Bishop's Eye

Bishop's Eye

He had been given the key and was walking, dust rising, matting his
glossed black shoes. He knew this place so well, like the back of his
hand, like his heartbeat. Reaching the churchyard gate he hefts the
key, now warmed and heavy in his hand, moist and smelling of the forge,
feels it's weight in his palm. Under his hand the gate is as he
remembers it. Oaken, smoothed with it's grey grain raised under his
hand like driftwood, worn by other hands, by centuries of sun and wind
and rain. Lifting the hasp he tries to swing it open, then heaves at it
with hip and thigh, kicks it, marks a shoe. Swears, then recollects the
day, himself, where he is. It was always difficult, he'd forgotten.
Smiling. Of course he would have said it was a bastard fucker of a
bloody gate. It grates open over the gravel.

No change here, well yes, there has been change but for the moment it
is possible for him to cast off years, to imagine things as they always
were. The church is as it was; low and grey, resting lightly on the
land. He picks up a clod, holds it in his hands, crumbles it between
his fingers; lets it fall through them, dust. In winter, he thinks, it
is plastic, cold, hard and dragging under the plough, under a child's
London wellingtons. Dragging at the man who tills it. Changing with the
seasons, causing change. Ultimately the reason for today.

Turning, looking around, leaning back against the warm wall of the
church he takes a cigarette from the packet in his pocket, lights it;
looks, listens, waits. Queen Anne's Lace, bitter-sweet, heady, is
waist-high along the path, the yews dark, shadowing. The afternoon June
sun sheds that familiar, clear, pellucid light across the fens and in
the distance, in the uncertain blue, he sees the Cathedral. Exquisite
hook on his horizon, a tag to his eye, drawing it, as it always did;
does. He remembers past hay-makings in the field across the lane, the
field he can see now. This type of weather, this same air, this time of
year; just the two of them.

"I wonder if he's spying on us, the old sod?"
"Who?" Not following this abrupt train of thought, leaning, a small
thin boy, on his too large pitch fork, unused to it, awkward. Pleased
with the halt.
"Your uncle. As is at the Cathedral." He points with his fork and
starts again. Rhythmically tossing that sweet, musty smell; scenting
the air, raising motes in the sun, a whirlwind.
"He says that on a day like this he can see us in this field. Working.
Well he can if he's got his bloody binoculars." Winking at me. We know
about this uncle. The family think he's strange, not like them. A bit
too posh for them. With his golf, his music and connections. But he's
accepted.
"Do you think he really can, you know, see us. Now." The boy is
curious, wondering if he can really be seen from over ten miles away,
working; perhaps seen whatever he is doing. And this other uncle,
bluff, teasing, so in tune with his life grunts, laughs.
"Well he never does any bloody work. Not proper work, with his hands.
So he could be up there, on his tower, watching. He's nowt better to
do." He hasn't stopped work to talk and now;
"Come on. Get that fork moving. We haven't got all day. Idle bugger."
And the boy bends to work again. They always call him the cockney kid,
these uncles, aunts and cousins, because he comes up from London . A
city boy, a townie.

In the churchyard, in this sunshine he remembers this. Vivid, present
memory. And he still wonders if he can be seen, seen by someone on the
tower today. Wonders if there is anybody looking. The swallows are
shrill; calling, piping as they always do. Darting in the sky. Only
after insects. Their sleek speed which he always thought so beautiful,
so fine, only there so that they can catch insects, can keep their
fragile frames alive. As a child he thought they were exuberant, that
they flew and cut the sky for the sheer pleasure of being alive, that
they felt as he did when he was here. Now he thinks, "it doesn't matter
how they feel. They make me feel alive." They tell him it is high
summer, that the world rolls.

Thinking now he smiles. The cockney kid. Born in Peckham, no real
cockney. At home he was a posh boy. Taught to speak properly. A pretty
boy. And how he protested to them. "But I'm not a cockney. They're born
within the sound of Bow Bells. Peckham's miles from there." And how
they laughed at him. He was strange to them. Different. Loving the
land, the exercise, the air. Those summers gave him freedom. But he
didn't quite fit. He could tell they wondered. How could he know about
Bow Bells at eight years old, challenge them? Little prig. And now he
is a bit like the uncle at the Cathedral, now long dead. Not golf or
connections, but music, books, ideas. Anyway not like them. Bookish.
Not strong like the great, capable cousin, muscled and hardened through
hard work. Who only ever read the Horse and Hound, had once said "What
do you want another book for, you've got one like that already." Not as
strong as Mikey who he used to fuck in fields long summers ago, who
played the field, had to get married but proved he was a man. Had
spunk.

But they loved him anyway. Indulged his funny, townie ways, knowing,
confident. They knew best. The countryside was best. A farmer was best.
So full of prejudices but full of love too. Knew how to fatten him with
the fat of the land, how to strengthen him, grow him up like them. Full
of sayings, proverbs, brooking no argument. Non sequiturs, although
they didn't know the term. In the warm sun, waiting he thought of
proverbs, of his life then.

Playing in the crew yard, layking about they called it. Messing, two
cousins acting the giddy goat. He and Mikey, supposed to be sweeping
the causey. Supposed to be. There was always a job to do. Armed with a
knife each, they had their instructions.
"Get into that crewyard and get the grass out of them cobbles on the
causey. Fettle it up. Do it proper. Sweep up after you. Do a good job
now."
Of course they didn't. Summer boys have rising sap; exhilarated, are
game for anything. For throwing sun-dried cowpats at each other.
Prehistoric, stinking frisbees; hurled and spun and heaved. Breaking in
the air, on their clothes, in their hair. They were khaki; goose-turd,
cow-turd, green. The causey grew it's grass unhindered, was their
playground. Screaming, crying with laughter, dodging, slipping in shit,
falling, face down in it. Playing out of their skins, alive.
"What the bloody hell are you two up to. You mucky little buggers. You
can't be left to do a thing. It's true you know." Clouting them around
the ear. Shouting like a madman. Flailing like a maniac. His way.
"What's true?"
"You know what they say?"
Abashed but still alert to living, to a saying, a story. "No. What do
they say?" Cheeky.
Looking at them, smiling.
"They say..." His emphasis, like theirs, "...They say- and so do I -
one boy is a boy, two boys are half a boy and three boys are no bloody
boy at all. Now get that job done ... and then wash your mucky little
selves. Dirty little targels."
And thinking of himself now, today, Joe wonders if one boy ever is a
boy, if a boy like him ever was a boy even though he was so often a boy
alone. He has always felt that he was only half a boy. Half a man. He
wonders if he, the dead one, ever knew. Suspected him. What would he
have said, done? They always asked if he was courting.
Sitting in the evening in the worn old kitchen at the whitened deal
table by the range listening to the radio. Stuffing down curd tarts,
whole, in a single mouthful, bitter-sweet little suns, laughing,
spitting crumbs.
"I bet you've got a great fat girlfriend now."
"Does she sit on your knee?"
"Does she make you take her dancing?"
"Do you kiss her? " Teasing him, expecting, wanting him to say yes.
Allay their unspoken fears. Show he was like them, confirming their
view of men. Like Mikey did. But Joe kept them guessing for years. And
then he found the right girl, married, became the family man.
Acceptable, accepted. He put them at their ease at last. But in his
heart he was only ever half a man. Needed the other half to make him
whole. One man is half a man, two men make a man. How could they ever
have understood? Could they, he, ever have taken it in.

Too late now anyway. He shrugs it off, takes the key and eases it into
the lock. It turns with effort and the door swings open; the small
aisle, simple altar, the stained glass tinting the moted air; with
emerald, crimson and sapphire, the flag floor seen as if under water,
pale imitation of the source; rouged, ochred, turquoised. He has seen
colours like these before, this very morning. The two of them, walking,
in the Cathedral, under the Bishop's Eye, the window all flaming
tracery, flaming colour.
"Do you like being under the Bishop's Eye?" Conspiratorial. "Is it an
all-seeing eye I wonder? It feels a bit as if it might be. Here. Thou
God seest me."
"It's a beautiful eye, splendid, it always made me feel opened up,
examined. Lit up, happy. It sees but it's disinterested, not judging.
It let's you see yourself, makes us beautiful.
They were clothed in light, harlequins of colour.
"It reminds my of my grandmother's slap, her maquillage. Of old rouge,
powder blue eyeshadow. Her dusty face."

But now, in the church, there is no one to share the experience with,
the familiar smells of wax polish, wood, dust and incense. Leaves on
the floor; sere, ground to dust under his heel, rustling. Neglected
beauty. And so he busies himself, putting out the prayer books, the
orders of service, checking seating. Knowing there will be a crowd and
this is his job. To prepare for the mourners, to seat them, ease the
day, make things flow. They trust him. There is always a job.
Here.

And he walks outside again. Eyes screwing up against the glare. He
wanders around the church looking at the slattern gravestones which
mark the bodies of those who made this land; who worked its earth,
understood it's seasons, it's harshness and are now buried in it. And
there is a new gash in the green; and in the depths he makes out
different horizons in the red fresh earth, strata. Bones? Some stones,
legible, startle him with their familiar names; his grandparents, the
parents of his summer friends. He was different from them too but one
day they will all be the same. Here. Dead it doesn't matter but living
it does. Now it does. Matters.

And then the air reverberates. The swallows drowned, the present
shouldering in. A car, several cars, doors slamming deferentially, feet
on gravel. He leaves to take his place. To do his job. Takes the book
which all the mourners will sign, which will record this uncles
standing, the esteem in which all held him, which will dutifully record
the funeral for the Mercury. His name is at the top of the page, alone.
Joe Wiseman, nephew. No one else. He places it before them and in their
different ways they sign their names, gradually filling the page.
Laboriously; those old farmers, unfamiliar with a pen. Who hold it
uneasily, as if it will snap, and scrawl. Or with a flourish; those
nouveau riche, first generation public school, flamboyant, moneyed sons
of those same fathers. Some of them summer friends. He encourages them
to the church but they're reluctant to go in and stand around, talking;
Primitive conversationalists. They don't like chat but today they need
to make the effort, push some syllables together. Fill the waiting. Joe
listens to them, these black-suited, dun-faced men, faces the colour of
the earth they ploughed. They see and feel their own mortality.
Understudies, they are rehearsing their own funerals today. For some it
may not be long, too long. They talk;
"He was only at market last week. He looked so fit."
"Well he was riding on Sunday. I can't believe it..."
"Always tough, a tough owd bugger ..."
"He was no age was he."
"Well he was seventy-eight, no youngster, had his three score and ten
..."
"Well ... but he was didn't look as if he was about to go."
"... good man ... he could tell a bloody good tale."
"...was his heart, in his sleep; a good way to go..."
They are talking about themselves, not him, of their mortality. And
then they fall still, silenced. The departed has arrived.

Black, sleek and out of place in the country lane, unfitting for him,
for this place. There should be a wagon, horses, his horses; his
love.
Joe thinks "I would have given him a horse and wagon. I would have lead
his hunter through the village with his boots reversed in the stirrups.
I would have been mute with grief behind his coffin. Am mute."
He wonders why they didn't do it. Realises how he loved this man. Knows
no one understands how to pay him this tribute, celebrate him the way
they should. Joe thinks perhaps it's just as well. It would be too
different. Would make the funeral ... different. And that isn't his
job. To make things different.

And the coffin slides out. Like a cliche it looks too small to contain
that man; noisy, always shattering still air, volcanic. A farting,
trumping, teasing, lavatory humoured man. A loving, simple man who did
his best. Did his best for Joe for all those summers, for the cockney
kid. A laughing man. Joe'd seen him cry. And followed by his widow, by
Mikey and the children he comes inexorably. And to those farmers the
coffin is glass, they see him, see themselves, their ending. Fearful
death. And he sees more. Sees change. One who knew him as a gawky,
stumbling child has gone. There's one less person who will see him as
he sometimes sees himself. As a child. One link with his past broken.
He wishes he could have been honest. Told his truth.

And later, in the dusk, Joe returns to the Cathedral, reeled in on the
hook. To the dizzying, ravishing place he has known for so long. He
walks in the cloisters, in the peace, remembering his afternoon,
listening to the swallows as they dip and sweep around his head. And
then he catches sight of him, his back. Heart beating he walks towards
him, touches his shoulder.
His lover turns, smiling.
"Hiya. How'd it go? Was it hard for you? Tell me about it. We'll have a
beer." Hand on his arm.
"It was OK. Sad though. Lots of tears. Good hymns; Abide with me. How
have you been. Have you occupied yourself? It's been so odd; a strange
day. A beer would be good. Thanks for being here, for waiting for
me."