The news broke today that Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King has at long last gained Grade 1 listed status. Of course this gladdened my heart because, as a teenager and a student, growing up in very noisy household, it was one of my favourite haunts – a place to go for a bit of peace. If you think the exterior is striking, just wait till you get inside. Here’s my love song to this cathedral, an excerpt from Amateurs in which the protagonist Beth, like the young me, is embraced by the building. More than something to be seen, it’s something to be experienced. Let me take you there.
“Perhaps identity is less who you are, than where you think you are and how you think you got here. How you notate your past, at any given time; the changing ways you constantly re-write it.
Wednesday lunch break, and I go to sit in the round cathedral, Paddy’s wigwam. It’s the best place I know for stepping outside myself; you can’t really think, because it’s such a hot bath for the senses. Incense greets you, more or less subtle depending on the timing of your visit. By day, the light show never disappoints; shafts of intense blue from the side windows warm the building, and you’re soothed, even by the single blood-red stream that spreads across the circular pews. The lantern both conceals and reveals the play of clouds and weather outside; you’re in a bubble, which a sunbeam can transform. On a dull day, you might be under water. A rain shower can be the perfect slow crescendo whose beginning was unheard. I love the way sound curls round on itself, in any circular building. Small things carry, the scuffle of a shoe lingers and softens. But anything hard – say, a walking stick clattering to the floor, dropped by a doddery nun – will shock and multiply; the squeak of a trainer can be unbearable. You recognise the tunes of speech, more than the words; and blessedly, a cathedral is pretty much an argument-free zone.
My guess is, half the visitors are good Catholics, the rest are opportunists, thrill-seekers and impostors like me. The air is thick with the sense of other purposes than mine. I sit down, settle, and abandon myself to whatever the tide washes into the cathedral today.
Rich blue light. These are short wavelengths – high energy; and yet somehow the brain flips this over, and translates it all to calm.
Time looses its moorings. My breathing slows.
Gradually, one ill-defined, strong feeling tugs at me, like shallow waves lapping against an idea. Unison.