Closed my eyes and pulled a letter at random from the box. Closed my eyes again and pulled the cardboard off the painting.

Closed my eyes and drank a full glass of wine in one breath. It wasn’t much good. Tasted of crap parties.

My tension made itself felt in my stomach. As if breaking into an abandoned house. Climbing on a rotten roof. At any moment your feet might go through the shingles. But I carried on all the same.

The canvas had been stapled onto a wooden frame. I placed it on the lap of the bergère and sat on the sofa.

We were in the chapel. The body of the church was filled with white light. Sunrays coming through the aisle windows reflected off the altarpiece and the figure who knelt in front of jesus the prophets maria and the apostles. The figure was a child with bare dirty feet and wearing a pair of striped pyjamas. A child of war but no barbed wire and no train.

The pews were empty.

There was a sound as if an organ was playing or was that just in my mind’s ear.

The record stuck and then moved on. Stars in skyom dudom delom wind goes felom playom.

Someone came in. I turned the record to play its b side.

John sat down next to me and we looked into the painting. The kneeling child was walking backwards to the door. Turned at the second last pew and caught sight of someone.

Do you remember what you said to me asked john. I shook my head. 171

He gave us those he had made into apostles and into prophets into evangelists shepherds and teachers.

Among them who are you john I asked topping up my glass. A human being that’s all he said.

But who if you had to choose.

Then I’d be a shepherd. I am the one who watches and waits. What about yourself he wondered.

Evangelist I said. The person who writes. I didn’t know you write he said.

The child kept walking towards the door. Stopped when she caught sight of the person in the pew. She didn’t recognise him. He looked strange. His hands were resting quietly in his lap.

You were the man in the chapel I said. You asked if I was sad.

John looked surprised. No I don’t think that’s how it went. I asked you what had happened. And you told me that the butcher had come for the horse.

John got up. Searched the record and put on an everttaube. While the boat still sails before the heartbeat fails.

No I said again. I said father had killed the horse. And you said you understood why I was sad.