Read Online Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Patrick Gale
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minutes then move on, refreshed and untroubled. Garfield’s feelings, by contrast, were a deep, forbidding pool, dark and unfathomable, stirred by sudden currents he could not control.
There were the usual sounds of a group of people settling; creaking of chairs, a squeak of a rubber sole on lino, a cough or two. Then the tick-ticking of the heater became the loudest sound in the room. He sought somewhere to rest his eyes that wasn’t a person and let them come to rest on the cardboard coffin. Now that he looked at it properly it was rather fine in its simplicity and cool, off-white colour.
Someone, a woman, got to her feet then paused for a moment before speaking. Garfield recognized her but couldn’t recollect her name.
‘We are here to say goodbye to our dear Rachel, who was a regular attender since Antony first brought her to Penzance a little over forty years ago. For those of you who have never been to a Friends’ Meeting before, this may not be the kind of funeral you’re used to. The proceedings take the form of a Quaker Meeting for Worship. This is based on silent contemplation. There are two aims in our worship: to give thanks for the life that has been lived and to help those who mourn to feel a deep and comforting sense of divine presence within us. The silence may be broken by anyone, Quaker or not, who feels moved to speak, to pray or offer up a memory of Rachel.’
There was a pause while she sat and Jack stood, a copy of Quaker Faith and Practice in his hands. He cleared his throat and read, ‘Accepting the fact of death, we are freed to live more fully.’ He allowed a few seconds for that idea to sink in then turned to a place marked with a bookmark and read again. ‘Quakers do have something very special to offer the dying and the bereaved, namely that we are at home in silence. Not only are we thoroughly used to it and unembarrassed by it but we know something about sharing it, encountering others in its depths and, above all, letting ourselves be used in it … You don’t get over sorrow; you work your way right to the centre of it.’
Jack sat down and Garfield tried again to lose himself in contemplation of the coffin, and the fact that his mother was in it and that he would never see her again. Or hear her voice. He realized it was her distinctive, crackly voice with its strange, sporadically transatlantic accent he would miss most keenly. It was a voice that had often mocked him, that left nowhere to hide but which, by the same token, was utterly candid. Quakerly candid. A voice for letting you know there was no worse to come. A voice for spine-stiffening, for the be-a-man breaking of bad news, but also for the seductive invitation to break rules and say the unsayable.
When he was first old enough to join the adult Meetings and to sit in silence rather than be parked in Sunday School, she had quickly divined his horror that one or other of his parents might suddenly feel moved to speak. Once or twice she tormented him by clearing her throat and shifting in her chair as though about to stand thensmiled wickedly as his eyes widened in horror. Antony was not amused. Usually, though, she was too involved for such teasing. She did not come every Sunday and elected to stay a lifelong attender rather than committing to membership. She always shied away from serious discussion of such matters yet something in Quakerism spoke to her: the lack of authoritative voices, perhaps, or the democracy. Most probably, given her unquiet soul, it was its ideal of stillness.
When he married Lizzy and Rachel was still disposed to like her, she said that she thought it a good faith in which to raise children. ‘I like the way it manages to be mystical and no-nonsense at the same time – meditation in plain surroundings. It offers you the divine but it keeps it in a plain pine cupboard alongside the kettle and cookies and Band-Aids.’
He suspected that Quakers fell into two groups; the talkers and the
There were the usual sounds of a group of people settling; creaking of chairs, a squeak of a rubber sole on lino, a cough or two. Then the tick-ticking of the heater became the loudest sound in the room. He sought somewhere to rest his eyes that wasn’t a person and let them come to rest on the cardboard coffin. Now that he looked at it properly it was rather fine in its simplicity and cool, off-white colour.
Someone, a woman, got to her feet then paused for a moment before speaking. Garfield recognized her but couldn’t recollect her name.
‘We are here to say goodbye to our dear Rachel, who was a regular attender since Antony first brought her to Penzance a little over forty years ago. For those of you who have never been to a Friends’ Meeting before, this may not be the kind of funeral you’re used to. The proceedings take the form of a Quaker Meeting for Worship. This is based on silent contemplation. There are two aims in our worship: to give thanks for the life that has been lived and to help those who mourn to feel a deep and comforting sense of divine presence within us. The silence may be broken by anyone, Quaker or not, who feels moved to speak, to pray or offer up a memory of Rachel.’
There was a pause while she sat and Jack stood, a copy of Quaker Faith and Practice in his hands. He cleared his throat and read, ‘Accepting the fact of death, we are freed to live more fully.’ He allowed a few seconds for that idea to sink in then turned to a place marked with a bookmark and read again. ‘Quakers do have something very special to offer the dying and the bereaved, namely that we are at home in silence. Not only are we thoroughly used to it and unembarrassed by it but we know something about sharing it, encountering others in its depths and, above all, letting ourselves be used in it … You don’t get over sorrow; you work your way right to the centre of it.’
Jack sat down and Garfield tried again to lose himself in contemplation of the coffin, and the fact that his mother was in it and that he would never see her again. Or hear her voice. He realized it was her distinctive, crackly voice with its strange, sporadically transatlantic accent he would miss most keenly. It was a voice that had often mocked him, that left nowhere to hide but which, by the same token, was utterly candid. Quakerly candid. A voice for letting you know there was no worse to come. A voice for spine-stiffening, for the be-a-man breaking of bad news, but also for the seductive invitation to break rules and say the unsayable.
When he was first old enough to join the adult Meetings and to sit in silence rather than be parked in Sunday School, she had quickly divined his horror that one or other of his parents might suddenly feel moved to speak. Once or twice she tormented him by clearing her throat and shifting in her chair as though about to stand thensmiled wickedly as his eyes widened in horror. Antony was not amused. Usually, though, she was too involved for such teasing. She did not come every Sunday and elected to stay a lifelong attender rather than committing to membership. She always shied away from serious discussion of such matters yet something in Quakerism spoke to her: the lack of authoritative voices, perhaps, or the democracy. Most probably, given her unquiet soul, it was its ideal of stillness.
When he married Lizzy and Rachel was still disposed to like her, she said that she thought it a good faith in which to raise children. ‘I like the way it manages to be mystical and no-nonsense at the same time – meditation in plain surroundings. It offers you the divine but it keeps it in a plain pine cupboard alongside the kettle and cookies and Band-Aids.’
He suspected that Quakers fell into two groups; the talkers and the
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