2002 Summer Contest Series

Cheerful conversation drew Darla’s attention to worshippers spilling out of church. Icy breath and rosy cheeks testified to the frostiness of the evening. Friends chatted briefly then dispersed to waiting carriages or walked briskly away.
Darla noticed a handsome couple, a tall young man and his pretty wife, an auburn-haired beauty of eighteen. Guiding her to their carriage, he seated her comfortably, saying, ‘The time will pass quickly, Ariel, my love. I’ll be back before long.’ Kissing her tenderly, he instructed the driver to whip up the matched pair of geldings.
On impulse, Darla followed.
While Ariel’s husband was away, Darla struck up a acquaintance. They became fast friends, passing most evenings together at cards, laughing, chatting, playing piano, singing. Ariel felt she’d gained a sister as much as a friend.
Then she fell ill.
Darla, her constant friend, spent every evening with her, gossiping, reading, singing the ailing girl to sleep. Compassionate and attentive, she held Ariel’s hand, brushed her hair or cooled her fevered brow. Darla’s fingertips moved across the overblown roses of Ariel’s burning cheek, brushing locks of sweat-darkened hair from the girl’s throat.
Ariel grew progressively worse.
Pale, feverish, weakening further each day, doctors could not determine the cause of Ariel’s consumption-like symptoms. Three weeks into her illness Ariel died in her sleep. Darla was not seen at the house again.

During her illness Ariel had written to Liam encouraging him to visit church and pray for her. He did, knowing it eased her mind but it gave him no comfort. From the crucifix above the altar, a suffering Christ overlooked the congregation. Liam could not imagine a Divinity concerning itself with the lives of men but as Ariel’s condition deteriorated he prayed earnestly for the first time in his life.
Daily, Liam visited the little church. Kneeling beneath the agonised figure of Christ suffering in his passion, Liam implored him to show pity and make Ariel well. Lighting candles, he gazed into the downcast eyes of the Virgin, asking her, a woman of infinite compassion, to intercede on his behalf, granting him the only thing for which he had ever genuinely prayed - the life of his love.
When Ariel died, Liam was inconsolable.
The day was overcast as the horse-drawn funeral cortege arrived at the church where Liam had prayed so fervently and so fruitlessly. Pallbearers supported the mahogany coffin draped in red silk and covered in white roses, carrying their piteous burden down the aisle to a velvet-padded catafalque before the altar.
Liam stood in the front pew, his face unreadable. He tore his eyes from the bitter sight, bowing his head, though not in prayer. ‘My heart must be in that box,’ he thought. ‘It surely is no longer within me.’
He raised expressionless eyes to the tortured, bloodied figure of paint and plaster on the wooden cross. ‘How fitting,’ he thought. ‘How like the false faith it represents.’ Stained glass windows lined the church’s sides, strangely darkened by the lack of sunlight. ‘You and your damned religion!’ he seethed. ‘All form but no substance! Broken promises and broken hearts!’
Was this God’s merciful love?

Liam had almost not come to the church today; the place held such a painful confusion of memories. He swore this time would be the last.
All Liam’s plans ended with Ariel’s death; his hopes and desires invested in a dead future. Ariel’s virtue and beauty had swept away his self-indulgence and defiance. Now, he couldn’t think beyond the end of this day, let alone imagine his life weeks, months, years from now.
Part-way through Mass, Liam could endure no more; he turned and left the chapel.
Storms threatened but no rain fell, the weather matching Liam’s mood. He stood by a stone wall in the cemetery, drinking whisky from a flask. The caretaker sat on a gravestone, smoking a pipe, having removed the last spadefuls of earth from Ariel’s final cold resting place. Eventually, the man walked over to Liam.
‘Can I offer you a pipe, friend?’
Liam shook his head. The fellow leaned against the wall beside Liam and spoke again. ‘Looks like rain, young sir.’
Looking up as though he hadn’t noticed the thunderheads before, Liam answered, ‘Aye.’ Hymns sounded faintly from the church. Looking at the man, Liam asked, ‘Do you believe in God?’
The man puffed his pipe, considering. ‘Aye, I reckon I do.’
Finally, Liam asked a question for which there was no answer. ‘Why do you think He destroys what little beauty exists in the world?’
The caretaker tapped the spent tobacco against the wall. ‘Reckon no-one knows that, sir.’ He began walking away, then turned back. ‘Me old Mam used to say, “Sometimes God reaches down and plucks the petals from his roses”. Maybe that is all there is to it.’ Turning again, he walked off, retrieving his shovel on the way.
Liam hung his head and cried.

Liam returned to his old wild ways with a vengeance. Drinking, gambling, fighting and whoring became the round of his days and nights. Broke again, he drank whisky or Guinness with the crew of an English merchant vessel offloading cargo in Galway Bay before continuing to Portsmouth. Locals refused to associate with the detested English but Liam had no such reservations. Flush with pay from months at sea, they bought him drinks all night.
Waking on the floor of his bedroom, Liam couldn’t recall how he’d gotten there. He’d obviously not had the capacity to get himself into bed. His last coherent memory was of drinking at a disreputable waterfront establishment.
Heaving himself up, Liam’s right shoulder began to throb. He shuffled over to the looking-glass above the sideboard holding his shaving implements.
His white linen shirt was unbuttoned, grimy and stained with unidentifiable substances. The back, stiff and sticky, tore wetly as Liam pulled it off his wounded skin. Looking over his shoulder into the mirror he saw a huge bloodied patch, partly scabbed over, extensively bruised underneath. Dipping a flannel into the bowl of cold water, he began easing the viscous gore from the area he could reach. A pattern appeared under the red smear. Not a bruise then, he realised, - a tattoo.

As the design became clearer the events of the evening flooded back.
Liam sat at the bar drinking the finest Irish whisky that English coin could buy. His companion, Bertie, patiently listened to Liam’s tale of lost love; a familiar refrain from evenings past. Upending his empty glass on the bar, Liam chuckled, ‘Another dead sailor!’ Bertie grinned, motioning the barkeep for another round, staring intently, if a little unsteadily, at Liam.
‘You should have somethin’ . . . permanent-like . . . to remember her by.’ Unbuttoning his cuffs, he rolled back grubby shirtsleeves, revealing a dark blue design on each forearm. ‘Sea-faring lads all have ‘em.’ On one arm a sailing ship crested the waves; the other bore a bleeding heart over a Celtic cross. ‘If a fellow goes overboard, an’ drowns,’ he crossed himself, ‘he’ll have somethin’ … religious-like … on ‘im, for his soul’s comfort.’ Bertie straightened his sleeves and re-buttoned his cuffs. ‘A cross an’ beads can be lost but this . . . well, it’s forever.’
Liam shook his head. ‘I don’t believe that superstitious nonsense.’
‘It don’t have to be religious,’ suggested Bertie. ‘You can have any sort of thing at all. Our chaplain’s a master tattooist. Learned it in the Feejees.’ Bertie grasped Liam’s arm. ‘Come on, mate! A bottle o’ rum will warm us on our way!’

The merchantman bustled with activity even at this late hour. Sailors negotiated the gangplank by lamplight, hauling barrels, grain sacks and cloth bolts aboard, stowing them below decks. Making their way up the sagging boards, Bertie explained the ship sailed with the morning tide.
Walking cleared Liam’s head somewhat and it was throbbing. Selecting a wad of tobacco he packed a pipe and sat on a coil of rope on deck, sweet blue smoke filling the air.
A huge sweaty sailor, about fifty years old, covered with grime, climbed the gangplank, hessian sacks on both shoulders. Lowering the bags onto the deck, he strode over to Bertie and Liam. Picking up a wooden bucket from beside the ropes, he upended it over his head. Salty water sluiced off dirt and chaff dust. He snorted, rubbing sinewy hands over face and hair.
As the muck washed away, a vast tattoo became visible; an enormous crucifix of a bleeding Christ with skulls at the base. Noticing Liam’s obvious surprise, the giant lifted his arms and turned around. The tattoo continued around his sides to an even larger scene across his broad back - the Roman soldier Longinus, head bowed, his spear pointed into the dirt. A lettered scripture read, ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do.’
Liam stared at the powerful six foot five frame of the now-grinning sailor. Bertie turned to him. ‘Liam, meet Father Eusebius.’

The Chaplain’s private quarters below deck was tiny, intended only to accommodate the priest and one of his seafaring flock. Bertie perched on the bunk. Liam and Father Eusebius took chairs directly under the hurricane lantern suspended from the low ceiling.
After hearing Liam’s story Father Eusebius spoke, ‘Bertie told you that I do only Christian images?’
Liam glanced at the younger man. ‘I thought you’d make an exception,’ Bertie piped up, ‘under the circumstances.’
The older man grunted in reply. He turned to Liam. ‘What’s the gal’s name?’
‘Ariel,’ Liam replied.
‘Ariel, eh? Pretty name.’ On a sheet of thick parchment Father Eusebius began sketching with a piece of charcoal using broad, confident strokes. ‘D’you know it’s meaning?’
‘Ariel’s in one of Shakespeare’s plays; a spirit who obeys an old magician.’
‘Aye. “The Tempest”. I know it. What else?’
Liam shook his head slowly.
‘Ariel means “Lion of God”.’ Father Eusebius looked steadily at Liam. ‘Like St Mark.’ Liam dropped his gaze. ‘You don’t want a religious picture. I know that,’ Eusebius said, not unkindly, ‘but I do only sacred designs. I know a picture from a holy book which might be acceptable to us both.’ He offered the rough drawing to Liam. ‘Let’s see if this’ll do for compromise.’
Liam contemplated the design for awhile, then nodded slowly.

From beneath the bunk Eusebius dragged a large brass-bound chest. He removed a long leather wallet and a small bottle of dark blue ink which he placed on a small table. Unbound, the wallet contained several wood or ivory-handled tattooing implements ending in clusters of thin, sharp needles.
‘Remove your weskit and shirt, then sit with your back to me.’ Reaching overhead, Eusebius turned up the lamp, bathing the area in bright light. He motioned Bertie to hand him the rum.
Father Eusebius offered Liam the bottle. ‘Here, drink this. You’re three sheets to the wind already, I see, but it’ll dull the pain.’
Liam was not feeling much of anything but took a decent pull at the fiery liquor anyway. Eusebius took the bottle and splashed rum over the area to be tattooed. Selecting an instrument of tiny needles bound to an ivory handle, he poured a little over the tines. Dipping the needles into the ink, he took a hefty swig of the rum himself.
Liam grunted as Eusebius punctured the skin of his shoulder, over and over, transferring the design, freehand, to Liam’s back. As he worked the design, the winged lion of St Mark over a large letter ‘A’, Father Eusebius smoked and drank constantly but his hand remained steady throughout the three hours it took to complete the tattoo.

When it was done he refused payment; it being bad luck to accept money for what he considered part of his calling. He did, however, willingly accept the rest of the bottle of rum.