A Prayer for the Dying

Anna da Costa was playing the piano in the living-room of the old presbytery when Father da Costa entered. She swung round on the piano stool at once and stood up.

‘Uncle Michael, you’re late. What happened?’

He kissed her cheek and led her to a chair by the window. ‘You’ll hear soon enough so I might as well tell you now. A man was murdered this morning at the cemetery.’

She gazed up at him blankly, those beautiful, useless, dark eyes fixed on some point beyond, and there was a complete lack of comprehension on her face.

‘Murdered? I don’t understand.’

He sat down beside her and took both her hands in his. ‘I saw it. Anna. I was the only witness.’

He got up and started to pace up and down the room. ‘I was walking through the old part of the cemetery. Remember, I took you there last month?’

He described what had happened in detail, as much for himself as for her, because for some reason it seemed suddenly necessary.

‘And he didn’t shoot me, Anna!’ he said. ‘That’s the strangest thing of all. I just don’t understand it. It doesn’t make any kind of sense.’

She shuddered deeply. ‘Oh, Uncle Michael, it’s a miracle you’re here at all.’

She held out her hands and he took them again, conscious of a sudden, overwhelming tenderness. It occurred to him, and not for the first time, that in some ways she was the one creature he truly loved in the whole world, which was a great sin, for a priest’s love, after all, should be available to all. But then, she was his dead brother’s only child, an orphan since her fifteenth year.

The clock struck one and he patted her head. ‘I’ll have to go. I’m already late.’

‘I made sandwiches,’ she said. ‘They’re in the kitchen.’

‘I’ll have them when I get back,’ he said. ‘I won’t have much time. I’m being picked up by a detective-superintendent called Miller at two o’clock. He wants me to look through some photos to see if I can recognise the man I saw. If he’s early, give him a cup of tea or something.’

The door banged. It was suddenly very quiet. She sat there, thoroughly bewildered by it all, unable to comprehend what he had told her. She was a quiet girl. She knew little of life. Her childhood had been spent in special schools for the blind. After the death of her parents, music college. And then Uncle Michael had returned and for the first time in years, she had somebody to care about again. Who cared about her.

But as always, there was solace in her music and she turned back to the piano, feeling expertly through the Braille music transcripts for the Chopin Prelude she was working on. It wasn’t there. She frowned in bewilderment and then suddenly remembered going across to the church earlier to play the organ and the stranger who’d spoken to her. She must have left the piece she wanted over there with her organ transcripts.

She went out into the hall, found a raincoat and a walking stick and let herself out of the front door.

It was still raining hard as Father da Costa hurried through the churchyard and unlocked the small door which led directly into the sacristy. He put on his alb, threw a violet stole over his shoulder and went to hear confession.

He was late – not that it mattered very much. Few people came at that time of day. Perhaps the odd shopper or office worker who found the old church convenient. On some days he waited the statutory half an hour and no one came at all.

The church was cold and smelt of damp, which wasn’t particularly surprising as he could no longer meet the heating bill. A young woman was just lighting another candle in front of the Virgin, and as he moved past he was aware of at least two other people sitting waiting by the confessional box.

He went inside, murmured a short prayer and settled himself. The prayer hadn’t helped, mainly because his mind was still in a turmoil, obsessed with what he had seen at the cemetery.

The door clicked on the other side of the screen and a woman started to speak. Middle-aged from the sound of her. He hastily forced himself back to reality and listened to what she had to say. It was nothing very much. Sins of omission in the main. Some minor dishonesty concerning a grocery bill. A few petty lies.

The next was a young woman, presumably the one he had seen lighting the candle to the Virgin. She started hesitantly. Trivial matters on the whole. Anger, impure thoughts, lies. And she hadn’t been to Mass for three months.

‘Is that all?’ he prompted her in the silence.

It wasn’t, of course, and out it came. An affair with her employer, a married man.

‘How long has this been going on?’ da Costa asked her.

‘For three months, Father.’

The exact period since she had last been to Mass.

‘This man has made love to you?’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘How often?’

‘Two or three times a week. At the office. When everyone else has gone home.’

There was a confidence in her voice now, a calmness. Of course bringing things out into the open often made people feel like that, but this was different.

‘He has children?’

‘Three, Father.’ There was a pause. ‘What can I do?’

‘The answer is so obvious. Must be. Leave this place, find another job. Put him out of your mind.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘Why?’ he said, and added with calculated brutality, ‘Because you enjoy it?’

‘Yes, Father,’ she said simply.

‘And you’re not prepared to stop?’

‘I can’t!’ For the first time she cracked, just a little, but there was panic there now.

‘Then why have you come here?’

‘I haven’t been to Mass in three months, Father.’

He saw it all then and it was really so beautifully simple, so pitifully human.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘You can’t do without God either.’

She started to cry quietly. ‘This is a waste of time, Father, because I can’t say I won’t go with him again when I know damn well my body will betray me every time I see him. God knows that. If I said any different I’d be lying to him as well as you and I couldn’t do that.’

How many people were that close to God? Father da Costa was filled with a sense of incredible wonder. He took a deep breath to hold back the lump that rose in his throat and threatened to choke him.

He said in a firm, clear voice, ‘May Our Lord Jesus Christ absolve you, and I, by his authority, absolve you from every bond of excommunication and interdict, so far as I can, and you have need. Therefore, I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’

There was silence for a moment and then she said, ‘But I can’t promise I won’t see him again.’

‘I’m not asking you to,’ da Costa said. ‘If you feel you owe me anything, find another job, that’s all I ask. We’ll leave the rest up to God.’