To Nicholas, the sky seemed the same sea gray as the wet slate of the steeply set shingles on the church roof, so it was hard to see where the holy building ended and the heavens began. The rain darkened the rough stone of the church’s buttresses, and the gloom made the green moss on the lowest course of its walls almost black. A fine day for a suicide’s funeral.
He stood under a dark umbrella among a small grove of she-oaks. He suspected that he looked exactly like the kind of rumpled weirdo one expects to see at the fringes of a funeral. He smoothed back his damp hair with one hand, and surreptitiously sniffed at his armpit. Not too bad, considering. His sleep on the sofa had been as long as it was deep. He’d been out nearly a whole day, and his eyelids had drifted open just an hour ago, all traces of his feverish flu gone. He’d jumped in the shower, patted himself dry with the few paper towels the previous tenant had left, pulled on yesterday’s clothes, ran his fingers over his teeth, and hurried to the church.
But now he was here, he didn’t want to go inside.
He listened to the rain strike a slack tattoo above his head as he watched mourners hurry inside like scolded black swans. The hearse—a long, modified Ford—was parked out front, its driver sitting upright and trying not to let passersby see that he was reading a paperback. He returned his gaze to the church’s damp granite flanks. From here, he could just read the lead lettering of the church’s cornerstone. It stated that the bishop of the Western Diocese had laid this stone to the Glory of God in 1888, the funds donated by an E. Bretherton. Stained-glass windows, narrow and high and lit from within, were the blues and greens of deep-sea gems. A quarter century ago, he’d sat inside looking at those same windows as he waited for Tristram’s funeral to begin. Tris’s casket had been a polished, garlanded box that looked terribly small on its own up at the front of the church—too small to hold Tris, who’d always seemed so electric with energy, so alive. It seemed impossible that he was lying silent inside it. The clergyman, Reverend Hird, a short but tough bulldog of a man, began the service and had fairly shaken with rage at the theft of Tristram’s young life. Not wanting to cry but unable to stop himself, Nicholas had looked away from the reverend and the small coffin to the windows. Their seaweed greens and abalone blues were so dark and cold through tears that Nicholas had imagined that he was not in a church at all, but was slipping under the sea, and drowning …
A shudder of raindrops tapped heavily on Nicholas’s umbrella, startling him back to the present. The wet footpaths were empty. There were no more mourners arriving. He had no more reason to linger out here like a cowardly thief outside a petrol station.
He went inside.
Through the inner swing doors, he could see the casket wreathed in flowers on the front dais. Sprays of white lilies either side of the pulpit were as shocking as ice fountains.
The elderly minister stood hunched at the side of the nave in discussion with a middle-aged mourner. Nicholas blinked, amazed. It was Reverend Hird: older, shorter, but still radiating the same dogged strength. A younger clergyman, a man of perhaps thirty with coffee-colored skin, stood patiently behind his superior.
Nicholas shook off his umbrella, signed the book, and slipped quietly into the church proper.
He had hoped to sit unnoticed in the back pews, but there were only two dozen mourners so to isolate himself in the back would draw even more attention. He joined the fourth row. As he sat, several heads turned to see who was arriving this late and whether they recognized him. Most didn’t, and returned their gazes to their orders of service, their neighbors, or the festooned casket. But three women kept their eyes on him. Katharine and Suzette were frowning. Katharine shook her head and returned to chatting to the elderly lady next to her; Suzette’s lips were as tight as a razor slash, and she mouthed, “Where the fuck have you been?” Nicholas gave a dismissive wave and mouthed back, “Later.” Suzette sent him one last furious glare, then turned back to the pulpit. The third woman held her stare at Nicholas longer, puzzled, trying to place him. At other times or in other lights, she would be striking, but the gloom of the church, the ubiquitous black, her shadowing half-veil made her seem carved severely from some cold and unyielding stone. He guessed this was Gavin’s widow. Her eyes narrowed, unhappy that she hadn’t identified this latecomer, and she turned her long neck again to the front. Beside her was a hooked old woman with a shock of white hair, visible under her small black hat.
Jesus, thought Nicholas. That must be Mrs. Boye.
From where he sat, he could just see the corner of her face. Her eyes were fixed on the figure of Christ crucified. Nicholas followed her gaze. The image was carved wood, a century or more old. The raw chisel marks made his limbs seem more wounded, his suffering more pronounced. Something beyond the raw agony of the figure disturbed Nicholas. The setting carved behind him was not Golgotha, but an incongruous forest of Arcadian trees and lush vines. Old Mrs. Boye’s expression vacillated between a frown of confusion and a bluff of undisguised boredom; her head bobbed to its own unheard tune, and from time to time she’d look to her daughter-in-law to ask a question that Nicholas could guess: Where are we? Senile dementia. Her mildly confused eyes kept returning to the dying son of God. There seemed no trace in the old body of the sharp-eyed, sharp-minded woman who had shushed him and Tris to silence a hundred times.
Reverend Hird limped to the pulpit. Age might have bent his body, but his voice was still as strong as a Welsh tenor’s. “Please rise for hymn seventy-nine: ‘Saviour Again to Thy Dear Name We Raise.’ ”
The congregation rumbled as it stood. And so the funeral commenced.
Speakers rose, praised Gavin, lamented the loss to his wife and his mother, opened spectacles, read poems, folded papers, dabbed tears, returned to their seats. The air was warm and still, the voices monotonous. Nicholas fought to stay awake. He did calf raises. Cleaned his nails. Took deep breaths. His eyelids sank, heavy as stones. He sat back in the hard pew and let his gaze trace up those cyan windows, across the curved timbers overhead, to linger on the carved timber ceiling boss some six meters above him.
Suddenly, his weariness vanished like gunpowder in a flash pan. His heartbeat broke into a brisk trot and the hairs on his arms and neck rose into goosebumps.
The ceiling boss was carved as a face. A face with oak leaves sprouting from its sides and mouth. A face that was chillingly familiar. Nicholas dragged his eyes away, but they kept returning to the inhuman visage: a mouth drawn wide and thick, with vital leaves springing from its corners like fleshy tusks. It was a face he’d seen before, though he couldn’t place where. It scared him.
“And now,” Reverend Hird rumbled, “I’d like to call on Gavin’s wife, Mrs. Laine Boye.”
Nicholas dragged his startled eyes down from the ceiling.
Laine Boye held herself straight and took neat steps. Her black suit and skirt were well-fitted and expensive. She reached the pulpit, glanced at the casket, and then looked over the small congregation.
“Thank you for coming today.” Her voice was high-pitched but clear, a neutral accent that spoke of private schooling and careful grooming. “Gavin left no children,” she continued. “And he left too soon.”
Her gaze sought and found Nicholas, and rested on him. There was no puzzlement there any more; she’d figured out who he was. He was close enough to see that her eyes, like the dark day outside, were gray and unyielding as stone.
Laine Boye was on her way back to her seat when a scream broke the silence.
Mrs. Boye was on her feet; she ripped off her hat and hurled it at the carving of Christ. Her white hair flung out like lightning. She screamed again, a furious shriek, and the congregation was jolted into whispering motion.
“Blood is the only sacrifice that pleases the Lord!” she cried. Her voice echoed loudly in the transepts and hung unpleasantly on the air.
Laine hurried to Mrs. Boye’s side. The man beside the struggling old woman took firm hold of her arm. Hushed-voiced, they tried to comfort her, Laine’s fluttering hands grabbing for hers. But Mrs. Boye shook them off, her hair wild. “Blood alone pleases the Lord!” She spat the last word like a curse.
Reverend Hird shot a nod to his young understudy, who hurried down to Mrs. Boye. Fast as a snake, the old woman slapped the young reverend hard on the face.
“Fisher of men!” she cried. “What do fishermen do with fish? Haul them from their water, drown them in air, and then gut them! Eat them! Or toss them back dead and empty! Fisher of men!” This time she did spit, a huge mouthful of foamy saliva that arced through the air to land on Christ’s shin.
Nicholas stared, stunned.
Firm hands took hold of Mrs. Boye. She fought for a while, then settled in a grump. Hird nodded to the organist, who started a lively rendition of “To Jesus’ Heart All Burning.”
And so the funeral finished early.
Nicholas huddled under his umbrella as the pallbearers loaded the casket into the hearse. Suzette and Katharine came to stand beside him. The rain fell steadily and cold.
“Nice service, I thought,” said Nicholas. “Colorful.” His head throbbed. He couldn’t remember the last time he ate.
“You might have called,” said Katharine. “Your sister and I were worried sick.”
Suzette simply punched him hard on the arm. “Fuckwit.” She leaned close and whispered harshly, “I need to talk to you.”
“Okay. What, now?”
Suzette smiled primly. “No.” Of course not; not with their mother right there.
“Later, then?” Nicholas suggested helpfully.
The church sat on a corner block, and graceful movement there caught his eye. Laine and another man were shepherding Mrs. Boye into a dark sedan. The old woman was hunched and docile, as if the outburst in the church had never happened. Before following her mother-in-law into the car, Laine hesitated, straightened, and looked around. Her eyes lit on Nicholas. She said something to the driver, then strode over to stand squarely in front of Nicholas. They watched each other a moment. Then, deliberate as a chess tutor, she turned to Katharine and extended her gloved hand.
“Laine Boye, thank you for coming.”
Katharine took it. “Katharine Close. I’m so sorry for your loss. This is my daughter, Suzette, and my son, Nicholas.”
Laine returned her steady, gray gaze to Nicholas. “Would you be so kind as to excuse us, please, Mrs. Close? Suzette?”
Nicholas smiled pleasantly at Suzette. “Chat soon?”
“We’ll see you at home this afternoon.” Suzette took Katharine by the arm and they walked away.
With them gone, the air between Nicholas and Laine seemed to chill. Nicholas found himself looking again into her cool gray eyes. Dark shadows at their corners betrayed the stress she’d been suffering since Gavin’s death. But her face was without expression as she stared hard at Nicholas. When she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper.
“What happened?”
Something lurked beneath her fine features. Not fury. Not disgust. Nicholas watched her.
“I was hoping you could tell me,” he said.
Laine’s face was inscrutable, her features motionless as a portrait’s, something from another time.
“What did you do to him?” she asked. This time, there was accusation in her tone, and Nicholas felt a burr of anger.
“Me? How about you? You didn’t pick up any little hints that Gavin wasn’t perfectly happy? Lack of sleep? Crazy stare? Love of firearms?”
She watched him, testing his eyes. After a long moment, she nodded curtly and turned away.
“He was going to kill me!” said Nicholas, loudly. She kept walking. “Mrs. Boye!”
She stopped. Droplets of rain collected like glass beads on her shoulders. She turned. Her mouth was held tight. She lifted her chin and met Nicholas’s gaze.
“How did he know I was back?” he asked.
He could see now what the emotion was, brewing behind her eyes. The knowledge surprised him. She was embarrassed.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Close.”
She turned, again with a grace belying her weariness, and hurried to her car to follow her husband’s casket.
Nicholas looked around for his mother and sister, but they were gone.
He watched the remaining mourners drift away in twos and threes. In just a few moments, he felt awkwardly exposed, like a desperate adolescent still standing on the dance floor that all others have vacated at the first beats of an unpopular tune.
“I saw you looking.”
The unexpected voice behind him made Nicholas jump.
It was the young reverend. Nicholas saw he had misjudged his age. He was probably closer to forty than thirty.
“Looking at what?”
Nicholas steadied himself. “At your what?”
“Our Green Man. Jack the Green. Green George.” The minister extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Pritam Anand.”
“Nicholas Close.”
The reverend inclined his head; he knew who Nicholas was. “News travels fast. Bad news travels fastest.”
“I’m bad news?” asked Nicholas.
Reverend Anand laughed, then looked around to check there were no mourners he might have offended. “News of what happened to Gavin Boye, I meant. A tragedy.”
Nicholas nodded, and looked at Anand’s red cheek. “Not a bad right hook for an old bird.”
Anand touched the spot where Mrs. Boye had slapped him. “Some people get upset when a loved one passes.” He inclined his head again, a very Indian gesture that Nicholas was certain induced parishioners to share secrets they’d rather keep.
The rain, which had been politely holding off, started falling again.
“You’re getting wet,” said Nicholas.
“Then join me inside.”
There,” said Reverend Anand, pointing. Nicholas followed his finger. Below the angular capital of the column was carved stonework: ivy leaves, fernery, and a long face with oak-leaf tusks sprouting from the corners of its mouth. “And there,” he pointed out another on the pillar’s twin. “And there.” In the carved forest curling ripe behind Christ crucified, another.
He sat on the front pew, drinking white tea. Nicholas sat beside him, drinking his black. The church, empty of everyone except the two men, felt to Nicholas suddenly huge and much colder. Hardly any light came through the tall, narrow stained-glass windows. The stone sheaves of the roof killed the sound of rain.
“What are they? These Green Men?” he asked.
Anand smiled. “He is one entity, Jack o’ the Green. Have you been to Europe? You’ll find him in lots of churches there. Many, many in England; but also Germany, Poland.” He sipped his tea and looked over the cup’s rim in a way that reminded Nicholas of his mother. “But go farther and you’ll find similar images of this face—part man, part tree—in Nepal, India, Borneo.”
“It’s not Christian?”
Anand laughed. “Oh, no. His origins long predate Christ. His is a pagan image.” He smiled with barely disguised delight.
“I’ve seen it before,” said Nicholas.
Anand nodded, but said nothing for a long while.
“It is a disturbingly familiar face.” He cast his own gaze upward to the Green Man on the carved ceiling boss, then down to Christ crucified. “The timeless man who dies each year and is reborn. Who symbolizes triumph over winter and death.”
“Which? Jesus? Or the Green Man?”
“Exactly,” replied Anand. He turned to Nicholas, a small frown on his smooth forehead. “A man killed himself right in front of you, Mr. Close. Maybe he tried to kill you, too.” He shrugged, as if to say, not my business. “But how are you feeling?”
The sudden change of tack caught Nicholas off guard.
“I have a shitty headache,” he said before he had a chance to think. “Not as bad as Gavin’s, perhaps. But still …”
The young reverend nodded, but said nothing. The men drank their tea in silence a moment.
“Where’s that slack black bastard?” called an older voice. Reverend Hird bustled into the room. “There!” he roared accusingly. “Slacking!” He looked to Nicholas as if to a fellow witness of gross injustice.
“When are you going to die?” asked Anand pleasantly.
“Never! And when I do, I’ll haunt you anyway,” replied Reverend Hird. He looked at Nicholas. “You the chap that Boye shot himself in front of?”
“Yes.”
“You were his brother’s friend, too,” said Hird, eyes narrowing as they catalogued Nicholas’s face. “Bad business.”
Nicholas nodded.
Hird watched him a moment longer, then coughed and gestured for his colleague to come along. “We have an evening service to prepare for, you slack, slacking savage.” The old man entered the rectory.
Anand smiled at Nicholas. “Reverend John Hird. He was in Korea. His approach to death is somewhat matter-of-fact.” He stood and extended his hand to Nicholas. They shook.
“It’s a funny thing, Christianity.”
“An Indian Christian pastor certainly is unusual,” said Nicholas.
“Reverend,” Anand corrected. “Next time we meet, call me Pritam.” He smiled and followed his superior, calling over his shoulder, “And India has well over twenty million Christians. More than the entire population of this country.” He smiled again and closed the rectory door behind him.
Nicholas sat alone under the carved eyes of Christ and the Green Man.
Blood is the only sacrifice that pleases the Lord.
Their stony stares unnerved him.
He stood and quickly left.