Audacity: Chapter 17

I take Athena to The Wolseley for lunch, a move dictated primarily by my wish to make her feel welcome and partly by a baser desire to show her off.

This beautiful space, once a prestigious car showroom and now a brasserie, has always been one of my favourite places to eat. When I was still a priest, I’d come here with Dad and Bren on their dime—my self-imposed ban on supplementing my meagre salary with family money didn’t extend to the odd excellent breakfast.

I adore the atmosphere here. The interior is somewhat masculine, all Art Deco features and magnificent chandeliers and monochromatic marble flooring and soaring ceilings: a church to the fine art of dining. The vibe is reminiscent of those wonderful European Grand Cafés, with a menu to match.

Once we’ve ordered—kedgeree for me and French onion soup for Athena—I revel in the warmth that comes from having the undivided attention of hands down the most beautiful woman in a bustling restaurant.

‘What?’ I ask, amused at the way she’s been appraising me.

She shakes her head. ‘It just staggers me that you were ever a priest.’

‘Why is that?’

‘Well, for one, you’re wearing a five-figure suit. For another, you seem far more at home at Rath Mor than you let on when I interviewed. And you seem fond of the finer things in life.’

I laugh. ‘Maybe I’m just highly adaptable.’

‘Maybe.’ Her narrowed eyes tell me she’s not buying it.

‘Look. Rath Mor may only have been spun off a few years ago, but this has been my family’s business since before I was born. I’ve always had a foot in both camps. Uncomfortably so, perhaps.’

‘You must have been the wealthiest priest outside of the Vatican.’

‘Not in practice. I didn’t take a penny of my family’s money.’

‘Could you have? You took a vow of poverty, didn’t you?’

‘It’s not technically a vow, more like a solemn promise. I could have taken some money, certainly, but it would have been in pretty bad faith, don’t you think? It would have diminished my ability to align with my parishioners, in any case.’

‘And what about now?’ She takes a sip of her sparkling water. ‘Did you⁠—’

We’re interrupted by a guy who approaches with an apology that sounds totally fucking phony to my ears. He’s tall, with light brown hair. I’d put money on him working at one of the many hedge funds in this neighbourhood. He’s staring at Athena as though the Virgin Mary herself has just graced him with an appearance.

‘So sorry to disturb,’ he says suavely. ‘I just wondered—are you two together? Because if not, I’d love to⁠—’

‘We’re together,’ I say in my best don’t even go there voice, at the same time as Athena says, ‘I’m not interested.’

Her voice is polite but dismissive. She has no interest in him. She doesn’t seem tickled by the blatant play he’s making for her, but neither does she seem at all taken aback, and it makes me wonder quite how often she gets hit on.

‘Is that normal?’ I ask her once he’s backed away with a sheepish smile and an apology. ‘Do people really come onto other people like that, when they’re quite obviously at lunch with someone else?’

She shrugs. ‘You’d be surprised. It’s a jungle out there. Count yourself lucky you were free of that element for a few years.’

I suspect that little interlude has less to do with the jungle and more to do with Athena herself. I suspect if I were a different type of man and I saw her in a restaurant, I’d take one look at her and deem her worthy of breaking any sort of social codes to have a crack.

She really is that exquisite. She’s applied fresh scarlet lipstick that makes her mouth look like a beautifully wrapped present, and I know all too well what a gift it really is.

‘Anyway, I was just about to ask you if you’d done any financial damage since you came back over to the dark side, before we were so rudely interrupted.’

I consider. ‘I decorated a house. That was the biggest one. And I bought a Book of Hours.’

That has her attention. ‘Really? What kind?’

‘One from the Florentine Renaissance. I saw it in Sotheby’s and couldn’t resist. It’s really—well, it’s beautiful.’

‘I adore religious art,’ she confesses. ‘My parents did six months in Florence. It wasn’t long enough, and I was at uni, so I didn’t get enough time there. But I love that that was your big splurge.’

‘It’s at the office. You know the door next to my bathroom? It’s in there. I’ll show you when we get back.’

She leans forward, head tilted. ‘Do you actually use it for praying, or is it just because it’s beautiful?’

‘Both. It’s an exceptional work of art, but I’ve found I engage with it in a way that really enriches me, you know? There’s something about referring to a centuries-old source to help me pray. It feels, I don’t know…’

‘Elevating,’ she supplies, and I grin.

‘Exactly. It elevates the experience of praying to a whole different level. That’s one element of Catholicism I’ve always felt comfortable with, actually—the role of beauty in celebrating the glory of God.’

Her face is interested, open, as I speak.

‘So your faith is very much intact. You haven’t thrown out all your old beliefs—just your vocation itself.’

‘Very much so, yes.’

‘I was curious. Because you hired me, obviously. So there’s a conflict there. Is that a fair assumption?’

‘That’s correct,’ I tell her. ‘And, if you can believe this, the conflict comes less from hiring you, in particular, and more from navigating this intensely secular lifestyle in general. Hence, the Book of Hours acts like an anchor. It helps to tether me to what’s important. It allows me to tend to my spiritual health.’

She says nothing as we’re served our food, but I can practically see that extraordinary brain of hers whirring.

‘What is it?’ I ask with a smile.

‘I have an observation,’ she admits, ‘but I can’t think of a way of asking it without it being incredibly insulting.’

‘Well, now you have to ask it. I’m intrigued.’

She hesitates, which I suspect is unlike her, and sets down her soup spoon. ‘I realise your family is Irish, so Catholicism was deemed normal for you, but you’re obviously an extremely cerebral man, and I can’t for the life of me work out how you’ve fallen for the whole organised religion thing. From where I’m sitting, it’s quite obviously a construct, an exercise in mind control. I mean, it’s so ridiculously over-engineered! I just can’t square your intellect with a faith so strong that you gave up everything to serve it.’

She sits back, as if the conundrum of my belief system has actually defeated her fierce, presumably atheistic, brain, and I grin.

‘The entire answer to your question, Athena, lies in your use of the word faith.’

‘Yes, but, it’s so far-fetched. Why not give the gift of your faith—and your service, for that matter—to something more deserving?’

I study her. I’ve had this conversation more times than I can count, of course, mainly with parishioners who’ve felt lost or doubtful or even deceived, but periodically with fellow clerics, shooting the theological breeze over beers on our nights off.

‘What makes something deserving of our faith?’ I ask her quietly.

‘Well, believability, for a start. I have a theory that organised religion was made complex for a reason. It was world building on the scale of epic fantasy, if you like. Tolkien had nothing on the Old Testament. And I understand that it served a critical role—not just the church as an instrument of the state, as mass crowd control—but to give people purpose and meaning and comfort.

‘But we’re not wretched, terrified peasants now. We’re highly educated, sophisticated beings with far more agency over our own existence, so for the love of God, why would we still choose to believe all that?’

Her argument doesn’t offend me. Not in the slightest. And I have no intention of going on the defensive. The bottom line is that we are both perfectly entitled to our views, no matter how obtuse we may deem each other for not sharing those views.

‘One of the gifts of having a soul as well as a brain,’ I begin, ’is the ability to believe in things we cannot see or prove. Like gravity.’

She groans. ‘If you tell me you’re a gravity denier, I’m getting up and leaving right now.’

‘Of course I’m not a gravity denier! And I don’t believe God created the world in seven days either, if that makes you feel better. But I do believe that this universe of ours, that operates in such perfect homeostasis despite its complexity, can only be the creation of a benign God, and everything else I believe stems from that.’

‘You sound like a humanist,’ she says, picking up her spoon and dipping it into the amber-coloured liquid.

‘I believe in very many things that humanists don’t. I believe that Christ rose from the dead to grant us eternal life, and I believe that every time I stood on that altar, I had the unutterable privilege of transforming bread and wine into His flesh and blood.

‘But, perhaps most importantly, I believe that God’s grace is the most precious gift He can give us. To be imperfect and know that you are still worthy of love… to receive love so great, knowing you absolutely haven’t earned it nor can never, ever earn it? That, for me, is probably the most beautiful and mystical thing about this faith of mine.’

She stares at me, spoon suspended. It’s as if I’ve knocked the wind out of her sails.

‘The Stoics would have said that was a lazy argument,’ she counters eventually, but she doesn’t sound as though her heart is in it. ‘Giving up on being the best version of yourself because you’ll be loved anyway? What a cop out.’

‘Ah, yes. The Classics scholar speaks.’

‘At least they didn’t need the carrot of heaven or the threat of hell dangled over their heads to be good people. They believed in self-improvement for its own sake. And self-sufficiency.’

‘St Augustine was a bit of a Stoic, now you mention it,’ I muse. ‘Before his conversion, I mean. “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.”’

She laughs, looking delighted. ‘Did you just make a sex joke about St Augustine? That prayer could be a good one for you, come to think of it. You might want to hold onto that. But honestly, they’re worlds apart.’

‘Not really,’ I press. ‘There are a lot more parallels than you’d think. Yes, we have miracles and divine grace, but you could argue that both philosophies carry a mutual respect. Stoics and Catholics alike are urged to examine their conscience on a daily basis. Our cardinal virtues are definitely rooted in Stoicism. And—my trump card—both are massive on suffering.’

She throws her head back and laughs, and it’s a truly privileged sight to see her beauty animated through mirth.

‘Okay, okay,’ she says, reaching for the bread basket. ‘So Catholicism is Stoicism with miracles. Got it.’

‘And grace. And redemption. Don’t forget those.’

As we continue with our meal, Athena excoriates me for the way the Church has bastardised Classical Latin over the ages. I counter fiercely with what I believe to be an intellectually robust defence: namely that in the aftermath of the Roman Empire blowing itself up, Church Latin has been responsible for keeping this most solemn and noble of languages alive to this day, albeit with a healthy dose of creative licence.

She doesn’t buy it.

It only strikes me after we’ve returned to the office that my soul is feeling as replete as my belly.