Four Stops

The Church

He entered the church in the late afternoon. The sun was not yet low in the sky, but it had tired of its long day shining down and the ferocity of its heat and light was beginning to wane. Longer shadows followed the man up the four stone steps that led to the large wooden door. He swung it open with a violence he did not intend and was embarrassed. Escaping the outside world, he went into the nave of the church, blessed himself with holy water, genuflected to the tabernacle and sat down in his usual pew.

He did not make it a habit to come to the church daily, but liked to pop in at odd times on his route homewards. A creature of habit, he made sure that this particular aspect of his life did not become too habitual and lose all its meaning. He was proud of this conscious effort. He did not like to be counted with the hypocrites who had made their religion a daily task instead of what it ought to be. In his youth he had taken this logic to the extreme, attending Mass on weekdays but never on a Sunday. But when Father Toohey, the parish priest, had pointed out the wrongheadedness of this idea, he immediately ceased the practice. 

In the darkening church, he raised his eyes first to the tabernacle, then to the little light above, flickering in its red glass holder. Finally, resting his gaze on the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he listed his litany of prayers. He prayed for the Pope, for the bishops and priests, for more vocations to the seminary. He prayed for his wife and quickly moved on. He prayed for his family, for those outside the Church, for those who were sick, infirm, lonely, depressed or stuck in sin. Finally, he offered three Hail Marys for the souls in purgatory.

He reflected. How strange to be a Catholic. To pray for souls, wherever they may be, in absolute sincerity. To have secret knowledge, like knowing that the souls would repay him when they were released. Like knowing that some souls are far from release and need prayers, others are near to their release and need prayers, and other souls have no one to pray for them at all and need prayers. He knew it, and believed it with all his mind and heart, and he treasured the knowledge.

He rose from the pew and began to leave. He could never do so without a twinge of guilt, as if the voice of God was calling him: “Can you not stay with me for just one hour …?” And he felt guilty knowing where he was going next, and who he was to see. But he was able to reason his way out.

 “No, my duties prevent me from spending an hour just now, and I’m going for her good, not for mine. She has a hold on me, and that is not my fault, can’t You see?”

The Bus

His pace quickened towards the bus stop, as is often the case when one must be somewhere on a schedule. But remembering his destinations, he slowed down and wondered if missing the thing could be the excuse he needed. Why must he go to that place when he knew full well what was in store. But the bondage of his relationship with the woman was such that despite all his dread, despite his fantasy of escape, despite the guilt and the prayers and the whole paraphernalia of his religion conspiring against his reluctant call, he stayed on the bus as it drove steadily through the streets. 

The bus had been dirtier than usual, and he was glad to leave it. It had been a pleasant thing when he was younger to catch the bus. He could read articles, a good book, people-watch, or drift into thoughts unencumbered for however long a trip might last. But all of these pastimes had been taken from him in adulthood. Reading caused him headaches, and was not the escape he had found it, nor the delving into reality it had once been. Living other lives in yellowed pages had diverted and improved him, but it was not the same as living those lives in his own. People-watching, too, was sullied. Now he only saw others equally as unhappy as he, or infinitely happier, and neither sort of person improved his spirits. More than this, he could not see a couple without wishing to scream at them—Do you know what you are doing? Come on, you’ve got to think of each other and make sure you know what you are doing!

The House

So now he walked to her house. She pulled him there with her hatred, especially of his wife, but of him as well. How could someone who loves you, hate you, he wondered. And what is the purpose of going to feed that love, when it was so clearly wrong. But he had always had this love alongside the love in his marriage, and it had never gone from him. And so, he trudged to the little place of his unhappiness, a prisoner of disordered affection, duty bound to see her and love her, though she was not his wife.

She kissed him at the doorway and he went inside quickly. The light outside was dim now and only artificial light from other houses, passing cars and a distant streetlight made the scene visible at all. Her hallway, narrow and dingy, was unlit. She had been crying, he saw, when they entered the small lounge room. Bitter, angry tears, he thought, and was proved right when she accused him: “You never see me. You go to her always and never stay here. And now what do you call this? Coming when it pleases you, like I’m a terrible secret that only gives you joy when you allow me. How am I to live my life like this waiting for you?”

“Oh, come on now. It’s not like that,” he began gently. “You know I come more often than you think and would come more if I could.”

“But you must go to her,” she huffed, “even after seeing me.”

“Let’s not talk of that just now.”

“It’s your bloody religion. You never had it when you were just with me, and now it rules your life and I hardly see you. I tell you to leave her and you say you can’t. Well, I say you won’t, and that’s the difference, all the bloody difference if you ask me.”

It went on, with more swearing, accusations, bitterness and regret. What love had been there had dissolved long ago, and now it was just a connection, out of duty on his part—old loves and habits—and because it was all she had. When the time approached eight, he said he must leave.

He trudged to the bus stop feeling heavy. She always put upon him and it always hurt, but this evening had been a particularly acrimonious one and the man was beaten. If she could understand, that would be something. But she could never understand.

The Home

“What the hell sort of time is this?”

It always shocked him to hear this sort of thing, and he always took a moment to register the shock and berate himself for being unprepared. No kiss here; he put his things down and said hello. 

“Sorry I’m late, you know, just popped into the church and then the bus …”

“Right. That bloody church sees more of you than this place does. And don’t give me that bus bullshit. I know where you’ve been. I can smell it and you’re a bloody liar.”

She was not well. He loved her, but she was ill and had taken so only months into their marriage. He had railed against it, argued with her, wished her dead, and had ended up taking consolation in the visits he made to both the church and his previous stop of the evening. In church there was some consolation, intellectual, emotional, spiritual.

He could reason his way to consolation even if he could not feel it, just as Father Toohey had reasoned him to a true observation of God’s law although he felt otherwise. The simple understanding that love comes from the will, not the emotion, was a daily comfort to him and he was reminded of a sermon he’d heard preached many times by the faithful Toohey. “If our Lord had commanded love to be felt when He said to love one’s neighbour, He would have denied us the freedom He so loves us to have. No, no, no—Jesus told us to love our neighbour because that love is a choice, and has nothing to do whatsoever with how you might feel about it.” How easy to logically apply this to a marriage. And the man did it, daily, and it hurt him and it made him heavy and sick and drove him to other houses and the house of God. But he did it and he did it dutifully.

“Oh yes,” his wife continued, coming at him with bitterness and regret, “I know where you’ve been and I hate her. You’d bloody hate her too if you didn’t love her so much. You little, little man. Why you go to your mother’s house before you come home is a mystery to me. I’ll never understand.”

And she never would. The evening wore on, a theme without variation that made him think only of duty and a hoped reward.

C.J. Murray is a teacher who lives in Brisbane. This is his first story for Quadrant