All the
trouble began when my grandfather died and my grand-mother - my father's mother
- came to live with us. Relations in the one house are a strain at the best of
times, but, to make matters worse, my grandmother was a real old countrywoman
and quite unsuited to the life in town. She had a fat, wrinkled old face, and,
to Mother's great indignation, went round the house in bare feet-the boots had
her crippled, she said. For dinner she had a jug of porter and a pot of
potatoes with-some-times-a bit of salt fish, and she poured out the potatoes on
the table and ate them slowly, with great relish, using her fingers by way of a
fork.
Now, girls are
supposed to be fastidious, but I was the one who suffered most from this. Nora,
my sister, just sucked up to the old woman for the penny she got every Friday
out of the old-age pension, a thing I could not do. I was too honest, that was
my trouble; and when I was playing with Bill Connell, the sergeant-major's son,
and saw my grandmother steering up the path with the jug of porter sticking out
from beneath her shawl, I was mortified. I made excuses not to let him come
into the house, because I could never be sure what she would be up to when we
went in.
When Mother
was at work and my grandmother made the dinner I wouldn't touch it. Nora once
tried to make me, but I hid under the table from her and took the bread-knife
with me for protection. Nora let on to be very indignant (she wasn't, of
course, but she knew Mother saw through her, so she sided with Gran) and came
after me. I lashed out at her with the bread-knife, and after that she left me
alone. I stayed there till Mother came in from work and made my dinner, but
when Father came in later, Nora said in a shocked voice: "Oh, Dadda, do
you know what Jackie did at dinnertime?" Then, of course, it all came out;
Father gave me a flaking; Mother interfered, and for days after that he didn't
speak to me and Mother barely spoke to Nora.
And all
because of that old woman ! God knows, I was heart-scalded. Then, to crown my
misfortunes, I had to make my first confession and communion. It was an old
woman called Ryan who prepared us for these. She was about the one age with
Gran; she was well-to-do, lived in a big house on Montenotte, wore a black
cloak and bonnet, and came every day to school at three o'clock when we should
have been going home, and talked to us of hell. She may have mentioned the
other place as well, but that could only have been by accident, for hell had
the first place in her heart.
She lit a
candle, took out a new half-crown, and offered it to the first boy who would hold
one finger, only one finger! - in the flame for five minutes by the school
clock. Being always very ambitious I was tempted to volunteer, but I thought it
might look greedy. Then she asked were we afraid of holding one finger-only one
finger! - in a little candle flame for five minutes and not afraid of burning
all over in roasting hot furnaces for all eternity. "All eternity! Just
think of that! A whole lifetime goes by and it's nothing, not even a drop in
the ocean of your sufferings." The woman was really interesting about
hell, but my attention was all fixed on the half-crown. At the end of the
lesson she put it back in her purse. It was a great disappointment; a religious
woman like that, you wouldn't think she'd bother about a thing like a half-crown.
Another day
she said she knew a priest who woke one night to find a felllow he didn't
recognise leaning over the end of his bed. The priest was a bit frightened,
naturally enough but he asked the fellow what he wanted, and the fellow said in
a deep, husky voice that he wanted to go to confession. The priest said it was
an awkward time and wouldn't it do in the morning, but the fellow said that
last time he went to confession, there was one sin he kept back, being ashamed
to mention it, and now it was always on his mind. Then the priest knew it was a
bad case, because the fellow was after making a bad confession and committing a
mortal sin. He got up to dress, and just then the cock crew in the yard
outside, and lo and behold! - when the priest looked round there was no sign of
the fellow, only a smell of burning timber, and when the priest looked at his
bed didn't he see the print of two hands burned in it? That was because the
fellow had made a bad confession. This story made a shocking impression on me.
But the worst
of all was when she showed us how to examine our conscience. Did we take the
name of the Lord, our God, in vain? Did we honour our father and our mother? (I
asked her did this include grandmothers and she said it did.) Did we love our
neighbours as ourselves? Did we covet our neighbour 5 goods? (I thought of the
way I felt about the penny that Nora got every Friday.) I decided that, between
one thing and another, I must have broken the whole ten commandments, all on
account of that old woman, and so far as I could see, so long as she remained
in the house, I had no hope of ever doing anything else.
I was scared
to death of confession. The day the whole class went, I let on to have a
toothache, hoping my absence wouldn't be noticed, but at three o'clock, just as
I was feeling safe, along comes a chap with a message from Mrs. Ryan that I was
to go to confession myself on Saturday and be at the chapel for communion with
the rest. To make it worse, Mother couldn't come with me and sent Nora instead.
Now, that girl
had ways of tormenting me that Mother never knew of. She held my hand as we
went down the hill, smiling sadly and saying how sorry she was for me, as if
she were bringing me to the hospital for an operation.
"Oh, God
help us!" she moaned. "Isn't it a terrible pity you weren't a good
boy? Oh, Jackie, my heart bleeds for you! How will you ever think of all your
sins? Don't forget you have to tell him about the time you kicked Gran on the
shin."
Lemme go!
" I said, trying to drag myself free of her. " I don't want to go to
confession at all."
But sure,
you'll have to go to confession, Jackie! she replied in the same regretful
tone. "Sure, if you didn't, the parish priest would be up to the house,
looking for you. 'Tisn't, God knows, that I'm not sorry for you. Do you
remember the time you tried to kill me with the bread-knife under the table?
And the language you used to me? I don't know what he'll do with you at all,
Jackie. He might have to send you up to the bishop."
I remember
thinking bitterly that she didn't know the half of what I had to tell-if I told
it. I knew I couldn't tell it, and understood perfectly why the fellow in Mrs.
Ryan's story made a bad confession; it seemed to me a great shame that people
wouldn't stop criticising him. I remember that steep hill down to the church,
and the sunlit hillsides beyond the valley of the river, which I saw in the
gaps between the houses like Adam's last glimpse of Paradise.
Then, when she
had manoeuvred me down the long flight of steps to the chapel yard, Nora
suddenly changed her tone. She became the raging malicious devil she really
was.
"There
you are ! "she said with a yelp of triumph, hurling me through the church
door. "And I hope he'll give you the penitential psalms, you dirty little
caffler."
I knew then I
was lost, given up to eternal justice. The door with the coloured-glass panels
swung shut behind me, the sunlight went out and gave place to deep shadow, and
the wind whistled outside so that the silence within seemed to crackle like ice
under my feet. Nora sat in front of me by the confession box. There were a
couple of old women ahead of her, and then a miserable-looking poor devil came
and wedged me in at the other side, so that I couldn't escape even if I had the
courage. He joined his hands and rolled his eyes in the direction of the roof,
muttering aspirations in an anguished tone, and I wondered had he a grandmother
too. Only a grandmother could account for a fellow behaving in that heartbroken
way, but he was better off than I, for he at least could go and confess his
sins; while I would make a bad confession and then die in the night and be
continually coming back and burning people's furniture.
Nora's turn
came, and I heard the sound of something slamming, and then her voice as if butter
wouldn't melt in her mouth, and then another slam, and out she came. God, the
hypocrisy of women! Her eyes were lowered, her head was bowed, and her hands
were joined very low down on her stomach, and she walked up the aisle to the
side altar looking like a saint. You never saw such an exhibition of devotion;
and I remembered the devilish malice with which she had tormented me all the
way from our door, and wondered were all religious people like that, really. It
was my turn now. With the fear of damnation in my soul I went in, and the
confessional door closed of itself behind me. It was pitch-dark and I couldn't
see priest or anything else. Then I really began to be frightened. In the
darkness it was a matter between God and me, and He had all the odds. He knew
what my intentions were before I even started; I had no chance. All I had ever
been told about confession got mixed up in my mind, and I knelt to one wall and
said: "Bless me, father, for I have sinned; this is my first
confession." I waited for a few minutes, but nothing happened, so I tried
it on the other wall. Nothing happened there either. He had me spotted all
right.
It must have
been then that I noticed the shelf at about one height with my head. It was
really a place for grown-up people to rest their elbows, but in my distracted
state I thought it was probably the place you were supposed to kneel. Of
course, it was on the high side and not very deep, but I was always good at
climbing and managed to get up all right. Staying up was the trouble. There was
room only for my knees, and nothing you could get a grip on but a sort of
wooden moulding a bit above it. I held on to the moulding and repeated the
words a little louder, and this time something happened all right. A slide was
slammed back; a little light entered the box, and a man's voice said
"Who's there?"
"Tis me,
father," I said for fear he mightn't see me and go away again. I couldn't
see him at all. The place the voice came from was under the moulding, about
level with my knees, so I took a good grip of the moulding and swung myself
down till I saw the astonished face of a young priest looking up at me. He had
to put his head on one side to see me, and I had to put mine on one side to see
him, so we were more or less talking to one another upside-down. It struck me
as a queer way of hearing confessions, but I didn't feel it my place to
criticise.
"Bless
me, father, for I have sinned ; this is my first confession" I rattled off
all in one breath, and swung myself down the least shade more to make it easier
for him.
"What are
you doing up there?" he shouted in an angry voice, and the strain the
politeness was putting on my hold of the moulding, and the shock of being
addressed in such an uncivil tone, were too much for me. I lost my grip,
tumbled, and hit the door an unmerciful wallop before I found myself flat on my
back in the middle of the aisle. The people who had been waiting stood up with
their mouths open. The priest opened the door of the middle box and came out,
pushing his biretta back from his forehead; he looked something terrible. Then
Nora came scampering down the aisle.
"Oh, you
dirty little caffler! "she said. "I might have known you'd do it. I
might have known you'd disgrace me. I can't leave you out of my sight for one
minute."
Before I could
even get to my feet to defend myself she bent down and gave me a clip across
the ear. This reminded me that I was so stunned I had even forgotten to cry, so
that people might think I wasn't hurt at all, when in fact I was probably maimed
for life. I gave a roar out of me.
"What's
all this about? "the priest hissed, getting angrier than ever and pushing
Nora off me. "How dare you hit the child like that, you little
vixen?"
"But I
can't do my penance with him, father," Nora cried, cocking an outraged eye
up at him.
"Well, go
and do it, or I'll give you some more to do," he said, giving me a hand
up. "Was it coming to confession you were, my poor man?" he asked me.
"'Twas,
father," said I with a sob.
"Oh,"
he said respectfully, "a big hefty fellow like you must have terrible
sins. Is this your first?"
'Tis,
father," said I.
"Worse
and worse," he said gloomily. "The crimes of a lifetime. I don't know
will I get rid of you at all today. You'd better wait now till I'm finished
with these old ones. You can see by the looks of them they haven't much to
tell."
"I will,
father," I said with something approaching joy.
The relief of
it was really enormous. Nora stuck out her tongue at me from behind his back,
but I couldn't even be bothered retorting. I knew from the very moment that man
opened his mouth that he was intelligent above the ordinary. When I had time to
think, I saw how right I was. It only stood to reason that a fellow confessing
after seven years would have more to tell than people that went every week. The
crimes of a lifetime, exactly as he said. It was only what he expected, and the
rest was the cackle of old women and girls with their talk of hell, the bishop,
and the penitential psalms. That was all they knew. I started to make my
examination of conscience, and barring the one bad business of my grandmother,
it didn't seem so bad.
The next time,
the priest steered me into the confession box himself and left the shutter back,
the way I could see him get in and sit down at the further side of the grille
from me.
"Well,
now," he said, "what do they call you?"
"Jackie,
father," said I.
"And
what's a-trouble to you, Jackie?"
Father,"
I said, feeling I might as well get it over while I had him in good humour,
"I had it all arranged to kill my grandmother."
He seemed a
bit shaken by that, all right, because he said nothing for quite a while.
"My
goodness," he said at last, "that'd be a shocking thing to do. What
put that into your head?"
Father,"
I said, feeling very sorry for myself, " she's an awful woman.
Is she? "
he asked. " What way is she awful?
She takes
porter, father," I said, knowing well from the way Mother talked of it
that this was a mortal sin, and hoping it would make the priest take a more
favourable view of my case.
"Oh, my !
" he said, and I could see he was impressed.
"And
snuff, father," said I.
"That's a
bad case, sure enough, Jackie," he said.
"And she
goes round in her bare feet, father," I went on in a rush of self-pity,
"and she knows I don't like her, and she gives pennies to Nora and none to
me, and my da sides with her and flakes me, and one night I was so
heart-scalded I made up my mind I'd have to kill her."
"And what
would you do with the body? "he asked with great interest.
"I was
thinking I could chop that up and carry it away in a barrow I have," I
said.
"Begor,
Jackie," he said, "do you know you're a terrible child?
"I know,
father," I said, for I was just thinking the same thing myself. "I
tried to kill Nora too with a bread-knife under the table, only I missed
her."
Is that the
little girl that was beating you just now?" he asked.
Tis,
father."
"Someone
will go for her with a bread-knife one day, and he won't miss her," he
said rather cryptically. "You must have great courage. Between ourselves,
there's a lot of people I'd like to do the same to, but I'd never have the
nerve. Hanging is an awful death."
Is it, father?
"I asked with the deepest interest-I was always very keen on hanging.
"Did you ever see a fellow hanged?"
"Dozens
of them," he said solemnly. "And they all died roaring."
"Jay !
" I said.
Oh, a horrible
death ! " he said with great satisfaction.
"Lots of
the fellows I saw killed their grandmothers too, but they all said 'twas never
worth it."
He had me
there for a full ten minutes talking, and then walked out the chapel yard with
me. I was genuinely sorry to part with him, because he was the most
entertaining character I'd ever met in the religious line. Outside, after the
shadow of the church, the sunlight was like the roaring of waves on a beach; it
dazzled me; and when the frozen silence melted and I heard the screech of trams
on the road, my heart soared. I knew now I wouldn't die in the night and come
back, leaving marks on my mother's furniture. It would be a great worry to her,
and the poor soul had enough.
Nora was
sitting on the railing, waiting for me, and she put on a very sour puss when
she saw the priest with me. She was mad jealous because a priest had never come
out of the church with her.
"Well,"
she asked coldly, after he left me, "what did he give you?"
"Three
Hail Marys," I said.
"Three
Hail Marys," she repeated incredulously. "You mustn't have told him
anything."
"I told
him everything," I said confidently.
"About
Gran and all?"
"About
Gran and all."
(All she
wanted was to be able to go home and say I'd made a bad confession.)
"Did you
tell him you went for me with the bread-knife?" she asked with a frown.
"I did to
be sure."
"And he
only gave you three Hail Marys?"
"That's
all."
She slowly got
down from the railing with a baffled air. Clearly, this was beyond her. As we
mounted the steps back to the main road, she looked at me suspiciously.
"What are
you sucking?" she asked. Bullseyes."
"Was it
the priest gave them to you? 'Twas."
"Lord
God," she wailed bitterly, "some people have all the luck! 'Tis no
advantage to anybody trying to be good. I might just as well be a sinner like
you."
