brought together at the last minute, leaving all involved assuming the other party understood what was going on.
The young priestâs style was more difficult to pigeonhole because he wore normal clothes and talked about sport and gardening. He appeared to be like everyone else, but he wasnât, because he was a priest. He accepted our hospitality on a take it or leave it basis, assuming he may be asked to leave or decide to go himself at any moment. Happy to eat or not eat, talk or sit in silence. But to give him his due after a difficult meal of stew and rice â difficult because the stew was full of cornflour lumps and the rice solid, and difficult because it was full of strangling silence â it was he not my mother that released us.
âLet them go off, Dawn, and get on with their homework.â
We breathed as one, as silent a sigh of relief as we could, tiny, like a mouseâs breath and my mother and the priest retired to the verandah where they sat opposite each other, Gerard wrapped around my motherâs feet, like a sleeping cat. They were drinking beer and talking easily it appeared from where I was half hiding in the living room by the television.
âItâs not like thereâs any question in her mind that heâs there,â I heard my mother say.
âIâm sure there isnât. The image is fascinating and not without symbolic significance. Itâs a form of thought transference.â
âHuh?â My mother grunted.
The priest was over-educated, but dim with lack of life experience and my mother was clever but barely schooled.
âItâs one way of explaining these types of experiences,â he added.
âI wouldnât tell her that,â my mother snapped. She was put out by the priestâs explanation of who or what we talked to when we communicated with Dad. Not that sheâd fessed up to the priest that she also partook of nightly rants in the tree with her dead husband.
âYou transfer your thoughts, give them a voice, a persona,â said the priest.
âShe does. I donât,â my mother cut in, speaking rather too defensively and giving herself away, I thought.
âYes, ââshe,ââ of course.â The priest must have had an inkling of what was going on, but whoâd told him? Gladys? She couldnât know. Vonnie? She would never say. Me in the confessional? That was supposed to be secret. Megan? I doubted it.
As they passed me on their way to the front door they looked down on me, literally, lying as I was on the floor in front of the television. My mother shut the heavy glass door and collapsed on to the sofa behind me.
âI told him in confession,â I finally admitted, wanting the weirdness in the air between us to disappear. I hoped I was saying the right thing.
âI gathered that,â my mother said.
âThey told us it was all a secret.â
âHe got to it in a roundabout way.â She didnât look at me, she gazed up at the ceiling fan chopping its way through a crowd of flies that followed the slow blades. âHe wondered if you still thought you could talk to your father.â
I felt exposed and stupid. Why hadnât my mother stood up for me? Now she was acting as if it was all my problem, like she had never been involved. Like the whole thing was my own fantasy that sheâd played no part in.
âItâs like wish fulfilment,â she said, as if explaining away what she and I both knew was real. But if she didnât believe any more why was she hiding the treeâs path of destruction? Why didnât she call someone to look at the damage? I felt alone and ridiculous and without support.
âGo to bed,â she said, dismissing everything we had been through together in the past few weeks. She stood up and the anthem of the seven oâclock news played her out of the room.
15
That night I wanted to hurt my little brother Gerard
The young priestâs style was more difficult to pigeonhole because he wore normal clothes and talked about sport and gardening. He appeared to be like everyone else, but he wasnât, because he was a priest. He accepted our hospitality on a take it or leave it basis, assuming he may be asked to leave or decide to go himself at any moment. Happy to eat or not eat, talk or sit in silence. But to give him his due after a difficult meal of stew and rice â difficult because the stew was full of cornflour lumps and the rice solid, and difficult because it was full of strangling silence â it was he not my mother that released us.
âLet them go off, Dawn, and get on with their homework.â
We breathed as one, as silent a sigh of relief as we could, tiny, like a mouseâs breath and my mother and the priest retired to the verandah where they sat opposite each other, Gerard wrapped around my motherâs feet, like a sleeping cat. They were drinking beer and talking easily it appeared from where I was half hiding in the living room by the television.
âItâs not like thereâs any question in her mind that heâs there,â I heard my mother say.
âIâm sure there isnât. The image is fascinating and not without symbolic significance. Itâs a form of thought transference.â
âHuh?â My mother grunted.
The priest was over-educated, but dim with lack of life experience and my mother was clever but barely schooled.
âItâs one way of explaining these types of experiences,â he added.
âI wouldnât tell her that,â my mother snapped. She was put out by the priestâs explanation of who or what we talked to when we communicated with Dad. Not that sheâd fessed up to the priest that she also partook of nightly rants in the tree with her dead husband.
âYou transfer your thoughts, give them a voice, a persona,â said the priest.
âShe does. I donât,â my mother cut in, speaking rather too defensively and giving herself away, I thought.
âYes, ââshe,ââ of course.â The priest must have had an inkling of what was going on, but whoâd told him? Gladys? She couldnât know. Vonnie? She would never say. Me in the confessional? That was supposed to be secret. Megan? I doubted it.
As they passed me on their way to the front door they looked down on me, literally, lying as I was on the floor in front of the television. My mother shut the heavy glass door and collapsed on to the sofa behind me.
âI told him in confession,â I finally admitted, wanting the weirdness in the air between us to disappear. I hoped I was saying the right thing.
âI gathered that,â my mother said.
âThey told us it was all a secret.â
âHe got to it in a roundabout way.â She didnât look at me, she gazed up at the ceiling fan chopping its way through a crowd of flies that followed the slow blades. âHe wondered if you still thought you could talk to your father.â
I felt exposed and stupid. Why hadnât my mother stood up for me? Now she was acting as if it was all my problem, like she had never been involved. Like the whole thing was my own fantasy that sheâd played no part in.
âItâs like wish fulfilment,â she said, as if explaining away what she and I both knew was real. But if she didnât believe any more why was she hiding the treeâs path of destruction? Why didnât she call someone to look at the damage? I felt alone and ridiculous and without support.
âGo to bed,â she said, dismissing everything we had been through together in the past few weeks. She stood up and the anthem of the seven oâclock news played her out of the room.
15
That night I wanted to hurt my little brother Gerard
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