A Dark and Sinful Death

by Alison Joseph

  ‘In Christmas cards.’

  ‘It’s a start.’

  They both laughed.

  ‘And then, after Antibes,’ James said, ‘you could come to Italy, and then the States, I was thinking of going by ship.’

  ‘And is this for my father too?’

  ‘No. This is for me. And for you, actually. You can meet some of his friends, tie up some loose ends. And it’s on condition that as soon as I get ill you deliver me into the appropriate medical hands and come straight home.’

  ‘I might be quite a good nurse.’

  ‘I won’t have it, Agnes.’

  Agnes took a sip of cold coffee. ‘The problem is, that I can’t. It’s simply not possible. The order won’t accept it.’

  ‘Is it up to them?’

  ‘Yes. I — I owe them my obedience.’

  ‘At any cost?’

  ‘But it’s illusory, James, this self, this person with individual wants and needs. That’s what I was trying to tell Athena. The self is endlessly greedy, always wanting more, essentially restless, whereas if you hand everything over, and stop listening to the self, and start listening to the stillness instead, then — then ... You see, that’s what I was trying to tell Athena when she said I should go with you, that the greater good is all about accepting what is, rather than ceaselessly striving for what might be.’

  ‘Who’s Athena?’

  ‘She’s a friend.’

  ‘How did she know before I’d even asked you?’

  ‘She said I was unhappy, that’s all.’

  ‘She’s bolder than I am.’

  Agnes smiled. ‘She’s bolder than most people.’

  ‘So she says what other people only think?’

  Agnes looked at him, then said, ‘Maybe happiness isn’t what we’re here for.’

  ‘But if one gets the chance, surely one should seize it. If your God has put us here, surely we should celebrate what He gives us?’

  ‘He gives us the Now, that’s all. The moment.’

  ‘And if the Now includes the possibility of a cruise to the States, isn’t it right to say yes? I’m sorry, Agnes, but your Athena has made me bold too, and if I thought you were happy in your order I wouldn’t dream of saying all this, but to see you — as you are ... ’

  ‘You mean, if I was to say no it would be a denial of God’s plan for me, not an acceptance of it?’

  ‘Yes. And I don’t even believe in Him.’

  They smiled at each other. James reached across to the clock and wound it, and set it down again. They watched the four spheres spinning, the mechanism springing smoothly into action.

  ‘I wonder what Elias would say,’ Agnes said after a while.

  ‘I don’t expect you to decide now, I’m not going for a month or two, you must take advice. You can ask Elias what he thinks.’

  ‘I’m seeing him tonight, but we’re breaking into someone’s house, so there won’t be much time for theology.’

  James laughed. ‘You see, you need me to keep you from your criminal tendencies.’

  Agnes stood up to leave. In the hall, James helped her on with her coat.

  ‘Agnes -I won’t have this conversation again. You must take advice and decide when you’re ready. Whatever you decide, I’ll accept, please believe that. Don’t feel you have to avoid me just because of today, I won’t mention it again. Just let me know when you’re ready.’

  ‘Of course I won’t avoid you.’

  ‘Tea on Sunday, then?’

  Agnes smiled. ‘Tea on Sunday.’ She tucked her scarf into her collar. ‘Anyway, the only person I can talk to about this is Julius.’

  ‘Will he be on my side?’

  ‘Come to think of it, you’re very alike. Perhaps I shouldn’t tell him, he might want to go with you instead.’

  ‘He can meet your mother, then.’

  ‘He’d be great with my mother.’

  James kissed her cheek. ‘Until Sunday. We’ll discuss golf next time, or bridge.’

  ‘How very dull.’ On the steps, she turned. ‘James — Julius will tell me not to leave my order.’

  ‘And will he be right?’

  ‘He’s always right.’ Agnes kissed him, then got into her car and pulled out into the road. The clouds were edged with pink as the last of the sun sank lower in the sky and then was gone.

  Chapter Ten

  It was raining. Elias parked his car at the edge of the deserted moorland road and switched off the engine.

  ‘Here?’ Agnes could see nothing out of her window.

  ‘I can’t risk getting any closer.’

  You just want us to get wet, Agnes thought, as they got out of the car and began to walk towards the house. An owl hooted. All we need is thunder and lightning now, Agnes thought.

  ‘There might be thunder,’ Elias said.

  They approached the house. Agnes could hear dogs barking. Elias turned to her. ‘You don’t mind dogs, do you?’

  Why am I here? Agnes thought. There was a wall which encircled the house. Elias turned away from the front drive, and followed the wall round to the side, until they reached a tiny wooden door draped with ivy. He lifted the latch, and it opened. Immediately there was a rush of barking and snarling and wet fur. Agnes flung herself back against the door, her arms across her face. When she next looked Elias was crouching on the ground with two black labradors jumping around him in glee, tails wagging.

  ‘And where’s Greer?’ he was asking, fussing them. ‘Where’s your old daddy, then?’ She took a step towards him. He stood up. ‘I said they were OK, didn’t I?’ His eyes were shining with tears. He set off towards the side of the house, the dogs jumping at his legs. They reached a back porch door, which opened easily. The dogs quietened as they went into the house.

  It was pitch dark. Elias switched on his torch. Agnes saw Wellington boots on the tiled floor, fishing rods stacked against a wall. There was another door, also unlocked, then they were inside the house. A thin light shone through the banisters from an upper landing. There was a damp smell; a low growling. Agnes heard Elias whisper, ‘Greer?’ He flashed his torch. ‘Greer?’ In the pale light Agnes saw a dog basket lying by one wall. A huge old dog seemed to be sleeping there, but its head was turned towards them, and it growled again.

  ‘Greer, it’s me,’ Elias said, flinging himself down next to the dog. The growling stopped, and the dog opened one eye. Elias buried his head in its neck. ‘I knew you’d wait, oh Greer, you waited ... And now I’m back, and Kate, remember Kate ... ? Oh, I’ve dreamed of you so many times ... ’ he murmured, through tears. With great effort the dog raised his head and licked his cheek.

  The other two dogs sat to attention. The hall seemed vast, extending into shadow. There was a huge central staircase. Agnes could see the carved mahogany, the worn red carpet. In the heavy silence she could hear the rain against the windows. A clock chimed the quarter hour. Elias sat up. He patted the dog, then stood up, dashing tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘I knew he’d live for ever, that dog,’ he murmured. ‘Come on.’ He set off up the staircase. Agnes followed him. The young dogs stayed in the hall, their tails thumping the floor.

  They went along the first landing, then up another flight of narrow, uncarpeted stairs. ‘How does Baines live in all this, all alone?’ Agnes whispered.

  ‘He’s been rattling around here for years. He won’t change.’

  The upper landing was cluttered with furniture, a beautifully carved low table, thick with dust. The floor around the window was covered in leaves. Elias tried the second door along. It was locked. There was a shelf above the door, and Elias ran his hand along it. He picked up a key from the shelf and put it in the lock.

  ‘If she doesn’t want her dad snooping around her work, she should change her hiding place,’ he said. The door opened, and Elias ushered her in and switched on the lights.

  It was a huge room, looking out to the front of the house. It was cluttered but not untidy. Canvases in various stages o
f work were stacked against the walls.

  ‘She didn’t wreck her own art room, then, just ours,’ Agnes said.

  ‘Yes.’ Elias pulled a canvas towards him to see what was behind. ‘Typical of her. It’s like the roses, all pruned before she left. She allows her madness into places where it’ll do least damage. I remember this one,’ he said, finding an old work stacked behind a new. ‘Horses. She did loads of stuff about horses when I first knew her.’

  ‘What, like Stubbs?’

  Elias laughed. ‘No, not quite. Look.’

  He pulled out a small canvas, criss-crossed with scratchy charcoal colours.

  ‘That’s horses?’

  ‘She used to say so. She’d take particular lines, like the angle of the back of the hoof, and repeat them.’

  ‘So, has she moved on since then?’ Agnes went to an arrangement of objects on a small table. There was a vase in rough porcelain, some drooping roses. A pink digital watch.

  ‘Perhaps. Look, no skull,’ Elias said.

  ‘There’s a watch instead. Do you think it’s a clue?’

  He laughed. ‘I’ve no idea.’

  There was an easel, a canvas in the early stages of work; rough outlines of light, the curve of the vase, a suggestion, in the brusque red lines, of rose petals unfurling. The numbers from the watch-face were pencilled in across the flowers. Agnes walked round it. ‘She can’t have been here for a while, the roses are entirely shrivelled up.’

  ‘No, on the contrary,’ Elias said, joining her, ‘this is deliberate. It’s all about decay, you see. If you’re painting a rose like this, it becomes a representation of death. And anyway, you try getting fresh garden roses in March.’

  ‘So this is work in progress?’

  Elias went to a paintbrush that was lying on the easel. He wiped it on a rag. ‘See, the brush is still wet.’

  ‘We could — ’ Agnes began.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Shall we tell Joanna we’ve been here? Leave her a note?’

  ‘There’s no point now,’ Elias replied. ‘We know she’s OK, don’t we? We know she still comes here.’

  ‘But the school — ’

  ‘That’s not our business. She’ll have to decide if she still wants that job in her own time.’

  ‘But something made her run away — ’

  ‘We don’t have to meddle in her life — ’

  ‘ — connected with Mark’s death.’

  Elias looked at Agnes. ‘So you say. But look at the evidence. David seems to think she’s OK. These brushes are still wet. She’s obviously fine. You see, she was always a fragile person. Sometimes things just got too much for her. Especially after ... ’ He blinked, shrugged. ‘Maybe she’d just had it with teaching. It’s like her to walk out whenever she needs to.’ He smiled. ‘Being totally selfish is one of her great talents.’

  ‘She was very distressed in the art room that night.’

  ‘She’s often distressed. It drives her work. She’s on to something with this still life stuff, it must have taken her over for a while.’

  He began to put everything back in its place. ‘You see, these skulls and flowers, they’re part of the Baines family tradition. Goes back years.’ He laughed, at some private joke. He surveyed the studio, everything orderly once more. They went out on to the landing. He locked the door, replaced the key, then turned to Agnes. ‘I’ll show you what I mean,’ he said. She followed him to the end of the corridor. Elias grabbed a chair, jumped on to it, reached up and opened a trap door in the ceiling. He pulled down a ladder which was folded into the roof.

  ‘Elias — ’

  ‘It’s OK.’ Elias started up the ladder.

  ‘What if he comes back?’

  ‘Then we fold the ladder up behind us and wait until it’s safe to come out.’

  ‘You’re mad.’

  ‘Come on.’

  Agnes sighed and climbed the ladder. He reached out his arm and helped her into the loft. It was dark, with a thick dusty smell. The rain hammered on the roof. Elias was clumping across the rafters, muttering.

  ‘They must be here. He wouldn’t have moved them.’

  His torch beam picked out a huge trunk; a roll of carpet; a regimental flag, half unfurled. A canvas.

  ‘Here we are.’

  They approached. Agnes saw two paintings leaning up against a tea chest. One was a still life, a kitchen scene; a cabbage, a dish of lemons and grapes. The other showed a young man sitting at a table piled with opulence, with jewellery, books. There was an ornate clock at one side. Placed at the centre of an open book was a human skull.

  ‘Baines is crazy,’ Agnes said at last. ‘The doors unlocked, anyone could break in, these must be worth thousands.’

  ‘He relies on the dogs.’

  ‘People shoot dogs.’

  ‘No one knows these are here.’

  ‘But they’re — sixteenth — seventeenth century?’

  ‘Seventeenth. Spanish.’

  ‘Someone must know about them.’

  ‘The Baines family has always been Chapel.’

  Agnes looked at Elias. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Some time last century, a young Baines, instructed by his father to find him some Continental art, brought these back from his grand tour or whatever they did, having paid a sizeable amount for them.’

  ‘Who told you about this?’

  ‘No one.’ Elias stroked some dust from a picture frame. ‘I just know.’

  ‘So why did they end up in a loft? And what’s that got to do with being Chapel?’

  ‘Agnes, it’s obvious. These are so Roman Catholic, aren’t they? So utterly un-Puritan. Painted by Jesuits.’ Agnes looked at the painted velvet of the tablecloth, the cascades of pearls. ‘So they hid them away.’

  ‘Yes, for generations. Hannah, Baines’s wife, wanted them displayed, but he stuck with family tradition.’

  ‘And Joanna?’

  Elias considered the paintings for a moment. ‘You see,’ he said, pointing to the man seated at the opulent table, ‘this is a vanitas. A memento mori. The skull, and the clock, together. A warning against attachment to worldly things. The inevitable passage of time.’

  ‘And so she paints dead roses.’

  Elias nodded.

  ‘Elias — when did you first see these, then?’

  He turned to her. ‘A long time ago.’ He looked back to the paintings. ‘I like the cabbage best, in the kitchen one, look. A celebration of cabbage-ness.’ He smiled. ‘We’d better go, these bridge parties finish early.’

  They replaced the loft ladder, closed the trap door, and hurried back down to the darkened hall where the dogs were waiting.

  ‘Did you come here to set your mind at rest?’ Agnes asked.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘About Joanna? Or about something more?’

  He seemed to smile. ‘Perhaps I just wanted to see my dog again ... ’ He knelt down beside Greer’s basket, and murmured into his fur. The dog lifted his head, blinking through ancient clouded eyes, and nuzzled Elias.

  ‘Maybe he summoned me,’ Elias whispered, getting to his feet. ‘Maybe he was waiting to say goodbye.’ His eyes welled with tears.

  They left the way they’d come, the dogs subdued beside them. At the garden door the dogs stood to attention while Elias patted their heads. Then Agnes and Elias were out on the drive, walking back to the car. The rain had eased, and the air was fresh and damp.

  Elias was enclosed in silence. They drove back to the convent. He parked in the car park and turned off the engine. As Agnes opened the car door, she heard him say, ‘Thank you.’

  She turned to him. ‘What for?’

  ‘Every time I’ve gone back, it’s always been a dream. But now there’s you to ask, to tell me it was real.’

  They got out of the car and walked slowly down the drive. He turned off towards his flat in silence, leaving her to walk alone into the school.

  *

  She woke ear
ly on Monday morning. It was a bright, clear dawn, heralding spring. In the chapel, she found Philomena and Teresa already there. She joined her voice to theirs, finding peace in the familiar words, aware, inexplicably, of an image of a cabbage, perfectly executed, something to do with the Divine, with Creation itself. And God created Cabbage-ness, she found herself thinking, as Philomena chanted the final blessing.

  Which, of course, He did, she thought, going into breakfast, trying to hang on to the thought in the noise and clatter, trying to recall the painting she’d seen last night with Elias. Cabbage-ness and Lemon-ness and Terracotta Pot-ness ...

  ‘Coffee?’ Teresa said.

  And Coffee-ness, Agnes thought. ‘Yes please, no milk.’ And Tray-ness and Plate-ness, and Dining Room-ness ...

  ‘You seem distracted.’

  Agnes looked across at Teresa as they sat down at a table. ‘Those Jesuits knew a thing or two, didn’t they?’ she said.

  ‘Which Jesuits?’

  ‘I was thinking about Spanish still-life painters of the seventeenth century.’ Agnes sipped her coffee.

  ‘You would,’ Teresa said through a mouthful of cornflakes.

  ‘I was thinking about Thing-ness.’

  ‘Right,’ Teresa said, eyeing her strangely.

  ‘The celebration of Creation.’

  ‘Of course. We talk about it all the time in the staff room.’

  ‘It all starts with cabbages, you see.’

  ‘Cabbages. Right.’ Teresa was frowning now.

  ‘If you paint a cabbage, then you’re celebrating the thing-ness of it, aren’t you? To paint something becomes an act of worship. And if it’s something that was alive, like a cabbage, or a rose, then you’re celebrating not only its essential nature, but its impermanence too. So in the act of painting, you’re meditating on — on everything. On creation, but also on death. It’s full of paradoxes, isn’t it, because the painting acquires a permanence that the cabbage itself never had. So it’s a kind of mimicry of God, to paint, yet also an act of worship in the face of God’s greatness.

  Teresa put down her spoon. ‘You know, every morning here, I have tea. Every single morning for more than ten years, I’ve had tea.’ She pointed at Agnes’s cup. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said, ‘I’m going to have coffee.’