Our son is defending himself against the crime of blasphemy. A magnet had fallen off the fridge and met the floor with a startling crack, causing him to shout, ‘Jesus Christ!’
‘Language!’ we say, with disapproving voices. If I’m honest, mine is actually my dad’s voice. I can’t help it. I’ve never really developed a disciplinary mode of my own, so any time I need to admonish my children it’s him that comes out, unbidden and full-throated, with a tinge of his Fermanagh brogue to make its source even more mortifyingly obvious. My wife, too, has a similar affliction, inflecting her most authoritatively maternal barbs with hints of her mum’s native Carlow. There we stand, a Derryman and a Dubliner in London, so unused to confrontation we can only raise our voices using accents we’ve never had.
My son seems shocked at our vehemence, because he doesn’t quite get how blasphemy works. He learns about various faiths in school and seems quite keen on the idea of God as creator of everything, albeit with an assist from the Big Bang, a phenomenon he still thinks of as a person – specifically, God’s friend who does a few odd jobs around the universe.
I don’t know if he’s aware who Jesus is, or if he’s got to the New Testament yet. This is markedly different from my own education, every second of which took place within 6ft of a crucifix. By the time I was his age, I was picking out bibles and rosary beads, memorising my Our Fathers and Hail Marys so I’d be present and correct for my first holy communion. I’d spent seemingly 40% of my life in mass and had learned the grisly details of Christ’s death, each stumble, trip and stabbing that led him to Golgotha, before I’d been introduced to times-tables or joined-up writing.
Despite all this, since my wife and I are no longer believers, our son’s childlike confusion over God now renders him more, not less, religious than his parents. Unable to plead piety, we simply tell him that you can’t shout ‘Jesus Christ!’ because it’s… rude.
His first retort is that we say it all the time, which is a hard one for us to argue, although we try one in the ‘we’re adults, so we’re allowed to’ vein, which demeans us all.
Thankfully, his second defence is that a friend of his ‘says it all the time’.
‘So what?’ snaps my wife, quicker than I can get to the mark. I freeze as I realise she has channelled her mum before I’ve had time to summon my dad. ‘If he jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?’
The boy is bamboozled, but it is a death blow to us both. For him, the first time he’s encountered such a devastating medley of words. He tries to think of a comeback. He even looks at me for guidance, but I’m too busy boiling in defeat to notice.
The chance spurned to utter a phrase I’ve wanted to say in earnest since it was first used against me in childhood. My wife has beaten me to it, and I might never forgive her. ‘Jesus Christ’ I mutter to myself. ‘Language’ says my son.
