Aelred's Sin (22 page)

The whole novitiate were particularly involved. Everyone went out after the Conventual Mass. They stayed out all morning. They broke to recite Sext, standing in two rows opposite each other. Benedict began the office,
‘Deus
in
adutorium
meum
intende.’
They all made the sign of the cross.

‘Domine
aduvandum
me
festina,’
the rest of the group responded. Then all bowed at, ‘
Gloria
Patri
et
Filio
and
Spiritui
Sancto,’
rising at, ‘
Secut
erat
in
principio
et
nunc
et
semper
et
in
saecula
saeculorum,
Amen.’
The monotone chant droned like the wasps and bees around the strawberries and raspberries.

Festina,
quickly. Aelred savoured that word,
festina.

Aelred remembered photographs of monks chanting the office like this when he used to pore over books on monastic life at Mount Saint Maur. He was fired by the
romanticism of it. Now he was actually doing it. Then they had a picnic lunch under the mulberry tree. After lunch they had a brief recreation. They went and lay in the field outside the walled garden just beyond the stream with the watercress beds for siesta. There would be a second shift to take them into the afternoon, after reciting None. Then if necessary, a third shift, finishing with the fall of darkness, before which they would recite a shortened form of Vespers. Aelred loved this time. It was a respite from the routine of monastic life - though he was still as enthusiastic about it as ever. It gave him an opportunity to be with Benedict with less tension. Not having to worry about Father Justin finding them, as in the library. He knew that they could not hold hands and kiss, but they could just talk. Stolen time. They could talk while sitting in the garden, as the nature of the work allowed for pairs to work closely at one patch for a while. The relaxation this afforded was exhilarating to Aelred.

He was always keener than Benedict to steal moments together when some of the other monks were busy elsewhere in the garden. Benedict wanted to include the other monks and not appear to be exclusive. He spent time with Edward, which made Aelred jealous. But it was also the temptation, the occasion of sin, that these moments could present, that sometimes deterred him from Aelred’s games. To have other monks near by was safe.

In their work smocks, their bodies seemed to be more exposed. The smell of the grass, the heat and the open air conspired to make these moments most difficult for Benedict. He admired more than ever the beauty of Aelred as his skin tanned to dark brown in the summer,
reminding him of when he had first arrived. His arms and cheeks were glowing with the blood of his exhilaration in moving quickly around the garden, collecting up the punnets which lay near the strawberry beds and raspberry canes, and carrying them in a wheelbarrow to Brother Stephen’s shed, where they had to be packed to be taken into the nearby market town.

Aelred knew that he was being admired. He turned and smiled.

They had found a sun catch at the top of the field behind a full-flowering hawthorn which was losing its bloom. Aelred wanted to talk. In his spontaneity, he touched Benedict on his arm. He held his hand, impetuous to make his point. Benedict restrained the boy, as he thought of him at these times, still enjoying his at least seeming innocence. He seemed to have no will to change, even though Benedict made it clear that they should be careful.

The summer’s exhilaration, the hot sunshine - these offered their own explanation.

They lay together where they could not easily be seen. ‘This is good. What are you afraid of? We’re just talking. No one else can see what we’re doing.’ Aelred was sliding his hand under the folds of Benedict’s smock and tickling his ribs.

‘But you’re still a novice. Anyway we must always be careful.’

‘Aelred of Rievaulx says it’s fine, to touch, to hold hands, to look at another monk, to admire his beauty, the shape of his body, the look in his eyes. These things are good. I’ve read about this. You gave me this to read.’ Aelred saw a question in Benedict’s eyes. ‘Why did you
give it to me to read then? To excite me and then to punish me? This desire is essentially good.’ Aelred broke out into a kind of tirade, but not really angry, just forceful. Gradually his tone became more cynical, when he remembered Father Justin’s voice.

Then Benedict could not help but flirt. ‘You look beautiful when you get angry.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense.’

Benedict smiled, not recognising Aelred’s mounting seriousness, and then lost himself, putting his arms around the boy, pulling him in with an embrace and holding up his head by lifting his chin from where it was buried against Aelred’s chest. He looked into his eyes, and, very slowly, brought his face close to his and kissed him on his mouth. His lips were cracked by the heat, dry with their hard work. They held each other, and then broke off, feeling suddenly exposed in the field the other side of the copse where Aelred had contrived that they could snatch the last half hour, before they would have to meet again in the walled garden to recite None under the mulberry tree.

‘You see, you go further than I would,’ Aelred said.

‘That’s why I must be careful, as I said in the library. You’re not aware of what you do? I notice it even with the other monks. You disturb some of the other monks. Even Edward. You must be careful. Careful with what you do with your hands, with your eyes.’

‘You sound like Brother Marcus. Do you know what he said to me the other day? He said I wore my habit like a girl. Can you imagine? What can you do with a sack? Can you imagine it?’

‘You’re being silly. You’ve got to take responsibility for what
you do, your effect on people. For instance, Edward …’

‘They must take responsibility too. What’s going on in Marcus’s mind? And what do you mean, even Edward?’

Benedict did not reply directly. Then he said, ‘We’re meant to avoid the occasion of sin.’

‘If you call it a sin, it becomes a sin. It’s rules and laws that make sins. That’s what St Paul says.’

‘You might find Aelred of Rievaulx sympathetic, but don’t quote Paul on the matter. There are other texts. And you must think of yourself and the preparation for your vows. We’re supposed to be chaste.’

‘We are chaste. I love you. That’s chaste.’ Aelred meant what he said. He knew that there was a difference in him, in the feelings which he had for Benedict, into which no guilt, or sense of sin had entered as it used to with Ted. He would gladly have gone further with Benedict because of his love, if Benedict had not all the time confronted him with his doubts. He could convince himself that this was not unchaste, that the vow of chastity was more to do with freeing oneself from a family to lead the contemplative life. What harm would there be if they went further? What would it feel like to go all the way with one you loved? Not like with Ted - only boys and clumsy.

‘But you must be aware of what you tempt me to do?’

‘I wish you would do it sometimes, like now, when we’re alone here. I wish you would do it. It sounds mad. I know it sounds as if I don’t know what I’m saying, but it doesn’t feel wrong. It doesn’t feel like a sin. It’s not like when I was made to feel it was a sin when I was a boy and a teenager with my friend Ted. It doesn’t feel like that. I don’t feel anything like sin when I’m with you. I feel good about what I want to do with your body. It just seems to
me to be an extension of our love - that it is our love - and I can’t see why I can’t do it. I don’t really agree with St Aelred. He talks so violently about hating his body. I feel good about my body. Though even he allows for holding hands.’ Aelred developed his theories as he reached for Benedict’s hand and pulled him closer.

‘But what about chastity? We take a vow of chastity.’

‘But that’s not the reason why you don’t want to. You wouldn’t think this was good if we were not in the monastery and were not taking the vow of chastity. That’s not why you think it’s wrong. You think it’s wrong because we’re men.’

‘I’m not sure. I’m not sure what I think. Part of me thinks it’s wrong, but I know I love you. I love you as a boy, as a man. I must admit that. I gave you Aelred of Rievaulx to read. It’s what I believe too. How can you say that I think it’s wrong because we’re men? Aelred of Rievaulx believed that we could transform the carnal into the spiritual. Yes, we can kiss, not on the lips; we can hold hands, but not the other. What does our chastity mean if we do the other?’

‘Then don’t be afraid. Love; love me. I won’t push you any further than you want to go. I want only to rest my head on your shoulder, to hold your hand, to be embraced when I feel sad, or hug you when I’m happy. It’s bad enough that I can’t do this when I want to. It’s enough to keep that within the rules. But when we can, why not? It’s good. Please, Benedict, kiss me once more before we join the others.’

The older man took the younger man into his embrace and kissed him on the mouth. ‘How do I resist you?’

‘Don’t.’

Benedict withheld his tongue. ‘No more.’ They turned towards the walled garden when they heard the bell announce None.

‘Listen, Father Justin says Father Abbot is banning Aelred of Rievaulx’s writings from the novitiate.’

‘What? Where did you hear that?

‘Father Justin, this morning at my weekly meeting.’

‘Why? What’s happened?’

‘I don’t know. He just says I shouldn’t read it now because it needs careful interpretation. We’ve just been interpreting it.’ Aelred laughed.

‘Don’t joke. What else did he say?’

‘He asked who had recommended Aelred of Rievaulx in the first place.’

‘And?’

‘Well, I said that you had.’

‘And?’

‘Then he said that I shouldn’t’ve been talking to you in the library the other day.’

‘Did he? Oh! I know. He had a kind of word with me about that. I didn’t want to worry you. He was quite cross really. It makes me wonder how long he was in the library before we noticed him. Or whether he entered the library, realised that we were in the alcove and then went back out again, embarrassed to catch us, as it were, and then re-entering when he heard us talking louder by the desk. He didn’t talk directly or fully. It’s Father Justin’s way to be irritable about something, not tell you, and it sounds as if it’s something else. He was complaining how much time I spent studying and reading existentialists and not getting on with the syllabus. I’m now sure it was this matter. You see, he wouldn’t want to talk about it. It’s
hard, isn’t it. He’s never questioned me at our weekly meetings about what I recommend to the novices. Have you returned the texts? He did say he wanted to see me specially. But he hasn’t called me.’

‘Yes, immediately, reluctantly. All the books I had are back.’

Aelred and Benedict had arrived at the watercress beds and were crossing the small rustic bridge in order to get back to the walled garden in time for the recitation of None. The rest of the novitiate had already formed themselves into two rows opposite each other beneath the mulberry tree. The hymn had already been intoned. They slipped into their places, taking their small breviaries from their pockets.

After None Brother Stephen detailed Aelred to work with Edward on the early soft fruit in the lower half of the garden. As they worked at their separate bushes, plucking and collecting them at once into the punnets, Aelred wondered what Benedict had meant earlier by saying that he disurbed other monks. Even Edward, he had said. He and Edward worked silently. Their discussion this morning had not been concluded. Aelred was still wondering what he had meant by noticing his darkness, calling him black, and mentioning coloureds in his town. Was he against black people? Did he think that he was and was that the reason he was hostile? He remembered that some of the hostility to Ted at school was because he was coloured, to use Edward’s word. Ted was mixed. This was the second time Edward had commented on the colour of his skin. He was aware of himself now, with his sleeves rolled up and his brown hands among the bushes.
There was Edward close to him. Their hands were almost meeting among the bushes. His strong arms moved, with the blue veins running beneath the skin. Where he bent his neck, Aelred could see the smooth white nape beneath his blond hair. When he looked up he saw his blue eyes. They were so different.

He knew Edward’s secret was rock climbing. He had observed him again just yesterday morning. He had arrived earlier. He noticed Edward arrive and undress himself. There was something audacious the way he stood in the open, pulling his smock over his head, getting out of his overalls and standing almost naked in the open, in his tight black shorts and white vest, running his hands through his blond hair and pulling the strands behind his ears. What did rock climbing mean to him? It frightened Aelred. Not only the possibility of falling, but the feeling of naked flesh against the hard rock, the body’s utter vulnerability. It was something daring, like attempting to fly - a kind of hubris. Scaling height Conquering vertigo. Falling, always that possibility. Free-falling! He picked the gooseberries assiduously and lost himself in this reverie among the hum and drone of bees and wasps in the heat. There were some hives just a way off whose bees worked the garden, among the flowers that Brother Stephen had planted with the spring onions, lettuce and celery. There was a wonderful sense of order about the beds and paths, but the random flowers gave a sense of wildness. Full-blown red poppies fell on to the small gravel paths between the beds. Honeysuckle climbed the trellises between the walled plums and apples. The top of the wall was a tangle of Russian vine. It reminded him of coralita back home, falling over the rusty galvanised fences.
Aelred felt proud that he was doing so well with the names of flowers.

As he continued to pick the early strawberries, Aelred tried to keep his mind on what he had been reading in Lectio Divina that morning. The writing was encouraging him to abandon himself to God, to mould his body into a place for God to dwell. His body was the temple of God. There seemed to be writings which emphasised a relationship with God which was lonely and another which included others, and included love of others, like Aelred of Rievaulx, who said, ‘To live without friendship was to live like a beast’. Aelred of Rievaulx had faced head-on the risks of this, but nevertheless advocated it. The writings which Father Justin advised sought for the most part to leave out others, or at least to have them not as real friends, more as acquaintances, to love them with detachment, not with passion. Aelred of Rievaulx seemed to want to work through passion.