Fludd

by Hilary Mantel

  Even the people of Netherhoughton came to church, and sat glowering at the back; their little heathen children played in the aisles with their ouija boards.

  On the Monday, in the afternoon, Fludd was kneeling in church, praying for Father Angwin. He might have been on the altar, for that was his privilege; but he would rather kneel in the first bench, where the nuns had been on Sunday, and watch from that short distance the sanctuary lamp, winking redly at him like an alcoholic uncle.

  He wanted peace of mind for Father Angwin; he thought of the hymn “Soul of My Saviour,” of how the ignorant parish mangled the words and sense. He thought of the women of Fetherhoughton, slack chins quivering above their buttoned-up coat fronts: Guard and defend me/From the formaligh … Oh, foe malign, he had breathed, his back to them, his thin hands passing over the sacred vessels; from the foe malign. He had glanced down, sideways, and noticed the altar boys’ big black lace-up shoes sticking from beneath their cassocks, and their wrinkly grey wool socks. In destrier moments, make me only thine … What are they talking about? What do they think they are singing? He pictured the formaligh, a small greasy type of devil with sharp teeth, which lurked on dark nights in the church porch. Of all the small devils, Fludd thought, ignorance is chief of the horde; their misapprehension had embodied it, given it flesh.

  Now—Monday, kneeling here alone—he could hear the rain coming down, as hard as on the night he arrived; drumming unseen behind the stained glass, splashing and gurgling from the downspouts, falling alike on the just and the unjust. He closed his eyes, would have closed his ears to shut out the sound, to sink himself into that trance-like state where he would hear, if God were willing, some small recommendation; some recommendation as to how he should proceed, as to what, having found this place, he ought to do next:

  Images flitted through his mind: the nine-runged ladder, the railwayman’s kerchief that snapped on its fence pole in the moorland wind, the black arm of Mother Perpetua uplifted in the twilight; and Agnes Dempsey, standing inside the front door mute like a dog, waiting for his return. One by one the pictures chased each other, and he held open his mind’s door, and let them pass through, until the house was empty; his pulse slowed, his breathing deepened, the rain stilled itself to a whisper and faded into a profound silence.

  Am I alive? the small voice asked itself. What is, you know by what is not; for as Augustine says, “We have some knowledge of the darkness and silence, of the former only by the eyes, by the latter only through the ears; nevertheless we have no sensation, only the privation of sensation.” In the realm of Taut, the underworld of the Egyptians, there were twelve divisions; one of the twelve was guarded by a serpent with four legs and a human face. Here the darkness was so thick that it might be felt; but this is almost the only instance we have. When we say the night has a velvet darkness, we romance. When we say the soul is black, we are turning a phrase.

  Now, coming to himself a little, Fludd thought he heard behind him a ragged breathing; something had come in at the far door, and stood watching him while he prayed. He did not turn his head. I am breaking down, he thought, dissolving into destruction and despair; this is my nigredo, this is the darkest night of my soul. Just as the statues lie in their shallow graves, taking on the hue of the soil and the smell of mortification, so my spirit is buried, walled in with corrupting agents. Agnes had said to him (busy with the kettle, her face averted, her voice cracking with the strength of her sentiments), “When I walk over them, Father, I shudder. We all shudder.” He had said, “They are symbols, Miss Dempsey. Symbols are powerful things.” Miss Dempsey had said, “It’s like walking on the dead.”

  But everything that is going to be purified must first be corrupted; that is a principle of science and art. Everything that is to be put together must first be taken apart, everything that is to be made whole must first be broken into its constituent parts, its heat, its coldness, its dryness, its moisture. Base matter imprisons spirit, the gross fetters the subtle; every passion must be anatomized, every whim submit to mortar and pestle, every desire be ground and ground until its essence appears. After separation, drying out, moistening, dissolving, coagulating, fermenting, comes purification, recombination: the creation of substances that the world has until now never beheld. This is the opus contra naturem, this is the spagyric art; this is the Alchymical Wedding.

  The creature, behind him, was advancing with a heavy tread, coming up the centre aisle. His hands still clasped before him, he turned and looked over his right shoulder.

  It was Sister Philomena, a sack over her head to keep off the rain; her habit was girded up to her knees with an arrangement of string that caught it into sculptural folds.

  Father Fludd stared at the nun’s feet. She said, “I’ve got a dispensation for wellingtons. A special permission, from Mother Provincial. It’s always me they send out in the wet, not that I’m complaining, I like to get out. I’m getting a dispensation for a rainmate.”

  “What are those?” Fludd said.

  “They’re plastic hoods that you can put over your head. Seethrough, they are. When you fold them up you can concertina them as small as that—” she put out her damp fingers, and showed him—“and put them in your pocket.”

  “I hate plastic,” Father Fludd said.

  “You would. You’re a man.” She corrected herself: “You’re a priest. You never have to clean. Plastic’s easy-clean. You just wipe it. I wish the whole world was made of plastic.”

  Philomena emerged into the light, the pool of light cast by the candles that burnt before St. Theresa, the Little Flower. “I see Mother has been up lighting candles,” she said.

  “Has she a particular devotion to St. Theresa?”

  “Well, Theresa was a nun, of course, and she was a very humble sort. Humility was what she specialized in, she was more good at it than anybody in her convent, she was famous for it. Mother reckons we all ought to be that humble. St. Theresa went into the convent when she was very young. They weren’t going to let her, but she put her foot down about it. They tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. There was no holding her. She complained to the Pope.”

  “You must have been studying her life.”

  “We have a book in the convent library.”

  “Is your library extensive?”

  “Well, there’s some lives of the saints. Oh, and a Turf Guide, that’s Sister Anthony’s.” Philomena put out her hand and leant heavily on the back of one of the treacle-stained benches. She seemed a little out of breath. “St. Theresa eventually pegged out from her chest, like my Aunt Dymphna. In St. Theresa’s case it was the penances she used to do that brought it on, but I don’t think that was the case with my aunt. Humble to the last, and wanting to offer her mortal agony up as a sacrifice for sinners, the saint refused those medicines that could have relieved her final distress. So the book says. I don’t know whether Dymphna was offered any morphine. I expect she took some whisky.”

  Fludd leant backwards, sliding imperceptibly from the kneeler to the bench. He sat looking at the nun. She had taken off her sack and shaken from it a few dead leaves that had fallen on her as she ploughed her way up the carriage-drive. “I’ll pick them up,” she said. “I’ll sweep.” She took out something from her pocket. “I’ve come to have another go at the nose,” she said.

  Fludd followed her gaze, up to the statue of the Virgin. It seemed a hammer-blow had taken the tip of her nose clean off. “I did that,” Philomena said. “It didn’t seem reverent altogether, but I needed a flat bit to start with, so I borrowed a chisel from the Men’s Fellowship, from Mr. McEvoy. The first nose I put on was with modelling clay, and then I thought I could paint it, but of course it would have to be fired first, so that wasn’t a success. So now I’ve been trying with plasticine—”she held it out on the palm of her hand—“kneading different bits together to try to get the shade.”

  “I think she should be darker,” Fludd said. “Realistically. She came from an easte
rn land.”

  “I can’t think the bishop would take to that idea.”

  “I have seen black virgins,” Fludd said. “In France they call them Our Lady sous-terre. In their processions, only green candles are burnt.”

  “It sounds pagan,” she said doubtfully. “Will you excuse me, Father? I have to get up there. On that bench.”

  “Of course.” He stood up quickly and moved away. Philomena made a deep genuflection to the altar, then sat down on the bench opposite and began to pull off her wellingtons.

  “I would help you, Sister,” Fludd said. “But. You know.”

  “I’ll have them off in a minute,” she said, kicking and wrestling. He turned his eyes away. She laughed, grunted, and tussled. “There.” The boots fell over onto the stone flags. Spry and nimble now, she stepped up on to the bench where he had been sitting, and stretched out to reach the Virgin. “What would you think?” she asked. “Make the nose first, then slap it on, or try to work it while I’m up here?”

  “I think you should model it in situ. May I try? I am taller.”

  “Hop up then, Father. You will certainly have a longer reach.”

  He stepped up on the bench beside her, and she took a sideways step to accommodate him, then gave him the plasticine from her fingertips. It was the colour of bloodless skin, and cold to the touch; he worked it in the palm of his hand. He faced the Virgin at point-blank range, and stared into her painted blue eyes.

  Sister Philomena watched intently as he reached forward and planted his model on the statue’s face. He could feel her attention, fastening on his hand; he could smell the wet serge of her habit, and, when he looked sideways, in an unspoken request for her opinion, he could see the white-blonde down on her cheek. As if to steady herself, she put out a hand to the Virgin’s slippery narrow shoulder, and it lay there cold and blue-veined against the blue of the painted cloak.

  For a moment, Fludd supported the girl, a hand under her elbow; then he leapt backwards to the floor. He stood off, to consider. “Not a success,” he said. “On the whole. Will you come and look?”

  “No.” She dropped her eyes, despondent. “I shall never get it remodelled, not even with your help, Father. We have perfectly good statues, mouldering under the ground.”

  He looked up. “Do you think they are mouldering? You too?”

  “Oh, you frighten me.” She touched the black cross that hung on a cord around her neck. “It was just an expression I used.”

  “But something is rotten here.”

  “Yes. Have you come to help it?”

  “I don’t know. I think it is beyond me. I think I can only help myself. And make, perhaps, one or two little adjustments in the parish.”

  “Can you do anything for me?”

  “Come down from there.” He held out his hand. She took it and stepped down, with one neat, stately movement. “Once,” he said, “when people made statues, they carved their garments in neat folds, as if there were no body underneath. Then came a time when ideas changed. Even the saints have limbs, even the Virgin. They began to round out the folds.”

  “Our statues looked various. Some lifelike, some dead.”

  “I’m afraid none of them were so old that they go back to the time of which I speak. If they did not seem lifelike, it was from lack of skill. Or distaste for flesh.”

  “Oh, well.” She looked down, then blushed. She began to fumble and tug at her skirts. “I didn’t think anybody would be in here,” she said. “I usually kilt up my habit when it rains, only don’t tell on me. It gets so miserable when you’re muddy round the hem for the rest of the day, it’s enough to bring on rheumatics. I don’t suppose,” she said, “that St. Theresa would have minded a bit of rain. She’d have offered it up. She’d probably have gone and stood out in it on purpose.”

  But when they left the church, they found that the rain had stopped. A weak sunlight, which itself seemed flooded with water, washed the tree trunks of the carriage-drive. Light glazed the puddles and made them opaque; it seemed that the ground had been set for a banquet, with shallow white china bowls.

  That night after dinner, Father Angwin said, “I have had a call from the bishop.”

  “Oh yes?” Fludd said. “What did he want?”

  “He wanted to know if I was relevant.” Father Angwin raised his face to Fludd, expectantly; but it was a barbed expectation. “You are clever and modern, Father Fludd, can you make anything of that?”

  Fludd did not reply; indicating by his silence that he did not mean to be drawn out, about his modernity.

  “He said, ‘Are you relevant, Father? Are you real?’ I said, ‘Well, that’s one for Plato.’ But the bishop continued without a pause. ‘Are your sermons relevant?’ he said. ‘Are you attuned to the modern ear?’”

  “I’ve never heard anything of this before,” Fludd said. “Relevant? No, I’ve not heard of it. What did you say?”

  “I said I was supremely bloody irrelevant, if he pleased, and I would, by his leave, remain so—for the welfare of my parishioners, and the salvation of their souls. ‘Indeed, how so, my dear chap?’” Father Angwin fell to ferocious mimicry, thrusting his legs forward and patting at an imaginary paunch. “‘Because,’ I said, ‘isn’t irrelevance what people come to church for? Do you want me to greet them with the language of the tramshed? Do you want me to take such spirituality as they possess and grind it up in the Co-op butcher’s mincing-machine?’” Father Angwin looked up, his eyes alight. “To that, he made no answer.”

  “I hope you seized your advantage,” said Father Fludd.

  “Well, while I had him on the hop, I raised the matter of my statues again. ‘If saints,’ I said, ‘will not come to Fetherhoughton, may I not have their mute representatives? Are they not the spurs to faith, and is not faith my business, and are the statues not then the tools of my trade?’ I said to him, ‘Why do you take away the tools of my trade? Would you deprive the physician of his black bag? May a barber not have his pole?’”

  “Where does the bishop think the statues are?” Fludd asked carefully.

  “Oh, he thinks I have them in my garage.”

  “And would he concede anything at all?”

  “Nothing.”

  “And so how did you leave it?”

  “I said, ‘I hope I live to bury you.’” Father Angwin brooded for a moment. “He didn’t mention you.”

  “Oh well,” said Fludd. “Did he not? Never mind.”

  Father Angwin still half-believed, when he thought about it, that Fludd was the bishop’s spy. But he conceived that even the bishop must have a better nature, which made him tactfully gloss over the fact of the spy’s existence, as if he could not quite admit to what he had done. Either that, or his left hand knows not what his right hand is doing.

  Father Angwin, of course, was the worse for drink. Father Fludd gently pointed this out to him, and went into the kitchen to get Agnes to make him some coffee. Coffee was an innovation, one that he was working on. “You grind, Miss Dempsey. You measure. You moisten. You heat. You filter.”

  “Well,” Miss Dempsey would say, “I don’t know what the result will be; it will be a substance I have never beheld before.”

  Father Angwin, left alone, looked into the fire in a dream. Earlier that evening, he had listened to a most peculiar confession: or rather, to a question put to him in the confessional, by a strange, strained voice, that he believed he had heard somewhere, but could not quite place. It had been Netherhoughton night; a special evening was reserved for the people from up the hill. It had been in his mind to send Fludd, but the curate wasn’t up in their ways yet; either none of them would come at all, or there would be three or four of them trying to get into the box together, all of them fighting to get their version in first. More than once it had degenerated into brawls; the boy was able for that sort of thing, no doubt, he was a strong-looking lad, but discretion is the better part of valour, and he might not have the wit to forestall trouble.

 
The penitent, first of the evening, had come shuffling into the box, and had knelt, and kept silence, as if waiting for him to speak first. After a while, it had occurred to him that this was some Netherhoughtonian who had come back to church after twenty or thirty years, hoping that the new priest was a soft touch, and who did not know where to begin on his or her sins, and who might anyway have forgotten the usual form of words. Encouragingly, he prompted: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned … ?”

  At the sound of his voice there was a small sigh, and a further silence. He waited. It was clear to him that the Netherhoughtonian had hoped for Fludd. “Well, now you’re here,” he said, “you may as well get on. Don’t worry, I’ll help you out. Why not take it a decade at a time? But first, tell me, how long is it since your last confession?”

  “Not long,” the penitent said flatly. It was a woman; her age he could not guess. And what she said might be true, in the Netherhoughtonian perception. Up there, they were still gossiping about the Abdication; not that of Edward VIII, but that of James II. Their quarrels stretched back to time immemorial; they had grievances that pre-dated the Conquest.

  “Well,” the voice said; and there was a further pause. “Well, I’ve nothing to tell, really. I could ask you a question.”

  “All right. Your question then.”

  “Would it be a sin for a man to set fire to his house?”

  Now this was the kind of rough, wild stuff you got from the folk of Netherhoughton. “His own house?” the priest asked. “You don’t mean someone else’s?”

  “His own,” said the voice impatiently. “If he is poor, and the insurance money would put him in better circumstances.”