Devils, for a change

by Wendy Perriam

  Hilary sat motionless. All around her people were embracing – kissing, clasping, squeezing hands. A babble had begun, was slowly rising like a tide, as greetings were exchanged, confidences swapped. Arms were reaching out to her, as well, the girl beside her closing in, the men in front turning round to claim her. Faces seemed to loom and swell, hands huge and hot clamping on to hers, sweaters prickling, whispered words drilling through her skull.

  She kicked her chair back, made a dash for the huge closed double doors, prised one open, heard it slam behind her as she fled.

  She sat trembling in her room. She would have to leave the conference, could never stand four days of such emotional and physical unbuttoning. But where could she spend Easter? Liz’s was impossible, with Ivan there, alone. And who else did she know? Susan, who was nursing a sick mother; a few odd customers who would never take her in, and elusive silent Eva. The only other person was Robert Harrington, who lived in Sussex, just a brief drive from the campus. Liz had actually suggested she try to call on him, or at least phone to say hallo, but the last thing she wanted was to re-excite his interest, allow him to assume she was available. Anyway, didn’t he live in some terrifying commune, with what Liz had called oddballs? No. He’d moved since then – had told them at the dinner – though, as far as she remembered, it was to somewhere else just as weird and whimsical, and she craved for peace, normality. She could go to a hotel, perhaps, but hotels were expensive, and she had paid enough already for the conference – four full days of bed and board, which had taken all her earnings. Anyway, a lonely and impersonal hotel seemed almost as daunting as a campus full of Charismatics.

  She walked slowly to the window, stared out at the glaze of new green leaf, the splash of purple crocuses. Jim Duck was right: spring was running riot just outside. It had seemed winter still at Brignor, only yesterday, a cruel wind from the coast sawing at bare boughs; the only leaves a dead mulch underfoot. It was still hard to believe that the Abbess had forbidden her to set foot in the enclosure, had received her in the extern parlour, with a grille between the two of them. Brignor was her home, her home of twenty years, yet she was now forbidden entry, except as a secular, a stranger. She had assumed she’d be allowed to see the whole community, say her goodbyes in person, thank Sister Luke especially, for her kindness in the past. Instead, she’d been treated like a leper, kept away, for fear she might infect her fellow Sisters.

  No, not her fellow Sisters. She had no sisters now, not even any Mother. The Abbess had been steely, perhaps shocked by her appearance. She had worn no make-up, gone back to her jumble clothes, tried her best to look dowdy and unworldly, but she couldn’t disguise the highlights in her hair, and had totally forgotten to remove the rose-pink nail varnish which Della had applied two days before. She had also annoyed the Abbess by her dithering.

  ‘It’s time you pulled yourself together, child, and worked out what you want. Your position is already most irregular. If you are refusing to return, then the only other course is to request formal dispensation from your vows. You’ve had a full three months to make your mind up.’

  Three years was hardly long enough to make such a cruel decision. Release from vows was an extremely grave affair, worse than a divorce, since you were divorcing God, not man. She would be obliged to write to Rome, with a statement from the Abbess sanctioning her letter, and the council in the community would have also to agree. If they were uncertain, or divided, there could be delays, re-votings, agonisings. Any nun who left was a threat to the stability of those still under vows, a challenge to her superior’s authority. She dreaded causing all that aggravation, all that extra strain, when they were already so hard-pressed to run the convent, so short of new recruits. They needed her, and – worse – she needed them. Back at Cranleigh Gardens, it had seemed increasingly impossible that she ever could or would return, but once sitting in the convent, she’d felt a violent longing to be part of it again; craved purpose and security, rituals and order, even rules. She hadn’t forgotten the years of desolation, her ever-growing doubts and darkness, yet even they seemed bearable, compared with the alternative of being barred from her own home, cut off from her past.

  She had heard a bell tolling through the cloister, the urgent throaty midday bell, summoning her to choir. Instinctively, she had risen to her feet, then realised with an aching sense of loss, that the chapel, too, was out of bounds, that she would never see it in her life again, unless she knelt behind the grille in the separate extern chapel, with the villagers, outsiders – or unless she changed her mind.

  She faltered to the door of her fifth-floor Sussex room. She could leave for Brignor now, be there for the evening Mass, the Maundy Thursday ceremony of the washing of the feet. Maundy Thursday was a day of total silence – a silence which began on Wednesday night and lasted until Easter Sunday morning, unbroken by a single word, save those sung or said in prayer – yet a serene and happy day, since it commemorated the Eucharist, Christ’s giving of Himself in bread and wine. The Abbess herself washed all the community’s feet, as Christ had washed those of His disciples, to symbolise the fact that a superior is lowly, one who serves, as well as rules. Every year, she had marvelled at the sight of Reverend Mother, enveloped in a huge white apron, with her sleeves rolled up, working through a row of calloused feet.

  She stood, undecided, half in the room, half out. How could she return, interrupt the silence, spoil the ceremonies, cause even more disturbance? If she wished to be a nun again, she had better practise here, not waste time and money trying to run away, but seek to gain some value from this conference, attend some service or event which would reroute her thoughts to Christ. No need to go to Brignor for a Maundy Thursday Mass – there was one on offer here, to be said in chapel by a Father Simon Tovey, and billed as an alternative to the main meeting in the hall. It was bound to be much quieter than the session she’d just left – only Catholics present, not a crowd a thousand strong. She checked her programme – yes – it was scheduled for six o’clock. Still three hours to go. Well, if she couldn’t face Jim Duck again, she should at least pray alone in chapel. She hadn’t found the chapel yet – another proof that the Abbess had been right: Sister Mary Hilary was becoming worldly, self-absorbed and neglectful of her religious obligations.

  ‘Excuse me, please. I wondered if you could direct me to the chapel?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but there’s nothing going on there. It’s tea time now, and such a lovely day, we’re having ours outside. Why not come and join us? My name’s Sally, by the way, Sally Burns.’

  Hilary gave her own name, wished she’d worn a skirt and not a dress. Sally looked quite dowdy, and most of the other conference members were dressed very casually; women with no make-up, men in open-necks. She realised once again how Liz and co had put their stamp on her. In Di’s high-fashion shop, she was expected to look stylish; here, she looked frankly overdressed. She followed Sally through a door into the garden, bore left along a path between two lawns.

  ‘Oh, look! There’s Heather. I expect you know her, don’t you? No? Heather Tait. She’s what we call a charismaniac. Don’t look so worried – that was meant to be a joke! I’ll introduce you, shall I? She’s really big in the Charismatic movement.’

  Not just one name, eight. Heather was surrounded by seven eager acolytes. Hilary tried to keep on smiling, as she shook hands, answered questions. She could see the chapel now, a stark white modern building, at the far end of the path, but how could she retreat there, when she was trapped in faces, voices?

  ‘I never thought I’d get here,’ a breathless girl was saying. ‘I was driving on my worn spare tyre and I didn’t find a garage for a good thirty miles or so. They told me there the tyre was just about to burst, and I could have had a really nasty accident, if I’d gone on any further. I reckon it was God who saved me. He wanted me to be here, made sure I found that garage with a mechanic free to deal with it.’

  Hilary fought a wave of anger. People had no right to drive on
faulty tyres. Would Jesus really bail them out if they took such risks, endangered others’ lives? Her Jesus wouldn’t, certainly, but then she had never been on such familiar terms with Him, as these women were with theirs. The Abbess had just told her that if God seemed distant still, she was to accept that as inevitable. Fallen humanity were like blind and deaf children, who lived with a Father they could neither see nor hear. Yet this group of women appeared to claim a Father, who, far from being deaf, popped in for coffee every morning, or phoned them for a chat, and had nothing else to do but grant them favours, especially on their journey down to Sussex. He’d filled one woman’s tank, when she was running out of petrol, saved another the last ham and tomato sandwich in a café on the motorway.

  ‘I’m allergic to dairy products, you see, and all the other sandwiches were cheese. I thanked the Lord, rather than the waitress. He must have known I was stopping at that café. It was even margarine, instead of butter.’

  ‘Talking of cafés, we’d better get our tea. We’re having it outside, Joan.’

  ‘Oh, goody! I always love a picnic. Come to that, Jesus did as well.’

  Hilary tagged after them, stared in shock at the crowded stalls being set up on the lawn, like a garden fête or jumble sale, except all the wares were Christian – beer mugs with ‘The Lord Refreshes’ engraved into the glass; tea towels printed with the Lord’s Prayer; ‘I’m hooked on Jesus’ sweatshirts; dolls called Faith, Hope and Charity, which, according to their cartons, prayed out loud if you pressed a secret button in their navels; their pious hands clasped cleverly with Velcro.

  ‘Aren’t you coming, Hilary?’ Sally had slowed down for her, was waiting by the hedge. ‘We can do our shopping later, after tea.’

  ‘You go on. I’ll catch you up.’ She pretended to be examining a pink plush bear called Grace, which sang All Things Bright And Beautiful, then, as soon as Sally’s back was turned, she fled the other way, towards the chapel. She craved its peace, its silence; had to find her own God, a God not of trash and trinkets, but of Truth.

  Three hours later, the chapel was transformed. The rows of empty pews had disappeared, nearly fifty people now sitting in a circle with bare feet. Hilary stroked one foot with the other. It felt really strange to be without her shoes again, as if three short months had wiped out twenty years. Father Tovey was washing all their feet. She could hardly take her eyes off him. Jim Duck in a blazer was one thing – Jim Duck was a layman. But this man was a priest – a priest in jeans and sweat-shirt, with a towel tied round his waist, and wearing bright blue flip-flops. Flip-flops! Those cheap and nasty plastic things which children wore on beaches and which cost less than a pound. The sweat-shirt seemed too big for him, had ‘NIKE SPORTS’ printed on it. He didn’t look a sportsman – a youngish man, admittedly, but pale and slender-boned, his narrow shoulders lost in baggy folds.

  He was kneeling by his bowl of water, filthy water now, covered with a scum of grease and soap. Reverend Mother’s washing had been more of a symbolic gesture – just a token finger dipped into the bowl – just the right foot dabbed with it. And the nuns had washed their own feet first, in the privacy of their cells, making them as spotless as they could, before the Abbess touched them. Father Tovey was tackling really dirty feet, some grass-stained, even smelly, using soap and elbow grease to scrub and scour them clean. She was touched by his humility, his total dedication, as he lingered over old or bunioned joints, treating them with reverence, as if they were rare and precious objects; even kissing every pair of feet before moving to the next. At Brignor, they had sung the words from St John’s Gospel, as a background to the ceremony: ‘A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another, as I have loved you.’ The whole Maundy Thursday washing centred on that love, that giving of oneself in service, selflessness. Yet, never before had she seen it acted out with such devotion, actually experienced that love, dripping from the fingers of a humane and humble priest. Even the saintly Abbess Benedict had not abased herself like Father Simon Tovey, who was crawling on his knees around the floor, his clothes splashed with dirty water, his small hands chapped and reddened.

  Her turn now. She tensed as he approached her, felt she had no right to sit, while he grovelled at her feet; then remembered Peter in the Gospels. He, too, had objected on the grounds of false humility. And Christ had replied that only if He washed his feet would Peter be His friend, and made clean like the rest. Made clean. She knew suddenly, instinctively, that this was the priest she must go to in Confession. He could make her clean. She also knew he would understand, treat her with compassion, even love.

  A young red-headed man was carrying in a bowl of fresh warm water, set it down at Father Tovey’s feet, removed the dirty one. ‘You’re in luck,’ the priest said, smiling as he wrung out his two sponges. Was it simply luck? They were bound to change the water halfway through, but to do so at that moment seemed to her a symbol, a promise of new hope. Clean water, a new start.

  She felt awed to have a consecrated priest kneeling at her feet, Christ’s delegate on earth, acting as her servant – awed, yet also nervous. He was so close to her bare legs, his wet hands gliding down them; each separate sensation shocking through her body – the slippery soap slicking round her ankles, the smoothly probing sponge, the rough and nubbly towel between each toe – and finally, his soft lips on her skin. With any other man, she might have felt threatened, or immodest, but he was Christ for her, girded in his apron-towel, as Christ Himself had been that night of Passover.

  When every pair of feet was washed – and kissed – Father Tovey vanished for a moment, reappeared in the same damp and shabby clothes, but with a white stole round his neck, a drab and dingy thing, with no embroidery or trimming. Father Martin wore ceremonial vestments in elaborate white brocade for the Maundy Thursday Mass; a gold-fringed stole she had made herself, ornate with grapes and wheat sheaves. Yet Father Tovey’s solemn voice belied his casual clothes. He seemed to be thinking out each word as he pronounced it, coining it anew, so that every phrase of every prayer sounded fresh and newly minted – the word ‘love’, especially, spoken with a fervour, almost hunger. He was an insignificant man, as far as looks and stature were concerned, with pale and fragile skin, mousy hair flopping limply to his collar, and only five-foot-six or so in height. Yet there was beauty in his bearing, beauty in his manner, which was dignified and gentle, full of the love he kept referring to in words.

  ‘Christ’s love has gathered us together into one. All mankind is one – one in ancestry; one with the plants and animals, the planets and the stars; one in our common life and purpose.’

  Hilary listened, fascinated, marvelling at his almost cosmic vision, which drew all history, all creation, into one. She was still nervous of these strangers all around her, a group of mainly women, whose ages ranged from seventeen to seventyish, yet she was beginning to feel a bond with them, simply through the power of this priest’s words. She was aware of them relaxing, too, exchanging friendly smiles, thawing in the warmth of Father Tovey’s presence. He was so different from Jim Duck. There was no hysteria, no matiness, yet he could still stress love and friendship; humble himself, without descending into bathos.

  He was now begging pardon for his sins – in public, and specific sins, not just the general Confiteor which they had already said at the beginning of the Mass. He was accusing himself of greed in food and drink, of worrying about his work, instead of relying on God’s goodness, of speaking unkindly of a fellow priest. She heard him out, incredulous. Never before had she known a priest confess his sins to laymen, rather than vice versa. Unthinkable with Father Martin, Father Anstey – almost any priest she’d met. Yet it showed such deep humility, a sense of being equal, equal with his flock, not a self-important leader, set apart. Could he really be greedy, when he looked so lean and slight, or have spoken unkindly of anyone at all, when he seemed imbued with such deep charity? Or was he simply over-scrupulous, so genuinely humble, that he saw himself as a sinner, when to others
he was saintly? She warmed to that, warmed to the thought that he was a worrier, like her; listened in amazement as he implored not just God’s forgiveness, but their own.

  All through the Mass, he had inserted his own words, departing from the standard formula. It made the service longer, yet he spoke with such sincerity, intensity, she hardly noticed the chapel windows darkening, the grey-blue dusk muting all the colours. They had now reached the Communion, the most sacred moment of the Mass, and he invited all his ‘guests’ to join him on the floor. People got up from their chairs, sat cross-legged on the parquet, displaying half their underclothes, or sprawled full-length, as if they were attending Sally’s picnic, not a solemn sacrifice. She watched, astonished, as the red-haired man spread a scarlet gingham tablecloth between them, then carried in a long French loaf, a litre bottle of red wine, and a tray of plastic glasses. Bread and wine meant hosts and chalices – or always had at Brignor – tiny fine white wafers, heavy golden chalice, with rubies and white sapphires round the rim.

  Two girls were breaking up the loaves, tearing off rough uneven chunks, using just their hands, and grubby hands, in one case. Another girl was pouring wine, a generous splash in each cheap glass. Hilary tried to hide her sense of shock, as shreds of bread-crust flaked on to the cloth, dribs of wine soaked into it. She, as sacristan, had been trained to handle hosts and wine with the utmost care and reverence, since they were to become Christ’s Body and Blood. Was she simply out of touch with modern customs, used to sixteenth-century rituals which had become fossilised at Brignor? No. Even at St Agatha’s, the Communion was formal – each host merely moistened with the wine, then placed directly on the tongue by a priest in proper vestments. Yet maybe that was wrong, and Father Tovey right. He was pointing out to them that this was a true meal, that too much pomp and ceremony could make people forget that Christ Himself sat down to simple fare with friends. And those humble fisher friends would not have drunk from precious gold or silver, nor expected fancy hosts in fine-milled flour. They had eaten real rough bread, drunk full-bodied wine; sat, not knelt, talked amongst themselves.