What Tony asked Brother Cormac

 Tony had a question for the cellarer, Brother Cormac. This was what he wanted to know.

'When Brother Tom returned home to St Alcuins, after accompanying Abbot Peregrine on his trip to debate with Prior William, he told you how the events had unfolded. What was your response, and how did it affect your relationship with Tom and with Peregrine? Later you voted for Father William to be accepted into the community at St Alcuins. How did you reach that conclusion? Did you ever regret it? How do you and William get along these days?’

Brother Cormac is easier to find than many of the brothers of St Alcuin, because the checker is a very small building, and that’s where he generally is. Actually, in the modern world, it’s interesting looking for the checker if you ever go to visit the site of an old abbey, because I think people may not always realise what it is — there’s usually no indication. You can look for it in the abbey court, which is the part of the abbey (in the old days) where the public was allowed to go. The guest house will be in the abbey court, and the west door of the church, after you come in through the gatehouse. In abbeys (the older ones, often) where the abbot’s house was not a separate building but part of the cloister square, that will also have a door onto the abbey court. The checker usually stands alone, just a small building in the middle of the court, where tradesmen could come and do business with the cellarer, with bills to be paid or orders to be taken. It’s fun looking out for it.

Anyway, in the checker is where Brother Cormac can reliably be found most of the time, and that’s where I found him today, and asked him the things Tony wanted to know.

Brother Cormac has very blue eyes, and extremely direct gaze, and one receives the impression of being looked at very hard. He thought about what I asked him, and moved around on his work table a few scraps of parchment with messages on them, tidying them into neat piles while he thought about what I’d said. Brother Cormac has very long, bony fingers.

So I watched him thinking. He is an intense kind of person, but reposeful, somehow. A very gathered energy. It’s a bit like having a personal audience with a blowtorch.

And then he said:

“We were all very young, when Tom went with our abbot to St Dunstans. We — all of us — loved Father Peregrine. He formed us. There was something about him quite unforgettable. We owed him this debt of love and gratitude, because who he was shaped our vocation; not just a bit, a lot. 

“So yes, I heard about that visit, and the encounter, and stowed it away in my memory as something to take note of, but there was no reason to dwell on it at the time. I doubt any of us obsessed over it, but it’s not the kind of thing you’d forget. 

“Then, of course, William showed up here. At that point we all heard what Tom thought about him, with no ifs or buts, at full strength and some length. It was a memorable Chapter meeting. 

“We had two votes, you know. The first time he begged admission to our community, he’d not even been with us a week. It was all a bit sudden, and it sticks very clearly in my memory — the silence, and the few hands raised in favour of letting him stay; Theodore, Francis, James. Not me. I could see he was just trouble incarnate. I mean, we all could. It’s just that Theo and Francis and James wanted to give him a chance, as did Father John.

“The second time we voted, William had tried to take his own life and then had pneumonia — and for heaven’s sake, what kind of a man would you be if you said he couldn’t stay? It was risky; but sometimes you have to take a risk, don’t you? It was, perhaps more than anything else, what made clear to me that the Gospel itself is risky. I think about that sometimes. How people talk about the tender mercy and love of God, and the utter security and peace of belonging to him. And I think, yeah, right — like Jesus at half-past ten in the morning on Good Friday. That kind of utter security and peace. There is inherent risk in loving, in making yourself vulnerable to another human being with all their moods and needs and temperamental quirks. Even, sometimes, their malice and resentments and penchant for cruelty. Depends who you’ve got, and in William I didn’t think we’d got anything very promising.

“It went as well as it could have done, I suppose, until he had the bright idea of bringing Madeleine back here — and yes, I gather that though she was Father John’s sister, it was William’s idea, wouldn’t you know it? And with all that unfolded there, I ended up keeping his secrets, and that didn’t sit easy on my conscience. It all felt very unstable, didn't bode well. And he left, of course.

“And then came back. Once again, asking admission. Once again, we all said yes, me included. And so — why?

“The thing is, when you live in community in the way we do, there is no hiding. You absolutely know a man. You can see him — who he is, what he is; and what he isn’t.

“Father John asked us before he went to see William over at Caldbeck, what we wanted to do if William asked to come home. And we said yes; bring him home. All of us.

“Why? Well, I can only speak for myself, but I saw how much he loved Madeleine, and I could guess at the grief of losing her. Considered practically and with a cool head, given the age he was and what the man’s like, it seemed to me the chances of him doing that again, ever, were nil. He’s a priest, he’d taken life vows — to a certain extent we had to follow what our Rule says, and take him back.

“And since then — what did you ask me? Did I ever regret it, how do I get along with him now? No, I have never regretted it, not at all. He lives faithfully, he’s shrewd, he’s been immensely helpful to me, teaching me how to do what my obedience requires, watching over me to some extent, helping me when I get in a muddle — which I do, because the cellarer’s work is difficult on so many levels. You have to hold a lot in your head, it’s not enough just to have it written down, you need a good grasp of every aspect of the money and the requirements, you need foresight and a good memory as well. Like Janus looking two ways at once. He helped me with all of that, and sometimes he still does.

“How we get along? William, and me — both of us — we . . . it’s not that easy to get close to either of us. You take someone like Francis or Josephus, or Michael, they’re everyone’s friend, easy company. I’m not and neither is William, and if you put together two people like that, you can’t expect cosiness, can you? But . . . I trust him. I esteem him. I admire his mind — he’s observant, quick-thinking, nobody’s fool. And I am grateful to him for one particular thing; more than anyone else in our community he absolutely sees and understands the vulnerability and defencelessness of animals, and how much they suffer at human hands, because of human arrogance and indifference. I love that in him.

“Yes . . . yes . . . he’s a brother in Christ. I’m glad he’s here. Very glad, actually.”

He looked at me, that gaze very clear, very honest, very true; and he just nodded. 

Tony also had a question for Brother Conradus; but I'll tell you about that another time.