Fludd

  “Oh, I see. Well, of course it would be a sin.” Father Angwin thought, I did not know that in Netherhoughton they had insurance, if I were a company I would refuse them. “It’s a crime besides. Arson, and fraud. Oblige me by putting the notion out of your head.”

  “All right,” the penitent said, taking his point with surprising alacrity. “I could put another question. May dripping be used for pastry, or is it allowed only for frying fish?”

  God help them, Father Angwin thought; accustomed as they are to living on gruel, shall I live to see the day when their tastes are broadened, their puny physiques improved? “I can’t tell you, right off. But,” he said helpfully, “I could ask my housekeeper. Why don’t I do that, and you could come back next week and hear the answer? I’m sure that if you’re struggling she’d be willing to give you many hints and tips in the culinary line.”

  A pause. “No,” the voice said. “Fasting and abstinence. That’s what I’m talking about. Lenten regulations. And on a Friday through the year. Does dripping count as meat? Or does it count as butter?”

  “That’s a tough one,” the priest said. “Let me think about it, will you?”

  “Can you have jam on a fast day?”

  “I always do, if I want. I don’t believe there’s an ordinance about it. You must be governed by the general principles, though. You mustn’t be a glutton for jam.”

  “If it is a fast day, and you are taking your morning collation, eight ounces of bread that is, can the bread be toasted?”

  “Oh yes, it may.”

  “But then it would shrink up, Father. Perhaps it might weigh less. So you could have an extra slice.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything in Canon Law about that.” He was concerned, and puzzled too, by the scruple and lack of scruple this penitent combined. “Do you get very hungry on fast days? There are some people who do. I believe that all but the most rigid authorities will allow a little more in cases of hardship.”

  “I should not want to put myself forward as such a case.”

  “Your efforts do you credit.”

  “But now tell me, Father, how long has it been permitted to eat meat on Christmas Day, when Christmas Day falls on a Friday?”

  “Since 1918, I think you will find,” Father Angwin said readily. “Since the new code of Canon Law came in, at Pentecost that year.”

  “And what date did Pentecost fall?”

  “I believe it was 19 May.”

  “Thank you. And on a Friday, or other day of abstinence … is turtle soup permitted?”

  “I rather think so,” Father Angwin said. “Are you accustomed to turtle soup?”

  “No,” said the penitent, with more than a tinge of regret. “Well, thank you, Father, you’ve cleared up a couple of points that have been bothering me. Any further thoughts on the dripping?”

  “If I had to give an answer—off the top of my head, mind—I’d say dripping may be used for both purposes. But I will certainly look into it. And if you care to come back, you shall have chapter and verse on it.”

  He wanted to say, Who are you? There seemed something forced about the penitent’s husky voice; its rough-and-ready tone, that way of shuttling on from one question to the next, bespoke a certain familiarity, although the people of Netherhoughton were no respecters of persons. He couldn’t place it. Yet it was as if the penitent knew his foibles, and divined his motto: fidelity in small things.

  “You will come again, won’t you?” he said wistfully; he had enjoyed the questions about dietary laws.

  “Mm,” the penitent said.

  “Is there anything else? Something you have to tell me?”

  “No.”

  “You know, I can’t give you absolution. You haven’t confessed.”

  “I can’t confess,” the voice said. “I hardly know nowadays if things are sins or not. And if I did, and they were, perhaps I shouldn’t be sorry.”

  “You don’t need Perfect Contrition,” Father Angwin said. (He must instruct his penitent; Father Fludd had opined that it was the spell-book, not the catechism, that they used in Netherhoughton.) “Imperfect Contrition will do. That is the kind of contrition,” he explained, “that arises out of fear of Hell, rather than love of God. Don’t you fear Hell?”

  A pause. A whisper. “Very much.”

  “And then you must have a Firm Purpose of Amendment. That means, you know, that you must really sincerely make your mind up you’re not going to do it again. And then I can absolve you.”

  “But I haven’t done it,” the voice said. “I haven’t done anything. Not even once. Not yet.”

  “But you are contemplating a particular sin?”

  “Well, I don’t know whether it’s in me. I haven’t had the chance to find out.”

  “You mustn’t test yourself,” Father Angwin said. “You mustn’t test yourself against the delights of evil. It’s a test you will always pass.”

  There was a longer pause. “Who knows,” said the impenitent penitent, “what any of us may come to, in the space of a month or two?”

  No one else had been at confession tonight. And now, staring into the fire, with the whisky between himself and the occasion, Father Angwin knew perfectly well who his penitent had been. Netherhoughton had been a red herring; this was closer to home. He wondered if she had found any comfort in talking to him, although it was not who she expected. Perhaps she will come again, he thought. We can joust on any topic. Circumlocution has its uses. We shall get to what matters in the end.

  He heard Father Fludd’s footsteps in the passage. The aroma of fresh coffee wafted through the half-open door.

  “You must fast,” Sister Philomena said. Her voice was very clear; carrying to the naughty, scuffling children, those who sat in the back row. “Before you take communion, you must fast. You mustn’t have your breakfast that day. But then when you get home you can have your Sunday dinner.”

  It was ten o’clock in the morning. The lights were on. The rain came down outside. The children near the radiators had a baked smell coming from them. Their wellington boots stood tenantless along the far wall; they swung their feet, woollen sausages of sock extending six inches beyond their toes.

  The children were almost seven years old. She was preparing them. Next spring they would go to confession for the first time—she would lead them up to the church on a Friday morning—and on the Sunday following they would make their first communion. She wondered if there was anything they could do, between Friday and Sunday, to make a mess of her efforts. How can you tell if they are in mortal sin? You can’t keep them in your pockets. Philomena was no sentimentalist; she knew what they were capable of. Great sins, of violence and uncharity, were open to them now; as adults, they would find their range smaller.

  A child put up his hand. “If we only have to fast for three hours, Sister, couldn’t we have us breakfasts if we got up very early?”

  “You could. It might not be good for your digestion, eating at such an hour.”

  “What if I did get up though, Sister, and had us breakfast, and then I found out that us clock was wrong? Mustn’t I go to communion that day?”

  “Well, if it was a genuine mistake …” The children flustered her. “I don’t know,” she said. “I will ask Father Angwin.” Or I might look it up in my question-and-answer book, she thought. What is time, anyway? The book went on about real times and mean times; it made reference to meridians. It talked about deductions for summer time, and indicated the good practice for people who went by sundials. “It’s to do with Greenwich,” she said. “All would be well if you were right by Greenwich.”

  “Is Greenwich like Lourdes?” they said, putting up their hands. “Is there cures? Is there miracles there?”

  Philomena found the children difficult: more difficult week by week. Perpetua said that the sacrament worked of itself. They didn’t have to understand; she, Philomena, was only required to see that they could go through the motions.

  “What if I
’m doing the fast,” one said, “and my tooth comes out, and I swallow it?”

  “That would just be a little accident,” Philomena said. “You could still take the sacrament.”

  “But Sister, you said we wasn’t to touch the host with us teeth. When it was in your stomach—”

  From the next classroom, she heard Perpetua’s voice raised. She knew the signs and symptoms; soon she would have her cane out.

  “What if I’m doing the fast, and a fly flies down us throat?”

  “That’ll do now,” she said. “There’s plenty of time for the answers to these questions. Now we’re going to get up very quietly”—from us desks, she nearly said—“from our desks, and form a line to put on our wellingtons, and then we’re going to form up two by two and walk up to church and have a Holy Communion practice.”

  Up to church. Oh God, oh God, she thought, feeling her heart beat faster. What her heart chose to do was nothing she could control; let it thump away and batter and lurch at her ribs, like a puppy locked in a barn. There was no door she could open to let it free.

  The mournful crocodile, up the hill and into the church; whispers stilled in the porch, an epidemic of shushing. “They are so slow,” Purpit had said. “We must rehearse them all winter for communion in spring. Otherwise they will be blundering into each other and goodness knows what all.” She had offered Philomena the use of her most formidable cane, but the young nun had declined. She knew, perfectly well, that Purpit would like to use it on her.

  If only there were a bit of light in the place, she thought. The children’s skinny shapes passed into the benches like a file of ghosts, like the ghosts from some children’s hospital, an empty fever ward. She picked up a fistful of candles from the Little Flower’s box, lit them from those that were burning, and juggled them into their holders. “Now,” she said. “Begin.”

  At once, and all together, the children leapt up from their kneelers, tripping over each other’s legs, scrabbling for the centre aisle. “Stop, stop, stop,” Philomena yelled. “Back, back, back. As you were. Kneel down. Close your eyes. Join your hands. When I give the word, first child stand up, walk, second child stand up, walk. Follow on in a line. First child turn left, second child follow, all children follow. Get to the altar rail and kneel down reverently. Join your hands, close your eyes, wait your turn for the Holy Eucharist. When the altar rail is all filled up, children behind stop, there, just there, d’you see, at the top of the aisle. You people that are waiting, don’t crowd up behind the people at the rail. Keep a distance. Or however will they get back when they’re finished?”

  At first they tended to close their eyes at the wrong time and bump into each other, but after a half hour you could see that they were beginning to get the idea. They knelt at the altar rail with their mouths open, and at the word of command they closed them and paused for a reverent moment, and then rose to stamp back to their places. The signs of strain were evident on their faces. She was not so old that she had forgotten what troubled them. Will you find your place again in the crowded church at eleven o’clock Mass? Will you struggle into the wrong bench, so that people will laugh and point? Will you (worse) attempt to get back down the wrong aisle and lose your bearings completely? How will you inch and scramble out of your place at the start, without bruising the shins of non-communicants? Will you fit smoothly into the shuffling stream, or somehow hold up the proceedings?

  “You must keep your eyes open,” she advised them. “No, what I mean is, you must keep your wits about you, keep a look-out. The woman on the end of your row, now suppose she’s wearing a funny hat. Take a good look at that hat as you go up. Then when you turn from the altar, use it to navigate by.”

  She stood at the back of the church, looking up the centre aisle, to judge if the traffic flow was smooth. Her back was to St. Thomas Aquinas, the cold saint with his plaster star, and from that direction (as if behind the statue, as if beneath it) she heard a whisper, a rustle, like the feet of a family of mice. Beneath her veil, the hairs pricked at the back of her neck. Then she felt eyes resting on her. She knew it was Fludd. His scrutiny seemed to pass through her black veil, through her starched white under-veil, through her drawstring cap, and revel in what hair she had left these days, and play along her scalp. “Once more,” she called. “Eyes closed now. Heads down. Say a little prayer. When I give the word, begin … Now.”

  She waited only long enough to see the first child, the second child, on their feet and embarked on their march. Then she turned urgently. “Father? Father?”

  Fludd lurked behind the statue. He would not advance. She heard the children, in their wellington boots, clumping towards the altar. She took a step or two, almost running, to the back of the church and the deep shadows under the gallery. “Are you there?” she whispered. “Mother Perpetua has taken me off being sacristan. She saw us, the other day, when we were mending the nose. She’s in a rage with me for monopolizing your time. I want to talk to you. There are some things I must ask you.”

  “Yes,” Fludd said. It was as if the Angelic Doctor had spoken; Fludd’s black form could hardly be discerned.

  “At the allotments,” she said. “There’s a shed …” She could hear the first batch of children now, shuffling back into their places. Too quick, she thought. They should have spent more time at the altar, their knees have barely touched the ground. And feeling these moments of her life begin to slip away, she launched herself forward and clung to the statue’s base, to the unyielding plaster hem of the robes, reached out her blue-veined hand and knotted her fingers between the point of the star. Fludd saw her clinging, like a drowning woman to jetsam. He wanted to step forward, but held himself back. His eyes rested upon her. In destrier moments, he thought. In death’s drear moments. Make me only thine.

  SIX

  Outside the purlieus of the convent Philomena had a different kind of walk. She strode ahead of him, swinging her arms carelessly, hopping over the tussocks of grass.

  “I came up here one day last year.” The wind scattered her voice. “Quite early … it would be April. There were daffodils. Small ones, wild. Not those big yellow brutes you get in the shops.”

  Tramping after her, Fludd imagined these blooms. He saw them flinching from the spring winds: frail and whitish yellow, like Chinese hands in sleeves. “Last year, or this year? I thought last year you weren’t here?”

  She stopped, catching her breath. “This year is what I meant. Dear Lord, the months have dragged past. The days seem so long, Father Fludd. They seem to be stretching themselves out. I don’t know when that started. I think it was since we buried the statues.”

  “I do not find it so,” Fludd said. He felt old, and breathless from the uphill climb, and weary from thankless enterprises. “‘My days have passed more swiftly than the web is cut by the weaver, and are consumed without any hope.’”

  The girl did not recognize a quotation. “Have you no hope?” She looked up at him for a second. Her eyes were extraordinary, he thought: a smoky fawn flecked here and there with yellow, a colour more suitable in a cat than a nun. The question seemed to have struck her. Rather than give an answer, Fludd walked on.

  “Are you not afraid to be seen?” he asked. “I doubt you should be here. I may walk where I please, but not you. This is a strange place for a spiritual conference.”

  “I came to confession. Netherhoughton night. I thought you would be there. It was the old fellow. I had to hold his attention with some questions about Lent.”

  “I have heard a thing about you.”

  She turned. Because of her headdress a full turn of her head was necessary, if she were to meet his eyes, and he saw how this fact laid a veneer of import over every exchange. “The stigmata?”

  They had reached the shed of which she had spoken. Its broken door flapped. On the floor were wood-shavings and the chalky droppings of long-dead fowl.

  “Yes,” Fludd said. He ducked his head under the lintel. Inside he had just room to stand u
pright. A draught, blowing straight from Yorkshire, was unimpeded by the broken window.

  Philomena followed him in, ducking her head in turn. “’Twasn’t true,” she said.

  “But you pretended it was?”

  Philomena looked at her surroundings without contempt. “I don’t care where I come,” she said, “to get an hour out of that place. People think a convent’s quiet, don’t they? They should hear Perpetua, going on all day.” She cast around, and leant against a kind of rough workbench, folding her arms. “I had no choice, you see. They gave me none. Father Kinsella got my mother in on it. You’d have thought they’d got all their birthdays at once.”

  “What was it really, if it was not the stigmata?”

  “Nerves.”

  “What had you to be nervous about?”

  “It’s a long story. It’s about my sister.”

  Fludd leant against the wall. He wished he might have a cigarette; it would have been a natural thing. “Tell it then. Since we are here.”

  “Well, she—my sister—came in the convent just after me. Kathleen was her name at home but Finbar was her name in religion. She never said she had a vocation, you know, but my mother’s burning ambition was to have us all in the convent, she didn’t somehow take to the idea of sons-in-law, and being a grandma and all. At least, that’s what we used to say, we girls, and that she wanted to get in with the priest, and have people pointing at her after Mass on a Sunday, saying, ‘Oh, could you credit that woman’s sacrifice, all her daughters given to religion.’”

  “You had no brother?”

  “No. Or he could have been a priest, and perhaps she might not have been so hot on us. One priest in a family equals three or four nuns. That’s the way they count in Ireland.”

  “So your sister Kathleen entered without a vocation. And it went wrong.”

  “She disgraced herself.” Sister Philomena picked up a fold of her habit and ran it between her fingers. She too wished she had, not a cigarette, but something to occupy her, something to distract her from the moment, the place, the person. “And after she disgraced herself, we got a bad name in the neighbourhood. When I came out in the rash, my mother thought we were going to recoup our fortunes. She was a cleaner, you know, up at the convent, did their shopping for them. I was never away from her a day until I came here. As soon as she noticed it, this thing on my hands, she hauled me off to Father Kinsella, my feet didn’t touch the ground.” She imitated her mother’s ingratiating mode, her semi-genuflection. “‘Look at this, Father, appeared last Friday on Sister Philomena, the very spit and image of the nail marks in the palms of Our Blessed Lord.’”