In times of joy or profound uncertainty Anselm always retreated to the small lake at the end of the bluebell walk, roughly halfway between the Priory and the Convent. He brought Conroy with him, who’d reached an impasse in the writing of his book. For a moment they looked across in silence towards the middle of the lake, where a stone statue of the Virgin Mary, smoothed by years of wind and rain, rose from the water, her arms open in endless submission. They climbed into a rowboat by a failing wooden landing stage and pushed off, to low groans from the black-green timbers.
The events of the previous year had increasingly brought to Anselm’s mind Tennyson’s ‘Morte d’Arthur’, large sections of which had been mercilessly thrust upon him at school. The lines often came back, like snippets of song, cuttings in the, mind. Looking at the shining levels of the lake Anselm said, ‘Sometimes I think of Sir Bedivere charged by his dying king to throw Excalibur into the place from whence it came.’
Conroy took his bearings and began a steady pulling of the oars.
‘He can’t obey Twice he lies. First, because he’s dazzled by its beauty. Next, because he asks a cracking good question: “Were it well to obey then, if a king demand an act unprofitable against himself?”‘
Conroy nodded knowledgably
‘So he lies. “What did you see or hear?” asks Arthur. “Just ripples and lapping.” But the king knows the answer isn’t true. He’s waiting anxiously for something outside the usual order of things.’
The oar-blades cut the surface of the lake.
“‘I’ll rise and kill you with my hands if you fail me this last time,” the king says, and the well-trusted knight runs for his very life to the shore and, with eyes shut, flings Excalibur far into the night. He’s obeyed but expects his old lie to come true. But something undreamed-of happens, at the very last moment. ‘
They were nearing the middle of the lake.
‘When he looks again, an arm clothed in white samite rises from the water and catches the hilt. Thrice it’s brandished, and drawn gently beneath the mere.’
Conroy rested and scratched his thick arms.
‘Overwhelmed, Bedivere runs back to tell the king what he’s seen. There the king lies, among the stones of a chapel ruin. He’s lost everything he cared about in this life. The Round Table is no more; its knights, man by man, having fallen under the sword. But the dream for which he hoped and waited has happened. The hand that gave him the sword has taken it back. His life has meaning. He does not die bewildered.’
Conroy pulled the oars through their locks, letting the boat gently turn and drift as it pleased.
‘I’ve always had a soft spot for Sir Bedivere,’ said Anselm. ‘He’s a bemused English empiricist, ill at ease with mysticism. And, rather unfairly he gets his head bitten off for keeping his feet on the ground:
Conroy made a pillow from his jumper, lodged it in the prow and lay back.
Anselm said, ‘As a boy I often used to wonder how Arthur would have died if Bedivere had come back and said, honestly this time, “Truly I saw nothing but water lapping on the crag. She did not come.
A slight wind threw ripples upon the lake, chasing shadows and reflections into a dark shiver. The boat turned in circles. Conroy was lying back, legs outstretched and arms crossed upon his chest. Unnoticed, the oars quietly slipped from their locks and bobbed away
‘“And God fulfils himself in many ways”,’ cited Conroy
‘Where’s that from?’ asked Anselm.
‘The same poem; part of the old king’s final testament, just before he dies as I’d like to die.’
‘How’s that?’
Conroy sat up, his face alight, mischievous. ‘In the arms of three beautiful weeping women.