PART TWO

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THE MIDDLE AGES

Becoming a priest turned out to be considerably easier than I had expected.

Staying one was easier still.

This came as something of a relief because, as previously discussed, I had never been burdened by ambition. Ambition requires effort, planning and, in extreme cases, getting up before nine.

St Generic Brand suited me perfectly.

I had a house. I had food. There were people who knew how to cook the food. I had somewhere to sleep and, once a week, I had to stand in front of a group of people and say generally pleasant things about being nice to one another.

God hardly entered into it.

[Author: He’s still an atheist.]

[Sandy: I know.]

[Author: Just checking.]

The church was run by Bishop Veri Bent, universally known as the Bish, although not usually while he was within earshot unless you wanted to spend the following week helping Billy unblock the drains.

Veri was an unusual churchman.

He believed the best way to help poor people was to help poor people.

This radical theology had prevented him from rising much further in the Church.

Every Monday morning at eleven we held the St Generic Brand staff meeting under a large marquee behind the church. Eleven suited Veri because it gave him sufficient time to wake up, read the paper, drink several coffees, apply a nicotine patch, have a bath, eat breakfast and contemplate whether attending his own meeting was absolutely necessary.

Billy, on the other hand, had been awake since dawn.

There was something wrong with Billy.

At one end of the table sat Bishop Veri Bent.

At the other sat Sister Horribleness.

The rest of us sat wherever survival seemed most likely.

Sister Horribleness was a woman of formidable faith, formidable dimensions and formidable hearing. She could detect a whispered obscenity through two brick walls and a lawnmower.

I once suspected she could hear thoughts.

I stopped having them around her.

On this particular Monday I made the mistake of muttering something while she was speaking.

Her head turned slowly.

“Did you have something to say, Father O’Way?”

“No, Sister.”

“You appeared to be speaking.”

“I was praying.”

“You don’t pray.”

Bugger.

She knew me too well.

“Would you care to address the chair?”

I looked at my chair.

The chair offered nothing.

It was wooden, unsympathetic and, judging by previous meetings, probably outranked me.

“No, Sister. Thank you, Sister.”

There. I had stood my ground.

Firmly.

Silently.

While retreating.

It is a skill.

People sometimes mistake cowardice for weakness. This is unfair. Cowardice has kept me alive through situations that bravery would have made considerably worse.

Veri cleared his throat.

“All right, troops. Jobs for the week.”

This was the part of St Generic Brand I actually liked.

We didn’t spend much time saving souls. Souls, as Veri once explained, were difficult to locate and impossible to invoice.

People were easier.

Someone needed food, we found food.

Someone needed somewhere to sleep, we found somewhere to sleep.

Someone was lonely, we visited them.

Someone needed a wheelchair ramp, Billy built one, usually stronger than the building it was attached to.

Proselytising was discouraged.

“You can give a bloke a sandwich,” Veri used to say, “without making him listen to a bloody sermon first.”

For a bishop, he had his moments.

That week Billy had been asked to organise access ramps for a centre helping children with disabilities.

I was given a refugee family who needed somewhere to live.

The money came from the congregation.

No television appeal.

No giant cheque.

No photograph of Veri handing the cheque over while looking concerned.

People put money in. People needed help. The money went out.

It was almost as though religion could work if you removed most of the religion.

[Author: Careful, Sandy.]

[Sandy: What?]

[Author: You’re becoming sincere.]

[Sandy: Sorry.]

Services were held every Sunday, except for two particularly sacred occasions during the year when St Generic Brand closed completely.

One was around New Year.

The other was Good Easter Day.

I never understood why it was called Good Easter Day, but Veri insisted this was because the staff had worked hard all year and deserved a day off.

There may have been a theological explanation as well.

Nobody asked for it.

The rest of the staff were mostly women.

This was another unexpected advantage of my calling.

[Author: Sandy.]

[Sandy: I’m just establishing the cast.]

[Author: You were about to establish something.]

[Sandy: I resent the implication.]

There were eight Citizen sisters: Juanita, Jacinta, Melinda, Rosita, Edwina, Sophia, Cassandra and Belinda.

There was also Glenda, although Glenda had escaped the family business and opened an establishment next door called Glenda’s House of Pain.

I never asked exactly what happened inside.

Billy did.

Billy wouldn’t tell me.

He would only stare into the distance and whisper, “Mate.”

The Citizen sisters did most of the things that caused St Generic Brand to function while the male clergy took credit for having a successful organisation.

I say this with some authority because I was one of the male clergy.

Then there was Belinda.

Belinda Citizen.

I had seen her around the place but had not yet actually spoken to her.

This arrangement suited me.

From a distance I was intelligent, articulate and occasionally charming.

At close range, particularly in the presence of an attractive woman, I had the conversational ability of damp carpet.

Belinda was beautiful.

There. I’ve said it.

[Author: You said it twelve times in the original.]

[Sandy: I was younger.]

[Author: You wrote it years later.]

[Sandy: Get out of my brackets.]

She wasn’t beautiful in the way magazines insist women are beautiful. She wasn’t standing under perfect lighting while someone held a reflector under her chin.

She was just… Belinda.

Dark, intelligent eyes. A smile that seemed to arrive a fraction before she did. The sort of face that made you want to think of something clever to say approximately ten seconds after the opportunity had passed.

I watched her walking across the courtyard.

Not staring.

Observing.

Pastorally.

She came towards me.

This was unexpected.

I considered escape.

Too late.

“Hi, Sandy.”

She knew my name.

This was serious.

“Hello.”

Excellent start.

“My name’s Belinda.”

“I know.”

Too enthusiastic.

“I mean, I’ve heard. Your name. Not heard your name speaking. People have said it. Your sisters. Not all at once.”

She smiled.

I considered taking a vow of silence.

“I believe you’ve met most of the family.”

“Yes.”

“Except Glenda?”

I glanced towards the building next door.

A sign in the window read:

GLENDA’S HOUSE OF PAIN
BY APPOINTMENT
WALK-INS MAY REGRET IT

“I haven’t had the pleasure.”

Belinda laughed.

“You might not call it pleasure.”

I liked her immediately.

This was inconvenient.

“Well,” she said, “I’d better get back to work. Nice meeting you, Sandy.”

“Meet to glad you.”

There was a pause.

A very small pause.

But long enough for several civilisations to rise and collapse inside my head.

Then Belinda laughed.

Not at me.

Well, probably at me.

But kindly.

I laughed too.

And just like that, something extraordinary happened.

Nothing.

No choir sang.

No sunlight burst through the clouds.

God did not speak, which was fortunate because I still didn’t believe in Him and the paperwork would have been horrendous.

Belinda simply walked away.

I watched her go.

For pastoral reasons.

[Author: Get on with it.]

[Sandy: I was getting on with it.]

[Author: Very slowly.]

[Sandy: These things take time.]

I didn’t know where it was going.

Not then.

All I knew was that I had somehow become Father Sandy O’Way of St Generic Brand: atheist priest, reluctant social worker, professional coward and, apparently, a man capable of saying “Meet to glad you” to the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

The priesthood had given me a home, three meals a day and very reasonable working hours.

It was now about to complicate my life considerably.

I should have known there was a catch.