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Great Writing - Home > Extended > The Polish Connection - Chapter 10
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Extended Work
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| The Polish Connection - Chapter 10 | |
| By jean.day | ||||||||||
| 06 October 2006 | ||||||||||
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November 1915 One day in November, Peter came upstairs after dark as was his want, and he had somehow found out that it was my birthday. I expect Rebecca had let it slip. He shyly presented me with a small box, and when I opened it, I found the most beautiful gold chain with a pearl drop. He fastened it around my neck, and then kissed me, gently at first, but then with an urgency that meant business. I succumbed to his charm and kissed him back with equal relish. I had so wanted this to happen. I knew it was wrong, but it was oh so good. How could anything that felt so good be bad? I knew I loved him – and had done almost from our first meeting. It didn’t mean I didn’t love John – of course I loved him too, but Peter was the one here, the one with his arms around me, the one who gently laid me on the floor in the dining room, placing a cushion beneath my head, and the afghan from the top of the couch on the corner to make a love nest in front of the open fire. Shutting the door with his foot, he then proceeded to slowly and sweetly remind me of all the aspects of love that I had nearly forgotten. Near the fire, the room wasn’t cold, and as he unbuttoned my blouse and pushed down my bodice. I slipped out of my skirt, petticoat and small clothes. He quickly shed his too, and we melted together for added warmth as well as the need to touch each other all over. He kissed me from head to toe – dwelling someplaces longer than others, finding new sensations and new excitement with each move. But before long, the act was complete, and we were complete, and we were one. When it was over, I hastily dressed, straightened my hair, told him that I couldn’t stay another moment – and fled the room. What had possessed me to do allow him to do that? I might well get pregnant! We had taken no precautions – we had only thought of our selfish needs and not the wider implications. I rushed to the bathroom and found my lavage bottle. I quickly ran a bath, and got into the water as hot as I could manage, and pushed what seemed like gallons of hot soapy water up my insides until I felt that I was as washed out as thoroughly as could be under the circumstances. Not a nice ending to a pleasant experience, but already my regrets far outweighed my joy. I was now officially an adulterer. So of course was Peter, and he like me, a Catholic, would immediately recognise that a sin such as this is grievous and very, very wrong. No matter how much we loved each other, it was wrong and we had no right to do it. Then I cried, and cried, because as much as I knew I was wrong, I knew that I couldn’t honestly say I was sorry, that I regretted it, that I would never do it again. I could not ask forgiveness in confession if I could not say those words and mean them. So as from now, unless I could change my mind, I had put myself outside the grace of God as far as my church and Peter’s church was concerned. I wondered if these thoughts were growing in his mind as well. Did he worry about sin like I do? Just as I was finally falling asleep, sick from all my crying, I wondered if John had remembered my birthday and was thinking of me. I started crying all over again. Sunday came, as it was bound to do, and I had to face a very hard decision. I knew I could not go to communion with a clear conscience. And I could not and would not go to confession to Father McSweeney, who of course would know my voice and therefore my sin, so I would have to just stay in my place at communion time and hope nobody would notice or comment on it. Why should they? Whose business would it be after all? But of course, because I was the organist, my usual path from the choir loft to the communion rail was a fairly standard part of the routine. I knew there would be those who would notice, but whether they would comment or not, I didn’t know, but I would have to wait and see. Nothing was said, and of course I was as usual the last out of church after playing the recessional. I delayed perhaps a few minutes more over the music than I would normally have done to make sure that all were gone when I came out. And I was lucky. Nobody was about. How silly, I told myself. This is my life, and my body, and my conscience and nobody else’s business. But even while I was saying those things, I knew that scandal is often started over such a small thing and I knew that I could not keep up doing this each week and not have somebody notice and comment. So I decided that one day during the week, I would go to St. Mary’s Church in New Mills. I could get the train over and walk from there up to the church. The priest there, Father McKenna, didn’t know me – and if I confessed there, nobody else would know and it would be all right again. I asked the mother of one of Beth’s friends to babysit her and on Wednesday, knowing that they always had confessions before mass on that day. I plucked up my courage, went into the confessional and said, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I committed adultery. I am sorry. I really am sorry. I promise I won’t do it again.” And he gave me absolution. I convinced myself for the time being. So all was well with me, and I could happily go to Communion the next Sunday, not worried that Father McSweeney or anyone else would find anything to comment on. I had hardly spoken to Peter since the night it happened. I had done his wash and made his meals which I let him eat alone, but I was so frightened that if we talked again and were alone together in any sort of intimate way, it would happen again, and I could not let that occur. He was hurt. Of course he was. He had offered me the best he had in the world – his love and himself. But of course, he no longer had a wife, so his sin was not nearly as bad as mine. He tried to get me to speak about it, but I just said, “I don’t have anything to say,” and would rush by him out of the room.
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