Three Brothers by Peter Ackroyd Page A

coolness of the air. The church itself was empty.He walked down the aisle, and then hesitated. Above the altar was a cross on which hung the figure of the suffering Jesus—this was not what he had come for. But then he saw the lady, smiling, with her right hand raised in greeting or in blessing. She was dressed in blue and white. Sam crossed the aisle and walked over to the Lady Chapel.
    He sat down on the narrow wooden pew and bowed his head. Then, after a long silence, he began to speak to her. “Do you mind if I talk to you? I have no friends, you see. I have no one to tell. I could have gone home, and forgotten all about it, but that would have been wrong. That would mean nothing had happened. But everything has happened.” He spoke in a slow, soft voice. “But now I have been chosen. I have been chosen to experience—well, you can call it a miracle if you like. I think it was a miracle. What do you think?” He looked up at her, wondering, enquiring, reflecting. She regarded him with pity, and put her finger to her lips.
    He sat in silence once more. He felt secure here, as safe as if he were in his own room at home—no, safer, because he was under the protection of the lady. He was suffused with warmth, although he could not tell whether it came from within or without. Who was that standing a short distance away? An old nun had come up to the altar with lilies in her hands; she crossed herself before the statue, and then changed the flowers in the silver vases to either side of it. She had noticed Sam but she seemed to pay him no attention. She crossed herself again, and left the chapel as quietly as she had entered it.
    After she had gone Sam looked up again at the lady. “She has offered you something,” he said. “I have nothing to give you. Do you need anything from me?” She did not reply. “Probably not. But I promise you this. When I see a person in trouble, I will try to help.” He thought of the young vagranton the park bench. “That will be helping you, I hope.” He stayed there a little longer, until with a sigh he got up from the pew and left the church.
    He came back to the chapel on the following morning. He sat in the same place, and gazed impassively at the statue of the lady. He noticed now that she had blue eyes, and that three tears ran down her right cheek. Perhaps she had wept last night. He wondered what had caused this. Did she know already of the young man? “Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything will be all right.”
    He came each day, and soon realised that three or four different nuns in turn changed the flowers and the altar cloth. He knew them all by sight, but they had not broken their silence. Then one of them surprised him. It was the oldest of them, the one he had seen on his first visit to the chapel. She was about to withdraw, having completed her ministrations, when she turned and walked over to him. It seemed to be a sudden decision.
    “Are you troubled, son?”
    “No. I’m happy. I think I’m happy.”
    “You pray to Our Lady?”
    “I speak to her.”
    “Do you?”
    “On the first day she put her finger to her lips.”
    She made the sign of the cross, and walked away.
    The nuns began to pay more attention to Sam. They smiled at him as they dusted the altar and polished the rails; they would walk down the aisle and nod as they passed him. One of them left a missal in his accustomed seat and then, a week later, he found a rosary there. He did not know what to do with it. He put it in the pocket of his trousers, and would sometimes slide his fingers through the hard wooden beads.
    He washed his clothes in the kitchen sink at home, and driedthem in the garden, but of course he became more shabby. There came a morning when one of the nuns approached him. “Do you know anything about gardening?” she asked him. He shook his head. “Well, you can learn. You’re strong, aren’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    “We need a handyman. Mother Placentia thought of you.”
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