Aelred's Sin (27 page)

See my poetry in the words my brother found from a distance; a long gaze.

Hay-making

… if you should find my Beloved,
what must you tell him …?
That I am sick with love.
Song of Songs

From the moment Aelred woke for Matins, all through Lectio Divina, his reading of the Song of Songs echoed in his mind. It disturbed him while he was doing the house chores, and when he found it difficult to settle down to study that morning after Prime. He avoided Edward in the dormitory. He was conscious of the meeting they had arranged for after classes later that morning. He turned his own glances away, and turned from those which might come from Edward - in choir, in the refectory, in the washroom. But images of him filled his thoughts and feelings and distracted him. There was a tug-of-war between the sadness and disappointment in what had happened with Benedict and these strong feelings for Edward now crowding his mind and body. He did not know how he would extricate himself from this obsession which was taking hold of him. He had not gone to the quarry this morning, though Edward had hinted that he should, and that he would lend him his boots and guide him on a low ascent from the ground. ‘Your feet are much larger than mine,’ Aelred had said bluntly as he passed the buttery where Edward was working during housework. ‘Let’s drop the idea.’ Edward had looked disappointed, cowed by Aelred’s apparent sharpness. ‘Come on.’

But Aelred had walked away, pulling on his hood and moving down the corridor close to the wall.

He kept his head lowered and his face hidden within his hood as he went about the novitiate. The curtains of Benedict’s cell were left drawn open. The mattress was rolled up on the bed. The desk and bookshelves were bare. The small windowsill where Benedict kept more books, the ones on existentialist philosophy, was dusty. Nothing which Benedict used was here. The cell needed to be swept out; maybe Aelred would be asked to do it. Maybe he would do it voluntarily: show his acquiescence in what he now felt was brutal, cruel. He felt angry and he wanted to cry. As always when he had those feelings, he felt homesick. The window was open and the breeze lifted the white cotton curtain. A wide band of light picked up the dust from the floor. It felt as if someone had died. The iron bed looked like a hospital bed, cleared after a body has been removed.

‘Looks like our Brother Benedict has moved on. I expect he’ll be taking his final vows soon. That’ll be a grand day.’ Brother Malachi put his head round the doorway and spoke softly to Aelred, who was standing drawing patterns in the dust on the desk.

‘I’ll miss him,’ Aelred found himself saying quite naturally to Brother Malachi, without turning to face him and still distractedly drawing patterns in the dust - then wondering at once what he might make of that. He hated this feeling of guilt, this feeling of being policed, spied on.

‘We’ll all miss him, brother. He is an exemplar, a real model for us novices.’

‘Yes, he is.’ Aelred felt that he could now legitimately praise Benedict. Brother Malachi obviously did not have any suspicions of hanky-panky - a word Father Justin had giggled out nervously and of which Aelred had to infer
the meaning. Aelred detested the word. His anger twisted it ironically in his mind. He enjoyed exchanging reminiscences with Malachi of Benedict as a caring, careful listener and helpful guardian angel.

The meeting in the common room between Aelred and Edward to discuss their theological differences was conducted as legitimately as possible in subdued tones. At first, they sat at the conference table and laid out their differences, which had been coming up at recreation and in the novitiate studies.

‘I suppose my passage from the kind of low church Anglicanism I was brought up with makes me theologically and liturgically conservative in my adoption of Roman Catholicism. So when I see the church that I’ve adopted taking on the customs of the church I’ve left, it disturbs me.’ Edward was speaking deliberately and carefully.

‘You mean things like the Latin Mass, communion under both kinds, bread and wine.’

‘Yes. I particularly want the old rites preserved. Of course, communion under both kinds is an old rite, so there are some things I agree with and would welcome.’

‘I suppose I’m just the opposite. Maybe it’s coming from Les Deux Isles, a missionary church, where the whole pastoral side of things is more important, so a vernacular Mass would really help people. I want things to be relevant. Mixed with that are popular devotions, which you don’t like, do you?’

‘That’s a matter of personal taste. Education I think. That’s fine on the missions - the question of relevance, the vernacular - even in parishes here, I suppose. I’ve no quarrel with that. But we’re monks, enclosed. We could
be the preserver of the old rites. We don’t have a primary responsibility to the laity, as the parishes and missions do.’

‘Both things can happen at once, can’t they? We could mix the new rites with the old. I suppose some priests might be allowed to say Latin Masses if they preferred. We’re being so reasonable now. I don’t know why these points have come between us at recreation and in novitiate studies. They’ve disturbed Benedict.’

‘Maybe they’re an excuse for something else.’

‘Something else? Like what?’

‘Come on, brother. You’re not unaware that we’ve found our differences difficult.’

‘Differences?’ Aelred was now feeling shy and nervous. Edward was being straightforward and putting aside his jokes and irony.

‘Well, I mean, look at us. I don’t know many people from abroad. It seems as if we speak another language.’

‘Yes. I didn’t think there would be problems like this. You know monastic life …’

‘We’re still human …’

‘Does it bother you, really, that I’m dark and might be black? I’m not saying that I am. But …’

‘I’ve never seen a black person in my home town of Shrewsbury. In Birmingham, yes. Plenty of coloureds there. Wolverhampton.’

‘Yes. I’ve read about that. What goes on is prejudice.’

‘I suppose, it’s difficult for people, though. A whole lot of people swamping their town.’

‘Swamping? Anyway, what’s that got to do with you and me?’

‘But, I mean, what was it like for you in Les Deux …?’

‘Les Deux Isles. It really irritates me that you never remember the name of the place.’

‘I’m sorry. They
are
little islands.’

‘Yes, but - anyway, yes, there’s prejudice. I had a really good friend who was coloured, as you call it.’

‘And?’

‘Well, he was discriminated against. I mean Les Deux Isles is not like Little Rock, Arkansas. You must remember there - you know, segregation and all that. Well, we mixed in school, and - you know, as I didn’t have black friends come home, my home. Well, there were exceptions and we didn’t think that was abnormal.’

‘But they did. You sound a bit unsure of it all.’

‘I suppose. We teased each other, you know - things like blackie cockroach. They would call us whitie cockroach.’

‘But there was slavery. The slave trade, the history of all that, the politics of it all.’

‘Yes, I studied that. That was a long time ago. That’s true. It’s very difficult - repercussions, I suppose. But me being dark - what’s that got to do with the slave trade? And anyway, it started here, didn’t it? In England. In Europe. Maybe even Ashton Park. Well, it didn’t start here, but Ashton Park was involved. Did you know it was connected, that the original house was built on the proceeds of the slave trade?

‘No, I didn’t. Is there something in the library?’

‘Yes …’

‘This gets to you doesn’t it?’

‘What? Yes - no, I mean.’

‘I mean between us. You’re different. The way you speak, use your hands. I don’t know.’

‘Well, this is what Benedict said we should do - air our
differences. We’ve been at this a while.’

The issues were bigger than they were. They were issues of faith and race, and Aelred heard in his head that Jordan voice, telling that Jordan story. It did get to him, as Edward put it. Edward was right. He did not know how to share with him his story of Jordan. He did not feel like going into that there and then. He just said, ‘You should take a good look at the portrait on the oak staircase.’

Edward looked quizzically and said, ‘Yes, I will. I’m interested.’

The time was creeping on to Sext. They might be able to grab some time at haymaking later.

Father Justin put his head round the door. ‘I think you two should think of bringing this conference to an end soon.’ Aelred became self-conscious but Edward started again, from another angle.

‘I know that it’s wrong to judge you, but I thought you rejected me for my views.’ Edward, beginning to find it difficult to cope with this meeting, spoke looking out on to the hillside below the cemetery.

‘Well, I did, in a way, but I feel it’s about more. I feel we affect each other, and - I don’t know.’ They were stumbling upon their feelings.

‘Yes, but you seem so strong and powerful, and with your relationship with Benedict, I felt that I wouldn’t count.’

‘What do you know of my relationship with Benedict? What relationship?’ Aelred looked for reactions in Edward’s face, the tell-tale signs. He had not spoken of it. Had Benedict to Edward? Did others notice? Were Father Justin and Father Abbot right? It was just what they were worried about. Was it that everyone knew, and there was a
terrible silence? ‘What do you mean, not count? What of my relationship with Benedict?’

‘You know. I expect I mean that I’m the junior, that everyone seems to have the same views and I’m the odd one out. And yes, of course we know about you and Benedict. When you are in a room together it’s different. I notice the difference. You make a difference when you enter a room. You both do. You do.’ Edward was getting unusually agitated.

‘But many of the senior monks think like you. They don’t want the changes coming with the Council. What do you mean, difference?’

‘There, you see I can hear it in your voice, dismissing me and my views. These things are as deep as matters of faith. I know I seem blasé. Rock climbing, joking, a little cynical maybe, but …’

‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean that as it sounds. I’m sorry.’ And Aelred reached out with his hand to touch Edward’s arm. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘No, don’t worry. But you see what I mean? That’s like you, touching me.’ His arm slipped down till their hands came together in a clasp and they stood looking at each other. ‘You see, this is what you do. I notice you. You don’t take responsibility for this. I see you with other monks. I don’t suppose you realise what you’re doing. Like your views - rash, impetuous.’

‘Responsibility? And you?’

There was a noticeable clatter of someone in the corridor outside the common room and Father Justin put his head round the door again and said, ‘I really think it must end here.’ Edward and Aelred almost jumped apart, or so it seemed to Aelred.

Aelred and Edward looked sheepish. Aelred raised his eyebrows. Inside he was furious. He was really beginning to resent Father Justin and his ways of ordering things. He did not say anything because he didn’t want to give a bad example to Edward. They both pulled on their hoods and returned to their cells.

When Aelred returned to his cell he was agitated. He had held Edward’s hand. He put his hand to his face and smelt his hand, sitting at his desk unable to concentrate on his study. They had said something without saying anything. What they talked about did not seem to be what the problem was about. They needed to talk again. The bell went for Sext and then there was lunch.

After lunch, Aelred went to the library to browse the shelves. As he came into the alcove where the art books were kept, he saw Edward. He was standing at the desk in the window that looked over into a small, walled ornamental garden with a statue of Our Lady in a grotto. Edward was poring over the large open pages of a book on sculpture. Aelred had not used this section of the library before. It was what he liked about siesta sometimes: browsing and finding new books. It was exciting, like the time he found the history of Ashton Park, which talked about the old house and how it had been built on the proceeds of the slave trade. This browsing was not positively encouraged by Father Justin, but it was tolerated to some extent.

Aelred looked over Edward’s shoulder. ‘What’re you reading?’

‘Oh,
Benedicite,
brother,’ Edward said solemnly but jokingly. Edward liked to be irreverent about some of the
monastic customs, and the rule of preceding conversation with ‘
Benedicite’
always seemed to amuse him, so he used it himself pointedly. ‘Rodin. I wanted to go to art school once. Chucked it in for the monastic life. I love drawing. But I like the old stuff. We had to look at books like these for A Level.’

‘I don’t know any of this.’

Edward turned the large pages and they both looked at photographs of Rodin’s sculpture. ‘He’s a very important and exceptional French sculptor. He worked a lot in marble. I like his bronze, too. Once, quite exceptionally really - my first visit abroad, we were taken to Paris by our art master. He was brilliant. We saw Rodin’s work: a whole museum of his work, in the Rodin House, with sculptures all over the garden.’