Unseen Things Above (9 page)

May as well crash and burn in style, no?

The artist closes her eyes. She waits motionless in the crossing until she's sure the image is burnt on to her memory. That glimpse of quivering communion. Coiled tension in his every muscle. He is edged with light. She thinks: prey, waiting for his god to seize him. Ganymede. Then she pulls out a pad. Her pen scratches in the silence. But no. She gives up in disgust. It's gone, the ecstatic martyred moment.

Leah heard the footsteps and looked up from her book.

Him!

Her heart bumped like she was about to start a race. He's not supposed to be here! There was blood all down his front. He stopped right in front of her.

‘Go away!'

He stared. Mad scary eyes. Then slowly, slowly, he raised his hand and aimed two fingers like a gun.

She started to shake. ‘I'm telling my dad!' But the gun came down level with her forehead. ‘I mean it. He's watching. He's just in there.'

‘Hmm.' Freddie tilted his head. ‘Nah. I forgive you.' Then he grinned, dropped his arm.

‘You psycho! I'm still telling.' Her voice came out squeaky. ‘You're gross, you've got all blood on you.'

‘No shit, Sherlock.' He turned and walked off.

‘I hope someone punched you. I hope it hurt!' she called after him.

He stopped, turned round again and came back. ‘Really?' His eyes had gone scary again. ‘That's really what you hope? Well, guess what? Last year two guys started on me. Broke my nose. I still get nosebleeds. Know why they did it?'

She shook her head.

‘Coz I'm gay.'

She blushed. ‘Well, you should fight back, shouldn't you? I would. I do karate. I'm a yellow belt. With two stripes. You should take up karate.'

That made him smile. ‘Did a bit of that, back in the day. Show me
Pinan nidan
?'

She hesitated. ‘What, like . . . now?'

‘Yeah! C'mon.' He dropped his bag. ‘Let's do it!'

She jumped off the wall, and they did that whole kata together on the palace drive. She remembered every move. Well, sometimes she had to sneak a look and copy him: blocks, strikes, turns. She tried to do her
kiai
in all the right places.

‘Hey! Nice one.' He bowed, stuck out a hand. She shook it. ‘You rock, girlfriend.'

‘Huh.' Her face went bright red, so she picked her book up and pretended to look at that. ‘What belt are you?'

‘So I got my second dan?'

‘You're a
black belt
? Why didn't you hit them back, then? I would if I was a black belt. I'd totally make them sorry for starting on me. You should teach them a lesson.'

‘Ya think?' He picked up his bag. ‘Well, catch you later.'

‘You should
make
people be sorry!' She could feel herself crying with rage. ‘You can't let them just get away with it. They've got to learn!' She watched him walk off towards the office door. He was about to go in. ‘Sorry!' she yelled at his back. ‘I'm sorry, OK?'

He turned and smiled. ‘Hey. All forgotten, babe.'

Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night . . .

Timothy raises his hand discreetly as Giles intones the third collect. Three fingers, final amen, in case the lay clerks haven't been concentrating. Men's voices only tonight. Plainsong, Victoria. There's a new face on the back row of
dec
. Well, an old face. Freddie May, on a try-out. This is his chance to prove he's a team player as well as a total flaming divo. (That aria – good grief!)

Giles announces the anthem: ‘“If ye love me, keep my commandments”. Music by Thomas Tallis.' He sits.

In the moment of silence before the first chord, the robin flits down the length of the quire and lands on the altar screen. Giles sees Freddie's gaze following it, his face alight with joy. Concentrate, you little tyke! Don't make me come over there!

Oh, Lord. Are we mad to take him on?
If ye love me . . .

Giles waits – please, no showboating – focused on the tenor line.
And I will pray the father . . .

Ah, he's blending in perfectly, thank God.

No, we'd be mad to let him get away. Three months' probation period. Mentor. What could
possibly
go wrong? Provided the dozy sod doesn't get himself arrested, or fall into a threshing machine.

Leah is crying in bed. Because she's a bad person. Someone should punch her and break her nose. She can't stop crying.

‘What's the matter, darling? Can you tell me what's wrong?'

She stays hidden under the duvet. Daddy sits on the bed. She kicks him, but he doesn't go away.

‘Is it something to do with Freddie?'

Leah tries to shout,
Go away!
But it comes out all strangled.

‘Look, you'll feel better if you tell me about it. Is there something you need to own up about, sweetheart? You can tell me.'

She flings back the duvet and shouts, ‘I said sorry! And he – he—' The words were jammed in a clump of hiccups.

‘I know, Leah.' He reached out and hugged her. ‘Freddie told me it's all forgiven and forgotten. It's all OK now.'

‘I said sorry!'

‘I know.' He hugged her tighter. ‘It's sometimes a very hard thing to do. Well done, Leah. Well done.'

Chapter 8

I
t's all kicking off in Lindchester Cathedral. There was a whole string of complaints about the nudes in the
Souls and Bodies
exhibition. By ‘whole string', I mean two. But one of them was in the form of an email to the local paper, and I'm afraid somebody there was unable to resist a naughty item on the website about ‘Bare Faced Cheek in the Cathedral'. The church press and one of the national papers got hold of the story and little storm in church tea urn was brewed up. The dean defended the exhibition. ‘This is a major new exhibition by an artist of national standing. We are privileged to host it.' The Archbishop of York, who attended the private view, granted his imprimatur: ‘Nonsense. This is serious art.'

The clergy of Lindchester Cathedral addressed this in their customary thoughtful way at canons' breakfast while they waited for the dean to arrive.

‘Mr Chancellor, people should be able to attend a place of worship without having male genitalia shoved down their throat!' boomed the treasurer.

‘Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?' warbled the precentor.

‘Obviously, we love our graphic life-sized models of somebody being brutally tortured to death, but we cannot allow small children to see naked men!'

‘You'd think it was Gilbert and bloody George!' The chancellor had not yet been coaxed into finding the whole thing hilarious. ‘I can't
believe
we're even discussing this!'

‘But here we all are!' said the treasurer brightly.

‘The dean's asked me to put up a warning notice at the entrance,' said the chancellor. ‘But I'm not prepared to insult the artist by even
considering
anything further.'

‘“Warning: this Major Exhibition of Serious Art contains willies”,' said the treasurer.

‘You said willies!' giggled the precentor. They nudged each other and snorted like schoolboys.

‘Oh, for God's sake, you two!' But the chancellor was weakening.

Seeing a smile lurking, the precentor burst into a rousing rendition of the Monty Python penis song and the treasurer joined him. The chancellor had never heard this before and in a moment he was weeping with helpless laughter. Mainly because his colleagues hadn't noticed the dean enter the room and stand behind them, arms folded.

The song finished. ‘Thank you, gentlemen.'

‘It's the House of Bishops' school song,' explained Giles. ‘We were teaching it to the chancellor.'

‘Well, let's hope they're working on an inclusive language version,' the dean replied.

The treasurer and precentor are disposed to take the matter lightly – in order, perhaps, to help their angry colleague gain a sense of proportion. But it is an interesting question: what is appropriate in a sacred space? When we cross the threshold, do we enter another holier realm? A place where voices must be hushed, hats or shoes removed, and bare shoulders and legs covered?

Let all mortal flesh keep silence

And in awe and trembling stand.

Ponder nothing earthly minded.

What counts as earthly minded? Is mortal flesh and human sex inherently sinful? Unfortunately, that's the message the Church has been broadcasting down the centuries, consciously or not. That human flesh might be redeemed and glorious, and the whole of creation a sacred space – really
not
what people think the Church says.

Souls and Bodies
engages with this question. The chancellor is right to be impatient with that combination of prudery and prurience the work has been subjected to. Come with me now, and see for yourselves. Go bravely past the sign: ‘Parental Guidance Advised for Children under 16'. These huge canvases are explorations of light falling through stained glass on to ancient stonework – floors and archways and pillars. They hover just at the point where representation breaks down into abstract. And now we come to studies of the human form, where light illuminates the architecture of the body.

This large nude is the piece at the centre of the fuss. A man lies on his back on what might be a white sheet (a shroud?) with his arms spread. Notice that broad diagonal stripe of light from an unseen source, which falls across torso and groin. The head is in shadow. Are we seeing this from above, like flies on the ceiling? Is it meant to be a crucifixion? Where is the viewer standing; who is the viewer? Is the man dead, or just sleeping? Does the light imply resurrection? Take a moment to look at the preparatory sketches too. In another setting they might simply have been appraised as studies of the male form. But in a cathedral, it would seem that they take on another set of connotations.

The chancellor has no need to worry about the artist. She is not insulted. She finds the fuss revelatory. Would there have been a rumpus if she'd exhibited pictures of naked breasts? Possibly. But she suspects there's something particularly troubling in the public's mind about adult male sexuality. Why is the penis so unacceptable in a sacred space? (Even one so small, as she remarked to the model himself on the opening night.)

And so Lindchester ponders what is appropriate in a cathedral. It is a debate Freddie May inadvertently strayed into, when he ran back to the exhibition last Friday afternoon to find the artist and thank him.

He'd grabbed a shower and was now in busted-knee jeans and his scarlet ‘Suns Out, Guns Out' vest. Seriously, he loved wearing this in cathedral circles, because literally every second person stopped him to say there was an apostrophe missing? It totally killed him.

Freddie went back in through the south door, and there he was, the artist, screwing a picture to a board. Gotta love a guy with a tool belt. Freddie made his way along the aisle. Guy looked round, eye contact. All ri-i-ght. Tall, dark, earrings, tats, in his fifties, and a total
fox
.

‘Hey.'

‘Hiya, bonny lad.'

Oh man, the accent? I'm in love. ‘Are you the artist?'

‘Nah, I'm just here to do the heavy lifting.'

‘Yeah?' Freddie came closer; hit him with the slow smile. ‘So when you're done with the lifting, wanna get a drink? Or something?'

The guy did a mock gasp. ‘Ee, you cannot ask me that in church! Jesus is watching!'

‘Dude, he's always watching? He's cool with it.'

‘Is that right?' The guy stopped what he was doing and leaned a hand on the pillar. Checked Freddie out properly. ‘So anything goes, does it?'

‘Hell, yeah!'

‘What, there's no rules?'

‘Yeah, no, I mean, yeah there's
some
rules.'

‘Such as?'

‘Don't be mean to people?' Hhnnn. He tugged his hair. This wasn't going so well.

The dude laughed. ‘“Thou shalt not be mean to people.”' He ran his eyes over Freddie again. Like he found him hilarious? ‘What if we are mean to people?' Freddie shrugged. ‘What would Jesus do?'

‘He'd be all, du-u-ude, how could you even do that? After everything I've done for you?' Hello? I'm trying to hit on you here, case you hadn't noticed?

‘What's he done for you, then?'

Nuts. I totally do not
believe
this, I'm welling up. ‘Not saying.'

‘Haway, why not?'

‘Coz?'

Then – what the?! – the guy reached out and put a hand on his head. Freddie nearly ducked out from under. Everything stood still. The guy was only
praying
! Like a priest giving you a blessing when you're only a kid and not allowed to take communion yet? Freddie closed his eyes. And he could feel it, literally? Like heat, running down his neck, shoulders, all down him?

Then the guy rumpled Freddie's hair for him, took his hand away. Smiled. ‘There you go.'

Freddie blinked. ‘Whoa. Are you like a priest, or something?'

‘Why aye. A big old married priest.'

‘Man! No fair. You were totally flirting with me back there. You so were.'

He laughed. ‘It's my factory setting. I was flirting with the pillar before you got here.' He slapped the stonework. ‘Anyway, did you want to meet the artist? Here she is.'

We will leave Freddie to blurt out his admiration and thanks (and affront the artist's feminist sensibilities by saying he totally thought she was a guy?), because there is somebody we must revisit. We will make this transition seamlessly, by reminding the reader that Freddie May himself once tried his hand at portraying the male member. It is above this character's bed that his (painted-over) masterwork still proudly stands.