Alchemy

by Maureen Duffy

  But this time all’s well. I’m through. Students are sitting around on academe’s innocent lawns or strolling to classrooms. I catch a flutter of black gown as I head for the bike shed, feeling an old hand now, strip off my gear to blend in with the crowd, take my briefcase holding my mobile and fleshed-out synopsis from the pannier under the camera’s unblinking eye and saunter towards the main building. I’m going to drop the synopsis in on Davidson, push it under the door if that’s the only way, sit in the library for a bit pretending to do some research and wander about getting more of the feel of the place. Somewhere there must be a dining room or caff where the students can sustain themselves. Somehow I don’t feel Wessex runs to a bar. It might lead to bacchanals or punch-ups.

  Following the tangled line of what I remember from that first visit I track down Davidson’s room and knock. There’s no answer but a notice on the door tells me he’s available for consultation from 12-1.0. The door fits too tightly for me to be able to push my envelope under it. I’ll have to come back. OK. On to the library where I sign up for a place in the round room in the afternoon then join the other students in the modern extension where one part is set aside by a rank of gleaming desktop PCs.

  At other tables fingers are flickering over the keyboards of a dozen laptops while eyes strain at the small screen. Though it’s called a library books don’t seem to come into it much. I bag a place with my notebook and briefcase, and go to the reference shelves to take down A Dictionary of Shakespeare’s Contemporaries. Now I can look up Amyntas’ countess: Mary Herbert, née Sidney, Countess of Pembroke. It’s strange to see her as an actual biographical entry in a book. It makes her both more and less real, without Amyntas’ intervening interpreter’s gaze. It says John Donne called her her brother’s phoenix, rising from his ashes borne up by their psalms. There’s a list of her works, her children, her houses and interests, yet all the time she seems to be receding into the distance.

  Distracted by a flicker of movement at the edge of my field of vision, I look up from the page to see a dark-haired student has come in and is standing by the door searching for an empty place. His hair has the blackbird’s wing sheen of Asia. He turns his face towards me. With a shock I see, or think I do, that it’s the Gao nephew, Charlie. Hastily I duck my head. Now I’m not sure. Ashamed of my ‘they all look alike’ knee jerk, I risk another quick glance. Now I’m sure.

  What shall I do? Pretend I haven’t seen him? Maybe he won’t recognise me. ‘The round eyes all look alike.’ But it’s too risky. I could bump into him at any time in the corridors. Or he could spot me now when I get up to leave and think I’m avoiding him. No, I’ll have to sit tight till he goes and follow him out. What a coincidence. But then they happen all the time. It’s an effect of randomness. Something like that. Chance. The numbers game. I can’t imagine he’s following me. Why should he? Even normal paranoia can’t make me think that. I remember Mary telling me about his carefully counted hours of study that make his stay in the country legitimate.

  I put my head down and try to concentrate on Amyntas’ countess but the moment has gone. I mustn’t miss Charlie leaving. He goes over to speak to the librarian on duty at the information desk. She consults her screen; says something to him. He turns away, picks up the pad he’s left on the table and heads for the door again. I get up, put the dictionary quickly back on the shelf and follow him out, snatching up my briefcase.

  ‘Charlie, Charlie Gao. It is you, isn’t it?’

  He turns, puzzled. Then smiles. ‘Miss Green. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I was going to ask you the same.’

  ‘This is where I do my studies. My uncle in Chicago he pays for me to go to an American college. Then I can get a job in America. And you?’

  ‘Same sort of thing. I’m topping up my qualifications. Maybe take an American master’s to give me more options. You didn’t stay long in the library.’

  ‘I was hoping for one of the computers but there’s nothing free until one o’clock. So I shall go to the gym, and practise my martial arts. Perhaps we can meet later.’

  ‘I hope to see my tutor.’ I bend the truth a little. ‘But another day. Is there somewhere we could have a cup of coffee?’

  ‘Sure. There’s the campus coffee bar on the other side of the quad.’

  ‘I’ll ask Mary to let me know when we could get together.’ Why don’t I want to give him my mobile number, which she will certainly do? Does he really want to meet or is he just being polite? He wears the uniform jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt, black with a yellow and green dragon, and his face is smooth and clear, his hair glossy clean. I’ve never really looked at him before, going in and out of the shop with deliveries and leaving when I took over.

  ‘I would like to thank you, Miss Green. Mary told me you had offered to help if I was in any difficulty with the immigration authority or the police.’

  ‘It’s just that I’ve had some legal training that might be useful. Please call me Jade since we’re students together.’

  He laughs, an embarrassed giggle. ‘Still I do thank you, Miss Jade. My aunt and uncle are very kind but they are not rich. Lawyers are expensive. I hope I won’t need to trouble you but I do thank you very much. I am worried for them. The shop is their only income and now the big takeaway has opened next door perhaps they will need your help too. Meanwhile I practise the martial arts in case there is trouble.’

  ‘Maybe we can do a swap and help each other.’ I’m warming to Charlie Gao.

  ‘I would be proud if I could help you, Miss Jade.’ He bows a little. ‘See you around. Now I go to the gym.’

  I have a sudden vision of him in Bruce Lee stance, kick-boxing and karateing his way out of trouble as we fight for our lives with the rest of the Gao family clinging to each other behind us. Only I can’t see the faces or make out the distinct shapes of the enemy.

  At first Charlie’s presence on Wessex campus made me nervous. Now I’m comforted by it. I feel I’m not alone. Batman has a Robin.

  In my meanderings away from the library I find I’m near the chapel. I’ll just stroll past the door nonchalantly under the eye of the CCTV. On the off chance I pause and try the door handle. It turns. The door opens; I almost fall inside. Hastily I pull the door to behind me but without quite shutting it in case it should lock me in or set off some alarm. Nothing happens. I go forward into St Walburgha’s old haunt, the saint who became the patron of Walpurgisnacht. Today the chairs are set out in rows in a semicircle leaving a space in front of the pulpit.

  Molders had said the chapel was always open for meditation but this is the first time I’ve found it unlocked. There’s a waiting feel about it, as if the place itself is expectant. Maybe it’s just me, unconsciously building on the unstacked chairs. I sit down in one and stare up at the frescoed saints as if they might bend down and tell me everything they know.

  A sound behind at the door alerts me that someone has come in. I bend my head as if in prayer. I hear feet, the scrape of a spindly chair, more sounds from the doorway. Several people must be entering the chapel but I daren’t look round. I keep my head devoutly bowed. What’s the custom here? Do people kneel or sit? A figure passes me to take a place further into the crescent of chairs, and then another. The whole chapel seems to be filling up. Nobody speaks. There’s none of the gossipy pre-service chatter you might expect from people who share an institution. Maybe these are the elite, theological students and they’ve taken a vow of silence.

  Suddenly everyone is standing up and there’s the sound of an organ. I stand up too so as not to be conspicuous, the spare prick at the wedding. A group, a double crocodile in black gowns, files past me with the Revd Bishop bringing up the rear. They station themselves in front of the pulpit facing us in a line. The dean climbs up into the pulpit. The organ music swells to fill the chapel and the choir joins in, followed by the congregation. It’s a hymn I know from way back, from my nan’s tales of her days at the Band of Hope when she was a child and sent to
church on Sunday morning along with her four nearest siblings to give their mother peace to knock up a Sunday dinner while their father was at the pub or at the allotment.

  Joy, joy, joy, with joy my heart is ringing,

  Joy, joy, joy, his love to me is known.

  My sins are all forgiven;

  I’m on my way to heaven.

  My heart is bubbling over

  With its joy, joy, joy.

  The congregation is clapping in time to the joys and I hear a few cries of Yes, Lord’ or ‘Come, Lord’. I sing and clap along with the rest, grateful to dear dead Nana that I know the words well enough to keep up my disguise. Then it’s over and the dean is saying ‘Brothers and sisters, be seated under the eye of the Lord and in his presence.’ I sit down and duck my head again, hoping he doesn’t know his flock so intimately that he’ll spot the black sheep in the middle.

  ‘Brethren, you know we are living on the fringes of eternity at the latter end of time, and that we here at Wessex have been called to be the children of the last days as Noah was called in his time when God sent the flood to swallow up the wicked and their world. Then again in the last days of the Roman Empire he sent our forerunners, the people of the covenant, to live together in the desert according to the rule in expectation of the Lord who came among them to be baptised by John the harbinger. And after when the Lord’s time was accomplished and he returned to his father, God destroyed the evil empire of Rome and scattered the people of the covenant throughout the world to be the seed corn from which a new harvest should arise

  . ‘We are that harvest of the centuries, ready for Our Lord the reaper, ready to be cut down and gathered into his barn, into his arms. “Come, Lord,” we say, “and take your children to you.” And he answers: “Wait patiently upon me. I will come and not be slow.”’

  Some of the Gathering, as I remember Mary-Ann Molders told me they were called, are beginning to punctuate his sermon with little moans and barely articulate cries.

  ‘But we must be ready for him, for none knows the hour or the day of his coming. What we do know is that only the redeemed will be saved and that redemption comes by following the rule of the children of the desert and the covenant, miraculously brought to light again in the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. God brought them out from the tombs where they had lain for nearly two thousand years so that those who had ears to hear and eyes to see should be given the means of salvation and each one should be a temple of the latent Christ.’

  I recognise a lot of this as a rehash of their website, the words of the Apostle Joachim. I have to admit that the Revd Bishop is quite a goer himself, almost up to his boss in the mixture of carrot and stick.

  ‘Yet there is no sure redemption in simply following a rule. We are a pentecostal church and we know that the spirit must descend on each one of us and possess our hearts, minds and bodies, expelling all evil thoughts so that we may be pure vessels, scrubbed clean for the Lord to enter. So I ask you, which among you is moved today? Let them come forward as we sing together, for singing together is itself a great spiritual experience. We shall sing “Tomorrow shall be my dancing day” with its chorus of “O my love”, for we shall all be lovers of Christ when he comes into our hearts.’

  The organ strikes up, everyone stands and the choir begins to sing the verse of the old carol, to be joined by the whole Gathering in the chorus.

  Sing o my love, my love, my love

  This have I done for my true love.

  It’s sung as I’ve never heard it before, not the usual rather embarrassed rendering but a full keening with closed eyes, bodies swaying to the rhythm. By the time we reach the third verse people are falling to their knees and crying out in an ecstasy that’s more like anguish than joy. I begin to wonder what they’re putting in the students’ coffee.

  ‘Any who are moved to give themselves to the Lord come forward,’ the dean calls out, opening his arms. He has come down from his eyrie, the pulpit, and is standing in the space in front of the choir. A young woman begins to sway towards him. Two of the choir step forward to support her on either side. ‘Come, my daughter, come. The Lord, your lover, is waiting for you.’

  She cries out and almost falls but the two choir members hold her up. ‘Yes, Lord, yes. Come into me. Come, come.’ I think of the ecstasies of St Teresa of Avila and St Francis of Assisi, the Cloud of Unknowing of St John of the Cross, all with their erotic and s/m overtones of orgasm and abnegation. Her eyes are closed and she begins to sink, her legs buckle under her and the minders lower her to a chair where she moans and cries a bit before lapsing into an exhausted, stunned silence. The organ rolls and choir and congregation break into a chorus of ‘Saved by grace’, another golden oldie remembered from my nana.

  The girl is waking out of her state of trance. She looks around as if still asleep. The Gathering begins to clap. The dean steps forward and raises her up. ‘Welcome, daughter. Your body is now the temple of the latent Christ. Go and sin no more.’

  I see him nod to the helpers who lead her back to her seat.

  ‘Let us praise him for his goodness to our sister today.’

  There are fervent cries of ‘We thank you, Lord.’

  ‘Go in love.’

  The organ strikes up. The Revd Bishop, not a ginger hair out of place, leads the choir out while we stand in silence and then begin to fall in behind. My turn comes. I follow on in line towards the door. Suddenly I see Mary-Ann Molders is standing where there would usually be someone with a plate or bag for the collection.

  ‘Ms Cowell, what are you doing here? Wait for me outside please.’

  It’s like being summoned to the head at school. Dutifully I stand in the corridor until the last student has left and she comes out, shutting the door firmly behind her.

  I’ve had time to consider how to play this.

  ‘Well?’

  No, she’s more like a prison warder than the head. I expect her to be swinging a heavy bunch of keys.

  ‘I found the chapel open as you said it was and went in for some private meditation. Suddenly people began to come in and it seemed too late for me to get up and leave without causing a disturbance. It seemed best just to wait to the end of the service.’ I open my innocent eyes as wide as I can and look directly at her.

  ‘I thought I had explained that Gatherings are restricted to accredited theological students.’

  ‘Yes, you did. And it wasn’t my intention to gate-crash. It was just that I was caught inside and thought it best not to distract everyone. I would have had to push my way out against the flow, especially when the choir started to come in. At first I didn’t realise there was about to be a service and then it was too late. I’m very sorry if I’ve broken any rule. It certainly wasn’t my intention to do so.’

  I wonder if she might remind me that the way to hell is paved with good intentions. Instead she says: ‘And what was your impression of our Gathering?’

  ‘I found it very moving.’ And that was true in a way, that is I could see how people could be moved by it: how the singing and swaying could lead to those altered states of consciousness induced by repeating a mantra or short prayer, the name of God, that the mystics of all faiths practise. ‘It made me wonder if I should change my course of study, whether there was something missing in my life.’

  ‘I’m afraid it isn’t that simple, Ms Cowell. There’s a long period of initiation, of probation, before anyone is admitted to membership, full membership.’

  Does she mean of the Temple or the theological faculty? It would seem too knowing to ask so I simply try to look disappointed. ‘I see.’

  ‘If you’re really interested in knowing more about our beliefs and way of life I can provide you with some introductory literature. Perhaps when you’ve studied that you will want to ask me some questions. I’m always happy to help genuine seekers after the truth.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I murmur as meekly as I can, eyes cast down, hands clasped in front of me. ‘I would certainly study a
nything you could give me most carefully.’ I hope I’m succeeding in giving a passable imitation of Jane Eyre before Mr Brocklehurst.

  All this time of the plague my lady had been concerned for redress in the matter of the murder of her steward Hugh Davys, yet without any success in her petition, even though her sons stood so high in his majesty’s liking, and the court lay still at Wilton or rather had returned there after removing for November to Winchester where Sir Walter Raleigh was tried for his life on the charge of treason, for men said he had favoured a Spanish plot to put the Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne before King James.

  ‘Which is a thing so unlikely,’ my lady said, ‘as I wonder that any should credit it, Sir Walter having fought the Spaniard at Cadiz and the Azores and even been an enemy to them such as they might not forgive. Dr Adrian Gilbert his brother has petitioned me to do something for him with his majesty. I know there is nothing I can do of myself for I am now a powerless old woman as my failure in my own affairs testifies. Nevertheless I have entreated my youngest son, Sir Philip, on his behalf, he being in his majesty’s graces and gone with him to Winchester.’

  Two weeks later Dr Adrian Gilbert brought the news to the countess that, in spite of all, Sir Walter had been convicted and was condemned to die and his majesty was returning to Wilton. Then we made ready to receive the court again. It was now at this time of his majesty’s second visit as I remember that the actors came to us as I have recounted, every effort being made to divert his majesty. Whether it was this diversion and others provided by my lady and her sons or the petition of them on his behalf, no one could say but the date set for Sir Walter’s execution being the 13th of December came and went, the court all making ready to return to London where the pestilence was at last much abated, so many having died or fled and those that lived seemingly insensible to it or, as the clergy said, spared by God’s grace, that there were no more for the disease to fasten on.