“Don’t you worry, sir,” said the receptionist. “He’s paid it himself.”
She said no more, but both understood that this was a first. And that it was touching. It lifted Filth’s desolate heart.
He drove for an hour before addressing Betty again. “You never know where help’s coming from, do you? Yes. You’re right. I’m ten years older than yesterday and I look it.” (“Fool,” he yelled at a nervous little Volkswagen. “Do you want to be killed, woman?”) No more gadding about for a while.
“But stop worrying. I’ll get home. I’m a bloody good driver.” The car gave a wobble.
He thought of the hotel which loomed now much larger in his consciousness than the Babs business (Babs had always been potty) and he understood the goldfish, the bears, the box of Scrabble in the wardrobe, the tape deck and the vast television set in the room. They were an attempt to dispel the sombre judicial atmosphere of the place’s past. The seams of the Judges’ Lodging had exuded crime, wickedness, evil, folly and pain. All had been tossed about in conversation each night over far too much port. Jocose, over-confident judges.
Well, they have to be. Judges live with shadows behind them.
There are very good men among them. Mind you, I’d never have put Fiscal-Smith among those, the horrible old hangerand-flogger.
“Seems we were wrong, Betty,” he said, turning the car unthinkingly Eastward in the direction of the Humber bridge.
And on it sped for three hours, when he had to stop for petrol and saw signs for Cambridge.
Cambridge?
Why Cambridge? He was making for the Midlands and home in the South-West. He must have missed his turning. He seemed to be on the way to London. This road was called the M11 and it was taking its pitiless way between the wide green fields of — where? Huntingdonshire? Rutland? — don’t know anything about any of them. Claire lives somewhere about down here. Hainault. Never been. Must have the address somewhere. Hadn’t intended to come. Hadn’t consciously intended to come. Had quite enough. Saffron Walden? Nice name. Why are you going to see Claire? You haven’t seen her since — well, since Ma Didds.
Betty knew her. Betty saw her. Why must I? Wasn’t Babs enough?
He drew out in front of a Hungarian demon. Its hoot died slowly away, as at length it passed him, spitting wrath as he swayed into the slow lane. Mile after mile. Mile after mile. Fear no bigger than a child’s hand squeezed at his ribcage. “If it’s a heart attack, get on with it,” commanded Filth.
But he drew off the motorway and dawdled into a lane. There were old red-brick walls and silent mansions and a church. A by-passed village, like a by-passed heart. Not a café. Not a shop. He’d perhaps go and sit in the church for a while. Here it stood.
The church appeared to be very well-kept. He pushed open an inner red-baize door. The church within echoed with insistent silence. There was the smell of incense and very highlyvarnished pews. A strange church. The sense of many centuries with a brash, almost aggressive overlay. You’d be kept on your toes here. Never had much idea of these things, thought Filth. Lists pinned up everywhere. All kinds of services. Meditations. The lamp is lit over the Blessed Sacrament. Vigils. Quiet is requested. An enormous Cross with an agonised Christ. That always upset Filth.
This terrible silence.
He sat in the south aisle and closed his eyes and when he opened them saw that winter sunshine had lit up a marble memorial to some great local family. It was immense, a giant wedding cake in black and pink and sepia. Like an old photograph. Like a sad cry.
Filth got up and peered closer. He touched some of the figures. They were babies. Dozens of babies. Well, cherubs, he supposed, carved among garlands of buds and flowers, nuts, leaves, insects, fat fruits. More marble babies caught at more garlands at the foot of the pyramid, all naked, and male of course. They were weeping. One piped its eye, whatever piping was. Their fat lips pouted with sorrow. They stood, however, on very sturdy legs with creases across the backs of their knees, and their bottoms shone. There was a notice saying that the memorial had three stars and was thought to have been designed by Gibbons.
Well, I don’t know about that, thought Filth. What would Gibbons be doing here? And he gave one of the bottoms a slap.
The air of the church came alive for a moment as the baize door opened and shut, and a curly boy came springing down the aisle. He wore a clerical collar and jeans. “Good afternoon,” he cried. “So sorry I’m rather late. You’re wanting me to hear your confession.”
“Confession?”
“Saturday afternoons. Confessions. St. Trebizond’s. Half a mo while I put my cassock on.”
He ran past the weeping pile and disappeared into a vestry, emerging at once struggling into a cassock. He hurried into something like a varnished sedan chair which stood beside the rood screen, and clicked shut its door. The silence resumed.
Filth at once turned and made to walk out of the church, clearing his throat with the judicial roar.
He looked back. The sedan chair watched him. There was a grille of little holes at waist level and he imagined the boy priest resting his head near it on the inside.
It would be rather discourteous just to leave the church.
Filth might go over and say, “Very low-church, I’m afraid. Not used to this particular practice though my wife was interested. .”
He walked back to the sedan chair, leaned down and said, “Hullo? Vicar?”
A crackling noise. Like eating potato crisps.
“Vicar? I beg your pardon?”
No reply. All was hermetically sealed within except for the grille. Really quite dangerous.
He creaked down to his knees to a hassock and put his face to the grille. Nothing happened. The boy must have fallen asleep.
“Excuse me, Vicar. I’m afraid I don’t go in for this. I have nothing to confess.”
“A very rash statement,” snarled a horrendous voice — there must be some amplifier.
Filth jumped as if he’d put his ear to an electric fence.
“How long, my son, since your last confession?”
“I’ve—” (his son!) “—I’ve never made a confession in my life. I’ve heard plenty. I’m a Q.C.”
There was a snuffling sound.
“But you are in some trouble?”
Filth bowed his head.
“Begin. Go on. ‘Father I have sinned.’ Don’t be afraid.”
Filth’s ragged old logical mind was not used to commands.
“I’m afraid I don’t at the moment feel sinful at all. I am more sinned against than sinning. I am able to think only of my dear dead wife. She was in the Telegraph this morning. Her obituary.” Then he thought: I am not telling the truth. “And I am unable to understand the strange games my loss of her play with my behaviour.”
Why tell this baby? Can’t be much over thirty. Well, same age as Christ, I suppose. If Christ were inside this box. . A great and astounding longing fell upon Filth, the longing of a poet, the deep perfect adoring longing of a lover of Christ. How did he come on to this? This medieval, well of course, very primitive, love of Christ you read about? Not my sort of thing at all.
“My son, were there any children of the marriage?”
“No. We didn’t seem to need any.”
“That’s never the full answer. I have to say that I saw you touching the anatomy of the cherubs on the Tytchley tomb.”
“You what?”
“Reveal all to me, my son. I can understand and help you.”