Joanne Harris - Sleep, Pale Sister

To save us both a little time, I took Henry’s wallet with me as I left: anyone could see that the poor fellow was in no condition to talk business that night.

A soft current bore me to a silent world of muted shapes and uncertain perspectives. The darkness was deepest emerald; but in the middle distance I could see figures, featureless, shapes without line or definition and, in the foreground, a face, grotesquely disproportionate, swimming like a bloated fish in and out of focus. For a moment it swam out of my field of vision and I tried to turn my head to follow it but found myself oddly prevented from doing so. I tried to recall the terror and urgency which had forced me to the safety of the sea-bed, but I was strangely serene, as if regarding events through a dark crystal. A shoal of foetuses paddled clumsily through a reef of green coral where a pale girl floated, her long white hair rising like seaweed into the murky grey of the undersea sky.

The face mooned into my field of vision once more, its mouth opening cavernously…syllables oddly distorted beneath the water burst like bubbles in my face in a series of shapeless sounds. In some way the sounds were meaningful, but I could not recall why. I drifted for a while, as the face receded once more. But the sounds persisted, and more and more I began to hear meaning in their persistence. The face, too, was somehow familiar; the keen eyes, sharp nose and small pointed beard. I had once known that face.

The mouth opened and I heard my name, spoken from a great distance.

‘Mr Chester. Mr Chester.’

For the first time since my retreat I saw the bookcases behind the face; the door, the open window with its velvet curtain, the painting on the wall…reality yawned in my face with pitiless clarity.

‘Mr Chester? Can you hear me?’ The voice was Dr Russell’s. I tried to answer, but found that my tongue lolled at the doctor with a gleeful life of its own and a sound came from my mouth, a gargling noise which appalled me.

‘Please, Mr Chester. Will you nod if you can hear me?’ I felt my neck jerk convulsively.

‘You’ve had a stroke, Mr Chester.’ His voice was too loud, too arch, as if he were addressing a deaf child: I noticed that his eyes steadfastly avoided mine.

‘You’ve been very ill, Mr Chester. We thought we might lose you.’

‘Haaa…’ The braying sound which was my voice startled me. ‘Haa…How long?’ That was better. I was still hardly able to control my clenched jaw, but I could at least form words. ‘How long…since…’

‘Three days, Mr Chester.’ I could feel his embarrassment, his impatience at my laboured attempt at speech. ‘The Reverend even gave you the Last Rites.’

‘Aaah…?’

‘Reverend Blakeborough, from Oxford. I sent word, to your brother William, there. He suggested that the Reverend should come.’ For the first time I noticed the unobtrusive little man with a mild childlike face seated in the corner of the room. As he caught my glance-he was not afraid to meet my eyes-Reverend Blakeborough smiled and stood up: I saw that he was a rather small man.

‘I took over the parish when your father died,’ he said gently. ‘I was very fond of Reverend Chester and I’m sure he would have wanted me to visit you, but until now I never knew where you lived.’

‘Ahh…I…’

‘Now, then, please don’t exhaust yourself,’ chided Reverend Blakeborough. ‘The doctor-and, of course, your good Mrs Gaunt-have told me everything. You really must rest now-killing yourself is no way to bring back your poor wife.’ He looked at me with a compassion which tore at me; I felt my mouth gaping in silent laughter and my right eye shedding tears-but for whom, I did not know. Reverend Blakeborough took a step forwards and put his arm gently around my shoulders. ‘The doctor feels you need a rest, Henry,’ he said kindly, ‘and I do agree with him. A change of scene, the country air would do you more good than to stay in this dreary place. So come with me to Oxford. You can stay at the vicarage with me and your housekeeper can come and look after you if you like. I can recommend an excellent doctor.’

He beamed at me. I could smell mint and tobacco on his breath and a comforting, familiar smell, like old books and turpentine, from his clothes…A sudden nostalgia overwhelmed me, a terrible longing to accept the innocent little priest’s invitation, to live in my old village again, to see the vicarage where I was born. Who knows, maybe the room with the blue-and-white china doorknob would still be unchanged, with my mother’s oak bed beneath the stained-glass window. I began to weep in earnest, with a shameless self-pity and a searing regret for the man I could have been.

It was too much for Dr Russell: from my frozen eye I saw him turn and quietly leave the room, his mouth warped with disgust and embarrassment…but the priest’s kindness was unflinching; he held me as I wept for myself, for Effie, for Marta and for my mother, for wakened memories best left sleeping, for the cold little ghostchild, for the red room, for the silk wrap, for Prissy Mahoney’s first Communion, for the Christmas tree, still glittering with fake icicles…and for the fact that I wanted to go to Oxford.

I wanted this little man’s kindness, the peace of his simple life, the sound of the birds in the cypresses, the college spires in the evening mist…More than anything I had ever wanted, I wanted those things; I wanted Reverend Blakeborough’s universal love. I wanted absolution.

I drooled and wept and, for the first time, someone who was not a whore held me in their arms and rocked me.

‘Then it’s settled,’ said Reverend Blakeborough.

‘N-no!’

‘Whyever not?’ The priest was bewildered. ‘Don’t you want to come home at last?’

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

‘Then why?’

I struggled to keep my words clear; my mouth felt as if it were filled with mud. ‘Have…to…confess,’ I said painfully.

‘Well, of course,’ said the priest cheerfully. ‘But we’ll wait until you’re feeling better, shall we? Surely it can wait.’

‘No! N-no…time,’ I said. ‘Ha-as to be…now. In case I…You…have to…know. I…couldn’t come home…with you…unless…’

‘I see.’ The little priest nodded. ‘Well, if it makes you feel better, of course I’ll take your confession. How long has it been?’

‘Tw-twenty years.’

‘Oh!’ Reverend Blakeborough looked momentarily startled, but soon regained his composure. ‘I see. Well…ah…Take your time.’

My story was long and laborious. Twice I stopped, too exhausted to continue, but the knowledge that I might never again find the courage to speak urged me on. When I had finished night was approaching, and Reverend Blakeborough had long since fallen silent. His round face was pale and shocked and when I ended my narrative he almost leaped from his chair. I heard him splashing in the bowl of water in the washstand behind me and when he came to face me again he was almost livid; his mouth was wry as if he had been sick and he could not meet my eyes. As for myself, I realized that my destructive impulse to confess had done nothing to alleviate my guilt; I carried it still, untouched and triumphant in the black shrine at my heart’s core.

The Eye of God was not deceived. I sensed its inescapable malice-I had not evaded God. Worse still, I had corrupted this innocent little man; I had betrayed his confidence in the essential goodness of the world and its inhabitants. Reverend Blakeborough could hardly bear to look at me and his self-assurance, the impulsive kindness was gone from his manner, to be replaced by a look of bewildered confusion and betrayal. He did not repeat his invitation and he left by the next train.