The Spire by William Golding

  The master builder was staring down at him. He no longer wrestled with the wood but held on as if it were a plank in a whirling sea.

  ‘Father, Father — for the love of God, let me go!’

  I do what I must do. He will never be the same again, not with me. He will never be the same man again. I’ve won, he’s mine, my prisoner for this duty. At any moment now the lock will shut on him.

  Whisper.

  ‘Make me go!’

  Click.

  Silence, long silence.

  The master builder let go of the wood, backed slowly away through the haloes and the turbulent noises beyond the screen. His voice was hoarse.

  ‘You just don’t know what’ll come out of our going on!’

  Backing away, eyes wide; pause in the door of the choir.

  ‘You just don’t know!’

  Gone.

  Silence from the crossways. He thought to himself; it’s not the stones singing. It’s inside my head. But then the silence was slashed by a fierce yell, and he heard Roger Mason shouting. I must go, he thought, I must go, but not to him. I must go to my bed. If I can get there.

  He laid hold of the stall and pulled himself upright. He thought; it’s his business not mine. Let him settle it, my slave for the work. Carefully he went across the choir and into the ambulatory. At the steps he paused and lay back against stone, his head back, eyes shut, trying to gather strength. I must pass among them, he thought, for all their shouting; and he tottered down the steps.

  He was struck by a gust of laughter; but not for him. The noises were as confused as the lights that swirled in his head. The place was a mass of brown tunics, leather jerkins, blue tunics, clothbound legs, wallets of leather, beards and teeth. The mass moved and swirled and its noise defiled the holy air. He glimpsed the hole that still gaped in the pavement; and saw between the legs that it was not entirely plugged yet. He knew this was some nightmare; since things happened and stuck in the eye as if seen by flashes of lightening. He saw men who tormented Pangall, having him at the broom’s end. In an apocalyptic glimpse of seeing, he caught how a man danced forward to Pangall, the model of the spire projecting obscenely from between his legs — then the swirl and the noise and the animal bodies hurled Jocelin against stone, so that he could not see, but only heard how Pangall broke — He heard the long wolfhowl of the man’s flight down the south aisle, heard the rising, the hunting noise of the pack that raced after him. He understood, the breath almost out of his body, how the dumb man knelt over him, with a weight of brown bodies falling, turning, pressing down on his back. And as he lay, waiting for the shuddering arms to spring apart and the weight to crush them both, he knew that something else he had seen was printed on his eye for ever. Whenever there should be darkness and no thought, the picture would come back. It had been — it was — it would always be Goody Pangall on the surround of the south west pillar where the tide of the army had washed her. Her hair had come out into the light. It hung down; on this side splayed over her breast in a tattered cloud of red; on that, in a tangled plait which doubled on itself, and draggled with green ribbon half-undone. Her hands clutched the pillar behind her, hiphigh, and her belly shone about the slit of navel through the handtorn gap in her dress. Her head was turned this way, and always, till the end of time, he would know what she was looking at. From the moment of the tent there could be nothing else for her to look at — nowhere else she could turn that white, contracted mouth, but towards Roger on this side of the pit, his arms spread from his side in anguish and appeal, in acknowledgement of consent and defeat.

  Then the dumb man’s arms leapt apart.

  Chapter Five

  When he came to himself in his room, the singing began again, though he had forgotten where it came from. Therefore the singing was a great anxiety to him, an urgency that made him turn his head from side to side, the more so, because he was locked in his head with only a few things. These few things sorted themselves endlessly but never arrived at any order. There was a kind of watershed in circumstances, and he knew this was connected with an interview he had had somewhere, perhaps in the choir, with Roger Mason. There was a fall and tangle of red hair on green cloth, with the stone of the pillar behind it. This worried him endlessly for however much he tried he could not recreate the peaceful woman behind the hair, the woman as she was, coming into the west end peacefully, smiling, pausing to cross herself at his blessing. It was as if the red hair, sprung so unexpectedly from the decent covering of the wimple, had wounded all that time before, or erased it, or put a new thing in the way of the succession of days. So he would try to recreate the woman and the secure time, but find himself looking at the red hair instead. But always there was the high singing, and these other things were hung on it.

  Father Anselm came stiffly to confess him; but all he could remember was that he intended to change his confessor, so Father Anselm went away. After that, Jocelin began to send urgent messages; for he thought the army must have stopped working. But Father Anonymous brought back a strange answer.

  ‘They’re working quietly and well. There’s no trouble at all.’

  So Jocelin saw that the work was still in no human hands.

  Then he asked about Roger.

  ‘He’s wandering here and there. He’s looking for something, they say. But no one knows what.’

  ‘And the woman?’

  ‘She goes with him as always.’

  ‘I mean the other one. The one with red hair. Pangall’s wife.’

  ‘She is seldom to be seen.’

  It is shame, thought Jocelin. What else can it be? She has broken out of the tent, and those men saw her half naked, her hair fallen.

  But Father Anonymous was speaking again.

  ‘As for her man himself, Pangall; he’s run away.’

  Then Jocelin’s head preached Father Anonymous a sermon on the cost of building materials. It was a sermon which had the unusual property of returning to its beginning, however far you wandered like a planet. At some point in the sermon, the sick head fell into a deep and relieving sleep. When it woke up it knew where it was and what was going on. Moreover in sleep it had been given something new, a kind of reinforcement, as if it had gone to ground for repairs rather than recovery. This was a blazing certainty, that made the old one seem no stronger than the stubbornness of a child. I must get up, he thought; and with the thought, he was out, swaying and laughing. He found Father Anonymous hurrying towards him, and clapped the little man on the shoulders with both hands.

  ‘No, Father Anonymous! Let me go! There’s work to do!’

  There was the necessity in these words of two notes of a high laugh. They followed logically. Then he was down the stairs and out into the September sun and he waded laboriously through the air at ground level, swaying from side to side as though he were wading through tall corn. He stopped breathlessly by the west door and pulled himself together, then went inside with all the painful happiness of the new certainty blazing in his head.

  Immediately he caught sight of the pillars at the crossways, he remembered that he knew where the singing note had come from; and when he remembered, the note stopped, so that the inside of his head was as silent as the stones. He stood there for some time, enjoying the silence, and with the silence came a little awareness of himself as human, more or less. He understood that all small things had been put on one side for him, business, prayer, confession, so that now there was a kind of necessary marriage; Jocelin, and the spire. He saw the master builder talking to one of the men by the scaffolding, so he waded towards them, panting a little. He was glad to sit on the plinth round the north west pillar and lean his back against it. The workman went away, climbing deftly towards the brightness in the tower; and Jocelin called out to the master builder.

  ‘You see I am back, Roger!’

  Again, each word built up a kind of pressure which had to issue at the end in two notes of a high laugh. He knew he was laughing when he did it, and knew laughter was un
suitable, but was too late to take any effective measure. The laugh came out and the tower sucked it up. That was bad, he thought. I mustn’t do that again. He looked back at Roger Mason, but the master builder was following the workman, ascending methodically, heavily, ladder after ladder. Jocelin craned back, and watched him climb where the square chimney with its geometrical birds was soaring to heaven height. He saw how sheer the white stone rose, with sheer lights, where even now the glaziers were wiring in the squares of grisaille. It was a new place in the sky, and sunlight was slashing it through, so that as Roger Mason climbed like a bear, the sunrays wheeled round him. Then Jocelin understood that it was partly the power of his own head that was thrusting the master builder up, up, and would continue to do so, until by some contrivance of his art, he swung the great cross into place four hundred feet in the air at the spire’s top. But the lightness of the chimney with its cap of cloud dazzled him, so that he bent his head, rubbing the water out of his eyes, then blinked at the floor by his feet. It was almost hidden. Chips of stone and wood, shavings, splinters, stone dust, dirt, a plank, and something that might have been the broken end of a besom — all the mess had been pushed back roughly against the pillars, shoved out of the way, to leave a clear space in the centre where the paving was replaced over the pit. He was vexed at this and the testy words were already there in his head — Where is Pangall? — when he remembered she was deserted. So he rubbed his forehead and told himself that the man would be quite incapable of staying away from a building which meant the world to him. He will come back, he thought, even if it means waiting till the army’s gone. And I must do something about his Goody, he thought, then looked round him, expecting for no reason whatsoever to see her somewhere. But the church was empty of everything but dust, sunlight, high noises from the chimney, and the muffled sound of the choir in the lady chapel. I must see that she lacks for nothing, he thought; and then he could not remember why. Among the rubbish at the bottom of the pillar he saw there was a twig lying across his shoe, with a rotting berry that clung obscenely to the leather. He scuffed his foot irritably; and as now so often seemed to happen, the berry and the twig could not be forgotten, but set off a whole train of memories and worries and associations which were altogether random. He found himself thinking of the ship that was built of timber so unseasoned, a twig in her hold put out one green leaf. He had an instant vision of the spire warping and branching and sprouting; and the terror of that had him on his feet. I must learn about wood, he thought, and see that every inch of it is seasoned; and then he remembered that the spire was not begun nor the tower completed to the top; so he sat down again and blinked up.

  The hole through the vault into the chimney was smaller, because some of the beams that would make a flooring for the vast apartment of the lower stage were already in place. But there was still a wide space left in the middle for the lifting of stone and wood. Yet the beams seemed to confine and define the busy world up there next to the sky, so that it was correspondingly brighter among the wielded sunrays, the moving bears, the scaffolding, ropes and near-vertical ladders. There was even a hut hanging in a corner at the top, like a swallow’s nest. As he looked, he saw the master builder back out of the hut and go to do something with his sighting instrument. I never knew how much it would mean, he thought. I tried to draw a few simple lines on the sky; and now my will has to support a whole world up there, before I can do it. And the twig may have come from the scaffolding, which perhaps does not need to be seasoned, and in any case, will be taken down when they have finished.

  He heard the familiar tap and scrape; looked across; and there was the young man seated by the south west pillar, a new piece of stone in his lap. Jocelin got up and waded across. The young man stood up quickly and put the stone by him, then stood there, smiling and nodding and clapping his hands softly.

  Jocelin blessed him.

  ‘My son. I owe my life to you, it seems.’

  He felt his high laugh coming with the words and succeeded in making a giggle of it. The young man spread his arms wide and shrugged.

  ‘Were you injured yourself?’

  The young man laughed soundlessly, and touched his nose, which indeed, was thicker on the bridge and shinier there. Then he stretched out his right arm, bent it, grinning and fingering the biceps. With a sudden rush of love, Jocelin threw his arms round the young man and embraced him, clinging as to a pillar or a tree.

  ‘My son, my son!’

  The young man glowed, and hummed, and patted his back timidly.

  ‘I shall do something for you, my son.’

  The young man was quiet in his arms, still patting, pat, pat, pat. He is my son, he thought, and she is my daughter. But the red hair fell and blinded him, so that he shut his eyes and groaned. Then he discovered how tired he was and his bed drew him. That night his angel came again; and after that, the devil tormented him a little.

  Day by day getting a little strength, he watched the summer prolong itself as if in recompense for the storms and floods of spring. The leaves turned at last, and lay tinder dry. The coarse grass round the cathedral broke under his feet; was brown and brittle as the leaves left in a besom; and now the gargoyles, taking part in some infinite complexity of punishment, gaped as though they sought water in the dry air. There was no point of rest for them. They were in hell, could expect no less, that was all there was to it. In this dry air, his will, his blazing will, was shut down to a steady glow, that illuminated and supported the new building and nothing else. So the young man chipped and the builders climbed, Rachel circled round Roger; and Goody Pangall was to be glimpsed far off at the end of an aisle, wimpled head down, a woman about her work, the red hair hidden. If she seemed about to come near, she circled him quickly, looking away and hurrying on, head down as if he were an unlucky corner, or a ghost, or the grave of a suicide. But he knew that she was only ashamed with the shame of a deserted woman; and her shame squeezed his heart. But my will has other business than to help, he thought. I have so much will, it puts all other business by. I am like a flower that is bearing fruit. There is a preoccupation about the flower as the fruit swells and the petals wither; a preoccupation about the whole plant, leaves dropping, everything dying but the swelling fruit. That’s how it must be. My will is in the pillars and the high wall. I offered myself; and I am learning.

  Sometimes he would find Rachel circling in the crossways, talking to anyone who passed, then pausing to peer up at her bear climbing in the tower; voluble Rachel who would abandon everything else at sight of the Dean, to come to him. Then one day he found her easy to deal with. He ignored her completely, detaching himself from the sound of her at his elbow. When she circled to get in front of him and question him, he did not hear her question but only felt it as an interrogation mark left in the air. He stood there, looking down at her. He noticed that she seemed older, and strained, but the change did not interest him much. Even when he saw how she had taken to painting her face, he felt nothing but a distaste that emerged as a twitch of his body, concealing the high giggle. After that, he decided he was bored with looking at her, and he looked through her instead without saying anything, so he never saw the astonishment under the red paint.

  As the days passed he found this indifference very useful. It enabled him to treat the chancellor with courtesy when he came to the deanery, without allowing himself to notice what he came for. In some cases — the precentor was one — this useful technique led to a look which he decided afterwards was downright consternation. Then in the foggy days of Autumn, when a vast tarpaulin shut out the sky at the growing point of the tower, he discovered he could always stop these people at any moment he wanted to. He would merely say — and this was after Father Anonymous pointed out that he never read any correspondence unless it was connected with the spire — would say: ‘I must get back to the building.’

  Despite the tarpaulin, the fog got into the church; but still it could not interfere with his will. Nor did it interfere with the you
ng man who still chiselled and scraped. Surely, thought Jocelin, as he examined the second of the four heads that had filled the pit, surely they are leaner than they should be? And isn’t the mouth too wide open? Can eyes ever be as wide as that? But he said nothing of all this; for he loved his son in God as he loved his daughter in God; and the young man had not only preserved his life, and therefore the will that held up the pillars, but looked at him frankly, like a good dog, which Goody, if she was caught near enough, never did.

  So she irked him, and her red hair irked him, and he felt nothing about her but compassion for her shame, and a strange disquiet. By the beginning of December the four heads were finished and vanished up the chimney with the young man, to where the four upper lights were waiting for them. On the morning when he watched them go up, Rachel was circling again, chattering. Since he was free for the time being of the young man, the thought of Goody came on him with full force, in Pangall’s desertion. Why have I neglected her? She needs me! And as if the thought of her had created her for him, there she was, hurrying up the north aisle, looking up — and now swerving aside, going on past the crossways into the ambulatory, faster, faster.

  ‘My child —’

  He thought; I must do it for her sake, though it interrupts my concentration. And he went quickly to the south exit of the ambulatory; and there she came, hurrying again, and now ducking aside.