A Day and a Life

by Penelope Wilcock

  Chapter

  Twenty-Two

  After Vespers, there’s this space before it’s time to gather for Collatio and then into Compline. Not long. The professed brothers will gather in the calefactory, or maybe go for a stroll in these warmer months of the year. It’s a beautiful evening.

  There’s a fireplace in the novitiate. The teaching circle of benches and low stools is broken up as the young men take them to gather round the hearth.

  Colin usually looks forward to this convivial hour among his new friends before it’s time to go down to the cloister. But not tonight. Vivid impressions and pictures from the day move around inside him like rustling forest creatures, glimpsed and lost. This day… he feels like a man who put his hand unthinking on a mound in the grass he hadn’t looked at properly, only to feel it furry and breathing, warm to his touch. With a heartbeat. This day has overflowed with life. Music. Faces. Voices. Beauty. Mystery. Kindness. The curious individuality of men, in their human struggle to bring forth a faithful life.

  So instead of heading inside to find the others, after Vespers he wanders slowly along the cloister to find some solitary peace. He walks the length of the west range, past the refectory, the little parlour, and the abbot’s house which wraps round to form part of the south range under the dorter. Where the south range meets the east range an archway opens out towards the river. As he strolls that way, alongside the kitchen garden and the orchard, Colin wonders why on earth the past monks who built the abbey sited the refectory in the west range instead of the south. It ought to be handy for the kitchen buildings that jut out from the east range. They shouldn’t have to trundle things back and forth as they do; it’s a daily inconvenience. That’s seriously bad planning, he thinks. He wonders if, in the old days, in the abbey’s beginning, that storage room in the east range just off the kitchen might have been the original refectory. The big room next to the buttery. Probably – it has a nice arched ceiling and very lofty windows. Perhaps they moved it when numbers grew. If you’re going to have lots of men, why not make things as awkward as you possibly can? Good for them. So what’s now the frater used to be… what? Not the library. Nobody in their right mind would leave books so accessible to people drifting through, just off the abbey court like that. Anyway, the library in its present location, upstairs, has the air of establishment; the shelves are old, the nails in the wall well rusted. He tucks it away as something to ask the novice master in the morning.

  He decides not to go to the left, beside the riverbank up towards the spinney and the burial ground, the farm and the moorland above, because that’s a favourite walk for many of the brothers, and this evening he wants to be on his own. So he turns to walk along the path by the huge storage rooms, built like caves into the side of the hill as the land slopes down the valley flank to the river. Part buried, each having only one big window facing the river, they stay cool – and in some cases usefully damp – even on this south-facing side of the square. The sun serves to keep most of them tolerably dried out. It works well.

  The path snakes on into the birch grove at the back of the abbot’s house. These trees are so graceful, incarnating inspiration and peace in their whispering, leafy, arising height. He notices, somewhat to his annoyance because he craves solitude, a brother sitting on the low bench there under the tree. Then he stops short as he realizes it’s the abbot, and now it suddenly occurs to him that here, right behind his house, is probably where Father John seeks refuge and takes much needed time to be alone. In fact it’s quite possible this could be a place hardly anyone goes, in tacit agreement that their abbot should be allowed a bit of privacy. He would have turned right round and walked away if it hadn’t been that the abbot has seen him, lifted his hand in a friendly wave. So now he doesn’t know what to do. Walk past? Go back? Speak to him? They’re not in silence yet.

  Accepting that it would on balance look very rude to turn on his heel and head in the opposite direction, Colin decides the best thing to do is greet him and be honest about not having known this to be private space.

  The simple humility of the cellarer’s apology is still sending ripples from the centre of his being to its periphery and back, but obviously “I’m sorry, John” would be most impertinent coming from a postulant. So, as he comes near, he settles for a humble “I’m sorry, Father” by way of greeting.

  “What? Why?” says his abbot.

  “I hadn’t the wit to see this patch of land at the back of your house is for your private use. I didn’t mean to blunder in and disturb you.”

  His abbot smiles. The serious face, verging on stern much of the time, is warmed and illumined by kindness that seems to emerge and envelop Colin like a hug.

  “Don’t you worry,” he says. “Think nothing of it.” From which Colin correctly infers that he was right, and he shouldn’t have strayed along into this grove. “There’s no private property here. Come and sit down.”

  Colin hasn’t been long in this monastic community, but it has been early made clear to him that when the abbot suggests, or invites, you don’t say no. It’s a command. He’s just putting it courteously.

  Father John shifts along from the middle of the bench to make enough room for him to be comfortable. “You look pensive,” he says. “Everything all right?”

  “Oh, yes, Father – it’s just been one of those days when I’ve seen so much and learned and felt so much, taken such a lot on board, that I thought my head would burst. I think, in truth, this has been a turning point for me – making up my mind that this is the right place for me. This is where I want to be.”

  He glances shyly at the abbot for his reaction, and is encouraged to see the evident gladness his words have brought.

  “That’s good to hear,” Abbot John says quietly. “I won’t say more than that, because you must have space to change your mind if you think differently later. But – well, it brings me joy.”

  “What…” Colin plucks up courage to ask: “What were you thinking about?”

  “Me?” The abbot gazes out through the trees with their beautiful dappling light to where the low sun reflects golden on the river. “Well, oddly enough, I was thinking about my own first weeks and months in our community. When I was a novice and, before that, a postulant. The things I liked, and what I found hard to adjust to. We – I came here before the time of Father Peregrine – we had Father Gregory of the Resurrection for our abbot then; a sensible, practical man. Very sane. I was thinking back to a conversation I had with him. Something I didn’t get on with at all in the early days was all the ritual and ceremony. I mean, I was used to the Mass of course, like everybody, so I expected to bow and genuflect and make the sign of the cross and all of that. But I didn’t get on so well with there being a correct way of doing every blessed thing – a form of words, a prescribed action, when you could, when you couldn’t, what you had to… I felt as though I’d been caught and caged, a wild animal used to ranging the moor and the forest, prodded and schooled into performing a whole lot of tricks. And I said as much to Father Gregory.

  “He listened patiently, God bless him. I think I might have been very rude in the way I expressed myself, but he didn’t chide me. He just listened, and commented in that mild, vague way he had, that if I liked I could try to see all these things we did as reminders. Useful, like notes to myself that I didn’t have to bother carting around and sorting through, because the life did the reminding for me. He said there’s only one trick really, and that’s getting the knack of seeing more deeply into the meaning of all the little things we do. Like learning to say ‘our book’ and ‘our spoon’, instead of ‘mine’ – it’s to remind us we are vowed to own nothing. That we have chosen simplicity, holy poverty. And then we can look deeper again, to remember that we belong to Christ; we are his property and at his disposal. We do not own because we are owned. And he said there is more peace in that than hardship; it is such a blessing and a relief to put everything down – all the cares of the world, all the troubles – and
find rest in Christ, the one to whom we belong.

  “He said the bowing, the kneeling, is for remembering humility – and is not that the most beautiful thing in the world? And the forms of address – Father, Brother – they are to comfort us with the reminder that this is our family. We have made a commitment to one another. This is no mere acquaintanceship or passing encounter. We have made one another our kin. Oh, and so much else he said, Colin. But for fear of boring you and because I haven’t forgotten you came down here seeking solitude, only to find me drivelling on about how things were In My Day, I think I’d better stop. I guess the main thing he meant was that I, by nature impatient and all too inclined to be dismissive, would do well to learn to look more deeply before I tossed aside treasure I hadn’t understood. And that’s a lesson I’ve gone on learning – oh my, is it not!”

  They sit in silence then. Colin wonders what he’s supposed to do now. Should he go? Must he wait to be dismissed? A small, whirling cloud of midges catches his eye, the dance of their tiny wings reflecting the sun in sparks of gold over the river shallows just beyond the trees.

  Time passes, and the abbot does not speak. As they sit there in quietness, Colin thinks how unusual this is. People generally feel obliged to make conversation. Silence is normally something awkward, prompting jests and adages and nervous laughter. But his abbot just lets it be. In his company, the peace he had hoped to find in solitude begins to seep into Colin’s soul. As the sun dips low – crimson, vermilion, lilac, blue-green – the light fades from the day and the shadows intensify, he becomes aware in the cooling air of the human body warmth of the man sitting so close beside him. Sitting there together, the postulant has a sense of getting to know him – becoming acquainted with the colour… flavour… quality… of his soul. In the quiet dusk it emanates from him as distinctly as the aroma of an animal. Personality. Human being. And then the sun slips below the horizon and here beneath the trees chill shadows gather. In peaceful resonance, clear, measured, sonorous, the bell begins to ring.

  “Oh! Rats!” The abbot sits forward, then jumps to his feet. “I must just run across to the gatehouse and have a word with Brother Martin; tell him not to – er – see you later, Colin – good to have a moment to talk.”

  And before the postulant has the chance to stand up as he should when his superior rises, and bow and do everything properly the way he’s been taught, with a flurry of robes and a stride that almost breaks into a run, the abbot is gone.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Three

  The sun slides low in the west, bathing in a sky of vermilion, turquoise, gold, and dusky lavender. Time inches down into shadow. Mystery lengthens beneath the trees and gathers in the corners of the yard at Caldbeck, between the barn and the goatshed, between the stable and the house, in the well with its coolness and silence, under the henhouse. Rooks call from tall branches, and every now and then the voice of a sheep carries across the valley, and is answered by another. Crickets sing, still, in the grass.

  Having seen his guests on their way, William turns his attention to the evening chores, alone with his thoughts. He prefers it that way. If Madeleine helps him, he has to choose between getting the jobs done methodically, nothing overlooked, and remembering the courtesies that maintain domestic harmony. He loves his wife and is glad of the life he has chosen; Caldbeck feels like home now, like a protective fleece drawn close about him against the uncompromising, difficult realities of life – the people and places he must avoid, the background pulse of threat and hostility. Much of his own making, he acknowledges freely, but it chafes his soul raw at times.

  The fox will be about before sundown, stealthily opportunistic – much like himself, thinks William. So the hens must be shut in first. He checks. Yes, they are roosting; numbers up to six again. They lost all but two to the fox at the end of the winter, but neighbours have been willing to trade pullets for butter and cheese – not fruit, they had plenty of their own. So now there are six, brown and white and speckled, eyes drowsing, combs flopping, heads tucked down into fluffed feathers, in the gloom of the roost. He closes and bolts the door, and the little pop-hole door for their own use.

  He fetches from the scullery a can for goat’s milk, a larger pail for cow’s milk, and a washing pail and cloth. In the quiet of evening the turning of the handle, to draw up water from the well, rattles loud.

  Fetching in the goat is a patient, tedious business. She thinks it’s a game. Happily she’s also greedy, and the lure of oats shaken in her basin proves irresistible. Every evening he does this – taking the bowl into the furthest corner of her well-strawed stall, pretending to be entirely absorbed with some detail of the hay net until curiosity overcomes her and she approaches closer… closer… to look, while he ignores her. Finally, as her slotted eyes are peering past him and her pink nose is right against his hip, quick as lightning he grabs her collar. Some evenings she is even faster and makes a break for freedom so that he has to start all over again; but tonight he is successful, and glad of that because he’s tired.

  One hand holding her collar, the other holding the bowl of oats out of reach, he leads her to the milking stand. She hops up, twisting round to see the oats; he fastens her securely, gives the clean, pink udder a cursory wipe with the cloth, and lets her have the supper she’s waiting for.

  She knows him well, and lets her milk down easy for him; it flows plentifully into the can, not far from the top once she’s all stripped out. He leaves her tied up while he takes the can into the scullery; he’s lost too many pots of milk letting the goat get down first.

  Then he comes back and unties her, settles her into her stall, sees to it she has hay and water for the night, scratches her bony forehead in the place she likes, pats her neck, crooning to her the endearments that make a goat happy.

  He shuts her in until the morning and goes in search of their cow. This is a beast with a sense of humour. He knows what will happen; it’s a new trick she has.

  She’ll be waiting for him out on the common, and come towards him as he goes to meet her, calling. He’ll begin to drive her homeward, leisurely along the track, watching the stolid planting of her cloven hooves spreading under her impressive weight, marvelling at the dainty grace of her ankles, enjoying the sway of her belly and the rhythm of her walk. And then, at a particular point along the path, she’ll dance sideways, cantering wildly down the bank, udder swinging, head tossing. What is she like, this cow? He has to follow her down, call her again, until at last she’s had enough of it, consenting as the shadows lengthen and the air breathes a chill, to come into the cowshed and her milking stall.

  He never ties her. She munches on the grain and the gathered comfrey he has for her, while he sits, head pressed in the hollow between her round belly and her sloping flank, squatting on the low milking stool, giving himself to the firmer, pulling rhythm of milking a cow. She, too, has established a bond with him, and her milk flows comfortably at his touch. He sets about it, giving her no time to get bored. If it takes too long, she’ll just plant one foot firmly in the pail, swing about and walk off. He really doesn’t know why he never bothers to tie her, racing against her boredom to finish up; that’s just how it is.

  And then, the milking done, the two pails left in the scullery where Madeleine will strain the milk through a cheesecloth into clean bowls for the cream to rise, he goes to find a heel of bread, tears it into a bowl and adds a slop of milk, then goes back outside. He closes the house door behind him, and sets out in the dusk to walk the bounds of their homestead, check all is well, and set his little supper out for the vixen.

  As he saunters quietly through the gathering dusk, he thinks of the day gone, wonders if Brother Tom and Brother Cedd are nearly home, and what reception the novice will find with his abbot. Go gently with him, John, he thinks; God knows, we’re all confused, all lose our way.

  He revisits his own conversation with Brother Cedd in the apple loft, and feels ashamed he couldn’t do it any better; that he has s
o little warmth, such a horror of personal involvement. He didn’t like the mention of his helpless tears, didn’t want to have to recall those times of such strain and turmoil. He wonders what life will hold for Brother Cedd, knotted up inside and hungry for affirmation – afflictions of youth.

  He thinks of his own life, so many years using the monastic system to obtain some measure of sanctuary and peace after a rocky beginning to his years on earth. Why did God do that? he wonders. What possible good purpose could there be in it, for him or for me, to put me through a childhood of such unremitting wretched misery? What was it for? Then he wonders if perhaps it had no design to it at all, it just fell out that way, for him to make the best of it he could, crawl out of it into the lap of grace.

  He pauses, looking up the wooded hillside at the now black silhouette of the treetops against the last light in the west. The evening star is shining, very bright.

  He thinks about the contrasts in his life, and admits the truth of it, that he began this marriage too old; he will always be a monk who got married, neither one thing nor another. Not that he ever was; for he never felt any kind of call before he fell in love. Perhaps he was born to belong nowhere, to be neither one kind of man nor another, just a feral soul set loose on earth as isolated and separate as that star.

  And now he wonders what happens when you die. He sifts through the teaching of the church that has saints organized into serried ranks wearing crowns and white robes, shouting hosanna in a glittering city where night never falls and the praise never ends and nobody falls asleep any more. Where the relief of tears and the comfort of making love, the smell of night-scented stocks and the peace of watching the stars through the window as you fall asleep, is all over. Only the loud hosannas and the crystal city, or the exquisite inescapable agony of endless fire.