Like Bees to Honey. Caroline Smailes

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СКАЧАТЬ days ago, I stepped out into the road, not checking for cars.

      

      I thought of my Lord. I thought that if He was there, watching, listening, wanting, then He would do as He wished.

      

      Three days ago, I did not care.

      

      I had nothing.

      I walked a.

      

      ~z – ig.

      a.

      

       ~z – ag.

      across the road.

      

      Cars stopped, waited, beeped. Drivers moved their lips, cursing. I could not hear their words. Tourists gathered at the bottom of the grey steps. Some spilled from the shop, some stood very still, eyes fixed on the cathedral, mesmerised; others listened to a guide who spoke of architecture and history. I pushed through, I divided a tour of day-trippers, huddled under huge yellow umbrellas. I climbed the steps leading up to, down from, the overwhelming cathedral.

      The doors opened, automatically, dramatically, sensing my movements on the welcoming mat. I walked in, demanding, needing.

      I had been sitting, staring, searching the inside of the cathedral for some time. Father Sam knew me, he knew my grief, my rejection. He came to me, sat next to me, cupped my hands in his.

      

      ‘I’m being punished.’ I spoke in a hush, a respectful hush.

      

      ‘It doesn’t work like that.’ Father Sam spoke softly, carefully, his hands joined over mine. I remember seeing a blue ray reflecting over our hands. For a moment I dwelled on the light, on my Lord’s breath, on union.

      

      ‘I don’t trust your faith.’

      

      ‘Why Nina? Tell me,’ he asked.

      

      ‘I failed to keep a promise. I broke a promise to my parents, to my island.’

      

      And then, suddenly, I was sobbing and as I started, it grew, increased, my weeping was uncontrollable.

      

      the tears fell, my shoulders shuddered.

      

       ~shud – der.

       ~shud – der.

       ~shud – der.

      I was beyond restraint.

      

      ‘Tell me, Nina,’ he said.

      

      ‘I thought that I couldn’t cry any more, that I’d forgotten how,’ and with those hushed words all of the tears that had failed to be shed were released.

      

      My tears formed into a puddle.

      

      ‘We have choices in life, Nina. You are clearly distressed. You are living in a hell of your own making.’

      

      ‘My son, Christopher, has gone,’ I sobbed.

      

      ‘I know.’ Father Sam lowered his head and began reciting a prayer.

      

      ‘Please don’t.’ I began to rise. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t be here.’

      

      ‘You need to find your way, Nina. You need to allow God into your heart.’

      

      ‘I have nothing.’ I stood, I turned, my knees shook as I staggered towards the exit.

      

      ‘You have a husband, a daughter. Think of how you are affecting them, of the punishment that you are binding onto them.’

      

      I kept walking, ignoring his words, lurching towards the exit. I heard him, fast, catching up to me. I felt his palm, heavy on my shoulder. I stopped.

      

      ‘Go to Malta. Speak to your family and tell them that God sent you,’ he whispered into my ear.

      

      I carried on, forward. I did not look back. I could not turn. I could not articulate.

      I stopped when I reached the top of the steps leading up to, down from Paddy’s Wigwam. I tried to breathe in and out, in and out. I thought of my life, of my inability to love since Christopher passed.

      

      It had been six short years and in those six years I had never considered that I was affecting Molly and Matt. I had never considered the burden, the punishment that I was tying to them.

      

      I had thought that I was protecting them. I had thought that if I loved my husband, my daughter, that if I devoted myself to them, then my Lord would come, that He would punish me, that He would pick them away from me, one by one.

      Father Sam had told me that I was living in hell, perhaps, perhaps not.

      Three days ago, I stood on the steps leading up to, down from Liverpool’s Catholic cathedral and I thought about my view, my vision of hell. My hell was burning damnation, with a devil, with chained slaves stoking eternal fires. My hell would not contain an innocent child. I felt confused. Father Sam’s words were shooting in, out, through me. He did not make sense to me.

      Three days ago, I thought of my daily life. I still had Christopher. I felt him, I heard his voice, I saw him. He was still there. I thought of how his coming back to me had been unexpected. At first I had thought that it was my mind playing tricks with my grief, that I was imagining his presence. But I was not, I am not. He has been back with me for two years.

      It is simple. I can see my dead son and his spirit brings me peace.

      Three days ago, I began to walk down the steps.

      

      I heard my name.

      Voice: Nina.

      I СКАЧАТЬ