Devils, for a change

by Wendy Perriam

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Come in.’

  Hilary opened the door, stepped back again, confused, when she saw Father Tovey lying on his bed, the curtains drawn, the room dark and musty-smelling.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Father, I didn’t realise …’

  ‘No, do come in. I had a splitting headache, but it’s gone now.’ He swung his legs off the bed, pulled the curtains back, started hunting for his shoes – running-shoes this time, not bright blue plastic flip-flops. He seemed fond of sports clothes; was wearing a grey tracksuit top, with a tiny motif of two crossed tennis rackets. She couldn’t imagine him playing tennis, even less running marathons. He looked too pale and delicate, as if he spent all his time indoors. He removed his coat from the one small upright chair, a pile of books and journals from the stained and mottled carpet.

  ‘Can I get you a cup of coffee? One of the perks of being a priest is that we have kettles in our rooms.’

  She refused the coffee, glanced around his room, which looked much the same as hers, save more untidy. His desk was heaped with papers, and a large and showy Easter egg in a gold and scarlet box seemed to be serving as a paperweight. The posters on his walls were very different from her own guitars and Shetland ponies. He had women on his walls – three blown-up women in different clothes and poses, but all blonde, curvaceous, pouting.

  He saw her looking, smiled. ‘Yes, I’m sorry about the pictures. I’m surprised the students aren’t made to take them down, but I suppose term restarts in just a week or two and it’s hardly worth their while. I’ve got tea, if you prefer it. Or Ribena.’

  ‘No, nothing, thank you, Father.’

  ‘Well, sit down, anyway, and please do call me Simon.’

  She tensed. ‘Simon’ would only make it harder. Confession was a sacrament, not an encounter group or bodywork. She realised suddenly that Molly and this priest had certain things in common – the same warmth and informality, the same refusal to pull rank. Perhaps they’d worked together, or been to the same trainings. She mustn’t get sidetracked onto unimportant issues, or even friendly chat. It was imperative to tell him why she’d come, blurt it out, if necessary, before she lost her courage, fled.

  ‘I was actually wondering, Father, if you could … hear my confession.’

  He paused at the window, stood looking out across the grounds. ‘I don’t hear confessions any more – not private ones.’

  She stared at him, astonished. Surely all priests heard confessions. She was beginning to feel more and more out of touch, even with her own Church. Had things changed so much without her even knowing?

  ‘But if you’d like to talk to me, or if I can help in any way …’

  She got up stiffly from her chair, sick with disappointment. Talking was no good. She must have absolution. She had spent the last two hours preparing for confession, had missed lunch deliberately, so that she would have more time for examining her conscience, reflecting on the Passion, on her sins.

  ‘No, I must go to confession. Is there another Catholic priest here, or a local Catholic church that’s not too far away?’

  ‘What’s wrong, Hilary? You’re sounding quite upset.’ He sat down on the bed, motioned her to sit beside him. She remained standing and distraught, listening to the noises from outside. A group of people were playing ball, running in wild circles on the lawn, their shouts and whoops of laughter intruding on her gloomy thoughts. She shrunk back against the wall, so that none of them could see her, lowered her own voice. ‘I’m in mortal sin, Father.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘I … I beg your pardon?’

  He clasped his hands, pale eyes almost lost as he stared down at his fingers. ‘One of the reasons I no longer hear confessions is that they result in too much guilt and introspection, on the one hand, and too much sheer arithmetic, on the other. You know the sort of thing – how many times; when, where, how, how much? It’s why that’s more important – our inner motivation. A mortal sin is a deliberate desire to deny, flout or injure God, cold-bloodedly and consciously, whereas most lesser sin, the common everyday sort, results from muddle and confusion, or fear, or conflict, or just simple human weakness.’

  ‘You don’t understand, Father. This isn’t just a common everyday sin. I’m a nun … I mean, I was. I left my convent.’

  ‘So have several thousand others, and it may be a good thing. Too many girls entered the religious life for all the wrong reasons. A true vocation is a wonderful thing, a precious gift from God, but it’s all too easy to confuse it with a longing for security, or a fear of men or marriage, or terror of the world.’

  She winced as the ball shot past their window, two men in pursuit, young boys in jeans and sweatshirts. ‘But I ran away, Father. I didn’t ask permission or discuss it with my Abbess. I just walked out and …’

  ‘Poor girl. That must have been quite terrifying. Which Order were you in?’

  Hilary stumbled out her answer, subsided in her chair. Had he really said ‘Poor girl’, shrugged off what she’d said, called it a good thing? Perhaps even now he hadn’t understood, didn’t know she’d made – and broken – solemn Final Vows.

  ‘I was in for twenty years, Father – twenty-one. I wasn’t just a novice or …’

  ‘It took courage, then, to leave, enormous courage. How long have you been out?’

  ‘Just over three months.’ She thought back to Christmas Eve, the frantic limping criminal in play-clothes. That three months seemed a lifetime.

  He frowned. ‘Not long. Have you had counselling? There are people who can help, you know, talk things over with you, try to find you work and a decent place to live.’

  ‘I’ve got work, thank you, Father, and a room. I’m very lucky.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s an enormous upheaval leaving the religious life, and it can affect you very deeply, both physically and mentally. I’ve known ex-nuns get really ill, or land up in a psychiatric ward. You’re doing very well, Hilary, believe me. The last thing you need is a load of guilt, on top of all the other problems you must have had to face.’

  He was being kind, too kind. She must make him realise how bad she felt, how much she needed confession, absolution. ‘But I feel in sin, Father, as if I’m damned already. I even have nightmares about hell.’

  ‘There is no hell, I’m pretty sure of that. Look at it this way. I couldn’t be happy in heaven, if I knew there was even one poor soul in hell. And I’m only human, with a limited compassion. So how could an all-merciful God damn His own creation?’

  She was touched by his remark, his obvious human warmth; less happy with his theology. ‘Yes, but it says in the Bible …’

  ‘It says a lot of things in the Bible. We aren’t meant to accept them all as literal truth, but interpret them symbolically, use our imagination as well as just our reason. I mean, I’ve often wondered if the idea of the flames of hell first arose from things like fiery lava or volcanoes – physical phenomena which people didn’t understand, couldn’t explain in terms of natural causes. Or maybe methane gas, which seeps up to the surface of the Middle Eastern oilfields and catches fire, if there’s any breath of wind around, burns along the sand. I saw a picture of that, once. It looked really rather strange, with these fierce and crackling flames, but nothing actually burning – no wood, or fuel, or anything, just a mysterious fire, which seemed to be coming up from underground. Easy enough to imagine that hellfire was underneath, instead of natural gas.’ He flicked his hair back, shifted on the bed. ‘True hell resides in our own minds, in our misery, our weakness. You may be in hell, in that sense, but not in the sense of being damned.’

  Hilary looked up, hope and doubt struggling in her mind. Was she truly not in sin, or was he just too liberal? Father Martin had mentioned priests like that, priests who made things easy, to suit their own lax standards. But Father Tovey was so obviously devout – unconventional, yes – but basically a holy person. She could tell that from his whole demeanour, the praye
rful way he spoke, even when dismissing hell. How could two priests be so different? It was Father Martin who had made her fear damnation in the first place, fear the devil.

  ‘But what about Satan?’ she asked, falteringly.

  ‘He’s just another name for the evil in the world and in ourselves. I’m not denying evil – alas, it’s all too obvious – but the Church has stressed it far too much, especially our Church, I’m afraid. D’ you realise, Hilary, there are far more Catholic convicts, Catholic alcoholics, Catholic prostitutes and drug addicts than their actual numbers in the population warrant? Maybe that’s because Catholics are made to feel guilty right from the word go, told they’re bad so often, they become bad in the end. And half the time, it’s we priests who are to blame, threatening little kids with hell, or insisting they keep rooting for their sins. We need to stress God’s love, rather than His fury. People are good because God made them, precious because He died for them, and holy because they’re made in His own image. Yet mostly they feel wicked, undeserving and unworthy. It’s even worse for women. When I think of the early Fathers debating whether women had souls at all, or Thomas Aquinas concluding they were simply defective men, who …’

  Hilary hooked her feet around her chair-rung. She was beginning to feel nervous. Was he a feminist, as well, like those rebels in the kitchen, a rebel altogether? His radical views and casual shabby clothes seemed to link him with their circle. He was wearing the same old denim jeans, which looked even more incongruous with his sporty tracksuit top, and both were badly creased where he’d been lying on the bed. So what? She could hardly criticise Reverend Mother Molly for her glamour, then slam Father Tovey for his lack of it. Yet it was somehow so much easier if people wore their uniforms – superiors in habits, priests in long black cassocks. Once they changed to mufti, it was so hard not to judge them; put them into categories like glamorous or scruffy, top-drawer or Bohemian. And that, in turn, seemed to remove them from their office, dilute their authority, make them semi-seculars.

  ‘Christ Himself loved women, mixed with them quite freely, yet His Church has taken quite a different line – feared and even hated them, tried to suppress their sexuality, which has only led to more guilt – an attempt to deny the body, a harping on celibacy, virginity, which brings us back to nuns. It’s hardest of all for nuns, Hilary. I’ve known many paralysed with guilt, because they’ve infringed some minor rule, yet they’re living a life that’s unnatural, near impossible.’

  Hilary’s legs were hurting, twisted on the chair-rung. She must be very careful, or he might only confuse her more; add self-pity to her already muddled feelings of resentment, self-disgust. Yet he seemed entirely different from Elaine’s shrill and vulgar ginger group. Even when he was criticising, he spoke very quietly, gently; less in anger than a sort of quiet regret. He had turned towards her now, his whole face solicitous. ‘Tell me, Hilary, what made you leave the convent after all those years?’

  Hilary glanced out of the window. She could no longer see the players, but could hear the ball thudding on the grass, the skid and swoop of feet. ‘Your turn!’ yelled a shrill-voiced girl. ‘Quick, Avril, over here!’ She stared down at the carpet, tried to blank the voices out, creep into her silent Brignor cell. ‘I … I lost my sense of God,’ she said. ‘I know that’s fairly common, and for years I just accepted it. I felt so sterile sometimes, spiritually, it was as if I’d died inside, but our chaplain told me that I wasn’t dead at all: God had just anaesthetised me, so He could carry out life-saving surgery. He said I might have to accept living in that sort of dark and frightening coma for the whole rest of my life, but that a lifetime was nothing compared with Eternity. He advised me to “let go”, to embrace the darkness, allow it to become darker still, if necessary.’

  The uncertain April sunshine was trembling on the carpet, casting shadows, patterns. Hilary moved her chair back, as if escaping from its light. ‘Often, I felt close to real despair, especially in the winter. Winters were the worst. Each one seemed colder, bleaker, longer than the last. I felt frozen over, like the ground, and barren, Father, useless. And I kept on getting ill. Oh, only minor things like colds and flu, or styes or stomach pains, and I always tried to shrug them off or blame them on the weather. But even when the spring arrived, nothing really changed – well, the season did, of course, but I stayed sick and shrivelled, even after Easter. Easter always seemed a sham – the greatest feast of the Church’s year, yet I couldn’t feel the joy of it, couldn’t seem to believe in Resurrection, only Crucifixion.’ She broke off suddenly, realised with embarrassment that it was the longest speech she had made in twenty years, perhaps the longest in her life. ‘I’m sorry, Father. I’m talking far too much.’

  ‘Not at all. You’re here to talk, and I understand your pain. I’ve been through a lot of it myself.’

  Hilary shifted on her chair again. The sun was fingering her shoes, creeping up her legs. ‘Well, our chaplain didn’t understand. He said despair was just a form of vanity, and that my real fault was wounded pride, in that I couldn’t accept my misery and nothingness, as a sinful creature’s natural state. He told me the devil works overtime on cultivating vanity, tempts people to despair, then drags them down to hell.’ She smiled shyly at the priest. ‘He believed in hell, Father – very much so, I’m afraid. That was half the trouble. I could never work out what I really felt, or what was Satan tempting me. I began to feel split in half, like two separate hostile people, who kept quarrelling and shouting at each other, though always in dead silence – one doubting, questioning; the other instantly reproving, or even scandalised. Then that wretched doubting Person One started to rebel against tiny petty things, like the way you have to fold your habit in exactly the same way, day after day, year after year, or ask permission to use an extra hankie or drink a glass of water between meals. But Person Two would say: “None of that is petty. Just pour an infinity of love into every infinitesimal thing; make each second of each day a prayer, an act of service.”

  ‘I tried, Father, believe me. I warmed to that ideal, – longed to really live it. It wasn’t easy, though, and I probably went too far; made every detail of my life a kind of test-case; had to do every single thing better, harder, longer, than anybody else, which I suppose is just another form of pride – though I didn’t see it then. You see, I was determined to murder Person One, whom I’d come to see as Satan, Satan right inside me, speaking through my mouth, as Father Martin said.’ She stopped again, ashamed of her own outburst. How could she be pouring out these private shameful things, and to someone who was still basically a stranger; things she had barely admitted even to herself, and which must sound self-pitying, neurotic? It was disloyal, as well as feeble; disloyal to Father Martin, to her Order.

  Father Tovey got up from the bed, stood in front of her. ‘You’ve had a tough time, haven’t you, a really wretched lonely struggle. Far be it from me to criticise another priest, but my personal belief is that if God is good, then He wants us to enjoy our lives, live in light and peace and happiness, not shrivel in the dark, or burn in hell with Satan.’

  ‘But is He good?’ The cry escaped her before she could suppress it, ‘I’m sorry, Father, you can see now I’m a sinner. I’ve had doubts about God’s goodness for years and years, and they’ve become much worse since leaving, seeing all the horrors in the world.’

  He walked slowly to the window, kept his back to her, spoke so softly she had to strain to hear. ‘I know exactly how you feel. I’ve wrestled with those doubts myself, almost left the Church, at one point. It’s much the thorniest problem of them all. There is no answer, I’m afraid. I’ve read the books, worked through the old arguments about free will and the Fall and original sin, and all the rest of it, but I found none of it convincing when I was lying awake at night struggling with the problem of how God allows the murder of six million Jews, or even the suffering of just one old woman who dies of hypothermia, or one mixed-up kid who takes an overdose. And when you think of …’ The door su
ddenly swung open and a fresh-faced girl bounced in, a fat and glossy pigtail swinging down her back.

  ‘Simon … Oh, you’re busy. Sorry! I’ll come back later, shall I? And don’t forget you promised me a drink – a double. I’m keeping you to that.’

  The priest seemed thrown, confused. He had moved towards the girl, but she was already prancing out again, her pert ‘Ta-ta’ vibrating through the room. Hilary winced as the door slammed. Couldn’t she have closed it, knocked before she entered, and was it really fair to wheedle drinks from priests? She was annoyed that Father Tovey had been stopped in his account, and just when he was admitting his own doubts. It amazed her he should do so. Father Martin had always made her feel that doubts were a sign of weakness, a proof of her inadequacy; had even hinted, like the Abbess, that she was mentally disturbed. Was Father Simon Tovey equally disturbed, then? He had used the very words she might have used herself – had used, indeed, in the frantic anguished silence of her mind. She glanced at him again, his young face almost haggard, his smoke-blue eyes dark-shadowed with fatigue. Did he still lie sleepless, wrestling with those doubts? She must return him to the subject. ‘But how did you resolve it all?’ she dared to ask, half-rising from her chair.

  He walked back to the window, stood leaning on the sill. ‘I don’t think I ever did, you know, not completely, anyway. I’ve come to see that the price of faith is doubt.’ He paused a moment, sombre, weighed down by that doubt. ‘People argue that without free will we’d be lesser human beings, that as co-creators with God, we must have power and responsibility, and power includes at least the possibility of evil. But I’m not so sure. I mean, if God could create the Blessed Virgin Mary sinless, yet still possessing free will, then why not a billion billion Marys?’ He let out a brief laugh, but his eyes remained troubled still, as if he were searching for an answer.

  Hilary had no answer. She had put almost the same question to a visiting retreat priest, seven years ago, though she hadn’t used the term ‘co-creator’. She liked the word, relished it a moment – the power to create life, to have a baby, form another human being, a complex personality – the nearest thing to playing God on earth.