A FATHER IN DENIAL

A retelling of a famous story from 2,000-ish years ago

There are some who might think I've posted this a little bit early, it being still November, but I think it has a relevance at all times of the year because it deals with the way an uncomfortable real event can become, in very short order and under the threat of religious discipline, something very different.

   Gabriel felt used.

He wasn't old enough to understand the wiles of a woman and her sometimes precocious needs. He was just a teenager, not the brightest spark that ever glowed in the night, and not the most stupid either. He was just a lad. He loved his mum, obeyed his father and worked as hard as he could in the patch of scrubland father called a field, watching the few straggly sheep that kept the family's wolf from its door.

They weren't the poorest of families, just almost so.

And now he felt used.

The b***h Mary �" he'd thought he'd loved her during the summer when they'd walked out together and she'd smiled at him and let those magical eyes rest on him �" had turned against him.

The two of them had done IT several times that summer, whenever they could in truth, and he knew enough about nature not to trust too much to her so-called safe weeks. But he had found himself trusting them. And, because the two of them had been so filled with uncontrollable passion, had stretched them a little.

Mary had only looked at him the way she did, and touched him secretly where they both knew she shouldn't, and the road to perdition was open for them to tread together. She'd been in the driving seat, all right, she'd been the one who led him beyond self-control. And it had been so wonderful, so unbelievably wonderful.

And he supposed it was the most likely thing in the world when it happened.

“Gabriel, I'm pregnant,” she had told him.

He had looked at her, eyes open, and all sorts of emotions had exploded inside him, ranging from overwhelming happiness and joy to an easily hidden satisfaction that here was proof that his equipment actually worked.

He'd often wondered if it would work properly, the amount he'd wasted when he'd been younger. Maybe, he thought, he'd drained himself back then. Maybe all he was left with was sterile and useless.

“Gabriel, I'm pregnant,” she whispered again.

“That's wonderful!” he had breathed back. “We'll have to get married!”

“We can't. You know I'm promised.”

He did know. The older man, too old for Mary who was yet to have her fifteenth birthday, was a carpenter and a bore.

“But I can't pretend it's Joseph's,” mumbled Mary, tears forming in her eyes. “He wouldn't believe it. He knows a thing or two, but mostly he knows he hasn't done IT with me. Never. Not once, not like you and me. He's old and says he got all that nonsense out of his system years ago when he was sowing his wild oats. He says he's quite prepared to wait as long as it takes, until we're married and he's made enough money whittling away at his cabinets and furniture to afford to bring a baby up properly.”

“That could take for ever,” snarled Gabriel, his young temper flaring up. “He's crap. Everyone says so.”

“It's who I'm promised to,” repeated Mary. You know perfectly well that I have no say in what goes on in my life. After all, I'm only a woman.”

“A child more like, at fourteen,” growled Gabriel.

“Old enough for you to do IT with me!” snapped Mary. “Old enough for you to make me pregnant!”

“I love you,” whispered the boy, “I love every bone in your body. I love you more than anything. We could run away together, you and me, and have your baby miles from the village...”

“We could do no such thing!” snapped Mary. “It's me that's got the problem and not you, and I'm not running away because if I do and they catch me I'll be stoned. You know that much, don't you? And if I stay and have the baby I'll be stoned too, for getting pregnant when I shouldn't.”

“They wouldn't...” said Gabriel, knowing that they would.

“You know they would...” she sighed. Then her eyes lightened. “But I've worked it all out,” she said. “You know who you were named after, don't you? Gabriel, the Chief of God's angels?”

Gabriel nodded. “It's a name I've always hated having,” he muttered.

“I'm going to say that the angel with that name came to me when I was alone. I'm going to say that he brought me word from God, that I was to have a baby who would be the son of God, and that I am to call it Jesu...”

“What about me?” moaned Gabriel. “Don't I have any say? When the baby's born it will be half mine!”

“You had the fun and that was your half!” she pointed out. “You lay with me … you did things to me that I couldn't have done by myself...”

“I did things with you, not to you!” Gabriel raised his voice in frustration.

“Sshhh. Someone will hear!” begged Mary.

“Then you shouldn't tell lies,” Gabriel told her.

“If I say that I'm pregnant and that you're my lover who put me with child, then they'll stone me to death and cast you out of the village,” said Mary. “You'll be all right, but I'll be dead �" and the baby with me!”

“And so you're going to tell a fantastic story...” whispered Gabriel.

“I am, and you should be pleased because at least I'll say that the angel with your name came to me. At least you'll have some acknowledgement. And you know how good I am with stories, how convincing I can be...?”

“Acknowledgement? By mentioning my name, the one I share with angels? And that'll be enough?”

“It will have to be.”

“What if it's a girl? What then?”

“It'll be a boy,” said Mary, confidently. “I know it will.”

“And your carpenter Joseph? What about him?”

“I'll marry him, of course. He'll provide for Jesu and me.”

“And me?”

“For both our sakes....” she began.

“Yes?

“For both our sakes … pretend you never knew me!”

And that had to be it. He knew it. He was going to be a father, but a father in denial, and the whole idea was breaking his heart. He couldn't eat. He looked out for Mary, but hardly ever saw her. It was as if he was already in mourning, and then when he heard that the baby was finally born (thankfully far away) his heart finally broke.

And it all led, a few weeks later, to his starving body being found in the sheep-field where he worked alone, unloved, with nothing to live for, the boy Gabriel, and first victim of a so-called saviour.