a Breed of Women by Fiona Kidman Read Free Book Online Page A

the apostolic chain, and became inordinately angry with Harriet when she asked him if he saw himself as a direct successor to St Peter. He was not a bishop, he said coldly, from which she deduced that he had had disappointments.
    Towards the end of the indoctrination, the subject of confession arose.
    ‘In the Church of England,’ droned Father Dittmer as a fly settled on his bald patch, ‘we have a different doctrine to that of the Roman Catholic Church. But, my little friends, we do not overlook the subject of confession. We recognise the right of the individual to do as his conscience dictates. We say some should, none must, all may.’
    This struck Harriet as reasonable logic, the only identifiable piece of meat in the whole theological casserole. On the whole she had been profoundly disappointed in her own responses to the confirmation classes. Since her experience of God on the river bank during that summer, years before, she had sought some sort ofrecognition of God within herself. He seemed to have cheated her, having brought her thus far, and then having tantalisingly let her go.
    She had welcomed the confirmation classes, and had at first paid them earnest attention. Her challenges to Father Dittmer had been made in all seriousness, for she genuinely wanted her confusions and doubts clarified. Her emerging cynicism was something that appalled her and she struggled to hide it from the other members of the class. Father Dittmer had obviously been warned about her, however, and took her questions as personal affronts. When he discussed the possibilities of confession, she felt that he fixed her with a particularly stern eye.
    On a Saturday night two weeks before Harriet’s confirmation, the Colliers held one of their frequent parties. As the Wallaces had no social life at all they had come to accept the odd invitation to go and have ‘a few drinks’, rarely staying long enough to witness the paralysis that afflicted those who stayed on for more than a few. A mixed bunch would turn up, and Harriet was invariably the youngest there. Little notice was taken of her, and as the conversation mostly concerned milk production, football, and how much beer could be consumed in the shortest possible time, she felt she had little contribution to make and kept silent.
    Jim brought a succession of girls to these parties and by the time Harriet was in the fifth form, one or two of them were girls who had themselves been fifth formers when she was in the third form. They always wore spindly high heels and a great deal of bright lipstick, and dyed their hair the same colour as Marilyn Monroe’s. Their cleavages were pushed up in the best possible imitation of their heroine. Privately Harriet considered her own breasts to be in considerably better shape, but the lack of a brassiere made this a rather unconvincing hypothesis. Once she had heard Jim mutter to the girl with him that he ‘couldn’t wait for a bit’. Harriet supposed that ‘a bit’ was ‘it’, which still hadn’t been revealed to her. Jim never appeared to notice that she existed and only nodded briefly to her even when they met on the road and there wasn’t another soul in sight.
    On this particular Saturday night, he didn’t have a girl with him. He’d played football all afternoon and was fired up and ready to go. His balls were fairly popping, as he kept telling anyone who’d listen, and he didn’t mean a footie ball either.
    ‘Lord love me, me own mother had better look out,’ he said morethan once. His mother Doris, huge-handed and stocky, roared with laughter and said, ‘Jim Collier, you’re not too big to clout yet, I’ll tell you that.’
    When she heard that, Harriet’s mother stood up and muttered darkly to Gerald, who agreed they should leave. Really it was too much, what one had to endure from the locals, said Gerald’s expression, but if one wanted to fit in, there was no help for it. One simply had to put in an appearance at these