change me writing this. Write it to understand it: that was his method. I hear Miriam’s voice.
I eat his words.
He moves between there and here.
I stood on the tarmac of the airfield below the green mountains which changed to blue when I began to walk towards the steps up to the plane. When would I turn around and wave to my mother and father, brother and sisters, to Aunt Marie who had just given me a bound volume of the Old and New Testaments, and a bouquet of pink anthuriums wrapped in cellophane for Aunt Julie in England? They were so pink and looked unreal in the cellophane. Like plastic. I felt awkward carrying them, but I couldn’t refuse. When would I turn and wave? That was what important people like Princess Margaret or the Governor did when they got to the top of the steps before they entered the aircraft. I turn. There is Robert. Did I ever make things clear to him? Did I leave a burden on young shoulders ? The sun came out from behind the clouds and the mountains were green again.
‘My dear man, you can’t possibly expect me to unpack this boy’s case. But I will, because I will certainly not pay the overweight.’ My mother was in charge. She spoke to the black BO AC attendant. My father had his back to us at the check-in desk, at the window, looking out into the car park. He was smoking a cigarette. ‘ Jean Marc, it’s those boots and you have insisted on those books, darling. You can get books in England. There will be lots in the library of the abbey. Let’s take the books out. Leave the boots, otherwise your poor feet will freeze in that winter. Remember what Father Justin said in his letter. They are worried about you. I can’t send you without shoes, darling. And Mrs Salter was so kind to let you have Ted’s boots. Your friend. Open up this case, my dear man.’ My mother threw up her arms with impatience.
Ted’s mother had said I could have his boots for the trip to England. Ted. Poor Ted. And would I die too? We swam underwater till we got to the rock. ‘Come on out now,’ someone shouted. Our bodies shining in the afternoon sun. Ted died when he was seventeen. I was a bearer at his funeral. We went from school in a procession all along the promenade to the big church.
‘Bless me, father, for I have sinned. Father, will he go to hell ?’
‘Why, my son?’
‘The week before he died - died - we were playing in the pool and we … ’ When I looked into the coffin he looked as if he had been covered with white powder. He didn’t look like Ted. I had been dreaming of Ted. Poor Ted. I could see in the dim night light which shone from the dormitory ceiling, his boots, next to my desk. I woke to the other novices being knocked up, Benedicamus Domino, and their sleepy answers: Deo gratias. I was being allowed to lie in this first morning. Then falling asleep and waking again to bells. Matins… Domine labia mea aperies … and then I fell back to sleep. Thoughts and dreams.
I lay under four blankets and an electric blanket on rough cotton sheets, my head on a bolster with what seemed like a rock stone inside it. The cotton curtain of my cubicle cell moved in the cold draught I felt when I stuck out my hand, and then it moved again with the draught of passing novices in the corridor. I woke when the novices came back from Matins. Then I got up. It was dark like night. The water was as cold as ice. Thank God for Uncle André’s coat, thick and grey. It smelt of mothballs and cuscus grass, the little sachets which Aunt Marie had tucked into the sleeves and pockets preserving it from the penetration of moths after Uncle André’s death. ‘He loved you like a father would love a son; he would have wanted you to have had it.’ I had lain the coat right on top of all my blankets. Its coarse herringbone scratched my face, as did the rough feel of the jute blankets.
I hugged it around me now, far from home, that first morning after my first night in my monastic cell. I pushed my woollen-
I eat his words.
He moves between there and here.
I stood on the tarmac of the airfield below the green mountains which changed to blue when I began to walk towards the steps up to the plane. When would I turn around and wave to my mother and father, brother and sisters, to Aunt Marie who had just given me a bound volume of the Old and New Testaments, and a bouquet of pink anthuriums wrapped in cellophane for Aunt Julie in England? They were so pink and looked unreal in the cellophane. Like plastic. I felt awkward carrying them, but I couldn’t refuse. When would I turn and wave? That was what important people like Princess Margaret or the Governor did when they got to the top of the steps before they entered the aircraft. I turn. There is Robert. Did I ever make things clear to him? Did I leave a burden on young shoulders ? The sun came out from behind the clouds and the mountains were green again.
‘My dear man, you can’t possibly expect me to unpack this boy’s case. But I will, because I will certainly not pay the overweight.’ My mother was in charge. She spoke to the black BO AC attendant. My father had his back to us at the check-in desk, at the window, looking out into the car park. He was smoking a cigarette. ‘ Jean Marc, it’s those boots and you have insisted on those books, darling. You can get books in England. There will be lots in the library of the abbey. Let’s take the books out. Leave the boots, otherwise your poor feet will freeze in that winter. Remember what Father Justin said in his letter. They are worried about you. I can’t send you without shoes, darling. And Mrs Salter was so kind to let you have Ted’s boots. Your friend. Open up this case, my dear man.’ My mother threw up her arms with impatience.
Ted’s mother had said I could have his boots for the trip to England. Ted. Poor Ted. And would I die too? We swam underwater till we got to the rock. ‘Come on out now,’ someone shouted. Our bodies shining in the afternoon sun. Ted died when he was seventeen. I was a bearer at his funeral. We went from school in a procession all along the promenade to the big church.
‘Bless me, father, for I have sinned. Father, will he go to hell ?’
‘Why, my son?’
‘The week before he died - died - we were playing in the pool and we … ’ When I looked into the coffin he looked as if he had been covered with white powder. He didn’t look like Ted. I had been dreaming of Ted. Poor Ted. I could see in the dim night light which shone from the dormitory ceiling, his boots, next to my desk. I woke to the other novices being knocked up, Benedicamus Domino, and their sleepy answers: Deo gratias. I was being allowed to lie in this first morning. Then falling asleep and waking again to bells. Matins… Domine labia mea aperies … and then I fell back to sleep. Thoughts and dreams.
I lay under four blankets and an electric blanket on rough cotton sheets, my head on a bolster with what seemed like a rock stone inside it. The cotton curtain of my cubicle cell moved in the cold draught I felt when I stuck out my hand, and then it moved again with the draught of passing novices in the corridor. I woke when the novices came back from Matins. Then I got up. It was dark like night. The water was as cold as ice. Thank God for Uncle André’s coat, thick and grey. It smelt of mothballs and cuscus grass, the little sachets which Aunt Marie had tucked into the sleeves and pockets preserving it from the penetration of moths after Uncle André’s death. ‘He loved you like a father would love a son; he would have wanted you to have had it.’ I had lain the coat right on top of all my blankets. Its coarse herringbone scratched my face, as did the rough feel of the jute blankets.
I hugged it around me now, far from home, that first morning after my first night in my monastic cell. I pushed my woollen-
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