1 Chapter 1

“Bless me, Father, for I—”

“Sam, you were here yesterday!”

“That was before I reallymessed up.”

“If it’s about your streaking episode at the football club—”

“Hey! How do youknow about that?!”

“Bad news travels, Sam, you know that. Just wanted to make it easier for you to tell me, that’s all. Sorry. We’ll just forget it, shall we?”

“I’d rather you did! Anyway, this latest thing is much worse!”

“I’m listening, Sam. Would you be more comfortable turning your chair away from me, towards the altar?”

“Thanks. That’s better. Well, if you already know about that other incident…It’s to do with my being drunk again. You’re keeping a straight face now, Father, but wait till I finish.”

“I’m not here to judge you, Sam, that’s not my province. Keep facing the altar and I won’t look at you.”

“Okay, here goes nothing. Last night I drank…er…a lot of gin and tonic. Unfortunately without eating dinner.”

“No comment. Continue.”

“Well, I wanted to send Elaine an email, and I didn’t have the courage while I was sober. After each drink I’d ask myself whether I was ready, and the answer ‘yes’ only came after the fifth glass.

“So I staggered upstairs to the computer and one thing kind of led to another. Somehow I ended up surfing the net. Boy, there’s some really bad stuff out there, Father.

“Trouble is, I was too drunk to stop. By the time I got round to writing my email all these lewd images were swirling round my head.”

“Isn’t Elaine the young lady at work whom you’re trying to court? With, shall we say, limited success?”

“She doesn’t even know I exist. So I wanted to impress her with my wit and erudition, but it just didn’t happen that way.

“I sent off my email at around 3 A.M. this morning. Then I went to bed, convinced that by morning she’d discover me to be an educated model of manhood. I set my alarm for nine o’clock—you know that’s early for me on a Sunday—and stumbled out of bed, dying to know whether she’d read it and sent an answer.

“Father, my message had been returned, plus an angry note from the recipient—my mother! I’d sent it to herby mistake. It gave me the perfect opportunity to read my foolishness in a more sober state. Awful things I wrote, Father. About the wicked things I wanted to do to Elaine, like—”

“Okay, Sam, I catch the drift—spare me the details!”

“But I didn’t know I had it in me to write such filth! Mother now does. She’s threatening to tell Dad, and he’s got a weak heart already. You know how he is: he won’t have the courage to do the readings in church any more. Neither of them will want to come to Mass again and be seen in public. What am I going to do? I’ve discovered my basest self, turned my parents away from the Church and as good as killed my father!”

“Whoa, Sam! Guilt’s letting your imagination run riot. Nothing of the sort will happen. You’re behaving as though the whole world’s already found out what you did. No one is going to know and you’ll make your peace with your mother in time. I’m sure she’ll not tell your father.”

“You really think so?”

“Of course. Come, I’ll give you your penance and absolve you.”

“Before you do, I think I’m ready to tackle that football incident now.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. You see, it all started with a hamster.”

“And possibly a spot of alcohol?”

“Well, Father, our team didwin!”

“I trust the hamster came to no harm?”

“No, it was a hypothetical hamster.”

“A hypothetical hamster?”

“Yes. Father, you see…”

* * * *

“Father, bless me, for I have sinned.”

“Sam, I only saw you a week ago. And you do realize you don’t have to say it like that any more?”

“Habit, Father, sorry.”

“How’s that week been? Your mother talking to you again? Both your parents were in church on Sunday, so things can’t be as bad as you feared.”

“Well, Mother hasn’t told Dad, but she’s giving me the cold shoulder.”

“Give her time. She’ll relent.”

“I don’t suppose she’s talked to you, has she?”

“Now, you know very well I’m not at liberty to divulge anything if she did. But if she wereto visit me, I would, of course, advocate forgiveness.”

“I suppose I’ll have to wait, then. Er…Father, this week I got my company banned from the hotel it uses for management training programs.”

“How did this happen?”

“Well, might you sigh, Father. I’d had a few drinks with the lads downstairs—”

“Did you at least eat dinner first, this time?”

“Yes, we had a rather—um…boozy dinner beforehand. Elaine was there, looking beautiful, of course, and ignoring me as usual. If only she’d look my way sometimes with those limpid blue eyes of hers and that perfect face with its little turned-up nose—”

“Ahem! You were saying about a ban?”

“What? Oh, sorry, drifting a bit, wasn’t I? Well, I got to my hotel room around 2 A.M. and went to bed. An hour later I badly needed a p...er, the bathroom. It was dark and I had trouble finding it. Eventually I did and the door closed behind me. Only I wasn’t in the bathroom but the hotel corridor…at 3 A.M., with no clothes on!

“Father, don’t laugh, this isn’t funny.”

“Sorry, Sam, slip of the lips.”

“You can imagine I sobered up pretty fast! I had to get a new keycard from reception downstairs. There was nothing in the corridor to cover myself with, so I walked to the lift stark naked.