Lamb (3 page)

The boy nodded lest the sound he made would give it away. Brother Sebastian stood up and whistled the bathers back with two fingers.

Brother Sebastian, in plain clothes for the week-end, sat on a hard creaking chair outside the solicitor's office waiting his turn. It was a passageway rather than a waiting room. Some magazines, years out of date, lay around on the seats. Brother Sebastian leafed through them.
Woman, Home Beautiful, Boys' Own, The Economist.
He folded his arms and looked at the ceiling. Still the voices droned on from inside the office. He read the jokes page in
Boys' Own
and laughed to himself. He got up and went to the end of the passage and looked out of the window into the street of the small Ulster market town. He knew almost every face going in and out the shops, although now he had to struggle to remember some of the names. Women gossiped and a dog walked sideways across the street. The bus came in and bounced a tied pile of morning newspapers off the pavement. Brother Sebastian went back to his seat.

The office door opened and Maguire came out with an old lady. He showed her to the stairs and told her to be careful because the handrail was broken. He turned to Brother Sebastian and invited him into the office.

‘I never know whether to call you Brother Sebastian or Michael Lamb.'

‘I think Michael Lamb is best for business,' he said, smiling.

‘Righty-ho. What can I do for you, Michael?'

Maguire was young and immaculately dressed in contrast to his grubby office. He drove a brand new sports car and everybody said he was raking it in. Michael hesitated, cleared his throat and began.

‘I was wondering if there was any way to speed up this will business. I would like to know whether I owe people money or I'm going to get money.'

‘Righty-ho. Let's see now.' He went to a filing cabinet and took some papers out and plucked a silver biro from his inside pocket. As he worked he licked his bottom lip with a stiff tongue. ‘Well, you'll be glad to know, Michael, that you don't owe any money.'

‘Good,' said Michael. ‘Can you tell me how much there is?'

‘Not exactly, at the moment. But I would say it wouldn't be a kick on the arse off two thousand. If you'll excuse my French, Brother.'

‘And when is the earliest I can get it?'

‘Let me see now.' Maguire leaned back in his chair, drumming his biro on the papers. ‘About three months?'

‘Oh,' said Michael. ‘That's far too long.'

‘It's the way the law grinds, Brother.'

Michael sat, not knowing what to say next.

‘Did you want the money urgently? What for, might I ask?'

‘It's sort of personal.'

Maguire laughed again.

‘Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies. Eh?'

‘That's it.'

‘It's not a shady deal, is it?'

Michael was too slow in answering.

‘No,' he said.

‘I get the picture. I know more than you think, Michael.' He assumed the attitude of a conspirator, his face doing all but winking.

‘Righty-ho,' he said. ‘I can let you have something in advance. But be warned. I have to charge dearly for it. If I put my neck in a noose it'll cost you. Righty-ho?'

Michael moved to the edge of his seat and sighed with relief.

‘How much can you let me have?'

‘Eight hundred. It's all I have on the premises at the moment.' He went to a small steel safe in the corner and opened it with a key. He took out a brown envelope and handed it to Michael.

‘You may check it if you wish.'

Michael counted the ten-pound notes, wetting his finger. He had never seen so much money in his life. He felt a guilty elation as he reached the last one.

‘Let me have your signature. Here,' Maguire said. The silver biro felt like ice in his hand as he signed.

‘Remember that this is just between ourselves, Michael. I'm doing you a favour. Best to speak to no one about it. Righty-ho?'

Michael nodded and rose to go. Maguire leaned back in his chair expansively. He said,

‘I had a call from a Brother Benedict the other day.'

‘What?'

‘Yes, I thought that might interest you. But I said that I would prefer to see you first before discussing any business.'

‘Thank you very much, Mr Maguire. You did the right thing.'

‘Thank
you
, Michael. Any time I can be of assistance.'

They shook hands and Michael left, holding tightly on to his bulging envelope.

The tide had withdrawn almost completely, leaving the sand of the beach flat, except for where stones and other débris stood. Here the sand had been hollowed out on the seaward side in the shape of a plunging comet's tail. The same pattern had formed round washed-up jelly-fish, with their delicate lilac traceries of innards. The Atlantic roared continuously on to the rocks at the point.

At four o'clock the two Brothers in buttoned black soutanes moved across the beach. They had come from the Home, set like a fortress on the cliff above the point. They walked the hard flat sand, talking.

‘Obedience, Brother, is a very rare virtue,' said Brother Benedict. ‘Simple people have it – and it tends to go hand in hand with humility. Don't you agree?'

Brother Benedict had his hands behind his back, watching the sand directly in front of his feet. Outside, in the light, Sebastian thought he looked much older. He agreed with him about obedience and humility, while avoiding meeting his eye directly. Sebastian stared ahead but from the corner of his eye was aware of Benedict watching him. The older man always set the pace for their walk and Sebastian had, occasionally, to skip a few quick steps to keep up with him.

‘I once knew a young Brother who fancied himself as a calligrapher,' Benedict rolled the word off his tongue with obvious pleasure, ‘and one night he was writing a text with the word “obedience” in it. He had just begun the letter O when I called him, and he came to me immediately. Do you know, when I went into his room I saw that he had not even taken time to close the letter O.
That
is what I call obedience.'

Brother Benedict turned to him and smiled. He stopped walking and asked,

‘Do you believe that, Brother?'

Sebastian felt uncomfortable. He shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows.

‘Why shouldn't I?'

‘Yes, why shouldn't you?' Brother Benedict started walking again. ‘As I said, it is a virtue associated with simple people. You should not have so much difficulty with it.'

‘Oh but I do, Brother. It is most unnatural. When you can see it as the will of God it is easy. But sometimes . . . '

‘Yes?'

‘Sometimes it is difficult to see the will of God.'

‘Like Abraham?'

Sebastian nodded.

‘Abraham's problem,' said Benedict, ‘was that he saw the will of God
too
clearly. The way an Ulster Protestant would – and that frightens me.'

Sebastian held back, not wanting to get involved in the same old arguments again. Benedict avoided a jelly-fish, taking an extra long stride.

The sun was bright and the two men cast shadows which rippled along over the ribbed sand closer to the water's edge. Sebastian felt uncomfortable and knew that he was perspiring under his clerical black. The silence between them was awkward. Benedict reached the small flat arcs of the waves, hitched up the skirts of his soutane revealing a pair of blue flip-flops on his feet, and paddled in.

‘Aaaahhh,' he said. ‘'Tis as warm as tea.'

He stood, his back to Sebastian, facing out to sea. His legs were thin and white, disappearing into the black skirt of his soutane. When he spoke Brother Sebastian moved round to hear him better. Sebastian wore black socks and sandals and kept having to jump back from the incoming ripples. Brother Benedict said,

‘It's from
The Sayings of the Fathers
.'

‘What is?'

‘The story of the unclosed O. It didn't happen to me. Have you read the Fathers?'

‘No.'

‘Oh yes, I forgot. You don't read—English.'

Sebastian was making marks in the sand with the outside edge of his sandal. It raised fine furrows with a scuffing sound.

‘Do you read French?' called Benedict. ‘Brother Sebastian?'

‘You know I don't.'

‘A man with one language is like a man with one eye,' said Benedict seaward.

‘What?' said Sebastian, moving to one side to hear him. A wave covered his left foot and he hopped out of the water to keep his other foot dry. Brother Benedict turned and came out of the water.

‘They teach you young men nothing nowadays,' he said, dropping his soutane over his legs. ‘Too much useless psychology.'

He was a tall thin man with black circular horn-rimmed glasses long out of fashion. His face seemed carved to the bone. His white hair was tufted and short and all of it still there. One particular tuft sat up at the crown of his head like a cockatoo. When he turned quickly it trembled. He stood in his proper element breathing deeply, filling his lungs with the salt sea air and exhaling it harshly. When he had taken twenty of these breaths they walked back up the beach, Benedict's feet making clicking noises in his plastic sandals.

They went back to the Superior's room and Sebastian had to stand and listen while Benedict talked.

‘Can you swim, Brother Sebastian?'

‘Yes, I taught myself. Can you?'

‘Ah, self-taught?' Brother Benedict was drying his feet thoroughly, separating the toes like a hand of playing cards and carefully drying between each of them. ‘Myself, ankle-deep is all I'm fit for, thank God,' he said. ‘If I'm lost at sea I'll be spared the agonies of suffering. It was part of the Roman curriculum, you know. Reading, writing and swimming. I have tended to concentrate on the first two to the detriment of the third. In this matter I bow to your superiority.' He put both white feet on the carpet, not flat, but angled so that he could inspect them properly. Then he reached into a drawer of his desk and produced a large pair of scissors and began cutting his toenails.

‘But I must admit that the salt water – in small doses – is good for the whole system.'

A chip of nail ricocheted off the desk in Sebastian's direction.

‘I'm sorry about that,' said Benedict, ‘I should really borrow your secateurs for this job. The nails tend to get horny with age.' He looked up and smiled. ‘Like celibates.'

Sebastian said quickly, ‘You had something you wanted to discuss with me?'

Another fragment of nail winged past him.

‘Ah, yes. But there is plenty of time for that. Once you've got over this phase of yours,' said Benedict.

Sebastian watched him shake talcum powder between his toes, tapping the tin with one finger. He pulled on a pair of clean grey socks.

‘What I would like to know is how related this phase of yours is to your father's death, God rest his soul. I have just been reading Tacitus again,' he said, waving his hand towards the open book on the desk. ‘He says of his father-in-law “
Felix opportunitate mortis
”. Is this the case for you?'

Sebastian looked at him blankly. Benedict sighed.

‘It means “lucky or fortunate in the timeliness of his death”. Did your father die just as your doubts came to the surface or had you been waiting for him to die?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Then I suggest you think about it. I also suggest you try to spend some time considering the nature of obedience. And above all, Brother Sebastian, I urge you to spend some time on your knees in prayer for guidance on these matters. Discover what is tempting you. Tomorrow I will speak to you further.'

For the first time since the interview began Sebastian smiled. For tomorrow, he had different plans.

It was a beginning of a sort. How long it would last Michael was unsure. Nevertheless he felt that rising spirit in himself which he had felt before when he did not know what was over the brow of a hill but knew that it could not be all that bad.

He stood on the deck of the boat as it pulled away from the harbour, his elbows taking his weight on the wooden rail. The boat threshed through the soupy green water, skinning it with white wake. Seagulls with hard yellow eyes coasted alongside, not three feet from his head, not flying but gliding, occasionally shrugging their shoulders to keep pace. They seemed invisibly tied to the boat, towed by it, except when they cackled and screamed and dived into the wake to pick up scraps and clumsily take off again.

He reached down to the boy standing beside him, whose chin was just clear of the rail, and put his arm on his shoulder.

‘Can we afford any bread for these fellas? Eh, Owen?'

‘Yeah,' said Owen. Michael could see that he was loath to leave his place at the crowded rail in case it should not be there when he came back.

‘I'll get it. Don't worry,' said Michael. When they had boarded the boat Michael had decided to stay on the open deck just in case the boy should be sick. His bag was keeping their place on one of the wooden benches. He unzipped it and pulled out the clear-wrapped sandwiches. He peeled a triangle of bread from the top one and looked at it. He went back to the boy.

‘These birds'll not die from the butter they've spread on this,' he said. He tore a wedge off the bread and gave it to the boy.

‘Hold it up,' he said. ‘Higher.'

The boy stood on tiptoe, his arm extended towards the flying seagull. The bird seemed to look over his shoulder with contempt at the offering then sidled nearer. Michael put his arms round the boy's waist and held him up, he offering the boy, the boy offering the bread, the gull ignoring both.