Candlemass

Claudia's Mass was so steeped in ancient usage that the whole cathedral was lit by seemingly endless lines of mobile candleplume - with not a single suspicion of any different source powering the luminous dust that each ceremonial corner breathed. The striped dark of a blanket Benedictus, a flickering glory in God, a richly silhouetted vision of moving Faith.

She had been attending the same Mass since a small girl when her whole family had arrived chitter-chattering in advance of the serious business of soul-searching under the heady vesperal atmosphere that the Cathedral provided. Despite the shaky light, any shadows themselves were still only a single step away from a steady beacon of conviction that there were things present to cast them.

This evening, even in her autumn of life, Claudia continued to relish the occasion, yet missed the prelude of family life that made the Mass almost joyous. She still managed to laugh at the memories. The children together - her brothers and sisters - joked about Mrs Earwhistles, a lady they often saw whose ear could be heard whistling even at the most lugubrious moments of Mass. She was a lovely lady, no doubt, but Claudia and the others invented stories behind her back and then imagined a Mr Earwhistles who may or may not have existed (he was certainly never at Mass). Some of these stories had the Earwhistles couple living in a large house beyond the back of the backest backyard in the city, owning several floors where even the wind was outwhistled. Many of the cavities had bullet-hard peas rattling in the strong self-perpetuation of draught that penetrated the careless architecture. But nothing compared to the knots of phlegm in the couple's chests as they grew older. When Mass finally started with the entrance of the swinging censer, all such story-telling and laughter needed to subside or at least settle.

Today, Claudia closed her eyes, imagining her siblings either side of her in the box-pew, stifling their giggles. All of them had long since moved away in various methods of moving away, leaving only Claudia to attend Mass. Mrs Earwhistles had also moved away, of course. Indeed, Claudia had not thought of her for several years: an imaginary character based on a real character: a lady whom Claudia and her siblings knew nothing about, not her background, not the people she cared for at home if she cared at all, not her innermost thoughts, not even her outermost ones: a real lady whom they had christened Mrs Earwhistles and granted an imaginary life. This evening, however, as the vesperal shimmering within the Cathedral grew even more cloying, Claudia slowly lowered herself to the hassock but briefly opened her eyes from contemplative prayer - despite the instructions of the distant priest now waving his churchly utensils like wares from a barrow - and she glimpsed, she assumed, the imaginary half of the whole Mrs Earwhistles in the front pew, slumpier than she used to be all those years ago: or simply kneeling lower than any possible knees. The sound of whistling from her earpiece was piercing but Claudia seemed to be the only one who noticed. She clasped her gloved hands over her own ears, but the whistling continued even louder. It was as if she had forgotten to switch off the mobile in her brain before entering the Cathedral.

As the only candle left burning was stifled by a gust of breath, the Cathedral emptied itself and the last person present moved away into the shadows, never to return.