God's door

 

The one thing Flora wants more than anything in the whole world is to be an altar boy. She studies them intently throughout mass, marvelling at their squeaky shoes as they process down the aisle like kings in borrowed robes. Gareth Mulvoney holding the banner; his face so solemn it’s as if he’s keeping it up with holy thoughts alone. Flora would hold that staff so straight; if they would only give her the chance. And Mark Leeson, with his poxy skin, clutching the bowl at collection time. She has practised that reverent nod in the mirror so many times she can do it better than him now.

Flora holds her breath as Father Eugene raises the host and Matthew Patterson rings the bell. Oh, what she would do to get her hands on that bell. A fact that Matthew has taken advantage of more than once. 'Touch it and I’ll let you see the bell. Just once. Go on. Don’t be soft.' Of course she knows now that Father Eugene locks it away after mass and Matthew is just a lying pervert. He did bring her a host to school one day, though. She hid it in a soap tin and it tasted of lavender as it melted on her tongue beneath the bed covers that night.

But the highlight of mass for Flora is when Christopher Rosendale carries up the water and the wine, and hands it to the priest with great Ceremony. Afterwards he has to wipe the chalice and fold the perfectly starched cloth neatly in four. It’s weird: everyone knows boys are slobs and girls would be better at this stuff. She has seen Christopher Rosendale’s bedroom and it’s a pit. He didn’t try to touch her at least because he doesn’t like girls. He says he’s going to be one when he grows up and that Father O’Leary once told him he has Fetching Ankles, and that he pressed his face so close he could feel his nose hairs twitch.

Sometimes she fantasises about being one of the Chosen Ones. She imagines the conversations she and God would have. She’d tell him her theory on dying being like holding your breath in the bath and ask him why some of the meanest people she knows are Christians. And why Mrs Hitchens who does the flowers goes to confession so much, and always comes out flushed. Father Eugene can barely look at her during mass, but when he leaves the confession box it’s as if they’ve shared a magnificent secret.

She thinks of all the secrets she would like to share in the confessional. Like the time Peter Hammond stuck his tongue in her ear. She wrote about it in her diary and her dad found it and clipped that very same ear and said that’ll teach you for being such a hussy. She looked up the word in the dictionary that night and her cheeks stung with shame.

That’s why God won’t have girls at the altar, because they’re hussies. But then she thinks about Mary and it doesn’t make sense. God chose her to have his baby and she didn’t even get a tongue in her ear and still she wasn’t invited to the last supper. And yet that mean one Judas was.

A woman would never have snitched on Jesus. She would have looked after him and protected him and told him not to be a hero. The way Ma does with Da. Not that there’s any chance of him being one, struck down as he is with the booze.

Maybe girls aren’t allowed because they’d make the boys look stupid. 'Men aren’t good at much so perhaps we should let them have the altar,' Gran once whispered in between rolling strands of sweet tobacco and licking a crinkled cigarette paper. Her mother laughed so hard she spat out her tea. But when Flora prays at night all she can think is, why did you create us if you were just going to slam the door in our faces? And that’s when her head spins with the injustice of it all, and she thinks God mustn’t exist – if he did he would surely strike her down for even having that thought. And yet she goes on breathing. And praying... that one day she’ll get to kneel by the altar at last. One pew closer to God. Her God.

By Beth