The Promise by Tony Birch

several times. Eventually I turned around and headed in the opposite direction from the office.
    I walked the streets of the city, occasionally stopping to look at a shop window display, eventually finding myself outside Bernard’s Magic Shop on Elizabeth Street. My father had taken me there with my older brother, Christopher, when we were small boys. Like most children, I was mesmerised by magic, while Chris was ever the cynic. I’d once been at a magic show at the local town hall. He’d been sitting behind me with a couple of mates, and had leaned across and screamed in my ear, ‘It’s only a trick, Nicky; it’s all a trick. None of this is true.’
    I’d felt betrayed by what he’d said. He’d robbed me of something precious and I never forgave him.
    My stomach began rumbling. I was hungry, but had been too nervous to eat breakfast that morning and had eaten nothing since. I walked past several crowded cafés before choosing one that had only single bar stools in the front window. Inside, I ordered a sandwich, ate quickly and left.
    Returning to the train station I heard the ringing of church bells above the noise of city traffic. The sound reminded me of the bell that hung atop the Catholic church a few streets from my childhood home. The bell would ring out each weekday morning announcing eleven o’clock mass, and four times on Sundays, once for each mass. Although my parents were not religious they insisted on sending Chris and me to the Catholic school next to the church, to ‘keep us in order’, my father claimed. He dragged us from our beds early on Sunday mornings, forcing us to nine o’clock mass and a front pew, where we would be sure to catch the eye of the nuns who taught us.
    I followed the sound of the bells across Elizabeth Street and stopped in front of a wrought-iron gate leading into a churchyard, before walking through the darkened wood-panelled entrance of the church. Although mass was not being said the church was almost full. I rested against the back pew and watched as people came and went. Some dropped to their knees and prayed with rosary beads entwined around their clasped hands, while others sat quietly with heads rested in their hands and their eyes closed.
    With little understanding of what I was doing, I walked along a side aisle and approached a seat, unable to recall if I was supposed to kneel, make the sign of the cross, or do both. After some confusion I did neither. Although I have only a slight build, as I sat down I felt the full weight of my body.The oak pew creaked loudly in response. Feeling weary, I rested my head against the back of the pew and looked up at the timber panelling in the ceiling above the altar. The inlay of each oak panel had been finished in brightly painted gold stars on a blue background.
    I woke to the sound of the church bells, sat up and wiped saliva from my chin. A woman was kneeling next to me, quietly reciting a prayer to herself. She picked at a strand of wool on the sleeve of the cardigan she was wearing. It began to unravel. I stood up, walked back along the aisle and was about to pass by the side nave when I stopped. It was aglow with many hundreds of candles burning on a series of metal tiers on both sides of a small altar.A kaleidoscope of colours projected onto a wall above, the effect of the afternoon sun touching a stained-glass window.
    I picked up a candle – it resembled a parched finger bone – and lit its wick from another before placing it on the topmost tier. As I did so the melting wax dripping from the next candle bled onto the back of my hand and scalded my skin. I suddenly felt that I needed to sit again. I looked up at the window, and read the inscription bordering it – Refuge of Sinners. I closed my eyes and thought about my son.

THE GHOST OF HANK WILLIAMS
    C urtis played a deadly twelve-string guitar out front of the old Lido Ballroom on Saturday mornings, picking up