A Day and a Life

by Penelope Wilcock

  Our Lady is well used to the fantastical confections of Brother Conradus’s prayers. She can read between the lines. She gets the gist.

  As he kneads the bread – stretching, pummelling, rhythmic – as he spreads oil on the lump of dough, covers it with a damp cloth, and sets it in a bowl to rise, all the while Brother Conradus does as he promised, holding before the blessed Mother of God, so fervently it cannot possibly escape the attention of her kindness, this lost sheep of the house of St Alcuin.

  The plaster image is not the Mother of God. Of course it isn’t; Brother Conradus grasps that for himself with no difficulty at all. He knows that all earthly things – even this place that he loves, even his own body, even the holy bread of the Eucharist and the beauty of the Yorkshire hills as they cup the light – are no more than what is passing and must be left behind. But he knows, too, that beyond and somehow within these familiarities of his life – the flour on his apron, the breath in his nostrils, the scent of woodsmoke, and the faded blue of Our Lady of Good Counsel’s veil – lies the ineffable mystery of redeeming love. It is worked into his life as inextricably as ale-barm into his rising dough. And that’s why he directs his prayers through a plaster statue. They are aimed at what she is, not what she isn’t; not at a painted saint, but a love that never gives up on us, never abandons us, never turns its back.

  He washes his hands. He takes off his apron and hangs it up tidily on the nail. “Ave Maria,” he murmurs as the bell for None begins to ring, and he heads off along the cloister towards the chapel, “gratia plena, Dominus tecum…”

  The tinctures all done – cooled, strained, bottled, sealed – and Brother Michael’s poultice herbs delivered to the infirmary, Brother Walafrid and Brother Giles start the next job. This week Brother Mark has taken the second harvest of honey, and brought them the wax to make a new lot of candles; very welcome – the cost of purchasing them would be steep indeed.

  It’s a slow process. They don’t have so very much wax that they can heat it in a big trough, suspending the wicks from huge, rectangular paddles. The amount of wax would go down in the trough too early, leaving insufficient depth for the outer coats. So they content themselves with the two tall cylindrical pots they have, using a round dipping paddle that can take six wicks at a time. The wicks are made of braided linen threads – three, or more if the thread’s unusually thin. Brother Giles cuts the resulting string to twice the length they want, plus an inch or so each side to allow for spacing and to attach the initial weights. Then he loops each length through two holes in the dipping paddle. They start with the church candles while the pot is full of wax, because those have to be tall. As the amount of wax in the pot goes down they use shorter lengths, making candles for men’s cells and for the lanterns.

  Every time they do this (really every time – Brother Giles has begun to find it more than tedious), Brother Walafrid comments on how much pleasanter and easier it is working with beeswax like this, instead of the tallow he had to make do with before he entered monastic life. Brother Giles could tell you, because he knows it all by heart, that when Brother Walafrid was a lad, for a start he had only wool to use for wicks, because that’s what his mother used to spin; they didn’t have any linen. And you had to let the tallow cool to just the right temperature with every dip, or the whole candle would slip straight off the wool as the layers built up, and you’d have to drop it back in the pot, let it melt, and begin all over again. Besides all that, of course it had to be rendered down with pot ash at least three times, and therefore strained through a cloth even more times than that, or it wouldn’t harden sufficiently to set into anything you could use.

  Oh, beeswax is a whole different proposition from tallow. It smells heavenly (as opposed to vile), it hardens fast, and adheres more evenly, which makes for a better burn.

  Once the wicks are looped into the paddle, the little iron weights they keep for the purpose tied to the ends of each length, and the wax is fully melted, they begin the dipping. They have several paddles, and after every dipping they set each laden paddle into a rack with a drip-tray beneath, while it cools. Then they dip it again until the candles reach the dimension the monks want. At some point about halfway through, once the candles are heavy enough to hang down straight, they cut free the weights to prevent them being incorporated into the candles.

  This is painstaking work, the more exacting because it does require vigilance – to get the work completed, the dips must be sufficiently frequent, but to get a good result, the thickening candles must be adequately hardened before each dip. That takes about a decade of the rosary.

  The apertures for the linen thread in the dip paddles have slits extending from them clear through the edge, so each pair of candles can be eased off and hung as a pair over a rail when the job is done. This is the best way to store them; hanging there keeps them straight.

  It’s a hot job in a closed workshop on a warm day. The embers no more than glow beneath the grille on which the open pots of wax stand; even so, working in a room with a fire and several pots of hot wax brings out a fine sweat on a man in a woollen habit, even if he has got his sleeves rolled up and his skirts kilted as high as decency permits.

  It’s a pleasing piece of work, for all that; and nobody gazes more appreciatively on the tall, slender candles burning on the altar at Mass, or in the choir lanterns at Vespers and Compline, than Brother Giles and Brother Walafrid, who made them.

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  William sends Cedd in the direction of the orchard with the ladder, then turns back to the storeroom. Tom follows him in, looking appreciatively at the orderly arrangement of well-maintained tools and implements. He asks quietly, “Why has Brother Cedd come to you?”

  William glances over his shoulder at him. “I haven’t asked. He turned up here not long before you did. He looked agitated and distressed. I thought I’d feed him and give him a chance to calm down before I started my inquisition. I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on it yourself.”

  Tom takes the baskets, as William hands them to him, saying, “I’ll bring the pitchfork as well as the rake. I think we might need them to pull down the high branches. I’d rather not shake the trees – it’s a lazy way to carry on, it bruises the fruit. Don’t worry, we’ll find out what’s gone awry with your novice before you have to go home. All being well you can take him back with you. But let’s approach it gently.”

  They stroll down to the orchard, where Cedd is waiting for them, having carefully and sensibly set the ladder at a good angle from the tree, so positioned that it won’t rock. The quick, appraising glances from both Tom and William do not escape him, and he sees they’re satisfied.

  “Do you want me to have a go at mending that scythe? One ladder, one rake – this doesn’t need three of us, does it?” Tom looks enquiringly at William.

  “Aye – good sense. Are you all right to start up the tree, Brother Cedd? Shin up and I’ll pass you a basket. There. Just give me a moment while I show Brother Thomas where I keep the things he’ll need – I’ll be back before you know it.”

  Once they have two big baskets of apples, William suggests they take them up to set out in the loft. “If we tumble them out here, they’ll bruise, they’ll pick up insects. Let’s take them straight up and start again. A bit laborious – I’m sorry. My fault – we should have more than two baskets. But generally it’s just me or Madeleine, and it seems enough.”

  They climb up into the spacious loft over the barn, filled with shelving to store the fruit through the winter. Trays slide out of the racks to fill with apples. “Over here,” says William. “These are good keepers. We have to store like with like or we’ll get in a muddle. You know not to let them touch one another? Of course you do. The aroma of the apples up here is wonderful, don’t you think?”

  Then, as they place the fruit with care onto the racks, William asks casually, “Why have you come to us here, Brother Cedd? Did you want my help?”

  Th
e novice doesn’t answer immediately. William waits. He can sense – smell – the boy’s nervousness.

  “If I’m honest…” He stops. William says nothing. He knows being honest sometimes has to travel up from a very deep place. “It was… there were… I thought you would understand, because more than once while you were with us at St Alcuin’s, across the choir I saw you sitting with your eyes closed, tears rolling down your face.”

  William digests this information. “Aye,” he says drily, feeling the lad hoping for some encouragement. “You probably did. As to understanding, you can try me. I’m not renowned for sympathy, neither for kindness. But I’m willing to listen. What’s the trouble?”

  “Well…” (Look what you’re doing with those apples, William thinks, but he says nothing.) “I so desperately want to be a monk. Since I was a child, it’s all I’ve dreamed of – all I’ve thought of. To lead a holy life. To please God. And St Alcuin’s is everything I imagined, everything I wanted. It should be a dream come true. But I suppose I never put the two together – the place and me. I knew what I wanted, and I used to come up to the abbey to Mass sometimes; so I watched the brothers and I talked to some of them. They’re much as I expected. But I feel… so awful.”

  William has finished setting out the apples in his basket. He takes Cedd’s basket out of his unresisting hands and continues with those. “Because?” he says.

  “Oh, basically, I’m so stupid. I don’t know much and I’m not clever. I’m not very quick to catch on and I’m not witty. I don’t pick up hints – I’m slow to notice when somebody needs something passing or doing. I’m not popular; I have no accomplishments and I can’t make people laugh.”

  No, I can imagine, thinks William as he listens to the pathos in the young man’s dismal tone. Having finished setting out the apples he places the baskets by the hatch in the floor. He leans against the crossbeam, his arms folded.

  “Have you heard of Francis of Assisi?” he asks. “Italy. The preacher. Started an order of mendicant friars.”

  “Yes.” Brother Cedd nods, though he doesn’t look very interested. His thoughts are turned inward.

  “Well, according to Francis, we must bear patiently not being good and not being thought good. I think that’s how a holy man says, ‘Grow up and get used to it.’”

  Cedd raises his bent head to look at William. He looks close to tears, and beneath the physical exterior, William sees the lad’s soul flinch. Something in the novice’s face reminds him of himself a very long time ago, needing refuge and compassion, finding neither.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I told you sympathy isn’t my strong point. So… forgive me, I still don’t really see what the problem is. You wanted to be a monk, now you are; the community is all you hoped. You’re neither a scholar nor a wit, but no one’s complained. So…?”

  “I feel such a failure,” the boy whispers, wretched. “I have nothing to offer, no contribution to make. I can’t make any kind of difference. I might as well not be alive – in all truth, I’m not really sure why I am. I feel so disappointed in myself.”

  “Insignificant?” says William, and the lad nods. “Unexceptional?” And he nods again.

  “That’ll save you a lifetime’s struggle and anguish, then; because that’s what you’re meant to be. Humilis – lowly and humble and of no account. Now, if you were a gifted poet or theologian, if you were everybody’s darling and overflowing with talent, think how hard it would be to achieve humility.”

  Somehow, this isn’t going as Brother Cedd imagined. “I do know that it’s good to be humble,” he says: “that I should seek the lowest place.” (Perhaps you’ve found it, thinks William, but decides the novice wouldn’t find that funny.) “But even so, I still want… still need –”

  “Constant reassurance? Aye, don’t we all.”

  Brother Cedd looks hurt. “It’s not that I want to be special,” he protests, but William comes back at him: “No? Are you sure? Then what’s the problem?”

  “I feel so full of shame at the person I am. Such a failure. And I thought you’d understand.”

  “Thanks!” says William, realizing too late that there is no point of entry corresponding to his sardonic sense of humour in this young man’s soul. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That was meant to make you laugh. Never mind. All right, here it is, then. For sure I understand. I know exactly what it feels like to be a nobody, an object of disdain. I know what incompetence feels like and I have a lifetime’s experience of shame. When I said about Friar Francis, it’s because his words comforted me, struck a chord with me, since I know all about not being good and not being thought good, and bearing it patiently, because what other options are there? Brother Cedd – friend – that’s just life. It’s mostly a matter of sawing logs and chopping kindling, fetching water and stirring porridge, mowing grass and spinning wool and kneading dough, mending fences and clearing ditches, cooking meals, eating them and washing up. You have to find something beautiful in it or you’ll go crazy. I think being starved and incessantly abused and beaten when I was a child helped me see those things in a cheerier light. They look less dreary and mundane when they represent safe haven, some kind of refuge from the storm. Maybe – perhaps you just have to stop worrying about how you’re doing, and get on with life? They let you join, they let you stay; that might have to be enough.

  “I do wonder, though… your novice master – I’ll wager he’s said to you at some point, if you think something’s missing from the community, see if you can put it there yourself.”

  He lifts his eyebrows enquiringly, and Brother Cedd affirms it. “Yes. Father Theodore often says that.”

  “So – could you try that? Seems to me what you’re hungry for is someone to say ‘Well done, lad. That was a good idea, that was a nice piece of work, that was sung well, you’re doing grand.’ Yes?”

  “You make me sound self-absorbed and childish,” mutters the novice.

  Aye, you are, thinks William, but he continues: “Might you assume other people feel exactly the same? Might you take on the task of putting into the community the affirmation and reassurance you wish was there? And could that become your contribution?”

  This is greeted with silence. Then, “I wasn’t sure I’d be going back,” mumbles Brother Cedd. “And even if I wanted to, they might not want me now.”

  “What? Didn’t you just tell me, the thing you always longed for was the life of a monk? Why would you not go back? As to them wanting you, so far as I can tell, you’re missing something. This life you’ve embarked on – it’s not about you, nor even about the community. If you think it’s either of those you’ll be disappointed every day of your life, because living up to expectations is what no human ever has done since God made Adam. The point of a holy life – well, no, forget about being holy – the point of any life is to encounter Jesus Christ, to walk with him as a friend, to open your heart up for him to dwell in. You… you just ask him.”

  The novice looks at him, curious, at a loss. “What do you mean?” he says.

  “You ask. You speak to him – to Jesus. To heal your soul, to bring his peace and healing. To do whatever he wants really; just to come to you. If you want that, you have to ask.”

  Brother Cedd looks intrigued and puzzled. “Speak directly to him, you mean? To Jesus? Not a canticle of praise, but like I’m speaking to you?”

  “Aye. That’s exactly what I mean.”

  Cedd turns this unfamiliar proposition over in silence. Then, “It sounds as if it should be something quite ordinary, a little thing, the way you put it,” he says: “but when I think about it, I feel shy to do it. Can you – will you ask him for me?”

  “Me? No! I think – it’s a thing you have to do for yourself.”

  “But I don’t know how to. I don’t know the words you have to say. I don’t know the prayer.”

  “No – look, Cedd – you’re not getting the hang of this. You have it all wrong. Perhaps I didn’t explain it properly. This thing,
well, there’s no liturgy for it. It isn’t a formula. It’s just straightforward – you just make your heart open, and invite him in. And then you walk with him. It’s not about saying prayers – not even if you’re a monk and you have to be in chapel seven times a day – it’s about a life that prays. I don’t know – maybe like a daisy open to the sun, turned towards the light. No, sorry, that’s not very good; I don’t suppose you aspire to be like a daisy. Anyway, you just do it. That’s all there is to it.”

  “And you think, if I ask him, if I invite him like you said, he’ll help me not to feel such a failure – not to feel so worthless and ashamed?”

  William hesitates. Life, he knows, can be as littered with hollow promises and shattered dreams as a garden, where blackbirds and missel thrushes nest, is littered with empty snail shells. A graveyard of sorts.

  “I have no idea what he’ll do,” he says. “He’s not at my beck and call.”

  “But… would you do it for me?” the lad begs. “Would you say the prayer? And I’ll say Amen at the end.”

  To the depths of his soul William wishes he hadn’t got into this. The prospect of making so intimate and personal a prayer – aloud – in the presence of another, makes him squirm. Say your own blessed prayers. Right now, he thinks he might actually hate this boy. But, “All right,” he says. Without giving himself further time to think, without kneeling or straightening up from slouching against the wall, without even unfolding his arms, he shuts his eyes.