Paul Theroux - My Secret History

Passing me, he squeezed my knee and said, “Bad yes, evil no,” and winked at me. He had not squeezed me hard, but there was something in the pressure of his fingers that told me he was not well.

We thumped the jetty posts twice, and flaked off some of our paint, while I was untying my clove hitches — for some reason, Father Furty was gunning the engine. Then we started away, the boat shimmying a little. At the wheel, Father Furty was wearing a crooked grin — perhaps it was because of the Fatima in his mouth. He was singing along with the radio.

The women were clearing up the plates and folding the card tables.

It did not seem to me that Father Furty was really steering the boat. It was more as if he was holding tight to the wheel to keep himself from falling. He sagged on it, rather than keeping it in a light steerer’s grip with his fingertips, as he usually did. He looked wildly happy.

“Are you all right, Father?” I asked.

He said, “I’ll bet she’s a joy to be with.”

The harbor water began to smack and slop against us. The splashing over the rail I took to be a bad sign, and the girlish screams of the women made me anxious.

“What’s that?” Mrs. Palumbo asked.

“Probably Moon Island,” Father Furty said, and turned slowly — first his eyes, then his head — to watch it pass on the portside.

I said, “Careful of that tug.”

Accelerating, Father Furty said, “What tug?”

But it was too late.

There was no panic. Even as the side of Speedbird was being stoved in by the tug from Blue Neptune Towing , and the rails twisted off the decks, and the cleats sheared cleanly off by the shoulders of the tug — as all this was happening, the women of the Sodality shrieked and laughed, as they had when they’d been hit with spray that morning. They did not know it was a disaster — they may have thought it was part of all cruises, the really funny part. That was how much they trusted Father Furty.

Afterwards, the way people talked about it made it seem dramatic and dangerous — two boats crashing in the harbor, some near-drownings, heroism, chaos. But it was not that way at all. It was an embarrassing accident, we were towed into harbor by the very boat we had hit. It was humiliating, it was bruises and hurt feelings.

Then I saw that there is a neatness about tragedy — it looks perfect, as false things so often do: fake blood in all the right places, pretty victims, stately burials and then silence. It is all glorious and conceited. But nothing is worse than disgrace. It is lonely and irreversible — a terrible mess. The loud snorting laughter it produces is worse than anguish. Having to live through a disgrace is worse than dying.

All your secrets in a twisted form belong to everyone else — and you are in the dark. That was how I felt then, guessing at what was going on; and I didn’t know the half of it. Nothing truthful was revealed, but a version of events emerged. It was like a badly wrapped parcel coming apart — slowly at first, just stains producing rips and leaks, and then more quickly collapsing until it was all loose string and flaps and crumpled wrapping, and something dark and slimy showing through, and finally flopping onto the floor in full view, while people said, “Oh, God, what’s that?”

It began, as so many disasters did, when I heard my mother speaking on the phone.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I don’t believe you.”

No, she believed it all, and wanted more: this was her way of encouraging the person at the other end.

“That couldn’t be true,” she said.

She became more interested as she became disbelieving.

“Well, we all know that’s his cross,” she said. “He’ll just have to carry it.”

The last thing I heard as I hurried out of the door was her calling my name.

But I kept going — to the bus, to the Sandpits; with my Mossberg. In that frame of mind, nothing was more consoling to me than the sound of beer bottles breaking on a crate as my bullets smashed into them.

I had thought that by managing to get ashore we would be safe. No one was hurt. Mrs. Bazzoli had a bruise above her knee that was like a faint smear of jam, and she kept raising her skirt with a kind of dreadful pride to show it. There were wet blouses thickened over bras. Mrs. Cannastra could not stop laughing. The leftovers had turned to garbage. Mrs. Palumbo proposed saying a prayer of thanksgiving that it had ended safely.

Father Furty did not join in on that prayer.

“We’re going to hear about this,” he said, yet he did not look sad.

He watched Speedbird winched onto the wharf. Its whole port-side was gashed, and its nose splintered; panels and rails dangled from it; it hung like a huge fish that had been hacked to death.

When I helped Tina onto the pier, Father Furty was standing a short distance away, looking very relaxed with a Fatima in his mouth.

“Wet feet,” I said.

“You’ll be all right,” he murmured, speaking through the cigarette and barely parting his lips.

I was heartened by that — whatever he said to me was always a boost — but when he helped me up his hand trembled on my elbow and I had the impression that he was very elderly and feeble.

All day I had been building up to kissing Tina. It always seemed a long and complicated procedure. But when Speedbird struck Blue Neptune Towing my plans fell apart, and I saw that I was as far from kissing her as ever. We were not even holding hands.

But on her front steps that evening after I walked her home, she said, “Oh, Andy, I’m so worried.” I put my arm around her and without thinking kissed her lightly on her lips. At the time it seemed natural; but my mind kept going back to it and seeing it as amazing.

“Where did you go with Father Furty?” my mother asked.

“Nowhere,” I said.

“What did you do all day in the boat?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you have a good time?”

I shrugged. “I guess so.”

The next morning the phone calls started, and I don’t believe you and That couldn’t be true . But I was out the door.

When I came back, my mother said, “Kitty DuCane called. Sit down, Andy. I want to talk to you.”

She said she knew everything. Half of what she knew was wrong, but how could I tell her the truth without making things worse? Anyway, she would have believed Mrs. DuCane before she believed me. She was angry that I had taken Tina and not mentioned it. But she had spoken to Tina’s mother.

“We think it’s better if you don’t see each other.”

Father Furty walks into Holy Name House and tosses his skipper’s hat on the hall table.

“Had a little accident,” he says.

“Anyone hurt?” Father Hanratty asks.

“Some wet feet,” he said. “Some soggy chicken salad.”

And then he goes through the business of lighting a Fatima — tapping it on the back of his hand, knuckling it into his mouth, and setting it on fire.

“We smacked into a tugboat.”

And then he winks and heads for his room, where he kicks off his sneakers and grins into the mirror and says, “You’ve really made a mess of it this time, skipper!”

That was how I imagined it. I could not picture him taking it hard, and that was the worst thing about the gossip: he was depicted as a fool and an incompetent and probably worse — I wouldn’t listen to the stories, not even from my mother.

I had a Father Furty seven o’clock the next week, but he did not show up. It was Father Skerrit. I waited for the next mass list. Father Furty’s name did not appear on this one at all.

I went to Holy Name House.

Mrs. Flaherty came to the door. “What do you want?”