The tower –

His gaze ascends it.

To the belfry.

Drops.

Flits over the red bricks, ravenous.

He bounds up the steps.

Fizzing at the prospect of discovery.

Towards the gates.

Sidles about the wrought iron.

Dashes up the path.

Stops before the vestry.

Presses the door.

Grimaces.

Hastens on.

To the side entrance.

Pauses.

Pushes.

The door bows.

But doesn’t open.

He hares on.

Towards the tower.

Body warming, hope cooling.

Closed, of course. Outside service hours. Vandals.

He slows his approach to the west porch.

Stops before the inner doors.

Peers through the fogging glass –

His fearful eyes.

The space beyond –

Cavernous, cool.

Closed?

He turns away.

Reviews the marble wall-stone.

List of lost rectors.

Thirteen hundreds.

Fourteenth century –

Swallowing, he turns back.

End credits before the main feature.

Leave it till it acquires context.

He braces.

Presses the glass.

Whoosh!

It gives easily.

Rare.

Most churches accessible by porch only.

Or not at all outside service hours.

He starts in.

Stops.

What to do after?

Must have something to look forward to meta.

The grounds?

Yes.

Memory infuses his consciousness.

Him in short trousers.

His right hand in his grandfather’s left.

Trampling a graveyard in search of Sir Percival.

His headstone.

Did that inspire this?

He progresses, forehead before heart.

Inside, he halts.

Looks up, mouth open.

Swoons.

Rush of space tamed, turned.

Light trained.

Sound rounded.

He pulls a jotter from his breast pocket.

A Biro.

Writes –

Expected surprise of mass and moment. Jump-cut from blazing cyan, lush emerald to cool cream, honey brown.

He pauses.

Recommences –

Collision of wood and concrete, glass and stone. Inverse shout.

He frowns.

Starts.

Jots.

Ethereal space in impregnable armour. Ploughed field ennobled by curlicued canopy.

He looks up.

Along the corridor of starched walls and white light.

The reredos – gilt and faun – beckons.

He works his pen –

Instant occasion. Day out.

He closes his eyes.

Raises his chin.

Draws breath, long, slow.

Peeks.

Jots –

Each has an ear and nose. Above suppressions (wildlife, traffic), excretions (bells, voices), there is the white noise of faith. Beyond the ambience of hope (frankincense, wax), the scent of custom.

He looks over his shoulder.

Aloft.

Sparkling organ pipes.

Lungs of the building.

Gills.

Voice of the voiceless.

Realising, starting, he turns back.

Looks there.

Here.

No one?

His brow shortens.

There’s always an attendant of some denomination, lurking.

He turns to the glass doors.

No ersatz ticket-barrier manned by an overly helpful pensioner either.

Ripley is recalled.

The intent attendant forking from a baked potato.

Spraying white pellets as she potted history.

Has to be someone.

On a relief break?

Yes. They’ll pop up momentarily.

For the moment, however, he is alone.

The first time in a long time.

Discomfort twists his intestines.

Why?

I’ll be accused of having done something.

He starts.

Suffer a brainstorm, and do something.

When did he feel like this last?

The eye test.

Twilit, the examination room was serene.

The optometrist beautiful –

No – Pretty; more potently.

Her immaculate skin.

Lush, jet hair.

Lilting voice inviting.

It wasn’t long, then, before he was coughing.

Why?

They were too much alone.

And then she closed the door.

He started up.

To open it?

No.

What then?

He didn’t know.

But, suddenly, there seemed to be something to the religious proscription against being alone with a person of the opposite sex unrelated by blood.

And not for her sake only.

If she’d yelled rape, no jury would have found in his favour.

He watches the west doors.

His reflection in them.

The space behind him, around him seems equally vulnerable suddenly.

What if it tempts my inner barbarian, like priceless porcelain?

He shakes his head.

Turns.

Strides towards the altar.

To work off his self-fear.

Grit on his sole.

He glances up.

Flinches.

A security-camera?

He hides his implements behind his back.

Looks down.

At the patch of wall behind the lectern.

On?

And, if it is, is anyone watching?

Even if they are, they’ll see him merely.

Not be able to read his mind.

There goes the tour.

He won’t be able to give himself to it now.

No –

Whoever is watching should be able to determine intent by movement.

Yes.

He collects a guide from the stand.

He prefers to undertake research prior to a trip, but couldn’t find anything on this place in a book or on the web.

Good thing too.

Now he needs to demonstrate his innocence to someone.

He eases into a pew.

Krak! Krewk! The wood objects.

He bows his head.

Closes his eyes.

Faux faith.

Dude pilgrim.

Eternal tourist.

He opens his eyes.

The photo-copy.

Victorian, of course.

Romanesque, inevitably.

Chariot ride with the last great empire that achieved self-vindication.

Remember, you are merely amoral.

The conquered will exact revenge if you don’t command their minds.

He glances up.

Into the scarlet eye.

Looks down again.

Continues reading.

Pretending to.

Better than an attendant.

Worse.

For seeming omniscient.

A fellow body demands acknowledgement.

Then can be ignored.

A camera merits no salutation.

But remains omnipresent.

Outside, a crow barks.

He checks his watch.

Grips the back of the pew ahead.

Draws himself up.

Looks up.

Turns quickly, about his plane of symmetry.

Takes it all in.

In one carousel whirl.

Stops.

Giddy.

He throws out a hand.

Wrings the pew ahead.

Saliva inundates his tongue.

He swallows.

Takes a breath.

Puts a hand to his brow.

Dumbshows dizziness.

Scoffs.

Writes –

Minimalism coolly comforting. Yet to accumulate patina of curios that darken great temples. So, no Dennis Wheatley dread that the focus of generations of fear is watching me as keenly as I am it.

Klik!

His chin jerks.

Has it moved?

The camera’s scarlet eye.

No.

He looks down.

Dennis Wheatley?

He crosses this through.

Writes above it –

M.R. James.

Then –

Will this one ever acquire their weight, import? Be standing in a hundred years? A thousand? If so, will it be any more than a monument to change? Loss?

He starts down the south aisle.

Observing his gallery-going expedient.

Most shows tick clockwise.

But the crush thins progressively towards the exit.

So, he navigates exhibitions against the tide.

This way, he encounters less congestion.

Even – peculiarly – when he closes on the start.

My end.

Their beginning.

Of course, it only works when there’s no natural progression.

And if he can review the explanatory material beforehand.

Nevertheless, the tic has degenerated into instinct.

Superstition.

So, he observes it even when a gallery is empty.

As now.

A window flares.

The Good Shepherd.

He snubs it.

Continues down the aisle.

Towards the memorials.

Marble camouflaged against cream ground.

He leans forward.

Hops back.

Holsters pad and pen.

Lowers his gaze.

Deference and reverence:

Twin goods all faiths acknowledge.

Unfaiths too.

Belief that, somewhere, the fallen still hear, see.

Sufficiently, at least, to mind we stop before their milestones towards death, whatever we think of them elsewhere, and mime respect with silent awkwardness.

Is that two minutes?

He levels his chin.

Considers the memorials as artefacts.

Lifts pad and pen –

Bluff as uniform, the Second War slab a work of reference only. The First War dedication, however, is winningly Romanesque. Shallow relief of a genuflecting Tommy argues that death is a whittling away of extension merely. That he persists somewhere – albeit at a tenth of his former breadth.

He pauses.

Peers.

Pouts.

Long ago, every town had a cenotaph. Now, their names appear here only. And not theirs merely. As well as being a town’s local gallery, museum, it is a monument to all its dead.

His pen hand starts towards the slight trooper.

The camera!

He withdraws it.

Scratches his nose instead.

Writes –

Select names indent the war memorial, but the passive struggles of all villagers relieve these palaces to dedication, focus. The breath of the evolving community darkens the pillars.

He reads the dedications.

The great ones (old ones) are collages of/to endeavour; sanctify innumerable anonymous battlers who marched against darkness armed with trowel and chisel only.

He pockets pad, pen.

Turns.

Proceeds, hands behind his back, towards the chancel.

Mounts the steps, watching his feet.

Aboard the busy carpet, he stops.

Looks up.

The skin about his nose wrinkles, bearing up to the sun.

Apse roof same honey-coloured oak as supports and screens.

Groin, ribs, radiations.

Nature’s wonder machine-worked.

He looks down.

Over the canon table.

He pulls his implements.

Like no other functioning building. Conglomeration of natural materials, like all structures, but more determined to emulate nature than most. Spire: oldest tree in the wood. Pillars and vaults: sheltering bower. Aisle: a clearing in a forest decorated with mementoes from a lost civilisation.

He scoffs.

Sobers.

Good because true, or because remembered?

He peruses the pilaster before him through his varifocals.

Picks out the acanthus leaves on the capital.

Bows to his pad.

Roman gilt and guilt. Victorian sensibility schizoid. Ever neo but never knowingly new. Resolution of two empires: Roman and British. Elsewhere, an amalgam: gothic sensibility plus nineteenth century austerity. All that effort to recreate and replicate. Pre-Raphaelite rediscovery of the first born. Industrial Revolution couldn’t invent, merely manufacture from moulds.

He coughs.

Swallows.

Turns away.

Grease-blurred eyeglasses pan stained-glassed windows.

Left to right.

Blue, gold, scarlet.

Cool, light.

He starts back.

To winkle out narrative.

Right:

Sword, ship.

Guess?

St. Paul.

Middle:

Tree, bird.

Pelican?

Know:

Christ.

Left:

Keys, cockerel.

Know:

St. Peter.

He pulls his guide.

St. Paul.

He looks.

Word of God, Sword of Spirit.

He turns.

Reads.

Christ as priest.

King and author of life.

He looks.

Turns.

Reads.

St. Peter. Keys to Kingdom. Repentance.

He puffs with vainglory.

St. Paul?

Is pricked with a stiletto.

Stupid.

He deflates immediately.

How could I forget St. Paul?

Vainguilty, he sourgrapes.

Why reduce every experience to a pop quiz anyway?

He tells his pad –

Know or don’t know: what does it matter? Wandering illimitable wilderness of the unknown/unknowable, why am I comforted to identify a single shrub every thousand miles?

Blinking, he surveys the lights again.

Winces.

Consults his guide.

Windows commissioned in 1949.

Problem with style.

Dilemma.

He bends to his pad.

Nothing comes.

He flips it shut.

Remembers.

Finds his place.

Pity latter-day, Saturday Michelangelo: forever hovering between a mountain and a high place. Modernist renderings of ancient myth always seem harsh, loud (no matter what medium or technique employed). Yet self-consciously traditional recreations (this tradition spanning two millennia and numerous styles/schools) sink into kitsch. Why? Naivety cannot be simulated. Original artisan didn’t attempt to portray events in the manner of a child. He was a craftsman trying his craftiest. And he had no sense of style. His inheritor knocks out/off transparent imitations. Arch.

He sheaths his Biro.

Glances up.

Experiences realisation.

Original artisan had a sincerity (of purpose, aspiration) that is impossible to fake. Was another working man merely. Genuine because never conceived of himself as a genius. Had no expectation of impending fame, riches. Authorship, even. Went to market but didn’t work for one. True artist because artisan. Had, moreover, a quality which died with his age: unequivocal belief in his subject.

Pen comes off paper.

Remains poised.

He shrugs.

Pockets all.

Turns.

Starts down the chancel steps.

Passes the lectern.

Senses its gravity.

Succumbs to it.

Must check off every item.

As if taking inventory.

For the camera?

No.

ABC.

Always Be Cramming.

From afar, the support looked quietly functional.

Now, loudly ornamental.

His gaze flutters over the eagle, its wings.

Flight I understand.

But why not – never – an angel?

He glances up.

Shrugs.

Massages the oak.

Its chiselled ridges.

Sniffs his fingers.

Scoffs.

Turns towards the hymn board.

The numerals withhold meaning.

Lotto numbers.

Jackpot: all-timeshare in eternity.

He twists towards the north wall.

The banner brakes him, a traffic signal.

He reads it again.

Still can’t charge the celestial sound-bite with sense.

Hoping it will come with speech, he mutters it.

‘If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation.’

It remains portentous.

A manifesto promise.

Cryptic.

Google it when I get home.

ABC.

He shakes his head.

Continues.

Is it necessary to decode every detail, no matter how nondescript the art and architecture?

Artitechture?

He says this aloud.

Is amused to discover it holds up in space.

Then, not amused.

I’m a cockeyed completionist.

The universe is infinite.

The compossible events within it illimitable.

So, what’s to be gained by fixating on the few, random points in timespace in my purview?

Perhaps they’re representative of the inaccessible remainder?

Indicative of something beyond themselves?

Thus, it’s necessary to process – in a linear, logical fashion – every experience encountered.

Explore it with academic (in both senses) rigour before moving on to anything else.

Jot this down?

His gaze wanders to the motif on the placard above.

Red swirl on yellow ground –

Superman?

No.

The icons connote older heroes.

Crossed keys?

St Peter.

Sword?

St. Michael.

Or St. George?

Christ the Avenger?

No – St. Paul’s weapon of choice.

Flashed earlier on his window.

Message ambiguous.

Simultaneous sign of admittance and repulsion.

Ambivalent.

His removes his glasses.

Massages his nose, the pink bridge.

Naked, his eyes return to the motif.

Ingress to the few; egress to the majority.

He slips his glasses on.

Writes –

Wonder whether those on heavenly guest-list – who trickle by, in their tens now, on one day only – ever deconstruct emblems. Perhaps glazed/unglazed believers regard them as symbols of forgotten meaning.

He tastes his pen, the cap.

All do as much with familiar icons. Don’t see constituent parts of a traffic sign (e.g. castle), crest (e.g. Liver bird) as discrete objects, but portions of symbols that store immediate meanings themselves (e.g. tourist attraction, Liverpool FC). Believers view this as undifferentiated device. As if keys, swords left in furnace too long, and fused into single unit. Unfriable as a Viking rune. Or letter of the –

Oh, God!

He claps his stomach.

No good.

He tightens his cheeks.

A fast, loud smell emerges.

He glances this way, that.

Incensed at his own incense.

Looks up.

Imagines diffusion exploring heights he will one day.

A hope improbable as his wish to visit every church in the country before he’s gas.

A simple calculation must confirm how unlikely it is he’ll experience every one in the county now.

Maybe if he excludes modern chapels?

With honourable exceptions, twentieth century houses of prayer look like pre-fabs.

As if structural status, architectural worth is inversely proportionate to the developer’s trust in the persistence of faith.

A bad thing?

As religion relaxes its ideological hold on the masses – proof: I’m alone in a parish hub on a Sunday morning – the more the paraphernalia of devotion will be respected as cultural force. Once the faith is moderated into passive mythology, the church will be reclaimed as a social focus –

Ugly phrase, change.

The British Museum isn’t the most popular attraction in the country because visitors believe in Zeus, but because they acknowledge the cultural –

The next page is darker.

He flips it.

Two blanks and I’m at cardboard.

Have to be careful.

He turns towards the dedication chapel.

Open-plan.

Functional.

A temporary arrangement?

He checks.

No – It’s been in situ since the last war.

Wall-to-wall shag-pile.

A carpet warehouse millionaire laying his way to eternal underlay?

He starts, alarmed.

The altar.

Candlesticks on it, crucifix.

His chin wants to buck.

He stops it.

Golden only, surely?

He crosses to the chapel.

Looks up.

Over a child’s bedroom ceiling.

Cyan sky studded with stars.

Or ocean with fishes?

He rubs his glasses into his shirt.

Peers through the top of his varifocals.

Ocean?

Heavens?

Ocean and heavens?

His gaze tumbles towards a Madonna and child.

Gilt frame?

No – Woolworth’s Raphael.

His attention stops on the fire extinguisher behind the altar.

Incongruous.

Or symbolic?

He scoffs.

Turns.

Dashes to the front pew.

Bends over his pad.

Starts his pen.

His hand slower, smaller.

When forced to attend services, these places seemed eminently resistible. While they bustled, the loud theatre of religious practise shouted down the allure of silent contemplation. Muttering and droning amid the throng, began to fear for the vulnerable foundations. Chants and hymns boorish attempts to master fear that communion is nothing more than hope. The grander the armour, louder it clanged, the more apparent it became that there was nothing inside.

He looks up as if hailed.

The frail crucifix.

His pen hand starts automatically.

Phenomenonogically, all thought is belief; all belief active. Still, this truth-wishing seems more desperate/desolate. Despite the great works of art, architecture, literature, music, all the wilfully baroque vestments and rococo pronouncements can’t assuage realisation that faith is, finally, a bleat of desperation. Sparse as the aboriginal faiths from which it descended. Curiously, once, they were easier to dismiss because spartan, now command respect as cultural phenomenon precisely because they don’t possess awesome architecture, etc. Similarly, it is now that these halls are empty that they can reclaim a spiritual potency that might appeal to all.

He tuts.

Prolixity always comes when he has least facility to process it.

Schism started when church and state became church as state. Complete political impotence might power its redemption. Only when church has lost social potency entirely will it reclaim cultural authority. Suddenly seeming exotic, quaint, it can be enjoyed as custom.

Klang! Klang!

Startled, he stops.

Klang! Klang! The peals persist.

Released, he continues –

Once, religion was the way the untutored rehearsed philosophical arguments: mortality, cosmology, ethics. Eschewing religion/philosophy, popular culture nowmeets the need. Devotees address their own mortality through horror. Ethics through crime fiction, fantasy –

Klang! Klang!

Rung manually?

Probably cued by computer.

Klang! Klang!

Is that digital too?

No.

But in today’s mosques, Memorex muezzins summon believers to prayer.

Klang! Klang!

Rudely mechanical.

Or platonically pure?

Either way, disembodied.

Klang!

He starts.

Turns to the camera.

Maybe it’s a call to arms?

He closes his eyes.

Watches Universal Studios’ villagers march up the hill towards him.

Pitch-forks, rakes and firebrands raised.

The glass doors shudder.

He twists towards them.

Just the leaves refusing the wind.

The chiming ends.

Silence sparkles under its after-glow.

Consciousness of his aloneness resurges.

Experience-weary, he pockets his pad.

Rises.

Out of clear paper anyway.

He starts down the north aisle.

Oh.

He stops before the last window.

Looks up.

Citrus-stringent as a Chagall.

He consults the guide.

Christ fishing with Simon Peter and Andrew in a local pond.

Spencer conceit.

Local lad.

Fisher of men also an adept – if unconventional – fisherman.

He steps forward to evade raking rays.

Trips towards the font.

Flings out a hand.

Braces against unyielding stone.

Recovers.

Cops a feel.

Giant pawn.

Chilly marble.

He lays his hand against his cheek.

Shudders.

Smiling, he rolls the leaflet into a tube.

Shoves it into his shirt-front.

Starts towards the west doors.

Stops.

Turns.

Surveys it all again.

One last time.

Ends on the camera.

Fixes its eye.

Almost certainly nobody watching but…

He lifts one hand.

Extends the thumb.

Turns.

Pushes his fingers into his trouser pockets.

Don’t believe in anything beyond the artisanship.

Art with a small A and a big heart.

Important others do, though.

Otherwise, these spaces will be demolished or – equal desecration – converted.

He withdraws a coin.

Two?

He slips them in the collection box.

Returns to the glass doors.

Pulls.

Whoosh!

No – Don’t believe in God.

But still believe in church.