Peace on Earth

In an original short story by Rachel Joyce, a disillusioned priest has an eye-opening visitation one lonely Christmas Eve

A priest finds his purpose in a new short story by Rachel Joyce

It is half past five on Christmas Eve. Father Anthony flips the ‘Open!’ sign to ‘Closed!’ and locks the door. All day, he’s watched people rush the length of Unity Street, bags of lastminute high-street shopping in their arms. He doesn’t even have to check the till to know that sales in Articles of Faith amount to five packs of festive cards and a statuette. Clearly, that is not enough. He can barely afford to heat the shop. Christmas dinner will be something from a tin.

Years ago, this would have been his busiest time. there would have been Midnight Mass and a few hours’ sleep before the first Christmas Day service. Ask him to give a sermon now and he wouldn’t know where to begin. Father Anthony lifts a plastic Jesus from a display shelf. Jesus’s hands are raised at his sides, his face has a little smile on it and he balances on a cloud that reads ‘Peace on Earth’.

All his life, Father Anthony has heard people say they’re searching for peace. Peace of mind; a bit of peace; peace and quiet. Once, he met a successful businesswoman who’d had an aquarium installed in the wall of her office to make her feel calm, all those fish swimming round in blue water among bits of floaty plants. It was a disaster. the big fish ate the small fish, the plants produced toxins and the water was filled with so many bits of dead fish and poisonous algae, it turned a foul shade of green.

the businesswoman ended up in a lawsuit with the company that had installed it and so stressed she got a stomach ulcer. Six months later, her husband walked out. Father Anthony wonders why people fill their lives with so much disturbance, if what they really want is peace.

‘So, tell me what it’s about,’ he says to plastic Jesus. His voice catches in his throat. It is Christmas Eve, Father Anthony is an old man and he doesn’t have so many Christmases left. Everything seems pretty vacant. But Jesus doesn’t say anything. He just smiles.

Father Anthony realises the door is making a noise. A skeleton face is pressed to the window. A bone hand raps at the glass.

‘Let me in,’ calls the ghouly thing. A Christmas visitation? He reaches for a weapon with which to protect himself and pulls out a feather duster. Unless the visitation is very ticklish, Father Anthony doesn’t stand a chance. It then occurs to him that you don’t, on the whole, get visitations on Christmas Eve, but you do get customers looking for last-minute gifts. He puts away the duster and unlocks the door.

A painfully thin old woman waits outside. She’s swamped in a thick fur coat, the kind of thing no one wears any more, and a pair of Jackie Onassis sunglasses, even though it’s dark.

‘Help! Help!’ she says. Even her voice is a starved thing. He assumes she’s got the wrong shop. there are six of them on Unity Street and, in the middle, a music shop. Frank, the owner, has a gift for finding people the music they need. People seek him out all the time, so he says to the woman: ‘It’s Frank you want. He’s next door. I’ll take you, if you like.’

He’s already reaching for his coat when she says: ‘No, I want you. Are you going to let me in?’

She looks even thinner inside the shop and even older. Her neck is like a twig, too small to support her head. Her dyed-black hair is so thin he can see through to her scalp and she has a strong musky smell as if something very deep inside her is rotting. She says: ‘I’m looking for a good priest.’ ‘Have you tried the cathedral?’ ‘It’s too busy at the cathedral. Aren’t you a good priest?’ ‘Me?’ he asks. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘You.’ there’s something quite rude about her.

He says kindly: ‘I’m afraid I’m not a priest any more. I tried to be a good one once, but I don’t know. I think I failed.’

She isn’t interested. She waves her hand. ‘But you can do a blessing?’

‘No, not really. You see, I retired. I retired 20 years ago. You could get a blessing at the cathedral…’

She cuts in with an impatient noise that sounds like ‘Tish’. then, she says: ‘What’s wrong with you? You still believe, don’t you?’ He doesn’t have time to answer because she falls to her knees as if the floor has just sprung a hole.

‘Oh my goodness,’ he says. ‘Are you okay?’

In reply, she bows her head, lifts her scrawny hands and buckles them beneath her chin. ‘Bless me,’ she says.

It’s been a long time since Father Anthony last stood at the pulpit—10 years, in fact. It’s been a long time since his parishioners stared up at him and he realised he had nothing to say, but he reaches out his hand and touches her little egg head. He can’t say why, but it’s like encountering a cavernous, ragged emptiness and he’s appalled that this woman should carry such a thing inside her, when she’s so frail and old, so he closes his eyes.

He asks the Lord to bless her this Christmas. His voice wavers as he asks for peace on Earth and he really tries not to hear his huge question about what that means, because here she is, this old woman on her knees, and if she needs him to believe, then what is wrong with him?

‘Amen,’ she says. More a command than a prayer.

Afterwards, he has to help her to her feet. She allows him to hold her hand long enough for him to feel how cold she is. She can’t weigh more than six stone. ‘Is there anything else I can do?’ he asks. ‘No.’ At the door, she yanks at the handle. It’s stiff and she has to give it another try, but her wrist is so skinny it’s almost useless and the door will not budge. In that moment, Father Anthony feels an overwhelming urge to do something other than sell religious knick-knacks that no one wants. To be bigger than himself.

He says: ‘Forgive me for saying this, but I think you need more than a blessing. Let me treat you.’

He empties the till.

There are six light-up reindeer perched on the roof of the house opposite. The lights link the house to all the other houses on Unity Street, with their chimney-climbing Santas and strings of flashing icicles. Maybe this is the closest people come, these days, to any religious impulse. Father Anthony has to go slowly because the old woman is slow. She doesn’t so much walk as shuffle. When he offers his arm, she shakes her head. A meal, he is thinking. A quick bite. It’s clearly what she needs.

But Pizza Hut is full. There’s a queue in the fish-and-chip shop. A van by the war memorial is selling hot dogs and the smell of cooked onions curdles the air. He’s beginning to worry that she will pass out before he feeds her. They turn into an alleyway.

The lights are still on in the Singing Teapot Cafe, but the waitress says she’s closing in 10 minutes. This waitress is a formidable young woman and she isn’t small, either. Father Anthony once saw her frogmarch a customer to the door when he complained that his tea was actually coffee. She points at a table by the window and passes them napkins with reindeer on them. After that, she slams down two menus in plastic folders. She can only do snacks, she says. Snacks are on the front page and they’re spelt ‘Snaxx’.

The waitress waits with her pad and her pencil. ‘Yes?’ she says, only without the question mark. She wears a black dress that pulls at the seams and a stiff hat like a paper boat on her head.

Father Anthony suggests a nice omelette. The old woman says no. She still has her coat on and also her sunglasses. Sausage and beans? No. Tomato soup and baguette? Not that either. Pâté ’n’ toast? No, she repeats. Ice cream? Or what about a waffle? No, no.

The more she refuses, the more the waitress huffs. Father Anthony has no clue why he’s brought a difficult old woman here or how he thought he could help her. And the more he stares at the menu, the more he realises how hungry he is. His stomach makes noises all by itself. ‘Just water for me,’ says the old woman. Father Anthony would like a burger. After that, he would like omelette and chips. After that, he would like a full Christmas dinner with as many trimmings as you can find. Instead, he orders tomato soup ’n’ baguette. ‘That’s it?’ says the waitress. ‘Yes, that’s it.’ ‘What about her?’ The waitress points her pencil at the old woman.

‘I said just water,’ says the old woman, but she doesn’t address the waitress, she speaks to Father Anthony. ‘Fizzy or still?’ says the waitress. ‘What’s she talking about now?’ asks the old woman.

‘Fizzy would be splendid,’ says Father Anthony.

From the kitchen come the sounds of a waitress banging a lot of saucepan lids. The old woman stares at the menu and makes little empty chewing movements with her mouth.

‘Are you sure you won’t have something

to eat?’ he asks. She doesn’t even answer. She just flicks from one page to the next, as if she’s never seen anything so appalling.

When the waitress delivers the water and soup, she carries them on a large tray, leaving the kitchen backwards and pushing the door with her behind.

‘Water,’ she says, plonking down a glass. ‘Baguette,’ she says. ‘Soup.’

‘Gosh,’ says Father Anthony. ‘What an interesting colour.’

‘So?’ She’s surprisingly aggressive for someone who has just produced a bowl of tomato soup that is very definitely beige. ‘I thought it was tomato.’ ‘Tomato’s off,’ she says. ‘That’s mushroom. Enjoy.’ She wades back to her kitchen and slams the door.

Father Anthony picks up the basket of bread and offers it to the old woman, but she shakes her head. ‘Not for me.’ He wonders if—despite the fur coat and her manner— she has no money. It seems unlikely that she sleeps on the streets, but it’s possible.

‘This is my treat,’ he says. ‘Remember?’ He tears the baguette in half, but she doesn’t reach out to take it and so it’s left in the middle of the table. She says: ‘I don’t eat.’ ‘You don’t eat bread?’ ‘I don’t eat anything.’ ‘You must eat something.’ He puts down his soup spoon. He’s begun to feel cold. ‘I don’t,’ she says. ‘Then how do you live?’ She faces him in her sunglasses and it’s like looking straight at a wall. ‘My daughter was killed in a motorbike accident. She had just gone to buy milk. The last thing I said was “Your hair is a mess”. I didn’t even say goodbye. What do I have to live for?’ The question is so raw and real, it seems to poke holes all through him. ‘Life is terrible,’ she says, just in case he hasn’t got the point.

Father Anthony is so famished, his stomach leaps and grinds, but she’s right. Tomato soup comes out beige. People install aquariums to make them calm and end up with stomach ulcers. You take an old lady out to eat and it turns out she’s starving herself. There is no such thing as peace on Earth. It’s just something we put in Christmas cards.

He wishes he’d stayed in his cold little shop so that all the things he can’t understand would be the same as they always are and not these new ones.

‘Share this soup with me,’ he says. ‘Please.’

The woman stares at the bowl for what seems a very long time. She wrings her fingers, she swallows hard. He says: ‘I’m sorry you lost your daughter.’ She picks up the spoon as if on trial. But she puts it back down. He says: ‘That is a truly terrible thing.’ She puts her hand over her mouth. He says: ‘But she won’t come back because you refuse to eat.’

She has begun to shiver. She looks so tired.

‘Life goes on,’ he says. ‘And sometimes it is lonely, but I am here and you are here and please, please share this bowl of soup.’ He doesn’t know how he will ever eat again if she keeps this up.

The waitress appears at the door of her kitchen. She is wearing a duffel coat and a pair of flashing reindeer antlers. It’s time to go. And Father Anthony has failed.

The old woman stares at the waitress— or, at least, she lifts her sunglassed face in her direction—and the waitress stares back. They stare as if they’ve met before, but can’t place when or where. The waitress puts her hands on her hips and shakes her head.

‘I don’t want to be like this,’ says the old woman. ‘Of course, you don’t,’ says the waitress. She comes forward, opening her arms. The old woman doesn’t flinch, even though a girl that size could floor an old woman without so much as breaking into a sweat. But instead of lifting the old woman to her feet and frogmarching her out, the waitress stops at the old woman’s side and places her hand on her shoulder. The old woman shifts her head and—tears creeping beneath her sunglasses—leans her cheek on the waitress’s hand.

‘Just a little sip,’ says the waitress. ‘That’s all.’

She lifts the spoon and dips it in the bowl and the old woman obediently opens her mouth. One sip she takes. The waitress lifts the napkin and mops the old woman’s mouth.

‘What lovely soup,’ says the waitress, as if she’s talking to a small child. ‘Another sip?’

The old woman nods. Father Anthony watches as the waitress dips the spoon again and steers it towards the old lady’s mouth. This time, the old lady makes a sucking noise like a Hoover. ‘Please,’ says the waitress. Or is it ‘Peace’? Or maybe it’s just

‘Poooosssss’. Either way, the old woman takes another spoonful. Then another and, after that, another.

Afterwards, he walks her back to the cathedral. They’ve left the waitress locking up the cafe. There was no meaningful goodbye. When the bowl was empty, the old woman stood and said it was time to go. It’s strange, walking with this woman about whom he knows nothing and also something so tender. She stops at the taxi rank.

‘You know you need proper help,’ he says. ‘There are clinics. People to talk to.’

She takes off her sunglasses. Her eyes are dark blue, pebbled with other blues, and it’s like seeing her for the first time. Something lopsided breaks across her face and he realises it’s a smile. She says: ‘You know, you are a very good priest.’

It would be nice to think she does it kindly or even with a speck of gratitude, but the truth is that she says it the same way she says everything else, as if there’s a spike in the sentence.

When she climbs into the back of a cab, she’s briefly lit up like another festive illumination. The cab pulls out and she’s gone.

Father Anthony has watched a waitress feed an old lady who refused to eat. Well, in the grand scheme of things, that’s not really very much. And yet… and yet. Father Anthony feels something inside him quicken.

We need disturbance, he thinks. We say we want peace, we think we want peace, we buy Christmas cards wishing one another peace and yet no sooner do we have it than we search for the opposite. Peace is a fragmentary thing, it is of the moment, but, just now in the Singing Teapot Cafe, he believes he came as close to peace as he has ever come.

Father Anthony turns into Unity Street. He can’t say how, but he feels the presence of something as big as life itself. He feels full, at once a part of everything and free of it, as if he has just eaten a whole banquet and can live. Father Anthony knows what plastic Jesus knows.

He smiles.