Angels in the Architecture

by Sue Fitzmaurice

  ‘… I’m trying to add my thoughts. Take your plate?’ Alicia thought there was no harm in carrying her good graces a little further.

  ‘Sure.’

  Alicia stacked their two plates and cutlery and wandered through the French doors to the kitchen.

  ‘I mentioned those Paris experiments by the way,’ Pete called out after her.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Well I’m not sure I get them entirely of course. But it’s just that idea of things having been in contact previously being able to influence each other.’

  ‘And how was that relevant?’ Alicia returned to the verandah.

  ‘It just seemed like it was. The experiments in prayer were with anonymous people praying for anonymous patients and proved ineffective. So the comment was made, surely if one was praying for a patient one knew, that would be more effective.’

  ‘Yep. That follows. But again there are so many variables.’

  ‘But isn’t this the kind of thing you want to prove yourself, to know and understand about yourself?’

  Alicia stared at her husband. She sat back in her chair with a cup of coffee, blew on it, and sipped and stared into the cup.

  ‘Dunno,’ she said softly.

  Not being quite sure why, Pete decided he’d leave her with that.

  ‘Pete! Well, well, well. Thought that little drinking soirée of ours must have left you feeling out of sorts.’

  Pete turned to see Maitland beaming along towards him on the footpath just as he was about to turn into Rose and Loraine’s cottage.

  ‘Oh good heavens, no. Just warming up!’ Pete replied, pleased to have a familiar face before going in.

  ‘That’s the spirit! Oh dear, pardon the pun..’ Maitland laughed. ‘Good to see you again.’

  The two men shook hands.

  ‘Likewise! After you.’ Pete flagged his arm towards the front door and then followed behind Maitland who let himself in, calling out a cheery Hello down the hallway.

  Rose emerged into the other end of the hall, a jovial and welcoming host, and ushered the men through.

  It was several weeks since Pete’s last visit to the group and surprised as he was to find himself there again, he was equally content now to be in such easy company. A middle-aged man new to Pete was introduced as Arthur, Loraine’s brother-in-law from Torksey, otherwise the participants were the same as his previous visit.

  ‘Pete! Nice to see you, to see you … ?’ Pete couldn’t bring himself to utter the expected nice in response to Loraine’s blaring greeting, although he could see she was not really wedded to that particular vulgarity, and he grinned back at her with a jolly nice to see you too..

  ‘Arthur’s been embarrassing me with a few inaccuracies about my extremely intermittent ability to speculate on the future,’ Loraine continued.

  ‘Really? Can you do that? Maybe you can tell me if Maitland’s going to compel me towards intemperance again this evening, because if he does my wife will be very unhappy about it,’ said Pete, to general amusement.

  ‘Ah nothing so precise I’m afraid. I have no control over it. Things just sort of pop into my head. But I’ll let you know if visions of insobriety emerge,’ she said with a chuckle.

  ‘Like knowing old Ronald Reagan was going to get shot before it happened,’ Arthur chipped in. ‘That was her most recent prediction. Only the night before the event, it was. I couldn’t believe when I heard it the next day on the car radio coming home.

  ‘I didn’t say it was Reagan, remember? I said a world leader.’

  ‘And you said he wouldn’t be killed though. I mean that’s fairly precise, isn’t it? She’s done it the odd time before and no doubt it’ll happen again sometime. I think you ought to train your skill somehow, Loraine. It could make you a lot of money.’

  ‘Oh heavens; how awful! No, thank you very much.’ Loraine laughed. ‘That sounds terribly fraudulent to say the least.’

  ‘Well, the world’s full of frauds then, I’d say,’ countered Arthur again.

  ‘So how do you know this stuff?’ Pete mused.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know how it happens, Pete. It just does. It pops into my head, and I know it as though it’s already happened. I know when it’s really a real premonition. It has a very distinct feel. But there’s no way of telling when it’s going to happen, and I can’t make it happen. It does it itself.’

  ‘What is it exactly, that does it itself?’ Pete sat down. ‘Like a piece of information from the future presumes to set itself up in your consciousness?’ Pete continued.

  ‘Yes, as though that piece of information has a consciousness too?’ Sally finished off the question.

  Loraine looked at Pete with a cheeky smile. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I knew you were about to say that!’ Pete said.

  Everyone laughed at the joke.

  ‘I would think that such information would have had to have come from somewhere. It can’t just have popped out of thin air. It can’t have consciousness itself. It at least had to come from someone – the killer, say.’

  ‘Yes, but John Hinckley intended to kill Reagan. Loraine’s premonition was that he wouldn’t be killed, and that was what happened,’ said Arthur.

  ‘Okay, you’ve got me. There is no reasonable, comprehensible answer.’

  Pete took a seat round the large dining table, next to Sally, nodding and smiling to familiar faces.

  ‘I remember, Pete, when I first saw you in the Cathedral,’ Rose said, ‘that you talked about Tim having an exchange with a swan at Brayford Pool. Now couldn’t there be something similar in that? A bird and an autistic child appearing to have, what? A conversation?’

  ‘Oh but really that was just childish fantasy – more the line my daughter touted about the whole thing. Anyway, how is that similar to predicting the future?’

  ‘I was thinking about the exchange of an idea between two creatures, theoretically and indeed quite obviously, without the ability to exchange any real kind of meaning, real as we’d understand real anyway.’

  ‘Well we don’t know what they exchanged. It just looked like something, but it’s pure conjecture. There was a comfort, an affinity, between a sweet child and an animal – that kind of thing must happen often. A lot of animals are sensitive to people’s natures I suppose.’

  ‘Yes of course, but at the time you’d felt there’d been something …’

  ‘Yes that’s true,’ replied Pete, resisting an urge to deny what he’d seen. ‘It had felt like some kind of recognition, some mutual respect. It was uncanny. At least I felt that at the time, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t want to get sentimental about my son and what he does. I want something more solid to work with. It’s so easy to imagine these things. They’re fantasy, a bit of sop.’

  ‘Yes, but just the same, what do you think it was about?’ Loraine persisted.

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’ Pete tapped his temple lightly. ‘I felt something at the time, I do remember. When I look at him, so often it seems like he’s on a different plane. Well, he is. He’s a wee boy trapped inside his own consciousness with little that enables him to find his way out of there. I certainly don’t believe any more that there’s nothing in there – in his head, I mean.’

  ‘No, of course there’s not, of course …’

  ‘And when I met you that day too,’ Rose continued, ‘some of the things you said did make me wonder about what Tim knows, and of course that whatever that is, is a difficult, maybe impossible thing for us to know.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pete. ‘But I don’t have much in the way of explanation. I want to do the right thing – of course – all parents do. But what is that? The views on what is the right thing cover a huge gamut of possibilities – focusing on teaching him life skills – very practical and important of course. Pressure cooker play therapy …’ Pete wiggled fingers on two hands emphasising inverted commas and the notion of ‘play therapy’. ‘And then there’s the almost inane respo
nse of a few – I’m sorry to put it that way – that Tim is very spiritual. Or even this idea that when he stares at nothing and laughs and smiles that he’s communicating with some spiritual something-or-other that we can’t see. With the Angels, some say. Well, that’s not useful for me,’ Pete continued with a little exasperation. ‘There’s certainly nothing in those kinds of comments that gives me, as his father, some kind of – any kind of – direction. I mean it creates huge hurdles to understanding, and I have no idea where the first hurdle even is.’

  ‘You must have some view on religion, on things spiritual?’ This was from Sally.

  It hadn’t passed Pete by that the discussion was focused on him, and he wasn’t sure why. He couldn’t fathom how his son provoked such interest from others.

  ‘My personal spiritual – religious – experience is more or less nil. It’s something I’ve neglected, deliberately I suppose. And I’m feeling bereft really, even more now that I find myself here.’ Pete felt safely unjudged, despite the context, although a little uncomfortable at being the centre of attention, but intrigued by it also.

  ‘What do you think the knowledge is that you want?’ Sally asked again.

  ‘I don’t know. I guess I’m interested in people’s experiences for starters.’

  ‘You know, Pete,’ Loraine spoke kindly and with sincerity, ‘you can’t just pick and choose, or take a wee peek – get your feet wet – just to see if you like it, or if it has something to offer you. You can’t toy with God.’

  Wow, how did we get here? Pete thought.

  ‘That’s the first rule if you like,’ Loraine continued. ‘It’s not about you. It’s about God, and God Power and God’s Light and Universal Energy, and it decides what to give you – you don’t decide what you might take. Your job is simply to be open, to listen, and to feel – not so much in fact to understand. You’ll never understand God and Spirit in the same way you understand any other body of knowledge, or even in the same way you may intuit things about your children say, about their needs. You’ll understand God because first and above all, you will feel the presence of God in your life, and you will submit to his, her, or its power.’

  A long quiet set itself down in the room and Pete mulled over Loraine’s words, as apparently were others. Maitland looked as though he may say something and then appeared to rethink the idea.

  ‘Well, Loraine, despite that wee lecture,’ grinning, ‘I will say that I do have some trust in you, so I will go ahead and say what’s on my mind right now, and that is … what a load of bollocks!’ He grinned widely at his host.

  Maitland guffawed loudly, and Sally made an audible sound of relief.

  Loraine hooted, ‘Oh, good! I did feel reasonably certain I could make precisely that kind of challenge and you wouldn’t get up and leave. But, nonetheless, I know you’ll have another view as well.’

  ‘I do. It is, in fact, all about me,’ Pete smirked. ‘Actually.’

  There was more laughter.

  ‘All right, you two, serious now,’ said Rose.

  ‘What on earth for?’ Maitland chimed in.

  ‘Because I was just getting interested, that’s why. Shoosh you!’ Rose grinned at him.

  Pete continued, ‘Okay, look. I get what you’re saying. But I’m never going to be someone who starts from some point of … what? … submission to the will of God, or the laws of some particular Faith. I’m blessed with a mind and an intellect and I want to determine the truth for myself, not accept someone else’s word for it.’

  ‘Yes, but you’ve said yourself you have no experience, so how else can you start but with what others have to say? And before you remind me that you’ve said you are interested in what others have to say, what I mean by ‘others’ is the great prophets of the many great religions. Christ of course, but also Muhammad, Buddha, Krishna, Bahá’u’lláh. How could you presume that they have less to say than some ordinary individual from around this table, myself included?’

  ‘Because the words of Christ and Muhammad and Buddha and so on all come to us via the interpretation of ordinary mortals like those around this table anyway. We don’t have an unfettered version of their wisdom.’

  ‘Okay, a reasonable comment, although not entirely true just the same. But even if it were – and I do take your point – of course there are many interpretations of, for example, the Bible’s many meanings. You can’t discount the greatness of the universal Faiths that have followed these men. And please don’t be tempted to give me that worn out old argument about religion having been the cause of so much violence and bloodshed – I won’t buy that, at least not in the way it’s offered by the godless as an excuse for their godlessness.’

  ‘Whoa, you really want an argument, don’t you?’ countered Pete, unthreatened and enthusiastic.

  ‘Not at all. A debate maybe. And anyway you’re clearly up for it,’ replied Loraine.

  Pete laughed again. Others seemed amused and bemused. Pete wondered at the vehemence, soft though it was, from someone exhibiting such restraint on his previous visit to the group. Was he the protagonist here or was his host? Either way he didn’t mind being challenged on his beliefs, or lack thereof.

  ‘You think I’m godless?’

  ‘I think a lot of people make their spirituality about them personally and nothing greater. Or if they do concede something greater, then they certainly try to uninvent God in favour of ‘A Higher Being’ or ‘Nature’, or some such – an approach I find juvenile and spoilt. I don’t know yet whether you’re in that category – you haven’t told us what you do or don’t believe especially. Do you believe there is a God?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you think you’ve ever felt God?’ Another voice asked. A younger man – Pete recalled he was Jason. He had the look of someone a long time at university.

  Pete took a breath and paused, taking in what he’d heard and wondering if there was some logical foothold in it somewhere.

  ‘I think Tim brings God into my life,’ he replied slowly.

  ‘That makes sense to me,’ added Sally. ‘I think if anything’s awakened me to the bigger universe, it’s been the experience of having children and being a parent.’

  ‘What does it feel like then, this God Tim brings into your life?’ the young man carried on.

  ‘It feels like … some sort of … happiness.’ Pete looked at the young man. ‘I could use words like peaceful but that’s not really it.’

  ‘And what does that happiness feel like?’ Loraine continued.

  ‘I don’t know – what is happiness? – it comes and goes, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Happiness moves very fast.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Happiness moves very fast,’ Loraine repeated.

  ‘I don’t get that. What do you mean?’

  ‘We don’t own happiness. It’s not part of us. It’s owned by God. Sometimes we’re fortunate to feel enthralled by it – maybe even quite often, those of us lucky enough – but mostly it’s transitory.’

  ‘I’m still not with you.’

  ‘Well you don’t feel happy all the time, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But all of us would like to.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Well then why don’t we?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it moves … happiness. It’s a force. It’s the animating force of all things I think. Some people might say it’s love – it doesn’t matter – same thing. And it moves. Everything moves. Whether you think in the direction of chaos – entropy – or in the direction of unity, it doesn’t matter. The animating spirit of the universe is constantly moving and creating and recreating. We catch hold of it occasionally and we feel in the flow, or free, or in love, or joyful, or especially creative. But we can’t hold on to it. Because it moves very fast.’

  Quiet again.

  ‘I like that, I think.’ Pete seemed to chew his words. ‘Are you saying you think Tim clicks into this happiness …?’
Pete paused, mouth open and ready to speak, but lost where he was headed.

  ‘I think the world becoming happier is one part of our evolution – our spiritual evolution. I think it’s about our ability to rise above our material circumstances and connect to a universal spirit. And I think a big part of that connection is that we become happier. But we have to connect to it – not it to us. And because it’s evolving all the time, we have to keep up. That’s what I mean when I say happiness moves very fast. The essence of happiness is freedom from the material – actually, I think it’s freedom from time as well, but that’s another story. So yes, that is what I’m saying. I think Tim, and many others in this world, probably have a greater ability to connect to that universal spirit of happiness than the rest of us.’

  ‘So we are talking about Tim in spiritual terms … ?’

  ‘It’s just a word.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Spiritual.’

  ‘All right, religious then.’

  ‘That’s just a word too.’

  ‘But you want us to believe in religion – isn’t that what you said before?’

  ‘I want people not to discount religion and the many possibilities it offers to learn about God from an infinite number of metaphors and parables, from the prophets and from poets, from any number of different angles and perspectives.’

  ‘I think you’re contradicting yourself.’

  ‘I think you’re not listening.’ Loraine grinned and eyeballed Pete for the umpteenth time.

  ‘You’re part of an organised religion – Christianity. Isn’t that the message you want people to get?’

  ‘I think Christianity is a very coherent religion, through most of its denominations and manifestations. I don’t think there’s anything I’ve told you that doesn’t fit within a Christian framework. And indeed, I do think there are other very highly developed frameworks, and I mentioned some – Buddhism, Islam, the Baha’i Faith – I just happen to belong to this one. Because I do think one must make some commitment at some point. At least that was my need. And Christianity was what I knew.’

  Pete looked at Loraine, and again there was a discernible pondering going on around the table. No one seemed to want to be the first to speak, as if something of value may be dented if they did.