RELIGIONSEXVIOLENCE
A novel
by
PATRICK FLANAGAN
Smashwords edition
Copyright 2010 Patrick Flanagan
Sociopaths hate people.
Psychopaths do something about it.
The door to the far confessional box opens and an elderly woman steps from the darkness. She is crying, holding a hanky to her mouth, her head bowed. She hurries away down the aisle so God will not see and banish her forever as he did Eve, so many millennia before.
Behind the granite pillar, bruised shiny black over the years from the shoulders of sinners, I watch unseen as a young girl, maybe seven, stands and walks towards the vacated confessional. She sees the woman crying and hesitates, apprehension contorting her pretty face. She turns to her mother for guidance. Her mother nods, but says nothing. Reluctantly, the girl moves closer to the confessional. She reaches up, takes the worn brass handle, and pulls open the door. She looks back to her mother, who is now lost in her own world of prayer and reverie.
The coiled door spring stretches and moans as the girl enters the shadows. The door snaps closed behind her.
Inside St Mary’s, place of cult, it is cool, bordering on cold, as the last amber shafts of evening light fade. Over the years, heavy slabs of floor slate have absorbed the chill of sanctimonious rhetoric and the fear of God. Remove yourself from its intimidating purpose and the edifice is congenial, even comforting, with the irony of institutionalized religion embodied in its structure: elegant and imposing, yet unyielding.
I can’t quite remember my first confession. Neither might this little girl remember hers. She’s like a nervous bride, more concerned with her hair, her veil, her dress — everything else a blur of rote. I try to imagine what must be going on in that confessional right now.
‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’
‘Do you take this man…?’
‘This is my first confession.’
‘To love, honor, and obey?’
‘Are you going to harm me?’
‘In sickness and in health?’
‘Don’t make me cry.’
‘Until death?’
‘The death of innocence, Father?’
‘Say it, child!’
‘I will.’
‘Will you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the divine lamb of Jesus?’
‘I will.’
‘Do you take this cock?’
‘I do.’
‘Say an Act of Contrition, three Hail Marys, and an Our Father.’
The pure and the innocent in perpetual struggle with the vile mind of the pedophile.
A sliding wooden screen slaps hard against a frame, sending a hollow echo into the nave.
I smell the body chemistry on my watchband—adrenalin, salty sweat, light residue from this morning’s applied aftershave.
I open the small blue and yellow capsule-shaped pillbox and pop an ampakine. I should have had water. Always the same dry-mouthed anticipation. I roll the hard tab around my tongue, drawing up saliva until the amp is coated enough to force-swallow it, lumpy against my throat.
The door to the second cubicle opens. A young boy, perhaps ten, steps out. He moves towards the mother of the young girl and smiles a guilty smile. Stern-faced, she turns and quickly tugs his sleeve, forcing him down to say his penance. He falls to his knees, knitting his fingers together tightly, making the blood run away from his hands as his mother’s lips begin to move again to an unheard rhythm.
What did she think, kneeling there as her seven-year-old daughter stumbled through a litany of misdemeanors in a dark box? What would she have thought if she’d heard Michael Dolan — excuse me, the Reverend Father Michael Dolan, Dean of St Mary’s — ask her daughter in a deep perspiring voice about “The sins of the flesh, my dear. Tell me the sins of the flesh?”
What would she think if she knew what fodder her innocent daughter’s tiny transgressions were to an evil mind? Would she pray for the confessor or the confessee? Or would she pray that God would give her strength to not smash his head in with the Fifth Commandment? The age-old ritual of complicity begins here. God’s children and the keepers of God’s children in the symbiotic embrace of the faithful, hanging onto each other for dear life hereafter.
***
From the shadows of the first confessional, the young girl emerges gingerly. Her earlier glow has dulled and her frock now has the pallor of lead rather than the gleaming white of absolution. She stands there, just stands there, shocked and confused.
I can hear the echo from her anxious breathing. I can almost feel it. Her brother, agitated and concerned, turns to look. The mother reaches out and draws the young girl into the pew. Hurried prayers are recited before the three of them get up off their knees. As they pass me at the doorway they give off a mixture of smells: fresh soap, a light cheap perfume, and fear. St Mary’s is quiet now. Quiet and empty.
The deep red curtain in the center cubicle of the confessional is thrown open. The Reverend Father Michael Dolan is startled that I am standing so close. His shock turns to a sly smile, thinking that maybe I want to frighten him.
I do.
‘Oh my goodness,’ he says with a hint of Cork in there somewhere. ‘I’m sorry, confessions are over.’
I say nothing as I look at him closely. I want to be sure he is the right one. Justice cannot afford to be wrong.
‘Did you come here for confession?’ His eyes narrow as he peers at me. ‘Do I know you?’
‘No. And yes,’ I reply, and I wait, allowing him to fill the pause. He laughs that same laugh he uses to charm the pants off little boys and feign innocence to ignorant parents.
‘At the Irish Film Festival, isn’t that right?’ he struggles. ‘Ah yes, I remember. You were at that naughty movie where all those boys were naked.’ He smirks.
‘You liked that one, didn’t you?’
‘The beauty of the human form.’
I look up at the nameplate on the confessional door.
‘Reverend Father Michael Dolan. Is that correct?’
‘Yes, but I must have forgotten your name…’
‘Paul Hurley. Paul Gabriel Michael Hurley.’
‘You have almost enough saints in that name for a hurley team.’ His own joke excites him. It is the same joke I fell out of the cradle laughing at.
‘Except they’re avenging angels.’
‘Not Paul. Sure he was a saint.’
‘The Epiphany — on the road to Damascus.’
‘That’s right. A turning point in his life when he saw the light and turned from his evil ways.’ His fat face is now taking on a solicitous expression. ‘What can I do for you, Paul?’
‘Confess.’
‘I’d love to hear your confession, but look, can you come tomorrow evening, Paul? I’m a bit late for an appointment now.’ He snorts impatiently, looking at his watch, twisting it on his wrist. ‘Well, if it’s important … I suppose I could give you three minutes.’
‘That’s all it will take.’
The Reverend Father Michael Dolan turns and disappears back inside the priest’s center cubicle, the heavy red curtain swishing closed behind him. I look around the church, empty of people now, but filled with shadows. Because I’m right handed I step into the confessional on the left and close the door behind me.
Inside the stuffy box I have a choice. I can sit or kneel. Sitting is purposely made uncomfortable by the minimalist seat ledge. Forced kneeling is the only option. The confessional smells of decades of recitations of putrid sins and vile secrets beneath the layers of wood polish. I can feel the amp kick in.
With theatrical delay, he waits, shifting his feet and clearing his throat, before sliding open the priest’s window. He slams the wood against the frame, indicating that he is serious about the three minutes. In the dim light, the small wire grid separating us casts hatched shadows across his face. He goes into Latin mode, the liturgy becoming a hypnotic chant, delivering himself further into denial.
I think about how the notion of ritual and ceremony is so very important in human lives, especially at the end when one is confronted with their demise. My participation in Dolan’s rituals does not immediately alert him to anything untoward, anything unexpected. His is a familiar setting. He is comfortable and relaxed. He does not expect to be knifed or shot or garroted or bashed with a blunt instrument.
I am supposed to start the humility before him and before God, but I wait. He finishes, realizing I have not responded to the event as I should.
‘Don’t you want me to hear your confession?’ he asks, perplexed.
‘Bless me, Father, for I will sin.’
‘Have. Have sinned. All sins are in the past, Paul.’
‘Like in nineteen-eighty, Father? A bad year for little boys.’
‘Nineteen-eighty, you say? I remember that year well. I was still in Ireland. Things weren’t great back then, times were tough. Why did you say eighty was a bad year for boys?’
‘I was eleven.’
‘Eleven? Where did you go to school, Paul?’
‘Same place you did, Michael. In Dublin.’
‘Ah sure, you’re not talking about Joey’s, are you?’
‘If you want to.’
‘Joey’s in Dublin. A fine school. There are lots of Joeys’ students all over the world now, Paul, just like yourself.’
He sinks back for a moment, thinking about the days he spent there, remembering how it was for a priest having the time of his life, before it all went wrong. The thought makes him shift uncomfortably in his seat.
‘Did I have you in my class?’
‘Yes. You had me in your class. And in the big house afterwards. And on retreat.’
Dolan laughs a little yelp as he absorbs the thought.
‘Ah, they were the days, Paul.’
‘Not for me they weren‘t.’
‘Why? What makes you say that?’
‘Because you fucked me in the arse. And you weren’t very faithful to me because then you fucked other little boys in the arse.’
Nervousness recasts the moment. The Reverend Father Michael Dolan must be confused now. Is this a confession, or an accusation? Perhaps a spurned lover hoping to catch up for one last fuck in the sanctity of the confessional? Or a pending law suit?
‘Paul, I’m a little confused as to why you are here.’
‘Don’t be. I’m not.’
‘Is it money you’re after?’
‘I’m not after money.’
‘Then why are you here?’
I take my Confirmation picture from my pocket and press it up against the wire grill.
‘Remember now?’
Like some horror film holding him transfixed, tension stretches out the priest’s last moments. In the semi-darkness, he closes his eyes and sinks back. He breathes heavily, the same breathing I remember across my neck and my back as my face was pressed into the wooden desk.
‘Paul, you’re not here to do me harm, are you?’
Sympathy vote, the last refuge of the pedophile.
‘Michael, I’m here to deliver you from your own evil. But there will be no Damascus for you.’
His breathing accelerates and I know he is preparing to move quickly. I try to remember if he played rugby. Fight or flight. I take bets with myself. He will gain nothing by fight. He knows I have come for him. He suspects I have a weapon. I do have a weapon.
He intakes shallow breaths. He’s decided on flight.
‘Paul, I’m sure there is a way — ’
And he’s up and ready to run. I have anticipated this. I quickly move out of the confessional and brace my body for his exit. As his door opens, I ram my shoulder against it, slamming it hard into his face. I hear the crack of wood against his skull, half muffled by the heavy red curtain. He slumps back onto the floor of the cubicle.
I move around and stand over him where he lies, dazed and moaning, blood pouring from his smashed-up nose.
‘Haven’t you been told you reap what you sow, Michael? Did you think we would all stay little boys forever? Did you not think that maybe just one would grow up and come after you?’
From my pocket I remove the electric stun gun, courtesy of an opportunity-minded Irish manufacturing company hungry for exports to a security-conscious world. I power it up and check it for charge. Green light after green light blinks alive, and then the red glows to full power.
‘Michael, I only wish you had behaved with more respect for those you were trusted to care for.’
I kneel on his chest and place the tips of the electrodes hard against his flabby throat. He gasps for air as the pressure constricts his breathing. His nose is fucked all over his face. His eyes widen with disbelief.
‘Paul, please, you don’t want this on your conscience, do you?’
‘A guilty conscience is more honorable than regret, Michael.’
I rise from his body and press the button. 600,000 volts rush into his neck. He writhes and twists in convulsions, feet drumming on the floor, eyes bulging in their sockets. Then he dies. I stand back. A faint smell of burning flesh fills the air. It’s time to leave.
***
I’m late. The city traffic is heavy with late-night shoppers. Gina said seven-thirty or eight, but I know she means seven-thirty sharp. There is a shortage of single heterosexual males in Sydney, who are all totally unreliable because of overdemand. If I don’t show at seven-thirty, she still has thirty minutes to call and make sure I am coming — or quickly try to find a replacement.
People would kill for a spot at Gina’s dinner table. At one minute to eight o’clock, my mobile rings just as Gina opens the door, clutching her phone in one hand and balancing a piccolo of bubbly in the other. I hold up my ringing phone.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, come in,’ she says with that mock admonishment she uses so well.
‘Hi.’
We kiss air twice each. I like Gina. We met about three years ago. We were briefly fuck buddies and have remained friends since. Gina came from Galway, but now she’s from anywhere. Slim, strawberry blonde, thirty-six, and loaded.
Lining the walls of her hallway, a buckled up Peter Aitkens, a misty vermillion Cattapan, and a lurid Cullen watch us pass. She talks and talks as we enter the large living room, decorated stylishly in modern contemporary. Her taste is impeccable and expensive. Exotic Australian flora harvested especially for the evening gush from oversized vases. Two waitresses, one with drinks and the other with a tray of hors d’oeuvres, discreetly appear by my side.
Gina leads me directly across the room to meet Jayne, Caroline, and Philip.
‘And of course you know Stuart.’
She expertly excuses us before turning to fix me with her “have I got a honey for you” look. She swiftly sweeps me towards my blind date for the evening.
‘Darling, I want you to meet Paul, a dear friend of mine and one of the cleverest people I know. Ask him anything about anything you want.’
‘Hello. And you are…?’ I extended my hand in introduction.
‘This darling is Darling. D–A–R–L–I–N–G. So you can’t forget her name, darling.’
‘But, tonight, you can’t call anyone else darling, can you?’ Darling adds, clearly marking out her turf. Very clickable, very Sydney. Darling Harbour, Darling Street, Darling Park, Darlinghurst and Darling Point. Darling, one of New South Wales’ most ruthless colonial governors, now with more expensive real estate named after him than anyone else in Sydney. But this Darling is plucked from the pages of glamour, not history.
Gina tells us the evening is too beautiful to be stuck inside as she leads the group onto the terrace. Sydney stretches out below, backlit by a dying sun setting off to wake up Africa and Europe. The waitresses circle with trays of Veuve Cliquot, the champagne of choice in Sydney’s middle eastern suburbs. In this part of Bellevue Hill, there is no shortage of choice. Sumptuous finger food is endlessly offered, while behind the scenes, caterers work feverishly to deliver on Gina’s promise.
Gina subtly presses Darling upon me and explains that she is an actress I would have seen.
‘…in … in?’ coaxes Gina, attempting to remember.
‘A TV movie called Dark Voices. I was the prostitute victim in the church scene,’ offers Darling helpfully.
‘Really?’ I reply as I absorb the information. Darling is very pretty. At first blush, the chemistry says “I do.”
‘Yes, she specializes in playing victims of random acts of murder in churches. No, just kidding. But wasn’t that horrible about that poor priest last night? I knew him, you know. Didn’t you meet him too, Paul?’
I try to clear my mouth of jellied salmon topped with fresh crab mayonnaise. Gina mistakes my hard swallow for bad timing and deftly turns to Darling to explain.
‘Sorry, this is just someone we both met at an Irish event. He is — well, was a priest at St Mary’s in the city, but was murdered in the cathedral. Very Becket if you ask me.’ And then, not knowing if Darling has any idea what she is talking about, adds ‘Thomas Becket?’
‘Of course. If you can’t die for your faith, how can you test it?’ adds Darling caustically, fluttering giraffe-like eyelashes.
Gina momentarily pauses. Missing Darling’s informed sarcasm completely, she looks her straight in the eye and patronizingly retorts, ‘Yes, dear, of course.’
Gina’s smile is so sugary sweet, the bubbles in the champagne rise just a little higher. She turns to me with an “I have failed” look.
‘You will be at the funeral, won’t you, Paul? I’m sure it will be a Bishop if not a Cardinal affair, to use an expression.’
‘Of course. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away. I might even get the DVD.’
‘Oh, Paul!’ Gina slaps my arm as she moves off.
Darling laughs at my irreverence. I can have fun with her. Fucking is in the cards.
Gina announces, in a firm but endearing way, that it is time to move inside. We pass through the full Palladian doors, back into the living room, and beyond into the beautifully presented candlelit dining room. I am seated at the middle of the long table with Darling to my left. Opposite is Gina, and to my right is Caroline. On Gina’s right is her new beau, Stuart. On her left sits Philip. By any standards, this is an intimate dinner party and will obviously require total concentration from all present. It seems that everyone is going to have to sing for their supper.
Darling leans toward me, allowing me to lap up the view of her cleavage under her flimsy fairy summer dress. She waits for my gaze to return to her face before pausing on the first word, her lower lip quivering slightly for full effect.
‘So, Gina tells me you work for the Irish government?’
Every word is a matter of expectation, sustained interest.
‘Not exactly. More for Irish companies wanting to do business here.’
‘Sounds like fun.’
‘Fun, no. Interesting, yes.’
‘You get to travel the whole of the Australasian region?’
‘Mainly business.’
‘Lots of junkets?’
‘Only reason I’m doing it.’
‘Are you hiring?’
‘I thought you were an actor.’
‘Twenty per cent of the time,’ she says, the sad smiley expression telling me twenty per cent is not enough.
‘Well, maybe. There’s a pretty stringent test.’
‘My great-grandmother was Irish. Does that help?’
‘I would have to examine you more closely. Make sure you’ve got pure bloodlines.’
‘When can we do that?’
Stage-managing as always, Gina interrupts. Gina feels that sexual tension should be savored slowly, and not indulged entirely over the first course.
‘Paul, what was that great joke you told me about the man at the party? You know, the one where the woman comes up to him … You know?’
‘… and she says to him, I haven’t seen you around here before … and he says, I’ve been away?’ I add, helping her out.
‘Yes, that one. Tell that one.’
‘And the woman says, Oh, where? And he says, In prison. She then asks him why he was in prison. He says he was in prison for murdering his wife. And she says, Oh, so you’re single then?’
There is a ripple of appreciative laughter. The joke, cutting and pertinent to the demographics of Sydney, is about the other ones tonight; the single, the lonely, the tragic, and the desperate not invited to this dinner party set. I catch a look at Darling. The irony of the moment has not escaped her, and she knows that we will be fucking our brains out later — at her place or mine. Perhaps both.
***
Darling is an expert. She starts with a blown kiss as she disappears behind my bathroom door and there, within, she spends a long, long time. Door knocks, questions, requests, and blatant appeals are met with silence or delayed reactions of “one minute” or “coming…”
But here is the creation of mystique. Just like in every movie that has gone before where the femme fatale asks for the bathroom — place of sharp instruments, private medicine cabinets filled with unknown and out-of-date drugs, baths filled with hot water and the drowning bodies of crazy people who find a nice guy to practice some strange demand before the effect of the illusion of happiness wears off. Darling is tethering in that vulnerable place between the pain of the past and the risks of the future, and I am the guy lucky — or unlucky — enough to get her at the right time when there is just the right amount of abandon and desire and longing and sexual energy. And she is putting it off like in the frenzied dream of an adolescent.
Maybe tonight, the hollowness will be filled.
We fuck all night long, purging all the lackluster lovers gone before, cleansing the hopeless promise of discarded affairs and the intolerance of our own shortcomings in settling for less.
The unasked questions — Who have you shared this with last? Your heat, your full lips, your shape and shadows in the light that is just right, the trim of your hair, the cut of your stockings, the double-reinforced toe in sixty micromesh, seamed and slightly shimmering, not gray, not black, draped on my cock. Who last felt the flick of your hair across their face, the sharp length of your nails, the perfect smell of your cunt? Whose cock was in your mouth and then your arse and back in your mouth again — just like mine is? Who last came all over your face?
We fuck all night, not driven by the slim expectation of happiness ever after, but because we know that there is no happiness ever after. There is only a transcendent energy that is ours at this moment and then, in some time tomorrow or the next day, it won’t be ours anymore but somebody else’s.
We fuck in the delicious depravity of two bare-naked souls rubbing up against each other in the same passionate fire and fury that will rend us apart.
Simmering in post-orgasmic bliss, we forget this is great sex with a volatile and ugly use-by date.
***
The dogs of my past are catching up with me and I watch as they catch a glimpse of my fear. There is a black one and a white one — an albino with pink eyes. In the dream, the black one is standing next to my shoulder, and the white one is walking along that beachfront promenade — the place we used to go, where families went by day and lovers went by night. The white one is sick with a gangrenous paw and hasn’t long to live but continues to harass people with snarls and growls. The black one is in bad company and plays along, helping the sick old white dog do the last bad thing that dogs can do to rail against the world when gangrenous paws are too painful to walk on and home is too far away and little children no longer want to pet them, but cry when they come near and run away.
Startled awake, breathing heavy, sweaty.
***
The early commuters have gone and the coffee house is empty. We take a table near the window. Darling is radiant, clean of make-up in last night’s clothes. What next? Perhaps an element of danger, devastation, and destruction for each to be fully consumed by true venal love before the break up.
Darling tells me how she is thinking of taking the rest of the day off. The statement hangs heavy with the scent of her sex, and I begin to feel the reason why I will make that call to her office.
‘Tell them I won’t be in. It’s just a casual job anyway. Tell them you’re my doctor.’ She smiles as she presses her red fingernails against the keypad.
I take the phone. There is a sweet smell of perfume from the handset. I think it might be Bulgari Black. Evocative, like melting silk.
‘This is Dr Shamus O‘Flaherty here. One of my patients by the name of Darling…?’ We both realize that exchanging surnames had not been necessary in order to put our tongues halfway up each other’s arses the night before, and I wait.
‘Perennae,’ she mouths to me. I have no idea.
‘Can you just hold for one second? Incoming on my beeper.’ I cover the phone and hear the receptionist snort.
‘Perennae,’ Darling whispers, but by the time I understand and have the phone back to my ear, the receptionist has already patronizingly repeated the name.
‘Yes, that’s her. She won’t be in today.’
And then the receptionist is gone, hanging up to take another incoming from another employee who partied too hard with her tongue the night before. I make one or two calls to shift appointments and the day is ours. Her place. We pick up the champagne, the chocolates, the apricots, and the smoked salmon and drive my TT to Elizabeth Bay, to her bed.
***
I casually rub my nostrils to generate the smell again, that scent caught somewhere in the back of my nose, in the back of my throat, my stomach, the earthy smell of the consumed, timeless sex from all of yesterday and throughout last night.
The meeting is beginning to drone, and I don’t like being in the office on a Saturday. After six months of back and forth, I know the presentation inside out. Now we are at the part where the skittish investors have to commit. I hand out the completed term sheets with liquidation preferences, participation rights, and anti-dilution provisions revised for the eighth time. I figure the Australians are not really sure what they are getting — some intellectual property in exchange for a huge slab of venture capital they gathered and boxed a year before and are still sitting on. I knew this and so did the twenty-something-year-old boys from Ireland, now sitting next to me with just a tad too much arrogance about them. Declan is sitting forward in his chair, staring at his would be capital investors, while Brian is plugging and is about to scare away the head trustee of Chester Investments, brought in on the meeting for the first time.
Atlas Shannon, so far, has just barely survived the great financial crisis and has come to town following a flurry of emails, attached spreadsheets, and revised business plans to greet and meet Chester and to roar about their dicks being as big as the round tower of Glendalough. If Chester hands over the cash, the markets of the world will be at their feet because this is the real deal of the future. And if they don’t hand over the cash, then there are others eager, willing, and able to slot into their place tomorrow.
Chester knows, and their shareholders know, that they have to do something fast with the cash or give it back. Two hundred million in liquid money, sitting there idle with a paltry return less admin and fees. And Atlas Shannon wants some — not all, just some. Now, after six months, I can sniff success — if Brian would just shut the fuck up.
‘So, to answer your question gentlemen, “What is epigenetics?” Epigenetics is about the preformism of genes, and the differentiation of cells from their initial totipotent state in embryonic development of heritable traits …’
On the desk, my phone vibrates with Darling’s message.
I wan 2 suc ur dik now
I stand.
‘Brian, may I just interrupt here for one moment and assure Chester once again on the position of the Irish government with regards to Atlas Shannon. We are keen to see this start-up succeed and we welcome your investment in the company. As well, you know that the Irish government aggressively assists with establishment grants, payroll subsidies, offshore studies, and marketing. You may know also that Ireland is among the world’s leading nations in the field of immunology, behind only the U.S. and Switzerland. And, where associated research and development takes place in Ireland, the company has complete exemption from income tax on patent royalties before repatriation of income to Australia, or wherever. In other words, any profit from manufacturing abroad can be written down against Atlas Shannon’s Research and Development expenses in Ireland. This means that dividends paid are tax free and there is no withholding tax. Oh, and in addition, your investment in Atlas Shannon means you are protected under any form of trade agreements instituted by the European Union. And I am sure you understand how being located in Ireland and having the EC market on your doorstep is far better than being located in Australia, where the nature of this type of research is still unknown and under-funded. As you know, Atlas Shannon is a company in need of venture capital — but not a company in need of much else. I think you will find that, as you have been offered first bite of the cherry and because you bear added risk, the additional warrants Atlas Shannon is offering will compensate for this. You will also find that we have accommodated your concerns regarding redemption, first refusal, and co-sale rights. I am sure you will agree that these are generous terms.’
And they did. One hour later Atlas Shannon has gone from zero to hero.
***
The Royal in Paddington is, as usual for a Saturday, packed. And tonight I have two bingeing Irishmen with me — un-reconstructed big swinging dicks — who feel the need to conquer some Sydney chicks. At the best of times, Sydney women are hard, and Brian and Declan presently understand the word “no” to mean a challenge. Just like with the trustee of the venture capital fund. Beyond the negative is a cry for more champagne. ‘Let’s go over it again. Where exactly do you have the problem?’
All it takes for another obstacle to be overcome is some more silvery tongue fast talk, a swipe of the platinum — or, better still, the black — card, and another bottle of Veuve. But this time they’re on their own and they don’t have me to do the foreplay before they fumble in the dark into some apartment with too much Ikea.
My contribution over the previous half year was the thing that made this deal happen — locating the venture capital, making the introduction, clinching the deal. And what about me? I wasn’t getting commissions, share options, and a fat salary like the party boys, Brian and Declan. Things would have to change.
By now I’m thinking about calling Darling before it’s just that little bit too late, when I will start to sound desperate or drunk or pathetically horny.
I dial and casually tell her that I have a couple of Irish guys out with me on the town and that if she wants to see how fast other people’s money can be spent then she should come down to the Centennial, where we have relocated to. Darling hesitates. She wants to slow it down, have a one-night breather, and let the fire stoke from raging to six alarms. I don’t push it. Better she thinks I am out on the tiles, letting it rip, than moping around trying to forget about her every minute.
Back at the bar Declan has found Belinda, a goddess of nineteen and every bit a middle eastern suburbs princess, pressed and folded neatly but with wild blue eyes and a gawky smile. Young, but not that young, she has already worked out that the first test in dating and mating is at price point.
‘What are ya havin’?’
‘Billycart.’
Declan orders and casually throws his black Amex on the counter. ‘Tab.’ He doesn’t wait for acknowledgement; it’s all part of the cavalier disposal of investors’ money, guaranteed to impress. He looks into Belinda’s big blue peepers and knows that there will be some sort of sex with her later. He’s just not sure what kind. Neither is she, but Billycart seems like a good place to start.
Brian seems less fussed with the prospect of fucking. Of the two, he is more withdrawn. Right at this moment, he is also the drunkest of the three of us, accelerated by a combination of jet lag, excitement, and too much Shiraz at lunch. Now, with these little shiny bubbles, it’s all beginning to go pear-shaped. Declan, gregarious, has been doing all the running up until now. With the least to say, he says it the loudest. Belinda takes him to the far end of the bar to show him off to her girlfriends and have him pour champagne into their cute little mouths until they too must go and find a perpetual Billycart faucet of their own, or try and steal Belinda’s. All’s fair.
‘So, Brian. It seems your trip to Sydney has turned up trumps. How much more do you need now?’
‘One hundred and twenty million, U.S. We still have a bit to go. But I expect that it will be fine. We reckon Boston is about sixty, and New York maybe thirty. If we don’t get the rest in Chicago, I’m sure it will come through San Francisco. The Californians are much more in tune with the science involved, much more open to understanding successive differentiation in the developing embryo. And more open to early stage investment.’
‘What do you mean by successive differentiation, Brian?’
‘Have ya got three hours?’
Declan and Belinda wander back and by now it is clear they have an announcement to make — possibly marriage by the way they are trying to climb into each other’s mouths, but I doubt it. Instead, Declan tells us that Belinda wants to take him to a club but, unfortunately, the pass is only for two… ‘See ya.’
***
Far away from home, over here and overweight and unable to slow his intake, Brian fast becomes a belligerent drunk as he tries a more direct and persistent approach with a brunette at the bar.
‘I suppose a ride’s out of the question?’
She’s not interested, and furthermore tells the Samoan bouncer.
Outside on the street, the deleterious effects of alcohol and the warm night air hit him between the eyes.
‘Fuck, what’s wrong with these fuckin’ cunts? Ye’d think I was a three-headed leper. The fuckers. Where can I go to get a fuck in this town, for fuck’s sake?’
I swing the cab door open and pour him onto the back seat.
‘Intercontinental Hotel.’
‘He’s not going to throw up on my seat, mate, is he?’
‘Not my problem.’
***
Fuck it. I drunk dial Darling. If she’s interested, she’ll pick-up. If not, she’ll let it go to voice mail. Stale alcohol and stale smoke have seeped into my clothes and nose. She answers the phone on the second ring and then invites me to come around for a sobering coffee. It takes five minutes to walk unevenly to her door.
She opens it wide, wearing a blue bespoke business shirt far too big with far too many buttons undone. Her natural scents are over-layered by a fresh application of some fragrance with a floral top note. In the background, Miles Davis squeezes out ‘Kind of Blue.’
She kisses me as we stumble through the hallway. Deep, sucking, passionate kisses and then she breaks away, pushing me onto a chair at her table.
‘Sit while I finish this.’
She flops opposite me, her open laptop between us. The soft glow from the screen is highlighted in her blue eyes. I need to act sober.
‘What made you decide to become an actress?’
‘When you grow up an only child with no siblings to play with, you actually have to do a lot to get your parents’ attention. So, I guess I was an actress for a long time without realizing it.’
‘Did you study?’
‘NIDA. Graduated top of my class.’
‘I’m impressed.’
‘So was the panel.’
‘How so?’
‘Well, my graduation video was of me, naked on a bed, masturbating and calling out the name of the head of acting.’
‘Seriously?’
‘In the best possible taste, of course.’
Darling is back toying at the keyboard.
‘And what’s that?’
‘It’s just something I’m writing until I become a big star in a hit movie.’
‘Which one is that?’
‘Well, they haven’t cast me yet, but they will, they will.’
I love her confidence in herself, in an industry where the attrition rate is close to seventy-five per cent and rising. ‘And the screenplay?’
‘Yes, the screenplay. About a woman — me, of course — who is so in love that her life is totally consumed by her lover, who is also as in love with her. They have names, but I can’t tell you until the end. This is what I wrote tonight. Would you like to hear it?’
‘Sure.’
‘Here we go. The woman, “Tell me again of love?” The man, “Love is purity, love is flawless. Love is never owned or loaned but is always only ever given. The cries of love are the yearnings of the soul, to restore memory to a time before birth and after death, in the cycle, never ending.” And she, “And what of our life together?” He, “Here, it is not real, and that’s why here it will end, for life is just a short break from infinity.” She, “And our love, what of our love?” He, “Our love is limitless, stretching beyond our lives, beyond sorrow and confusion and pain. Beyond my death and yours, beyond everything. And as we feel it now, in our hearts burning with overwhelming desire, we will feel it in the universe, together, forever, a thousand times greater, a thousand times stronger”.’
Darling looks up at me; a shy smile lights up her face as she waits for my reaction.
‘Well, what do you think?’
My alcohol skewed judgment is probably not at its best. Discretion is always the better form of a bad review.
‘Very beautiful. Very unusual.’
‘Do you want to know who the lovers are?’
‘You and me?’
‘Not quite.’
‘Give me a hint.’
‘Well, you’re a Catholic boy. Guess.’
‘I’m too drunk to think now. Adam and Eve?’
‘Close.’
‘I give up.’
‘Jesus and Mary Magdalene!’
‘Of course.’
‘But it’s a modern-day story. It’s as if there had never been a first coming, and this is it. Jesus comes to earth and meets Mary Magdalene and they fall in love. Do you like it?’
‘Same ending?’
‘I haven’t worked that out yet.’
‘Could I have a glass of water?’
‘I have something better.’
She stands and sashays to the fridge, looking back at me as though she is about to do something naughty. She reaches into the freezer and retrieves something.
She walks to the table and places a bloated and frozen latex rubber glove down in front of me, the fingers bulging and swollen. I have no idea what this means. Slowly, she tears the latex away to reveal an ice hand, yellow, translucent. She snaps off a crystal digit clean at the base.
She puts the fingersicle in her mouth and makes a soft sucking sound, allowing a moment for the full effect to sink in. Her prehensile tongue emerges to lick between her own fingers and then along the river of melting wine now running down her arm.
‘Thirsty?’
She straddles my lap and holds the fingersicle above my mouth, dripping the wine onto my tongue. Then she stands and moves towards the bedroom, letting the shirt slip from her shoulders. I breathe deeply before following.
The room is dim. A Balinese cloth draped over the bedside lamp casts soft orange puppets onto the walls. Darling is lying face down on the bed, the shirt pulled above her waist. Her legs move apart and her hand, holding the melting fingersicle, appears between them. She begins to move it slowly, between her pussy and her arse, pausing to give off little moans from the heightening sensation of the icy-cold wine. I move across the room, taking off my clothes as I get closer, getting down on my knees beside the bed. Darling moves the fingersicle from her pussy and holds it up between her legs, now spreading them a little wider. I lick the fingersicle, a mixture of her juices and a very good De Bortoli dessert wine. She puts the fingersicle against her puckered arse and moves the tip gently in and out in rhythmical strokes. I reach down and lick the melted dripping wine. I wet my stiffening dick with melted wine mixed with pussy juice. I lean over her.
‘Wait…’
She takes the icy probe out of her arse and slides it deep into her pussy, where it disappears.
‘Your dessert is ready.’
I put my face against her pussy and begin to suck, my nose pushing against her earthy damp arsehole. Darling’s body heat is causing rapid meltdown as the thawing ice reaches critical temperature. A cascade of chilled botrytis and warm liquid pussy flows onto my face and down my chin. I lick along her back and then I stretch over her, guiding my cock to her swollen pussy. And then it is drawn deep inside her, sliding easily through the hot and cold layers of her cunt. Her legs come up between mine and behind me, and the soles of her feet press against my arse, urging me deeper. I can now feel the remains of the fingersicle, cold and hard against my dick. I’m violently trembling as I explode inside her. Her juice, my cum, and melting wine.
Jaspurr, Darling’s cat, sits on the ledge outside the bedroom window with a dead mouse clenched between his teeth. Clearly, when it comes to suitors, he is feeling outdone.
***
ELECTROCUTED PRIEST SHOCKS PARISH. The tabloid articles expresses condolences and the outrage of the family and friends of the Reverend Father Michael Dolan, survived by a sister and a brother, both of Ireland. The funeral is to be held at St Mary’s Cathedral. The Irish community paper gives Dolan a two-page spread, as thick as dripping on toast.
Taste doctors absent, someone, somehow, decided that all the stops should be pulled out for maximum effect. Tweenagers in tiaras, ringlets, and Irish dance outfits heavily embroidered with Tara brooches bounce along the center aisle and up towards the altar. They climb the steps, dancing on each one as they rise with the music in a fog of frankincense billowing from the altar, before turning to face the audience. Not a seat is vacant. The fiddler plays so beautifully that the devil must have called to remind him of their pact. In a defiant line, the dancers levitate higher, never letting their arms move, their torsos tight and vertical, their heads high and straight, and their bodies a musical bulwark against communism, Protestantism, Islam, queers, the British, would-be lesbian priests, the yellow peril, and the devil in all his despised manifestations.
The music climaxes and Gina nudges me as twelve sweaty girls come to a panting halt, standing ramrod still, trying to calm their heaving breasts, nostrils flaring with every rapid breath like wild Connemara ponies. Gina is making a mental note to book these dancers when she next wants to impress the locals with a bit of Irish color. Darling, seated to my right, looks on bemusedly at this religitainment and rubs her thigh up against my leg while flicking her black, four-inch heeled shoe on and off, letting it dangle on her toes before recovering it with a soft slap against her bare sole.
Having known Dolan so very, very well, Archbishop O’Sullivan takes the lead and walks with theatrical weariness to the pulpit. Gina was right: an Archbishop to deliver the eulogy, and an outranking Cardinal present for the celebrity factor.
The pseudo-tragedy of the day will feature heavily, no doubt. Dolan’s great work will be extolled, including the homeless boys’ home, the homeless girls’ home, the homeless homeless’s home, the selfless acts of charity, the compassion, and that crazy sense of humor that could have seen him make it as a New York stand-up, if we were to believe that there was anything humorous about him.
I glance over at the line of confessionals against the wall. There, third from the end, is the spot. It is marked out with blue and white checkered police tape and dozens of bouquets. The place where the last rites were held. The place of atonement.
The Cardinal hangs back, shimmering in the fog of Sumatran rose and red sandalwood as the young altar boy with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder swings the censer. Drifting, I forget to listen because I know that with every priest, the art of public speaking is just a marketing medley of corporate bible branding, archaic values, and visionless ideologies. A viaticum of lies, all pap to sell their imaginary God and the imaginary afterlife.
I am gone. I am gone back on a cloud of incense to when I was ten years old in Ballybrack, a small town south of Dublin. I am pulling the plain white, ankle-length tunic with long sleeves over my head and over my heavy winter school clothes. I am checking the brass incense holder. I carefully spoon some more amber pellets onto the glowing charcoal. A sickly pleasant fragrance rises as the pellets begin to warm.
I slide the chains between the fingers of my left hand and hold the adjusting ring in my right until the lid clamps shut on the lower bowl. The dense gray smoke gives me a heady rush as I walk ahead of Father McQuilan into the tiny chapel, ornate and secret, the sanctum sanctorum of the nuns’ convent from where the voices of early evening benediction lift up the Tatum Ergo Sacramento.
I am lost in a sea of devotion and my pulse races as I pass each and every one of the twenty-six girls, fresh faced, pure, most not more than two years older than me, each sounding like a songbird. I know which one has looked at me, and which one I have looked at as I pass her by each Tuesday and Thursday evening. I know every feature of her beautiful face. I know her dewy eyes and the wisps of dark hair that fall down the back of her neck. I know each and every eyelash. I know she is the one who makes me dream and fidget at night, thinking about what is beneath her novice gowns. Thinking, thinking, until the actions become deeds and the deeds become sins of the flesh and I purge my urge for her, drenching my pajamas in a hot flood of great fat globs of sticky semen.
I am two steps away from her now and I keep my eyes straight ahead until that moment, that very moment when we are so close, so very close that out of the whole choir I can only hear her sing.
‘Genitóri Genitóque…’ She the begetter and I the begotten.
And then, she raises her head to look at me, her eyes filled with an incandescent light drawing me into her reverie. I cannot stop myself as I reach out my hand to touch her.
Suddenly, the heat is overwhelming, the chapel claustrophobic, tight, musty. The hymn becomes shrill and I feel I am about to fall on my face at the feet of my divine. Sweat rolls down my brow and the censer now hangs heavy like lead as the chains slide through my clammy hands. But then, it is not me who falls to the floor but she. Right there in front of me. In a half helix she coils at my feet, her black habit spreading like an ink stain across the white Italian marble. Her alabaster skin drains of color and her eyes shut, like an angel crashed from heaven. I begin to hyperventilate, not knowing what to do.
I kneel, abandoning the censer. Hot charcoal and beads of incense spill to the floor. I reach out to take her hand, to hold her, to seize my opportunity to save her, save my angel.
Her hand, tightly knotted in a ball, is cold. I touch it and it opens. In her palm, a small, crumpled blue handkerchief blossoms, like a flower woken by morning sunlight. I take the hanky. Suddenly I am wrenched upwards by a hand on the back of my neck.
Then I am sitting in a pew, surrounded by staring faces. The hymns have stopped, the benediction halted. I feel guilty. I have caused this to happen. I have made her fall down. Perhaps she is dead.
Reverend Mother Bernadette glares at me as she puts her face close to mine. A smell rises from her bulky body and mixes with a peculiar gagging pungency.
‘You must never, ever, touch the novices. Do you understand?’ Her voice rasping over the last three words. ‘Never.’
I nod as my hand closes tightly around the blue handkerchief.
But my punishment has just begun. Reverend Mother Bernadette is a dream compared with the draconian Father McQuilan.
***
July the twelfth is my birthday. And even though it has always been upstaged by extreme Loyalist factions set to celebrate the might of alternative religious tyranny I like to think that being born on that day has altered the balance somewhat. On this particular year, my birthday falls on a Sunday — the Sunday after the incident in the convent.
Father McQuilan, in his regalia of patriotic green liturgical vestments with gold trim over a crisp white alb, is incensed at the thought that the barbarians, the great unwashed hordes of Protestants, should trample on Irish soil spewing their message of hatred for Catholics and the Republic of Ireland. I am mildly aware that McQuilan sounds like someone who has been drinking. Beads of sweat drip from his purple forehead. But on this day, Orangemen are not the only targets of his rage.
‘There are some here among us who would defile the servants of God, the Brides of Christ, with their dirty thoughts and dirty deeds. The Brides of Christ must never be tampered with. They are sacred and holy and their mission to pray and help the needy and the hungry must never be interfered with by the corrupted minds of men and boys who covet Christ’s wives.
‘There is one amongst us here today who has done just that. One who has infiltrated our holiest of holy places — the sanctity of the church and the convent of our Lord Jesus’s children. One who would dare to lay his hands and prey his mind on the pure and innocent girls who have sworn their lives to obey His calling.’
I am listening but have not heard the words. My mind is on my novice, wondering if she is dead or alive.
‘Stand up, Paul Hurley, stand up.’
Now I am aware that the church has gone very quiet. My mother’s arm sweeps around my shoulders, clutching me tightly to her. I turn to look at her. Her face is at once terror, pain, and anger. I still don’t know what is going on.
‘Paul Hurley. Stand up to face the judgment of God for your transgressions.’
My head snaps around to look at McQuilan. Only now do I realize he is calling my name. I turn to look at my mother, trying to work out what is happening. As she bends down to me, she holds back tears and anger.
‘Paul, we have to go now. You must walk with me. You must not look at anyone and don’t turn around to look at him. Let’s go now.’
She quickly stands and moves out of the row into the center aisle. She waits momentarily for me to catch up. I am overwhelmed by my name being called out from the pulpit. I do not understand. She stands proud. I am her son. She is my mother. I catch her hand and she begins to walk out the door of the church, head high, eyes straight ahead. I hear his words boom from the pulpit and wrap around me as they bounce and echo off the marble walls.
‘Paul Hurley is a sinner and a defiler of nuns.’
My mother’s hand tightens around mine. She knows I am about to look back and she jerks me forward. Through her clenched teeth I hear her stern voice over the booming noise.
‘Look straight ahead.’
‘He may run from his punishment now but God will find him and God will judge him as He does all corrupters of the innocents.’
As we get closer to the door I see the clerk of the church move from the shadows toward us. He is going to stop us from leaving. He is going to force us back to the altar where eternal damnation awaits us and we will be delivered to ash in a flash of fire. The congregation will fall to their knees wailing, reminded forever that the Brides of Christ must never be defiled. The clerk moves directly in front of my mother.
‘If you don’t stand aside I will call the police and have you charged with unlawful detention,’ she growls, her voice vibrating with anger.
For me, that day was the turning point.
***
Darling nudges me, and I snap back. The congregation is standing and each is moving from their rows to file down the aisle behind the coffin as it is shuffled by.
You would think that coffin bearers would be selected based on uniformity of height, not blood or friendship. The coffin rolls left to right on the shoulders of the motley carriers, like sailors negotiating a ship’s deck on a roiling sea. A flower arrangement topside slides forward and off, spinning down the aisle. Someone half bends to pick it up, then hesitates before being pushed to the ground by the knee of the forward bearer who can’t stop the momentum. Farce. Tragic farce, befitting an evil bastard.
Outside St Mary’s, the sunlight is brilliant and warm. Mourners scurry around to the side and light up. The air is filled with the smell of lighter fuel, sulfur, and freshly lit tobacco wafting across the doors of the cathedral. Lucifer would be happy.
As the mourners spill out I am surprised to see Declan across the square in front of the church speaking to an older woman — a mourner with her blacker than black demeanor. I take Darling’s hand and signal to Gina that we are moving. She nods and turns to air kiss a friend she hasn’t seen in ages. I catch up with Declan on the sidewalk as one of those over-polished black cortege cars draws up and the slightly shabby driver steps out to open the passenger door. Declan sees me and smiles a short smile, telling me that he will soon be with me as he helps the mourner into the limousine. The old woman is shaky and leans heavily on Declan’s arm. As she turns to climb into the back seat she catches my eye and alarm crosses her face. She looks hard at me and her expression turns to shock — the shock of some sort of recognition. Then the door closes with a heavy clunk. I cannot see her anymore, just the reflection of me and towering church spires in the tinted glass. Declan turns to me and shakes my hand.
‘Good of you to come. I’m sure the family appreciates it.’
‘You know them?’
‘I’m from Macroom, the same town in County Cork.’
‘I thought you and Brian were going up north to the Barrier Reef?’
‘We were, but, you know, we had to change plans. What with her brother’s murder, the trip, and the heat, she is not taking it at all well.’
‘The priest’s sister?’
‘Bridget, yes. Poor dear. And who might this be?’
‘Oh, sorry, Darling. Darling, I’d like you to meet Declan, the Irish client.’
As I try to work out the relationships that have brought Declan here to the funeral of my victim, I watch Darling, looking suitably sexy and seductive. Death gives us living a momentary release from normality, wondering in our own mortality if we ever got enough, did enough, prayed enough, loved enough, fucked enough, avenged enough, atoned enough… a heightened self-awareness in the shadow of annihilation.
‘Pleased to meet you. Ah, here’s Thomas now.’
‘Thomas?’
‘Bridget’s brother. He was planning the trip to Sydney anyway to talk about the fundraising, but this has brought it forward a bit...’
Declan lets the sentence trail as I realize that he is talking about Thomas Dolan, the dead priest’s brother, Declan’s employer, and CEO of Atlas Shannon. The same Thomas Dolan I must have spoken with dozens of times while setting up the deal with Chester. He never mentioned his priest brother in Sydney. This is not what I expected, and this new, exciting coincidence is making me giddy already. What kind of weird four-dimensional puzzle was the Almighty putting together to have me help raise funding for a company whose CEO must now shake my hand, look me in the eye, and thank me, a priest killer, for coming to his murdered brother’s funeral?
‘Nice to finally meet you, Paul, even under such tragic circumstances. Thank you for coming.’
‘Thomas, my condolences. It’s probably not appropriate now, but I am sure we will catch up before you leave.’
‘Yes, of course. Declan can arrange that, won’t you?’
‘We’ll try for tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Did you get her into the car okay?’
‘Yes, Thomas, she’s a bit shaky but she’ll be fine.’
‘She’s still having these nightmares. On the way over she let out such a yell, I’m surprised they didn’t think the plane was being hijacked.’
Darling shivers a little against the late easterly wind blowing up Sydney Harbour. She clutches my arm tightly. Declan steps forward and opens the limousine door.
‘Thomas, you take this car with Bridget and I’ll squeeze into one of the next ones close behind.’