Free A Private Haunting by Tom McCulloch Page B

school-kids sniggered. Over-analysing, it was a bloody illness. Mary jogged home and made an omelette (whites only) while her husband assembled his own breakfast (big and fried). He and his big belly held court, telling her that he didn’t need to flap around the streets like Paula bloody Radcliffe because the doctor had told him his BP was normal, cholesterol fine and if he had his liver checked that’d be just fine too.
    â€˜When did you go to the doctor?’
    â€˜I had that mole.’
    â€˜That was years ago!’
    â€˜Yeah, well.’
    â€˜Well, what?’
    â€˜Well, I’m just the same .’
    She rolled her eyes, knew she was doing it but kept on. Her husband, in turn, rolled his.
    As she stared into space, she found herself wondering what Jonas ate for breakfast. If he too had just carefully constructed a sandwich of bacon, sausage and egg, slathered in brown sauce, then any comparison with her husband edged towards one of like with like and a disappointed anti-climax. If, on the other hand, he was eating something different, like a grapefruit, or porridge, then she was looking at a different kind of comparison altogether.
    That got her thinking about the advert. Her husband was wiping brown sauce from his chin.
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    And so, hours later, Mary was standing in front of Jonas in The Black Lion in her supermarket uniform. He seemed nervous and that made her even more self-conscious. The awkwardness continued as they silently watched Old Sam shuffle across to the toilets. Jonas invited her to sit down and for a moment she thought about asking him what he ate for breakfast.
    â€˜Do you have any... experience,’ he said.
    â€˜Of cleaning?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜My own or others?’
    â€˜Eh?’
    â€˜Twenty-two years a wife.’ She blushed when she said it. Wife , as if she had to make that fact clear.
    â€˜I see. And what... attracts you to the job?’
    â€˜Are you serious ?’
    Jonas visibly relaxed, shaking his head and smiling. ‘You’re right. I don’t have a clue about all this.’

Twelve
    Fletcher sat in the over-hot confessional. An unusual tang clung to the air, old sweat mixed with something else, sour yet floral. Is this the smell of sin? He should ask the priest on the other side of the mesh. The man was irritating him, a reedy wheedle of a voice that set his teeth on edge. But the irritation was more than offset by the thought of his aunt’s abject horror at him sitting where he was. She said Catholics had killed God . Quite the claim, but that was his aunt.
    The priest droned on, the head bowed, now and then a question, a full-face glimpse as he turned to wait for the response. The grave, over-studied demeanour jarred with the spouted inanities and Fletcher’s anger was sudden, familiar. He wondered what it would be like to stab the priest in the eye, through the mesh.
    â€˜Thank you, Father.’
    â€˜There’s no need to call me Father.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜There’s just no need.’
    Fletcher left the confessional and crossed to the main door of the church. He let it squeak open and shut but stayed inside. The confessional opened a few moments later. The priest appeared, stretching his arms and yawning, a shake of the head and a vague little smile. Then he noticed Fletcher and froze, arms still outstretched. Fletcher stared at him then left.
    During one session the shrink asked about religion. If Fletcher believed, it might help, they said. A crutch they called it, emotional or spiritual. He wanted to laugh, tell them they were a bunch of fuckin dilettantes if they thought belief was auxiliary to self. He’d been on tour in Iraq and Afghanistan and had seen the astonishing absolutism of faith inhabited, not worn.
    Faith was dead, he told the counsellor. It was lying in the dirt of Sangin beside the dying Afghan girl, his dead sister’s doppelganger. Only morons and liars had faith,