Lights in a Western Sky

by Roger Curtis

  A week later he was tidying the drawing room in readiness for the shoot the following morning. At first he placed the items on his workbench so as to be seen to best advantage. But as he picked up his inquiscope he froze. Suddenly it made sense that Samantha had shown no outward interest in his invention, had even seemed to avoid the subject when he tried to explain his work to her. It had disappointed him at the time, but now it began to make sense. Could it have been a deliberate show of disinterest to mask something that was precisely the opposite? That actually her presence here – and all that had gone before – was a plot to spy on him? For financial gain, even? He realised how little he knew of her background.

  The shoot began at ten the following day. The bright sunlight through the window lit up not only Greville’s workbench but also the sofa on which he and Samantha were seated. ‘It would be nice if you could hold hands,’ Clarice, said, ‘then I’ll ask each of you about your reactions to seeing one another.’ Feeling the warmth of Samantha’s fingers entwined with his, all Greville’s doubts about her possible motives evaporated. ‘Will your relationship continue, do you think,’ Clarice asked them, and each smiled back in affirmation. ‘Certainly,’ said Greville. ‘Of course,’ Samantha agreed. The cameraman packed up his equipment and left. Clarice jotted a few notes on her clipboard. ‘The viewers will love it,’ she said. ‘Now, when I’m done how about some lunch at Ronaldo’s at Kew. It gets quite full but as we’re early we should be okay.’

  As soon as Clarice had finished writing Samantha rose from the sofa as if, Greville thought, a matter of some triviality had been transacted. The same cold fear he had experienced the night before returned. He watched the two women staring down at the glistening instruments on the workbench. Something passed between them but he could not hear what was said. Their bodies seemed unnaturally close together, suggesting an intimacy he had not expected. Then he rebuked himself inwardly for his suspicious mind; after all, they were cousins, for heaven’s sake. Why should they not have developed a relationship outside his own.

  Before following Clarice out of the door, Samantha cast one lingering look – or so Greville thought – over the items on the workbench. That decided him. ‘You two go on ahead,’ he said. ‘I have a quick call to make.’

  ‘What can we get you to drink?’ Clarice asked.

  ‘A G&T please.’

  He watched them walk along the towpath. As soon as they were out of sight of the window he checked the charge of his inquiscope, then put it into his pocket. He folded up his laptop, set the house alarm and followed the path the women had taken.

  From outside the restaurant he watched them being led to a table at the far end of the dining room. Once inside, instead of walking between the tables he took the stairs to the gallery above, where he knew from experience there would be tables free. And why did he know that? Why, because it was from a table overlooking the floor below that he had watched Emma, his erstwhile wife, entertaining the man he presumed was her lover. And it was here that the idea of the inquiscope was born – and what had driven the rapidity of its development so that it could be put to practical use.

  Below him in the distance the two women were already seated. To Greville they seemed at ease with one another, though neither smiled. Hidden behind a plastic fern he connected the instrument to the laptop and discreetly pointed it at them. In seconds their faces appeared on the screen. Hastily he muted the sound and plugged in his earphones.

  Below him the waiter appeared with their drinks, including his G&T. Then the conversation between the women became serious.

  ‘Before he gets here,’ Clarice said. ‘You’re quite sure you want to go through with it?’

  ‘As sure as I’ve ever been. Having met the man, I think I can just about tolerate him. For a while.’

  ‘You still have suspicions about your sister’s death – about Emma?’

  ‘More than just suspicions. It was a preposterous story – about the jellyfish.’

  ‘I think so too.’ A fleeting smile crossed Clarice’s lips. ‘But it’s his imagination that has got him where he is. I mean, like with his clever instruments.’

  ‘Aren’t they just! No wonder he’s made a fortune. You think he resented sharing it, with Emma?’

  ‘No, I’m sure it wasn’t that. After all, it was her capital that started their electronics business. No, I think it was more that she’d become an encumbrance.’

  ‘We’ll just have to see, won’t we?’

  ‘But in the meantime don’t forget we have a deal.’

  ‘Dividing the spoils, you mean?’

  ‘Only fair,’ Clarice said. ‘I’m the blood relative.’

  They raised their glasses and reached across the table. ‘To our future spoils,’ they said.

  Clarice put down her glass. ‘Now, to practicalities. Have you got all your new paperwork – passport, birth certificate, fostering papers?’

  ‘Our Pakistani friends in Camden were most obliging.’

  ‘Will you ever tell Greville – that you’re actually his wife’s little sister?’

  A look of contempt crossed Samantha’s face. ‘When I look into his eyes for the very last time I’ll wave Emma’s letter in front of his nose. So it’s the last thing he’ll ever see.’

  ‘Oh? What letter?’

  ‘The one telling me she was frightened, that she was convinced something was about to happen to her. Sent the day before she… was drowned.’

  ‘My God! I’m not sure I want to be part of this.’ For the first time Clarice laughed. ‘I thought we were into it just for the money.’

  ‘Well, we’re in too deep to stop now.’

  The waiter arrived with their main courses. Their conversation drifted towards more womanly matters. Greville, still glued to his screen and listening, saw his hands were trembling. In spite of all the women had revealed something was missing. But for the moment he could not grasp what it was.

  Instinct told him to confront them, to go below and end the whole sordid business. Yet… He watched Samantha’s elegant and sinuous passage between the tables towards the door – and thought back to their night of passion at Maple Lodge. Anyone who could behave like that towards him in the face of the hatred she must bear deserved… well… his admiration. And he, knowing the score, had a challenge. Like playing a dangerous fish and bringing it aboard to its death while at the same time avoiding its sharp teeth. A delicious tingle passed down his spine.

  As he was about to disconnect the inquiscope he noticed Clarice’s forgotten handbag hanging from the back of her chair. They would be walking back to the house, wondering why he had not appeared. He would run after them with it and so begin the next phase of their… interesting… relationship.

  He descended to the floor below, walked to the chair and grasped the bag. There was a voice at his shoulder.

  ‘Excuse me Sir, but are you sure this bag is yours?’ Greville turned to see the waiter standing there.

  ‘It belongs to my friend who was here just now.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s right, Sir, but I must ask you to identify it.’

  ‘In the wallet you’ll see that…’

  His voice tailed off as he saw the contents of the bag. The first item to catch his eye was a school class photograph in which Clarice and Samantha were standing side by side. The second was a thin plastic tube containing a swab, with Samantha’s name on the label, just as he had seen it written before his eyes; Clarice, then, must have substituted her own one, to cover the lie. And that, he said to himself, made her a legitimate second target.

  There was a spring in his step as he walked briskly back to Maple Lodge.

  Enduring Light

  The little church of Santa Maria Maggiore stands in a back street some two hundred metres from the Piazza Publica, where the great cathedral of San Marco casts its shad
ows over hordes of tourists taking coffee at the myriad tables. Those dazzled by the splendour of the cathedral generally have little time for anything else but resting their feet, restoring their fluid balance and heading back to their hotels – and certainly little interest in the lesser church, in spite of it possessing paintings by Titian and Veronese and a campanile taller and more beautiful than any other in the city. But it was none of these that first drew Theodore there; rather, a need to find tranquillity and darkness to help still a mind suddenly and unexpectedly troubled. For he had in his pocket the letter from the hospital containing the results of blood tests telling him that he had myeloid leukaemia and needed to return home as soon as was practicable to discuss treatment with his doctor. He regretted opening the letter at all, knowing that it could spoil his holiday. Yet, strangely, it had cleared his mind, in the sense that a need to establish order in his life had suddenly become a priority.

  He had come upon the church by accident, its dark interior just visible through the narrow door, beckoning him in. He’d visited other Catholic churches before, but seldom stayed long, finding the decoration excessive and the messages of the paintings and statuary unbelievable. So, now, he wondered again if this was what the Christ-figure would have wanted; and whether he would have identified with the effigies strung up on crosses or bleeding copiously from spear thrusts and thorn wounds. For sure, he thought, from what he knew of the New Testament, the Jesus of history would not have approved of the gilt crucifixes, the fantastically elaborate wood carvings and other extreme paraphernalia. But he might have welcomed the cool interior, as he would have done in the synagogues of Galilee after days of humility and ridicule.

  The stations of the cross afforded a guided tour of sorts, but the artist had captured nothing with which he could empathise. Instead he was drawn to an image of the head of the Christ-figure bearing a plaque that told him it was from the school of Leonardo. The enigmatic smile held his attention – was it asking or telling, inviting shared confidences or imparting judgement? So intense did the gaze seem to become that Theodore looked behind him to see if there was another person standing there as the subject of attention. But there was no-one. He walked on, then looked back to see the painting presiding over a gaggle of schoolchildren with no interest in it whatsoever. Suffer little children… He smiled to himself and walked on.

  Against his intention he stopped walking. Something in the painting was drawing him back. He retraced his steps and again confronted the image. Then he saw that what he sought lay not in the face at all but in the background. There, surely, was the Jewish Temple, with its arches and colonnades. And if this was Jerusalem – and it could be no other place – then the Christ-figure, like himself, knew he was awaiting death.

  These were not thoughts he should have had. They were thoughts that would have induced self-ridicule before that fateful letter had come. He looked about him. Small though the church was in the general scheme of things, for him, now, in the late afternoon light, with the frescoed ceiling becoming fainter, it assumed a vastness that made him feel no more than a tiny worthless speck of irrelevance.

  A high segment of the great stained glass west window was still taking the strength of the sun. On the floor where the light fell a perfect circle had superimposed itself upon the reciprocating patterns of the floor. Theodore suddenly thought of it as a test. He tried to clear his head of all thought that might oppose receptivity, and stepped into the circle of light. Surely, if enlightenment was to come at all, it would come now. But about him all remained still. Nothing changed. A minute later, mildly disappointed but not surprised, he stepped out of the light.

  He passed the door to the corridor leading to the campanile – the great bell tower standing slightly apart from the mass of the church, higher even than the window that had offered him its light. A notice beside the door directed him to the information desk where he might buy a ticket. The young man behind the counter – from his dress and long hair most likely a student – looked up as he approached. It was a neutral look, Theodore thought, or perhaps a concealing look.

  ‘I would like a ticket for the campanile, please,’ Theodore said, handing the man a banknote of a rather large denomination.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sir. I’m afraid I’m unable to change that.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous. You must have been given change all morning.’

  ‘That is so, but at the end of the morning the priest in charge comes to collect whatever has been given and takes it away. There’s a shop next to the church where you can get change, and there are cash machines at several places in the Piazza.’

  ‘But I don’t have time,’ Theodore said. ‘The light is already going and I would like to see the campanile.’

  ‘I’m sorry I cannot help you. I’m sure you will appreciate that I’m forbidden to allow visitors to ascend the campanile without a ticket.’

  Angrily, Theodore left the church, passing the shop where – had he been so minded – he could have got change with just a small purchase. He walked into the Piazza and slumped into a chair outside one of the small cafés. He ordered a coffee and spent the next half-hour staring moodily over his cup. In the distance he could see members of his own group making their way to the hotel shuttle bus. This was his cue to get up and leave, to forget the church and its wretched campanile. He looked at his watch – still half an hour before it closed. He paid for his coffee, then stared in disbelief at the change in the bowl. There were banknotes, for sure, but on top of them were coins stacked to the exact value of the ticket for entrance to the campanile. Surely… He swept up what he might otherwise have left as a tip and walked back to the church.

  Their eyes met. ‘I found some change,’ Theodore said sheepishly. And as he said it a burden of unreasonableness was lifted from him. The eyes across the counter lit up with an expression of relief and pleasure that Theodore might have guessed was beyond the possible. ‘I was truly hoping you would return,’ the man said.

  And suddenly Theodore was seeing, not the face of a humble attendant, but that of the Christ-figure in the painting. He realised it was not meaningful to distinguish between those differing elements in the enigmatic smile, but instead accept that there was no conflict between conviction in the rightness of a cause and concern that it might not be fulfilled.

  ‘I’m closing the desk now,’ the man said, looking at his watch. ‘But if you like I can accompany you to the campanile. From the summit I can show you many things.’

  Together they climbed the succession of ever-narrowing staircases and, reaching the top, stepped into the bright evening light.

  Notes on A Jerusalem Trilogy

  Whatever one’s interpretation of the story of the raising of Lazarus by Jesus, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the event made it easier for Jesus’ followers to accept the concept of the resurrection after the crucifixion and the disappearance of his body from the tomb in which it had been placed. If it is not accepted that the raising of Lazarus was a miracle (i.e. that Lazarus did not actually die) it is difficult to account for Jesus’ grief, both on being told beforehand of Lazarus’ ‘death’ and, later, at the tomb before he was called to ‘come forth.’ A possible interpretation without supernatural overtones is that Jesus himself was misled and that the perpetrators – albeit innocently and with Jesus’ interests at heart – could have been Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha. In Lazarus, the story presented here, this conclusion is reached by a biblical scholar in Jerusalem, whose interest is kindled on seeing a copy of a letter by the second century church father Clement of Alexandria, discovered in the monastery of Mar Saba, near Jerusalem, by Professor Morton Smith in 1958. This letter quotes passages from an alternative version of Mark’s gospel in which there is a reference to the raising of Lazarus. (In the New Testament an account of the raising of Lazarus occurs only in John’s gospel.) Our scholar’s insightful conclusion follows a visit to
the supposed tomb of Lazarus in Bethany; described as early as the fourth century CE, this could well be the authentic site.

  The traditional role of Judas Iscariot in Jesus’ demise has led to his almost universal vilification. However, it is clear that by the time of the last supper Jesus knew of Judas’ intention to expose him. If, as many believe, Jesus was deliberately pursuing a path towards his own destruction it is difficult not to conclude that there was at least a degree of collusion between them. Had Jesus wished to avoid the consequences of Judas’ action he would not have awaited arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.

  The inconsistencies and gaps in the story of the resurrection of Jesus following his crucifixion have perplexed both theologians and historians to the present day. Whilst no-one has produced a convincing physical explanation for the disappearance of Jesus’ body from the tomb in which it was first laid – an event witnessed by Jesus’ entourage – it has to be recognised that something extraordinary happened to make Jesus’ followers believe they later encountered the risen Jesus. This was, after all, the cornerstone of the faith of both the messianic community in Jerusalem led by Jesus’ younger brother James and by the envoy Paul, who took the message to gentile communities elsewhere.

  The idea that the person encountered by Mary in the tomb early on the Sunday morning – the foundation of the initial rumour that Jesus had risen – was not Jesus but someone such as a brother having a resemblance to him is not new. However, there does not seem to have been any attempt to cast such an explanation in a form that takes account of the salient landmarks in the gospel accounts. There is strong possibility that Jesus had several siblings, including brothers James, Joses, Simeon and Judas, and a sister Salome. The story presented here, Judas Thomas, makes the fourth brother, Judas, the one that Mary encountered in the tomb. He is called here Judas Thomas, or just Thomas, this name meaning ‘twin’ in Aramaic. Here it has been given to Thomas as a nickname because of his physical resemblance to his elder brother. There are references in the early literature to Jesus having a twin brother, the most well-known being the ‘Gospel of Thomas’ – one of a collection of early Christian writings unearthed at Nag Hamadi in Egypt in 1945. This text begins: ‘These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down…’ It is not known whether this Coptic gospel was based on writings of a true brother of Jesus or is attributable to Jesus’ disciple Thomas, who was one of the Twelve but most likely a different figure altogether. The former interpretation is assumed for the purpose of the story.