CHAPTER 38
Work ticked along almost as normal after the holidays, Alice fretting a little as she was forced to dress down each day.
On her days away from work she was always herself, even out in the streets of Dover, and I can only assume that it was a mixture of confidence and the presentational help given from Marlowe’s that allowed her to pass without comment. The only place she encountered any potential trouble was outside the school, but once again the presence of Jim seemed to break that one down. Other parents saw the delight with which he greeted her, and for his sake pulled their horns in. After a while, she was just the person who collected the fair-haired boy in their child’s school. Familiarity breeding invisibility rather than contempt.
Enid had gone home for a fortnight, but when my time came she would be back to, as she put it, see that Tony ate better, drank less and kept Jim tidy. I realised I needed to make one thing clearer, and picked up the phone.
“Hi Mam, sut wyt?”
“Not too bad, love. How is your little boy?”
“Missing you and Dad! The other day he asked to learn Welsh so he could talk to you both properly.”
Mam laughed, happily. “You are a very lucky woman, Sarah, to find such people, especially with your…situation. Now, who do you have to look after you when you come out of hospital? And who will be there to make sure that Jim has proper meals?”
“Well, Mam, Tony’s mother will be staying with us for a while, and then, of course, there is Alice”
“That makes good sense. They are both sensible ladies, and don’t let Tony misbehave”
My mother had just casually referred to a man in a dress with plastic tits as a ‘sensible lady’. Yet again, the depth of my love for my mother swamped me. How could she adapt so easily? I realised, of course, that she hadn’t done anything easily, that Elaine and I had slapped them in the face with our differences, but it changed nothing. I was proud of her.
“Mam, I was wondering if you or Dad wanted to come over. It would ease the workload on the other two, and Jim would love to see you.”
Mam started to laugh. “Your Dad and I already have our rail tickets. They are a lot cheaper when you buy them in advance. We bought them as soon as we knew the date of your operation”
“You knew I was going to ask you, then?”
“Do I know my own daughter? For a few years, I didn’t, and we both made big mistakes. Now, I know her, and I love her just as much.”
I teased her. “Not ‘more’, then?”
“No, my darling, because that would be impossible”
At work, Anne was still making her lunch break disappearances. Andy came to me one day.
“Where the hell is she going?”
“I have no idea at all, Andy. She still doesn’t seem to be eating while she’s out”
“Sar, why don’t you follow her? You can be reasonably inconspicuous on the bike, surely? You park in the same place.”
He thought for a while. “Look ,if we speak to Alice ,and I miss a break to cover for you, that lets you get there and out of sight before she gets out of the door. We have to find out what the fuck she’s up to.”
So we did. One day, in my full face helmet, I was waiting as she set off in her car, and I tucked in behind her as we set off up the Whitstable road as far as the Holy Sepulchre, where she parked. I rode past, and left the bike on a side street. When I walked back, the car was empty. The church was unlocked, so I stepped just inside.
Anne was kneeling, no cushion, on the stone slabs in front of the altar. As I watched, she lay down on the hard floor, crucifix style, but face down. I watched for ten minutes more, and she didn’t move, just lay there on the cold stone. I left as silently as I could and rode back to work. I really needed to speak to Pat.
Andy was waiting. “Well?”
“Church. Just church, some odd penance thing, what do you call it, mortification of the flesh”
“That explains a lot. She’ll be Opus Dei or some such thing”
“Opus Dei, Andy?”
“Bunch of loons, they’re the sort that whip themselves. BDSM for Christ sort of thing. I think there was a cabinet minister we had was one of them”
“Oh god yes, Ruth Kelly, the one who thought it was OK for paedos to work in schools!”
Andy frowned. “Yeah, that’s the one. No wonder Anne is so screwed up over people like Alice”
Two days later Pat came round, and with him, to no great surprise on my part, Janet. I ran through what I had seen. He frowned.
“You do know what Opus Dei are about, then? The sanctity of work?”
“All I know is that they like to whip themselves”
“Well, in simple terms they teach that ordinary people are able to become holy through their daily lives, their jobs and work. But they don’t seem to see ordinary life as something to be embraced, in my view. That is one of my objections to them”
Janet sniffed. “They use that old cliché about being in the world, but not of it, to justify condemning anything that doesn’t sit in a narrow little band of acceptability. People like us are to be ‘cured’ or, at the very least, to be kept away from decent folk. If Ruth Kelly had any say any more, and if she knew, I would be sacked tomorrow. At the same time, she let somebody who tried to rape a child keep teaching, probably because he was a man, saying that he was ‘teaching to good effect’ “
Pat frowned. “It isn’t as simple as that, Janet. They try and walk a balance between using their daily life as a means of worship while not letting the world distract them from their duty to God.”
“Right, Pat, so why do you detest them so much?”
“Ah, shite, Janet, you never let me talk crap for long, do you?”
I sat back and watched the two of them as they verbally slapped each other, and I realised I was watching something like a married couple. Both of them held strong views, and expressed them forcefully, but there was no rancour. In fact, as I paid more attention, I realised that they actually held the same views, but only one of them felt free to let rip.
It was like Pat’s comments about doctrine. There were things he said, such as his remark about divorce, that showed a deep conviction. There were others, where he commented about official policy, where it was clear that he was simply trotting out what he was required to say. One of his better moments came when he put a finger to Janet’s lips to slow her down.
“Look, let me see if I can sum it up. They would hate me saying so, but there is almost an Albigensian whiff about Opus Dei, in their division of the world into real and imaginary, or worldly and spiritual. The old perfecti would end their lives by stopping eating, so that they were no longer polluted by the unholiness of worldly things”
I was lost at this point. “Pat, can you please put this into terms the rest of us can follow?”
“Oh, bugger it, I’ve just got too used to talking to this one here. Right….starting at the beginning, and you can’t go any further back, God made the world. There are two ways you can look at that. Either this life is something to be got through so you can get straight up to union with God in your second and eternal life, or it is a gift from Him to be enjoyed and made the best of. That means taking delight in God’s creation, loving and being loved, magnifying your soul so that you can better magnify the Lord, as the psalm says.
“Now, it will not surprise you when I say that I follow the second path, but there is a third. That is where you see the world not as a gift from Him, but as an obstacle course keeping you from Salvation. The more you suffer, the holier you can become, which is bollocks, of course. That is also how Opus Dei and similar people view life. They see ‘sin’ as harming God, which is impossible. Sin harms other people, or the sinner, because nobody can harm God, that should be a fucking no-brainer. Got any more tea?”
I was slowly getting to grips with that. While I have no religion at all beyond what my Chapel upbringing had left in me, I realised that it was how Anne was thinking that mattered, which meant we had to get to grips with at least part of her theology. Pat continued.
“See, that’s where Kelly was coming from with that nonce. He was redeeming himself through honest work, so that was good, so his assault on that young girl, and the three other ones, could be written off. Sanctity through work and daily life.”
I snapped a bit at that. “What about the girls, then?”
“Ach, spawn of the Devil, daughters of Eve, what can you expect from them? They were probably wearing short skirts or something”
“They were children!”
“He’s cunning, is the Adversary..”
I spotted the twinkle just in time. Pat continued.
“We have a handle on her, then. If she is OD, then she’s celibate and into a bit of masochism. That’s her way of showing her faith….oh.”
“What?”
“What if she isn’t celibate?”
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Comments
Indeed...
...Anne's new (over)use of makeup and perfume would seem to have little to do with her spiritual side, unless her romantic interest happens to work at the church.
Still, I don't see any reason to assume she's having sex with anyone; as Sarah or somebody noted before, it's quite possible she'd feel the need to do penance for much less -- maybe even nothing at all, physically.
Eric
stop it
hacking my plot notes....:-)
RK
Janet was not the only "hewer at the chalk-face" who had particular dislike for that Secretary of State. I know more than a few at the chalk-face, and I have never heard a good word for RK* - and that point of view includes some from the staff and/or governors of three RC secondaries. One of that RC group of disaffected people was herself TS.
What the Wikipedia article does not put into context is her PM's own conversion somewhat later. Given the latter's mendacity, I have wondered ever since if TB was staying 'beneath the parapet' at that time, in the light of the flak RK was receiving.
* Other Secretaries of State are similarly held in very low esteem, of course, for particular reasons. Baker & Blunkett come immediately to mind.
Hypocrites
We could always add the other 'PM', whose dirty little hands were all over so much for so long. Remember the Govt banning the BBC from reporting that he is gay? Not because of fears of homophobia, bur because it would show him up as a hypocrite. My apologies to those with little knowledge of UK politics, but the characters involved were stunning in their duplicity, which is why I attached the link.
I should also add that the references to OD should hopefully take people's minds away from that awful book and dreadful film.
Aren't we all?
Hypocrites, I mean. Even a tiny bit. I always curse aggressive motorists but I have to admit to a little 'assertive' cycling from time to time which I claim is actually safer. So it is with other people for different reasons.
I think every Education Secretary has been disliked by many professionals. A teaching (and cycling) friend loathed my exact contemporary and fellow townsman Ken Clarke but I've always had a sneaking regard for him even if he is a Tory. I'm always suspicious of sanctimonious, religious politicians and Kelly was just one of the bunch who seem to be more concerned about the (alleged) next rather than the present world.
I read a short extract of 'that book' in a newspaper and the appalling English quickly put me off bothering to read it. Strangely, John Humphrys was tasked with reading it for a TV program (I've Never Seen Star Wars) by Marcus Brigstock and, whilst admitting it was very badly written, said it was an enjoyable read.
Anne's self-torture is an interesting story-line. She obviously is suffering from sort of temptation, most likely of a sexual nature. Sexuality/gender issues of all kinds seem to obsess the church. I'm guessing it's to do with a relationship which involves a celibate.
Robi
Not the only one
(I will leave out the matter of "the other PM" or this response will get unpubbed for being too scatological).
Ken is one of the "least-disliked" of that ilk - which is pretty good going actually, since Secretaries of State and Teachers are pretty much oil and water.
I remember a Head Teacher saying once "What does Westminster* know? They don't even have any idea in [location of County Hall]." That location was around 15 miles away physically; and the other side of the moon, philosophically. I was in Westminster (the place) last week - it's only about 80 minutes from here, that close. But in philosophical terms it is in another Galaxy. Vide the expenses fiasco; many MPs still cannot see what they did as being "wrong".
*Westminster is where Parliament is. The education department (the civil service) is actually located in Mayfair; and like much of Mayfair (too much new money) there ain't much service and at best it is barely civil. Note the use of lower case for the term 'education department'; I cannot be bothered to look up what it is called this week.
Bitter? Me? Yes please, as long as it's Adnams or Greene King.
My Knowledge Of UK Politicians
Is superficial and you have just educated me in some of the more....dubious.... positions of senior members of a government that I felt was less than wedded to the separation of the powers prescribed by the Westminster system.
It seems that this is a problem of several major western governments in these times. I won't go into details but Australia has a few high-ranking politicians who scare the crap out of me with their religious stances, and the less said about some in the USA the better.
W.r.t. this story let's hope that sense prevails in Alice's case. Otherwise, the "Da Vinci Code" will almost make sense (of a nasty kind),
Joanne
Tune in
For tomorrow's exciting episode, in which an albino self-whipping monk turns out to be the illegitimate transdaughter of Judy Garland!
LOL
I dare you.
Wasn't there a Song…
…by Cliff Somebody-or-Other that went, “Celebations and Flagelations†or summat? :)
Gabi.
Gabi.
Time of the morning
I will not ask if you have been refreshing yourself, love!
“What if she isn’t celibate?â€
It's an interesting question. It may be that she is only thinking about doing something like that, and feels guilty for just the feeling. Or she could be doing it and that's the reason. Or as some else said, it could be something else entirely. For all we know she might be doing penance for her bigotry and narrow-mindedness.
dorothycolleen
Cold Feet 38
interesting plot twist.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
I just love Pat
I know this is coming late to the party, but I just discovered this series. Long ago and far away I had a friend named Henry, who was a Catholic priest. If he had been allowed to live (died in a traffic accident) he would have become Pat. Thanks for reminding me of my old friend!
Pat
He is one of my favourite characters!