Aelred's Sin (21 page)

From across the cemetery in the eaves of the chapel Aelred heard and saw the swallows darting in and out. They must have a nest below the eave, inside the roof, he thought, as he had first seen them in the barn on the farm. ‘They’ve flown all the way back from Africa. They summer here, leaving us in the winter,’ Brother Theodore had told him one evening after milking. All the way back from Africa. They swooped and arced and then Aelred heard a voice, another young boy’s voice: Jordan’s voice.

I is eleven years old when they tear me from my village and from my twin brother. I lose half of myself. They flog me for not eating their nasty food. I see a white seaman flogged and then they throw him into the waves. I see black bodies like meat fling into the swelling waters. Red water. Blue water.

I is the property of a Mr Newton then. I belong with his other chattels. He has me on a list in a ledger.

On the coast they sell me for two yards of tartan. Then I hear rattling chains and the crack of whips. They take me by the hand, like a pet. Some of them nice. Then like a mangey dog, some nasty. They strike me. They call me little nigger. Other words sting me like cayenne. I get licks. A good flogging is what I deserve, say Mr Newton. He pinch me. Night was like day, all waking. And the sea, groaning beneath.

There is a preacher man on the ship. He does fling words about. I baptise you, he say, throwing water over my head, Jordan.

How I come to this house? It was in Antigua that Mr Newton sell me to Master Walter Dewey. I nearly get take by another who run into the arena and grab me, and want me for hardly any price at all because I is small. He haggle with Mr Newton and Master Walter Dewey. I remember well the morning he inspecting me like some cattle he want to buy. Some other man bring me from the port. My lips swell, my arms and legs ache.

I homesick for my village.

Then the time come that they have to lay the bit on my tongue. They muzzle my mouth. I starve. I want to tell the others I meet there about the voyage. But is the boot on the back, whip, rope, cow-skin. Salt on the lips, sun like fire, blisters.

Then there is the time when I dive beneath the sea for rocks for my master’s wall in Antigua, for the house at Ashtown. That is the time when the dogs pursue me. One hound get me by the ankle and the master cry off, off. Though I sure he set it on me. Is the same hound lick my
wounds, the same hound which look up obediently to the tall master.

Is here in Ashton Park I tell them the story of where I come from and the voyage I make. She say, suck your thumb and sleep. That woman is called Miss Amy from Somerset, and she nice nice. My thumb crack.

The Lodge:
3 November 1984

I take up my pen. I put down my pen. I make my book for him. In memoriam? Yesterday was All Souls’, the day before, All Saints’. Is that it? Is this what it’s come to?

I see now that my story is of that first year. Lovers in May. That’s what it is, really. I feel happy that he had this falling in love. Yes, there was the Ted relationship, but that was so fraught. This is fraught too, but there’s something like falling in love here, like me falling in love with Annette - what we all know about falling in love. We often used to talk among ourselves at home about what happened to sexual feelings among nuns and priests. It didn’t seem possible that everything could be as neatly dealt with as the official descriptions indicated. The vow of chastity couldn’t keep it all under wraps. Not that we wanted to think about all that, I know.

Benedict talked in his letter about the unreliability of the journal. I must say that the first time I read it I was really taken aback. In the light of everything that subsequently took place I saw it as the slippery slope; not surprising really, given what then happened. That is what I first thought. But now I’m seeing it differently. Yes, there are Joe and Miriam and how they talk about things, but it’s also me: I find myself getting angry on his behalf, wanting him to have the right to his life.

I feel that when Benedict writes he is expressing a shyness, or embarrassment, understandably, at seeing
himself represented. He would’ve been afraid of his superiors reading the entries. He must’ve felt acutely embarrassed about me revealing that I had access to them. He must’ve wanted to defend himself. I understand that. How much of the journals does he know? When would he have read them? He may have done at the time of the breakdown. He may even have thought of getting them out of the reach of the novice master or the Abbot. There are large absences at the time of the breakdown, torn out pages even. I don’t expect Aelred wrote much then. There is what he called ‘the Night of the Rain’.

So extraordinary that Benedict should die at this time. I haven’t quite got to the bottom of that. Too much of a coincidence.

In my reconstruction I attempt chronology, but in here, at the end of the day, it is all fragments, dust, residue, bits I’d rather not be reminded about.

Another Ted fragment surfaced in my readings today, retold on its own, out of context. Not sure what prompted it. Strange to have it told when I can judge it against my own experience.

The study hall: it was some nights after the refectory incident. Ted was the prefect in charge. He began the prayers before study: ‘Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful …’ We were made to pray for wisdom. Then as we sat down, the banging of desks. A note was being passed from desk to desk, and boys scribbled additions. It said: ‘MEET THE BULLERS BEHIND THE LAVATORIES TONIGHT. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO TO THEM?’ It was to the question that boys were scribbling their answers. I was in such a hurry to write my addition, so as not to seem to not be doing what the
others did. I scribbled, ‘KISS THEM!’ Even then I had felt the irony of my words, I think. Not sure what I was saying. It was a tender word next to ‘KICK, HIT, SMASH, CUT OFF THEIR PRICKS, FUCK THEIR ARSE HOLES WITH A KNIFE, KILL THE BULLERS.’

Then it started at the back with the seniors. Their heads inside their desks and chanting, BULLER MAN, BULLER MAN, BULLER MAN. J.M. was struggling with the prayer. I stuck my head under my desk and shouted and banged. Ted walked out. Then I saw J.M. follow him out. There was an uproar, till Father Julius came in and restored order.

I have so many mixed feelings: shame and anger and sadness. I couldn’t go out. I wanted to run out.

On my way to the dormitory, a boy kicked me. Two boys held my head between their legs while others kicked me repeatedly. Let’s put his head in the lavatory bowl. Your brother stinks.

My words and actions hadn’t redeemed me. My betrayal had not paid off. Then I heard them planning. Something else was afoot.

Phrases plait themselves through time; Aelred of Rievaulx’s: ‘cleanse the leper, carnal darkness’.

The Abbot mentioned at coffee in the parlour after lunch that he would like to talk to me. I’m going to try to stay a little longer than I originally planned, despite a call from Krishna that he really needed me back and that he had to return full time to university. I begged him to stay on. They were in the middle of Petit Careme and the weather in the cocoa hills was lovely. I can hear the river. Sometimes I can’t combine the me of there and what I’m
doing here. I write to Chantal, but I don’t tell her what I’ve found. It ’ll take a long time to go through all this with the rest of the family.

I’ve asked to do some manual work. I need to get away from my desk. Sometimes, I feel I can’t go on: ravelling, unravelling, ravelling up again. I scratch and find his story written beneath mine. At last, our lives blend. Was he writing his story for himself, or for me? And me, am I writing for him or for myself? I’ll never get his forgiveness, but hopefully, because words were important to him, this will make a difference.

The swallows have left the barn for Africa. That I should read and write that stuff! It shows what’s happening to me. I’ll be like one of those professors at UWI.

Where history will lead you, eh, man? What a voyage!

Krishna say, I go have a nice dalpouri for you when you reach back. He looking after the mango trees in the back. Good.

Pink anthuriums, blue skies, yellow keskidees perched with their questions on the electric wire.
Qu’est-ce
qu’il
dit?
I miss home.

Stolen Time

My beloved thrust his hand
through the hole in the door;
I trembled to the core of my being…
Song of Songs

Aelred stared at the bulbs drying in a green plastic tray below the black heating pipes of Father Justin’s cell. It was his weekly conference with the novice master. ‘There’s just one more thing, brother.’ Father Justin detained Aelred as he was about to get up from where he was sitting next to Father Justin’s desk. The geraniums which had been pricked out earlier in the year were now flourishing: red, white and pink in small terracotta pots on saucers, crowded on the small windowsill. While in March and April the scent of hyacinths thickened the air in the cell, now it was this hot geranium fragrance that took away the mustiness of the novice master’s cell. Father Justin was standing at the window, his hands among the leaves, nipping off a few here and there which had turned yellow. The perfume broke from the plants.

‘Yes, father.’ Aelred stayed sitting with his hands beneath his scapular, his head bowed, continuing to stare at the dry bulbs.

‘I think it would be better, brother, if you returned the writings of Aelred of Rievaulx to the library.’ Father Justin delivered this like the first line of a sermon he had prepared beforehand.

‘Are they overdue? I thought I had a couple of weeks left.’

‘That may be, but, no, what I mean is… I mean, I’ve discussed this with Father Abbot.’

‘With Father Abbot?’

‘Yes.

‘What’s happened? Is there a shortage of these books? There were more than one copy, both of
The
Mirror
of
Charity
and
Spiritual
Friendship.
When I borrowed them I think that there was only one of
The
Letters,
though. I’ll make sure that gets back soon.’

‘
Spiritual
Friendship.
That’s the one. I must say I’d quite forgotten about that text.’ Father Justin did not sound convincing to Aelred. ‘Then, now I think of it, we did talk once before of you reading the monastic fathers so early in the novitiate. By the way, how is your reading of Francis de Sales and John Boscoe? What about Jean Pierre de Caussade?

‘I’ve been trying de Caussade this morning.’

‘I see. And there are, for lighter reading, one or two excellent lives of St Dominic Savio and Aloyious Gonzaga and, of course, very recommended for young people is the
Life
of
Maria
Goretti.
All examples for young people, though I think that last one is a little flagrant by implication. You know what happened to her?’ Father Justin crushed the dead geranium leaves through his fingers. The perfume still lingered in them. It brought the hot day into the room and made Aelred feel he wanted to be outside. He felt trapped by Father Justin.

Edward climbed the rock face. His strong legs moved as he climbed in his tight black shorts.

‘She was killed because she resisted sexual advances.’

‘Yes, a martyr for the youth of our time.’

‘I read these at school, father.’

‘Yes, well, I hope they did you some good. Anyway, the Abbot has decided to ban Aelred of Rievaulx from
novitiate reading. Maybe ban is too harsh a term. He wants the books returned to the library. I think I agree. I think it could be misleading unless you have it carefully interpreted. Who was it recommended this text? Not me. I don’t remember,
Spiritual
Friendship,
is it? I should’ve acted on this earlier. I blame myself.’ Father Justin knew very well he had not recommended the text.

‘For what, father? It was Benedict.’

‘Yes, that reminds me of another matter.’

‘What reminds you of another matter, father?’

‘Yes, well, you must get those books back at once. Other copies are out as well. Who else is reading these texts? I must say they weren’t of great interest in the novitiate in my time. I’ll bring this up during my next meeting of the whole novitiate.’

‘I don’t know father. You were saying.’

‘What?’

‘Another matter.’

‘Another matter? Yes. I don’t think you should be alone with Benedict in the library during study time.’

‘I was talking to him about John Cassian,’ Aelred said abruptly.

‘John Cassian? Yes, now he’s very relevant. In fact he’s to the point. Cliques are very dangerous in our life, brother. I think I’ve spoken to you about this before. Always in threes, never in twos. That’s our little mnemonic.’ Father Justin bent down to the wastepaper basket and brushed off his hands the crushed geranium leaves which he had shredded into a fine dust all the time he was talking.

Aelred felt his hands in Benedict’s, his mouth on his. Benedict’s neck smelt of the yellow soap which was
customarily used. It was a rough ration. His neck was white and soft.

‘We’re not a clique, father.’

‘I know. And Benedict is exemplary. But of course he’s not your guardian angel any more. You must let him devote his time to Edward.’

‘He does. I hardly get to talk to him.’

‘You must think of talking to others at the appropriate time. And I think it would be good for you to see Father Abbot. You haven’t had a good meeting with him since the first visit just after your arrival. Father Abbot likes to keep in touch with the novices.’

‘Yes, I’d like to see him.’

‘I’ll arrange that. Very well then. And get those texts back to the library. I’ll have to see who’s got the other copies. Aelred of Rievaulx! I’ve never understood the interest. What do you think of my geraniums?’

‘They’re fine and smell so strong.’ Aelred closed the door of the Novice Master’s cell.

The geranium pots at Mount Saint Maur were by the goldfish pond near the arbour with Barbados Pride. The pods, like mangetout, were called deadman’s flesh.

As Aelred made his way through the common room to the dormitory, he noticed Edward sitting on the windowseat near the novitiate shrine. There was a fresh bouquet of flowers in the vase. ‘Oh, prickly.’ Aelred quickly pulled back his hand from trying to rearrange Edward’s arrangement.

‘
Benedicite,
brother. Hawthorn. Is the arrangement not to your liking?’

‘Yes, no. No, yes, I mean the white is like lace, but I
love the pink, which seems rarer around here for some reason. From near the quarry?’ Aelred adjusted one of the sprigs of the pink hawthorn.

‘Yes?’ Edward questioned Aelred’s question and what lay within it.

Aelred noticed that Edward was reading
Spiritual
Friendship.
‘A dangerous text, brother!’ There was a note of irony in the tone of his voice.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Who recommended it?’

‘Benedict.’

‘Benedict?’ Aelred raised his eyes.

‘Yes.’

‘I see.’ Aelred felt a pang of jealousy, because what he thought was a matter of intimacy between him and Benedict alone was shared with Edward. Obviously Benedict’s guardian angel duties, he thought. But it still made Aelred wonder. Did Benedict recommend Aelred of Rievaulx to all the novices in his charge?

‘When did he recommend it?’

‘What’s the point of this inquisition, brother? And, “dangerous text”? What do you mean?’

‘Oh, it’s nothing. Don’t pay attention to what I say.’

‘How can I not, when you burst in with your questions and statements, your raised eyes and smirks.’

‘Smirks? Return to your Lectio Divina, brother.’

As Aelred made off, Edward said, ‘You’ve got really dark. You’re almost black.’ He said this when Aelred was already halfway down the corridor. Aelred heard it. He turned and came back to where Edward sat on the windowseat.

‘Black? Have you ever seen a black person? Black? Does
it bother you?’ Then Aelred returned to his cell, leaving Edward flummoxed, and mumbling.

‘I’ve seen coloureds in our town,’ Edward raised his voice. Aelred did not turn back.

Aelred gathered up the texts from his cell and went directly to the library. ‘Coloureds?’ He asked, as he passed Edward still on the windowseat. He did not wait for an answer, but he puzzled with snatches of newspaper pictures he remembered of black people from the islands coming to England for work. There was one of a group of steel band men playing on a wharfside next to a big ship. There was another of a man and a woman knocking on a door under a sign which said ‘No coloureds’. There was a way in which the world had been shut out, and then suddenly he became aware of it. Just beyond the walls Ashton Park was another world and he hardly knew anything about it.

‘Some say Mungo get ship away.’ Aelred heard Toinette’s voice. As he opened the door to the library, he looked back at the portrait of the black boy on the staircase. He looked back at Jordan. ‘Black boy for sale.’ He heard the cry in the streets of Bristol.

He deposited the books he had brought from his cell on to the shelf for returned books. He felt angry. He felt jealous. He felt homesick. He stood at a standing desk built into the bay of the window looking out on to the front lawn. The fresh grass was embroidered with daisies. He heard his mother’s voice in her last letter: ‘Sweet heart, we miss you. And Toinette said, “Tell Master Jeansie I say hello.” We all miss you, darling.’ Aelred wished he was still Jeansie playing at Malgretoute as a boy, playing behind the house near the servants’ rooms under
Toinette’s all-seeing eyes.

He heard her voice.
‘Dou-dou
child.’

‘Where Mungo get that scar?’ He heard his question.

‘Mungo get hang in Hangman Alley.’

Every Sunday after Mass in Felicity, they passed the avenue of mango trees coming up the hill above the sugar-cane factory. They passed under the trees where they said men had been hanged and men had gone to hang themselves. And the only thing that took away the fear as they passed was the nice warm hops bread from Mr Gomes’s shop by the railway line. And there were also the warm plaited loaves his mother got specially for Sunday breakfast after fasting for so long before Holy Communion.

Stories and memories plaited themselves. Mungo is a spirit flying in at the window. ‘See that scar on his neck,’ Toinette say.

During those first days at Rievaulx, the young Aelred was caught up in the new routines of the men who had first enchanted him. He had come upon them in the small wood near the river, dressed in their rough brown working habits, sawing wood, clearing a space near the River Rye for an extension to their humble dwellings. And though he had not expressed it that clearly to himself, he saw in them the possibility of men living together for love. Rising in the night for Matins and then private prayer, before returning to the church for Lauds, tired him. All his energy was exhausted in keeping up
with the rigour of the day, the hours of waking, prayer, manual work and Lectio Divina. He felt that his body was being fashioned in a fire which was also tempering the spirit within him, so that he hardly turned his mind to the life which he had so suddenly and abruptly turned away from with his companion at the court in Scotland. He remembered the morning of his conversion. He remembered the morning of their departure after their brief visit. He looked back from on top of his horse, climbing the ridge above the valley and the river. He saw the monks processing out to work, and decided, or rather, he let his companion decide, that they return, taking the other young man’s zeal as confirmation that he should follow his own passion.

But the other passion had not left his mind, nor had it given up its power to tempt his body.

One week later, he woke to his heart weighed down with sadness, missing the friend whom he loved above any other, in the far distant northern kingdom.

Aelred comforted himself with the story of his patron saint, which he remembered his childhood mentor, Dom Placid, telling him in his mountain school. He retold it to himself now, a young man growing up and experiencing love. He remembered then, at his teacher’s feet, how he had asked Dom Placid whether love was painful, and the older man had nodded agreement. He wondered now what Dom Placid knew. Had he been a man who loved another? Was he like Basil and Sebastian? Had he been telling him this story because he knew, through the boy’s confessions, of his passion for his friend Ted and had wanted to prepare him for a life in which it is not easy to
love another man? Had he loved him, himself, and was sublimating his desire for the boy into his celibate love? Was this what he should now do? Aelred strove for sublimation, his chaste and celibate ideal. Benedict called it a dangerous chastity.

They could not take the story from him. They could not. It was a love story. He took the books again from the shelf and read, absorbed, standing at the window till he was interrupted by the bells for Conventual Mass.

‘Flaming June. That’s what we call it.’ Brother Stephen outlined to Aelred his part of the walled garden to work for the collection of the soft fruit. The remainder of the morning timetable had been collapsed to bring in the rest of the harvest … ‘and in the morning we will go to the vineyards’.