Photograph entitled; Reflection © 2006 by John D. Stanton 3AMBlue

The Priest and the Politician

John Irvine © 2003

 

Father Michael Patrick Seamus O'Hare breathed a very long, very quiet sigh. Gently he rose from his hard chair beside the bed, holding his worn rosary in his left hand as his right reluctantly slipped from the lifeless, withered hand of Senator Eleanor Tasker. The relentless rain on the darkened window registered only subliminally on his brain, so engrossed was he in melancholy reminiscence. He stared unseeing for a moment at the rain-streaked glass, then slowly plodded to the door. Was it only three months?

 

Dear Eleanor…the only love of his life apart from his God and his church. So many forgotten years had slipped by since she and he, in the flame of their immortal youth, had planned their future together lying naked in the meadow behind his parent's simple cabin. With the heady perfume of wild flowers filling their senses, and meadowlarks overhead announcing their passion, they had made love again and again and again.

 

Eleanor Tasker. She was the catch of the day back then. He had never quite worked out what she saw in him, but whatever it was it had worked for her. Perhaps in his gangly awkwardness, his freckled shyness she mistook the meaning of his inner commitment. A commitment Michael himself was unaware of at the time. All he saw then was the auburn-haired enchantress who took away his breath every time he saw her across the classroom, her green eyes flashing just for him. His ultimate calling had yet to tap on his shoulder, as it would, taking him from her only weeks before their wedding.

 

Eleanor Tasker. Sweet, innocent, vital, ebullient Eleanor…he shed another sigh, and this time an involuntary shudder slid down his body. He turned at the door, looking back at the wasted, empty shell lying on the hospital bed. Cancer had wracked her always-trim figure, stripping away not only her flesh but also her vitality. It had taken not only her life but also her future and her dignity. It had never taken her courage.

 

**

 

When Michael O'Hare had finally surrendered to the tap on his shoulder, and entered the priesthood just weeks before his nuptials to this feisty girl, she had been distraught. Perhaps that's somewhat of an understatement. She had made a very public and rather noisy declaration after a considerable number of large Scotches that if she ever came across Michael O'Hare in flames she would not deign to urinate on him to put out the fire.

 

For the intervening 48 years there had been no contact between them, and the good Father had ministered to his flock selflessly and tirelessly. He read fondly of Eleanor's rise to the fame and fortune of the political world, and of her aspirations, comfortable in his own religious obscurity. He had noted with interest that in spite of several high-profile romances she had never married.

 

 

 

 

Father Michael was well respected not only by his parishioners, but also by the hierarchy within the church. His devotion to the Holy Orders and his tireless work with the less fortunate were widely respected and roundly applauded. Father Michael, it was whispered, was destined for greatness. A Bishopric was not beyond the realms of possibility. Father Michael Patrick Seamus O'Hare, it was said, had the ear of the Vatican .

 

Then three months ago, after a particularly exhausting day counselling young drug users at his youth centre, Father Michael had been stunned to hear a message in his voice mail from Eleanor. Senator Eleanor Tasker herself. Not a secretary, not an aide, but that low, husky voice that instantly stripped the last 48 years of his life from his memory. Eleanor…. His Eleanor!!

 

In her no-nonsense style she had suggested a meeting on neutral ground. Coffee and bagels, perhaps, at a certain secluded café she knew of, far from the reporters and cameras that usually hounded her. Please call back on this direct line and leave a message…for a day Father Michael was speechless, and called off all his appointments. He walked into doors, spilled coffee, and was incoherent when folks telephoned. He dialed the direct line.

 

“Hello? Michael?”

 

That was all it took. Two words, four syllables after all these years and he was lost. His vows, his commitment, his church receded at high velocity, and his mouth hung slack and wide open.

 

“Michael? Is that you?”

 

Somehow he stammered that it was indeed he, and her voice melted down the line all over him like warm, creamy fudge topping.

 

“Michael! I know it's you! I recognise your breathing!” Her throaty chuckle took him back a million years to those carefree afternoons in the meadow.

 

“Um...yes, Eleanor. Sorry--Senator Tasker. Yes; yes, it is I, Father Michael.”

 

My God, he thought, what an idiot I must sound, how pompous. He cringed inside himself.

 

Her amused laughter tinkled back across the city, “ Dear Michael, or should I call you dear Father Michael?”

 

Despite the initial confusion a day and time were decided upon by Eleanor, and a meeting was planned. For days Father Michael agonised and floundered about, wringing his hands. What should he say? What should he do? Should he go? How should he behave? So it was with extreme trepidation that on the appointed day and at the appointed time he entered the café. Standing just inside the doorway, battling to assemble his dignity he saw her rise from a table near the rear of the room.

 

Even in the subdued lighting her wide, slow smile with those perfect bow-shaped red lips speared him where he stood…he smelled wild flowers and quite clearly heard a meadowlark sing.

 

For the next three months he and Eleanor had met regularly, always at the same quiet café, always at the same secluded table. The intervening years swiftly drifted away, and although it must have raised an eyebrow or two even here in the city, the unlikely couple holding hands like teenagers were oblivious to all except each other. The priest and the politician…

 

It was inevitable that eventually their undeclared love would manifest itself physically, and one warm Autumn afternoon, whilst picnicking beside a river an hour or so out of the city they became lovers for the second time. With the scent of the gently waving grass and with an incurious hedgehog as chaperone their passions ignited, whirling both to unimagined heights. No longer the priest and the politician, but Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra, Barrett and Browning.

 

Adam and Eve.

 

With the setting of the sun came the agony and recrimination for Father Michael Patrick Seamus O'Hare. The aging priest had violated one of his most sacred vows, and although he knew that he could confess and be absolved, he knew also that he desperately wanted it to happen again.

 

They continued to meet, and embraced their re-kindled love with cautious enthusiasm. Lovemaking occurred in many places, but always outdoors where Father Michael felt that God was watching him and judging. He was beginning to feel good about his God again, and reasoned that if He had been displeased then He would have made some sign to that effect. Father Michael even began to consider the ramifications of leaving the priesthood.

 

On a chill, rainy afternoon Father Michael hurried to meet Eleanor at their usual rendezvous. He was, as always, eager to be with her, and smiled softly at the recurring image of his special princess in that long-ago and far-away meadow. She greeted him with a stone face. No smile, just large, round green eyes filmed with tears, staring deep into his soul. Before he had a chance to pull out his chair she said flatly,

 

“It's cancer.”

 

No preamble, no introduction. Straight up as always.

 

“They've given me a couple of months at best…a week or two at worst.”

 

Father Michael stood rigid, his brain disconnected and his mouth gaping. His silver head slowly moved from side to side as he struggled with the enormity of her statement. She hadn't even told him that she was ill. How typical of her not to bother him with such things.

 

“Sit down, Michael,” she whispered. “Let's just take it as it comes. OK? Let's enjoy what time we have left.”

 

Beneath the Sword of Damocles their passion knew neither bounds nor propriety, and often they would make frenzied love in her car, until finally the creeping tentacles of disease squeezed her dry of vitality and will. Hospitalisation became imperative, and Eleanor sank rapidly into an almost perpetual drug-induced sleep. Father Michael seldom ever left her bedside. His lifetime's work seemed unimportant as he sat with her, watching in silent rage as his God punished them both for his indiscretions. Oh, how he would gladly burn in Hell for all eternity if only this ravaged soul were restored to health.

 

She died without fuss…a final, silent exhalation heralding the departure of the one human being he had ever really, truly loved. The hospital staff left him to his grief, curiously pondering the mystery of the handsome, silver-haired priest and the famous politician.

 

He sighed again, pursing his lips, and sending a last kiss to accompany her on her journey, and turned away, stumbling blindly down the corridor to the lifts. As he exited on the ground floor, head down, he thrust his hands deep into his soutane pockets, discovering the letter that had arrived that morning just as he had left for the hospital. He idly tore the flap open and on official church notepaper he read the message:

 

“Father O'Hare,

 

It is with deep regret that we must advise that due to your recent and on-going indiscretions, and to your increasingly flagrant disregard for your vows, the Council has no choice but to request your resignation from Holy Orders.

 

There seemed no useful purpose in suggesting the usual counselling procedures, as you appear irrevocably hell-bent upon your own eternal damnation. This decision was not reached lightly, and has been the subject of long and often heated debate. The shameless nature of your liaison with the politician in question leaves us with no viable alternatives. The sanctity of the church must be preserved.

 

Please endeavour to clear your belongings from your quarters by Friday week, the 25th September.

 

Regretfully,

Archbishop Ramsey.”

 

He was less affected by this news than might have been expected, and as he raised his head, looking at the misty, rain-streaked glass doors in front of him, he smiled a wry smile. There some joker had written in the condensation on the glass:

 

“Sometimes all your rainy

days come at once.”

 

 

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