Aelred's Sin

by Lawrence Scott

  ‘What do you know of my relationship with Benedict? What relationship?’ Aelred looked for reactions in Edward’s face, the tell-tale signs. He had not spoken of it. Had Benedict to Edward? Did others notice? Were Father Justin and Father Abbot right? It was just what they were worried about. Was it that everyone knew, and there was a terrible silence? ‘What do you mean, not count? What of my relationship with Benedict?’

  ‘You know. I expect I mean that I’m the junior, that everyone seems to have the same views and I’m the odd one out. And yes, of course we know about you and Benedict. When you are in a room together it’s different. I notice the difference. You make a difference when you enter a room. You both do. You do.’ Edward was getting unusually agitated.

  ‘But many of the senior monks think like you. They don’t want the changes coming with the Council. What do you mean, difference?’

  ‘There, you see I can hear it in your voice, dismissing me and my views. These things are as deep as matters of faith. I know I seem blasé. Rock climbing, joking, a little cynical maybe, but …’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean that as it sounds. I’m sorry.’ And Aelred reached out with his hand to touch Edward’s arm. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, don’t worry. But you see what I mean? That’s like you, touching me.’ His arm slipped down till their hands came together in a clasp and they stood looking at each other. ‘You see, this is what you do. I notice you. You don’t take responsibility for this. I see you with other monks. I don’t suppose you realise what you’re doing. Like your views - rash, impetuous.’

  ‘Responsibility? And you?’

  There was a noticeable clatter of someone in the corridor outside the common room and Father Justin put his head round the door again and said, ‘I really think it must end here.’ Edward and Aelred almost jumped apart, or so it seemed to Aelred.

  Aelred and Edward looked sheepish. Aelred raised his eyebrows. Inside he was furious. He was really beginning to resent Father Justin and his ways of ordering things. He did not say anything because he didn’t want to give a bad example to Edward. They both pulled on their hoods and returned to their cells.

  When Aelred returned to his cell he was agitated. He had held Edward’s hand. He put his hand to his face and smelt his hand, sitting at his desk unable to concentrate on his study. They had said something without saying anything. What they talked about did not seem to be what the problem was about. They needed to talk again. The bell went for Sext and then there was lunch.

  After lunch, Aelred went to the library to browse the shelves. As he came into the alcove where the art books were kept, he saw Edward. He was standing at the desk in the window that looked over into a small, walled ornamental garden with a statue of Our Lady in a grotto. Edward was poring over the large open pages of a book on sculpture. Aelred had not used this section of the library before. It was what he liked about siesta sometimes: browsing and finding new books. It was exciting, like the time he found the history of Ashton Park, which talked about the old house and how it had been built on the proceeds of the slave trade. This browsing was not positively encouraged by Father Justin, but it was tolerated to some extent.

  Aelred looked over Edward’s shoulder. ‘What’re you reading?’

  ‘Oh, Benedicite, brother,’ Edward said solemnly but jokingly. Edward liked to be irreverent about some of the monastic customs, and the rule of preceding conversation with ‘Benedicite’ always seemed to amuse him, so he used it himself pointedly. ‘Rodin. I wanted to go to art school once. Chucked it in for the monastic life. I love drawing. But I like the old stuff. We had to look at books like these for A Level.’

  ‘I don’t know any of this.’

  Edward turned the large pages and they both looked at photographs of Rodin’s sculpture. ‘He’s a very important and exceptional French sculptor. He worked a lot in marble. I like his bronze, too. Once, quite exceptionally really - my first visit abroad, we were taken to Paris by our art master. He was brilliant. We saw Rodin’s work: a whole museum of his work, in the Rodin House, with sculptures all over the garden.’

  ‘Paris?’ It was a kind of wonder to Aelred. His mother had told him about Paris. They had cousins in Paris. But it was like another world. He had forgotten things like that.

  Edward talked about sculpture, most of it going over Aelred’s head. But Aelred watched the photographs as Edward turned the pages slowly and the sensual, tactile limbs and torsos absorbed him. They leant together over the tome, their shoulders touching. ‘It’s very connected with rock climbing.’ Aelred smiled. ‘No, really. You see, you have to understand how the body works. You have to understand about tendons and muscles, about tissue and skin, about flesh and of course bone structure. You must know and feel for all the elements; above all, know how it all works. That then leads you to physiognomy and to character: to be able to judge character in the features, in the cast of the body.’ Edward was speaking animatedly, as if all his young knowledge was coming up to the surface in a rush while he was looking at the pictures and turning the pages slowly, waiting till he felt that Aelred had finished looking at a particular page. ‘It was all because of Toby, Mr Holme, our art master. He allowed us to call him by his first name in the studio and when we went on field trips in the countryside to draw and paint and rock climb. I wouldn’t know any of this but for him. He was a rock climber, too. He was a marvellous drawer. He would draw us boys rock climbing. Instruction in rock climbing and sculpture went together. What a waste!’

  ‘What’s a waste?’

  ‘Oh! Nothing. Oh, look, this was something he told us about. See it’s a frieze around a vase.’ Edward had taken down a book on Ancient Greek art. ‘He talked about the drawings he had done of us boys. He talked about beauty and truth. He talked about honour. Yes, beauty and the attraction to beauty. He was teaching us about form. He brought us pictures of vases with paintings of the young heroes, athletes like this one depicted all around the vase. This tells the story of the god Apollo and his love for the boy Hyacinthus. Apollo loved this handsome boy, but Zephyrus was jealous. See, there he is. When the god Apollo hurled a quoit, Zephyrus blew it off course, so that it struck Hyacinthus. Where the boy fell to the ground, bleeding, these flowers with dark blue petals, which we call hyacinths, grew out of the earth. For some, he is the god of vegetation.’

  Aelred listened enthralled. ‘Hyacinths?’ He thought how little he still knew.

  Then Aelred and Edward, without talking, took turns to pull the large pages over. After a while, in silence, the two novices were leaning closely together over the art book.

  Edward spoke again. ‘It was a real waste.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mr Holme. He had an ideal. It came out one day. He said we were like young heroes.’

  ‘Why a waste?’ Aelred repeated.

  ‘What? Oh, nothing. I’ll tell you some time. He was asked to leave. It was very sudden.’

  They both continued turning the pages of the book of ancient Greek art. ‘You know what you were saying this morning about affecting each other?’ Edward began to speak again, carefully.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I think I know what you mean.’

  ‘And you were talking about responsibility. You said that I should take responsibility,’ Aelred said.

  ‘Yes, I remember. Well, I think it goes for me as well. I’ve been thinking it over since I left you.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, I think I should say this: it’s because - yes, I’m in love with you. That’s it.’ The declaration was said plainly and hesitantly, as Edward continued turning the pages of the art book. He was not looking at Aelred. Aelred was not looking at him. He was absorbed by the photographs of the sculptures. Edward may not have meant it to come out at that point, and in a way it went unnoticed, neither of the young men wanting to deal with it: to deal with the implication of their secret, now spoken aloud, if even only between them. Love. Was that what it was, all these feelings? ‘Lo
ve, love me do. You know I love you.’ The tune floated in, like an ironic joke. ‘So,’ Edward continued, ‘I’ve used the differences we were talking about this morning to fight against it, because I don’t know what to do with these feelings. I don’t know what will happen.’ They stood still, talking quietly. Their hands had come together at the edge of the art book. Oblivious of their world, the two young men were caught up in something beyond, which neither of them were prepared for, despite Aelred’s obsession with Edward’s rock climbing, his absorption in his scent and the parts of his body. This soft word, love, uttered quietly while poring over the exquisitely beautiful naked bodies of men and women, had altered everything at a stroke for the two young novices. Suddenly, everything looked different.

  ‘We can manage this,’ Aelred said matter-of-factly. ‘There’s experience to call on, there’s advice. We must ask for that advice and we must pray.’ Then he said abruptly, ‘There’s Aelred of Rievaulx.’

  ‘Yes, Benedict has given me Aelred of Rievaulx to read, as you already know.’ They were putting their love, their attraction, at a distance, as something to do something about.

  ‘Have you talked about this to Benedict?’ Aelred immediately felt jealous hearing that Benedict had shared a similar intimacy with Edward. How could he be jealous and at the same time be here, holding Edward’s hand and implying that he was accepting Edward’s love? They had lain something down between them and now they didn’t know what to do about it. Edward closed the art book. They began to leave the library to walk back to the novitiate. Then they walked back again to the window desk where they had left the book on Rodin, and the tome on Ancient Greek art. Edward returned them to the shelves. Time was running on. It would soon be None.

  ‘You haven’t said what you feel.’ Edward looked at Aelred. ‘I feel stupid now, what I said …’

  ‘What did you say to Benedict?’ Aelred insisted on knowing that.

  ‘Oh, hardly anything explicit. Just sort of mentioning that there can be trouble with emotional feelings between us, between men, and it’s difficult to know what to do about it.’

  ‘So he gave you Aelred of Rievaulx then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you find it helpful, the dangerous text?’

  ‘Yes - just to see it being talked about. I mean there’s a bit of deciphering to do, but he’s talking about love and attraction: physical attraction between himself and his monks, between himself and a boy, or man when he was younger at the court in Scotland. Talking about, you know, even wanking. That’s what we call it here. Is it the same for you?’

  ‘Jocking,’ Aelred said spontaneously. Odd this talk, he thought. Look where they had got to from Latin Masses and communion under both kinds this morning. These things seemed easier for Edward. ‘Impure acts.’

  ‘Yes, well, there we go. Impure acts. I came into the church when I was seventeen, and yes, there was that serious stuff about confession. But it didn’t seem to me a problem.’

  ‘Well, for me it was. I was afraid of hell, literally.’

  ‘Well, it’s certainly there for Aelred of Rievaulx. Pretty lurid stuff. You know, about masturbation. It’s all there - quite explicit if you know how to read the text. But still there’s what the hell you do about it.’ Aelred was amazed at Edward talking like this. This was different from Benedict. ‘He talks about that, doesn’t he? We can’t lead carnal lives, as he would put it. He would use language like that. Then he says that we have to transform these feelings into spiritual feelings, into a spiritual love, into a spiritual friendship; a carnal kiss must become a spiritual kiss. Easier said than done, I admit, isn’t it? But it’s there. St Augustine in his confessions talks in a similar way. But saints were real people. It’s only the writing that makes them sound weird. Does this affect you?’

  ‘Does this affect me?’ This repetition of the question in a reflective way was something that Aelred noticed he had begun to adopt. It seemed a very English thing to do. ‘Yes, of course it affects me. You know it does.’ Aelred didn’t know what to say, how to understand his feelings. He felt he was betraying Benedict - Benedict, his Benedict whom they had taken away into the seniors. Right now he was bereft. And now he was being told by Edward that he loved him. He couldn’t be in love with both of them. He couldn’t change. He had not stopped loving Benedict. But there was something else. Strangely, what he felt for Edward made him feel sick in the pit of his stomach. What he felt for Benedict was joy, or sadness if he was deprived of him. He felt warmth, and a need to hold his hand, to kiss him, to be hugged by him. Yes, and he would have gone where Benedict led in the chapel. But he was ready to stop as well. He could stop. With Edward it was another feeling. He could smell him. He felt if he gave into these feelings he might disappear. He might destroy himself. Carnal? Was that it? He was trying so hard to be good. Carnal made him sound evil. He was not evil.

  ‘I’ve just sort of blurted out that I love you. You’ve not said anything,’ Edward said encouragingly.

  ‘I feel the same. I don’t know what I feel. Yes, I do. Thank you. That sounds pathetic. I thought we didn’t like each other.’ All this while they were still holding hands and whispering in the library. He thought of Edward seeing him out at the quarry smelling his clothes, burying his face in the crutch and armpits of his overalls and smock. He felt embarrassed that Edward had noticed him looking at his body: at the hair on his arm, on his chest, curling around his navel. He had stolen all these glimpses and stored them in a small hot tight space in his head and they ticked away like a cicada in the heat. ‘I can hardly say what I feel.’ Edward held himself with composure. Aelred could hardly breathe. ‘I’ll think of you as differently now, as my friend. We’re friends.’

  ‘Friends? It’s not the first word that comes to my mind. But maybe we can hold it all together. Maybe we can make it spiritual. We’ve got to try and do that or I expect we won’t last it out. You know I feel weak as it is. What I need to do is to go for a climb. There’ll be haymaking later. That should use up a lot of energy. What was it the fathers of the desert did?’

  ‘They whipped themselves. They fasted. St Benedict threw himself into a patch of brambles.’

  ‘Come, brother.’ Edward put his hand to Aelred’s face and cupped his cheeks. ‘Come brother, you don’t have to do that. I don’t know what we’ll do, but we’ll figure it out. It’s good that we’ve talked. That’s what Benedict wanted. But physical work does help. Even if it only disperses the energy.’

  Aelred was on fire. He did not know how Edward spoke so calmly.

  They parted just before reaching Father Justin’s cell, leaving their hands to untwine just before they entered the corridor to the novitiate dormitory. At that moment, the bell went for None. They agreed to try to talk again in the afternoon during haymaking. They both processed back to their cells before leaving the dormitory to go and line up in the small cloister outside the chapel.

  Aelred did not choose to listen to the voice of caution. As the bells chimed away, echoing across the valley, and all around the stone abbey, keeping out every other sound, Aelred did not hear what he should have been hearing, what he had trained himself to hear with Benedict, except it never seemed to be needed in the same way. He quickly left his cell and went straight to Edward’s, pulling aside the curtain of his cubicle without knocking and getting the reply, ‘Ave.’

  He went straight in and threw his arms around Edward’s neck. Edward was taken aback, saying, ‘No, it’s not possible. Please.’ Aelred was fumbling under Edward’s cassock at the neck, kissing his neck, undoing the buttons of the cassock. He could feel the blood rushing to his head, and he could hear Edward saying over and over again, ‘No, it’s not possible. Don’t do this to us,’ as he was undressing himself, opening his cassock under his scapular to make himself naked. Then Edward pushed him away and left his cell. ‘I said, it’s not possible. Don’t make me push you away. It’s the last thing I want to do.’ He almost shouted as he walked away down the corridor of th
e novitiate.

  Aelred was left in total confusion, and acutely embarrassed. He could feel the semen trickling down his leg. He went quickly to his cell and then to the washroom. Making sure no one else was there, he wiped himself clean with his flannel, hitching up his habit. He returned to his cell and made himself tidy before descending to open the door to the choir, as he was acolyte to the choir that week.

  As the monks processed into choir, they took holy water from the acolyte. Aelred’s eyes met Edward’s as their fingers touched, Edward receiving the holy water from Aelred whose sex he had sought so passionately. Edward had withheld it, not knowing what now was possible … ‘myrrh ran off my hands, pure myrrh off my fingers, on to the handle of the bolt’. Aelred closed the door into the choir, the line from the Song of Songs coming readily into his mind.

  There seemed to be no peace for the young novice, no allaying of his passion. Now, it was not an older monk who had had years of discipline to check his fall, his temptation by a young and beautiful novice. It was a young novice, who, sensing that he was admired and loved, wished to return that love. Being loved, he wished to love. He went back to his monastic fathers, those cowled poets, cucullates poetas, who spoke one heart to another, to have that truth corroborated. Amare et amari, to love and be loved, was their ideal, according to St Augustine, who had once given himself to the love of youth. But at the same time Aelred felt that he needed an antidote. He needed the fasting and the flagellation, he needed the abstinence, the passion of his Lord.

  Aelred’s whole body anticipated the haymaking that afternoon. He would not be able to bear it if he could not be there, out in the open fields with Edward. The house closed in about him, the extreme claustrophobia caused as much by the humidity as by the foreboding that his desire would be denied. ‘No it’s not possible,’ echoed in his mind. He had been overtaken by a passion which had been building.