Aelred's Sin (5 page)

The young novice found himself staring into the murky glass of orange light and darkness and the faces of himself and Benedict superimposed, each upon the other, mixed and distorted. Then he looked at Benedict, staring at him, talking about Ted.

‘He meant a lot to you?’ Benedict said, concerned. But his eyes had an astonishment about them, as he heard the young novice in front of him tell of his young friend.

‘He meant a lot to all of us. All who knew him. He had a way of making you feel special. He was the best and brought out the best in others.’

‘But he was your friend? Your special friend, was he?’

‘Yes, he was my friend.’

‘And you gave that up too? You left him with your sunsets?’

‘Yes. I gave him up.’ As he spoke, he thought he felt
Ted’s boots pinching his toes. ‘These are his boots.’ They both looked down at the black boots. ‘It’s a secret. Can you keep it? Is that OK, you think, to have them?’ ‘Let no one presume to give or receive anything without the Abbot’s leave, or to have anything as his own, anything whatever, whether book or tablets or pen or whatever it may be; for monks should not have even their own bodies and wills at their own disposal.’ That was the Rule.

‘Oh, yes, I’ll keep your secret. If you’ll tell me more. But we must go.’

The Abbot and prior were preparing to go into Compline. The community was forming a procession out of the chapter house.

That was it, Aelred thought: he made him feel special. Then he thought of Ted. In the darkness of the choir he felt the tears rolling down his cheeks. He pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose.

The acolyte of the choir asked for the blessing, bowing in front of the Abbot and then standing in the middle of the choir. He read the lesson:
‘Fratres
…’ ‘Brothers, be sober and watch, because your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour… Resist him…’

The next day, as Aelred looked out on to the fields while the mist of dawn was lifting, he waited for the bell to announce the Conventual Mass. He saw that the snow was indeed melting and the grass was lucent beneath a light film of ice. Where there was a sun catch, there was a patch of fresh green grass. It would be spring again. All this was a kind of miracle, this change of seasons, an entirely new experience which seemed to grow instantly in him. But at
the same time, his head was filled with Benedict, not because of anything that Benedict had particularly said, but because of a vast multitude of things which being with Benedict, and talking with him, had made him feel, especially telling about Ted. So there was comfort in his homesickness, and he found that it disappeared with the coming of the spring and with his feelings for Benedict.

There was a growing desire to see and be with Benedict, but this was not going to be possible. Benedict had already taught him all there was to know. The other customs he would pick up from the other novices, or be told by the novice master. He would have to lose his guardian angel.

The Guest House:
24 September 1984

Already now the shades of mist are thinning
And dawn is rising from the skies…

Lauds, praise! I pick my way in the darkness around the cloister, up early like a good cocoa planter. The temperature can drop even in the valleys around Malgretoute.

In the silence, the bare stone, the arch of the sanctuary reaches and curves. The round solid pillars support space. The church is central to this complex, this monastery. An enclosure wall holds all in: workshops, farm, chapter house, scriptorium (library), refectory, cloister, cemetery, gardens. Silence. These men move quietly, businesslike, happy, smiling: like the men I had as teachers at school. What were they up to that I didn’t know about? Once or twice we joked about a couple of them.

Take care Dom Michael in Maths, boy. He like to touch you up.

A rough cowl scrapes the worn and polished stone. A hooded man, bowed, walks near the wall. I think I see my religious brother, then I don’t.

I am learning about this life, about this ritual. From so young, J. M. knew it all. There was the fervour since that first dawn going down to the abbey church and hearing the Gregorian chant. It took away his homesickness during his first week at boarding school. There was that fervour and then there was Ted. When I was very small I saw something. I’m not sure, now. I put it out of my mind.

There they are, in the choir to which he once belonged. There is Benedict, still there in the same stall where
Aelred always knew he would be at Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, Compline. When J. M. entered the monastery, Benedict was ten years older than him. Ten years! He found that out when they were washing up one day during one of those rare moments, stolen moments, out of the monastic silence. I never imagined that this was the life he was leading. I didn’t dream it could be this way.

Boy, I don’t know. I don’t know nuh. I was twelve, going on thirteen when he left.

Yesterday afternoon, after my walk, after I had threaded my way back through the silver birches and the wood the other side of the stream, I joined Benedict in the orchard. I like the way this park is like an estate. He’s so thin. J. M., Aelred - what do I call him? Here, I call him J. M.; in my reconstructions, Aelred. I’ve got to get my bearings, keep my mind, sort out what I really think. J. M. described Benedict as strong and well built, at least in the early days.

J. M. writes in his journal:

We kept calling him J. M. at home, even after his clothing. Mum read his letters at dinner. He was special to Mum; something different from what the girls and I had, even I who was her baby. I know my father didn’t like it. Now I remember feeling ashamed. When he left I didn’t want to go to the airport to say goodbye, not after what had happened. I never felt that I could make it right again.

There is a feeling of autumn in the air, early autumn. Light in autumn has a great intensity which is then distilled. It is the angle at which it falls. But there is also a breath of cold in the air, and a haze like a veil through which it filters. I notice this change in the light, new to me. I see it in his words, feel it, like his skin feeling it, feel him feeling it.

I learn these new seasons through his words, under his gaze, seeing with his eyes, his fingers on my pen. This English park comes off the pages of his journal. Then in my memory the bush opens. The mountains of Les Deux Isles grow and climb to peaks. The cocoa hills of Malgretoute creep like iguanas.

I was telling this to Joe and his sister Miriam, who’ve given me such a warm welcome as friends of J. M. It was Miriam who said that J. M. continued with his notes on landscape and flowers and birds. I went walking with them along the Avon between Bristol and Bath. It was spring then.

There, a kingfisher, a flash of blue under a bridge, Miriam said.

I just caught it. It was when I had first started reading the journals. Reading of J. M.’s first spring, when the snow didn’t begin to melt till March. The winter wouldn’t go away.

We had fun, Joe, Miriam and I, discovering the first cowslip, the wild violets and the primroses. Miriam loves those. I think Joe brought her along so I wouldn’t just have to be with him. I think he thought I was self-conscious just being with him alone, though we’ve spent a lot of time together alone sorting through J.M.’s papers and things.

I must get back home. I’ve well overstayed my intended time. The phone calls back to Malgretoute get more and more expensive. Krishna called from the agricultural college. He can still oversee the estate for me. He’s very good; spent some time before as a kind of trainee. Now that he is fully qualified they want him to teach at the university. He’s almost a friend now. I feel confident in him. But I need to get back. I can tell that he wants me back: I really like him.

Yesterday afternoon, with Benedict, there was also the fact that we were throwing bundles of blackberry cuttings and raspberry canes on to a stack for a bonfire. The flame and the smoke, a plume of blue rifling up in the afternoon, made the time undeniably autumn.

This is the real smell of autumn, Benedict said.

I speak of it now with such confidence because of J. M.

An owl hooted. Benedict turned and looked in the direction of the copse. The hoot came again, but we did not see its flight. Benedict looked so handsome as he turned towards the light. At fifty, he’s still handsome, but thin. Why so thin? He hasn’t mentioned any ill health.
Yes, he’s handsome. I can see that. You can see that a guy is handsome; nothing wrong with that. But more difficult for me to see how it all went on as a daily occurrence. I know what the journals say. But he seems just a nice fella. And he might be like one of the priests to whom I would’ve gone to confession. I don’t any more. That’s my own affair.

They would seem closer in age now, both older. But then, when J. M. first came, so young, a boy still, Benedict was a man. This couldn’t’ve been right. I remember again that laughing about Dom Michael at school touching up boys. I don’t want to think that it was like that with them.

Benedict is glad that I’ve come and wants me to come down to stay for a another week, a kind of retreat. I’m apprehensive. He wouldn’t try something with me, would he? Now, as I reflect, I feel OK about it, but then I suddenly want to be back in the flat in Bristol. When I talk with Joe and Miriam I think I begin to see Benedict and J. M. like anyone else - well, nearly.

Look at Joe. He’s my brother and he is who he is, Miriam says.

I like her. She’s not as hard-hitting as Joe. I suppose I could come back and make a kind of secular retreat, an excavation! I’m here for J. M. I’ll ask Joe what he thinks.

I can hear him say, Keep an open mind. They were different, he would say.

Though it’s seventeen years since J. M. left, I feel self-conscious, and wonder what some of the other monks think. Do they know who I am?

Benedict says I must not worry. He wasn’t a criminal, he said.

Why did he use that word? He knows everything. But there is a kind of guilt I feel. Guilt can still be so pervasive,
without particular reasons. Inherited? No, I’ve got my own measure of guilt. I’ve got my own reasons.

Who were the criminals?

We hardly talked about J. M., Aelred, as he continues to call him. Benedict wanted to know about me, and asked a lot of questions. Eventually, all the stuff about my divorce came out. He was surprisingly sympathetic, though not really approving. I felt that it gave us a certain equality in terms of virtue and sin. I don’t really feel good about it. Annette and I were young, too young, and did the expected thing. It didn’t work out, and it’s easier now. It was easier to do once my parents had died. Thank God there are no children. Makes it lonely, sometimes, up at Malgretoute. I will try again to draw Benedict out. I must find the right moment. It’s why I’m here, after all. I didn’t think Benedict wanted the whole thing dragged up again. I’m worried about his health. He’ll probably be very sympathetic.

Benedict brought me the letters which he found in the archives. So strange, so neat, so formal. I let myself cry for the first time. I didn’t even when Joe first showed me his room. I remember peeping over his shoulder at first drafts of that first letter to Ashton Park, not understanding anything then, and Ted looking over his shoulder too in the study hall. They got rid of me.

Skeidaddle, J. M. said.

Never rough, he ruffled my hair. I remember I always tingled for his attention. Then felt odd about getting it. Ted didn’t want J. M. to go. So many changes in what they thought they wanted and what they thought they should do. I don’t think I knew about anything that was going on. I must’ve known, or felt something. When it all broke, I
was there. Of course I was. What am I saying? What am I hiding?

The letters don’t tell of that time.