“That night a storm rakes the sea and the disciples' boat is tossed for hours. Finally, as Matthew tells us, on the fourth watch, early in the morning, they see Jesus walking toward them on the surface of the water. They cry out in fear, ‘It is a ghost!’ But Jesus says, ‘Take heart; it is I. Be not afraid.’ Then Peter jumps up and says, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you over the water.’
“And here's where I think Jesus shows us his sense of humor—in a way not all that different from the joke we began with. What does he do? He says, simply, ‘Come.’ And so, Peter clambers out of the boat. He lets go with one hand. He lets go with the other. And he walks across the water toward his Lord.
“So here is Peter, striding across the surface of the sea, when he sort of wakes up and looks around. He sees that the sea is rough and the sky is stormy. And suddenly he is afraid. He has, to put it simply, a crisis of faith. He fears that the branch of salvation, like the branch our climber was clutching, is slender and brittle.
“What happens next? Well, it's useful to remember that the name ‘Peter’ means rock … which is exactly what he begins sinking like.”
“‘Lord, save me!’ Peter cries.
“And Jesus reaches out, pulls him up, and returns him to the safety of the boat. ‘O ye of little faith, why did you doubt?’ Jesus asks. And the rest of the disciples, in awe, declare, ‘Truly, you are the son of God.’”
The priest paused and rested her eyes on the clutch of villagers before her.
“We are only human,” she said. “We are not made to be unwaveringly faithful. Our day-to-day lives test our faith repeatedly—in ourselves, in those we love, and in God. And sometimes we sink. What does Matthew's account of this episode in the life of Jesus and his disciples tell us? That faith can buoy us up. That faith can calm the storm. That faith can produce miracles—big ones, little ones, it hardly matters. Faith can enable each and every one of us to walk upon the water' of our lives. Faith can still our doubts. Faith can be our salvation. This is what Matthew wants us to understand when he tells us Peter's story.
“Now, let us pray …”
The service continued, but Andrew was still thinking about the vicar's sermon. Though he had gone to church dutifully every Sunday with his parents as he was growing up, Andrew had never had much faith in faith. He had even less faith in organized religion. The Bible seemed to him a patchwork of contradictions, not a reliable guide for human souls; you could find scriptural justification for any belief or action, however tender or brutal. You didn't have to be an historian to know that the armies on both sides in any battle believed God was with them and would speed their victory. The sheer devastation wrought by those who believed this over the course of human history was staggering. Religious organizations seemed to him little more than businesses aimed at protecting and expanding their market share, lining their pockets, and stifling dissent. He'd experienced this part of religion firsthand. As a teenager, he'd admired—almost idolized—the assistant minister at his church, a young man passionate about helping poor people in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Boston. He was doing what Andrew believed was the true work of the church, living the values of Christianity and leading by his example. But his social activism annoyed the wealthy and conservative members of the church's board of trustees, and, soon enough, the assistant minister was forced out. Andrew's father had said, “It's for the best,” and Andrew wondered, The best for whom?
That was the end of Andrew's churchgoing. Anything less than a total boycott seemed to him immoral. How could you remain a member of the flock in the face of such injustice and hypocrisy?
As he matured, Andrew found a new faith: a faith in the power of rational thought. He believed that the universe was explainable. He believed that the mysteries of religious faith were nothing more than natural phenomena awaiting logical explanation. Andrew had faith in science, in the rigorous process of examining and analyzing the world.
But he had faith, too, in the essential goodness of human beings. He believed in people, in their potential for grace. He believed most people were good and the rest wanted to be good, and either didn't know how, had no experience of goodness, or somehow had been led astray. The reasons they failed at goodness, he believed, were sociological, not theological.
Andrew had also had faith in himself, in the importance of his work, and in the security and fullness of his love for his wife. But now his marriage was shattered and the value of his work was in question. In the year since Kat dropped her bomb, Andrew had felt his belief in himself, even his belief and trust in others, seeping away. It was as if his soul had sprung a leak. He imagined himself shrinking until all that was left was a puddle of clothing on the ground. O ye of little faith, Jesus had said. Yes, precisely.
Lee yanked him out of his bleak meditation.
“Come on,” she said, tugging at his pocket, “You have to meet Janet!”
“This is Drew,” Lee announced, dragging him over to the priest. “He's living with us.” Andrew felt like the farm's new dog.
The vicar smiled and offered Andrew her hand. “Janet Stevenson. It was nice you could join us this morning,” she said.
“Yes, well, I apologize for barging in like that. Look, I'm sorry to be so ignorant, but what does one call an Anglican priest?”
She chuckled. “Technically, I suppose it's ‘the Reverend Janet Stevenson of Davidstow, Forrabury, St. Juliot, Lesnewth, Minster, Otterham, and Trevalga parishes.’ But most people just call me ‘Janet.’”
“Thank goodness,” Andrew said. The Reverend Janet was a tall, angular woman with shoulder-length, rather severely cut brown hair shot through here and there with strands of gray. But her eyes were gentle and her smile was warm and genuine—not simply part of her professional wardrobe.
“Your sermon's given me something to think about,” Andrew confessed.
“Yes, I noticed you seemed to have drifted away afterward.” The priest leaned a bit closer and spoke quietly: “If there's something you'd like to discuss, the rectory's next to St. Symphorian's, at the top of the village, by Forrabury Common.”
Andrew wondered whether clairvoyance was an essential skill among priests. “Thank you,” he replied.
Lee was tugging at his pocket again. “Come on, Drew, or you'll be late at the Cobweb, too!”
“The Cobweb?”
“The pub,” Janet explained. “Nearly everyone goes there for Sunday lunch, there or the Wellington—you know, roast lamb and the works.”
“And if you don't get moving,” Lee chided, “there'll be none left!”
“You seem to have a friend,” the priest said.
Andrew laughed. “It feels more like I've been adopted. Or maybe kidnapped. Will I see you there?”
“I usually put in an appearance; have a pint at least. Professional responsibility, you see.”
Andrew smiled and gave her a wave as Lee tugged him across the churchyard toward Anne's car. He never did get to look around at Thomas Hardy's handiwork.
Andrew ducked through the low door of Boscastle's Cobweb Inn and thought he'd gone blind. After the shimmering brilliance of the midday August sun outside, the interior of the Cobweb was as black as the bottom of a well. He waited for his eyes to adjust; what emerged from the gloom was a pub unlike any he'd ever been in before. It had the same soft, warm lighting around the room and cheerful, backlit bottle glitter behind the bar as any other pub, and that ineffable sense of welcome that seems unique to pubs in the English countryside. But that was where the resemblance ended. The Cobweb occupied the first two floors of a massive four-story, eighteenth-century stone warehouse built deep into the black slate hillside across the road from the Visitor Centre. A formal dining room and function room occupied the upper floor, but the heart of the pub was two large, low-beamed, stone-walled, virtually windowless, cryptlike adjoining rooms on the ground floor. There were big stone fireplaces in each room, along with an eclectic collection of tables, chairs, antique high-backed settles
, and miscellaneous artwork and wall ornaments. Andrew could imagine how warm and comforting it would be to step into the Cobweb on a winter afternoon to find all of the fireplaces ablaze. Mercifully, on this muggy Sunday, the hearths were cold and the pub was cool. From the thick beams overhead in the room nearest the door hung hundreds of antique beer bottles, along with all manner of other detritus. Andrew, who was only just over six feet tall, felt as if he needed to duck to move through the place.
On this Sunday, however, moving toward the bar in the back was like trying to swim through mud; the room was packed with tourists and locals alike, all intent on tucking into one of the great bargains of British pubs, the Sunday roast lunch. Three waitresses moved through the throng with the grace of ballet dancers, balancing platters laden with potatoes, vegetables, and either roast lamb, beef, or turkey with all the trimmings.
Andrew had finally reached the long bar that spanned the two rooms and was about to order a pint of St. Austell's Doom Bar ale when a woman's voice rang out.
“Well, if it isn't the sheep whisperer. Flora! It's that bloke I was telling you about!”
Andrew turned to his right and saw a darkly beautiful woman perched on a high stool at the end of the bar. She had on a black, paint-splattered, ribbed cotton sleeveless tank top that left little to the imagination, and a pair of faded cutoff jeans. One very long, very tan leg crossed the other at the knee. From the suspended foot dangled a hot pink flip-flop. Her dark brown hair was long and gathered to one side, rather than to the back, in a ponytail held by a rolled and knotted kerchief. Her pupils were jet-black jewels surrounded by searchlight white. She smiled.
“Um … I'm sorry,” Andrew stuttered, “I don't think we've … wait—you must be that woman on the cliff. With the dog.”
“And you're the savior of stranded sheep, the Ovine Ranger.”
An older, plump, rosy-cheeked woman—Flora, presumably—bustled up behind the bar and gave him a smile as broad and bright as a crescent of beach on a tropical island.
She ignored the others with empty glasses in their hands and said, “Pay no attention to her; she's just takin' the piss.”
“The what?”
“You know, havin' you on a bit. What'll it be, me 'an'sum?”
“A pint of Doom, please.”
“On me, Flora,” the woman on the stool said, and the barmaid lifted an eyebrow as she pulled down the long-handled vacuum pump to draw the fresh ale up from the cellar casks.
“Best order two,” Flora said to Andrew with a wink. “You're on a roll here.”
“One will do, I think.”
“How's that sheep, then?” the woman in the cutoffs teased, bouncing her crossed leg rhythmically. Andrew watched the pink flip-flop dance.
“No idea.” He took a long slug of his pint. He loved British ales: amber, creamy, almost no fizz. “Thanks for the drink.”
“I was a little worried, frankly, about whether you'd get yourself up from that ledge.”
“But not worried enough to stick around to help.”
“Oh, no. I know too well how fragile is the male ego.” She tilted her head to one side and gave him a crooked, amused smile.
“So this,” he said, lifting his glass, “is guilt?”
“I don't think so; I believe you ordered Doom Bar. Good choice, by the way.”
Suddenly, Andrew remembered the sermon. “I could have fallen,” he said.
“That would have been Darwin at work again. But you didn't, did you?”
“Actually, I did. Fell nearly a hundred feet toward the knife-edged rocks and boiling surf, but arrested the fall by grabbing the branch of a bushy shrub growing from the cliff face. Unfortunately, it was gorse, so my hand was impaled by the thorns. Still, it held long enough for me to find a route back to the top, no thanks to you.”
He was about to reach for his pint again, but she grabbed his hand, flipped it over to see his palm, which was unscarred, wiped her own palm over his, then let it go.
“Liar.”
Andrew was trying to recover from the galvanic jolt of her touch. He'd never experienced anything like it in his life; his blood sizzled.
“I used the other hand,” he said.
“Liar twice,” she said. “You're right-handed; that's the hand you use to lift your glass.”
“How's your dog?” Andrew asked, trying to buy time, trying to recover.
“Randi!” the woman shouted—which seemed to Andrew a somewhat unseemly answer to an innocent question. But then a big, furry dog that looked for all the world like a wolf appeared from the crowd, trailing several small children, including Lee.
“So there you are!” Lee called out amid the din of voices in the pub, as if Andrew were a wayward puppy wandering, lost, amid the forest of legs and ankles.
“Guess what, Drew? This is Randi, and he's the bestest dog in the world.” The dog sat on his haunches beside the woman on the stool and regarded her with helpless adoration, tongue lolling.
“And Nicki!” Lee cried, noticing the woman on the stool. “Drew! Drew!” She was hopping with delight. “This is my best friend, Nicki!”
Andrew looked at the woman across from him, then back to Lee.
“Wait … I thought Nicki was one of your girlfriends.”
“She is, silly!”
“No, I mean a girl like you … not a … a grown-up!”
“Not an old crone, you mean,” the woman said, with something less than her former feistiness. Andrew glanced at her and wondered how old she actually was. Midthirties; forty, tops. Pretty young as crones go. Pretty, period. Something lush, slightly exotic about her. He was still buzzing inside from her touch.
Lee bailed him out.
“Nicki's not like other grown-ups. She's like me. A ‘free spirit.’ That's what Mum says, anyway.”
Nicola slid off her stool and swept the girl into a bear hug, thinking just how wrong Lee was, but loving her for believing it. Lee giggled, squirmed away, and disappeared into the crowd, her introductions apparently now completed.
The woman stood facing Andrew, squinting, thoughtful.
“So you're Drew … I should have guessed.”
Andrew smiled. “Why? Is my fame so widespread?”
“It is when Lee's your publicity agent, and yes, thank you, I'd love another drink.”
Andrew laughed and signaled Flora.
“My treat this time,” he said to the barmaid when she arrived.
Flora fairly leered at him. “Aren't we becomin' chummy! Same again, Nicki?”
“Sure, but as long as he's buying, make it a double.”
“So what do you do when you're not cadging free drinks at the Cobweb?” Andrew asked.
“Oh, that's so American: What do you do? As if that defined you! You're in Europe, my friend. Here we inquire about your family, about life, about truth, about beauty …”
“Okay, then, tell me about your family.”
“Don't have any; at least not here.”
“Your life, then?”
“Checkered.”
“Is that the truth?”
“Truth enough.”
“Okay then, beauty? Besides your own, which is perfectly obvious to anyone with at least one functioning eye.”
This seemed genuinely to have taken the woman aback. She turned to the tall gin and tonic Flora had left her and downed a third of it in one go. She stared at the glass for a moment, then turned toward him.
“Thank you,” she muttered. Then she smiled. “Liar.”
“You're right, I'm lying. I spend my days photographing gorgeous, scantily clad models for fashion magazines, and I've just gotten used to telling women they're beautiful. Apart from you, most of them seem willing to accept the compliment.”
“You're a fashion photographer?”
“No. That's the ‘liar’ part.”
She smacked his arm playfully and laughed, then raised her glass and clinked his. “You win this round.”
“I didn't know it was a
competition.” This, too, was a lie; he felt as if he'd been fencing ever since he arrived.
“It's always a competition.”
“What is?”
“Flirting.”
“Is that what we're doing?”
“Isn't it?”
“Wait. This is making my head hurt. I asked first.”
“And I dodged the question.”
“You certainly did.”
Andrew felt weirdly off balance with this lovely but curious woman. And he realized this whole business of interacting with someone new was a little scary. It had been years. How do you behave? What do you say? Especially when the woman in question seemed armed to the teeth, at least verbally. Even more especially when you found yourself powerfully attracted to her.
For her part, Nicola was rather enjoying Andrew's struggle. Although he stayed right with her in their quick-witted parry and thrust, she sensed she had the upper hand. She liked that.
Andrew did a verbal feint. “Look, I'm told the reason to be here on Sunday afternoon is the roast dinners. Are you eating?”
“Heavens, no; far too much food for midday. I'd be asleep by three.”
“So why are you here?”
“You mean, apart from the gin?”
“Apart from the gin.”
She scanned the packed pub. “For the company, I guess. It's better in winter, without the tourists. But I don't mind the crowds.” They fill up the emptiness, she thought. She waved at the Reverend Janet, who was working the crowd, a judicious half pint of ale in her free hand. “My work is pretty solitary.”
As if he'd been given a peek through a keyhole, Andrew saw through Nicola's wall. But he was too much of a gentleman to pursue it.
“Ah,” he said, “we're back to what you do.”
“Clever how you did that.”
“You brought it up, actually, but as long as you did, let me guess: You're either an exceptionally messy interior decorator or an artist.”
“Aren't you observant!”
“You're an artist?”
“No. I'm an exceptionally messy decorator, and I'd better get back to my paint cans.”
She drained her glass and slung a canvas purse over her shoulder.
Will North Page 6
