self-therapy. I could hide in the back row and stay as long as I pleased, communing with my mother, memorizing lines, escaping into Mary Crawford's character, without having to worry about meeting anyone I knew. I passed carriage lanterns and window boxes spilling creeper into the walk, strolled through a market where cheese, fish, and flowers were sold, and walked among people on foot, bicycle and open-top double-decker tour buses, toward the Anglican church whose spire towered over the town.
Beyond the church's enormous wood door carved with shields and symbols, the cool air soothed and the upward momentum of the vaulted ceiling effected the sort of transcendence I experienced hearing Sixby's stage voice. People moved, coming and going, kneeling, consulting guides, oblivious to the liturgy, oblivious to the rapture occurring inthe young woman staring at the ceiling. Walking over dead bodies under stone slabs, I slipped into an empty back pew and listened to the service in progress, seeking my favorite passages, but the sound was obscured by the time it reached the back of the enormous nave, competing with the white noise of air circulating through the mighty space.
Kneeling, I recited the funeral liturgy in my head, All we go down to the dust , but I was unable to concentrate. Chips of colored glass jumbled together in the tremendous windows and Latin proclamations littered side walls. A stone body lay atop a bier in the midst of the crowd, hands clasped in prayer. How odd that this enormous structure, across the ocean, older than time, smelled just like my neighborhood church, musty as any Baptist basement back home. Yet I was unable to feel my mother's presence in this place. And since it would be really bad manners to actually pray for Bets to get smashed and sleep through opening day, I rested my elbows on the seatback in front of me, sat my rear on the edge of my bench, and evaluated my neighbors' accessories, one pew forward. Would the church loan us their china? My Jane Austen frowned at me, and I returned to my knees. Focusing forward, a little shock brought me to attention. In spite of my great distance from the front of the church, I sensed a familiar face. My memory sought an association. Gloomy setting laced with romantic hope? St. James's Church. Behind the rail of the sanctuary stood my church man. The same man who'd walked into the orientation meeting with Randolph--but now dressed in white robes and the collar of a priest. Was this church an extension of Literature Live, my church man playing Edmund at this moment? I was confused momentarily between reality and theatre.
Who was this man?
He came forward to read the Gospel, still too far away tosee me. His reading voice sounded dignified and weighty, not dramatic like Sixby's. For just an instant, in the glare of the ancient words, the whole idea of Literature Live and enacting scenes seemed silly. My script lay abandoned on the pew while I tried to reconcile this priest with the guy lying on the pew in the dark church and the man with Randolph at orientation. The recessional hymn started and he slowly approached my row. He sang the hymn as he walked, but he looked preoccupied as he had looked in the dark church. The woman ahead of me lifted her bright red purse and he looked our way. Our eyes met for an instant.
∗ ∗ ∗
Time was running out to learn Bets's lines. I walked back by way of Newton Priors, hoping to find a secluded place to memorize lines. What I found was John Owen, the stair-jumping conservationist, holding court near an exterior window of the great house. Several students huddled to hear his urgent whisper, one of them trampling a lavender bed. Flourishing a pen-knife, John Owen plunged its tip into the undersurface of the window's sash where, to everyone's horror, it stuck. "What we have here, gentlemen," he whispered, "is paint failure."
One of the students shook his head.
"An open invitation to water," John Owen said, "and
Beyond the church's enormous wood door carved with shields and symbols, the cool air soothed and the upward momentum of the vaulted ceiling effected the sort of transcendence I experienced hearing Sixby's stage voice. People moved, coming and going, kneeling, consulting guides, oblivious to the liturgy, oblivious to the rapture occurring inthe young woman staring at the ceiling. Walking over dead bodies under stone slabs, I slipped into an empty back pew and listened to the service in progress, seeking my favorite passages, but the sound was obscured by the time it reached the back of the enormous nave, competing with the white noise of air circulating through the mighty space.
Kneeling, I recited the funeral liturgy in my head, All we go down to the dust , but I was unable to concentrate. Chips of colored glass jumbled together in the tremendous windows and Latin proclamations littered side walls. A stone body lay atop a bier in the midst of the crowd, hands clasped in prayer. How odd that this enormous structure, across the ocean, older than time, smelled just like my neighborhood church, musty as any Baptist basement back home. Yet I was unable to feel my mother's presence in this place. And since it would be really bad manners to actually pray for Bets to get smashed and sleep through opening day, I rested my elbows on the seatback in front of me, sat my rear on the edge of my bench, and evaluated my neighbors' accessories, one pew forward. Would the church loan us their china? My Jane Austen frowned at me, and I returned to my knees. Focusing forward, a little shock brought me to attention. In spite of my great distance from the front of the church, I sensed a familiar face. My memory sought an association. Gloomy setting laced with romantic hope? St. James's Church. Behind the rail of the sanctuary stood my church man. The same man who'd walked into the orientation meeting with Randolph--but now dressed in white robes and the collar of a priest. Was this church an extension of Literature Live, my church man playing Edmund at this moment? I was confused momentarily between reality and theatre.
Who was this man?
He came forward to read the Gospel, still too far away tosee me. His reading voice sounded dignified and weighty, not dramatic like Sixby's. For just an instant, in the glare of the ancient words, the whole idea of Literature Live and enacting scenes seemed silly. My script lay abandoned on the pew while I tried to reconcile this priest with the guy lying on the pew in the dark church and the man with Randolph at orientation. The recessional hymn started and he slowly approached my row. He sang the hymn as he walked, but he looked preoccupied as he had looked in the dark church. The woman ahead of me lifted her bright red purse and he looked our way. Our eyes met for an instant.
∗ ∗ ∗
Time was running out to learn Bets's lines. I walked back by way of Newton Priors, hoping to find a secluded place to memorize lines. What I found was John Owen, the stair-jumping conservationist, holding court near an exterior window of the great house. Several students huddled to hear his urgent whisper, one of them trampling a lavender bed. Flourishing a pen-knife, John Owen plunged its tip into the undersurface of the window's sash where, to everyone's horror, it stuck. "What we have here, gentlemen," he whispered, "is paint failure."
One of the students shook his head.
"An open invitation to water," John Owen said, "and
Similar Books
