Homo Superior
Seven for a Secret Never to be Told
Berkeley Butterworth had known for a long time that he was different. It wasn’t just his slightly disconcerting physical appearance, with his pale milky-white skin, contrasting strongly with his untidy, Cimmerian curls and overplump carmine lips; nor the slight but still discernible lack of balance between the jug-like ears jutting out from either side of his rounded face. All that, together with his sad brown puppy-dog eyes, was sufficient to give a comic yet melancholic air to his countenance from a very young age. But Berkeley’s sense of difference was tied up with other aspects of the self beside mere physical appearance.
For instance - unlike most of the other schoolboys in his class - Berkeley preferred ITV’s lineup of children’s television programmes to that offered by the BBC. His Saturday morning viewing favoured the anarchic Tiswas over the more controlled, suburban feel of the Multi-Coloured Swap Shop; and he’d rather soar with Magpie’s eponymous mascot, a corvid named Murgatroyd, than going sailing with the steady crew of the Blue Peter.
Above all else, the adventures of the adolescent Tomorrow People were distinctly preferable to those of the alien protagonist of Doctor Who. More than once, Berkeley had wished he could ‘jaunt’ away, from home or from school, using the teleportation mind powers of John, Stephen, Elizabeth, Mike and the other members of the Tomorrow People - the elite group of Homo superior that had begun ‘breaking out’ of their mental chrysalis with their advanced psychic powers. This was the next step in human evolution, usually onsetting at puberty, and taking the chosen few - and one day, it was to be hoped, the whole race - away from the mundanity, violence and thuggery of the far-too-long dominant Homo sapiens (or ‘saps’, as they were generally referred to by those destined to become humanity’s future).
Oh You Pretty Things
Don’t you know you're driving your
Mamas and Papas insane
Let me make it plain
You gotta make way for the Homo Superior
(David Bowie)
The attraction was obvious to one such as Berkely Butterworth. There were other ways of being different, after all. Other ways of being Homo.
And without a doubt - it better than being a sap.
*
Then there was Berkeley’s hidden dressing-up obsession, which in his case took a decidedly idiosyncratic form. Some of the boys from his class had taken to wearing long multi-coloured scarves, in homage to Tom Baker, currently playing the part of the Fourth Doctor. Berkeley too would sometimes wear a scarf - of sorts - when indulging in his playtime fantasies. However, this was the kind of scarf more commonly referred to, in certain religious circles, as a stole. The kind of scarf that formed part of the accoutrements of a Catholic priest when celebrating the Mass.
During the long hot summer following his tenth birthday, Berkeley had converted his play-shed at the bottom of the garden into a miniature chapel, complete with altar and candles. It was here that Berkeley adopted the guise of Father Butterworth. In dressing-up, he made use of scraps of choirboy vestments he had found discarded in a skip outside St Agnes’ church, half a mile from home; whilst the priest stole he had cut out from some unwanted curtain fabric that he had blagged from his mother. Within the repurposed play-shed, the rough-hewn altar was in reality a worm-ridden workbench purloined from his father’s garage; whilst the makeshift altar cloth was the torn remnant of a disused net curtain which Mrs Hollins, his bemused next door neighbour, had given to him when he had timorously asked her for it. On a shelf in one corner - in lieu of a pipe organ - sat a tape deck. The audio cassette inside was labelled ‘Gregorian Chant of the Canonical Hours’. He’d pinched it from Declan Duffy’s front room, along with Declan’s Ma’s rosary. He didn’t have a clue how to use it, but with its cultured pearl beads it looked resplendent, lying there on the altar. As did the silver candlesticks, the most valuable repository within his ersatz chapel: well, Berkeley was sure his mother wouldn’t miss them. The Butterworths had ceased giving formal dinner parties years before, and rarely invited guests across the threshold of their home these days. Theirs had long since ceased to be a warm and welcoming abode.
What had been the origin of the young lad’s fanciful obsession? The Butterworths were not Catholics; his parents had been married in a registry office, and apart from an annual visit to the local nondescript Anglican church at Christmas, none of the family had had much in the way of dealings with organised religion. And as the Butterworth marriage had slowly withered away, even these intermittent visits had ceased.
Perhaps, a psychologist might conclude, Berkeley was simply seeking refuge in religion. If it was more than mere artifice, perhaps his peculiar play-acting was serving as an antidote to the increasing indifference of his distracted parents. Then again, perhaps the bullying that Berkeley had begun to experience at school had something to do with it. Or perhaps dressing up as a priest, in the inner sanctum that he had christened Ss Aidan’s & Cuthbert’s, listening to plainsong, munching on Ritz crackers and drinking Ribena (in lieu of bread and wine) and pretending they’d somehow turned into the body and blood of Christ, was all just another way of ‘being different’?
To some extent, maybe. But perhaps there was one further explanation for this sudden desire to ‘play at priest’. That summer, after all, was the one in which Duncan Butterworth had been diagnosed with the cancer that would end his life less than twelve months later…
*
Berkeley had watched his father’s decline closely over the course of his final year. To those who did not know Duncan well, the change was slow, almost imperceptible. But his son thought of the horse chestnut tree that until the great summer had graced the entrance to the local park. For generations it had stood there, proud, aristocratic, yielding its seeds with patrician civility each autumn to grateful schoolchildren for their seasonal conker games. There it might stand forever. But a few months before Berkeley had overheard the exchanged contemplation of wiser heads, who had known that tree for seventy years, or more.
‘That ol’ ’orse chestnut’s ain’t looking so grand these days, Bert.’
‘Too right, Bill. Summat tells me there’ll ne’er be so many conkers for the bairns this autumn.’
And so it had proved. Maybe the drought was the final push; but one day in July - three days after learning of his father’s illness - Berkeley had visited the park, only to find the horse chestnut riven in two, split right down the middle. The canker of the stricken leviathan was plain to see: it was rotten to the core. The next morning, council workmen arrived to clear it away; by the end of the afternoon, only a stump less than a foot tall remained of a tree that had been beloved by countless children.
Throughout his illness, Duncan had carried on his mysterious work, continuing to visit the office of which he never spoke to Berkeley. Every effort was made to preserve the semblance of normality. But over time the hospital visits had become more frequent, and his father’s once vigorous frame began to look strangely fragile. His voice, always so thunderous, started to lose its customary resonance; his hair became like gossamer, then, almost overnight, seemed to disappear completely; only his grey-steel eyes remained as sharp as ever.
Then one afternoon in June, Maureen Butterworth arrived at Berkeley’s school early and unexpectedly. Duncan had collapsed, and had been rushed into hospital. Berkeley went with his mother straight to his father’s bedside. He had half expected to find him split open, like the horse chestnut tree; his insides exposed, and his rottenness clear for all to see. That wasn’t quite how it was. But from the deathly grey pallor on Duncan’s angular face, and the wan smile of acknowledgement that played across his thin pursed lips, Berkeley knew that the final, short phase of his father’s illness had begun.
*
Just nine more days had passed since then; and now Berkeley sat alone, next to his father’s bed. Maurean was waiting outside the hospital room, in the corridor, as per Duncan’s request; in his last few moments with his son, he wanted the two of them to be alone.
‘There’s something I want you to have,’ rasped Duncan Butterworth. He was propped up, as comfortable as might be expected, considering how close he was to death. The morphine driver had done its job smoothly and effectively, and had kept the worst of the pain at bay; but there was nothing more that could be done to delay the inevitable. Duncan’s hands, looking more gnarled than his son had ever remembered, were clasped together on his lap, resting upon a book. A Bible.
Duncan must have noticed his son’s look of perplexity. Even now, his eyesight was undimmed. He chuckled. ‘It’s never too late, they say. “Joy shall be in heaven over one sinneth that repenteth.” But I’m done now making my confession to God. Do you still “play at priest” in that shed of yours?’
Berkeley blushed. ‘Sometimes.’
‘That old workbench of mine has woodworm. You could do better than that for an altar.’ Duncan smiled, then started coughing violently. When the convulsion had passed, he lay there, exhausted, his eyes closed.
‘Dad?’ asked Berkely anxiously. ‘Would you like some water?’
Duncan shook his head. His voice, when it came, was weaker than before. ‘No. Too late for absolution with water - holy, or otherwise. Here.’ He pushed the Bible towards Berkeley. ‘Inside the cover. There’s a letter. For you. When I’m gone - read it - but only then. Promise me you’ll burn it, once you’ve read it. That you’ll tell no one of what it says. Promise me, Berkeley.’
‘But– ’
‘No buts. You’re my son, Berkeley. It’s the last thing I ask of you, as a father. Promise me!’ He lay back, gasping. The effort of speaking had almost overwhelmed him.
Berkeley nodded his assent, anxious not to distress his father. ‘Yes, Dad. I promise.’ He gently laid his hands upon Duncan’s, and with a sigh, the dying man released his grip upon the Bible.
A minute passed in silence. Berkeley looked at the bedside clock, watching the second hand ticking off the last moments before nine o’clock.
21:00.
The light was beginning to fade beneath the leaden grey sky. Not the cheeriest day, this Midsummer’s Day. What a day on which to breathe your last.
The cawing of magpies could be heard from outside. The monastic plainsong of magpies, thought Berkeley. He peered out of the window, and counted the black and white birds, strutting across the neatly manicured lawn below. Seven magpies, searching for fat worms. What did the old rhyme say about that?
Duncan opened his eyes once more, and Berkeley immediately forgot about the magpies. ‘There is one more word I need to hear from you. From a Father to his son.’
Berkeley frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I know you know the words, even though you were never baptised, or raised, as a Catholic. I need to hear them from you. Your absolution. I’m sorry, Berkeley, for not being what I should have been - to you - for so long. But now I need to hear those words.’
‘But I’m not a priest.’
‘We’re all play-actors. In more ways than one. I’m no Catholic. It might be too late for me, anyway; after a lifetime in service to the Enemy. I don’t know anymore. But it’s not too late for you - to choose a different path. Just say the words, Father Butterworth.’
Berkeley met his father’s unflinching gaze. His voice might be the merest shadow of what it had once been - but his iron stare was undiminished. Berkeley raised his right hand; and his voice trembling as he did so, he pronounced the words of absolution, making as he did so the sign of the cross.
‘Ego te absolvo.’
He leaned over and kissed his father on the forehead.
‘Thank you.’ Duncan looked at his son one last time, and smiled. Then he closed his eyes, and murmured. ‘You’d better send your mother in. I’ve some valedictory words for her too. Just her. Goodbye, my son.’
Berkeley stared at his father, feeling the long suppressed tears finally welling up within. He gripped the Bible tightly, and choked out: ‘Bye, Dad.’ He turned away, and practically ran for the door.