The Way We Heard: Sam Fender & Olivia Dean – “Rein Me In” (2026)

A sound from the nave broke the spell. A cough. The squeak of a pew?

The church leaned into the land. The wooden door creaked on hinges older than he was. Oak polished by generations of worshipers of the true faith, its uneven grain silky and rough with ridges and warped spirals. 

Inside, silence and dust and wax candles flickered with a faint honey scent of boyhood. Incense held together rough stone walls and the journey to heaven.

He sat in a back pew, furthest from the altar. His coat collar was damp, where the rain had found him.  It minded him of school runs and back seats awry of the driver’s gaze. Wind and rain tapped against stained-glass windows. His eyes adjusted but he fidgeted with a hymn book which carried the dry aroma of warped paper and leather. The hymns in Latin—and may well have been valuable and seemed odd to just it leave lying around.  

The monks had chosen the familiar. Fresh air carried a scent, a taster, of wet stone and water so pure and cold it was life-given. Beneath it lingered dam moss and the mineral smell of a rain-soaked world and plants that had evolved tens of millions of years before man came climbing the slopes, marking boundaries, raising cairns and digging ditches for defence or drainage.

Some believed in hidden paths called ley lines that joined geological features which were connected to sacred places and to celestial bodies and the stars. A lifetime ago, perhaps two or more, in Shakespeare’s seven ages of man, these things had interested him. But this churchyard under his shiny black shoes felt like consecrated ground.

Lower down, the merse flowered with old life. Mugwort aided druids and their followers in flights of fancy, if that was it was. Who could say?

Rein me in looped in his head, wind and wilderness created their own songs and harmony. On a sea of wormwood, silverweed food for the Hebrides when the potato crops failed, and the population of Ireland filled coffin ships and created new worlds.

But too many of the ever hungry filled their mouths and bellies with grass on the shoreline, hemlock, with its spookily luminous shoots stood out sharply in the muted browns and greys of winter sent those that chewed it into frothing-mouth madness and death. But who could say if that was the better choice?

Rein me in? Rein me in? Don’t rein me in?

He tried to remember the correct formula. ‘Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It’s been… I cannae remember since my last confession,’ he admitted. ‘Decade, maybe. I’m no really a believer any mair.’

He swallowed and waited for the priest to say something. But when he didn’t speak, he battered on.

‘Eh, I’ve hud a few problems wae my wife.’ He felt angry with the priest. ‘She’s got dementia, you know.’

As if he would know. He felt stupid. ‘Well, we’ve no had married relations for…well, anywhere that’s neither here nor there. She n’er like sex, anyway. And anyway, I’m met someone else. I think I love her. But I’m no sure she feels the same way, cause she’s much, much, younger. And she’s got a kid. That makes it even worse, or better,’ he quickly added, remembering who he was talking to.

Rein me in ran through his head like tickertape.

‘I wisnae good wae my wife, before, I mean. Did a lot of drinking. Watched a lot of porn. Hud affairs, on and aff. Maistly aff. I even had sex wae a man. Well, a few men. On those sites you go intae for swinging. I mean, I didnae mean tae, but there were no real women.’

Silence, apart from his own heavy breathing. He rested his fingertips on the worn wooden partition. The surface felt cool now, almost cold enough to draw warmth from his skin. And he felt like using the wooden crucifix above his head and poking a hole in it and looking through to see if the priest was sleeping. His knees were hurting with kneeling and he wanted to haul himself to his feet and leave, but it was too disrespectful. He couldn’t until the priest let him go. Said the words of absolution. And give him three Hail Marys and a Glory Be as Penance or some of that other crap.

Rein me in. He nearly blurted it aloud. Blundered on, instead. ‘It was funny how I met her. Well, no funny, exactly. I was driving past the crossroad between Dalmuir and Old Kilpatrick. I seen this women, oot the corner of my eye. She was hauding a wain and greeting her eyes out.’

‘I circled back and wound the windae doon. But she jumped intae the passenger seat wae the wain in her arms.’

‘“My saviour,” she’d said.’

‘I had tae take her hame. I mean there was naewhere else. And my wife, wae dementia. She hardly noticed. Or if she did, she confused her wae our daughter, God help us.

‘I’d forgotten about sex, or mostly. I couldnae look at her. No really. Too young. Dark eyes that held a glimmer o’ gold. The blackness of her long hair that fell differently o’er one ear rather than the o’er. The tilt of her chin which exposed a smooth neck and her breasts.’

He’d hesitated over saying breasts in the Confessional. But it had to be said. ‘The wain started gurning and crying and she asked if it was awright tae feed him. I don’t know whit I thought, powdered milk and bottles. But she’d nae bag. Nae stuff.’

“Aye,” I told her.

‘Her dress was wan of those lightly drawn bodice things and she jist popped them oot. Her breasts, I mean. And hooked the wain onto wan of them.’ A smile on her bruised lips.

‘I’m no being funny, but whit happened?’ I asked her.    

‘"Dunno," she said as the child suckled contentedly "Where would I be, if you hudnae saved me?"’

‘Dunno,’ I replied.

‘My eyes were on her face but Father, I glanced at the o’er childless breast. Dark aureole and damp nipple. I felt lust Father. Lust. We didane dae they kind o’ things in oor day. I staggered tae my feet and dashed to the door and fumbled wae the handle as if the living-room door had a lock on it.

I tried tae speak. Licking my lips and swallowing. ‘I’ll jist make some tea,’ I said. ‘Maybe a bit o’ toast, if yed want some?’

‘That would be nice,’ she’d said.

‘I know whit yer gonnae say, Father. The start of whit?’

‘I asked myself that many times. I mean, it’s yer game. Infestation, obsession and then possession. Aye, aw o’ that and mair. There’s e’en a stupid song that follows me about. Rein-me in. Father, I’m possessed. Can you hear me? Possessed. I need yer help. I’m goin tae hell.’

He couldn’t wait for absolution and there was no timetable for returning, but hovered among the gravestones.

Lavender.

Fresh lavender, like bundles drying in distant sunshine. It reminded him of Granny Annie. Holidays from home and bundled up on her lap.

Near a broken wall stood a weathered stone cross.

Its inscription had almost vanished, but a new plaque beside it remained clear.

Father Donald MacDonald

Parish Priest

1948–1998

Someone had tucked dried lavender beneath the stone. It read, ‘If love is not eternal. Our pain and grief are terminal.’