CHAPTER EIGHT

The Road Climbs Upwards

Father Carnforth, the retired priest who acted as curate in our parish, had come to tea. He sat in the middle of our sofa, by the fire, Mary on one side and Beth on the other. Cecily had already greeted him, and her conversation with him had been, as usual, brief, factual and to the point: ‘Have you got any pepppermints today?’

Father Carnforth smiled at her, and laughed his wheezy laugh. Beth liked to watch his face when he smiled. ‘A thousand, thousand smile wrinkles,’ she said to Mother, ‘are hidden in his face. Then he smiles and you can see them all.’

Father Carnforth had no objections to Cecily’s straightforward method of approach. Mother said he was one of the few adults who could have a conversation with Cecily without Mother having to stand there saying, ‘Hush, Cecily. Don’t be rude, Cecily,’ every five seconds like a parrot.

‘I have a new bag of peppermints in my pocket, as a matter of fact,’ he said. ‘I had an idea when I woke up this morning that today I might be needing some. So I went to Mrs Sykes’ shop and I said, “Mrs Sykes, I need half a pound of peppermints. Not a quarter today, Mrs Sykes. Half a pound. If you please.” Why do you ask? Would you like one?’

‘Two,’ said Cecily.

‘Here you are, then. Two, and one for luck.’

There are some grown-ups who offer you sweets and you’d love one, but somehow all by itself you hear your voice saying, ‘Oh, not for me, thank you.’ Father Carnforth was not one of them. We were soon all sucking peppermints happily, watching the fire blaze up.

‘Ah, I do like a log fire, my dear,’ he said to Mother. ‘My housekeeper will only buy coal, I regret to say. She says it burns hotter, which is true of course, but what evil, sulphurous smoke it has. This is like incense by comparison.’

Mother had baked scones for tea, which we had with strawberry jam and cream cheese, and she had made an enormous fruit cake and some coffee meringues. We ate everything, the whole fruitcake even. Nobody spoke much while we were eating except to say things like, ‘Yes please,’ and, ‘Pass the butter.’

Afterwards, Father Carnforth wiped his mouth with his napkin and sighed contentedly. ‘I think I could just manage one more cup of tea, my dear,’ he said. ‘Would it offend you if I were to light my pipe?’

Father Carnforth smoked a lovely fragrant blend of pipe tobacco. Mother said she had sometimes been tempted to follow him up the road just to go on sniffing it.

‘My doctor says I should give this up,’ said Father Carnforth as he held the match flame to the tobacco and drew at his pipe. ‘He says my wheezy chest is all down to smoking. I expect he’s right. “You’re going downhill this year, James,” he says to me, but I am eighty-three. What can you expect? “If you mean my chest is worse,” I said to him, “I will accept your judgement as a medical man, but don’t tell me I’m going downhill. The road climbs upwards, upwards to the light. It must do. It wouldn’t be such hard going if it was going downhill.” You have to be positive about this life, my dear; you know that. Bother, it’s gone out already. Pass me my matches, Mary, my sweet. That’s it. My dear wife, God rest her soul, used to tell me this was the filthiest, most time-consuming way of wasting money she could possibly think of. She was right, of course; she was right. But there we are; it has given me a lot of pleasure. Good food and good conversation, and a pipe by the fire: what better riches could life have to offer? What’s that Cecily? Still room in your tummy for one more peppermint? Here you are, then. One more, and one for luck.’

Mary snuggled up closer to Father Carnforth. He was the oldest person she knew and she was always afraid he was going to die. She often asked him about it. He put his arm around her now, and looked down at her, smiling a kindly reassurance.

‘What have they taught you at school this week, little Mary?’

‘We are doing a project on dinosaurs. Mrs Kirkpatrick has been telling us what the world was like in prehistoric days.’

Father Carnforth laughed so much he began to cough.

‘Dear me, dear me,’ he wheezed. ‘That must be useful to you. And how does Mrs Kirkpatrick know what the world was like before history began?’

Mary looked nonplussed. ‘She does know. She tells us all about it. About the dinosaurs, what they did and what they looked like, and how people used to have tails and lots of hair.’

Father Carnforth looked at the dark grey hair growing on the back of his hand. There was a lot of it.

‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘Some of us have progressed less than others, I suppose. I daresay it is a sign of the times that people teach little children with confidence and authority what they cannot possibly know anything about, and have nothing to tell them about the true meaning and development of life. Don’t you think, my dear?’

Mother nodded. ‘A lot of what they teach them now is above their heads. Mary came down on Tuesday morning saying she would like some vitamins for breakfast. We live in an age of intellectual sophistication and spiritual darkness, I’m afraid. Mind you, I’m glad I don’t have to teach them. The spiritual darkness is more in evidence in the classroom than the intellectual sophistication from all I hear.’

Daddy leaned forward and picked up the poker to prod the fire. ‘I like Mrs Kirkpatrick,’ he said. ‘She has more about her than some. Beware of toppling her from her pedestal. Little ones respect their teachers enormously, and it’s right they should.’

‘Respect is fine, but not mindless acceptance,’ said Mother, ‘however young they are.’

‘Have no fear, my dear. Your children are nothing if not strong-minded. Isn’t that so, Cecily? Well now, it’s my turn to say Evensong, so I must tear myself away from your fireside. Pull me to my feet, Beth and Mary. Thank you. Thank you so much, my dears. I have enjoyed myself immensely. I expect I shall see you all on Sunday.’

Daddy helped him into his coat, and stood with Mother at our door, watching him walk up the hill towards the parish church.

‘We shall miss him sorely when the time comes,’ said Mother as she closed the door and came back into the living room to curl up on the sofa by the fire. ‘Father Bennett’s all right if you can stand it, but I do love that old man.’

She sat there, watching the fire, while Daddy and Beth cleared away the tea things. Mary went with them to help wash up, and Therese got into the bath. She was going out in the evening, to the cinema, and wanted to wash her hair. The lovely scent of her bath stuff drifted through the house. Mother sniffed it. ‘Mmm. This has been an afternoon of nice smells,’ she said. ‘Where’s Cecily? It’s very quiet.’

I went to look. She had fallen asleep playing with her toys upstairs in our bedroom.

‘So you could tell me a story, Mother,’ I said as I sat down again by the fire. Mother glanced through the window at the overcast sky and drizzling rain. ‘It’s a story kind of day,’ she said, ‘not fit for much else.’

‘Tell me a story about Father Peregrine with Melissa in it; Melissa and her children.’

‘Melissa… she doesn’t come into many of the stories, you know. The monks told the stories to her, so she wasn’t part of the stories. But there are one or two times she was there and had her own memories to pass on. Melissa…. Now then, there was one story, yes. Put another log on the fire, my love. Yes, I remember it now.’

Melissa had brought her children to the abbey to stay through the last watch of Lent and celebrate the Easter feast. She never saw very much of Father Peregrine when she came at Easter; there were too many other demands on his time. Already the guest house was almost full with visitors and pilgrims who had come to share in the resurrection festival. Still, she liked to be there with him following the long, sorrowful journey of Holy Week, and the explosion of triumph as the tables were turned on death itself on Easter Day.

There was another reason, too, why she came at Easter. It was on Easter Monday eleven years ago that Father Peregrine had been beaten and disfigured, his hands maimed and his leg crippled. It was a time of year when the sharpness of memories pressed painfully upon him, and old terrors stirred. Melissa knew that. She knew that most of the brothers would be rushed off their feet caring for guests and carrying out the rites of the Easter liturgies, on top of the round of work and prayer that was a daily necessity. They would likely be too busy to glimpse the horror and panic that sometimes came very close to the surface in Abbot Peregrine on Easter Day. She had asked him once, straight out, ‘How is it for you. Father, at Easter-time? There are some bitter memories there for you.’

He had sat in silence a long while before answering her, and when he did speak, it was hesitantly, reluctantly.

‘Holy Week is not too bad. I… Jesus in Gethsemane… I… he… that is the source of all my peace. There have been, there’s no point in trying to hide it, times when I’ve thought I would go under in the fear and helplessness—despair really—that overwhelms me some days. I have held myself together, just, but… the dread of breaking apart before the whole community, I can’t tell you. His terror and distress in Gethsemane… you can see his soul writhe… it answers, more profoundly than I could express, the intolerable… how can I explain it? The words go round and round in my head, “I can’t bear it, l can’t bear it,” behind all I am saying or doing, filling all my silences. It steadies me to hear his humbleness, “Lord, if it be possible—take this cup from me.” Then I know what courage is, where to find it. Good Friday, and the cross… nails through his hands… oh, God!… Melissa, nails…’

Peregrine paused and shook his head, his face contorted at the horror and pain of it.

‘Nails through his hands! On Good Friday morning I kneel before the crucifix in my chamber and I stretch out my hands to him, and I say, “Crucified one… beautiful one… Redeemer… Saviour… Lamb of God… you heal us by your wounds. Can you make something of these broken, ugly hands… put them to some use?” But Easter Day—Easter Day is another thing. Christ is risen and I know, I do know, that is my salvation. I understand that it is my glory, and my hope. Without his rising, our suffering would embitter us beyond redeeming, I know it. Only… he is in glory, and I am still in Gethsemane. He is in triumph and I am still pinned to my cross. On Easter Day he leaves me behind. Besides all that, it is our busiest time, and I do wonder at times, I confess it, if one day among the crowd, they will come again and finish their vengeance on my body. For they meant to have my life. I greet the pilgrims, and I must smile at them, and welcome them lovingly as I should. But all the while I am watching, wondering. Well, no, not all the while. I exaggerate. But the old terror is still there. I feel sick with it sometimes. It’s hard to control. Don’t mistake me, death I do not fear… but pain, infirmity, helplessness. When I walk through the church and I hear someone behind me, I am cold, sweating, terrified. I have tried to overcome it. God knows, I have prayed. I am ashamed to have so little joy in Christ’s most glorious day. It is not for want of trying.’

He sat looking down at his misshapen hands. The craftsmanship and costliness of the abbot’s ring decorated the right hand incongruously, its opulence mocking their ugliness. They showed starkly against the unrelieved black of his tunic. Melissa wondered how often in a day he looked down at his hands, and if there was ever a time when he thought nothing of it, being merely accustomed to their brokenness.

He raised his eyes to look at her. Usually his gaze was full of warmth, of love; the heart of his giving, passing on the peace of God. But for once he let her look into him and see just what he was; his sadness, his pain, the frustration that raged in the man trapped inside the living prison of his disabled body.

‘It’s a poor thing, isn’t it, that the abbot of a monastery should be so…’ He paused, searching for the word he wanted.

‘Human?’ she said.

She did not forget the conversation, or his sadness and his sense of shame, and she tried when she could to be there at Easter. When she came, she brought her children too. They were growing fast. The youngest, Benedict, was almost two, and his days were one long disaster of joyful exploration. Nicholas, her oldest child, was just eight years old. In between came Anne, a little more than a year younger than Nicholas but twice his age for wisdom and common sense, and Catherine, who was just four, candid, passionate and therefore a continual source of embarrassment to her parents.

As soon as they arrived at the abbey, the children made for the kitchen and Brother Cormac, who was their hero. They were a little bit afraid of Brother Andrew, the fierce old Scot who was the cook and monarch of the kitchen’s self-contained kingdom, but Cormac told them stories and fed them tit-bits, and took them to see the lambs and the calves in his free time. Cormac also knew where the birds and the field mice nested, and won their undying admiration by being able to spit a cherry-stone even further than Nicholas, who had been practising for weeks. It was Cormac who made them a swing and climbed to a dizzy height in a tall elm tree to secure it to a branch. It was Cormac who took them sledging in the winter on the steep hill that sheltered the guest house and played hide-and-seek with them among the straw bales in the barn. He showed them how to call the owls at night so that they would answer, and he played fivestones with them in the summer dust, and they loved him dearly.

‘Don’t plague the life out of the kitchen brothers, now!’ Melissa called after them as they vanished across the abbey court, ‘and mind Benedict near the well!’ They were not listening. She watched them go, and then turned back to the guest house. She felt happiness bubbling up inside her, a pressure of joy. She loved to be at the abbey. It was a harbour of peace for her, a place to rebuild her strength. There are not many places where a woman with four small children is welcomed with unfeignedly joyful hospitality, but this was one of them.

She stood leaning her back against the rough stone wall of the guest house, looking across the flagged court at the huge abbey church rising like a great rock of strength and assurance. She sighed contentedly and went in at the guest house door. She saw Peregrine before he saw her, limping slowly across the hall. He had come in search of her, having been sent word of her arrival.

‘Father! God save you, you look tired to death!’

His face lit in a smile of welcome and he hugged her to him. ‘It’s good to see you, dear one. Oh, I’ve been looking forward to this! Have you lost all your babes to the kitchens already? Well then, come and share some of Brother Walafrid’s blackberry wine with me, and we’ve been given some figs that are good. We can have a moment of quiet together. Oh, but forgive me, selfish. Maybe you are too weary after your journey? Would you rather rest first, dear heart?’

Melissa smiled at him, loving him, soaking up the luxury of being cherished, made to feel special. ‘It’s you I’ve come to see,’ she said happily. ‘If you’ve a spare moment, I’m going to seize it before someone else does. I can rest later.’

The children found Brother Cormac finishing the preparations for the cold evening meal that the community would eat after Vespers. He was pleased to see them, but he looked slightly harassed.

‘Oh, ho! Ho! It’s you, you demons! Search in the store, little Annie, and you’ll find apples and honey—you know where the bread is. If you’ll take some out to the cloister to nibble, I’ll come presently and take you to see the new foal and the bats in the church tower. I mustn’t come for another few minutes yet though. Brother Andrew’s turned into a dragon today and he’ll scorch me with his fiery breath if I stop working for one moment. Find yourselves something to eat and skedaddle, there’s good children. I’ll come out to you when I can.’ And with these words he disappeared into the dairy to fetch the pitcher of milk from its cool stone shelf.

Catherine moved closer to her sister. ‘Has Brother Andrew really turned into a dragon?’ It did not seem unlikely.

‘No, stupid. Cormac just means he’s in a bad temper,’ said Nicholas scornfully. ‘Come on, let’s get some bread and honey and apples before he comes.’

They sat out in the cloister which gave a fair shelter from the chill March wind, and ate the things they had found. Benedict transferred most of his honey, generously ladled out by Nicholas, from his bread to his hair and clothes, and then turned his attention to rooting up the flowers that were Brother Fidelis’ pride and joy.

‘Glory be to God!’ gasped Cormac as he finally emerged from the kitchen and caught sight of Benedict. ‘Is that a child or a compost heap? Let me give you a scrub, for mercy’s sake or your mother will be scolding me, and I’ve been scolded enough already for one day.’

He seized Benedict and holding him well away from himself, he carried him through the kitchen to the yard at the back, and set him down on the cobbles beside the well, ignoring the little child’s indignant yells of protest. The other children trooped through behind him. ‘Fetch me a towel, Annie,’ said Cormac. ‘You’ll find some back in the cloister, in the lavatorium, next to the refectory. Nicholas, a bucket of water if you will. Thank you. That will do nicely. Now then.’ He kept a firm grip on Benedict as he spoke, and stripped his clothes from him and sluiced him thoroughly under the icy water. Not brought up to monastic asceticism, Benedict roared with pain and rage when he could get his breath back. Brother Cormac took not the slightest bit of notice, but briskly rubbed the little body with the towel Anne had found until Benedict was pink and glowing; then wrapped him up in it and proceeded to rinse his clothes.

‘Stop screaming, child. Think you a worm or a mole that you can go burrowing in the earth and come up clean? Come now, that’s the worst of it off. Let’s go and rummage in your bags in the guest house and see if we can find some clean clothing before your mother sees you. Here, I’ll carry you. Nicholas, bring his clothes. We’ll set them to dry before the fire. I’ve wrung them well, but they may drip still, so mind you hold them away from you and don’t get yourself all wet. That’s it.’

Cormac took them as he promised up into the bell tower of the abbey church and showed them the bats hanging in the dimness, and to the stable to see the spotted foal, very young, bedded with her mother in clean straw. They collected the eggs from the henhouses, and carried them back to the kitchen, brown and snow white and speckled, and one of a pale, rosy beige, which Cormac said was laid by Dame Cluck, the sovereign of the poultry yard and the cockerel’s favourite wife. He took them into the warming room to say hello to the two or three brothers there who had come down from the scriptorium to warm fingers that were numb with cold at the great fireplace. Just before Vespers he returned them to their mother, and she thanked him warmly.

‘Brother Cormac, you’re an angel! Many, many thanks. Look at them: tired and happy. All I need to do is feed them and put them to bed. Oh—what happened to Benedict’s clothes?’

Cormac grinned at her. ‘An angel, is it? By’r lady, I shall need to be this week. We’ve that much work in the kitchen it’s beyond mortal man. His clothes you will find drying by the fire, not entirely clean, but recognisable now. I’ll take the children to see the lambs tomorrow, but not till the afternoon. There’s the Vespers bell now, I must be on my way. The thanks are all mine; I’ve loved their company.’

He kissed Benedict and handed him over into his mother’s arms, rested his hands lightly a moment on Anne’s and Catherine’s heads, nodded to Nicholas as one man to another, and was gone. Melissa took them to eat their supper in the guest house refectory after they had washed their hands and picked the straw out of their hair and clothes. A bowl of new milk had been set for each of them, and a small loaf of fresh bread, wrapped in a linen cloth. There was a pat of rich, yellow butter on an earthenware plate, some soft, white cheese, salted slightly and delicately flavoured by the herbs that had wrapped it, and a wooden bowl of sweet yellow apples from the store, polished until they glowed in the firelight like lamps.

‘Brother Dominic says the abbey is supposed to reflect the peace and order of heaven,’ said Melissa to her children as she sat Benedict on her lap and helped him with his milk, ‘and it does. I can’t think of heaven being much different from this.’ She smiled peacefully.

‘That’s because,’ said Nicholas, tearing a large piece of bread off the loaf and spreading it vigorously with plenty of butter, ‘you haven’t heard Brother Cormac and Brother Andrew arguing in the kitchen.’

Melissa looked at him with a little frown of irritation. ‘Nicholas, don’t put so much food in your mouth at once,’ she said sharply. She did not want her dream shattered. ‘I’m sure they don’t argue.’

‘They do. They’re terrible, worse than us. Brother Damian says you could light a candle from the sparks that fly between them. It’s because Cormac’s cooking’s so awful and he doesn’t like doing the meat and the fish. Brother Andrew says to him, “What would you like me to do with these rolls, Brother? Will I put them on the table, or are you saving them for a sling-shot? But half of one of these would slay Goliath nicely,” and Cormac glares at him from under his eyebrows and mutters. He swears. Yes he does, Mother, I’ve heard him.’

‘Nicholas, I’m sure you’re making all this up. I’ve never heard Brother Cormac swear. Father Abbot says those two love each other like father and son. Now stop talking and eat your supper. Look, Catherine’s falling asleep over her food.’

‘They may love each other, but it doesn’t stop them…’

‘Nicholas! Enough. Don’t speak with your mouth full either.’

When they had eaten everything in sight and left nothing but a sprinkling of crumbs and a scrape of butter, Melissa shepherded them upstairs and into bed.

‘Brother Cormac,’ said Catherine sleepily, as Melissa tucked her and Anne into the bed they shared, ‘knows what the rabbits think. He knows what the words are of the song the thrush is singing. It is saying, “Can… cantabo…” what did he say Annie?’

‘Cantabo Domino in vita mea,’ Anne recited carefully. ‘But I don’t know what it means.’

‘I will sing to the Lord as long as I live,’ said Melissa softly. ‘Is that what Brother Cormac says the thrush is singing?’

She told Father Peregrine about it as they sat together over their evening meal, and he smiled.

‘Brother Cormac, yes, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he understood the song of the birds. He loves the wild creatures. He used at one time to love birds and beasts more than he loved mankind. It distresses him to see anything wounded and killed. He likes them to be free. I’ve seen him in the kitchen preparing a fowl for the pot. Brother Andrew will be standing there with the bird dangling by its feet, neglected in his hand, as he issues orders or corrects someone’s work, and he’ll dump it on Brother Cormac—“Pluck this and gut it please, Brother.” Brother Cormac will take it into his hands with its poor dead head supported on his wrist, and carry it to the workbench so, and lay it down reverently, and strip it of its feathers as tenderly and gently as a woman laying a sleepy babe to rest. It irritates Brother Andrew no end. Ah, no doubt about it, the kitchen work is a hard discipline for Brother Cormac sometimes.’

‘Couldn’t he do something else—work in the garden or something instead?’

‘Yes, he could—now he could. There were reasons for keeping him to the kitchen at one time. He helps in the infirmary and he helps Brother Mark with his bees, but he likes to work with Brother Andrew. They have a good understanding. Brother Cormac had no family of his own, and Brother Andrew has come to be like a father to him; answered a need in him somehow. There was no love lost between them in the early days, though. Two of a kind, they are. A bit too much alike for comfort sometimes.’

‘Brother Cormac’s good to my children. He took them to see the bats in the church tower today, and he says he’ll take them to see the young lambs tomorrow when he can escape from the kitchen in the afternoon.’

‘Maundy Thursday, yes, the brothers are fasting before the evening Mass. He’ll maybe find some free time. He needs some. He’s been carrying most of Brother Andrew’s work lately. Brother Andrew is feeling his age. He’s been tired, very tired and a bit breathless of late. He has a look sometimes as though he’s in pain, but he’ll not admit to it. Brother Cormac has been doing all he can to spare him in the kitchen.’

‘Oh, then…’ Melissa looked concerned. ‘Should he be spending this time with my children? I don’t want them to be a burden.’

‘No, no.’ Peregrine shook his head. ‘Brother Cormac delights in your children. They have extra help in the kitchen during the Easter feast. Brother Damian is there, and Brother Mark. Let it be.’

In the morning, when her children went out to play, Melissa cautioned them, ‘Don’t go bothering Brother Cormac, now. This afternoon, he said. You must wait until then. Go for a walk down to the infirmary and say hello to Uncle Edward.’

But Catherine stole away, and appeared at Cormac’s side in the kitchen, where she stood in solemn silence as she watched him gutting fish for the midday meal.

‘Is that a fish?’ she asked at last.

‘It is,’ he replied shortly. He hated the job and it put him out of sorts to do it. He cut the head away deftly with the sharp knife, and slit the belly, flicking out the spilling mess of guts with the knife point.

‘Oh, Cormac,’ said Catherine in a shocked voice, ‘you’ve cut off its face.’

Cormac closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He felt distinctly queasy. ‘Catherine!’ Anne’s voice called from the doorway. ‘Catherine! Mother says you’re not to bother Cormac in the morning. You’ve got to stay with us.’

‘But Cormac is cutting the fishes’ tummies open and throwing their insides away,’ protested Catherine. ‘I want to stay and watch.’

Cormac put down the knife and wiped his hands. He picked Catherine up and carried her to the door. He deposited her firmly outside.

‘You do as your mother says,’ he said, and closed the door behind her.

‘You didn’t do anything naughty, did you, Catherine?’ asked Anne, anxiously. ‘He looked a bit cross.’ But Catherine was already running along the cloister, heading for the infirmary.

Brother Cormac returned grimly to his task, stuffed the fish carcasses with herbs and butter and left them packed in neat lines in a covered dish ready to be baked.

Brother Andrew called him from the other side of the room: ‘Brother Cormac! It’s time you did those fish. You’ve not got all the morning.’ He sounded tired and irritable.

‘But I…’ began Cormac.

‘“But” nothing, Brother. There’s bread to be baked for tomorrow and they need a hand in the guest house kitchen, so will you set about it and get them done.’

‘But, Brother…’

‘Brother Cormac, it needs doing!’ Andrew shouted at him. Cormac’s black brows were gathering in a frown and his blue eyes were as cold as frost.

‘Come on, Brother Cormac!’ roared Andrew.

‘I have done the fish,’ Cormac said from between clenched teeth with slow and deliberate fury, glowering at the old man.

Brother Andrew clicked his tongue in exasperation. ‘Then why the devil didn’t you say so?’ he snapped.

Cormac looked as though he was about to boil over. The kitchen staff kept their heads bent to their work. Neither Brother Andrew nor Brother Cormac was the most patient of men, and minor confrontations were a common occurrence. For a moment the two of them glared at each other, then, ‘Whatever ails you today?’ said Cormac more gently. ‘You’re like a bear with a sore head. I’ve done the fish. Shall I make a start on the bread or go over to the guest house?’

‘I—oh!’ Brother Andrew clutched at the table where he stood, gasping with sudden pain. The colour drained from his face and beads of sweat stood out on his brow.

Cormac was across the room to him in an instant and Brother Andrew turned to him and gripped his arms convulsively, bent over in pain.

‘Get Brother John,’ said Cormac to Brother Damian, who left at a run. ‘Where does it hurt you?’ he asked Brother Andrew, looking anxiously at the old man’s face as he tried to stand erect. It was deathly pale, the lips blue and set in a tight line of pain.

‘It—ah!’ Andrew gasped and clung to him. ‘Like a great hand squeezing my ribs. Like… bands of iron. Ah! It’s not been this bad before.’

‘Lie down,’ said Cormac. ‘Here, on the floor. Come, rest your head on my lap, so. There now. Brother John will be with us from the infirmary.’ The old man could not keep still, but writhed in his pain. His hand gripped Cormac’s knee fiercely, and he pressed his face into his thigh. Brother Cormac could feel the agonised contortion of it, and the old man’s trembling passed through into his own body. Oh John, hurry, he thought, desperately. Oh Jesu, mercy.

Brother Andrew drew up his knees in pain and groaned. Sweat was pouring from him. Brother Mark bent over them offering a cold, damp cloth. Cormac took it without looking up, and tenderly wiped the old man’s head and neck and as much of his face as he could get to.

Brother John came hurrying through the door and knelt beside them. ‘All right, we’ll carry him to the infirmary. Two of you men here, make a chair for him with your hands. We’ll carry him so.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Cormac.

‘You… will… not…’ gasped Brother Andrew, fighting for breath. ‘You’ll get… the meal… to the table—and Brother—don’t… burn… the bread.’ Then he screwed up his eyes and clamped his mouth shut as another wave of pain engulfed him. He looked very old and shrunken and frail as they carried him out of the door. Brother Cormac watched them go, his face almost as white as Andrew’s, but as the door closed behind them, he turned resolutely to his work.

‘Put the fish in to bake, Brother Damian. John, fill the pitchers with ale. Water it, but not so much as yesterday; they were grumbling. Brother Mark, take the bread from its proving and knead it again. Luke, Simon, go down to the guest house and see what you can do.’

He himself continued the preparation of a green salad that Brother Andrew had begun, his face taut with anxiety, his hands trembling. Brother Damian came up quietly behind him and put an arm around his shoulders. Cormac shook him off irritably.

‘Come on, Brother. Have you done that fish? Good. Watch the pot of beans on the fire. They’re nearly done. They mustn’t overcook or they’ll go to a mush. Drat, there’s the Office bell. You go, both of you. I can finish off here. Is the bread ready for its second proving? Thank you. Cover it with a cloth before you go. No, set it to rise there, near the fire. Yes, yes. Go now, then.’

When the Office was over, Cormac listened to the soft slapping of the brothers’ sandalled feet coming along the cloister, and the indefinable whisper of their robes as they passed the open door, the splash of water in the lavatorium as they washed their hands. Oh, hurry, he pleaded silently, please hurry. But they filtered through into the refectory with their usual dignified calm.

Brother Cormac made the kitchen tidy, and saw the meal to the table. He did not join the brethren to eat, but restlessly paced the kitchen floor, listening to the drone of the reader’s voice and the subdued background sound of the meal: pottery on wood, metal on pot. Then pot on pot and metal on metal as the servers stacked the bowls and collected the spoons and knives. Cormac served the kitcheners, the reader and the servers with their meal as they came through into the kitchen from the refectory, and then he left them to it and ran to the infirmary. In the ante-room he found Father Peregrine sitting with Catherine playing at his feet. Anne sat beside him, very quiet, her eyes gravely fixed on Brother Cormac as he hastened through the door and stopped, looking helplessly to Father Peregrine for reassurance.

‘Is he—?’

‘They could not save him,’ said Peregrine gently. ‘He was gone by the time they got him to bed.’

‘No…’ whispered Cormac. ‘For God’s sake, no. Where is he?’

‘Just through there.’ Father Peregrine watched him stumble through the door. The room Cormac entered was airy and chill, filled with the cold light of spring. It was utterly silent except for the faint squeaking and tapping of leaves outside crowding against one of the windows. There was no one there but the motionless form on the bed, laid out straight in his habit and sandals. His hair was combed, and his rosary placed among the fingers of his hands folded on his breast. Cormac looked at Brother Andrew’s body, white and frozen in the absolute stillness of death; at the toes like carvings and the sculpted silence of his hands, his jaw, his nose. He stood by the bed in the pale spring light and looked down at the deserted house, empty dwelling, that had been his friend. He lifted his hand and caressed the cold forehead and bony cheek.

‘We served the meal on time,’ he whispered. He took one last long look, stooped and pressed his warm lips to the cold, still brow, his eyes closed. Then he turned away and left the room and closed the door behind him.

‘Come and sit down.’ Father Peregrine’s voice penetrated the daze of shock, and Cormac sat on the bench beside him, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped together, seeing nothing.

‘I wish I’d been with him,’ he said at last, tonelessly.

Catherine looked up from her game on the floor. ‘Cormac, why are you crying?’ she asked curiously. ‘Is it because of Brother Andrew?’

‘I’m not crying,’ said Cormac dully, without looking at her.

‘Shush, Catherine,’ said Anne, but Catherine was not to be put off. ‘You are,’ she insisted. ‘Your nose is running and your eyes are full of tears, like Nicholas’ when he’s trying not to cry. There’s a tear running down your face now. I can see it.’

Peregrine stretched out his hand and laid it on Cormac’s hands which gripped together till the knuckles were white. Cormac groaned and his head went down on the abbot’s hand. Anne darted to his side and spread herself over his shoulders like a bird. Catherine got to her feet and crept close to Peregrine, frightened by the sight of adult grief. ‘Is Cormac’s heart breaking?’ she asked in an awed voice.

Peregrine nodded. ‘Yes, Catherine,’ he said quietly, ‘his heart is breaking. It will take a long time to heal. Go and find your mother now, children. Tell her what has happened. There, Annie, your love has done him good, but let him be now. Go and find Mother.’

They buried Brother Andrew’s body on Easter Eve in the morning, pushing the bier slowly up the winding path under the dripping beech trees to the brothers’ burial ground in the wood; a sober and silent procession of cowled black figures shrouded in the grey morning mist. At the graveside, Cormac stood and watched as they shovelled in the wet earth, his face pale and remote in the shadow of his cowl.

He went about the duties of the day in silence. The kitchen was enclosed in a pall of silence. The absence of Brother Andrew’s sarcastic Scots rasp was as vivid among the men there as if they could hear him still.

At midnight the brethren gathered in the choir for the Easter vigil; the moment of solemn joy and mystery when death is turned back, and the victory of the grave disintegrates in its own ashes, for Christ, Morning Star, is risen. The massive church was filled with pilgrims, the rustling dark alive with the excitement of their expectation. The Easter fire was set alight in the dark ness, and the Paschal candle lit from it, the light illuminating the watch of the night, the ranks of brothers in the choir, the crowd of men and women and children in the nave.

Silent and numb, Cormac stood in his stall, grief welling up in him until he could no longer contain it. Tears ran unchecked down his cheeks as he stood watching Father Chad help Father Peregrine to take the great Paschal candle into his scarred and twisted hands. Father Chad stepped back and the abbot lifted up the candle.

‘Lumen Christi,’ his firm voice sang out the triumphant chant, and ‘Deo gratias!’ came the thunder of response from all around the church. The light of Christ: thanks be to God. There was, obscurely, hope in the candle held aloft in those maimed hands, the light of Christ.

Is this your healing? Cormac prayed silently in the bitterness of his soul. To waken my heart to love and friendship and then flood it with this pain? Is this your light, your gift, your way—this agony?

He did not expect an answer. He was filled with the anger and desolation of his loss. He was unprepared for the word, whispered deep in his soul, from somewhere as far outside himself as the stars, yet as near as his own shuddering breath: ‘Yes.’