‘Will that be all, Father? Of the drink, I mean,’ she said in a whisper, wrong-footing him again, and grinning conspiratorially at him.
‘Well … for tonight at least,’ he replied, joining in with her, smiling too, amused at the thinness of his own skin.
As he was walking up Station Road, humming under his breath, he saw a pack of youths ahead of him in the Sands car park. They were noisy, drinking. Feeling the biting cold for the first time, he zipped up his navy anorak and quickened his step. Some of the group were seated on the low stone perimeter wall that ran along the pavement. A couple more stood immediately below the street light kicking a glass bottle between them, and one sat astride a green plastic rubbish bin, drumming his legs against it. In order to avoid them he would have to cross the road, which had suddenly become unusually busy. Briefly, he closed his eyes It had been a long, tiring day. He was not in the mood to return their quips, deflect their rude, adolescent banter. But somehow he had to get past them.
As he continued onwards, putting one foot resolutely in front of the other, a cider can bounced into the gutter beside him and a girl, an unlit cigarette in her pouting mouth, marched straight up to him. The sound of glass breaking filled the air, followed by a stream of angry swearing. He could feel himself tensing. Just as he was about to collide with her, she jinked to one side, laughing at the near-miss that she had engineered. She had been so close he could smell the alcohol fumes on her breath. Determined to get away and avoid any more of their attention, he hurried on. A missile hit his back. Someone had hurled a full can of Tennent’s lager at him. On impact, he staggered slightly and the carrier bag that he was carrying hit his lower leg. The bottles inside it clinked loudly as if to raise the alarm. Instantly, the boy on the rubbish bin sprang off it and stood in front of him, blocking his path.
‘Aye, aye. Bit of an alky are we, Father?’
‘No,’ he replied, stunned by the blow, rubbing his back with his hand, feeling the bruised muscle below his ribcage through his shirt. He recognised the boy, became aware that he knew his parents. He had buried his great-grandfather less than two months earlier.
‘No. No, Thomas, I’m not,’ he repeated crossly, sidestepping the youth, trying to continue on his way but finding his path blocked by another of the group. This boy, dressed in a hoodie, skinny jeans and trainers, towered over him. His face was unnaturally pale, peering from his hood like a sickly monk. Every time the priest moved to the side he mirrored his movement, making progress impossible.
‘’Cause it’s a sin, eh, Father?’ the boy said, his eyes fixed on the plastic bag and then, as if an idea had struck him, he added: ‘We could help you there, Father. Take your sins off you. Gie us what’s in the bag … they bottles, for the good of your soul, like.’
‘No. I’m on my way home – if you’d just get out of my way.’
‘I said gie us what’s in the bag!’ the boy shouted, shoving him in the chest and trying to snatch the swinging carrier. The rest of the gang clustered around him.
Alarm washed over the small priest. There were at least seven of them, and although he knew some of their families, and had baptised two of them, in their drunken state he knew that would mean nothing. Creatures possessed by the Devil would be more amenable to reason. Here and now, he was simply their sport, their prey. He knew one, at least, already had multiple convictions for assault.
‘Kyle, is he one too?’ the girl, Erin, asked, staring blearily at the priest’s face and then fixing a tall, thickset youth standing beside her with her slightly glazed eyes. He had fair, curly hair and the smooth, apple-cheeked looks of a farm boy.
‘What? An arse?’ Kyle replied, giggling at his own reply.
‘No. A paedo.’
‘A paedo? Like Father Bell you mean?’
‘Father Bell’s not a paedo – a paedophile. I’m not a paedophile!’ the priest said hotly, furious at the suggestion and inadvertently drawing their attention back to himself.
‘She wasn’t talking to you. Anyway, he is,’ Kyle said, advancing aggressively towards him. One hand was hidden inside his jacket.
‘No, that’s not true …’
‘No, that’s not true …’ the boy said, mimicking the priest’s accent. ‘Aye, he is!’ he added, shouting in his rage, his head suddenly rammed so close to Father Vincent that he felt a spray of saliva on his cheek. ‘The bastard tried it on with me in that wee red room of his. The one wi’ the ship picture. He started putting his hand on my thigh – that’s what paedos do, eh? But you’ll know that, won’t you, “Father”? ’Cause, like my brother says, you’re all the same until you’re stopped … dirty scum!’
He whipped his hand from under his jacket. In it he clasped a broken bottle by the neck, its glinting, jagged end now millimetres from the priest’s face.
‘Leave him be.’
Hearing the voice, Father Vincent did not move. He did not dare, the glass now touching his skin. His heart was hammering against his ribs and he could feel sweat trickling down his aching spine. Another youth had emerged from the darkness and was now walking along the top of the car park wall, his arms extended on either side of him like the wings of an aeroplane.
‘No, Burns,’ Kyle said, his back still to the newcomer. ‘He’s mine.’
‘I said, leave him be.’
It was, unmistakably, an order, and as he issued it the boy jumped off the wall and walked up to the group.
‘But he’s got drink!’ Kyle expostulated, his voice now higher, waving his weapon excitedly at the full carrier bag in the priest’s hand, then moving it back to his face, resting it on his cheekbone.
‘Leave him.’
The girl, Erin, giggled tipsily and, after openly eyeing up the newcomer’s physique, sashayed towards him. Reaching him, she circled round him like a cat on heat before planting herself by his side and saying loudly, ‘You heard what Burns said, Kyle. Put it away. You’re to leave the paedo alone.’
‘Can I go?’ Father Vincent asked, looking up anxiously first at the youth holding the broken bottle against his skin and then across at Burns. An almost imperceptible nod of Burns’ head signalled that permission had been granted, and taking his chance, the priest moved forwards, desperate to get out of range of the bottle. Whether his blood was spilt, his eye gouged, depended on no more than the whim of a drunk adolescent.
After about three minutes’ walking, turning left along the High Street, he came to a halt opposite the black-and-white frontage of the Kirklands Hotel. He slumped against it, closed his eyes and let out an audible sigh. The pounding was still going on in his chest and he felt short of air, unable to breathe, as if someone had placed a plastic bag over his head. Trying to calm himself, he slowly inhaled, then exhaled, several times, telling himself to relax, flexing and extending his fingers in rhythm with his breathing.
His mind was buzzing, a mass of unwelcome thoughts rushing in, forcing their way into his head like gate-crashers to a party. Seeing the jagged glass, an inch from his eyeball, his mind had turned to mush, ceased functioning at all. He had not had the wit to try and talk them down, reason with them. Here he was, a grown man, reduced to silence, powerless. But there had been seven of them, all young and fit. Crazed, out of their skulls with drink, or whatever it was. Reason would have been wasted on them.
But to be called a paedophile, of all things! Of course, Father Bell was no more one than he was! It was just a sick insult proceeding from a sick mind.
Or was it? The man’s sitting-room was red, wasn’t it? How on earth did the boy know that? And about the ship picture too? It was obvious: he must have been there on an ordinary, innocent occasion, a youth group meeting or something. But why had he lied, and chosen that particular term of abuse? Thrown it at him!
A stupid, stupid question; the clergy were all tarred by the same brush nowadays. The pedestal had been replaced by the pit. A bright light had been shone into the church, his church, and it had not revealed the exquisite beauty of the monstrance, the
contours of Christ’s ravaged body or a marble floor worn uneven by the passage of the faithful. No, it had illuminated corners in which curled snakes lay, loosely coiled, hissing together, the shadow of nearby rats flitting over their cold bodies. The fall into the pit was well deserved.
But if the accusation was untrue, if it was some kind of nasty joke dreamt up by the boy, why was he so angry? Could anyone be roused to such fury from nothing?
Thank God that Burns, or whatever he was called, had appeared and ordered the attack dogs off. Who was he? Erin’s parents would be so ashamed if they had seen her. Thomas’s too. They were respectable people, the Wallaces.
But how did the boy know about Father Bell’s house, and why was he so furious? They had probably been on the white cider for hours. Taken ecstasy with it, quite possibly. Tomorrow, he would have an informal word with Effie, see if she would go around in her uniform, knock on their doors and put the fear of the law, if not God, into them. He would go with her, if need be. A tap on his shoulder brought him out of his thoughts and, the knife-edged glass still vivid in his mind, he spun round.
‘You all right, Father?’
His heart again pounding like a steam-hammer against his ribs, he looked into the concerned eyes of Maggie Stark, one of his parishioners. She had come through the hotel door, her shift at the bar completed. He answered her, attempting to sound normal, ‘Fine, thanks, Maggie. I just stopped …’ he racked his brain for a reason. ‘Because I thought I’d forgotten something from the shops. But I’ve checked, and it’s all here – in my bag.’
‘You’re awfully pale!’
‘It’s late. Is that you finished work? Shall we walk home together, eh? Give me that bag, I’ll carry it for you. It looks heavy. To be honest, the company would do me good tonight.’
‘Can you manage mine? You’ve your own bag.’
‘Easy. It’ll balance mine nicely.’
CHAPTER THREE
The next day, as he was standing by his kitchen window, holding a can of soup at arm’s length in an attempt to read the label, the doorbell rang. Discarding the tin and putting his spectacles back on, he went to the door. Let it be the delivery man, he said to himself. An Amazon parcel was overdue, and he was impatient for his secondhand copy of Michener’s The Social Behaviour of Bees, his chosen bedtime reading. The Moir Library had demanded their copy back.
Facing him, a tray held in her outstretched hands, was Laura Houston. The sight of her made him immediately uneasy. Although she was married, he suspected she harboured some kind of designs on him. Twice in the last fortnight she had posted a flowery notelet through his letterbox, each one ostensibly seeking his advice, but her writing style had seemed oddly personal, intimate even. Whatever it was, couldn’t it have waited for their next counselling session? But, perhaps, he was imagining things. No doubt he was deluded, puffed up with the sort of overblown vanity to which clerical bachelors were prone. After all, he was forty-plus, on the stocky side and, most crucially of all, unavailable.
On the other hand, a man sworn to celibacy, whatever he looked like, might be challenge enough. That had, certainly, been his old Scotch College friend’s thesis. In a dog-collar, Hugh had assured him, the elephant man would have been in demand. The observation had been offered as if it might be of some consolation to him. Cheek! Hugh, of course, had had no cause for complaint. He was like catnip for women, whether in a dog-collar or collarless. And the big peacock knew it. Satan, loyal cat that he was, pleasingly fled at the sight of him.
For a second, he was tempted to simplify things, step briskly over the threshold and declare that, sadly, he was just on his way out. Then she would not be hurt. He need not even lie, could genuinely change his plans and go to the local café for lunch. An all-day breakfast was probably on offer. But, looking at her tray, he saw on it a plate of rare roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and gravy, and was smitten. The apple pie and cream in the blue-and-white striped bowl beside it looked heavenly too. And, not to be overlooked, she had gone to the trouble of cooking the food and transporting it to him, somehow managing to keep it hot at all times. The gravy had not congealed and the cream seemed to be melting against the pie crust. There was even a white napkin. Breakfast, no more than a hurried half croissant with his own honey, had left him feeling hungry.
He knew his Bible. Had he remembered Eve’s role in the Garden of Eden, he might have been more circumspect, but thoughts of a two-course home-cooked lunch drove all caution from him. When, months later, he was in the depths of despair and looking for a narrative to make sense of everything, his next words always came back to haunt him.
‘Laura,’ he said, his mouth watering slightly, ‘come in.’ As he sat, knife and fork busy in his hands, she talked. With her warm brown eyes sparkling with pleasure, she chattered on about a recent holiday in Croatia. Dubrovnik had entirely lived up to expectations, despite the hordes from the cruise ships; the highlights being St Saviour’s and the tour of the city walls. The views from the cable-car had been to die for. Split, naturally, had been as advertised, mind-blowing, and Diocletian’s Palace beyond description. But the burek was not worth sampling, whatever the guidebooks might say.
‘The burek?’ he murmured, wondering what on earth it might be.
‘And the heat – we had wall-to-wall sunshine! See my tan?’ she said proudly, displaying her bare, shapely, brown arms to him.
She continued in the same vein while he ate, expressing marked enthusiasm for all things Croatian until, the tone of her voice changing subtly, she confided that the trip had also been an oddly lonely experience. Now, sounding subdued, she said that Mark, her husband, had been with her in body alone.
‘I’m sorry,’ the priest said, mouth half-full of beef.
As ever, Mark’s mind, his spirit, his heart, for all she knew, had been elsewhere. She could not, even on holiday, compete with the attractions of his kitchen-fitting business. Hewas never off his iPhone and half the time it felt as if she was visiting those breathtaking sites on her own. A romantic supper together, when she’d worn the red blouse she had bought on Hvar, had been wasted, with scarcely a word exchanged between them. She might have been made of wood for all the attention he had paid her. It had even crossed her mind that he might be gay.
Cheeks distended with another mouthful, Father Vincent nodded a few times, regretting that he had ever succumbed to temptation. Alarm-bells were ringing in his head. Somehow they had drifted into very deep water.
Encouraged by his apparent sympathy, Laura Houston continued voicing her reservations about her husband, detailing the vacuum in her life, in her heart. It was hard, she explained, gazing into his eyes, to go through life without a soulmate. Sometimes she had to stop herself from sobbing out loud, expressing the desperation, the desolation that she felt.
And then, with a tinkling laugh and as if the thought had just crossed her mind, she apologised to him for her thoughtlessness, her self-absorption. Who would know better than him where she was coming from? With his mouth now full of apple pie he nodded, swallowing as fast as he was able, determined to end this unwanted têteà-tête as soon as possible.
‘I suppose,’ she said, flashing him a brave little smile, ‘it’s the lack of closeness that I miss the most. That I crave.’
He put the tray aside, poised to respond in a suitably brusque and businesslike manner when, to his amazement, she pressed an index finger to his mouth as if to quieten a small child. Paralysed by the unexpected and intimate gesture, he said nothing. Reading his momentary silence as encouragement, she leaned her body towards his and said in a low tone, ‘You know. I know. We both know, don’t we? Closeness is what we both seek, isn’t it, lovey? To be close together at last … just you and me.’
So saying, she laid one of her soft, perfectly manicured hands on top of his and stretched up to bring her face, her lips, within kissing range. Then she closed her eyes.
After his initial surprise had subsided, Father Vincent found himself gazing at the fac
e now so close to his own. Her long dark eyelashes contrasted with her honeyed complexion, and her lips, slightly parted, seemed to be inviting him to kiss them. Him! A beautiful woman was offering herself to him, wanted him. He was so close to her that he could smell her scent, feel her warm breath on his cheek; see the peach down on her flawless skin. But, just as he was about to place his lips on hers he paused, imagining the kiss, longing to feel her touch but delaying the moment to prolong it. Wanting to savour everything, he allowed his gaze to drift slowly down her neck, taking in the whole of its slender length and then settling on her breasts. They would be so smooth to the touch, so warm.
As he was admiring the deep cleft between them, he noticed, glinting in the shadow, a golden ornament suspended on a thin gold chain. Looking harder, he saw that it was a crucifix. The sight of the crucified Christ hanging there jolted him out of his trance, appalled him, immediately robbing him of all desire.
What on earth had he been thinking about? What was he doing? How had this happened? Christ! Had he allowed it to happen, led her on? As good as encouraged it? All those months ago, when she first began to confide in him about her depression, hinting about her unsatisfactory marriage, he should have stopped her dead. Dead. Then this situation could have been avoided. Why hadn’t he referred her to a marriage counsellor, instead of attempting to deal with her himself? What an idiot! As if he knew anything about marriage! About relationships at all, come to that. He was rusty from disuse. Nowadays, he was better acquainted with bees than women.
The Good Priest Page 3
