Rock Climbing

I opened to my beloved,
but he had turned his back and gone.
My soul failed at his flight.
I sought him but I did not find him,
I called to him but he did not answer.
Song of Songs

As the bells began their tolling, filling the whole valley with their sorrow and respect, their great solemnity, in memory of Brother Sebastian, they echoed and rechoed against the stone of the quarry. With each toll, Edward continued his climb up the steepest of the rock faces. Aelred watched him. Because of the heat, even though it was still early, Edward climbed in only his shorts. His skin glistened. The sweat forming on his back and arms trickled down his legs. His shoulders and arms, which had been burnt red, were now turning brown. He was climbing faster than usual. He moved nimbly, surefooted. Bits of shale flaked from under his boots as they pushed away. The shale clattered and fell the awful drop to where Aelred crouched, smashing into small pieces on the gravel clearing in front of him. The falling shale tore at the wild lilac and the newly budding buddleia. The purple flowers were broken and scattered. Edward’s denim smock was buried with broken rock and tatters of strewn lilac: green leaves and purple flower. Edward’s white vest hung on a branch. Aelred walked towards it, took it in his hands and buried his face in it, inhaling the smell of sweat, the odour of Edward. He opened the soft jersey and hung it again on the branch by its straps. This had become his ceremony.

The bells were now on their last toll; single tolls with ringing silences in between. Aelred looked up and was alarmed. Edward was not on the rock face. For an instant, Aelred thought he had fallen. A hawk hovered overhead. Then he realised that he must have reached the summit and must be making his descent the long way round back to his clothes. At the crunch on the gravel, Aelred spun round where he was standing, his fingers still caught in the strings of the vest. He gasped, ‘God, you gave me a fright.’

Edward was standing in front of him. He stood in the full light, bare backed, in only his tight black shorts and his climbing boots, with thick grey socks crumpled round his ankles. His soft blond hair glistened, blonder in the light on his legs and chest, thicker where it curled around his navel. Blue veins ran along his arms. His hair was wet from the sweat on his face and brow and was drawn back behind his ears. He was wiping sweat from his upper lip with the back of his hand. Aelred could smell him. He stood in front of him, confused, caught.

Edward broke the ice. ‘I can teach you to climb.’ He was still breathing heavily from his run back down. ‘Any time. We’ll have to get you some boots. Maybe Benedict could get us those from the Cellarer.’ Edward was pulling on his vest, which he shook out when he had taken it from the branch. He put his nose to it and smiled over its soft whiteness at Aelred, who was tongue-tied, standing there awkwardly, with an ear cocked for the bells for the Conventual Mass which would come soon after the tolling. He was an acolyte for the Requiem Mass. He had to be back in time. ‘I was an instructor at my school. I’ve got certificates. It would be perfectly safe. It’s a great sport. I think of it as religious. Coming out here in the early morning is uplifting. It’s like the spiritual ladder to heaven. You’ve got to take it gradually. You’ve got to learn on gentle climbs at first. Then they get steeper and rougher. More sheer. You are the rock as you climb. You almost enter the rock. What do you think?’ Edward smiled from where he was bending down and pulling up his denim overalls and pushing his head into his smock as he stood up. He pulled his leather girdle tight around his waist. ‘It would be something! Wouldn’t it? I could teach you. I’m no good at this flower arranging.’ He bunched the tattered lilacs into a bouquet and held it out in front of him. ‘What do you think? ‘Then he flung them into the bushes.

‘You’ve got burnt.’

‘Oh, yes, almost as dark as you.’ Edward smiled.

‘I think we should get back. I’ll be late and I’m acolyte at the Requiem.’

‘Brother Aelred, the perfect novice. At the sound of the bell, drops everything. You ’ll beat Thérèse of Lisieux to perfection.’

‘You mock me. You get me wrong.’

‘No, brother. I think we’re different. I find it harder than you. This is what I live for.’ He glanced up at the steep rock face he had climbed. ‘I’d always had a sense of a vocation. I don’t know why. It was always strong. Particularly since my entering the church. I used to be C. of E. Then I became interested in the old rites, the old traditions. You know, the Sarum Rite. Maybe I won’t last.’

‘We should walk back. The old traditions? Things are changing fast now. Since the Second Vatican Council.’ Edward picked his way among the gorse bushes and the broom was already beginning to turn a glorious yellow.

‘The Second Vatican Council! Modernisation! It’ll destroy the mystery of religion. I’ve noticed you, you know. You come out in the mornings and watch me climb.’

‘I always come out here. Remember, it was me, I told you about the quarry.’

‘That’s right, you did. But I’ve noticed you.’

‘So?’

‘Speak to Benedict. I tell him my difficulties. We’re lucky to have Benedict, yes?’

‘Yes, he’s a good guardian angel. The best. I’m frightened of heights.’

‘I could tell, that first time you helped me. That was brave of you. And you didn’t let on. That was sporting of you.’

‘Discipline is up to Benedict.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. The giver of dangerous texts.’ Edward smiled. ‘But I can’t give this up.’ He looked up again at the steep rock face. It was a cloudless blue sky, high and lucid. It must have been the same hawk, now hovering over the field. Aelred ran the lines of the Hopkins poem through his mind:

‘Striding.’ The word got enunciated.

‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing.’

The two novices parted as they came out of the silver birches into the wide open field and the track which cut across to the apple orchard.

The bells for the Conventual Mass hastened Aelred in his preparation in the washroom. Festina, he said to himself. Quickly! Images thronged Aelred’s mind. He noticed Edward’s arms. They were strong arms. Sinewy where Edward rolled up his sleeves to wash himself. They glinted with blond hair. When wet, the hair was sleek against his white skin. Aelred had noticed the novice’s arms when they were digging together in the walled garden and just now at the rock climbing. He noticed the muscles, the way his fingers went red at the knuckles. He glimpsed and stored parts of Edward’s body: his waist with his tight girdle; his slim hips; his strong legs in his denim smock; the movement of his body in his work smock; his hair above his stockings on his calves in the basement. He smelt his fresh sweat. When Edward took off his cassock to wash his neck and opened up the front of his cassock in the washroom, Aelred noticed the white of his neck and the blond hair which grew on his chest, curling up to his neck. Each revelation was a source of wonder in a world where the body was hidden under cassocks and cowls and hoods. Hair. To stroke hair, to feel it over skin. His hair would soon be shorn. Now he had thick falling hair on the nape of his neck. Under the blond curls at the edges was a pure white skin. He had never seen skin so white - white like marble with veins running blue.

Each of these glimpses was buried beneath Aelred’s dislike for Edward. He was jealous of the time he spent with Benedict. Now he talked about Benedict as if he was as intimate with him as he was. He could hardly admit all this to himself. He did not like to think of himself having these uncharitable thoughts, having impure thoughts; having thoughts of pleasure about someone he didn’t think he liked. A terrible spiral of hate and attraction began to take hold of Aelred, so that he wanted to behave in a cold way to Edward. Yet he went out to the quarry each morning to look at him. He was becoming obsessed by him. He told no one. He hardly admitted it to himself. What had Edward noticed? What had he told Benedict?

He knew that he blew hot and cold. Sometimes, he talked to Edward at recreation; other times he ignored him. He contradicted him in novitiate studies without any real reason. The new novice must think of him as immature. Edward still teased him about his funny accent - funny Welsh-sounding French. He still made remarks about his colour. Benedict sometimes joined in the humour at recreation. Edward used his Englishness over him - something Benedict had never done, nor any of the other monks. He laughed at his mispronunciation of words in the refectory when it was his turn to read.

Edward came from a posh background. That’s what Benedict said, one day in passing. He spoke differently from Benedict. He had a different accent. They laughed at each other’s accents. They laughed at the Irish brothers’ accents. Aelred was picking up these differences, picking up about English class.

Maybe Benedict felt the same for Edward as he did for him, giving him Aelred of Rievaulx. So he wanted to rival him for Edward. He felt that Benedict must notice Edward’s physical beauty: his blond hair, his blue eyes, his white skin, how tall he was, his arms and legs. Like an athlete. He made him think of Ted. Athletes yes, but one was blond and white and the other was dark and nut brown.

Aelred remained distracted throughout the Requiem Mass, which was celebrated by Father Basil. He heard the break in the old monk’s voice as he came to recall those who had died. ‘Let us pray for Brother Sebastian, our dear brother.’ The community bowed their heads. Aelred remembered Basil telling him how he and Sebastian had lain in each other’s arms in a field. Later, at the cemetery, Basil was the first to throw a small handful of dirt on to the coffin. Aelred knew that the old man would be back in the afternoon to help fill in the grave, as he had been there to dig it. Theirs had been a whole long life together from nineteen till this death.

Father Justin had arranged for Aelred to meet the Abbot after the Conventual Mass and the funeral. Aelred let the heavy door knocker drop. It was the head and shoulders of a Franciscan friar. It was made of brass. It glinted as it looked at him. It was a joke. Why would Benedictines want to be knocking a Franciscan on the head? It knocked against an open book with ‘Pax Vobiscum’ scrolled across the open pages. ‘Peace with you,’ the knocked head said. There was a pause and then the Abbot’s voice came from deep within. ‘Ave.’ Aelred opened the door, shut it quietly behind him, and stood there dropping his hood and straightening it, then putting his hands under his scapular, staring into the Abbot’s study. The room smelt of furniture polish. The Abbot was not in his study. Aelred had forgotten the Abbot’s room. Then his first brief visit soon after his arrival came back to him. He was confronted by a large lifesize crucifix with a naked Christ in a scant loin cloth. The Abbot’s chair was under this crucifix behind a wide open highly polished desk, which had hardly anything on it. There was a large blotter and an old brass inkwell with a pen standing inside it. There were some sheets of paper and obliquely, with its back to him, a bust of the Virgin Mary made out of marble. On the other side of the desk was a black telephone.

‘Is that Brother Aelred?’ Without waiting for an answer, ‘Have a seat, brother.’ The Abbot’s familiar voice echoed from within, behind a door to Aelred’s left. Aelred knew his voice mainly from sermons in the chapter house, from blessings given in the choir, prayers intoned in the refectory. It was a voice that spoke from a dais, from a throne, from the high table. It seemed odd to hear it uttered from behind a door, which was the Abbot’s bedroom, hardly a cell. He could hear water running into a basin. Then he heard a lavatory flush.

‘Yes,’ Aelred answered to the first question. Then, ‘Yes, thanks,’ to the invitation to be seated. But then he felt awkward sitting without the Abbot being there. He would have to get up when the Abbot entered. He sat on the edge of a leather upholstered chair. A tall clock tick-tocked, standing against the wall between two windows to his right. Red, green and yellow stained glass captured the light in scenes from the lives of different English saints whom he did not recognise. On the wall opposite, built around the closed door behind which the Abbot’s voice had called, were bookshelves stacked tightly with leatherbound tomes with Latin titles. One long shelf held the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, each volume numbered. He could hear the Abbot moving about behind the closed door. He expected him to burst out at any moment. Once or twice he heard his cough. It seemed an interminably long time. He looked up at the lifesize crucifix that was looking down at him. Looming over him, it reminded him of the Christ on the cross in the famous Salvador Dali painting, with Christ on the cross hanging above the world, over the sea or a lake with a small boat putting out from the shore in the foreground. There was a fisherman pushing out the boat. He looked like St Peter, the boat was the barque of the church.

Then the door suddenly opened. Aelred jumped up. The Abbot came towards him. He was a small man, jumpy. He tugged at his abbatial cross, which hung on a long gold chain about his neck. It had a stone which looked like a ruby in the middle. It glinted. He was noisy. His black heavy shoes clattered on the slippery polished brown parquet floor. He dropped a book on to the desk. ‘There,’ he said. ‘All that we need to know in life.’ At the same time he held out his hand to Aelred, with his abbatial ring.

Aelred dropped to his knees to kiss the ring. Out of the side of his eye, as he knelt at the height of the desk, he caught the title of the book the Abbot had dropped there thunderously. The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis. Aelred remembered the small black volume given to him at his confirmation. It had not helped him then; would it now? He got up from his genuflection.

‘Yes,’ he said, almost inaudibly.

‘Well, I like to hear from my novices.’ The Abbot spoke in a businesslike way, pulling out his chair, almost tipping it over and indicating with a thrust-out hand to Aelred to sit again, opposite him. Aelred folded his scapular carefully from behind him and sat. He found it difficult to fill the chair. He felt his feet would leave the ground if he sat right into it and leant back into it. So he sat up, without leaning against the back. He sat with his hands under his scapular. The Abbot fidgeted with his pen and straightened his blotter and inkwell. He lifted the sheaf of papers, knocked them together and packed them into shape, holding them up and knocking them against the desk top, dropping them repeatedly. ‘You’ve settled in now. I think you’ve done splendidly. Father Justin tells me all is quite perfect.’ The Abbot smiled.

‘Yes, well …’

‘Of course. It’s bound to be a little difficult at the beginning. And you’ve had huge adjustments to make. Quite beyond what most novices have to contend with. Not least, the weather.’

Aelred kept trying to form a thought in his head into a speech. He thought the Abbot’s habit seemed far too large for him. It almost swallowed him up and he looked minute, sitting in his large abbatial chair. Aelred wondered what the Abbot’s body looked like under his habit. He glanced up at the crucifix. The face of Christ was handsome, though gaunt and sorrowful. Edward’s barebacked body flashed through his mind, blond hair curling around his navel.

The Abbot took off his glasses and cleaned them with the tip of his scapular. ‘You were saying …’ The telephone rang. The Abbot picked up the receiver gruffly, throwing up his eyes at Aelred, indicating his irritation at being interrupted. ‘Yes, Father Mark. That’s what I decided. That’s what I told you yesterday.’ The Abbot glanced at Aelred. Aelred felt embarrassed overhearing a conversion with the Cellarer in which the Abbot was being patronising, obviously irritated by something Father Mark had got wrong. ‘Anyway, see me in half an hour, I have a young novice here at the moment.’ The receiver clattered in its hold and fell on the desk, and then the Abbot had to put it back properly. ‘Where were we? He rubbed his ring against the palm of the opposite hand. This was ostensibly to shine it. Why? Aelred thought. But it was also like someone sporting for a fight.

‘I don’t mind the weather. I quite like it. It’s a novelty.’ Aelred said tentatively.

‘Yes, well, that’s splendid. But there’s one little matter.’ The Abbot tidied his sheafs of papers again. ‘The Imitation of Christ.’ The Abbot picked up the book as if it had come to hand miraculously at that moment. ‘This is the book that will help you. It has been tested. It is uncontroversial. A tested spiritual guide.’

‘Father?’

‘No need to say anything, brother. Father Justin has told me the whole story. Yes, I think Benedict had the best intentions in giving you Aelred of Rievaulx but I’m sure you understand now …’

‘No,’ Aelred blurted out.

‘I’m sure you see the sense of this.’ The Abbot spoke over Aelred’s attempt to speak. ‘And I must insist, brother, from what Father Justin has described, that you and Brother Benedict should not meet alone. I don’t think that would be wise.’

‘Father Justin said that you were banning Aelred of Rievaulx from novitiate reading. He didn’t say anything else was wrong.’

‘Brother, we don’t need to spell this out. As you well know, even Aelred of Rievaulx would agree that dwelling on the description of sin is in itself a way to encourage it.’

‘Sin? What sin, father?’

‘Well, you know what I mean, the occasion of sin. “In much talking thou shalt not avoid sin”.’ The Abbot quoted the holy Rule. ‘You know that. You did very well at you examination on the holy Rule before your clothing. The whole council was very pleased with you.’

Aelred felt humiliated. He felt like crying. He felt angry. The Abbot was not listening. The Abbot was not allowing him to talk. Then what could he tell the Abbot? He was right. But at the same time Aelred felt something was wrong. This man should be helping him. Father Justin should be helping him. There was only Basil. Not to see Benedict alone! What did the Abbot and Father Justin talk about? What did they really know? What were they not saying? Or were they just guessing, trying to avoid anything happening. Father Justin would have his eyes peeled for every transgression. This rule was going to be impossible. How on earth was he going to obey this rule?

‘Father, I …’

‘I think you must just obey, brother. That’s the hardest part of our life, the vow of obedience. You will take this vow in a few months. You must practise this now. Father Justin says that you have the making of a good monk, but there are these few things to get right at the beginning. In time it will be more appropriate to see Brother Benedict as you would any of your other brothers. But for the moment a little restraint in this matter is needed, it will be good for you and for him. You must think of him. You are very young brother. Very enthusiastic. Impulsive. Maybe it’s the hot climate you come from.’ The Abbot smiled. This was a joke, Aelred thought, but then he felt that the Abbot meant it. ‘Anyway our rule was written in Italy, so it’s well tested for those in the sunshine.’ The Abbot smiled again, getting up from his desk, indicating that the meeting was over. They walked together to the door. Aelred knelt and kissed his ring. The Abbot gave him a blessing, making the sign of the cross over his head. ‘Thomas à Kempis, brother, The Imitation of Christ.’

Aelred tried to smile. He closed the door behind him inadvertently lifting the ‘Pax Vobiscum’ knocker, then grabbing it tightly before it knocked again at the Abbot’s door. He put his hood on and made for the cloister. He walked near the wall of the corridor, as was the custom. He walked with head bowed, his eyes downcast. He needed some air. He needed to walk. He needed to run. He couldn’t go to Benedict. He did not want to bother Basil today. He thought he might visit him later in the week. He had to get some help. Now he felt that Father Abbot and Father Justin knew everything that had been happening.

He remembered again bowing to the Abbot that night when he and Benedict had kissed and embraced in the side chapel. The Abbot could not know the details of that. It must have been what Father Justin had heard and even seen in the library. He tried to settle his mind by saying the rosary as he walked around the cloister. As he came back into the corridors on the way to the novitiate, he noticed Benedict going into the Abbot’s room and Father Justin coming out. What was going on? All these meetings? Something serious, much more serious, was happening.

Maybe he could still get a mug of coffee, Aelred thought, or had he missed the mid-morning coffee break? He was just passing the pantry and, as he passed, he heard music coming from inside. Then he remembered that Brother Angel, who was blind, worked in the pantry and was allowed a radio. Aelred retraced his steps and put his head round the door. The monks were encouraged to do that sometimes, to say hello to Brother Angel, to cheer him up. Edward was sitting on the edge of a table in the middle of the pantry, sorting out a cluster of tins of fruit and vegetables. Obviously he was on dinner duty. Brother Angel was at a smaller table, shelling beans into a basin. On the radio was the tune, ‘Love, love me do. You know I love you’.

Edward looked up. His lips were formed into a whistle. He smiled, humming the tune. He paused. ‘Benedicite,’ he said pointedly. ‘The Beatles, brother.’ He whistled along, pointing at the radio. Brother Angel chuckled.

‘Are you being distracted, brother?’ Aelred put his arm on Brother Angel’s shoulder. ‘How are you today?’

‘Not at all, not at all. Fine, brother. It’s a catchy tune.’

‘Is this the station you want, brother? Not your usual?’

Edward laughed. ‘He’s taking a break from the Home Service, aren’t you, Brother Angel?’

‘That’s right. Who’s that?’ Brother Angel indicated to Aelred that he did not recognise Edward’s voice.

‘A relatively new postulant, brother. One who’s not far off his clothing. Who hasn’t quite given up the world.’ Aelred looked at Edward smirking. Brother Angel chuckled.

‘It’s just a bit of innocent fun,’ Brother Angel said solemnly, scratching his beard.

‘Is there any coffee left?’ Aelred said to Edward who would have cleared the refectory earlier to lay the places for dinner - an expression Aelred could not get used to. He still thought of it as lunch. Dinner was what he had with his parents, a fine meal which Toinette cooked and served. White linen and silver!

‘Yes, I think the urn is still warm. You might be lucky.’ Edward continued humming. The Beatles sang, ‘Love, love me do. You know I love you.’

Aelred went to the common room to browse among the bookshelves there. He was soon distracted from that. He was preoccupied with his meeting with Father Abbot, his last meeting with Father Justin and all that seemed to be implied in what they had said. He stood with his face against the glass of the tall windows in the common room, looking out on to the thick laurel and holly hedges. Suddenly, there was a thud. A swallow had flown straight at the closed window, stunning itself against the glass, and had fallen to the ground. It had all happened in an instant. It took Aelred completely out of himself. He opened the window and looked down at the ground below the window. He watched the small bird. It lay there panting, moving its legs. Its head shuddered. Its wings folded. Then its legs stopped moving.

Aelred went and got his work on the translation of the psalms. Then he took himself to the grave of Jordan, to kneel in the shade and translate his psalms. On the way he picked up the dead swallow. As he entered the cemetery he stooped down and buried it under some dead leaves and twigs.

Brother Sebastian’s grave had still to be filled in. That would be done after None. Maybe he would be detailed again for grave duty.

On the soft green turf below the whispering yew trees, a balm for his hurt, he was soon distracted from his translations. Overhead, he heard the sharp clicks and whistles of the swallows, which were darting at a furious speed, weaving in and out of each other above the cemetery and darting to their nests below the eaves of the chapel. He noticed one swallow in particular. It swooped and arced. It darted into a weeping ash tree, and was out again and then under the far eave of the chapel. It continued this journey back and forth, building a home.

You’re like those swallows, the travelling you’ve done, Miss Amy say.

Yes, Miss Amy. Master Newton point them out at sea. He say we’ll see you in England, talking to the birds. We up on deck when I hear him say that. They call it Bristol. You must know Bristol. That is what we hear when we still on the sea. Bound for Bristol. Everyday I so sick, I happy to be going anywhere and stopping anywhere. What a clamour there is when we out on to the deck. We still in chains down under. Lots of fellas sick and womenfolk crying. One morning, not far from Maderia, I wake up. It calm for the last hour or two. This fella, his name is Joseph, or that is what the white sailor who loose our chains call him. They just call us by a name. But he dead, Miss Amy. I think he asleep, leaning on me. But he is slump against me because he is dead, Miss Amy.

It is early morning when we dock in Bristol. But people know we come. Such a clamour when we come out into the cold and have to stand up. Six of us chain together get push to one corner where a number of gentlemen come to look at us. But Master Walter pick me out and say, I is one of his breed. The man who speak with Master Walter sound like a man I hear speak in Virginia. He come and look us over and poke us with his walking stick, which has a silver top, I notice. It shine like a candle in his hand in that dark, cold, early morning. And he have a watch in his pocket. I know his voice well, for once I go there. And once to South Carolina, on a boat on a river called Waccamaw. Me and a boy called Jack, we try to escape there into the swamps, which is wooded with oak and pine and cyprus. We hide there among the reeds and rushes. Me and Jack. He come like my twin brother I lose when they take me from my village. And is a solace, I remember, the beauty of a flowering magnolia. But we get catch and take to Charleston. Then I get take back to the island and find myself with Master Walter once more.

Because I is a runaway he beat me, Miss Amy. He hang me up and beat me.

Then when we arrive in Bristol we is in these narrow dark streets and I hear the cry, Black boy for sale. Master Walter, and the man who speak like that man I hear in Virginia, follow the cry down the narrow streets. There is this clanging of signs, each proclaiming another black boy for sale. Well limbed and fit to serve a gentleman, is the cry. The clanging of the signs mix with the sound of iron, the iron of the contraptions. The man I hear like a man in Virginia, he telling Master Walter about more contraptions he can show him from Virginia, like the ones he has back in a home in Kentucky. Never can do without them, when leaving them niggers with the womenfolk. That is later when we come to this house that have stables out in the back and we get to lie down in some straw, next to where there are some horses. I hear the gentleman like I hear a gentleman in Virginia sound, call a little girl, Bessy. He tell Bessy give some hot drink, some bread and dripping. We eat and drink anything they give us, and me and the five fellas sleep. One of them I hear Master Walter call Jonah. I never know his name is Jonah.

Then I wake from a dream of a ship sinking in the sea, from a storm and a ship crashing on the rocks. I hear the gentleman like that gentleman in Virginia talking to Master Walter. I peep through a hole in the stable and I see into a room hang with saddles and stirrups and reins, and this same gentleman is showing Master Walter his contraptions, which he is taking out of a trunk mark Bristol. These are his contraptions from Kentucky, which he is saying Master Walter needs to use on the young breed that he buy. He show him the muzzle, then he show him the mask and last of all he bring out that thing they call the bit, and he explain to Master Walter how to use it. And how confounding good it is to keep that breed in control if he wants to get his money worth, for they are natural lazy, natural indolent, and wish all the time to run away.

Miss Amy say, tucking her sick father into his chair by the fire, some of you darkie lads must be scoundrels, I suppose. You better watch for the young Master Walter. There is no knowing what young Master Walter might do when he flies into a fury, Miss Amy say, going out to fill the kettle at the pump in the yard. I can tell you some tales myself, my lad. That is what Miss Amy of Somerset say that evening when she go out into the yard where the swallows still darting and swooping, clicking and whistling. They’ve come back home, Miss Amy say, looking up into warm May evening. I swear them is the very same birds that was here last year, Miss Amy say with authority in her voice.

Swallows persisted with their darting and making a swooping arc above the cemetery, in and out from under the far eave of the chapel into the ash trees and back again, building a home in England while Aelred struggled with his translations.

The bell for None brought Aelred back to the same Ashton Park. He made his way quickly from the cemetery to the novitiate to put down his books. The novices were shuffling from siesta along the corridor to choir. Aelred went via the library and the oak staircase. He had this fancy to check the portrait of the boy he called Jordan. Then he went to his position as acolyte of the choir near the holy water font. Aelred dipped his fingers into the holy water font and offered them to Benedict as he entered the choir. Benedict’s face was blank. He could not read any explanations for the questions he had crowding his mind. Last of all in the procession was Edward. Edward’s eyes met his for a second, then were lowered again as he entered the choir. The celebrant for the week intoned: ‘Deus in adutorium meum intende.’ The community responded: ‘Domine aduvandum me festina …’ ‘Lord, make haste to help me.’ Festina! Quickly.

The two novices, Aelred and Edward, were put to work at haymaking that afternoon. Aelred had wished to have Benedict near him, because, whatever the new rules Father Abbot and Father Justin were making for their relationship, he had to speak at least one more time. Aelred delayed his departure to the fields and lingered in the basement where the monks changed from their house shoes into their work boots. At first, the basement was busy with monks coming and going. Aelred pretended that his laces were in a knot and sat fiddling with them.

The last to leave was Edward. ‘I’ll see you in the fields,’ he said.

‘Yes. I won’t be long.’

‘We must get those climbing boots.’ Edward lingered by the door out into the courtyard.

‘Yes, maybe.’ Aelred did not look up.

As Edward closed the door behind him, Aelred caught a snatch of the tune he had heard that morning in the pantry. Edward was whistling it as he closed the door. The words came to him: ‘Love, love me do. You know I love you.’ When Aelred looked up Edward had left.

The basement was dark and cool and smelt of dirty socks and sweaty boots. A tap dripped into the basin in the corner. Where was Benedict?

Brother Theodore came down to the basement and changed into his boots. He smiled at Aelred. ‘Any new wild flowers, brother?’

Aelred looked up, pretending hard to be working on his knot. ‘There’s campion and speedwell in the hedgerows. I’ve got those.’

‘Yes, pink and blue. The speedwell runs under the white daisies and cow parsley. A river of blue. I checked with Father Christopher about the tropical plants book. He says it’s ordered. What’s it like in your country now?’

‘Rainy.’ Aelred thought for a moment, as if he doubted himself, and then said again, ‘Yes, it’s rainy season.’

‘Rainy. Well, we’ve got a lot of that stuff here. But we’re having quite a dry spell. We need it after that winter. Well, I’ll be off. And you keep your chin up, brother. You look a little glum this afternoon. Make hay while the sun shines.’ Brother Theodore chuckled as he fumbled with the door knob.

‘I’m fine,’ Aelred said, looking up and trying to smile. Brother Theodore’s remark brought a lump to his throat and tears into his eyes. When he was on his own again he found the tears pouring down his cheeks. He would call it homesickness - it was that kind of loss; but it was also all that had taken place, and most of all, it was that he was frustrated that he could not talk to Benedict. What was happening? This was not how he had imagined monastic life. He thought of Ted and what he felt at his funeral. It was his face which was not his. Then there was that smell of frangipani and asparagus fern. Ted’s head was on a white satin pillow.

He forgot that he was pretending to be untying a knot in the laces of his boot. He was staring at a stream of light coming through a crack in the door, which Brother Theodore had left open. It was filled with myriad specks of dust, floating aimlessly. He remembered staring through a microscope in chemistry class, back at Mount Saint Maur, at bacteria in a glass dish. A whole life he did not understand, formed and reformed. To the naked eye it was a smudge on the glass. This was why he was here: to sort out these mysteries. He sat absorbed, right there, on the old bench in the basement. It was a prayer, not a prayer, but prayer, he thought.

‘You’re still here.’ It was Benedict appearing quietly and suddenly. He was wearing his slippers.

‘Oh, I didn’t hear you. It’s this knot.’ Aelred kept his head down, almost believing that there was a knot to untie.

‘Let me see.’ Benedict’s voice, his care, made Aelred cry again.

‘No, it’s nothing.’ Aelred looked up.

‘What? You’re crying? What’s the matter? Let me look at it.’

‘Nothing’s the matter. There’s no knot. I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve got to speak to you.’ Aelred was sobbing now.

‘Hush. Someone may still come down, though I think most people have gone out to the fields already. We must take care.’

‘So, you’ve been told?’

‘Yes, this morning.’

‘I know. I saw you going into the Abbot’s room then Father Justin coming out. I saw the Abbot this morning. What’s happening? What do they know?’

Benedict could not resist wiping the tears away with his fingers. ‘Try and stop crying and then we can talk for a little while as I get my boots on. I’m late. We mustn’t walk down to the fields alone.’

‘Are we going to have to live like this all the time?’

‘We must show that there isn’t a special attachment between us. That’s what both Father Abbot and Father Justin are most concerned about, that we don’t show to others that there’s a special attraction between us. It’s as if they’ve accepted that there is. They would prefer that there wasn’t, but they realise that there is.’

‘And they think it must stop.’

‘We must be very particular. Our being together is going to be interpreted as being inappropriate, whatever our behaviour is like. So at least for a while we must stay apart.’

‘This is so hard. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to do this.’

‘You must. You must think of me. You must think of your vocation.’

‘What exactly do they know about us?’

‘I’m not sure. Father Justin may have heard more than we thought in the library. He may have been noticing us and wondering for some time. But coupled with this is the reading of Aelred of Rievaulx. That has alerted them to the quality of our relationship. I’ve not told them anything that we’ve done, anything that is rightly a matter for confession.’

‘I’ll have to talk to Basil. Only he will understand.’

‘I understand.’

‘Yes, but how will you help me now?’

‘I’m sorry. You must realise this is a great fear for superiors. It isn’t simple, what we’ve embarked on. Aelred of Rievaulx recognises these feelings, but he does insist that they become spiritual.’

‘He allows for holding hands.’

‘Yes, but we’ve done more than hold hands. We’ve kissed. He expressly speaks against the carnal kiss.’

‘Carnal - it sounds terrible.’

‘Come on, brother. I don’t think Father Justin will be allowing holding hands at recreation. We won’t see Father Abbot walking hand in hand with Brother Theodore or whoever. It’s not like that. You know that. It won’t happen. We mustn’t be naïve.’ Aelred began to see the funny side and he and Benedict began laughing and imagining possible couples among the community.

‘A farewell kiss?’ Aelred leant over and turned Benedict’s face to his and rested his lips gently on his.

Benedict smiled. ‘Au revoir. Look at me when you need encouragement. We can hold it in our eyes. But be careful. It’s going to be harder than you imagine. We must go.’

Benedict left first and Aelred followed a short while later. Near the bed with with the yellow roses Aelred saw Father Justin weeding. He felt policed. He felt guilty.

Aelred was working on his own, solitary against the hillside. His confusion drew him into himself. But he had spotted Edward lower down the field. He had been concerned earlier, because he had not seen him at all. He knew that they had both been put down for haymaking duty. He wondered what had happened to him. It might take him out of himself, and his thoughts about Benedict and their problem with Father Justin and Father Abbot, if he worked with Edward and talked about learning to rock climb. He had no intention of rock climbing, but it might be distracting just to talk about it. Maybe this was a way to get to know Edward. Things might run more smoothly between them. The secret of Benedict and himself was becoming an obsession. It seemed to grow louder and louder in his mind, so that he thought all the community must know something about it. Maybe all sorts of little things had been noticed and interpreted. He felt guilty as he went along, dragging the heavy bales and waiting for the tractor to come and collect them.

The monks elsewhere in the fields eventually broke from their haymaking to collect around the tractor to have tea, which Brother Crispin had brought out in a small urn on the back of the tractor with some of Brother Edwin’s fruit cake as a treat for their hard work. There was fresh milk from the dairy after the first milking.

Benedict was among them. Aelred worked out that he had been detailed to work in the barn, making room for the new hay. That would mean that they might not be able to talk to each other again this afternoon. But he might, in the new natural way they must now be careful about, while mixing with their other brothers, catch a moment to speak.

Such a moment came when Benedict was passing the cake around. ‘I wanted to say that I think you should try and meet up with Edward. He’s been talking to me about you and he wants to mend fences. He thinks there’s tension between you about silly things. Maybe some big things too, like changes in the church? Anyway, try and mix with him. It’s difficult being the new novice, as you ‘ll remember.’

Aelred had a lot of questions in his head but he decided to just go along with Benedict’s suggestion. They were interrupted by Brother Crispin who was collecting up the mugs. ‘We’ve got a lot of hay to be bringing in, brothers.’

As Benedict turned away to go back down to the barn in the farmyard, he said, ‘I must just have a quick word before we turn in this evening. I’ll be down at the barn. Try and come that way.’

‘Yes.’ Aelred tried to smile, to look normal about their communication. Yet it all seemed so furtive, so self-conscious.

Edward had been the last to join the group having tea. He had hung back from the others, who had been chatting about the hot weather and the quality of the hay. Now the good news was that they might have to stay out longer, past the time for Vespers, because rain was expected the next day: they could not risk the new hay being soaked. This meant that they would work late into the evening, beyond Compline. Aelred was pleased by this. He felt that it would be stressful having to be back with the novitiate and the normal routines of the day. It would be a kind of holiday, a dies non, staying out late.

The bell for Vespers had been rung a long time ago. Now the community must be at supper. Aelred was exhausted with pushing himself. Then out of the haze which now hung over the fields, Brother Crispin arrived on the tractor to take him out of his exhaustion and daze. Riding at the back of the tractor was Edward. They had come to collect him to go down to the farm to work in the barn. Aelred kept his eyes averted. Yes, he should talk to Edward, as Benedict suggested, he thought. But now he felt more at peace within himself and he didn’t want to disturb that.

At first Aelred thought that now he would be able to see Benedict, as he had suggested, before they turned in. But as they approached the farm, he saw Benedict walking up the hill to the abbey between the lime trees. He realised that he and Edward were relieving the monks who had been working all afternoon at the farm. They, he and Edward, were to take the last shift before darkness came and the last bales of hay were brought in before the rain. He suddenly realised that he would not be able to talk to Benedict. As soon as the tractor stopped, without thinking, he jumped off and literally ran up through the avenue of lime trees, calling, ‘Benedict, Benedict.’ He realised what it must have looked like to Brother Crispin and Edward, but he continued. Benedict stopped and looked around. Aelred was out of breath. ‘You said you wanted a quick word. And I’m to stay down in the barn.’

Benedict pulled Aelred off the path into the shade of the lime trees. ‘Brother, this is not a good start. In front of everyone. I wanted to say this more quietly with time, but I expect you’re right. You’d realise soon enough.’

‘Realise what?’

‘I didn’t know how to say it earlier. The reason I was late this afternoon coming down to the basement was that I was having to move my things. Father Abbot has moved me to the senior’s dormitory, given that I’m not far off my profession. He thinks it would be better. He is concerned that our relationship is not the best preparation for my final vows. You would have realised going to my cell and finding it empty.’

Aelred stood quietly looking out into the fields. ‘You would’ve let that happen? Let me go to your cell and find it empty? I see. I see.’ He turned and began walking back down to the farm.

‘Aelred,’ Benedict called. He met up with him. ‘I was going to stay up and look out for you. I thought I would do that. I’m sorry. It’s all got too much. I will find a way to meet you. Please, please take this as a sign that we need time apart. The Abbot is our superior. We must see in this God’s will. Go and see Basil. Talk to Basil.’

‘Yes, yes.’ Aelred let his hand brush against Benedict’s. ‘Yes, I will. I must get to the barn. They’ll be wondering what’s happened.’

The rain clouds were already purple on the horizon in the late summer sunset. There was a cool breeze whipping up the valley.

The barn was still warm. Aelred and Edward worked at stacking the bales, which the conveyor had dumped in a random way. At first they did not work according to any method, but struggled on their own.

Now that they were together, Aelred could not talk. Stacking the bales took the place of talking. Aelred meditated. He noticed that Edward followed him with his eyes, hiding them when he thought he would be noticed. They worked hard till they had stacked all the bales that were brought in that night. ‘Let’s meet tomorrow in the common room after classes. Benedict thinks we should have a talk.’

‘Yes, I’d like that.’ Edward seemed uncharacteristically shy. Then he said, ‘Everything OK? You seem miles away.’

‘I’m tired, I suppose.’

‘We must get those boots for rock climbing.’ Edward smiled, trying to lighten the mood. Aelred tried to smile. He was tired.

Afterwards, they walked separately, hooded, hands in the folds of their smocks, away from the farm. They walked in silence back to the abbey for supper. Then they went to the Abbot’s room to receive his blessing before bed.

In bed, anticipating the early call for Matins, Aelred hoped that a new day would change everything.

Aelred, the young Abbot of Rievaulx, woke earlier than the call for the vigils. He could feel the cold breath of the north in the woods about Rievaulx. The cold water of the River Rye flowed over the smooth rocks. Dark brown and green. Rust bled in the bubbling foam.

He knew that he had no choice in what he should do about the raging fire that had woken him in a dream. This was a fire within him, the embers dying in his hearth. A raging fire had filled not only his mind and the wild images that played there, not only his dreams to wake him with their terror and their seduction, but also his loins. His dreams were of Simon, the young monk, who amazed him with his tenderness and delicacy, whose beauty enraptured him and who had accepted him as a friend. Though frail, the young man was zealous for the monastic life, in fasting, vigils and the discipline. He had heard the sound of the lashes coming from his cell. He imagined the welts on his back. He was a young man whose beauty had attracted him the first day he saw him, when he had first come to Rievaulx, requesting admittance as a novice.

Aelred battled to hold this within his ideals of chastity, but the night woke him with the most sensual phantoms of this dear youth. They were phantoms he could not rid his mind of without the most extreme measures.

He saw the writing on his back, the welts, the blue veins.

He whipped himself. His monks heard and took example.

In the midst of his flagellation the images appeared.

The power of this seduction, the most beguiling of images, was Simon as the young boy Jesus at twelve when he was lost from his parents and found in the temple in Jerusalem. The boy was lost in the city. He ached with wanting to feed him fresh bread dipped in olive oil, to quench his thirst with red wine. He pined to prepare his bed with clean linens. He longed to take off his shoes, to wash and kiss his feet, to anoint them with fragrant perfumes. His longing held the boy Jesus, turning into Simon, naked in his warm bath scented with balsam. He wept with finding his lost one in the city. He hung upon his neck kisses, a necklace of red roses. He drank the blood-red wine that flowed from the roses on his ivory neck.

His dream was all feeling, a feeling to save the young Jesus from his lostness. When he held the boy in his arms, he turned into the delicate Simon whose mouth was as sweet as all the kisses in the Song of Songs, which tasted of pomegranates. His cheeks were dusty like plums. His breasts, where he put his hand under the coarse wool of his habit, soft, the nipples growing hard as nuts in his fingers. He heard the words of the Song of Solomon: ‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.’ In his dream, he kissed Simon’s lips with his full mouth and the kisses of the youth were from lips of scarlet, purple as the grapes from the vineyards on the hillsides of hot countries. He smelt of the fragrance and perfume of incense, a field of lilies, an acolyte of the choir, a server at the altar. His woollen habit flowed like a flock of sheep over a green hillside, the lace of his surplice frothing like the gush of water over the rocks of the River Rye.

He was a shepherd’s boy, a shepherd himself; the boy Jesus, the carpenter’s son from Nazareth with a cross as his staff.

He felt under the wool for his belly, a sheath in a heap of wheat.

He was one whose skin was as smooth as skin which is oiled to prevent it from the cracks of the heat. He took his hand to run into those hillsides growing crimson with the vines where the grapes are poured out. They ran where the henna flowers grew among the vines of Engedi. He pursued him with a passion as nervous as a young deer, with the agility of a gazelle. He ravished him on a bank of lilies by the pool of Heshbon, by a pool of milk. They lost themselves on the hillside where the shepherds’ flocks leave their tracks for the summit of Amana, the crests of Senir and Hermon, dangerous with lions and leopards. He hears his voice asking, ‘Tell me then, you whom my heart loves: where will you lead your flock to graze, where will you rest it at noon?’ In the wild, like vagabonds, they wandered. In the dream, they tumbled and coupled like young chestnut horses whose cheeks were as smooth as the cheeks of the horses that drew the Pharaoh’s chariot.

Then they were young men together again, best friends, with a love for each other, as Jonathan had for David.

The dangerous text which the Abbot had banned from the novitiate to protect his young monks had already possessed the deepest layers of their being. ‘Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that is uttered from the mouth of God.’