Caroline Smailes - Like Bees to Honey

‘Is that bad?’ My fingers brushed his shoulder.

‘My heart is sick,’ he spoke and his shoulders began to quiver.

‘I don’t understand. What have I done?’ I feared the end of us. I remember that Matt turned to face me. We were squashed into a single bed, his student room, naked skin on skin.

I had known him for five days.

His fingers, his face, were covered in my scent.

I remember.

Matt stared into my eyes.

I remember the intensity, the strength, the drowning.

‘I have fallen for you. I feel lovesick.’

‘You mean you feel love?’ I questioned.

‘More than that.’

‘Lovesick?’

‘Lovesick,’ Matt smiled.

The lovesickness was mutual, but I never told him. Those words were his. The concept, the depth, the languishing in lovesick moods. They were claimed by Matt. He left me wishing that I could find the language to express the extreme emotion that he whipped within me.

My sacrifice showed him what my tongue could never curl.

I was naïve, perhaps dim. It was a tradition, a lesson, a belief, a thought that floated with my friends in Malta. There were rumours that if we went to the toilet immediately after or if we stood during sexual intercourse, then we would not find ourselves pregnant, it was our only control. I’d seen pregnant women, of course I had, but the connections that I made as a child didn’t quite fit. In Malta, we were told that babies were bought in shops or sometimes they came by boat. Pregnancy and sexual acts didn’t quite go together, somehow. A pregnant woman went on to buy a baby, not to deliver one, it made sense.

As girls, we were also taught, through generations, that a sexual act outside of marriage would pollute all those who came into contact with it, it would lead to catastrophe. I knew that.

Seven months after landing in England, I found out that I was pregnant. I never talked of having an abortion, my faith was strong, my love secure. Christopher was growing inside of me.

I was naïve, uneducated in such matters. Within my family, sexual consequences were never discussed, not fully, not in practical terms. Pregnancy was masked. My mother had told me that I had arrived by boat.

Matt and I decided to marry after the child was born, in love, not from duty.

We decided that I would stop my studies and we decided that Matt would continue his. We would live together officially; we would move in somewhere, rent a flat.

I was excited.

I loved Matt.

He thrilled my insides with words, with gestures, with his lovesickness. I wanted to grow old with him, happily.

And so, I telephoned my parents.

My father answered, he was so very thrilled to hear my voice.

And then, I told him that I was with child. I told him that I had a baby growing within me and that I understood the sexual facts of life. I told him that everything made sense now, that my coming to them on a boat must have been a lie. I even laughed, ha ha ha.

My father told me, ‘Inti di unur g al din il-familja. Minn issa, mhux se nqisek aktar b ala binti.’

~you are a disgrace to this family. From now on, you are no longer my daughter.

My mother refused to speak. I longed to hear her voice.

With my father’s Maltese words, something inside of me broke loose, not my heart, something else. I began to crumble. My sense of being, of worth, of belonging, of identity began to flake from me. And Matt tried to hold me, to stick me back together.

I married Matt when Christopher was eight months old.

I betrayed my Maltese name.

~four

‘And here we have Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, known to the Merseyside locals as Paddy’s Wigwam. This is said to be linked to the large Irish Catholic congregation and the building’s architecutural design, which draws on that of a Native North American wigwam…’

I first met Jesus in Liverpool.

There are two cathedrals in Liverpool. The Metropolitan Cathedral stands proud; it lives in harmony with Liverpool Cathedral. The two majestic beings face each other along a street that is called Hope.

When I first arrived, that street, that view, the two churches, made me feel safe. In Malta domes and steeples take over the skyline. On the corner of Hope, I felt closer to my island, to Malta, somehow.

When I first arrived here, I was living in student halls just off Hope Street. I could see Catholic faith from my window. I could attend mass, be thankful, continue to grow.

When I broke my promise, my mother’s heart, I refused to walk along that street called Hope, again. There were other routes, longer routes and I took them. I felt that to walk that street would be to play with my Lord, to tease, to laugh. I did not deserve to feel protected, safe, any more. It was my belief that in the insulting of my parents, my island, that I must also refuse that link with my Lord that connected my people.

I did not realise, then, that my Lord was vengeful.

At the end of Hope, tourists, visitors, students stand on grey pavement. They look up the stone steps to the concrete construction formed into a giant tepee of a Catholic cathedral. Tent poles stick out from the top, catching my Lord’s sunlight and my Lord’s tears.

When I first arrived, I approved of the cathedral, the construction. A giant tent, connecting, sheltering and yet crafted into a fine-looking thing. There was something about the vast space, the structure, the contrasts: uniqueness.

Three days ago I missed, I longed for my mother.

I thought of the tepee of the cathedral.

I did not understand the link.

Three days ago, before this journey began, I found myself on the corner of Hope Street, Liverpool. My Lord was weeping, again. It was raining, I had no umbrella, my hair was curling, frizzing into a nest.

I felt cold in my bones, shiver shiver, shiver shiver.

‘Welcome to Paddy’s Wigwam,’ I whispered.

Three days ago, I stepped out into the road, not checking for cars.

I thought of my Lord. I thought that if He was there, watching, listening, wanting, then He would do as He wished.

Three days ago, I did not care.

I had nothing.

I walked a.

~z – ig.

a.

~z – ag.

across the road.

Cars stopped, waited, beeped. Drivers moved their lips, cursing. I could not hear their words. Tourists gathered at the bottom of the grey steps. Some spilled from the shop, some stood very still, eyes fixed on the cathedral, mesmerised; others listened to a guide who spoke of architecture and history. I pushed through, I divided a tour of day-trippers, huddled under huge yellow umbrellas. I climbed the steps leading up to, down from, the overwhelming cathedral.

The doors opened, automatically, dramatically, sensing my movements on the welcoming mat. I walked in, demanding, needing.

I had been sitting, staring, searching the inside of the cathedral for some time. Father Sam knew me, he knew my grief, my rejection. He came to me, sat next to me, cupped my hands in his.

‘I’m being punished.’ I spoke in a hush, a respectful hush.

‘It doesn’t work like that.’ Father Sam spoke softly, carefully, his hands joined over mine. I remember seeing a blue ray reflecting over our hands. For a moment I dwelled on the light, on my Lord’s breath, on union.

‘I don’t trust your faith.’

‘Why Nina? Tell me,’ he asked.

‘I failed to keep a promise. I broke a promise to my parents, to my island.’

And then, suddenly, I was sobbing and as I started, it grew, increased, my weeping was uncontrollable.