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“Yeah, okay, I know. Stupid thing to say. But can we go into the garden whilst I tell you the rest? I asked. “Cos I’m really gonna need a smoke or ten for this one. Um, if that’s okay with you?”
“I’ll make sure I sit upwind,” I reassured him.
Lilith
We found a sun-warmed bench in the Clinica’s immaculately landscaped gardens and as Finn sat, he winced in pain. “Risperidone side effect,” he explained. “Muscle spasms. Christ but I feel like I’m about ninety, Lili. I ache like fuck, and I reckon my shoulders are turning into concrete. At least this time I won’t be tempted to keep swallowin’ it for a laugh, because I swear to God, that shit is anything but recreational.”
“You’re just having the best time at the moment, aren’t you?” I said as I hauled two cushions off a nearby swing seat and passed them to him.
Finn managed a smile. “Ach, I’ve had worse; I’ll survive. Probably,” he said as he pulled the first Marlboro out of the pack with his teeth. He lit it with a shaking hand, took a long drag and shut his eyes.
As he smoked, a fountain splashed a delicate stream of water into a koi pond, the scent of jasmine and lavender filled the air, and I knew that whatever was coming next was going to be an approximation of hell. I sat and waited with my bare feet curled under me and concentrated on looking as damn relaxed as I could possibly manage.
“Okay.” Finn finally spoke. “It was when I was thirteen, a couple of months after that Christmas when… well you know that bit of the story, yeah?”
“Jimmy Boy Dean. I remember.” I hid a shudder. Good start. Finn’s first rape, at the hands of his mother’s boyfriend. Any story that grew from this seed could only be a nightmare.
“I went a little bit crazy after that. I’d just been nicked again for bein’ in a car that one of the lads on the estate had swiped, and I got sent away to a kids’ home for the second time. This one was the Last Chance Saloon before getting banged up for real, the judge told me. Fuckin’ wish I had just been put behind a locked door. I’d have been safe there.”
Finn stubbed out his first cigarette, and opened the packet and lit his second without having to look. “So the home has its own little chapel, just a converted front room really, but done up like a proper wee church with an altar and a couple of pews and even a confessional, because it’s important to look after our spiritual welfare, y’know?
“And this young priest, Father McKenna, is in charge, still wet behind the ears from the seminary. Takes me into his study for a welcome chat and tells me over tea and biscuits that daily mass is compulsory, and I’ll need to go to confession before I can attend. Hah. Fuckin’ confession. Last time I’d been in the confessional, I was seven and admitting to nickin’ a pencil from Alfie Harrison at the next desk, and now I’m a thirteen year old car thief whose hobbies consist of bare knuckle fighting and getting buggered by bastards.
I say something like, ‘I wouldn’t know where to fuckin’ start,’ so first off Father McKenna tells me, ‘Profanity will not be tolerated’, but I’ve not had the right influences in my life so he’s willing to let me off this once.”
Finn risked looking me in the eye, and all I could see was the raw pain of a confused child. “Like cursing was the worst thing a man could commit in that place.” He rubbed at his face. “The next morning, one of the older lads wakes me up. Tells me it’s time for my confession and I’ve got to get myself down to the chapel. He’s got this smirk on his face, and like the stupid little shite that I am, I reckon it’s because I’m in for a tough penance. It’s about six o’clock and as black as all hell outside, so I just stumble downstairs in the dark, still in my pyjamas and half asleep.
“Turns out Father McKenna’s actually a great fella – all ‘Take your time’, and ‘If there’s anything troubling you, you can give it to God.’ Tells me he knows that something awful must’ve happened to me, and that God wants me to be absolved, and I can tell him anything. Ah, I should have known right then, Lili.” He shut his eyes and leaned back against the wall. “Should have fuckin’ known.”
Finn started to tremble and I picked up his hoodie from the table next to us and I leaned across to wrap it around his tensed shoulders. He grasped the edges of the fabric and pulled it tighter around his slight frame.
“You don’t need to tell me this,” I said. “Not if it’s going to upset you.”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “I really need to finish it now. Get the rest of it out. Ah, Jesus, but I’m so sorry, Lili – you’re the only one I can tell, and I just keep shovelling this shit at you, and…”
“It’s okay. It’s all okay,” I soothed. “Do what you need to do.”
Permission granted, he pulled his feet up onto the bench so that his knees were tight against his chest, and continued. “Right. So I’m there in the confessional, yeah? Knackered and miserable and worried to all fuck about who would be feeding my sisters, and this soft voice is coming through the grille and he’s giving me all this ‘And then what happened? Give me all of it,’ shite because apparently only the littlest details are going to satisfy God and ensure my forgiveness.” He gave a mirthless laugh. “ It wasn’t God that I was satisfying though, was it?”
Finn
“Step out of the confessional, Finn.”
The young priest’s voice had been full of sorrow, and I’d stupidly thought it was compassion. I shuffled my way sullenly out of the small booth, my hands jammed in my pockets and my gaze fixed firmly on the floor.
“Such beauty,” he gasped, and cupped his hand under my chin so that I had to look up. “Sent by Satan to tempt me. Like our Lord in the wilderness…” I’d seen such a look in men’s eyes before and it hadn’t ended well but my naivety kept me rooted to the spot, because surely I wasn’t in any danger from a man of God?
The priest’s tongue was in my mouth almost before he’d uttered the last word, and at that moment I knew without doubt I was damned. He kissed me and bit at my face with a hunger that was terrifying; I was left gasping for breath in the breaks between his wet, probing tongue filling my throat and choking me.
I should have fought him. I should have used the strength and speed and guile that I possessed in the bare-knuckle ring, and brayed that bastard senseless the moment he laid a finger on me. But I was all alone and so scared that I thought that I might piss myself, so I let him drag me to the altar and push my head down against the pristine white cloth.
By the time I even considered fighting back I was pinned against the cold stone and Father McKenna was yanking my pyjama pants down my hips, making these desperate little animal sounds of lust as he did so, already too familiar to me. With his spare hand he pinned my arms behind my back and, far too late, I yelled out.
“Shut up!” the priest hissed. He grabbed the cloth that covered the chalice, all neat and ready for communion later that morning, and shoved it into my mouth. My cries became muffled squeaks of terror, too quiet for anyone outside the chapel to hear but still loud enough to act as a potent aphrodisiac for Father McKenna. The man wasn’t stupid, because seconds later he stabbed his unlubed cock into me and I screamed like a rabbit in a snare without disturbing a single soul. He dug his fingers into my waist and pumped his filthy cum into me for what felt like hours before slumping over me, finally spent. “Sweet Jesus, what did you make me do?” he sobbed into my ear.
By the time he pulled out of me, I could no longer stand. Pain and shock sent me crashing to the floor, ripped apart once again, body and soul bleeding, and scared rigid.
As I lay there Father McKenna knelt next to me, tears streaming down his face. “There can’t be any place for you in this church. You know that, don’t you?” He stroked my hair as he spoke, his voice full of regret. “What you did with those men was wrong, Finn. You understand that, don’t you? You led them away from Christ, just as you’ve led me. And now you’ve defiled our sanctuary.”
