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The Subsequent Confessions of Revd. Patrick Bold

John Farquhar Young

    “You took a risk,” Graham, a man in his late 60s widowed for several weeks, murmurs. He turns to scrutinize his companion. Again, uncertainty floods his thinking. What does he want from me? he wonders, sensing unease beneath the young man’s calm demeanor.
    The Reverend Patrick Bold detaches his gaze from the river meandering beneath them in the valley.
    “Sorry?” he says, smiling and looking puzzled. “My mind was wandering.”
    “Your confession you made a few weeks ago. You said you didn’t believe a lot of what you’re supposed to believe in as a clergyman. Not the sort of information that would endear you to your parishioners.”
    Patrick chuckles. “Ah that.” He returns his gaze to the river. “I don’t think I took a risk. You have nothing to gain by undermining me in the eyes of what some might call my ‘flock’. You’re not a gossip and would regard it as dishonorable to pass on what was disclosed to you - confessed to you - in confidence.”
    For a moment or two, Graham debates with himself about what to say next. Best just encourage him to speak, he decides. Nudge him along. “You called yourself a hypocrite - that was a bit fierce, wasn’t it? Perhaps you’re being a bit hard on yourself.”
    The minister shrugs. “You could be right. I may be a hypocrite in a good cause, but I still regard myself as a hypocrite.” He shrugs. “In various degrees my parishioners need the story that I tell, that I repeat week after week, in various forms - from the pulpit, at christenings, at funerals, weddings. I am a good storyteller but ...” He pauses and nods wearily. “Week after week I act and speak as though I sincerely believe what my parishioners in whole or in part believe.”
    “What do you believe in?” Graham ventures still very unsure about his role in the conversation.
    “Hmmm. That’s an interesting question and sadly the answer is not easily conveyed in words. I suppose...” he continues hesitantly,” ...I suppose that’s a part of my problem – part of my inner conflict you could say.”
    Graham worries about what might be coming next. I am not a psychotherapist, he groans inwardly. I know nothing about theology. I am not equipped to deal with these problems. Since his wife passed away, he has struggled daily with the emptiness in his life. I have enough problems of my own.
    Perhaps divining his companion’s misgivings, Patrick smiles in a reassuring sort of way. “I appreciate your company - your listening ear. I can’t share any of this with fellow ministers or with anybody in my parish.” He pauses then frowns. “But if you would rather draw a line under this confession business then please say.”
    “If all you want is a listening ear, then ...” Graham gestures encouragement, still feeling out of his depth.
    In a matter-of-fact way, the minister quickly moves on. “I have begun to think that my inner wiring may contribute to my problem. My surname suggests an Anglo-Saxon strand in my family history. It’s certainly a very old family name but in more recent times my father’s forebears were strongly interbred with Highland stock. My mother’s lineage was almost pure Gael and so I am, in large part, Gael. I think that I might have inherited a weird old Celtic way of sensing things.”
    The two men stand in silence for several minutes, as the clergyman seems once again to be caught up in his own thoughts.
     Reluctant to break the young man’s reverie, Graham is content to absorb the scene. The hill and the river below and in the distance the loch seem to be cloaked in a heavy serenity which defies easy description. He becomes aware that Patrick is quietly scrutinizing him.
    He laughs gently. “Yes, Graham, perhaps there is a touch of the Gael in you.” He nods and continues. “Up here in the quiet of the mountain it is easy to sense a broader reality - a ‘presence’ if you care to call it that. But you have to be able to still your mind and open yourself to it. Then you see yourself differently - as being very, very small, a small part of something universal.” He pauses and then sighs. “Perhaps because of my Celtic wiring, that’s easy for me - perhaps too easy. I don’t know. This experience is more important to me than dogma or beliefs. The trouble is that most people want easy ways to understand life and religion. They want words. Faith for them is just about accepting a number of propositions – words.” He shrugs. “And that’s what I give them, acceptable words and comforting stories. So ...” he pauses and glances at his elderly companion. “... you begin to understand one part of my problem.”
    “Not really,” Graham admits.
    Patrick glances at him and smiles sadly. “It’s good to talk. It really is,” he says after a moment.
    A thought nudges its way into Graham’s mind, and he overcomes his reluctance to probe into Patrick’s background. “You said that you don’t have anybody in the parish that you can talk to but perhaps you have family....”
    “I don’t have any brothers or sisters and my parents died in a car crash when I was still at university. So, as I say, it’s good to talk.”
    After a moment’s silence Patrick draws a breath. “Another problem. I am ‘the minister’ - a symbolic person and I am becoming claustrophobic. I’m single and I’m expected not to be. Sometimes women - usually elderly women - come up to me, smile and whisper ‘When are you going to get yourself a nice young lady?’”
    Graham vividly pictures these women, most well-meaning and kind in their own way - but some bigoted with sharp judgmental tongues. The ‘coven’ he used to call them and recalls in an instant his wife’s indulgent smile.
    A broad mischievous grin lights up the minister’s face. “I’ll tell you something funny. In the weeks soon after I took over the parish, women started appearing in the pews with their daughters. For a while one girl - very attractive I have to say - kept winking at me during my sermons. And here’s another confession - at times I almost winked back at her.”
    He nods. “No sane woman would want to be the lady of the manse. All the jumble sales... all the baking to be done and sampled.” He pauses and grimaces. “I am sometimes afflicted by giant scones. One woman, a lovely lady, bakes scones which are truly massive, the size of your fist – larger. Before each ‘bring and buy’ event I say a prayer that is never answered. ‘God protect me from the scones’. Her late husband was a hill farmer – a large man. One scone would be enough to keep you going all week. Sometimes you have to eat a scone - with her jam - in her presence, and you have to manufacture satisfaction all the time knowing that the scone will take up residence in your stomach for a couple of days. Sometimes...” he shakes his head. “Sometimes she delivers unsold scones to my door in a brown paper bag – always a large brown paper bag. Sometimes there are up to six scones in the bag. As you can see, I’m quite slim and this worries the lady. ‘You need building up,’ she often tells me.”
    He pauses and smiles. “The birds visiting the manse garden are well fed, I can tell you. But you have to be careful in case the recycling process is observed and reported. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”
    Graham laughs and then remembers his barely suppressed irritation as he watched his wife fussing over her home baking for the ‘bring-and-buy’ event. “You can get all that stuff in the bakery,” he would mutter. “Why don’t people just give some money?”
    “You miss the point,” Jenny always replied curtly with tight smile.
    I know the point - exactly! he recalls thinking as he grumpily retreated to the innards of his newspaper or the garden. I DO know the point! Competition is the point. Coven members competing with each other. Intra-coven rivalry. I am a-better-baker-than-you-are rivalry.
    He sorely misses Jenny fussing in the kitchen.
    “But perhaps a further confession.” Patrick glances at Graham and smiles self-consciously. “I DO actually have somebody I can share my feelings with. I met her at university, and we’re quite attached. She’s from Madrid but she lives and teaches foreign languages in the north of England. I see her as often as I can. She’s a lapsed Catholic, something of an agnostic and not afraid to state her views. She DEFINITELY would not be contributing to bring-and-buy events. Not exactly ‘lady of the manse’ material, is she?”
    AH! Graham thinks amused as he imagines the coven’s reception of a forthright Spanish lady. He begins to see young companion’s problem in a more understandable light. It’s not just a matter of all this mystical stuff. It’s something much more commonplace - an affair of the heart!
    “And what does your girl-friend say about your situation?”
    “What do you think she says?” Patrick says with surprising force.
    “She tells you to quit,” Graham suggests. He hesitates before continuing. “I said that I would provide a listening ear. It’s often advisable not to give advice. But you want something more than that don’t you?”
    Patrick is silent for a moment.
    “My heart is no longer in the job for a number of reasons ... as I’ve said.” He hesitates, frowning as he tries to focus his thoughts. “You attended church only... only because of your love for your wife. Jenny died and for you that was it as far as the church was concerned. I want to walk away from the church for broadly similar reasons. It’s love and affection that was a strand in your commitment and also mine. I am fond of my parishioners - that’s what has kept me involved up to now, but I am close to thinking that I also have a duty to myself.”
    “You certainly do!” Graham exclaims, surprised by the strength of his response.
    Shortly afterwards, the men slowly make their way down the mountain. An observer might briefly note two men of greatly different ages clearly at ease in each other’s company.
    A year later: Graham opens a large envelope and extracts a photograph of a newly married couple. The woman dark haired and stunningly attractive smiles as she stands beside the ex-Reverend Patrick Bold. A civil wedding, Graham thinks. “Be in touch,” is the brief message scrawled on a piece of paper attached by a paper clip to the photograph.
    Three years later: Another photograph arrives in an envelope bearing an Australian stamp. The picture is of an infant holding a teddy bear by one ear and smiling at the camera. Graham chuckles as he reads the accompanying message. “Hope you are well. Sorry I haven’t been very communicative. Perhaps more later. Very happy. I think the photograph says it all.”

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