Sex, Lies and the 18-30’s ‘Club Catholic’

At the bottom of a Georgian staircase, in a house next to one of the better-known catholic churches of Knightsbridge, I have a last ditch attempt at arranging the neckline of my dress in an enormous guilt mirror. Condemning my self to the age old problem of less cleavage results in more leg and visa versa scenario I sigh and wonder whether anyone knows how a girl is meant to dress for an 18 to 30’s Young Catholic Social?
Two of my oldest girlfriends come here every month to, let’s be honest, check out the local catholic totty. I have seen them prepare, skirts just short enough to push men screeching into the Our Father, inwardly screaming, ‘lead us not into temptation’, thank god (excuse the painful pun) they’re brought up well enough to conceal any public urges and later, of course, shuffle toward the confessional box, with their tales and other appendages, firmly between their legs.
Swinging open the door I run smack into the face of Jesus. That is the Jesus looming twenty foot high from an enormous screen, his face flecked with blood as kaleidoscopic tear runs down his cheek. A fresh-faced man in a dog collar ushers me to the back of the room with a soft smile, I feel guilty. If the truth be known, I’m not a catholic, I’m a fraud, ‘but tonight Matthew, (Mark, Luke and John)’ I think as I clamber over a line of sombre faced handsome young men - ‘I’m the worst kind.’
My loyal and hardy friend and ‘fellow fake’ who studies drama and relishes any chance to put partake in façade, and, who incidentally, knows nothing about religion let alone the Turin Shroud, which is the subject of tonights talk, needs the loo. As she mounts the chair behind us I can feel the eyes upon us and as I mouth the word ‘subtle’ in her direction, she gives me a grin and mouths back something that should never be said four feet from a church. I’m thinking it wasn’t the best idea to bring my crudest companion to an undercover meeting with the Young Catholic Society.
Under the high ceilings nearly forty people are sat staring toward the front in silence. The boy to my left has the posture of a post box with the mouth to match. Every now and again he nods slowly and throws back his head. It is during my fixation with his intricately knotted shoelaces the talk ends. People start to come to life and chat, about thirty bottles of wine appear on a snooker table near by, my fellow fake and I head towards a particularly good looking bottle of Kleinbok Shiraz and so starts the evening.
Half an hour later we meet a man who says he’s a doctor, he may well be, but he’s defiantly stretching the 30 age limit. Somewhere between him offering us another drink and finding the lace of my friends dress between his fingertips he announces he’s a gynaecologist. “Ooh I need a check up”, came a voice fuddled by red wine, it wasn’t my own. “What, oh hmm, well” he guffawed. Something in my spine squirmed and spun 360 degrees. It was time to move on.
We move to the other end of the room where it takes five minutes until an Irish man of diminished height rolls in to me. I am impressed by his determination to talk about the Turin Shroud. I, having learnt a little on the subject at school (and bursting to share) have become aware that when I start to talk his eyes flick from my cleavage to somewhere considerably further away. I fiddle fleetingly with my neckline and to my amazement he acts as if I had lifted my dress and blasphemed. This is rather embarrassing; he has actually forgotten what he is saying. Suddenly, from somewhere between the coronation chicken sandwiches and the table stacked with dvd’s entitled, ‘The Wonder of the Shroud’, comes my ‘fellow fake’ friend like a dirty faced angel, she arrives between us with a bottle of wine she has pilfered from behind a curtain. “Look what I found, the priest gave it to me!” it is too much for him, and within moments he is gone.
Almost disheartened by his prudishness I spot a man who I recognise. A little older than the rest and quite sober he stands among women giggling and fiddling with the cuffs of their Ralph Lauren cable knit sweaters. This man is, reportedly, the Mr Big of the Young Catholics. Mr Big is a 30 year old broker in the city, he takes home about 100k a year, but that’s not all he takes home. No sex before marriage you know, his mother must be kidding herself. I watch him as he slides across the floor, his eyes removing Isobel’s and Eleanor’s Abercrombie and Fitch shirts button by button revealing their lily white balcony bras. I’ve never met this man but rather we’ve been introduced via Facebook. One fore mentioned practicing catholic girlfriend, who frequents this obscure bubble of society, has become rather more acquainted with this Mr Big of the catholic scene than I. He arrived at her office one morning with only one thing on his mind and it had nothing to do with the Bible. She, a good catholic girl from a good catholic school, raised by good catholic nuns, let him enjoy her most intimate possessions right there on the office furniture. But, of course, as she assures me, they “did everything but”. “Ah” you may sigh, “everything but”, every catholic school girl has been well trained in the moral issues of the “everything but’ scenario. N.B, there is nothing remotely like ‘thou shalt not do everything but’ in the catechism.
Seeking some sort of boat hole in this bizarre atmosphere I head for the loo. I walk in on a scene from Mahiki on a Saturday night. Sleek girls in v-neck jumpers and glossy pony tails line the walls, Chanel bronzer and Benefit lip gloss at the ready. One pouts as she rehearses a sultry look in the mirror from a far. I catch the eye of a girl in a blue shirt as she positions her bag on her arm and flicks a lock of peroxide-free hair from her forehead. I stand out like a sore thumb on a French manicured hand. I should leave.
Downstairs my ‘fellow fake’ is talking to a man who told her he was a nuclear physicist, because she believed it, and let’s face it, here anything goes, he waited until later to reveal he actually worked in IT, but ‘Daddy owns a house in Knightsbridge, I’m the youngest of ten so I get the house in High Street Ken’. He later takes her out into the corridor and kisses her on the cheek, “What a delight you have been, we must catch up again.” I have a fleeting image of ‘fellow fake’ being introduced to his parents and getting drunk with his grandmother. She gives him her number.
I am than approached by Barny. I know of Barny. Although I pretend I don’t. Encouraged by the powder room ‘virgins’ I must admit I flirt. I hear my self accept to coming to mass on Sunday and bite my lip until it hurts. I then wickedly accept to attend Soul Food, a function that describes itself as a charismatic prayer group of friendly young adults who meet to praise and worship. I suddenly feel hugely guilty but gloss it over with a giggle and inadvertently touch his leg. I feel immediately silly, like a child whose doing something very bad but can’t be blamed because it doesn’t understand. I get the impression Barney would think the same. With my hunk of matted blonde hair and over done mascara and it suddenly dawns on me - I’m getting the distinct impression he thinks I’m a lost soul in desperate need of a good Christian scrubbing. Behind his mop of velvet black hair, behind those sparklingly clean ears, I can almost see a grey and bearded old man nodding slowly at me with a sad look in his eyes. In my haze I fumble to talk about the Turin Shroud, rather clever to have a talk before a social it means there is always something to return to, they should do it in bars. This guy is quick, “You seem rather well informed considering you got here ten minutes before the end of the discussion.” He’s got me there; I was late, by an hour and ten minutes actually. His eyes are chocolate brown; I smile and wish I had more soul. Ten minutes later he gives me his card and tells me to ring him, perhaps I would like lunch with his family after Mass on Sunday. As I stuff the card into my bag I feel sad to think I never will.
Over the next three hours we indulge in another four glasses of wine and realise the party is thinning out. “How did this all start?” I ask my ‘fellow fake’ who managed to drink more than I and is now propped up with her arm around a statue of Our Lady, as if during the evening the two have become close friends. In my left ear I can hear Harry, he’s telling me that Catholism is not a cult. Sometime ago I tried to agree with him but now I’m starting to feel like the last survivors of a mass suicide attempt. I am alarmed by a mixture of feelings and as I descend the stairs I step from guilt to a lower level of contemplation about the bigger and smaller things in a young person’s life, and finally as I leave the door and walk back on to the busy streets I am aware of the bizarre again, and I like to go again.