Reprobation

by Catherine Fearns

  ‘What’s not to understand? You’re a nun and you’re going to Heaven; I’m a fuckin’ asshole who killed my brother and I’m going to Hell. And it’s all bullshit anyway, those genetics guys are as crazy as you nuns.’

  They sat in silence for a while. Then Helen took a deep breath. ‘The reason it doesn’t make sense, that it’s wrong, is that I know I’m not going to Heaven. I need to tell you what I did.’

  He shook his head. ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘I do. I do. When I was twelve, I got a phone for my birthday. This was before smartphones you know, but it had texting and a camera and games, and my friends all had them too so we got into these texting marathons.’

  And Helen was speaking but she was no longer on that sand dune, looking out towards the spinning wind turbines that provided a form of hypnosis. She was back in that house, texting her friends, smiling about boys, girls, who liked whom. The TV was on, blaring a Saturday night show that she wasn’t really watching, and she was lying on the carpet propped on her elbows. This was the first time she had been left to babysit her brother while her parents went out, and since she was too young to be anywhere else on a Saturday night, the liberation of the house to herself was exciting.

  She had put Alfie to bed an hour ago, impatient to be alone, but he hadn’t been asleep yet. And then something made her go and check on him. Perhaps a bump she heard through the ceiling, or just a strange feeling. She crept into his room and felt for him in his little toddler bed, but she was patting empty crumpled sheets. In a panicked whisper she patted the floor next to the bed, under the bed. Oh God, was the window open? She ran back to the bedroom door to turn on the light switch and when she looked back at the window she saw legs, little legs dangling, and a face with the same expression she would later see on Jason Hardman’s body on the beach. She tried to untangle him, to lift him down, but she couldn’t undo the ties that had cut so far into his neck she could no longer see them through the folds of skin. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably and he was so cold, so limp, and in the end she just had to leave him there, alone, while she called for an ambulance.

  ‘It was the blinds. I don’t know what he was doing by the window but he got caught in the strings of the blinds and was strangled. It happened to a few children before they made new regulations…’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  She nodded and they both stared at the ground, both picking at pieces of marram grass, more urgently than before.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It wasn’t your fault. For sure you know that.’

  ‘Yes, yes it was.’

  ‘It was an accident, you were too young to be in charge, if it was anyone’s fault it was your parents. What happened after?’

  Her voice was breaking but she felt a steely horror, an acceptance of her fate, her responsibility. She could hardly bear to think about the immediate aftermath, never mind to express it in words.

  ‘My parents’ marriage didn’t survive, and my Dad left. I haven’t seen him in fifteen years. My mother and I just carried on, but it was so unbearably sad. I tried to take care of her but she couldn’t even look at me. We were Methodists, we always had been, but she became increasingly religious. And so did I. Anything to be closer to Alfie, to God, to be closer to understanding, to get some sort of comfort. Anyway, I felt that her seeing me was too painful so I left as soon as I could; scholarship to sixth form college then to Liverpool University. I found the Sisters of Grace during my first year, and Deaconess Margaret helped me a lot.’

  ‘But did you really have a… a calling for that, a vocation or whatever?’

  ‘Yes, yes I did. I couldn’t possibly lead a normal life. The rest of my life must be a penitence. No, that makes me sound like a martyr. The rest of my life must be devoted to trying to understand.’

  ‘And you chose the cruellest religion you could find.’

  ‘No, no, it’s not like that.’ And she tried to explain to him, to herself, the attraction of Calvinism. That she wanted something cruel, harsh, unforgiving, because she deserved nothing better. That the last thing she wanted was forgiveness, only punishment. But if she were truly honest with herself, there was another attraction of a religion which left her utterly dependent on God’s grace, absolved of all personal responsibility. Perhaps then, her brother’s death could be God’s fault, not hers. That deism in itself is therapeutic, and belief in an all-powerful, all-seeing God absolves us of any will, allowing us to be broken. That there is a perverse comfort, a sort of pride, in knowing that you are depraved, helpless. That she relished the huge intellectual challenge of rationalising such a contradictory set of principles. That she chose Calvinism when she was spiritually immature, naïve, and that if she was totally honest with herself, there was now a certain amount of regret. That this anachronistic little community she had chosen, on the edge of the world, was not so much a life of penance as a life of escape. That she was beginning to wonder if Calvinism was in fact Christianity in its most misconceived form. That perhaps she had made a terrible mistake with her life. But it was too late now.

  Both shivered a little from the cold and from other unnamed fears. Now the black clouds were rolling in at speed and the sky hung oppressively low. They hurried back mostly in silence, each lost in private thoughts. A line had been crossed now, an invisible threshold, and they were perhaps in a liminal space that was impossible to define. They were no longer two unlikely acquaintances, they were something else. Helen tried a little small talk, asked him about his next concerts, his plans for after the tour, but he gave only brief answers. The first heavy drops spattered on Mikko’s leather jacket and Helen’s anorak as they reached the wet gravel of Argarmeols. It was dusk.

  ‘So’ he said, scuffing his sandy boots against the Beetle’s tyres. ‘It was nice finding out the destiny of my immortal soul with you. Actually, it was fucking weird.’

  ‘Come on,’ she smiled weakly. ‘I’ll give you a lift to the train station.’

  As they drove, Mikko squirmed and muttered to himself and eventually blurted out:

  ‘You know, I’m pissed. I’m fucking pissed off. I don’t believe you. If you had really wanted to cloister yourself you wouldn’t be here, near a big city, teaching in a university. You would be in some hermit place somewhere, with a vow of silence. But you chose to live on the edge of somewhere – on the edge – so you can watch what goes on when people really live. And what’s more, you don’t want to be forgiven. You want to go to hell. But you don’t have a choice. What’s it called? Irresistible Grace. You’re going to heaven whether you like it or not.’

  Helen was driving through tears; she loathed herself and everything about this moment. Mikko, not far from tears himself, swivelled round in his seat so he could look at her.

  ‘You have to forgive yourself. It was an accident. Guilt is not a way to live – it is crippling you. You were just a kid and you weren’t responsible. It’s terrible, what they did to you, how they made you feel. You shouldn’t be here. Punishing yourself all your life for something you didn’t do. You’re going to get old here, and you’re going to be bitter. It makes me angry as fuck. This God, he’s not your God. I know you – you’re kind and forgiving, you’re not like these people. If you’re gonna believe in God, choose a different church. For fuck’s sake. Fuck it, let’s go to this church right here. Pull over.’

  They were almost at the train station now, and on their left was a large church with a castle tower. It was open and lit up and there were people going inside – an evening service was about to begin. The sign said ‘Church of England Angel of Liverpool, All Are Welcome In The House Of Our Lord’. The church was in its own garden that was filled with gravestones. Feeling broken and needing to be directed, Helen allowed herself to obey him and manoeuvred the car into a space next to the pavement. She was wishing desperately that none of this had ever happened, that she had just left it alone.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go in.’


  ‘Alright.’ She looked at him, wiped away her tears. ‘Take off that ridiculous hat then…’

  ‘Oh yeah, right. Fuck.’

  The church was almost full, with lots of families; children ran up and down the aisles. As they entered a jovial man handed them a leaflet and inquired, ‘Are you here for the community choir practice?’

  Helen opened her mouth to speak, but Mikko spoke first. ‘Yeah, we’re just trying it out if that’s OK.’

  ‘Wonderful. Welcome. Here’s the order of service then, and you’ll find everything else in the hymn books on your pews.’ He spoke as if he were giving them both a hug.

  They edged into a space on one of the back pews. This church, Angel of Liverpool, was much bigger than St. Michael’s, centrally heated, and the atmosphere was completely different. There were families, students, young people, old people, and the smiling vicar appeared utterly delighted as he surveyed his congregation. Helen couldn’t help notice the contrast with the Deaconess, who looked with genuinely grim dismay at each individual who entered her establishment. At the front of the nave was a choir who wore a uniform, but it was of robes in clashing, garish colours. Behind them on the back wall were the huge organ pipes, and Helen was suddenly thrilled at the thought of hearing music in a church. The organ at St Michael’s had been removed decades earlier, no longer needed for the Order’s brand of strict Calvinist services, and Helen had always felt a touch of sadness when she saw the faint marks on the white walls where the pipes had been ripped out.

  Mikko whispered in her ear: ‘See, I told you – nice Christians!’ He looked at the sheet of paper he had been given. ‘Nice fucking set list too,’ he nodded approvingly as he surveyed the hymn titles. They took a hymn book each from the shelf in front of them, and she studied hers intently, embarrassed, wishing she could be here alone to try something so personal, and at the same time glad she was not alone. As worshippers continued to file in, the organ began to play an introductory piece, its resultant tones reaching her very core in the same way that the distorted guitars of Total Depravity had done through their amplifiers. The organist was decidedly amateurish, she couldn’t help noticing, and she had an urge to play again herself, she was sure she could remember how. But despite the odd wrong note, those organ pipes evoked an innate warmth and spirituality.

  The vicar announced, ‘Let us sing our first hymn of the evening, one that you all know, ‘He Who Would Valiant Be.’

  ‘Oh man,’ whispered Mikko. ‘He Who Would Valiant Be, that is like super-Calvinist. Not only do I know this hymn, I literally stole the words for one of our tracks.’

  Helen looked down at the hymn book out of shyness, but she knew the words too – they had been ingrained in her since childhood – those lyrics adapted from Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and set to folk melody by Vaughn Williams. The organ launched into the hymn’s dignified, righteous cadences, and Helen began to sing tentatively, her voice cracking, relieved that she could barely hear herself over the other singers. Mikko began to sing too, in a delicate baritone. Both of them were rediscovering voices they hadn’t used in a long time.

  He who would valiant be ’gainst all disaster,

  Let him in constancy follow the Master.

  There’s no discouragement shall make him once relent

  His first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.

  As the first verse drew to a close, Mikko put an arm around Helen, and she began to well up with tears again, so he rallied her with a gentle shake and she blinked them back as they launched into the second verse.

  Who so beset him round with dismal stories

  Do but themselves confound – his strength the more is.

  No foes shall stay his might; though he with giants fight,

  He will make good his right to be a pilgrim.

  At the end of the second verse they looked at each other and smiled, and Helen wondered if she was about to find some answers in this church, and Mikko wanted to do something, maybe to hold her hand, but he didn’t and they carried on singing. With the final verse, the organist pulled out the stops in that familiar, irresistible sonic manipulation that filled the church with bass notes and pathos.

  Since, Lord, Thou dost defend us with Thy Spirit,

  We know we at the end, shall life inherit.

  Then fancies flee away! I’ll fear not what men say,

  I’ll labor night and day to be a pilgrim.

  When the service was over, the vicar entreated the congregation to offer each other greetings, and people moved around the church shaking hands, giving and receiving hugs. Helen stifled a laugh more than once as people give Mikko a wide berth or a second look. As they left the church, she felt not the bleak catharsis that she experienced after St Michael’s rituals, but a different sort, a comforting sort. Instead of spiritual exhaustion she felt spiritual awakening. Perhaps it wasn’t always necessary to punish yourself. Perhaps sometimes you could be kind to yourself.

  They stood outside the car, shivering in the cold, Mikko scuffing the ground with his boots. ‘So. Where to now, Sister Helen?’

  ‘I don’t know. I mean, I’ll go back to the Order now. But I feel sort of… AWOL. And I feel better. Thank you. A catharsis. Like one of your concerts.’

  ‘You see, you got spiritual counselling from a renowned Satanist.’

  ‘The irony is not lost on me. So where are you going now then?’

  ‘Fucking… Bristol? We just have two more UK dates then I have a few days off. Look, I need a fucking holiday, some sun or something. Do you want to maybe come with me? We could go to the south of France, find this other geneticist guy you’ve been looking into or whatever. Investigate, like fucking… Scooby Doo or whatever.’

  ‘Thank you. But you know I can’t do that.’

  ‘Yes you can. You can do anything you want.’

  Then he said, ‘I read in the paper they found another body. A girl.’

  ‘I know. The police didn’t contact me this time. I think… it sounds crazy but I think… I’m a suspect. I don’t know, but I feel like I’m a suspect.’

  ‘Join the fucking club. Did you never suspect me?’ He looked down, suddenly worried.

  ‘I mean, I could have done it, you know. That was my band’s marking on the body, right there. I was in Liverpool at the time. I hate God. And I have a bus full of huge guys who do whatever I tell them.’

  Helen thought for a moment. There had been a nameless trepidation at the very beginning, when she had first found the Total Depravity website. But if she was honest with herself, it was less fear and more the excitement, the thrill of being on the chase, of being perhaps one step ahead of the police. And then from the moment she met Mikko she hadn’t given it a second thought. The discovery of that body on the beach, however horrific, had ignited a process in her that she couldn’t quite explain but which had energised her.

  ‘I didn’t suspect you, no,’ she said finally. ‘Never. Strangely.’

  ‘Strangely. Ha. So come on then, let’s carry on the journey, or whatever they say on reality TV. Let’s see what this other genetics dude has to say. Whether you believe or not, I mean it’s still huge right? People are dead. And whether I believe or not, I believe that they believe, and that’s where we have an advantage over the police. Use your skills… come with me.’

  ‘I can’t, Mikko. I’m sorry.’

  11.

  Autumn was creeping exponentially into winter, and as the temperature plummeted a semi-permanent mist descended over the city, swathing its highest points – the Radio City tower, the cathedrals, the cranes – in a fine grey veil that would often hang there all day. At high tide the bronze men were the only figures on the beach, facing the sea unyielding as martyrs while the colourless surf crashed over them. The angriest waves would surge over the promenade and wash away flowers and tributes that had been tied to the barrier in memory of Jason Hardman. Teddy bears and handwritten cards would be tossed in the swell and would wash up on the beach the next morn
ing as a second offering to the dead.

  Despite Darren’s attempts to keep the more grisly details of the murders out of the local press, a macabre anxiety was beginning to take hold of Liverpool. A city bonded in tragedy, as it had been before, as it would be again, was looking for answers to questions almost too profound to contemplate. The churches that had been full before were now overflowing; the congregations that had been tiny were now expanding as newcomers crept uncertainly into pews. St. Wilfrid’s, the location of Chelsea McAllister’s unimaginable end, was no longer abandoned on its lonely mound. The yellow police cordons that surrounded it were gilded with flowers and offerings, while candlelit vigils took place there every evening as the community huddled together in grief.

  Only a mile or so away, the Jeremiah Chapel stood a few doors down from Crosby police station. Another piece of Victorian gothic, its deep red brick sporting intricate tracery windows and a beautiful ogival arched doorway. Its small size and busy location allowed the Jeremiah to lend itself to all sorts of spiritual and non-spiritual activities, and it was thriving. The notice board in the church’s front garden, which had once listed times of worship, was now pasted with a fluorescent poster that cheerfully invited locals to an incongruous mixture of free activities, including bridge, ballroom dancing, Zumba, ‘messy church’.

  Quinn nudged the heavy door open with her shoulder. She admired the understated beauty of Crosby’s low-key churches, and loved that they always seemed to be open, even nowadays, the possibility of sanctuary always available. It was testament to the residual respect for religion, she thought, that more were not vandalized. She saw Swift sitting in one of the middle pews.

  ‘I thought I might find you here. Everyone’s still there in the office, but it’s late. We should do the meeting and wrap things up for the day, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, sorry. Just needed a few minutes to… I don’t know.’ He looked up at the church’s focal point, a giant crucifix that hung above the altar, from which the forlorn figure of Christ stared at him with pleading eyes. He continue to stare at it as he spoke.