After Purple

by Wendy Perriam

  “Stay and have one with me,” I urged. “Please. It’ll help calm me down. There’s only one glass, I’m afraid, so we’ll have to share it.”

  I took a swig, then pushed the mug towards him. “God, I do feel lousy. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll put myself to bed.”

  “Good idea!” I could see the relief even in his body. He’d been standing all hunched up before. Now he relaxed his shoulders. “You get a good night’s sleep, Thea, and I’ll come and see you in the morning, after Mass. I ought to get back now, you see — if you’re quite sure you’re all right.”

  I banged the brandy bottle down. “I’m not all right. I just told you, Ray, I feel bloody. Lionel’s six foot tall, you know, and extremely strong. Of course, I suppose you’ve got to defend him, haven’t you? It wouldn’t sound too good if people heard that one of your precious handicapped went around raping people.”

  “Thea, he didn’t rape you.”

  “As good as. Oh, I don’t care. You just walk out. Block your ears to anything unpleasant.”

  “Thea, girl, do be reasonable. It was you who said you didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Well, I do now.”

  “OK, we’ll talk.” He was still standing by the window, as far away from me as he could get in an eight-foot room.

  “How can we talk, with you all stiff and fidgety and us both buttoned up in our outdoor gear as if we’re about to rush off for a ten-mile hike? Look, Ray, I’m going to lie down. I feel rotten. And I want you to take your coat off and come and sit beside me, and just bloody listen for five minutes. Is that too much to ask?”

  “No, it’s not.” He didn’t move, though. He looked so tired, all the stuffing seemed to have trickled out of him. He was drooping against the window-sill like an empty sack. I felt sorry for him, really. I think he was torn between us — me and Lionel. That’s why I had to tread so carefully. The slightest thing could frighten him away, back to his darling boys. If I started unzipping things, he’d run a mile. On the other hand, I didn’t really fancy climbing into bed in a sheepskin.

  “Look,” I said, grabbing my nightie and a sponge-bag. “I’ll just get changed in the bathroom. OK? Don’t go away, Ray, will you? I’m not well enough to be left here on my own.”

  There wasn’t a bathroom, but I didn’t tell him that. I ran two floors down, locked myself in the cramped and smelly loo and struggled out of my clothes. The nightie smelt sort of musty. I’d bought it from the Oxfam shop to double as an evening dress. It was their prize exhibit, black satin slashed from thigh to ankle, like something out of an MGM spectacular. I feared it might be more than Ray could cope with, so I threw the sheepskin back across my shoulders like a cape, had a quick pee, a quicker comb, then panted back upstairs.

  Ray hadn’t touched the brandy. He was standing by the window exactly as before, but with his eyes closed now. He might have been praying or simply half-asleep. He jumped when I came in.

  “Sit down,” I said.

  He inched a little nearer, looked around the room. “There doesn’t seem to be a …”

  “Sit here,” I said, patting the bed. I realised he was trying not to look at me, or at least not at the nightie.

  “OK, but just for a minute, Thea. They need me at the hostel. I promised I’d be straight back. You see, Mike gets very difficult when I’m not there. And the doctor’s waiting up for me. I said I’d go over the schedule for tomorrow with him.” He was using words as blinkers to save him from the satin. “I’m sorry, my girl, but I did try and warn you I’d be busy once I got here. And then there’s …”

  “You didn’t warn me half your boys would be raving sexual maniacs. Or that they’d try and rip my clothes off and rape me in a filthy lavatory, or …” I stopped. He was actually sitting down now, though so close to the edge of the bed, he was in danger of sliding off again.

  “Look, Thea, I don’t like you to keep using the word rape. It’s not really fair to Lionel. You’d better tell me exactly what happened, for the lad’s sake, as well as yours.” He shifted a fraction further towards me.

  I think he’d have defended Jack the Ripper if he’d been living at his hostel. But at least we were both on the bed and one of us undressed. I pushed the duvet back a little, shrugged the sheep-skin off. That nightie had cost me one pound twenty-five and all Ray could see was the first five penn’orth of it.

  “Sit nearer,” I whispered. I was freezing cold, but it was worth it.

  He moved quarter of a centimetre. I was glad the lights were low. It made it more romantic, or at least disguised the stains on the carpet, the dirty, crumbling patches on the wall. “Well,” I said, “first he sort of stopped me in the passage and pointed to the word toilet — you know, on that card thing.” I’ve learnt from experience that lies work better if you graft them on to truth. “I didn’t know what to do, Ray. There was nobody downstairs and I wasn’t sure whether women helpers were meant to take boys to the loo. I mean, I never suspected for a moment that it was just a ploy. Anyway, while I was dithering, Lionel suddenly dragged me along the passage, right into the toilet, locked the door, and stood with his back against it so I couldn’t escape. Then … Oh, Christ, Ray, I … I don’t think I can tell you — it brings it all back. You see, I tried to stop him, I almost fought with him, but …”

  Ray was staring at me with that mixture of fascination and revulsion priests always reserve for sex. It’s amazing, really, what stories the clergy swallow. I suppose the old guard are so ignorant, and the pop priests so determined to be “with-it”, that either way they go along with you. If I massed all my fiercest fantasies together and multiplied them by ten, most priests would still believe I’d done the lot in a single session.

  Victim of rape was quite an appealing role to play, especially now I was lying on my back with Ray bending over me. I only wished I had a cleavage. My breasts tend to disappear when I lie down flat. Mary-Lou’s would have formed a second bolster.

  “Look, Thea, you’ve had a shock — I can see that. And of course you’re still upset — it’s only natural. I don’t really think I should leave you here on your own. Why don’t you come back with me? To the hostel, I mean. There’s not much room up there, but …”

  “No fear! I wouldn’t dare close my eyes with all those dangerous louts around. They’re bad enough fully dressed, let alone in their pyjamas.”

  “Come off it, Thea, don’t exaggerate. You’ll be perfectly all right. Mary-Lou will look after you. We can fix you up a sleeping-bag in the girls’ dormitory.”

  That wasn’t what I had in mind at all. “It’s OK, Ray, I feel better, actually — now I’m lying down. Just give me a minute and I’ll …”

  “You see, I’ve got to get back myself, Thea. If you came with me, the doc could give you something to help you sleep.”

  I didn’t want to sleep — that’s not what I’d bought the nightie for. “No, really, Ray, I’m OK. Honestly. Just stay here beside me and …”

  He shifted a little. I could see his eyes burning through the spectacles. He had brought the holiness with him, even here. “Look, Thea, I want you to try and understand. Lionel didn’t intend it as an attack. In fact, you could almost say it was a compliment. Oh, I know that sounds insulting, but the lad was obviously quite dazzled by you. He’s a handsome fellow himself, but completely cut off from all the normal boy/ girl things. He can’t even talk about his feelings. Then he meets an attractive girl like you, someone who seems to take an interest in him, and he reacts in the wrong way. To him it probably seemed more like a sort of … tribute to you.”

  I shut my eyes. I could see Lionel’s full red lips pressing on to mine. He had kissed me exactly twice and touched my breasts for a full five seconds. Finish. I was the one who’d tried to take it further. Lionel seemed so surprised, disgusted even, he’d simply walked away. We hadn’t even made it to the toilet. It was just a quick grope in a draughty corridor, then the getaway. Hardly a tribute to be rejected by a deaf-mute.

 
“Hold my hand,” I said. “Please.”

  He didn’t. “Thea, I …”

  “Lionel hurt me,” I whimpered.

  “Look, come back to the hostel with me and I’ll get Doc to …”

  “All right, don’t hold it. But stay here. Please. Just a few minutes more. You don’t have to do anything. Just talk. You never talk to me. I mean never about yourself. It’s always me moaning on about me.”

  He grinned. “You’re more interesting.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m boring. I want to hear about you.”

  “There’s nothing to hear.”

  “Christ, there’s everything! I mean, what made you become a friar in the first place? Tell me that.”

  He looked embarrassed as if I’d asked him about his bowel habits. “I suppose I liked the uniform.” He laughed — the first time I’d heard him laugh all evening. I felt we were getting somewhere. It was probably better to play interested companion, than crumbling invalid.

  “But you don’t wear it,” I said.

  “No. Not now. I used to.”

  “I can’t quite see you in skirts. Were they prickly?”

  “A bit.”

  “What did you wear underneath?”

  “Not a hair shirt, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “No, I mean, was it — you know — like a kilt?”

  “Of course not, goose. Just ordinary underpants. And trousers too, unless it was a heat-wave — rolled up to the calf, so they didn’t show.”

  I couldn’t imagine God’s Anointed in rolled-up trousers like those men on comic postcards at the seaside, or wearing white interlock pants from M & S. Golden singlets would have been more suitable, or loincloths embroidered with lilies.

  “And what did you do all day?”

  “Oh … things.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Parish work.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know, priestly stuff. Masses, confessions, sick calls, death-beds …”

  “Sounds exciting.”

  “Not always. I was only the office boy, so to speak. The other two priests were older and more experienced, so a lot of the time I was just … Look, Thea, you don’t want to hear all this.”

  “Yes I do. Go on. I mean, you couldn’t have had death-beds all day. What else did you do?”

  “Prayed. Dug the garden. Ran the youth club. Prayed some more. Visited old ladies.”

  “Did you like it?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t even look as if he’d heard. I think he was still worrying about the time and the boys and being in a woman’s bedroom.

  “You’re not drinking,” I said.

  “No.”

  “Did you take a vow of poverty?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does that include brandy?”

  “I suppose strictly speaking, yes. But if it’s offered to us, no.”

  “You mean you can have anything you’re offered?”

  “Well, not quite anything, but it’s a general Franciscan principle to take what we’re given and be glad of it.”

  “Why don’t you do it then?” It wasn’t just the drink I meant.

  It was hopeless, really. Even now, he was more interested in his watch. He was trying to peer at it without me noticing. I tugged at his sleeve. He’d no right to be worrying about the time, when I was offering myself, body, soul and satin nightie to him.

  “Look, Thea, you seem much more relaxed now. Why don’t you try and get some sleep?”

  “Just another minute, Ray. Please. I’m only relaxed because you’re talking. Don’t you see? You’re taking my mind off things.”

  “Well, at least I’d better telephone. I mean, they’ll all be wondering where on earth I am.”

  “Telephone? At three am! Madame will go mad. You’ll wake all her children up. The phone’s downstairs in her part. Anyway, the bloody thing’s deranged.”

  “Deranged?”

  “Yes, I passed it this evening on my way to the Vigil, and there was a notice on it saying ‘téléphone en dérangement’. Something like that. Anything’d be deranged in this hole.”

  “Damn!”

  That was the nearest he’d ever got to swearing. He was obviously loosening up. I moved the duvet down another inch. “Tell me some more about when you were a friar.”

  “I’m still a friar, Thea, I keep telling you.”

  “So why did you leave the friary? I mean, what are you doing living with cripples instead of with your Brothers.”

  “I … er … had my reasons.”

  Silence. I watched a tiny insect scurry down the wall. Ray was frowning. His face looked shifting and uneven in the shadows, sort of pitted like a building site.

  “Look, Thea, I’m sorry, truly I am, but if I can’t phone, I’ll have to go. They’ll be getting frantic, imagining I’ve had an accident or something. Mike’s the one I’m worried about. He gets these panic attacks — you know, can’t breathe, starts to choke. I am here for the boys, you see. I told you that.”

  I sat up in bed and punched my fist down on to the pillow. “For God’s sake, Ray,” I shouted. “I’ve just been more or less assaulted by one of those boys, and all you can rabbit on about is them. Christ Almighty, they’ve already got a score of helpers and a dozen midwives pandering to them. I’ve got no one. I’ve tried to be reasonable, not to make a fuss. Hell! Some girls would have reported the bloody boy, kicked up a stink about it. I’m not even complaining, Ray. All I’ve asked is for you to stay a few lousy minutes and try and take my mind off it. And what do you do? Keep bleating on about getting back to bed!”

  “Not bed, Thea — that’s not what I’m …”

  “You don’t even take me seriously. Everything I ask, you shrug off or wave away. I’ve told you every fucking thing about me. Poured out my sins, explained about Adrian and Leo and … but if I want to know a single thing about you, it’s jokes or evasions or ‘I had my reasons.’ OK, I realise you’re used to dealing with morons half the time, but I’m not one of them. You’re like all bloody priests. You’ve got to be superior, haven’t you? I mean, you can’t even have a drink with me. You said yourself you’re meant to take what’s offered, but you haven’t had a sip. Didn’t it strike you that it might be holier actually to share the stuff, instead of leaving me to swig it on my own and feel like some drunken boozer? If you ask me, all that bread and water lark is simply showing off. Even Christ didn’t do it. He changed the bloody water into wine. You’d change it back again, wouldn’t you, just to go one better? No wonder people puke at priests. It’s not just vows of poverty, it’s vows of secrecy, vows of superiority, vows of shutting people out, walking out on women when they’ve just been raped, vows of … Oh, never mind!”

  There was silence so thick and trembly I could feel it hanging between us like a frayed black curtain. One of the insects was slipping down the wall just above my head, struggling desperately to right itself, its tiny black legs slithering and flailing. Ray took off his glasses and wiped them with his handkerchief. “I’m sorry, Thea,” he said.

  He spoke so softly, so simply, with such obvious penitence, I went wet between the legs. The silence had shifted slightly. Now I could hear the grumble of a car outside, the jagged yelp of a night bird. He picked up the tooth-mug and took his first swig of brandy — quite a long one.

  “You’re right, Thea. I have been secretive. It’s difficult, you know. In a way, we’re almost trained to be a bit detached from people. I suppose we’re frightened of letting our hair down, or committing sins of self-indulgence — perhaps even giving scandal. You see, what may start as a confidence could turn out like a criticism.”

  His voice was so soft, I could feel it whispering up and down my body like a moth. It didn’t really matter what he said. For the first time I’d got his full attention, and every word was like an antenna on my breasts. He was the penitent now, begging for forgiveness. He still had his glasses off and his face looked defenceless with
out them, as if anyone could have marched in through his eyes to the interior of his skull and annexed all the squashy bits inside. He moved a little further up the bed — he even took my hand. I suppose it was the brandy. He was so unused to drinking, even half a mugful could have made him rash.

  I leaned out of bed and filled the mug again, passed it to him. He gulped it. I think he was only programmed to deal with water and didn’t know how to sip. I felt his fingers relax into mine. The silence between us was paler now and milder, almost companionable.

  “You can trust me,” I whispered. “I mean, if you want to talk.”

  “It’s late, Thea.”

  “So?”

  “Well, I mean, I hardly know what to say. There’s …”

  This time, I left the silence there. I felt wise, powerful, almost like his confessor. I looked around the room — dirt and shadows mixed, the rusty metal blind at the window, the oilcloth on the broken screen. We were sharing our poverty, our holiness.

  Ray had his eyes shut now, the brandy mug clasped against his chest. He seemed to be groping for something, stretching out towards me with his soul.

  “You see, Thea, a year or so ago, I … had a sort of … crisis. Oh, I know all priests are expected to feel like that from time to time — doubts, restlessness, the Dark Night of the Soul — it’s almost textbook stuff. The Eight-Year Itch, if you like. But real, Thea — bloody real.”

  I jumped. He’d moved from “damn” to “bloody” in the space of just ten minutes, in less than the time it took to down his second glass of brandy. I wriggled the duvet almost off. He wasn’t looking at me, just staring at his hands.

  “Maybe it sounds naive, Thea, but I seemed to be battling with all the issues I’d agonised about as a novice — you know, was I really following St Francis? Could I do more good elsewhere? Was I meant to be priest at all? The religious life still seemed far too cosy.”