The pressure of pretending was becoming unbearable, but to his angry bafflement, no-one seemed to notice. In the enforced intimacy of their daily lives, how could these other men not see that he was in Hell?
And yet, he was desperate to contain the impurity within him. His greatest terror was that he would share his doubt (he called it doubt, although it felt exactly like superior knowledge) with the others, and they’d see he was right. What if he did that? What would happen then? What if he single-handedly brought down the community?
Time crawled on, hour after hour, day after day. This must be how a bad marriage must feel, twin demons of Guilt and Loathing tearing at your insides every minute. He fantasised about going to the Abbot. I’ve lost my faith. I need to leave. Let me go to Rome so I can make my plea for laicisation. He never got further than the door of his cell. How could he look into the face of a man he had worshipped alongside for so many years and admit it was all a lie?
A rainy October Sunday; the end of harvest, the smell of bonfires in the air. If he was free to choose, he would have spent the day in the garden, letting the rain soak into him while he put things to bed for the winter, but of course he was not free. He made the rounds of the Abbey before Vespers, making sure everything was secure. He had to smile at the irony of a man locking the door to his own prison.
As he squatted to shoot the bolt on the door to the outside world, someone knocked on the other side of it.
“Yes,” he said cautiously.
“I, um - ”
It was a man’s voice, strained and exhausted.
Like all religious institutions, they attracted their share of the wanderers, the lost and the mentally ill. There were clear policies for this, balancing compassion and charity with personal protection.
Fuck that, he thought, relishing the strong Anglo-Saxon sound reverberating in his head like a sword dropped on stone. He unbolted the door.
The man on the doorstep was thin, tired, and soaking wet. He wore a t-shirt, jeans and flip-flops and had a canvas bag and a guitar slung over his shoulder. They gazed at each other in perplexed silence.
“Hi,” said the man on the doorstep at last. “I’m really sorry, I don’t know the right way to, um, address you.” He held out a hand and then dropped it. “Christ, is it even okay to shake your hand? Sorry, I didn’t mean to start out by blaspheming. I’m not usually this uncouth, it’s just been kind of a bad night and - ”
“Do you need help?”
“I was wondering if I could spend the night in the church,” said the man on the doorstep.
“You mean you want to make a retreat? There’s a procedure - ”
“Actually I was just looking for shelter for tonight. I don’t know if that’s allowed?”
Despite the clothes, the man didn’t look homeless. There was a certain bone-deep grubbiness that came after a while, a stain that nothing but the confidence of a roof over your head seemed to scrub off.
You’re supposed to be back in your cell. You’re supposed to be asleep. This isn’t your job. You’re supposed to pass this along.
“Why not?” he said, and held the door open.
The presence of the forbidden visitor was like a klaxon screaming. Any minute now they’d come boiling out of their cells and bombard him with questions. And then what? Time to own up? Maybe they’d throw him out. Or maybe they’d just turn on him and kill him. That might be a relief – his own shame washed out by the tidal wave of someone else’s crimes – but no-one came to investigate. No-one heard the creak of the Abbey door. He closed it carefully behind them, and guided the pale and shivering visitor into the nearest pew.
“Sorry,” the strange man muttered. “It’s just been a - ”
“Don’t apologise.”
“Thanks so much for letting me in. You don’t have to stay, I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”
Even without Seminary training, he would have recognised the desperate plea for someone to talk to.
“No, I don’t,” he said. “I’ll get some food and keep you company for a bit. Can I ask your name?”
The man’s smile stirred a sense of memory within him.
“I’m Jack.”
When he returned – still amazed at the ease with which he had smuggled a stranger into a closed monastic community – Jack was gazing up at the exquisitely painted ceiling. When he turned around, his face was awed.
“How did they do that?” he asked.
“It’s egg tempera and gold leaf.”
“But how did they do it? I mean, they were just normal blokes, right? They didn’t pick you to be a monk because you were good at art, did they? So how did they make something so beautiful?”
“Are you an artist?”
“No, I don’t paint.”
“But you’re a musician,” he said. It was a statement, not a question. He already knew who he was talking to. “Well, yeah. I am.”
What did it mean that this man had come back into his life, now, at this moment? Did it mean anything at all? Or was it just an enigmatic coincidence?
“Are you working at the moment?”
Jack’s shoulders slumped in what could have been defeat, or relief. He reached for the canvas bag by his feet. Without speaking, he unpacked six bottles of vodka and a cornucopia of pill bottles brimming with vivid, gleaming capsules.
“My major occupations right now,” he said, “are Not Drinking, and Not Taking Pills. Not exactly productive, but, you know. And today, today - ”
He saw Jack’s shoulders heave. “It’s alright,” he said softly.
“I just don’t know how much longer I can do this,” Jack managed, and buried his head in his hands.
He waited patiently for Jack to speak again.
“There was a girl I loved,” Jack said at last.
“What was her name?”
“Mathilda.”
The syllables hung in the air.
“And what happened?” he prompted at last, since Jack seemed to have run out of words.
“It was my fault,” said Jack. “I fucked it up. But she was the one, you know?”
“How long has it been?”
“She was the one,” Jack repeated, not appearing to hear the question. “Until I met her, I never thought that was real, but she was. I met her one night in my garden, and that was it, I was gone.”
There was grey in Jack’s hair, and the lines on his face were not all from exhaustion and cold. We’ve both grown old, he thought.
“It’s still all for her, you know? Every song I wrote, every tour I put together, all for her, trying to be the man she’d have wanted. I’ve written whole albums for her, for what we had, for the life we should have lived, if I hadn’t - ” He took a deep breath. “My entire career since then has been like a massive exercise in necromancy.”
So she died.
“You know that feeling, when there’s something you love so much, you just have to make it yours? All yours and nobody else’s? Whatever the cost?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I’m sure you don’t. I’m sure you’re a much better man than I am.”
I tried to be. “I’m just as flawed as anyone else,” he said out loud.
“I seriously doubt that. Not many people would take in a total stranger and let him ramble on like this.”
“How long is it since you and she - ?”
“More than twenty years.”
“So why’s she haunting you now?”
“It was at a gig,” Jack said. “There was a girl in the front row.”
He waited patiently, knowing each confession had its own rhythm. He was good at this. They all were.
“She was wearing a green dress,” Jack said. “A sea of denim, and this one girl in green. They say it’s unlucky, don’t they?”
“Do they?”
“See, I do know how unbelievably fucking lucky I am. I really do. I get sackfuls of fan mail. I was rich before I was thirty. But what’s the point? What’s it for?”
“So you brought your problems to God?” Who isn’t listening because he isn’t even there.
“Not really,” Jack admitted. “I actually I don’t believe. I’m so sorry. But I couldn’t face Rehab and my sponsor relapsed three months ago and my manager would only tell me to get laid, and I thought a man of God might just be the only other person who’d take me in. I’m the biggest fucking hypocrite in the world, and I’m taking complete advantage of your good nature. You can throw me out if you want to.”
He hesitated. “Actually,” he said slowly, “I don’t believe either. Not any more. I lost my faith. And now I don’t know what to do.”
The blood throbbed through the chambers of his heart. Silence pressed heavily against his eardrums.
“I just realised I don’t know your name,” said Jack, sounding dazed. “I’m really sorry. I want to help but I don’t know what to call you.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. They called me Andrew, but he’s gone now. I suppose I need a new name.”
“And how long have you, um, known?”
“A year. Longer. Long enough to be sure.”
“Have you said anything?”
“What is there to say?”
“That’s a hell of a thing to live with. What are you going to do?”
“I have no idea,” admitted the man who used to be Brother Andrew.
“You could leave, though, right?”
“I’m not a prisoner. But I made a promise. It’s like getting married. Is it fair to bail out just because you’re unhappy?”
“Haven’t you already broken it, though?”
“It’s not just that,” he admitted. “I haven’t been out in the world for decades, literally decades. I have no money, no family, no friends. Where would I go? What would I do when I got there? I’m sorry. I’m supposed to be helping you.”
“No,” Jack protested. “I just wish there was something - I could offer you a drink?”
Their laughter sounded thin and light in the vastness of the vaulted air.
“You know,” said Jack, “I have this house in the West Country. I haven’t been there in years. I just walked out the front door and left it. Never went there again.”
“Why?” He suspected he already knew the answer.
“It’s where - where we lived. We had one summer together. I don’t think I’ll ever go back there. But you could.”
“Sorry, what?”
“If you need somewhere to go. Christ knows what state it’s in by now, but the power’s still on, and the water, and it’s totally safe, or at least - no, it should definitely be safe by now.” The oddness of the phrase was striking, but Jack was still speaking. “If you want to, you’re welcome. Stay as long as you like. No-one’ll bother you.”
“I couldn’t possibly - ”
“You get the train from Paddington,” said Jack. “Change at Truro. Then you get the ferry - ”
“I really can’t,” he said. The prospect of freedom made his head swim. “But thank you. You’re very kind.”
“I’ve got a lot to make up for,” said Jack.
Later he leaned against a pillar and watched Jack sleeping with his head on the empty rucksack. An unpleasant thought burrowed at the back of his mind.
Of course there was no way to tell by looking. It was at once the oldest and most amateur of crimes, and it left no mark on those who committed it. And it was more difficult to be objective because he actually liked Jack. He didn’t want to believe it could possibly be true.
He awoke a few hours later in a panic, it was nearly four o’clock, time for Vigils, and found he was alone. There was no sign of Jack, or the rucksack, or the guitar, or the vodka, or the pills. The blanket had been wrapped awkwardly around him, and when he stood, a piece of coloured cardboard, plumped around a roll of ten-pound notes, fell from its folds.
He was holding the inlay card from a cassette. On the front, a painting of a house, seen from a distance and in darkness, a single rosy lamp glowing in a high window. The dimensions of the cassette didn’t suit it; the image felt hemmed in from the sides, as if it longed to breathe. The words Jack Laker and Landmark were crammed around the edges like an afterthought. He turned the card over and found the note.
I meant it. The house is yours if you want it. Here’s a picture of it someone did for me once. It looked better on the vinyl. Thanks for keeping me sane and sober.
Jack
PS You look like this guy I knew years ago called Tom.
And below, a scribbled list of directions that leaped out at him in confusing bursts:
Paddington - change at - ferry to - up the street - key’s underneath the -
And one more strange command:
Be careful in the woods.
chapter fifteen (now)
There was no question about it. No possible way it could be anything other than what it looked like. Davey had seen them before, of course, in cases in museums, shielded behind glass and silence. He had read little white cards explaining how information gathered from skulls could give important information about diet and nutritional status, the mystifying secrets that could be gleaned from this simple shard of bone.
But he had never until now considered that each skull had once been part of an actual human being. This wasn’t some interesting relic somebody had carelessly broken one afternoon and then thrown away, like clay pots and worn-out scraps of fabric. This was the skull of a person who had once lived and breathed just as he did; and had then died, and been buried beneath a tree in someone’s garden.
There were black spots dancing in front of his vision. He felt Priss grab him hastily.
“If you pass out, mate,” she told him, “there’s no way I can catch you even with two hands. Why don’t you sit down or something?”
His knees folded beneath him and then he was sitting on the ground, which suddenly felt dirty and polluted. He glimpsed the thick crust of dirt on Priss’ fingers, saw the glint of blood, black in the moonlight, where she had cut herself as she scrabbled furiously in the soil. How much of the muck on her hands was actually rotted human flesh? How could such a beautiful sanctuary contain such ugliness? His stomach lurched and he heard himself whimper. Priss slapped him hard on the arm.
“Give over,” she ordered, and put the skull carefully on the ground before them. “I didn’t want to find this, but I did, so there’s no going back. We need to think, okay? We need to decide what we’re going to do.”
“What do you mean?” Davey asked faintly. “We just found a b-b-b-b - ”
“Bacardi Breezer, bison, Bert Bacharach, Bavarian sausage, banyan tree, no! Sorry, I just can’t help myself when I get nervous. A body, okay? I get it. We found a dead body.”
“Was it - ”
“Did it smell, you mean? No, it’s just bones. Well, I’m saying that.” Priss sniffed cautiously at her fingers. Davey struggled not to vomit. “No. Definitely just bones. So who do you think it is?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, of course you don’t fuckin’ know!” Her fury took him by surprise; he had been too busy with his own terror and disgust to realise that she, too, was shivering with cold and tension. “But you could at least, you know, speculate a bit, right? We’ve got to decide what to do. We’re out here in the cold with a dead body. There’s three grown adults – well, okay, two grown adults and Isaac – back in the house. So we need a strategy. And that means we need a theory. So - ” She poked thoughtfully at the skull with her foot. “ - who do we think this is?”
Davey tried to focus on the skull in front of him. The expression ‘Beauty is only skin-deep’ had never seemed more apt. It was a hideous, ugly thing, blind empty eye sockets and yellowed teeth. He looked away again.
“It’s got to be something to do with that fuckin’ annexe,” said Priss. “And those letters, and those two women, what were they called? Daphne and Miranda, or something?”
“Evie and Mathilda,” said Davey, relieved to have something to contribut
e. “Where did you get Daphne from?”
“Probably the purple bikini,” said Priss.
“Um - ”
“Scooby Doo, you culturally-derelict twat. Maybe that Jack guy, maybe he killed one of them.”
Davey tried to remember what he had read in the letter. In books and films, people always seemed to have perfect recall of any piece of information they were given. The plot frequently depended on it. He had often wondered what would happen in reality: policemen arriving, perplexed, at the wrong address because they’d heard street instead of avenue, codes forgotten or mistyped leading to endless Doomsday devices going off.
“Wasn’t there something in there about one of them leaving him?” he asked. “And the other one was coming back from her holiday to c-c-comfort him - ”
“Ha! To make her move on him, more like.” Priss sniffed. “She must have really liked him to come all the way back from Greece just to hold his hand and listen to him sob into his beer about how special his girlfriend was.” She began picking dirt from beneath her fingernails. “Maybe she killed him in a fit of jealous rage when he told her he wasn’t interested.”
“That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?” It was easier to talk about possible motives than it was to actually look at the skull.
“Murder is extreme?” Priss laughed. “Hold the fuckin’ press.”
“Well yes I know, but would you kill someone just because they wouldn’t s-s-sleep with you?”
“I might kill them if I thought they’d only done it out of loneliness.” Priss grinned. “Or if they were a really crap shag.”
“Don’t make jokes like that,” said Davey. “It’s horrible.”
Priss laughed scornfully. “How can you sit here with an actual murder victim in front of us and tell me off for bad-taste jokes? You’d want to get your priorities sorted. Maybe he’d already killed her, the other one I mean. And Daphne - ”
“Evie - ”
“And then maybe Evie helped him bury her out here.”
“Only he was filled with remorse, and left,” said Davey.
The Summer We All Ran Away Page 21
