All These Lonely People

by Gervase Phinn

  ‘I can’t speak to her,’ said the young man. ‘I just walked out. I said I needed to think things over.’

  ‘Have you wondered why your mother chose this time to tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps she feels now that she’s nearing the end of her life. Perhaps she needs to be honest, to tell you something that’s been troubling her for years. She could have kept quiet, let you go on thinking she was the woman who gave birth to you, and gone to her grave with the secret.’

  ‘It would have been better for her and for me if she had kept it to herself,’ said the young man.

  ‘No,’ said the priest. ‘She had to tell you before she died. She knows and has always known in her heart that you have a right to know. It’s just that she left it a little late to tell you. When you’ve had time to think things through, you need to go back and talk to your mother.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know what to say to her.’

  ‘The words will come. She loves you as much as any good mother and she needs you now.’ There was a silence. ‘I guess you are thinking about the woman who gave birth to you,’ said the priest. ‘Who she is and what she’s like?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied the young man quietly. ‘I’ve thought about it a lot.’

  ‘And why she couldn’t look after you?’

  ‘You mean why she gave me away,’ said the young man sharply.

  ‘It’s not quite as simple as that,’ said the priest. ‘There are many reasons why she could have given you up for adoption. Perhaps she just couldn’t cope; perhaps she knew she couldn’t give her baby the best start in life. She could have been a young unmarried woman, frightened, lonely, pressured by her parents who felt the disgrace keenly. It happened a lot. Nowadays people don’t tend to get bothered about it. It’s my guess that that young woman will have thought about you every day of her life, wondering what you are like and what you have made of yourself.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said the young man. ‘She’s probably never given me a second thought.’

  ‘I think you know that’s not true,’ the priest told him. ‘The bond between mother and child is too strong. In time you might wish to trace your birth mother.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said the young man. He sighed noisily. ‘I had better go.’

  ‘Before you do,’ said the priest, ‘just remember that your adoptive mother and father will have longed for a child of their own. Try to imagine the happiness they must have felt when you came along, the happiness that you brought into their lives. Try to recall the love you have received from them, their joy on your success, the sacrifices they made. I ask you again not to judge them too harshly.’

  ‘Thanks for listening,’ said the young man dismissively.

  ‘I will pray for you,’ the priest told him.

  The man gave a small grunt. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not a great believer in prayer.’

  ‘You should try it,’ said the priest. ‘Prayer can be very powerful. Remember, I’m always here if you want to talk, Mark. I hope things work out for you.’

  When the young man had gone, the priest bowed his head. He joined his fingers slowly and set them beneath his chin like a child at prayer.

  ‘Oh Lord, who has united our hearts in love,

  Give us the joy to always love each other

  And help this troubled young man.’

  Coming out of the confessional box and into the bright sunlight, the priest was met by Miss Evans, the housekeeper. She held a broom like a rifle over her chest.

  ‘You had better come with me, Father McKenzie,’ she said, ‘and see what some dirty individual has done in the church porch.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘Go on, off with you! You shouldn’t be in here.’

  Father McKenzie was up a ladder in the Lady Chapel examining the spreading stain above the altar. He heard the voice echoing down the church. Having climbed down, he went towards the noise to find Miss Evans stabbing a bony finger at a small wiry boy.

  The child was a grubby little individual of about ten or eleven, with black bristly hair standing up like a lavatory brush. As the priest came closer, he noticed something small and green in the child’s crusty nostril, dirty hands and shabby clothes. The boy had large dark eyes.

  ‘What is it, Miss Evans?’ he asked.

  ‘I found this boy in the church, Father,’ the housekeeper informed him angrily. ‘He was skulking near the charity box.’

  ‘I wasn’t doing nothing!’ shouted the child.

  ‘Up to no good, I’m sure,’ she said. ‘Probably looking for something to steal.’

  ‘That’s a bloody lie!’ cried the child.

  ‘Don’t you dare swear in the house of God!’ snapped the housekeeper. ‘Go on, off you go.’

  ‘All right, Miss Evans,’ said the priest. ‘I’ll deal with this.’

  ‘He shouldn’t be in here, Father,’ the woman said. ‘It’s the likes of him who urinated in the holy water font in the porch.’

  ‘What’s she mean?’ the child asked the priest.

  ‘Someone went to the toilet in the holy water kept in the porch,’ explained the priest.

  ‘Dirty devils!’ snapped the housekeeper.

  ‘I never pissed in no holy water,’ said the child, his eyes bright with anger. He looked the priest straight in the face. It was strange, thought Father McKenzie, how adults, when talking to him, very often stared over his shoulders, almost afraid of making any eye contact, but this child looked straight at him, eyeball to eyeball.

  ‘Well, I never did,’ said the housekeeper. ‘Will you listen to that? I’ve a good mind –’

  ‘Miss Evans,’ said the priest firmly, ‘I said I would deal with it.’

  ‘Very well, Father,’ the housekeeper said, and she strode off down the aisle, mumbling angrily to herself.

  ‘Are you her dad?’ asked the boy.

  ‘No,’ laughed the priest, ‘I am not her dad.’

  ‘I didn’t think you was. She’s old enough to be your mother. She looks as if she’s been dug up. Why did she call you father?’

  ‘Well, I’m a priest and that is what catholic priests are called.’

  ‘Sounds daft to me, calling someone father and they’ve no kids.’

  ‘It’s a sort of title,’ the priest told him. ‘I’m the father of the people who come to my church.’

  The boy looked around him. ‘Not many, then,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘Sadly, not.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to nick anything, you know,’ said the boy.

  ‘I am sure you weren’t,’ said the priest.

  ‘I was just looking.’

  ‘That’s all right. Take your time.’

  ‘People always think that I’m up to no good. I bet if I was dressed like one of them kids from that posh school, with a red blazer and a cap on my head, and talked la‐di‐bloody‐da, that old bag would have left me alone.’

  ‘You know you ought not to swear,’ said the priest.

  ‘Call that swearing!’ cried the boy. He laughed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. ‘You should hear my mam and her boyfriend when they’re having one of their rows. I get out of the house when they get started and I come in here. I like it in here.’ He stared up at the roof. ‘It’s quiet and there are no people about. You can just sit here on a bench and nobody bothers you. I like the pictures on the walls as well, and the smell. What is that smell?’

  ‘It’s incense,’ the priest told him.

  ‘What’s that then?’

  ‘It’s a sort of spice that when it’s burned gives off a sweet smell, a sort of perfume. When baby Jesus was born, one of the three kings brought Him a gift of incense. It was very precious. The other two kings brought gold and myrrh. Have you not been in a nativity play at school?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A play about the time when Jesus was born.’

  ‘When I was a little kid, I was,’ the child told him. ‘I was a palm tree. I had to sta
nd on the stage wearing this stupid brown crêpe paper wrapped round me and green cardboard leaves on my head, holding these plastic coconuts. I looked a right prat. People started laughing at me. I didn’t know what to do. I was dead scared and I wet myself. The teacher gave me a right telling off.’

  The priest raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘It came through the paper, see, in this big brown stain, and everybody started laughing at me again. Then bits fell off and they could see my underpants. They were bright blue. I started crying and came off the stage. The teacher told me to go back on, but I told her to get stuffed and went home. What’s it for?’

  ‘What is what for?’ asked the priest.

  ‘The incense.’

  ‘Well, it makes the church smell rather special, and when it’s lit, the smoke rises to the roof and reminds us of our prayers rising to God.’

  ‘I don’t believe in God,’ said the child bluntly, ‘but I just like coming here.’

  ‘You’ve been in the church before then?’

  ‘Oh yeah, loads of times, and it wasn’t me what pissed in the holy water.’

  The priest smiled. ‘Yes, you told me that.’

  ‘And I’ve never nicked nothing either.’

  ‘I’m sure you haven’t.’

  ‘I have nicked stuff but I wouldn’t nick it from here.’

  ‘You shouldn’t steal things, you know,’ said the priest. ‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s from here or not. It’s wrong. You should be a good boy.’

  ‘I’m not being a good boy,’ replied the boy.

  ‘It don’t get you anywhere.’ He pointed down the church to the great hanging crucifix. ‘I mean, He was a good boy, wasn’t He, Jesus, and look where He ended up.’ The priest smiled. He was a little character, this one, he thought. ‘It wants painting, this church,’ said the child. ‘It’s beginning to look tatty.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ agreed Father McKenzie.

  ‘My dad was a painter and decorator. He buggered off when I was little. He’s in the nick now. I never see him. My mam never talks about him.’

  ‘Where do you live?’ asked the priest. ‘Brightwood Terrace. It’s crap. Nothing there but waste land, mucky streets, burned‐out cars, rubbish all over the place, writing on the walls. That’s why I like to come in here. There’s no noise. It’s like a sort of old palace, with all these colours and statues. Sometimes, when the sun shines through them windows, it’s like a rainbow. I like to sit underneath it. I close my eyes and go into another world.’

  The priest looked around him. Some palace, he thought, with its dimly lit rows of dark scarred pews, cold tiled floor, rusty red heating pipes, ugly liver‐coloured brickwork and windows high and thin. Then there was the flaking paint and that dark, creeping stain.

  ‘I’m Father McKenzie,’ he said.

  ‘I’m Matthew, but my mam calls me Matty when she’s in a good mood and “little bugger” when she’s not.’

  ‘Well, Matthew. You stay here as long as you want. When you’ve finished, close the door in the porch when you go.’

  ‘Can I come back, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That old biddy won’t kick me out?’

  ‘No.’

  The child sniffed noisily and wiped his nose again on the back of his hand. ‘You’re all right, you,’ he said.

  The priest smiled. ‘So are you,’ he replied.

  Chapter Four

  The following Saturday Father McKenzie felt a sharp pain in his side as he sat in the confessional box. He took a deep breath. Perhaps he should have taken some of the tablets the doctor had given him.

  It was a tiring hour for the priest that morning. One of the women, the world‐weary Mrs Leary, a huge woman with a loud voice, complained about her husband who wanted his ‘conjugal rights’ every week. She wanted to know what to do when he came in the worse for drink, smelling of beer and cigarettes, and climbed into bed on top of her. Father McKenzie pictured the scene. He told her it was her duty as a wife not to deny her husband, but perhaps she ought to discuss the situation with him. He could tell that it was not what the woman wanted to hear. ‘You want to try talking to the big fat lump, Father, when he comes in drunk as a lord, smelling of beer and groping me like an octopus.’

  The next person to speak to him, Mrs Wilson, spent a good ten minutes telling the priest all about her many ailments before going on about her difficult neighbours and the youth of the day. She was a sad, lonely and bitter woman.

  The priest liked the last regular, Miss Rigby, and he looked forward to her visits. She was a quiet, rather nervous woman, shabbily dressed in an old black coat and knitted woollen hat. She wore too much make‐up, and smiled with bright red lips and blinked rapidly with heavily black‐lined eyes. Miss Rigby was the only one who ever asked him how he was and thanked him for his time and trouble. She never complained, and had few sins to confess. Although she never said so, it was clear to Father McKenzie that she was lonely, like many of the people who came to see him, and just wanted someone to talk to. The priest always had time for her.

  ‘I was wondering, Father,’ she whispered through the grille that morning, ‘if you might say a special mass for me.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the priest. ‘Is it for a special intention?’

  ‘It’s for someone special. It will be his birthday on Thursday,’ she added. ‘I think about him a lot. I called him Matthew. I was told it means “Gift of God”. It won’t be his name now, of course.’

  ‘It would be my pleasure to say a mass for you, Miss Rigby,’ said the priest.

  A small white envelope was slid through from the other side of the confessional box. ‘There’s some money in here,’ she said.

  ‘No, no, Miss Rigby,’ said the priest, sliding the envelope back. ‘You hang on to your savings. I say mass every day and will make Thursday’s mass your special one.’

  ‘You’re a good man, Father McKenzie,’ said the woman. ‘A good man.’

  The priest waited for her to go, but she stayed where she was.

  ‘Was there something else?’ he asked.

  ‘The birthday, Father,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He will be sixty on Thursday. Matthew, my son.’

  ‘Your son?’ the priest repeated.

  ‘I had a son, Father.’ He heard her sniff. ‘I gave him up.’

  ‘I see,’ said the priest.

  ‘I was only sixteen. I was young. I fell in love. I was innocent. To be honest, I didn’t really know what was happening. My parents never talked about that sort of thing, you know, the facts of life. My father was so mad when I told him. I’ve never seen him so angry. The shame I had brought on the family, he said, an unmarried mother. He was quite an important man in the town, well known, and he said I had disgraced him. He said he would never forgive me. He wanted me to get rid of the baby but I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. They hushed things up, my parents. I was sent to an aunt in Devon, as far away from gossiping neighbours as they could find. He was so beautiful, my baby, with a big, big smile and soft white hair like feathers. He had little nails like pink seashells. I only held him once, stroked his little head, kissed him and then he was taken from me.’

  ‘The child was adopted?’ asked the priest.

  ‘Yes, he was adopted. Somebody else took him, fed him and changed him and watched him grow up. I went home. I felt so empty. Life went on. My parents never mentioned it again.’

  ‘It was hard for you,’ said the priest quietly.

  ‘Oh, Father,’ said the woman. ‘It was far worse than hard. It broke my heart.’

  The priest thought of Mark, the troubled young man. He wondered if the young woman who had given birth to him and given him up for adoption felt as this poor, sad, lonely woman kneeling before him felt. He thought of another Matthew, the neglected little boy who came into the church.

  ‘I went to work in my father’s office,’ the woman told him, ‘and tried to put my baby out of my mind but I c
ouldn’t. I used to look at children and imagine what my baby would be looking like as he grew up. I lived with my parents, looked after them, and when they became old and ill I nursed them until they died. I knew the others in the office felt sorry for me – shy little Miss Rigby who’s never had a boyfriend, has no friends, the only one who never comes to the office parties. Poor Miss Rigby in her old‐fashioned clothes, with her boring life. I knew what they said about me. None of them knew, of course, about the baby.’ She blew her nose noisily. ‘Do you know, Father, a day doesn’t pass when I don’t think about him and what he’s like now. If he’s been a success in life, if he has children of his own.’

  ‘And you never thought of trying to trace your son?’ asked the priest.

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ve thought about it often but I was frightened. What could I say to someone I had given away? What would he have to say to me after all this time? How would he have felt? His new parents may not have told him he was adopted, so think of all the trouble it would cause, me turning up on his doorstep and saying, “I’m your mother.” I’ve waited, Father, in the hope that he may contact me, but I guess he never will.’ The woman began to weep.

  ‘I’ll say the mass, Miss Rigby,’ said the priest sadly, ‘and I will pray for you.’

  ‘Hi,’ said the boy as the priest came out of the confessional box. Father McKenzie felt dizzy and steadied himself on the nearest pew. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ He forced a bright smile. ‘You should be out in the fresh air, Matthew, not inside on a lovely day like this.’

  ‘I wanted to ask you something.’ The boy’s face was sharp, like a keen little rodent.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are all these pictures round the walls? They’re painted on blocks of white stone.’

  ‘Those are the stations of the cross,’ the priest told him. ‘Come along, you can walk around the church with me and I’ll explain.’

  ‘Stations?’ repeated the boy, following in the priest’s footsteps. ‘They never had stations in those days.’