Blood Brotherhood (3 page)

As they waited in the heat, they were joined by a lean and hungry-looking figure which pedalled furiously up to the gate and dismounted from his cycle with almost military precision. Stewart Phipps shook hands briefly with the two of them, obviously recognizing the Bishop (who flirted with all the political parties, and occasionally contributed witty and paradoxical pieces to some of the same journals as the Reverend Phipps, though the editors never regarded his pieces as sufficiently committed, and only printed them on account of his mitre). This done, Stewart Phipps stood a little aside, eyeing Simeon P. from his sharp, hooded eyes, which proclaimed with anticipation: An American. He'll have to defend himself all right. What shall I get him on? Vietnam; CIA; Ronald Reagan; Greece; Watergate;
Hoover; Bay of Pigs . . .

He blinked in ecstasy as the list of topics on which any stray American could be arraigned stretched out to infinity in his mind's eye. The Bishop, watching him, read his thoughts all too accurately and shook his head: oh dear, a fanatic, an enthusiast, a Savonarola. What a pity that religion so often made people so intense, so unpleasantly
committed.
What bores they became!

Then the wooden gates of the Community of St Botolph's swung open and they entered into the walled enclosure.

• • •

The buildings of the St Botolph's Community were clustered towards one corner of the great immured area. They were heavy, neo-Romanesque, but not uninviting. They looked, at any rate, substantially built, and this pleased the Bishop of Peckham who, like Canon Chasuble, was particularly susceptible to draughts. The little irregular cluster included a chapel, a substantial barn, and a big central construction, irregular and with several wings. Here, doubtless, was where the brothers ate, slept, and meditated. There was an impressive walk of poplars between these buildings and the gate, and away to the side were lawns and flourishing gardens. Beyond them were the moors.

It was along this avenue of poplars that the clerical trio were now led. A middle-aged brother in brown robe and sandals had opened the gate, and once he had nodded a brisk greeting to them he had set off at a good pace, leaving them to follow as they might. Simeon Fleishman whispered a query to the Bishop about the type of tree, and received the answer: ‘Yorkshire pine!' Then the brother in front opened the door into the main building, which led them straight into the dining-hall — a high, impressive room, oak-beamed, high-windowed, and with some simple tapestries on the stone walls. It looked rather large for the current number of brothers, but clean, wholesome and pleasant. Heavy tables ran down about a third of it, laid with earthenware pottery and white napkins. The middle-aged brother,
like a well-routined civil servant, paused to let the visitors admire the effect for a few seconds, murmured ‘The Great Hall', and then nodded them in the direction of the far end. They had time to notice various small rooms, opening off from the hall through a sort of cloister, no doubt places where smaller groups could congregate conveniently. They, like the hall, were for the moment empty. Then they plunged into an ill-lit corridor and finally landed up outside another heavy door.

‘Father Anselm will see you at once,' said their guide, who opened the door and then scurried off down the corridor. The Bishop, who felt he might have been introduced more ceremoniously, pushed firmly at the door and went in first.

The man who met their eyes was in the act of getting up from behind a massive oak table which served him as a desk. Of other furniture in the room there was but one simple chair, though there were heavy cupboards along the walls. In a dark alcove, nearly hidden from the casual visitor but espied by the sharp eyes of the Bishop, there stood a telephone. The Bishop was not one to be over-impressed by what he regarded as the mummeries of monastic life. Father Anselm looked as if his natural inclination would be to acknowledge his visitors' arrival only by a grave inclination of the head, but the Bishop bustled forward, hand outstretched, and he submitted to shaking it with good grace. More reluctantly he allowed himself to be caught up in an enthusiastic commercial-traveller's handshake with the Reverend Fleishman. Stewart Phipps stood aside, watching, and to him Father Anselm inclined his head, and received in reply a brusque nod.

Father Anselm was undoubtedly impressive. He wore only the same simple robe as the other brother who had led them to him, but his appearance was altogether more arresting. Tall, bearded, erect, he looked out on to the world, or that part of it which came to him, with an invincible gravity. His blue eyes were searching, yet unfathomable:
he seemed to see, without offering anything of himself to be seen. His voice when he spoke was quiet, baritone rather than the expected bass, but strong and individual.

‘You are all most welcome,' he said, looking from one to the other as if registering through them how the world was progressing.

‘I'm sure we're going to find it a remarkably interesting experience being here,' said the Bishop (unaware how truly he spoke). ‘I presume our American friend here is not too well acquainted with communities of this sort.'

‘I hope we can provide a congenial atmosphere for your discussions,' said Father Anselm, half inclining his head towards Simeon Fleishman. ‘These symposia are valuable times for us, though infrequent.'

‘It sure is peaceful here,' said Fleishman, who seemed unable to get beyond that simple idea. Father Anselm bowed his distinguished head gravely, and no one saw his mouth twitch.

‘I gather some members of the Community will be joining us in our discussions, is that not so? We'll look forward to that,' said the Bishop. His manner was breezy, less intimidated than the others by Father Anselm's awesome presence.

‘Yes, one or two who have shown a special interest. I hope they will be able to bring a slightly different perspective from the other participants.' Father Anselm paused. ‘I trust you will forgive what you may regard as naïvety, even ignorance. We are, as you will understand, very cut off here at St Botolph's.'

As the Reverend Fleishman seemed again about to comment on the peace of the place, as if he'd expected something more like a railway terminal, the Bishop cut in with: ‘But of course you in this order are not entirely shut off from the world, are you?'

‘No, no,' said Father Anselm. ‘The brothers may, at certain hours on one day of the week, go outside. But few do. I myself take a newspaper to keep some contact with
the world around me, and anyone may borrow that. Few do. We are, you may say, closed by choice rather than by our vows. Hence, as I say, our views may seem to you naïve or ill-informed.' He paused and looked around them, and seemed to register that they were all, especially the Reverend Phipps, somewhat travel-stained. ‘But I forget, you will want to go to your rooms. Perhaps we may meet in the chapel for Evensong at five o'clock.'

He rang a little bell, and another brother, younger than the first, fair-haired and stern, came from an inner room and led the way out to the corridor again. As they left, Father Anselm again inclined his head, and no one seemed quite sure what to do in reply.

‘Goodness me,' said the Bishop, who had been more impressed by the interview than he liked to be by his fellow-churchmen. ‘There is something medieval about it, after all.'

• • •

Ernest Clayton was feeling moderately full of well-being: he had enjoyed his first sight of St Botolph's and its glorious position; he had enjoyed — for a rectory in Lincolnshire offers few opportunities for novelty and surprise — his meeting with Father Anselm; he had liked his simple cell-like room, with its narrow bed and two shelves, nothing more; he had enjoyed the singing of Evensong in the austere but elegant chapel. And now he was rather enjoying the little gathering that was to lead to the first meal in that splendid dining-hall.

True, Philip Lambton wouldn't have been the first choice to chat to as a general rule, with his fatuous cult of youth, which seemed more than ever foolish to the Reverend Clayton after his experience with the hitch-hiker that morning. Still, at least one knew to avoid him in future — unless, as sometimes happened at gatherings of churchmen, everyone else proved equally avoid-worthy. But surely this was not likely to prove the case this time? Father Anselm was clearly an interesting man, if he would come down off his
spiritual mountain; the Bishop of Peckham was (to put it no higher) a sprightly mind, and one met few enough of those these days; the Bishop of Mitabezi, even, offered the prospect of an interesting chat to one whose parents had been missionaries, and whose earliest memories were of scrubbed mission-houses in India and congregations in incongruous dark suits and pinafores. The Reverend Clayton clutched his glass, which contained a barley drink that was far from unpleasant, and might with luck turn out to be mildly alcoholic, and decided that he had a lot to be thankful for.

They were gathered in one of the smaller rooms, separated from the dining-hall only by a couple of archways: through them he could see the brothers congregating before their meal, some apparently chatting brightly to each other, others seemingly sunk in meditation. There were three brothers in the side room with the delegates to the symposium: one was Brother Dominic, the fair young man who had shown him and the other delegates to their rooms — polite but unforthcoming, with cold eyes; the second was the one who had met him at the gate, a nondescript man in his late thirties, weak-eyed and round-bellied; the third was very old indeed, and seemed more than a little unsure of what was going on. What could he contribute to a symposium on the role of the Church in the Modern World, the Reverend Clayton wondered?

He tore himself away from Philip Lambton, who had launched into an account of further plans to desecrate his church in the cause of adolescence, and turned to the young brother who was standing near, slightly apart, and quite self-contained.

‘Remarkably pleasant surroundings you have here,' he said.

‘We think so,' said Brother Dominic. Both lapsed into silence.

‘I suppose we are not really seeing them as they usually are, though,' said Ernest Clayton.

‘No, no,' said the young man, ‘things are very different as a rule.' He seemed to be holding something back — perhaps that he heartily wished them all gone. In which case, why was he participating in the symposium?

‘How do you spend the greater part of your day?' asked Clayton. ‘How do you divide it up?'

‘Most of it in prayer or work. But of course we also have the various observances, and we converse before meals.'

‘Are you quiet for most of the time, then?'

‘Yes, by choice. We have no definite rule, but we mostly prefer to keep our conversation for those times.'

‘A lonely life.'

‘Perhaps, from one point of view,' said the young man, who seemed prepared to give information, but remained non-committal whenever any expression of opinion seemed called for.

‘Why do people come here?'

‘Many reasons. As many reasons as we have brothers, perhaps. But we don't pry into each other's reasons. We would only talk about that if a brother desired to unburden himself.'

‘I see, yes,' said Ernest Clayton, finding the young man an oddly unsatisfying companion. Since he volunteered nothing further, Clayton was obliged to turn back to the clerical impresario of St Finian's.

• • •

‘I think you'll find,' said Simeon P. Fleishman, with a lumbering patience, ‘that every single decent American citizen found the Watergate business deeply disturbing. Deeply disturbing. I think I may say they were quite as shocked as you were over here in Europe.'

‘Poppycock!' spat out Stewart Phipps. ‘You all elected that crook with a record majority six months after the thing broke. I bet you voted for him yourself.'

‘I feel that every man's vote is a matter between . . .'

‘I thought so. The point about Watergate that you haven't understood yet is that it's not just the Nixon crew
who were implicated. It was every single American.'

‘I don't quite accept your premise there, Mr . . . er . . . Phitts, and I must say that every American I know is bored to death with the whole Watergate business by now.'

‘All right. Then take the CIA . . .'

With a sigh Simeon P. Fleishman prepared to take on himself the responsibility for having tried to poison Fidel Castro's cigars.

• • •

The two bishops were very genial together.

‘Been rabble-rousing in Geneva, I take it?' said he of Peckham.

‘I have been doing my bit, yes,' said he of Mitabezi.

‘Screwing money out of us for terrorists by making us feel guilty, I suppose?' said Peckham.

‘I rather think the Anglican delegation came feeling guilty already,' said Mitabezi, with a glint in his eye.

‘No doubt. Led by Dilchester, weren't they? No back-bone. No love of the fight. I shudder to think what the people who write to
The Times
will say.'

‘I wonder whether we don't pay too much attention to the people who write to
The Times,'
said Ernest Clayton, who had detached himself from his ecclesiastical Lew Grade and had joined the group.

‘What else can we do?' said the Bishop of Peckham, with a nod to acknowledge Clayton's existence and right to join the discussion. ‘They're the only people who still come to church.'

‘I wonder why we do so much worse than other countries,' said Ernest Clayton with a little bow in the direction of the Bishop of Mitabezi. ‘Our figures for regular worshippers are a positive embarrassment.'

‘Too many television channels,' said the Bishop of Peckham. ‘It's all a question of the amount of competition.'

‘The Americans do much better, and they have more,' Ernest Clayton pointed out.

‘We in Africa believe the English went lazy when they
lost their Empire,' said the Bishop of Mitabezi. ‘Perhaps that has had its effect on church attendance too.'