Crooked Vows

by John Watt

  ‘That’s interesting. Your previous dream was set there, too. That’s something for you to think about. But go on, please. Tell me what is happening there.’

  ‘In my dream there’s a very thick high row of shrubs along the front boundary of the property. Like a hedge. But it’s uneven and tangled, not trimmed and neat. I’m walking along beside this line of unkempt bushes. At Saint Aloysius there really is a line of shrubs grown together along the front of the property. I remember when I was there noticing one day the scent of the flowers on some very old rose bushes that were tangled up in it. But the shrubs in my dream are higher and thicker. I’m wandering along beside this hedge. And I know in my dream that I’ve often wandered along beside it in my waking life. But I see something that I’ve never noticed before. There’s an old gateway in the middle of it. There’re no gates, but the gate posts are connected by a sort of arch. It’s overgrown with branches and creepers—can’t have been used for many years—but it’s still obvious enough. I’m puzzled about why I’ve never noticed it before.’

  Macpherson waits for a moment before replying.

  ‘An interesting dream. You might want to think about what gateways are for: we go in through them, and we go out through them. Is it likely that this dream is an expression of thoughts and feelings that are brewing, so to speak, in your mind, but well below the level of consciousness? Ideas and feelings about going in somewhere, or going out from somewhere. Possibly even both. And in your dream the way through is blocked by thick shrubbery; that must mean something. But don’t be too literal in your thinking; remember that dreams are usually symbolic. Like the first, this one may well have something to tell you.’

  He glances at his watch, pushes his chair back from the desk.

  ‘We’ll leave it until next week and maybe I’ll hear about a different type of saint. Possibly a different type of dream.’

  8

  An Ecumenical Encounter

  Thomas steps off the bus. Moving out from its shadow he feels the weight of the afternoon sun pressing down on him. The sea breeze has not arrived, the heat has built up through the day, and the north-easterly is still blowing, picking up flurries of dust and scraps of paper. The few juvenile trees throw no shade on the concrete slabs of the footpath. Sweat is trickling down his neck inside the stiff clerical collar, and the dead-black jacket is stifling. There is a twenty-minute walk to the presbytery ahead of him.

  He sets off along the first block, trying to manage his thoughts. There are worse crosses to bear than a twenty-minute walk on a hot afternoon. He thinks of Saint Bibiana being flogged to death but refusing to renounce her faith. Would he have the courage and dedication to follow the saint’s example of steadfastness? Probably not. But at least he can endure the discomfort of the stifling collar and jacket with a good grace, offering it as a small sacrifice to atone in some slight way for the sins of the world, his own included. Still, the sweat trickling down his body and soaking his shirt keeps intruding on these pious thoughts.

  Two young men about his own age, wearing nothing but shorts and singlets, hurry past him in the opposite direction, switching between a fast walk and a jog while chatting about a cricket match. They seem to be so much at ease in themselves and the day that Thomas feels a stab of envy.

  He remembers Macpherson’s questioning. Why would anyone imagine a God who wants people to suffer? Why would a creator be better pleased with him, sweltering and sweating inside his clerical garb than with those two jogging freely and comfortably through the heat of the afternoon?

  In the next block he looks for the house where the young mother was playing with her little boy a couple of weeks earlier. It’s like a dozen other houses in the same street, except for its distinctive front door. His memory holds a sharply etched image of it closing, shutting her off from his view.

  There it is, the drab little house with the bright red door and the small square of garden at the front. And there is the woman, further back from the street this time, in the narrow space between the house and the side fence. She is holding a hose again, watering some shrubs against the wall of the house. Hydrangeas. Thomas remembers them from his grandfather’s garden, and some talk at a long-ago family Christmas celebration about how they need the water ‘kept up to them’ in summer. The mother is playing the same game with her little boy, who is getting nearly as much water sprayed on him as the plants. But this time he is stark naked. Is that decent? Perhaps it is innocent, in the case of such a young child. But where did that initial moment of shock come from, that Thomas felt on seeing him? Of course the toddler’s nakedness is innocent. How could anyone think otherwise?

  But the woman is not far short of naked herself. Her back is turned to the street and Thomas can’t prevent himself from slowing his walk, stopping, staring at the female body in the sketchy two-piece bathers. A bikini. He remembers the archbishop’s article in The Catholic View a few weeks earlier about bikinis, the threat such immodest garments posed to the purity of family life. His eyes follow the curves of her form: in at the waist, out at the hips, the rounded buttocks, the smooth thighs. Presumably she is a wife—a married woman—and a mother. How can she display herself like this? But she looks so free and so—he is almost driven to the word—so innocent, spraying the jet of water on her little boy, laughing with him, completely unaware that she is being watched; not at all like someone setting out to provoke lust.

  Watching them, his mind leaps to Jane, and her questioning. Wouldn’t he want to have a wife and a family of his own—a home of his own? He wonders why this memory comes back to him now.

  With an effort he looks away and continues along the cracked, uneven footpath. The heat of the afternoon feels even more stifling. He looks around. There’s nobody in sight. He slips out of the black jacket, pulls off the clerical collar and stuffs it roughly into a pocket, then unbuttons his shirt halfway down from the neck. The wind begins to feel almost pleasant as it starts to dry off some of the accumulated sweat. He slings the jacket over one shoulder and sets out on the last stage, stepping out with more vigour.

  Several minutes later, with the church buildings coming into view, he hesitates, then stops. Out of his memory looms an image of the rector of the seminary: a lean man with a gaunt, pale face, jaws and chin strongly dark with black stubble, regardless of how recently and how thoroughly he has shaved. He is addressing the final-year group.

  ‘Remember, gentlemen, a priest is and must always be a priest. Each of you will be a man set apart by God. You are called to strive towards saintliness. This must be visible in everything you do. You must never present yourselves like those who have chosen the temporal things of this world, which will pass away, rather than the eternal things of the world to come. Otherwise you will undermine the reverence due to God’s Church.’ The rector’s eyes shine pale and hard behind his rimless glasses.

  Under his imagined gaze Thomas buttons up his shirt and puts the collar and jacket back on. Near the far end of the block are the church buildings: first the convent, then the school, then the church itself, and finally the presbytery. By the time he reaches it he is running with sweat again.

  The front door of the mean little box of a house is open. Thomas steps in from the narrow porch. In the sudden gloom of the narrow passage that runs straight through to the back of the house there seems to be a very odd shape: something like a pair of disembodied feet on the floor, with soles facing the doorway. He walks a few steps further, finally making out Father Kevin lying flat on his back on the floor of the passage, bare feet facing the front door.

  ‘Ah, there you are, m’boy. I thought I could expect you soon. Have a good session with the witch doctor? It’s been as hot as Hades in this little dog-box. I opened the place up to let a bit of air through but it’s done me no good that I can feel. I was reading an article about the coldest air always being at the bottom. So I tried stretching out here on the lino. My God, boy, it was never like this in the Old Country.’

  Slipping off
his stifling jacket, Thomas looks down at the priest, who is wearing a grubby, sweat-stained ancient singlet above his usual black trousers, leaving its owner’s puny arms and shoulders well displayed. The trousers are rumpled and dusty and the braces that usually hold them up are loose around his waist. Even allowing for the heat, Father Kevin makes a miserable sight.

  Thomas quickly looks away.

  ‘The wind might change soon. The easterly seems to be easing off. I’m going to have a cold shower; it’s been a hot walk from the bus.’ He steps past the small man and heads for the bathroom at the back of the house.

  The first jet of cold water on his back and shoulders makes the young man gasp. But he adjusts to the shock and begins to enjoy the clean coolness as his skin gradually loses the memory of the sweat trickling down his back inside the sticky prison of his clerical clothes. He stands for ten minutes or so with the refreshing spray running over him until he feels restored and ready to face the rest of the afternoon.

  Towelling himself dry, he looks at his reflection in the tarnished mirror on the back of the bathroom door. A sudden memory of the body of the young woman spraying her shrubs brings with it an equally sudden surge of excitement sweeping over him, and as it mounts, the inevitable wave of guilt follows.

  He remembers the question that he was to take away from Macpherson for consideration: is it possible that he has been taught over years to surround anything sexual with an atmosphere of guilt? But if some pleasures are in fact sinful, as the church teaches, surely guilt is the right response to them. Macpherson, of course, doesn’t use the word sin. But how would a man like that think about the idea? Perhaps he would argue that sin is not a reality. Could he think that it’s just a useful fiction for making people feel guilty? Is it possible to think like this? Perhaps, for a non-believer. But where, then, is the basis for morality? And Macpherson doesn’t appear to be an immoral person. The world of the non-believer is beyond Thomas’s imagination. Life in general is becoming more complicated than he was led to believe, filling up with questions to which he finds no answers. He wraps a towel around his waist and heads for his own narrow bedroom that takes up the other back corner of the house.

  At his doorway he pauses, aware of a voice at the front of the house. A female voice. A young woman is outlined against the bright glare outside the front door. With her in a stroller is a little girl with fat pink cheeks and fair hair peeping out from under a chequered sun bonnet that matches her chequered dress. He wonders how far the mother has pushed her through the afternoon heat.

  Father Kevin is clambering to his feet in the passage. He pads barefoot towards the front door, pulling his braces up over his singlet as he goes.

  ‘Wait a minute. I’m coming as fast as I can.’ He sounds irritable.

  Reaching the doorway, he looks the young woman up and down.

  ‘I don’t remember seeing you before,’ he says abruptly. ‘Are you a parishioner?’

  She hesitates, looking down at the little girl for a moment, reaching down to touch her head. She seems nervous.

  ‘No, I’m not.’ She pauses for several seconds. ‘In fact I’m not actually a Catholic.’

  ‘Well, then.’ The small man still sounds testy, possibly more so. ‘What are you here for?’

  She looks down at the little girl again and touches her head, as if she gets some support from the contact. Then she speaks, hesitantly at first, but more confidently as she gets underway.

  ‘You see, I’m not a Catholic—–’

  Father Kevin interrupts impatiently. ‘You’ve said that already.’ He looks around quickly as if he’s anxious to be rid of an annoyance.

  ‘But I’m married to one.’

  He grunts. ‘Yes?’

  ‘And when we married I promised to bring our children up as Catholics. And I really meant to do it. In fact I was thinking of becoming a Catholic myself. And my little girl here was baptised as one—–’

  ‘I don’t see what problem you can have,’ he cuts in. ‘You made a promise: a solemn promise. You have an obligation to keep it. That is what promising means, isn’t it?’ His voice is blunt, challenging.

  The young woman is silenced for a moment.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, and pauses. ‘But I don’t see how I can. Not how I can do it honestly.’ She hurries on before he can interject. ‘I’ve been reading a lot about the Catholic Church, and I can’t accept, well, quite a number of things. But the main thing is the authority. A Catholic is supposed to accept the authority of the Church—the pope—isn’t that right? And to believe whatever the teachings are? So, if the pope announced some new doctrine next week, I’d be expected to believe it.’

  Father Kevin makes a snorting sound. ‘What do you mean? What new doctrine are you talking about? There isn’t anything of that sort as far as I know.’

  ‘But if there was one,’ she goes on hesitantly. ‘I don’t know what it would be. Popes have announced new doctrines before, haven’t they? I was reading about the Assumption a few weeks ago. The cardinals voted on whether it should be made a compulsory belief, didn’t they? And they weren’t all in favour, according to the book I read. But the pope announced it all the same.’

  Father Kevin makes an abrupt, dismissing gesture with one hand. He speaks with the same sharpness.

  ‘The Assumption. You don’t understand at all. That wasn’t a new doctrine. Catholics believed it already. Most of them anyway.’

  The young woman persists, though her voice is unsteady, with a tremble breaking in at times.

  ‘But you don’t understand what I’m talking about. What if I was there at that time? The week before the declaration I was free to believe it or not. That is, supposing I was a Catholic. Then the pope spoke, and from then on I was obliged to believe whatever he said. How can people believe something just because someone has told them to?’

  The priest, outlined against the bright glare of the doorway, runs one hand across his bald head.

  ‘Protestant thinking. Intellectual pride. A good Catholic accepts the wisdom of God, as revealed by his Holy Church through its clergy, and doesn’t presume to think everything out for himself … or herself.’

  Then he seems to sense his abrasiveness, and makes a new start, beginning with an effort to soften his voice and his approach.

  ‘In our limited human understanding, we can’t expect to fathom the mysteries of religion.’ He looks around quickly, as if his heart is not really in this homily. ‘Faith. That’s the key. Faith and humility. And obedience. That’s what you Protestants don’t understand.’ The confronting tone is back again. ‘You must have been talking to your Protestant pastors.’

  When she replies the tremble in her voice is more obvious, but she continues to defend herself.

  ‘That’s not true. I’ve been reading for myself. Thinking for myself. I did talk to an Anglican priest about it and he was very understanding. As far as he was concerned I made that promise under duress so I shouldn’t feel bound by it. But he said that I should speak to you.’

  Looking down the passage past Father Kevin’s skinny right shoulder, Thomas can see that she is wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. The little girl, who has been sitting patiently in the stroller, is beginning to complain. The mother leans to pat her head.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ the priest snaps. ‘Mixed marriages never work. That’s one thing we understood in the Old Country. We never trusted Protestants there. And we were right.’ He turns, then swings back for a final shot. ‘And another thing: Anglican ministers aren’t priests. They don’t have valid ordination.’

  He turns his back on the young woman, pushing the door shut and closing off Thomas’s view of her as she turns her back on the presbytery and makes her way down the narrow path to the street and the heat of the afternoon. He wonders how far she has to walk.

  9

  The Feast of Saint Francis Xavier

  ‘Well, now. At last we’ve come to a saint I’ve heard about. I was beginning to think t
hat I was totally uneducated in the matter of saints.’ Macpherson rubs his cheek. He looks doubtful. ‘At least his name is familiar. I remember being in a church that was named after him. I think it was for a funeral. And I’ve read about a school in Melbourne called Xavier College. A fairly expensive school, I believe. Exclusive. But what the man did, or what fate befell him—I’m rather vague about this. I’ve a faint memory about some connection with India, of all places, so I look forward to hearing more about him, and perhaps hearing about any memories that his story revives for you.’ He sits back in his chair, eyes fixed on a spot on the wall above Thomas’s head.

  Thomas sinks back into the depths of his own chair, opens his book, and begins.

  Among those who in the sixteenth century laboured most successfully in the conversion of nations, the most illustrious was Saint Francis Xavier, the Thaumaturgus of these latter ages, whom Urban VIII justly styled the apostle of the Indies. This great saint was born in Navarre, at the castle of Xavier, eight leagues from Pampelona, in 1506. From his infancy he was of a complying, winning humour, and discovered a good genius and a propensity to learning.

  His inclinations determined his parents to send him to Paris in the eighteenth year of his age where he entered the college of Saint Barbara, and commenced a course of scholastic philosophy. His faculties were hereby opened, and his penetration and judgment exceedingly improved; and the applause which he received agreeably flattered his vanity, which passion he was not aware of.

  Saint Ignatius came to Paris in 1528, with a view to finish his studies, and after some time entered himself pensioner in the college of Saint Barbara. This holy man had conceived a desire of forming a society wholly devoted to the salvation of souls; and being taken with the qualifications of Peter Faber, called in French Le Fevre, a Savoyard, and Francis Xavier, who had been school-fellows, and still lived in the same college, endeavoured to gain their concurrence in this holy project. Xavier began to see into the emptiness of earthly greatness, and to find himself powerfully touched with the love of heavenly things. Yet it was not without many serious thoughts and grievous struggles that his soul was overcome by the power of those eternal truths. From Ignatius he learned that the first step in his conversion was to subdue his predominant passion, and that vain-glory was his most dangerous enemy. And well knowing that the interior victory over his own heart and its passions is not to be gained without mortifying the flesh and bringing the senses into subjection, he undertook this conquest by hair cloth, fasting, and other austerities.