32

Ewan had retreated so deeply into his personal journey he suddenly came-to with a jolt. His pint of ale and plate of lunch were still untouched. The jolly throng of lunchtime customers must have come out behind him, but he’d heard no voices or footsteps. Breathing deeply, he rose to his feet, surprised to find that his headache had completely cleared. It was now late afternoon and he began a slow-footed drag back to Waldringhythe.

By the time he entered his house, dusk was closing in. Normally, when he returned to the sanctuary of home, his compulsion was to draw the curtains, light the lamps and stoke up the fire, but he had no desire to create a cosy comfort. He turned off his mobile phone, pulled the landline socket from the wall and slumped down into his rocker. But this time his misery was not an overhang of his grief, but another kind. Hours then passed in darkness, cocooned inside a time capsule of vacancy.

It was well after midnight when he threw on his cloak and left the house. He walked out into a light, hazy fog that blurred the moon and stars: a night atmosphere so endemic to coastal Suffolk as to be the norm for muggy nights in mid-April. His feet followed the same winding gravel path he’d used as a short cut for over forty years, but with a restricted field of vision, he was forced to take cautious steps. Emerging from a small copse of rhododendron, he came upon a wide lawn covered over with an ankle-high layer of mist resembling dry ice. Before him a row of strong floodlights illuminated the frontage of the Abbey, and its mediaeval magnificence loomed up as a mighty rock face. Ewan entered through the heavy oak door, and as he closed it carefully behind him, a loud creak from its ancient hinges bounced off the transepts. He walked slowly down the nave, breathing in the cold air, each footfall following him with a ghostly time-delay of echo.

The main body of the Abbey, compared to the ruined but more famous Abbeys of Tintern and Rievaulx, was of very modest size, and little of its original cruciform floor plan remained. Having been converted to a dwelling after the turbulence of the sixteenth-century abolitions, its original east-west divisions (that strictly segregated the monks and lay brothers) had been removed, but the Cistercians’ selfless display of worship remained, perfectly preserved due to the investment of The Historic Preservation Trust. Every stone and piece of plasterwork was conserved in its original pristine elegance: the moulded tracery arches, the elegant lancet windows and the hooped wonder of the flying buttresses.

He sat down in the choir stall, recalling the many years that this powerful place had been part of his life. His first frightening visit as a five-year-old, where the grown-ups he was coming to know, as friends and neighbours, took on a serious and somewhat bewildering transformation when carrying out their religious duties. They spoke with tongues, performed elaborate body movements and sang with loud responsive discords. But before long, he’d absorbed the knowledge that to be a Roman Catholic little boy was something special. Later, he’d carried out his own modest duties as an altar boy, and for the last twenty-six years had performed his own role-play as honoured custodian. He got up and picked a white lily from a vase. On the third finger of his left hand he wore a plain gold band as a sign of his devotion to the virgin, but he was devoted no longer. He moved to the altar, which was plainly adorned with only a single, heavy silver cross and two goblets. He removed the ring, slipped it over the flower’s stem, and laid it carefully on a white linen runner. Returning to the choir stall, he continued his journey.

December 1982

On the morning of ‘Embrace the Base,’ Ewan rose at 5.00 a.m. Never before had he had such an experience. To get up before dawn to go to a place where hundreds, perhaps thousands, were gathering with the sole purpose of protest. As he dressed, he was elated but apprehensive. All assurances were that the aims were of peace and sobriety, but with the possibility of dissenting factions losing control, violence might break out. But he was undeterred. Fanny had advised him not to wear his dog collar, so he wore blue jeans, Doc Martens and a fur-hooded anorak: clothes that were uniform to his generation, but he’d only recently bought as part of his transformation. ‘What you need to do is mix with the crowd and absorb the heartbeat of the movement,’ she said. ‘If they see you’re a priest, you’ll be treated with detached politeness, so turn up in mufti. Do the rounds and talk to people. Don’t be shy. They’re all there because they care, and they want to do something, no matter how small. Just try to enjoy yourself.’

He wound a scarf around his neck, slipped on his gloves and left the seminary.

A mini-bus decorated with a banner, ‘The Courier Supports Embrace the Base,’ sat beneath a street light. A ragged posse of reporters and photographers stood in a quiet group, sniffing from the cold and clearly disenchanted with the early start to their day. Fanny smiled with genuine pleasure when she saw him and introduced him. ‘This is Ewan, a friend of mine.’ They all nodded impersonally. She was the only female present, but clearly in authority as she outlined what she wanted from them.

‘The perimeter fence is a circuit of between twelve and fourteen miles, so I want proper coverage from right around the place and not just what Julie Christie’s wearing. I want interviews from those who are far away from the spotlight. Who are they? Why have they come? What action do they intend to take in the future? How will they vote at the next election? As for photographs, Jacob will, of course, lead the field. I want clear images of the young, the elderly and the tearful. I want you to point your long rangers inside the base and snap whoever’s looking back, but most especially I want armed soldiers, no matter how blurred. I want police presence, but I don’t want the laughing policeman dancing arm-in-arm with a punk LSE student. I want emotion.’

As the mini-bus set off, sleet was blasting and the interior quickly warmed up to a discomforting fug. Once out of London the conurbations of the suburbs gave way to long arterial roads, and as they neared the county of Berkshire, Ewan saw that every petrol station they passed was full of coaches. Large groups of women were seen talking or stretching their legs, and everyone was wrapped in warm, shapeless clothes. Anoraks, duffle coats, hooded raincoats and sheepskin jackets. Woolley hats, scarves and boots. Some wearing the dull khaki of the army surplus store, and some in the rainbow colours of thick, hippy hand-knits. Most carried bright ribbons, bedecking themselves with the unity of neo-suffragettes.

On approaching the main entrance of the Greenham Common army base, he drew in a short, hard breath of anticipation. The pitch black darkness glimmered with a hundred bobbing lights, and as they got nearer he saw they were hand lamps and torches carried by a throng of the protest women. Two of them at the front, the obvious leaders, moved forward holding a clipboard, and Fanny produced her press pass.

‘There’s an allocated space for your vehicle up on the right,’ one said. ‘You’ll see a notice board that says ‘Press and TV Only.’ Can you give us good coverage of the main gate and all the big noises? You know, the MPs and the actresses turning up for a photo call. But we need them, don’t we? There’s even an old suffragette in a wheel chair coming – Lady Olga someone – so can you try to get her featured? Do your best anyway.’

‘We’ll do more than our best,’ Fanny said. ‘I’ve been promised an interview with Tony Benn, and my editors are reserving space on the front page. I can’t see much police presence, though.’

‘There’s two coach loads of them parked up out of sight, plus a load of Black Marias and dog-handlers. They’re all just having a brew and relations are cordial. I can guarantee they won’t be needed, or if they are, it’ll be rent-a-mob and not us.’

The mini-bus parked on a stretch of grassless mud where fellow journalists and TV crews were setting up for the day. Professional nods were exchanged between opposing newspapers, and there was an atmosphere of nervous expectancy. When the soft light of dawn began to appear from behind the trees, the hidden scene before them was then gradually revealed. ‘Jesus!’ Fanny gasped.

The peace camp women were revealed as tired, unkempt and de-feminised, dressed in shapeless, mud-caked clothing. They stood as a large, morose group, holding banners and placards depicting CND slogans. One had sewn baby clothes all over her long shawl, one wore her wedding dress held with safety pins over a thick Aran sweater and another was wrapped in a vast Peruvian blanket. Two women were handcuffed together and displayed the sign ‘United’ on their hats. The perimeter fence was covered with bows of yellow ribbon, dolls, toys, white towelling nappies, photographs of the women’s children, bunches of chrysanthemums in varying stages of dying, symbolic pictures of spiders webs and snakes and posters showing the huge mushroom cloud of the Hiroshima bomb.

Protesters in their hundreds were swarming the area, stretching away into the far distance as a great marching army of turned backs, seeking to make claim to a space on the perimeter fence. Alongside them a slowly moving trail of cars, coaches and vans searched for parking, and tooted their horns as a sign of support. A group dressed as troubadours banged drums and played recorders, and a decanted coach load of female Oxford University students began to sing, ‘We will overcome.’ Another group of portly Women’s Institute types linked up their tweed-coated arms and marched their sensible winter boots up the road, giggling like teenagers. A feeling of enthralment grew in Ewan’s chest, and he was impatient to join in.

‘My day’s going to be one of hard work and constant interruption,’ Fanny said, ‘but I’ve got a job to do, and a job to do well. I won’t be able to spend much time with you, so why don’t you find the Pax Christi and Christian CND as a start-off point?’

‘I’m going off on my own,’ he replied. ‘No dog collar today. I’m just Ewan, peace-protester.’

‘Meet me back here at two o’clock sharp then, and not a second after. If you’re late we go without you, and that’s not a threat. My copy’s going to take hours to produce and we must hit the road before the exit scrum.’

Ewan walked off and almost immediately came across a group of nurses who were organizing themselves to collect for the local kidney dialysis unit. With noisy exuberance, they were jumping up and down on the spot, and as he passed them they called out to him and flirted. ‘Oh, my God, it’s a man on his own! Hi, gorgeous. We could do with an assistant.’ They surrounded him, laughing. ‘Will you carry a tin for us?’

He spent the morning with Olivia, an upper-crust, home-counties type, and Ceinwen, a gentle Welsh Girl. As they trailed and propositioned their captive donors, the girls talked without pause, telling him funny stories of their nursing experiences. An hysterical story, told with tears of mirth running down their faces. Ceinwen had helped to lay out a body, a procedure that required all orifices to be packed and plugged. But just as they’d finished, the ward sister rushed to tell them that the patient was an Orthodox Jew and was only to be touched by another Orthodox Jew, so they had to quickly pull everything out of him before the Rabbi arrived. Then the time that Olivia climbed through a window into the nurse’s home at midnight to find that she’d entered the bedroom of the snoring, hair-netted matron, sound asleep with her false teeth in a glass at her bedside. Would they have told him these stories if they’d known he was a priest? Would they even have asked him to walk with them?

In time the collecting tins became heavy and full, and as they’d travelled a couple of miles from the assembly point Ewan flagged down a passing police car. The nurses got in, giggling and cheeking the policemen. Before they parted he and the girls exchanged phone numbers, each of them promising to keep in touch, but he gave a false number. It was, after all, only a rare day off from his normal life. As the police car drove away they threw their heads and arms out of the windows to wave and blow him kisses.

Just before mid-day, a van circled, announcing from a public address system that it was time to link hands. After initial loud cheering there was a respectful silence and a unique feeling of comradeship. The crowd turned to face the fence, two perfect strangers extended their hands to Ewan and, with a feeling of pure joy, he flattened himself against the wire. The base was embraced. After a few quiet minutes the sound of singing flowed down the line. ‘We will overcome’ again, and he joined in with all the power he could muster.

After several minutes the line of hands gradually released, and they all began to embrace each other. The man next to Ewan fell on his knees and dropped his head in silent prayer. Ewan felt he should be doing the same, but the woman on his other side, who was crying openly, flung her arms around him. ‘Those that can do so much do nothing,’ she wailed, ‘and those that can do nothing do everything they can.’

It was coming home later in the mini-bus that the idea was first mooted. The senior photographer, Jacob Poznanski, was a middle-aged, heavy-featured man, whose English reflected the deep, guttural accent of Eastern Europe. From his jacket pocket he produced a flyer, handed to him by a group of American Jesuit priests. It was fronted with a classic painting of Christ on the cross, a solitary, hanging figure with no Madonnas, Magdalenes or large cast of attendant saints. Beneath the figure was a short text: Jesuits minister to those who are voiceless and those whose values are undermined by contemporary culture.

In the fading light, Jacob passed it to Fanny. ‘I was approached by the leader of Scarlet Gate,’ he said. ‘Her group are a devout Christian faction who want to use the crucifixion as a symbol of peace. She had a crazy idea that I should set up a photo shoot with a crucified woman hanging on a tree. You know. Symbolism. ‘She died to save us all.’ That sort of thing. What do you think?’

‘I think the sight of a rag-bag hanging on a tree would do nothing to capture the imagination of the unconvinced or do the cause much good.’

‘What about a Christie Brinkley type, then? Cover her in flimsy gauze with her long silky hair hanging down.’

‘You mean a long-limbed lovely? Far too Page Three. The women would love that. Not!’

‘No, not sexy. I mean ethereal. The innocence of the youthful maiden.’

‘Oh, yuck. You might as well stick up a Cicely Mary Barker fairy.’

‘Crap idea, then. I’ll forget it.’

‘Not entirely. I like the idea. The religious ethic passes me by, but I think it would work better with a man. I don’t mean beefcake. I can see a young, lean guy with good cheek bones. A sensitive depiction of the modern Christ would really underline the passive stance. Next week I’ve got eight pages of the Sunday Supplement to fill on Greenham, and I really need something mind-blowing for the front cover. It’ll be the last issue before Christmas, so perfect timing on the Christ front. Think you can give it a go? I’m sure I can rely on you to find a suitable boy.’

‘How long have I got?’

‘Next Wednesday lunchtime at the latest. In the meantime, I’ll have time to work on the editors. The Courier seems to be the official mouthpiece of the movement, and it would certainly cause some outrage from Tunbridge Wells. I’ll think they’ll buy it.’

Once back in London, the minibus parked at the rear of The Courier’s offices in Fleet Street. The tired group of reporters and photographers got out, wearily flapping their arms in an attempt to produce some adrenaline for the several hours of work they had before them. Fanny, who was clearly the most tired of all, turned and waved a spidery hand of fingers at Ewan. ‘Bye, Ewan. Keep in touch.’

He nodded. ‘Thank you, Fanny. It’s been a life-changing experience.’ She began to walk away, but with a rare bravado, he ran back to catch her up. ‘Stop, please. I don’t want to be overheard.’ She stopped. He diffidently hung his head and moved his feet around on the tarmac of the car park. ‘The photograph. The one you were talking about. The Crucifixion. Can I do it? I must be anonymous, so you’d have to hide my face in shadow or something, but I want to do it.’

‘You! Good God! Today has made a difference, hasn’t it?’

‘Today a woman grabbed me, and she said, “Those that can do so much do nothing, and those that can do nothing do everything they can.” When she said that, I realised that what she said was true. I can do something. Then, after my ordination and when the time’s right, I can confess my identity and get a platform for my mother’s vendetta.’

Fanny straightened up, seeming to forget her fatigue. ‘I’m getting fired up with this idea.’ She stepped back to look at him. ‘Take off your anorak and sweaters.’ Despite the cold, he did as she asked. She then turned him round and looked him up and down in the light of a street lamp. ‘I must admit you’re exactly what I had in mind.’ She called over to Jacob, and the photographer ambled over with his cameras and light meters slung over his shoulders. ‘Jacob. The Crucifixion photograph we talked about. Do you think Ewan might fit the bill? He’s actually a Catholic priest, so he could be bare chested and wear a dog collar. It would be a great take. I think he’d be perfect.’

‘My face must be hidden,’ Ewan said. ‘I’m to be ordained soon so I mustn’t be identified. My lip…’

‘Yes, I understand,’ said Jacob. He stepped back to view Ewan slowly from the front perspective. He moved forward, ran his hands over his shoulders, lifted an arm and held it up at full length to the side. ‘How tall are you?’

‘Six foot one.’

‘I think you are thirty inch waist, yes?

‘Yes.’

The photographer then stepped back to examine him again, as if he were viewing a painting. Just at that moment a squall of icy rain sent Ewan’s long hair in a wet sweep to the side of his face and he veered his head sharply to the side.

‘I agree, Fanny. He’s perfect.’ Jacob then reached into his jacket and handed Ewan a professional card. ‘Here is my studio address. Will you come on Tuesday morning on the dot of nine? Please do not wash your hair or shave again before then as I wish you to be seen as a suffering subject. And bring a dog collar.’

Travelling back to the seminary Ewan’s euphoria was so great he felt a type of terror, wondering if he seemed outwardly changed. As he entered through the front door, Father Ronald was crossing the hall.

‘Ah. Good evening, Ewan.’ Ewan waited, sweating, holding his breath, waiting to be asked where he’d been, why he was dressed so differently and why he looked so flushed. But just at that moment, Damien, a fellow seminarian, hurled himself noisily through the front door and dropped his rugby kit on the floor with a loud clunk.

‘Victory,’ he shouted. ‘42–11.’ Father Ronald raised a fist and became engaged in a lively, animated discussion of the game with the young sportsman. Ewan, having no part in the conversation, slipped away as invisible as he’d always been.