assumed was one of the bad habits of Protestants – but the back door was never locked, and I was welcome to come in any time, Mrs Banks said, even if nobody was about. This meant that I usually had an hour or two to study the Dandy and the Beano , or whatever else Mr Banks had brought home that week. It was the first of many forbidden pleasures.
Stewart was my only friend. In the summer, we went bird-nesting together, or we filched pieces of linoleum and tobogganed down the slag heaps that surrounded the town, tumbling off when we reached the bottom and making delicious red scrapes on our hands and knees, those red scrapes with hard little pieces of coal and slag buried just under the skin. In winter, if it snowed, we climbed trees in the woods – it was more fun to climb trees in the winter, when the leaves had fallen; we could see so much further, out and away from the town, to the fields and the graveyard beyond – or we made our own sleds from oddments of timber and careered down the little hill opposite Stewart’s house. Together, we were the best bottle collectors in town, traipsing along the rims of ditches and foraging in the mouse-scented undergrowth for anything we could take to the shops and redeem. Most weeks, we made enough money that way to get us into the matinée at the Picture House.
Stewart was almost obsessively interested in all things Catholic: what our God was like, whether we believed in the Devil, what the saints did, whether the host really turned to flesh when the priest placed it on your tongue and you walked back up the aisle, trying to stay serious, with all eyes on you as the wafer melted in your mouth. He was amazed when I told him what I had learned in confirmation classes: that it was a sin for a Catholic to marry a Protestant, that if we did, husband and wife and all their children would go to hell. (I worried about this sometimes, as my father was a non-Catholic, but my mother seemed to think we weren’t going to hell because, even if my father rarely attended Mass, he had converted to Catholicism before they actually married. I also worried about the distinction between non-Catholic and Protestant, which seemed to exist, though it was never defined. In the end, I decided the way to look at it was that Protestants were actively not-Catholic, whereas non-Catholics didn’t much care, one way or another.) Stewart wondered if I thought he was going to hell and I had to tell him that it was unavoidable, unless he became a Catholic. He thought about this for a while, then he laughed.
‘So you’ll be going to heaven,’ he said. ‘Guaranteed.’
‘Not necessarily,’ I said. ‘You can’t go to heaven if you die with a mortal sin on your soul.’ I then proceeded to explain what a mortal sin was.
‘So,’ Stewart said, ‘if you get run over by a bus on your way to confession, with the mortal sin still on your soul, you go to hell, but if you get run over by the next bus, on your way home from confession, you go to heaven.’
‘I suppose so,’ I said, though even I could see the absurdity of the notion.
I think, however, that Stewart was more in awe of The Catholics , the more he learned about the strangeness of our beliefs. I think he admired us for entertaining such preposterous convictions. Certainly, he never mocked my religion; he only seemed bemused, and strangely taken in, by it. For a while, I even wondered if he was going to ask me to lead him to the priests’ house, where he would repent his evil ways and join the one holy, Catholic and apostolic Church. But he never did. He came to Mass with me once, and I skipped Mass the following week, to go with him to kirk. I think he liked the statues and the flowers; he couldn’t take his eyes off the foot of the Virgin, crushing the head of the serpent in a damp, incense-flavoured alcove just inside the door. I liked the emptiness of the kirk: the white walls, the clear windows, the fact that you could miss it once in a
Stewart was my only friend. In the summer, we went bird-nesting together, or we filched pieces of linoleum and tobogganed down the slag heaps that surrounded the town, tumbling off when we reached the bottom and making delicious red scrapes on our hands and knees, those red scrapes with hard little pieces of coal and slag buried just under the skin. In winter, if it snowed, we climbed trees in the woods – it was more fun to climb trees in the winter, when the leaves had fallen; we could see so much further, out and away from the town, to the fields and the graveyard beyond – or we made our own sleds from oddments of timber and careered down the little hill opposite Stewart’s house. Together, we were the best bottle collectors in town, traipsing along the rims of ditches and foraging in the mouse-scented undergrowth for anything we could take to the shops and redeem. Most weeks, we made enough money that way to get us into the matinée at the Picture House.
Stewart was almost obsessively interested in all things Catholic: what our God was like, whether we believed in the Devil, what the saints did, whether the host really turned to flesh when the priest placed it on your tongue and you walked back up the aisle, trying to stay serious, with all eyes on you as the wafer melted in your mouth. He was amazed when I told him what I had learned in confirmation classes: that it was a sin for a Catholic to marry a Protestant, that if we did, husband and wife and all their children would go to hell. (I worried about this sometimes, as my father was a non-Catholic, but my mother seemed to think we weren’t going to hell because, even if my father rarely attended Mass, he had converted to Catholicism before they actually married. I also worried about the distinction between non-Catholic and Protestant, which seemed to exist, though it was never defined. In the end, I decided the way to look at it was that Protestants were actively not-Catholic, whereas non-Catholics didn’t much care, one way or another.) Stewart wondered if I thought he was going to hell and I had to tell him that it was unavoidable, unless he became a Catholic. He thought about this for a while, then he laughed.
‘So you’ll be going to heaven,’ he said. ‘Guaranteed.’
‘Not necessarily,’ I said. ‘You can’t go to heaven if you die with a mortal sin on your soul.’ I then proceeded to explain what a mortal sin was.
‘So,’ Stewart said, ‘if you get run over by a bus on your way to confession, with the mortal sin still on your soul, you go to hell, but if you get run over by the next bus, on your way home from confession, you go to heaven.’
‘I suppose so,’ I said, though even I could see the absurdity of the notion.
I think, however, that Stewart was more in awe of The Catholics , the more he learned about the strangeness of our beliefs. I think he admired us for entertaining such preposterous convictions. Certainly, he never mocked my religion; he only seemed bemused, and strangely taken in, by it. For a while, I even wondered if he was going to ask me to lead him to the priests’ house, where he would repent his evil ways and join the one holy, Catholic and apostolic Church. But he never did. He came to Mass with me once, and I skipped Mass the following week, to go with him to kirk. I think he liked the statues and the flowers; he couldn’t take his eyes off the foot of the Virgin, crushing the head of the serpent in a damp, incense-flavoured alcove just inside the door. I liked the emptiness of the kirk: the white walls, the clear windows, the fact that you could miss it once in a
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