I have seen more innocent men in the world than repenters, and the world is nothing but the banishing of all innocence - St. Ambrose
The wide river ran shallow, benign and clear over its chalk bed. It held no terrors and yet one was warned against falling into it. Marriage lay on the other side and a successful crossing was the ceremonial requirement for attaining it. I stood with my bride-to-be on the river bank amongst a small congregation of well wishing strangers. They had produced her from amongst their number and this was the first time I had seen her. She was dressed in a white gown, I did not see her face for the veil and she made no telling gestures but waited quietly with an attitude that was neither demure nor anxious. The attendant psychopomp advised me urgently, with quiet and reverential words, as to how I might safely step onto the ceremonial ferry whilst interposing scriptural references of a banal scope, ‘holy men will not convert the unbelieving husband but he shall be brought briskly to prayer by his pious wife’. The ferry was a square unstable pallet raft, with no guard rail or furniture, and wide enough only for two persons standing close, facing each other. I enquired lightheartedly as to when my belongings would be transported to the other side. I hoped my question suggested, without wink or smirk, that as a man of the world I was aware of the necessity of this local ritual, and acquiesced readily to its requirements, but also that practical matters had to count for something in the end. As they paused to consider my request, I showed my unconcern by humming the jaunty music hall line, ‘she wouldn’t have a Willie or a Sam.’ I suspected I was about to be brought back into line. The psychopomp advised I should distribute the contents of my suitcase amongst the congregation. You will not need them on the other side: ‘ancestors may bequeath home and wealth but a good wife is provided by the Lord’. I glanced at the mute figure in white standing as if in his shadow, she seemed the instrument of an unfathomable intent. I did not reply, ‘she is a snare, her heart a net, her arms are chains.’ He went on, it is time for you to step onto the ferry, give your hand to your bride, this is to show your willingness to assist and steady her as she joins you on your journey. For a moment I hesitated. The assembled company became restless as if leaves in a forest were being caressed by a breeze before being shaken by a storm. I fixed my gaze on the ferry’s deck. I could not picture stepping onto it. Even as I stood on the bank, I felt unsteady, as if already in queasy motion, and always about to fall into the waters. The psychopomp made encouraging sounds and handed me in great ceremony, the 10 foot fenland quant pole with which to steady myself. He also gave me a mirror of unknown purpose and significance, and a single obolus as symbolic payment for my release from solitude. Shouldn’t I be paying you? I asked. Steady, steady, he whispered. Steady as she goes. I did not reply directly but asked myself if it would not be better if I did not step onto ferry, and instead called a halt to the ceremony. Was it too late to break my agreement with these strangers? Alternatively, what if I did board the raft for good form’s sake, to be seen to play my assigned role, appeasing the crowd and observing the solemnity of the occasion, but then allowing myself as if by accident to topple into the kindly waters of the river? Would my seeming good intentions, even if let down by my inveterate bad luck, be sufficient to release me from my obligations? Might the fox yet run to ground? If I should be disqualified on the grounds of my physical clumsiness, wouldn’t that constitute a no-blame scenario ending in commiserating handshakes and good natured farewells? I was all but ready to drop upon ‘me marrow bones’ and sing God Save the King but the psychopomp kindly ignored this groom’s understandable reservations and continued with his whispered advice as if calming an unsettled horse. You must not disturb the chalky sediment with the quant pole, it is bad luck. Bad luck? The growing list of whimsical rules that I was supposed to remember, hinting at mystery, suddenly became too much, I felt about to laugh at the absurdity of my predicament and what had brought me here. Laugh? My girlish and helpless giggling had given me away before on too many solemn occasions. I am aware how offensive my array of involuntary outbursts are to others. I could not stifle my amusement but to distract from it, I stepped boldly from the bank onto the raft. Let’s not tarry any longer I announced with conscious theatre. The alacrity of my gaining the river ferry elicited no excited response from the crowd but again only an unquiet rustling of leaves. The psychopomp presented me with a further set of marriage objects and the precise instructions for their use but his words were taken by the breeze and I could not follow what he said. An instrument. An ointment. A receptacle. With an abrupt gesture, I reached out my hand to the bride. You recall a girl that’s been in nearly every song?But she shrank from me, as if in terror, and retreated into the crowd. I stepped easily off the raft like a lifelong sailor and tried to follow her but the congregation closed itself against me, and I found no way through. I handed the collection of marriage objects to one of the young men in the crowd. He raised them aloft like trophies of war. Then, by swift feint and neat footwork, he won the raft from me. The crowd parted, the bride emerged, veil torn aside. And so began the perfunctory ceremony of the new groom’s wedding which the psychopomp hurried through as if time had run out. The congregation rustled appreciatively, it was right they said, to have played me false. The smiling bride, in on the game from the start, had joined him on the raft, waving and laughing. For a moment, she looked at me, but I saw no significance in her expression. I thought I would catch her bouquet if she had had one. And then the newlyweds set off for marriage, taking my suitcase. They stirred up immense clouds of chalky sediment from the river bed with the quant pole until the waters turned opaque and white. That’s good luck, our best wishes, the crowd murmured. The psychopomp repeated the parable, ‘A man does not provide for his friend at midnight from friendship but because the friend is persistent and importunate in knocking on his door.’ I did not know what to make of it. Was the arrangement over? Had I fulfilled my obligations to these strangers? Then two doves flew out from the dark trees hanging over us with startled wing claps. In their wake, they left a chalk white breast feather, soft and lovely, that hung for a moment and then drifted downwards. I prayed, if this feather should come to rest upon the surface of the waters and be carried downstream, then let me be delivered from this place. But the breeze blew the feather back to land and it fell into the churned mud of the river bank. Even the auguries are in league against me. Even allegory has become hostile. I have lost my suitcase, and yet I do not travel light.
