Awakening by Stevie Davies

itself. The wooing tenderness of my blessed Jesus for my erring human soul. Pillows for my delinquent head! Quilts of love to warm me, even me, the unchaste bride!’
    There’s some relief and relaxation as the sermon moves to consideration of the pattern of shoe that might have been worn in the Holy Land by the prince’s daughter.
    â€˜Let us say, sandals. The Lover looks down at the humblest portion of his beloved’s person and praises its beauty. Sandals are closed (in order to remain attached to the foot) but also open to the air, most necessary in the torrid temperatures of the Holy Land. And is this base function something of which we should be ashamed to speak? My children, we walk through the dust – and of this dust we’re fashioned – and to it we’ll return. Let’s consider also that this is where the sole meets the earth. Can we call to mind occasions when we have perceived the soul of man, woman or child in the feet ?’
    Mr Kyffin pauses.
    Beatrice’s thoughts swing about wildly as the pause for reflection lengthens. A nervous laugh has to be thrust down.
    â€˜Bring to mind,’ the preacher exhorts them, ‘the foot of love.’
    It flashes through her: Jack Emanuel Elias at four months old in his crib under the apple tree. Anna in a blue summer dress snaring both his naked feet in her hands, kissing them till the baby shrieked with laughter. This is how it will be, Beatrice thought, when we are mothers.
    But first we must have husbands. We must lose our virginity. Don’t think that; why are you thinking it; why is the pastor arousing such thoughts, in the chapel of all places? Beatrice seeks to block out Mr Kyffin’s words, his surely deranged words. She throws herself into prayer. But the thought of a wedding night, banished, creeps back.
    The ram is brought by Farmer Hewison to tup the Pentecost ewes.
    The dog mates with the howling bitch behind the sheds.
    Coupled fox and vixen, caught in the tie, tear at the swollen root of their attachment, struggling for freedom.
    Beatrice has nothing whatever to learn about the mechanics of mating, never having viewed it as unwholesome or shameful. But how the equivalent negotiation is transacted between human beings is unclear. Her body swirls disquietly. She can imagine a man gripping the tender instep of her foot in his hand, maternally: a strange and pleasurable thought. She can imagine a tempestuous bed brought to a hush, the sheets allowed to lie where they fell, lovers lying naked to one another in married trust. She cannot see the man’s face. One must trust this person with one’s life.
    Afterwards the elders and deacons, as one body, flee Mr Kyffin, ignoring his outstretched hand. Mrs Mussell and her six daughters sidestep, nod and depart at the double, shoulders high, cheeks pink. Mrs Bunce the midwife chats amiably with Mr Kyffin, as does dear deaf Mr Turnbull who congratulates the preacher on an elevating sermon. Handsome Daniel Pittaway the gardener winks at Edwin Fribance the blacksmith, who preserves a grave countenance.
    Mr Kyffin rides high on a windy afflatus. At supper in Sarum House, he refrains from enlightening the Pentecosts about the painful events at Florian Street. After the cheese platter, the afflatus wilts; he goes quiet and retires without taking a pipe with Jocelyn.
    Beatrice recounts to her sister the gist of the sermon. ‘Poor Mr Kyffin, he seems to have gone off on his own strange road.’
    â€˜Christianity is fissiparous,’ says Anna. ‘That’s how it works, I’m afraid.’
    â€˜Whatever do you mean?’
    â€˜Worms in a garden. To grow, they have to break. They divide to reproduce. Protestants divide and subdivide until there’s no union left, just thousands of sects all wriggling away to their own tune. Until in the end there are ten million churches of one person.’
    â€˜Honestly, Anna. What will you say next? Do you ever