Therapy

after, when the Angel of the Lord appeared to them saying, ‘I bring you tidings of great joy, that shall be to all people, for this day is born to you a saviour, which is Christ the Lord.’ You have got to become those people. It’s not enough to play your parts. You’ve got to pray your parts. You should begin every rehearsal with a prayer.”
    Father Jerome went on for some time in this vein. It was in its way a remarkable speech, worthy of Stanislavsky. He completely transformed the atmosphere of our rehearsals, which he regularly attended from that day on. The cast approached their parts with a new seriousness and dedication. Father Jerome had convinced them that they must draw on their own spiritual life for inspiration, and if they didn’t have a spiritual life they had better acquire one. This of course was very bad news for me, as regards my relationship with Maureen. After his public homily, I noticed that the priest drew her aside and engaged her in earnest conversation. There was something ominously suggestive of a penitent in her posture as she sat beside him, her eyes lowered, hands joined in her lap, nodding silently as she listened. Sure enough, on our way home that evening, she stopped me at the corner of her street and said, “It’s late, Laurence. I’d better go straight in. Let’s say goodnight.” “But we can’t kiss properly here,” I said. She was silent for a moment, twisting and untwisting a strand of hair round her finger. “I don’t think we should kiss any more,” she said. “Not like we usually do. Not while I’m Our Lady.”
    Perhaps Father Jerome had observed that Maureen and I were very close. Maybe he suspected that I was leading her astray in the Temple of the Holy Ghost department. I don’t know, but he certainly did the business on her conscience that evening. He told her what an extraordinary privilege it was for any young girl to portray the Mother of God. He reminded her that her own name was an Irish form of “Mary”. He said how pleased and proud her parents must be that she had been chosen for the part, and how she must strive to be worthy of it, in thought, word and deed. As Maureen relayed his words in a mumbled paraphrase I tried to laugh off their effect, without success. Then I attempted rational persuasion, holding her hands and looking earnestly into her eyes, also in vain. Then I tried sulking. “Goodnight, then,” I said, plunging my hands into my raincoat pockets. “You can kiss me once,” said Maureen miserably, her lifted face blue under the streetlamp. “Just once? Under Rule Five?” I sneered. “Don’t,” she said, her lip trembling, her eyes filling with tears. “Oh, grow up, Maureen,” I said, and turned on my heel and walked away.
    I spent a miserable, restless night, and next morning I was late for work because instead of catching my usual train I stood at the corner of Hatchford Five Ways and waited for Maureen. I could see her figure stiffen with sudden self-consciousness, even a hundred yards away, as she recognized me. Of course she had spent a wretched night too — her face was pale and her eyelids swollen. We were reconciled almost before my words of apology were out, and she went off to school with a buoyant step and a smile on her face.
    I was confident that, as before, I would gradually overcome her scruples. I was wrong. It was no longer just a private matter of conscience for Maureen. She was convinced that to go on necking with me while portraying the Virgin Mary would be a kind of sacrilege, which might bring the wrath of God down not only upon herself but upon the play itself and everyone concerned in it. She still loved me, it caused her real anguish to deny me her embraces, but she was determined to remain pure for the duration of the production. Indeed, she made a kind of vow to that effect, after going to Confession (to old Father Malachi, the parish priest) and Communion, the weekend after Father Jerome’s intervention.
    If I’d had any sense or tact, I would have resigned myself to the situation, and bided my time. But I was young, and arrogant and selfish. I didn’t relish the prospect of a chaste Christmas and New Year, a season when it seemed to me one was entitled to expect a greater, not a lesser, degree of sensual licence. The 6th of January seemed a long way off. I suggested a compromise: no necking until after the first run of the play was over, but a relaxation of the rule between Christmas Eve