Imaginary Toys

by Julian Mitchell

  Once, when I was a child, I did fall off a wall, actually, which is why I put it like that. I can remember it vividly still. I was playing with a friend—we were both about six, I suppose—and we were pushing little model cars along the top of this wall, and quite suddenly, for no particular reason, I fell off. I don’t think my friend pushed me or anything, I just fell, the way one does sometimes find one’s body has done something dreadful without telling one. And I remember lying at the bottom of this wall—it was only two or three feet high where we were playing, but it fell away to about eight or ten feet the other side—lying there and looking up and seeing the face of the friend, very white and scared out of his mind, saying: ‘Are you all right?’ And I said: ‘Yes, I’m quite all right, thank you,’ and I did, in fact, feel absolutely fine, not a bruise, nothing, slightly light-headed, as though I’d been on a swing for too long, but physically in tip-top condition. And then I looked down at my leg, because I could feel something wet there, and I thought perhaps I’d fallen into a puddle, but it wasn’t a puddle, there was more blood than I’d ever seen before in my whole life, and this was enormously interesting to me. I’d always been interested in blood in other people, but I’d never seen so much of mine before; it was warm and it flowed and flowed, a great red stream all over my bare leg and down to my stocking and my shoe, and I watched it in great fascination for a moment or two, and then quite suddenly it came from me, from a great cut (I’ve still got the scar) on my knee, and it wasn’t in the least fascinating, it was very frightening, and then it hurt and hurt, hurt very much indeed, and I opened my mouth to cry, and then I passed out.

  Well, something of the same light-headedness and painless interest in my own body and mind were what I felt after the morning when I’d seen Margaret reading her part at the Clarendon Press Institute, and I went on feeling it for days, and this time the shock lasted more effectively than when I fell off the wall, so that when I came out of the trance of numbness everything seemed bearable again—almost. Anyway, I’ll come to that. But you see what I mean—numb, and yet aware of a dull ache which had nothing to do with my body, but which was in my body somehow (though nowhere near the heart, of course). I let things happen to me, I slept for hours every night, I never opened a book, I never got further than the cartoons in the paper, I went to the cinema and couldn’t remember the plot afterwards, or even the title sometimes; I just existed, vacuously, in a vacuum. And whether the weather was fine or foul I hadn’t the faintest idea, and whether I talked sense or nonsense or at all I shall never know, and if the world had come to its end in an orgy of hydrogen bombs, I simply would never have noticed.

  That sort of thing can’t last for ever, of course, and it would be a pretty ghastly prospect for the human race if it could. But I didn’t get my first and last real jolt till Tuesday. I’d met Margaret once or twice in the street, and we’d said ‘good morning’ to each other with cold smiles, and my cold smile felt as though it had been saved up since the ice age, in fact I could hardly get my face together again afterwards, it was frozen so stiff, but neither of us had said anything of any significance. I forget when, exactly, but sometime during the week-end I was at a party, and she was at a party, and it was the same party, and we were both rather drunk, I imagine, or the conversation could never have taken the turn it did. Luckily I can’t remember most of it, but the gist was: ‘Oh, Margaret,’ ‘It was such a shame, Charles,’ ‘It is such a shame, Margaret,’ ‘Charles, it mustn’t end this way’. (The cinema has had a ferociously destructive effect on the manner in which romantic conversations are conducted these days.) ‘No, Margaret, it mustn’t, must it?’ ‘Will you get me another drink, Charles, darling, then we can talk about it properly.’ And so on. The result, after several complete memory-blanks on my part, was that I agreed to give her a lift to the bus in which she was proposing to travel with her fellow buskers (I like the ambiguities and puns of that word) on Tuesday morning. I have spent a great deal of time sweating with worry about what went on during those memory-blanks. I’m afraid I must have asked her to let me do her one final service, and she must have accepted. Either that or she was so drunk she’d decided to be nice to me, and naturally the only way she could think of being nice to me was to ask me to do something for her, because Margaret knew what the centre of her world was all right. Anyhow, I woke up next morning with quite a hangover, and a few broken fragments of memory which didn’t quite fit together but which suggested, in the throbbing light of day, a rather maudlin task. But I wasn’t quite sure. So when I saw her in the street again, where I saw almost everyone those days (I think I must have spent a great deal of my time simply wandering up and down), I questioned her with my frozen smile, and she replied confirming the appointment, and I wouldn’t be late, would I? My eyes must have given me away then, even though I did have my dark glasses on; in fact, I hadn’t taken them off for days except when I went to bed, and sometimes not even then. Because she said: ‘You don’t have to, if you don’t want to, you know.’

  And for a moment I coolly considered whether I did want to or not, but as I say my mind was simply not working properly at that time, and cool consideration left it merely as blank as, if more chilly than, before. So I said: ‘Of course’; which, when you think about it, was really rather a clever thing to say, because it could have meant ‘Of course I don’t have to’, not ‘Of course I will’, which is how Margaret took it. But since she did take it that way, and I was in that particularly receptive mood where whatever anyone else said was true, I took it that way, too, though whether I had meant to or not, I haven’t the foggiest idea.

  Anyway, I turned up at the appointed hour next day, expecting to see Margaret surrounded by about fifty bitching actors, but she wasn’t, she was all alone, and very quiet, and she got into the car with her luggage, very demurely, and I started to drive off. We kept this up for about half the distance, when she said: ‘You’ll get over it, Charles.’

  Now I don’t know if she meant that kindly, but I think she probably did, really, God rot her. After all, she had nothing to lose by being nice for five minutes, and I might very well have put her out on the kerb if she’d been nasty, for all she knew. (Though in fact I was far too dazed for such a thought to get anywhere near my mind, unless someone else had suggested it, which he hadn’t. But she wasn’t to know that.) Anyway, kindly or not, she said it, and the way she said it made me choke, quite literally. I had to slow down and have a small coughing fit before I was able to see through the windscreen again. She managed to get into her voice a whole range of callousness that I had never suspected, even in her. I don’t think she meant this to happen, as I say, I think she meant to be very sweet and gentle. I think she may even have seen herself as the grande dame giving a sophisticated brush-off to one of her lovers, who was just too young to be possible. But when Margaret didn’t speak loudly, she didn’t speak exactly softly, she gave a sort of croak, so that it was hard and hoarse, an ideal vehicle for conveying callousness, in fact. And I took it in the solar plexus. I mean, I simply wasn’t prepared, it was like hitting a man when he’s fast asleep in a chair, and when I say solar plexus I mean solar plexus, because that’s where the dull ache was, right at the bottom of the solar plexus. It was like, in fact, hitting a man who is fast asleep in a chair on an ulcer. Or kicking his gouty foot with a steel-pointed toe. The pain, I’m trying to say, was physical.

  Still, holding my breath and pretending to be grave, we got to the bus station, and somehow it was easier outside the car than in, and I took out her bags and put them on the bus, and she said, ‘Thank you, Charles,’ and then we stood and looked at each other for a bit, and there was absolutely nothing to say; at least I couldn’t think of anything to say, though I tried like mad, and she was obviously doing her best, too, but nothing came of it at all. So after about a minute and a half of this, she said: ‘Well, I’m not going to stand around here like this,’ and she sounded strangely disappointed, and for once in her life completely ill at ease, and sh
e said: ‘Goodbye, Charles,’ and I said: ‘Goodbye, Margaret,’ and we looked at each other for another half-second. Then she turned round and made for the bus, rather faster than was quite dignified, and I thought, my God, she’s going to cry, and I called after her: ‘Goodbye, Margaret,’ again, but she didn’t turn round, she just got straight into the bus, without speaking to any of the actors crowding round the door, she just pushed her way through them, and then she disappeared, and then I thought, my God, I’m going to cry, so I dashed for the car, and got into it, and for a moment didn’t trust myself to start the engine, and I thought, I shall never see Margaret again, and my eyes stopped seeing properly, but I made a tremendous effort of will, and they could see again, and there was the bus station in all its dreariness, under a baking sun, a dazzling dreariness of single-deckers and double-deckers and tea-rooms and concrete and the back of a cinema and shelters and a few seedy shops and more concrete and more shelters and pipes and tubes and barriers and buses, buses, buses, and I felt I had to get out of that place at once, or I would die, so I started the car, and kept my eyes seeing by concentrating very carefully on what I was doing, in fact my mouth seemed to be giving me orders, talking to me, saying: reverse, brake, neutral, first gear, second gear, brake, stop, right turn, left turn, third gear, and so on; and with its help I got out of the bus station and into the street, and it told me to drive towards my digs, and I didn’t argue, I drove just as it said, concentrating all the time on the rules of the road and the Highway Code, and the careful co-ordination of hand and foot in changing gears and slowing and accelerating and turning, concentrating, concentrating, but I could only see directly in front of me, as though I wore blinkers, and I was frightened that someone might step into the road and I wouldn’t see him, because of the blinkers, so I drove slowly, second gear, third gear, brake, second gear, concentrating, concentrating, and eventually I reached my digs, and I parked the car, carefully, carefully, and my mouth said, handbrake, switch off the engine, lock the door, but I couldn’t lock the door, I had to run, suddenly I had to run, if I was to get in in time, so I left the door hanging open and ran, and somehow my fingers found the right key, and the key went into the lock, and the door was open, and I couldn’t see now at all, my concentration had gone altogether, I was steering by instinct, up the stairs and down the passage and into my room and on to my bed, and there I collapsed for what seemed for ever, crying my heart out.

  There’s little like a good cry. A tremendous vomit, perhaps, or a really shattering attack of dysentery—otherwise nothing. One feels absolutely exhausted and empty, and one’s muscles groan with fatigue, one is too weak to go out and shut the door of one’s car. A really good cry, by which I don’t mean a quiet sniffle into a dainty handkerchief, is an athletic performance. At least, I’m no expert on crying, in fact I’ve only ever had that one devastating cry in my life, but, if it’s anything to judge by, it leaves one feeling as though one has just been massaged by an ex-S.S. sergeant, in spiked boots. I don’t know how long it lasted—but it must have taken me quite half an hour to move so much as an arm after I’d actually stopped shedding tears. The weeping is only part of it, and not the worst part, either, once one’s given up trying to stop the tears coming out. No, the weeping’s nothing, it’s the convulsions that hurt. I couldn’t stop myself—it felt as though someone had got inside my lungs and was wringing them out like a wet bathing-costume, twist, twist, wring, twist, twist, twist, wring. At times I thought I was going to die, I heaved so much that my diaphragm seemed to be dislocated, I thought I should never be able to get it breathing again, I gasped and choked. Anyone watching would have sent for a doctor at once, I’m sure, and certainly, in my moments of clear thinking, which were few, I wondered if I really was all right, whether I hadn’t got lockjaw or polio, or taken prussic acid or something by mistake. Because my body was paying no attention at all to my mind, it was writhing and heaving and twisting at the orders of someone who simply ignored my mind, for reasons best known to himself, and who attacked every sign of conscious thought by seizing the lungs again and giving them an extra-vicious twist and wring. I dare say there’s a neat psychological explanation for all this performance I endured, but I’m not at all sure that I want to know about it. It would, I’m sure, show me up as a weak and possibly degenerate character who completely lacked any kind of self-control. Because that’s what I was at the time; weak, if not degenerate exactly, and quite without any idea of how to stop my body taking off on another of its crazy gyrations across the bed. What brought me around eventually was not the fortunate appearance of my landlady with smelling-salts (though what she must have thought of the noises I was making, I hate to think) but complete exhaustion. And what brought me out of the torpor and languid semi-consciousness of exhaustion was the nagging thought of the door of my car hanging open.

  It’s typical, I suppose, of the way people pull themselves together. Some make themselves a nice cup of tea, some pick up their knitting, some go and have a good weed in the garden, I think about an open door. Minor physical or daily things are all one can manage. The desire to attempt them grows and grows. Eventually one gets up and straightens the bed and puts the pillow out to dry on the window-ledge and washes one’s face, and then one goes downstairs and out to one’s car and finds, since this is England after all, that it hasn’t been stolen and the kumquats are still rolling about under the seats when you rock the car. Actually there was only one kumquat left, like an orange diminished by some witch’s curse. I picked it up and took a tentative bite. It was sweet and full of pips and delicious. I ate it all. The number of feet that must have kicked it about over the last few days never occurred to me. Crying makes one hungry, apart from anything else—perhaps that’s why women make tea. Anyway I know I felt very hungry just then, and I shut the door of the car with a gentleness I usually reserve for other people’s cars, and went back to my room. Life was beginning to begin again. I looked in the cupboard and found a Camembert and some very stale bread, and I ate them and felt much, much better. As I said, crying exhausts one, like vomiting, and also, like vomiting, when one’s recovered one is hungry. Hunger satisfied, I drank a bottle of beer, lay down on the bed again and went to sleep.

  I woke up about dinner-time and lay for a few minutes wondering about life and death and the speed of light and the expanding universe and the mating habits of fish and the alum industry in the early seventeenth century and Queen Victoria. Then I wondered if I wanted anything to eat, and decided I was starving. So I got up, and yawned a bit, and washed my face again (I hate feeling puffy around the eyes) and changed my shirt and went down to the car.

  Driving with great pleasure and a sense of unity with the machine I went into the centre of Oxford, getting the most out of each gear-change, using hand-signals, being courteous to pedestrians, feeling generally pacific and contented. I treated myself to a large meal at considerable expense, with a whole bottle of wine, and a lot of drinks both before and afterwards. Then I went home again and slept and slept and slept till noon the next day.

  That, apparently, is how I behave under emotional stress.

  11

  Elaine in Church

  Oh, there’s a bird. It must have flown in when the door was open. Poor thing, it will never get out again. It’ll tap and tap at the stained glass, trying to rest on the branches of lead, its beak will get all bloody, and eventually it’ll fall down and die beneath a radiator. Can’t I do something? Isn’t there a ladder? But how would I catch it? It would only be frightened and move to another window. A butterfly net. They ought to keep one somewhere. Perhaps they do. In the vestry? How one’s feet echo when the church is empty! It makes me feel guilty, as though I was disturbing the church itself at its prayers. Silly idea. The altar is the head, with the lighted candles for eyes, and the sides of the church are arms, rounding into hands, joining at the apse. Praying for what? Please God will you get that bird out of here? Please God can’t you get a few people to come in here sometimes? Wh
at am I doing in the vestry? Ladder. And butterfly net. No ladder. No net. What a lot of dust. Why do they always fill vestries with mouldering old books? Hymn-books with pages missing. Children didn’t respect them. Why keep them, though? This place needs a woman to keep it tidy. I’d put in a proper light to start with. That awful fly-blown naked bulb. And I’d wash the curtains. And mend the cassocks and surplices. They ought to have nuns to look after them if they won’t marry. So silly not to. Priests don’t have any idea how to run a house or keep a church clean. Just look at this curtain. Can’t have been cleaned for ever so many years. No wonder people think of religion as dusty and musty and not up to date. And the floor. I suppose it gets scrubbed once a month or so, if it’s lucky. You’d think people would want to keep their church clean. But then they don’t think of it as theirs. It’s the priest’s, the priests’. And the Fathers are rather an odd bunch. Can’t imagine them asking a woman to do anything. Can’t waste time in here, what am I doing? Oh, the bird. Well, they’ll have to get someone to clean up after it if I don’t get it out of here pretty soon. Where’s it gone? Oh, how clever, perched on a capital. But how am I ever going to get it down? It looks ever so sweet up there, among the twisted vines and the leaves and things. If only they’d let a bit of light in here. Could see things more clearly. Is it the bird? Or a carving? It’s a carving. Boo. Boo. There, it didn’t move. Where is it, then? Gone out, perhaps? Not a sound of a flutter. Can’t have got out, no window open. Door shut. Must be in here somewhere. Perhaps it came in to pray, too. I’ll look for it afterwards. Where shall I kneel? Near the altar, near the Virgin. Stupid Protestants. Statues aren’t idols. Never thought for a minute she looks like that. And He can’t have hung like that. Not physically possible. They don’t understand that statues help me to concentrate. Concentrate. Goodness, these hassocks could do with a good bumping in the open air. Ever so dirty. Charles says I shouldn’t say ever so. No sillier than very. Pews always smell of pine-needles. Nice. Keeps going in spite of the incense. Cleaner, too, somehow. Ah! Concentrate. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come—oh, there’s the bird again, bother. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Bother that bird. In the East window. Battling against Christ on the cross. Must be blasphemy, that. I must be able to catch it somehow. A surplice. Throw it up and over. Bring the bird down in it. Like an unopened parachute. No, bad idea. A butterfly net and a ladder. The candle-snuffer. Where is it? It’s a very tiny bird, it might be big enough. Where’s the bird gone? Still there. Clinging to the lead. Miles out of reach. Stand on the altar. No, mustn’t do that. Sacrilege, probably. A chair. Goodness, when did anyone last dust this place? Never noticed before. You could write your name all over the church. Shocking. Very big church, of course. Difficult to get it clean all over. Could get someone to dust the pews and chairs, though. Not fair on people’s clothes. Getting their bottoms to do the cleaning. Must be firms to do it. Still, very hard up. Wouldn’t think so from their vestments. In the old days they used to whitewash the churches every Easter. That would be nice. Covered up all those frescoes, though. Here we are. If I put it here, I should be able to reach. Where’s the snuffer? Where can I have put it? Oh, there, of course. Now. Goodness, the chair isn’t safe. One hand on the wall. Can’t control the snuffer that way. Here goes. Wobbly, but still. Now. Up, reach up, up. Oh, bother the thing, it’s still out of reach. I’m going to fall off. One foot on the altar, then. Reach. No. Both feet on the altar. Hope no one decides to come in. What’s the time? No, half an hour till Angelus. Up again. Oh, do come down a bit, bird. Can’t you see I’m trying to help you, you stupid thing? Don’t you want to be set free? What did you come in for, in the first place? That’s better, come down a bit. A bit more. Just a teeny bit more. There. Now I can reach you. Don’t be frightened. Don’t frighten it. Just let the snuffer down, gently, ever so gently, over, over, gently—damn it! Mustn’t swear in church. So nearly had it. Here’s a chance. Come a bit nearer, can’t you? Mustn’t knock over a candle. No, this way, you stupid creature. This way. Trying to help people. Hopeless. Won’t be helped. That’s right, and a bit more, a bit more. There. Now. I’ve got it! Down, down, slowly, slowly, but don’t let it—oh, really. I could kill it. Now it’s miles away again. Up on the cross, perching on the lead of His right arm. His strong right arm, mighty and powerful in battle. Fight it, then. Mind the candles. Up. Come down, damn you, come down. Can’t you see I’m trying—that’s better. Now, this time I must scoop it down quickly. It’ll get away again otherwise. Oh, the wings scratching against the glass. I can’t bear it. My arms ache like anything. Oh dear, it’s ever so difficult. Now. Quick! There! Quick, down to the floor, jump, quick. Lay the snuffer down straight. Can’t get out. Oh my God, I’ve knocked over a candle. Don’t swear. Got the bird, though. Light it from the other one. That’s right. Not too much mess. A bit of wax won’t show on this floor. Now what? Cup hands under the snuffer. Carry the whole thing to the door. Its little toes are quite sharp. Ouch. Never mind. Probably thinks I want to kill it. Like a prisoner being released from jail, but thinks he’s being taken to execution. Must be its heart, that fluttering. Quaking with terror, poor thing. The noise of my feet! Not much farther. Goodness, how do I open the door? Put the snuffer flat on the floor. That’s right. Poor thing might suffocate. It is a very small bird, though. A fledgling? The little pest, it’s scratched me enough to bleed. Gratitude for you. Now, hands underneath again. Heavens, it nearly got out. And through the porch. And—there! Oh, how lovely to be able to fly! Sit on a gravestone and sing for me. No, it’s gone. What kind of bird? Fledgling. Sparrow fledgling, probably. What a commotion. It might have sat on a gravestone, though. Pray now. Have to get my eyes used to the darkness again. Why don’t they let in a bit more light? So silly making it all dark. Afraid God will disappear in the light of day? What nonsense. My feet so loud again. Left, right, echo, echo. Hate to be locked up inside a church like that bird. Free now. Footprints on the altar-cloth. Handkerchief. Still a bit mucky. Goodness, they could do with some new flowers. Summer, after all. Such mouldering things, like those old hymn-books. Crumple when I touch the vase. Not good enough for God. Pray. The dirt in these hassocks. Our Father. I’m not listening to myself. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Funny thing. Why do You have a name? Don’t think of You as a father, You know. Fathers are stiff and stern, won’t let me do what I want. Like Father Gibbons. Or Daddy. You’re not like that, are You? Why do You have a name? Human weakness? Why do I think of You in capital letters? Do the angels call You Sir? Silly. Concentrate. You’re terribly nice, Mary, with your face painted like no one’s face ever was. I want to have a baby, oh, ever so much, you’ve no idea. I don’t want to give birth to God or anything. Just an ordinary human baby. A boy, if I can only have one. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy. Really. Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. You know, I don’t think I believe in Your heaven. Not the way Father Gibbons makes it sound. Terribly dull. I think that Your heaven is like my earth, only with all the obstacles to happiness removed. You can’t expect me to be enthusiastic about things that pass human understanding, can You? Just because the priests can’t think of a good answer. You see, I’m not stupid, and You’re pretty lucky to have me at all, You know. Considering everything, and the way You’ve been so awful to us. Very few intelligent people can swallow You at all. But I do believe in You, I think. I believe in something, and it takes Your shape. You don’t have a shape. You see, I’ve always been brought up to believe in You, but You are always changing, aren’t You? My idea of You is, anyway. And I dare say I shouldn’t be in this church at all. I should be in something much less formal. But I’ve always been to churches like this. I like the vestments and the smell of incense. I suppose I ought to go over to Rome, like Nicholas says. But I shan’t. As a matter of fact I’ve come here to ask You a question. But that bird distracted me. I was almost crying when I arrived. I can’t go on like this. We can’t. I k
now I’ve said it before. You see it’s You or Jack, and I want both. I shall always believe in You, whatever happens. But You may change a lot more before everything settles down, don’t You think? You see, at the moment, what with everything not being settled—let me give You an example. I was listening to the radio this morning. I’d just washed my hair. When I heard someone singing that song. From Porgy and Bess, isn’t it? ‘I love you, Porgy’. It’s a girl’s song. I’ve always liked it. And I started humming as it went along. And it came to that bit where she says: ‘Don’t let him handle me with his hot hands.’ And the comb fell out of my hand, I felt ever so odd. Just at the bit where she says ‘handle’. And I thought about him so strongly. I couldn’t help it. Just for a moment I thought he was there, and he was going to—You see it’s almost impossible—I’ve tried everything—but I can’t stop it—You do see, don’t You? And I don’t think I can try to stop it any longer. That’s what I came to tell You. And we can’t get married yet or anything, as You very well know. Well, we could. But I don’t think it would be right to. And we do love each other. And You’re trying to stop us. Father Gibbons says so. He says You think we are sinning. I think that’s ridiculous. He’s a man, he’s never been married, how could he know? Men don’t understand. If loving a man with all your heart and soul and body is a sin, then I’m a sinner, and I don’t care, so there. Everything gets so complicated when Father Gibbons starts talking about sin. It’s like looking at things through stained glass. Everything’s twisted and odd-looking. But I can’t believe You mind me going to bed with Jack. It makes us both so much happier and nicer to other people. Father Gibbons can’t understand that. He makes it sound as if the only real sin was sex. I don’t believe that, do You? That’s why I’ll never join the Romans, really. I think contraceptives are a marvellous invention. They say it’s much nicer without. But we don’t take any foolish risks. You see we’re really quite responsible people. So I’m going to sleep with Jack. And I don’t expect You’ll see me in this particular building again. I’m leaving Oxford for good, now. Jack’s staying on to get his Dip. Ed. as You probably know. So I may be back at week-ends and call in. But I shan’t see Father Gibbons any more. You don’t mind, do You? Oh dear, there’s someone coming. It’s a woman, good. Oh, and she’s brought You some new flowers. About time too. I’d better shut my eyes. You do see, don’t You, that I couldn’t go on, as we were. It was hopeless for everyone. And You must make Jack see it, too. Because he’s the one that believes in Father Gibbons, not me. Let him handle me, please, with his hot hands. It’s a kind of worship. With my body I thee worship. Do You see what I mean? It’s not just my body or his body, it’s an act of worship to You, who made us and made it possible and made it possible for us to enjoy it, and be ourselves. And we don’t forget You, ever. We don’t think of You all the time, of course. But we don’t forget You in lots of important ways. I do love You. I love You for making the world and for making me, too. And Jack. You do understand, don’t You? And thank You that all the exams are over. Only the viva now. They weren’t too bad. Jack’s pretty confident, too. I expect he told You. And do try and make him see that it’s all right, and that Father Gibbons is wrong. Thank You very much. I feel much better now. I had to explain, You see. I must go and tell that woman about the bird, now. It was rather awful, it getting shut in here like that, wasn’t it? do hope You don’t mind me talking to You like this. I don’t know what I was thinking about when I was rude just now. And You’ve been a great help. And I do believe in You. And aren’t You glad that the bird is free again? It’s terribly murky in here, You know. You ought to get someone to look after it properly. It needs a woman to make a church nice. I think a lot of nonsense is talked about You. And I love You very much for being human, and for being kind to the woman taken in adultery, and for loving one disciple more than the others, and though I’m sorry for you, Mary, I’m sure you were the sweetest woman in the world. I’ll go and tell the woman about the bird. Oh, the noise of my feet in here!