The Stillness the Dancing

by Wendy Perriam

  He swung round, breaking the circuit of her hands. ‘Gosh! You made me jump.’

  ‘What you cooking?’

  ‘Sun bread.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, that’s my name for it. I thought we’d have a holiday today. Celebrate St Valentine’s and Candlemas and the rites of spring and my birthday and …’

  ‘David, it’s not your birthday is it?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say?’

  ‘I forgot all about it, to tell the truth, until I was just settling down to sleep at five to midnight. I almost came and got you so that we could celebrate the last five minutes of it.’

  ‘I wish you had.’ She wondered what form the celebrations might have taken, how long he would have stayed.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ll keep it today, instead. In the early days, feasts were very movable. Even Christmas wasn’t fixed to its present date until as late as the fourth century. Actually, I didn’t celebrate Christmas this year, either. It was too damn cold. There’s a whole hotchpotch of feasts piling up—St Abban’s feast day, Lupercalia …’

  ‘Luper—what?’

  ‘The ancient Roman version of St Valentine’s. I told you about it, didn’t I? It was held on the fifteenth, not today, but …’

  Morna made a face. ‘I remember now. Priests scourging women with bloody strips of goat hide. I’d rather have my hearts and flowers.’

  ‘I thought we’d re-enact it.’

  ‘I can hardly wait! You the priest, I take it, and me the woman?’

  ‘No, we’ll both be priests. They ran all around their settlement—not just scourging people, but to keep the evil spirits out. A sort of beating of the bounds. It was mainly a fertility rite. They only beat the women to help them conceive, and it was extended to the land as well—to make it fertile, protect the sheep and cattle. I thought we could do the same—walk all round the island and …’

  ‘There aren’t any cattle.’

  ‘Plenty of sheep, though. And what about Cormack’s hens? We might even start them laying.’

  ‘And who do we scourge? His wife?’

  ‘No, we’ll just carry sticks as symbols.’

  ‘David, you’re not serious, are you?’

  ‘Why not? Ritual’s important. We’ve lost so much of it. This is a very crucial time of year. Lent starts in a fortnight …’ He broke off, swept flour and pastry cuttings from the ancient wooden draining board which he was using as a worktop. ‘D’you know why it’s called Lent?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Because it falls in spring which the Anglo-Saxons called Lencten, since the days are beginning to lengthen then.’ He turned back to the range, added more fuel, screwing up his eyes against the heat. ‘It’s a time of transition. Spring is on its way, but it’s not quite certain. For us that’s no big deal. We know it’ll come sooner or later, and even if it’s a bad spring, we can compensate with artificial heat and light or imported foods or processed this or that. But in the old days, it was absolutely crucial. A failed crop could mean starvation. And they were never quite sure that spring would come at all. If the evil forces got the upper hand or punished them for something, then cold and dark might last for ever. Which explains the rituals. They had to appease the gods, you see, and try and encourage the light to return. That’s why they lit fires—to represent the sun or set it a good example. Fires are important. There’s the cleansing purging element as well. I thought we’d have a bonfire tonight, followed by a special ritual meal. We’ll be disgracefully unhistorical and mix everything up at once—birthdays, Lent, spring rites, Lupercalia … Hold on—the sun bread should be ready now, I made it for our feast. Want to see it?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  He picked up the piece of towelling which doubled as oven glove and dishcloth, removed a tray from the oven. On it was a flattened circle of bread, baked golden brown and with a cross cut into the top. ‘It’s round, you see, to represent the sun. And it’s made with the grain from last year’s harvest. That’s symbolic, too—stresses continuity and fruitfulness and … I had to wangle some from Cormack. He thinks I’m a weirdie anyway, but he doesn’t seem to mind so long as I pay. He charged me enough, considering he feeds the stuff to his hens.’

  ‘You mean you ground it yourself to make the flour?’

  ‘Between two stones, the old way.’

  ‘David, you’re amazing!’

  He flushed, went on talking to disguise his embarrassment. ‘I added the cross to pacify St Abban. You know how fierce he used to get about all those pagan rituals—the ones he hadn’t managed to adapt to Christian ends. Mind you, the Church was always pretty good at that. Even Lupercalia was wrested from the heathen. One of the early Popes stripped it clean and turned it into Candlemas.’

  ‘But that’s earlier—February 2nd.’ Morna remembered the feast from school, processing round the grounds with lighted candles in the freezing dawn, holding her fingers in the flame as a penance or bravado, messing about with the hot and sticky wax to help pass the time during the lengthy Mass which followed.

  David removed his sun bread from the baking tray. ‘It is now. But it used to be held on the 14th. It’s very complex, really. There are so many layers and different strands coming from various cultures and mythologies, some of them overlapping or superseded. I mean, Candlemas itself probably harks back to the Feast of Lights, which is all to do with the return of the goddess from the underworld and the rebirth of nature in the spring and … Blast! Something’s burning.’

  He rescued a second tray from the oven. The manure-coloured dough had spread into a shapeless mass, soggy in the middle, burnt around the edges.

  ‘Whatever’s that?’

  ‘A failure, by the looks of it. It’s meant to be salt-meal cake, but I had to improvise. The Vestal Virgins offered it to their goddess at Lupercalia, so I thought I’d have a shot at it. I used ordinary self-raising flour mixed with salt. They made their salt from brine, so I tried to be clever and add some mashed-up seaweed as a sort of extra. That’s probably what ruined it.’ David stuck a fork in, withdrew the prongs sticky-wet and clogged. ‘Never mind—I’m cooking other things.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Wait and see.’ He seemed elated like a child. He must have made a second secret trip to Cormack’s. There were new provisions she hadn’t seen, mixtures in bowls she couldn’t recognise. He had gone out yesterday, ostensibly for a walk, left her by the fire.

  ‘Can’t I help, though?’

  ‘You can be the goddess—earth mother and provider. Or you can leap over the bonfire to keep the witches away. That’s another later custom which …’

  ‘I’d rather get the breakfast.’

  ‘I don’t think we should have any. We ought to be fasting for our beating the bounds, and anyway, we want to save our appetite for supper. Fast before feast—it’s psychologically right.’

  ‘Let me help with supper, then.’

  ‘No. That’s my thing. A little present to you, for all your help on the book.’

  ‘But it’s your birthday, David. You should have the presents.’

  ‘Well, on your birthday you can cook a meal for me. I’d like that.’

  ‘It’s not for ages, though.’

  He shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  That was a present in itself, her guarantee that she would continue seeing him. Even when she had to leave, they could keep in touch by mail, so long as Cormack fetched and posted the letters. He went once a month, at least, to collect his pension and those of the other islanders, and could usually be persuaded to make an extra trip if his bronchitis had eased up and they made it worth his while. Not that it was easy to be an ardent correspondent. She had found that with her mother. The second (longer) letter she had written to Bea was still propped up on the dresser awaiting an improvement in Cormack’s bronchial tubes, which had also to correspond with a calm spell in the weather. Judging by today, though, the worst of winter w
as over, and even if the squalls returned, to cut off any mail—well, David would be home himself in a matter of mere months. She would make her own birthday very special, say all the things she hadn’t said, give him the things she couldn’t give him here.

  David was still busy, seemed not to want her in the way. She had learnt when to help and when to disappear. In the same way he respected her privacy, rarely came upstairs at all. She went up now, lay on her bed in all her outdoor clothes. He had asked her to be goddess and earth mother. Was that just a joke or empty words? Why couldn’t she stick to her decision, regard David as a friend—nothing more; ignore that stupid inappropriate excitement which kept welling up every time she saw him? Yet surely he had hinted at something else himself. All that stuff about Lupercalia—was it just a history lesson, or had he deliberately stressed the fertility rites, the echoes of an ancient cult of Pan? Pan was a lecherous god who panted after nymphs, not a skivvy baking salt bread in his kitchen.

  When she went down again, the kitchen was cleared and tidy. David had disappeared. She tracked him to what they called their garden, a stretch of bare and rocky wasteland outside the back door of the cottage. He had coaxed an impressive blaze from a few strips of broken fish box, a cardboard packing case, some washed-up plastic bottles, two stumps of twisted driftwood and a little precious peat. He had cut the peat when he first arrived on the island in September, been drying it ever since, rationing it like everything else.

  She squatted down beside him. ‘I thought the bonfire was this evening.’

  ‘It is. This is just a sacrificial fire. The Luperci sacrificed a young dog and a couple of goats. We can’t run to those, I’m afraid, so we’ll have to improvise. I’ve done my best.’ He gestured to a small bulge in a piece of oil-stained sacking.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A dead bird. A razorbill. I found it on the cliff path. Don’t worry, it’s very cleanly dead. I was lucky to find anything at all. Are you ready, by the way? I was just going to come and get you.’

  ‘Well, yes. But …’

  ‘I’ll fetch the corn and oil, then. They’re not really right for Lupercalia, but they’re a pretty standard offering for a lot of other feasts. Can you watch the fire?’

  He returned with a small box of provisions, placed it on a ledge of rock, unwrapped the sacking, revealing a large bird boldly marked, jet black head and back contrasting with dazzling white underparts.

  Morna stared at the sleek white wing-stripe, the curious but powerful bill. ‘David, it’s beautiful. We c … can’t burn that.’

  ‘Would you rather it simply rotted or was gnawed by rats?’

  She didn’t answer. He came and knelt beside her. ‘Look, it’s a symbolic offering, Morna—quite an apt one, really. It represents prosperity and light and food and … A hundred years ago, they used to slaughter sea birds, not just to eat, but for their feathers and their skins. They made candle oil from the skins—that’s our light, you see, and then they sold the feathers—that’s wealth we’re offering—and wings suggest the spirit, anyway, and …’

  ‘All right.’ She shrugged, eased up to her feet, stood watching as David decanted oil and corn into two chipped and clumsy cups. It seemed all wrong. They should have used virgin oil from a local olive grove, glistening in a stately silver vessel, not Tesco’s cheapest in a plastic bottle. The corn was cornflakes—Kelloggs’ vitamin-enriched without the milk, or sugar. Yet somehow David made it solemn. She could see the priest in him, the way he handled cornflakes as if they were the host, his slow deliberate movements as he circled the fire, poured oil onto the flame. She felt herself drawn into his ritual, standing straight, head bowed, as if she were in church. The island itself was the huge rock of their cathedral, grey cliffs towering like nave walls, sky overarching as its marble roof, waves booming and resounding as their organ.

  The fire was really roaring now, unweaving the solid granite of the rock face, crimsoning David’s hands as he offered the bird on the sacrificial pyre. There was a crackle of flesh, a reek of scorching feathers. Morna shut her eyes. A bird which had soared and free-wheeled in the sky, a diving bird like Martin, fearless and courageous, now grilling like a chop. She could hear the flames licking greedily, not just from their puny pyre, but from all the fires lit through all the ages stretching back to first primeval fire—Bronze-Age man anointing the earth with blood and bone, flesh and ash, to appease his gods, renew fertility; pagan Celts offering human sacrifice. She squinted through half-closed lids, glimpsed the whole unravelling horizon tinged blood-red; dark and shadowy centuries charring into ash.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She felt David’s hand touch lightly on her arm, opened her eyes to grey now, the fire dying down, the sky overcast as one leaden cloud dragged its slow and creeping shadow over them. She shivered.

  ‘Cold?’ he asked.

  ‘N … No.’

  They were whispering, both of them, as if David, too, felt those other presences, feared to anger them, disturb them in their rites. He was kneeling now, raking up the remnants of the fire.

  ‘The Luperci smeared their foreheads with blood from the sacrifice. We’ll use ash instead, for expiation.’ He retrieved a few hot ashes, dipped his thumb in them, traced a cross on both their foreheads.

  Morna’s brow was burning from his touch, her legs still shaky under her. She remembered Ash Wednesdays at school when the priest had marked them with ashes at the morning Mass. ‘Remember, man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.’ All through the day they had gone about their business—arithmetic and hockey, embroidery and choir practice, eating bony black-skinned cod at lunch, bread and scrape at tea—still with that black smudge on their brows, reminding them of death. It was said among the girls that if the mark stayed on until bedtime, then you were going to be a nun. Sister Anne Morna’s always did.

  David was damping down the embers. ‘They wiped off the blood with white wool dipped in milk. That was all symbolic. Then they had to laugh.’

  ‘Laugh?’ An observer might have laughed, someone not involved—laughed in sheer derision at this improvised charade—but Morna was still caught up in the ritual, still aware of powerful forces which she could hardly understand. Ancient man had believed in the living spirit in soil and rock, stone and stream. She glanced around at the craggy boulders encircling their small patch of ground, sculpted by the wind into grotesque and staring faces. The stones did seem alive, not just in the last flickering glimmer of the fire, but in the way they witnessed, watched.

  David stood up, his movements slow and solemn still. ‘We’ll build our bonfire from the embers later on. That links the sacrifice with the feast. Right, I think we ought to get off now, start our beating of the bounds. Got your stick?’

  She nodded. In the absence of any trees, they had to make do, David with a stave from a rotten barrel, she with a wooden wardrobe-rail which she had found in the spare bedroom without its wardrobe.

  ‘We ought to run—at least the first bit. The Luperci did.’

  ‘They went naked, didn’t they? I draw the line at that.’ She heard herself sounding flippant, superficial, but she had to break the tension, escape from the black clutch of pagan hands.

  David laughed, surprising her. ‘Naked except for loincloths made of goat-skin. I’ll get my jacket, shall I? That’s got a very tatty sheepskin lining—the best I can manage, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, look!’ she said, relieved that he could joke. ‘The sun’s broken through. Our rites must have worked already.’

  ‘I hope so. This island needs a change of luck. Cormack was telling me they’ve had more than their fair share of disasters in the last fifteen years or so. Two fishing boats were lost and his son fell off the cliff and broke his leg and then a lot of oil was washed up on the beaches and destroyed most of the bird life. And even long before that, people were starting to leave, feeling the place was cursed. Once those last six stalwarts kick the bucket, the island dies as well.’
r />   ‘And you think we can halt all that by running round it in a loincloth?’

  ‘Well, no …’ He paused, shaking out his jacket which was flecked with ash and sawdust. ‘It’s a … gesture, like ban-the-bomb marches. Maybe they won’t stop a war, but at least they’re making a plea, rallying the forces of good against those of evil.’ He buttoned up his jacket, turned the collar up. ‘And maybe, at some level, gestures sort of … register—chip away at evil or … Oh, I don’t know, it sounds crazy when I put it into words.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’ Morna stared up at the sun, a weak, raw, uncertain winter sun, with more brightness in it than warmth, but exciting because it was rare and unexpected, stirred memories of spring. Suddenly there was colour in the grey, glints in the rock, promise in the dead brown heather, damask on the sea. The sun had energised her—or was it David’s words? She was no longer just the stooge of sea and weather, but able to lift curses, weaken evil. Everything seemed easier, even running. She broke into a jog-trot, turned back to take David’s hand. He didn’t tug it back this time, pretend he needed the hand to blow his nose or tie his scarf, but ran beside her, keeping pace, his fingers clasped in hers. They gradually increased their speed until they were running at full pelt as they had at Weybridge. He had raced her then, kept always a yard or so in front, competing, showing off. Now they were abreast, arms and legs coordinated, moving in perfect time with one another. It felt effortless, like flying, despite their bulky wraps and unwieldly sticks. Everything was urging them on, the gold-flecked clouds rolling overhead, the sea rampaging round the rocks, their drumming footsteps reechoed in the waves. They were children again, haring along in ragged jeans and gymshoes, unwashed hair streaming in the wind. Or adults living when the world was still a child, before civilisation, sophistication; clad in wolf-skins, eating roots and berries. She had never felt so close to him before, their palms sweating into each other despite the cold, their shadows overlapping.