The Catholic Priest Father George.

The Catholic priest came round again last night. He was waiting for me when I got back from court. I went through reception once more where I was strip – searched to see if I had acquired any weapons or means to hurt others, or myself. I had to lift my arms above my head, whilst the screw looked me all over. He put his hands through my hair, looking for cigarettes. Lastly, he made me bend over. He opened my back passage with his fingers, and with the aid of a pencil torch he looked up there. It was a normal part of prison routine for all prisoners returning, but what he hoped to find up my jacksy was totally beyond me. A pneumatic road drill perhaps?

I was then marched through the prison between two screws, one of which I was handcuffed to. We walked through darkness, our footsteps echoing down the corridors. Doors were unlocked, and locked after us. Eventually we stood in a huge, high hall, dimly lit, gloomy, and full of the heavy smell of well – washed stuffiness.

It was like walking from the world into a Dickensian alleyway filled with drapery shops, and all the time with every banging, the message was being driven home, keys, locks, chains, doors, and walls. Omnipotence, inhumanity, cynicism, hopelessness, repent.

The priest was waiting in my cell. It was strange to find him there. The moment the handcuffs were taken off he stepped forward, his hand outstretched.

“It’s all right officer, I will need one of you to stand outside for a few brief moments, whilst I talk to this man.” The cell door was left open and the screw stood outside in the position of attention looking in, a pissed off expression on his face. He was probably wondering what the point was.

The priest turned towards me and told me to sit on my bed whilst he sat on the chair opposite.

“My name is Father George. I have come to talk to you about the word of God. Now we don’t have much time this afternoon and I’m in, as usual, a great rush doing God’s work.”

He held his crucifix in front of him.

“So firstly, shall we pray?” He lowered his head.

I sat there looking at the bowed head of this well – dressed fat man in a cassock, dumbfounded as to what he really wanted.

“Blessed be God, blessed be His holy name, blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true man, blessed the name of Jesus… blessed be the name of Mary, blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception…blessed be God and His angels and His Holy Saints.”

Then he adopted a very sincere fashion.

“David I have come here this evening to ask you to reconsider your stance on the church. It is important you repent your sin before the eyes of God.”

I looked at him thoughtfully, and for a brief moment I felt his dilemma. But what was I supposed to do? It was his belief not mine. It was his church not mine. I had not asked him here.

I was starting to get a little hot under the collar at his sanctimony.

“Father to you it may be considered a sin…but to me…” I trailed off, “But to me it isn’t.” The priest’s small eyes looked at me, his mouth closed tight with authority. I continued, “I feel differently about it than you…you talk of sin yet I feel a victim of circumstances more than anything else. But to call it a sin…” My voice had risen slightly and the screw outside the door that was listening to this exchange moved a foot closer.

The priest held up his hand, “It’s all right officer... David it is not my place to speak on your circumstances. I come here to offer you the word of God and little else. I come as a man of God offering you to find peace within yourself, and to repent for the sins committed in your life. I do not have the time to indulge in biblical banter as to what constitutes a sin and what doesn’t…all I can offer is the word of God in your hours of need and nothing else.”

“Father I’ve not studied the Church all of my life, but I do know this, I’m not here to be hoodwinked into some sort of conspiracy so that you can justify your existence in the world. I’ve seen in my short time on this earth the hypocrisy in which the church operates, and if you think I will be a party to such goings on then you have another think coming.”

The screw outside the door looked very angry now, but Father George was more tolerant and indicated to the screw that everything was all right. The thought did cross my mind that the priest would be leaving soon, and that would leave me open to a good kicking. But equally I thought it important to make my views clear, and what did I care if the screw was upset? They were always upset in one way or another. The very nature of the job almost demanded they be upset; that’s why they hated everybody’s guts.

“David I’m not here to discuss your views on the role of the church…I’m here to attend to your spiritual well – being. Surely for the love of God you can understand that? It is important you make your peace…”

“Make what peace? You talk of peace all the time…” There was a flicker of anger across the priest’s face.

“You are a stubborn man David and it is unfortunate that you cannot see your position more fully…I am here to comfort you, to be with you in your time after you have been sentenced…”

“Sentenced? – I’m bleeding sentenced before I’m tried!” What kind of justice is that?”

“It is obvious to me David that I cannot do anything with you today so I will leave you hopefully in peace and with an open mind.”

I sat on my bed and watched him go. The screw took one last scowl at me and banged the door shut.

I sat there and looked at the grey walls around me and felt quite angry with the whole damn mess. It seemed as if I was taking part in some sort of colossal pantomime in which 'Justice' was being seen to be done, not for my benefit, but to justify the whole sorry existence of all those involved in making a living from it. The lawyers, the judge, and particularly the pious fraud, the priest, they were all at it. He was no more concerned about my soul than he was about the shit on his shoes.

I sat there considering these thoughts, locked inside one of the most inhuman regimes in the country to which the church sanctioned and gave its blessing, and all I could feel was a growing rage at the pretence of it all.

Shouting awakened me, my door was being banged open, “This way Mr Ross!”
“So what as he done Mr Milburn?”
“He’s insulted the priest Mr Ross!”
“Sit him up, make him stand for a while.” I was dragged to my feet. “Insulting a priest really, whatever next!” and without taking his eyes off Ross, he hit me in the face…

“Bloody bastard we’ll teach you ‘ow ta be’ave, you dirty fucker!”

They started slapping me around the head and punched me in the ribs and kidneys. Then they gave me a few kicks up the backside, and sent me sprawling across the cell. I fell by the door with my head on the landing. They picked me up and sat me down in the chair.

“You keep your opinions to yourself you cunt! Don’t think you can come ‘ere lording it over the likes of us! Is that understood?”

Then before they left they slapped me a couple of times more, and cut my mouth, making my head ring, “And clean up the bloody mess and straighten everything out!” They left.

I fumbled around the cell as best I could, breathing heavily, trying to catch my breath. There was a small amount of water in my jug, and I bathed my face. I looked at my reflection in the tin mirror. My face was not too bad although my lips were cut on the inside where I think I got a blow with a coin held between one of their knuckles. I could feel blood going down my throat, which slightly sickened me.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead and developed a bilious headache, no doubt because my brain had been shaken. Then I desperately wanted to have a shit so I did in double – quick time into the pot, wiped myself and had the cover back on, and was up and about in no time at all.

I could hardly sit at the table because of the soreness of my joints. I had bruising on my body, and my neck ached from where one of the bastards had exercised a virtual strangle hold.

I spent a terrible night trying to rest. No matter what position I tried my body ached and I could not sleep without finding a pain at every twist and turn. The night was long and I felt so alone.

I watched the pale light of dawn creep into my cell and I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew I could hear the rattle of keys and doors being opened further down the landing. I stood over my pot and had a piss, and waited to slop out, my warm pot in my hand the smell of excrement wafting round my cell, but nothing happened and they went past my door.

I sat on my bed and waited for breakfast and the same thing happened. Now I was worried, and I was hungry, and in need of some warm food but they just went by without even looking through the spy hole, and the seriousness of my situation began to take a hold. I kept thinking surely not? Surely it is not going to be taken beyond what as already happened? But then I realised I was not dealing with decent men. Decent men would have not done what they did, and even half decent men would have left it at a good beating. It seemed they were preparing to make it more than it already was, obviously not contented with what they had already given me. I sat in the dim light of my cell and waited.

“Portillo! Portillo!” It was Ross and I thought for a moment he was coming back for more. I jumped up and stood by my bed.

“Quick you! Put your tie on.”

I was then marched along the landing down the stairs and to the governor’s office, where the chief screw, Johnson, stood by the door looking out as we approached. Ross flung open the door, “Stand to the mat and state your full name, number, age, religion and sentence.”

I went in and stood to the mat and gave out my details as best I could. The Governor sat in his chair without looking up. He was reading from a sheet of paper in front of him. Johnson stood close by and looked at Ross, who in turn looked at the Chief, and the Chief looked at the Governor, who by this time was nodding his head thoughtfully.

Johnson read off an official piece of paper about my insulting Father Georges's administrations and how I had displayed angry behaviour in his presence, and threatened violent actions towards a member of the Cloth.

I did not say anything, although it was a lie.

Ross nodded to the Chief and the Chief nodded back to Ross, and Ross looked at the Governor, who slowly looked up.

“Did you – er – hear that – Portillo? The charge the officer read?”

“Yes sir.” I replied… “I did.”

I stood there at attention with my hands holding the seams of my trousers, my chest out, my stomach pulled in, looking manly if nothing else, admitting to this tired old consul my guilt. He was no doubt weary from his labours among the lesser breeds, administering his justice to what he saw as the great unwashed.

This smooth, well-educated hunting man, who held my fate in his hands, would see that justice was done – like bollacks! I thought. You dull, scruffy, leather patched, old man. Can you not see my humanity too? You arse – licking self-serving shite hawk! Any decent horse would drop dead with the shame of carrying you, if you managed to get on its back.

I stood there and said nothing, trying to muster a hangdog expression. The Governor screwed up his eyes.

“There is no need to call Father George in this – er – matter …this is a serious offence and I must – er – warn you, you could be charged further…threatening behaviour is not tolerated…”

Christ! I nearly burst out laughing could he not see the marks and the swelling on my face? Was he so fucking blind? It was ludicrous.

“I would warn that if this offence had been directed at one of my officers”…

Ross, the Chief and a screw by the door looked at the Governor, proud, grateful, and welcoming such a thought from one so superior.

Then they looked at me with an evil intent, eyes glazed – “or even a lesser offence I would have had you in the olden days most certainly flogged.”

I looked at him and could have cried with the joviality of it all, but I merely nodded, to show my commiserations to him for getting in the bad books of the holy - father and for not agreeing about God’s wisdom, but also the horror, the awfulness, at the thought of striking, or even contemplating striking one of his officers. Perish the mere idea.

The old bastard sat there, puffing on his pipe, surrounded by blue smoke, so far removed from the real world around him and said,
“I sentence you…” but before he could say anything Johnson lent forward and whispered in his ear that I was in court the day after tomorrow. The Governor nodded, “And remember - this is only a warning to you…” I nodded my head and looked at him as earnestly as I possibly could. “To two days cellular confinement, two days deprivation of mattress, and two days number one diet.”

Good old Governor, what an escape! What a bloody escape. I felt like putting my head back and shouting out at the top of my voice, ‘thank you sir! Thank you for bugger all!’

Then I was marched back to my cell. Ross stood by the Chief smirking, but surprisingly I did not feel any animosity towards him, it was if anything pitiful that a fully - grown man should get such perverse pleasure from the suffering of others. He was really beneath contempt.

“Now,” said the Chief, “Go inside and take out your cell furniture, your table, chair, washbowl, jug, knife, fork, spoon, mug and your mattress, everything except your chamber pot – come on man look sharp about it!”

I dragged out everything that he requested.

“Now, take off your belt, tie, shoes, socks, and your jacket and put them outside here. You can take your slippers and wear them.”

“Thank you sir.” I said with not the least note of scornfulness.

Johnson said nothing, only nodded.

I went into the cell and he banged the door and pulled down the cover of the spy hole, which I had left open in the vain hope of having a small window onto the landing.

I shuffled up and down in my slippers, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, and felt a great sense of longing. I whispered to myself to hold my nerve and not to panic. Time was suspended held by the state of nothingness, which was tip - toeing like a small field mouse around my cell.

Would they ever bring me my bread and water? I could hear doors being banged out further down the landing and realised it was dinnertime. I could already smell the food such was my hunger. The dinner went past. With it being Saturday it would be a piece of battered fish, with chips, peas, tea, bread and margarine. Christ! My guts were rumbling.

When all the dinners had been given out and all the doors were locked once more, and silence had fallen, my door was opened. A screw came in with my bread and a jug of water. “’Ere ya are…it’s not much but it’ll keep ya guts together till teatime.”

“Do I get more then?”

“Course ya do. There’s eight ounces a bread in that…and ya get a six ounce cob tonight and four ounces in the morning for ya breakfast.”

“What you two talking about!” it was Johnson. The screw stopped talking and left the cell. Johnson came marching in and looked around.

“You got everything?” he asked.

“Yes sir” said I, holding my can of water and my cob of bread. He nodded, banged out the door and went off down the landing.

Try as I might today I cannot stomach this conviction. I feel cold, and wrap myself in my blanket, my teeth go on chattering; nothing can stop them. I grit them…hang on…steady lad!

I look out of the cell window. I can now mark the winter’s morning coming in by the pale, grey, twilight, spreading across the sky. Another sunless, excursion, into day.

Quite unexpectedly I heard the rattle of keys outside my cell and suddenly completely out of the blue my door is banged open and in walks the priest totally unannounced.

I sat up upon the bed and for no real reason felt sick. He was waving his arm about his head,
“Just a friendly morning visit…no need to get up… Thought I would catch you before breakfast that’s all.”

I moved over to the chair by the window and he sat on my bed, a cheerful, fat, ruddy-cheeked messenger of God…allegedly.

“This is just a friendly visit…nothing else. It is not often I encounter such resistance to my teachings and as I was passing, what better opportunity is there for me to catch the devil doing his work!”

I looked at him and wondered what was going through his mind.

“I have been pondering your refusal to see me that was all…”

The priest remained still for a moment, his arms resting on his knees, his eyes fixed on his hands. They were fat hands, like obese albino rabbits. Suddenly he jerked his head up and looked me straight in the eyes.

“Why,” he asked, “have you not let me come to see you?”

“Father it is nearly breakfast time, questions like these are best kept for other occasions when I can answer them more fully.”

“Are you asking me to leave already? I have only just arrived.” There was a look of wildness in his eyes…

“But Father I need to prepare my self for the coming day and this time is precious.”

“Precious? – You talk to me of precious time…when I am surrounded by sinners. Let me save you David! For you know not what you do.” He laid back against the wall his hands together in prayer.

“Please Father I do not believe… why are you doing this to me?” I almost pleaded, “There is no point in troubling me with such thoughts.”

He looked at me, “Often when you are quite sure about something you realise eventually that you are not that sure.” I said nothing. Possibly he was thinking of his own beliefs.

“Don’t you agree?” he asked quizzically, desperately…

I did not want to get drawn into the conversation. I could hear cell doors being banged opened further down the landing and I wanted to slop out.

“Father I must get sorted.” He sat there as if in a dream. I stood by my door in my shirt and trousers and when it opened I watched my shit slither into the larger pan. I walked down to the recess and washed out the remainder of the crap. Breakfast would be arriving soon and I had my bed to make.

When I got back he was no longer there. He was stood on the open gangway at the far end of the landing watching the screws going round and praying out loud making the sign of the cross at the end of each incantation. He was looking up at the heavens. The screw looked at him.

“If ya ask me he’s lost ‘is fucking marbles.” And with that he promptly banged me up.

I waited for my grub and paced my cell once more trying to think how I could best handle this situation. All I needed to make matters worse was the realization that there was a nutter priest on the loose.

After breakfast I scrubbed out my cell and tided the place ready for inspection. This morning we had visitors coming so there was much shouting and banging of doors.

The Governor and a small band went along various landings looking in the occasional cell. Some of them particularly the women, held lavender scented handkerchiefs to their nostrils as they walked by, the perfumed shit wafted along every landing and seemed to make matters worse.

It seemed fate would not leave me alone and shortly after the departure of the visitors the priest turned up once more. A tall spindly looking screw stood by the door. He had a large bulbous nose that had a series of purple veins roaming all over it. Immediately I thought of WC Fields, only there was no inebriated contentment about the man and his ice - cold stare revealed beady, soulless eyes, like those of a crazed wolf.

“So have you thought anymore David? Have you considered my dilemma?” he paced the cell looking occasionally out of the window. “You see I have administered to this prison for a considerable time and my sway here has been known to assist those in need…”

I kept wondering why he was telling me all this…what was he leading to. Surely there were other souls that needed saving in some corner of the nick, those more worthy perhaps.

“But I don’t believe in baby Jesus and his crew. Not since I was a boy have I even ventured down that road and I have no intention of starting now.”

He gripped his crucifix, which hung about his neck.

“Is it because you feel utterly desperate that you talk like this?”

“The only desperation I feel is this whole ridiculous position I find myself in. Why can you not leave me alone…to come to terms with my self in my own way?”

“I am not badgering you David…I am here to guide you to the Lord. To show the beauty of His teachings.”

“But you assume that they are the only ones…that the only beauty is through a dead Christ... Whereby we have to cling to a faith that does not allow us time for enjoyment on this earth but points us to the heavens and commands us to feel guilt for things we have not done!”

“God can help you! All the men I have seen in your position turned to God eventually.”

He opened the palms of his hands to heaven and brought them together as if to start a prayer, but then must have changed his mind. He smoothed out his cassock instead.

When he began talking again he started addressing me as “ my friend” and for some reasoning that was not too clear to me this man, who was in his late sixties perhaps, started making references to death and the so – called journey of the spirit.

“I speak to you in this way because in my opinion we are all under a sentence of death.” He nodded.

I said nothing, waiting perhaps to see where this would lead.

“Still, if you don’t die soon you will one day, and the same question will arise and what will you think in that final terrible hour?”

I looked at him and unthinkingly replied that I would look at it the same way as I am looking at it now, and that I did not see any purpose in thinking differently.

“Have you no hope at all? Do you really think that when you die you die outright and nothing remains?”

“Yes!”

“I feel truly sorry for you…it must make life unbearable for a man to think the way you do?”

The priest was starting to bore me. The screw by the door was continuously taking what appeared to be notes. Collecting evidence perhaps?

I rested a shoulder on the wall and started to look out of the window. The winter sun was shining, and above the wall I could see the tops of green, swaying trees, bristling against the backdrop of the grey morning cloud. I didn’t trouble myself much to follow what he was saying. I watched the warders marching slowly along the bottom of the perimeter wall with their trained dogs. Then I gathered the priest was questioning me once more. His tone was becoming more agitated, distressed. I paid more attention.

“…I feel sure your appeal will succeed, but you are saddled with guilt, which you must get rid of. In my view man’s justice is a vain thing, only God’s justice matters.”

I looked up. “But it was man’s justice that brought me here. I do not recall any divine intervention.”

“But that does not absolve you of your sin!”

“I committed a crime for which I am being punished and this sin you keep talking of is nothing more than you wanting something greater from me…what else do you want? I am paying the penalty already!”

He got up off the bed and started walking around. Looking through the bars on the window to the morning sky he said in a grave voice, “ You’re mistaken my son, there’s more that maybe required of you. And perhaps it will be required of you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You might be asked to see…”

“To see what?”

Slowly the priest gazed around my cell and I was struck by the sadness in his voice.

“These stone walls, and I know it only too well, are steeped in human suffering. I’ve never been able to look at them without a shudder. And yet…believe me when I say I am speaking from the depths of my heart... I know that even the most wretched among you have sometimes seen, taking form upon the greyness of the wall a divine face…it’s that face that I ask you to see! The Lord’s face…”

This roused me, the sheer stupidity of it all.

Fuck me he was bonkers!

“Listen! I‘ve been staring at these walls for days on end and I’ve seen bugger all! I’ve never seen anything taking form.”

The priest gazed at me mournfully. By now there was a low- level fog searching among the buildings and the sun had risen higher in the sky. It shone down upon the fog and created columns of yellow sunlight that pierced the greyness.

He muttered some words I did not catch…then abruptly asked me if he could kiss me.

“Kiss me? Me? No!” I yelled.

The screw by the door moved towards us. The priest held up his hand. The screw moved back into his position.

The priest turned, came up to the wall and slowly drew his hand along it.

“Do you really love these earthly things so very much?”

I made no reply, he was getting on my nerves. I needed peace and quiet at that time and I was getting none. Then he swung round on me and burst out passionately, “ No! No! I refuse to believe it! I’m sure you’ve often believed there was an after life.”

“Yes! It would be bloody marvellous wouldn’t it…to think that we all went somewhere cosy but there is no evidence and unless any can be presented then it is in the same realm as wanting to be rich…it does not mean anything.”

“How do you picture your life after the grave?”

By now I was getting really irate.

“A life in which I can remember the finer points of this one…that’s all I want. Will you please now get out of here?”

“Why have you once not called me Father seeing that I’m a priest and a man of the cloth!”

“Because your not my bleeding father.”

“No, no! My son!” he said laying his hand on my shoulder, “I am on your side…though you do not realise it – because your heart is hardened. But I shall pray for you.”

Something seemed to snap inside of me. I started yelling. It was as if all that I had said had fallen on deaf ears and he was refusing to take any notice of my views.

“You sanctimonious fucker! Don’t waste your fucking prayers on me! It’s better to burn than be a party to the likes of you lot!”

I grabbed him by the neckband of his cassock and in a celebration of liberty and ecstasy, of joy and rage, I poured out all the thoughts that had been shimmering in my brain.

“You cocksure arsehole! None of your so – called certainties are worth one strand of my mother’s hair! You push and bully those around you to justify your existence, you are a disgrace to your order!”

The screw by now had me by the neck and at the same time was blowing his whistle. The doors on the landing were being banged open and I could hear sets of jangling keys coming nearer.

“What difference does your God make? Bugger all!”

I had been shouting so much I had lost my breath. I let go of his cassock as one of the screws belted me on the shoulder with his baton. One of them was going to strike me again but the priest quietened him down and we stood all together in one room looking about. The priest gazed at me for a moment without speaking. I could see tears in his eyes. Then he turned and left the cell.

I must have had a longish sleep because when I awoke stars were shining down on my face. The landing light outside my cell had been turned off and there was total darkness apart from the moonlight and stars.

I could hear the sounds of motor vehicles on Trinity Road; through the slightly open window the cool night air fanned my burning salty cheeks.

Just on the edge of daybreak they would usually come. I stiffened my nerves, and listened intently but all I could hear was the distant siren of some factory summoning people to work. People were starting their days in a world far removed from me.

In that moment I was washed clean of all hope, and gazing up at the dark sky I felt the loneliness and the benign indifference of the universe.