Lonie56

On the first day back in the Glaswonian office Lonie did the usual round of hand shaking and head shaking and ‘so sorry to hear about Audrey,’ as if she’d died. And the ‘tell her we were askin’ for her,’ kinda conversations, with meaningful dewy-eyed contact, that it tired him out listening to them as it would have listening to a looped tract on a tape recording. One nice touch though was they’d had a whip- round for her, everybody had signed a card and there was ninety odd quid. Lonie stuck that in the side pocket of his long coat. He’d give that to her later, but now she was home he wasn’t sure when that would be.

Nothing had changed. The fatman and his cronies were still rushing through every day, sifting out the kernels’ of stories from the newsdesk, tarting some up, dismissing others and making a mockery of the outsider’s world, but Lonie was out of sync with their feeble efforts to feel important, to make what they were doing seem life changing. He was back at work because he’d run out of money and he didn’t want anyone else getting the Goldenwell story. His dad had always told him to finish what he’d started. There was something else nagging him, frozen, but thawing, at the back of his mind and he wasn’t sure what shape or when it would appear in his fuddled brain.

Lonie made sure his proper press credential, were stuck in the inside pocket of his coat, before setting out towards the secure unit of Goldenwell hospital. He should have made phone calls to the Cardinal’s office, reintroduced himself and got updated on the possible closure of the secure unit, but he couldn’t be arsed. He had a coffee in the kitchen, slipped away from the office and stood outside the office on the pavement smoking a Woodbine with his collar up, the wind driving the rain and bringing the smell and taste of the Clyde to the shore. Without Audrey to drive him to the hospital he would have had to get a couple of buses, but was in no mood for waiting or sharing the clammy warmth of a bus journey, locked into a fixed route with other passengers. It felt good walking, his heals hitting the pavement, plotting his own path, stretching the sinews in his legs and easing the band of pain radiating from the back of his neck up to the occipital and temporal bones of his head, which made his jaw ache.

Goldenwell’s secure unit routines were set in bureaucratic stone. Lonie waited overlong on a plastic seat in the lower Dorm for one of the Brothers from the upper Dorm to come and collect him, but that allowed him to close and rest his eyes. Brother Connelly's touch on his shoulder startled him and made him jerk forward. A flush of red crept into Lonie's cheeks. He wiped drool that had spilled from the side of his mouth with the back of his right hand, before falling into line and marching all the way into the insular safety and cloying heat of the secure unit.

‘What have Ah missed when Ah’ve been away?’ Lonie settled himself into the plastic chair in Father Campbell’s office, near his desk, which had somehow become his, in the same way that Jim had the plastic seat beside him and Lorna usually sat across from him. He’d a Woodbine in his hand and an impish expression on his face, but his remark was aimed at no one in particular.

‘I’m so sorry to hear about Audrey.’ Father Campbell looked thinner, more beaky nosed thought Lonie, if that was possible. He leaned across, his touch on Lonie’s arm a light reassurance. ‘God was surely with her. She has been in our thoughts and in our prayers.’

‘Aye.’ Smoke swirled up from Lonie’s fag. ‘Ah’m sorry too, but are no’ those the kind of things you say about dead people?’

Jim chortled and nodded his head in agreement. ‘Aye, I suppose it is.’

Lorna smiled at him indulgently. ‘Would you like some tea?’ She was keen to help in any way she could and was already on the move, up and out of her chair.

‘Aye, that would be nice. Four sugars.’ Lonie smiled back at Lorna. She was wearing a white blouse, and if the gold crucifix was ignored, with a hint of breast at neck. She was very pretty, and in his experience pretty people drew smiles like bees to pollen, but it did, somehow, make him feel disloyal to Audrey in a way that he wouldn’t have felt in the past.

Father Campbell, seated in his swivel chair cleared his throat before speaking. ‘God is merciful, God of the living not the dead, for nothing dies to Him the creator. I’m sure she came under a sustained spiritual attack that was meant to kill her. Her guardian angel was powerful enough to prevent this and our prayers were answered.’

Lonie stubbed out his fag in the ashtray on Father Campbell’s desk before saying anything. Jim’s glance flickered away from the priest and gave Lonie a sideway’s look. Lonie liked Father Campbell, but felt it had to be said. ‘Ah don’t think the six people that were killed would be very thankful. What about their guardian angels, did they have the day off? And those other poor folk that were injured…’ His voice choked up as he thought of Audrey. He looked Father Campbell in the eye, but he was distracted by an inhuman howling noise coming from the patient’s end of the ward.

Jim sprang up and stomped quickly out of the office and away towards the source of the noise. Father Campbell scoured the top drawer in his desk. His fingers found a white silk stole. He held it up with two arms aloft, towards the light bulb, as if his team was God and he was showing his support. His eyes were closed and he swayed and muttered some prayer, in what sounded like Latin to Lonie. Kissing the purple cross that was embossed into the material of the scarf and falling to one knee with his head lowered were done with due reverence. Lonie watched Lorna, further along the corridor, come out of the kitchen and hurriedly bend and leave the tray with a cup knocked into the saucers and left abandoned on the floor as she hurriedly followed Jim’s lead. Father Campbell edged his way past Lonie.

‘You will behave yourself?’ Father Campbell’s eyes found Lonie’s. Despite the noise, kerfuffle and mobilisation of all the staff he had a wry smile on his face and Lonie had never liked him more.

‘Depends. What have you got to amuse me?’ Lonie nodded towards the patient’s rooms. ‘What’s goin’ on there?’

‘I need to perform an exorcism. You’ll need to wait here. You’ll be quite safe.’

‘Ah’m no’ paid to be safe. Ah’m paid to be where the action is.’ A roar followed by a thud gave Lonie goosebumps and made him reconsider, but Father Campbell following Lonie’s gaze was unfazed. Lonie grabbed onto his leg as he passed and tried a new tact. ‘Ah’m assuming it’ll be pretty hairy in there, but I’ve been baptised, made my first confession, Holy Communion, even got married in the church. The only thing Ah’ve missed so far is the sacrament of extreme unction and that will be sooner, rather than later.’ Lonie let go of his soutane, not sure what he was trying to say. ‘Ah can maybe help. Hold somebody down, or something?’

Father Campbell looked intensely at Lonie for about thirty seconds, before he spoke. ‘I’ll need to hear your confession first.’

‘We’ve no’ got time.’ The noise from along the corridor had risen and it seemed to Lonie that God’s team were getting walloped.

‘There’s always time. Nothing but time. Just kneel down. Tell God you are sorry for your sins and that will be enough.’

Lonie slipped from the chair and kneeled. His throat was dry and he didn’t know what to say or do. Father Campbell kneeled facing him, close enough to smell the carbolic soap he used. He felt like a small boy with the priest taller in his eyes.

‘Just tell God you’re sorry.’

‘That’s all?’ Lonie wasn’t sure he could remember all the other mumbo jumbo.

‘That’s all God ever asks.’

Lonie closed his eyes. He’d difficult swallowing. ‘I’m sorry God.’ The words were of a boy let down. He opened his eyes and Father Campbell nodded as if he’d made the right decision.

‘A good act of contrition,' Father Campbell requested next.

The words seemed to come from somewhere hidden inside Lonie, a dusty book that had been left shut. ‘Oh My God, because your heart is so good, I’m very sorry that I have sinned against you and I will not sin again.’

Father Campbell prayed as Lonie spoke and recited some Latin prayer that finished with the spoken English version. ‘I absolve you from your sins. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.' He made the sign of the cross over his forehead and Lonie was no longer a penitent, but renewed in God’s eyes and part of the universal Catholic Church.

Lonie felt a bit stupid, but he said nothing and waited for Father Campbell to take the lead.

Father Campbell struggled to his feet. He traced a pattern of the cross on Lonie’s forehead. He took a deep breath. ‘Do not answer or respond to anything the demon tells you. He is the father of lies. He is stronger than you or me and has knowledge that lies outside time’s constraints. Do as I tell you and let only the risen Lord be your shield.’ Those were Lonie’s battle order as he followed Father Campbell out of his office and along the corridor.