After Purple (33 page)

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 your
self
. 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
every
thing! 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
any
thing you're offered?”

“Well, not quite
any
thing, 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 without 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.”

“Cosy!”
I exclaimed. Vows of chastity, digging vegetable gardens, playing second lead in death-bed scenes …

“Yes. We might preach poverty, but in fact, we never wanted for anything. I told you in the hospital, remember? How comfortable it was — a nice plush, regular existence which many less privileged folk would have jumped at. Before I joined the order, I worked with thalidomide kids. Some of them were just
stumps
, Thea. Stumps with souls. Mealtimes were a nightmare. There weren't enough hands to go round, to start with. We only had two each, and most of them had none. They all had vocal chords, though. The noise was like a monkey-house! Yet there I was six months later, lolling in the novices' refectory listening to a little gentle reading from the Life of Our Holy Founder, while I toyed with my prime pork chops and fresh fruit flummery. Sometimes, we even had
wine
, for heaven's sake, and coffee in the lounge to follow, and a chance to put our feet up. Hell! With the thalidomides, we were lucky if we even got a mouthful down, and then it would be meat stew without the meat, dolloped on to enamel plates with pieces bitten out of them. But — oh no! — not as novices. That was
civilsed
. Decent china and easy chairs. We didn't even have the problems of a normal family — toddlers in tantrums or cross incontinent old parents spitting out their teeth. I
know
, Thea — I was one of seven kids, with two sets of parents all squashed together in a terraced house. And yet all I heard at meals now was, “Father, could I bother you for the cream?” or, “I must tell Brother Cook to use more seasoning”, or readings from the Life of St Francis, our thirteenth-century nutcase who was quaint enough to believe in poverty — ha ha!”

I took a swig of brandy. Ray had drained the mug again, so I gulped it from the bottle. I needed courage. I wasn't sure I liked this new ranting Luther. I'd asked him to talk, but only because I thought he wouldn't. In all the time I'd known him, he'd never said more than three or four sentences in succession. It was mostly monosyllables, or little nods and smiles while
I
held the stage. Now he seemed to have forgotten I was there.

“We had no real responsibilities except for our own freshly laundered souls. Oh, I know I said I did parish work, but
paperwork
would be a more accurate description. I spent most of my time writing begging letters for bingo prizes, or getting estimates for roof repairs or trying to balance the books of the Parish Club. The older priests made all the big decisions, married people, manned the death-beds. All I manned was the cake-stall at the church bazaar. None of us seemed to
reach
people — not even the older friars. We were the
priests
, you see, which meant we were too important to be shown the muck. Even in the poorest homes, we were ushered into the front parlour and given the cup and saucer with the roses on, or the cake they'd been saving all week. Then, when we'd taken all they'd got and offered them some half-baked little homily in return, back we waltzed to our fricassee of veal and potted plants, our early bed and wool-and-mohair blankets.

“Oh, there
were
problems — of course there were. Wife-bashing and incest, gangs of coloured youths beating up old ladies.… But we weren't
part
of them, not really. We might meddle in them, pray for them, but basically we were just the Friar Tucks, quaint cosy little brothers who lived in the Big House and hid behind our education and our middle-class manners, warm and dry and safe and civilised in our picturesque brown robes, a thousand years away from the spirit of our founder.”