The Apocrypha: A Novel

By Bryan Keon-Cohen

Young boys and girls are sexually abused by Father O'Halloran at a parish church choir in Melbourne. A secret self-help society, The Apocrypha, is organised by victims Ashley and Keith at their school. The Society members engage in a bizarre Competition while Secretary Keith records the offending priest's abuse in notebooks.

The secre

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sid Harta Publishers
• Release date: Oct 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645576290

Bryan Keon-Cohen

Bryan Keon-Cohen was educated in Melbourne where he still lives with his wife June, three daughters and five grandchildren. He graduated in Law/Arts at Melbourne University (1973); lectured at the Monash University Law School (1974 - 77); and worked with the Australian Law Reform Commission in Sydney (1978 - 80). He joined the Victorian Bar in 1981 and practiced as a barrister for 35 years. He took silk in 1996 and was awarded an AM for services to the law, particularly in human rights, in 2012. His book, written for the layman - A Mabo Memoir: Islan Kustom to Native Title (Zemvic Press, 2013) was the basis of his PhD awarded by Monash University. This memoir concerned his experiences acting for the plaintiffs in the ten-year native title High Court case, Mabo.

Book preview

PART I

STATIONS OF THE CROSS

Give me a child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.

St. Francis of Loyola (1491 – 1556)

1

1986

Year 12

Ashley studied hard from the very first day of his Year 12 – to the surprise of his teachers and his mother’s delight. He even surprised himself. Study was not his preferred mode of existence, but his solitary style allowed him to hide away and focus down on the job at hand: in days gone by, the affairs of The Society, now scoring top marks. Anything to keep busy. Anything to avoid drifting into his inner morass of memories, the nightmare world of his many uncountable sins. There came a time, however, when Ashley, and the few friends he spoke to, began to wonder about their lives after Campion College.

‘What do you reckon?’ Ashley was sprawled across a seat with his best mate, Keith Dickson: head in hands, elbows on knees, gazing across the main oval.

‘I dunno,’ Keith replied. His lanky figure and cascading dirty-red hair was draped across the grass nearby.

‘Dicko, we gotta do something. No way I’m gunna drive a tram,’ Ashley sneered. ‘My dad hates it, been at it forever.’

‘You could be a priest.’ Keith munched an apple, a crisp variety from Tasmania. ‘Great sex.’

‘Don’t be a dickhead. That’s not even funny.’

‘No, it’s not.’ Keith paused. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘my mum’s telling me: public service, the church, or the professions. That’s what she wants. My sister Therese reckons she’ll take the veil.’

‘How boring is that?’ Ashley snorted. He extracted a cigarette from his shirt pocket, twirling it between his fingers. Smoking was strictly prohibited at Campion – but beyond the front gates, only a quick sprint away, was the real world.

‘Well, my dad thinks it’s great,’ Keith said. ‘Therese’ll pray for him and the whole family, so we’ll all end up in heaven, no worries. He sort of pushed her into it, since she was a kid.’

‘What about art school?’ Ashley asked. ‘Or advertising? You could give it a go. Good money, they reckon. And we know all about bullshitting the masses, yes?’

‘Dunno. I’d need a job. Ya need to eat, remember? The folks won’t pay, no way.’ Keith dragged on his cigarette. ‘And you? How much more study d’ya wanna do?’

‘Just enough,’ Ashley replied. ‘Have to do something. Anyway, I liked our Society rules. All those canons and vows. They kind of … set it out. Same rules for everybody, same gospel names, fourteen stations, the points routine. Anyway, got a better idea?’

‘Mate, it’s law for you, no worries, rules everywhere. Too much fuckin’ work for me. And too many geeks.’ Keith stretched his long legs. ‘Think I’ll be a graffiti artist. You never know, might even decorate the MCG. Like the Sistine Chapel: a lifetime’s work on a sacred site.’

‘Keep your grubby hands off it,’ Ashley laughed. ‘The members won’t be pleased.’

‘What members? I don’t know any members.’

‘Anyway,’ Ashley continued, ‘maybe law, that’s an idea. You’re right, rules and vows and stuff. Me mum’ll like it, and that’s important.’ He stood up and sighed. ‘But I’ll need a huge score.’

‘What about your dad?’ Keith asked.

‘He doesn’t care.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘He’s still angry, won’t talk to me. After Justin … And then the principal, he called mum and dad in, the prick. It was too much for dad. He really went off. At least mum doesn’t get belted, but he got into me. Drunken pig.’

‘Shit … I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be,’ Ashley cut in. ‘It’s, what, three years now?’ and changed the subject. ‘Who’s in charge of careers again?’

‘Old Simmo.’ Keith glanced at Ashley.

‘Ah shit!’ Ashley spat on the grass. ‘Well. Forget careers advice. He’s kinda helpful, bit of a radical, the Irish and all that. But he hung out with O’Halloran.’

‘When did you last speak to Father Simon?’ Keith asked.

Since The Society’s banning, including outraged letters from the principal to Keith’s parents, their friendship had been driven underground. Ashley and Keith had learnt that even being seen together invited immediate suspicion. They spoke from memory, searching for their intimacy so brutally crushed in Year 9. Now, any mention of those days, even of the kindly Father Simon, triggered nightmares of Father O’Halloran, Justin, thrashings by the principal, The Society’s meetings in the sandpit behind the oval. Ashley spoke deadpan, without feeling, as if from a telephone answering service, looking across the campus towards the chapel, mimicking O’Halloran’s Boston accent.

‘My son, I shall pray for you. But first, tell me all. My dear boy, have you sinned in the eyes of the Lord?’

‘Ha!’ Keith exploded, his face lit up. ‘That fucking prick. You should join a circus, mate. A born mimic, that’s what you’re good at. We present a man of many faces!’ he yelled. ‘You do the tricks, I’ll paint the scenery.’

‘That’s an idea,’ Ashley laughed.

‘Hey mate. Forget it. Let’s go. You fancy lawyers have to do real work. The rest can come later.’

* * *

During first term, Ashley was barely visible. He secreted himself in the library, often with Keith only a desk away. Ashley stubbornly lost contact with former friends, sat alone and studied. He saw no point in complaining about the principal’s continuing vendetta, the school’s refusal to recognise his achievements – at least, not at that time. Better to withdraw, to delve deep into the mysteries of English, European History and Mathematics, and hope that external examiners might provide some reward. He still saw Burkey, and Joe Coronelli, and other Society members from time to time, though these contacts now saddened him. He felt uneasy with them: so much to recall, so little now to talk about, and even less to look forward to. Keith was his every-day companion, Ashley encouraged him towards art school, but Keith rejected the idea before even thinking about it.

‘Not interested mate. Too many teachers. Had enough of ’em.’ Keith drew tangled dreadlocks across his pimple-speckled forehead.

‘So, what will you do?’ They sat in the school library, only a few rows from where The Society had gathered. Ashley studied Keith’s red complexion and tall frame, a physique that had taken him to the top of the pecking order with the St. Mary’s girls on the 4:15 tram. While uncertain about precisely what Keith had experienced with O’Halloran, Ashley assumed the worst, and shared a deep bitterness and sickening guilt whenever the man’s name was mentioned. Unlike Ashley, Keith still attended chapel, while insisting he wanted nothing to do with the religious instruction that continued all around them. Ashley found him distracted, confused. Keith twiddled a pencil in his hands, then broke it sharply in two.

‘You did great drawings, Dicko. What about design or drafting? Fashion stuff? Lots of chicks, Dicko-old-mate.’

‘That’s what O’Halloran said. Forget it. Haven’t raised a pencil, so to speak, since back then.’

‘Shame. You drew great portraits. You could be a cartoonist for the papers.’

‘Forget it. Never.’

‘But you talked about graffiti, last week. Why not practise around here? Could be your big break.’

‘Like what? Where exactly?’ Keith looked up, glancing at the library walls, lined with books, not a spare shelf to be seen. He glanced beyond the racks through the second-floor windows, at the high grey walls of the convent directly across the road.

‘So, what’s it going to be?’ Ashley persisted.

‘Don’t know really. Maybe I’ll just piss off. You know. Bit of travel would be good. Take a gap year or two. Lots of guys do that.’ Keith continued to gaze at the convent next door, more particularly at the black, stone walls enclosing the Cistercian Sisters.

Ashley smiled. ‘The only travel I’m looking at is grinding along the same old suburban tram tracks – and not even that for much longer.’

‘Have you noticed,’ Keith said, ‘trams are stuck in tram tracks? Did you know that? At least a bus can go anywhere.’ Keith threw the remnants of his pencil onto the table between them. ‘Okay, smart arse, you want me to draw?’

‘Yes. The great Keith Dickson returns. Go for it. I’ll keep watch.’

Keith took a black crayon out of his shirt pocket and produced a crumbled sheet of white paper from his school bag. Glancing at the wall through the windows, he began to outline a series of pure white habits moving in procession. They moved from left to right towards a cross, perched on a distant hill which toppled over the right edge of the table. Ashley began to tidy up and didn’t look too closely.

‘But you can go a long way on a tram, in a dedicated sort of way.’ Ashley almost added – ‘and don’t forget the 4:15, St. Mary’s mob, Samantha, and her mate, Felicity, the stone-messages, remember?’ – but stopped. Such intimate moments didn’t feel right anymore. He glanced at Keith, brows crunched and said, lamely: ‘Trams keep me on the rails. They’re all we can afford at the moment.’

Keith looked up, his hands covered in black dust. ‘Hang on,’ he queried, ‘you work at that Alchemy joint? What’s a barman get? $10 an hour?’

‘Not if you’re underage. Anyway, that’s just to fill-in, every now and then. Not a regular job.’

‘Still. Not bad. Good experience and full of chicks – at least when I go.’

‘Sure, if you can afford the drinks.’ Ashley studied the figures emerging on Keith’s sheet, now smeared with black dust.

‘Nice stuff Dicko. Make ’em scream and yell and fall about, broken fucken vows all over the place. Yeah, go Dicko!’

‘Hail Mary,’ Keith muttered as he worked on, his pencil flying deftly, precisely. ‘Fourteen stations,’ he mumbled as he labelled the sheet ‘Station 1’, top centre. ‘Hail Mary full of grace,’ he repeated, striving to capture the moment when a bride, her arms stretched wide, her face lit in serene silence, was elevated to the top of the convent wall by a pyramid of habits like a rugby scrum, a joyous pile of flailing bodies and arms and hands all reaching skywards, propelling their Sister over the wall. The next sheet of paper, labelled ‘Station II’, showed the bride, arms stretched wide like a jet fighter, floating over the wall towards a street that Keith labelled ‘Via Doloroso’. With a quick flourish, this street led away towards a tall city skyline in the distance. Beyond the buildings rolled thunderous clouds, dark and foreboding. As Ashley watched, Keith rummaged in his bag, grasping for a third sheet, but then, with a ‘shit’, moved back to ‘Station I’ and attacked the page with sweeping movements of his school jumper, trying to erase all of it, every single line.

‘Hey Dicko, what are you doing? That was great.’

‘Need some space. Run out of paper and still got twelve to go. Anyway, I forget their names, those fourteen Stations.’

‘But don’t waste ’em Dicko. At least take a copy.’

‘Nah. It’s all about doing it – then the extra kick destroying it. That’s the secret. It’s better that way, better than graffiti. That’s why guys do that street art on the pavement. I’ve sat with them, Sundays, in the city.’

‘So,’ Ashley whispered, ‘you’ve done two. What about the rest? Ten to go?’

They looked at each other in a moment of sadness, of threatening, dark memories. Ashley tried to re-focus Keith on his drawings, saying – ‘Hey, go for it, it’s fun.’ But Ashley’s eyes darkened. He realised, as sure as sure could be, that O’Halloran, prompted by their conversation, would invade his bed again, that night.

‘What … what’s number three?’ Ashley whispered, glancing at the library door.

‘No idea. But Trappa, you get my point? It doesn’t matter.’

‘Okay smart-arse,’ warming to his nickname. ‘So, do number fourteen. Why bother with the others? So, get to the point old son. Go for it.’

Keith grinned, took up his crayon and drew again, this time on the library table’s bare boards. With a few swift strokes he depicted a smiling penis-like figure penetrating the school gates which lay gaping, open. Keith’s roughly-formed figure was quickly transformed into the familiar drapery of a Cistercian habit, soaring directly across the oval towards the chapel, the gates closing behind her. A line of Sisters suddenly appeared, clamouring to squeeze through, mouths agape, screaming, streams of black crayon-blood flowing from hooded faces crushed up against the gate’s sharp iron bars. Beneath it all Keith wrote a caption: ‘Station XIV: The Cistercians Break Their Silence’.

Keith had barely finished when he stood back, scowled, and quickly erased Stations ‘II’ and ‘XIV’ with his forearm. He moved suddenly and grabbed ‘1’, the sole remaining crumbled sheet of white paper, ripping it out of Ashley’s hands. He tore it up in front of Ashley’s nose with slow, exaggerated movements: first length ways, then across, then across again and again, now ferociously gripping the bundle tighter and tighter. Finally, with a laugh, he threw the mangled mound high into the air. They watched the bits falling like confetti, scattering across the dusty table, then to the library floor.

* * *

Every school day, the 4:15 arrived at the school gates, full of girls from St. Mary’s next door. But Ashley had lost his appetite for striking up conversations. He looked and admired and lusted but did not approach, let alone talk to, or touch, or gaze into their lovely eyes. Rather, he withdrew behind his backpack, hanging back-to-front across his waist, relieved to be travelling home, to escape the school, saturated with too many memories.

Samantha, the tall, no-nonsense girl in Year 11 with the lithesome body whom Ashley still adored, sometimes caught the 4:15. Whenever he saw her, he recalled their first awkward encounter in chapel back in Year 7, their exciting exchanges during his Society days, throwing message-stones over St. Mary’s bluestone walls with Keith. Now, on the tram, Ashley dared not return her fierce gaze. What could he say?

But one hot Thursday in March, Ashley arrived at the tram stop late, flustered, alone, anxious to get home. He peered south along the tracks, mumbling – ‘Shit, late again’ – and flexed his shoulders. Taller and stronger than most in his class, Ashley was notorious for explosive, unpredictable behaviour and as an aggressive, fearless, sometimes vicious ruckman. He had played three games in the first XVIII the prior winter but was dropped for repeatedly failing to show at footy practice. ‘Fuck you,’ he muttered when the coach, Father Kelly, told him. No priest’s gunna order me around, not ever. Never again.

Ripping his tie off, he spotted Samantha in the fading light, sitting alone on a bluestone ledge behind the tram shelter. She looked gorgeous. She crossed her legs and eyed him firmly. In a burst of bravado, he paused mid-stride, met her gaze – and blushed, even beneath his black, curly hair. He altered direction and sat beside her.

‘You’re late,’ he said, his right leg jigging, jagging, uncontrollable, again. ‘You get on here most days, yes?’ his voice so soft, so tentative that it surprised him.

‘You know I do. Sometimes I’m late. Sports and that.’

Ashley, his blood surging and swelling, moved on his rocky perch, covering himself with his school bag, trying to restrain his twitching, nervy leg. ‘I’m sorry about – you know. That time.’

‘Don’t talk about it.’

‘We had this … chuck for a fuck … Competition, Keith and I. Throwing stone-messages at lunchtime, over your wall, next to those big iron gates. But we got your reply, we saw you, remember? … When Justin ….’

‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘Horrible. That fucker.’ Me too, she thought, choking up. ‘I know about your group, the Society, from Therese.’

‘Who?’ Ashley was distracted as she opened and crossed her legs, then again, the other way, her short skirt ballooning.

‘Your sister, stupid, helloh! Therese Martinsen? Heard of her?’ She eyed his thin lips, grim-set, noted again his shifting eyes, never settled, never quiet.

‘I wanted to tell someone … no names, either way … so I threw that rock back,’ she said.

‘Yeah, we read your note.’

‘Bit risky, really. Anybody could have caught it.’

‘Actually, you hit Keith on his shoulder.’

‘Really? Your best buddy, the guy with all the hair? He’s keen on Therese, I heard.’

‘Well, actually, he’s kind of obsessed, draws her portrait over and over. He’s good at it, we still hang out, lots. Can’t say I want him as a brother-in-law,’ he said, with a faint grin. A scar across Ashley’s otherwise clean-cut, prominent chin erupted crimson, then subsided.

‘Cool.’ Samantha paused, glancing away, avoiding his gaze.

‘I’m seeing a doctor,’ she whispered. ‘A shrink. She’s useless. Pills, for nerves and stuff. Sometimes I wag school, just nick-off, down to St Kilda.’

Ashley sat up, barely breathing. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled.

‘Yeah, it’s cool. Anyway. Sometimes I wonder, maybe I won’t finish. Year 11, who wants it? Ten’s bad enough. The place sucks, no-one to talk to, the nuns are useless. At least you had your weird group.’

Ashley wanted to explain how The Society was far from weird: it was special, his idea, his name – The Society of the Apocrypha – and she belonged, she qualified. The group had been destroyed, its records burnt, even its memory locked away like an archive. But its lingering impact, the realisation that he was not alone, their heartfelt war-cry:

Bugger the Gospels, Old and New,

Sixty-six times is good for you

still affected him, every day, every troublesome night, still fractured by nightmares, always about O’Halloran.

‘It all started in …’ Ashley whispered – and fell silent. ‘I was, like, in his choir. I was seven.’

‘Yeah well,’ she whispered, ‘he’s a shit. He … Someone should complain, like, write to the fucking Pope. Maybe he’ll listen.’

* * *

Ashley’s solitary tram ride was short – fifteen minutes max. Samantha lived further out, maybe another twenty minutes. He stood at the front, trying to ignore a bunch of giggling girls blocking the doors. How do you write to the Pope? he wondered. What’s his address? He jumped off at his stop and ran to his house. He was late. He reached for the key under a pot plant when the front door opened.

‘Mum. I got caught up. Aths training, high-jump and stuff. Sorry.’ Ashley was good at lying. He lied a lot, for Father Michael James O’Halloran SJ had taught him well.

‘All right. There’s mince pie in the oven. Your father will probably be late. It’s Thursday, God save us, he’ll be in the pub. Sweet Jesus, what to do?’ She rushed down the steps, carrying a bottle of cleaning fluid and yellow rubber gloves, all stashed into a large, black plastic bucket.

Indeed, Barbara’s dogged devotion to her family and to her God had, by now, turned sour, overwhelmed by tidal waves of debt and despair. Jack’s salary as a tram driver was barely adequate – and not all of that emerged from the pub on payday. Even with her regular income as a domestic, Barbara could barely meet the constant demands from two schools, a husband, two teenagers – always hungry – and still save something for the parish plate every Sunday. The Martinsen home was small, crowded, but through Barbara’s devotion to her family, serviceable enough.

2

1979

Year 5

Leaping up the stairs to his room triggered one of Ashley’s happier memories, one of the few occasions he had spent a day or two with his dad. When Ashley was ten, Jack had won fourth division in Tattslotto – $65,675. For a long-serving, locked-in tram-driver, this was a fortune, and tax-free! Barbara persuaded her husband to use most of it to reduce their mortgage. The rest paid for an extra bedroom and bathroom in the roof, plus a narrow, steep staircase that led up the wall in the front hallway. But it nearly all came adrift when Father Brendan Shannasy, from the parish, heard of this bonanza and quickly called in. Barbara ushered him into the front room: the kitchen, as always, was a mess.

‘Mrs Martinsen, dear girl, your generosity will be remembered, please God it will.’

Barbara poured him another weak, Irish tea. Such visits, unannounced, were rare treats these days. She felt obliged and smiled faintly. But she knew Jack would never agree.

‘Don’t forget now, lassie. We have a new trust fund for St. Bernadette’s, we have so much to do.’ Father Brendan’s lilting brogue captivated her; he was such a gentle man, but with gaps in his front teeth – sharp, strong, like a prowling shark. ‘The cathedral will issue a special certificate but frankly, lassie, don’t go holding your breath, now. You know what they’re like in there. Why, I’m surprised they remember to breathe, truly I am.’

Barbara smiled beneath black-rimmed glasses and shoulder-length, greying hair, bound tight behind with an Irish-green ribbon. She and Father Brendan shared common ground in the green valleys and lakes of County Leitrim. Their grandfathers grew up in the same village – Drumshambo – a mere dot on an English map north-west of Dublin. Barbara heard her father’s lilt in the priest’s voice and knew she could not refuse him. And after all, he was her parish priest.

‘And lassie, let me remind you, I say special prayers for all our donors. I don’t care about the amount, no I don’t, truly. It’s the spirit of it, dear girl. It’s the spirit that counts.’ Father Brendan replaced his cup and saucer on the small wooden table: Spode china, a wedding gift, the best the house could offer. He stood up, offering his knuckles to Barbara’s lips.

‘I’ll be off now.’ His sing-song voice settled sweetly over his parishioner. ‘Just drop the cash round on Sunday, if you please. In an envelope if you will, addressed to me.’

Barbara never spoke to Jack. She withdrew $300 – half of her savings – from her own, very private, bank account. She placed the cash in an envelope and delivered it the following Sunday, after the service, into Father Brendan’s outstretched hands. He barely spoke to her, for he was engaged in hearty conversation with a woman from a big house up the hill. Barbara knew the house well: she cleaned it once a fortnight, on Thursday mornings while Mrs Barnbrough was at tennis. The trust fund, Barbara discovered later, was dedicated to projects that the parish priest might deem appropriate. No accounts or annual reports were available, certainly not to the parishioners, nor even to the diocese.

Jack took three weeks off work to build the new rooms and Ashley helped out. First however, Barbara ensured that a large, wooden crucifix, a special gift from her mother to mark Therese’s baptism, was taken down from the front hall. With Ashley’s help, Barbara placed it carefully under her bed, saying a silent prayer.

‘Where will you hang it, Mum?’

‘Oh, we’ll find a place, God willing. Just watch out, now, for that hook in the wall. It’s sharp.’

Ashley followed her into the kitchen at the end of the hall: gas stove, a single-bowl sink, cupboards to the left, table, chairs and TV to the right. The room ran across the width of the house. Linoleum, brown and tattered, lay on the floor. A picture of St Francis Xavier hung over the oven. Its caption read: ‘Apostle of the Indies: His remains lie at Goa’. The back door led to a lean-to toilet and beyond that, a small, untamed garden. Above the door hung the divine Mary, mother of Christ, pre-eminent among the saints, exalted above all the angels. Under the protection of the Blessed Virgin, Barbara took refuge. Whenever she walked outside to dump rubbish in the back lane, or to gaze, annoyed, at the flourishing weeds, or to cart another load of Jack’s Tramways work-shirts and trousers, or Ashley’s footy gear, to the clothesline, Barbara crossed herself. ‘Hail Mary, full of grace’ fell instinctively from her lips. She was content to know, in that moment, that the Blessed Virgin heard all things. She saw. She understood.

Until the upstairs ‘Tatts rooms’ were finished, Therese occupied the second bedroom down the hall. Jack and Barbara occupied separate beds (a solution triggered by his shift work, now a lonely habit) in the largest room, in the front. This left Ashley crowded into half of the living room, partitioned off with a wall of three-ply, bits of Masonite, and curtains for a door. This shabby solution was thrown up by Jack over a rushed weekend a few weeks after his second child, Ashley (and Barbara of course) came home from hospital. Jack was driving the night shift, he needed his sleep, and no brat, he said, was going to disturb him in the front room. And for his first ten years, that’s where Ashley stayed.

But when the ‘Tatts rooms’ became available, all that changed. Therese occupied the room upstairs, while Ashley took the hall bedroom for himself. Ashley and Therese never got on. Sometimes, after he started at his new school, they caught the same tram, she to St. Mary’s, he to Campion next door. She was different: a year older, somehow separate, often rebellious. When Barbara and her young children used to set out on their Sunday morning pilgrimage to St. Bernadette’s, located conveniently just round the corner, Therese was always last to get ready. Jack had long ago proclaimed he would never go near the place. Father of two, embittered by several years working for the Tramways without promotion, he had never considered himself a servant of the public, let alone of the Church of Rome. He hadn’t attended mass for years. He worked all sorts of hours during the week, and besides, he had his own priorities on Sunday mornings: the Footy Show. Known at the tram-yards as a hard-drinking footy fanatic, he had long ago abandoned the sacraments for the Melbourne Football Club.

‘You tell me what he says, dearie,’ Jack grumbled, as they left for mass. ‘That Father Brendan, he’s boring as all get-out. But all roads lead to Rome, don’t they, so what’s the mystery? Who needs to listen? Besides, the mighty Demons need my help; we’re nearly in the finals. Who needs the Catechism?’ he yelled, reaching for the fridge. ‘The AFL’s got its own rules,’ as the front door slammed shut.

And as Ashley grew more and more alienated from all things religious, he became aware that Therese too was simply not interested: she never crossed herself after the blessing, issued by Barbara before each evening meal. Ashley never understood it. She was older, anyway. Perhaps things happened when girls got older. He’d heard something about that.

3

1982

Year 8

One memory gave him special pleasure. Ashley recalled how, as a bright thirteen-year-old in Year 8, obsessed with all things sexual, he became fascinated by the Sisters of Mercy. At precisely 7.30 am, they emerged through a door in the high brick wall directly opposite the school’s front gates, walking in file like a large, black caterpillar. The procession assumed an organic, moulded appearance of sombre, black conformity that intrigued and troubled Ashley. They paraded into the school chapel every Wednesday morning, with military precision. The Sisters cleared the road, entered through ornate iron gates labelled Campion College, paraded around a football ground, then mounted several concrete steps into the chapel. There the thronging students would join them in Holy Communion.

After close examination over three Wednesdays, Ashley, waiting outside chapel, counted twenty-two in line.

‘Poverty, chastity and obedience by twenty-two. That’s, um, sixty-six vows,’ he murmured. ‘Shit, that’s a lot.’

As he watched from