Mercy (12 page)

“Mathilda.” It’s all he can think of to say.

“Hello, Thomas.” Her eyes widen as they move over the table. “What—?”

“Three months,” he blurts. “It’s our anniversary, a quarter of a year.”

“Oh.” She stares at the gleaming wineglasses, the fat bottle, then fixes on the meaty crown, its blunt-boned petals splayed. “I—” She blanches suddenly, alarmingly, as though someone’s pulled the plug on her blood. “I don’t feel well, Thomas. I think I need to lie down.”

He should say something, he knows, offer to help as she teeters up the stairs, ask if she needs anything, perhaps an Aspirin or a cup of tea. But he can’t. He sits down heavily in his chair. Hears the bedsprings moan and fall quiet, a smothering quiet, so it’s all he can do to draw a breath.

His hands reach out for the roast. Slowly, ceremoniously, they lift it high and bestow it sizzling upon his head. Hot grease trickles down his temples. He stands carefully and takes a few mincing steps, like a charm school student balancing a stack of books. A few more steps make a circle, and from there he progresses to a series of figure eights. Dignity, he tells himself. It’s tricky, all right, but he never once reaches up to hold it on.

On his knees in the cramped office, August weeps uncontrollably, begging forgiveness before an oily depiction of the Sermon on the Mount. When he finally manages to lift his gaze, it fixes not on the Saviour, but on the light that surrounds Him, yolky gold bleeding off into white.

Halo?

No, that’s just the head. There’s a term for it, August knows, this glow a sacred body gives off. He distracts himself with the search, moves his mouth to try and shape it, follows its trail through the shadows of his brain. In the end he has to give up. For the life of him, he simply cannot come up with the word.

T
hat goddamn Church.

Thomas stands in the road out front of his shop, staring down to where St. Mary’s squats. The nurse must have relieved Mathilda by now. She’s probably stayed on to scrub the church floor, when every other man’s wife is at home tucking his children into their beds. By God, the wind lifted her skirt the other day and gave him his first real look at her knees. They were knobby and red. That place is taking her finest years.

All down Train Street the boulevard elms are beginning to turn. Thomas walks heavily back to the shop, locking the door behind him. He’s not quite done for the day. Five minutes before closing, an old man he’d never laid eyes on came in dragging a grizzled billy goat on a rope. They were rank with urine, the two of them. Thomas was about to gently usher them both out when he noticed the old fellow was shaking. Tremors ran down his arms, his head wobbled, his jaw worked sideways like a cow’s. The moment he freed a gnarled hand from the animal’s leash, it led his arm in a grotesque involuntary arc.

Then there was the animal. It was black and white, not mottled but half-and-half, hind and fore, as though its
maker had taken a snowy goat by the heels and dipped it headlong into a vat of ink.

“Ever seen one like it?” said its keeper, his rebel hand waving.

“Well, no,” Thomas answered, “can’t say that I have.”

“Welsh black-neck,” the old man said smugly. “You won’t find another in these parts.”

“Is that a fact?” Thomas breathed awkwardly through his mouth in their pissy cloud.

“It is.” The old man cleared his throat. “You can see for yourself the bugger’s had it.”

It was true. The old billy was a sight, a swollen bag on four rickety, threadbare legs. Mucus gathered in the corners of its eyes and in the black crevices of its nose. Its hooves were so badly overgrown they curled up like a sultan’s slippers.

“Yes sir,” Thomas agreed loudly. “I’d say so.”

“He’s for the dogs,” the old man yelped. “Terriers, see, Scotties. I breed them.”

“Yes,” Thomas said patiently. “I see.”

“I’d butcher him myself, but with these hands—” His head shook with added violence. “—I’d probably slit my own throat.”

“Never mind that now,” said Thomas. “I’d be happy—”

“Good.” The old man thrust out the leash, a yellow zigzag in his hand. He had tears in his eyes. Or maybe they were just watery. It was impossible to tell.

Now, as Thomas wraps the sinewy, foul-smelling meat in brown paper, the goat’s head gazes up at him from its basin on the floor. He can feel its stare, the same bug-under-glass tingle he gets from the crucifix at Mathilda’s church. Do they have to show Him like that, so waxy, just the way He would be after losing so much blood? Maybe
she’s cleaning it right now—his young wife lovingly swabbing those big white feet. The thought makes his right eye flicker, the cheek beneath it twitch and dance.

He can’t stand it. He has to do something, anything, to win her back. A miracle, that’s what he needs. He remembers something Mathilda told him once, back when he was learning catechism and he let her go on about the one holy Catholic and apostolic Church just to hear the sound of her voice. Miracles. In some countries—hot countries, where people more naturally acted things out—Catholics bought little body parts made of silver or tin and affixed them to Crosses or to the church steps as a way to beg miracles from God. Heal my lame foot, Lord. Heal my heart.

He nudges the basin with his boot. The goat looks so sad, a faithful companion cast aside. Of course he couldn’t nail it to the Cross, or even leave it on the church steps—only a madman would do such a thing. Still, there is that hedge. Surely, beside the steps is close enough.

In the confines of the sacristy, Mathilda bends to her basket, slides her hands under a freshly ironed surplice and raises it to its rightful shelf. Her chest muscles follow those in her arms, lifting her delicate breasts.

She’s left the door open behind her. He makes a small sound drawing it closed, but she knows better than to look around. The lone window drops a rectangle of crepuscular light. She lets him watch her in it, bending again to the basket at her feet.

It’s no surprise when his hands land on her hips, or when one of them lifts the hem of her dress while the other wrestles her panties down. He’s gulping—she can hear him—gulping air like a child who’s been sobbing too long to stop. He lifts his own hem then, fumbles to free himself, pushes at her, finds his way in. She bites her lip so it bleeds when he tears her, but it’s worth it, so worth it to have him inside. Moments later he cries out like a puppy and falls listless against the curve of her back. She cradles his head between her shoulder blades, as though balancing a heavy stone.

He backs away from her the moment he pulls out, and she turns to find him smoothing his cassock with shaking hands. He won’t look at her. Instead, his eyes find the basket, his vestments freshly bleached and pressed.

Then, as though the floorboards are pivoting beneath him, he turns.

“August—” she pleads.

“Father Day,” he says strangely, his hand on the door.

August bolts himself into the office with trembling hands, whirls, and flattens his back to the door. His eyes dart about the room. He’d never budge the prie-dieu, or the walnut cabinet for that matter, weighted down with so many leathery books. The desk must weigh a ton, but the chair—it’s a heavy oak throne, the maroon seat rubbed shiny, still moulded to Father Rock’s behind. August lunges for it, grabs its thick arms, drags it groaning from behind the
desk. Then freezes. He’s caught sight of himself in the cabinet’s cut glass door, the hysterical mask of his face.

He sits down hard in the chair. Stares empty-headed, then comes back to himself with a start and sits forward, straining his ears. Nothing. She’s not coming after him. Even if she were, would she really try to break down the door? He lets out a single sharp bark of laughter, then curls down to hide his face in his lap.

How, in God’s name?
How?

He hadn’t expected to see her there. He was just passing, head bent to the breviary, and there she was, a fine painting framed by the door. There was no face to contend with, only hips, a lifting hem, a revelation of hidden lace. The light went out in his head. His eyes were two tunnels to the shape that was her, the threshold and perhaps half a dozen steps the only obstacles to be overcome.

Overcome
. Yes. As though his body were a fleshy vehicle, something utterly alien at the wheel.

Like sleepwalking.

What are they called, those female demons who come to men in their sleep?
Succubi
. That’s right, from the Latin, “to lie beneath.” August looks up. Nods gravely, beginning to understand.

Mathilda moves about the rectory kitchen in a daze, her hands preparing the only thing Vera can still stomach, a watery cup of tea. She’ll carry it up now, see if her aunt needs a shot, sit by the bed until the night nurse arrives.

At first she was sure he would follow her, confess his wretched love and take her in his arms, this time face to face. But perhaps it’s better this way. Too much at once and he might panic, sicken even, like a man gorging himself after a prolonged fast.

She mounts the stairs slowly, feeling her thighs brush one another lightly with every step.

“Aunt?” she calls softly into the little room. A cone of yellow lamplight hovers beside the bed. Vera’s sleeping face is turned away, her grey hair loose on the pillow like a girl’s. Mathilda pads toward her, sits the cup down to steam silently beneath the lamp’s fringed shade.

There’s something about Vera’s hand—the way it lies palm up on the quilt, slightly cupped, as though offering something unseen. Mathilda skirts the bed swiftly to stand trembling on the other side.

The nurse takes care of everything. She draws the sheet up over Vera’s face, telephones Thomas and Doctor Albright, looks high and low for Father Day. Mathilda lets Thomas lead her back to their flat over the shop, lets him tuck her into bed, turns her dry eyes to the wall when he offers a hot cup of tea.

The office darkens around August and still he grips the chair’s arms, his fingers curling possessively, like a king’s. At some point he hears the heavy groan of the front doors.
A woman’s voice—not
hers
, but familiar—calls out for him in the nave. Footsteps in the hall and again, “Father Day?” followed by a bout of knocking on the office door. He lets go of the chair and covers his ears, holds the pose long after the knocking stops.

In the end it’s neither duty nor despair but discomfort that forces him to stand. His bladder full to bursting, he shuffles to the priest’s WC. It’s been too warm for trousers. Slowly, painstakingly, he draws up the cassock, revealing black ribbed socks and boxy knees, two bloodless, ramrod legs. One hand holds the heavy cloth bunched at his waist while the other hooks a hesitant thumb over the waistband of his shorts.

Faced with handling himself, he’s filled with a sudden, nameless dread. Or not so nameless. It’s not the idea of finding it changed—somehow marked, larger perhaps, or darker—but the idea of
not
finding it, of finding it gone. Having wished it, almost willed it more than once, he prays fervently that it not be so.

It’s late, very late, when August finally unlocks the office door. Mathilda’s left the vestibule light on to illumine the rose window from within. The nave is gloomy and surprisingly cool, as though subterranean, untouched and untroubled by the heat of day. There’s even a draft. August can feel it on his bare throat, the backs of his hands, rising up under the cassock’s black bell. The centre aisle gapes, forcing him to move stealthily along the wall.

The font burbles in its alcove, a dove-grey basin, water spilling from a pair of cupped and proffered hands. August bends slowly from the waist. The hands are masterfully
rendered. So loving, so infinitely strong. He’s close enough to discover veins in the marble, fine wrinkles where the flesh might crease.

“Help me,” he whispers, lowering his face like a drinking beast. The hands are cold—shockingly so—adamantine, almost cruel. He snorts water up his nose and chokes.

Early the next morning Mathilda calls out to wake Thomas as usual, slamming the back door on his reply.

Not a soul along Train Street. Not a sound in the rectory. She pauses for a moment at the foot of the stairs, looking up. Vera’s bed will be empty now, her body removed in the dead of night, the McGinty brothers having slid it quietly into their shiny hearse. No point going up. She continues through to the kitchen, rolling up her sleeves as she walks.

Her heart leaps shamelessly at the sight of an envelope propped against the kettle. The seal’s licked shut, so she tears it, unfolding the white sheet to reveal a block of his cryptic hand.

Mathilda drops the nameless envelope in the garbage. She removes Aunt Vera’s sharpest paring knife from the drawer, lays the note on the cutting board and begins slicing it into narrow strips. One after another she lifts the paper ribbons to her mouth. Her eyes vacant, she stares dead ahead, shifts on her feet and chews.