‘Would that make you feel any better?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Have you ever been asked a question you couldn’t answer?’ Father Arthur asked.
I had to admit, I was impressed at how calm he was. He really knew how to turn a question around. I was obviously not his first ‘why am I dying’ rant. Which, in a way, made me feel worse.
I shook my head.
‘It’s horrible, you know,’ he continued, ‘to have to tell people I don’t have the answer they want. But that doesn’t mean this isn’t a place of answers – it’s just that they might not be the answers you expect.’
‘Tell me then, Father Arthur, shoot from the hip. What is the answer? Why am I dying?’
Arthur’s soft eyes fixed on mine. ‘Lenni, I—’
‘No, just tell me. Please. Why am I dying?’
And just when I thought he was going to tell me that an honest answer was in breach of church protocol, he ran his hand over the grey stubble on his chin and said, ‘Because you are.’
I must have frowned, or he must have regretted being tricked into saying something truthful, because he couldn’t look at me. ‘The answer I have, the only one I have,’ he said, ‘is that you are dying because you are dying. Not because of God’s deciding to punish you and not because He is neglecting you, but simply because you are. It is a part of your story as much as you are.’
After a long pause, Arthur turned to me. ‘Think of it this way. Why are you alive?’
‘Because my parents had sex.’
‘I didn’t ask how you came to be alive, I asked why. Why do you exist at all? Why are you alive? What is your life for?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I think the same is true of dying. We can’t know why you are dying in the same way that we can’t know why you are living. Living and dying are both complete mysteries, and you can’t know either until you have done both.’
‘That’s poetic. And ironic.’ I rubbed at the spot on my hand where the cannula had been digging in the day before. It had left behind an ache. ‘Were you reading religious stuff when I came in?’
Arthur held up the book beside him. It was yellow with wire binding, tatty edges and bold letters – The AA Road Atlas of Great Britain.
‘Were you looking for your flock?’ I asked.
When New Nurse came to get me, I thought Arthur might fall to the ground and kiss her feet or run through the newly opened door screaming, but instead he waited patiently as I made my way to the door, handed me a pamphlet and said he hoped I would come again.
I don’t know whether it was the impertinence of his refusal to shout at me, his reluctance to admit I was annoying him or the fact that the chapel was so nice and cool, but as I took his pamphlet, I knew that I would be back.
I left it for seven days. I thought I would give him long enough to presume that I probably wasn’t coming back. Then, just as he settled into his lonely life inside his empty chapel, bam! There I was, tottering slowly towards him, my best pink pyjamas on and my next round of challenges to Christianity loaded and ready to fire.
This time, he must have spotted me coming down the corridor through those frosted windows, because he was holding the door open for me and saying, ‘Hello, Lenni, I wondered when I’d be seeing you,’ and just generally ruining my dramatic re-entrance for everyone.
‘I was playing hard to get,’ I told him.
He smiled at New Nurse. ‘How long do I have the pleasure of Lenni’s company today?’
‘An hour,’ – she smiled – ‘Reverend.’
He didn’t correct her, but instead held the door open as I rattled down the aisle. I chose a front-row seat this time, to get a better chance of God noticing me.
‘May I?’ Father Arthur asked and I nodded. He sat beside me.
‘So, Lenni, how are you this morning?’
‘Oh, not too bad, thank you. And yourself?’
‘You aren’t going to comment on how empty the chapel is?’ He gestured around the room.
‘Nope. I figure that the day when someone other than us is in here will be the day worth commenting on. I don’t want to make you feel bad about what you do.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
‘Maybe you need someone to work on your PR?’ I asked.
‘My PR?’
‘Yeah, you know, the marketing: posters and adverts and stuff. We need to get the word out. That way the pews will fill up and you might make a profit.’