Angels and Men

by Catherine Fox

  ‘Tidy him up? He seems pretty harmless.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts.’

  ‘I don’t. I think he’s a sort of memory attached to the place.’

  ‘What sort of a memory? How can you see a memory you don’t have?’

  He shrugged. ‘Do you have a better explanation?’

  ‘Have you seen him, then?’

  ‘Once or twice. Usually round this time of year.’

  She watched as he began to leaf through a pile of papers on his desk. He pulled something out and passed it to her. It was a homemade Easter card.

  ‘This is very good,’ she said in surprise. It was an angel, drawn, as far as she could tell, with a wax candle. A landscape of fields and hills had been painted over the top in water-colours, so that the angel seemed to be transparent, hovering in the foreground. ‘Did one of the Sunday school do it for you?’

  ‘Open it.’

  She did. To Daddy with love from Mara. She stared in disbelief.

  ‘When did I do that?’

  ‘When you were about seven or eight.’

  And he’d kept it all those years. He reached out and took it back, and she knew that the moment had come to ask him what she had always wanted to know. Quickly. If she stopped to think, her courage would fail.

  ‘You remember the time I tried to kill myself?’

  ‘Yes, Mara.’

  Her face burned. ‘Yes. Well, what made you come back?’

  He began twisting the mug round again, carefully, as though the action required his full attention. ‘I suddenly knew something was wrong. Terribly wrong.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I left the curate in charge and ran back.’ She saw him picking up his skirts, stumbling through the churchyard with terror in his eyes, stole flapping wildly.

  ‘I’m glad you did.’ It had taken her seven years to say it.

  ‘Hah.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘You were hopping mad at the time.’

  She smiled back, and suddenly they were struck by shyness and drinking their coffee again.

  Her father was the first to break the silence. ‘What was so terrible – why – what made you do it? I never understood.’

  She saw her fingers smoothing the plush of the armchair neatly all in the same direction. He deserved a real answer. She forced her mind back through the years.

  ‘Nothing had any point. It was all empty.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Try. There must have been something. ‘I suppose I couldn’t stand it when Dewi disappeared. Not knowing if he was dead, even.’ She rubbed the plush back the wrong way, and began to draw stripes across it. ‘I suppose he was my hero. And school was awful. Nobody liked me. I always felt that you . . . that everyone . . . that Hester was the favourite one. I tried to make a list of reasons for living. Only I couldn’t think of any.’ She sensed him twitch as if in pain. There was a long silence. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Her finger trembled as it drew.

  ‘Hester wasn’t the favourite one, you know.’ She ducked her head. We love you both just as much as the other. Her parents had always said that, but she had never been fooled. He cleared his throat and said something in Welsh, then broke off, seeing her expression. ‘Sorry. I was saying I didn’t know you’d taken it so hard. About Dewi, I mean. If it’s any comfort, he’s alive still. He rang here a couple of months after he disappeared.’

  Her heart leapt. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He wouldn’t say. Afraid I’d tell his father. He just wanted his mother to know he wasn’t dead.’ Was that some kind of relief? It had all gone on so long she could no longer feel anything. ‘I always thought Huw was too harsh on that boy,’ her father said. ‘Trying to make him something he wasn’t. It’s not as if it’s a matter of choice, that kind of thing. That’s where Huw and I differ. I swore I would never treat you the way my father treated us. Someone somewhere has to break the pattern.’

  Her hand paused in its movement. So this was what lay behind his cold self-control. He had vowed she would not suffer as he had done. But he had made her suffer in another way. They were too alike, and in rejecting so much of himself he had ended by seeming to reject her. ‘You tried too hard,’ she wanted to say.

  ‘The trouble with being a parent,’ he said, ‘is that you only get one go at it. If you get it wrong, then that’s it. No second chances.’

  ‘And with being a daughter.’

  ‘True.’

  We used to speak Welsh together. Until the time he said it wasn’t fair on Hester because she couldn’t understand. They finished their coffee. That’s why I’ve forgotten it all. To spite him. She looked up and caught his eye flicking away from the clock on the wall behind her. He wanted to return to his books.

  ‘I’ll let you get on,’ she said. I sound like a parishioner. She put the mugs back on the tray and headed for the door. She turned back and saw him already opening a book.

  ‘I normally take sugar in my coffee, by the way,’ he said without looking up.

  ‘Then why didn’t you say so? You’ve got a tongue in your head.’

  She saw him grinning as he bent over his book again. And that, she thought, closing the door, would do very well as a family motto: Why didn’t you say so? She saw it under a coat of arms. Two mules pulling stubbornly in opposite directions. Cur ita non dixisti?

  Mara was sitting on a bench in the vicarage garden enjoying the late afternoon sun. The image of old Simeon gliding between the graves filled her mind. Maybe she had been hallucinating? Or else she could have drifted asleep and dreamt the whole thing. A dream fuelled by forgotten anecdotes of the local ghost. Unless he really was a lost soul in need of his namesake’s nunc dimittis. She shivered. Better to agree with her father. Old Simeon had done this so often in his lifetime – walked in the graveyard; paused, lost in thought; moved on – that he had worn a groove in the history of the place. Maybe in centuries to come people would see a tall girl sitting weeping on a bench near where a vicarage once stood. She wiped her tears away.

  In a moment she would have to go back indoors and see if her mother needed any help. Her parents were going away that evening on holiday, and her mother was in the throes of her pre-holiday ritual. Her guiding principle was: maximum pleasure for others at maximum inconvenience to herself. Ironing, packing, baking, stocking the freezer. She didn’t trust Mara not to live off whisky and Bath Olivers while they were away. Footsteps came up behind her and Mara sighed. And now she’ll be bringing me a cup of tea. But before she could turn round she felt a hand on her shoulder and someone’s lips at her ear:

  ‘I bet you thought you were safe, Princess.’

  Andrew! She was on her feet, unable to keep a stupid broad smile off her face.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve come to spoil your vacation.’ If she had been a hugging sort of person – she folded her arms self-consciously.

  ‘Your mother’s making tea and suggests in the meantime you show me the church.’

  Mara scowled. She had not set foot there for years, as her mother well knew. ‘You don’t want to see the church.’

  ‘Of course I do. Come on.’ He clicked his fingers at her as though she was a dog being taken for a walk. ‘It’s got some of the finest medieval wall paintings in the country.’

  He set off. Was he serious? Well, she supposed someone as fear-somely cultured as he is would be interested in churches. He waited for her to catch up and linked his arm through hers. She was smiling again.

  ‘Pleased to see me?’ Andrew asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t be. I intend to make you cry.’ But he was smiling too.

  ‘How long can you stay?’

  ‘Well, I have to be in Oxford tonight.’ That would take him less than half an hour. He’d be here for a while then. Good.

  ‘What’s happening in Oxford?’ she asked to cover up her pleasure.

  ‘Oh, nothing. I’ve been offered a research fellowship.’ Oh, nothing. As if it were a s
econd-hand briefcase.

  ‘Clever boy.’ He shot her a nasty look.

  ‘I can’t decide whether to accept it.’ They went through the lichgate. ‘The question is, can I stand being in the same university as my brother?’

  ‘You’ve got a brother?’ Hearing how absurdly suspicious her tone sounded she added hurriedly, ‘I mean, you’ve never mentioned it.’

  ‘God, you’re so solipsistic. It’s theoretically possible for things to exist without your having any knowledge of them, Mara.’

  They stood a moment in the church porch. Fair enough. But she still couldn’t imagine him as part of a family. She reached out and opened the door. The familiar church smell greeted her – polish, age, the smell of the spring flowers. They went inside. It was so completely unchanged that the experience was banal. It might have been only days, not years, since she had last been there. She watched Andrew’s profile as he tilted his head back to look at the wall paintings. The angel of judgement with his long trumpet. Gabriel appearing to the virgin. She wondered what Andrew’s brother was like. After a while he called her over in the slightly hushed tone people use in churches.

  ‘Look at this.’ He was pointing to one of the ancient pillars. ‘This is a pre-Christian symbol.’ The hare. She’d forgotten all about it. She went and looked at the small blurred carving, remembering how she used to touch it, as though it possessed some secret power. ‘The hare was a sacred beast in pagan Britain. Boudicca used to keep one up her skirts and release it before a battle.’

  Why can’t he say ‘Boadicea’ like normal people? ‘Oh, stop showing off.’

  His laugh echoed in the empty church. ‘Just warming up for when I see Alex.’

  ‘Your brother?’

  ‘If I have one.’

  ‘Is he older than you?’ He nodded. ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘He’s a theologian.’

  ‘But what’s he like?’ she persisted, trying belatedly to build up a context for Andrew.

  ‘Like? Well, our house-master at school described him as an arrogant young bastard with the moral outlook of a tom-cat.’

  ‘Well, yes.’ He’s your brother, after all.

  He caught her expression. ‘You cheeky bitch.’ They walked up the aisle together towards the chancel. ‘He’s the sort of person who got articles published while he was still an undergraduate.’

  ‘And you didn’t?’ There was a pause. He pursed his lips. Aha. The brogue was on the other foot for once.

  ‘He’s read everything. He’s heard of everything. He’s good at everything. In fact, if he had a nice disposition as well, he’d be bloody insufferable.’ She bit her lips. ‘I hope you’re not laughing at me, Princess.’

  ‘Of course not, Andrew.’

  They reached the chancel steps and to Mara’s amazement he genuflected. The action must have been instinctive since she could see he was not conscious of it. She turned away to hide her surprise, and walked up towards the altar and looked at the reredos. How many hours had she spent in the past looking at it? There were the three bored angels, each holding a scroll with Sanctus written on it. They looked like stranded hitchhikers with signs saying, Heaven, please. Her attention was called back by the sound of the organ being switched on. She turned and saw Andrew sitting at it, pulling various stops out.

  ‘You can’t,’ she said and knew at once that she should have kept quiet.

  His eyes mocked her. ‘Can’t I? Watch me.’

  He played a few bars of chopsticks very badly. She went across to him in alarm, knowing her father was probably lurking about somewhere, and would be annoyed to find someone vamping on the precious organ.

  ‘Don’t, Andrew. You can’t just fool around on it. It’s supposed to be a very good instrument.’

  ‘And is it?’ He fumbled out another couple of bars, grinning at her anguished face.

  ‘Well, I don’t know. Everyone says so.’ The lack of good organists was a sore trial to her father.

  ‘Can’t you tell? Good God. Are you completely culturally illiterate? Listen.’ He leant forward and pulled some more stops out, and before she could say anything, he broke into Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor.

  Mara stood dumbfounded for a moment, then began to laugh. She walked back to the middle of the chancel, exulting in the sound. The old church probably hadn’t heard anything like it for decades. She watched him play, and saw a focused intensity – a passion, almost – that she would never have guessed at. Perhaps he had loved the Church, its rituals, its music, its life, and somehow he had lost it all? A fallen choirboy, he had said. The piece ended on a glorious crescendo, loud enough to blast the gilt angels out of their apathy. Gradually the last echoes died away and there was silence again. Mara looked across and saw Andrew sitting with his head bowed. For a long time neither of them spoke. Outside a blackbird was singing in the graveyard. Then she heard Andrew say bitterly, ‘Shit.’ She slipped away into the vestry, leaving him alone. After a moment she heard him turn the organ off and follow her. She looked round and saw his usual sardonic expression.

  ‘ “Farewell, remorse, all good to me is lost. Evil be thou my good.” ’ Macbeth? No. Milton? She knew he had seen her uncertainty. ‘Book Four, Paradise Lost.’ She watched him wander over to the vestments cupboard and look inside. ‘But of course, you recognized it.’

  He was going to be worse than ever now, to punish her for seeing his weakness. She bit back the urge to say ‘Don’t’ as he tried on a stray biretta. He went across to the piano still wearing it and played a casual riff. A malicious look crossed his face. The tune sounded familiar. Gershwin. She leant on the piano top, listening as he began to sing: ‘One day he’ll come along, and he’ll be big and strong.’ She blushed.

  ‘Do my erotic proclivities embarrass you, Princess?’

  ‘No.’ Too quick and defiant. ‘It’s just the whole thing, really,’ she mumbled.

  He paused in his playing. ‘The “whole thing”? What “whole thing”? Sex, you mean?’ He sounded like a sadistic tutor making mincemeat of an undergraduate. ‘And why’s that?’

  I’m damned if you’re going to make me cry, she thought as she stared stubbornly at the keyboard.

  ‘I just don’t like it.’

  ‘ “It”? Why don’t you like “it”?’ She shrugged. He continued to play. ‘Ah – it’s a feminist issue, and you have an ideological objection to penetration. Yes?’

  She was spared the effort of answering this by the sound of footsteps. The door opened and her father entered. He stopped in surprise, no doubt at the improbable sight of a young man in a biretta playing Gershwin in his vestry. He looked at Mara and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘This is Andrew. A friend from college.’ She hated making introductions. ‘This is my father.’ She made some kind of awkward gesture. And thank God he’d come in when he had. Andrew stopped playing and turned. Mara watched in fascinated shock as he gave her father an unambiguous once-over. The knowledge that he was only doing it to embarrass her in no way lessened her confusion.

  ‘That’s a fine organ you’ve got there, Mr Johns.’

  ‘Yes. We’re extremely fortunate.’ How can he not have heard the innuendo?

  ‘But does it get the loving care and attention it deserves?’ Andrew played another idle chord, still looking at her father.

  ‘We do our best.’

  ‘But are you satisfied? When did you last feel the foundations shake with a really good fugue?’ Mara was about to intervene to protect her father, when she glimpsed a look of amusement on his face. He knew perfectly well what was going on.

  ‘That was you I heard earlier, I take it?’ Andrew inclined his head.

  ‘Impressive.’

  ‘Years of practice and a natural bent, Mr Johns.’

  There was a pause, and at length Andrew turned back to the piano and played on. Somehow the balance had shifted.

  ‘Well,’ said her father, ‘my wife sent me to say that tea is ready. I’ve got a couple of things to do
here, so I’ll be along later.’ This was an unmistakable dismissal, and Mara and Andrew started to leave. ‘Andrew,’ he called him back.

  The two men stood staring at one another, and Mara’s heart began to race. ‘The biretta.’ Andrew took it off with a grin and left. Mara followed, and by the time the two of them were in the churchyard, they were both snorting with suppressed laughter.

  ‘You’re such a queen.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He linked his arm through hers again and they began to walk back to the vicarage.

  Suddenly he stopped. ‘Is this where your sister’s buried?’ For a moment she almost denied it. ‘Show me.’ She continued to hang back. ‘Please, Mara.’ She had never heard him ask like this before, and she turned and led him in the direction of the new graves. It was just getting dark, and the white headstone seemed to gleam in the dusk. They stood in silence, and she dreaded some disparaging comment on the words. He spoke:

  ‘I can but trust that good shall fall

  At last – far off – at last, to all

  And every winter change to spring.’

  She felt herself starting to cry at the bitterness in his tone. ‘Oh, can’t we drop the clever quotes just for once?’

  ‘Have you read In Memoriam?’

  ‘Stop thrusting Tennyson down my throat!’ she burst out. ‘Don’t tell me what to read. It won’t help. Nothing does.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. A bit of poetry, a bit of music, a bit of whisky. They all help a little.’

  ‘Well, you’ve managed. You’ve made me cry,’ she sobbed and stumbled off between the graves. He caught up with her, putting an arm round her shoulders. She was too miserable to thrust him away. The blackbird began whistling from the church roof again. Their feet sounded on the road. After a moment he spoke:

  ‘When I was seventeen, my best friend was killed in a car crash.’ Shock ran through her. His tone was so casual. ‘Pissed out of his skull and not wearing a seat-belt. He hit a lorry head-on and was killed instantly. Stupid bastard.’ Mara glanced at him. At that moment the village street lamp came on, casting light across his face, and she thought, This is what grief looks like so many years on. Does it never fade? She felt fresh tears falling, this time for him and his loss, and slid her arm round his waist. For a second his grip tightened. They walked back in silence to the vicarage.