Notes from a Room

Funeral today for Marion, a regular at the Boar’s Head. People had to stand at the back of the church. She’d been known by half the city, it seemed. Her office colleagues and neighbours in formalwear, a couple of rough sleepers, women from the charity shop, teens from a youth group. The relatives did their best not to break down during their eulogies. She lived a better life than most of us, said the priest. Even towards the end, he said, she was more worried about the woman in the next bed than herself.

At the wake in the pub there were sandwiches, crisps, sausage rolls, small cakes, jugs of orange juice. Everyone had a story about her giving something away: money, plants, food, knitwear: she used to sit and knit in the pub. She made rounds to the homeless when she could still walk. She knew who’d disappeared, who’d got housing, who’d died.

I approached Henry, a young low-church priest who insists on being called by his first name. He was drinking Guinness. He was with Tim, an elderly Congregationalist who lives in the countryside. A retired farmer I think. Stewart joined us later. I sometimes go on country walks with him. He’s taking the initiation course at the Catholic Cathedral while also going to the little Orthodox church on Oak Street. He’s unsure where he belongs.

Brave thing to say in a sermon, said Tim over the noise.

What was? said Henry.

That she lived better than most of us.

It’s true, said Henry.

Oh yeah, Tim said. But true in what way?

Stewart smiled at that, not kindly or unkindly. He has a way of listening as if he’s trying to catch some accent.

In the sense that she loved people, said Henry. Fed them, noticed them, stayed with them. I’m sure God is as interested in that as we are.

Sure, said Tim. But God isn’t just a word for being kind.

Henry said nothing for a moment. Someone near the bar laughed too loudly. A woman in black was crying into a napkin while another woman rubbed her back.

I was tempted to ask where they thought she was now. She’d put us to shame, but hadn’t believed or taken the sacraments, as far as anyone knew. I kept quiet of course; it was an indecent thought.

Stewart said that in the Orthodox church they pray for the dead because love doesn’t stop at death and only God knows the state of a soul. You don’t declare, he said, you pray.

We pray for the dead too, said Henry.

Tim took a sip of juice. The trouble is, everyone wants mercy without judgement.

I thought of the bank app, the man outside the cashpoint, the money sitting there with its quiet power. I thought of Marion making her rounds on a crutch.

Henry said, a bit sharply, I’m not in the business of measuring grace at a funeral.

No, said Tim. Nor am I.

When the glasses had multiplied and the room grew warmer, Stewart talked about the Orthodox liturgy, how at home in mystery they seemed to be, whereas we’re always irritably reaching after problems and ways of working them out. Tim said churches lost their way when they started dressing up the Gospel with all kinds of nonsense. Like what? said Henry. All of it, said Tim. Incense, fancy robes, gold cups. Cathedrals. Popes and bishops. Rock bands in churches. Instead of preaching Christ crucified. Well, I’m with you on Christ crucified, said Henry. I’d keep the incense.

I listened and drank and exchanged a few words with people I knew who passed by. I watched the mourners carrying paper plates and exchanging anecdotes.

On the way home the question returned. Where was she now? It seemed both childish and terribly serious. It stayed with me for a couple of days until I started to forget about it.

When I walked through town to Sunday service there was an ugly feeling I couldn’t place. I couldn’t tell whether it was in me or outside. It was windy, leaves and wrappers skittered about; it was if the city itself was askew, or as if unresolved fights from Saturday night were lingering. A passing man said to his friend, If I hadn’t let them do all that, I wouldn’t be so fucked now. A woman yanked her crying child into a pram. In church a humming child kept kicking the back of my chair. Someone came in smelling of urine and queued up for the Eucharist. As I was leaving, a drunk kicked over the Church is Open sign; as I looked back I saw the church warden come out, and hoped he didn’t think it was me. I was confused the whole day.

I sometimes feel for the priests, especially in Lent. They must have to pretend from time to time like we do; their minds must stray like ours. I wonder if the mood comes over them too. I never know whether other people feel it. But the masses are beautiful and true whatever our moods.

*

I spoke to Giuliano after Friday mass in Julian’s cell. He said he was behind on the rent. I took some cash out of my pocket but he held up his hand, almost annoyed. Maybe he wanted to spare me the self-satisfaction of helping him. Or maybe he was annoyed with himself for his weakness in telling me.

Ash Wednesday. Noon service with the imposition of ashes. ‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ Mingling of dark and light in the old words and the winter light through the windows. Have mercy on us. Make haste to help us. We’re so entangled in sin we can barely think straight.

Some of us gave token money to the homeless man who shrewdly comes and sits outside the church with his dog before mass. I spoke to him. He told me sharper things than some of the folk in church.

I’m calmer these days, happier. The background static of money worry has quieted. That’s a new feeling. But there’s something money can’t fill. Evensong fills it, bar billiards and banter fills it, but the mood still waits for me in my room at night.

Today, when I went to the bank, I was treated differently, ushered into an adviser’s cubicle. I shuffled the money between new accounts on their app while we talked. It almost felt like a game. He ordered a new card for me. Don’t wave it around, he said.

When I came out, a man was sitting on a sleeping bag by the cashpoint holding a cardboard sign. I went to evensong, and as I stood and crossed myself, part of me thought about how much to invest in shares. If I were a good Christian, I thought on the way from the Cathedral to the Boar’s Head, I’d give this poison away at once.

In the pub I meet friends I know are struggling: carers on shit wages, people on disability benefits, divorced men. Let me get this one, I say, but they refuse. Sometimes people with money come in; we can tell. They look around with an easy air, like the people I grew up with. Will I get that easy air?

I’ll keep it to myself for now until I can figure out what it means. But am I not secretly making up my mind? Doesn’t part of me already relish this new hoard?

Realistically, it’s not that much, serious people might say. You have no assets, no career to speak of now, no pension. You’re still renting and your income is approaching nil. You might live thirty more years. What happens when you get old? Care homes are a grand a month. Get some compound interest and live your life.

*

In religious life, you become more of a hypocrite, not less. You become aware you’re play-acting before powers you don’t understand – that you’re in the lowlands of religion. Safer to stay in the middle ground with one foot in this world. I’m chastened again by the Lord’s sayings: ‘Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.’

I feel the need to talk to Giuliano, a priest, someone wise. But I’m not sure I want wise counsel just yet.