The Woman who Loved an Octopus and other Saint's Tales (3 page)

He won't come back, she says. Your father is dead because he was killed by war criminals. You are traumatised, and your little boy is in hospital, because you were tortured and nearly killed by the same war criminals. Your father's ghost won't come back to steal your little boy's soul. Can you believe that? Can you try?

I look back at her.

I don't say no.

Annon

Fifth century

anhun
[m] – (n) sleeplessness

Annon, or Anhun, was the handmaid of Queen Madryn of Gwent (herself a saint). It is said that, together with her mistress, Annon founded a church at Trawsfynydd.

She and Queen Madryn were returning from a pilgrimage to Bardsey Island when night fell and they stopped at the place that is today the town of Trawsfynydd. There they both had the same dream in which they heard a voice telling them:
‘Adeiladwch eglwys yma' – ‘Build a church here'
.

I
'd like to be able to say that she came in the night, like a thief, to steal me away. In fact she arrived on the boat from Pwllheli like everybody else. I saw her get off as it lay moored in the island harbour on Saturday morning.

I wasn't actually at the harbour when the boat came in. I do not mix much with people. They call me the Hermit Nun, although I am not a nun. I don't belong to any order.

I am on a retreat. I'm retreating from the world and its people. I try to live close to God's creation; air and sea and silence and the huge blue question mark of the sky.

Most of the visitors who come for the week only don't even know that I am here. Some may catch a glimpse of me on my way to chapel early mornings or evenings, and ask who I am. But I never talk to them. I never talk to anybody. I keep my distance, my silence.

When the boat came into the harbour that morning I was standing on a little hill that overlooks the sea and the harbour.

I saw the boat come in around the side of the mountain, nosing past the rocks where seals will lie sunning themselves at low tide. There was a little knot of departing visitors at the landing stage; and some of the people who spend all summer on the island, come to look at the fresh intake of weekly visitors.

And there they were, clambering off the rocking boat onto the landing stage, one after the other. There she was, although I didn't know her then. I just saw a middle-aged woman, short and thick-set, wearing brightly coloured clothes. One of the visitors. They'd all be gone soon enough, and another lot would come next Saturday to replace them.

Few of them stay longer than the week. The silence and the emptiness get to them, the absence of amusements, electricity, television. There is nothing here to take your mind off things. You find that very soon your self and your life loom large, echoing like sound in a cathedral because nothing gets in the way. There is nothing else here.

You are alone with God.

It is a chance but most see it as a threat. So much emptiness, they say, looking at the sky full of blues and greys and clouds and birds, at the endlessness of the sea and all the shades of green and grey of the island. So much emptiness they say; looking, not seeing.

They fill up the silence with their noise, with the things they bring to remind them of home. They find me unnatural, think it uncanny that I don't talk. They do not understand that it is only by avoiding the noise of their lives, their voices, that I can strain to hear the voice of God.

Don't misunderstand me – there is no big voice booming down from heaven, no miracle shafts of light, no seagulls speaking in tongues. But to hear the voice of God in prayer, there needs to be silence; a silence of the spirit as well as an absence of noise. I empty myself to be ready for God.

‘Is that your sister who arrived yesterday?' the shepherd asked
when I met him early next morning on my way back from chapel.

I looked at him, not understanding.

‘One of the new lot. She got here on the boat yesterday morning. You must have seen her. She's the spitting image of you.'

I shook my head. Frowned. I do not have a sister. As far as I could remember there had not been anybody on the boat who looked like me.

‘Ah, well,' he said, moving on. ‘You'll meet her sometime, I expect. Can see for yourself then.'

I nodded good morning and walked on up the mountain to the Saint's cave. A millennium and a half ago, it was home to a holy man. He lived on this island, existing on water and the fish that God sent for his food. I sat down by the cave entrance, closing my eyes; hands folded in my lap to keep them still.

I do not see visions when I pray. I'm not given to visions.

I hear.

I listen, and I hear.

This is the music of the spheres: a great rushing and humming, black and silver and blue, greater than anything we can imagine.

I prayed, and I listened, and I was filled with joy.

‘There she is,' the shepherd said the next morning. It was very early, the air sharp and cold, not long after sunrise, the grass still wet with dew. I was on my way to chapel. He whistled to his dog, then moved his head to indicate a figure walking towards the chapel. ‘Another believer, by the look of it. You're going to meet her now. I would have thought it was you, if it hadn't been for the clothes!'

I looked.

There was a woman; not young, and stockily built, her grey hair pulled back into a plait. She wore a long skirt of brightly coloured material, red and orange and purple; some ethnic jacket. She walked, head bowed, with measured strides. The thought came to me that she was trying to look like her idea of a devout person.

Another believer, indeed. A tree-hugger, more likely.

I gave her a nod when I entered the chapel, and was relieved when she just returned my greeting without attempting to talk.

‘I hear you're spending all summer here,' she said after the service, when we were walking away from the chapel. Her earrings jingled as she walked.

I nodded.

‘I'd love to go on a real retreat.' Her voice sounded wistful. ‘I went for a week last year, a Buddhist retreat near St David's; only a week is not the same, is it? I just haven't got the time. Or the money.'

‘Then make time,' I said, breaking my silence. ‘For God. What could be more important?'

‘The Goddess is in all of us,' she replied. It sounded like something she had learnt by heart. ‘Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. She is there for us.'

I said nothing.

She sighed. ‘And some of us have to earn a living.'

I inclined my head; the gesture saying as well as any words could, that the birds of the air neither sow nor reap, and yet God feeds them.

We arrived at the fork in the road. I gave her a nod and went on my way, towards the house for breakfast and then the mountain and the hermit's cave.

The sky arched over the island, its brilliance singing in my eyes. The sunlight dazzled me. I took a breath and tasted beauty on my tongue. I was wrapped in the blue of the Virgin's mantle. Even when I closed my eyes I saw nothing but blue. I gave praise to God. I closed my eyes and I opened my ears, and I prayed.

I prayed, and I listened. But my ears were not opened. I sat and I prayed and I felt like a vessel stoppered up, so that nothing will go in and nothing come out. I sat with my eyes closed and my hands folded in my lap, and I called upon God to open up my ears, but He did not answer. I sat and I prayed, and when I opened my eyes the air was flooded with gold and copper and the sky streaked with green and blue and yellow, and it was evening.

A road of light stretched from where I was sitting: it went across the waters of the Sound to the mountains of the mainland, wound itself round the hills. I closed my eyes and opened them again, but not before I had seen two figures walking on the road of light, walking away towards the mainland.

I shook my head like a dog just out of the water.

Now all I could see was the sunset.

There was a chill in the air. I got up. Time for evening service.

She was there again, but this time she did not try to talk to me. We prayed together, and afterwards walked home in silence. She smiled good night as we reached the fork in the road; nodded, and was gone.

The waves breathed in and out, in and out, in and out. I blew out my candle and went to bed.

There was a voice in the dark, and it spoke to me.
Follow the road I have laid down for you
. I stood on a hill overlooking a valley and steeply rising mountains beyond. Ragged grey clouds moved swiftly across the sky. The air was cool and damp.
Build my church here
, the voice said.

With that I woke up. The room was pitch dark. There wasn't a sound except for the whispering of the sea outside.

My ears were ringing with words.

The sky next morning as I walked to chapel was the palest shade of aquamarine. The morning was cold and clear and exquisite.

As soon as she saw me, her eyes became round as marbles and she opened her mouth and drew breath to talk.

I nodded a greeting, sat down and lowered my head in prayer.

After the service, there was no holding her.

‘I had the strangest dream last night,' she said. ‘I saw the two of us walking away from here together, on to the mainland. And then I heard a voice...' She looked at me. ‘Do you ever have... you know, visions?'

I shook my head.

‘I do,' she said. ‘The Goddess shows me things, sometimes.' She stopped and looked at me. ‘She has got plans for us. I'm so glad! I was hoping something would happen. That's why I came here to the island. It's supposed to be a holy place. I was hoping for a miracle.' She gave me a radiant smile. ‘And now I've got one.'

All day long I sat on the mountain by the Saint's cave, praying and straining to listen, but in vain. My ears were closed to the music of the spheres.

That night in my dreams, I saw myself being led away; not on a path of light this time, but an ordinary tarmac road in the drizzle. There were hills on both sides and mountains rising before us; and no sign of the sea anywhere.

Follow the road I have laid down for you.

The mountains drew closer together. A valley opened up in front of us.

Build my church here.

I awoke. It was dark.

I got up, pulled on my clothes. I found my torch by touch and let myself out.

The air was dark and cold, the sky brilliant with stars. The chapel windows glowed golden. When I pushed the door open, there was warmth and light. Somebody had lit the candles.

She was kneeling by the altar, head bowed, lost in prayer. She did not look up when I came in and pulled the door closed after me.

I knelt down, attempted to empty my mind of all thought. There was a great rushing in my ears like a waterfall. It was not the music of the spheres. It was the noise made by my fear.

Lord, into Your hands I commend my spirit.

‘You saw it too,' she said as we walked away from the chapel after morning service. Her smile shone. Her earrings tinkled.

I raised my eyebrows. Her display of joy struck me as almost unseemly.

‘I know you did. Aren't you delighted? I'm so happy.'

I said nothing.

‘It was the same as last night, like a dream; but it wasn't a dream. The two of us, walking towards this place in the mountains. It's drizzling and cloudy, and then we come to a valley and the voice says,
Build my temple here
.' She turned to me. ‘She's calling us. She has chosen us.'

I broke my silence again, offering up a prayer for forgiveness at the same time. ‘Perhaps
He
is calling
you
.'

‘Us,' she repeated. ‘She, He – it doesn't matter. She's calling you and me.'

‘That is absurd,' I said, and added as an afterthought, ‘I have renounced the world.'

‘You can renounce the world without fleeing from it.'

‘I am not fleeing from it. I have come here where it's quiet and far away from most things.' How would she understand? How could I share a vision with this hippie? I never see visions. I am not given to them. ‘I feel closer to God here than anywhere else.'

‘God – the Goddess.' She tipped her head back, opened her arms wide. The morning sunshine lay on the planes of her face. ‘They're only names. You have been led here. By God, you would say. By the Goddess, I would say. By the Creative Spirit who is neither male nor female, who resides in all of us.'

The Spirit. I must subdue my spirit.

‘You must follow it,' she said.

No, no, no.

I want to stay here.

Here, where the neversleeping sea is my heavenly bridegroom, where the yellow flames of the gorse speak in tongues in my ear. I have found the garden of Eden, and you want to banish me from it, lead me into a world that is full of serpents.