Butterfly Catchers – Part I

It spiralled up and up, light as air, clear and perfect, rising through the slanting shafts of sunlight as if it had been made to do nothing else, created for just this time and place, and for him to discover it here. He wanted to reach out and touch it, to impossibly grasp the air and trap it between his fingers.

Then the man sitting near the pulpit coughed and the moment was gone, the music just music.

The coughing idiot turned to the two lace-mittened ladies, who were the only other people attending evensong, and began delivering an apologetic pantomime of chest banging, as if that somehow covered the situation. Angelus growled low in his chest. But the mood was broken – the choirboy had finished his solo and the cathedral filled with the complex blending of the whole choir, not the lone spiral of the soloist.

Angelus glared about him and considered how pleasurable it would be to snatch from the wall one of the ragged flags crumbling above the memorials of the county regiment, leap across the gaping expanse of the nave, and thrust the staff clean through the man’s eye-socket. To leave it quivering in the solid oak of the pew-back behind, and then gently lap the blood as it trickled down one rigid, white cheek.

There was a time when he would have done just that.

Angelus scowled. He couldn’t leave for at least another hour, the shafts of evening sunlight streaming across the cathedral close would see to that, but the intrusion had taken away all his pleasure in the music.

After a moment he pushed off the pillar he had been leaning against, and made himself head up the nave again, rapping his knuckles against the flag staff as he passed in a little tattoo that did nothing at all to relieve his feelings.

But even as he moved he could feel his footsteps start to slow, the fire of his annoyance slipping away, and, like a gnat’s whine in his head, as he approached the gaping expanse of the crossing he could feel the fury building against him, the pressure of dismissal, of disgust. And once again he spun round and turned back into the dark cavern of the aisle.

The aisle felt safe. A stack of unused hymn-books and service sheets in cardboard boxes lolled against one wall, while in the corner the stepladders and paint-pots of some artisan lay piled, inadequately hidden under a sheet. And, littering the walls and floor, the dull effusions of memorial plaques proclaimed that in this cathedral were interred the remains of the great, the good and the grossly moneyed. The mundanity of humanity ruled here, not the other thing. The gnat’s whine was muffled. Barely noticeable.

He made to kick out at the hymn-books and then something inside warned him not to disturb the service and that made him crosser still. He paced away and told himself that if he left well alone the boy might sing again. It was worth being patient for that.

Behind him the choir had finished, replaced by the drone of the priest. Angelus paused beside the small table bearing pamphlets detailing the architectural delights of the cathedral. He’d got an hour to kill, but neither the dignified presence of the Norman font, nor the soaring grace of the full flowering of English Perpendicular in the clerestory were going to keep him entertained. He lounged back against the table and folded his arms, challenging the world to amuse him before he amused himself.

After a while the priest intoned his blessing and the mittened ladies rose, smiling, clutching their prayer books to their chests as if afraid their bosoms would burst with joy. The idiot threaded his way towards the south door, still coughing. From the stalls came the orderly clatter of the choir preparing to leave. Angelus slunk back into the shadows.

The choristers came first, hurrying with the businesslike air of the young professionals they were, and only the occasional exchange of cheeky glances to show their natural animal spirits. The lay clerks followed, displaying considerably less unthinking grace and dignity as they chattered. Finally, the priest, hurrying off in the opposite direction with the air of a man with a dinner appointment.

Angelus waited.

The great cathedral church was left to him and to the rippling notes of a Handel concerto as the organist tripped his way through it, seemingly for his own delight. And to one other. Angelus stiffened as a small figure slipped out of the chancel to stand beside the little door that led up to the organ loft, peeping up the staircase within. From some window, shafts of rose, peacock and emerald tinted light fell across his white surplice to form a delicate flickering pattern. He looked fragile, almost ethereal. Hair as pale as dawn light and a narrow little face of such beauty as is supposed to belong only to the angels. The choirboy.

‘Mr Camberwell?’ The organist had finished and now the boy called softly up the stairs to the organ loft. ‘May I come up, Mr Camberwell?’

Angelus could hear no reply, and the boy stepped back a pace, rocking on his toes slightly, making his blood-red cassock sway. All his movements were light and neat, his attitude patient where most children would have looked bored or petulant.

Angelus let a sigh of breath whistle from his lungs, and moved closer.

Then a noise intruded from the choir-stalls, and a man emerged from the chancel, carrying a small bundle of sheet music. He smelt oddly similar to the boy, but there the resemblance ended, his hair was dark, his skin sallow, and there was no delicacy in the hard, pinched face. He dropped a proprietorial hand onto the boy’s shoulder. ‘You should have left to change with the others, we will be late home.’

‘I’m sorry, papa. I only wanted to hear Mr Camberwell play.’

‘You should be at home, practicing. Hurry along now.’

‘Yes papa.’

From his lurking place, Angelus made a fractional move forward, into better view, and stared, the stare that could send shivers down a man’s spine when he still had no idea who was watching him. But the boy was already turning away, trotting to where his fellows had vanished, leaving only the man – whose eye travelled away from Angelus with the disinterest of someone who had seen too many tourists lingering late in the cathedral to have any care for one more.

‘The boy is yours?’

The man hesitated, peering at Angelus.

‘And was that him, singing the solo?’ Angelus tried to keep the urgency from his voice. ‘The boy is… remarkable.’

‘Oh indeed, he is. Indeed. We are very fortunate.’

‘A voice such as that – perhaps one in a hundred years.’

The man inclined his head, as one accepting a personal compliment.

Angelus took another pace closer. ‘What would be his name, now?’

‘Oh, he… Ashworth.’ The man gave a sort of half bow. ‘My name is Ashworth. I am the organist and choir master.’

‘I did not ask your name.’

‘No, but… Did you perhaps come in particular to hear the boy?’ Something anxious hovered in his tone. Something eager.

Angelus raised one eyebrow and let the man do the rest.

‘You are a friend of…’ Ashworth’s voice dropped to a soft, slithering tone, ‘Mr Harmonia?’

Angelus smiled.

Just then there was a clatter on the stairs down from the organ and a young man with tufts of bright red hair and holes in the sleeves of his jacket appeared.

Ashworth instantly straightened up. ‘Ah, you will have to forgive me, sir, but you must understand that the boys are not permitted to accept outside engagements. I am sure you will understand.’ He shifted anxiously on his feet, turning slightly as if to block Angelus from the young organist’s view.

The organist smiled cheerfully at Angelus and looked at Ashworth expectantly. Ashworth instantly dropped the music he was holding into the organist’s hands. ‘Put that away, Camberwell.’

‘Yes sir. So… what did you think Mr Ashworth? Not bad, I thought, and young Grayling was superb.’

‘Yes, yes. You may go now.’ Ashworth smiled apologetically at Angelus and waved a hand at Camberwell, both explanatory and dismissive. ‘My assistant: Camberwell. You may go, Camberwell.’

Camberwell still lingered, beaming. ‘Your stepson has a great gift, sir. I was wondering if he could come and play with me again. We both really enjoyed the last time, and he—’

‘He needs to practice tonight.’

‘Yes of course, but—’

‘He does not have the time, Camberwell. I was just explaining to this gentleman that the boy’s voice must not risk strain and thus there can be no extra calls of any kind. The cathedral must insist on it, you understand. It is quite, quite impossible.’

‘But how can playing the organ with me possibly affect his voice! And it is all part of his musical education. His voice will break some day soon and then—’

‘It is impossible.’

Camberwell stared at him in bafflement for a moment and then turned away, his face pink, walking away from them with clipped, furious steps.

Ashworth looked after him. ‘The cathedral insists…’ he said.

‘Oh, I grasp your meaning,’ Angelus said softly.

Ashworth turned back to him, smiling with relief. ‘It would not do for them to be straining their voices at private concerts.’

‘Indeed.’

‘However… considerable… the fee.’

Angelus nodded, and slipped a card from his waistcoat pocket. ‘After all, a voice like that could earn, what – five guineas a night? Six? It would not be at all appropriate.’

‘Oh, not at all.’ Ashworth pocketed Angelus’s card.

Angelus nodded. ‘A thing of great beauty. And so fragile. So brief.’ Angelus raised his hand and snapped the fingers together, as a man might crush a butterfly. ‘So very, very brief.’

‘Yes.’ The man laughed nervously. ‘Well sir, good evening to you. Thank you for… attending evensong. The cathedral closes at six.’

Ashworth ducked his head and scurried away, fingering as he went the pocket where he had concealed Angelus’s card.

Angelus stuck his hands in his own pockets and lounged against a pillar, whistling the last few bars of the Handel, and waited for the night.