Luke 14:11
Monday, 1st October: Bishop Patrick O'Malley paled when Molly announced the name of the woman at the door.
"Tell her I'm out."
The truth was the bishop didn't want to hear what the woman had to say. It was all too embarrassing.
But there was to be no mercy that day. Trish Hartnett had followed unbidden into the hall. She marched past Molly. "Like hell you're out."
"Please Mrs Hartnett. Just take a seat. Calm down. Molly, fetch some coffee."
"You just can that order Molly. I'm not drinking the bishop's coffee - and I won't be staying longer than necessary."
Molly was confused and stood a moment, frozen to the spot.
"It's OK Molly. Leave us please."
The bishop nodded reassuringly and Molly closed the door so abruptly that she inadvertently slammed it. She was distressed. The bishop had his little ways, could be a bit pompous. But he had been kind to her and she was fond of him. She didn't like this situation one bit.
Nor, of course, did the bishop.
"Will you sit down Mrs Hartnett?"
Trish shook her head. "No. I will not sit. What I have to say I can say standing."
"You don't mind if I sit down?"
"Please yourself. That's what you do, don't you? Please yourself I mean. You don't care anything for others. You call yourself a bishop? You disgust me."
The bishop said nothing for a moment, just looked at her. Then he buried his face in his hands like a six year old and muttered, "I'm so sorry."
"Sorry? You are sorry? I know everything. I had it out with Sean this morning. My Sean. He's been doing that, with you . . . You are revolting, the pair of you."
"It's not really like you think," the bishop started to say, but Trish cut him short.
"Not like I think! What is it like then? Tell me."
"There are some in the church who no longer regard homosexuality as a sin."
"There are, are there? How appalling. Don't count me in that 'some'."
"In a free society, men and women learn to respect the rights of others."
"Respect?" Trish Hartnett paused a moment but not for long. "And what you did with my Sean. Are you seriously suggesting that was not a sin?"
The bishop looked up at her then. "No," he said, then turned away from the merciless glare of her green-grey eyes. "It was indeed a sin, you being married."
"Us being married! You mean if Sean was a choirboy you could fiddle with him with a clear conscience?" The bishop tried to respond but she didn't let him, using words like clubs to beat him with. "You think you can dress up being a faggot with pretty words like 'gay'? You make me sick. Are you gonig to deny you comitted a sin?"
The bishop shook his downcast head.
"And how, bishop, do you intend to pay for that sin?"
The bishop spoke softly but deliberately. "With my immortal soul."
"And do you think that's enough?" She marched across to his chair, standing over him. "You should quit."
If O'Malley thought for more than a moment this merely meant cutting it out with Sean, he was to be instantly disabused.
"Will you stop being a bishop?"
"If I must." O'Malley looked back at her. "But this is my vocation. I hadn't intended to resign."
"No?" Trish Hartnett allowed her lips to curl into a malicious smile. "And nor do I intend that."
"Thank you."
Trish narrowed her green-grey eyes. "Don't thank me. I want you where I can control you."
"Mrs Hartnett, please. I don't want to be your enemy"
"Don't 'Please-Mrs-Hartnett' me. I'll show you your enemy!" Trish raised her right arm and pointed it at the mesmerised face of the bishop. "You are your own enemy," she screamed. "Your enemy is you!" Her voice softened then, coldness replacing passion. "You will pay me a hundred thousand dollars or I'll have you unfrocked quicker than you can say 'homosexuality'."
The bishop was visibly stunned. "But Mrs Hartnett. You are rich. You don't need money."
"No. That's right. It's not the money. I don't need money. But I want to make you pay for what you've done. And you will. Then I'll give the money away."
"But I am a priest. I have no possessions. I have no money."
For answer Trish looked around. "That's all bull. This place doesn't come cheap. You can't tell me the church isn't wealthy. If you haven't got the money, find it. I don't care how."
"But I can't."
"You can and you will - or the story will be on the front page of the Springfield Republican."
"But you'd wreck all our lives. Your own included."
"And you think I give a damn . . . And bishop, one thing more."
"Yes," he answered.
"If you so much as look at my Sean again, you'll have more than your immortal soul to worry about. I'll come after you and, so help me God, I'll castrate you with my bare hands. O.K.?"
"Yes . . . of course . . . O.K."
And with that, Mrs Trish Hartnett turned and stalked from the room, slamming the door as Molly had done, but with Trish it was deliberate.
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