Now I Know (20 page)

So what do I do? Make a bomb and blow the nasty people up? One bomb in a Cambridge street isn't world-shattering. But to my mind, one bomb in a Cambridge street means just the same as letting off all the nuclear bombs in the world and blowing us all to bits.

I don't just want to ban The Bomb. I want to ban all bombs, whatever, and all bombers, whoever, and all bombings, whyever. There have to be better ways of saying no and making changes.

Anyway, being a stranger away from home my mind is more fixed on my journey and on my destination than it is on this waiting room, even though the place is very beautiful and full of interesting things that help me pass the time without getting bored.

But for the bombers, I think, all there is is the waiting room. And if they can't run it the way they want to, they'd rather destroy it and themselves too. The only future they've got is here. And if they can't have it the way they want then nothing else matters.

For me, because I believe my future lies somewhere else, somewhere beyond the waiting room, I'm not so keen to cause chaos now or to blow myself up. Getting on with my journey, reaching my destination, depends on staying alive now and keeping myself fit for the rest of the journey. So I concentrate on that. I'd like to be comfortable, of course, and have a pleasant time, and get along with the other travellers. But I don't put all my store on that.

Death doesn't worry me. Not death itself. But suffering does, my own or anybody else's. Because suffering is an impediment. It gets in the way. All that stuff about it strengthening our character and refining our will, and teaching us that we're only human and must put our faith in God. No. Suffering is bad for us because it makes pain a substitute for thought. The way religious fanatics talk about suffering is the way people used to talk about bringing up children. Spare the rod and spoil the child. Beat the evil out of them. Make them fear punishment and then they'll learn to do good.

I don't believe in a God of fear. And I don't believe that we only learn that we're human by being made to suffer. If we can't think out for ourselves what we are, and if we can't make decisions about ourselves and the way we want to live and the way we want to die without being tortured into them, then we aren't worth anything. The people who put their faith in bombs, in killing and in violence, all belong to those inadequate people all down the ages who believed in fear and torture. They may not have begun that way, they may have begun by acting from the best of motives. But in the end, the only cause they truly believe in and live for is torture itself.

I expect that seems pretty simple-minded to you. Full of holes! But it helps me, because it tells me that whenever I'm faced with doing something, there'll probably be two ways of going about it. One that'll make things worse for somebody else and one that might help make them at least no worse off.

[
Pause. Clatter of metal utensils and indecipherable chatter.
]

Got to stop. Simmo's just come to change the bandages on my eyes. My daily squirm when I'm supposed to have my character refined and realize just how human I am.

Isn't it funny how pain is easier to bear if you can grip something with your hands. Because I can't I groan and moan instead, and feel foolish and ashamed afterwards for giving in like that. But Simmo is terrific. All the time I'm moaning she says, ‘Go on, let it out, have a good yell!' And that helps.

†

NIK'S LETTERS:

Dear Julie
: 9.50 p.m. The end of my first day as a Spy in a Foreign Land.

I'm in my cell. I'm bushed. What a day! But don't want to go to bed yet. Brain too busy sawing wood. Writing to you might calm me down.

I hate not being able to see you. Couldn't, I guess, even if I was at home because of the distance. Damn distance. Damn money that makes distance no problem. And, also, I feel a bit locked up here. Not that I am. Just the way I feel.

When I phoned the hospital this evening, they said you're improving. You had a comfortable night last night, and are ‘as comfortable as can be expected'. Did you know that? I hate the coolspeak of hospital people. They wouldn't let me talk to the ward. Too busy, they said. Huh!

I think of you all the time. You'll laugh when I tell you I even prayed for you tonight. Must be the religious atmosphere. Well, not prayed exactly. The monks included your name in the list of people they prayed for after Compline. (I always thought Compline was that milk powder stuff they give geriatrics who can't eat proper food. Maybe it's spelt differently?) Anyway, the last office of the day. (I'm picking up the jargon, you see.)

I admit I asked them to add your name to the prayer list, and I did say it to myself when they read it out, and willed you to get well. That's nearly praying, isn't it? But not quite. My idea about prayers is that they have to be addressed to someone—to a God—before they're really prayers. And I wasn't addressing anybody. No, that's wrong. I was speaking to you.

But I'd better start from where I left off yesterday.

Old Vic stayed for Evensong and for supper afterwards, which we have at 7.00 p.m. I was glad he did because he showed me the ropes in chapel and during the meal. (Meals are strange. There's a funny routine about passing things, for instance. At the start of the meal everything goes round the table, passed to the left from one to the next. It's bad manners not to pass things. And you're supposed to keep an eye on the blokes next to you to see if they need anything and pass it before they have to ask for it. This doesn't matter so much at talking meals, like supper. But at silent meals, like breakfast, it matters a lot, otherwise you might never get the marmalade.)

Old Vic also explained about Silence. Silence is when the monks (and their visitors!) are not allowed to talk
AT ALL
, except in the visitors' room on special business. Silence happens from 8.30 p.m. till 9.30 a.m. the next day (the Greater Silence) and from 12.00 till 1.00 mid-day, and from 5.00 till 6.30 in the evening (the Lesser Silences). During those times you're supposed to pray and concentrate your mind on God, etc. Reminded me of you and your Sunday morning silences on the way to church. When it's time for Silence a little bell is rung in the hall by the monk whose turn it is, and all the talking stops. It's peculiar at first, everybody suddenly going dumb on you, like they've suddenly taken agin you. They even go distant; their eyes don't see you any more, as though you didn't exist for them. Least, that's how it is with Bro. K. I haven't had much chance to talk to any of the others yet.

But I already like Silence. Whatever is happening you know there's soon going to be this pool of quietness. Bro. K. says they all look forward to it. All the real monks, anyway. He says Silence is a true monk's natural state, part of what he is born for. When someone comes to try the life, the others watch to see if he takes to Silence, because it's a good sign of whether or not he's suitable. Apparently, some people can't stand it and go to pieces and have to get out quick.

By the time Vic left it was Greater Silence. Bro. K. had already asked me if I wanted to live the kind of day the monks door just please myself. Out of curiosity, and because I thought he would like it (creep creep), I said I'd follow their day. Little did I know! This place is a slave camp.

He gave me a folder and said everything I needed to know to start with was in there and we'd talk tomorrow. Tinkle-tinkle little bell and Bob's your uncle: no more chat. I went to my cell and did my homework. Here is my timetable:

5.30 a.m.: Get up. (Couldn't believe my eyes!)
6.00—8.00 a.m. Chapel:

See why I'm bushed? Haven't worked as hard in my life, not even when Grandad is in one of his slave-driver moods.

The hardest work of all is in chapel. At first, I thought that would be the easiest—a doddle just sitting there in that nice room watching the monks do their stuff. But to start with, it's very hard to concentrate at six o'clock in the morning, and when the offices are happening you have to bob up and down, kneeling and sitting and standing, and find the right place in the office books. You feel an idiot if you don't join in or do the wrong thing—kneel when you should stand, etc. So you have to keep your wits about you. And unless you're just going to slump like a pudding in your seat during the private patches you have to decide how to spend the time ‘meditating'.

In fact Meditation is the most difficult of all. I've heard people talking about it like it's a spiritual happy hour when you float inside your head in a kind of cosy limbo. Well, it wasn't anything like that for me. I hadn't a clue what to do, so I tried thinking about what monasteries are supposed to stand for and why people want to be monks and nuns and whether Jesus Christ would be a monk if he came back. But I hadn't been at it long before my mind started wandering all over the place, thinking about anything but what I wanted to think about. The harder I tried to keep it on the subject, the more it wanted to think about something else. Like an itch: the more you try to ignore it the itchier it gets. I got to wondering, for example, how Grandad was doing on his own, and how you were feeling and if you were awake at this unGodly (?) hour. (I guessed you would be, knowing how keen hospitals are to wake everybody up before anybody in his right mind would want to wake up. Hospitals and monasteries are alike in this respect, I guess. Which isn't surprising when I come to think about it, as hospitals were first started by monasteries! Maybe that's why nurses still look a bit like super-efficient nuns.) After that I started thinking about breakfast. I was famished and kept having visions of luscious bacon and fried bread sandwiches and lashings of marmalade and toast.

This had a dramatic effect on my innards. They started rumbling and gurgling, and generally making a lot of lavatory noise. I was certain everybody in the room could hear. Could feel myself blushing. I had a quick glance at my watch because I was sure it must be nearly eight. It was nine minutes past seven. I'd been meditating for eight minutes. Couldn't believe it! Looked up, and caught Bro. K. watching me, a grin all over his face. He looked away as soon as our eyes met, which is just as well because I'm sure I'd have had the giggles if he hadn't. It all reminded me of Sister Ann at St James's. Remember? How could you forget! Luckily, the others kept their eyes to themselves. But they've been calling me Rumbletum ever since.

I'd better tell you about the others. There are six of them. Kit, David, Mark, Dominic, John and William. I'm the only visitor. A novice, Adam, is expected tomorrow. He's been with them eight months and is coming here from their main house to stay for three months to experience life in a ‘working' house.

Kit is in charge. Which he says means being the dogsbody who does what they all decide should be done when they meet at their weekly ‘chapter'. They vote for their ‘prior' every two years and nobody can be prior more than twice. Kit's on his second jag. He looks after the house, sees to visitors, and because he's a priest, celebrates the Eucharist every morning.