but when he was content. The contingent pledge became a goad, an unwanted invitation that reminded him of what he most wanted to forget.
The loss of peace — for that is what it was — had trodden an unknown path. When beset by the dogmatic turbulence of adolescence Anselm turned to Proust. Seeing his life in epic form, he subjected his past to a minute psychological investigation. He easily identified the events that had sent ripples into the present: the death of his mother whom he had hardly known; the nineteenth-century formality of his father; the paradoxical but defining insecurity that arises from being wedged between two older brothers and two younger sisters; the welcome nuance of banishment to a French boarding school for part of his secondary education. Anselm concluded that he, alone among men, was in grave need of internal repair.
When he joined the chambers of Roderick Kemble QC, fondly known as Roddy, and had a few run-ins with some of the more difficult members of the profession, he learned that he wasn’t in that bad a shape after all. Roddy was a red, round and joyous man, loved and bled over profusely by all who knew him. While he was one of the most outstanding advocates of his generation it was compassion that truly set him apart. His one theme of consolation was habitually volunteered when drunk: ‘None of us get here without being broken to pieces along the way, old son. None of us know why So let’s just bear with one another.’ And, lunging for a bottle, he would say, ‘Now, bring on the fatted calf.’
The dislocation that beset Anselm in his maturity, however, was of a wholly different order and could only be assuaged by long periods of solitude and… prayer: an activity that took him beyond himself, but which collapsed the moment he thought about what he was doing — like falling off a bicycle. And, picking himself up again, he remembered those frightful words on the leaflet. He began to wonder, on a purely theoretical basis, whether for some people (but not him) monastic life was the only way of finding contentment.
He went back to Larkwood out of curiosity, attending an occasional Office and having tea in the village. He visited the Priory more often, dreading the return to London, but without wanting to stay in Suffolk. On the fateful day he met the tourist at the Court of Appeal, Anselm recognised that in brushing against this other life he had sustained a fine wound on the memory, causing a longing, a homesickness that would not let him settle in any place other than the source of injury. And so, Anselm began his return to Larkwood. After two years of visiting, and being politely discouraged (in accordance with The Rule), he became a postulant. He left behind a baffled family He was thirty-four.
Anselm’s first surprise on entering religious life was to discover the monastery contained ordinary human beings alarmingly similar to one or two villains he had represented at the criminal Bar. He had thought only the prison system could withstand the outrageous behaviour of its members. But the same was true of Larkwood, where, unlike enforced incarceration, each individual had promised to live a life of ongoing conversion. Thankfully, Brother Bruno performed an important act of mercy on the day of Anselm’s arrival. He briskly punctured whatever reasonable expectations Anselm might have entertained about a life of wholesome tranquillity.
Bruno had been a Tyneside docker for thirty years and brought to monastic life a playful candour that generated various maxims — most of which were only quoted to be discounted. ‘I think there’s something you ought to know,’ he confided, having been introduced to Anselm five minutes earlier. ‘You’ll find out as you go along, the good guys always leave and only the so and sos remain.’
Time passed with a peculiar swiftness known only to those who live subject to the rhythm of monastic life. The chant, the ancient regularity and the silence mysteriously brought together the fragments of Anselm’s past and gave him a sense of completeness — but only for the first few months. That turned out to be a glimpse of who he might become, rather than who he was. Within a year the pieces shattered again, falling back to where they had been before he’d become a postulant. He understood what agnostic Roddy had told him when he’d left the Bar: that being a monk had nothing to do with putting the bits back together. And he learned the meaning of another Bruno aphorism: ‘Nobody stays for the reasons they came: The liturgical cycle rolled up the years. Some very pleasant chaps returned to the world. But Anselm stayed put, abandoning any pretence of being one of the good guys, or of searching for peace through internal reconstruction. And sometimes, in that half-sleep savoured last thing at night and first thing in the morning, Anselm began to wonder how much of it had been choice, and how much unwitting cooperation.
Larkwood’s life became Anselm’s. The Priory supported itself through bookbinding, ceramics and the production of apple juice — along with a now legendary cider of a particularly vigorous character. Anselm learned the balanced crafts of labour, rest and prayer. After twelve years of monastic life the elements of living a fulfilled life were broadly in position. A planetary motion of doubt, certainty, joy, anguish, loneliness and boredom, each on their own trajectory, encircled an evolving contentment. And very, very occasionally, when he wasn’t looking, the Lord of the Dance brushed past.
2
The man from the Home Office turned up the day after Milby’s visit and before the community meeting. Fortunate timing that, thought Anselm. He didn’t get the chance to share this reflection with Authority, however, because Father Andrew, in the days following the arrival of Schwermann, had withdrawn from corridor and cloister and only
emerged to growl his way through Office and tell the morning Chapter who was coming.
His name was Wilson, apparently Peering through a window in the bursar’s office, Anselm saw the black Jaguar creep across the Priory forecourt. The mandarin emerged in a chalk pin-stripe of the deepest blue, his hair a laundry white, each strand obedient to its place in life. He extended a pale hand graciously to Father Andrew, as if it was a Royal visit, his faint smile conveying shyness, a remote fragility masked by exquisite courtesy
Precisely what Mr Wilson said was revealed that evening. Community meetings, like gatherings in Chambers, were notorious for bringing out everyone’s worst qualities. For a group of men capable of savage argument over nothing in particular, the prospects of a sensible discussion on modified asylum for a war criminal were not promising. But on this occasion there was a surprising display of common sense.
The monks silently took their seats in Chapter, side by side around the circling wall. All eyes fell on Father Andrew’s stern face. A single candle burned brightly on a plinth beside him. From where Anselm sat, the tiny flickering danced upon the Prior’s narrow glasses, lighting his eyes with fire.
‘I’ll be brief. The Home Office has asked us to provide this man with a short-term refuge. You already know what he was, and what he’s alleged to have done. He must be accommodated away from the public eye, and be protected. He can’t go home. Transfer to prison is considered inappropriate.’ Father Andrew had anticipated most of the questions and answered them mechanically in brief succession. ‘An expedited investigation has already commenced. No charges were brought after the war and it’s thought unlikely any could be brought now.
He’s never been in hiding from the British authorities. Our involvement is nothing more than a matter of convenience. Costs sustained by the Priory will be met, and the police will deal with any protesters. A personal protection officer will stay with the man himself. He should be off our hands in three months. That’s it. The question is this: does he stay or go?’ He surveyed the room gravely waiting for a response, and then dutifully checked himself. ‘Oh yes, Lord Thingummy-Other, a Catholic peer, humbly endorses the government’s request:
‘Do you mean Lord Crompton?’ purred Father Michael with deferential enthusiasm.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t note the name,’ said Father Andrew brusquely
‘What do the sisters think?’ asked Anselm, realigning the debate but relishing the way Father Andrew had batted down Michael’s impulse for social climbing.
‘That he should leave.’
There was a general murmur of assent.
Father Jerome, a muscular chap troubled by occasional asthma and the only member of the community ever to have been imprisoned, named the problem. ‘Leaving aside any assurances, he’s come here for protection. Claiming sanctuary’s all about holy innocence, an appeal to God for higher justice. We can’t give that. And if he doesn’t deserve it we’re in for big trouble. In this world and the next.’
‘Nonsense,’ snapped Father Michael. ‘If he’s rejected this way and that because of a false accusation, then he should stay His own appeal is backed by the Establishment. How the world chooses to interpret our cooperation
