‘Jesus.’ She rolled onto her side, closing her legs, covering herself.
‘Don’t judge God by my actions,’ he said.
‘You sure they’re your own?’
‘Of course.’
Deborah’s derisory snort sat Wittin back on his arse, the keen air rushing in through his fly.
‘Father, why don’t you ever blame him?’
‘For what?’
‘Anything.’
Wittin thought she’d finished, that her slurred words would tail off and she would leave him alone.
‘You praise him for the survivors,’ she said, ‘but you never blame him for the disaster. It’s always the same. He put the thought in your head, your cock in your hand.’
‘No, he didn’t.’
‘Did he wake me up?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You glad? Or are you cursing his name?’
‘You’re drunk.’
‘Which is why you thought you’d fuck me.’
‘You’re making no sense.’
He couldn’t face her. He looked around his church, at the bleak corners of the transept, at the Stations of the Cross, the brass candles, the pulpit, the font, the choir stalls, the empty pews, the confessional, and the crucifix on the altar below the stained-glass Christ.
‘God got me drunk,’ she said, goading him. ‘Maybe it was for you. You’ve let Him down.’
‘Stop talking about Him like that.’
‘Fasten yourself.’
Wittin finally let go and zipped his fly.
Deborah shivered.
‘I have the heating on. It shouldn’t take long.’
She looked at the pile of clothes from the vestry. Wittin grabbed them, spreading them over her nakedness. By the time he’d wrapped her in the robes, covering her feet and tucking right into the small of her back, he was thankful.
Deborah closed her eyes. Her mouth parted as she slept. He listened to each soft breath. She had freckles. He resisted the urge to lean over and touch her.
She slept soundly as Wittin placed her boots and wet clothes over the thick ribbed radiators to dry. He made sure she was comfortable then sat on the chancel steps with his back to the altar and her. Taking the cork from the holy wine, he drank from the bottle.
He was still there when Deborah stirred. He imagined she’d be trying to remember what she’d drunk, who she was with, where she was and why she was lying behind him below the altar, her head on a red velvet cushion edged with golden ropework, cocooned in his vestments. Everything would be on its side from where she lay. She would be warm. She would sniff the faint smell of incense as she stared at the sloped back of the priest who had tried to abuse her, and the row upon row of empty pews.
‘Is it morning?’
‘Close to.’
‘Have you seen Sabbath?’
‘Who?’
‘My friend.’
‘Can’t say I have.’
‘I’ve been abandoned.’
‘You and me both.’
He tightened the slope of his back into a curl and knitted his fingers together behind his head to make himself more compact.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said.
He unfurled.
‘I don’t know what I’m for any more.’
‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself.’
The priest strained his neck rather than turn around to fully face her.
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘It wasn’t meant to sound flippant,’ she said, as if sensing something wasn’t right. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t mention it. I don’t believe I deserve to be taken seriously.’
‘You have to help yourself.’
‘You’re a fine one to talk.’
Wittin looked away. He took a swig from the bottle.
‘Could I have some, take the edge off?’
Without turning, he offered it to her. He heard her sit up and take a mouthful.
‘Ugh,’ she said. ‘It’s sweet.’
‘Fortified.’
She tapped him with the bottle and he took it from her. She lay down.
‘I always liked being in church.’
‘So why stop coming?’
‘It stopped being a nice place.’
He couldn’t help but nod at what she’d said.
‘This is the cushion I knelt on,’ she said, not noticing or choosing not to comment on his agreement. ‘Side by side with my John, the day we exchanged vows. I was happy that day. I think everybody was. It was sunny. The church was full. There were flowers everywhere.’
‘I envy you that happiness.’
‘Ah, but I was happy in a different way, a floaty, dandelion-seed, out-of-body happy that made me feel so light I had to hold on to my John all the time or the gentlest of breezes could have taken me and I don’t know where I would have landed, or if I would; because she was already inside me, and only I knew. We were already a family.’
‘Like I said.’
‘There’s no point to envy, Father. Besides, it’s a sin.’
‘One of many.’ He twisted slightly to see her. All that was visible was her head.
‘Do you know, Deborah, I’ve never performed the sacrament of marriage. There hasn’t been a wedding in this church since I was sent here.’
‘Well, maybe it wasn’t to be.’
‘Maybe.’
She watched as he rubbed his eyes and once more regretted her flippancy.
‘Does it make a priest happy, do you think, to marry somebody?’
‘Depends on the somebody, I would imagine.’
‘She would have been coming up to marrying age, thinking about it anyway, and university, and living in the city probably.’
‘What was her name?’
‘Jenny.’
‘That’s pretty. Short for Jennifer?’
‘No,’ she said.
He saw her grin pushing into the cushion.
‘Long for Jen. Jen Cutter.’
Wittin had a smile on his face as he shifted his body around.
‘Sure it’s nice that the memory of her can still make you happy.’
‘Mm, you’re right.’
Her eyes were partially closed. She drifted away.
They had spoken of dead children; what else? But without what he was so used to seeing and hearing from his potential parishioners. Memories of Jenny had taken her to a good place. He knew it wasn’t always the case, but it was possible. She looked happy in her sleep and he assumed she was thinking about Jenny still. He sat watching her, the sweetness of her face on the wedding cushion. She was a pleasure to be with. When she came back, a wee while later, he had to look away.
‘How are you feeling?’ he said.
‘Shitty, as usual.’
Wittin offered her the almost empty bottle as she sat up. She shook her head. He drained it.
‘Warm enough?’
‘Mm. Warmest I’ve been since summer.’ She realised she was naked. He watched her hands move beneath the robes. ‘Where are my clothes?’
‘They’re drying,’ he said.
She looked to where he pointed.
‘You undressed me?’
‘You were soaked to the skin. I couldn’t let you sleep in wet clothes. You’d catch your death.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Sure, I—’
‘What did you fucking do? Did you touch me?’
‘What? I mean, you don’t remember what happened?’
‘Do you think I could live with myself if I remembered? I try not to. I don’t know why I ever let them do it.’
He tensed. She saw it, the move to the defensive. He felt condemned.
‘Something happened.’
&
nbsp; ‘I undressed you, is all.’
‘Enjoy it?’
‘I was just doing what needed to be done. You know how it is, you get caught up in the time of things, not really space to be doing any enjoying.’
‘You don’t even believe yourself. You sound nervous.’ Deborah felt between her legs. ‘You didn’t fuck me? Really?’
Wittin put his hands up to stop her, uncomfortable at the directness of her question, unused to talk of a sexual nature. He saw the robes slipping as she sat up, revealing bare shoulders for a second before she covered herself.
‘We didn’t,’ he said.
‘We?’
‘I couldn’t.’
‘You tried?’
‘I wanted to, I’m sorry.’
‘So you did try and fuck me?’
‘Not really. I wanted to know what it was like, how it felt, anything. I didn’t want to hurt you.’
‘You didn’t think I’d mind?’
‘I thought you looked beautiful.’
‘You’re a fucking priest.’
His hands were trembling as he ran them through his hair, joining them together, once more encaging his head as though its contents were too much to bear.
‘I was sure you wouldn’t know. You were so drunk, away with it, unconscious really.’
‘Oh Lord,’ said Deborah. Her dry, humourless croak hung in the arid silence of the church. ‘I should have been safe.’
‘Nothing happened. You woke up. You saw me.’
‘About to fuck me?’
‘I’m glad you woke up,’ he said. ‘That it didn’t happen.’
‘Good for you. I’m glad you’re glad. You still sinned.’
‘I know. And I’m sorry. It was against everything I claim to believe in.’
‘It was against me. Fuck! And I thought I was going to hell.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Father, I thought you were nice.’
‘But nothing happened.’
‘That doesn’t make it right.’
‘It makes it better, surely?’
‘Not to me.’
Wittin stood, unsure for a moment whether his legs would support him.
‘Running away?’
‘More wine.’
When he returned from the sacristy with another bottle, she was no longer naked. She was by the altar, dressed in his alb, aglow with the stained morning light of the east window, and all he could think of was angels.
‘You’re not going to hell,’ he said.
She turned as he approached. Standing in front of the tabernacle, she had the look of an icon, presented to him for him alone to see. He bowed his head and made the sign of the cross before stepping up to her.
She took the wine off him. ‘Not today, anyway.’
‘Not ever.’
He trembled as he held her arm.
‘It’s a bit late to be saving me, don’t you think?’
He withdrew his hand.
‘Will you be saying anything?’ he asked. Ashamed as he was, he didn’t look away.
‘Will you?’
‘Sure, why would I be mention …’ His words petered out as he realised what Deborah was asking.
‘I would say the two things hardly compare.’
‘Of course you would. You’re a man.’
‘I’m a priest.’
‘You’re supposed to be,’ said Deborah, with an edge to her voice that muted Wittin. ‘You still can be. We’re both asking for each other’s silence. I want it for all our sakes.’
‘Shame on you, Deborah.’
‘Me?’
Wittin turned from her, walked the length of the nave and slipped the lock. Looking back from the porch, he saw Deborah standing in the sanctuary he had just left.
Seven years earlier
Lucy Magnal scanned the street. She was wary of stepping out of the church behind the handful of other morning parishioners.
‘Lucy, will you stop being silly.’
‘I’m not going to school.’
‘Oh yes you are,’ said Mary. ‘It is my duty to send you – and you, young lady, have an even greater responsibility to use the brain that God gave you. Think about the poor black babies in Africa. They don’t even get the chance.’
Lucy was the baby of the class, fatherless and blindly religious. Fed bible for breakfast and scripture for supper, attending morning Mass with Mary, her mother, each day before school.
‘They laugh at me.’
Mary Magnal took a wooden crucifix from the side pocket of her handbag. She placed it in Lucy’s hand and wrapped her fingers around it.
‘God’s friendship is the only one you need. You’ve been told what to do about the others: pity them.’
The Todds had been the first to laugh and point at Lucy, their eyes almost popping out at the recognition, hooting that she attended church so often she was starting to look like the priest, Father Finnegan. It was said without spite, but the rest of the class took up the cause, and within the space of one day she was being referred to as Lucy Finnegan. Her mother had complained. The teacher and the parents of the PTA had ignored her remonstrations.
Her father had been unable to intervene.
Mary Magnal went quiet on the matter.
Lucy’s behavioural problems thus began when she realised she was voiceless, save for the reedy whine she managed to produce that only invited more laughter and ridicule when used in anger. There was no one to stand up for her. She didn’t cry. She took to distant benches and solitary walks around the school boundary, chewing her way through a packed lunch of sliced-bread monotony that offered little solace or nourishment. When that was finished, she found a vantage point and observed her peers from behind her thicket-like fringe, looking for weakness.
Her comments, when they came, were sly, vindictive and careless, rooted as they were in her own elevated separation and growing disregard for others. They also betrayed the influence of a higher hand, and the teacher suspected she had been coached in what to say by Father Finnegan in compensation for his inability to intervene publicly, thereby consolidating his ungodly transgressions.
Most of Lucy’s vitriol was saved for Alice Corggie, because her popularity was effortless and she bore it as though deserved. Slut, whore, narcissus, jezebel: all words that Lucy internalised rather than sling across the classroom or playground. Any expression against Alice would be foolhardy.
‘I’ll pity Alice today,’ said Lucy.
‘You do that. You pity her hard.’
Mary pushed Lucy into the morning and closed the door behind them as if they were leaving home.
14
The message was short. The handset was still cold in Shep’s hands when the buzz of the dialling tone filled his ear and the news screamed inside his head.
‘Who was it?’ Rebecca said.
‘John Cutter.’
She tensed. ‘Has he done something?’
‘There was a fire,’ said Shep. ‘He’s dead.’
He saw straight away that she was relieved, and it troubled him. She never mentioned their son.
She put her red duffle back on. Sprightly fingers skipped from toggle to toggle, ready in seconds. In the moments since the news, her skin appeared to have firmed and she looked younger.
‘I’m going to church,’ she said.
‘You’re just back. Why do you need to go again?’
‘To pray, Shep. To pray.’
‘To give thanks?’
‘Shame on you, Shep Evans, I will not have you judge me, or speculate on the subject of my prayers for that matter.’
‘Okay, okay,’ he said, his hands up and open.
She gathered her hair into a ponytail and secured it with a red cherry bobble. He noticed that her hands now s
hook.
‘You could walk with me,’ she said, not raising her gaze to his.
Without answering, Shep kissed her where the hair was pulled tight and smooth and the black shone with the blue-green of a magpie’s wing. He put his arms around her and hugged her for a moment. She didn’t relax or hug him back; she was already easing away, down the hallway.
‘Rebecca?’ She turned, pale blue eyes over her raised collar. ‘Do you say his name? In church, I mean?’
‘What I say in church is between me and God. You know that, Shep.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
He watched her walk down their path to the pavement. She crossed the road and entered the avenue of trees that lined the driveway to the church opposite their house; the reason they lived in this house.
‘What’s left to pray for, Rebecca?’
After a few steps her head dipped and she hurried to the church door. It looked as though she could be crying. Shep hoped she was.
Even with the windows open, the conservatory soon filled with cigar smoke. The ceiling fan moved it around. Shep sat back as he watched a blackbird dancing on the lawn, imitating light rain, cocking its head to listen for movement before stabbing the ground with its yellow beak. It pulled a worm from the lawn and swallowed it whole. Two blue tits pecked at the nuts hanging from the porch of the summer house at the end of the garden. A redwing pulled berries from the holly bush, which was laden, the portent of a harsh winter ahead. He cursed the neighbour’s cat as it leapt from the hedgerow. Even though it missed the blackbird, it cleared the garden of all birds. He drew on the cigar, expelling the smoke as he picked up the phone and dialled.
‘Donald, hello, it’s Shep. How’s things with you?’
He took a long breath and let it out gradually as he listened. ‘Actually, no, things are not fine, that’s why I’m calling. I need to take a few days’ holiday … No, no, it’s not Rebecca. There’s been a death in the family … Thank you, that’s much appreciated … Yes, it was someone close – my son, sorry, our son … We didn’t really see each other. You know what families can be like … Thank you again, I’ll pass them on to Rebecca. Okay, I’ll see you next week then. Bye, Donald.’
When Rebecca came back from church, he was still sitting in the cane lounger, finishing his cigar. The blackbird was back on the lawn.
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