The Pope's Wife

Torn. Again. The Pope’s wife bore a patchwork of scar tissue in her emotional fabric; a legacy of perpetual acquiescence. Perennial victim, she had been mugged by life itself. Peering through sheer curtains in her small kitchen just after 6am, she surveyed the aftermath of The Pope’s Friday night out with the boys. It wasn’t a pretty sight. In full view of the neighbourhood’s eyes. The Pope lay crumpled and inebriated inside a silver shopping trolley which had been abandoned on their driveway adjacent to the footpath. His mates, ‘The Disciples,’ had probably wheeled him back to ‘The Vatican’ when the pub had closed. She sucked through her teeth quietly, imperceptibly shaking her head. Less a gesture of concern for her husband, it was more a dread that early rising neighbours were witnessing the spectacle.

 Jen had been seventeen when she married Johnny Pope, five years her senior. She’d regretted it for the subsequent thirty years. To Johnny Pope, whose mates called him “The Pope” or “Pope John,” the marriage was a zero-sum game from the outset. To get whatever he wanted, Jen always had to cede something. Even when she’d announced she was pregnant, he’d outlined to Jen the conditions needed to be met for any impending wedding. The marriage proved to be more a transactional arrangement rather than a partnership. With a baby in her belly, a dearth of real-world experience, and stars in her eyes, Jen meekly surrendered her family name, her bank account and her friendships, to become, as his mates referred to her, “The Pope’s Wife.”

 She maintained a discreet window vigil, observing through the curtains. Friday nights and Saturday mornings had become Jen’s Groundhog Day. Reflecting on thirty years, she recognised that pieces of herself had incrementally fallen away, been hoovered up,  discarded with the household dust.  She’d become less of Jen and mostly The Pope’s Wife. There wasn’t much more she could have given in the marriage. Yes, she had acknowledged that a bricklayer’s work is strenuous. No, she wasn’t trying to stop him from seeing his mates at the pub after work. Yes, she was at home so she would do the housework. The Pope dictated that there were no blue jobs, they were all pink. Yes, he could have sex whenever he needed it because his job made him tense. No, he didn’t need to get up through the night for the child. Yes, she would have his meals on the table at whatever time he wanted.

 And she’d suffered the humiliation of questioning her own self-worth when The Pope casually divulged that he’d been having an affair. She’d questioned whether she hadn’t been there enough for him. Didn’t understand him, wasn’t pretty enough for him, hadn’t been as attentive to him as he wanted. She’d resolved to lift her game, to forgive, to forget, pretend it hadn’t happened… until it happened again… a few years later.

 After twenty years of marriage, after their young adult child had moved away, they were forced to sell their modest first home, ‘Vatican 1’, to cover The Pope’s gambling debts. He’d accumulated them without her knowledge. When The Pope revealed his plan to sell, his wife timidly opposed the idea. She was made to feel treacherous.

 “Yeah, just as I thought,” he’d roared at her, “when things get tough, you’re not there for me. Never were. Bitch.”

As usual, The Pope’s Wife acquiesced, ‘Vatican 1’ was sold, and The Popes had moved into rented premises dubbed ‘Vatican 2’.

 Watching him begin to stir in his shopping trolley, she subconsciously gnawed at a knuckle. As The Pope attempted to clamber out, the trolley toppled. Sprawled unceremoniously on their patchy lawn, he unleashed a string of thunderous curses, gagged several times then purged his gut into the unmown grass. Masking decades of accumulated resentment, she watched, struggling to identify her feelings towards the pathetic scene on her lawn. Jen decided on the word “pity.” Yes, she nodded to herself, she pitied her husband.

 The Pope was unaware that, for the past year, Jen had been mulling a safe exit-strategy from the marriage. She’d been planning it until the diagnosis they’d received four weeks ago. Until the medical world had dropped its bombshell on The Pope. Until they pronounced those three words - Motor Neurone Disease.

Another rip in the shreds of her emotional fabric. Confronted with the prognosis for MND, how could she cut and run… put herself first … after 30 years? The Pope’s Wife, consumed with guilt, quietly surrendered. She would support him until the end.