by André Alexis
Lowther’s funeral came quickly and went quickly by. Because Lowther had kept to himself for the most part, the funeral was not well-attended. Heath was there, of course, as were a handful of people from Sarnia and a man from Petrolia whose name was Tully. There were some ten people in all, if you included the altar boys.
The day was sunny, so the stained-glass images were brightly lit. The saints, Zeno and Zenobius, went about their business, laughing or raising the dead, in what looked like jewelled surroundings. The saints on the other side were in darker, but still striking, tones. There was a cheerfulness to the funeral, though Father Pennant was distraught at Lowther’s death. At times during the mass, a wind blew through the church, carrying the smell of freshly cut grass.
Despite his efforts to think about his friend and to maintain seriousness, Father Pennant found his mood lightened as the service progressed so that, by the time he rose to give the eulogy, it was as if Lowther were there with him, and it would have been embarrassing to say too much or, worse, to be pompous. As a consequence, Father Pennant gave a moving eulogy, one that was pleasing to those who had known Lowther well.
At the cemetery, Father Pennant spoke a few warm words, commended Lowther’s spirit to the care of the God Lowther had so fervently believed in. He and the others then left the place where, spiritually speaking, there was no trace of Lowther Williams.
Father Pennant was exhausted after the funeral. He was emotionally drained. However, he’d invited Heath Lambert to dinner and so, that evening, he had to tidy the rectory and prepare a meal for two: grilled pork, mashed fingerlings with green onions, and black pudding. It was all prepared as Lowther might have, but Father Pennant used a cookbook from England and a calculator to convert the weights and volumes.
The two men ate at seven o’clock. The setting sun was reddish but the spirit of the day had not dissipated. They spoke of Lowther. Though Heath had known him much longer than Father Pennant had, there were details of Lowther’s life to which he had not been privy, details Lowther had confessed to the priest but that Father Pennant was loath to share.
Happy to talk about his truest friend, Heath wondered whether he or Father Pennant had known Lowther best. Clearly, Father Pennant knew more of the facts or, at least, Lowther’s angle on the facts. But a man is more than the incidents that make up his life and more than what he judges significant or worth hiding. Heath Lambert felt that, were Lowther with them, he could predict Lowther’s behaviour. And this, as Father Pennant himself admitted, was beyond the priest. Though they had been close over the months they’d lived together, Father Pennant had never – or never with any certainty – been able to say what his friend would do. Moreover, he still had a number of questions about Lowther. One of them concerned the sheep. After describing his encounter at Preston’s farm to Heath, Father Pennant asked
– How did Lowther make the sheep talk?
– I don’t know that he did, answered Heath. I don’t know that he had anything to do with it. After you saw Mayor Fox walk on water, Lowther felt pretty guilty. He thought it was his fault you got such a shock. I don’t think he wanted to put you through that again. He’d be the one to do it, I guess, if he changed his mind. I don’t know how, though.
– A hologram, maybe?
– No, he’d have needed my help for that. And let me tell you: that was a costly business. Those gypsy moths were an expensive gift, if you know what I mean. And it took a lot of work.
– I was upset when he told me the moths were an illusion, said Father Pennant. I kind of knew before he confessed, but being sure was still a bit … unpleasant. It doesn’t make you feel good to be fooled.
– I’m with you there, said Heath. I’d have been pissed too. But it was one hell of a thing to pull off. Felt like solving an equation.
– I thought the whole thing was diabolical, said Father Pennant.
– Diabolical? said Heath. I could get used to being lord of the moths. They’d make good wallpaper.
Both of them laughed.
Father Pennant had put out a small white plate filled with olive oil: a white circle that held a yellowish circle. Beside the plate of oil there was another plate on which there were rough slices of the bread Lowther had made. Heath took a piece of bread, dipped it in the olive oil, shook a few grains of salt over it and ate.
– Well, Father Pennant said, Lowther must have done the sheep thing somehow. Sheep don’t go around talking.
– It would be good if they did, said Heath. Human conversation isn’t always entertaining. You’d want to talk to the really smart sheep, though, the ones who’d thought about things.
– I don’t know about that, said Father Pennant. The best thing about sheep is there’s probably no sheep philosophy.
– That you know of, said Heath.
There really was something impish about Heath Lambert. He was good company and Father Pennant could see why Lowther, a believer, had been close to Heath, the atheist. Of course, atheists were themselves believers and, inevitably, ended up on the same God-driven sledge as the faithful: He is, He is not, He is, He is not, ad infinitum. It was no surprise at all that Heath and Lowther had been close, when you thought about it.
– You knew Lowther’s mind better than I did, said Father Pennant. Let’s say he did make that sheep on Preston’s farm. What was he trying to tell me with all that talk about Nature?
– You got me there, said Heath. I don’t know. He was someone who really loved the earth. Every little detail about it. Mushrooms, insects, lice … there wasn’t anything Lowther didn’t love, but he managed to love God too. I don’t think there was any difference between God and Nature, in his mind. Then again, maybe he really did think Nature isn’t enough and he was trying to warn you, for some reason. Of course, if Lowther didn’t have anything to do with this sheep, maybe you did see God. That’d be bad luck, as far as I’m concerned. You look in the Bible. Once God speaks to you, your life’s pretty much ruined, isn’t it? Not too many happy prophets, are there, Father?
– No, said Father Pennant, that’s true. Thank you for your thoughts, Heath. Most of what you said sounds exactly like Lowther’s thinking. There’s one more thing I’d like to ask. Lowther left me to take care of his money. What do you think he would have wanted me to do with it?
– I think he wanted you to do whatever you thought was best. He told me so. He trusted you, even if you only knew each other for a little while. He trusted you more than he trusted me, I can tell you. He thought I’d waste the money on the greenhouse I’m building. And he was right. I would spend it on my greenhouse. But you should do what you think is right.
– You mean give it to charity?
– If that’s what you think is right. About the only thing we know for certain is that he didn’t want to put his money in a greenhouse. If he had, he’d have left it for me.
The day was done. The sun torched the last of the clouds. An evening breeze blew through the rectory, playing with the tablecloth and the cloth napkins.
– That was a great meal, said Heath, rising.
– I’m glad you liked it, said Father Pennant. You should come around more often. I enjoy talking about Lowther.
– Listen, Father, said Heath, before I go I want to say something and I don’t want you to take it the wrong way. I used to say this to Lowther all the time. I really don’t know why someone as sharp as you would believe all that mumbo-jumbo the Church tells you. Even if you leave aside the whole question of God, there’s no reason someone like you has to live on his knees, if you know what I mean. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not the kind of atheist who hates people who don’t believe what he does. I just wanted you to know how I feel, since we’re likely to spend some time together and I don’t want to hide anything.
– So you think the earth is enough?
– No, I don’t. I think there’s plenty we don’t understand, plenty, and if the earth was enough we wouldn’t have to go looking for it. What I think is: there’s enough
mystery in this life without dragging incense and holy trinities into it.
– I know what you mean, said Father Pennant, but I’m beginning to wonder if there’s any real mystery or if the mystery’s all in our heads. Maybe the earth is enough, Heath. Anyway, if I were going to lose my faith in God, I wouldn’t replace it with faith in chance and nothingness.
Heath laughed and shook his finger as if to say no.
– That’s exactly the kind of thing Lowther would have said. We’re going to have to keep this conversation going.
The men shook hands and Heath walked from the rectory.
Though he lived outside of Barrow and he was, more or less, an atheist, Heath and Christopher Pennant would become close friends during the priest’s short stay in Barrow. This was in part because each was bound in the other’s memory with memories of Lowther, and they would inevitably speak of Lowther when they met. But it was also because they were – as they discovered – temperamentally suited and had a number of interests in common.
The weeks following Lowther’s funeral were among the last that preceded Elizabeth’s marriage to Robbie Myers. September 30th approached like the date of a final verdict.
A week before the wedding, members of her extended family began to arrive in Barrow. Her aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents all came to wish her the best. The house she had lived in for most of her life, the house she would be leaving if she married Robbie, became a noisy and convivial world of Dennys, Youngs and Constables. It was a diverse but, at least over the short term, pleasant gathering of people. There were those who could not eat cheese and those on diets who ate nothing but fruit. There were those who would not sleep in soft beds and those who would sleep anytime and anywhere. There were any number of odd personalities and quirks of behaviour so that, at times, one wondered what it was that linked them all. But then, as if in answer to that very question, one noticed that most shared some physical feature or other: a nose, hazel-green eyes, ears that stuck out, body types. Depending on how one looked at it, ‘family’ was a word for a funhouse mirror in which Youngs, Dennys and Constables were changed and distorted or it was a word for what persisted despite the distortions. It was also, of course, a thing that held an intimation of her parents. As such, there was nothing more precious to her.
Along with the influx of family came Elizabeth’s closest friends. They organized her bridal shower. They forced her to her own hen party, which was held on Ladies’ Night at a strip club in Sarnia. The men were all nicely built, but the last thing Elizabeth wanted to do was to touch any man’s package for luck. Her friends, who had set it up so Elizabeth could feel Donny the Horse for herself, were disappointed when she refused – this after they’d plied her with vodka and tonic. But they themselves manhandled the unfortunate Donny until Elizabeth felt sorry for him and wondered if a penis could bruise, a consideration that made her think of apples and, because the man was monstrously endowed, the arm of a shaken baby.
Throughout the week, Barrow itself seemed charged with a new spirit. On its streets, Elizabeth was warmly greeted by all those planning to attend the wedding. John Harrington made a seven-tiered wedding cake and, the day before the wedding, displayed it in the window of the bakery. Elizabeth herself was said to be radiant. Radiant, radiant, radiant, until she wondered if her skin tone had changed. Whenever she spoke to Robbie, he seemed resolute and happy, the very things she would have liked to be.
Then, because it was inevitable, her wedding day came. Elizabeth was awakened at five in the morning by her aunt Anne, who could not sleep. Her wedding day was, for her aunt and uncle, as so many Christmases had been for her. As the rest of the house slept, the three of them ate a simple breakfast – fresh milk, bran flakes and maple syrup – and then went out to the fields, their family alone together one final time. The sun, when it crested the horizon was so bright they turned to keep it at their backs, walking some distance without speaking. Elizabeth had nothing to say. Her uncle John, a quiet man anyway, could think of nothing to say. And her aunt Anne was overcome by emotion, and so no words came to her. After a while, John Young took his wife’s arm and sang as they walked:
Down the dusty road together
Homeward pass the hurrying sheep
Stupid with the summer weather
Too much grass and too much sleep
I, their shepherd, sing to thee
That summer is a joy to me …
It was a deeply touching moment for Elizabeth as well as for her aunt, a moment of complete belonging, at the edge of the separation that would come if she married Robbie. It was also to be the only moment of unselfconscious intimacy on her wedding day. Walking, just after dawn, with her aunt and uncle, was the beginning of what later seemed a hallucination that lasted until the sun went down and the day ended.
The wedding was set for eleven o’clock. By nine, home was like a madhouse. Loud voices were calling for things, children cried, and there was the occasional sound of something falling or breaking. All of this was part of a cheerful noise: the cries, the shouts, the broken glass. One of her uncles passed by her room singing:
Here comes the bride, with the idiot by her side
Another sang ‘Bringing in the Sheaves’:
Sowing in the sunshine, sowing in the shadows
Fearing neither cloud nor winter’s chilling breeze …
Someone was trying to quell the singing until everyone had gotten dressed and ready. Elizabeth herself was sitting in a chair in her bra and panties while her cousin Lisa helped her put on makeup. At times, it felt as if everything were happening to her or around her, but, in fact, she was an excited participant, asking for this and that, answering questions, even laughing at times. She celebrated with her cousins and reassured her aunt Anne that everything would be all right. Somewhere inside her she was happy, not about marrying Robbie but about the fact of her family: her relatives as well as her best friends (her bridesmaids), who had come early and were now telling her how beautiful she looked, how beautiful her dress looked, how happy they were.
Somewhere inside herself, Elizabeth was pleased, but she stood slightly apart from her own happiness. At the rehearsal, the wedding had seemed an abstraction or a distant ideal. On this day, the day it should all have felt real, the wedding was still distant and strange and she felt like an actor, not a true participant. She assumed this distance from herself was the result of the doubts she had about marrying Robbie, but there was something else: most of the significant moments in her life were really significant only long after they had happened. Sometime from now, whether she married Robbie or not, this day would be meaningful, she knew it.
The day itself was made for a wedding. The sun was a yellow disk. There were great, fluffy white clouds that looked as though they had been hung with care in the sky. From time to time, a breeze blew, bringing with it the smell of dust and the feel of autumn. It was warm, but it was not so warm that one felt uncomfortable in one’s special clothes. Footsteps sounded like percussion precisely, rightly hit. And then, as the limousine her uncle John had hired drove toward Barrow, the countryside that Elizabeth knew intimately watched her as she went by. All was still and bright and much as it would have been in a dream of Barrow.
At eleven o’clock, Elizabeth, her bridesmaids and her uncle John, who was to give her away, stood at the entrance to the church, waiting for their signal to enter. Elizabeth heard the service through the thick doors as if it were mumbled. She was aware of the tension around her. She held on to the train of her dress, the material feeling stiff enough to shatter. She was aware of her uncle’s cologne. She was aware of the grain of the wood of the door to the church. One particular knot was oddly precise: perfect circles in perfect circles in perfect circles.
And then, in an instant, time was up. The tall door opened, the beginning of the Allegretto from Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony began, and Elizabeth walked down the aisle of the church. The church was full. There seemed not a space left on a pew. The faces of th
e people before her were indistinct. That is, although she recognized everyone, she was not always sure who was who. There were just too many for her mind to take in. Here and there a detail stuck out: John Harrington’s tie was crooked; Betsy Robertson, who had been her homeroom teacher, was wiping her tears with a blue handkerchief; George Bigland was wearing a white turtleneck. This mass of people leaning to get a better look at her, this was her home. It was to these people she belonged and with whom she felt kinship. The church, St. Mary’s, though it was tall and its white painted walls went up and up, felt full to bursting as it held her world.
To one side of the church, the stained-glass windows were especially vivid. Elizabeth noticed them, as if for the first time. She took them in, in their entirety, in the momentary glance she gave them. Abbo of Fleury had a hand raised up to protect himself against a group of men who had poles and torches raised above their heads, the angry mob with terrifying expressions on their faces. Alexis of Rome was solitary, his hand held out for alms while, behind him, the Coliseum stood on a hill. Elizabeth looked up toward the altar and saw Robbie standing there, smiling, Phil Bigland, his best man, stood beside him. And she knew, the instant she saw his face, that she did not love Robert Myers. She had loved him, perhaps as recently as moments ago, but she did not love him now and knew it for sure. The girl she had been, the one who had loved a boy named Robbie Myers, had finally died, somewhere in transit between home and church. The woman she was did not feel horror or sadness or, even, indifference. She liked Robert still. He was amusing. He was good for her, in that he sometimes kept her from her own worst thoughts, but one was supposed to marry one’s beloved and Robert Myers was not her beloved.