Recent content by Malone

I awoke early the next morning, and after a quick wash in an old enamel saucepan of cold water, I took a walk around the mission. The sky was heavy like a dull bruise, and the dampness was evident in the chilly morning air. The place felt as if an illness had settled on it. No one was around. As...

My room at the mission was like a cupboard; a really small cupboard. It was dark, gloomy, damp and it smelled of boiled radishes. That said, everything in the town seemed to smell of boiled radishes. The bed was a couple of planks covered with a stained sheet. The floor was both sticky and...

The first day on the train was an eye-opener. When Svetlana suggested that we pray for seven days, she wasn't joking. We did stop after four hours for lunch. It was a fetid lukewarm radish stew with what I could only guess was donkey skin. It wasn't good, so I headed for the train toilet. Given...

The train journey to London was uneventful; well, as uneventful as any journey once people see the dog collar! One elderly lady asked me to pray for her cousin, who was due to go under the knife for an in-growing toe nail. I nodded and smiled; what do these people want, miracle cures in exchange...

I was packing my things in my battered suitcase when he entered my room, sitting on the bed without even asking. I wasn't going to miss him at all. "So, Father Malone, I hear you're off to the back of beyond?" "I am, Father Kelly. A change, as they say, is as good as a rest!" He smirked. He...

Sister Imelda looked up from her bible, the phone jammed between her double chin and her fat shoulder. "The Bishop will see you now!" Inside his office there was an overwhelming stench of Old Spice and something like decay. He read his sheet of notes, over and over, until it seemed as if he...