown hair; paternal ones for Nicole, as he worried how she had hurt her arm, whether life was cruel to her and what it was about her singing that seemed so terribly sad; and hostile ones towards the arachnid lady, that monster with whom they dined each night… most of all, he felt depressed: twice the previous evening he had succumbed to the intensity of his own emotions – so much for meditation! Eventually, he abandoned his efforts to sleep and again threw on some clothes and tiptoed out of the cabin.

  The swell had got up a little and he staggered slightly as he stepped out of the door. He closed it quietly and then stopped still for a moment to regain his balance. As he stood there, he looked up the corridor stretching away into the distance and he, involuntarily, suddenly pictured it full of water, as it would be should the ship one day sink. He imagined the silence with no engines running and with debris floating around, fish too, and perhaps crabs and other crustaceans scuttling around on the floor. It was a nightmarish thought: if the ship went down quickly in the night, he and Sylvie would go with it to the seabed, and their ghosts would roam the corridors until the hull finally disintegrated, giving up their souls to the ocean. He shuddered at the idea.