because my views on life aren’t like theirs. We’ll turn down here, I want to show you my meadows.’
‘Where you’re goin’ to live?’
‘Yes.’
It was the usual Hertfordshire lane, a narrow passage, pot-holed with puddles reflecting the fading gold of the sky, hedges of ancient thorn where purple-red berries glowed, with shining ivy; humble pebbles large and small embedded in the mud, and scattering over all, like another light, the song now near, now far, of a robin. English earth, as it might be remembered in the future by human exiles on another planet , he thought.
He glanced at her and caught a listening expression on her face.
‘That’s a robin,’ he said.
‘I know. Used to feed one in that park where I met Auntie. Got quite tame, he did. Never would come onto me hand, though. Hours, I reckon I wasted on him, stoopin’ down holdin’ out bits of bread.’
‘They weren’t wasted.’
‘What d’you mean? He never came.’
‘But you looked at him. You got to know the look of him exactly. That “red” isn’t true red, it’s a kind of orange – you’d realized that, hadn’t you?’
After a little pause she nodded. The robin, drawn inevitably by the presence of man, was fluttering after them down the lane, and in a moment Frank stooped, picked up a length of stick and began to imitate the action of someone digging. Juliet stood still. The robin hopped nearer, skittered away, came back again, and alighted on a branch within three feet of the moving arm.
Frank began softly to repeat aloud the legend of the Crucifixion and the gift of the red breast, and Juliet listened, expressionless, her eyes fixed upon the tiny, breathing cluster of bone and feather that seemed, with tilted head and brilliant eye, to be listening too. But before the story was ended, the bird suddenly flung away into the air, dived heedlessly into a bank covered in ivy, and vanished.
‘Is it true?’ she asked in a moment, as they walked on, Frank smiling at the dramatic exit.
‘Oh Juliet, what a question! How can anyone possibly tell whether something that’s supposed to have happened two thousand years ago is true? Do you mind, if it isn’t?’
‘What’s the point, if it isn’t?’
‘There isn’t a “point”. It’s just a beautiful and moving legend connected with – another beautiful and moving legend. If it were true—’ He paused, and she glanced at him questioningly.
Talk with her was so difficult. Every sentence, almost every word, had to be pondered. Dammit, it’s like chatting with a dolphin , he thought.
‘If it were true,’ he said slowly at last, ‘I think it would be . . . overwhelming.’
A long pause. They had reached the end of the lane leading to Leete, and come out upon the wider one that would bring them to Wanby.
‘I don’t see that,’ she said at last, dodging a car with a miserable-looking driver.
‘Well . . . the contrast between the – the creaturely innocence of the bird, and what was happening on the cross – from a Christian point of view, I’m speaking now – and (our imaginations have to make an almost impossible leap to conceive this) if the feathers of the countless succeeding millions of robins were dyed red by a shock inherited from that one bird – it would . . . would imply more concern on the part of the Star Maker with the smallest of this creation than . . . than most people are able or prepared to accept.’ The sentence faded ineptly.
‘You religious then?’
Her tone was touched with contempt and distaste. He had been expecting such a reaction.
‘In a way, I suppose – yes.’
‘On about religion at the Comp, they were – that was another thing,’ she muttered. ‘Got me down.’
And, wondering whether he had said enough for one afternoon, he said no more.
But now he knew what he felt towards her: a teacher’s impulse. He wanted to fill the vast gaps in her mind with rich facts. Not what he thought of as the colourless facts of
‘Where you’re goin’ to live?’
‘Yes.’
It was the usual Hertfordshire lane, a narrow passage, pot-holed with puddles reflecting the fading gold of the sky, hedges of ancient thorn where purple-red berries glowed, with shining ivy; humble pebbles large and small embedded in the mud, and scattering over all, like another light, the song now near, now far, of a robin. English earth, as it might be remembered in the future by human exiles on another planet , he thought.
He glanced at her and caught a listening expression on her face.
‘That’s a robin,’ he said.
‘I know. Used to feed one in that park where I met Auntie. Got quite tame, he did. Never would come onto me hand, though. Hours, I reckon I wasted on him, stoopin’ down holdin’ out bits of bread.’
‘They weren’t wasted.’
‘What d’you mean? He never came.’
‘But you looked at him. You got to know the look of him exactly. That “red” isn’t true red, it’s a kind of orange – you’d realized that, hadn’t you?’
After a little pause she nodded. The robin, drawn inevitably by the presence of man, was fluttering after them down the lane, and in a moment Frank stooped, picked up a length of stick and began to imitate the action of someone digging. Juliet stood still. The robin hopped nearer, skittered away, came back again, and alighted on a branch within three feet of the moving arm.
Frank began softly to repeat aloud the legend of the Crucifixion and the gift of the red breast, and Juliet listened, expressionless, her eyes fixed upon the tiny, breathing cluster of bone and feather that seemed, with tilted head and brilliant eye, to be listening too. But before the story was ended, the bird suddenly flung away into the air, dived heedlessly into a bank covered in ivy, and vanished.
‘Is it true?’ she asked in a moment, as they walked on, Frank smiling at the dramatic exit.
‘Oh Juliet, what a question! How can anyone possibly tell whether something that’s supposed to have happened two thousand years ago is true? Do you mind, if it isn’t?’
‘What’s the point, if it isn’t?’
‘There isn’t a “point”. It’s just a beautiful and moving legend connected with – another beautiful and moving legend. If it were true—’ He paused, and she glanced at him questioningly.
Talk with her was so difficult. Every sentence, almost every word, had to be pondered. Dammit, it’s like chatting with a dolphin , he thought.
‘If it were true,’ he said slowly at last, ‘I think it would be . . . overwhelming.’
A long pause. They had reached the end of the lane leading to Leete, and come out upon the wider one that would bring them to Wanby.
‘I don’t see that,’ she said at last, dodging a car with a miserable-looking driver.
‘Well . . . the contrast between the – the creaturely innocence of the bird, and what was happening on the cross – from a Christian point of view, I’m speaking now – and (our imaginations have to make an almost impossible leap to conceive this) if the feathers of the countless succeeding millions of robins were dyed red by a shock inherited from that one bird – it would . . . would imply more concern on the part of the Star Maker with the smallest of this creation than . . . than most people are able or prepared to accept.’ The sentence faded ineptly.
‘You religious then?’
Her tone was touched with contempt and distaste. He had been expecting such a reaction.
‘In a way, I suppose – yes.’
‘On about religion at the Comp, they were – that was another thing,’ she muttered. ‘Got me down.’
And, wondering whether he had said enough for one afternoon, he said no more.
But now he knew what he felt towards her: a teacher’s impulse. He wanted to fill the vast gaps in her mind with rich facts. Not what he thought of as the colourless facts of
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