by Jem Poster
Harris appeared to share none of his colleague’s distaste for demolition work. All morning the church echoed to his hammer-blows and the sound of splintering wood, and by late afternoon all pews had been cleared from the north aisle and a start made on those in the nave. Jefford was predictably reluctant to dismantle the latter, pointing out that most of them were still, as he quaintly phrased it, right as ninepence.
‘True enough, Jefford, but my intention is to give some kind of coherence to the interior. I can hardly do that if I piece and patch as you seem to be suggesting.’
‘You’re leaving Mr Redbourne’s pew in place.’
‘Yes, but very much against my will. Mr Redbourne was apparently insistent that the improvements shouldn’t rob him of the privacy provided by his box, and my instructions are to let it stand.’
He mumbled something I couldn’t quite hear.
‘What was that, Jefford?’
Harris raised his head from his work.
‘He said it’s a shame some can insist while others can’t get themselves any kind of a hearing at all.’
‘You stay out of this, Harris.’ I turned back to Jefford. ‘Is that true? Was that the gist of your remark?’
He shook his head. ‘Not exactly, but … Don’t misunderstand me, sir. I’m not one for oversetting the order of things. Only I can’t bear to see waste and damage. This pew’ – he ran his hand along the smooth grain of the backrest – ‘might last another five hundred years, properly cared for.’
I could see he was set to begin all over again and Banks’s arrival at that moment seemed providential, though it quickly became apparent that the tiresome business of the pews was inescapable. Even as I approached him he stopped in his tracks and gazed across at the north aisle, shaking his head slowly from side to side.
‘I can hardly believe this is going ahead,’ he said, ignoring my greeting. ‘One tries to prepare oneself for certain events, but there’s still a sense of shock when they materialize.’
‘I appreciate that. I can’t share your views on this matter, of course, but I recognize the strength of your feelings.’
He smiled wanly. ‘I know my behaviour yesterday must have seemed a little irrational, but you have to consider my role here. I’ve always understood curacy – and the term’s a significant one for me, Stannard – as implying not simply the care of my parishioners’ souls but also, by extension, an enlightened guardianship of whatever nurtures those souls. The church – I mean the building itself as well as the faith it represents – is just such a nurturing presence, and I’m naturally upset by what’s been going on here over the past couple of weeks. Once the job’s done I shall no doubt be suitably grateful; but I’m deeply troubled by all this’ – he gestured miserably around the nave – ‘and I can’t help letting it show.’
‘There’s no need to apologize.’
‘I suppose this is less an apology than an explanation, but thinking about the matter this morning, I was obliged to admit that my judgement had been warped by what you rightly characterize as strength of feeling. Your suggestion that we might preserve the carving was a good one, and it was both foolish and discourteous of me to reject it. I’ve come to tell you that I’d like the piece to be displayed on the south wall as you suggested, and that I’d be very grateful if you could make the necessary arrangements.’
‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible now.’
‘Why not?’
‘The carving’s gone.’
It says much about Banks’s view of the world that he should have imagined that the thing would still be sitting there more than twenty-four hours after our earlier discussion. I had been aware, of course, of certain underlying complications, perhaps even a degree of confusion on his part; but his instructions had been quite explicit and I had naturally not hesitated to act upon them.
‘When you say gone—?’
‘Burned. I left it by the gate for Harris to pick up. I assume he did so.’
Banks’s distress was clearly genuine, but there was a characteristic touch of extravagance in his performance. He stared at me fixedly for a moment before burying his face in his hands, his bent shoulders quivering; then he threw back his head and strode up the aisle and out of the church, crashing the door shut behind him. I called Harris over.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘I take it you burned the pew-end I left out there yesterday? The one with the figure of a woman on it.’
He hesitated, just long enough for me to entertain the fleeting notion that the carving might have been set aside and saved.
‘I did, sir. I thought that was why you’d put it there.’
‘I suppose you actually saw it burn?’
‘Of course.’ His gaze flickered uneasily. ‘Hadn’t you meant it for burning?’
‘Don’t worry about it, Harris. I’ll deal with the matter. I shall be at the rectory if you need me.’
Banks had not in fact returned home but was loitering disconsolately in the lane just outside the gate. He looked up as I approached, and I saw that his cheeks were flushed and his eyes rimmed with red.
‘I’ve been ferreting around,’ he said. ‘I thought it was just possible—’
‘I’m afraid it isn’t. Harris has confirmed that the piece has been destroyed. I naturally regret that but, as you’ll remember, I took the trouble to consult you and in fairness I can hardly be blamed for having taken you at your word.’
He was silent, staring at the ground, rigid with suppressed misery. I felt like a schoolmaster called upon to console an unhappy child.
‘This won’t last,’ I said. ‘A year or two from now you’ll look around the church and wonder why you ever attached so much importance to these things.’
He shook his head. ‘We see the world differently, Stannard, you and I; we come at it from different angles. I’m not saying I’ve got it right myself, or that you’ve got it all wrong, but – let me be blunt – I find myself perturbed by the way you go about your affairs. There’s a clumsiness, even perhaps a degree of callousness—’
‘I don’t accept that. The situation is really quite simple: I’ve been charged with making certain improvements to the church, and the removal of the existing pews is a necessary part of the work. That’s all there is to it.’
‘Well, there’s actually a good deal more to it than that, though I can see why you might be reluctant to acknowledge the fact. It’s my belief that most lives reveal, on inspection, a certain coherence or consistency, and that those who live misguidedly in relation to one aspect of the world are apt to find themselves replicating their errors in other relationships. Let me tell you something. There’s a church not fifteen miles from here in which every sculpted figure – every saint, every angel – has been literally defaced. Someone has simply taken a chisel and obliterated the features of each one. Looking at the liveliness of the flowing hair and pleated garments, you know at once that these would have been faces of remarkable beauty. All gone, quite irreplaceably. Sometimes I imagine those puritan inconoclasts at home with their families; try as I will, I’m unable to convince myself that the hands which dealt so brutally with those faces are likely to have touched a wife’s forehead or a child’s cheek with warmth or compassion.’
The implied comparison was outrageous, and I should have said as much if Banks had given me the opportunity, but he scarcely paused for breath before continuing.
‘Why does it happen so often, Stannard? What impels people to destroy the loveliest and most delicate creations of God and man? I’ve sometimes wondered whether it might not be a kind of thwarted love, an unfulfilled yearning manifesting itself as rage. And if that’s the case, might we not find ways of purifying the impulse, of restoring it to its elemental form?’
The questions were plainly rhetorical and I made no attempt to reply. Another sermon, I might have said; but there was a febrile emotionalism about this effusion which differentiated it from his professional discourse and which, I have to add, rather di
sgusted me. I excused myself and walked away, half expecting him to follow; but looking back from the porch I saw that he was still in the same place, his head bowed and his arms folded across his chest.
I should not, perhaps, have left so abruptly; but standing in the nave, turning the matter over in my mind, I was obliged to recognize that nothing I could do or say would be likely to console the man. Indeed, I reasoned with myself, my presence might well be inflammatory, and the best thing I could do would be to stay out of his way until he had come to terms with his loss.
And besides, I had my own preoccupations. Ann had been in my thoughts all day, a vague but insistent presence; and now, as the light began to fade, I found myself unable to concentrate on anything else. At just this time, I thought, glancing up at the windows, she would be setting off on her walk – opening the door, stepping out into the damp air, pulling her mantle about her shoulders. I suddenly saw or felt her fingers on the braided fastening, one knuckle denting the soft flesh of her throat, the apprehension so acute that, just for an instant, I lost all sense of my actual surroundings. And when I came to myself again it was with an overwhelming awareness of my own need to be out there with her.
I should have liked to leave at once but I had no wish to encounter Banks again, and it was a good ten minutes before I felt it safe to set out. Once in the lane I stepped out briskly, anxious to reach the footpath before the light failed.
I heard the voices first, indistinct but audibly charged with emotion, and then, rounding the bend in the lane, saw Ann approaching slowly in the company of a young man – the same, I think, who had greeted her outside the church on the first Sunday of my stay; though since that particular brand of vacant handsomeness seems to be shared, perhaps as a result of inbreeding, by a fair proportion of the young men of the village, it was difficult to be certain. The two were deeply engrossed in what appeared to be some kind of altercation, the young fellow insistently laying his hand on Ann’s arm, while she repeatedly attempted to step out of range. Their words became clearer as I advanced.
‘… and in any case I deserve better from you. What are you up to with him? I’ve a right to know what’s going on.’
‘A right? What right can you claim? I don’t belong to you.’
‘You gave me reason to think so last summer. The things you said when—’
‘Those weren’t solemn promises. They were words wrung from me by you, against my will.’
‘Against your will? Listen to me, Annie—’
‘Take your hands off me.’ She shrugged him violently away and staggered backwards, snagging her skirts on the hedgerow brambles so that she was obliged to stoop to disengage them.
It would perhaps have been prudent to have retraced my steps at that stage, and had I been certain of remaining undetected I should probably have done so. But a sense of dignity – or, rather, of the indignity of retreat – kept me moving forward until, raising her head suddenly and tossing back her hair, she caught sight of me.
Even at a distance of twenty yards her confusion was apparent. The young man bent to help her, tugging at the bramble stems while she pulled furiously at the snagged fabric, her breathing heavy and punctuated by little childlike sobs. My own composure was, I remember thinking as I stepped forward, unassailable.
‘Allow me.’
She stiffened a little but said nothing. Her companion stood aside while I carefully unhooked each of the thorns in turn, bending the stem back on itself as I did so, working with a cold, indefatigable concentration. She was watching my movements, I knew, looking down at me as I knelt there; but I worked on without haste, without emotion.
‘There you are,’ I said at last, rising to my feet and brushing the roadside dirt from my trousers. ‘You’re free now.’ And, I should have added had I not felt the subtlety of the observation to be beyond her, so am I. I took a step backward, bowed courteously and continued on my way.
So complete had been my mastery of myself and the situation that, waking a little before dawn the next day from a fragmentary dream of loss or betrayal, I was for several minutes disinclined to acknowledge any connection at all between this apparently conclusive encounter and the wave of irrational sorrow which swept over me as I lay there on my back waiting for the light.
12
Jefford’s work-rate had, if anything, declined since Harris had joined him on the job. He would lean against one of the piers, occasionally wiping his sleeve across his brow as though he were the one doing the work, and watch as Harris attacked the pews with a savage, undisciplined energy. Every so often the two would huddle together, Harris stooping over his companion and speaking into his ear, too softly for me to be able to make out his words. Then Jefford might pick up his tools and set to for a few moments before resuming his position against the pier. I decided to separate them, putting Jefford to work on stripping the blown plaster from around the chancel arch while Harris completed the demolition of the pews.
Jefford’s inertia notwithstanding, we had the scaffolding up by mid-afternoon. Not the most professional of structures, as I made the mistake of observing to Harris, but good enough for the job.
‘I don’t know about professional,’ he said, ‘but it would have done no harm to have gone at it with a bit more care. We want no more accidents.’
‘And we’ll have none,’ I said sharply. ‘I meant simply that the structure looks rather crude; there’s no question of its failing to serve its purpose. If you’ve finished securing the ladder you can get back to the pews.’
Jefford had withdrawn again and was sitting on a pile of smashed wood, his head bowed and his hands resting limply on his knees. I called him over.
‘Come with me,’ I said.
‘I’ll show you what’s to be done.’ I led the way to the platform. Jefford climbed slowly, the trembling of his body transmitting itself through the ladder to my own feet and hands. His face, I noticed, as he reached out for the handrail and pulled himself on to the planking, was shining with perspiration.
‘This won’t tax your strength unduly,’ I said. ‘Essentially, the whole lot needs to come off from here’ – I described a sweeping arc with my right arm – ‘to here. It’s obvious enough where it’s parted company with the wall.’ I rapped the plaster smartly with my knuckles. ‘You hear that?’
He nodded blankly.
‘You’ll find a hammer and a bolster in the tool-chest in the porch. Let the debris lie where it falls – Harris can clear it up later. If you need me you’ll find me outside.’
There was an unaccustomed brightness in the air and it seemed an opportune moment to investigate what I had latterly come to recognize as a potentially serious problem. Where the rainwater pooled at the base of the north wall, the fabric had rotted and crumbled, at one point to an alarming degree. The drainage could be improved easily enough but the erosion of the stonework might, I thought, prove both costly and time-consuming to rectify. I was by no means eager for additional work, but once the matter had come to my attention I naturally felt a professional obligation to follow it up.
I took a pointing-trowel from the tool-chest and went round to the far side of the building. I was relieved to be out of doors, away from the noise of splintering wood, and I settled to my task with something approaching pleasure, squatting on the puddled ground like a small child.
It may be that I heard her approach, but I have no reason to believe so. I was probing the loose mortar at the base of one of the buttresses, utterly absorbed in the task, thinking, so far as I am aware, of nothing in particular. Certainly not of her. And yet it seems to me that I knew, in the half-second before I straightened up and swung round, that she was there. And it was in the instant of my turning and of her stepping towards me from the deep shade of the yew that the sunlight burst through the ragged clouds so that her face, pale above the grey stuff of her mantle, appeared to glow with the concentrated radiance one sometimes finds in Renaissance portraiture. She stopped a few paces from me and stood still for
a second or two, one hand lifted to the fastening at her throat, her head tilted a little to one side and her eyes fixed on mine. An icon, I remember thinking, of almost preternatural composure; but her voice, when she spoke, was tremulous and uncertain.
‘Are you busy?’
‘Always busy.’ I indicated the buttress and the scatter of rotten mortar at its base. ‘There’s no end to the work on a building like this. Ideally one would rake out and repoint the north and west walls in their entirety, as well as—’
‘I wanted to talk to you about something closer to my heart. Closer, I think, to yours too. Could you spare a few minutes?’
‘A few, maybe.’
‘Perhaps we could walk?’
‘I’ve no time for walking, I’m afraid. You asked for a few minutes. If you want more than that, you’ll have to wait for a more opportune occasion.’
‘When might that be?’
‘Next week, perhaps. I don’t know.’
She seemed to consider this for a moment.
‘You’re angry with me,’ she said. ‘I can tell you are. But you’ve no cause. If you’ll give me time to explain—’
‘Explain what?’
‘The boy I was walking with yesterday. It’s not what you think. He’s my cousin.’
‘Really? The little I witnessed suggested a more intimate relationship.’
‘Intimate? In what way?’
‘I imagine you understand my meaning. The fellow seemed to think he had some claim on you.’
‘We’ve known each other all our lives, and we were in each other’s company a good deal when we were younger. Perhaps he still feels some of the old childish attachment to me. But we all have to grow up sometime, don’t we?’
She looked up at me with a slight frown, as though perplexed by something in or behind her own words.
‘We can’t stay in the old places,’ she continued. ‘Our lives change and we find the things we wanted before don’t satisfy us any more. There’s a sense of space, glimpses of other ways and faces. And then fortune, or whatever you want to call it, throws us something new, gives us a chance to move on; and if we don’t take that chance …’ She tailed off, staring into the distance.