Bad Catholics by James Green

it?’
    â€˜Who?’
    â€˜Who said all that about change.’
    â€˜Bloke name of Newman.’
    â€˜Which nick did the smart-arse work out of?’
    â€˜Oxford.’
    â€˜Oxford! What were you up to in Oxford? No, I know, it’s none of my fucking business.’
    They both sat and drank, each with their own thoughts.
    â€˜You know, Jimmy, I sometimes think I should get a transfer to Oxford or somewhere like that. Go for something quiet.’
    â€˜Why don’t you?’
    â€˜Well, you know how it is, all the bother of the move, new faces, it would be just another change. Anyway, I’ll be able to retire in two years and then me and Sharon will make a proper move, somewhere warm and sunny.’
    â€˜Still with Sharon?’
    Eddy nodded.
    â€˜You’re too young to retire, and a copper’s pension won’t keep you warm in the sun.’
    â€˜We’ll do all right,’ Jimmy laughed.
    â€˜I was right, Eddy, nothing changes. Somewhere quiet like Oxford might be nice but London’s where the money is. You’d never get rich working out of a nice quiet nick in Oxford.’
    Clarke grinned. ‘Here’s to crime, Jimmy, and fair shares for all.’
    â€˜I’ll drink to that.’
    And they both lifted their glasses and drank.
    Kilburn, December 1962
    â€˜Look Jimmy, nothing can go wrong, it’s just sitting there asking for someone to pick it up. It’s a sin to leave it.’
    George sipped his Coke. Jimmy was thinking it through. It was a sin to steal. Even if you didn’t get caught God would see you, God always caught you because he knew as soon as you did what it was you were up to. But, then, God always gave you a way out. You did your sin, decided you were sorry, really sorry, went to Confession and everything was all right again. But you had to be truly sorry. Jimmy decided he would be. After all, it wasn’t as if the money was for himself, at least, not all of it. Trying to save on the wages of a bus conductor was impossible and Bernadette’s wages from her job at the post office mostly went to her mother, a widow with two children younger than Bernadette and still at school.
    â€˜How much?’ he asked noncommittally.
    â€˜Don’t know, but definitely no less than a ton.’
    â€˜Each?’
    â€˜Each.’
    The money was in a locked drawer overnight. No one would be on the premises, so no one would get hurt. Getting in and out was no problem. The place and the money were insured and hardly any damage would be done forcing a window and a cupboard door. Jimmy could understand how George saw it. The money was almost being given away. If George knew about it, others would, if not now, then soon.
    Someone would do it. So why not them?
    But if they got caught, during or after, it would definitely mean prison. He could accept that as a risk but what he was not sure he could accept was how going to prison would affect his family and Bernadette.
    Bernadette had long ago told him what she called her awful secret. Her mother was not a widow. Her father was alive, somewhere. The police had come and told her mother that her father had been arrested. The rest was straightforward but vague in her memory. A trial, a twelve-year sentence and her father was gone, sent to prison somewhere in the north, Manchester or Durham, she thought. Her mother visited at first, took Bernadette twice while somebody looked after her brother and the baby. But it wasn’t any good. Her father swore at her mother and it always ended in tears.
    The visits used up far too much of what little money they had. They had moved and her mother had begun the fiction that she was a widow. Nearly all the women in their new community of Kilburn came to know it was fiction, but no one ever challenged it. They all knew only too well it could just as easily have been their husband, their son, their brother, their father. No need to make the shame worse or