by Marele Day
‘The chapel,’ Iphigenia announced decisively.
They carried him into the chapel and plopped him down in front of St Anne.
‘Sheep.’
While Margarita started the lamb chant to herd the sheep into the chapel, Iphigenia hid the red glow of fire under a bucket.
‘Carla.’ Iphigenia and Margarita looked frantically around for her. ‘Carla.’
Their call was answered by feet pounding into the courtyard. Carla looked wildly at Iphigenia and Margarita, her finger jabbing the sky. The three scurried into the chapel as if it was an air-raid shelter.
The helicopter was overhead now and very loud. They could feel the floor vibrating. A piece of tile shook loose and dropped, breaking its fall on the head of St Anne. There was a collective gasp and everyone started praying. ‘Deliver us.’
‘Deliver us, oh deliver us,’ prayed Ignatius earnestly.
Every so often the chopper came into view in the circle of sky. The sheep bleated restlessly while the humans, hands together in prayer, watched the machine pass in and out of view.
‘Lord, make it land,’ prayed Ignatius, ‘make it land. Come and have a closer look.’ He could think of plenty of places for it to land, the fields, the courtyard even. Were there signs of life outside? Smoke from the fire, had they seen Carla running, the sheep being rounded up? What a pity there were no brightly coloured hanks of wool hanging out to dry. Ignatius saw it the way it would look from the sky. A circle of brambles, monastery ruins, nothing they wouldn’t have known about already. It would look abandoned, deserted.
Eventually the helicopter stopped appearing through the holes in the roof and soon the sound started to fade. He was shuddering with frustration. Come back, come back. God had offered His hand but Ignatius couldn’t grab hold of it. Just out of reach.
The car! That’s what they’d be looking for! The car wedged in the rocks. ‘Oh please God, let them find the car. Let them land and have a closer look. Let them know I came this far. Make them look for me.’ His eyes were tightly shut now and he was sniffing in gulps of air. He would not let them see him cry, he would not let them see how much he wanted salvation.
It was fainter and fainter. It had descended. They were landing on the beach. They were examining the car. They would see that the car hadn’t simply been abandoned, that things were missing. They would assume he had gone somewhere and start looking for him on foot. First the abandoned houses near the beach, around the rocks. The nuns must have left tracks the night they went out. Even though it had rained, there must be some sign. They would assume he’d made his way to the monastery, they would come back, they would find a way in. That’s what he would do, he would land, he would go over every inch of the place, pull it apart stone by stone looking for himself.
It had been a long time since the helicopter had faded into nothing and still the little gathering remained in the chapel, waiting for the all clear. No-one spoke, even the lambs had stopped bleating, hushed into the atmosphere of silence. The nuns were kneeling in the attitude of prayer and the fishtailed man was propped up against the statue. He looked up at the grandmother of the Lord. If it hadn’t been for her the tile would have hit him on the head. One thing he could be thankful for.
Bang! They all jumped. There was a loud rolling rattle of metal on the flagstones. The sheep ran hither and thither, bumping into each other, while the nuns crossed their hands over their hearts. Ignatius held his breath, hoping against hope that it had something to do with the helicopter.
Iphigenia relaxed, let out a little laugh of relief. ‘Bucket.’ There was a collective expulsion of air, a shifting of weight, an easing of the suspension in the chapel. They waited a bit but all they could hear outside were the birds twittering.
‘Cla …’ A shy cautious attempt. Carla glanced around the chapel then up at the circle of sky. She stood up. ‘Cla …’ She spread out her arms and turned, taking little shuffling steps. ‘Cla … cla … cla … cla … cla …’ Bolder and bolder.
Iphigenia stood at the doorway. All was calm. She went out into the courtyard, lifted her face to the sun and turned around, a slow version of Carla. The intrusion was gone. She checked for strangeness, something they might have left behind, the smell of more men, but all she got was a slight whiff of the fuel that had drifted down. That and the rich heady mixture of fear and relief from the chapel.
They had surrounded themselves with a mist of prayer so that the helicopter wouldn’t find them. It had gone now and they were safe. The Agnes sisters started to file out of the chapel to return to their task of grazing. Iphigenia had not expected a helicopter. If they were to come, she had expected it would be the way he had come—by car. Such an extraordinary sight. Like a big dragonfly.
She had seen a helicopter only once before. The wind of it made the grass go flat. She and Grandmother had been playing cards, Iphigenia fixing up the ones that Grandmother’s wobbling hand was shifting out of place. Grandmother looked through the lace-bordered windows, her head shaking as if already she disapproved. ‘Taylor,’ she commanded, ‘ask him what the blazes he thinks he’s doing.’
‘Yes, Madam,’ said Taylor.
She picked up a card from the pile on the green baize table, knocking the rest of them askew again. It was the card she wanted. ‘Gin rummy,’ she announced, spilling her hand down in front of her.
But Iphigenia had lost interest in the cards and had climbed up on the window seat. A man was coming towards the house. He had a white scarf around his neck, the tail of which hung over his shoulder, and glass eyes on his forehead bulging like a fly’s.
‘What in blazes do you think you’re doing?’ Taylor asked from the portico.
Before Iphigenia’s very eyes a remarkable thing happened. He shed his skin like a snake. Took off his leather jacket and goggly eyes and underneath was a gentleman wearing a dinner jacket and a black bow tie. A little white collar stood up from it. He fished a card out of a pocket. ‘Reginald Ketteridge. Here for Nancy’s bash.’ He showed Taylor the invitation.
‘He’s lost,’ said Grandmother. ‘It’s the Fuller girl’s engagement do. Make tea.’
Taylor brought the gentleman in. At Grandmother’s request, he sat down. Grandmother was at the same time exasperated at his foolishness for getting lost and blasé, as if young men in helicopters dropped in all the time.
‘You’re going to be late,’ she informed him, ‘you had better telephone. Taylor?’
Iphigenia watched Taylor dial the number and inform the Fullers that one of their guests, a lost one, wished to speak to them. The phone was cream and gold and on the dial was a cameo of a lady who turned catherine wheels when you dialled a number. Iphigenia loved the sound the phone made when you replaced the receiver. She did this over and over again, just to hear the ding. Until Taylor warned her off. ‘The telephone is not a toy,’ she said, pushing ‘not’ and ‘toy’ out in front of the other words.
Taylor handed the phone to the gentleman. ‘Reginald Ketteridge,’ he said into it, smoothing his slick hair behind his ear, putting his hand in his pocket, turning his back to carry on the conversation.
Reginald Ketteridge’s helicopter was grey with a red nose. The helicopter that had intruded into the monastery sky was black and shiny, as was the man’s car. Iphigenia wondered if shiny and black were the way of all machinery in the world now.
They wouldn’t find it, the car. It was too far under the water.
And up here? What would they see from the sky? No nuns, no sheep, no smoke. No man. Just brambles and crumbling buildings. Ruins. Rocks and crumbling statues. They were living in ruins, like the seals in the village.
The last lamb bleated out of the chapel then Margarita appeared at the door. It had been an ordeal. She picked up the bucket. Ruined. She walked past Iphigenia without saying a word.
Iphigenia attended to the fire. From a helicopter, the monastery might look like an abandoned ruin but it was their home. This was consecrated ground. She would never let i
t become a holiday resort. Never.
No story, no knitting. They had put him to bed and gone off to huddle. Hubble bubble, toil and trouble, today’s most unusual occurrence was certainly one to stir the cauldron.
Ignatius was done with feeling disappointed, he couldn’t afford to let his spirit fade away. Yes! The world outside the brambles still existed and had come looking for him. If he’d been able to he would have rubbed his hands together with glee. He had to focus on this rather than the fact that they had not found him. They’d see the car. They’d come back with a ground crew. Hope surrounded him like a halo.
He congratulated himself on not shouting out, a reflex action that would have provided immediate relief but remained ultimately futile. At the time he was motivated by pride, despite the anguish he felt at seeing his chance slip away. But now he saw the cunning of it.
‘He behaved as we did,’ argued Iphigenia. Discussion had been a long time absent from their lives, it came slow and without the finesse and eloquence of stories. They were unpractised. There had never been anything to discuss, no ideas, nothing new to deal with. Once they had taken vows their lives were preordained, mapped out before them. Idle chat was an indulgence. It is in contemplative silence that one communes with the Lord.
Sometimes a phrase came out already formed, surprising them, as if it had been there all the time like an old piece of machinery that still worked, just needed a hand to give the wheel a bit of a turn. Other times they groped around, sorting through words as if they were pieces of a puzzle higgledy-piggledy in a box, trying out pieces to see if they fitted.
Margarita was no more astonished by the appearance of the helicopter than she had been by Iphigenia’s first announcement that they had a visitor. Even when the tile dropped on St Anne’s head she was hardly surprised. She had already reached the limit of her astonishment, used it all up. As long as he was here nasty things would happen. The tile wasn’t the only thing. Bits and pieces of their life were dropping down all around them.
‘I told you he would bring others.’ Why weren’t they knitting tonight? Margarita would have liked some knitting to burrow into, one furious stitch after the other.
‘They have come and gone. No harm has been done.’
No harm done? Was Iphigenia blind? Had that cold affected her judgement as well as her smell? The thorn so sharp in Margarita’s side had obviously found a more accommodating home in Iphigenia’s.
‘They did not find him, they will keep looking.’
‘Perhaps, but not here. There are many places he could have got lost on the way. An accident.’
Indeed, an accident. A very good idea.
They were nuns. It was not right for him to be living in their midst, living as one of them. It was not the same as when Carla had come to them. There had been discussion then as well, when Margarita found the bundle on the doorstep. What should they do with the foundling? Though she was a gift from God, was it fitting that she be brought up in the harsh monastic life? They prayed over her, they discussed it. And they decided to keep her till someone came to claim her. It wasn’t till this decision was made and they unwrapped her from her swaddling that they found the webs between her tiny toes. No-one would be coming to claim the child. There were legends on the island about selkies, about the wild dark mer people, with hair like trailing seaweed. Better that she wear the Church around her neck like an amulet.
It was one thing to take in a little baby, it was another to take in a grown man. The candles burnt steadily. An insect landed and hissed in the wax. Iphigenia saw the fact that he didn’t signal his presence to the helicopter as proof that they were persuading him. Margarita thought he was more cunning than that. Iphigenia wanted to give him back his legs.
‘If you give him legs he will run,’ said Margarita.
‘We must trust in the Lord.’
They had trusted in the Lord before. He had not prevented him from trying to escape. On her watch.
‘But He did prevent him from succeeding.’
Margarita sat staring at the shadows cast by the candles.
‘Caritas,’ Iphigenia appealed in her softest voice. Iphigenia had not been all that keen on putting him into a cast yet she saw the necessity of properly securing him. It had been Margarita’s idea to use the plaster. They had got plaster, amongst other supplies, after the bonesetter incident. Even after all this time and dear Assumpta long dead, Iphigenia still carried the burden of her sister’s limp.
‘Let us not pass judgement. The time it takes to make him a garment. Give him this. A garment of our design, with his hair knitted into it. A garment to make him ours. If he has caused no trouble by the time the garment is ready, we give him back his legs.’
‘And if he causes trouble?’
Iphigenia demurred, the bow of her head almost imperceptible. Then it would be Margarita who could decide.
He woke with a start. There was a thickness in the darkness around his bed.
‘What do you want?’ he demanded, trying to keep the intrusion at bay till he shook the remaining sleep off him and assessed the situation. His heart was thumping and he could feel his forehead crawling with sweat. She was here again. The darkness remained impassive.
‘Soon,’ she said. ‘Soon the bandages will come off.’
She offered this news and waited for him to take it. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he could see the silhouette of her, like an outcrop of rock he remembered from a childhood holiday. The family had rented a lonely cottage on a headland. Nearby, standing stones jutted out of the sea. They were called the Apostles or the Disciples, he couldn’t remember which. But he remembered being woken by the wind knocking against the window and when he had gathered up the courage to investigate he saw a sight he was not prepared for. The Apostles had come to life, silhouetted against the fast-moving sea, backed by moonlight, casting vast shadows. It was as if he had seen something he shouldn’t have seen. And now he knew why his parents hushed him at night and told him to go to sleep. Because the night belonged to other creatures.
It was Iphigenia who stood at the window, the slice of moon casting her long shadow over him. ‘Soon?’ he repeated. A little hope, a little enquiry for more information, wary of showing a surfeit that might reverse the decision. Because obviously a decision had been made.
‘When the garment is finished.’
‘A day or so? A week?’ he suggested.
She stood implacably by the window.
‘When the garment is finished,’ she repeated.
There was a suspension, as if she was about to say something else, a holding of breath in her throat. He heard it release and she seemed to deflate. She eased herself out of the room, the darkness rolling in like fog to fill the space she’d left behind.
Doing and undoing. Penelope and her embroidery. The work of the day undone at night. Margarita had agreed with her voice but not with her heart. That would take longer. It was not so bad during the day, she had chores, communal prayers to keep her mind occupied. The Light filled the courtyard. But at night. Margarita held the Bible to her, afraid to extinguish the candle. The Beast lurked. She had conjured him up but she could not make him disappear. He was there in the darkness, thickening, taking on substance.
The Holy Bible. She would like to wrap herself in it, for its words to become her flesh. To feel their strength, their solace. Eternal and unchanging.
Caritas. Margarita held the candle up closer, turning the page to the sombre light. ‘Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. Doth not behave unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil. And now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.’
She would try. Given enough time he would reveal his true nature. Then Iphigenia would see that some beasts do not turn into men and an accident is the only way.
‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they
be red like crimson, they shall be as wool … if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it … Ah, I will ease me of my adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies … And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord shall be consumed.’
Margarita lay with her hand on Isaiah, the candle lighting but a small circle in the musty darkness. It was hard to stay vigilant every night, she could feel herself descending into sleep. A dark plain spread out in front of her, a desert with the distant bumps of sand dunes. She descended further, warm and drowsy. A rider appeared, a shifting spot before her eyes, closer and closer he came like a ball of wind. She could smell the blistering sand flurrying up from his steed. She was not afraid, she would sink deeper into the sand and avoid the hooves as he rode over her. The further she sank, the hotter it got.
Margarita’s eyes sprang open as she smelled it and felt it. The candle was overturned, the Bible burning. Instinctively she brought her hand down on it, sending smoke and black papery ash into the air. She coughed and spluttered, righted the candle. It was still alight.
When she had recovered she inspected the damage. There was a circle burnt in the middle of one page. The page underneath was scorched but the words were still there. Only the passage about vengeance had been burnt away. This verily was a sign from God. A sign that vengeance would blacken her soul if she fed the flame.
Despite the flare of danger, despite the fact that the bed could have become her funeral pyre, Margarita felt relieved. The Lord had shown her the way. Even though vengeance might flare up inside her she must be charitable, she must be like St Joan and endure the flame, let the Lord lift her spirit out of it. If she was to be the sword of the Lord she was to be the sword of Christian love and charity, a sword tempered by the fire of vengeance.
She would spend the rest of the night prostrate on the floor, hardening her resolve. Margarita’s eyes burnt brightly in her face, her cheeks flushed. She felt the striving for purity, for tempering the body into a vessel of goodness that she had felt as a young nun. She prostrated herself. She repeated and repeated the words of charity, humbled herself before the Lord.