‘The smell of that frangipani!’
‘What did you say?’
‘Oh, I mean honeysuckle. It’s so sweet. Like funerals.’
No sooner had they recognised Father Justin’s hurried walk along the corridor of the novitiate than he was at the door to the cell. ‘What are you two doing in here?’ His disapproval was in his voice and the agitated brushing off of specks of dust from his front scapular. ‘Brother Edward, you should be in your cell, and you, Brother Aelred - I would like to see you at once in my cell.’
‘Yes, father.’ Aelred composed himself. Before he followed Father Justin, he returned quickly to Edward’s cell, pulling aside the curtains and said, ‘Wish me luck. Pray for me.’
Edward tried to smile encouragingly. ‘I do. I will.’
‘Father, you don’t have to quiz me, interrogate me.’ Aelred started at once.
‘Brother, I think we should take this calmly.’
‘I have nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of. I have here, myself, and my life as I know it. This is what I’ve brought here to Ashton Park. It could not be any different. I cannot be other than I am. This is my nature …’
‘Brother, I do really think ..’
‘You don’t know of this, my love for that boy since I was twelve.’
‘I don’t think this is at all an appropriate way to proceed.’
‘I know I found that love in - no, not Edward. I know he has told you of the truth of that love. No, I first had that love with Benedict. Yes, you once warned me, but I took the risk with my desire and with Benedict. With his strength we have managed to balance that love within our monastic ideal, within what we call a dangerous chastity according to the writings of Aelred of Rievaulx, which Father Abbot and yourself have now banned.’
‘Brother Aelred, I think we must stop this interview if you are going to continue with this outpouring. I know you are distraught. But …’
‘At first it was not love. It was lust. It was a sexual attraction like many boys I have known have had for me and I for them. But it was never named. Then in the midst of that, in the midst of giving ourselves, Edward and I, to that, I discovered that I loved him and that he loved me and that it could not be what Benedict and I have. It could not be a dangerous chastity.’
‘Brother!’ Father Justin stood up.
‘So, father, don’t quiz me, interrogate or advise me, because I have had all that. It was what was denied at school. A confessor advised me against it, seeing in it a sin.’ Aelred was looking up at Father Justin.
‘I will have to put a stop to this at once.’
‘And they killed Ted. Sometimes I think I killed him, but they did. They who jeered and they who did nothing about it.’
When Father Justin looked at his novice - because all the while his eyes had been riveted to his desk, unable to bear the fire in the eyes of Aelred - he saw that they burnt with a fury he had never seen in anyone before, and had only read of in the lives of the saints, he thought to himself wryly. He saw that those burning eyes were filled now with tears. They cried those tears, and the young man stared at him openly, not even wiping his tears away, but letting them flow freely and bathe his cheeks.
He said, ‘Brother, speak no more, we will speak later.’ Father Justin had sat back down.
But again, Father Justin had to turn away, for Aelred stood over him and said, ‘Do not silence me, father, do not silence me. I speak the truth.’ He then turned and left Father Justin’s cell.
Aelred returned to his cell and knelt by his bed, trying to pray, sobbing. He heard Edward moving in his cell. Then he heard the quick steps of Father Justin, and heard the novice master. ‘I’ve arranged for you to see the Abbot this afternoon.’ Father Justin pulled aside the curtains to the cubicle.
‘Yes, I’ll see the Abbot. Tell him I will see him, and he too shall hear the truth I have to tell.’ Aelred was at his door, shouting down the corridor at Father Justin. His prayer had not helped.
The scandal which Father Justin had striven to avoid now ran the risk of inflaming the novitiate of young minds and bodies. Though the effect, to all appearances, was a shroud of silence.
Aelred remained in his cell that morning, missing lunch. The infirmarian persuaded him to take a light tranquilliser.
He woke suddenly in the middle of the siesta with a loud clap of thunder.
Edward was sitting on the side of his bed. ‘Here, drink this. I’ve brought you some water.’
‘Thanks.’ He sipped. He noticed some heavy drops of rain on his windowsill. He felt terrible. ‘I have to see Benedict.’ So long, it seemed, since he had seen him. He felt now as nervous and depressed as he had felt angry earlier on. His anger would try to raise itself, so that he knew that it was there, but then he felt tired and sick.
‘Rest,’ Edward said. ‘Rest. It will work out. But you must be careful with what you say. Remember Basil. I’ve made an appointment to see him this afternoon.’
Aelred smiled. ‘Good. Thanks.’ He wiped the sweat from his brow.
The Lodge:
7 November 1984
Brother Stephen called to me when I was walking up through the farm this afternoon. He asked, Would I help him with a young cow, which was in the throes of calving? I said I would, though I had never witnessed this before. I was scared. The young cow was lying on its side, its stomach distended. All around the vagina area was soft, mushy and opening up. She had been in labour a long time. Brother Stephen was worried. He needed a hand to pull. We had to pull on the hooves and legs that had begun to show. But the head was stuck. Brother Stephen needed to insert his hand, his arm, to make room and coax the head out with the legs. He spoke to the cow reassuringly. He encouraged me in my efforts to pull. Then, all of a sudden, there was a rush of water, blood and transparent membrane, and the calf slipped out on to the straw, and the poor cow, exhausted, immediately turned to its calf and licked and nuzzled. It butted us off. I sat in the straw and watched, bewildered and in awe, the calf against my leg. Then we helped it to suck, Brother Stephen coaxing the milk out to make sure the calf got a good initial drink. Quite soon, it was up on its legs and knowing exactly where to go for a drink; the mother was turning and licking and cleaning it up. Brother Stephen had to get rid of the afterbirth. It was not good for the cow to eat this. The whole thing left me quite stunned. And Brother Stephen such a good midwife.
When we were washing up in the dairy he turned to me and said, I liked your brother. He liked it on the farm here. What we have just done for Marigold, he did with a young cow called Olive, and her first calf.
I smiled. Yes, he talked of you, I said. And then I wondered what he thought. Because what I really should’ve said was that I had read about him in the journals.
There is more to bring to light. More to come out.
Before Vespers the Abbot slipped me an envelope. It contained a letter addressed to me from Benedict. He died before it could be posted. They found it on his desk. It had escaped the lay brother’s clearing up. It had escaped the incinerator.
Dear Robert,
Just a word. I loved your brother more than anyone else I’ve ever loved. I’m sorry we lost touch. That he died the way he died. I’m sorry for all of it. We’ve not been able to find a way to accept ourselves in all our splendour, understand how it all fits together. Some of it dazzles us too much. We cannot look at it. But you, I think, have the strength and youth to face it all.
Your generation can take the heat. Believe what you read. What he says is true. I hope that your research will give you back your brother, a memory which will both be astonishing and comforting. You have given him back to me. I have been denying myself his memory and all that there is to remember, of a time when we strove valiantly to love and be loved, but… well, let there be no buts.
I hope I see you soon; if not, you have my words.
With all my love - accept it in his place, and for yourself,
Benedict
I could not contain myse
lf. I was unable to go to Vespers. On the way back to the lodge I wept. I stopped at the cemetery. I stood by his grave and read the letter again. I sat and wept.
Afterwards, I wondered what Joe would make of the letter.
Poetry to the end, I’m sure he would say: all that talk of splendour and beauty and being dazzled.
I let it work on me, though, before Joe’s voice enters to challenge me. He openly acknowledges his love. He is sorrowful.
Joe might say, Too little, too late.
I can’t say that. This is my too little, too late. It pleases me that I was able to give him back something, that my questing has had a point to it for him as well. J. M.’s death has meant something. I will have to show Joe the letter. For a while, I’d thought it was Benedict that I needed to see and to speak to, but increasingly I know that it is Joe who was an equally long friend, possibly the most important friend in the end. Not a lover, I startle myself, it seems. Sometimes I wonder.
The birth of the calf and the letter said something to me which made all my efforts seem appropriate. It was right, this bringing forth.
They all stood around jeering, taunting. I couldn’t believe something bad was going to happen again. I saw J. M. back off and tug at Ted’s arm to come with him, but Ted pulled away and went and started climbing on to the highest rock. To my eye now, Ted was, as I remember seeing him emerge at the top, thin, transparent. He could not see me hiding. I could read his ribs. I could read his blue veins. He had been getting thinner and thinner.
One day I came across him in the washroom being sick. He did not hear me. It was after supper one evening and I had wanted to find J. M. to get some pocket money. I was not really allowed up to the senior dormitory, so I was tiptoeing about. What I remember was that he seemed to be sticking his finger down his throat and then being sick, retching. I could smell all his dinner coming up into the basin and the running water gushing over the side of the basin. I don’t think he saw me. He was making himself sick. I backed away. I left him. Ted, my brother’s friend. I understand more of this now.
Miriam says that it is more and more common among boys.
He stood on the highest rock alone. I saw J. M. begin to climb up to him. That is when I think J. M. saw me behind Ted. He was now at the very edge. All the others were taunting, daring him to dive. To jackknife from the highest rock was to receive the greatest accolade, more than any school record at the official sports day. To jackknife into the river pool from the highest rock would prove him to be a boy like the rest of them. Last term, the raid and all that had led up to the scandalous revelations would be forgotten, for him and his friend. He could wipe the slate clean. He could be their hero again; their head boy, their captain. They would cheer for him on the left wing. The applause would ring out again for his century. The juniors would crowd around for his cap at the end of the season. He stood teetering, thin, transparent, naked but for his brief swimsuit. Blue. Marbleu. A blue butterfly on a black rock. His arms stretched out in front of him, then at his side. Poised. Then out in front of him again. The roar went up. High above them, J. M. shouted, Ted, don’t dive! And then his thin body was in mid-air. A kind of angel. A bird. It twisted and bent for the jackknife, then straightened and plunged into its own splash and disappeared. The roar was deafening. The roar of the boys, the high wind, the water that fell from under the highest rock in a cascade. Then there was silence, as we all waited for Ted’s head to bob to the surface. Before anyone had realised, J. M. jumped from the rock, and then, there he was with Ted’s body in his arms in the life-saving position, lying on his chest, Ted’s head all red. Suddenly the pool was deserted as the taunting crowd retreated up the paths to the school. They deserted in fear. I was rooted to the ground. What had I seen? What had they seen? I looked down at J. M. and Ted on the rock to where J. M. had swam with him. He sat with Ted in his arms. His head was crushed, his face a red flower. The water running away was tinged with red. J. M. looked up, saw me, cried for me to get help. I ran and ran and ran. I collapsed. Father Julius arrived with first aid.
He had flown, a shaft of light, the pool like flamboyante.
Playback. It became my dream, repeated. A brown arm reaching from behind a black rock, extended, touching, gently tilted his body to the very edge, into mid-air. Its flight. Jackknifed. Plummet. Splash.
Bless me, Father, for I have seen …sinned.
A strange synchronicity, a macabre pattern, a common impulse: denial, punishment, death. Suicide? Self-killing? Murder? I ran the alternatives and how they would have seemed. His wish to die and my wish to save face with all the others. Was that my arm, my hand? Did I actually touch him, or had he flown? Did I get to push him or had he made the decision? It has stayed with me, because whatever he did, there will always be what I did, even if it was not the cause. Even if I only nudged what he was already about to do. Had he wanted to prove something? Was it a flight he had been preparing himself for, growing thinner and thinner, lighter and lighter? Diminished in body. Light like spirit. His flight to parallel J. M.’s flight, away from him, the island.
I remember him looking over J. M.’s shoulder when he was writing the letter of application to St Aelred’s Abbey. They had had an argument. They sent me off. Skeidaddle. His fingers ruffling my hair. Tender in that moment.
Playback. A brown arm from behind a black rock. Had he tempted my nudge? Had it caught him off balance? Did he change decision mid-air? Ted. I hear J. M.’s cry. Ted, don’t dive.
I had never cried. Now I find my weeping renders me inconsolable, then strangely refreshed, after all these years. Is this where I’ve been leading? I think so. My own betrayals, my own shame.
You cannot blame yourself for the acts of a young boy, Miriam comforts.
It’s not you, Joe says, it’s them: the teachers, the confessors, the spiritual advisers.
I know that in an intellectual way, I think. But emotionally, inside me, is that voice, my inner voice that tells me that I betrayed him. I am an accomplice in that self-killing.
I want my brother back. I want his forgiveness.
The Storm
I opened to my Beloved,
but he had turned his back and gone!
My soul failed at his flight.
I sought him but I did not find him.
I called to him but he did not answer.
Song of Songs
As Aelred walked to the library, where he hoped to find Benedict, he thought how quiet and normal everything seemed. The cloister was a little removed from him, so that he saw it as if he were watching a film. But the silence and the peace seemed untouched by the fire which had raged in the novitiate, or the one which had burnt in the barn all night. He opened the door of the library and saw that the alcove which Benedict often used was empty. He closed the door behind him, and stood outside the door staring down the corridor. Immediately, he went to Benedict’s new cell. He knew this was absolutely against the rule, but he could not help himself.
Benedict got up - ‘Ave’ - and came at once to him, seeing him as he had never seen him, distraught and full of pain in his face and tired eyes. ‘But you shouldn’t be here.’
Aelred pushed his way into the cell and slammed the door.
He had travelled a long way since last night. He was glad to rest his head on the shoulder of his beloved friend. ‘My love, my love, peace, peace. Come, tell me all.’ The older monk led the novice to his desk. ‘Sit, but you must not stay here.’ Aelred felt at once that all was going to be well again.
On Benedict’s bed, Aelred saw the monastic discipline. It was a whip with five strands, each strand tied with five knots. Five for the five wounds of Jesus. Benedict noticed Aelred’s awareness of the discipline on his bed. ‘We must not stay in here. You should never have come here. This is seriously against the rules. Meet me in the library.’ He directed Aelred discreetly out of his cell.
Soon after, in the library, Benedict saw in the eyes of the young novice an older person. The boy had become a man
. When Aelred told Benedict of the events of the night before, and of his interview with Father Justin, Benedict, too, grew into an even older man. ‘You mentioned us?’ But that growing was not easy, and it did not mean that he could leave behind immediately the man who had had to wrestle with his feelings for this novice. He did not interrupt Aelred. The novice’s tongue, though heavy with the still reactive effects of the tranquilliser the infirmarian had given him, spoke mellifluously. He felt that his mouth was full of honey, something glutinous as the texture of honey, but not as sweet. He was still loose with the spirit of one who spoke with tongues, setting alight the secrets of those souls: himself, Benedict and Edward, who sought a new beginning without a past. But it was their pasts which had returned: their personal pasts, their collective past, the past, all here, to make this particular present.
Benedict sat and listened in the library. He listened to an account of the events which had happened in the barn the night before with a composure he felt it almost impossible to keep. His heart was wrung at first with jealousy, then disgust, then hate. ‘I don’t think I want to hear any more of this.’ He felt what he didn’t think he had ever felt in his life before, pure hate. He had pure hate for this young man with tortured eyes and streaked cheeks, who kept holding his hand, and reaching to his face and speaking with a clarity and conviction he found terrifying.
‘Who else will I tell? Who else can listen as you do? Who else loves me the way you do?’ Aelred clawed at Benedict’s sleeves and scapular.
‘Edward?’
‘That’s cruel.’
‘Brother, you must get hold of yourself.’
Despite this hate, Benedict wanted to repossess the person he had loved, beyond any other he had allowed himself to love since he had entered the monastery at Ashton Park. The business of the love of God, or charity within the community, was hard. It gave its pain as it did its pleasure. But it did not hurt like this. It was not a pain which wrung the heart, which took the bottom out of the pit of the stomach and choked him at the throat, all because someone else had touched him whom he loved. Benedict looked at Aelred standing in front of him, a young man of nineteen.
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