The Attachment Read online

  If your publisher detects a little spike in the sales figures around the Rose Bay area, I have to shamelessly admit to banging on about it from the pulpit here.

  Anyway, just wanted to say thanks and congratulations. You are a gift.

  Buen camino.

  Tony Doherty

  Dear Tony,

  I can’t tell you how happy it made me to get your letter. I imagine such a book could well have felt like penance when you received it, given the conversations you have in your daily life. I’m very moved that it spoke to you, and even more so that you would spread the word. I will ask my publisher to check for the Rose Bay sales spike—what a glorious area in which to walk and work.

  Your letter reminded me of how important it sometimes is for those of us ‘in the biz’ to reassess our understanding of what we take for granted—whether that be showbiz, writing, walking or caring for the souls of others. I love the idea of you talking sins over dinner—though beware they don’t turn into last suppers. I remember the reactions I got when I first mooted the idea. It’s a kicker of a word, sin—though I guess you’d know that! I’ve had reports of some bookstores and libraries not wanting to order the book because it sounded ‘salacious’. Hilarious, but it’s that word.

  And yes, it would be fascinating to hear a professional theologian’s perspective. I’m not sure many of them listen to the insightful Mr Adams, given his long-declared atheism.

  Don’t leave your feet nailed to the floor for too long. You are clearly a natural pilgrim, with a yearning for the road. As we know, it will get you in the end.

  Thank you for your generous response, and I sincerely hope we might meet when I’m up in Sydney in June/July. Bell Shakespeare are producing a version of The Duchess of Malfi, which I co-adapted some years back. It will be on at the Opera House, and I’m pretty excited about it. Perhaps we could get that Sandy to join us for a wine or a coffee while I’m in town.

  For now, though, buen camino, peregrino . . . y muchas muchas gracias.

  You’ve made a pilgrim very happy tonight.

  Ailsa

  Ailsa,

  Thanks for the warm reply.

  Interesting, your comment about Phillip Adams and his declared atheism. Funnily enough, I see him as a person continually searching into the nature of human belief, perhaps not using classical religious language—but that’s one of the reasons he never fails to spark my interest. Classical religious language, not to be abandoned thoughtlessly of course, can sometimes block off genuine enquiry into the mystery which surrounds human belief. Adams, I find, can at times bring real freshness to the conversation.

  Would love to meet up with you if that is possible. I will be out of the country—travelling to Africa, in fact—from June 25 to July 25, however.

  Happy days.

  Tony

  Good morning, Tony!

  It’s the pesky pilgrim. If you can spare it, would you take a minute to consider this?

  Today, via Twitter, I was sent a link to an iPhone app. It’s called Confession: A Roman Catholic App. It sells for $1.99 and the blurb says that it’s ‘designed to be used in the confessional’ and is ‘the perfect aid for every penitent’. It has a personalised examination of conscience for each user, password–protected files and more. There don’t seem to be any indulgences or privileges being sold, but as one of my Facebook community asked me: ‘Shouldn’t the app be free?’

  Regardless of cost, it made me wonder again about the sin of ‘simony’, and my actions. I don’t know if you will recall it, but in my book I wrote about receiving an email from one of my ‘sinners’ when I reached a net café in Córdoba. He asked whether I was guilty of simony, which is, I think, defined as ‘the buying or selling of ecclesiastical privileges—for example, pardons’. I was going to take a long walk to consult my conscience, but then I thought—‘Call on Tony!’

  So, my theologian to the north, what think you?

  Buen camino! (That is my favourite wish and blessing, you know.)

  Ailsa

  Ailsa,

  The plot continues to thicken.

  I have been hearing confessions for 50 years. Fewer and fewer people avail themselves of this opportunity. Why? My conviction lies in the belief that moral issues today are more complex and sophisticated than they have ever been in the past. Take for example the whole matter of telling the truth in a rampant PR culture, or the commercial sexualisation of young girls, or how to moderate our lifestyle to avoid the destruction of our environment. How about them for starters?

  In the practice of Catholic confession, many people are locked into language and concepts they learned when they were seven years old—and they’ve never been able to shake free of them. This sort of mind-paralysis renders the conversation trivial, keeping them as obedient children rather than thoughtful adults. When 55-year-old captains of industry come in and talk to me about missing their night prayers, I feel that the Church has trivialised a process which, at its heart and in the right setting, expresses profound belief in the possibility of healing and forgiveness.

  But you, Ailsa, with your sin-walking, have stumbled on a vehicle by which people can discharge their distress in a more mature way. You invite your ‘sinners’ to tell you what weighs them down. You offer to share the weight. And they can’t tell you their story quickly enough.

  You have nothing to fear from being accused of simony. This is a specific canonical term to describe the selling of sacraments. Your freedom from being able to offer a sacrament (no matter how powerful the confession of friends might in fact be) preserves you from any charge of simony.

  The confession app was a bit of a media story here when it broke. What interests me most is that both what you have been doing, and the online story, touch a nerve among many of us to confront the dark sides of our lives in ways which are genuinely liberating. And the real issue you have uncovered is that we can help one another to do that.

  Happy days.

  Tony

  Tony,

  Thanks so much.

  I’m not sure you are right in saying my ‘sinners’ couldn’t wait to tell their stories. Many I asked were horrified at the notion, or scoffed at the possibility of atonement being possible by my striding across a foreign land. But for those who did volunteer a story, I think it was sometimes painful and cost them dearly. Cost is a big issue for me. I don’t think anything worthwhile comes for free, and those who experienced change took risks—not the least being to put their stories into the hands of a fool!

  I do have a couple more queries though—was that a groan I heard?—based on a comment you made. You mentioned my ‘freedom’ from being able to offer a sacrament. Strange choice of words from you, I thought. Do you experience the delivery of sacraments as a burden? And while we’re at it, what exactly is a sacrament? I have an understanding from schooldays, but I suspect it may be outdated or naïve. Apologies for replying to an answer with more questions, but your comment did make me sit up.

  OK. Enough quizzing. I look forward even more to meeting you. I promise not to bombard you with theological curiosities. Trust Sydney is warmer than down here. We are shivering in our overcoats and mufflers and collecting dried eucalypt branches and gumnuts for our fires. Clear blue skies above, but winter surely approaches.

  Ailsa

  Ailsa,

  What is a sacrament, you ask blithely?

  Bit of a stretch to explain in a few words, but here goes. The Christian tradition names a few moments in the human journey—getting married, leaving childhood, coming into a community, confronting our own brokenness, even facing serious illness—as mightily important. But more than that, it names them as deeply human moments. When you have something deeply human—you have ‘the sacred’. The sacraments are rituals coming out of the history of the Church designed to say—‘let’s celebrate their importance’. Let’s catch the mystery, catch the sacred. Not allow the significance just to slip away as we, so often, skate over to the rush of the next big dist
raction.

  Sorry, bit of a lecture I know. Let’s talk about this more later. It goes to the heart of my understanding of the sacred. Of ‘God’, if you like.

  Is offering these sacraments a burden?

  No, I didn’t mean that. I’m in the ‘sacrament business’. I think it’s my best work—marrying people, helping people to face death, celebrating new life. But the Church places sensible boundaries around these key sacred moments, and so I work within those boundaries. That you, Ailsa, can approach other people’s troubles, sins if you like, according to your own lights and in your own fashion, is a sort of freedom, I reckon.

  If you will indulge me, here’s an extract from an article I wrote for an online publication. The piece was sparked by reading your book:

  To what extent are we willing to carry the pain of others? In a church which claims to be a supporting community of believers—how do we give hope, in some genuine fashion, to someone whose life is fast unravelling?

  For Catholics, facing with horror the shocking events of child abuse and sexual manipulation, how do we stop from drowning ourselves? One familiar response is denial. ‘It can’t be happening.’ ‘Just a few rotten apples.’ Another response is angrily scapegoating whatever easy target comes to mind, or rather shamefully pulling the blankets over our heads and pretending it will go away.

  Are we strong enough to carry the pain of others—say, the victims of this terrible abuse. Or an even more unspeakable possibility—to carry a little of the disgrace of those seen as responsible.

  Hate to tell you but it is T-shirt weather up here in my home town.

  Happy days.

  Tony

  Dear Tony,

  You write about confronting brokenness, and it makes me wonder what it might look like for the church communities to carry the disgrace of abusers. Or of those who enabled them. To carry sin for them might be too much for these shoulders, I think. I try to remember that the label ‘monster’ is too quick, too simplistic, but I picture the children and my heart’s reflex is to harden.

  Thank you for opening up my understanding of sacraments. I wish someone had made that simple conjunction—sacred moment—years ago. It may not be the exact etymology, but it affords me a way to approach the idea in the religious sense, and also in my own life. Those sacred human moments to which you alluded are not to be glossed over or lost in the rush, I agree. Rather like the way nature asks us to observe the changing seasons, perhaps? Those moments mark transitions in our lives, and they should be honoured.

  Do you know the American poet, Mary Oliver? She is one of my prophets. I think she would resonate with the word ‘sacrament’. I suspect many poets would. They are observers of sacredness. I turn to them when I need wisdom, comfort or expansion. In Mary’s case, I also get my eyes opened afresh to the natural world, my ‘heaven’.

  T-shirt weather up there? What a sybaritic sort of city Sydney is.

  Gracias yet again!

  Ailsa

  Careful! Some of my best friends are sybarites.

  Thanks for the warm reply. Glad you like the article.

  You’re right onto it about poets. Recently I stumbled on Seamus Heaney talking about his ‘sacramental imagination’. Poets, I believe, see below the surface of things to their sacred depths. Those depths are exactly what Christian sacraments alert us to.

  Your comment about the difficulty of carrying the disgrace of an abuser is not hard for me to understand. But I want to stretch people’s imagination to what carrying the sins of others might mean. Sometimes it’s not too pretty.

  I have never been too comfortable at hasty judgements—even about the most horrendous events. Any comment I might make about the perpetrators screams out that I am being defensive and totally insensitive because I am a priest myself. Can’t deny that possibility—nor do I want to. But let me ask you to entertain for a moment the possibility of someone in prison for child sexual abuse writing to you for help—from the hellish well of his despair. What does one say?

  Carrying another person’s sin—better use the word crime for what we are talking about—comes in many forms and at many levels.

  Happy days.

  Tony

  Hi Tony,

  No, ‘pretty’ it surely isn’t, the carrying of sins. I felt grief often as I struggled with the weight I hefted along the road, meditating on what people had told me. I want very much to believe of myself that I can see the humanity, or the potential humanity, in anyone; that I can locate compassion in myself for some aspect of their story. But the abuse stories trigger something bloody in me. I think I could possibly stretch to murderers and rapists with more ease than those who injure children, be they parents, siblings, strangers—or priests. My best intentions scatter like leaves. But then you ask me—what if someone reaches out to you? Would I have you tell them they are beyond help?

  No. No I wouldn’t. I recognise the abusers are unwell, no matter how much I might want to cast them as evil or villains.

  I can see no such illness in those who covered up the abuse, though. That crime is too ghastly. But I guess the real question you pose is whether or not I could stretch myself to carry those sins if I were asked. All I can say is that one thing I learned on my long road in Spain is that it would be unwise for me to second-guess my abilities. They are both bigger and smaller than I imagine. We know very little of our capacities till they are tested.

  I’m grateful for the questions you pose and your observations, even if they do give me pause.

  On a trivial note, I googled you and loved that I could see a picture of you, grinning broadly. Now I will know who to spot across a crowded café. Isn’t it strange that we’re able to find out so much about each other on the internet, and so quickly? If we had been writing to each other twenty years ago, I would have had to send you a description of my physical appearance and of my working life. So much of that is out there in the clouds, now, just waiting for us to press ‘search’. We search and search, and I guess sometimes we do find a bit of meaning, or at least connection. But I wonder if something hasn’t been lost. I still love my handwritten snail mail.

  Oh I’m a Luddite. The world’s most connected Luddite, a friend once called me. It’s kind of true, but I have to confess to being very chuffed when I saw your smiling face on my computer screen just now.

  Buen camino!

  Ailsa

  Ailsa,

  Hasty note.

  Checked your Sydney schedule on your blog—smart, aren’t I? Didn’t even have to go to your Facebook profile. Your book left me with many indelible impressions of you. Try not to disappoint, will you?

  Any chance of having a quick bite to eat on the 21st after your book signing? If you have other plans there might be some time on the 20th or earlier, about lunchtime, on the 21st.

  Be careful. Never trust a publicity shot.

  Tony

  Hi Tony,

  ‘Publicity shot.’ The two most terrifying words I know. One of the reasons I stopped acting. Agh!

  The evening of the 21st is already booked, but the days of the 20th and 21st are both free. I will be staying in Lewisham, close to the train, so can get to pretty much anywhere. And I would love it!

  Let me know what would suit you best, and I will be there. And wear a carnation in your buttonhole, please. Just for the old-fashioned fun of it.

  Ailsa

  Ailsa,

  If the 20th is still free, how about lunch, say about 12.30. I’ll be at our parish school’s sports carnival. If this works I will find a place around Lewisham and we can work out the details.

  Happy days.

  Tony

  Hi Tony,

  I will put it in the diary this minute. Details later, but we are locked in. Gracias!

  I’m off to splash through some puddles. It’s raining again.

  Ailsa

  Ailsa,

  Had dinner with Sandy last night. If you are still free on June 21 (we had a plan for June 20), she could join us. Ar
e you?

  Happy days.

  Tony

  Dear Tony,

  Yes, freeeeeeeeeeeeeee on June 21, and Sandy’s presence will be a gift. Just fancy. Two actresses and a Monsignor. I fear there is a joke lurking there, though I’m not an actress anymore, and quite glad of it.

  Still, I can’t resist telling you a quick story from back in the dim dark past when I was still performing. As a young thing, I played Bubba, the little neighbour in Ray Lawler’s classic Oz play, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. The newspaper review came out, and the final line was clearly meant to read ‘. . . and Ailsa Piper is good as Bubba.’

  The sub-editor obviously had a field day with that lukewarm praise and it came out in the paper reading ‘. . . and ALISSA PIPPER is GOD as BUDDA.’ The sub-editor may have got my name wrong, but I’d like you to remember who you are talking to when we meet!

  Looking forward so much.

  Ailsa

  Ailsa,

  Do I look for a short, tubby, bare-bellied figure with a smile? And did you write the sub-editor a stiff letter?

  The meal on Thursday is at 12.30. I have arranged it near the Opera House as Sandy is working there. East Chinese Restaurant is the name.

  It’s not your Spanish menú del día. Hope Chinese is OK.

  Happy days.

  Tony

  Thanks very much, Tony.

  That sounds brilliant. Chinese is wonderful. I will be there with a big anticipatory grin—so excited to be meeting you, and seeing Sandy. Thanks for organising us.

  Buen camino, pilgrim.

  Ailsa (God-as-Buddha) Piper

  DEAR READER ,

  Time moves in one direction, memory in another. Lots of us mistake our imagination for our memory. I know I do, and the tendency becomes more frequent as the years unfold.

  Throwing my mind back to the first meeting with this writer whose work had so intrigued me, I recall one of those sunny winter’s days in June—the best Sydney has to offer. So, where does one entertain a visitor from the elegant city of Melbourne? Find a place close to the harbour, buzzy with ferries, in the shadow of the Opera House. That should do it. They talk about ‘power dressing’—this might be called ‘power entertaining’.