Year of the Beast Read online

  She stares at them, those cottage eyes, both welcoming and suspicious, as if saying: we take you in because we have to, you are ours; but also eyeing her suspiciously, pronouncing her proud – just a bit too proud. Cottage eyes, terrace after uniform terrace, staring back at her all along the street. She lifts her head, the orange sunset has gone, the yolk on the dome of the Exhibition Building has melted into the darkness. And somewhere out there in the night the beast will be lying down, resting, eyes eternally half-opened, or maybe it will be slouching and swaying home through streets like these, singing some football song or other, scales shining in the moonlight, before rising up again in the morning, and all the mornings and days after, until it gets what it craves and what it will not be denied: something … something final.

  2.

  The local priest, Father Geoghan, is sitting in the front room of the cottage when she enters. It is the best room in the house. The one set aside for important visitors. And a priest is an important visitor. Maryanne sits next to Katherine, who has come to stay with her for these last couple of months before the child is born. Katherine, who looked after her when their parents died: big sister and mother all in one.

  Maryanne wrote to her, care of a post and telegraph office in some little bush town. To let her sister know. She was pregnant. Long story. But it was all right. She could do this on her own. And the next thing, Katherine walked through the door and dropped her baggage in the hallway. Oh no, she said, you can’t do this alone. She moved into a small room beside the kitchen, big enough for a single bed and her things: a tent, a swag and a rifle. An Enfield. Army issue. Maryanne knows little of guns, but she has learned about the marvels of the Enfield from Katherine. Katherine paid a lot for it, but it was worth every penny. And she likes to talk about it. It is her prize, her protection, her provider. And she’s a better shot than most. She can pick rabbits off from a good distance. And the odd snake. And if any tramp gets too near she’s happy to demonstrate the marvels of the rifle. But they don’t, because one look and they know she can use it. And so big sister, who has tramped most of the country over the years, doing whatever job came up, pretending to be a man if she had to – and nobody questioned her, not with a rifle like that over her shoulder – has come to stay.

  Maryanne smiles, glancing now at her sister. We’re not the ordinary run, you and I. Never have been. The room is dim, cool, with the slightly musty scent of rooms that are not used often. The priest turns from Katherine to Maryanne. Father Geoghan, her sister tells her, has come to see you. Katherine says this, at least it seems to Maryanne, almost with a bowed head. It’s something she’ll never understand about Katherine: she’s battled droughts and floods and tramps, and heaven knows what else out there on lonely bush stations and farms, but she’s still afraid of a priest. And the crucifix she’s had since she was a girl, that has always hung over her in huts or in her tent wherever she’s pitched it, and to which she prays every night before sleep, is as prized a possession as her Enfield. And so when she tells Maryanne that Father Geoghan has come, it is in the manner of one of the faithful, an unremarkable middle-aged woman who gives little or no hint of this other Katherine at all.

  The priest wishes Maryanne good evening as though welcoming her into his house. Maryanne nods. He leans back in his chair and talks of the crowds, of the hour of decision that has come to them, and of the stirring words of the archbishop. And they all agree they are lucky having the archbishop to champion their cause: a great man, a great cause. They reflect on this for a moment, and then Father Geoghan begins speaking to Maryanne in a quiet, measured voice.

  He speaks, she watches. He is, she has felt from the first time she saw him years before, an old-young man: balding even then, drawn cheeks, inquisitor’s eyes and prickly brows, and a voice that was always ten years older than he was, and still is, with a way of speaking that could almost have come out of last century’s novels. An old-young man, a look that his simple, round spectacles add to. One of those who have never been young, who never seem to age because they can’t, and one of those who have never known a moment of doubt. Fatal purity. Where did she read that phrase? She’s forgotten. But he’s got it, Father Geoghan, the disease of fatal purity. But as much as there is judgement in those eyes as he addresses her, there is also concern. He leans forward and rests his hand lightly and reassuringly on her knee as he speaks.

  She looks down at his hand and he withdraws it. He has, he implies as he continues speaking, her interests at heart. He loves her as he does all his children. She could almost laugh. Thirty-nine years of age and she is still a child in his eyes. One of his children. A child! Of course. This is why he is here. Now she understands. His concern is not for her at all, but for the unborn child. And she now stares down at her swollen belly through the eyes of Father Geoghan: as if, already, the child is not hers but theirs.

  He casually observes, drops it into the conversation, that he hasn’t seen Maryanne at church for some time. Letting the observation sink in with a pause, he then addresses more directly the matter that has brought him here. He speaks in a voice that presents itself as reason: his Sunday voice. The Sunday voice she’s heard before, listened to for years, but doesn’t listen to any more. Measured and quiet. Quiet because it is also the voice of authority. And authority never raises its voice. Or it shouldn’t. For, once it does, it is no longer the voice of authority.

  Sin, the priest is saying with well-practised lines, is like a stain. You must imagine a clean white sheet of blotting paper. The sheet of blotting paper, white and unblemished, is innocence. When a single drop of ink falls on the paper it is no longer unblemished. No longer innocent. It has sinned. This, the priest says, is original sin. And he says this in a way that suggests that although he is perfectly aware that Maryanne knows this, she also needs reminding of it. We can’t help that, he goes on. Not the original sin. We are all born with the blot of ink upon us. We don’t choose it. He pauses again; Katherine nods. Maryanne says nothing. Betrays no reaction. She’s heard this sermon before, the priest’s lines so well practised now, she imagines, that he doesn’t really need to think about what he’s saying. The blot of ink falls on the paper, he continues. But it doesn’t stop there. It spreads, as blots will. We don’t choose that first drop, we are born with it, but every fresh drop we add thereafter is our choice. And with every fresh drop the stain spreads, wider and wider. Like a disease. A plague. We must stop the spreading stain. Or all will be stained black. He pauses, eyes peering deep into hers in a manner that suggests yes, we’ve all heard this before, I know, but we might do well to hear it again. And dwell upon it. The stain spreads; blackness will cover all, if we choose to let it. And you, Maryanne, who will do well to hear this sermon again, remember it and never forget it, must ask yourself who bears that stain?

  The mood in the room changes. Becomes tense. Katherine is motionless, eyes fixed on the priest. Maryanne is torn between outrage and fascination. But remains calm. Father Geoghan continues, a voice soft as an executioner’s. It will spread, as sure as God created time and made day and night, it will spread to others unless we act. Unless we take action now, before it is too late. For the good of others. We must act, do difficult things, so that stain cannot touch them and its blackness be not upon them.

  Here he sits back and nods, his bespectacled eyes on hers, then straying to her belly, swollen with the fruit of fornication, and she knows exactly what he is saying. He is one of those born for inquisitions and revolutions. And he would take her child from her the moment he could: for the good of the child, for the mother, for everybody. He would take her child from her without conscience because his conscience would be clear. She has become her own stain. And the stain of shame will spread to the child, unless the child is placed out of her reach, and knows not its shame. Oh yes, this is exactly what he means, even if he doesn’t say it – and all implied with the quiet, measured voice of concerned authority. A voice that brings with it centuries of battling sin. A voice that
brings with it cathedrals of wisdom, chapels of humility. A voice that implies: we know all about these things. Trust us. Leave these things to those who know. Maryanne is both listening and biding her time, glancing at the clock.

  Then she’s not listening at all. Her eyes stray to the morning newspaper on a side table. The words ‘Empire’, ‘Duty’ and ‘Yes’ are written large across the open page. As is the name ‘Milhaus’: the curious case of Jack Milhaus, an ex-footballer accused of spying. A German. A high-flying angel one day, fallen the next. A case, an affair even, that rouses her curiosity more than it should, for she has no interest in sport or football or football’s heroes. But the swiftness of his fall from grace does interest her. And while she’s contemplating this, Father Geoghan’s mouth opens and shuts like a fish in a tank. He is speaking and she is – to all appearances – listening. But she has ceased to hear him. And for the time it takes him to finish, she feels like a scientist coldly observing a specimen and finding it intriguing. So, this is it. This is the face of the religion she not so much lost as left: walked away from. This is it. A bland, pure face. Bland and merciless. Preaching a sermon she has heard before, and for which she has long since ceased to feel anything. A trick she has seen too often to believe in any more: an illusion with a long history, and no future. And it is this distinct sense of being on the outside looking in that allows her to feel like a scientist looking on while the priest’s mouth silently opens and closes.

  Then she is hearing him again because he has noticed her looking at the clock. The whore! The fornicating whore! She dares brazenly to look at the clock. And suddenly the quiet, measured voice of authority is no longer quiet but raised, and the cathedrals of wisdom, the chapels of humility, are ranting. And what she imagined he was saying, what he was implying, has become actual speech. The priest roaring at her like a threeheaded dog, telling her that the child must be saved. Can be saved. And that he knows what must be done. The face, bland a moment ago, is now flushed, red, about to burst, transformed with passion and outrage. Spitting words. How dare she look at the clock when he is speaking. Whore! Fornicating whore! Is she listening? Really listening? Father Geoghan is stirred to outrage. God is stirred to outrage, and his bespectacled eyes are suddenly burning into her, and she’s not sure if these questions are being spoken in fact or imagined. And, for a moment, she is rocked by this eruption, and the trembling fear of the believing child she once was suddenly rises up in her, and the all-knowing, all-seeing, bespectacled eyes of God are staring mercilessly into her. Do you understand, child? And, for a moment, she is a child again. Helpless and cowering. Oh, these people. These people … they never let go. She feels his power. She is a child. Silent and stunned. Yes, yes, Father, her silence would seem to be saying. Yes, she understands. She is a fornicating whore. She has become her own stain. The child must be saved. Yes, yes, Father. You are right, Father. You are always right. You bring cathedrals of wisdom with you. Yes, Father. Yes. Take the child. She is unworthy. Take it. She understands.

  ‘All for the best,’ the priest continues, rising from his chair, voice rasping, but shaky, almost on the verge of breaking. ‘Believe me, I know!’

  And it is then that he stops, eyes wide, looking from Maryanne to Katherine, and back again. The eyes of a man who suddenly realises he has gone too far. Said too much. Done the unforgivable, and lost control.

  He settles back into his chair, staring at a country scene on the wall, his last words still humming in the quiet of the room.

  Something, Maryanne tells herself, something has been said. But what? Something significant enough to bring Father Geoghan to a sudden stop. The mystery at the heart of Father Geoghan has been momentarily laid bare. But what is it? And, for a moment, all that priestly certainty, the cathedral wisdom, the fatal purity, dissolves as he sits there in front of them with a vague, lost look in his eyes. And the only certainty is that something happened, but what?

  The eruption subsides as quickly as it started. A practised trick, a stunt she knows only too well, but which somehow got out of hand. Ran away from him. But one to which, all the same, Maryanne succumbed. A trick that still works. The inquisitor’s look goes from his eyes and Father Geoghan recovers his composure, leans back in his chair, flicks an imaginary speck of dust from his trousers, his voice now soft and controlled.

  ‘You want what’s best, Maryanne. Your sister does,’ he says, turning to Katherine, who, it seems to Maryanne, is now eyeing the priest in the way she might well look upon an actor who has fluffed his lines, asking herself if she can still believe the performance once the mask has fallen away. ‘Everybody does. You understand,’ the priest continues.

  His composure is back as if nothing has happened, and there is a hint of a smile on his lips. Yes, you understand, the smile says. Of course you do. Once our child, always our child. His smile spreads: the performance resumes, the role and the man united once more. Welcome back to the fold. Once ours, always ours. You understand, my child. And you know what must be done.

  All the talk of stains and shame returns to her. But if she feels any shame at the moment, it is the shame of her silence. For having failed her child. For having been weak when she should have been strong. When she should have stood tall, she shrank and became a child again. And shame turns to anger, and she’d suddenly love to wipe the satisfied smile off the priest’s face. Or go and get Katherine’s rifle. Just one shot over his head.

  As if the matter were decided, he begins to talk – casually, calmly, the voice of authority once more, as if this is some small matter that can easily be remedied – about a foundling home he knows of. Not far. Just to the north of the city. It is run by the Sisters of St Joseph. Has been for years, he nods. Trust us, we know about these things. We know our trade, the trade of human souls. We’ve been doing this for centuries. There’s no soul lost that can’t be saved. No stain that can’t be stopped. The child will be placed out of reach where it will not know its shame. Trust us. He leans back in his chair, a biscuit in hand. A contented smile lighting his eyes, a smile that says: I have this day saved a soul.

  And now that Maryanne has had time enough to calm herself, and step back, her anger recedes. He talks again to Katherine of the coming vote, of the inspiring words of Mannix, and Maryanne is free to study him again, as a scientist might an insect.

  Father Geoghan. Surely he must have been a child once.

  And it is only then that it occurs to her that he must have a Christian name. A priest has always been simply a priest. Hardly human. Which, she only now acknowledges, is why the occasional waft of his tobacco or the scent of his hair tonic has always come as a bit of a shock. Father Geoghan, a man? But the shock always faded as did such questions. And so, for as long as she can remember, she never considered the possibility that he might have a Christian name – or have once been a child. Of course, he does – and was. All the same, it’s quite a jolt to be thinking this, even for Maryanne. But the more she contemplates it, the more intrigued she becomes with just what his name might be. The name that his mother used to call him in from the street, the name that his father spoke, that his brothers and sisters (if he had any) teased him with. She dwells on this while he chats with Katherine.

  She doesn’t know his Christian name and never will. So, she decides, she’ll have to give him one. Who is he? Father Geoghan, Father Geoghan, Father … Yes, of course. Kevin. And this causes her to smile briefly, for it is a little like deciding that God himself must have a Christian name, and calling God Kevin. The name sticks. And, suddenly, she’s staring at the freshly christened Father Kevin Geoghan – and imagining him as a child.

  Little Kevin. Kev. Playing games, toy soldiers. Babbling all sorts of babble to himself, in a world of his own, a child … but no, she can’t see it. Always an old-young man. She squints at him, a slight shake of the head. Kevin. A bland name, like his face. Never, she tells herself, trust the bland. Never trust the banal. For underneath the quiet voice that moves easily from the topic of
the vote to talk of this foundling home, where the Sisters of St Joseph will take matters in hand, is a man of extremes. Of fire and ice. And violence. Like that sudden eruption a few minutes before. A trick, yes. But real enough. And violent enough to get out of control, to let things run away from him. Like a quietly spoken revolutionary who’d think nothing of lining you up against a wall. And she thinks of this because revolution is in the newspapers, a world away in the cities of Russia.

  This Father Geoghan is one of them. In another life the custodian of revolutionary change and the iron laws of history. In this one, the custodian of human souls and God’s will. It is all the same. Maryanne’s eyes stray from the priest to the bookshelves that line the walls of the room. Books that belong to both her and Katherine, for they are both readers. Were brought up to be readers in a reading family, and one of the many lessons found in those books, for Maryanne (especially at this moment), is that the same types recur all through history, through revolutions and inquisitions, wearing different uniforms and robes and under different banners. But always the same types: and, among them, the Father Geoghans of this world, past worlds and worlds to come. They will always be there. And there is, with these thoughts, something suddenly unnerving about the presence of the bland-faced Father Geoghan in the room, a man who enters other people’s houses as if they were his own, who speaks of stains and souls with practised ease, and who accepts the gift of tea, which he sips with thin lips, and biscuits, which he nibbles.

  What has made the likes of you, Father Geoghan, Maryanne asks herself as she gazes at the insect priest. What unfamiliar parts of my world do you come from? She shifts her eyes to Katherine, now nodding warily at the priest, but nodding all the same. As girls, as young women, Maryanne and Katherine believed it all: God, heaven and sin. Now only Katherine does, but her faith is fervent enough for two: her crucifix, like her rifle, her constant companion. Maryanne’s faith left her gradually. Day after day, she lost the will to sustain it. The strength to believe it all. A magic show she saw once too often. The mirrors, the tricks, the sleight of hand, the musty, rich scents of the church – all no longer a mystery. And there was sadness in the way she left it, like leaving her childhood behind. At first she missed the occasional Sunday mass, then at some point she stopped going altogether: ceased to kneel down before a God she no longer believed in. There’s just us, she thought one day, looking around at streets and houses and people, just us. And it was frightening and exciting at the same time: being both free and alone. A new feeling, one that she kept to herself. A change that left her looking at the world the way someone might from a distant age that sees things differently.