I am writing in a café in Islington and I see many men in shorts. “Why are they in shorts in wintertime?” I think. I mean… so many of them. They are allowing quite a large proportion of their body to meet the cold! What’s worse – they are probably runners. Running plus the wind-chill factor means very cold knees. They are probably single and on the run, just in order to keep fit. So that they are well enough to face that time when keeping fit is hard: when they are old. They keep themselves fit and locked into music playing in their ears. I reflect on men and how I wish my husband would keep fit. So that we might have a long life together, with the normal ratio of humour and hurt as befits marriage, but be fit enough to meet the challenges with aplomb. And then I think: “there’s more than one way of ‘keeping fit’ ”. You have to drink plenty of water if you run. Indeed, it’s wise to lock into the H20 whatever your level of fitness. My husband builds things from time-to-time. He’s a gardener. He can build you a place in your garden to recycle things if you like. He’s done that. We have a place like that in our garden. There’s drinking water, there’s enjoying the great outdoors, there’s building something. Slowly drawing on the examples of time.
I’m in Suffolk and I’ve jumped off a bus right by a church I know.
I need to think.
Churches carry about them stoups of water, blessed so you can bless yourself with water from them. Holy Water. It’s reassuring.
For some reason, once in there, I go straight to the statue of St. Joseph. It’s a nice statue but there’s something missing from one of his hands. Probably the tools of his trade. He was a carpenter, and probably the most famous step-father we know. Looking around I see I’m not alone in the church. A really cool and stylish leather-jacket-wearing woman is just sitting, legs towards the congregation part of the church, on the altar steps and she is writing in a notebook, quietly. She looks up at me.
“It’s nice in here at this time of day,” she says. “It’s so quiet.”
I want to light a candle by the statue of the Virgin Mary at her altar in a corner of this church, but again I see that I am not alone. Again the person is low to the floor, as if hiding. But he’s not hiding. He is a slight but muscular man. He has adopted the lotus position of the eastern religions on the floor. He is absolutely concentrated on his prayer.
I assume, since he is in front of the Virgin, that he is what my sister calls “channelling the Divine Feminine.” The power of his meditation is so strong that I don’t not want to risk disturbing him. The World needs prayer right now. I end up at an icon that’s been put up by the Polish community in this Suffolk town. It’s of Our Lady and her child.
I’ve been reading about Polish people in Suffolk. The icon’s near a picture of the Sacred Heart, special to the Polish. It feels right that I should light a candle there. Outside, everything is unstable, easily misinterpreted. My work feels unsafe, I feel unsafe. I wobble like a jelly at a small child’s party, outside. I’m not sure I don’t belong at a small child’s party, to tell you the truth. Maybe it’s a lemon jelly. And I wear a red nose. But in a place of worship or a place I can draw closer to the best we can manage, I feel okay. Myself. Grown up.
Stepfathers. Yes
I’m visiting another church in Islington. It’s unusual as it doesn’t have leaks. A grander church, up in the north of Islington, is always suffering from bad leaks. It’s too big. This one I’m in now was a church that my son’s father’s family used to go to. My son’s father is London-Irish. His stepfather, also Irish, was like St. Joseph in that not only was he a stepfather, but he was a carpenter in the building trade. As far as I understand it, what he would do was frame out a building ready for concrete to be poured where it was wanted. A “shutter carpenter” my son’s father tells me. He looked after Angela, and a good few children of Angela’s did Ken. A strong man, not an easy man, but a strong one. He was a quiet person. He drank, somewhat, of course, as many Irish men making our city better did. I look at the ceiling of this church and think: it hasn’t got leaks because builders loved it. They thought it was ‘worth the candle’. Ken had one child with Angela. A daughter. She was their Pearl. And they had many grandchildren and step-grandchildren.
I remember the last time I saw him. I was in Eddie’s van. The family had just lost Angela, and everyone knew Ken wouldn’t last long. I can still see him. Waving at me and my son and Eddie in the front of the van. His cheeks red, flushed, the rest of his face pale, pale, pale. A skilled person. A quiet man who – if he went into church – would probably go in alone when no one else was around. I’ve observed men doing this.
And now my son has moved near us with his wife. His one and only. And for all their differences in personality, he gets on with my husband very well. My husband makes him laugh. My husband makes ME laugh. And, of course, he’s strong. He gets boxes down from high up places; he moves furniture around town for my son. Maybe one day, my son and his wife will have children, and we’ll be nearby. His own gem of a father is not far away. Whatever happens, we’ll all be nearby, I hope.
We are building something.
And it will be healthy, and safe.