The Translation of the Bones (17 page)

She really ought to eat some breakfast. Breakfast like a king and dine like a pauper, wasn’t that the saying? Breakfast for the King of Heaven. But she really didn’t think that she could take a single mouthful. Her stomach was churning like the white water that frothed and foamed behind a ferry. There was a strange feeling in her head. And her heart still thumping, thumping like a fish caught in a net, like a trapped bird beating on a window, like a mad thing hammering for escape.

Do you think we’ll have any more trouble with the ‘pilgrims’? Larry Armitage was asking Father Diamond.

Oh, I do hope not, Father Diamond replied. It’s been fairly quiet this Passiontide, so far. We’ve had our regulars and the visitors we would expect; I think the sensation seekers have given up on us . . .

I’m sure that’s right, Mrs. Armitage interrupted. These things are nine-day wonders really; the sorts of people who believe that nonsense soon move on to the next sensation and forget the last. She gave Mary-Margaret a look.

But perhaps we ought to keep the door locked, just in case, this afternoon? Stella Morrison will do the flowers
at five. Or thereabouts. I think that’s what she said. So I’ll be around then and will get things organized in time for six o’clock. Then there’ll be tomorrow’s solemn mass, of course.

Will Mrs. Morrison need a hand? asked Mrs. Armitage.

It’s sweet of you to think of it. But I imagine she’ll cope. I mean, if she needs someone to deal with her Oasis, I’m her man! I may not be Constance Spry, but I can tell a cabbage from a rose. As long as they’re not cabbage roses, I suppose. You’re too good really, Mrs. Armitage. We’ve already trespassed enough on your precious time. And on yours, of course, he added, to Mary-Margaret.

Mrs. Armitage managed a smile in acknowledgment of Father Diamond’s wit, but Larry and Mary-Margaret looked at him askance. What on earth is he on about? Mary-Margaret asked herself, momentarily distracted. Hanging on to an oasis?

I’ll pop along in any case, said Mrs. Armitage. It won’t be any trouble.

It had been weird in the church when Mary-Margaret got there that morning. There was only
Father Diamond and everything so quiet and so empty, as if the stripping of the altars had taken something with it, some essential thing that Mary-Margaret could not name. She felt all shivery. She couldn’t even look at the open tabernacle. It was like looking at something shameful, someone naked, a dead person in the road. But now that the others—Seamus too, all hands on deck—were there and busying about with dustpans and with bin bags, she felt a little better. She wondered if they could hear the beating of her heart.

Father Diamond and Seamus brought the ladder in (where had they hidden it before?) and began their widdershins progress round the church. They worked systematically, starting at the door, carrying the ladder between them. In front of each image they halted and the priest climbed up, while Seamus steadied him. Mary-Margaret watched them out of the corner of her eye. Stealth and cunning. That’s what it took. Mary-Margaret was no one’s fool.

The statue of St. Joseph first. Then the big painting of a martyr. The Good Shepherd and some other dark and smudgy paintings of unlabeled saints. When Larry Armitage noticed what was happening, he hurried over to collect the fallen cloths. Mrs. Armitage joined him with her duster. They moved to the first chapel. And then to the Chapel of the Holy Souls. Mary-Margaret averted her face from them while they were there. She pretended to tidy up the trays of cards and pamphlets by the door, as if she had no interest whatsoever in the unveiled crucifix. Stealth and cunning, she reminded herself. She’d wait until they were distracted by the difficulty of unwrapping the big cross that hung over the high altar. Meanwhile she held her breath.

Oh God, what could be taking them so long? There was the sound of rushing wind. Mary-Margaret stopped her ears against it but it was just as loud. Be a love and put the kettle on, Mrs. Armitage called down to her from the entrance to the chapel. So, had they done it then at last? Only say the word, she prayed, my dear, my darling, my sweetheart and my Savior, get on and say the word, O God. I’ll do that, she shouted back to Mrs. Armitage. Be there in a tick.

Slowly, casually, as one with absolutely no care in the
world and no thought in her mind other than the brewing of the tea, Mary-Margaret strolled up the side aisle past the chapel. At its entrance she stopped. Mrs. Armitage and the others were clustered in the sanctuary round the ladder, on the top rung of which Father Diamond stood and stretched precariously. They paid her no attention. She went in. She knelt. Could her heart literally burst? She looked up into the beautiful and suffering face of her tormented God. I’m here, she whispered. And I’m ready. Silent and unmoving, the plaster face gazed down. The painted eyes remained unblinking. The drops of blood upon His side and on His hands, His feet, His wounded head stayed as they were, dull red, solidified.

Mary-Margaret stood up. She climbed the step up to the altar. She reached for the foot of the crucifix and pressed her hand against it. I’m sorry it took so long, she said. Forgive me. But I’m here now. And I’m all ears. And I really love you.

Still the face stared down. His lips stayed sealed. If he saw her standing at his feet and weeping, he gave her no sign. Where have you got to, Mary-Margaret? Mrs. Armitage was calling.

I suppose you expect me to paint some bunnies or some baby chicks on these? Felix had positioned the first of his hard-boiled eggs in the specially designed egg clamp from the Easter painting kit that came out once a year. He was considering it with care and a poised paintbrush. His mother wasn’t listening. Almonds, she said. A hundred grams. Ground. And pistachios.

Mum! Listen up! Did you hear my question? Do you want rabbits, or what?

Sorry, darling. I am listening. Rabbits? Well, what would you like to paint? Rabbits are conventional.

Spiders, Felix said. And tiggy hogs. I could do them with felt pen. These paints are a bit old now, they’re all dry and crumbly.

Spiders would be a change, most certainly. Whatever you want, Felix. Stella looked down at the back of his bent head and stopped herself from kissing the bare nape of his neck. The paints will probably be all right, though, when they’re mixed with water.

Felix stopped to watch Stella separate four eggs. In marble halls as white as milk, he quoted. Lined with a skin as soft as . . . How do you say this word, Mum—s-i-l-k?

Silk, she said.

What do cows drink?

Milk.

No, they don’t! Everybody falls for that, it’s silly. Can I do the whisking? I wish you were making chocolate cake.

This cake will be green, she said, or green-flecked. I’ll make a chocolate one for you next Sunday. You probably wouldn’t want to have a chocolate cake and a chocolate egg tomorrow.

Actually I would. But a cake next Sunday would be nice as well. Thank you. Are these stiff enough?

Perfect!

Stella folded the beaten whites into her mixture. Felix brushed water into yellow paint and watched the color come to life. I’ll do one with chickens, he said. Do you remember when we tried to blow the eggs? Disgusting!

Maybe I’ll do a dragon on this one. It could be a dragon hatching. Here be dragons. You know, when people believed the earth was flat, did they think that if they got to the end they would actually fall off?

I’m not sure what they thought. I suppose for them the ends of the earth were so remote they could not be imagined. That’s why they marked their maps: terra incognita. The unknown land. Where there might be dragons.

But they must have had some sort of picture in their heads, Felix protested. Like, if they thought the earth was really flat, flat as a board, did they think that the water from the oceans just poured off? Or did they think that something kept the water on? A wall perhaps? Were they afraid that if they steered off course in their little boats, read the stars wrong or whatever, they might suddenly find themselves sailing off the edge into outer space?

Stella put the cake into the oven and turned to look at her son. I wonder if they were less literal-minded than we are today, she said. Whether they believed what they had heard and didn’t stop to scrutinize the details. I mean, entirely sane and reasonable people believed all sorts of things that we find ludicrous. Pliny, for instance, the Elder, I think, described a one-legged tribe who stood on their shoulders and used their feet as shelter from the rain. Leonardo da Vinci drew unicorns. To people in the olden days, the world must have seemed so new and strange, so full of surprises, that another one or two, however improbable, hardly made a difference. We’ve lost that sense of wonder, but we’ve kept the same credulity in some ways. We accept all sorts of things on other people’s say-so. The way the Internet works, or that there was water once on Mars.

Was there? Really?

Come to think of it, I’m not completely sure. It was something I read recently, I can’t remember where. So, you see? I could believe that it was true and tell you, then you would believe it too, but neither of us would ever see the proof.

But we could be wrong, because we haven’t seen the proof.

Yes of course—we could be wrong. That’s the hazard of belief. But you can’t check every single thing that you believe independently, for yourself. A whole lifetime would be too short for that.

That’s why I like science. It lets you look at one thing closely: wood lice.

Yes, but even then there will always be terra incognita, undiscovered facts about a wood louse. For example, scientists the other day observed that rooks can make hooks out of wire. Once upon a time, toolmaking was one of the things that defined being human. But now we know that birds can make them too. And yet you would have thought that, after living with them for thousands of years, we’d know all there was to know about rooks and crows. Imagine. If that’s what a bird brain is capable of, what might a whale do, or even a wood louse?

A whale would find it hard to make a hook. It couldn’t bend the wire with its flippers.

That is a fair point. Now, that cake will be done in half an hour. Will you come and help me with the flowers?

If I have to, Felix said. I’ll just paint a whale on this.

Alice Armitage wondered where Mary-Margaret had gone. There was no sign of her anywhere and the kettle had not been boiled. She must have rushed off suddenly. Daft as a brush, that girl, she said. See you later, Father.

Mary-Margaret could not have said how she got home. She remembered nothing between stumbling out of the chapel and arriving at the flat, where she found Fidelma in her usual place beside the window.

Better weather today, Fidelma said. Sunshine, maybe. You were up betimes, this morning?

Yes.

Fidelma looked sharply at her daughter. Is something wrong?

No.

That’s good. I like it when it’s clear enough to see across the city.

Fidelma against the window was a vast black stain. Mary-Margaret stared at her. A brooding hulk, a great black monster, a creature straight from hell. A hag in the disguise of a woman, a woman buried in rotten flesh, dressed in a black skirt and black turtleneck, dirty slippers on her swollen feet. Her legs were pillars of lard, dimpled as if by fondling fingers. She sat with them wide apart. Between them was a dark place, evil. Mary-Margaret shuddered with disgust. This foul thing was her mother. It stank of woman, wickedness and sweat. Its fingers and its teeth were stained. And it dared to smile? Its mouth opened and said something about food. This abomination, whose mouth was full of bleeding flesh, whose body had been host to filth and wickedness. This whore of Babylon.

Then Mary-Margaret knew. She heard a voice, and it
told her clearly: behold, you were conceived in sin. So clear the voice that Mary-Margaret turned to see who else was in the room. There was no one but Fidelma. The mother who had sinned. And smeared her blackness on her daughter. A daughter who now understood exactly what she had to do. I was blind but now I see; how could I have doubted you, my Lord?

Left alone in the church, Father Diamond rehearsed the day. It was almost one o’clock. He could have a break for a couple of hours. Perhaps he ought to get himself some lunch? Technically, Lent was over; he could have some cheese or a ham sandwich. But, after forty days of abstinence, the thought of fat or flesh made him a little queasy. He imagined the feeling on his tongue, the sliminess and grease. No, he wasn’t that hungry. All he seemed to want these days were thin things, sharp things: black coffee, lime juice, Marmite, olives.

The Easter vigil was at eight o’clock. He ran through it in his mind. The high point of the year, the great celebratory Easter Eucharist, source and summit of life, validation of the cross and triumph over death, the victory of light. Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son. It was a complex service. The blessing of the fire, the service of light, the lighting of the paschal candle, the blessing of water, the renewal of baptismal promises, the Easter Proclamation, the nine Scripture readings, the Gloria, the bells. Christ the morning star, who came back from the dead. Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah, Ezekiel: the Creation, the parting of the sea, Abraham and Isaac. Take now thy son, thine
only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, into the land of Moriah, upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. . . . And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife . . .