Lambs of God

by Marele Day

  ‘This is where I first saw you,’ she said, taking him to the spot in the brambles. ‘Down on all fours,’ she added, wondering if she reminded him, whether he’d do it again. ‘You said damn,’ she told him, whispering the word. But he wanted to move on. She told him the story of his stay at the monastery, took him to every place he had left a trace, showed him where he’d first put the battery, the hollow he had fallen in, the holding pen, everything.

  They sat down in the grass, the sun catching all the different patterns in his cassock. Carla named all the stitches, taking him on a journey around the garment as she’d taken him around the monastery. ‘Purl and plain, feather and fan, moss, honeycomb, hunter’s stitch, chevron, sand stitch, caterpillar, basket, embossed leaf, swarm, starfish, bobble, chalice, tassel, chain, eye of partridge, horizontal bat, plaited cord, knotted, St John’s wort, snaky cable. And fisherman’s rib,’ she said finally.

  She offered to show him how to do them all but he said he was feeling a bit tired and might go and lie down. Of his own accord, in the middle of the afternoon.

  Before he left, Ignatius had to make one more phone call. The call to let the Bishop know he was coming back, to let him know it was time to put the fatted calf on to cook.

  But what was to be a simple announcement became much more complicated. Now that he had had time to reflect, the Bishop had more probing questions for his secretary, questions that Iphigenia couldn’t always pre-empt. Why hadn’t he been taken to a hospital? What was the exact location of the accident? Had it been reported? More ominously, the Bishop had phoned Ignatius’ sister to find out when she’d be driving him back. ‘She seems not to have heard from you, Father.’

  Ignatius gulped. ‘Yes, well, I did try to phone. She must have been doing the shopping.’ Ignatius was certain that the Bishop thought he was up to no good. He closed his eyes, dreading the thought of them all sipping port and joking about him the way they’d joked about Brother Terry.

  ‘Does someone else have access to the phone?’ asked the Bishop.

  No. Yes. What should he say?

  ‘A bill has come in. A call has been made from the mobile. Dominic has been very thorough. He rang the number but nobody knew you.’

  The thing he had hoped for, the thought he had savoured on the other side of Easter had come to pass. Only now it was the last thing Ignatius wanted.

  A call? One? The one she dialled in his room? ‘Perhaps the child of the family,’ Ignatius invented. He had to get back and intercept the next bill, the one that would show calls made to the Featheringale Trust people. Dominic would be sure to check. Trying to ingratiate himself with the Bishop, take over Ignatius’ job.

  He steered the Bishop away from the phone bill. ‘My Lord, my saviours are simple fisherfolk. They have no vehicle apart from their boat. As for the accident …’ he looked at Iphigenia. The story had to convince her as much as the Bishop. ‘I cannot tell precisely. A narrow road around cliffs, there was mist and rain. I went straight over.’ The bishop asked him to give an approximate location, the name of a church, a village, town, anything. ‘Neenish,’ Ignatius named the last village he’d passed through. Or at least he thought that’s what it was called. The name sounded odd to him. He could say any name and it wouldn’t make any difference. Places in the world were just words.

  The conversation was difficult for another reason. The Bishop’s voice kept dropping out, there was a background fuzz. The battery was going. Still, he could recharge it once he was back. Electricity! TV, computers, calculators, central heating, traffic lights, cars, buses, trains, satellites, cinemas, power tools. Oh, he could hardly wait.

  ‘I’d like to have a wash,’ Ignatius said on the eve of his departure. They looked up from their kneading and chopping. He had thought that perhaps they would fill a basin with hot water for him, there was a kettle boiling on the fire, but instead they pointed to the trough. He sighed and walked over to it. Cold water but it was better than nothing. He wet a sop of fleece and squeezed it out. No. This warranted more than a dab wash. Tomorrow he was going back.

  He took the bucket and sop out of the courtyard, away from the meal preparations. He gazed into the infinite pale sky wondering how far he could actually see. One mile, ten? What was the limit of his vision in the limitless sky?

  Some of the Agnes sisters had gathered round. To them he smelled just like the others now. On his garment they picked up their own scent, his hair mingled with their stranded fleece.

  He took the garment off and laid it over a bush. Then he tipped the bucket high over his head and water cascaded down. Sheep scattered everywhere. Bracing! His body came alive, hardened. He stood firm and was not moved by the force of water or the cool prickling breeze on his skin. He wiped himself down with the fleece and stood a minute longer, letting the elements play on his body. Then he donned his priest’s garment again.

  As he picked up the bucket and fleece he saw Carla, garment off, bucket above her head, grinning in his direction. He quickly turned away, but the image had already been recorded. He wished he hadn’t seen it. Not through a sense of pudeur but because it was such an unwitting parody of himself.

  As he shovelled handfuls of turnip into his mouth he looked from one to the other. Already their fresh white clothes were getting grubby. How similar they appeared. What was the expression they all wore as their jaws worked the food around their mouths—wariness, watchfulness? He couldn’t tell.

  Although the meal had been subdued Ignatius was not. He was so full of anticipation he could hardly lay still. The last night in this austere stone cell, the last sleep on this hard narrow bed. Tomorrow he would be out. He lay in the dark trying not to have too great expectations. He wouldn’t relax fully till he was off the island. There would still be a long way to go after that before he was safely back in the palace, but all he could think of now was having the sea between him and the nuns. They would stay on the shore, they would not follow.

  How much of the real story would he tell the Bishop? The last thing he remembered thinking was that he could tell the Bishop whatever he liked.

  He drifted off. There was a soft amber blur then the picture became clear and distinct, illuminated with evening light. Full-breasted, her arms raised, nipples erect under the sparkle of water as it cascaded over the mound of her belly, her thatch of curly hair, her sturdy legs strong and firmly planted. Her dark eyes glistening through the drops of water, acknowledging him, playing a game with the water as if her nakedness didn’t exist. An image of wanton voluptuousness.

  He woke up with a jolt, his hands tightly round his penis as if trying to strangle it. He had only caught a glimpse of Carla before averting his eyes but apparently it had been enough. He wrenched his hands away and put them in the safety of the cold night air outside the warm cosy blanket. Tomorrow. He transferred this pounding desire into strength for his journey.

  He became aware of noise. Footfall and whispering. They were moving up and down the corridor. Ignatius was fully alert now, waiting for them to come. Then the footsteps stopped and a faint chanting began. They were in the chapel. It was nearly morning. There was time. He brought his hands under the blanket again. ‘Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Body of Christ, save me. Blood of Christ inebriate me. Water out of the side of Christ, wash me.’ Wash me, wash me, wash me. Faster and faster now, till he felt the rush and sweet release as he dedicated his seed to the Lord.

  Iphigenia winced. The sudden smell clogged her nose like a lump of old cheese. She could hardly drag her breath up past it. She gazed at the adoring eyes of the Blessed Virgin, breathed in the freshness of her green coils till the smell settled into place and became one of many. Since he had his legs back he had taken to coming to chapel. He usually waited till they were here before he entered. He stayed at the back, never came and knelt with them.

  After Lauds there was a flurry of activity—a picnic hamper prepared, things fetched. Ignatius stood in the cloisters watching. All the preparations were for his departure yet
no-one asked him to do anything or what he needed. And only when they were ready did they bid him into their midst.

  There on the table beside the basket he saw a pair of shoes, his shoes, and his priest’s collar. Oh wondrous, wondrous. He almost cried at the sight of them, as if they were long-lost friends, they who were dead and had risen again. He reached out to embrace them but they were placed in the basket.

  ‘Food for our journey and clothes for your world.’

  He wondered what ever had happened to his socks.

  It was midday by the time the four had fully descended. The mist had lifted but the strand was still under water. With no way of knowing the tides, they determined to wait.

  Ignatius was too restless to sit and look at the sea, much as he wanted that causeway to appear. He walked away from the group and went up the hill on the opposite side. Something had led him to this spot. It was the place where the car had got stuck. No trace of it now. He looked back at the sisters and for a moment he thought they were a stone formation, so still were they. He had left the car, activated the alarm and climbed up the hill. He was only going to be an hour or two, then back to the mainland.

  He looked up to the summit. The monastery was not visible from here. The entire island seemed to be covered in gorse. It was only when you got up close did you see patches of other colours, wild flowers and different shades of green, lusher where the stream ran, sparser and more hardy near the cliffs. He sat and looked over at the mainland. He could make out the deserted tavern, other buildings. Soon.

  Then he saw it, the water a paler colour, the path of sand just below the surface. The more the tide ebbed the more distinct the causeway became, like watching a photo develop. It was clearly out of the water now, stretching right across to the mainland. His way home. He ran towards it.

  The sisters stood on the brink of the white sand and offered him farewell gifts. Ignatius had the absurd impression of streamers, crowds of people, as if he was about to go off on a big ocean liner.

  They put the collar, stiff and tight, around his neck. They gave him his shoes, with new knitted laces. Instead of putting the shoes on his feet he tied the shoelaces together and slung them over his shoulder. They gave him the rest of the honey biscuits, a bottle of water, bread, cold cooked turnips, all wrapped in fleece. He put them into the pocket they had thoughtfully knitted into his cassock. Everything was done, all he had to do was depart.

  Should he shake hands, thank them for having him? Nothing seemed appropriate. Once more he looked up, thinking perhaps his eyes had deceived him, trying to discern the shape of the monastery in the vegetation.

  ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

  He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.

  The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

  The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.

  The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

  There was nothing more to say.

  Iphigenia and Margarita watched the figure walk the path across the water. But Carla was looking at the footprints that he’d left behind. She put her own foot in the first shoe of sand. Then the next and the next and the next till she too was walking out onto the strand.

  Iphigenia felt a tugging at the cord as Carla went further and further out. A pliant cord, it stretched but would never break. She found that there was a cord attached to the man as well. How far would that one stretch? They had placed food and drink in his pocket, surrounded by the fleece of their prayers. She hoped he would not discard their prayers, once across the water and back in the world.

  The sun was well into the west by the time two tiny figures, first one and then the other, reached the other side. Iphigenia sat looking out to the world but it was Margarita who had to tell her what she could see.

  ‘Will she go with him?’ she asked.

  Iphigenia seemed not to hear. She was gazing out to the world but she was seeing something else. A young girl who lived with her sisters in a big house on top of the hill.

  One day, one Midsummer Day, one of the sisters took ill and the girl had to fetch someone to attend to her. Down the hill she went, running fast, to bring help to her sister, and for the sheer joy of running through that bright summer day.

  When she got to the village she met a fisherman mending his nets. His skin was smooth and brown as eggshell, his eyes like dark plums. His hair fell down in black waves. She watched his quick fingers, the slide of his arm, the curve of his glistening chest. He smiled at her, his teeth polished as ivory. Behind him the sea was silver and his skin glowed in the late afternoon sun. She told him what her task was.

  ‘Sure, there’s no-one here,’ he said, ‘they’re all over yonder.’ So dazzled was she by the comeliness of the fisherman she had not noticed the sound of merriment across the sea, but now she heard it. Between her island home and the mainland lay a strand of sand and when the tide was down you could walk across, but it was covered now. ‘Tide won’t be down till tonight,’ said the young man. ‘I’m rowing across presently, I can take you if you like.’ She hesitated. She hadn’t expected to go that far. But he was respectful and meant no harm. He did not even see the beautiful girl inside the clothes that hid her shape.

  She waited till he had finished his mending then, picking up her skirts, got into the boat. She sat with her back straight and her eyes downcast, unfamiliar as she was with being at such close quarters to a young man. And this is how she came to notice the way his feet held firm to the bottom of the boat and that they were curiously splayed, with webs of skin between the toes.

  She heard the lap and pull of the oars and a faint music all around, as if the water itself was singing the boat across. She dared not look at his lips, the beads of salt on his cheek. Now the music of the sea was joined by the music and merriment from the land, rumble of voices, instruments, poem and song and soon she felt a soft bump as the boat came to the shore. She had been away for hours but time seemed suspended, as if the muted light of Midsummer would last forever. She did not even know it was Midsummer Day till the fisherman told her. In her house this was the day of St Aloysius Gonzaga. In three days they would celebrate the birth of John the Baptist.

  The fisherman knew that the tavern was no place for a girl who covered herself in such clothes and bid her wait by the boat. ‘I will go and fetch the bonesetter,’ he said. And so she waited a long time by the boat and on the sand and near the water till finally night came and the merriment showed no sign of dwindling. Twice she went and looked in the misted window of the tavern but she could not see her fisherman. She asked a man rolling out of the tavern where the bonesetter was. ‘He’d be in there,’ he said, and nearly toppled over a keg by the door.

  She had never been into a tavern before but she had crossed the water, come this far, and she could not go back now. She pushed her way through the crowd. People offered her drinks. There was a fishy oily smell in here, mingled with ale. The talk and the merriment were very loud. ‘I’m looking for the bonesetter,’ she said. ‘He’d be here,’ was the reply when she finally made herself heard. But she didn’t find him. Nor did she find the fisherman. When she asked after him nobody knew him.

  The girl went back to where the strand would appear when it was time. She had drunk a glass of wine in the tavern and carried the sound of merrymaking in her ears. She wanted to dance on the sand. The air was such that her skin felt neither hot nor cold. The sea gently lapped the shore. On such a night as this the door between the worlds opens. The girl looked up and saw the milky smattering of stars and the crisp crescent of moon. When she looked for the strand she saw the sea too, smattered with stars.

  She put her toes in. The water felt like champagne that she had drunk once in her grandmother’s house, cold and bubbly on her skin. And now she wanted to immerse her whole body in the sparkling darkness. So she peeled
off her skins, one by one and left them on the shore. She felt no shame or embarrassment and she went in deeper and deeper. First her toes disappeared, then her knees, her belly, her breasts, her arms and finally her head.

  When she came up to breathe in the soft velvet night she spied on the shore another pile of discarded skins and heard the plop of a creature diving under the water. She put her head under to look for him, so enchanted and bewitched that she had no care for whether she would be able to see anything in that deep blue. How cold and invigorating the water was as it closed over her head, how alive she felt, how every pore of her body tingled.

  And she could see beneath the surface. See the shape of the creature gently making his way towards her. Her hands came out to meet him and she felt his hair trailing like seaweed and then his mouth upon hers, surprised by its warmth and moisture. How quickly her arms moved to him, how smooth was his body. Soon she felt his lips, the gentle suck of a sea anemone, a necklace of kisses, her whole body decked in the treasures of his mouth, fastening onto the tips of her breasts, coaxing them.

  She must have come to the surface for breath but she had no memory of it. The sea contained them, held them like a bed. She returned his kisses, swum in his mouth, his hands cupping her like shells. Then she felt him, an oar through the water, he entered her and she closed around him the soft suck of the anemone, to hold her captured creature. She marvelled that he could fill her, that she had a space inside herself for this. She feels the rapture, she calls and is called, she seeks and is sought, she lifts and is lifted up, she clasps and is closely embraced. She gives him her breasts and receives unto herself his spurting milk.

  When they were spent he kissed her tenderly, holding her face in his hands, a kiss for remembrance. Iphigenia carried the seed inside her, a grain of sand that became a pearl.

  ‘I don’t know if she will be back,’ she said.