Aelred's Sin (12 page)

‘What do you feel? What does it make you feel?’ The older man had to take all his courage in his heart to say to the young novice that what he felt was a powerful feeling which was dangerous. ‘I’ll say it then. I love you. I’ve fallen in love with you, I think.’

Then, without thinking, Aelred blurted it out: ‘I don’t feel like that for you.’ Aelred turned and smiled in a cruel way. He looked about him and noticed that they were still alone. The other brothers had walked on ahead.

He didn’t understand why he was doing this, but only that, now that it had come to this, after all these months of his own imaginings, he couldn’t deal with the actual
knowledge of it. What could they do with this knowledge?

‘I’ll keep it in my heart,’ Benedict said. ‘I’ll keep it for both of us.’

Aelred did not reply.

They parted and rejoined the other monks, each choosing to talk to one of their other brothers. Eventually, they stopped near some lakes for their picnic lunch. Before they ate, Aelred and Benedict again found themselves alone while the other monks went for a dip in the lake. They sat under the copper beeches and Aelred noticed the veins under Benedict’s skin like the blue in marble, blood like Quink ink. They did not speak. They had all the time now on their
dies
non
but they did not speak. Aelred could not. He did not know what to do with this now new and certain knowledge.

Aelred got up and left and went to sit on a rock a bit further off. He turned and looked back at Benedict. Why couldn’t he tell him that he loved him? Is that what it was? Did he love him?

Benedict dropped his habit on some rocks near by and prepared to walk into the shallows of the lake. Just like that, after all the restrictions of monastic life, Aelred was now looking at Benedict’s body, almost naked, except for his black trunks. He looked at his white skin, the blue veins beneath his skin. He liked his body, the way it was formed: his arms and legs, his stomach and his chest, the dark hair against the white skin. He was trying not to look. But he saw his black hair curling around his navel. His skin was so white. Along his arms, where the muscles were on his legs the veins were a dark blue. He was so different from him, so different.

‘Why don’t you strip off and have a go?’ Benedict encouraged.

‘It’s too cold. It’ll be too cold.’ Aelred felt that he could not show
his
body.

‘Nonsense, see how hot it is in the sun. You’ll feel wonderful and tingling when you get out of the water. Come on.’

‘No, I don’t want to.’ Aelred put his arms into the sleeves of his habit.

‘OK.’ Benedict smiled, but looked disappointed. He walked towards the water. Then he was part of the light as he dived suddenly and swam out into the middle of the cold lake. How could his body stand such cold? Aelred thought.

Aelred sat and looked at him getting smaller and smaller.

‘Come for a dip,’ Benedict shouted from the middle of the lake.

‘It’s too cold. Too cold,’ Aelred called back. He sat and hugged himself.

Aelred felt wretched that he had rebuffed Benedict. Benedict had been brave enough to be open with him. He had not been open about the secret feelings which he had been having about Benedict over the last few months. Why? Why, when what he had desired was offered him, had he appeared to reject it, to feel now that he wanted to destroy it?

The Guest House:
28 September 1984

So now as darkness closes in…

This afternoon warmed up. The day had begun with wind and rain. The Bath stone darkened because of the wetness. The fields were filled with low-lying mist, though by Lauds, the herd of cows could be seen processing into the fields after early milking. Maybe I should offer my services. I’m getting out of practice. I need to be out and about on the estate.

Spoke to Krishna yesterday. The rainy season has caused flooding in the ravine, below Malgretoute, he said. Boy, when you coming back? he asked.

Soon man, I said.

He would hang on a bit longer, he said.

The farm and the park here are like an estate. They remind me in a way of Malgretoute. I know that J. M. saw the parallels. God, I find myself, at times, quite spontaneously, crying. It’s having to go over all of this. I could never take his leaving. There were things I couldn’t, wouldn’t admit.

I can see how one place is kind of fashioned on the other. The idea of the estate house is based on the great house. The original great house of Ashton Park is now the guest house up past the cemetery and the medieval chapel, near the lodge.

Later this afternoon, the light was golden as Benedict and I entered the orchard. It was russet-coloured. A word I didn’t know; early autumn, clearly there. The rows of
apple trees in the orchard, red brick walls of the garden, the grass of the fields, all picking up this last brilliance of the day. The distant copse seemed charged from within, electric. Yet with the growing chill, a softness floated and breathed over the surface of things. A bonfire in the market garden curled its smoke into the air, the smell of burning wood and grass reaching us where we stood. I’m writing with J. M.’s words. Aren’t I? He’s getting under my skin. He’s getting under my skin in many ways. All of this so new to me, only here for a few months. Of course, I know about England. We learnt its history, saw pictures, envied snow. England is a carol. ‘Earth stood as hard as iron, water like a stone.’ We sang carols from house to house on the estate, imagining it was cold.

Cold no arse, boy. We joked as kids. It was a colonial pretence.

I was called from my room to the phone. It was Miriam. She wanted to check how I was doing. She said either Joe or she would come and pick me up when I had decided when I wanted to come back to Bristol. She asked whether I was enjoying the changes in the season. It’s very special, the light, she said, at this time of the year. Then she said, By living the seasons, you’ll live his life.

It moved me, her interruption, just when I was writing this. Maybe I’m really getting in touch with J. M. She also asked whether I had found the slave boy’s grave. She had never seen it; hoped she would if she came down to collect me. Did I have enough jumpers? I could borrow something from Joe. They’re really being nice, really kind; don’t know how I’ll repay them. Maybe they’ll come out to see me in Les Deux Isles. I look forward to seeing them again at the flat in Bristol.

The fields beyond the orchard were a lucent green. The sheep as still as stones, only one or two moving, grazed imperceptibly. Benedict and I did a lot of standing and staring into the distance without speaking. This is calm, prosaic, but another vein is running here, filled with blood, an excitement of the spirit, something which had started the first night I arrived. The blue air of this afternoon, light like burning bushes, hips like electric bulbs: I feel it and see it and read it. Through him I feel it all. This is for J. M. I want to feel it. Feel him again.

I regret so much. So much I still don’t want to face.

Benedict and I talked, bundling raspberry canes for the bonfire. I’m beginning to see something of the attraction that Benedict had for J. M. Well, not quite, not the erotic attraction. Was it erotic? He has this way of listening and being there for you. So I begin to see my impulsive brother always wanting to be listened to and this kind man obliging but then always reminding him of the rules.

Joe asked me the other day when he called, Is he still attractive? I was embarrassed. I didn’t know what to say. If Miriam had asked me I might’ve been able to answer more easily.

Can you imagine your brother getting the hots for him? he asked.

I began to laugh. I’m on the phone near the Abbot’s room, I said.

Come on, Robert, loosen up. You have to try and see him how J. M. saw him.

I said I would try my best. It sounded weak. He’s an older man now, I laughed.

He sounds special, though, Joe said.

Joe pushes me. I’ve not seen men in that way.

Have you ever allowed yourself? Joe asked.

I have close friends, pardners. Like Krishna is a pardner. Some other fellas I play tennis with. You laugh and mess about when you have a few drinks in you. But there is an energy, a closeness. You wouldn’t dream of touching or holding hands. But you might put your arm on his shoulder, or even on occasion give a bear hug. But the other sounds like what I want to do with a woman. That’s a kind of softness which I don’t associate with men, a kind of tenderness. It’s not been physical. Once, I think, messing about. Well, we all did a bit, as boys, rub totee, as they say. But you grow out of that.

Funny how things come back. I saw them once. They must’ve been twelve, thirteen. I was seven or eight. I knelt and peeped. They were in the bathroom, the one out in the yard at Malgretoute behind Toinette’s room, a shower and an open latrine. There was that smell around there of the latrine and those wild white lilies which Mum got us to pick for the altar of Our Lady, and which always grew in the seepage behind the latrine. It was a sweet smell, a perfume, and then that faint smell of shit. I know that smell even today on the estate when I smell those lilies. But this moment has been lost to me for years. I knelt and peeped and listened. J. M. was kneeling in front of Ted. They had their merino jerseys on, but their shorts were curled around their ankles. J. M. was sucking Ted’s prick. I remember Ted’s face. He had perspiration above his lips and he was licking it with his tongue. He was looking straight at me. For a moment I thought he really saw me through the crack in the door. He was lost, his eyes soft and half closed, and he had J. M.’s head in his hands rubbing his hair. It was so quiet I hardly breathed.
My heart was thumping. I watched till Ted then knelt and sucked J. M. Then I was looking at J. M.’s bottom and Ted’s hands were holding his bottom and pulling J. M. towards him. His fingers were finding the crack of his arse. I was so scared. I got up easy, easy, backing away on my tiptoes. I must’ve made a noise, because I heard J.M. say in a loud urgent whisper, Someone’s there. I ran like hell across the yard and into the house. I remember I found it hard to look at J. M. for days after that. Then one day I said to him I would tell Mummy what I had seen if he didn’t let me ride his bike. Something silly like that.

Quite some time after, it just came out at table with all my sisters there. Celine put her hands over my mouth. J. M. blushed.

Mum put her hand on Dad’s arm, saying, It’s OK dear.

Chantal giggled. I was told to leave the table and not talk like that, otherwise I would have my mouth washed out. Later I saw J. M. on his own, pelting stones at nothing. He just kept bending down, picking up a stone and pelting it as hard as he could into the air where the garden fell away to a bank of orange trees. A train clanged along the line in the gully. In the heat, the perfume of the lilies rose in the hot air; perfume and the stench of the latrine. J. M. turned and saw me standing behind him, watching him. Then he continued throwing stones. I went and stood next to him and began pelting stones as well. We slowly began competing with each other. Of course, I couldn’t pelt as far as he did. Then he got me in a lock, clenching his arm around my neck.

No, no, I screamed, but he was playing. I realised he was playing.

There was something I didn’t understand. Of course, it got worse.

Benedict takes such an interest. I told him about J.M.’s return to Les Deux Isles, his research. He had become a serious academic, I said. I told Benedict how I had lost touch. We had not bridged the years.

I didn’t know him, didn’t know his life.

He and I had to go through the whole thing. I let him talk. I could see he was anxious and that he would be late for Vespers. Then he said that he would see me after Compline. He would get permission and then we could talk without interruption. He had some of J. M.’s letters he would show me. Too many painful moments to listen to, too much that’s awkward to find the words for, particularly as we hardly know each other. But he makes you feel as if you know him quite quickly. At least he didn’t ask about the worst of those moments. I’ve just begun to talk in detail with Joe about those. Even he is reticent. What’s a worst moment like?

I see his room now in the flat in Bristol the day Joe met me at the station. I had taken the tube into London from Heathrow and then the train from Paddington to Bristol.

I’ll meet you under the arrivals board, Joe had said when I phoned from the station.

The windows were open in the room. It was chilly.

You can stay in here if you like, but there’s another room. We’ve made the bed. We thought we wanted to leave J. M.’s room like it was.

The first thing I saw were the red notebooks with black spines on the shelf above his desk. They would become my daily reading.

Benedict suddenly asked about Ted, what I knew of that time. I nodded, that I knew. We both probably assume we have the same information. This time I think he understood. He understood that adolescent pain. His old and original sympathy which J. M. talks about came through remembering those young times, romantic times. But he couldn’t approve of the later life.

But, yes, he knew, of course he knew, what it was to love a man. He knew what it was to feel sexually attracted to a man, he said that. We were just nearing the basement where we changed our boots. I was amazed. It was strange for me to hear it coming from this old monk. Well, he isn’t young. It was also invigorating. I felt good about J. M. I felt that by saying it he was making it good. I’d felt that a bit when Joe talked, or, when Miriam talked about Joe. I moved between incomprehension, disgust, received ideas of sin and then this feeling that it was good. Then I felt sad. I regret so much. I wanted my brother back, the brother who left.

Benedict felt that God wanted it expressed differently, Aelred of Rievaulx’s way. Did I know his writing? I said I had the books in my room and I was looking at them. He felt the church was right, though at times harsh in how it advised. He tempered that official rejection, with an understanding for passion and growth. He felt that, yes, even physical passion could be a start on the way to spiritual passion. One must not hate what God has made. Ours is an incarnational religion.

‘“Glory be to God for dappled things…/ All things counter,”’ I said.

He smiled recognising that I had read J. M.’s journals and remembered them. You’re an attentive reader, he
said. He was so intuitive, your brother.

He asked again about J.M’s return to Les Deux Isles, his need to understand that atrocious and horrifying history. I said that things had changed. It was a different society.

Yes, what J. M. was affected by was true. There had been injustice. There was injustice. But he had not grown with it the way I had. He hadn’t been there for 1970.

And that secret history? I think Benedict meant Ted. Which makes me think he doesn’t know everything, or else he means a secret from others.

He was following Jordan, he said, laughing and smiling at J. M.’s imaginary friend.

So he knew about that too. What a tangle! What it must’ve been like living this through! You remember Jordan? I asked him. I think he did exist, I said. He looked sceptical. I could see that he had been impatient with J. M.’s fancies. After all, he was only nineteen going on twenty. There seemed to be a resignation in Benedict’s eyes. I’m not sure about what. I thought that somewhere he felt that J. M. had deserted him, but knew that he had had to leave him then. It had been years ago.

You’ll come back, won’t you? he asked. It’s good talking to you. As you look like him, the eyes.

Yes, I would come and stay for my secular retreat. I would come back. You’re not well, are you? Tell me. I want to know, I said.

You know how strong I am, he said.

I felt at that moment that he thought he was talking to Aelred. I knew how strong he always was. When he was younger. Are you ill? Or are you fasting again? I asked. I was being bold, divulging what I knew. Is the Abbot allowing you to fast? I can’t believe it. I think it’s so wrong.
It’s wicked. I felt myself getting angry, suddenly. Angry for those years, angry for what he denied my brother. I was surprised that I should feel this.

Who are you to be angry? You don’t believe. You don’t know. What do you know now? Look at what it has all come to. Benedict got angry.

Don’t say that. You mustn’t. Don’t ever. You know that that isn’t true. There’s no logic in that. That’s the most awful kind of avenging and revengeful God that you have, if you say so. Those aren’t your feelings, your true feelings. I went on. Then I was suddenly aware of a double-think in myself. These might be my feelings, couldn’t they? You were hurt. He hurt you. You’re still hurt. I’m sorry, I said.