The Rats r-4

by James Herbert

  The first Hail Mary was to ask that she wouldn’t fall pregnant, the second that she wouldn’t get ‘poxed’, and the third that she would have an orgasm. She’d only learned about orgasms from her friends at the canteen and realized something had been missing all these years. Her craving for sex had never been satisfied and without knowing why, she had always sought more and more. It had always been enjoyable, but now she knew it could be glorious she was determined to experience it. She still attended Mass every Sunday and received Holy Communion every first Friday of the month.

  Soon, she began to go to church two or three evenings a week, to say the Rosary for the attainment of her sexual goal. It never once occurred to her that there was anything wrong in this. God had meant people to enjoysex, otherwise he wouldn’t have given them this wonderful gift. Hadn’t she, as a child, watched her parents making love so many times without their knowing she was wide awake in the dark of their only bedroom, listening to their happy sighs and her mother crying out for Jesus Christ before the final lapse into silence followed by heavy contented snores.

  The regular visits to the church soon came to the attention of the priest, Father Mahar, who enlisted her aid in the various jobs done by women around God’s house. She enjoyed changing the flowers and dusting the altar pieces and holy statues, hoping the small sacrifice of her tune would not go unnoticed by God.

  She began to help in jumble sales, she visited the old and the sick,she even joined the choir. Father Mahar was more than impressed by his new parishioner and began to make enquiries about her. He learnt that she worked at the brewery where several of his young male churchgoers were also employed.

  When he asked them about Mary he was surprised by their smirks and guarded answers. Then, one day, a Mrs

  Malone came to see him. He knew her and her husband by sight, they were regular church-goers, but he hadn’t actually spoken to them. They were both young, about thirty-fivish, and seemed good, hard-working people. But on this wet

  Tuesday morning, Mrs Malone wore a worried expression, giving her otherwise attractive face hard lines that all too soon would be permanent anyway.

  ‘Ah, it’s Mrs... ?’

  ‘Malone, Father.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Malone. Is there something I can do for you?’

  The priest’s voice was soft, gentle because he could always sense the approaching hysteria in the women who came to see him outside church-going hours.

  Margaret .Malone’s voice trembled slightly as she answered. ‘It’s me Tom, Father. He’s...‘ Suddenly , the floodgates were open. She searched in her handbag for a handkerchief.

  So soon, thought the priest. How long had this been building up for her to break down so soon in front of me?

  They could usually get half the story out before the deluge of tears interrupted. He sighed in resignation.

  He’d heard it so many times before. Tom was being unfaithful or had lost interest in her body, or had taken to beating her every Friday night after a few jars in the pub. How could he comfort these poor creatures, make them realise all things pass, that praying to God at least helped them to withstand the trials of this life.

  ‘Come, now, Mrs Malone. Let’s sit and you can tell me in your own time.’ He took her arm and led her to a pew at the back of the church. An old woman, wearing a black shawl over her thin, hunched shoulders, lighting yet another candle for the soul of her wayward husband, dead these last six years, paid them no heed. Hadn’t she seen it so often before? Hadn’t she sat in the same pew, with a different priest so many years ago, pouring out her troubles to her understanding, yet wholly impotent priest?

  Margaret Malone at last managed to control her shaking body. ‘Oh, Father, it’s me Tom, he’s found another woman.’

  Father Mahar patted her shoulder and sighed as he waited for the tears to stop again.

  ‘It’s a woman at the brewery, Father,’ she finally went on, her long red hair now damp with her own tears. ‘It’s been going on for weeks’. Every Tuesdays and Thursdays he sees her. He said he went to the pub at first, but Deirdre Finnegan told me she’d seen them together, lots of times. And when I asked him about it, he just laughed and said at least she was a better...’ She stopped, remembering she was talking to a priest.

  ‘But he doesn’t care, Father. That’s what hurts. He doesn’t care that I know. He doesn’t care about the children.

  He’s obsessed with her. I don’t know what to do, Father.

  What can I do?’

  ‘Now first you mustn’t upset yourself, Mrs Malone,’ the priest tried to console. ‘Most men go through this sort of phase at some time or other. It doesn’t really mean anything. You’ll see, he’ll come back to you, and it will be as strong as before. Have courage.’

  He paused. Now he must be practical. ‘Do you know the other woman’s name? Maybe I can speak to her.’

  He wasn’t quite sure he heard the name correctly through the sobs. It sounded like Mary Kelly.

  Father Mahar was stunned. It was Saturday evening, the hour for confession was over, and now he sat alone in his sacristy. Mary Kelly had come to her weekly confession and when she’d finished relating her usual short list of venial sins, he’d asked her about Tom Malone. She hadn’t even tried to deny it but spoke quite openly about their affair and when he asked the reason she hadn’t confessed it before she asked why she should have to. There was nothing wrong in it, was there?

  The priest couldn’t believe his ears. The poor child really didn’t know there was any sin involved, that what she had done was quite innocent. It was when he questioned her further that he began to doubt her sanity.

  She told him of all her other affairs, why she attended church so regularly, and why she prayed so fervently.

  All as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

  And when she asked if it would be possible for him to say a special Mass that she might achieve this wonderful orgasm she’d heard about, he was too shocked to make any reply at all.

  He needed time to think, so he asked her to leave but to return in the morning before services. What could he do? She obviously needed medical help as well as spiritual, but how could a doctor cure a girl who was so completelyareoral , and how could a priest cure a girl who could not comprehend the difference between right and wrong?

  He prayed most of that night, prayed for guidance that he might save this young innocent from her literally soul-destroying fate. The next morning he patiently tried to explain to her why the things she did, and the things she prayed for, were wrong. Not wrong if she found one man whom she could love and eventually marry, make love to achieve a sanctifying union and have children, but wrong if she were to give her precious body to any man who wanted it, just to satisfy this greedy lust within her, and so destroying the spirit of the Holy Ghost who dwelt inside her. God loved her and wanted her to be happy, but she must respect this wonderful gift he had given her, and keep it only for marriage.

  She laughed, not out of defiance, but because she genuinely thought the priest was being silly. Her brain had put up a mental block that refused to accept sex as wrong in any way. Where once ‘she had listened to his every word with reverence, she now treated him as though he were the child, and he couldn’t be serious in what he was saying.

  He went on, explaining about the eases she could contract, the homes she would break up, how it could only lead to unhappiness forherself - but it was hopeless. It wasn’t like talking to another person for she was still the sweet, pure young girl he’d come to know - it was as though one section of her brain had closed a door and refused to let any argument enter.

  Eventually, he had to suggest that she should see a doctor with him, a good friend of his, who would just talk to her, and between them they would help her back on to the right path. She agreed, although she thought it a silly idea, but if it would please him, then she’d go along. An appointment was made for the following Wednesday, but Father Mahar never saw Mary Kelly again, Mary moved to
another part ofDublinand went back to being a barmaid, her life going on in the same pattern as before. She found a new church to attend but this time she was more wary about becoming too familiar to the priest.

  And then, she finally met the man who could fulfil her needs, and, surprisingly enough, she met him in church.

  Timothy Patrick was an immense man in every way. He had the usual Irishman’s ruddy glow, wiry, fair hair, huge hands and ears that stood at right angles from his head. His appetite, not just for food, but for life, was as enormous as his bulk. He was also a good man, not piously religious, but honest and reliable.

  As soon as they laid eyes on one another, when he was taking the collection plate round during Mass, instinct told them that here at last was someone who could match their own vitality. He waited for her outside the church, as she knew he would, and walked her to her lodging house. They saw each other every evening after that and on the seventh he took her to a hotel and they made love.

  For him, it was the most deeply satisfying act of love he’d ever experienced; for her, it was all her prayers answered. He had laughed when she prayed beside the bed before they made love, but was moved when afterwards she said a complete Rosary in gratitude, understanding this was in some way a compliment to him.

  When Mary first saw his size, she was frightened, but she also felt a tingle of excitement run through her.

  It was in exact proportion to his personality. Enormous. At first he was gentle,more gentle than any other man she had been with, but at her urging, he had become wild, thrusting himself into her with tremendous force, his great hands never still, crushing her breasts, shoulders and thighs. And she fought back with all her might, never allowing him to be dominant, biting, clawing, until she cried for relief from her frenzy.

  And then relief came, flooding her whole body, making her taut limbs liquid. She wept as he soothed her brow with tender fingers, smiling, talking, staying inside her, It was then she’d said her Rosary while he waited quietly, his eyes never leaving her bowed head. As soon as she had finished she had laughed and leapt straight back on to the bed, where they made love many more times that night.

  They saw each other every day, making love whenever they were alone, their mutual desire never diminishing, always demanding. Finally, Timothy announced his intention to go toEnglandto find better-paid employment and he asked Mary to go with him.

  Marriage wasn’t mentioned but she eagerly agreed to go and within three weeks they were living together inNorth London. He found work on a building site and she went back to work as a barmaid. Her faith in God was stronger than it had ever been and she thanked him constantly, in church, at home or even on the bus on her way to work. She cherished her new found love and knew no other man would ever be able to fulfilher the way Timothy did, but she never once tried to push him into marriage.

  When war broke out, he enlisted in the army despite her protests. Although she was really proud of him and his action, she dreaded their being apart, for although she knew no other man could satiate her as he did, and no other man could love her as he did, she wondered if she would be strong enough to resist seeking sexual satisfaction elsewhere. Timothy left and within four days she received a letter from him asking her to marry him as soon as he got leave. Then she knew she could wait.

  But Timothy died three weeks later, crushed by a tank one night while out on manoeuvres. Nobody knew how it had happened; they had just found his body the next morning, the whole of his magnificent torso squashed flat in a field half a mile away from his unit. Nobody knew how he got there or why he was there, but he’d gone on record as being one of the army’s first war casualties. Weeks later, one of his friends from basic training had come to see Mary and told her that Timothy had smuggled a flask of whisky out with him to ‘keep out the terrible cold’ and had wandered off on his own that night. The soldier thought the army had found the smashed bottle with the body and had tried to cover up the matter for both Timothy’s sake and the army’s.

  It was then that Mary had lost faith in God. To give her so much and then to obliterate it with one cruel stroke was too much for her simple mind to take. She began to hate God almost as much as she had once loved him. They caught her on her third attempt to burn down a Catholic church. She was put into an asylum but released after two months as a model patient. On her second day of freedom she had cost a priest the hearing on his left side when she’d thrust a knife into his ear through the wooden mesh-work of a confessional. She was declared insane and sent back to the asylum. The war was over by the time she was released and she came back into a world that was too busy licking its own wounds to worry about hers.

  Her decline was inevitable. She still craved for satisfaction and sought it in the only way possible, but this time she did it as a living. She began to drink heavily and soon the many men began to bore her. None could live up to her Timothy.

  She began to mock her clients in their futile attempts to arouse her, and laughed at their pathetic little organs. One night, a burly man, proud of his manhood broke her nose when she derided him. She began losing money, for some men refused to pay her after her demoralising sarcasm, but still she could not refrain from her derisive comments on their performance in bed. She became known to the police as a harasser of priests; she would follow a priest for miles, either cursing him or offering him her body, until the poor man had no alternative but to go into the nearest police station.

  She was put away again and again but she always behaved like a model patient and was soon released.

  She finally contracted gonorrhoea, and in the early stages, when she knew she had it, she took great delight in passing it on to the men she slept with. She soon found herself out on the street when her landlordfell victim to her ridicule and her disease. Her looks had faded, her appearance was shabby, her mind failed to grasp reality any more. She went to live with a group of Pakistani immigrants inBrick Laneand stayed there for several years, being used by all the men either collectively or singly, but eventually they tired of her and threw her out.

  She went back one night, months later, and poured paraffin through the grating into the basement of their dilapidated house, set a whole box of matches alight and threw it in.

  One fireman and five of the Pakistanis died in the fire that burnt the house to the ground, but nobody suspected Mary of having caused it.

  She was found one day, half-dead, on a bomb-site. It took months of hospital treatment to cure her of all her ailments and where the doctors left off the Salvation Army took over. They found her a place tolive, bought her new clothes and got her a job in a laundry- they felt sure they could save her from herself.

  And they almost did. She worked hard, her maltreated body began to regain some of its former vigour,her mind closed another door, this time to memories. But as she grew healthier, so her body began to demand gratification. Un- fortunately, the only personal contact she had with men now was the Salvation Army officer who visited her twice a week at her basement flat. When she tried to seduce him he made the mistake of calling her to look to God. Suddenly, she thought of the joy that had been snatched away by Him after all her devotion to His church. When she’d found her reward, her Timothy, He had taken it away, even his servants, the priests, had tried to prevent her from finding this happiness, and now this other man of God, this so-called ‘soldier’ of God was trying to deny her, hiding behind Him, using His name, reminding her of His treachery.

  The Salvation Army officer fled when her hysterical ravings grew into physical violence. Mary left the flat and roamed the streets offering her body to every man she came across, abusing and cursing them as they refused, some jeering, most frightened by her lunatic ranting. She finally had to find her solace in a bottle of Johnny Walker, bought with her meagre savings from her job in the laundry.

  That night an ambulance was called to a public convenience at the Angel, Islington, where the attendant had found a woman lying unconscious in one of the cubicles.

 
; She had thought the woman was just drunk at first, the smell of alcohol was overpowering, but then she’d noticed the blood seeping from between the woman’s legs. It took a doctor two hours to remove all the fragments of glass from Mary’s vagina. She’d sought consolation from the whisky bottle in more than one way.

  Mary Kelly looked around at her five companions. Her ravaged face contorted with contempt for them.

  Dirty, dried- up old men. Not one of them a real man. Not one would pass their bottle around. Well, tonight she had her own bottle, and it wasn’t meths. It was good, Scotch. It had only taken three days to get enough money to buy the half-bottle. And it had been easy money to get for she’d gone to theWest End, to the cinema and theatre queues and just stood in front of people, staring at their faces, one hand outstretched ready to receive money, the other hand scratching. Scratching her hair, her arm-pits, her breasts - it was when her hand began travelling towards her crotch that they usually coughed up.

  So here she was amongst the grave-stones and the rubble of the bombed church. It had taken years of wretchedness, torments to both mind and body to bring her to this point.

  But she was amongst her own kind, crushed by life itself.

  She unscrewed the top and raised the bottle to her lips with a wavering hand.

  ‘What’s that you’re drinking, Mary?’ came a voice from the darkness.

  ‘Fuck off.’ Mary knew this would happen, that the others would see her booze and beg for some, just a little drop, one swig, but she couldn’t resist the impulse to come here tonight and gloat; to make men plead with her. She knew that they’d even make love to her for just a drop then she could mock them even more. The old men would forget her filth and she’d forget theirs, and they’d desperately try to get a hard-on with their ridiculously wasted pricks so they could fuck her and earn their drink. But they’d never managed it, and she would just laugh and enjoy the misery on their loathsome faces.