venial sins, he’d asked her about Tom Malone. She hadn’t even tried to deny it but spoke quite openly about their affair and when he asked the reason she hadn’t confessed it before she asked why she should have to. There was nothing wrong in it, was there?
The priest couldn’t believe his ears. The poor child really didn’t know there was any sin involved, that what she had done was quite innocent. It was when he questioned her further that he began to doubt her sanity.
She told him of all her other affairs, why she attended church so regularly, and why she prayed so fervently.
All as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
And when she asked if it would be possible for him to say a special Mass that she might achieve this wonderful orgasm she’d heard about, he was too shocked to make any reply at all.
He needed time to think, so he asked her to leave but to return in the morning before services. What could he do? She obviously needed medical help as well as spiritual, but how could a doctor cure a girl who was so completelyareoral , and how could a priest cure a girl who could not comprehend the difference between right and wrong?
He prayed most of that night, prayed for guidance that he might save this young innocent from her literally soul-destroying fate. The next morning he patiently tried to explain to her why the things she did, and the things she prayed for, were wrong. Not wrong if she found one man whom she could love and eventually marry, make love to achieve a sanctifying union and have children, but wrong if she were to give her precious body to any man who wanted it, just to satisfy this greedy lust within her, and so destroying the spirit of the Holy Ghost who dwelt inside her. God loved her and wanted her to be happy, but she must respect this wonderful gift he had given her, and keep it only for marriage.
She laughed, not out of defiance, but because she genuinely thought the priest was being silly. Her brain had put up a mental block that refused to accept sex as wrong in any way. Where once ‘she had listened to his every word with reverence, she now treated him as though he were the child, and he couldn’t be serious in what he was saying.
He went on, explaining about the eases she could contract, the homes she would break up, how it could only lead to unhappiness forherself - but it was hopeless. It wasn’t like talking to another person for she was still the sweet, pure young girl he’d come to know - it was as though one section of her brain had closed a door and refused to let any argument enter.
Eventually, he had to suggest that she should see a doctor with him, a good friend of his, who would just talk to her, and between them they would help her back on to the right path. She agreed, although she thought it a silly idea, but if it would please him, then she’d go along. An appointment was made for the following Wednesday, but Father Mahar never saw Mary Kelly again, Mary moved to another part ofDublinand went back to being a barmaid, her life going on in the same pattern as before. She found a new church to attend but this time she was more wary about becoming too familiar to the priest.
And then, she finally met the man who could fulfil her needs, and, surprisingly enough, she met him in church.
Timothy Patrick was an immense man in every way. He had the usual Irishman’s ruddy glow, wiry, fair hair, huge hands and ears that stood at right angles from his head. His appetite, not just for food, but for life, was as enormous as his bulk. He was also a good man, not piously religious, but honest and reliable.
As soon as they laid eyes on one another, when he was taking the collection plate round during Mass, instinct told them that here at last was someone who could match their own vitality. He waited for her outside the church, as she knew he would, and walked her to her lodging house. They saw each other every evening after that and on the seventh he took her to a hotel and they made love.
For him, it was the most deeply satisfying act of love he’d ever experienced; for her, it was all her prayers answered. He had laughed when she prayed beside the bed before they made love, but was moved when afterwards she said a complete Rosary in gratitude, understanding this was in some way a compliment to him.
When Mary first saw his size, she was frightened, but she also felt a tingle of excitement run through her.
It was in exact proportion to his personality. Enormous. At first he was gentle,more gentle than any other man she had been with, but at her urging, he had become wild, thrusting himself into her with tremendous force, his great hands never still, crushing her breasts, shoulders and thighs. And she fought back with all her might, never allowing him to be dominant, biting, clawing, until she cried for relief from her frenzy.
And then relief came, flooding her whole body, making her taut limbs liquid. She wept as he soothed her brow with tender fingers, smiling, talking, staying inside her, It was then she’d said her Rosary while he waited quietly, his eyes never leaving her bowed head. As soon as she had finished she had laughed and leapt straight back on to the bed, where they made love many more times that night.
They saw each other every day, making love whenever they were alone, their mutual desire never diminishing, always demanding. Finally, Timothy announced his intention to go toEnglandto find better-paid employment and he asked Mary to go with him.
Marriage wasn’t mentioned but she eagerly agreed to go and within three weeks they were living together inNorth London. He found work on a building site and she went back to work as a barmaid. Her faith in God was stronger than it had ever been and she thanked him constantly, in church, at home or even on the bus on her way to work. She cherished her new found love and knew no other man would ever be able to fulfilher the way Timothy did, but she never once tried to push him into marriage.
When war broke out, he enlisted in the army despite her protests. Although she was really proud of him and his action, she dreaded their being apart, for although she knew no other man could satiate her as he did, and no other man could love her as he did, she wondered if she would be strong enough to resist seeking sexual satisfaction elsewhere. Timothy left and within four days she received a letter from him asking her to marry him as soon as he got leave. Then she knew she could wait.
But Timothy died three weeks later, crushed by a tank one night while out on manoeuvres. Nobody knew how it had happened; they had just found his body the next morning, the whole of his magnificent torso squashed flat in a field half a mile away from his unit. Nobody knew how he got there or why he was there, but he’d gone on record as being one of the army’s first war casualties. Weeks later, one of his friends from basic training had come to see Mary and told her that Timothy had smuggled a flask of whisky out with him to ‘keep out the terrible cold’ and had wandered off on his own that night. The soldier thought the army had found the smashed bottle with the body and had tried to cover up the matter for both Timothy’s sake and the army’s.
It was then that Mary had lost faith in God. To give her so much and then to obliterate it with one cruel stroke was too much for her simple mind to take. She began to hate God almost as much as she had once loved him. They caught her on her third attempt to burn down a Catholic church. She was put into an asylum but released after two months as a model patient. On her second day of freedom she had cost a priest the hearing on his left side when she’d thrust a knife into his ear through the wooden mesh-work of a confessional. She was declared insane and sent back to the asylum. The war was over by the time she was released and she came back into a world that was too busy licking its own wounds to worry about hers.
Her decline was inevitable. She still craved for satisfaction and sought it in the only way possible, but this time she did it as a living. She began to drink heavily and soon the many men began to bore her. None could live up to her Timothy.
She began to mock her clients in their futile attempts to arouse her, and laughed at their pathetic little organs. One night, a burly man, proud of his manhood broke her nose when she derided him. She began losing money, for some men refused to pay her after her demoralising sarcasm, but still she could not refrain from her derisive comments on their performance in bed. She became known to the police as a harasser of priests; she would follow a priest for miles, either cursing him or offering him her body, until the poor man had no alternative but to go into the nearest police station.
She was put away again and again but she always behaved like a model patient and was soon released.
She finally contracted gonorrhoea, and in the early stages, when she knew she had it, she took great delight in passing it on to the men she slept with. She soon found herself out on the street when her landlordfell victim to her ridicule and her disease. Her looks had faded, her appearance was shabby, her mind failed to grasp reality any more. She went to live with a group of Pakistani immigrants inBrick Laneand stayed there for several years, being
