A Pocketful of Rye

by Anthony Masters

  Father Jessell realised the old man had paused expectantly, awaiting a sign of encouragement from the Priest’s side of the screen. Withdrawing his hands from picking at a widening hole in his robes, he droned comfortably to the old man, his voice muffled and sympathetic.

  “Tell this to me slowly—without holding anything back—and remember that you have the sanctuary of the Church.”

  But before he had finished the old man’s whine began again, first rising and then falling to such a low pitch that it was almost impossible for the Priest to distinguish the words. Gradually he began to lose concentration until he found himself catching only one word in every ten. Consistently he drew himself up and concentrated, but in a few minutes time he was drifting away again.

  Outside the confessional box dust hazed in pallid sunbeams and the Church darkened every time the suggestion of sunlight disappeared. Then the altar cloths and ugly tapestries would lose a watery majesty and the lectern seemed almost menacing as it was silhouetted against the dirty white of the pillar behind it. The shadowing penetrated the confessional and the friendly chinks of light darkened under the curtaining.

  “I’ll have to end it for the old girl—she can’t go on like she has these last twenty years—still and not speaking like she was dead already—and then waking out of it—and choking up her blood and guts all over the sheets—and lying there staring hate up at me—her eyes all dull and angry—and her hands reaching up at me—for me to help her—to let her out—just with a few more of her tablets—just to let her out with a few more.”

  Eloquence surrounded the Priest, and for a moment he was lost in the wild eddy of the old man’s desperate communication. He stopped watching the shadows narrow on the stone floor through a gap in the curtain and heard—and began to understand the mumbled words for the first time—and was shaken by their sudden clarity and urgency.

  “A few more—” Father Jessell echoed the words stupidly—clumsily grasping at their sudden reality—forgotten his tickling nose and wheezing breath—the words stamping on his brain the need for decision and the adequacy and guidance that he would find impossible to give the old man.

  The other had paused and the Priest imagined his lips forming rehearsals of reshaping and communication.

  “A few more—of what?”

  The reply came, surprisingly firm and definite: “Of the tablets, Father, her tablets.”

  “But”—his mouth was gulping at the words, fishlike and idiotic—“it could kill her—I mean—it might kill her.”

  There was silence, then somewhere there was movement—for a moment there was a rasping of feather-soft feet on the woodwork—

  “It will kill her, Father. I want the tablets to make her free—she’s been asleep for twenty years”—the voice was beginning to lose its definity and the mounting whine crept back into it—“and every time she wakes her knees are all drawn up and she—”

  “But—the tablets—an overdose—would be—you would—” Father Jessell’s voice broke adolescent-like on a high note and he, grotesquely, began to sneeze.

  Then Father Jessell began to talk—too quickly—limitlessly countering the old man with his doctrine: the doctrine that seemed inadequate to this sudden simplicity. He talked loudly, trying to replace his own confidence; telling the other of the madness of the act, the religion that held life sacred, the humanity that would be destroyed. He talked hysterically, his words a gabble, tumbling over themselves in emptying entreaty. The perpetual sneezing made his voice thick and irresolute, and his head began to ache with the desperation of argument and the command of religion. The wooden boarding between him and the old man only served as frustration; the reaction to his argument was negative—there was no sound from the other side of the partition—no reaction—no sign of a result. His voice slowing he tried to master himself and arrange his argument methodically. He began again from the very beginning, and felt his argument waver before he was halfway through. Another start only provoked another desperate failure, and yet another produced more panic and sneezing. Still no sound from the other side of the partition. The Priest began again, but he felt his final arguments fall dismally at the other’s feet.

  Then the old man quietly said again: “Just a few more of her tablets—to free her.”

  “No!” rapped back the Priest, “it’s murder.”

  Melodrama seized him and pompously he shouted: “It’s a sin—it’s murder—” and then more quietly and for the first time with more result—“This is not a way of freeing her—it will be against the will of the Father.”

  For a moment the old man said nothing and the Priest relaxed, suddenly discovering his face was almost flat against the boarding and his hands were running up and down the runnels and knotting of the wood. Then:

  “She won’t wake to the pain again—I won’t let her wake to it—her face—so soundly asleep—then she wakes—and the face is different—the lips all—” and the whine took over again, drowning and dousing the words in a hopelessness and stubbornness that Father Jessell despaired of.

  He sat listening, thinking of the warmth of the library only an hour before; the manuscript in front of him to take time over and to think slowly. Perhaps to doze and sit by the fire, stupefying in a languid haze of academy with the smell of leather-bound volumes surrounding him. To sit in front of the warm glow and dream of the completion of his great work—the dignitaries acceptance of it and the warm scholarly accolade he would receive together with the respect of the Church and Clergy.

  “But it would be—freedom.”

  The drone had finished, lightly paused in space, waiting a balance that was not forthcoming from the dreaming Priest, waiting a word that could swing the old man’s illogicalness—waiting the word that Father Jessell did not give as he was still in the library before the fire.

  Jerking himself back to the situation the Priest began again; talking drearily for half an hour, unable to inspire with his hastily resurrected condemnation. His voice never attained strength, and his feet tapped nervously as his argument broke into senseless pleading with the other’s stupidity.

  “Twenty years—of lying in terror of pain—that came sometimes—sometimes never coming for three months—sometimes in a fortnight.” The voice rose pettishly: “For years she’s not known me—or anyone else—but me—she’s not recognised her husband for twenty years. Don’t you know that? She’s not known me—not for one moment—except for when the pain came—then she turned on me—her eyes—they were awful—horrible to see them turned on me—their hatred—turned on me, letting loose the fury of the last twenty years of permanent sleep and pain on me—who loves her so. Why isn’t it God’s will for me to give her those tablets—to finish it for her—and to stop her staring at me in hatred? She thinks I’ve done it to her.”

  The old man had begun to sob and the Priest said—pleadingly—as if to strike a bargain:

  “For my sake, my son, for God’s sake—please promise you will leave it to our Father’s will, for Him to decide.”

  There was a fumbling from the other side of the partition, and a little groan as the old man, his joints stiff, staggered to his feet.

  “For our Father’s sake,” the Priest entreated, “please do not do this terrible thing.”

  For a moment the old man seemed to be standing in his half of the box undecided. The Priest seized the opportunity, and for the only time in his life he desperately wanted to preach and understand.

  “For our Father’s sake—” the Priest repeated. “My son—please be guided—please be guided by me.”

  But there was no answer, and across the stone flagged floor came the sound of the creaking of the doors—and when Father Jessell, flurried and with a sickening dread, brushed away the curtaining of the confessional box the old man had gone.

  Father Jessell closed the heavy doors of St. Bernards behind him, and gathering his robe in great folds around him he stepped out across the common. The wind swirled and caught at his robes and
his hat was soon perched at an absurd angle. The rent in his robe showed obviously, exposing his black gartering underneath. He was thinking of tea before the library fire and then the cosy embracing of the great work. Perhaps if he extended Chapter VII to cover all the Reformation and then—his dreams became rosy and warm and the great baroque hulk of St. Bernards loomed distantly behind him. Chapter XIII of course would need—Perhaps if he catalogued his own theological library first—He smiled—an evening spent cataloguing and rediscovering old favourites. He would order supper early in the library and then begin.

  Somewhere in the same Parish a woman awoke from a deep sleep, her eyes glazed with pain and burning hatred at an old man who sat opposite her. Then he rose to his feet and brought out a phial of pills. Smiling he walked towards her.

  Donna and the Waves

  Donna stood by the water’s edge and watched the waves, retreating as an occasional seventh thundered towards her in January fury. Timeless, she waited for nothing but the soar of the gulls and the last strip of sand to be covered by milky surf. Mountains of chalk eroded behind her and more gulls swung out over the seascape. She was more alone than she had ever been here; more alone than in the city crowds she had left the day before. There loneliness seemed temporary—on this beach it was complete.

  She threw a pebble into the muddy surf and turned her back on it, walking towards the protection of the chalk. Her shoes were clogged with wet mud and sand, and she stumbled as she met the first of the hard pebbles. Then the rain came in torrents, making whitened runnels down the face of the chalk and turning the last of the smooth sand by the water’s edge into a pitted waste. Breakwaters began to shine dully with ingrained salt and water, and driftwood swung in and out of the wavecrests. The clouds settled on the drab seascape and afternoon became twilight.

  She pulled up the collar of her muddy raincoat and listened to the mewing of the gulls, coming, it seemed, from a great distance. A wet sea mist enclosed her, clinging like gauze to her clothing. Even the sound of the waves had become muffled and her sense of isolation increased. There was all this to be lost in and to be protected by—all this like a shroud enclosed her compassionately.

  Droplets of rain ran along the rubbery folds of her coat, and she could taste the rough salt of the mist. She picked up more pebbles and tried to make them reach the sea—but her throw was not strong enough and they fell by the water’s edge, immediately sinking into the sodden sand. There was mud by the cliffs now, in salty furrows, and the tops of her fingers, where she had bitten the nails to the quick, became sore and chafed. She thrust her hands deep into the pockets of the raincoat, and was suddenly cold.

  Donna walked to the gap in the cliffs and up a clay-covered ladder. The cliff steps had been washed away and now there were only these few rungs. Some were missing and once she lost her grip—she hung there grasping the slippery, splintered sides, her legs kicking inanely. Then she found a rung and shakily resumed her climb—the drop to the pebbles had only been a few feet but she had not wanted to fall. Resolute—she wanted desperately not to fall back on the desolation below her.

  She gained the top—and began to cross the patch of rutted cinders which served as a summer car park. Suddenly realising she was soaked, Donna hurried to the shelter of some ramshackle huts, huddled a few feet above her on the face of the down. A balcony ran round one of the largest and a soft drink sign protruded in rusty incongruity from the side. Water slowly dripped from the leaking balcony roof, but she found a drier patch at the rear. Now she had her back to the sea and she faced a deserted tea garden, empty of chairs and tables—just verdant green and rain washed. High grassy banks acted as windbreaks and completely surrounded the strip. Every blade of grass had lost its identity and merged with its neighbour into spongy clumps, and there was complete silence.

  Donna sat on the hard wooden floor of the balcony and drew her knees to her chin. Here, in this vacuum, there was time to think. But her mind refused to react—it was overcast and she felt almost pleasantly drowsy. This summer coast—how different now. She watched a tiny stream of water run from the roof into a drain on the strip of concrete bordering the hut. As the rain lessened once again, the stream became a trickle and made a different noise as it ran down the drain. There were few bird calls, and the seagulls sounded far away. It was a different world up here—the beach seemed a hundred miles away and the sight of the sea unimaginable. Donna winced at her own imagination and its wandering—she must think—here in this place she must make a decision. But her mind continued to wander in dreary lethargy.

  Over the brow of the windbreak were shuttered summer bungalows, their facelessness completing desolation, a contrast to her beach world below. The slow surge of the sea and sudden flights of gulls relieved the empty abstraction of the pebbles, but on the cliff top boarded huts and concrete excluded motion and she felt a part of it, unable to think or move. To rid herself of this feeling she rose stiffly to her feet and walked across the long wet grass. It squeaked under her leather soles and she sank into it, soaking herself to the ankles. She began to climb the windbreak and halfway up she saw a chaffinch, quite dead, with its wings neatly folded. It seemed that it had died with a precision and a neatness which had been spoilt by the rain making the feathers damp and curled. Donna reached the top and she heard the surging drag of the waves as they covered the sand and rose and fell on the face of the pebbles. From here she could see a line of telegraph poles with droplets of rain running along the line like tram cars. The poles gradually merged with the leaden sky and she began to move towards the cliff path.

  Slowly Donna climbed, the rain giving way to mist, and as she rounded a bend she lost sight of the beach. Reaching the top, a sensation of the sea being directly beneath her feet was heightened by great indentations where the cliff had fallen away. The fencing was gone too, and Donna went as close to the edge as she dared and steadily stared down.

  The new beach she saw below her was rockier and its planes were broken by great slabs of recently fallen chalk, around which the waves boiled and eddied. Gulls perched on top of the great chunks, and pieces of wood had piled high on one of them. It seemed that the lashing water had driven a large packing case hard against the chalk and splintered it to matchwood. Further out the mist met the sea and Donna could only see about twenty-five yards before everything was obscured. There was no way down as the steps had been washed away—a section of them hung crazily from halfway down the cliff. To the right the sea was beginning to cover a great white mosaic—more chalk but this time in ridges and capped with moss green weed. It looked very soft and pliable to Donna whose body was already bent against a wind that had suddenly sprung up. She felt a sickening lurch as she was buffeted, and the wave crests rose as if to meet her. For a moment she did not step back and the wind caught her again. She felt her wet shoes slide on the broken chalk—and desperately she righted herself and stepped back. But she had nearly fallen and her heart was thumping. She stepped further back and turned away from the edge.

  Her mouth was dry, but she had to light a cigarette. Her fourth match was successful in the increasing wind and she inhaled. She watched the mist begin to move. For a moment she glimpsed a range of hills, which disappeared again as the wind died and the mist returned. Then the whole bank of mist began to clear and the passing feeling of being on a high, sheer-walled plateau began to recede.

  Donna turned and, buffeted by the wind, began to walk down the cliff path. The journey seemed shorter and her recognition of now familiar objects was briefer. She reached the tea garden and climbed down the windbreak. The mist was almost clear but the wind was becoming colder—there would be shelter only on the beach. She came to the ladder, negotiated the loose rungs and jumped the remaining few feet down to the beach.

  It was warmer and completely sheltered. The sea was only a few feet away from her but she stayed near the protection of the cliffs, sitting motionless on an outcrop of chalk. Donna waited for the next wave—and the next.

&nbs
p; Cold Grey Slate in the Morning

  The sun, a jaundiced yellow, bathed the terraces in watery light, softening the brittle whiteness of a heavy frost. Six o’clock and already they were up and about, preparing to work in the valley below. A light shone from each kitchen, as the men ate silently whilst the women packed lunch boxes, filled thermos-flasks and fried more bacon. Soon—a muttered goodbye, a hasty kiss and the tramp down the terrace. Each man would nod at the other as they met outside, some, with a conventional grunt, would even form pairs, but there was little conversation as they filed down the hillside to the waiting industry below. Huddled in greatcoats, with their faces raw, they clocked in and the valley began to stir. Machines coughed apprehensively, spluttered and began to clatter healthily. Smoke belched from chimneys, losing itself almost at once in the low mist that still shrouded the top of one tall chimney.

  Meanwhile, on the terraces, the children were being prepared for the slate grey primary school halfway up the hillside.

  The same routine was completed, the children slammed the doors, met, fought and slid on the frosty cobbles. Their cries grew fainter as they went on down and at last were silenced respectfully by the hollow clang of the school bell. Then, relieved of family duty, the women would brew more tea, sit over the hearth and read the papers, and suddenly, as if at a secret signal, would simultaneously scrub the stone steps outside and begin the day’s gossip. Shopping was taken seriously; the local news supplied by the tradesmen, and then an official summing-up of the morning discussions was held in the snug over stout and hot cheese pie.

  Eric backed the Morris out of the slate-covered lean-to that served him as a garage, and shivered as he waited for the engine to warm up. Idly he thumbed the pages of the Architect and slowly he sank into the daydream that accompanied him down to the valley and across to the site by the river. He was the only young man on the terrace who did not leave for work at seven, and he found at nine-thirty an almost desolate peace on the hillside. The women were indoors brewing their own tea and poring over the papers, the school bell had been silent for over half an hour and there was privacy on the hillside for Eric and the Morris. The engine began to turn over more sweetly and he carefully backed the car on to the steep cobbled road. Then bumping slightly and lowering the window to clear last night’s cigarette fug from the car, he drove slowly down to the valley. Quite often halfway down he would stop and, secure in the cosy warmth of the car, would lazily watch the wreaths of smoke and movement on the valley floor. He sat musing—Eric and his dreams were expansive.