Gerald Murnane - A Lifetime on Clouds

That night Adrian wore the jock strap to bed under his pyjamas. Before he lay down, he pressed his penis flat against his testicles and pulled the belt of the jock strap as high as it would reach around his waist. Purely as a part of his experiment, he teased his organ by poking it with his fingers. It swelled a little, but the elastic easily held it down. Adrian was satisfied it would give him no trouble that night, no matter how long he held Denise’s hand, or even if she responded by squeezing his.

A little later he was chatting to her again in the Saturday night picture bus to Accrington. Everything was peaceful between his legs because he knew he wouldn’t be reaching for her hand until they had settled down in the theatre and the lights had gone out. Suddenly the young woman in the seat in front of them leaned her head on the shoulder of the young man beside her and shifted her body until it pressed against his. Adrian shifted an inch or so away from Denise to show her he didn’t approve of couples making an exhibition of themselves in public. Denise sat very still. He supposed she was as irritated as he was by the couple. But then she placed her hand calmly and deliberately on the seat between them, with the fingers neatly arranged as though she meant him to place his own hand over them.

Before he had time to consider whether Denise was actually inviting him to hold her hand and whether he ought to take it so early in the evening, there was trouble in his jock strap. His member was straining against its bonds and arching itself into a shape like a banana. He clasped Denise’s hand quickly to distract her attention.

He held Denise’s hand all through both films. He avoided giving it any unusual signs of affection such as squeezing it or stroking it, and he was glad to find that it lay quietly under his the whole time. Some time after interval his penis seemed to concede defeat and lie down peacefully.

As the film ended Adrian was looking forward to talking with Denise on the bus and in her dining room. He was half-way to the bus stop before he realised he had underestimated the enemy in his jock strap. While he had been watching the second film it had eased itself into a new position. (He might even have helped it unwittingly when he shifted his legs around.) Now it was pointing ever so slightly upwards and stretching just enough to keep itself there. Whenever it chose — in the bus, or in McNamaras’ lounge-room in front of Denise’s parents, or more likely on the front veranda when he tried to kiss her goodnight, it could draw itself up to its full height and stand out like a broomstick against the front of his trousers and make a mockery of his courtship.

Adrian stood for a minute in the middle of his darkened bedroom. He took a few steps forward and then reached down once more to check what was happening beneath his pyjamas. His enemy had consolidated its position still further.

Adrian realised he could never escape from the danger of mortal sin. He would always be at the mercy of his own penis. He took off his jock strap and hid it in his wardrobe. Then he put on his pyjamas and climbed into bed.

There was just one more thing to do before he went to sleep. He walked up the path to McNamaras’ house and knocked on the front door. Denise herself opened it. She was not his wife or his fiancée or even the young woman he had twice taken to the pictures. She was a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl in the tunic and blouse and jacket of the Academy of Mount Carmel.

She hesitated to ask him inside because her parents were both out and she was alone in the house. He stepped past her and strode into the lounge-room. She closed the front door and stood in front of him. She had never looked more beautiful and pathetic. She said something like, ‘I always thought it would end like this,’ or ‘It was impossible from the start.’ But he was not really listening.

He gripped both her wrists with one hand. With his free hand he tore at her clothing. Something, perhaps the memory of all she had once meant to him, made him hesitate to undress her completely. He simply exposed the charms that he would never enjoy and stared at them for a long, solemn moment. Then he released her.

She stumbled backwards and fell among the cushions on the couch. She lay there, fumbling with her clothes to cover herself. The last thing Adrian saw before he turned and walked out of the house forever was the emblem on the pocket of her jacket, the snowcapped holy mountain of Carmel with a circle of stars above it, falling back into place over her naked left breast.

After his jock strap had let him down, Adrian still caught his usual Coroke train, but he got into the rear carriage, well away from the Mount Carmel girl’s carriage and he only travelled as far as Caulfield. He was training every night at the racecourse for the House Sports. He wore his new jock strap whenever he trained, and found it improved his running.

One morning instead of the usual Christian Doctrine period, Adrian’s class had a priest to speak to them.

The priest was a stranger. He put his hands in his pockets, leaned back against the brother’s desk and said, ‘My name is Father Kevin Parris and my job is to visit secondary schools to give advice to any young chaps like yourselves who want to find out about the work of the secular priest.

‘You all know the difference of course between a secular priest like myself and a religious priest — a member of a religious order — who takes a vow of obedience to the head of his order. I think it’s fair to say that the secular priests are the backbone of the Church. Not even the most ancient of the religious orders can trace its history back as far as we can. The first priests that Christ ordained were secular priests. I’m talking of course about the Apostles — the very first Catholic clergy. And the work that Christ sent them out to do is the same work that the secular priests of the Melbourne Archdiocese are doing today.

‘You boys know without being told what that work is. Maybe a few of you live in parishes that have been entrusted to some order or other, but the great majority of you were baptised by a secular priest, you made your first confession to a secular priest, and you received your first communion from a secular priest. Those of you who marry in later life will probably receive that sacrament in the presence of a secular priest. And when you come to die, please God you’ll receive the last sacrament from one of us too.

‘Of course there’s a thousand and one other tasks we perform as well. You might compare us to the rucks and rovers in a football team. We have a roving commission to go wherever we’re needed and do the heavy work. And boys, just like any other football team, the priests of your Archdiocese need a steady stream of recruits.

‘You might be interested in a few facts and figures about vocations to the priesthood here in Melbourne. I was ordained myself in 1944—that’s ten years ago now. At the ceremony in St Pat’s Cathedral there were seventeen of us ordained for this Archdiocese. Now in those days, seventeen new priests were barely enough to meet the demands of the Archdiocese. I remember the Archbishop telling us all that we were only going to fill the gaps left by deaths and serious illness among the priests of Melbourne.

‘Well, that was 1944. Now I don’t have to tell you how Melbourne has grown in the last few years. Think of all the new suburbs stretching for miles out towards Frankston and Coroke and Dandenong where there were only farms and market gardens a few years back. And all those suburbs need Catholic churches and schools for the families growing up there. Then think of the thousands of New Australians who’ve come to this country since the war — most of them from Catholic countries. All these people need priests to serve them.