Forever Young

by Ray Connolly

  At first he could not understand what he was seeing, and imagined that his mother must have fallen asleep on the rug. But then as he focussed his torch upon her he saw that it wasn’t his mother he was looking at, but the half-naked body of James, stretched across, and punching into her. He moved forward to protect her from this attack. But then he froze, as he heard her groaning softly with pleasure and saw her naked thighs spread wide. Then he understood.

  Suddenly his mother’s face appeared from behind James’s shoulder. ‘Paul!’ Her cry was strangled in horror.

  Paul did not wait to hear or see more. Dropping the torch as James turned to see him he dashed from the room, down the hall and out of the front door.

  The gravel on the path bit into his feet but that did not stop him. Sobbing from shock he sprinted to the front gate and away down the road, not stopping at the corner, but carrying on into the playing fields and away into the night, deaf to the cries of his mother.

  On the pavement outside her home Mary forgot for once what the neighbours might think as she wept like a wounded animal, her feet bare, too, her tights left with her pants in the sitting room, her red dress unbuttoned down the front and crumpled from the frantic tumblings of love-making.

  James hurried after her from the house, fastening his jeans as he came. ‘I’ll go and look for him,’ he said, moving to her side.

  She leapt from his touch. ‘Don’t come near me. Don’t touch me,’ she hissed, ‘go away. Leave us.’

  She could not now imagine what sequence of events could possibly have led her to this situation, but she felt dirty and reviled. She had done something that she had thought was impossible. And had been punished, the worst imaginable punishment. If there was a God he was a God of cruelty.

  This had never been intended. There had seemed no harm in a kiss. She had wanted to be kissed. But she had not thought beyond that. And yet she had not stopped James, had not wanted to stop him. In fact she knew she had encouraged him.

  21

  August 1962

  Inside the cricket pavilion Maureen turned to Michael and pulled her body close against his. Very delicately she ran her fingers across his shirt. ‘I used to think you didn’t like me,’ she whispered, peppering his face with kisses.

  ‘I’ve always liked you. Ever since we first met. But you were always with Jimmy.’

  ‘Jimmy,’ repeated Maureen, and her forehead furrowed slightly.

  ‘Promise me you’ll never tell him.’

  Maureen confirmed her unspoken promise with more kisses. Michael had his arms around Maureen’s waist where her blouse had become dislodged from her skirt, and he found himself touching her skin, smooth, yet clammy from the heat.

  It was a small wooden pavilion, rarely used since a new brick structure had been built at the other end of the field, and empty apart from various pieces of gardening equipment and a pile of old practice nets which had been left piled in a large mound in one corner. Taking the initiative Michael led Maureen across the wooden floor. The place smelled musty, of crumbling wood and dried grass. Together they sank on to the nets. It was comfortable there, and Michael took off his jacket and lay on top of her, provoking an urgency he only barely understood.

  He had never before felt such excitement, and quickly that excitement infected Maureen and became the master of them both as their hands discovered each other and pleased where they touched. Neither had intended to make love. Maureen had not planned to lose her virginity on this pile of old nets in a corner of a disused pavilion. But when passion is aroused and the circumstances favourable, behaviour is rarely governed by any rational pattern. Encouraged by alcohol, excitement, heat and the behaviour of the adults Michael and Maureen celebrated the Holly Berries’ success by making love because neither of them wanted to stop. It should have been the most perfect moment of their lives. For a time perhaps it was, as they struggled together on the nets all doubts, guilts and fears submerged beneath the compulsion of their love-making.

  But suddenly, so soon it did not seem possible, it was over, and even as they separated the enormity of what they had done cast a damning cloud across them. Very quietly Maureen began to cry. For some minutes Michael did not speak. He could not face the guilt which he felt was crushing him in some kind of moral vice. He had done something he would never have dreamed possible. He was bitterly sorry and ashamed. He knew that he would never be able to face James.

  Maureen recovered first. Pulling on and fastening the items of clothing which had been disturbed during the love-making, she said: ‘I wonder if he’s missed us yet.’

  Michael did not answer. He knew he would have done.

  Maureen sniffed heavily as she went on torturing him. ‘He worships you, you know,’ she said, her own guilt making her uncharacteristically mean. ‘I once asked him …. I said if we were both drowning, Mike and me, which one would you save first? You know what he said? He said you.’

  Michael could not bear to listen. Pulling himself to his feet he fastened his trousers. ‘Whatever you do promise me you’ll never tell him,’ he said again.

  Maureen did not answer. Together they moved back to the pavilion door. Michael waited for a moment, summoning courage. Then they went out, their feet tapping noisily on the wooden floor.

  He saw James immediately. He was sitting with his back to the door on the pavilion steps. He looked small and forlorn, his hand gripping his guitar so that it stood taller than he on the step alongside him. Michael wondered how long he had been there, and how much he had heard. From that distance he must have heard them making love.

  Michael would have liked a fight, some kind of confrontation, but James did not even turn. Slowly Michael walked down the steps past his friend and out on to the cricket field. He had to get away. Maureen stayed behind at the top of the pavilion steps.

  As Michael approached the marquee the flaps to the entrance suddenly parted and Brother Amedy stepped out. Michael’s expression must have told its own story for as the boy passed by him and returned into the marquee to collect his guitar Brother Amedy looked long and hard at James and Maureen and then followed him into the dance.

  ‘Why don’t you come and talk to me about it tomorrow, Michael,’ was the only thing that he had to say.

  ‘Yes, Brother,’ said Michael.

  22

  Father Vincent found Paul just before early mass. While the old priest had been arranging his garments in the sacristy he had become aware of a draught blowing sharply on to the back of his neck. Further investigations had revealed a broken window and a spattering of blood and mud on the stone church floor. Grabbing a candlestick as protection the priest had followed the trail down the aisle of the church towards the main altar, and had been passing Father Michael’s confessional box when a slight shivering sound had alerted him. Standing behind the door of the box he had gripped the candlestick in his right hand and swung the door open.

  Paul lay huddled in a corner, his pyjamas covered in mud and blood from where he had cut his hand breaking into the church.

  ‘God’s teeth. And here was me thinking I had the muggers after the offertory,’ Father Vincent had exclaimed in relief.

  Paul did not speak as the priest led him back into the house to the kitchen and, pushing his hand under the cold tap, rinsed out his wound.

  ‘Ah yes, it looked worse than it was,’ said Father Vincent. ‘What about the other hand?’ He had noticed that it was clamped tightly closed.

  Paul shook his head.

  ‘If you come over here I’ll put some dressing on it then.’ Father Vincent knew better than to begin an instant interrogation. His first enquiries in the church had been met with a sullen refusal to speak. ‘You’re lucky you didn’t freeze to death out there. Come over here and sit by the stove while I get Father Michael.’

  Mutely Paul followed him across the kitchen. Father Vincent had put his overcoat around the boy, but Paul was still shivering.

  Father Vincent left the room and hurried up to the first
landing. ‘Father, can you come down? There’s someone to see you,’ he called up to the attic room. Then without waiting for a reply he returned to the kitchen. ‘They’ll be knocking on the door any minute wondering if God’s gone on strike this morning,’ he muttered glancing at the clock on the kitchen wall. ‘Would you eat some porridge if I made it for you?’

  Still Paul did not answer. In some exasperation Father Vincent filled the kettle with water.

  At that moment the kitchen door opened. ‘Paulie!’ Father Michael stopped in his tracks. His smile faded.

  ‘He was hiding in the church, Father. Perhaps he’ll talk to you. He won’t say a word to me,’ said the older priest, before turning back to the boy. ‘You’re quite safe now, son,’ he added, although he knew not what he need feel safe from.

  Father Michael approached the boy as one would a frightened animal. ‘What is it, Paul? What’s going on? Does your mother know …?’ He stopped himself. Obviously his mother would not know where he was in such a state. ‘She must be out of her mind with worry.’

  Father Vincent passed him the tea pot and then hurried out to the church, anxious not to become too involved in something which was not his immediate concern.

  The younger priest poured Paul a cup. ‘Here, have some tea while I go and telephone her, she ought …’ he began, but the cup and saucer were suddenly dashed from his grasp.

  ‘No,’ screamed the boy.

  ‘What do you mean, Paul? You must tell me. Is she all right? Has something happened to her? Tell me.’

  Father Michael sank to his knees and held the now sobbing boy by his elbows. ‘Tell me, Paul.’

  ‘It was him,’ cried Paul. ‘She was with him all night.’

  ‘With who, Paul? I don’t understand.’

  ‘With him. James. Your friend. She was with him in the sitting-room. And they were doing it. I saw them doing it. He was doing it to her and she was letting him …’ Paul broke down, tears flooding across his cheeks.

  Father Michael’s hands dropped from the boy. His head swam with the sound of traditional jazz and the heavy scent of Maureen’s perfume. A wrong of twenty years earlier had pursued him, and now come to claim the cruellest revenge. He thought of Mary and James making love, and as nausea bubbled in his empty stomach, he knew his pain was that of crippling jealousy.

  Father Vincent summoned Mary to the priests’ house by telephone immediately after mass. When he had arrived back in the kitchen he had found Father Michael and the boy sitting in silence, the younger priest now nearly as disturbed as the boy. Taking charge he had telephoned Mary and ordered Paul to bed in Father Michael’s room. ‘Come on, now, you get some sleep. Father Michael and I will do whatever is right. You can be sure of that,’ he had said, as the boy had snuggled down under the sheets, still warm from Father Michael’s recent presence there.

  Mary arrived by bicycle, now wearing her raincoat over her pretty dress of the previous evening. Her face was smeared with tears and haggard with worry and exhaustion.

  ‘It will probably be better if we let Paul sleep for a while now,’ Father Vincent told her.

  ‘I’d like to see him,’ Mary protested.

  But in the hall of his own home Father Vincent was master. ‘He’s had a bad upset,’ he said. He did not know what kind of upset, but if the boy did not want to see his mother it had to be better to comply with his wishes until he had been able to sleep away some of the trauma. And with that he went into his study.

  ‘I thought he might be here …’ Mary began. ‘I was too frightened to telephone.’

  Father Michael did not answer. Mary understood the reason.

  ‘Did he … did Paul tell you?’ she stammered.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It wasn’t Jimmy’s fault …’

  ‘Where is he?’ broke in the priest.

  ‘He went back. I made him go. It wasn’t his fault. Really, I shouldn’t have … it was my fault.’

  Father Michael did not reply. He couldn’t.

  He found James sitting at his desk in an empty lecture room, gazing across the empty terraces of seats. It was Saturday morning and he had just delivered the final lesson of the seminar. He did not even have to look up as Father Michael entered the room.

  ‘You bastard. You bloody bastard,’ the priest spat out the words with a hate he had not known he was capable of possessing. ‘Are you happy now? Satisfied? Is that why you did it? To get even? To get some kind of revenge?’

  Very quietly James closed a book which lay in front of him. It was an action of measured finality. ‘Nothing’s ever as simple as that, Mike. Nothing.’ Then he added: ‘How’s the boy?’

  ‘He’s very upset.’

  ‘But not as upset as you?’

  ‘What? What the hell are you talking about?’

  James looked at him and shook his head. ‘I know, Mike. I saw you looking at her. I know how you feel. Why don’t you admit it? Wasn’t she your little fantasy? You treat that boy like a son. But he isn’t yours, and never can be … you with your soul mortgaged to God and immortality.’

  The priest’s anger tippled over. ‘You dirty foul-mouthed bastard. What do you know about how I feel?’

  ‘I know, Mike. I’ve always known.’ James had the calmness of despair about him.

  ‘I had no idea you were so bitter.’

  ‘No. I didn’t know it either. But I am. I must be. I know it now. You think you’ve forgotten something, got over it … but it’s always there.’ He looked away, out of the window. ‘We could have been …’

  Father Michael could not bear to let him finish. ‘You’re obsessed with a past that exists only in your imagination.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. We are all living embodiments of our past. And ours wasn’t imagined. Remember what Wordsworth said about the child being father of the man? Do you remember that?’

  But the priest had no time for post-rationalizations. ‘Why Mary?’ he asked.

  James sighed, as though it were an unnecessary question. ‘I fancied her,’ he said. ‘I liked her. She was, you know, available. It was as simple as that. Anyway, perhaps it was my turn.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She married a teacher and went to live near Ipswich. Maureen McMahon. Remember? You wanted to know.’

  Father Michael turned to go, his anger exhausted. For the first time in his life his only feelings towards James were those of indifference. ‘And Paul?’ he asked, as he backed towards the door. ‘What about him?’

  James shook his head. ‘I’m sorry about that. I really am, I didn’t want that.’ He paused as a thought occurred to him. ‘I suppose it was sins of the fathers, Father,’ he added, with a slight nervous rasp in his voice.

  Father Michael looked around the empty lecture hall. James looked so insignificant when seen in the perspective of the banked rows of seats. On the blackboard someone had scrawled ‘heaven lies about us in our infancy’ together with the name of Wordsworth. He turned back to the door. ‘You’re in the wrong job, James,’ he said. ‘You’re dried up. Withered. Dead.’ And stepping out into the corridor he closed the door.

  For the second time in his life James watched Michael walk away from him. This time was hardly easier to bear than the last. ‘Dried up. Withered. Dead,’ the priest’s words ran repeatedly in his head. He reconsidered what he had said. He had tried to brazen the meeting out. He had somehow been expecting it. But there was nothing he could have said which would have made it any better. He had meant what he had said about Mary. He had fancied her and she had been available. But that was not quite the truth. He had liked her more than he would ever admit. For a short time she had seemed like a refuge from his lifelong solitude, an alternative to the dry bachelor home in Islington. But now that had been spoiled. They had made love and spoiled even the possibility of a different kind of future for both of them. And he thought again about Michael and Maureen.

  ‘He’s awake now. Perhaps if you were to take this up to him he might begin to see things
a little more reasonably now.’ Father Vincent handed the younger priest a mug of hot tomato soup.

  It was late afternoon and Paul had slept for several hours. Since his confrontation with James, Father Michael had spent much of the day in the church. Sometimes he had prayed and asked for forgiveness for the sin of so long ago. But mostly he had just sat and puzzled over the tangled web of life, and wondered at the injustice that had hurt Paul so cruelly. James had seen right through him, had known intuitively how he felt about Mary. And now he was ashamed.

  Father Michael put the soup on a tray and opened the door which led from the kitchen to the hall.

  ‘You’ll find some clothes for the lad on the stairs,’ Father Vincent was fussing around with an efficiency the younger priest had never seen before. ‘His mother called again and brought them. She’s a handsome woman, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Yes, she’s a handsome woman.’ Father Michael nodded his head. No doubt his behaviour had been as transparent to Father Vincent as it had to James.

  ‘Well, now, look sharp or you’ll have the soup cold before the boy gets it,’ Father Vincent chided. Then he added: ‘And Michael, you’ll have to be very firm with him. You owe him that much.’ It was the first time he had ever used his colleague’s Christian name.

  Father Michael nodded. He knew what had to be done. Closing the door he crossed the hall and climbed the stairs to his own room.

  Paul was waiting for him, lying awake, his eyes nursing on the few, sad possessions which lay around the room. Pulling up a chair Father Michael passed him the soup. He gulped it down hungrily, leaving a rim of tomato around his mouth. The priest passed him a paper tissue and he wiped if off.

  ‘Paul, this morning I had a talk with your mother. She was very worried about you,’ the priest began, speaking in as flat and unemotional a voice as he could manage. ‘What happened last night, what you interrupted, was private. When you’re older you’ll learn that sometimes we all do things and think things that perhaps we aren’t very proud about. Sometimes if we aren’t careful those things can affect our whole life. Now, last night your mother …’