The Rebirth of Pan | Page 9

utterly, they are beyond reach, I could not use them if I would. But it is very hard to watch her die when once a word would have been enough to cure such a thing. The doctors and nurses talk to me about red blood cells, about T-cells and lymph, and I nod and do not scream at them that cancer of the blood and bone answers well to magic and badly to man's medicine. She is my child, they do their best, and tears slide down my cheeks once again, and the other passengers look away, embarrassed. It's not done, not English, to weep in public. Grief should be hidden. They think me mad. It would not be so in Europe, this fear of caring is a Saxon thing.
I wipe my eyes and blow my nose. I stare out of the window at the desolation that is the back of Neasden. Even the name is ugly, well suited to the rows of chimneys, the gardens where nothing grows but broken bicycles and flapping icy washing. Everything is grey or black. Even the trees are grimy grey-green. The little scattering of snow that is left here and there in shrinking patches is grey. The train passes over a dirty canal. A child wearing a thin grey anorak is kicking stones into the water. So many of these lives are all futility. I should be thankful I have known some joy, thank you God, among the pain. But if she dies, my Eleanor--I always thought I would have the child. I never thought you were so cruel, God, as to play such a trick on me. Father O'Malley said that I shouldn't try and bargain with you. But I did, and you in your infinite mercy saw fit to treat me like this. I never thought you'd hurt her. She's innocent. Even Father O'Malley admitted that, that summer, before she was born, the first time, in Farm Street. Remember, God? I am not reproaching you, Lord, I know better than that, forgive me my sarcasm. But my daughter, my only child, is dying, and you know how it feels to watch your only child die, Lord, how about a little compassion?
I have already offered you everything. Even if you'd accept a bargain--which you won't. The old gods will, although they'll twist it and trick one if they can, but not you, oh no, never. Not in any circumstances, eh Lord? Anyway, Lord, I'm not proposing that this time. I've nothing left to bargain with, I've given you it all already. But don't you hurt her, God, hurt me instead. I don't mind dying, or giving you my life if you prefer. I tried to have her adopted and become a nun, you know that. Father Michael said that in the Middle Ages they'd have had me like a shot but these days they don't look for grief and religious mania in nuns, there is a sanity requirement. How Colin would have laughed. He always laughed to hear that I wanted to be a nun in my childhood. He would stroke my body until I shuddered, and say I wasn't cut out for it. But he was wrong. It was my true destiny, and he stole it from me, which is why I thought to return to it after. Oh, that's not all the truth, Lord, to whom all hearts are open and from whom no secrets are hid. Forgive me for bargaining with you. I thought when I fled that I could make myself the sacrifice for both of them. For Eleanor, who is innocent, and for Colin who does not understand what guilt is. I don't know why he doesn't. It's as if he was made with that left out. Shame, he feels, and pain, and love--oh God forgive me, I've thought of him, that's more to confess tomorrow. I call it improper thoughts, Lord, so I don't have to explain too much.
Father Michael doesn't know everything, Lord. He hears my confession every week, and I confess my sins each time, everything for the week that's gone. But he's just a parish priest, he isn't Father O'Malley, SJ, he didn't accept me back into the Church, in your name. He doesn't know what I was. He is careful of me, he thinks me mad. Maybe I am. Maybe that's why I sit here clutching my old bag so tightly my knuckles are white against the soft brown leather, with tears running down my face so that all these English people are embarrassed.
Wait, that one isn't. That one sitting opposite. He isn't like the others. He's looking right at me, seriously. He's wearing a crumpled sweatshirt with letters on, and jeans, and he has a straggly dark beard and long hair.