Mercy Seat (8 page)

Smile, Jenny said when I finally reached her. She grinned, showing me what she meant.

How far do you want to go?

She looked over to where Christine was standing; she'd wandered out of earshot from us. I don't know, Jenny said. I think she's enjoying it.

We could go on to the village, I suggested. We could get some food. I wouldn't mind sitting down a while.

Is Michael getting heavy?

A bit, I lied. Really all I wanted was to get my thoughts together. Or did I want to see Christine's face again, as closely as I saw it when she reached out to touch me?

Let's do that then. We could show her the old church.

I hitched Michael higher, ready to carry on.

At the far side of the bay two dogs were rushing towards the breakers. A faint bark carried down on the wind. They tumbled heavily into each other and as they rolled apart their owner appeared out of the shadow of the cliffs.

Give Christine a call, I said. She's almost at the water.

I'll run and get her. You go on and we'll catch you up. She went round to my back and chattered for a moment with Michael before setting off. I turned once and saw
Jenny running quickly and lightly as a girl, almost skipping, and Christine, facing her now, unmoving at the sea's edge.

The village church stands at a crossroads behind the bay. Eastward the road runs away from the sands and on up the broad valley behind the beach. It's a modern road, built mainly for a caravan park set up between two sandy bays on drained flatlands. North and south it follows a much older route, linking all the coastal settlements for miles and focusing them on the church. To one side of the crossroads there's a general store which sells beach toys, newspapers, sandwiches and ice-creams. On the other side a few low cottages cluster round a stone footbridge spanning the brook. The clear, stony spate-stream, just a trickle by the end of summer, is all that's left of whatever Ice Age torrent once filled the valley. It's a peaceful place even when the caravan park gets busy in high season. There's no pub or cafe, and most of the tourists head for town, or for the bigger beach further north where the swimming is safer.

I bought some filled rolls and tins of Coke from the store and took everything over to a bench near the brook. I eased Michael's sling off my back but kept him sat in the harness, settling the whole structure against the arm and back-rest of the bench. He seemed happy with that.

There was no sign of Jenny and Christine so I wandered onto the stone bridge and watched an old man and a little boy fishing in the shade there. The ankle-deep water was very clear and smooth and every piece of gravel on the stream bed was bright as a gem under the currents. It must have been hopeless for fishing, but the old man was humouring the kid, pointing out where he should be
steering the bait. I followed the line of his finger and there was the worm, hanging in the flow. It looked bleached out but still had the strength to loop against the hook every so often.

Keep him tight in now, the man said. There was a wheeziness in his voice, and occasionally he would cough from deep in his lungs and his whole body would shake. It didn't seem to bother the boy though. He must have been used to it.

The boy tugged the rod and threadline back and ran the worm back down a fresh strip of gravel, this time closer in to the bank. It trundled over the stones until the line tightened and swung up against the current again.

Tight in. That's right, that's the boy. Get him in the shade there.

Is he in the shade now?

He's fine now. Keep him tight in. That's where you want him.

There wasn't any shade that I could see. Even right in at the banks there was no overhang, just one long bright strip of sand and pebbles and gravel under the sun.

Over the bridge, in the garden of one of the cottages, a slow-moving old woman had started hanging out her washing. Can you mind the banks if you have to fish there? she said, eyeing the boy suspiciously. They'll be washed away, see, if the grass gets loosened.

He's minding the bank all right, the old man answered. The boy glanced up at her, his mouth slack and innocent-looking. He shuffled his feet back an obedient few inches from the water's edge.

She finished hanging out the clothes. There were just two shirts and a bed sheet. Some things she left in the
basket. She stared at the boy's back for a while, then shuffled indoors.

The old man watched her go. Get him tight in again, that's the boy, he said, but you could tell his heart wasn't in it now.

Shall I try a spinner? the boy asked.

You could try a spinner. He nodded carefully, as if contemplating this, but his eyes were wandering away from the water now, taking in the sky, the garden opposite and finally me, on the bridge, looking down at them.

I like spinners better than worms.

Well then. Let's try a spinner, is it?

A finger tapped me on the shoulder and I turned.

Hello stranger, Christine said. The old man looked up again and for the first time the boy realised he was being watched and craned to face us too. I tried to think of some reply, but couldn't.

Any luck? Christine called down brightly to the boy.

No, no luck, the old guy answered for him. He nodded at us.

I had a bite but it might have been a stone, the boy piped.

We left them and sat with Jenny and Michael on the bench. Food's in the bag, I said. Just some rolls.

Jenny handed them out and we started eating. It was warm in the sun and easy to sit there without speaking, savouring the sunshine and the cool sea breeze.

I heard the old man say something about the tide, then the sound of the boy reeling in his line drifted up from near the bridge.

You could take Christine to see the church while I feed Michael, Jenny suggested. I was telling her about
the carvings on the way up from the beach. Among other things. She leaned forward and grinned at her sister. A cool smile ghosted onto Christine's lips, but her eyes were closed, lids angled to the sun like petals.

Don't you want to go yourself?

I don't mind. It's something for you to do while he's fed. She looked at me meaningfully, as if I was missing something.

I looked across at Christine again. Her eyes were open now but seemed unfocused, disinterested. The roll she was eating was less than half finished but she slipped it back into the carrier bag anyway and brushed a few crumbs off her jeans. She took a light sip from her can, then set it down on the bench and said she was ready.

Neither of us spoke on the way to the church, though when we got to the porch she asked me to wait while she read through a dog-eared booklet which gave some information about the building. When she was done I lifted the heavy black latch and we stepped in.

I found out about the carvings in the church not long after moving out to Pugh's farm. I'd walked along the cliffs one cool, lonesome Sunday afternoon and discovered the bay and then the church behind it. An old caretaker was inside, working on one of the iron radiators. When he saw me staring at the woodwork on the pulpit, he called me over to the choir stalls. If you like carvings, look at these now, he said, and pointed out a series of narrow ledges, half-seats set in the shadows of the backmost row. The stall, almost hidden behind the others, was clearly much older than the rest of the furniture in the place. The wood was smoother and darker and made on a smaller scale than the rows in front of it. Nearly a thousand years old,
he said, full of satisfaction. Saved from the abbey at Strata Florida, see.

The ledges were decorated with chunky, stylized carvings of people and animals. Take a good look, he said. Take your time, if you like that kind of thing. He went back to work on the radiator.

What are they? I asked.

Misericords, he answered over his shoulder. Mercy seats. They were made for the really old monks so they could rest their arses when the prayers went on too long.

Most of the carvings showed animal scenes – a fox preaching to geese; a monkey playing a cat through its tail like bagpipes; pigs tearing a wolf to pieces with bizarre, dagger-like fangs; a grinning dog parting a monk's habit with his huge head and jaws, clamping its teeth on his genitals. The farthest was shadowed in the corner of the stall and hard to make out: a fish arched over what looked like flames and a human figure beating an ape with a staff.

The church was one of the first places I took Jenny when we started seeing each other. She'd found it hilarious that my idea of a date was showing her such odd, grotesque things, and it became one of our few private jokes together. Part of me resented sharing it with Christine now, but I was excited, too, by a creeping sense of symmetry in it all. I'd had a powerful feeling of déjà vu as she crouched to examine the pictures, and I moved away from her and sat down in one of the pews to let the sensation pass. It seems odd to me now that I didn't confront her about the pellets of grit in Michael's sling. It was still on my mind, of course, and I half intended to bring it up when we were alone in there, but she hadn't harmed him as such, and she'd shown no sign of guilt or embarrassment, so I suppose I
didn't know how to begin. And I was curious more than angry. It was as if I couldn't ask her that question while there were other, much simpler but much more difficult, questions between us.

Why are the pictures so violent? she said, her voice muffled behind the stalls.

They're fables. All the animals are symbols for things.

Like what?

Devils and demons, priests, Jews, lust, Christ. All that kind of thing.

How do you know about all that?

I read up on them. They're from an old abbey about twenty miles away. But there are others all around the country. All around Europe, in fact.

Were they stolen?

Well, the abbey's just a ruin. Someone must have saved them. They were in another church for a few hundred years before they were moved here.

They're good, she said flatly, then stood up straight again and let her gaze wander round the whole church. They're so childish, in a way, she added. It's funny.

I waited, expecting her to carry on, but she just folded her arms and half leaned, half sat against the back of one of the pews.

I looked up at the modern stained glass windows: cheery, inoffensive pastels in abstract organic shapes. I felt Christine at my elbow, though I hadn't noticed her moving towards me.

Dad was always dragging us off to look at church windows, she said. Real ones though, not like these.

You and Jenny? I asked.

All of us, she said. It was his idea of a good day out.
Driving halfway across the country to gawk at some old glass. It used to drive Jennifer and my mother crazy, she added. It was the first time I'd ever heard anyone refer to Jenny by her full name, but Christine spoke so flatly it was impossible to guess at any feeling behind her words. Just for an instant my dream came back to me: their father's face at a high window, staring down at me, mouthing, becoming Christine. It was a face I'd only ever seen in a photograph, and then only briefly before Jenny shuffled it away again. He hated organised religion, she went on. It drove him wild, but he loved looking inside churches. He never told us why, or what we should like about them too. He was a complicated man. I feel like I'll never really understand him. Nobody did.

Did you like seeing them?

She smiled and shrugged.

I wanted to ask more about the family, but didn't know how to go about it without embarrassing us both.

Did Jennifer tell you that our father committed suicide?

In my surprise I almost laughed. It wasn't so much the idea of suicide as the idea of Jenny keeping it from me that seemed absurd. I had no idea what to say. In the end I said a simple no, but kept enough surprise in my voice to prompt more information.

What did she tell you?

Heart disease, I said, truthfully. She told me you'd nursed him for a while, at the end.

She sniffed. At the end, she repeated, then strode over to one of the windows and glared at it.

I cleared my throat. I remember the dry, false sound it made in the dead air. The last time I'd come here there was rotting fruit all over the windowsills, I remembered. It was
some weekday after Harvest Festival and the weather had turned hot and humid. Dozens of slow, droning wasps were weaving back and forth, shuttling from window to window as if carrying cargo. It had seemed almost dreamlike; the big, drowsy wasps and the yellow sun pouring onto them through the glass.

They killed him, really, she said. They hounded him into illness, then into his grave. All their lies. They didn't know anything, but they said they did. They tried to make me turn against him, like a Judas. There wasn't the slightest tremor of passion in her voice. It would have been less unnerving, less frightening, in fact, if there had been. It wasn't any of their business, his life, she went on in the same low, disengaged tone, and they killed him.

Who did? I said, knowing I was being obtuse, but wanting to respond in some way that would keep her talking. Jenny and her mother? The sound of a big vehicle driving by on the road outside filtered in through the stained glass. A tractor, I thought. The engine had the same throaty pitch and rhythm as the old Massey Ferguson on Pugh's farm.

These windowsills are filthy, she said at last. I want to go out now.

I didn't reply, but she turned anyway and waited for me to start back toward the door.

Jenny was sitting on the graveyard wall with her back to us. She was holding Michael upright and he was staring over her shoulder at Christine as she approached. Along the road I could see the boy and the old man wandering away from the bridge, trailing their fishing gear. The boy held the rod low and carelessly behind him and with each step the rod flexed a little and the tip kissed the road with a whispered tsk.

Jenny asked Christine if she'd liked the church and the carvings, explaining some of the things I'd already told her about them, but Christine didn't give any sign, she just let Jenny talk. It made me vaguely sad and irritable. I went through the wicket gate into the churchyard and sat on the warm stone wall, listening to Jenny carrying on her monologue to Christine. When she finished there was silence except for birdsong out of the cemetery, the wind in the tops of the yew trees, and the occasional distant screech of a gull. The fact that we were sat at a crossroads seemed to make the emptiness more desolate than peaceful. I found myself wondering how old the roads might be; the drovers' route into the hills and the coastal way running north and south past farmhouses dotted on headlands and empty shingle beaches. There were heat shimmers rippling off the road now where the man and the boy had disappeared. I thought of questioning Christine again, and wondered if a chance would come now before she left. What are you doing here? I wanted to say. What is it you want?