Father Fludd halted and looked at the empty road before him; he felt chilled and tired. He fished in his pocket for the sketch map that Father Angwin had drawn for him, and saw that if he were to retrace his steps, down Back Lane to Upstreet, a short climb would bring him to the station yard, and from there a footpath cut straight across the fields to Netherhoughton’s main street. He squashed the map back into his pocket, and turned on his heel; as he passed the house where the woman had offered him tea, he thought he saw a curtain shift at an upper window.
Upstreet was largely deserted now. Once you had done your shopping, he supposed, there was nothing to detain you. He looked at his watch; it was almost five o’clock, and the inhospitable chill of an autumn evening was already in the air, a compound miasma of leaf-mould, coal fires, wet wool, cough syrup.
As he neared the station, Fludd saw advancing upon him another gang of juveniles, older this time, more orderly, a dozen or so adolescents in tight formation. These young Fetherhoughtonians were the pupils of the grammar school in the nearest town. They were few but conspicuous; their maroon school uniforms, bought large so that they could grow into them, stood out from their bodies like the dark capes of Crusaders. There was a wary, darting-eyed expression on the faces of the gawky lads of eighteen, their little caps on their heads, satchels like postage stamps slung over their great bony shoulders. Some of the girls carried cake tins, held against their bodies like shields, and others had bags of knitting, from which metal needles poked; the boys carried wood-working tools which they did not trouble to hide. The outriders of the group, grim-faced girls of twelve and thirteen, bore their hockey sticks at a vigilant, offensive angle.
“Good evening,” the priest said. “I am the new curate, Fludd’s my name. How are you enjoying the new term?”
Startled, offended eyes passed over him. As he stood in their path they could not proceed, and, unwilling to break ranks, they came to a halt.
“May we pass?” said one of the stick-wielding girls.
“I was only wondering,” Fludd said, “what the young such as yourselves find to do in this place.”
“Our homework,” said a voice from the centre of the group.
“Do you not find yourselves with a bit of free time at the weekend?”
“We don’t go out,” the girl said firmly. “We don’t want fights with teddy boys.”
“We stay in,” another voice said; adding, in explanation, “It is called bettering ourselves. We have to get into Manchester University.”
“Do you come to Mass?” Fludd said. “We could have a meeting after. We could have games. Table— tennis.”
The children looked at each other. Their expressions softened; one of the small boys said, with a lingering regret, “We are atheists.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea at all,” the girl said. “You see, Father, our parents won’t let us outside without we put our uniforms on, and it attracts trouble.”
The little boy said, “Them from Thomas Aquinas bash us up.”
“They’ll be upon us now,” the girl said, “if you don’t excuse us.”
Behind her, in unison, three girls held out their cake tins, and rattled them in unison:
“I hate,” the girl explained balefully. “You hate. He she or it hates.”
“You need not go on,” Fludd murmured. “I know the rest.”
“Nothing personal,” a large boy said; and the rattlers, holding their cake tins aloft, explained, “We pelt’em with our domestic science.”
Fludd stood aside and watched them go, their heads swivelling to check the doorways of the shops. In the station yard he climbed over the stile that let him on to the footpath and struck out across country, swiping at the tussocks of grass with Father Angwin’s umbrella. The incline, slight at first, became steeper, and he stopped to catch his breath before mounting the next stile; he handed himself over it, and found himself in Netherhoughton’s main street.
It proved to be a straggling settlement, with two dilapidated inns, the Old Oak and the Ram; a tobacconist’s shop, shuttered, which must surely be the one Father Angwin had mentioned; a general grocer, with a pyramid of tea packets in the window; and a baker, whose shelves were quite empty except for the sleeping form of a large black cat. The cottages here were of a different design, some of them only one room deep; low, sway-backed roofs showed their age, and he noted at once the Netherhoughtonian habit of bricking up any window deemed superfluous. All about him he saw the lively signs of alchemy: the black hens scratching in the small back-plots, and the nine-runged ladder, the
He put up the providential umbrella and retraced his steps down the lane. Before he had time to turn up the collar of his cape, a thick and viscid-seeming mist had crept up around him. In the failing light the dirty windowpanes seemed opaque, as if thinly curtained with lead. Shivering, he huddled against a wall and studied his map again; another footpath, branching off the one that had brought him there, would take him across the former allotments and bring him out within ten minutes, he calculated, at the back of the convent.
He must pay his courtesy call on the nuns soon, in fact today; otherwise they might be offended. No doubt, out of Christian charity, they would offer him some hot chocolate; buttered biscuits perhaps; even teacakes and jam. They would be glad of a visitor. Climbing once more over the stile, he smiled to himself, and with fresh heart picked up his feet out of the thickening mud.
The parlour in the convent was both stuffy and cold, and smelled mysteriously of congealed gravy. It was little used; Fludd sat by the empty fireplace, on a hard chair, waiting for Mother Purpit. Under his feet was dark, shiny linoleum in a pattern of parquet squares, relieved by a red fireside rug. Over the mantelpiece, Christ hung in a heavy gilt frame, thin yellow tongues of light streaming from his head. His ribcage was open, neatly split by the Roman spear, and with a pallid, pointed finger he indicated his exposed and perfectly heart-shaped heart.
