The Priest
A story that could be true (continuing)
There was a scream in the apartment no one ever heard.
A despair had driven itself into at least half a dozen families over the years, picking up pace and gathering momentum, leaking into fabric and furniture, wall tiles, even the water supply. Who knew the ephemeral, the intangible could take on a life of its own, a character? But that’s exactly what it did.
None of the residents ever heard about them, but there were three suicides in the 70 years between 1850 and 1920 that were either ignored, forgotten or brushed over, as the shame buried itself in silence and the same silence — once pure, clear and reflective — grew dark and somnolent, contemptuous of clarity and only able to provide distortion.
People who arrived happy, slowly and without notice transformed into a twisted shape of their former selves, moody and sullen, gradually withdrawing from life, closing the curtains, nesting in inertia, unravelling the bonds with one another, descending into shadow.
That was the way it was at 164 Waterloo Road and a thousand other houses that covered the four corners of the city, spreading an invisible net that held its citizens captive with chains of their own making, chains they couldn’t see.
Evil is like that: translucent and in no rush, free to spread itself over time, seeking out the worst and enlarging upon it. This is its work, creating malfeasance and malcontents and, on occasion and with great relish, discovering just one person through whom it can funnel its worst criminal intent.
More often it is subtle, sulphurous, but just occasionally it finds a seed, a bad one, the perfect match to embody its heinous desires. Finally, after years of trying, waiting in the walls and in corners, it threw open the doors of number 164 and welcomed its 66th tenant.
And far from turning all that pent-up hatred towards himself, Louis Mazzini would finally have the fuel to nurture the seedling of his resentment, coaxing it from its hiding place, which was the story of his illegitimacy and the humiliation and shame it had wrought.
It was 1956 and no one had heard the term serial killer back then.
You could see the church from the house if you climbed to the top of the stairs and stood on a window sill, which effectively ruled out everyone but children and passing dwarfs. For an adult to see it, they would had to have been the British equivalent of the lone gunman in The Texas School Book Depository — it just couldn’t be done.
So it was fortuitous the organist had seen him that day although, like so many others, she would come to regret knowing anything. Knowing things is dangerous, especially with a man like that around, one who received whispers from the entity, made up of the voices of all those who had gone before.
John Reed had stepped off the boat from Canada in the spring of 1849. It wasn’t exactly from Canada of course. There were no seagoing vessels sailing from Saskatoon to Tilbury Docks, just as there aren’t any now. He had made the winding journey east by train, bus and sometimes on foot, meandering, taking in the sights and finally, the splendid chaotic squalor of New York.
Almost exactly 30 years earlier, the couple that would become his parents, had left Plymouth for a new life making an almost identical journey but in reverse. He smiled and then burst into laughter on recognizing a pattern: he was always swimming against the tide, although he was glad to note that — on this occasion- there was no swimming involved. But while everyone was heading for the New World, he was intent on discovering the old.
He took pride in his difference, not recognizing the seam of misanthropy that was stamped through him like words in cheap fairground rock. He had intended to get to Leeds, discover a little more of the Yorkshire spirit which, he believed, was the cause of his sense of alienation in Canada, the reason he never did feel he belonged.
Sometimes, returning to the land of your fathers can result in a certain settling, an at-homeness not found elsewhere; at other times people unwittingly return to cursed ground, left behind for good reason.
In fact, Saskatoon would not become Saskatoon until the 1880s when it would be set up as a Temperance colony and Reed, with uncanny prescience and a certain foresight, albeit entirely unconscious, had escaped his fate for an entirely different one which played out not ‘oop north’ as he had intended, but in a grimy Victorian London.
At 25, he had not yet realized he was mortal and that he would run out of steam after three months on the road. It created within him an unexpected discord, a sore in the mind, an ache where there should have been joy. It was a young man’s first taste of death and with it came an insidious depression, borne partly, yet not wholly, of homesickness.
The widow opened the door gingerly, noticing for the first time the vivid contours of its dense black mahogany, its own fingerprint, usually veiled by an emerald green velvet curtain, now rank with unknown odours. It was the catch of the smell that for once made her pull the curtain aside, a faint shock passing through her arm as she turned the brass doorknob.
On the other side, a young man, sallow yet smiling - although until she raised the tallow candle it was hard to see anything. Reed had sent a picture with his letter three months earlier and although it had only arrived two weeks prior to this moment, Olive had no idea who he was.
The murders had left few single women willing to open their door, especially at night, but Olive had no great love for life, was more reckless than careless and often prayed to be relieved of the burden of breathing. More significantly, she had consumed three large schooners of poor man’s sherry, which may have accounted for her memory loss.
‘I’m here.’ There was a pause as both of them swayed, for different reasons.
‘It’s me John, I’ve arrived…My ship finally came in.’
‘I don’t think so lovey, not here.’ She let out a strangled laugh and found both her feet and her bearings.
‘Are you the young man who wrote me?’
‘I imagine there has only been one of us,’ he said, his pride punctured.
She stepped aside and pulled open the door, revealing a series of intimidating silhouettes, a chiaroscuro of fox furs and animal heads, moulding and possibly still moulting.
Reed was polite.
‘Would you show me to my room? I am very tired.’
She picked up her skirts, passed him the candle and directed him to walk ahead, up two flights.
‘There is only the attic left, but you won’t see much of the others. Working boys, not gentlemen like yourself.’
No one in the future Saskatoon would ever have called him a gent and he had noticed her drinker’s weave with a resigned normalcy. He lay down and slept for 36 hours straight.
The cathedrals of England had been through various architectural phases since the Normans, really Vikings, began civilizing the British Isles, faring far better than the Roman invaders a thousand years before. Early English, Perpendicular, Gothic, Late Gothic, created a blend of styles that would fascinate Reed who, used only to bungalow log cabins, would spend much of his time gazing in awe into the fan vaulted ceiling.
Apart from the nights, after three or four drinks, when he would look up at the stars, head spinning, this was his first mystical experience and all he could do — all he wanted to do — was drink it in. Every spare moment was spent at St Paul’s, the depression that had begun to pull him down evaporating at the sight of the nave, to him a Sistine Chapel in all but name.
His holiness was instinctive and although a small fire had been lit in Canada’s vast wilderness, he was looking for something to contain the bounds of his spirit, not something it could get lost in. He began to realize it wasn’t the Dales he was seeking, not a home outside himself, but one within four walls and a guide to the labyrinth of his own soul.
Now he had a room of his own and a cathedral (which really means the teaching seat of a bishop, although he didn’t know it) to lend structure and form. He had found Saturn but like multitudes throughout history had no clue he had also found Satan.
A proper comprehension of Christ’s temptation when offered the world would dispel much of the world’s foolishness, but most of us, finally take the bread in the hope that we will get the gold. It is our worst mistake and the greatest hoax in history and one that would, like the rest of us, ensnare Reed.
Reed was still asleep when he heard the rap at the door. It was already three in the afternoon and Ray, one of the other tenants, had been sent to check on the new arrival. No one was allowed to sleep that long, even after a long journey and Olive, ever mindful of disharmony among her house guests, had decided to act.
Downstairs on the range, a heavy iron kettle was beginning to boil when Reed appeared. Although afternoon tea was a more prevalent custom in wealthier households, Olive made some effort to chivy herself by sticking with tradition, demanding that any of ‘her boys’, as she called them, joined her if they happened to be home.
On this particular Tuesday, there were only two. Conversation was stilted.
‘Where have you come from then sir, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘Perhaps the gentleman does mind, don’t you Mr Reed. You don’t want everyone knowing your business just yet. Plenty of time for that. I can introduce you at dinner when all are present and correct.’
But this consideration did not really extend to Reed despite appearances, but to herself. That way she wouldn’t have to repeat the story of how more than 30 years ago she met the Reeds on their first visit to the capital two weeks before they set sail for The New World. Even gossips, at times, don’t wish to repeat themselves.
No one could be bothered to tell the story of how Olive Smith had once hosted her new visitor’s family, six years before his birth, and how his parents had kept her address. Only one of them knew the why.
Ray knew enough not to press her and so the three of them sat largely in silence until the pot was empty.
‘Let me look at your tea leaves though sir,’ she said, ready to make mischief. He pushed his cup forward. She paused to peer and build tension.
‘I see a big future ahead of you sir. it doesn’t surprise me having known your mum and dad. They were always going to make something of themselves, of that I could be sure.’ Reed blanched at the mention of his parents.
Ray, ten stone of sinew from working on the docks and just turned 20, looked up but said nothing. His own life would chart the usual course; he had no expectation of anything more than fate and DNA would allow, and held fast to a native cheeriness, which Olive would exploit to send him on numerous errands both in the house and outside.
So, when he did pitch in it was to try to be helpful. ‘I could show you the city sir, if you like…I mean when you are ready ‘n all.’ He looked hopeful, like a dog awaiting a bone.
‘You are very kind, but I am — as you will no doubt discover — a solitary traveller….I don’t wish to be ungracious, but I am afraid three months on the road have set in me a pattern…’ He trailed off, still tired. There was no real reason for Reed to possess the affect of a gentleman, his parents were simple people, his own life spent with roughnecks in the wild. And yet there seemed to be a natural nobility about him, a soulfulness evident since birth when he would sit like a buddha, watching the world. He rarely got involved in the drama of others and had found at first a foothold, then a home in silence.
It made people want to be around him, even if they couldn’t understand why and Ray, whose life was woefully understimulated, could barely hide his disappointment.
Reed reconsidered: ‘Perhaps, it would be a good thing as I am a new arrival to have you as guide just this once, but please understand I probably won’t make a habit of it.’
Ray beamed a childlike luminescence: ‘Should I get my coat then sir?’
‘Why not Ray, why not. Let’s see if I can bear all these people and buildings.’ Olive also beamed, hers a vicarious pleasure that for now at least harmony prevailed and besides, she would be able to drink her sherry in peace.
© Simon Heathcote
