The Resurrection of the Body (10 page)

T
he Discovery in the Vestry

Every year, usually in April or May, the Archdeacon comes to visit the churchwardens and make sure everything is ship-shape. His visitation is normally concerned with such mundane matters as money management, dealing with the weekly offertory and church insurance, ensuring that the gutters aren’t leaking and so on. Normally the churchwardens rush around beforehand making sure the silver is polished, the vestry neat and tidy, that the grass in the garden has been mown and the weeds pulled out of the paving in front of the porch.

At the bottom of the form to be completed by the churchwardens is a space in which they can, in
confidence
,
state any problems that they feel they have with the church, its congregation or its present incumbent. Despite my mood of depression at the time, I had no reason to think that there would be any problem.

Before the visitation we decided to do some spring cleaning, and, in particular, to clean out the cupboards in the vestry. The two churchwardens, Chris Shaw and Mercy, were in charge, and Sidney had also agreed to help us.

We were emptying out the back of the old wardrobe. There we found a pile of ancient prayerbooks, some old costumes for a nativity play, and a box of long-forgotten hymnsheets. At the back we found a box of acrylic artist’s paints.

‘What were these used for?’ I asked, picking through them. They were large, expensive tubes, mostly unused, and I was surprised that someone would have forgotten them.

‘Oh, I remember,’ said Sidney. ‘It was before your time, Richard. The ceiling leaked in that storm and a bit of the painting got damaged. A local artist came and touched it up.’

‘Which painting? Not the baptism?’

Sidney nodded.

‘Do you know who the artist was?’

‘No, I can’t rightly remember.’

I felt at once a sense of great relief and excitement; this at least explained the findings of Detective Chief Inspector Stone. It was partly my fault that I hadn’t found out about this, as, in my shame, I hadn’t told anyone about the
accusations of the police. I said that I would take them to my office and try to find out who they belonged to. I could ring my predecessor; almost certainly he would know who the artist was.

Mercy grabbed hold of me as I turned to go. ‘Richard, I’ve been meaning to ask you; did you go to Clissold Park, like you said you would? Did you see this man?’ When I didn’t answer, she went on, ‘What do you think Mary saw, Richard? Do you think it was a vision?’

Chris said, ‘I think this kind of talk is dangerous. It’s getting out of hand … you two are not the only people who claim to have seen him.’

‘Who else are you talking about?’ I asked, astonished, pausing in the doorway with the box of paints.

Mercy carried on calmly emptying the cupboard. ‘Gordon says he saw the man walking in London Fields. And that family who were staying here, they saw him too, they say.’

Chris put a box down on the floor. ‘I think you should say something, Richard,’ he said, ‘to put a stop to this. It could be very bad for the church if the press get hold of it.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Well, Mary is already saying that it means there’s some special significance in this church, that we’ve been singled out for some kind of miracle … quite frankly it isn’t healthy.’

‘She hasn’t said anything more to me about it.’

‘That’s because she said you don’t believe her,’ said Mercy, putting down the dustpan and brush.

‘That’s not true. I do believe her.’

‘What?’ Chris straightened up from the cupboard and looked me straight in the eye. ‘Believe what, exactly?’

I felt that to stand here and listen to this conversation, to take part in it, and not admit anything, would be
dishonest
. ‘Because I went up to Clissold Park and saw the same thing as she did.’

‘So you have seen Him?’ exclaimed Mercy, throwing up her hands in delight. ‘Praise the Lord!’

Chris stood and stared at me, his eyes wide with what looked like horror. Suddenly I realised that I had made a great error. I excused myself, and said that I had some urgent phone calls to make, and that they could find me in my office if they needed me.

I shut the door firmly behind me, sat at my desk and tried to think clearly. I, too, felt that this whole thing could have a serious effect in dividing the congregation. But what could I say? I was more in doubt about what was going on than anyone.

I looked down at the box of paints. I felt it was my clear duty to inform the police about this discovery, and to try to trace the local artist. I went through the church files, finally finding an insurance claim concerning the leak of water through the roof which occurred in the hurricane of October 1987, just before I came to St Michael’s. I
photocopied
this and attached it to a letter saying I was trying to trace the artist, which I promptly dispatched to Detective Chief Inspector Stone.

T
essa

Tessa has been the deaconess at our church for the past three years. She is a passionate believer in women’s
ordination
. Now that the first women have become priests, it is her firm intention to follow in their footsteps. This will inevitably mean leaving us, an event which I must confess I do not look forward to. In the meantime she continues to be a great support to me and everybody in the church.

On Saturday morning she came to see me in my study in great distress and told me she had been visited by the police. She told me that she had been intimidated by their questioning and that they had asked her many searching questions about me. It seemed they had found out that I had visited a psychotherapist while at university, and that
my mother had killed herself when in a deep depression following the birth of her second child, my brother Philip. To cut it short, she said, they wanted to know if I was also going off my head.

I must confess that when she said this I was afraid. The police might be asking such questions of the
Archdeacon
, even the Bishop. They might be talking to other priests, to people in the community, raising doubts about me, blackening my name. I was in real fear that this might get out of hand, that Stone was pursuing a personal vendetta against me.

Yet surely I could defend myself? I believed myself to be popular in the parish. And yet, thinking about it, I was no longer sure. I was certainly too wishy-washy for those in the congregation who liked to take the Bible more literally than I did. Perhaps my approach was not sound enough for the intellectuals. It was quite possible that in trying to satisfy the needs and viewpoints of all the vastly different people in my congregation I was pleasing no one. Chris’s reaction to my admission that I too had seen the man in Clissold Park was also worrying. In short, my position might not be as secure as I had thought.

‘Tell me truthfully, Tessa,’ I said, reaching over and taking her hand, ‘How do the congregation feel about me? Do they think that I’m doing a good job? Do they have faith in me?’

‘Oh, absolutely. I am sure of it. How can you doubt yourself? You are a wonderful priest.’

‘Tessa, are you sure of this?’

‘Of course.’

‘And if you heard anything to the contrary, would you tell me? Any rumour, any small thing I’ve done to offend, however trivial?’

‘I promise.’ She was staring into my face, her cheeks pale, her eyes searching mine. Tessa was not a beautiful woman. Her face was rather thin, austere, with heavy eyes. She gave me a look of such intimacy that I forgot for an instant who I was with, and somehow, in my mind, I felt I was with Harriet, who was the only other woman who had ever been so close and looked at me like that. Instinctively I took her face in my hands and kissed her. It was not exactly a sexual kiss, but it was not exactly a chaste one either.

Tessa looked at me with amazement and for an instant something like a smile played on her lips. Realizing what I had done, I instantly released her, dropping my hands from her face like two heavy stones. She jumped back from me at once. Her cheeks flamed red; she murmured in confusion and then she fled from the room, leaving me alarmed and alone.

T
o Abney Park Cemetery

I sat and stared at the floor. Something truly terrible was happening to me. I felt for a moment that I was losing my sanity, that I was sliding into a dark pit. The cross stood on the window-ledge, mocking me. Unable to sit there, I stood up and walked out into the street. Although the sun was shining I felt as if a cloud had passed across its face and left everything dark and cold. I got into the car and began to drive, I don’t know where. I made a desperate attempt to pray, what I called ‘arrow prayers’, little darts of prayer fired at heaven, but I couldn’t.

I drove west, turned the car at Essex Road and drove north towards Stoke Newington. Then I turned east and
drove to Kingsland Road. I thought I might go for a walk in Abney Park cemetery. I turned north again and drove into Church Street, parked the car in a side road and walked through the wrought iron gates into the cemetery. Although it was early May it was quite cold again, though the blossom was out and the leaves starting to show on the trees.

I walked down the great avenue of trees with the new buds opening and pale green light shining down through them. On the ground, ivy and brambles grew everywhere, smothering the tombstones, many of which were broken and tilted to one side as if the dead were pushing up from underneath. I wandered among the big Victorian
monuments
, topped with angels and engraved with tragic verse. A battered angel looked down on me, its face smeared with graffiti. Ivy sprawled over the stone and, next to it, a statue bowed its head under a generous sprinkling of bird droppings.

In one grave lay buried a young mother and her child. Another read ‘Our first dear baby, Cyril, aged two and a half years: Thine angel has sung thee to sleep.’ I
remembered
our first dead daughter and Harriet’s grief at her loss and suddenly sat down there, weeping.

The man walked past me down the path. I saw at once that it was him. I stood up, without an instant’s
hesitation
, and began to follow him. He was dressed in jeans and a shabby jacket, was carrying a newspaper, and wore a pair of threadbare gloves on his hands. He wore old
trainers
, which made no sound, and his movements were easy and fluid like an athlete’s.

I followed him along the narrow, overgrown paths, between the gravestones. In the spring sunlight I saw that he cast a shadow. He turned left, where the ruined chapel stood with its crenellated tower, and walked under the big iron gate. I followed, nervously, anxious not to lose him, but not wanting to come too close.

Corrugated iron covered the empty windows and inside it was very dark. Feathers and bird droppings coated the floor and two pigeons flapped noisily under the roof. The place was ominous and smelt of the stale urine of tramps who had sheltered there. There was no sign at all of the man.

I walked gratefully out into the daylight. Then I saw him again, standing in the sunshine not far away, pausing to read the messages on the wreaths on a newly dug grave. Then he turned and began to walk away again, at the same easy, relaxed pace. The words in Luke came suddenly into my mind; ‘Why search among the dead for one who is living?’

He walked steadily towards the exit on Church Street, showing no signs of noticing me. I followed him to the bus-stop, keeping my distance, and glancing about as I went in an effort to seem casual. Near the bus-stop was a newsagent. I looked up the road to check that no bus was in sight, popped in, and bought an Evening Standard. I went back to the bus-stop, leaning against the wall, burying my face in the paper.

After five or six minutes the bus came, screeching to a halt; I felt the hot breath from the engine. The man walked to the front of the bus and sat down. I sat behind
him. I was so close that I could reach out and touch his shoulder. Part of me wanted to do so, just to check that he was real, that my hand wouldn’t simply pass through the fabric of his body like an image on a screen. His hair was thick and unkempt, slightly longer than it had been on the day he staggered to the church. When he turned his head slightly to look out of the window I caught a glimpse of his profile and the thin, almost arrogant nose.

The bus headed south towards Dalston. At Shacklewell Lane he got off and I followed him. He walked down the road towards St Mark’s Rise, and into a big, four-storey Victorian house on the left-hand side going down the hill. The big black-painted door slammed shut behind him.

I stood out on the street. The nearby church clock struck twelve. I walked up the steps and peered at the doorbells. It was divided into multiple flats and there were seven bells in all. There were three names, Finnigan, Jones and Zadrack. The other bells had labels which were faded, torn or missing altogether.

I went down the steps and looked back at the house. The window sills were chipped and cracked and there were dingy curtains at the windows. One room I could see was a kitchen, and bottles of washing-up liquid and cleaning fluid were lined along the window frame with a couple of faded-looking plants. On the top floor I saw somebody drawing back a curtain.

The door opened suddenly and a girl stepped out. She had long black hair, was wearing a short leather skirt, short jacket and a bright red scarf wrapped round her neck. She had high boots with complicated fastenings and
a lot of make-up on her face. She came down the steps, walking with exaggerated care along the pavement, then she stopped and lit a cigarette. She stood by the wall and put out a hand to steady herself, and as she did so she dropped the cigarette packet. She leaned over and her bag swung forward and hit her leg, causing her to sway on the high heels. I stepped towards her and picked up the cigarettes, handing them to her.

Her arms were long and thin and scarred at the wrists when she put out her hand to me. Her face could have been pretty but the skin was bad, coarse and pock-marked under her make-up. She looked at me oddly. She asked, ‘Are you from the church?’

‘Not this church.’ I took a step back from her. ‘Um … I was wondering if you could help me … somebody said they were in a spot of trouble and asked me to go and see them. This was the address but there’s no name on the bell … a Mr Spencer.’

‘Spencer? No, I don’t know. There’s me, there’s Sarah and Angie, there’s the Polish guy with the wife and baby, Mr Finnigan, he’s not here, he’s in hospital again, and then there’s Mr and Mrs Rose … and then there’s the guy on the top floor.’

‘Could he be Mr Spencer?’

She looked at me and laughed. ‘No, I don’t think he could be Mr Spencer.’

‘Is he about thirty, with dark hair, a bit long, a nose like this …?’

‘You know him?’ She was startled.

‘I just saw him going in the house.’

‘You’re a bit nosy, aren’t you?’ She turned away suddenly and began walking down the street. I watched her go. I looked at the clock; I would be late for lunch, and although I was only a ten or fifteen minute walk from home, I had to go and collect the car first.

I rang Harriet from a payphone to say I would be a bit late. Her voice sounded distant and odd.

‘You’d better come home at once,’ she said. ‘Tessa’s been here.’