Rotten Apples

I really don’t understand why we are forced to attend matins every Sunday morning. I mean, if you believe then of course you might like to head over for a spot of thoughtful prayer, but if you don’t it’s just really rather an insufferable waste of time. Especially as I have so much else to think about now. This morning the priest (is it a priest? After all these years I’m still not really sure) told us that we should think about a boy he had witnessed stealing an apple from a fruit stall in the high street during the week. He told us that we should recognise that the boy did wrong but the fact that we could not know whether the boy knew he was doing wrong meant that we should naturally be inclined to forgive him his trespasses. Oh for goodness sake. What a lot of rot. When I was three years old I stole three fifty pence pieces from my grandfather’s coin purse. I knew I was doing wrong. I knew because I made sure that no one saw me do it. I think I believed that being in possession of £1.50 would make me quite possibly the richest person in all Christendom. Unfortunately my mother found the fifty pence pieces later that day and threatened to take me to the police station if I ever did anything similar again. I cried. She cried. I went to bed. And knowing Mother she probably had a few gins to get over the shock of discovering that her son was already turning to petty crime for cheap thrills..

Zoe went out on supper leave with a bunch of other girls last night. I tried to nonchalantly hang around near her boarding house hoping for a repeat of Friday’s night’s fun but I must have missed them somehow. I didn’t sleep well. I wonder if she’s thinking about me..