‘How d’you mean?’ Morna glanced across at him—dark eyes narrowed, expression almost arrogant. It was still difficult to accept him as plain David. He had some quality of being set apart, set above the purely secular—or was she just romanticising?
‘Well, take the miraculous itself.’ David stared down into the sink, as if he could see it there. ‘In our society, we try and explain it away—wrap it up neatly with scientific theories or explode it with a blast of commonsense. We’ve booted out mystery and the supernatural and the whole …’
‘But you were saying a minute ago that half the miracles were just standard stories trotted out to …’
‘No, I wasn’t saying that. In fact, what really comes across in those early centuries is the total acceptance of other dimensions, a sort of everyday acquaintance with the supernatural which we’ve lost—to our cost. The pagans had it, too. One of the reasons the Early Christian saints weren’t snuffed out in a wholesale martyrdom was that they not only recognised pagan rituals and pagan sensibilities—besides being pretty clever diplomats—but they even shared certain beliefs with them. The Druids, for example, probably believed in life after death. All right, I grant you it was a very different sort of concept from the Christian one, but at least they had the concept. We’re in danger of losing it. Yet we see that as an advantage, call it progress, congratulate ourselves on being free-thinking rationalists, no longer deluded like those cranks in their white robes. I’m not so sure. Rationalism can shrivel certain faculties.’
David was torturing the piece of chicken-wire, contorting it out into Giacometti shapes, then contracting them back again. Morna watched his hands, never still, as if the force of his arguments was too strong to be contained and was throbbing out into his fingers. She clasped her own hands, rocked back on her stool. ‘But where do you draw the line? I mean, if we don’t develop some sort of rational logical stance, we’d be back to superstition or …’ She stopped. She was using Neil’s old arguments, the ones he had used with her, twenty years ago.
David gestured with his wire. ‘There’s a great fund of wisdom in superstition. We’ve lost that, too. And in folk-medicine. That’s beginning to creep back a bit, thank God, but on the whole we’re so defensive about our four-square blinkered view of things, we fail to see what’s just beyond us, or just below or … We put everything in categories—fixed and timid ones. If something doesn’t fit, it’s simply dropped, or shoved under the carpet. We need to be more open to … to what you’d call the numinous, I suppose—though I hate the word—but the whole element of mystery, the dimension beyond reason or materialism or …’ He suddenly crumpled up the chicken-wire, tossed it into the sink. ‘D’you realise it’s almost three o’clock? In just six hours I’ll be stepping on to that platform to give my talk and I’ve hardly even planned it yet.’
‘It sounds as if it’s all there—reams and reams of it.’
David flushed. The embarrassed, almost defensive look returned. ‘I’m sorry. Once I get on my hobby-horse, I tend to forget that other people find the subject boring.’
‘Not at all. It’s fascinating. In fact, you make me realise just how … how …’ Morna groped for the words. Neil had closed heaven off like a draughty attic which wasted heat and was safer insulated. She had gone along with him, following his straight and simple path of rational commonsense, suddenly wanted to tear off the rolls of Insulwrap, feel the bracing air of a higher rarer atmosphere blowing through her skull. She slipped down off the stool, turned into the passage as he held the door for her.
‘What about your coffee?’ she asked, as they retraced their steps along the corridor, passing all the kettleless rooms.
‘I think I’ll have to leave that now. We could spend half the night searching the place for a jar of Nescafé which will probably turn out empty anyway, or full of miraculous medals.’
Morna laughed. She could think of worse ways of passing the time. As it was, he would be gone in just two seconds. They had already reached the ante-chapel, a chill and frowning space with a high ceiling, polished floor, a gigantic crucifix bleeding on one wall.
‘You must be hungry. You missed supper, didn’t you?’ Morna was whispering again, as if in deference to Neil’s naked criminal. She averted her eyes from the gobbets of plaster blood, rummaged in her pocket. ‘Here, have an apple.’
David shook his head. ‘No, thanks.’
Morna bit into it angrily herself. Her daughter was always refusing food. Refusals were a putdown. ‘I’ve got some nuts, if you prefer, or …’
‘No, nothing, honestly.’
She took another bite. The apple was soft and pappy like all the food at Hilden Cross—limp and pulpy cabbage, meat minced or sauced, milky puddings which slithered down—food for spiritual babies, invalids.
‘I suppose you went out to dinner? I don’t blame you! The meals here are pretty basic. In fact, if you’ve found a halfway decent restaurant, I’d be glad to know where. I could do with a nice rump steak.’
‘No, I … er … didn’t.’
‘The CND man goes to the pub most evenings. Do you know if they serve meals there?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t, no.’
‘So it’s Mars bars in your room, is it?’
He stared down at the floor. ‘I’m … er … fasting at the moment, actually.’
‘Fasting?’
‘Mm. It’s part of my research. St Abban used to fast for weeks on end and I’m trying to work out if the visions he described had a physiological cause—you know, due to near starvation or low blood sugar or some change in body chemistry—or were more genuinely spiritual. It’s hardly scientific, I admit, but …’ He shrugged. ‘I find it interesting. It’s all part of what I’ve just been talking about—the need to jolt ourselves out of our fixed routines. Most people eat their three standard meals a day for sixty or seventy years, so they’ve no idea what it feels like to be hungry, or even go beyond that and experience sort of out-of-the-body states or …’
‘Have you experienced those, David?’
He looked guarded. ‘Not this time, no.’
‘How long have you been doing it?’
‘Eight days.’
‘Eight days! What, eating nothing?’
‘Just water. And an occasional cup of coffee when they don’t hide the jar!’
‘And how do you feel?’
‘A little tired.’
‘Hungry?’
‘No, surprisingly.’
‘Visions?’
‘None at all. I must confess I’m a little disappointed. I’m afraid St Abban was a better man than I am and he certainly had more willpower. He could fast for months at a time.’
‘David, you’ll kill yourself if you try to copy that.’
He didn’t answer. Morna regretted her words. She must have sounded like her mother—fretting, petty-minded, making clean socks and cooked breakfasts the touchstone of right living. In fact, her feelings were more complex—divided between admiration and some strange annoyance she could hardly understand. She was certainly impressed by David’s dedication, his total involvement in his work; stunned also by his self-control. Neil had got peevish if dinner were delayed for half an hour, regarded one missed meal as near disaster. As a child, she had always admired those saints who starved themselves or slept on beds of nails; had tried out her own pale imitation of them—pebbles in her shoes, bread without butter. Then Neil had come along and piled cream and jam on top of butter, all spread double-thick; banished those of life’s privations which could be smoothed away with cash. That had attracted her, as well—the power of it, the cock-a-snooking of the nuns. Wasn’t David somehow allied with the nuns, punishing the flesh along with Mother Mary Michael? He’d be donning a habit next, sackcloth with a rope around the middle.
‘I don’t know how you do it,’ she said. ‘Especially if you’ve got to work. I couldn’t lecture if I was starving.’
‘St Abban managed. Once, he’d eaten nothing for a fortnig
ht and the crowd mobbed his cell, begged him for a sermon. At first he was reluctant to interrupt his prayers, but eventually he came out and spoke to them, and seven hours later, when the sun went down and it was freezing cold, he was still preaching and not one of his listeners had moved or stirred. I promise not to do that. Fifty minutes maximum and then questions from the audience.’ He turned to face her. ‘Perhaps you’d ask a question, would you, Morna? I hate that pin-drop silence when they say ‘‘And now if any one would like to …’’?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She knew nothing at all about the seventh century, would have to stay up, too, thinking out some questions which didn’t sound too crass. Why not stay up together? Couldn’t she mention, casually, that she would be interested to see his work? Maybe their rooms were close together which would make it less contrived.
‘Which floor are you on, David?’
‘Ground floor.’
‘Sister Ruth said that was reserved for nuns and invalids.’
‘Well, there you are …’
Morna forced a smile. Maybe it was just as well. He was shy enough already, might freeze completely if she invaded the privacy of his room. There was always tomorrow, and even if he didn’t come to meals, she might still snatch a pre-breakfast walk or chat. At least he had used her name—the first time since she’d given it.
‘It’s sinners at the top,’ she grinned, pocketing her apple core. ‘I’m in the attic, more or less.’
‘Well I hope your leg’s up to that long trek. How is it, by the way?’
She had forgotten all about it. ‘Fine,’ she said, striding three steps up. ‘Good luck for your talk! I’m looking forward to it.’
Chapter Five
‘And now if there are any questions from the audience …’
Morna stood up. All the questions she had laboriously prepared the night before now seemed footling and inadequate in light of David’s talk. He had ranged from prehistoric standing stones to subatomic physics, from shamans and witch-doctors to biofeedback and auto-hypnosis; considered miracles as metaphor, miracles as symbol; linked pagan art and folklore with Christian cure and vision. Her mind felt full and churning, as if she had crammed it with a ten-course meal, washed down with heady wines. She needed time to digest the talk, yet here she was rising to her feet with some mere petty point of phrasing to propound.
‘I wonder, Mr Anthony, if it might be better to use different terminology? I mean the word miracle is so loaded now, it sets up a reaction which leads people to expect …’
Strange to be addressing him so formally and in a public lecture room. She had preferred their private talk which she had contrived two hours before by walking up and down the path which flanked his room on her early-morning stroll. At last, he had drawn his curtains.
‘David!’ (Surprise).
‘H … Hallo.’
‘It’s a glorious morning. Why don’t you join me for a lap or two?’
It was so obvious, so unsubtle, yet he appeared to have enjoyed the walk. She had even elicited a brief biography, rejoindered with some items from her own. She tried to return her attention to the dais. She should be listening to David’s exposition of the Latin verb mirari, not mulling over the fact that he still lived with his parents in the Midlands, apart from occasional forays to the London libraries; had been thirty-five last birthday and had an (elder) brother who worked in Africa. His family was neither Jewish nor exotic. His mother came from Shrewsbury, his father from a small and sleepy village close to Stafford.
Morna glanced at his dark eyes again as she sat back in her seat. It was their intensity which was foreign, perhaps, rather than their colour. She kept her gaze on him as he dealt with further questions from the floor—timid lapdog questions from pious ladies whose idea of miracle was strictly limited to Lazarus or Lourdes. David was wasted on this audience, she felt, but he couldn’t be too fussy. He had told her he took what lecturing he could, to supplement his research grant. She waited until he had dealt with stigmata, Holy Relics, the problems of the Turin Shroud, then rose to her feet again, tried to deepen the discussion, make it worthy of him. She could see the retreat director anxiously checking his watch as she and David parried arguments. The lecture had already run over schedule and was now cutting into the coffee break. David had talked for longer than his promised fifty minutes, seemed to have lost all shyness as well as his sense of time, displayed a confidence and force which half surprised her.
She watched him now, accepting a vote of thanks and loud applause, already mobbed by females as he stepped down from the dais. It was impossible to get near him in the crowded coffee-room. She could see his head above the clamouring circle of permed and grizzled ones, looking trapped as it was plied with questions, biscuits, homage. She pushed a little closer, watched him take a custard-cream, hold it in his hand uneaten, almost an encumbrance, until he used it as a teaching aid to gesture with. It finally crumbled to pieces in his palm as he made some point too fiercely, stood shedding crumbs, enlightenment.
‘Did you enjoy the talk, my dear?’
Morna swung round, was lassooed by the female JP’s smile.
‘Oh yes, very much.’ She could still see David if she moved a fraction, craned her neck.
‘I thought he sailed a bit close to the wind, though. I mean, that thing about the afterlife was near heretical.’
‘I loved the animal stories, didn’t you?’ That was the spinster social worker. ‘They were really quaint, particularly the otters and that tame stag which …’
‘If you want to know what I think, he’s unsound. I mean it’s all very well opening your mind to any opinion going, but …’
Morna murmured her excuses, edged her way to the door. She couldn’t bear to have David’s talk dissected and diluted with these waffling pieties, her new elation punctured. She pranced along the passage feeling aroused, exhilarated, as she had done when she first went up to university and swapped Mother Michael’s blinkered world for a wider and more dazzling one. She tried to suppress her stupid smile as she tapped on her mother’s door.
‘Mummy, it’s me, Morna. Are you awake?’
‘Yes, dear. Come on in.’
‘How d’ you feel?’
‘A wee bit better now.’
‘Good. Anything you want?’
‘No thanks. Sit here on the bed. That chair’s lost half its springs. I’m glad you’ve ditched that dreadful navy skirt, darling. You’re looking really smart.’
Morna flushed. She had changed it in David’s honour for a paler prettier one, added a real silk blouse. Stupid to have bothered. He would hardly notice things like that when his mind was on Abban’s angelic apparitions or on St Cuthbert’s body found uncorrupt and shining eleven years after he had died. She smoothed the skirt around her on the bed. ‘We’ve just had the most astounding talk.’
‘What on, dear?’
‘Miracles.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘No, not what you think. It was more like philosophy or history or …’
‘Pass me that woolly, darling, will you? It’s none too warm in here.’
‘It’s boiling. Let me draw the curtains. The sun’s blazing down outside.’
‘No, I hate it. It gets in my eyes.’
‘Come on, just a crack.’ Morna wanted the sun to stream in, rival her own radiance. She glanced around the room. Bea had turned it into a sickroom—jars of pills, bottles of Lucozade, a smell of liniment, stale air. It wasn’t like her mother to sit moping in the dark. Bea was seventy next birthday, but rarely used the word old. Maybe her spell in hospital had softened her, given her a taste for playing invalid. The rôle did have its payoffs—attention, sympathy, an opting out of life. Many of the retreatants were looking after aged parents. Morna admired their unselfishness, but it was easier to admire than emulate. Impatiently, she turned back to the bed. A finger of light was pointing across the counterpane, cutting her mother’s face in half. Bea had tried to put on lipstick without a mirror, now h
ad a double mouth, one wrinkled pale, one scarlet. Morna leaned over, kissed the pallid cheek. Hardly fair to judge her mother when she had barely had time to recover from the surgery. Why not be honest and admit she was only restive because she wanted to return to David? He was unlikely to attend the next event—a workshop on the Missions—so once the coffee break was over, she could maybe snatch an hour with him. Yet if Bea were really poorly …
‘Look, Mummy, if you’re feeling bad, why don’t I phone the doctor?’
‘Whatever for? I’m fine. I want to hear about this talk. What did the good priest say, then?’
‘He wasn’t a priest.’ That stupid smile again.
‘What, another of those unwashed poets?’
Morna laughed. ‘Oh no.’ They’d had a talk on Gerard Manley Hopkins from an ex-Beatnik in a scruffy smock and open sandals. ‘This one even wore a tie.’ A narrow stringy brown one, a different brown from his shirt—the same alopeciaed corduroys. Certainly not unwashed, though. You felt with David he had been scrubbed and sanitised, inside as well as out.
‘And did he believe in miracles?’
Morna hesitated. ‘Difficult to say. He gave all the different approaches, one by one—the gullible, the sceptical, the strictly scientific …’
Bea took a sip of Lucozade. ‘How d’ you mean?’
‘I’ll give you an example. He’s researching a seventh-century saint whose life was one long miracle, more or less. I mean, he saw bright lights in the sky and balls of fire which he interpreted as Signs from God, but David said …’
‘Who, dear? Was David the saint?’
‘No, no—the speaker—David Anthony. He told us you could explain them by something like an electric storm which would have filled the sky with lurid lights and shadows and even sound effects. I mean, that’s the natural explanation.’ The sort which Neil would have insisted on, Morna added to herself. ‘But there’s more to it than that. You see, those balls of fire go back to the pagans who had heroes called the Shining Ones and …’
The Stillness the Dancing Page 6