The Art of Standing Still (31 page)

‘Mr Giddings, I do appreciate your feelings, but as I explained to you before, and as I said in my letter – '

‘You are still not listening! “On the wicked he will rain fiery coals and burning sulphur; a scorching wind will be their lot.” ' Ruth was concerned for both his physical health, fearing the anxiety might bring on a heart attack or a stroke, and his mental health, as his campaign had been relentless and verging on paranoid. But there was something unsettling about his assertion that the plays were blasphemous and his desperate insistence that they should be cancelled. He had claimed in his letter that he had a dream, and in this dream he saw God's punishment, which he described in graphic detail. She had shown Alistair the letter, but he had dismissed it as the ranting of a slightly peculiar old man. She had agreed, too readily perhaps, without giving Mr Giddings a proper hearing.

‘ “If you do not listen, and if you do not set your heart to honour my name,” says the L
ORD
Almighty, “I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not set your heart to honour me.” Cursed, did you hear that?'

Cursed.
A week ago she would have laughed at the idea, but with the accusations against Alistair and Eliza Feldman's deterioration she was starting to wonder.

‘Yes, Mr Giddings, I heard. But can't you see how these plays can be a good thing? They're bringing the Bible to people in a form they can understand, just like those waggon-play performers hundreds of years ago.'

A small crowd of teenage reprobates, dressed as first-century Palestinian reprobates, was starting to gather. The lads that Ruth had first met in the church. They were hiding smirks and giggles. One of them shouted, ‘Tell us another one, Granddad!'

Mr Giddings was not listening. He was too busy quoting from the book of Jeremiah. ‘ “O L
ORD
, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the L
ORD
has brought me insult and reproach all day long.” '

Sensing trouble, Harlan and Josh approached. Josh diverted the teenagers, and Harlan and Ruth took an arm each and escorted Mr Giddings, who was still spouting Scripture, towards the farmyard. Ronnie brought a folding chair, and they sat Mr Giddings down, talking quietly to reassure him. He fell silent, but behind the large glasses, tears threatened to spill from his eyes. One of the dressers offered to fetch a glass of water from the farmhouse while another offered to phone Mr Giddings' daughter. Ruth took a deep breath and
started to walk back to the field. She prayed as she walked.

‘Have I got this all wrong, Father? Are these difficulties a sign from you that you don't want these plays to be performed? Should I call it all off now? All this time, money, and effort – but for what? Am I neglecting my real calling as pastor of your flock, for this . . . playacting? Will it make one iota of difference to people's lives? Speak to me, Father. Why do you seem so far away? What can I do, how can I change to serve you better? Help me to know your will.'

She crossed the road as a blue Mercedes narrowly missed her. Alistair. He was back, just in time. A sign? Despite her doubts, the rehearsal would go ahead.

Everyone was gathered in the farmyard. She wrestled a microphone from a reluctant engineer and called for attention. Actors and crew filed over to the stable where the annunciation and nativity scenes would take place. She handed the microphone to Harlan.

‘Could you take over for a moment? There's something I need to do.'

Harlan was only too delighted to comply.

With Harlan in control, Ruth went out to the small field being used as a car park. Alistair, still wearing his solicitor's suit, looked tired and despondent as he trudged across the rough grass. He had a growth of black stubble and his hair was unkempt.

‘You're back! I'm so relieved you made it. We've just started the second act.' She realised she was babbling and stopped herself. ‘Is everything all right?'

‘Not really. I just spent the evening and most of the night at the police station.'

‘What happened?'

‘They just wanted to ask me a few questions. That's what they said. Spent hours incarcerated in an interview room with the enchanting Detective Sergeant Morrisey and the equally charming Detective Inspector Reid.'

‘They let you go eventually.'

‘Theoretically, I could have left at any time, but they might have thought I had something to hide.'

‘Which you haven't.'

‘Of course not!'

‘So what time did you get away?'

‘About eight this morning. I've been driving round since, trying to make sense of it all.'

‘So you've had no sleep and no breakfast; you must be shattered. Oh, Alistair, why don't you go home to Amanda? We'll manage here; I've appointed an understudy.'

‘There's no point in going home.' He rubbed his hand over his face, temporarily rearranging the crags and smoothing out the lines. ‘Amanda's left me.'

She felt a surge of compassion. ‘That's awful. I'm so sorry.' She was going to add, ‘If there's anything I can do . . .' but thought better of it. There were some things she couldn't do. ‘The more reason not to be here.'

‘I'd rather be here with my . . . with friends.'

‘All the same . . .'

‘I've decided. Where are we getting changed? And where can I get a coffee? I have a need for caffeine that borders on the clinical.'

Ruth directed him to the marquee and left the three women fussing and brooding over him. If she could have found a solid brick wall she would have hit her head against it. The whole day was taking on a surreal, nightmarish quality. She headed back to the farmyard. Ronnie came jogging up behind her, puffing like an overweight pug dog.

‘Ruth, if you have a moment . . .'

‘Ronnie, this isn't a good time.'

He looked crestfallen. ‘I just wanted to show you something. You see, I had this idea – well, I'll show you.'

He led Ruth towards the abbey. As they passed a small copse of trees, he pointed.

‘Look, there.'

She squinted through the tree trunks. There, twisting gently left and right, was an unclothed male mannequin, suspended from a branch by a rope around its neck. Ruth snorted a laugh.

‘What is that supposed to be?'

‘That,' huffed Ronnie, ‘is Judas Iscariot.'

‘But he's naked.'

‘I know he is at the moment, but once dear Alistair has finished his little exposé in the Garden of Gethsemane, he can whip off his costume, we'll dress the dummy and behold – one hanged Judas.'

‘Gruesome!'

‘All we have to do is put a sign up here saying “Potter's Field”. It all adds to the authenticity of the performance.'

‘Marvellous! Shall we see if I can get some animal guts to spread around for the bit where “he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out”?'

‘Great idea!'

‘Ronnie, these are supposed to be the renaissance of the medieval mystery play tradition. They are intended to point people towards God. They're not some kind of gore fest.'

‘Point taken.' He looked despondent.

Ruth thought for a moment. They were going to be using half a gallon of stage blood on poor Josh for the flogging. What could be more grisly than the crucifixion itself? She looked at Ronnie's crushed expression. ‘Okay, the dummy stays, but hang it well back into the copse. We don't want to frighten the children.'

By the time she arrived at the farmyard, the wise men had been and gone, Herod had slaughtered the innocents, and the boy Jesus had been lost and found in the temple. She sidled up to Harlan for an update. The only hitches were a nasty buzzing sound from the speakers and an indignant yelping from the Archangel Gabriel following a llama bite.

After a tea break around four, complete with homemade cakes, the cast and crew shifted location once again to the lower field, then to the abbey for the crucifixion and resurrection scenes. The final judgement scene would take place back at the farmyard. Ruth looked at her watch. They were an hour and a half behind schedule. The rain that had held off all day looked certain to make an appearance. The air was still and heavy. Clouds of gnats gathered around the actor's heads, and a dog on the farm began howling. Worst of all, the stench in the field by the river had got worse – a rotting stink of putrefying flesh that made Ruth's stomach heave. She would mention it again to Bram and hoped that there would be a strong wind, blowing away from the audience.

Ruth made careful notes during the trial-before-Pilate scenes. Here she had amalgamated several of the original plays but wondered if she should cut it further. Perhaps John Grisham could keep people enthralled through a lengthy courtroom drama, but she was not sure the same could be said for the amateur actors of Monksford.

She found the next part of the play difficult to watch, even in rehearsal. Ronnie, Harlan, and Ruth had discussed at length how to stage the flogging scene. The four soldiers, dressed as medieval knights, describe in curt, graphic sentences, how they would flog him with reeds and a flail. ‘Let us drive at him hard with our dashes, All red with our blows we array him and rend him.'

They tried it with Josh, hands bound with the knights thrashing him with small canes, but they couldn't use enough force to make it look authentic without injuring Josh. One knight got carried away and swished a little too hard. Josh cried out and stumbled forward.

‘Stop!' she shouted.

‘No . . . no, carry on. Let's get to the end of the scene.' His back showed stripes of red.

‘I said, stop.' The knights untied him. Ruth took Josh a drink of water and handed him his shirt.

The sheer horror of watching a man stripped and vulnerable, mocked, and scourged was more than Ruth
could bear.

‘We'll have to take the beating out of view,' Ruth decreed.

‘But it's a powerful scene,' Harlan said.

‘Why don't we have his hands tied around a large pillar? That would obscure most of his body, then he could wear protective padding on his back and the knights can thrash away to their hearts' content.' Ronnie said.

Josh agreed.

‘It looks totally ridiculous,' Harlan said, ‘as if he's hugging a tree.'

‘Why don't we have the scourging offstage with Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene on stage reacting to what they hear? That way we get the drama and the sound effects, without Josh getting hurt.'

They nodded in agreement. ‘Works for me,' Josh said.

The musicians began their sombre tune, and Jemma and the woman playing Mary, the mother of Jesus, took up their positions. There was a distant rumble of thunder. Josh's face was intense with concentration. Ruth was captivated by the scene. Josh's performance was worthy of the professional theatre, playing a man so beaten and abused, yet with such dignity. As the forty lashes hit their mark harmlessly on a chair, Josh's cries of pain grew louder, then diminished, like a man numbed and semiconscious. She watched Jemma's face. At first she was acting, acting proficiently but obviously acting. Then Ruth noticed that her distress was real. Tears flowed, and her cries to stop became almost hysterical. The woman playing Mary looked pleadingly at Ruth. She had no choice but to stop the scene. She rushed to the stage area and gathered Jemma in her arms like a child. Jemma clung to her until the sobs subsided. Josh ran from backstage and seeing Jemma, knelt next to Ruth and stroked Jemma's hair.

‘It's all my fault. It's all my fault,' choked Jemma.

‘What happened?' he asked Ruth.

Ruth shook her head and shrugged.

Eventually, she was calm enough for Harlan to take her to the green room and revive her with sweet tea. The actors had started to disperse, and Ruth made an executive decision as she called for them to return.

‘We have to rehearse the crucifixion scene. I was not at all happy about it the last time, and we must practise with the actual crossbeam, and in costume. We'll just walk through the part where Christ carries the cross, but we must do the tying, nailing, and hoisting tonight.'

She dismissed those not directly involved and sent a runner to let Harlan know she wasn't calling Jemma again. The first spots of rain started to fall. Large, heavy drops that meant business. There was a flash that lit up the Monksford skyline and another rumble of thunder.

‘We'll have to hurry,' Ruth called to the actors.

Josh was shivering as he carried the solid wooden cross from the mockup of Pilate's courtyard to where the scaffolding poles stood. Once again the knights took up their callous banter, complaining about the weight and the pain in their shoulders. ‘For great pain is gripping me, my shoulder is torn from its socket.'

The scene required them to hoist, fail to locate the cross, then hoist again. Josh delivered his lines through gritted teeth, the ropes securing his arms, chafing against his skin and biting into his flesh. The wind whipped up the grass, and the rain started to fall more heavily. Ruth would have to admit defeat. Perhaps they would have another opportunity to run through the final scenes before Saturday's performance.

‘Okay, get him down!'

Thunder rumbled overhead. It was as dark as night.

The knights lowered Josh to the ground and untied the ropes. Josh massaged the life back into his arms and shoulders, and Ronnie placed a jacket on him.

‘Let's call it a day,' Ruth said.

There was a blinding flash and a sound like an explosion. Ruth was thrown off her feet. She lay stunned. Her ears were ringing and a green light persisted when she blinked. She looked round. Ronnie, Josh and the knights lay on the ground. They were not moving. The grass at the foot of the cross was smoking.