Fiona McFarlane - The High Places - Stories

‘I see you’ve thought this through. Would you excuse me for a minute? I must consult a colleague.’

I let him go with regret. It had begun to grow cool in the room, if it’s possible here to have any sense of what cool truly is, and I fancied that this relief emanated in some way from Father Anthony. His pink skin suggested not clammy heat but the smooth, cool skin of a baby. I was content, sitting there in that office. My presentation had gone well. I was acting on my belief that Mabel should be free. It was good to talk to another man again. And, as if offended by this betrayal, Darwin — who was he, if not another man? — appeared at the window with the air of someone casually strolling by. He peered in.

‘It’s safe,’ I said in a loud whisper. Then I gave him the victory sign, at which he looked puzzled.

‘Where is he?’ asked Darwin.

‘Gone for help.’

‘Help for whom?’

Darwin ambled away from the window and out into the trees, but I could see the bright camel colour of his naturalist’s coat among the greenery; he hadn’t gone far. Sitting comfortably in that cooling office, I considered the ways in which Darwin had never been particularly helpful to me, despite the initial promise of his appearance. After all, to a man — a scientist, no less — who has recently lost his faith, the ghost of Darwin could be a rich resource. We might have sat and talked about God’s sovereignty, and then about its dissolution: a little of God vanishing into the dodo, a little into the long-lost ichthyosaurus. But he seems impatient when I raise these topics, and I’ve come to avoid them. I used to think of Charles Darwin in the same way some people think of Jesus Christ: he was a real man who existed in a specific historical time and he taught some valuable lessons, many of which I could adopt with no sense of contradiction. In short, I was a sensible man. I was no Creationist. I was reconciled with Darwin. I weighed it all up, and with the same clever hands I held something else entirely: that joyful faith of mine, impregnable.

I was once quite certain that God so loved the world. How sudden it was, on day 282: God’s absence upon my shoulders, like a heavy flightless bird that can still hop to a height. How sobering to pass from Dr William Birch, beloved of God, to Bill Birch, organism. Just to be there on my sticky cliff and feel this way for no specific reason — it was a kind of grief. And I saw Mabel differently after that. How could I help it? She has nothing to do with me. I can’t eat or reproduce with her. She’s without complication. I was sure of one thing, until I was no longer sure; now my conviction is that Mabel must be free. And not for her own sake, no; although I love her, I would have put her in a tank and watched her in it for the rest of her life, or mine. But now I think she should remain a mystery. There must be some things in the world that no one sees and no one knows. Some monsters.

I began to worry about Father Anthony. Why was he taking so long? I rang the silver bell and a girl appeared. She was about sixteen, neat and shy behind heavy hair, and I felt like a Bounty sailor encountering beauty for the first time. I thought of the one mutineer who had the date on which he first saw Tahiti tattooed on his quivering arm.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘Hello,’ she answered. She was solemn, and so was I. The heat had returned.

‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Faith,’ she said, and she was so allegorical, standing there, she may as well have been draped in white robes, placed on a plinth above a plaque that read ‘Faith’. I laughed, which startled her.

‘Is that really your name?’ I asked. ‘Or did Father Anthony ask you to come in here and tell me that?’

She was confused but pleased. I knew I wouldn’t touch her — I’m not so mad as to have touched her — but I wanted to. I want to. Oh, Tahiti! Was Darwin ever there? No, I don’t think so. He preferred dustier places, godforsaken places like the Galápagos, prehistoric with tortoises. This girl and girls like her would come to the beach with me and draw aside the net.

‘Do you like to swim, Faith?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ she answered.

Father Anthony entered the office, and behind him was Eric, the driver.

‘Faith!’ Father Anthony cried, as if overjoyed to see her, and he ushered her merrily out. She looked back at me very quickly, the way she might look over one shoulder while swimming. Where had she appeared from and where would she go now? Father Anthony went behind his desk but didn’t sit down. Eric leaned against the bookshelf.

‘Now, Bill,’ said Father Anthony. ‘You mentioned headaches. The brain is a very delicate thing, which you as a scientist would know very well. The brain and the mind — two different things, yes? Both very delicate. If we’re going to help you, I’d like you to do me a favour first.’

‘I already gave the lecture,’ I said. ‘You owe me a favour.’

Father Anthony laughed.

‘Very true, very true,’ he said. ‘You’re right. But perhaps you’d consider doing this favour anyway. For my sake. Let me just tell you what I have in mind. I’d like you to see a doctor about these headaches of yours. Symptoms that seem harmless enough in other places become much more serious on an island like ours. When I first arrived, I was reluctant to see doctors. I thought I could cope with all the discomforts. But things escalated until I was in the grip of a brain fever.’

‘You called it a spiritual crisis,’ I pointed out.

‘It was, Bill, it was,’ he said, smiling, pinker than ever. ‘I want you to travel back to town with Eric. There’s a doctor on the supply ship, and he’s willing to see you. It’s either today or you’ll have to wait another month. Why suffer needlessly?’

‘And the squid?’

‘You see the doctor,’ said Father Anthony, ‘and then we’ll worry about the squid.’

‘It has to be tomorrow,’ I said.

‘Tomorrow,’ nodded Father Anthony.

Of course he was transparent; a man like Father Anthony always is. He was perched on the edge of his desk, becalmed in his own solicitude, hoping I would submit without fuss to his will. So I did. I allowed myself to be ushered out, I allowed him to assure me that my supplies had been refrigerated, I allowed myself to be seated comfortably in the jeep. Father Anthony followed the jeep as Eric reversed it onto the road, he waved us off as if with a valedictory handkerchief, and I turned my head at the first corner to see him walking toward the school with his arms behind his back, his head lowered, as if in prayer.

Around that first corner I offered to pay Eric to stop the jeep.

‘No, no,’ he said, intent on the road.

‘Please, Eric. This is important. How can I make you understand?’

‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘I’ll lose my job. You know how hard it is to earn money here if you want to stay legal? I have a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Auckland and this is the only work there is. I’ll drive you into town. After that you do what you want, I don’t care, and if anyone finds out, it’s not because I’ve told them.’

We drove on. Soon afterward I noticed movement in the trees alongside the road. There was Darwin, running. I’ve never seen a man move so fast. He couldn’t quite keep up with the jeep, although he managed it for stretches of a minute or two and at times seemed to extend his right arm out to reach the car door. Perhaps he was trying to warn me of what I already knew. Faithful Darwin sped beside us, the wings of his coat flying out behind him, his feet a blur and his face a study of determined strength. We lost him shortly before town, when it was necessary to cross a river and he made the mistake of plunging into the water rather than waiting to follow us on the narrow bridge. I turned to look and saw him thrashing about with the incredulous fury of an Olympian who’s just lost the final.