CHAPTER 54
Siân’s tone was clipped and precise.

“Who are you and how do you know my mother?”

“Do you mind if I come in?”

“Answer the question first”

The scruffy man sighed.

“My name is Ambrose. Brother Ambrose”

“Cachu! Un o—“

“I only have a few words of that, I’m afraid. I’m from Guildford originally”

“Can I assume then that you are one of those sky pixie botherers from her bloody Bible Butlins?”

“If you mean to ask if I am from the retreat, yes. May I come in? It would be unseemly to keep shouting at each other like this in public”

I nodded as Siân muttered something else that kept its distance from courtesy, so as Brother Ambrose entered, I gave her a Look. “I think we need some tea, cariad”

She went to the kitchen, but I received my own Look back with interest. What the hell were we supposed to call him? Ambrose? Brother Ambrose? Bro? Oy, you?

“Come in and sit down, Mr Ambrose”

“Thank you. Just ‘Ambrose’ will be fine”

“Tea?”

“Water will be fine”

One of those. Oh dear. He clearly caught something in my eyes.

“No, nothing like that. I am just getting… Age sits on some of us more heavily than others, and I have had several cups of tea already today, and, well, it is a potent diuretic, and…!

“Oh! Top of the stairs on the right, if you need it!”

“Perhaps later”

My wife was at the door, two cups in her hands. She had obviously been listening.

“Why are you here?”

She was wound up as tightly as an adder waiting, wanting, to strike. I lifted a hand.

“Sit, Cariad. Ta for the cuppa. Now, it is a fair question, Ambrose. We haven’t heard from her in ages, then here you are. Not her, no, Siân, shush. So why now, why you? Oh, hang on”

I popped into the kitchen, drew a glass of water, and brought it through to him. My wife had him fixed, target acquired, missiles locked, fangs out, metaphors mixed all to hell. I handed him the glass and he nodded a thank-you.

“Miss… Mrs Powell, your mother has had a difficult time recently…”

I suddenly saw that face again. Rather have been barren. Whore. Pervert.

“Ambrose, she has made life rather difficult for many other people, not least the two of us. You will understand if we don’t exactly flow over with the milk of human kindness towards her, aye?”

He sighed. “Um, this is difficult. Did… Did you know that your father used to abuse her?”

Siân snorted. “Domestic fucking discipline? Aye, we found that out, through my cousin, ah? Biblical bullshit, right up your street I would have thought”

He looked pained. “No. Not at all. We are a contemplative order—“

She was starting to tense up. I know that my forearms are the tell she looks for, but my darling wife has her own temper, her own tells, and a serious shit storm was about to break over Ambrose’s head.

“Sackcloth and bloody ashes, is it? Or scourging, bit of whipping?”

“SIÂN! ENOUGH!”

She glared at me, and I took her hand. “Look, my sweet woman, I know. We were both hurt by her, aye? But this man isn’t her, is he? Give him a chance to speak, just for a while, aye? Find out what he has to tell us, then we can make our minds up properly, aye? Evidence first. It’s a crash site, we look first, judge later”

She was trembling, but she nodded, wiping a tear away from her left eye. I turned back to the spare little man. “And?”

He sighed. “I should explain. We are a Christian order, only about thirty years in existence. Our focus is contemplative, and as the Buddha teaches—“

“What the fuck?”

It just came out before I could stop it, but, well, what indeed the fuck? He lifted an eyebrow.

“We are a Christian order, do not be mistaken, but our Lord has nevertheless given many insights to those who came before His time on Earth as well as many who followed in latter days. If a man speaks Truth, should we disregard it purely because he has not been Saved? If we can accept the words of the Jews, why not those others who may have been vouchsafed a glimpse of the Godhead?”

Utterly barking. He continued, in a gentler tone.

“Buddhism speaks of respect for all living things. They justify it by mumbo-jumbo, of course, reincarnation, karma, and so on, but there is a Truth behind their misinterpretation, and there are lessons we can take from that. We are an Order that seeks to live as harmoniously with Nature, with the Lord’s creation, as we can. Mrs Powell, Siân, if I may, that is why your mother remained with us”

She picked up on that phrase immediately. “Remained?”

He nodded. “Yes, remained. It is not why she joined us in the first place, but it is why she has remained. I should stress at this point that I am merely a messenger here, not an advocate for any cause. I merely deliver her thoughts to you”

She still had the lock on. “Yes, but why did you say ‘remained’, ah?”

“Oh, it was not why she came. Not at all. Your mother was a little narrow in her interpretation of Our Lord’s message of grace”

“Up her own arse, you mean!”

“Oh, most definitely. Being where we are, we have some experience of Chapel people. They mistake physical rigour for spiritual and intellectual discipline”

That word again. I gave another squeeze to my beloved’s hand. “We heard about the d-word, Ambrose. You said ‘abuse’, though”

“Er, yes. Your father-in-law was a follower of a sterner tradition, but, well… This is a difficult subject for a celibate to comprehend, but it would appear that Mr Roberts performed his acts of domestic discipline more for the purposes of personal gratification than of the proper functioning of a Christian household”

Before I could spit the words out, he was holding up his hands, glass beside him on the coffee table.

“No, I do not use that term by way of approval but as a nod to the sophistry that lies behind the sickness of such distortion of Scripture. There is never a good reason to strike another”

I had a sudden flashback of a hard stop on a van, Chris in the back, a face, the swing of my asp—no, Ambrose, can’t agree on that one. He caught my expression, and I am sure he shuddered.

“Your mother came to us for all the wrong reasons, Siân. I believe I can guess what sort of establishment you thought we were, how we mortify the flesh, cleanse the soul of impurity, but that is not us. We simply remove distraction, we talk, we enlighten. Yes, more from the Buddha, I am afraid, but he spoke some truths and I do believe that they came from the Spirit. It took rather a long time for Angharad to reach her own lace on that Damascene road.

“We had to let her see for herself how it is not the place of others to prevent error, to curtail sin, that it must come from within the individual’s soul, that it must be heartfelt and voluntarily done. There were times when she could be a little too eager to, ahem, offer advice to others. That was something her brothers and sisters in Christ had to help her with, showing loving-kindness and faith in our Lord”

Enough was enough. “Look, Ambrose, neither of us is religious, not in any way, so could you simply tell us, in plain English, why you are here and what she wants?”

Another sigh from him. “Simple terms? She repents her behaviour and would be reconciled with her child”

Siân sprayed half a mouthful of tea. “As fucking simple as that? After what she said, she simply goes happy-clappy lord above all’s fucking fine in the garden? Coming up fucking roses, is it?”

H gave a twisted smile. “No, not as… simple as that at all. Unless you count months and months of contemplation and discussion as being ‘simple’, no, it hasn’t been simple. She has been horribly hard work. I should know, for I was the one handed what you may regard as an excrement-adorned stick, asked to study with her, talk with her, debate with her. No, it has not been simple, not in any way, and without the strength the Lord has given to me, I would cheerfully have walked away from her and left her to wallow in her error. She has not been an easy person to talk to, not until… not until we spoke of you”

I looked across, and she was frowning, puzzled. Ambrose nodded.

“Yes, Siân, you. You remain her daughter, her only issue. As long as she was still enfolded in Carwyn’s perversion, she was certain in her error, sure in her mistaken beliefs. Once she was shown a better path… No. There was nothing so simple. It was not quite kicking and screaming, but she was brought to understanding, shown the alternative, and in the end she was dwelling amongst those who were living and breathing that different way. She had seen your cousin and her husband, loved their children, and despite her rather perverse views on how to show love, she remains a mother”

Siân was spluttering now. “But…”

“If a child can grow up and become mature, why cannot an adult? Look, she suspects something of you. Is she correct?”

I looked at my wife, and she nodded, so I asked the what and why question, and he smiled. There was a definite twinkle there now.

“Your mother suspects that you wish to become a mother in your own right, and perhaps both of you together. We had a long, difficult but eventually fruitful discussion about that issue, if you will excuse the unintended pun. Your mother would see her grandchild or grandchildren. She would be reconciled with her daughter. She would… oh, Lord, how I wish You had found me an easier task, but I am Your servant, always and forever, and Your will is as it should be.

“Siân, I do believe we have managed to work through to some sort of understanding of how love is given by Our Lord to humanity, and while your mother has what would most politely be called ‘reservations’ about men, she seems to have found a sufficiently fitting Scriptural explanation of how two women may, well, cleave together as one spirit. Her statement is that she will accept you, Elaine, as her daughter-in-law, as her daughter’s spouse. And as a result…

“I can only quote her words to me, yes? She said, one day as we sat by the edge of the sea, and the birds called over breaking waves of a day the Lord had given us, she said “That woman my daughter consorts with, she is wanting a child, just like my own daughter. There are ways, medical ways, and I would wish them both well in their desire’ and then she said more”

My wife gave my hand such a tight squeeze I had to look at her, and there were tears pouring from her eyes. I handed her a tissue from the box on my side table before turning back to Ambrose.

“More?”

“Yes. She said she would acknowledge any child, from either or both of you”

Really? Big fucking—no, I pulled that back. This was actually a very big deal, and it would take a lot of thought before we could get ourselves back on an even keel. He wasn’t finished, though.

“She was very clear, in the end, clear in her understanding. She realised you would need the, er, assistance of a man for the, ahem, necessaries, and she recommended Kevin, who I believe is your cousin’s husband. Oh, and she said that if Kevin wasn’t suitable or available, you should use ‘that man her sister married, he has a good boy, makes fine children.’ I assume you know who she meant”