I’m lying flat on my belly, pinned to the bed (a straw mattress – yes! A straw mattress!) by a powerfully starched sheet. My pillow – if you can call this sorry artefact a pillow – is about an inch thick. I try to turn over, but my arm – my free arm (I have a free arm!) seems to be affixed …
‘Please don’t try and turn yourself!’
Eh? Who …? My eyes fly open.
A monk is sitting quietly by the head of the bed, reading a book. He quickly rises to his feet and places the book, still open, face down, on the seat of his chair.
‘You’re in the sanatorium, at Douai Abbey,’ he explains (slight Scottish accent – an Edinburgh man, I’ll wager), before walking to the other side of the bed and fiddling with some kind of medical contraption. ‘You’re lying on your stomach because your buttocks have become extraordinarily inflamed after your epic walk. You’ve been delirious for the best part of five hours. Try and keep still, if you can. We’ve dosed you up on antibiotics and there’s an intravenous drip in your arm. You were very dehydrated, and you seem to have suffered some form of a concussion …’ He pauses. ‘I’m Brother Cosmas. I’m a trained medic.’
As Brother Cosmas speaks I try to focus on the spine of the book. The Coll … The Collected Poems of … of Jo … Jo … John … Donne!
Phew.
I wiggle my toes. Argh! My toes feel raw! Skinless! Wet! I tense my buttocks.
OH GOD THAT HURTS!
Brother Cosmas watches me closely. ‘Your buttocks are extraordinarily inflamed,’ he repeats.
‘Could we just …’ I start off.
Not talk about my buttocks, please? Pretty please?
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ Brother Cosmas continues, undeterred. ‘I served in the armed forces for seven years. That’s where I acquired my nursing qualifications. And trust me, I’ve seen a whole lot of inflammations in my time – some in places you might find it difficult to imagine could get inflamed – but never, ever anything quite like this.’
I grunted. I refocused on John Donne.
‘Would you like me to read to you for a while?’ Brother Cosmas asked.
‘Is Brother Hugh—’ I started off.
‘Father Pietr left for Ormskirk this morning after Matins,’ he interrupted.
Ormskirk?
Ormskirk?
(!)
Damn. Damn. Damn. My spirits sank. How many miles to Ormskirk? I quietly wondered.
‘It’s about two hundred miles away,’ Brother Cosmas volunteered, without prompting, then picked up his book and sat down again (casual rearranging of the ebony folds of his robe). ‘We have reached Sonnet number 5,’ he informed me, then cleared his throat (from this I presumed that he had been reading to me prior to my regaining consciousness, which I found odd but strangely touching).
‘O, my black soul, now thou art summoned,’ he started off,
‘By sickness, Death’s herald and champion …’ he continued,
Thou’rt like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done
Treason, and durst not turn to whence he’s fled;
Or like a thief, which till death’s doom be read,
Wisheth himself deliver’d from prison,
Brother Cosmas paused, portentously.
But Damn’d and haled to execution,
Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned …
I inspected Brother Cosmas in profile, from below, as he read. He was a very small, compact, yet intensely sinewy man – early to mid-thirties? – who exuded an intense kind of vitality. His boyish demeanour – there were still traces of acne on his cheeks – stood in stark contrast to his slightly turned-down mouth and a series of dark rings around his eyes.
Yet grace if thou repent, thou canst not lack;
But who shall give thee that grace to begin?
Almost a kind of passion in Brother Cosmas’s voice at this point …
O, Make thyself with holy mourning black,
And red with blushing as thou art with sin;
First dolorous, then chastising, and finally …
Or wash thee in Christ’s blood, which hath this might,
That being red it dyes red souls to white.
… cheerfully sanctimonious.
I turned and attempted to crush my face into the pillow, but the pillow lacked sufficient substance to render this a feasible option. Brother Cosmas completed his Holy Sonnet and sighed again, then quietly turned the page.
‘I am a little world made cunningly …’ he started off, cheerfully (on what I presumed to be Sonnet 6). I clenched my teeth, almost regretting that I wasn’t still non compos mentis.
‘And how is the patient progressing, Brother?’
My head spun back around (what relief!) at the sound of a familiar voice. It was the lanky, strawberry-blond Brother Linus come by to check up on my progress.
‘He can answer for himself, Brother,’ Brother Cosmas responded. ‘He’s awake at last.’
‘But for how long, Brother Cosmas’ – Brother Linus smiled – ‘if you persist in reading him those dreary poems of yours?’
Brother Cosmas looked wounded. It was immediately clear to me that Cosmas suffered from a case of intellectual inferiority, and that Brother Linus (privately schooled? University educated?) enjoyed teasing him on this matter, quite relentlessly.
‘Sonnets, Brother,’ Brother Cosmas corrected him, tightly.
‘Apparently Brother Hugh has gone to …’ I interrupted them (trying – perhaps failing – to keep the desperation from my voice).
‘Ormskirk, yes,’ Brother Linus confirmed.
‘If you have a few, spare minutes, Brother’ – Brother Cosmas indicated towards the chair he’d just vacated – ‘I promised several hours ago to pick Brother Gabriel a handful of fresh oregano from the kitchen garden and Mrs Thane …’ (Mrs Thane? Perchance the school housekeeper?) ‘… has been kept busy all afternoon managing the leak in the small reading room.’
‘Oh … Uh …’ Brother Linus hesitated for a second (just to wind Brother Cosmas up, presumably) and then grinned, broadly. ‘Of course, Brother. I’d be happy to sit with the patient for a while.’
Brother Cosmas nodded abruptly and left the room. Brother Linus picked up the volume of poetry, closed it, sat down and rested it on his lap.
‘Did Father Hugh really leave for Ormskirk?’ I asked, just as soon as Brother Cosmas was out of earshot. Brother Linus had struck me – right from the off – as one of life’s straight dealers.
‘Yes, he did.’ Brother Linus nodded.
‘Was it only because I turned up?’
Brother Linus glanced towards the door, warily, before he answered. ‘Father Pietr is strictly forbidden from talking to strangers who arrive at the monastery and ask for him by his old name,’ he confided. ‘It’s official protocol. I’m afraid your fate was sealed the minute you opened your mouth and uttered the words “Father Hugh”, although I believe you might actually have called him Brother Hugh, which is also wrong as Father Pietr is ordained priest which means that – unlike myself or Brother Prosper or Brother Cosmas – he can officiate mass.’
‘Oh. That was clumsy of me.’ I scowled, irritated by my own stupidity.
Brother Linus shrugged, diplomatically.
‘Do you know Father Pietr well?’ I wondered, still determined to push for more information, nonetheless.
‘If you’re asking whether Father Pietr ever discussed his life as a parish priest in Ireland with me in any detail’ – Brother Linus smiled – ‘then my answer is no. Father Pietr has left that part of his chequered history far behind him now.’
‘I wish it was quite that easy for the rest of us,’ I muttered.
‘Mortification and prayer can play a useful role,’ Brother Linus suggested.
Mortification?
Prayer?!
‘I wish it was quite that easy for the rest of us,’ I repeated, drolly (and perhaps even a tad facetiously).
‘I didn’t say it was easy,’ Brother Linus demurred, ‘I said they could be useful, that’s all.’
‘Do many people come to see Father Pietr?’ I wondered.
‘Father Pietr mentioned, before he left for Ormskirk, that your wife recently passed.’ Brother Linus calmly changed the subject. ‘That must have been difficult.’
‘We were separated,’ I confessed, ‘for over a decade. But it was certainly a shock, yes.’
‘We offered a mass for the repose of her soul,’ Brother Linus divulged (again a glance towards the door). ‘It was beautiful. And Father Pietr became quite emotional at a couple of points. I imagine they must have been very close.’
‘I’m not …’ I started off, and then, ‘Yes, yes, perhaps. Possibly even closer than I’d initially …’
Quite emotional? That was odd. I tucked this little piece of information away to ponder on later in greater detail.
Brother Linus opened the book again and flipped through it, idly.
‘It’s difficult to pinpoint your accent.’ I yawned. ‘Are you Swiss, Brother?’
‘Belgian. But I speak Luxembourgish. It’s a very particular and quite obscure west-central-German language …’
I yawned again, then promptly apologized (due to various physical restraints, it was virtually impossible for me to cover my mouth as I did so).
‘Don’t worry’ – Brother Linus chuckled, dryly – ‘people invariably start to yawn when I get into the finer details of my cultural and linguistic identity.’
‘Sorry,’ I apologized again, ‘I’m just … I suddenly find myself … just incredibly …’
Tired.
So tired.
Another yawn.
Tired.
‘Don’t give it a second thought.’ Brother Linus smiled. ‘Close your eyes. Get some rest.’
While he was speaking he pulled a long dark wooden rosary from a pocket in his habit, which – dropping down and unwinding to its full length – clattered, unexpectedly, against the leg of the chair as the little metal crucifix made temporary contact with it.
I don’t know how many hours I’d been asleep for, exactly – five? Six? – but I’d certainly been conscious of the return of Brother Cosmas, and registered the sound of a nice, well-modulated woman’s voice at several points (the aforementioned Mrs Thane, perhaps, the ‘crisis’ in the reading room now in temporary abeyance?), although when I finally regained full consciousness, there was nothing remotely ‘nice’ or ‘well-modulated’ about the experience.
It was dark and I was rudely awoken by a sudden heavy weight on the edge of the mattress, followed by a series of guttural exclamations. My eyes flew open and when I lifted my head (alarmed – I don’t mind admitting it) I could just about decipher the outline of an elderly male monk – bent over, infirm, heavy cane leaned against the wall – struggling to settle himself on to the chair at the bed’s head. It was none other than Brother Prosper who – much as during our earlier brief encounter – exuded the fractious atmosphere (and scent, if I can be perfectly honest) of an injured boar badger.
I suddenly missed Mulberry. Which was odd. Why would the sight of Brother Prosper lowering over me, breathing heavily, in the dark, make me miss Mulberry? (I mean it’s hardly as though my personal space … integrity hadn’t been significantly violated there as well.) But I missed it, even so. I missed … What did I miss? I missed the now-familiar individual creaks and groans of the blackened pine floor, the scuff of the rag-rugs and tatty off-cuts of seagrass under my toes, the whine of the old refrigerator. I missed the way the cheap toilet seat clattered down when you least expected it to (a problem with the hinge; well-detailed by myself – you’ll be relieved to know – in the ‘comments book’). Even the old white crocheted blankets. Yes. And the fraying cane umbrella-stand by the front door which I had – twice, now – snagged my trousers on during quick exits. And that infernal picture of the seagull! The herring gull! Hung on the wall in the kitchen-cum-dining area.
I missed them all.
‘Did I awaken you?’ Brother Prosper demanded.
‘Yes you did,’ I answered, frankly.
‘I couldn’t rest,’ Brother Prosper muttered (as if his not resting was sufficient reason for me – a lesser mortal – not to, either). ‘My cell was stifling. My nostrils were so full of the damn smell.’
‘Smell?’ I echoed.
‘Disinfectant.’
‘Ah.’ I nodded.
‘Other saints smell of lilies or violets I’m told,’ Brother Prosper confided, ‘sweet scents. The Holy Virgin is reputed to carry a heavenly aura of roses. But not her. Her scent has a … a bleaching quality, a sharp, harsh, antiseptic quality …’
He paused, thoughtfully, still breathing heavily.
‘What’s the difference?’ he wondered. ‘Between the two?’
‘Sorry?’ I wasn’t quite following.
‘Antiseptic and disinfectant. The difference?’
‘Well I suppose the one is used to kill germs on the body – has a medical application – while the other is used mainly in the—’
‘Not pine …’ he mused, interrupting.
‘Eucalyptus?’ I hazarded a wild guess.
‘Exactly.’
‘I think it possibly has two types of application,’ I persisted (determined to complete my intelligent analysis), ‘one medical, the other domestic.’
‘Are you mad?’ Brother Prosper enquired.
‘Pardon?’
I wasn’t sure whether Brother Prosper was objecting to my former definition (which I was pretty certain was spot-on) or making further – and unrelated – enquiries as to the overall state of my mental health.
‘Am I talking to a madman?’ he repeated.
Ah. The latter, it seemed. I paused before responding since I was (I openly confess) somewhat perplexed by this question. I had never really considered myself ‘mad’ before. Maverick, wilful, tough, free-spirited, certainly. Although …
‘Am I talking to a madman?’ Brother Prosper enquired for a third time.
… although I could easily imagine how some of my behaviour hitherto could conceivably have been construed as … well, as slightly …
‘I paddle my own canoe, Brother,’ I said (feeling as though only a thoroughly sane person – at root – would have the calm self-assurance to respond in this manner).
‘I won’t speak candidly to a sane person,’ Brother Prosper helpfully followed up.
‘I see.’
(Well that was certainly going to cast the cat amongst the pigeons!)
‘I took the photographs,’ Brother Prosper muttered, ‘I stole them from your bag while Linus ran off to get help – earlier, after you collapsed …’
A measure of grunting followed as Brother Prosper pulled the envelope of photographs out from under his robe and pushed them back into my bag which – it appeared – was presently stationed under his chair.
‘They’ll have checked your bag when you first arrived,’ he whispered, ‘but I think they’ll leave it alone now – now that you’re fully conscious.’
‘They?’ I echoed, slightly panicked.
Brother Prosper didn’t respond.
‘Did Father Hugh leave this morning of his own free will?’ I asked.
‘Of course!’ Brother Prosper snorted. ‘Father Pietr does exactly as the abbot tells him. It’s a matter of obedience. It’s his choice to always do as he is told.’
‘Did he ever mention …?’ I started off (thoroughly perplexed by this curious response).
‘No’ – Brother Prosper shook his head – ‘Father Pietr never discusses his past. It’s a closed book to him – to us all. He knows how lucky he was to be accepted into the Order. If it hadn’t been for Brother Richard’s influence …’
‘Brother …?’
‘Pietr’s father was a Benedictine himself. He became a monk when Hugh turned eighteen. They were always a devout family. Pietr never seriously considered any other kind of vocation. Both his sisters became Missionaries of Charity.’
‘But I’m sure I read something somewhere about Father Hugh working as a draughtsman in an architect’s office …’ I averred.
‘No, no,’ Brother Prosper clucked, ‘that was Brother Richard, before he became a monk. He was a draughtsman. He worked for Davin Cleary who was an architect based in Monaghan. Brother Pietr attended the Benedictine school at Glenstal Abbey just outside Limerick. He boarded there. After his mother died. Davin Cleary, Bran Cleary’s father – God rest his soul – paid the fees. Maeve Cleary – Bran’s mother – was always very fond of the child. She was a passionate Catholic herself. Father Pietr was taught by the Benedictines. He was training to become an architect – sponsored financially by the Cleary family – when he got the call from God to be ordained priest. He was still very … very green when the situation blew up with the … you know. Maeve was instrumental in bringing them together. The parents were often away, working, in the North. The child had gone on a holiday to Australia to visit her maternal grandfather and had suffered from heatstroke. Since then she’d not been right. Emotionally. Maeve was convinced it was connected to the dark arts. To the Dreaming. That she’d been … possessed. So she got Father Pietr involved. A laying on of hands – something of that order. But he knew straight away – as soon as they met – that the child was very special. He said there was a strong sense of awe, and of fear. She was a quiet child. Calm. Very serious. Sincere. Of course, when the parents found out about Pietr’s involvement with her they weren’t best pleased – although Pietr and Bran had been friends since childhood. They spent most of their school holidays together …’
Brother Prosper shrugged. ‘But Pietr’s credentials were pretty solid – as far as the Benedictines were concerned. They’d loved him at the school. He was head boy. And of course his father was tight with our abbot at that time.’
‘The abbot …?’ I echoed (automatically).
‘Me,’ Brother Prosper admitted, before adding, ‘for my sins.’
‘Ah.’
‘It’s not encouraged,’ Brother Prosper continued, ‘for a parish priest to, you know, change his vocation. It’s not encouraged. But he was in a difficult predicament. His situation in Monaghan became impossible after Bran Cleary died. The rumours and speculation.’
‘But you weren’t …?’
‘What?’ he growled.
‘Suspicious?’
‘I could always see the good in him.’ Brother Prosper neatly sidestepped my question.
‘And the situation with the girl, Orla?’ I persisted.
‘He was devoted to the child. But she was gone – God rest her soul.’ Brother Prosper hastily crossed himself. ‘That chapter was closed.’
A brief silence followed.
‘So why exactly are you …?’ I broke it, somewhat trepidatiously.
‘What?’ Brother Prosper snapped.
‘Here? With me? Now?’
‘Because …’
Brother Prosper exhaled, sharply. ‘Because she haunts me, that’s why. She torments me. The child. She reveals herself to me.’
‘Oh.’ I frowned.
‘It’s not … it’s never been welcome,’ Brother Prosper continued. ‘The first time I saw her she was standing outside Father Pietr’s cell. She was waiting for him. Outside the door.’
‘How did you know?’ I wondered, intrigued. ‘That it was her?’
‘She was wearing a long coat. A long, fur coat. Lots of little rabbit skins sewn together. Very ornate. And she was dark-skinned. Aboriginal.’
‘Had you been subject to …?’
‘… supernatural visions before?’ Brother Prosper completed my sentence for me.
‘Absolutely not. No. Never.’
I nodded.
‘But after that – after the first time – I saw her constantly. Outside his door. Waiting. Eventually I had to ask him, you know, if he had seen her there himself.’
‘Had he?’
‘No. And he became quite …’ – Brother Prosper struggled to express himself for a second – ‘… distressed by my asking him.’
‘Why was that, do you think?’
‘Perhaps he thought I was testing him. Maybe he felt like he’d let her down. Shut her out. By entering the monastery. I don’t know.’
‘What did you think?’ I asked.
‘It wasn’t my place to think anything!’ Brother Prosper snorted.
‘And then what happened?’ I persisted.
‘I was retired. As abbot.’
I gazed at him, in silence.
‘Father Pietr expressed certain … misgivings – concerns. About my mental stability. To some of the other monks. To the wider community. I lost my authority. In the end I felt obliged to … to step down.’
I was shocked.
‘Were you angry?’ I wondered.
‘Yes! Furious!’ Brother Prosper barked. ‘But I’d have done exactly the same thing myself under those circumstances.’
‘I see.’
We are quiet for a while.
‘So did you continue to see her – Orla – after that initial spate of …?’
‘No. No, I didn’t see her again,’ he admitted, ‘not until last night, that is. She was outside his door again last night. So I knew something was brewing. And then this morning …’
He cleared his throat, awkwardly. ‘She was standing on the lawn.’
‘The lawn?’ I echoed, blithely.
‘With you. She was standing with you. You were talking to her. Arguing.’
The skin on the back of my neck suddenly started to goose-bump.
‘I’ve never … I wasn’t … I wasn’t talking to her,’ I stuttered.
‘And then this evening, before dinner. I saw her again. She was standing outside your door. But without her coat. I could tell – for the first time – that her arms were unnaturally short. I hadn’t seen that before. Your door was slightly ajar. She beckoned towards me. Then she pointed inside and she smiled.’
‘She … she wanted you to speak to me?’ I murmured.
‘She has the most … most luminous smile!’ he whispered. ‘Such purity! It brought me to tears. I cried for hours after that. Uncontrollably. I sobbed throughout Compline. The brothers were horrified.’
‘So … so let me get this straight …’ I frowned. ‘You took the photos from my bag not because you thought … but just in order to …?’
‘To confirm. That it was actually her. Yes. I’d never seen her photograph before.’
I nodded.
‘I think that’s why she wanted you to bring them here. Not to see Father Pietr after all. Not to test Pietr. But to show them to me. As proof.’
‘I see.’ I nodded again (although I didn’t see at all).
‘Because she needed me to bring you her cloak.’
‘Sorry?’ I was yet more befuddled. ‘Her …?’
‘When she was standing outside your door earlier, she was without her special cloak. She wanted me to bring it to you. Father Pietr had given it to me when he entered the Order. For safekeeping. She wanted me to give it to you. I could tell. She told me that you were to be an important part of her story and that I was to confide in you everything that I knew.’
‘She actually spoke to you this time?’ I was incredulous.
‘No. But she told me. I could just … just tell. Same as with your bag and the photographs.’
I was quiet for a while – almost conscience-stricken.
‘I’m just … I’m not sure if I’d be the proper … the correct … recipient of such a … an important artefact,’ I said. And I meant it, too.
‘She told me that you should have it.’
Brother Prosper’s mind was clearly quite made up.
‘I already have the photos,’ I said. ‘And if I can be perfectly frank with you, Brother, the photos are quite enough for me to be going on with.’
‘She wants you to have it.’ Brother Prosper shrugged.
‘But what about Father Hugh?’ I demanded (indignant for Father Hugh, almost).
‘Forget about Father Hugh,’ Brother Prosper snorted, ‘Father Hugh is in the past. This is all about you, now.’
‘Well how can you be sure that I can be trusted?’ I demanded.
‘She’s sure. She trusts you,’ he muttered (in such a manner as to imply that if it was down to him things would be proceeding quite differently).
‘I don’t want the cloak!’ I gulped.
‘Well it’s yours,’ he sighed. ‘So you can like it or lump it.’
He started the laborious process of standing up.
‘Where is it?’ I asked, nervously.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he clucked. ‘Don’t think about it again. Put it out of your mind. Go back to sleep.’
Brother Prosper grabbed his stick, adjusted his weight, and slowly started to make his way, with some considerable effort, across the room. Every few steps he’d pause, battling to catch his breath.
‘Are you all right, there, Brother?’ I called out at one point, concerned, when the breathing became especially shallow and rapid.
‘Sssssh!’ he chastised me, then, a few moments later, ‘She likes to exact a price,’ he panted, ‘I can see that now. And you’ll find out yourself soon enough. An extreme, little spirit – stringent. Beautiful but stringent. An outcast. An oddity. Invasive. Like a little … a little weed …’
‘A daisy, Brother,’ I murmured, half to myself, suddenly remembering the photograph.
Then again, once he’d finally reached the door and was leaning against the frame, steeling himself for the corridor, ‘Still there?’ he whispered, followed by a short pause. ‘I did as you asked, didn’t I?’ followed by, ‘He paddles his own canoe, little one. That’s what he … But why are you …?’
Another pause. ‘No! No more of your smiles, my dear child. It’s too painful. I’m much too old – can’t you see? – and much too sinful. Please. Please. No more. No more. No more of your smiles.’