‘I’ll just go and check the chickens aren’t hungry,’ he said, and I chose not to remind him that he had fed them twice in the two hours that I had been there. Instead, I was happy to stand alone in his kitchen among the bric-a-brac and just read. There were notes all over the place from Humphrey to Humphrey, and labels stuck on things that shouldn’t have needed labelling, like ‘The Big Spoon’。 One of the saucepans was labelled ‘good’ and one ‘bad’。 Why he kept both, I’ll never know.
He came back in, stamping his wellies on the mud-marinated doormat. ‘They’ve plenty of food, too much if anything!’ And he laughed as though it were another excellent joke. He took me by the hand, eyes bright, and asked, ‘Shall we go and observe them properly?’ And he led me up the stairs to the attic, where his homemade observatory let us mere mortals glimpse the heavens.
My Friend, My Friend
‘THERE ARE SILVERFISH living in the corner of my bathroom.’
Father Arthur sat down in the pew beside me.
‘At first sight,’ he said, ‘on an early morning visit to the lavatory, I thought they were slugs, but they’re not – they’re silverfish. There was just one, a dark thing that slithered into the gap between the floor tile and the skirting board.
‘You might think that I would want to get rid of them, that I might fear they are greater in number than me, that they might be living in the wall in their disgusting thousands, but I quite like them. They remind me that life is possible in even the most inhospitable conditions. They’re such funny things – little slips of silver that move like water and are so unlike any other life we know.
‘When I take a bath – and please stop me if you find this an inappropriate topic – I no longer read. Instead I watch and wait, hoping the absence of movement on the floor might bring one of them out – coax it into an adventure into the unknown lands of my bathroom floor. Often, they don’t come out. I have two theories. The first is that they don’t like the light – on my many night-time lavatory trips, they always scurry away. My second theory is that they are nocturnal. Though I confess I know nothing about the sleeping patterns of our invertebrate friends, I often wonder if they don’t like the day and prefer to explore by night.
‘In an effort not to kill them, I have asked Mrs Hill to refrain from using bleach on the bathroom floor. She told me I will get germs and that those germs will make me ill, and that at some point she will have to do it, but I begged her not to, at least for now. I think of them as my tenants, my tiny immigrants, and I am their protector, their observer and their friend.’
‘How many are there?’ I asked.
‘At least two, but I hope for more.’
‘You could take down the skirting board and have a look.’
‘But what would I do then?’
‘Count them.’
‘And then what? I don’t think I’d feel good about destroying their home.’
‘So you will just have to drink a lot before bed.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘So you need the toilet in the night.’
He laughed. Quietly at first, but then it got louder. ‘Oh, Lenni,’ he said, ‘that’s simply wonderful.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I never would have thought of it.’
And then the smile faded from his face and he was sad again, just as he had been when I’d come into the chapel and New Nurse had gone off in the direction of the main entrance, telling me she was getting chocolate and a magazine, and if I wanted anything I should tell her now or forever hold my peace.
He stared up at the brown stained glass cross. ‘I’ve been looking at this window for so many years and now I’m worried I’ve been taking it for granted.’
‘Taking it for granted?’
‘I’ve only got a week left as hospital chaplain.’
‘What? A week? When did that happen?’
‘Lenni?’ He was concerned, worried that I didn’t know the date. But nobody who spends their days in nightwear has much need to concern themselves with the date.
‘I thought you had four months left.’
‘I did.’
‘It’s been four months?’
‘It will be, at the end of next week.’
I watched him breathing, pulling the air in through his nose slowly, his eyes still on the stained glass cross.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked in the gentlest voice I have.