How I Left the National Grid

by Guy Mankowski

  The monastery’s website suggested that anyone interested stay at first for a few days to become familiar with the austerity of a monk’s life. See if they would fit in with the discipline of a life in silence, living with few amenities, and working with other monks. Sam found it hard to believe that the cravenly ambitious singer, who sometimes violently clashed with those around him, could tolerate that calm lifestyle. He would have to however, in order to become a novitiate, on the route to becoming a fully-fledged monk. If all this sounded outlandish, one phrase did catch Sam’s attention. ‘A monk must abandon home and culture in a profound sense,’ it said. If he was hiding in the monastery, Wardner would have had to have stepped out of The National Grid for good.

  With his last embers of energy Sam took down details. Amongst the pile of books they had never shelved was an atlas, and with a blunt crayon he sketched a quick route on the crisp page. The train would be quicker, he realized.

  Whilst Sam frantically searched online, the glazier and his assistant brought large panes of glass into the house. During the two hours that Elsa watched them restore their home her sense of self-loathing began to shrink. In its place there was now burgeoning warmth, almost a melancholy.

  It drove her to light small tea-lights around the house, scent the air, and put flowers in the living room. Her desire to build a nest for Sam surprised her. He’s upstairs, she thought, about to complete his life’s work. Perhaps Wardner can’t harm us, because he’s too old. Perhaps once Sam finds him we’ll be left alone by whoever did this. Perhaps we can get the life we planned for.

  As Sam came downstairs, Elsa felt buoyed by his reaction to her work. The dimmed lights, the lounge-rock on the stereo. He appeared touched by the sandwich she offered as she sat on the sofa opposite. As she settled back into the chair she tracked the way his hands searched for warmth in the toasted bread.

  ‘You came down sooner than I thought you would,’ she said.

  ‘I just had to find out if this monastery existed. But now I know, I thought we should talk. I know we’re long overdue a chat.’ He put the sandwich down and moved his chair closer to her.

  As his eyes traced around her cheekbones Elsa wished she’d spent more time trying to look desirable. What had happened to the girl with the glitter and the journal?

  ‘I hope you know,’ he continued, ‘that I only stuck with this book because I wanted to make a success of myself. So that I didn’t let you down again.’

  Elsa felt like she’d been whipped. When she looked she felt her eyes wetten. ‘It just looked to me like it was the same old Sam.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t. You said at the start you were worried where this book would take me. Now I can see what you meant.’

  ‘Sam.’

  She closed her eyes, and for a moment took in the atmosphere.

  The scented candles, the soft mood. Why had she created the very setting she longed for, on the day she would destroy it all?

  ‘What is it? Something’s on your mind.’

  ‘Yes. It is.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me?’

  ‘Yes. On the night of the launch, Sam, I did something terrible.’

  ‘What?’

  She looked at her hands.

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I…slept with Malcolm.’

  Sam watched the words come out of her mouth. He traced the sound it made in the room. The way it reverberated on the walls. But it was only when her lips closed, after she said it, that he believed what he had heard. ‘You slept with him?’

  She winced.

  ‘You couldn’t have done,’ he said. ‘He’s an old man. A relic. You know how much I hate him, how much I’ve suspected he’s after you. And I’ve been doing all this for you!’

  She looked up at the ceiling, and felt a hot tear burn its way down her cheek.

  ‘I made a mistake,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  His voice shook the walls.

  ‘I was angry at you. I thought you were off on a stupid mission to get yourself killed. I couldn’t take it much more.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’

  ‘I thought you weren’t there for me!’

  ‘And he is? You think he really cares about you?’

  She flapped her hands. ‘No. I know now that he doesn’t.’

  ‘Now? After he got what he wanted from you?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Look around you, Sam. We’ve got the home we wanted. Finally, we’ve made a home for ourselves. Let’s not blow it now, eh? What is it you always say? That this time next year, Rodders, we’ll be millionaires?’

  He shook his head.

  Her voice dropped. She leant in, put her hand on his. ‘We can make a clean slate.’

  Sam looked up, his eyes boiling. ‘Do you want to know something?’

  ‘What?’ she whispered.

  ‘When I first came back from London after that meeting I thought of the Elsa I first met. You remember? When I was ill she was there, no matter what. I thought of the life she deserved to have.’

  ‘Oh, Sam.’

  ‘And it was that thought that pushed me out to meet all those freaks.’

  ‘I know, Sam.’

  ‘When did you sleep with him?’

  ‘The night you went off with Bonny.’

  He stood up. Suddenly all the words, the interviews, fell away like demolished houses. Shattered by a wrecking ball. ‘You can’t have slept with him.’

  ‘I’ll leave my job. We can find a way out of this!’

  Sam looked at her; the way her eyes narrowed as she pleaded.

  He thought of the girl in their halls of residence. Who sat on the end of her bed clutching her journal. With the blueprint to his future concealed within it.

  As he walked up the stairs Sam felt winded. He heard Elsa move in the kitchen, and she didn’t come after him.

  He walked into the bathroom, locked the door, and sat down on the floor. There were certain flashes of the past that snagged him, that made him unable to stand. As they reverberated in his mind the tears came easily. He was surprised at how much the small white bathroom shook when they began to flood out of him.

  He wasn’t sure if the feeling would last. This wrenching pain in his abdomen. He knew it wouldn’t subside for as long as he stayed within these walls.

  17

  As he left the train at Milfield, Sam couldn’t help thinking of the dinner he’d had with Elsa when they first moved in. ‘You’re walking into your own grave,’ she’d said.

  The station itself seemed a throwback to the very era Sam associated with Wardner. Perspex tunnels over each platform, fogged with time. The harsh, red steel finishing, so evocative of eighties’ industry. Even if Sam felt the journey was absurd, Milfield was straight out of the singer’s palette.

  The rain was still waiting to fall as the monastery loomed into view. It was not the bleak, end of the road spectacle Sam had anticipated. At the entrance, to his right, men busied themselves with the construction of a wedding marquee. Ahead of him, at the tip of a lush green lawn, was an elegant, green-domed building. Behind it sat the rugged profile of the Pennines.

  Sam cursed himself for not having brought a full map. He would just have to search for the hut, using the photo as a guide.

  As he approached the dome, something caught his attention. To the right of the sandstone building was a cluster of small wooden huts. Something about them reminded him of Nataly’s picture. He had it on his phone. He held the image up against the backdrop. That was it. That same curve of hills, dipping like a cello on its side. So, if the dip was there, he thought, the white hut should be just to the right of it.

  A figure was approaching him. A monk in a black robe. But Sam felt too close to his prize to give up now. With a sudden spurt of energy he made his way to the side of the building and rounded it. He came up against a stone white wall. He reeled back in shock, his foot plunging into a hidden pocket of soft mud. He checked the picture again, s
carcely able to believe it. This was the hut.

  He had found it. Wardner, he thought, has recently been here.

  Pushing the thought of the advancing man from his mind, Sam tracked backwards. It looked as if the photo had been taken about twenty feet from the hut. Which would mean Wardner had been standing right up against the perimeter fence.

  Sam surged, determined to see the small hut from the very place at which Wardner had stood. Seconds later he was there, leant against the barbed-wire fence. Holding up the picture next to the white building.

  It was a perfect match.

  The wind whipped around him in congratulation.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  The monk was approaching the hut, his head stooped into the wind as he ran. ‘You can’t trespass here,’ he shouted, ‘This is a private retreat. You have to leave, now.’

  The rain began to come down as Sam stepped forward, into more mud. ‘I didn’t realize,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You can’t just wander around here,’ the monk shouted, covering his eyes from the gust. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I need to speak to someone,’ Sam said. Thunder cracked overhead and the rain streaked his face. ‘I have to speak to someone,’ he repeated, loudly, over the wailing wind.

  Once the heat of the prior’s study had warmed him, Sam stood up and walked over to the fire. He sensed the prior’s stare behind him.

  ‘You were close to the most sacred part of our establishment,’ the prior said, his voice low. ‘There are so few places now in which a person can immerse themselves in their studies of the Bible. At Milfield we pride ourselves on having created a holy site. Where one can devote themselves to God, unimpeded.’

  ‘I understand,’ Sam said, without turning.

  ‘And we take the privacy of our guests very seriously indeed. I could never violate that sanctum, no matter how important this book of yours is.’

  As Sam turned to face him in the spacious office the prior coughed, shuffling in his seat behind his desk. His white hair glowed in the firelight.

  There is nothing for it, Sam thought. I have to be honest.

  ‘Please accept my apology. I have not come into this site respectfully. The truth is, I am unravelling.’

  The moment he said the words something inside him give way.

  I am no longer pretending to be a professional, a serious investigator, he thought. I drop all my pretences.

  He met the prior’s eye. He could smell the rain drying on his clothes. Beyond the old windows surrounding them, the storm raged. The prior held his gaze, the lines on his forehead quivering, as he weaved his fingers together.

  ‘I am not here to try and make money,’ Sam continued. ‘In fact, I’ve never made money out of anything.’ He looked down for a moment. ‘I’ve made nothing of my life. Everything I have done has failed.’

  The prior exhaled.

  ‘I’ve never known how it feels to see something through. This man’s music meant the world to me. I’ve been trying to track him down not for fame or glory, but to prove something to myself. To prove that I can accomplish something.’

  The prior bowed his head.

  Sam stepped forward. ‘I’ve sacrificed so much for this. My girlfriend has left me for another man. I’ve lost my home. Been hounded. But now I’ve arrived at the place where I know he’s staying.’

  He could read nothing from the expression of the prior.

  ‘I don’t want to damage the sanctity of your monastery… I just need to feel like I have finally reached my goal.’

  The prior looked at the fire. His brow furrowed. Sam could only read in his expression a precise kind of resignation.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘But I cannot help you. I simply cannot comment on who takes refuge with us.’

  He pushed back in his chair, moved around the desk and over to Sam. He placed his hand on his shoulder.

  Sam lowered his head. Something inside him shifted. To his surprise, a hot tear spiralled down his face and onto his coat.

  ‘I do not in all truth believe that finding this man will take you to the end,’ the prior said. ‘I am afraid you have a more fundamental, spiritual malady Sam. You have been seeking answers in the wrong place.’

  His hand lifted. ‘Perhaps though, I can assist you with that.’ Sam didn’t reply.

  ‘You said you have booked a seat on the eleven o’ clock train tomorrow. We are not an inhospitable bunch here at Milfield, Sam. You have come to see us and you won’t return completely unsatisfied. Tomorrow morning, come to my cottage in the valley for breakfast at nine. I will show you around the grounds. I’ll see if I can assist with what I think truly troubles your heart.’

  Slowly, Sam nodded. ‘The grounds?’ he said. ‘I saw on the website. Isn’t there a graveyard?’

  ‘You will find your answer,’ he said. ‘Just not on the terms by which you seek it.’

  18

  The room in the hotel was small but quiet. Sam turned the TV on but was unable to now concetrate. All the dazzling sensations and images repulsed him.

  He turned the volume down and tore into the contents of the mini-bar. He could not remember going to sleep, but when he awoke in the morning he was surrounded by small, empty bottles. The jolt of pain in his head indicated that he had probably slept for too long to catch his train.

  What was I going back to anyway, he wondered?

  The acid sense of disappointment trickled into his consciousness, like violence, remembered from television images. Focusing on the clock by the bed he was surprised to see it was only 8.02. He had never taken the prior’s offer of breakfast seriously but amidst the mental fog of morning it suddenly occurred to him. He could still make it.

  The Prior had asked Sam to knock, at nine, on the red-doored cottage at the foot of the valley. But this morning the cottages weren’t even visible. Although each blade of grass underfoot looked pin-sharp, the horizon was an impenetrable bar of silver mist. It concealed his destination, and was softened only by the sunlight that illuminated its slender margins.

  Sam felt as if he was walking into another realm, moving into that mysterious haze which kept its contents hidden. In the distance, now only just visible through the fog, were a couple of partially thatched cottages. He assumed one of them was the prior’s.

  It was a small, modest affair just off the mud track. A tiny worn path revealed the way there. It sat in the crook where the valley swiftly became high hills. Though from a distance the cottage looked unkempt, abandoned even, Sam saw that up close it had a well-loved air.

  Sam passed the first two houses, both seemingly deserted. Instead of a front garden they had small, well-kept graveyards. He found the red door to be ajar, and the prior welcomed him inside with a keen shout of his name.

  Sam found himself on a small, frayed patch of carpet in front of a roaring fire, a kettle singing in the kitchen. Through the back windows, against the sudden hills, gardeners were beginning work on what appeared to be a chaotic allotment. They moved in and out of each other, rakes and spades slung over broad shoulders. The prior gestured for Sam to make himself comfortable at a table holding piles of books.

  ‘I am so pleased you decided to see me before going, Sam,’ he said, with open arms.

  He was not dressed in a robe, but in a tattered blue overall. ‘I must admit, I still feel rather guilty about the hostile reception you received when you first came here. I blame it on enthusiastic young members of our brethren.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ Sam said. ‘I feel so embarrassed by my little speech.’

  The prior stood over him for a moment, before admiring the fog through the back window. ‘Not desperate Sam, driven. Determined.’ He clenched his fist with a small smile. ‘Sheer gumption. God put that inside your heart for a reason, Sam. Allow it to guide you.’

  Sam tried to smile.

  ‘The coffee will be ready in a moment. Tell me, Sam, are you a man of faith?’

  The sound of the bristling fire eased
his nausea. He considered it, as the kettle whistled itself to the boil. The prior moved into the kitchen to pour, the white wisps of hair above his ears lit for a moment by sudden sunlight through the windows. As he returned Sam saw that his hands were worn and slightly scarred, as if they had given themselves over to the earth long ago.

  ‘I used to have faith, certainly.’

  Sam received the mug and took a sip.

  ‘Used to? And yet yesterday, you seemed surprised by your own desperation.’

  The coffee warmed Sam’s lips, smoothed out the pain in his temple. The prior moved in front of him, blocking the glow. ‘Forgive me. We don’t get the chance to converse with too many outsiders. But your quest intrigued me.’

  ‘You think it was pointless?’

  ‘The interesting question is why you think this journey will address your sense of absence.’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose Richard Wardner has come to represent something to me.’

  ‘A symbol perhaps? A symbol of what is missing from your life?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sam said, leaning towards him. ‘Yes, that’s it.’

  ‘Yet I am sure you know, a symbol is just that. It only means what you want it to.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘I do wonder if the modern world,’ he said, straightening his collar, ‘creates these desperations for you. It makes you crave products you don’t want. It places its imperatives in front of religion, faith. It employs certain people for its cause. Celebrities, singers, musicians. When you conclude that the material world is disappointing you look to these figures for answers, as they sit just beyond the array. You hunt these figures down, like they are wise men. If they vanish from your life you imbue them as symbols with even greater potency. But really it is what you project onto them that’s interesting.’

  The prior weaved his fingers together, as toast popped up behind him. ‘Jam, butter?’

  Sam shrugged.

  He moved back into the kitchen. ‘You feel that if you find this Wardner, then with him you find the answer?’