Not Allowed

The poetry book that iis taking me through Lent is focussing on pilgrimage thiis week. Here is a short story I wrote for a university unit assessment after a research project on pilgrimage.

I began the day thinking the man was an idiot. I ended the day believing he might just be Jesus.

Father Tobias was the new priest allocated to St Mary’s. He was young, young enough to sport a ponytail. It was a tightly bound ponytail, hidden under a hat, which if the rumours were to be believed, he had knitted himself. He was a lean man, riotous energy pouring out of every limb he possessed. On his visits to the sick and the elderly, he took a guitar along with the communion wine and wafers. How long, I wondered, would it take to shed the eccentricities and become a proper priest? Originality is good in its place but there is an expectation of pattern and predictability in Roman Catholic ministry.

He was an idiot, I thought, for allowing Ivy to come on the walk, although to be fair, he had probably not made up the list. There was a pilgrimage planned for later in the year, somewhere warmer, somewhere abroad, somewhere exotic, Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. This was just a practice walk, the first of a few planned over the next few months. Proper boots, rucksacks and walking sticks if we had them, were required. We could iron out the kinks in walking long distances long before we hit the real route, and people could decide whether they wanted to commit to something formal.

Ivy was an elderly lady, petite, hair tightly permed with a lavender rinse but there was nothing fragile about her. She had been moved to a sheltered housing complex just off Manor Road and resented the whole process of being managed. A single woman, she had no close family connections, nor any pets like a cat or a dog that I knew of. Surrendering her independence, giving ground bit by bit, was a bitter pill to swallow. She hated missing out on anything and pushed herself to do things that taxed her abilities.

Ivy wore a green knitted beanie pulled down over her ears. Her boots looked too new, not the broken-in ones essential for rough trails and boggy ground. The rucksack, too, looked new. I anticipated sore spots or blisters where the straps rubbed.

I knew that I would be given charge over Ivy. My own quietness seemed to be the perfect foil for her litany of grumbles that got longer with every meeting. She had health issues, minor ones, the kind that came with age, not life or death scenarios and she knew the names and doses of the cocktail of tablets she took each day.  An eye infection she had picked up a couple of weeks ago led her to wear a patch over one eye, like a harmless, elderly pirate.

We arrived early in the morning, a dozen of us piling out of a minibus in the carpark, a colourful rainbow of coats, hats and scarves. A forest ranger was assigned to come with us, ready to walk with the stragglers at the back. A walkie talkie hissed and spluttered from a belt round his waist. He treated us much like he would a party of schoolchildren, checking our jackets were buttoned up and our boot laces were tied properly.

It was early spring, not quite warm enough for a thin jacket, but not cold enough for something too thick. I had never got to grips with the mechanics of wearing layers. The planned route was a forestry trail. It was populated with information posts highlighting the flora and fauna observant eyes could expect to see. Leaves were tight fists of bright green growth, not fully emerged from their buds. Like commas they punctuated the branches. The ground was slick underfoot in places, last year’s leaves dark and damp, with patches of black mud that sucked at our soles. The sky was a pale blue, the sun like bleached lemon and the air was still. The smell of wood and grass was everywhere. Even this early a cloud of tiny flies jittered in frenzied circles above our heads. There was a busy chatter of a river over rocks. A steep rocky climb clothed in last year’s bracken met the water’s edge on the far bank.

We stopped for lunch beside the river where a selection of picnic tables had been deposited, all of them carved with angry graffiti. Large rocks plotted a path across the river. Would I have skipped and hopped back and forth, loud laughter shattering a quiet serenity, had I been younger? Probably not. I had not been a brave girl when I was growing up. If I did things that were risky it was because I felt compelled to join in. I lacked courage then, and still do. Outdoors is not my natural environment, although I have had my fair share of clarity walks over the months. Clarity? Is that not why some people take to pilgrimages? To find space and insight as they navigate a path through challenging times?

Along with a foil wrapped sandwich, Father Tobias pulled out a black, squat flask. It wasn’t coffee, but a herbal concoction, which seemed entirely at home with the guitar and the hat knitting. At the bottom of my rucksack was a small flask of whisky my husband had tucked away for a quiet moment. The flask was covered with red and blue crochet, something he bought me from a craft fair years ago. As much as I would have enjoyed a small dram, I did not know Father Tobias well enough to know if he would have objected, I left the flask where it was.

‘Do you want to swap sandwiches, Ivy?’ he asked. There was nothing appealing about Ivy’s limp white bread with a thin spread of something orange in the middle.

‘Not allowed,’ she mumbled. Her two words conveyed so much sadness. I wondered how much of her life was bordered by rules. She was at the mercy of a garrison of home-helps, interchangeable over the weeks, who never put down roots in Ivy’s life. Nameless, busy and efficient they eddied around Ivy in her chair, talking, but not with her. Just talking, keeping in rhythm with the ticking clock on the mantlepiece.

‘It’s OK, Ivy.’ Father Tobias said. ‘This,’ he continued, waving his foil wrapped sandwich, ‘is totally harmless. It’s all organic and the cheese isn’t real cheese but vegetarian pretend cheese. And there’s no mayonnaise. I don’t know about you, Ivy, but I don’t like mayonnaise.’

Ivy took the sandwich tentatively, unwrapped it, sniffed and smiled. It looked good, and even from where I was sitting it smelled appetising. Thick slabs of something dark and wholesome were crammed with cheese and slices of tomato. She closed her eyes, nibbling slowly at the edges of the sandwich. Each bite was granted access to every part of her tongue and mouth, and a contented sigh escaped from her lips. Father Tobias opened a packet of crisps and placed them between himself and Ivy.

He picked at Ivy’s sandwich. The orange filling was salmon paste and rather than eating it, he dismantled it piece by piece and tossed it to a trio of small birds foraging at the base of the table. He poured out a small measure of the herbal tea and passed it over to Ivy, who noisily slurped it from the cup.

I expected Father Tobias to reach into the rucksack and pull out a bible, something leather bound and well thumbed. We were practising a pilgrimage walk after all. A passage to read, perhaps, and a short inspirational message with a nature theme to be shared to fill the soul and spirit, much like lunch filled the body. A prayer and a song? Church outside the walls of St Mary’s. Along with my crochet-decorated whisky flask I had packed a small pocket bible for such occasions.

It was then that Father Tobias took off his boots and socks. Carefully rolling up the socks and inserting them into the boots, he planted his feet firmly in the grass, wiggling his toes. It reminded me of Old Testament prophets taking off their sandals, standing in bare feet on holy ground. Yes, Father Tobias had that aura about him of seeing all things, all people, places too as holy ground.

‘Did you know that research shows that walking barefoot on grass decreases stress? Something about the friendly bacteria seeping through the sole. Anything friendly seeping through the sole, the s-o-u-l too, has got to be good, don’t you think?’

A memory of childhood days, running barefoot through grass, came to mind. The friendly bacteria hadn’t done its job very well as I stumbled from one illness to another before my body figured out strategies for good health. Research told us one thing on a Monday and backtracked on the Tuesday. And grass was becoming a rare commodity these days with paving stones and concrete everywhere. Even the trees were victimised, being felled because of health and safety concerns.

Perhaps it wasn’t an invitation, but Ivy bent down to unlace her boots and peel off her socks. She wasn’t content to sit but stood up and turned slow bare-foot circles with her arms outstretched.

‘

Not allowed. Not allowed.’ She turned it into a song, a wavering melody, and extended a hand to Father Tobias to join her. He took off his jacket, folded it across the table and tucked his fingers around hers. The word ‘not’ was dropped from the refrain, as Ivy allowed herself to enjoy the moment. It began as an untamed kind of dance of arms flung this way and that, and a curious kind of hopping from one foot to another. And so much laughter between the words. This was an Ivy I had never met. An Ivy I think I liked. Perhaps an Ivy I wanted to be.

She remembered, perchance, the young woman she had once been, dancing with soldiers on leave. She put her hand on Father Tobias’ shoulder and steered him into a waltz, feet, back, forward, side, together. Maybe the birds formed an orchestra just for that one dance. Nature seemed to sigh.

A friend with a history of pilgrimages under her belt had told me to listen to the road and make the journey my own. Was this road, this forest path, telling me to get up and dance? I admit I was out of my comfort zone, even just being there.  I sat watching them, smiling even, wanting to join in, but unable to unlace, not my boots, but the way I had knitted my life together with tight stitches and with the prescribed tension.

They fell back onto the bench seats. Ivy reached down to retrieve her socks and boots.

‘Wait a moment.’

Father Tobias pulled a packet of baby wipes from his rucksack and kneeling on the grass in front of Ivy, he took a foot in his hands and gently began to wipe away the dirt that had gathered, His fingers were gentle, and his movements were slow and surprisingly intimate. I felt my cheeks warm and looked away.

‘Not allowed,’ whispered Ivy, a tear dripping from her chin.

‘Yes, Ivy,’ said Father Tobias. ‘This time, this one time, allowed, needed even.’

Echoes of a similar drama played out in my mind. As a faithful church goer over the years I doubt if there was a Bible story I had not heard or read. A different time, centuries ago, when BC became AD.  A different place too, the Middle East, Israel, Jerusalem. A different man, Jesus, kneeling on the floor with a bowl of water and a towel, washing the feet of his disciples before the Passover meal, before his death on the cross. It was servanthood demonstrated, not grudgingly but with love.

And now here was Father Tobias with his wet wipes and Ivy’s foot in his hand - just like Jesus. And maybe more than just the dust and the dirt on her feet, he was wiping away the damage done by the words ‘Not allowed’ spoken over her soul for who knows how many years.