William Brodrick: The Sixth Lamentation

‘Motor neurone disease,’ said Cathy, sitting up.

‘Yes. How do you know?’

‘I read an article.’

Lucy sat on the edge of an armchair and shrugged. ‘It’s just ordinary life showing its colours.’ She didn’t want to talk about it any more, and said so.

Cathy thought for a moment and said, ‘I’ve a good idea.’ She left the room and came back with a pack of cards. ‘Let’s play Rummy’

‘I don’t know the rules.’

‘Any other game?’

‘No.’

Cathy pondered the scale of ignorance. ‘You must know Snap.’

They moved to the dining table and started laying down the cards, flip, flap, flip, flap, their concentration fixed on whatever turned up, waiting for a match.

‘Do you ever think about the past?’ asked Lucy Flip, flap.

‘Never.’

Flip, flap.

‘Why?’

Flip, flap.

‘It’s dead.’

Lucy paused, eyeing the Queen of Spades. ‘Do you really mean that?’

‘No.’

Flip, flap.

‘Then why…’

‘Because it’s already won.

Flip, flap, flip, flap.

Lucy threw her hand across the table and said, ‘I’ve changed my mind. Let’s have a meal… and a drink… what do you think?’

‘I’ll just put on a subtle, enhancing cream,’ said Cathy, reaching for a make-up bag. ‘You can help me think up a slogan to flog a critical illness insurance policy’

They had a good time talking about death and money parting in the knowledge it would be months before the phone next rang. Lucy went home clutching the envelope, thinking of her grandmother who seemed now to pervade each waking moment, each conversation. She climbed into bed with the distinctive loneliness that only arises between members of the same family Agnes was breaking away and there was no time to adjust. She had begun her departure and an awkward goodbye was under way She was like one of those rare desert plants, apparently lifeless but opening petals just before death under the heat of the sun. It was late, so late in the coming. Cathy was right. The past had won.

Lucy pressed the quilt into the folds of her body and pulled out a school notebook from the envelope. Grandpa Arthur’s old wall clock struck midnight.

Throughout the week following Larkwood’s four extraordinary visitors, Anselm lingered in the cloister after every Office on some unconvincing pretext, hoping the Prior would take him to one side — to confide or seek guidance. But he did not. On the sixth day the Prior informed the community of his decision at the usual morning Chapter, after the customary reading of an excerpt from The Rule.

‘As you know,’ he said, ‘I received a visit from the Papal Nuncio. It has been strongly suggested by Rome that I permit Schwermann to remain here while the police carry out their investigation.’ He glanced around the vaulted chamber. ‘Rome s suggestions are even more loaded than mine. The view I hold is that they wouldn’t take an interest unless it touched on wider implications — matters I may not fully appreciate. Accordingly I have decided he can stay’ With characteristic brevity he made the necessary appointments. ‘He will be housed in the Old Foundry. Security arrangements are in the hands of the police and the Home Office. Brother Wilfred will be the daily point of contact on all matters relating to Schwermann. Brother Edmund will handle all enquiries from the media. That’s it.

Anselm bridled. He had waited with the anticipation of certainty for his name to be mentioned. He thought, angrily: that’s it? I’m the lawyer… I know Milby… I speak bloody good French.

The Chapter moved swiftly on to deal with a dispute about the work rota.

Anselm continued to wrangle. Edmund? He doesn’t speak to anyone in the monastery, never mind the world… how can he handle an investigative journalist? Wilf? He’s timid to the point of paralysis…

The Chapter ended: the monks filed out to their cells for the time allotted to Lectio Divina; the Prior did the same; and Anselm stood in the cloister smarting at the rejection.

Over the next few weeks the lawyers came and the Press made their enquiries. Wilf apprehensively led the first group to the Old Foundry by the lake but never let his curiosity off the leash. Edmund gave interviews to the second lot but told them nothing of significance, not even about the monastic life. As a consequence, no one in the Priory or the outside world gleaned any information other than that which had already been released. In recognising this outcome, Anselm beheld the astuteness of his Prior.

Anselm only saw Schwermann once, while taking a walk by the lake after his afternoon session in the bottling plant. The elderly fugitive was sitting on a stool, painting. The brush flashed across the paper while he urbanely chatted to his personal protection officer. The weeks turned to months and still Schwermann did not leave. The investigation continued and the Prior became increasingly brittle. But he did not confide in Anselm about what the Priory should do if it transpired allowing Schwermann to stay had been a mistake. There were difficult issues to handle, involving Rome, the Home Office and the media. Anselm wanted to remonstrate. The Prior was deliberately wasting the skills he had to offer. Anselm’s mind teemed with exhortations from scripture and the Early Church Fathers (which he’d eventually read) to the effect that lights should not be put under bushels, talents shouldn’t be buried in fields, a monk should be given work suited to his powers and capabilities, and so on. However, Anselm was also obedient and said nothing to the Prior; and the Prior did what he knew was wise and said nothing to Anselm — until the day Anselm had a devastating encounter with a stranger by the lake; the day the fax came from Rome.

Grandpa Arthur’s old wall clock struck midnight. The German bullet had probably been a stray, but it came through an open window, tore past Grandpa Arthur’s head just as he took off his helmet and smashed into the central glass panel of the wall-mounted wooden clock. The pendulum swung out of the way and back again, as if nothing had happened. The dull clunk of the ticking continued softly, as before, while Captain Embleton lay shaking on the ground, wetting himself like a baby

Grandpa Arthur had always said there was a moral in there about Providence, but he didn’t know what it was. He brought the clock home with its missing panel and hole in the back and never let it wind down. It was a sort of companion, holding time to a measured tempo and giving assurance that troubled times always pass. It had only stopped once: the day after he died. That was when Lucy had burst into tears, and Agnes had simply said: ‘The pendulum’s stopped swinging.’ She never wound it up again.

When Lucy left home after the row with her parents, Agnes gave her the clock, saying, ‘Here’s an old friend. Wind him up every morning, like Arthur did.’ It had sprung to life at the first turn of the key It was as though Grandpa was nearby, out of sight.

Lucy smiled at the front cover of the school notebook. From old habit and the embedded obedience of a diligent pupil,

Agnes had carefully printed her name along the dotted line, ready for her work to be handed in and marked. The text was in pencil, with a crafted yet fluid hand, the kind that used to be taught by severe masters and perfected in detention. There were no corrections. The swift strokes imperceptibly became a voice, and Lucy could hear Agnes speaking to her in a way she never had before. She read without pausing to rest. Grandpa Arthur’s wall clock ticked and softly chimed the half-hours. The night traffic rolled on, like the distant moan of the sea. The pendulum swung and the tiny bells trembled, as if stirred. from sleep.