‘But it is busy, Lenni. It’s busy because you are here. It is busy with the spirit of the Lord.’
I gave him a look.
He shuffled in the pew. ‘And besides, a little solitude isn’t to be laughed at. This may be a place of worship, but it’s also a place of peace.’ He glanced up at the stained glass. ‘I like to be able to talk to patients one-to-one; it means I can pay them my full attention, and don’t take this the wrong way, Lenni, but I think you might be a person the Lord would like me to pay my full attention to.’
I laughed at that.
‘I thought about you at lunch time,’ I said. ‘Did you have egg and cress again today?’
‘I did.’
‘And?’
‘Lovely, as always.’
‘And Mrs …？’
‘Hill, Mrs Hill.’
‘Did you tell Mrs Hill about our conversation?’
‘I didn’t. Everything you say here is confidential. That’s why people like coming so much. They can speak their minds and not worry who will find out later.’
‘So this is confession then?’
‘No, although if you wish to go to confession, I would gladly help you arrange it.’
‘If it isn’t confession, then what is it?’
‘It’s whatever you want it to be. This chapel is here to be whatever you need it to be.’
I took in the empty rows of pews, the electronic piano draped in a beige dust cover, the noticeboard with a picture of Jesus pinned to it. What would I want this place to be if it could be anything?
‘I would like it to be a place of answers.’
‘It can be.’
‘Can it? Can religion ever really answer a question?’
‘Lenni, the Bible teaches us that Christ can guide you to the answer to every question.’
‘But can it answer an actual question? Honestly? Can you answer me a question without telling me that life is a mystery, or that everything is God’s plan, or that the answers I seek will come with time?’
‘Why don’t you tell me your question, and we will work together to see how God can help us find an answer?’
I leant back in the pew and it creaked. The echo reverberated around the room.
‘Why am I dying?’
Lenni and the Question
I DIDN’T LOOK at Father Arthur when I asked him the question; instead I looked at the cross. I heard him breathe out slowly. I kept thinking he was going to answer, but he just carried on breathing. I considered that perhaps he didn’t know I was dying. But, I rationalized, the nurse had told him I came from the May Ward, and nobody on the May Ward is looking forward to a long and happy life.
‘Lenni,’ he said gently after a while, ‘that question is bigger than all other questions.’ He leant back and the pew creaked again. ‘You know, it’s funny, I get asked why more often than I get asked anything else. Why is always the hard one. I can do the how and the what and the who, but the why, that’s the one I can’t even pretend to know. When I first started doing this job, I used to try to answer it.’
‘But you don’t any more?’
‘I don’t think that answer is in my jurisdiction. It is only for Him to answer.’ He pointed to the altar as though God might be crouching behind it, just out of sight, listening.
I gestured towards him, in a ‘see, I told you so’ kind of way.
‘But that doesn’t mean there is no answer,’ he said quickly. ‘It is just that the answer is with God.’
‘Father Arthur …’
‘Yes, Lenni?’
‘That’s the biggest pile of crap I have ever heard. I’m dying here! And I have come to one of God’s designated spokespeople with a really important question, and you refer me back to him? I tried him already, but I didn’t get an answer.’
‘Lenni, answers don’t always come in the form of words. They can come in a variety of forms.’
‘Well then, why did you say that this was a place of answers? Why not be honest and say to me, “Okay, well the biblical theories aren’t watertight and we can’t give you answers, but we do have a nice stained glass window”？’
‘If you got an answer, what do you think it might be like?’
‘Maybe God would tell me he’s having me killed because I’m restless and annoying. Or maybe the real God is Vishnu, and he’s hella pissed that I’ve never even tried to pray to him but kept wasting my time with your Christian God. Or maybe there is no God and there never was, and the whole universe is being controlled by a turtle who’s massively out of his depth.’