Crooked Vows

by John Watt

  Suddenly she loses her grip. The surging rip takes control, pulling her towards the end of the channel. She struggles hard against the current all the way, clutching desperately at jagged rocks jutting above the water as she is swept against them. Although she manages to get a handhold on several of them for a short time, she is dragged away. Thomas hears her calling to him for help, screaming. Yet he stands rigid, in helpless horror.

  He sees her swept out into the breakers beyond the gap in the outer reef. An immense wave breaks over her, and she disappears for what seems a long time. Then her head reappears in the face of another massive swell. Jane is looking towards him, floundering, struggling, one arm waving. And her voice, harsh, rising to a high pitch of terror. Please. Help me, Thomas. Then the last wave breaks over her, and he does not hear her voice again.

  For a long time Thomas stands, immobilised, backed hard against the security of the rock wall. Every joint in his body seems to be locked in position. His mind, too, seems locked, fixed on the image of a huge wave frozen in the instant before breaking, and her head in the face of it.

  Finally he climbs onto the dark rock ledge of the shore and paces one way and the other along it, scanning the churning sea beyond the reef, desperately, as if this, somehow, might bring her back into view. But she is certainly gone. And he had stood there, watching, wavering, doing nothing.

  For a moment Thomas glimpses himself as if through her eyes, as she struggled in the face of that last wave breaking over her. He imagines what must have gone through her mind in that moment, crying out to him, looking toward him standing helplessly, the instant before she was overwhelmed. His throat chokes with a soundless wail struggling to emerge.

  He collapses to his knees and tries to address a plea for help to God who must surely be present in some way, watching perhaps from above the harsh blue of the sky, but realises that he doesn’t know what he is praying for. Help for her, or for himself? And what sort of help? Is he pleading for her to appear miraculously, perhaps from behind him, wearing the blue-and-white skirt and white blouse now so familiar, with the stains of sweat and mud washed away? He knows such things do not happen outside the lives of the saints. Is he pleading for time to be turned back so that he can have another chance while she is still alive, while that last wave has not yet broken, to do something? But he knows with the same certainty that time always moves onward. Some opportunities to act come only once, and he did not grasp this one. Now there is nothing to be done.

  Images flood his consciousness. Jane’s face, surrounded by the foam of a breaking wave, her eyes wide with terror. The face glimpsed briefly in the plane window, engulfed in flames, distorted by agony. Both mouths open, screaming for deliverance. The faces swirl around in his mind, replacing each other, then merging and combining into a single blurred image of horror, projecting a single despairing wail to the heavens. Thomas’s own mouth, he realises, is open too and giving vent to his own howl, beyond his control, forcing its way up and out of the depths.

  He is overcome by a sensation of falling, as if his body is spinning into a vast bottomless space. He spirals further and further down into the huge emptiness, the appalling sights and sounds becoming fainter until they are finally lost in a dark silence.

  *

  There is a long pause. With an effort Thomas looks up. He sees Macpherson sitting back in his chair with his hands behind his head, eyes closed and face tilted up towards the ceiling. Eventually his eyes open and he faces Thomas. The younger man looks down at the floor between them, avoiding the gaze.

  For a minute or two the doctor sits still, his hands flat on the desk in front of him, his eyes shifting their focus to some point above and beyond the door of the room. Thomas looks up at him in the silence, trying without success to read the older man’s expression.

  Finally the difficult silence ends.

  ‘That must have been a harrowing experience for you to go through and I imagine that reviving the memory of it now must be deeply disturbing, too. You are likely to have those images recurring quite often now that they have come to the surface. You will need to make use of the same strategies I gave you earlier, to soften their impact a little. It’s not good to be overwhelmed by them. I think, from what I’ve gathered before, that you’ve been managing this problem quite well. You’ll need to keep doing the same.

  ‘Tell me, now that you have it clear and fresh in your mind, what do you feel about it at this moment?’

  Thomas considers. What does he feel? There’s a peculiar sensation of emptiness. As if he is feeling nothing, in a space where he might be expected to feel something. He looks down, wondering how much of this he should reveal.

  ‘I don’t know. I feel empty.’

  ‘Very well. You feel empty. That is one feeling. And it is not surprising, when these memories have been released from a space where you have shut them away for months. Now what else do you feel? Or think? What comes to your mind to say about it all? About what you did.’ He pauses, considers, and adds, ‘and what you didn’t do.’

  Thomas hesitates, turning those last added words over in his mind. Suddenly his mind is flooded by the image of the rocky shore, the outer reef, the channel between, the swells breaking on the reef and foaming over into the channel. He sees Jane clinging to the reef, face turned towards him, one arm waving, hears her screaming to him for help. Feels his back pressed against the wall of rock.

  He looks up into the older man’s face, searching for a way to express the overwhelming confusion of thoughts and feelings crowding his mind, finding nothing to offer but trivial words suitable for some minor misdemeanour.

  ‘I feel guilty. I ought to have done something to help her.’ He hears the weakness, the inadequacy in his words.

  Macpherson sits back in his chair, letting a long breath out. ‘Ah, yes. You feel guilty. I would like you to explore that feeling a little, if you don’t mind. I can see two different aspects of the situation, and I want us to look at them separately.

  ‘To begin with we’ll leave you out of it, and think simply about what is happening to Jane. Try to imagine yourself in her position. You are Jane, in the water being dragged through the gap in the reef. A huge wave breaks over your head, and you’re forced under. Don’t talk about it; just try to feel what she would be feeling in those moments.’

  Eyes closed, Thomas imagines the immense power of the breaking wave churning around and above him, the loss of any sense of where the surface is through the opaque foam, the desperation to struggle towards air, to breathe, the panic.

  He opens his eyes, looking towards the doctor again

  ‘She must have been—it must have been terrifying for her.’

  ‘Very well. She would certainly have been terrified. But were you responsible for her being in that terrifying situation?’

  Thomas looks at the older man, unsure where the exchange is heading. ‘No, I suppose not. Certainly not.’

  Macpherson leans forward, fixing Thomas with a steady gaze. ‘Precisely so. But surely feelings of guilt are only appropriate when you are responsible for something; when you’ve done something that other people would have reason to blame you for. You were not to blame for her being caught in the rip and dragged into the surf, were you? Surely you can’t reasonably feel guilty about an unpredictable accident such as that.’

  The younger man looks down at the floor for a few moments, then meets the doctor’s eyes. ‘I suppose that’s right. Yes.’

  ‘So, let’s push this a little further. Imagine Jane again, as she is dragged under the water, struggling to breathe, finally unable to get back to the surface, and drowning. You have set your feeling of guilt aside, because there is no place for it. What are you feeling now about what is happening to her?’

  Thomas closes his eyes and sits back in the chair imagining her desperation, her last breath, the uncontrollable gasp that fills her lungs with water, finally the merciful fading of consciousness.

  He opens his eyes again and looks acr
oss at Macpherson.

  ‘It’s a horrible way to die, drowning. Full of terror. Beyond that, it’s just so sad to think that she’s gone.’ His voice trembles.

  The doctor sits back in his chair, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

  ‘It must be very upsetting to recover these memories. It looks to me as if your feeling of guilt has been focused mainly on the fact that you held back from swimming out and trying to help her. Is that so?’

  Thomas looks away to the side, avoiding a response.

  Macpherson continues, ‘I have the impression that your religion has provided you with a rather judgmental God who makes laws and punishes people who break them. I would like you to imagine for a moment a rather different sort of God who wants all his creatures to enjoy as much well-being as possible. Is such a God likely to blame you for holding back? As you described the incident, the young woman was in an extremely dangerous situation, verging on hopeless. She was apparently a competent swimmer, but she couldn’t save herself. If you had swum out to help, the most likely outcome would have been that two young people drowned, rather than one. And the world would have been worse off for that. I read about a case very much like that only a couple of weeks ago down near Margaret River. Why would a benevolent God blame you for not doubling the tragedy? When you think about it, don’t you see that what you did was probably the best option in a desperate situation. That doesn’t leave much room for feeling ashamed, or guilty, does it?’

  Thomas shakes his head, feeling just a little calmer.

  ‘You came to me in the beginning with a quite specific problem, to do with repressed memories. Now your lost memories are recovered—the crucial parts at least. I didn’t expect it to be a very difficult task. It’s only been, what? Three and a half months? Four?’

  Thomas nods without meeting the other man’s eyes. ‘About that.’

  ‘I take it that you will be going to your archbishop with this story now that it’s been recovered. I’m not sure who else you will speak to. Of course you will need to make a statement to the police, to bring some sort of finality to their investigation. Feel free to refer them to me if they want a supporting statement about the recovery of your lost memories. The unexplained disappearance of anyone is primarily police business, not the archbishop’s business. They will need a formal statement, but I am more interested in what your religious advisers have to say about the events and what you think about their advice, after a little time for reflection.’

  Thomas listens. Religious advisers. He thought he caught an odd tone in the way Macpherson used the expression.

  ‘At our first meeting,’ the doctor continues, ‘I told you that I saw the possibility of uncovering wider issues in your life than this matter of recovering your missing memories. You might think that this is really beyond my brief, so to speak, but I’d see it as part of my professional obligation to pursue one set of ideas a short distance with you. I suggest that we should have at least one more meeting. I will see you at the same time next week, and we will talk about the response from your church to the memories that have been retrieved, as well as opening up some more general questions. It would be a good thing if we could continue to meet beyond next week to explore these larger issues in your life, but that may not be possible, given that we have finished the task set by your archbishop.’

  *

  Thomas walks out onto the street and turns towards the bus stop. A feeling of relief is creeping over him as he contemplates, beyond the coming unavoidable interviews with the archbishop and the police, the end of this terrible saga. The police interview will be difficult, but the story he has to tell is not as black as some people might have suspected. There have probably been dreadful rumours circulating in some quarters about what he is supposed to have done.

  The sense that relief and finality are at last coming into view is suddenly swept away as Thomas’s mind is filled again by the image of a huge wave poised to break, and in the face of the wave, a head: Jane’s head. And her arm waving, and her voice, shrill with terror. Her last words, crying out to him for help.

  13

  Confession

  Father Kevin sits back and runs one hand across the top of his narrow bald head and sighs.

  ‘My God, m’boy, there’s another two or three dozen hairs gone every day. I’d be able to count what’s left one by one except that they’re all around the back.’ He grins. ‘But getting back to the main point—that’s it, is it? What you’ve told me? Is that the extent of what happened?’

  Thomas clasps his hands together tightly between his knees.

  ‘I think so. Or really, I’m sure. Yes. All that’s important, anyway.’ He looks up from the floor but can’t quite bring himself to meet those small eyes.

  ‘And you had really forgotten all this? That’s remarkable. Maybe the witch-doctor knows a trick or two after all. I’d taken him to be nothing but a fashionable fake. Judge not, that ye be not judged. It goes to show that we can learn something new every day. Maybe a small celebration is called for. Your lost days have been found again. They’ve returned, like the prodigal son. Or was it the prodigal sheep? Let’s have just a spot of that Vat 69.’

  Father Kevin heads for the bottle standing on the kitchen bench and pours two rather unequal spots.

  ‘There you are, m’boy. I don’t think you really enjoyed your first experience with it a week or two ago. But you should try again. Persevere in the path of virtue. A parish priest needs to learn how to drink; there aren’t many pleasures available in this job.’ He grins, holding out the Vegemite glass with the smaller share. To Thomas, who finally manages for a moment to look him in the eye, it doesn’t seem an altogether happy grin.

  The small man takes a careful sip.

  ‘Now, talking about parish priests, I can’t see any problem about your being one, and I’m sure the archbishop will take the same view when he hears your story. I take it that you will be speaking to him soon. And so will I.’

  Thomas mutters something: an indeterminate sound that might suggest that he’s grateful, or just that he’s heard.

  ‘And on the subject of clean bills of health, you’d be looking to me to say something as your spiritual director, and confessor.’

  Thomas looks down at the floor again.

  ‘I’m sure you don’t need me to lay it out for you in detail. You’ve done the course in moral theology more recently than me, and the rules can’t have changed to any extent. Still, maybe you need to hear it said.’

  Father Kevin looks past Thomas to the window and the world beyond it. To the younger man, who takes a quick side-long glance at him, he doesn’t look as if his whole mind is focused on this task.

  ‘So, you didn’t try to pull that young lady out of the water. There’s no sin in that. I’m not a swimmer m’self, but I take it that there’d be some considerable risk in it. For you, I mean. Nobody’s obliged to risk his own life to try to save someone else’s. No doubt a hero would have done it. But it’s no sin not to be a hero. The Church’s teaching is quite clear about this, as you know very well. There are obligations, and there are counsels of perfection. This was not an obligation.

  ‘In fact, when you think about it, maybe the whole thing was providential, the way it worked out. Maybe it was God holding you back from playing the hero. All that contact with a young lady: it could easily have gone to the head of a young fellow who’s not used to it. You might have been tempted away from your religious vocation if it had gone on much longer. I thought I picked up a few hints along those lines, you know, while you were telling the story.’

  The priest’s small eyes focus obliquely on Thomas, with a momentary sly grin, which is replaced by a more earnest expression.

  ‘But look at what happened. The source of the temptation is gone, and you’re still here, setting out on a life devoted to God’s work. Saved by your own hesitation, in fact. The finger of God, perhaps, holding you back, so that you will go on to do his work. A blessing, really
.

  ‘The self-abuse, now: that’s a different matter. Holy purity. There’s no such thing as a venial sin against the virtue of holy purity. All sins of impurity are grave, as you well know. And when I think about it there’s another blessing in what happened: the finger of God holding you back from the danger of dying with a grave sin on your soul.’

  Father Kevin is looking through the window towards the street again although he seems to be focusing on something outside that Thomas can’t see. His voice has taken on an almost automatic tone, as if his thoughts are a long way away.

  ‘A grave sin, yes. But God knows that we are all weak, all sinners. You’re sorry, no doubt? Repentant? Determined not to fall again? And to avoid the occasions of sin? Well, you will have no difficulty avoiding that particular occasion of sin. Very well, then. For a penance, say two decades of the Rosary.’

  The little man swings into the absolution: ‘ Ego te absolvo, I wash you clean from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.’ The Latin formula flows easily off his tongue.

  Thomas, too, looks out of the window as the ritual words flow past him. There is a degree of relief in the beginning of the end of this horrific saga. But he still has a feeling of incompleteness: a sense that something is not settled by this rehearsal of the familiar rules and ritual words.

  ‘Yes, I know all that. But I can’t get the pictures out of my mind, or the sounds. Not since the memories came back. Her head in the foam at the gap in the reef, with one arm waving. Then she appears again out of a huge wave that’s about to break over her, looking towards me, and calling to me. Screaming for help. I feel desperate to do something, but somehow I can’t. I remember setting out to swim to her, but next moment pulling back. Backwards and forwards like that five or six times. More. And then she is gone. But I’m still here. Perhaps I couldn’t have helped her, really, but I feel something shrinking inside when I think of myself not even trying.’