...
De Profundis
...
As soon as Angela leaves, Vaughan has Colefield grabbed by the collar of his leather jacket.
"Apologize," he yells Colefield into face.
Pearse stands aside, calm and collected, as usual. "Vaughan," he says in a quiet voice which does not even hold reproach within.
Rice stops immediately, letting the boy go. After all the years, he still respects Pearse's authority, he always has; but now, there is a glimmer in his eyes which clearly tells that Vaughan does not approve. He lefts abruptly, slamming the door shut behind him.
It is obvious for Pearse the boy is exhausted. But that is no excuse. They have all lost someone. Heaven's sake, Angela has witnessed the death of her husband and daughter. How dare you, thinks Pearse, his face still calm. Beneath the stillness of his gaze, anger is burning, wrath so cold it is scorching in its intensity. How dare you, thinks Pearse, forgetting the boy had to shot his own friend, forgetting for a moment what that girl must have felt when her fiancé returned from behind the grave.
"You will apologize to Angela," Pearse says levelly. He rarely has to raise his voice; a tiny change of tone or a faint hue of emotion is usually enough.
"But-..." Colefield tries to protest, to say he had no choice other than the deception he used, but one glance is enough to silence him.
"You will apologize," repeats Pearse, a slightest edge to his voice. When Colefield does not react, he continues. "She has been trying to get over it for six years. Six years. And now you-... What is it exactly you think you were doing?" His voice is still quiet, but tone meaningful.
"Fine," mutters Colefield under his breath, then takes his leave.
Pearse is left alone. Almost automatically, he turns off the light and walks over to the window. Outside, it is dark, a pale half-moon shining faintly from behind the clouds. Pearse wants to think, then to pray, but no words come to his mind, except one frantic, painful thought. How will Angela be able to bear his sight now she has relived it all? Will she ever be able to?
...
Half an hour after Michael's apology, Angela leaves her laboratory – her sanctuary does no longer provide her the comfort it used to. She has been trying so hard to rebuild a semblance of life, for years, and now one evening brought everything back. Angela can see, almost too clearly, that Michael had no other option really, but it does not make it easier to forgive him. His one decision has ruined six years of her hard work and endless trying. Six years. Seventy two months. Over two thousands days.
Until now, she has always escaped into solitude; without anyone else's presence, the absence of Robert and her daughter hurts less. Not this time. To her surprise, Angela feels she needs company. No words, no gestures even, only to know she is not all alone in the night. And she could never burden her daughter with it; poor little sweetheart has enough burdens.
Only half-consciously, Angela turns her steps towards father Harman's office. She would need no words with him; he has been there, all along.
The door is open. Father Harman in inside, in the darkness, looking through the window. He does not move as she enters. The patch of light from the corridor, only barely reaching his silhouette, makes him seem a gloomy, sinister shadow. Angela swallows. She remembers a time she has thought him an angel of death.
"Michael apologized to me," she announces quietly as she enters.
"Commendable," father Harman answers dryly.
Angela walks closer, until she is standing beside him.
"You told him to do it, didn't you?"
He spares her a glance.
"And why should I have?"
A small, bitter smile appears briefly on Angela's lips.
"What a proficient liar you have become."
Father Harman closes his eyes for a moment. Angela steps away, turning towards the darkness behind the glass. She feels cold, from the inside. She crosses her arms against her chest and holds tightly, closing her eyes. There is only a void, nothing more.
And then she feels a warm hand coming to rest on her shoulder tentatively.
"Angela-..." That is all father Harman says, just her name. It is everything, in that single word: guilt, remorse, regret. There is no supplication for forgiveness, though, and Angela knows why. Father Harman does not think she would ever grant it.
Her throat constricts. He had no choice. She had no choice. Her husband was dead already when it happened, and so was her child. It is beyond forgiveness; he does understand, and that is more than anyone else can give her. "Pearse-..."
He moves away. He does not leave, standing close by, beside her, but permitting no touch. Angela stops herself from putting her own hand where his has been only seconds before, to try and catch what little warmth remains there.
...
Pearse watches Angela: her still closed eyes, her fingers, clutching so tightly at her arms. He wishes he could hold her, offer at least that basic comfort. He cannot.
The moment she utters his name he feels an overwhelming desire to put his arms around her, yet it is not passion, not exactly. He would,of course, like to kiss her, to wake up beside her, but it is simple closeness he is truly yearning for. Someone to hold, and to hold onto, someone to just be there, and to be there for.
He withdraws his hand. He is afraid that were he to hold Angela, only for an instant, he would never let go.
"Would you come over for a dinner someday?" she asks, after a long silence.
"Could you define someday?" Pearse answers with a question, trying to be his usual stoic and slightly ironic self.
"Today?"
"Sounds fine for me."
"What would you like to eat?" When he gives her a puzzled glance, she smiles that trademark, slightly bitter crooked smile of hers. "It's not like I had a chance to do any shopping today."
...
Later, in the small shop at one of the gas stations, when they are choosing the wine, the cashier, a young girl of scarcely more than twenty years of age, eyes them curiously, not without a dose of sympathy.
"You should let your wife chose," she says merrily.
Pearse looks at Angela, she glances at him, and they suddenly burst into laughter. It is forced, it is not heartfelt. It is the only thing they can do. He wishes he had met Angela fifteen years ago. But he will not break the oaths – he does still remember why has he chosen this path.
"He always knows better," says Angela finally, leaving the choice to him. Pearse is not quite certain just how seriously she means it.
...
Angela is preparing dinner – she has absolutely forbidden him to enter the kitchen. So Pearse stays in the living room, walking along the bookshelves. He finds an edition of Tennyson poems. Must be Robert's, he thinks. Angela does not seem to be someone who would get on well with poetry. Maybe some years ago, thinks Pearse, maybe that younger Angela did.
Upstairs, suddenly there is a burst of loud music. Pearse comes closer to the stairs, to listen, but there is no need to – the music is loud enough to bait Angela out of the kitchen. She sighs.
"She's growing up," Angela indicates the upstairs with a move of her head. "Adolescents."
"Weren't you one?"
"Once upon a time," she answers crisply. "Alice!"
"It's all right." Pearse makes a soothing gesture with his hand. "I don't mind Cohen that much."
"I do mind her singing something she doesn't understand," says Angela harshly, but lets the topic drop and retreats to the kitchen.
As the music flows, he wonders if he is not becoming too sentimental. Poetry can move him again, as it used to years ago. Layers of meanings in a simple sentence, in a few words.
"And even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah," sings Alice in her still childish tones along with Cohen's voice from the recording. Pearse briefly reflects how much of the song Alice can understand actually.
He thinks he does, finally, understand it all. It all went wrong, not how he has imagined, not how he has planned. But, the decisions he had to make aside, he would not have it any other way. There still was, there is an Hallelujah, after all, cold and broken, but an Hallelujah nevertheless. Angela is his Hallelujah.
...
They finish the meal in silence. There is nothing to talk about, really, and Angela does not want to mention work. Not this night. Pearse seems to sense something of her mood.
"That Tennyson over there," he waves his hand towards the bookshelf. "Yours?"
"Yes." She smiles, seeing the astonished expression on his face. "Shocked?"
"Surprised."
"As you said, I was an adolescent once." She shrugs.
Pearse closes his eyes briefly, a promise of a smile forming on his lips. "Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me!" he quotes. His smile is bitter.
"That is for certain," Angela observes dryly. "No, no, go on," she adds hastily when he opens his eyes and looks at her questioningly. "Haven't had someone reciting poetry to me for... since... Well, so long I don't remember when it was, apparently."
"Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, when I put out to sea," Pearse keeps on reciting, and Angela falls completely into the soft lull of his voice.
Halfway through the first stanza, it dawns on her how personal these words have become. He will put out to sea, sooner or later. With their job, Angela fears it might be sooner. He has chosen this particular poem on purpose, she realizes. These words are for her, and for him.
"I hope to see my Pilot face to face, when I have crost the bar." Pearse finishes the poem and falls silent.
Angela swallows. That poem... Words of death, spoken by Pearse so calmly, so serenely. As if he was not a tiniest bit afraid, she thinks. Maybe he is not. He declined an offer of immortality, and that required courage. She is afraid that one day Pearse might have to join Robert and her daughter. Death, she thinks, is a terrible thing. So final.
Pearse does not seem to think so. That is what has given him courage, Angela realizes; faith proved stronger than fear. She wishes she could muster enough faith to believe she will meet her lost husband again, and her child, and Pearse – somewhere out there, beyond the bar. She is not certain she is able to believe.
"I'll wash the dishes." She gets up and starts collecting the dirty plates.
"I'll get the wine," Pearse says, helping her with the plates and following her to the kitchen.
...
Angela feels a wave of longing, but this time it is not for Robert. She would like her husband back, but the man he used to be before he crossed over, not that other one. It is not possible, not real. But Pearse is. All the time she has been struggling, he has been there, as he is now. It is complicated, too complicated to explain logically and understand, so she does not try to comprehend, she just accepts it. Along with it she has to accept she cannot have him. It almost physically hurts her.
Angela blinks back tears. No point in entering the path that would lead nowhere. She puts the plate away, hoping her hand does not shake. There is a clatter as the plate joins the pile beside the sink; her hand is trembling.
Pearse – once she has begun calling him so in her thoughts she cannot switch back to "father Harman" – Pearse slowly, lightly puts his hand over hers. Angela does not dare speak or look at him. She takes a breath, then moves her hand, palm upwards, lacing her fingers through his. He squeezes her hand gently. Angela glances up and meets his eyes. For once, they are not mirrors, and Pearse allows her a glimpse behind the glass: her own reflection is looking back at her. Angela holds onto his hand tightly, too tightly, fingers digging painfully into his skin, but he gives no sign of discomfort. His eyes are fixed on her; there are no words. They have never talked much; now Angela knows the reason. There is no place left for words between them simply because there is too much emotion.
She does not know how long they are standing like that, holding hands. Time is of no importance; it might be the only moment they will ever have. But they cannot stay like this forever.
"Would you like some wine?" she asks quietly.
He offers a smile, that small smile which touches the very bottom of her heart.
"I think tea might be in order," he says in what he is striving very much to be his casual voice.
...
The tea pot is almost empty. She is sitting opposite Pearse, on the armchair, watching him intently. He turns his eyes away from time to time, that smile on his lips again, and Angela can see he is lost, not exactly knowing what to do. They are holding hands again, they have broken the contact only when she was making tea, but it might be their only evening, and holding hands it is not enough.
Angela puts her cup on the table and stands up, letting go of Pearse's hand. There is a questioning look in his eyes as she crosses what little space there is to the sofa and sits down beside him. He does not belong to her, and she would never ask more of him than he can give. But there probably will not be another evening like this.
She leans against him, head on his shoulder and forehead against his neck. He shifts a little, and she curls up beside him. Her palm is on his chest; she can feel the heartbeat. Pearse's arm comes around her, his hand taking her free hand. She feels his lips touching her hair and coming to rest there.
There will not be more. But for now the longing has subsided, and Angela finally feels warm again, and the beating of his heart under her palm is lulling her to sleep. She knows that he will be gone by the morning, but he is beside her now and it is all that matters. All that is.
She hears Pearse muttering some intelligible words and wonders briefly if it is a prayer or a psalm. She has not prayed for years, but her prayers have been answered, if only for this single night. She has longed for a moment of rest, a moment of peace; now Pearse is here and he is all that, and more. Maybe there is God, thinks Angela sleepily.
...
Angela is soft and warm beside him, and Pearse is afraid to move, so that she would not disappear. Her breaths are even; she is slowly falling asleep. Pearse would love to stay, to fall asleep himself and wake up in the morning with her in his arms, but he cannot. Besides, Angela's daughter should not see them like this.
Without a reason, the words of Psalm 130 echo in his mind.
"Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice!" he mutters quietly into Angela's hair. This is it, thinks Pearse, listening to Angela's breathing. This is how things between them began. Out of the depths. Out of the depths I cry to you.
...
Angela wakes slowly, curled up on the sofa. Pearse is gone; she is still warm, however. He put a jacket over her so she would not get cold in her sleep.
It's your God you belong to, not me, she thinks. If God is out there, He cannot begrudge her for Pearse, for Pearse will never truly belong to her. All she can have is the memory of her hand in his, and a forgotten jacket that still smells faintly of him. Angela brings the black material closer to her face and inhales slowly.
Author's note:
Inspiried by the wonderful performance delievered by Susannah Harker and Philip Quast. And, after visualising Philip Quast reciting Tennyson, I sincerely doubt my brain will ever be the same again...
I have no idea if the name of Angie's daughter was ever mentioned in the series.
Used quotes from Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar", Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and Psalm 130.