“That would be kind.”
Gingerly Father Augustine placed an arm under Gabs’ and helped her to her feet. Together, they tottered down the hallway and into a small sitting room.
“I think I’m going again,” Gabs said, leaning against him with her full weight.
Father Augustine strengthened his hold on her. By this time, he had both arms round her, and Gabs’ head was resting against his shoulder as he tried to lever her across the room.
“You’re — so — kind,” Gabs murmured. Slowly, very slowly, she manoeuvred a hand through a gap in Father Augustine’s dressing gown, resting it on his stomach.
Father Augustine started. “Please — please be careful,” he said, trying to remove the hand.
But Gabs, feigning confusion, slid the hand gently downwards until she found what she was looking for, and let her fingers brush lightly against Father Augustine’s groin. She was pleased to find that at least part of Father Augustine was pleased to see her, and she strengthened her hold.
“Oh, please. Please don’t!”
Poor Father Augustine. He was obviously on the horns of a terrible dilemma. Either he let Gabs fall, or he continued the journey to the sofa, now horribly aware that she knew what was going on in his head.
“Please don’t,” he said again. “Please.”
Now, Gabs knew perfectly well that if she really loved Father Augustine — loved him in that altruistic, unpossessive way that is supposed to be true love (although she suspected that there was no such thing) — she should stop now. There was still time to rescue the situation, not to mention spare Father Augustine further embarrassment, but she too was reaching the point of no return. She knew — who better? — that in a sexual encounter, there often comes a “what the hell” moment — a point where judgement and ethics go out of the window, possible repercussions are forgotten, and raw animal passion takes over. In that moment, Gabs knew that if she went ahead, there would be problems, decisions, and pain for one or both of them, but she was beyond caring. She had planned and dreamed of this moment for so many weeks, there was no way that she was going back now, even if she could.
“Where’s your bedroom?” she whispered.
“What?”
“Your bedroom. Where is it?”
“We shouldn’t. We can’t. Oh, please!”
“Yes, we can.” Gabs stroked and caressed, and Father Augustine gave a little moan. “No one need know.”
“Don’t. Please, don’t. Oh, God!”
“Your bedroom. Where’s your room?”
“Upstairs. Oh, God!”
“Come on, then.”
Her supposed faintness forgotten, Gabs half pushed half pulled Father Augustine up the stairs and into the only room whose door was open.
“This one?” she asked.
“Yes. Oh, please don’t. Oh, God forgive me!”
Gently Gabs pushed Father Augustine back onto the bed, and undoing his dressing gown, she set to work on his body with all the skill born of years of practice.
“Oh dear. Oh, God!” Father Augustine’s voice was despairing, even if his body no longer resisted her attentions.
“Just let it happen,” Gabs whispered. “For once in your life, just do what comes naturally; do what you want to do.”
“But I can’t. I can’t!” He tried to cover his crotch with his hands, but Gabs gently moved them away.
“You have a beautiful body,” she said, looking down at him. “Just beautiful.”
And it was true. Father Augustine’s body was slim and pale, his chest dusted with just the right amount of hair, his hips firm and narrow. Gabs felt a surge of tenderness when she saw the thin red scar running down the side of his stomach, the marks left by the stitches still clearly visible. Gabs looked at his cock — magnificent, erect, and strong — and was overwhelmed with pity. It was surprising that that poor neglected member hadn’t wasted away over the years, tucked away out of sight, forbidden any kind of pleasure. There could be no guilt-free sex for a priest, for even that of a solitary nature was frowned upon by the church. But she would make up for all those wasted years; she would show him what his body was made to do, and she would make sure that he enjoyed it.
“Please. Please don’t,” Father Augustine moaned, trying to sit up. “Please.”
But Gabs took no notice and set to work with her fingers and her tongue until he was rendered speechless.
“That’s better,” Gabs murmured. “That’s much better.” She undid her blouse and drew his hand inside, guiding his fingers to her nipple, which stiffened under their touch. He gave a gasp, but he didn’t remove his hand, and Gabs was encouraged. She was almost there. This longed-for moment was just minutes away.
“We shouldn’t — oh, God!” said Father Augustine again.
“Shhh,” Gabs said, as though she were soothing a small child. “Just let yourself go. Leave everything to me. It’ll be fine. Everything will be fine.”
Very slowly, she removed his hand from her breast and drew it down her body, stroking it over the smooth skin of her belly and hip, brushing it against her pubic hair, and finally settling it between her legs, guiding him to the right place, hearing her own small gasp of pleasure as his fingers, which had taken on a life of their own, began to caress her.
After a few more moments, she carefully manoeuvred herself on top of him, and lifting her hips, she guided him inside her. “There,” she whispered. “Isn’t that what you want? Doesn’t that feel good?” She rocked her body slowly back and forth, making the most of the moment, gazing down into Father Augustine’s eyes, in which she could see what appeared to be a mixture of terror and amazement. “Just take your time,” she said. “Take your time. Enjoy this moment, my darling. I’m doing this for you.”
Poor Father Augustine. He didn’t hold out for long. How could he? After (presumably) years of celibacy, it was a wonder he’d managed to hang on at all, and when he came, it was with a cry that was so fierce, so agonised, that Gabs was frightened.
“It’s all right.” She slid carefully off him and tried to put her arms around him. “It’s all right, darling. Everything’s all right.”
“No, it’s not.” Father Augustine’s normal voice appeared to have returned. “I’ve done a terrible thing.” He sat up and grabbed his dressing gown, wrapping it tightly around himself. “A terrible, terrible thing.”
“No, you haven’t. You’ve done a natural thing. A good thing.” Gabs tried to stroke his hair, but he pushed her hand away.
“May God forgive me.” He held his head in his hands. “May God forgive me for the terrible thing I’ve done. And I’ve taken advantage. I’ve taken advantage of a young woman.”
“No, you haven’t.” This was not at all the reaction Gabs had expected. “Of course you haven’t. If anyone’s taken advantage of anyone, it was me. I took advantage of you, if you want to put it that way.”
“But I’m a priest. I should be able to control my passions.” To Gabs’ horror, she saw that there were tears in his eyes. “I’ve let everyone down. My church, my vocation, you…”
“You haven’t let me down!” Gabs sat down on the bed beside him. “And I have no regrets. What we did was — beautiful. How can you regret that?”
“This — what we did. It belongs in marriage. That’s where it belongs. Nowhere else.”
“It belongs to people who care about each other! You care about me, don’t you?”
“I care about God. My life belongs to him.”
“But God can’t give you — this. What we’ve just had.”
“Sex is a gift from God, but not like this; and not for me.” He was weeping openly now, but although Gabs longed to comfort him, something prevented her. “Oh, what am I going to do? I shall have to go away!”
“Yes. Yes! We’ll go away. Together.” Gabs felt a surge of hope. “We’ll start a new life together. We can —”
“No. No! I can’t be with you. I can’t see you again. I can never see you again.�
��
“Why ever not?”
“I’m a priest!”
“But you don’t have to be a priest forever. You can leave the church. We can get married, have children, live wherever you like. You can be a normal man!”
“No. You don’t understand.” He stood up. “Please go now,” he said. “Please go, and — and don’t come here again. Please don’t come here again.”
“Don’t make me go!” Gabs too was near to tears. “Please don’t make me go.”
“I can’t — make you go. But I’m asking you. If you care for me at all, please go. Go now.”
“All right. If that’s really what you want.”
“It is. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what I did. It was unforgivable.”
Afterwards, Gabs had no idea how she managed to get home. She must have driven (she had borrowed a friend’s car as it was less conspicuous than her own), but she had no memory of that journey. She had no memory, either, of finishing the bottle of wine in the fridge, of having a shower, of putting her crumpled clothes in the washing machine. When Steph got in from work hours later, Gabs was sitting in a chair, staring into space. She didn’t know how long she had been there, nor did she care.
“Gabs? What on earth’s the matter?” Steph put down her bag of groceries. “What’s happened?”
“Happened?” Gabs tried to remember what had happened, and then immediately blocked it out of her mind again.
“Yes. Happened.” Steph crouched down beside Gabs’ chair. “Something’s happened. Has somebody hurt you? One of your — clients? Tell me, Gabs. You have to tell me!”
“Something’s happened,” Gabs repeated, but the words were meaningless to her.
“Yes. Something’s happened. Now tell me what it was, Gabs. You have to tell me. Have you been — raped?”
“Not raped.”
“Well, what, then? Are you hurt?”
“Not hurt.”
“What has happened?” Steph gave her a little shake. “For crying out loud, Gabs. Tell me!”
Gabs looked up into Steph’s face — into her sister’s kind, anxious face — and the awfulness of the morning’s events came flooding back to her, and she started to cry.
“Heavens, Gabs. It must be pretty bad. You never cry!” Steph said, putting her arms around her. “Come on. You know you can tell me anything. Anything at all.”
“Not this,” said Gabs through her sobs. “Not this.”
“Yes. This. Especially this. Whatever it is.”
“You’ll be furious. And it’s what I deserve.”
“Why should I be furious?” There was a moment’s silence, and then Steph’s voice dropped. “Oh, heavens. It’s Father Augustine, isn’t it?”
Gabs nodded.
“Gabs, what have you done? Tell me what you’ve done!”
“It was awful. Awful.” And Gabs burst into tears again. “It was the most awful thing, and it was all my fault. Oh, Steph — you should see him. He’s so ashamed. So desperately ashamed. And he apologised. To me. I think I’ve done him terrible harm, and he’s taken the blame himself.”
“Yes. He would.” Steph’s tone was icy.
“Whatever you feel about me, it can’t be worse than how I feel about myself.”
“Well, I suppose that’s something.”
“Please, Steph. Please try to understand.”
“Oh, I understand. You seduced a good, kind, trusting man. You did it in cold blood —”
“Not in cold blood! I love him!”
“No, you don’t. You were thinking only of yourself. Well, it seems that you got what you wanted, and now you’ve got what you deserve.” Steph picked up her bag of groceries and took them into the kitchen, closing the door behind her, leaving Gabs on her own.
And for perhaps the first time in her life, Gabs knew what it was to feel shame.
As she sat in her chair, watching the dusk gathering outside the uncurtained window, listening to the sounds of Steph banging about in the kitchen, a final thought came to her, hitting her like a body blow.
“I never kissed him,” she wept, overwhelmed yet again by what she had done. “I never even kissed him!”
Mavis
Four weeks after her stroke, Maudie had made little improvement, and Mavis was beginning to realise that she would have to arrange some kind of permanent care for her. The hospital had done all they could, and now it was time for her to move on. They needed the bed, the sister told her; it was time for Maudie’s care to be passed on into other hands.
Mavis knew that what she was told was true; she could see that Maudie — unable to walk, speak, or feed herself — was using up valuable resources. But she also knew that her mother was being gently edged out into the twilight world of care for the elderly — the care of those for whom the medical profession had given up and for whom, in any case, there was probably little time left. Had Maudie been younger or of more value to society (a Judi Dench, perhaps, or a Queen Mother — one of those national treasures for whom exceptions could be made), no doubt more efforts would have been expended on her behalf. But she was an ordinary woman who had led an ordinary life; she was of little consequence to the world she had inhabited for almost ninety years, and when her time came, that world was unlikely to miss her.
But Mavis already missed her. She missed her terribly. She missed the sound of her voice and the shuffle of her slippered feet around the house; she missed the daytime television programmes, the unnecessary trips to confession, and the demands for “just a little glass of wine, Mavis. Just a small one.” She even missed the occasional forays into the kitchen for purposes of pie-making, because at least they demonstrated that her mother still had life in her, that she still had things she wanted to do, however inconvenient the consequences for Mavis herself. And she resented those who appeared to assume that she would be relieved that she no longer had to personally care for her mother.
“You’ll have more time to do what you want,” a well-meaning neighbour said. “You won’t be so tied.”
But while Mavis had initially feared for her own independence when Maudie had moved in with her, she had come to enjoy having her around and had never thought of her as a tie. Apart from the inevitable restrictions it placed on her relationship with Clifford, she had neither regretted nor resented her mother’s presence, for Mavis remembered the kind, funny, outgoing person Maudie used to be, and she was grateful to have had such a woman as her mother.
The hospital recommended a nursing home. It was conveniently placed, within walking distance of Mavis’s house, but it was basic. Maudie had only a few thousand pounds in savings, so there was no money for the posh or the private. But the staff were kind, on the whole, and Maudie’s shared room looked out onto the garden. It could have been worse.
Maudie, however, hated it.
“Bad!” she yelled every time Mavis went to visit her, using one of the few words still at her disposal. “Bad!”
“But what’s bad, Mother? What is it that’s bothering you? Look! You’ve got a lovely room, and nice — what’s your name, dear? Ivy? — Ivy over there to share it with you.”
“Bad!” persisted Maudie, thumping the table with her good hand. “Slumpish.”
“What?”
“Slumpish. Bad slumpish.”
“Look, I’ve brought you a bottle of wine. Matron says you can have a small glass before your supper.”
Maudie eyed the wine and shook her head.
“Slumpish,” she said, although she accepted a small glass. “Muffkin.”
Mavis was at a loss as to what to do. She visited Maudie every day, bringing her small treats and trying to help her with her speech (which only seemed to get worse), but Maudie remained unhappy. The small television in her room didn’t work properly, and the one in the day room — which appeared to be on all the time — was turned down so low as to be inaudible. She didn’t like the food, and she couldn’t communicate with her fellow inmates (most of whom were as confused as she w
as). It was altogether a very distressing situation.
The only thing that seemed to bring Maudie any pleasure was Gabs’ visits. Gabs wasn’t able to visit her often, but Maudie was always delighted to see her.
“Bad!” she would cry. “Bad girl!” And she would smile her new, lopsided smile and hold out her one functioning arm for a hug. Mavis tried not to feel jealous — she herself rarely enjoyed such a welcome — but Gabs told her that this was always the way. The misery and the complaints were kept for the nearest and dearest, since they were the most likely to take them to heart. She, Gabs, was a mere outsider, and therefore not a rewarding target for emotional outbursts.
Mavis wasn’t the only one missing Maudie, for Pussolini — that most self-centred of animals — was pining.
“Are you sure?” Mavis asked the vet when she phoned for his opinion. “He doesn’t seem the type to pine.”
“You’d be surprised,” the vet told her. “I’ve even known a horse to pine for its owner. That’s unusual, I grant you, but cats are domestic animals, and they become very attached to people. This one obviously loved your mother.”
“What can I do?” Mavis asked, looking at the new, subdued Pussolini, who was making his way unsteadily back to Maudie’s room (the only place where he would settle). “At this rate, he’ll starve to death.”
“Give him food he can’t resist,” said the vet. “Chicken, perhaps, or some nice fish. There’ll be something he will eat. You just have to find out what it is.”
But Pussolini refused to try the chicken and spat out the fish. All he would take was milk, and that had to be warmed before he would drink it. His temper hadn’t improved — he still snarled and spat at Mavis — but the spirit had gone out of him, and the snarling and the spitting were half-hearted, mere echoes of the sounds he used to make. Mavis toyed briefly with the idea of taking him to visit Maudie, but immediately dismissed it as impracticable. The last time she and Maudie had tried to get him into his cat basket, there had been an epic battle, necessitating a visit to the hospital for antibiotics (and in Mavis’s case, stitches). It was not an experience worth repeating, and in any case, the inevitable parting at the end of the visit would only serve to cause further distress.
Women Behaving Badly_An uplifting, feel-good holiday read Page 23