Reckless

by William Nicholson

  The kettle boiled. He poured steaming water into the pot.

  ‘You mean saving as in souls?’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ said the priest. ‘I mean saving as in cash come into the village. There’s not a family here but doesn’t let out a room to the pilgrims. Every year the numbers grow. We shall have our chapel within three years, if not sooner.’

  ‘Unless the world ends first.’

  Father Flannery chuckled at that.

  ‘I’ll tell you this for nothing,’ he said. ‘When Mary Brennan comes back to receive the final warning, every house in the village will be full. There’ll be caravans up the road as far as Rosbeg, and the pub will be drunk dry.’

  ‘So she will come back?’

  ‘Of course she’ll come back. Isn’t her old mother here, and her brother? Isn’t this her own home?’

  ‘The woman in the shop told me she was in a convent.’

  ‘So she is.’

  The tea was made. The priest handed Rupert a cup.

  ‘Why did she leave Kilnacarry?’ Rupert asked.

  The priest gave him another sharp look.

  ‘Will it give you back your faith to know what became of Mary Brennan?’

  ‘No,’ said Rupert. ‘I’m just curious.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be a newspaperman, would you?’

  ‘No,’ said Rupert.

  ‘But you are from London?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll tell you why Mary Brennan left Kilnacarry if you’ll tell me why you’ve come to Kilnacarry.’

  Rupert reddened a little.

  ‘I don’t mean to deceive you,’ he said. ‘I’m just not sure where my duty lies.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  Father Flannery contemplated Rupert as he drank his tea.

  ‘I don’t like secrets,’ he said after a moment. ‘They do no good to anyone. You may tell me what you’re up to or not, as you please. Mary Brennan left the village because she couldn’t take it anymore. The pilgrims drove her away. They gave her no peace. Their hands out all the time, touching her, plucking at her. They came with little pairs of scissors, can you believe it? They cut off pieces of her dress, even her hair. Whatever she said, they wrote it down. She came to me, she said, “Father, I want to go.” Poor child, she did her best. She said, “Does Jesus want me to stay, Father?” I told her no, Our Lord himself would have been on the first bus to Sligo. It was me that found a convent to take her in, and made the nuns swear not to give her away. I’ve never told a soul where she is, and I’ll not tell you now.’

  Rupert nodded and drank his tea.

  ‘But I don’t need to tell you, do I?’

  Rupert looked up. There was the priest’s grey head, canted to one side, the knowing look in his eyes.

  ‘Because you know where Mary Brennan is, don’t you?’

  Still Rupert said nothing, and by his silence the priest knew he was right.

  ‘We lost her,’ he said. ‘I’ll admit it to you. I’ve been worried sick ever since the nuns called to tell me. So if you know where she is, maybe you’ll be setting my mind at rest.’

  Rupert shook his head.

  ‘She’s safe and well,’ he said.

  ‘You come all the way to Kilnacarry, but you won’t tell me where she is?’

  ‘Not without her permission.’

  The priest pondered this in silence for a moment.

  ‘Does she know you’re here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, then. You say you don’t know where your duty lies. I can tell you. Your duty is to go to Mary Brennan and tell her to come home. She needn’t come for long, and she needn’t show herself to the faithful. But she must let her mother see that she’s safe and well, as you say.’

  ‘Does her mother know she left the convent?’

  ‘She does not. But she misses the child sorely.’

  ‘All I can do is ask her.’

  ‘You do that.’

  The priest rose from his chair.

  ‘Now I think you’ll be wanting to take a look at Buckle Bay.’

  They walked together over the bleak stone-littered hill and down the other side to the little cove.

  ‘You have to understand,’ said the priest, ‘this is a child who had never been further than Rosbeg in all her life. It’s a small world we live in here.’

  The tide was out. They trod the sand as far as a small stone marker that had been placed halfway towards the water.

  ‘This is where she stood, more or less. I got two of the village boys to build it here. At high tide it’s surrounded by water, but you can still see it.’

  He gestured all round, from the jagged rocks on the south side to the great granite hump on the north.

  ‘On an August evening you’ll not see an inch of sand here. Just people, shoulder-to-shoulder. I lay a white cloth on the stone and I say mass here, when the tide’s out. And if the low tide comes at sunset, you should see those people! The faith is so strong in them you’d think the Lord was come again.’

  Rupert looked out over the cold grey sea. It was heaving and rolling, flecked with foam.

  ‘And do they see the stillness?’

  ‘Ah, so you’ve heard of the stillness. Yes, some of them see it. I saw it myself, with Mary. You’ll think I’m telling you a story, but it’s God’s own truth.’

  ‘What was it like?’

  ‘It was like a little piece of heaven. All the troubles of the world put to rest. You see it for a moment, and you say to yourself, This is how it’s meant to be. Not all the hurrying and worrying. Like it says in the psalm, Be still and know that I am God.’

  ‘It takes faith,’ said Rupert, watching the rolling sea.

  ‘It gives faith,’ said the priest.

  35

  Harriet opened the door softly, as if what they were doing was secret, and beckoned Mary to follow her into the room. There were the blue walls with fluffy white clouds. The jolly curtains with their clowns. And in the middle of the room the white wooden cot, the woolly lion waiting on its pillow.

  Harriet closed the door behind them. She stood still, looking round the room.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said.

  ‘Would you like to pray?’ said Mary.

  Harriet nodded. She knelt down by the side of the cot and pressed her brow against its white bars. Mary knelt beside her. For a few moments they were silent together.

  ‘I thought I’d cry,’ said Harriet. ‘But I can’t.’

  ‘Do you want to talk to him?’ said Mary.

  Harriet threw her a frightened look.

  ‘What would I say?’

  ‘Tell him you love him. You miss him.’

  For the moment Harriet was silent, her head against the bars of the cot. Then she spoke in a whisper.

  ‘I love you, John. I miss you.’

  ‘Tell him you know you’ll see him again.’

  ‘I’ll see you again, John.’

  ‘Now tell him goodbye.’

  The whisper almost inaudible: ‘Goodbye, my darling.’

  She made a slight movement of her upper body. Mary opened her arms. Harriet came into her embrace, kneeling there by the cot.

  Now the tears came. Mary rocked her weeping in her arms. Then slowly the crying ceased, and they parted. Harriet rose to her feet.

  ‘I should do something about all these baby things,’ she said, her voice unsteady. ‘They’re good as new.’

  ‘I could help you.’

  ‘Do you think anyone would want them?’

  ‘I’m sure of it. The church I go to, they have a jumble sale coming up this Saturday.’

  ‘We’ll get new wallpaper. New curtains.’ She turned to Mary. ‘It could be your room.’

  ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be staying,’ said Mary.

  ‘I want you to stay for ever. I was so lonely until you came.’

  ‘But you’ve got Hugo,’ said Mary.

  ‘Yes. Darling Hugo. Where would I be without hi
m?’ She gave Mary an uncertain look, asking for reassurance. ‘I know it might seem, with the headaches and everything … Pamela said he was sympathetic. Of course I do understand what she means, but even so … ’

  ‘Pamela’s still young.’

  ‘Yes, she is. She’s just a child, really. It’s not her fault that she’s so pretty.’

  They found some empty wine boxes in the wine store and packed away the baby things: the little quilt, the cot mattress, the never-used nappies, the woolly lion. The cot itself came apart into flat frames. They carried the boxes and the dismembered cot downstairs and stacked them in the front hall.

  Harriet said, ‘I never could have done that without you.’

  When Hugo came home that evening he saw the boxes in the hall.

  ‘What’s all this?’ he said.

  ‘It’s a new beginning,’ said Harriet. ‘I’m going to be so much stronger from now on.’

  *

  The next day Rupert called on them, back from Ireland.

  ‘Just the man,’ said Mary. ‘You can help me carry these boxes down to the church hall.’

  ‘The poor man’s only just walked in the door,’ said Harriet.

  ‘Then he can walk out again,’ said Mary. ‘My mam always said you should never let a man sit down. Once down, they never get up.’

  So Rupert took hold of the unwieldy cot frames, and Mary took one of the wine boxes, and they set off down the road.

  ‘So how was Donegal?’ said Mary once they were out of the house.

  ‘Beautiful,’ said Rupert. ‘Sad.’

  ‘It is that.’

  ‘Mountbatten has a castle there, right on the sea. It’s grand, but I wouldn’t want to live there.’

  ‘What does the man want for God’s sake with a castle in Ireland?’

  ‘It’s his summer home. He goes there to relax.’

  ‘So you were relaxing, were you?’

  ‘And working,’ said Rupert.

  ‘I should hope so,’ said Mary. ‘If great men like you aren’t working to make the world a better place, then what’s the use of you?’

  They carried the box and the cot frames into the church hall. A parish helper was there, sorting through the donations.

  ‘Baby things! They’ll go in a trice!’

  They returned up the road to get the rest of the boxes. For a while they walked in silence. Then Mary spoke, very low.

  ‘You went there, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rupert, not pretending he didn’t understand.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Pamela told me.’

  ‘Yes. Of course she would.’

  She was closing up against him. Running away again.

  ‘Was I wrong to go there?’

  ‘That’s not for me to say.’

  ‘I’ll do whatever you want me to do, Mary.’

  ‘I want you to forget you ever went there,’ she said.

  In the house again, by wordless agreement they said no more. But once out in the street, boxes in their arms, she began again.

  ‘So now you’ll be thinking I’m a mad woman.’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘You were only a child.’

  ‘A child making a holy show of herself. Telling stories she should be ashamed of.’

  ‘Is that what you were doing?’

  ‘That’s what you’re thinking I was doing.’

  She was proud and angry.

  ‘You don’t know what I’m thinking,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t believe in God,’ she said. ‘Why would you believe in my visions? So of course I made it all up. And that’s what you think of me. I’m a story-teller and a liar.’

  ‘Mary,’ he said, ‘I don’t think you made it all up.’

  ‘Then what do you think?’

  ‘I think you saw what you say you saw. The sea went still, and Jesus came to you, walking on the water.’

  ‘But you don’t believe in Jesus.’

  ‘I believe in you.’

  They carried the boxes into the church hall. From there, instead of going back out into the street, they went into the church itself. It was empty. They walked down the centre aisle towards the altar. The stained-glass windows threw coloured light over the pews.

  ‘The priest here’s a fine deep man,’ said Mary, ‘with a fine deep voice.’

  ‘The priest in Kilnacarry seemed to me to be a good man.’

  ‘He is a good man,’ she said.

  She sat down in the front pew, and he sat down across the aisle from her.

  ‘Now you’d better tell me the truth,’ she said. ‘None of your soapy English manners. What do you mean by what you say?’

  She spoke sharply, as if she was offended by him. She wouldn’t look at him.

  Rupert found her question hard to answer. What exactly did he mean?

  ‘I think you had a real experience,’ he said, ‘and you used the language you’d been given to make sense of it.’

  ‘The language I’d been given?’

  ‘Sinfulness. Suffering. Being made clean. And the figure of Jesus, of course.’

  She listened in silence, frowning, looking down at her hands.

  ‘But I do think the experience was real,’ he said. ‘I know it was real.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because others have had it. They all describe it in their own way, but it’s obvious it’s the same experience. The mystics talk of it as a kind of surrender. They call it a surrender to God. Others talk of a short precious moment when they escape the walls that shut us all in. Somehow they slip out, into something else. Into everything else. Even I’ve felt it, in a very small way. We have this constant awareness of how we’re separate from everything that isn’t ourselves. It’s what we call loneliness. Then sometimes the walls disappear, and we know we’re not alone after all.’

  Mary said nothing. He could hear her soft rapid breathing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You’ll think I’m trying to explain it away. That’s not what I meant at all.’

  She looked up at last.

  ‘You wouldn’t lie to me? Not even out of kindness?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘You really do believe me?’

  ‘Many people believe you, Mary.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not me they believe!’ She pulled a face at the thought. ‘That’s their own foolish fancies. They come looking for a cure for the toothache. They’re after miracles and all sorts of nonsense. It’s like they’re playing the pools, they’re all hoping for a big win. I could be a statue for all they care. But the way you talk, that’s something else. Even the priest never said such things to me.’

  ‘I’m only trying to make sense of it my way. I’m not telling you Jesus didn’t appear to you. After all, he gave you a message. He spoke to you.’

  She lowered her head and sat in silence.

  ‘They’re all waiting for your return,’ he said. ‘So they can be given the final message.’

  ‘I’ll never return.’

  ‘You have to go back one day, Mary.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘If you told the priest ahead of time, I’m sure he’d do his best to manage things so you didn’t get bothered by the pilgrims.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘If it were only that,’ she said.

  ‘Tell me what it is,’ he said. ‘Maybe I can help.’

  ‘You?’ She gave a low laugh. ‘You’re the last one can help.’

  There was nothing more to say. She showed no sign of wanting to leave the church. So they sat there quietly, and time passed.

  You’re the last one can help.

  He puzzled over this. What was it about him that so disqualified him? He watched her sitting there, hands clasped in her lap as they had been when he first saw her on the park bench. He recalled the look in her eyes then. It had been a look of despair.

  Suddenly he understood.

  ‘You don’t believe in your vision
s any more,’ he said.

  He heard her give a sharp intake of breath.

  ‘I’m right, aren’t I? That’s why you can’t go back.’

  ‘You’re the devil, Rupert Blundell.’

  ‘That’s why you’ve run away.’

  She kept her gaze lowered, avoiding his.

  ‘What happened? Did you just wake up one day and think it was all a dream?’

  Still she didn’t answer. Head bowed, hands clasped, like one anticipating a coming storm, or punishment. Then, slowly, as if speaking to herself:

  ‘I think I always knew. Right from the start. But they all believed me, and wanted it to be true. And I wanted it to be true. And there was the attention and all. I was such a little show-off. You wouldn’t think it to see me now. But it all got too big, and the bishop came, and people said they saw what I’d seen, and these miracles started happening, and I was … I was caught. How could I tell them?’

  ‘That you made it all up?’

  ‘I never meant to make it up. It all came to me. But a whole lot of things came to me when I was a child. I used to talk to the fairies, and they’d talk back.’

  ‘So seeing Jesus on the water, and his words to you – that all just came to you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘As in a vision?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you did see a vision, Mary.’

  ‘I thought I did.’

  ‘You saw what you saw. No one can take that away from you.’

  ‘I’ll never forget it.’

  She looked up at him shyly, and for a moment he saw there on her face a shadow of the shining glory that had been on the child’s face, in the photograph.

  ‘It was a glory,’ she said.

  ‘Tell me what you saw.’

  ‘You won’t laugh at me?’

  ‘No.’

  She turned away so she couldn’t see his face while she spoke. The coloured light from the stained-glass window was now glowing red and gold on the aisle between them.

  ‘I stood on the beach, and the sun was setting, and everything became still. Not a dead kind of stillness. A perfect stillness. It was just like you said, it was like I slipped out of myself. I was part of everything. Then seeing Jesus coming to me over the water – I don’t know that I saw him – it was like there had to be a way to show how grand it was, how it was the grandest moment of my life. So I wanted Jesus to come to me, to make sense of the feeling.’