Father David Anderton is the Catholic priest narrator and main protaganist of this profound and interesting novel. They say a good wine needs no bush and here the publisher has dispensed with a shout and offered the readers a sip: “It would be fair to say the town had a suspicion of strangers. Driving over the moor at Achentiber that first October evening, I saw Dalgarnock Abbey and the town below it emerge out of the darkness like burning matter in a dream of constant renewal.
“I tasted sea salt coming at the open window, I turned off the radio, and immediately thought of the Balliol drinking song. Versions of myself fanned out and danced before the headlamps, and I pursued them, those furies, the window open to the ancient world and the town glowing orange and alive down there at the centre of its own embers.”
A vision of hell on Earth? He also observes as he drives into the town where he is newly appointed parish priest that the houses have windows “the size of Bibles”.
Father David is a Balliol man, conversant with the major debates of his time, a man of refined tastes. Too refined for his parishioners, but he does his duty among them in the priestly way, though perhaps without sufficient affection.
Hostility and contempt from the congregation are always at the edges of his daily life. But he finds much solace in the beauty of the natural world, music, and one or two real friends. First among those is his charlady, Mrs Poole, who has taken herself through various courses of study and really appreciates having Father David to talk to. They take meals together and put old roses into the rectory garden, all the while enjoying their verbal sparring.
Through teaching a class at the local school Father David meets the younger generation in the town. He is befriended by Mark and Lisa and spends much time with them. He is free with his time, his car and his money and they take him along on many jaunts. He does not correct their prejudices, nor stop them from shoplifting. He is infatuated by their youth, and sadly in search of love. Love, not sex. The reader sees the end coming and it does, inexorably.
O’Hagan reveals what the church means to Father David. It is at once a sanctuary and a decent way for a man of his temperament to make a living. His wealthy mother (she writes popular novels) sustains him in gracious good living.
He also shows us the state of mind of the townsfolk through their views on Muslims in their midst (violently racist and anti-“terrorist”) and on football. The latter is what really moves them. Mark’s family are Celtic supporters. One of the very few moments of closeness to his biological father occurs in a winning game when the father heaves himself from his telly chair and proclaims, “This is your history! This is what your people fought for!”
But Mark has no real father. He is adrift, failed as much by the obese and violent man who lives in his house, as by Father David, who fails him by wanting to be his friend and companion, rather than his mentor. When eventually there is a kiss, it is Mark’s anger with both men that fuels the legal charges, as well as his callow incomprehension of what he has done.
O’Hagan creates Father David as a graceful man of intelligent congeniality; it is easy to like him for this as well as, in the end, his honesty and bravery. It is not his homosexuality that costs him his life in the church but rather the exaggerated and incorrect charge of “assault” and “paedophilia”. What he is not charged with is a sin of omission, his lack of attention to the real sufferings of his flock.
This is an intense and subtle exploration of an entirely believable life in a beautifully realised corner of Scotland.