Seeking Sanctuary

by Frances Fyfield

  ‘You know what you are, Lord, you’re a little bleeder. Spoiled rotten. It’s no good for people like you to be adored.You were too young.’

  The organ music began, rolling down the nave. The three hundred devotees gathered for the service sat unfussily, waiting for a command. Anna ignored them and continued her own address.

  ‘Too much attention too young, maybe that’s why your judgements aren’t always sound. And Dad’s theory was probably right. Your old man sent you on a mission to the men of the world, and look what they did to you. Reviled, tortured and humiliated you, and then made you look as undressed as this. So what does Papa God do? Spends the next few centuries taking revenge on the world. That’s what a normal father would do. Stuff forgiveness.’

  The choir began to sing, an exultant blast of sound.

  ‘Is that why you treat your devoted servants so badly? You’ve got a bunch of impoverished old women, headed up by Attila the Nun, threatened by hobos at the back door and the Bishop at the front, and what do you do for fun? You send them someone who looks like a saint and put him in control. What are you trying to do? Oh, for God’s sake, why?’

  In a single movement, the crowd in front of her stood. The noise of their movement had a greater resonance than the music or the singing. It was wave upon wave of shuffling vibration, the movement of coats, the clearing of throats, the motion of the bodies creating a living sound and sensation like the beating of wings, sending a draught rolling down the aisle and fluttering echoes into the rafters. It struck her that the movement of people was the most powerful of sounds. Then she heard it, back inside the frontal lobes of her brain, Sister Jude’s favourite poem:

  Still with unhurried chase,

  And unperturbed pace,

  Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

  Came on the following feet.

  And a Voice above their beat –

  ‘Naught shelters thee who will not shelter Me.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ she whispered.

  Honour thy Father. Seek the truth.

  She was as cold as ice when Ravi came back. He put his arm round her shoulders, the first time he had touched her. Warmth flooded into her veins; she could smell cloves.

  ‘It’s a beautiful place,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘As good as ours, I think. And now I know why you are so sad.’

  ‘Because my mother tried to kill me,’ she said evenly.

  He laid his head against hers. ‘Because you never knew your father and you speak to him all the time. And most of all, because your Gods are so unhappy.’

  The crowd in front of them sat with the same great wave of quiet sound.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Think of the lilies: they neither spin nor weave

  Gardens had always been mysterious places to Therese and although they too were built to the greater glory of God, buildings always seemed a better reflection of his ingenuity. Anna and herself had been turned out into this garden when they had visited the convent the very first time as children. It was Anna who had climbed the trees and come back inside dirty. She could have sworn Edmund’s old shed was there, even then. The dim memory of that had nothing to do with the fact that Therese had rarely ventured this far into the depths of it, and she felt ashamed of the fact that although it was an exceptionally long garden, it was only a matter of yards rather than miles, but it had never presented itself to her as a peaceful wilderness. In the spring, she had been dive-bombed by tiny fledglings, deafened by the sound of them and always shy of the presence of slow-moving Edmund with his tacitly discouraging manners. Besides, there was nowhere to sit or even to lean except for his bench, which was so clearly shared with the birds, festooned with the droppings that clung to his clothes. It was a litter-filled, unsavoury place, made more so by his dying in it. Coming round the last bend in the path, aware of the shushing sounds of the trees behind, she half expected to see him there on the dirty bench, outside his malodorous shed with the broken door, as dead as he was when she had covered him with a blanket only two weeks ago.

  Instead, the area was swept clean, old paving stones emerging as if by magic from the beaten earth that had been there before. The bench had been scrubbed, revealing a seat of graceful proportions in pale wood with black, wrought iron legs. As she drew closer, there was a smell of creosote, which she was slow to recognise as anything other than a smell both faint and cloying. To the left of the shed, there was a small bundle of rubbish and a selection of tools, and from the side of it, the sound of singing.

  Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost

  Whose gift is faith that never dies:

  A light in darkness now, until

  The day star in our heart arise.

  A hymn for the morning, rather than the afternoon, but still a hymn, sung in a robust, unselfconscious baritone. Therese called out, hesitantly. The singing stopped abruptly. Francis emerged with a paint pot in one hand and a brush in the other, perfectly unsurprised to see her. She noticed that the door of the shed no longer hung askew, but stood open, revealing a clean, whitewashed interior. He was indeed a miracle worker. He had even silenced the raucous birds of spring and his grin was infectious.

  ‘Sister Therese!’ He flourished a bow and she could only laugh, nervously, remembering what Kim had said: Gay men know how to be nice to women.

  ‘Try the spring-cleaned bench,’ he said. ‘And be the first to admire my work. Even Barbara doesn’t know. Sit, please, it’s perfectly dry.’

  She sat, tentatively. The wood felt warm against her back. He sat at the other end of the bench, a body’s width away, and placed the paint pot at his feet. Then he leaned forward. The movement startled her, but he kept the distance between them.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘There are no secrets here, Francis,’ she said severely, and even in saying it realised how far from the truth she was. ‘What exactly is it you’re doing?’

  ‘I’m making an arbour.’ He swept his arm expansively. ‘Well, an arbour might be a bit of an exaggeration. What I’m doing is creating a space, like they do in those gardening programmes on the TV. Do you ever watch them?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘I didn’t think you would.’ He grinned at her. The day was suddenly less grey.

  ‘Although I’m not actually creating anything,’ he went on. ‘We never do, do we? That’s God’s privilege. I’m just digging out what there was before. A clean place to sit and think, for a start. Then I can cut back the ivy, plant things round the edges, and lo and behold, it will be an area for use rather than disuse. And I don’t want you to tell, because I would like it to be a treat in store.’

  He had a slight accent; London, overlaid with somewhere else.

  ‘How kind,’ she murmured, meaning it. For a moment, she had quite forgotten the purpose of her expedition. His enthusiasm was as warming as the wooden seat on which she sat.

  ‘And I’m afraid Matilda disapproves. She thinks it should stay the way it was, but old people don’t like change, do they? Would you like tea, Sister?’

  The invitation surprised her. How would even someone as innovative as Francis create tea at the bottom of the garden? Without waiting for a reply, he leapt from the bench and into the shed, where she could see the flame of a camping gas stove and hear the rattle of spoons. There was a rough-built bunk bed against the far wall. He poked his golden head out and seemed to bring the sun with him, reminding her of a small boy she had once met, displaying a new conjuring trick with all the aplomb of a performer anxious to impress. The shed had taken on the appearance of a summer house, bigger than she remembered, large enough for a person to sleep and quaintly romantic.

  ‘We have water, and I provide the rest.’ He arrived back with a mug of strong, orange brew. ‘When I can get some lights down here, it’ll be a fine place for a summer evening.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, you won’t tell yet?’

  ‘No.’

  He placed the mug into her
hands and pressed his own around hers so briefly, she would scarcely have noticed, except that she did not flinch from such a careful gesture, so far removed from the grasping demands of elderly, quavering hands. She was half aware that she was committed to yet another secret, but it did not seem to matter much. The tea was strong, the way she liked it, unlike the pallid brew dictated by convent economy, and it was too comfortable for words. The cat sprang on to the bench between them and settled itself close to Francis, startling her, until she thought, Why should it? St Francis was the saint of animals and birds; it was natural this creature would go to his namesake and the intrusion reminded her of some of the things she had come to say.

  ‘Francis, were you the one who found my sister in the garden last night?’

  There was no evasion.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry. I was.’

  ‘Barbara just told me someone apprehended her. What on earth was she doing?’

  ‘I wish I could tell you. Something about praying. I don’t know. I just followed her over the wall, thinking she was a burglar . . . I’m sorry, but she was drunk and foul-mouthed. And she has long nails.’

  He turned his perfect profile to exhibit the worst of the linear scratches and then bowed his head. Dear God. Anna had always cherished her nails, an odd vanity for a tomboy.

  ‘Did you hurt her?’

  ‘No, no, I promise you, no. She’s so small, there was no need to hurt her. Spitting angry at first, that was all, but harmless and calm by the time I saw her home safely.’

  She was suddenly, enormously grateful to him for that, because Barbara’s assurance that Anna had been unscathed was no longer reliable and it mattered.

  ‘I was sorry for her,’ Francis said, softly. ‘And I rather admired her. She fought like a cat and I like cats. There’s a way of handling them, you see.’

  Therese did not want to discuss it further. She could feel nothing but Anna’s humiliation and an angry helplessness, and if anyone was protecting Anna, she would rather it was either the Lord or herself.

  ‘And were you sorry for Sister Joseph, too?’ she demanded. ‘That you take her money and buy her drink when she asks you?’

  He hung his head, the golden curls falling over his face as he sighed, and she thought, irrelevantly, how odd that such hair should look effeminate on one man, yet not on another.

  ‘Joseph was desperate, Sister. I thought it would do more harm than good, she twisted my arm and I was wrong, I suppose. I shan’t do it again, but I’m new to all this, Therese, I have to learn. I didn’t know the effect of the stuff, and I thought it would make her happy. She’s a powerful woman. How are we going to make Joseph happy?’

  The use of her name without the prefix of ‘Sister’, the use of ‘we’, as if they were allies, made Therese feel warmer, a pleasant feeling of a burden shared and thus lifted, and a mission partly achieved. Pleasant feelings were to be resisted. She finished the tea, put the mug carefully on the bench and rose to go. Francis rose too, with the alacrity of an old-fashioned gentleman.

  ‘You must be the first to discover the arbour,’ he said, with another of his bows. ‘And come here whenever you need.’

  She turned back as she reached the first bend in the path. Her last sight of Francis, just as it began to spit with rain, was that of a golden-haired, bare-armed man, cradling an orange cat.

  She knew she would come back. She would come back before anyone else discovered it, at a time when Francis, with his disturbing, charming presence, had gone home, because although the convent was really too big for them all, there was absolutely nowhere else where she could be sure of being alone and she thought she had better get used to it. And the shed reminded her of another place, another garden in her first home.

  It was an almost soundless rain, a damp, persistent drizzle.

  ‘You mean,’ Anna said slowly to Ravi, ‘that all the time I argue with God, I’m really talking to my own father?’

  ‘It’s an idea.’

  ‘Which could be psychobabble bullshit.’

  ‘That could be true, also. It would be natural. If your father is in heaven, why not?’

  ‘I think he’s more likely in hell.’

  They were sitting in the wooden shelter near the gates to the park, the last customers of the ice cream van, which had done a bad day’s business, and although it seemed less than appropriate to talk of God and the tricks of the soul while eating ice cream sprinkled with chocolate, Ravi had no problem with that. ‘In my religion,’ he told her, ‘food is a source of joy. We offer it to the Gods and then we eat it in celebration. Food is often sacred and never profane.’

  ‘Do you think if we fed our saints they would be less miserable?’ she asked.

  He nodded agreement, unwilling to speak as he ate. There was such delicacy in him, she wanted to study the way he made each movement of hand to mouth and resisted the temptation to stare at him rudely.

  ‘Perhaps. But I do not think food would appease them. They are all so thin. They all look hungry and they would still be unhappy. These saints, these Gods of yours . . . such unfulfilled lives, it seems. Such agonies, and it is the agonies they show on their faces. Never the joy of the holy state. Always they show the punishment, never the reward.’

  She thought of the doll-like Gods in the temple, beautifully dressed, bedecked with jewels, missions accomplished and tranquil in their prosperity.

  ‘And do yours have rivalries?’ she asked politely, as if they were discussing relatives.

  ‘No.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘They would tell me, and anyway, why should they? They have given their examples and now they live in peace. They look after us and we look after them. They are not there to punish; we do that to ourselves, by not listening. Did you ever listen to your real father?’

  She thought about that. ‘Oh yes. He made me laugh.’

  ‘Ganesh makes you laugh, too, but he does not mind.’

  ‘Ravi, do you have holy pictures like these?’

  She flicked open Jude’s tired old missal. The spine of it was cracked with the weight of the picture cards inserted between the wafer-thin pages. Single card pictures of saints, Matthew, Mark, Ignatius, Bernadette, the Sacred Heart, but mostly of Mary, the virgin mother. Little pictures, sold by the gross, used as birthday cards, message cards, note cards, one side blank for messages and the other printed with pictures or prayers, symbols or faces, variously decorative or garish, sentimental or simple, part of the currency of Catholic devotion. Each of these had notes scrawled on the back, in Jude’s spidery hand.

  Take care of my niece’s soul, Lord. I know what evil she does in your name. She has made those children invalids, brainwashed and poisoned them because she cannot bear the thought that they will grow and leave her. Help them, Lord. I am powerless in their service.

  ‘We have the holy pictures, yes,’ Ravi said. ‘But I don’t understand this prayer.’

  ‘It’s difficult.’

  He looked at his watch, apologetically, glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, checking. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go home now. My parents . . .’

  ‘I know you must,’ she said, gently. ‘Thank you for this. It’s going to rain in a minute.You’d better run, or you’ll get wet.’

  And then there was nothing to do but go home herself and let the anxieties rumble quietly on the bus, watching the faces and comparing them all to theirs. Two masculine faces, Ravi’s and her father’s, wildly different but strangely interchangeable. Ravi, dark and inscrutable, her father, weathered and pugnacious, both of them blurring into the post-rush-hour faces of the top deck. Tired faces, lively faces, a preponderance of middle-aged faces going home before the other generation came out to play. A pretty face on the other side of the aisle, reminiscent of her mother, but the reminder was as vague and distorted as her mother’s face. She must remember not to stare, and if caught in the act of staring, smile to show no offence was intended.

  It was pointless to stare
as hungrily as she did. There were few enough clues to the universe to be found in faces. An artist could paint the devil as handsome as a Jesus; a mad mullah could look like an angel and Golden Boy could look like a saint, and he was wicked. She transferred her gaze out of the window and imagined she could see him, walking in the street, waiting to cross the road, and all the tenuous calm of the park and Ravi fled as soon as she was in the vicinity of her home. She ran for her own front door although there was as yet scarcely a hint of dusk, and as she flung herself inside, she thought, that’s what he has done: he had made her afraid of the dark and she had never been afraid of it before. And then she thought it was not he who made her afraid. The Gods do not punish us, we punish ourselves. She scrambled up the ladder on to the roof before the light should begin its slow, autumn eclipse.

  An ungenerous light, because of the now persistent drizzle, which slicked the dry roads and made them slippier than a cloudburst. She thought of the damp paths leading beyond St Michael in the convent garden, moss covered even in summer, thought of the damp foliage around Edmund’s bench, and thought finally of Golden Boy, and what the hell it was he wanted. Perhaps, like the devil, he demanded a sacrifice.The rain made the lead-covered valleys of the roof slippery too, but it was a warm wet on her bare feet. She brought the knapsack with her, and in the remaining light detached the dead bird from its wrapping, stuffed the note in her pocket, and threw the corpse into the garden, aiming left for the trees and away from the bench with a good strong overarm throw, watching where it went until she saw it land in a bush. That was where it belonged and where it might continue to decay in peace because that was where it had died. No one else but Francis could have sent it. Unless, in some perverted attempt to give a message, Therese had done so, and that was the worst thought, which persisted eerily.

  The rain brought mist in the wake of itself, but she could still see through the trees, towards the new semicircle created out of chaos around Edmund’s bench. Golden Boy Francis should have gone home by now, via the front door, like everyone else. She looked at her watch: supper-time in there; still warm, if damp, outside. She could see the clean bench, the painted shed, the decimated shrubs, the fresh-swept ground and a light from inside the shed.