Crooked Vows by John Watt Page B

disaster, the shattered dismembered bodies, the surging flames, flood back into his mind, and with them the horror. He sits on the hard slatted bus stop seat and tries to relax his suddenly tense muscles, reaching for that sense of distance from the looming, threatening shapes and sounds.

6
    The Word of God
    Thomas slips into a pew near the confessionals. The congregation is beginning to trickle in for the second Sunday-morning Mass. He smiles, remembering Father Kevin’s lengthy complaints last week.
    â€˜I don’t know, m’boy. Why in God’s name do they have to wait for the nine o’clock? If they all came to the seven o’clock it might be a bit of a squeeze, but we could get them out of the way in one hit. And I could get my breakfast at a reasonable time. I tell you, there’s nothing much worse than waiting till half past ten to eat a couple of eggs that one of the nuns fried hard at half past eight and then left to go cold and greasy for a couple of hours. Like white and yellow rubber. You know, I reckon they do it on purpose. Pray God when you get a parish of your own it’ll be one with a housekeeper, not nuns. Mind you, the average parish housekeeper is not a pleasant sight, in my experience. But the food is a hell of a lot better, even with the worst of them.’
    Thomas pulls his thoughts back to the moment. These memories are too frivolous for this place. He looks up at the wall. One of the Stations of the Cross is above him: the image of Christ being stripped of his garments. The holy face has eyes turned up towards the heavens in deep shame at his body being exposed to the stares and taunts of the jeering bystanders. The holy head is crowned with thorns, and there are runnels of blood streaking the forehead and cheeks.
    The image is instantly replaced by one from his memory: the area between the two sections of the wreckage of the plane. Runnels and splashes of blood on faces and bodies, torn-off limbs, blood pooling on the ground. The horror.
    He tries to relax, to find again some separation from the threatening thoughts, to focus on the reality around him. Luckily, distractions arrive. An elderly man with grey thinning hair limps painfully down the side aisle and edges into the pew in front of Thomas, lifting his trailing leg in with both hands and arranging that foot beside the other on the kneeler. He has hardly managed to position his difficult limbs comfort ably when Mrs Regan arrives down the same side aisle, leading a long procession of Regans of various sizes. She smiles deferentially at Thomas as she picks her way into the same pew, stumbling over her predecessor’s feet. The man winces and tries to arrange his stiff legs more safely. The rest of the family follow, and he winces anew as each Regan squeezes and stumbles past him.
    This must be the husband, with the bloated belly and the nose like a reddish potato. The girl with the glasses and the earnest expression must be Mary, destined for the convent, according to her mother. She looks the part already. More children straggle and stumble into the pew. Can these all be Regans? How many are there supposed to be? Father Kevin didn’t seem entirely sure. A literary fragment pops up in Thomas’s memory. ‘ What? Will the line stretch out to the crack of doom? ’ Shakespeare, without a doubt. Which play, though? He should remember.
    Mrs Regan eases herself down onto her knees, gropes in a bulky black handbag, and produces an unusually large set of rosary beads. She sets out on the familiar repetitive circuit of prayers in a loud, hoarse mutter: ‘ Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be …’ Her beads generate a surprisingly loud rattle. How can rosary beads make so much noise? Thomas tries glaring at the back of her head. The mutter becomes even hoarser and louder. ‘ Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour …’ Then it fades back to its