Realisations

Green, grey and pink movement fills the world of generous floor-to-ceiling window out of which the father looks. From where he sits, on a lounge chair inside the glass—reading a book and occasionally looking up to enjoy the view—the movement is silent but of great depth and rhythm, so powerful that the branches of a large box tree are swaying and so subtle that the occasional flutter of hanging strands of dark green Jasmine, which are closest to the window, are barely noticeable. Those strands lean out of much heavier ropes of entwined runners and fairy light cables where the lights burn like jewels now that evening is about to close in.

The whole arrangement of vines is symmetrical: falling straight, thick and dark on each side of the window and thin and curtained in the middle like the brushed and woven hair of some invisible goddess bride who stares out of her veil at the father while he, not thinking about that yet, simply enjoys the well-formed herringbon-ed ribs of Jasmine leaves and further out through the veil, hot pink roses high up on their thorny stems, looking up at a grey sky.

The shiver and sway makes the father think more deeply about what is happening in his book where a young woman has come back from the world of the dead to seek reconciliation with another young woman. But time is running out. Here in the bedroom of their meeting, the first young woman is about to be subjected to a 'final operation' by her father who is acquiring mastery of the underworld via his black magical experiments.

This other father in his lounge chair is torn between the rich and vibrant scene out there and what is about to happen between the two women in the book. The book wins:

'Betty sat up. Bright in the shadow her eyes opened on Lester, tender and full of laughter. She pushed the bed clothes back, swung out her legs and sat on the side of the bed. She said, 'Hello Lester what are you doing here?' The voice was full of warm welcome; Lester heard it incredulously. Betty went on. 'It's nice to see you anyway. How are you?'

Lester had waited for something but hardly for this. She had not begun to expect it but then she had never seen face to face, this other Betty who had gone almost dancing through the City, nor guessed the pure freshness of joy natural to the City... She knew at once that a greater than she was here; it was no wonder that she had been sent here for help. She looked at the girl sitting on the bed, whose voice was the only sound bar Evelyn's that had pierced her nothing since she had died, and she said, hoping that the other might also perhaps hear, 'Not too frightfully well.'

Betty had risen to her feet as Lester spoke. She looked as if she was about to go to the window but on Lester's words she said, 'What's the matter? Can I do anything?'

Lester looked at her, there was no doubt that this was Betty: light and free, joyous, revitalised, but still Betty. This was no sorrowing impotence of misery, it was an ardor of willingness to help. Yet to ask for help was not easy. The sense of fatal judgement was still present … but to ask that this be set aside, even to plead was not natural to Lester. But her need was too great for her to delay.

She said at once, 'Yes you can.'

Betty smiled and answered, 'That's alright. Tell me about it.'

Lester said rather hopelessly, 'It's those times … at school … and afterwards.'

'Those times at school? But Lester I always liked you at school.'

'Perhaps you did. But you may remember that I didn't behave as if I particularly liked you.'

'Oh didn't you? I know you didn't particularly want me, but why should you?' I was so much younger and … I expect, a nuisance. As far as I can remember you put up with me nobly. … Need we? It's so lovely of you to come and see me now.'

Lester realised that this was going to be worse than she had supposed. She had prepared herself to ask for forgiveness but that it seemed was not enough.

A Delayed Lunch

It's lunch time and the father in his office, after much self-argument, has finished writing a poem. He prints it out, reads the text on paper and wants to feel happy with it but knows there are still two or three words that he will have to find to make it perfect. Then, simultaneously, he thinks of lunch; thinks of doing some more writing and wonders what is playing on his playlist.

At that exact moment he taps the volume control on his laptop, which has been playing, but with the volume off. A deep, sarcastic voice is in conversation with a small and timid voice.

Sarcastic voice: 'We very much want to make Christianity believed in as a means to an end… even social justice … for the good of society.'

Timid Voice: 'Surely not!'

'I don't mean as a reality but to value it as a thing the enemy wants … The enemy will not be used as a means to an end. Do you see?'

'No.'

'Aaah! “Believe this, not because it is true, but because it serves a purpose!” '

'Ah ...'

'Yes, that's the game. Now! Round up the other tempters.'

The track finishes and is immediately followed by the shrieking metallic of a Rage Against the Machine song: 'Wake Up!'

The father in his office turns off the playlist and wants to eat, but that previous thought is now 'tapping more loudly on the window of his mind'. He is not sure what the thought wants but it seems to be saying: 'We thoughts are delicate, like dandelion flowers that get blown away and lost forever. Remember that library and the panic felt by the Assigned Spirit when it saw a dangerous thought approaching the subject's mind and then the spirit's deviously suggested counter thought? “Yes,' it said, 'it is time for lunch and a thought such as that is far too important to be tackled on an empty stomach.” The subject fell for it and was on the street in moments where a shout from a paper boy and the roar of a noisy bus made it easy for another thought to assert itself: 'This is the real world.'

The father doubts that this moment here and now would be on the same level as that, but, out of a deep bloody-mindedness towards hell—filled with recollections of painstaking struggles for freedom from his own sins; the lies, wrecked families and suicides of others; and a hundred joyful faces expressing gratitude—he decides to heed the thought just in case, and to stay and to write, despite his appetite for XXXX Gold and fresh bread, anchovies and chilli.

Listening and Enjoying

     Here in a warm room the father and daughter make the most of their breakfasting and reading hour: Charles Williams, Christopher Paolini, porridge and rhubarb, and tea. The father sitting at a table of lace cloth set with a potted-plant of scarlet and white flowered tulips. The girl (not yet eleven, and his last daughter) next to a window—mesmerised by her fantasy novel—reclines in her dressing gown enjoying the sunlit-bathed part of the room. Morning is getting late.

     She, the exuberant daughter, begins to talk of her delight in reading, not by saying that, but by showing her father the thick slabs of pages she has already devoured whilst lying in bed. He himself resists listening at first, then is caught by her and remembers the age and the time of youthful sunshine, of fresh discovery and of exultation in books as one who has found a doorway to a secret chamber of dreams.

     In her book, men are enslaved by powerful and intelligent, bird-like creatures and have recently abducted a princess. In his book, another daughter has been hypnotised by a preacher and sent into the world of the dead to retrieve information. She looks at London and sees a beautiful city of lights and shadow. She is torn between the terrible work she has been sent to do and her deepening awareness of a surprise: the inexplicable approach of light-filled love, a love that has just now mysteriously enabled her to say what her mother has never allowed her to say.

     'I am not very good at explaining … I've been trying to explain something to my mother for a long time, but I've never got it over.' She spoke aloud, but not to anyone present.'

Surprised

Outside the day is long over, but in here the bright text-screen holds sway over the eyes and the tapping fingers, which would go on for hours more except that numbers in the top right hand corner of the monitor are telling the time and saying that it is in fact time for the walk, which is usually looked forward to and normally never far.

Making a move now for the door where there's just the slightest hesitation: is this to be a going outside night, a straight to bed night or just a quiet port and a candle inside? Outside, definitely, out there with the trees: Weeping, Happy and Laughing Trees where the stories of the world are told and made. An invisible space in the glaring flatness of naive daylight, but quiet and brooding after sundown, when—in preparation for a great ebb and flow of prayers and songs—she dresses in the silk mantle of after-dark and then waits in the same way that an old cat might curl up and wait by a fire on the coldest of nights and purr even more loudly when the tears of a child begin to flow, or—when the walk has been long and far and late—a curious old dog might sidle up to and snuffle a lost and lonely hand.

Tonight the entire sky is a rolling billow of grey and black. The moon is losing her battle to be seen. In the name of Calvary and of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the time and space is sanctified and the ebb and flow begins.

'See that moon?'

'Yes.'

'It's disappearing right?'

'It is, and it's losing the fight, the darkness is too strong. It would be nice if it was to at least be given a chance and I could see it shining again.'

'But it is not lost.'

'It is, there is no hope in such a sky—blind, grey and billowing as far as the eye can see. No moon now.'

'You are impossible.'

'Impossible?'

'Yes. On the other side of those clouds the light is shining bright on that face.'

'OK. I'll pay that. It's just that I wanted to see it for myself so I could be be sure.'

'A fact is a fact whether you are sure about it or not and I happen to be able to see what you cannot.'

'Thank you. Can we talk about some others now?'

'Go right ahead…'

The ebb and flow takes a different turn and the sky is forgotten. Then, not much later, the subject of the sky is brought back into the conversation.

'Look at that! Clear as far as you can see and the moon free as a bird!'

'Wooah! It is. How did that happen?'

'Doesn't matter. I got you on both counts didn't I?'

'Indeed: the light on the face … and free as a bird. Still don't know how that happened. You did it while my back was turned.'

'Don't you mean “while we talked”?'

'Yes, you distracted me the way a magician does. Amen.'

A New Day

Darkness is fading and the sweet chirping of a tiny bird is announcing pale dawn, coolness, freshness and colours. Not that the colours are visible when the eyes are closed and most of the hearer is buried under blankets. Still, the hearer waits, enjoying all the textures and variations of newness, like a happy member of an audience listening in on an orchestra as they tune up for a much-anticipated performance. Here comes the percussion, fittingly layered in between the random song-bursts of that tiny bundle of feathers. First, a rhythmic brushing, then a dull but regular clunking of iron on fabric accompanied by a hissing of steam and finally—in soft lilted soprano—a never before heard worship song coming from the lips of the beloved who is unwittingly joining her orchestra in with that of the birds whilst preparing her hair, her clothes and her body to meet this new day.