Chichester Greenway

by Alton Saunders

  Chapter 26:

  ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL

  “It’s up to us now, Vonn.”

  “I know what you mean, but I don’t understand it. Do you?”

  “No. I think we’ve just got to plunge in. Like diving into the sea.”

  “At our beach. At our lovely beach back home. I’m longing to be back there again.”

  “Me, too.”

  They walked out onto a balcony. A skimmer was waiting for them.

  “We won’t be doing this many more times,” said Akkri.

  “No. I feel sad about that, but I’m really looking forward to getting back to Vika.”

  They climbed in and the skimmer took them in a long glide down through ragged clouds, out into the sunshine and along a grey London street. It was narrow and they were only a few feet above the big red buses.

  All the Vikans had been on buses and trains by now and Bavilan had even had a ride in a helicopter. It had been a very noisy experience. Suddenly a great domed building loomed up in front of them.

  “Look! It’s that building we saw when we were still back home on Vika,” Akkri exclaimed. “Ky says it’s called St Paul’s Cathedral.”

  “I wonder what a cathedral is? Those other buildings with crosses on are called churches.”

  As they stepped out of the skimmer the whole city seemed filled with wonderful shimmering sounds, echoing from the buildings around them, harmonising, clashing, washing over them and through them.

  “The air broke into a mist with bells,” Akkri murmured. Now where had those words come from? He knew they were not his. “It’s the sound of bells,” he said. “They’re coming from inside the building, up in that tower, I think.” He reached out and took Vonn’s hand and they stood in a sort of ecstasy, caught up in the glorious sound.

  People were walking up the stone steps and through the gaps between the big grey pillars, making their way into the cathedral. “I think this is what we’ve come for,” said Vonn. “Let’s go in with them, shall we?” They walked up the steps behind a man who looked rather like Mr Weng. Just in front of him was a lady wearing a red and orange striped robe and headdress. Her skin was the same rich colour as Vicky’s. These two were suddenly swallowed up by the building. Vonn and Akkri stood back and watched a few more people go in until they understood how the revolving door worked. Even now they were still encountering things that were new to them.

  An old man with a stick approached the entrance. They followed him into the triangular opening and a moment later emerged into a huge dim quiet space. As their eyes adjusted they could see it was brighter further in.

  “For the service?” a man asked.

  “Yes,” said Akkri. Although he had no idea what that meant, he had a feeling like when he lay on his back, allowing the waves to wash him in towards the beach. Whatever happened was what was meant to happen, and there was nothing he had to do to make it happen.

  There was so much to look at, so much they did not understand. They followed the people in front of them who were walking up a wide aisle with rows of empty chairs on either side. Vonn noticed a strange painting on the wall to her left and another to her right. Now, in front of them, they came upon a semi-circle of chairs – no, two half semi-circles, with a gap through the middle. A man in uncomfortable-looking clothes handed each of them a thin paper book. The people in front of them were seating themselves on the chairs. It looked as if you could sit wherever you wanted to.

  “Over here,” Akkri whispered. It did not seem right to speak out loud. They were not too near the front and they had a good view of everything that was going on. The shape and decorations of the cathedral were so strange, so different from any building on Vika, that at first they had difficulty in taking it all in. Above them was the inside of the great dome with little balconies round it. There were arches and wall paintings and pillars and big white statues, and ahead of them a long dark area with dark wooden sides and lines of red shapes that Akkri recognised, from seeing one in the hallway at the Canadines’ house, as lampshades, and then at the furthest end a beautiful coloured window. It was some time before he realised that the building itself was in the shape of a cross.

  Vonn was absorbed in the tumultuous music coming from huge golden pipes high up on the wall. She wondered if it was a larger version of the box in Mrs Canadine’s kitchen. The music concluded in a sudden loud chord that made her jump and then there was the sound of softer music coming towards them from somewhere far back in the building. It must have started while the other music was still playing. It was singing – as complicated as the loud music before it – long, gentle lines of melody, lifting up, interweaving and dying down together. A procession of people in white robes was coming through the central gap in the semi-circle of chairs. Some of the singers seemed to be about her own age. They walked slowly across under the dome and took up their positions below the golden pipes. A man in black was carrying a golden cross and placed it in a stand beside the singers.

  What followed was afterwards hard to remember in detail. There were words in the little books they had been given that everyone said together, and a lot of words said by a lady who climbed into a high-up platform to say them, and there were songs in the books, too, that everyone sang. Akkri was relieved to find that he was not the only one who had some difficulty in joining in. One of the songs gave them a surprise: it had the same tune as a favourite Vikan children’s song.

  And all the time, the two friends were trying to understand what it was that was happening. They could understand most of the words but they could not grasp the overall meaning, and there were certain words they could not understand at all. Akkri became aware that the man who had been sitting to his left was trying to edge past him and that most of the other people were standing up and going to join a line that was forming in the central gap between the rows of chairs. He was glad to see that a few people were staying where they were. Then a shock: Vonn was getting up and joining the queue. A man and a woman were standing facing the queue. Akkri could not make out what was happening, but each person at the front of the queue stood for a moment in front of the man and then the woman, then came round to the side and back to their seat.

  Vonn told him afterwards that the man had given her a little round wafer to eat and the woman had handed her a silver cup which had some kind of red fruit juice in it. She only managed to take a little sip before the woman took the cup back again. “It was strange,” she said. “It felt special but I don’t know why.” Akkri was not surprised. Some of the people coming back to their seats had looked very moved, as though something wonderful had happened, and the old man with a stick had tears in his eyes.

  There were some more words to say, another song, a few more words, and then the choir walked back the way they had come and the golden pipes exploded into soaring, thunderous music. People stood up and started chatting or walking over to the left, into what Akkri thought of as one of the arms of the cross. He and Vonn followed them. There was a big painting to the right of large open doors – a painting of a man with a lantern – and lots of little flickering candles in a sort of stand, and then they were walking down stone steps into the sunshine of the outside world.

  Most of the people were turning left and walking towards the front of the cathedral. Vonn and Akkri followed them. “It’s not quite done yet,” said Akkri. He had a faraway look in his eyes that reminded Vonn of Korriott.

  Some of the people were going through an arch in the side of the building. “I think we should go there,” said Akkri. They went down some steps and through into a large area with many stone arches, underneath the cathedral. There was the smell of the strange drink called coffee that Tamor had learnt to enjoy, though most of the Vikans found the taste too unusual and too bitter. An alien taste, Ky called it. Over to the right was a shop with pictures and all sorts of bright things on display. At the far side there were shelves with books on them. />
  Akkri walked straight over and picked one of them up. Although Earth books were fairly similar to books on Vika, it still gave him a thrill to remember that these ones were the work of aliens. The one he had picked up was quite small. It had a purple cover and on it the words ‘Book of Common Prayer’. He opened it at random and let his eyes wander down the page. One phrase leapt out at him, giving him the sensation of an electric shock – something he had experienced when he touched one of the wall plugs in the Canadines’ house. Yes, this was it. He held out the book for Vonn to see and pointed to the words he had noticed. “I think we can go back now,” he said, and Vonn knew that he was right.

  He led the way past the little round tables where people were eating lunch, and back up the stone steps. It was strange to come out into the brightness of daytime once more. A skimmer was waiting for them, with people walking past it quite unconcerned. “Yes, time to get back,” said Vonn. And soon it would be time for them all to go back to Vika, she thought. “We must tell Andrew and Vicky we will be leaving soon,” she added. “I think they’ll be quite sad to hear we are going.”

  “I think we’ll miss them, too,” said Akkri. “They’re real friends, aren’t they?”

  Back on The Golden Palace they had a meal with Sumar, Vill and Eedo. Sumar told them that his cousin Yask had gone with Ky, Annilex and Viney to look at some buildings in the north of a country called Thailand, and that Toln was visiting his new family.

  After a rest, Vonn walked out onto a terrace that had tubs of the Earth flowers that she had learnt were called geraniums. She pinched one of the leaves and sniffed its strange, pungent smell. Perhaps I’ll never smell this smell again, she thought. There were chairs arranged in a circle. She sat down on one of them and watched the small, fluffy clouds blowing by. There was a warm, soft feeling to the air and she felt at peace.

  Although she was thrilled by the experience of coming to this new planet, she had frequently felt stirred up in a way that never happened back on Vika. No, that’s not quite true, she thought. When her grandmother had died, that had certainly stirred her up. It seemed a long time ago now, though, a time that had passed. Even some of the things they had done on Earth were becoming quite distant memories. She thought of the time shortly before they set off on their journey, sitting on the veranda at Akkri’s house, having breakfast with him, and that seemed simply ages ago.

  Korriott, Tamor and Viney came out onto the terrace. A skimmer settled gently beside the chairs and Toln stepped out. Soon all the others had joined them and they sat waiting to see what would emerge from what was probably one of their last big meetings before their departure.

  “We’ve been to something called a service at St Paul’s Cathedral,” said Akkri.

  Normally everyone would have sat back and relaxed, allowing Vonn and Akkri’s memories – the bells, the cathedral, the service – to become their experience too, but instead there was a feeling of expectation. “What is it, Akkri?” Viney asked.

  Akkri told them of the shock he had felt when he opened the book. “I didn’t read the whole page,” he said. “There was just one part of it, just a few words that caught my eye. It was as if I recognised them, though of course I’d never seen them before in my life.” He felt close to tears and could hardly get the words out. “It said: ‘the land of everlasting life’.”

  Vonn was trembling, she didn’t know why. “Is it a real place? Could we go there?” she asked.

  For a moment no one answered, then Korriott spoke: “I don’t know if it’s a real place or not, but let’s just try, shall we?”

  They settled back in their chairs and closed their eyes as they had done so many times before. They sat there for a long time, then, one by one, they opened their eyes again. When they compared notes they found they had all felt as they had done once before, that time when they had looked out towards the waterfall in one of the strange lands that had accompanied them on their journey, a feeling of disappointment, a feeling of waiting for something that they couldn’t quite reach. Sumar used those very words: “We can’t quite reach it.”

  Yask corrected him: “No, not that! We can’t quite reach it on our own. This is something to do with Earth people that we don’t understand. We need Earth people here to help us.”

  “Vicky and Andrew, perhaps?” Vonn suggested. She found herself thinking of the wonderful complicated music they had listened to in the cathedral. The light, high-up melodies are like us Vikans, she thought, and the deeper more serious melodies are the people of Earth. They both needed each other. Then the music would be complete.

  “Yes, Vicky and Andrew. I’m sure they’re meant to be part of this,” said Annilex.

  * * *