Читать книгу Marilyn’s Child - Lynne Pemberton - Страница 8

In the quiet of St Winifred’s church I listen to his movements; from under half-closed lids I watch him mount the pulpit steps. He hasn’t seen me. I’m kneeling, hands folded in prayer, head bent, all manner of things going on in my head except worship. It’s dark in the church; he’s wearing a black soutane, his back towards me, clothed in shadow. Suddenly he lifts his head: a wedge of light from the window above the nave touches his crown, which is the colour of a roasted chestnut. Now he’s facing the empty church and, as if practising a sermon, he begins to mime. Desperate to stay hidden, I wriggle my body down into a crouching position and in the silence listen for his footsteps. When after a few moments I hear him descend from the pulpit, I raise my head a fraction to see him start down the aisle. As he gets closer I can see Father Declan Steele has full curling lips, darker in the centre, and heavy lids above navy blue eyes. Irish eyes, framed with spidery lashes, below ruler-straight eyebrows, thick and coal black. My best friend Bridget Costello had been right when she’d said he looked like Robert Redford in The Great Gatsby, except the curate is better looking.

I want to sneeze; Sod’s Law, when I want to be as quiet as a mouse. I pinch my nose with thumb and finger, inwardly cursing the weather. For the love of God, I wish the rain would stop! It’s been lashing down for three days, the hard slanting type that stings bare flesh. In a mad rush as usual and thinking of other things I’d run out without my mackintosh. I hate my mac. It’s long, reaching almost to my feet, and made of a scratchy material in a dirty grey colour. But it’s the only coat I own, part of a set of clothes given to me by the Sisters of Mercy.

So now I’m wet, soaked to the skin. But then we’re always wet in Ireland, wet or cold, or both. The cold is the worst; it seeps into my bones because there isn’t much flesh on them. Before November is out I’m wishing my life away. I’d cheerfully miss Christmas; it’s not a happy time for me anyway. Christmas is for families. I’ve seen them on my way back to the orphanage from church, quick furtive glimpses through sitting-room windows dressed with fake snow and bright tinsel: florid-faced mams, ale-swigging dads, grandmas and kids with glowing cheeks all gathered around gaudy Christmas trees, a wholesome family picture, opening presents and feasting their faces full of chocolates from a selection box. Later they would eat turkey and ham and Christmas pudding with lashings of brandy butter.

Last year it snowed on Christmas Eve and the trudge to church, hand in hand with Bridget under a sky as blue as my eyes, had been like walking through another village, a magical place transformed to silver brilliance. Bridget and I, at the back of the snake of girls, as far from Mothers Paul and Thomas as possible, had played a game of placing our feet in the footprints made by the girls in front. On the surrounding hills a huddle of sheep formed a grey blob against the gleaming white. The unmarked snow lay in thick wedges on the rooftops of the village; the church spire was sullen in contrast. The trees surrounding the church were woven with white, and the snow cleared from the churchyard drifted into our faces and pricked our eyes.

At the Good Sisters of Mercy Orphanage we have a tree dressed by the parish Christmas fund, and a make-believe present. I say make-believe because it’s an only-for-show present. On Christmas morning the parish priest visits to inspect the orphanage. The gifts under the tree are all wrapped in shiny Christmas paper. After he’s left they are all taken away. None of the girls knows where they go and no one dares to ask. One year we got to open the presents on the insistence of Father O’Neill. I got a pair of trainer shoes that were too tight: they nipped my toes. Foolishly I complained, and got a clip round the head for my trouble. The same year we got to eat the for-show-only meal. It was pork, rich and fatty, and it made me feel a bit sick. You could have played football with the pudding, and the custard was runny, like Maureen O’Leary’s snot. All in all, I was rather pleased when the following year there was no inspection and we had the usual porridge and a rasher with fried bread.

I’d like to miss it all and jump straight into spring. Why do we have to have winter? Other countries don’t. Some people wake up to sunshine every day. I suppose that would get a bit boring, but every other day would be nice. No more huddling under blankets no thicker than toilet tissue, bony legs close to my chest, hands as stiff as a corpse and as blue as Mother Superior’s lips (she’s got a bad heart). What joy never again to hear the nocturnal chorus of chattering teeth, hacking coughs, rasping wheezes and the constant sniffing from noses that become, from December to March, like running taps.

Thinking of winter causes the face of Theresa Doyle to surface. Countless times in the past couple of months I’d longed to throttle her or wished her phlegm would choke her. The sound of her coughing had made me feel physically sick. In that dark middle-of-the-night time when minutes turn to hours I would have given anything to stop the deathly rattle emanating from her infected tubes. After Theresa died of whooping cough, I’d confessed my sinful thoughts to Father O’Neill, who had given me double the usual ten Hail Marys and Our Fathers to say every day for a week. I’d been desperate to tell the priest that being in a state of grace and chanting Hail Marys in my head every day would make no bloody difference to poor old Theresa or, for that matter, to me wishing her dead. Well, not dead but quiet so I could get some sleep.

I’d also wanted to ask him why God let bad people live and good people die. Like Theresa, a few months off her sixteenth birthday, or the kind-hearted Colleen Corrigan who’d worked in the bread shop. Why was Colleen, a good mam, taken by cancer at thirty-two, leaving a husband and four lovely kids? These sorts of questions are forever nagging at me, yet they stay where they are in my head, unuttered and unanswered. My confusion has nothing to do with Theresa’s death. No, my doubts had started much younger, as far back as I can remember.

In my mind I challenge the priest: So tell me, Father, why is it the pair of them, Holy Father and merciful son, let so many terrible things happen? I visualize the face of Father O’Neill looming above me; inwardly I quake at his imagined reaction. He scares me, this big man of God – not as much as Mother Thomas, but close. His hair is the exact colour of ripe tangerines. Even when he speaks normally, one to one, his voice rises at the end of every sentence like when he’s in the pulpit. But it’s his eyes that are really terrifying: deep set with coal-black pupils, the kind Mother Peter says can see right into your soul. I know I’m not the only one afraid of the bogeyman priest; even Mother Thomas, who I thought was unshakeable, quakes in his presence.

So, Father – I continue my imaginary conversation with the priest – why is it that this absentee father and wayward son have caused more than enough trouble, for me at least, yet I’m expected to love, cherish, adore, and obey them? To believe that if I worship the pair of them all the days of my life everything will be OK? You see, Father, it’s not that easy, at least not here in Friday Wells, not where I live in the Good Sisters of Mercy Orphanage. For a start they aren’t all good, the sisters that is, and there’s not a lot of mercy. I’ve never had a natural appetite for the rich food of the Lord, Father, I suppose it’s because I was force fed. Do you know, Father, Jesus was the first word I ever heard and learnt?

I have these imaginary conversations often, and not only with the parish priest. I have some really heated arguments with the nuns, particularly Mother Thomas. How I wish I didn’t have the sick feeling in my belly when she comes near me, and could muster the courage to tell her out loud what I really think. The mere thought of her reaction makes me shudder.

Hugging myself tight I feel my nose twitch and a moment later let out a loud sneeze. The young curate, level now with the pew where I’m kneeling, looks surprised, and his surprise turns to shock as I leap to my feet and, like a rabbit springing from a magician’s hat, jump into the aisle and block his way. I can see Father Steele is startled, but to his credit he recovers quickly and appraises me with lazy interest.

He’s taller than I’d first thought and broader, big-boned with a high forehead and a deep dimple in his chin. I’m beaming – I can feel it stretching my face to aching point. After a couple of minutes it begins to hurt and I’m forced to relax my mouth. To be sure, this film-star curate would make even the likes of Lady Susan Anderton lost for words. And, according to Bridget, since Susan had left Friday Wells for London she’d been going out with pop stars.

Mother Thomas had said the new curate had far too much charisma for a priest. I’d looked up charisma in the dictionary, and, after being in Father Steele’s presence for a few minutes, I was inclined to agree with her. With characteristic boldness I say, ‘Do you think you’ve got charisma, Father?’

I watch the slight rise of his eyebrows. ‘Do you know the meaning of the word, child?’

‘I do that, Father.’ I quote:’ “Ability to inspire followers with devotion, divinely conferred talent or power.’”

In a bid to hide his surprise, the curate digresses. ‘Did anyone ever tell you that it’s wrong to be talking this way about your elders?’

I nod vigorously, my head bobbing up and down. ‘All the time. Mother Paul is forever telling me that my chatter will get me into no end of trouble.’ Placing my hands on my hips, I wag my finger, imitating the nun’s voice: ‘“You’ll wear that tongue of yours out.” To be sure, it’s got me fair worn out. I wish the cat would bite it clean off.’

My eyes are smiling, and so is his mouth – I suspect against his better judgement, but I don’t care. I’m pleased as Punch to have made him smile, it makes me feel warm all over. ‘Kate O’Sullivan, at your service, Father.’

‘Kate is a grand name, my mother’s name.’ He repeats: ‘A grand name.’

‘It was Mother Peter who called me Kate O’Sullivan, the first name to come into her head the night I was taken in by the Good Sisters of Mercy Orphanage. I’ve no mam and dad, see. Well, none that anyone knew of at the time – just a name, that’s all.’ I lower my eyes. ‘My name wasn’t chosen out of love or thought, or in memory of some dead ancestor.’ I hang my head. ‘I’ve no idea where I came from.’

I know he’s beginning to thaw, to feel sorry for me, I can see it in his eyes. I have this effect on men, so Bridget is always telling me. But until now I’d never thought much about it, never cared about manipulating the opposite sex. From the age of ten Bridget had taught me how to flutter my eyelashes, to lower my head and peep sideways from under half-closed lids. She said all the film stars did it and they got the men they wanted. One night, when I was about eleven, encouraged by Bridget, I’d dressed up. We’d waited until lights out and all the girls were asleep. We had to be very quiet so as not to wake the nuns or Elizabeth Rourke, an older girl, the dormitory enforcer, who would go running to Mother Thomas to report us. With socks stuffed down my nightdress and my mouth pouting, I’d walked on tip-toe, wiggling my hips. Bridget had shown me how to throw my shoulders forward and jiggle my breasts, copying the showgirls she’d once seen at a travelling fair. A year later I ceased to need socks; my tiny plum-plums, as Bridget called my breasts, grew into melons.

It happened very quickly, creating so much attention that I set about denying their existence. The rest of my body was reed-thin, which made my breasts look even bigger. At bath-time Mother Thomas could not look at my body. She’d spin me around so my back faced her and scrub so hard that my skin smarted. The day before my thirteenth birthday she’d found lice in my head. Gleefully she’d shouted, ‘Dirty head, dirty head!’ Filled with shame and self-loathing I’d sobbed as she shaved and scrubbed my naked skull with a foul-smelling soap.

Afterwards I’d said to Bridget, ‘I wish I’d been born a boy, life would be so much easier. Don’t you wish you’d been born a boy?’

With a shrug she’d come back with, ‘To be sure, Kate O’Sullivan, I’ve no wish to be a boy, but I wish I’d been born with a face like yours.’

Now, looking at the new curate, all thoughts of being a boy are banished. With a suddenness that scares me, I want to be a woman. I wish with all my heart I was wearing anything but the shabby pinafore and white blouse of the orphanage. I imagine myself in a figure-hugging long black dress, cut low at the front and back, like I’d seen film stars wear in old black-and-white films. I’d never seen anyone in a dress like that here in Friday Wells; I doubt the curate has either. What would he think, how would he react if I was all togged up like a film star? Would he, I wonder, be tempted?

Temptation: the evil word careers around my head. Men of the cloth, I tell myself, are not tempted by the sins of the flesh. Priests are not normal men, who, according to Bridget, are all the same, wanting one thing: the hole between a girl’s legs.

Whenever she talks about her secret place she giggles in an odd way, as if nervous, pointing to her crotch and saying in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘But you mustn’t let them inside until you know they intend to marry you. Or, God forbid, you end up having a baby with no husband.’

I notice an edginess about the curate. He’s shuffling from one foot to another, seeming eager to get away. I don’t want him to go and search my brain for something to hold his attention. ‘Where are you from, Father?’

‘Dublin, if you mean where was I born.’

‘I’m going to Dublin, as soon as I’m sixteen, in less than three months’ time. I’ve got a scholarship to art college. I can’t wait until I can leave the orphanage, for my sins.’

He interrupts: ‘Hush, girl, don’t talk so. You’re lucky to be alive. You’ve the good sisters to thank for taking you in, looking after you, putting food in your belly. You should be thanking them and the good Lord every day of your life.’

I chew on my next words: do I swallow or spit them out? I decide to risk the priest’s wrath. There was something about the young curate that loosened my tongue – not that it needed much unravelling. And unlike Father O’Neill this man was young – I reckoned about twenty-eight or -nine – and soft-spoken, with what I called the mushy look in his eyes, a bit like Dr Conway when he’d treated me for my burst appendix. ‘Bad case of peritonitis,’ he’d said. ‘You’re lucky to be alive, Kate.’ With the same sympathetic expression as I now see in the young curate.

‘I’ll not be thanking them for much at all, Father, because I don’t feel thankful. That’s the truth. The good book tells us not to lie, or to sin. So how is it that the good sisters do both? When I’m famous, and I will be, they’ll all read about me in the newspapers. Then they’ll be sorry.’

Father Steele shakes his head. ‘Strong words for one so young.’

‘Not so young, Father, sixteen soon. Old enough to leave this Godforsaken place. When I go I’ll not be looking back.’

‘Wherever you go, child, try to go unencumbered.’ His eyes leave my face for a moment; when they return I can see they’ve changed. There’s something in them that had not been there before. I’m not sure what, but feel rather than see that he’s sad.

‘Our childhood baggage is merely pawned, to be retrieved or returned to us later in life, in one guise or another, so mark my words it will only weigh you down.’

My expression mirrors my confusion, and he seems to understand.

‘Remember, Kate, wherever you go, you’ve always got God.’ He pauses. ‘Now I must be on my way.’

The curate begins to walk down the centre aisle towards the door. I fall into step beside him, aware that he’s not pleased with this intrusion. ‘I have my doubts about God as well, Father,’ I say, walking briskly to keep up with his long strides. ‘I’ve had them for as long as I can remember. I feel like his name has been on my lips ever since I could talk. Did loving Jesus save the sweet Colleen Corrigan, as good a person who ever drew breath? Will a thousand Hail Marys stop Paul Flatley beating his long-suffering wife? Or will saying the Lord’s Prayer stop the badness spilling out of Mother Thomas’s mouth every minute of every day? If I worship God for all the days of my life, will it make any difference? Will it bring back my friend Theresa Doyle? Will it help me to –’

We are at the door when he stops walking. ‘Hush, child, stop it at once. Don’t speak so.’ Father Steele seems genuinely concerned, an angry red spot appearing on each of his cheeks. ‘Have you confessed your doubts?’

‘No, Father. I don’t think Father O’Neill will listen to me.’

The curate looks stern. ‘I’m sure he will, that’s what he’s there for.’

‘For the love of Jesus, there have been lots of times I’ve wanted to ask Father O’Neill why he, the Almighty I mean, lets terrible things happen to innocent people. You see, Father, it’s very confused I am. I don’t know what to believe any more.’

I pause for breath: a quick glance to monitor his reaction confirms that it’s all going better than I’d hoped. I’ve got his attention, the next step is to grab his interest, enough to make him think me a special case. Poor little orphan girl, mixed up, disillusioned, in need of religious direction. I’m pleased to see a look of self-righteousness come over his face. Piety I can deal with, I’ve seen it enough times on the faces of the nuns.

‘You, Kate O’Sullivan, should find plenty to be penitent about.’ When I’d first heard the word I’d asked what it meant. ‘To repent your sins,’ Mother Paul had said with the same look on her face as Father Steele is wearing now.

Throwing back my head I fix him with what I know is a probing stare. ‘So, Father, tell me: is it a sin to say what I think? Does it make me a good Catholic to be filled with guilt for doing the very things that come as naturally to me as sleeping and waking, eating and drinking? I laugh a lot, too loud for the sisters’ liking; I play practical jokes, but only to make others laugh. I’m rebellious, or so they tell me, strong-willed is another favourite term of theirs. I admit I tell lies but only sometimes, white ones usually – don’t we all? A couple of times I’ve pretended to be ill to miss Sunday Mass, but I’ve confessed. Are they such evil sins? I don’t feel bad or wicked inside. If there is a God, then surely he should be my judge?’

I suspect I’ve gone too far this time. I’ve never talked like this before to anyone, except Bridget, who warned me not to tell a soul of my doubts, unless of course I wanted a good hiding. Yet here I am spewing it all out to a priest, and a priest I’d just met. Bridget, I know, accepts things the way they are; sometimes I wish I were more like her, because, I suspect, life would be simpler. I’ve got a queer feeling deep in my belly like I want to go to the toilet. I squeeze my buttocks tight and say, with that look on my face, the one Mother Paul always wants to wipe off: ‘I’ve had religion rammed down my throat since I was old enough to say Our Father, and I do, I really do have a most desperate desire to believe.’

For what seems like a long time the curate fixes me with a steady gaze, then he takes a step closer to me. I can smell his breath: a sugary smell; I suspect he’s been eating a toffee or a chocolate bar. His expression has changed again; the ‘I know best, my child’ look has gone, and in its place I see genuine interest. Gotcha! I think as he begins to speak. ‘You and I should have a quiet talk, Kate O’Sullivan. Maybe I can give you some of the answers you’re seeking. Restore your faith. Come and see me soon. Early evening is a good time. But now I really must be off, I’ve got some house visits and I’m late. God be with you.’

If he could have heard my heart singing he’d have been deafened by the racket. ‘And you, Father,’ I manage to mutter, stepping to one side to allow him to pass.

The back of his hand touches mine; I want to hold it, if only for a brief moment. Rooted to the spot, my eyes glued to the back of his head, I watch him open the door. I look at my hands: they’re shaking, and now my heart instead of singing is beating very fast, hammering hard, like when big Frankie Donegal chases me.

I’m in a kind of trance. It’s the only way I know of describing this feeling. The only other time I’ve felt remotely like this – and really there’s no comparison – was three weeks ago, when I’d had the strongest urge for Gabriel Ryan to kiss me. Gabriel is sixteen and the most handsome boy in Friday Wells – in the whole county, according to Mary Shanley. Mind you, I’d not taken much notice of her since she’d never set foot outside the parish. All the girls want him and he wants me. His father is a bank manager, and the Ryans live in a posh house with a long black drive and a white car parked in front of the house. Like me, Gabriel is in the local secondary school, and everyone says (including him) that he’s going up to Trinity College in Dublin to study law when he’s eighteen.

Two weeks ago, behind the science lab, he kissed me. At first I tried to stop him, afraid one of the teachers would see us. He was strong though, too strong for me, and his body pinned mine against the wall. The whole thing was very uncomfortable: the corner of a brick digging into my right shoulder blade; his hardness pushing against my thigh; his mouth forcing mine open. Then he stuck his tongue down the back of my throat. I gagged, pushed him away, and ran back to the main yard. I couldn’t wait to tell Bridget and Mary about Gabriel. I told them his kiss had made me feel faint and I’d let him feel the top of my leg under my skirt, but only for a split second.

A few years before, Bridget and I had made a pact; we’d tell each other about the sex thing if and when it happened. As if I wouldn’t have told Bridget – she’s my best friend. I tell her everything. She was fifteen when she let Dermot McGuire touch her left breast.

Eagerly she’d demonstrated. ‘Round and round his hand circled, then he squeezed my nipple.’

‘Did it hurt?’ I’d asked.

‘A little,’ Bridget had admitted before continuing with enthusiasm: ‘Then he put his hand on my leg, it was hot – his hand, I mean – and shaking. I could feel it through my tights. I opened my legs a little, let him feel me on top of my panties. Then I shut my legs tight, clamping his hand inside my thighs.’

I’d giggled at this and, curious, I’d asked, ‘Did you want to go all the way?’

Bridget’s face had turned bright red. She’d crossed herself and said, ‘Temptation is a terrible sin. No more, I swear, until I’m married.’

Unlike Bridget I hadn’t been tempted with Gabriel; well, not after the sour-tasting kiss. Anyway, I didn’t intend to get married and have babies, not for a long time – if at all.

All sorted, or so I thought, that was, until Father Declan Steele, this film-star curate who looks to me more like God than any other living creature I’ve ever seen, had come to Friday Wells. Instinctively I know, with all the certainty that my hair is the colour of silver sand, my eyes are grey-blue, and I have a tiny birthmark on my left hip, don’t ask me how, I just do, this man has been sent to this parish for me, Kate O’Sullivan. A rare gift of fate.

‘You’ve got to be telling all, Kate O’Sullivan. What’s he like?’

I’m enjoying myself, holding court amidst four girls hungry for every detail of the new film-star curate. We are in the dormitory; I’m standing, and the other girls are sitting facing each other on the edge of two cast-iron beds. The north-facing room is cold and dark, the walls a sour yellow, dull even on the brightest day. The orphanage was built of granite and grey stone in 1896 – so the plaque above the entrance says – as an industrial school. Enclosed by high granite walls and black wrought-iron gates, I often feel I’m living in a prison. The floors of planked wood are highly polished by the inmates, and God forbid that a speck of dust should be found by one of the nuns. There is a Sacred Heart of Jesus on the wall opposite my bed, a constant reminder of how Our Lord suffered on the cross for me, and on the opposite wall Mary Mother of Christ set in a 3-D gilt frame. Mary is clothed in a long, flowing midnight-blue dress and has the usual smile on her face, which looks to me like she’s a bit daft in the head. I’d mentioned this once and got thumped so hard it’s a wonder I’m still all right in my head. Under Our Mother is a candle that burns constantly night and day. There’s not much furniture, and what there is was not designed for comfort. Two chairs stand either side of the dormitory, like soldiers on guard, there is a basic wooden table next to the door holding a bible, two prayer books, and the catechism.

The nuns live in separate quarters, two to a room. They have sunlight and white glossy walls. When I go to the nuns’ domain, as we call it, I’m always dazzled by the brightness. Bridget says it’s because their long sash windows face south. Rosemary Connelly once suggested that the sun only shone on the righteous, which had made me mad and I’d listed some of the things the nuns did that were far from righteous, in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost.

‘What about suffer the little children?’ I’d said.

She’d backed down with, ‘Bejasus, Kate O’Sullivan, I was only joking. Keep yer hair on.’

I’d gone on to question why the nuns had masses of beautiful flowers in brass vases and bowls of fresh fruit everywhere, when we were lucky if we even saw a peach from a distance. At the back of the building there’s a walled garden, with a lawn so green my eyes hurt to look at it, narrow paths that wind through fruit trees and great clumps of flowering bushes of every colour, and several wooden benches placed in shady spots where the nuns often sit in contemplation. We, the girls, aren’t allowed in the garden and I’ve only seen it from the top of the wall of the school house attached to the side of the building. This is where we were taught until the age of sixteen, or fourteen if, like me and Bridget, we passed primary certificate and went on to the local secondary school. The house is spotless; it smells of disinfectant like a hospital, and damp. I learnt very young that Catholics are obsessed with washing – well, nuns most certainly are. How often had I heard the words: ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness, dirty people are pagan, clean ones divine.’

Four eager faces are looking into mine, eight wide eyes fixed on me. ‘He puts Robert Redford in the shade. His eyes are the deepest blue, like the sea. And not the Irish Sea, more like the Indian Ocean. His hair is so smooth it shines like polished glass, and when he smiled, sweet Jesus …’ I pretend to swoon. ‘I swear he made me feel faint just to be looking at him.’

‘Did he say much?’ It was Mary Flanagan. Then in the next breath: ‘How old is he?’

‘I’d say he’s in his late twenties, and yes we talked for more than an hour. He asked me millions of questions about myself. To be sure, he hung on my every word.’

‘How long?’ Bernadette Kennedy looks dubious.

‘Well, almost an hour,’ I say quickly. ‘He even told me where he was born.’

‘Where?’ Bridget pipes up.

‘Dublin. He misses city life a lot, so he says. It’s going to be mighty quiet here in Friday Wells, I say. Very boring after Dublin. Nothing much goes on here apart from John Connor throwing up his wages every Friday night outside the pub, Paul Flatley giving his missus a black eye once a month, or me causing havoc in the orphanage. Jimmy Conlon sometimes has an epileptic fit, and John Joyce coughed up his insides last year.’

‘Mother of God, Kate O’Sullivan, did you really say all of that?’ That was Rosemary Connelly, her black eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t believe you. Tell the truth, or let the good Lord strike you down dead this very minute.’

I point my forefinger in Rosemary’s direction. ‘Rosemary, will you stop it with the good Lord Almighty stuff? You know as well as I do I don’t believe God will be my judge. I think I can be my own best judge. To be sure, don’t you think I get enough of that from the sisters without you preaching? I’m telling the truth when I say that Father Declan Steele is a god amongst men, and I for one would like to kiss him full on the lips. I’m in love, I tell you. In love with Father Steele.’

Bridget screams, ‘Mary, Mother of Christ, he’s a priest!’

I’m enjoying myself. ‘He’s a man, the most handsome man I’ve ever seen in my whole life.’

‘And who, pray, is the most handsome man you’ve ever seen in your life, Kate O’Sullivan?’

I swivel my head in search of the voice, and spot the stooped figure of Mother Thomas, her black habit shining like sealskin in the overhead light. Her eyes are button bright and piercing behind the rimless spectacles, and her cheeks are puffed out and red, bright red, like she’s been daubed with scarlet ink, or has applied too much rouge. Since she doesn’t wear make-up I assumed she’s been running. She always gets red-faced when she exerts herself.

I’m shaking inside but, determined not to cower or show fear, I look her straight in the eye. What can she do to me that she hasn’t already done, I ask myself. And the knowledge that I am leaving soon, in a matter of weeks, gives me added strength. ‘The new curate, Mother Thomas, Father Declan Steele.’

‘That’s enough.’ The nun raises her voice. ‘It’s himself, a Catholic priest.’

I shrug. ‘That doesn’t stop him being handsome. Surely God made him so?’

I can see the tip of the cane she keeps hidden inside the wide detachable sleeves of her habit. With a look that would, less than six months ago, have filled me with terror, Mother Thomas takes three long strides, her rosary beads making a clanking sound as she comes to a halt a few inches from where I’m standing.

We face each other, adversaries as always, only now I’m not afraid. For the first time since Mother Thomas had come to the orphanage in the summer of 1967 when I was five she didn’t scare me. The five-foot-three eleven-stone battleship of a woman has in the past year shrunk, and now seems to shrink even more before my very eyes. Ha! Perhaps there is a God. The thought makes me smile. She knows I’m no longer afraid, the knowledge makes her more aggressive, yet strangely less terrifying. When we’d first met I was small for my age, and Mother Thomas had seemed huge. Now it was I who towered above the diminutive nun; it felt good.

Within weeks of her arrival she’d singled me out for her own particular brand of discipline. ‘Evil rebellious child, it’s a hard lesson you need to be taught, someone has got to do it if we are to save your soul.’

Often I was to wonder, Why me? What had I done to make her hate me so much? We were all afraid of her, and most of the girls still are; I suspect even Mother Virgilus, the Mother Superior, is. The bead-eyed monster nun from hell I call her – behind her back, of course, and always in hushed whispers.

I’ll never forget an incident that happened about four months after her arrival. The memory, I’m convinced, is one that will remain with me until I’m very old, maybe until I die. I hate liver. Is that so bad? I know it’s good for me, or so everyone says, but I can’t stand the taste and gag at the smell. One evening, with a loud disgusted grunt, I’d refused to eat a plate of liver and onions. Mother Thomas had rapped my knuckles hard with my knife and fork before forcing my head into the plate of rapidly congealing food. Yet still I’d refused to eat, even under threat of house arrest (all free time spent in the bedroom for at least a week). Four hours later the liver and I met again; still I refused to eat. Two days later, weak with hunger, my hands raw from the repeated beatings, I began to eat. With each bite I cursed Mother Thomas, and almost choked on the last morsel.

A few minutes later, the entire meal mixed with a glob of phlegm had flown out of my mouth to land on the hem of Mother Thomas’s habit. I don’t think she ever forgave me for that, and even now, after all this time, I can’t bring myself to think about the look on her face as she’d carefully spooned my vomit from her habit on to my plate. She did it slowly and methodically, and as I watched the realization of what she intended to do had dawned, and I remember wishing with all my heart that I’d eaten the liver when it had first been served.

Now I can feel her breath, hot and moist; it smells rank like bad meat. I want to spit in her face, and think of the pleasure it would give me. I watch her tongue dart out to lick her thin and curly lips, the top one puckered like ragged scar tissue. It’s a face better suited to a witch than an angel of the Lord. She’s from the north; Belfast, I think Bridget said. ‘That’s why she’s cruel, been taught by the English.’ Her accent, unlike mine, sounds almost English, her voice high-pitched and squeaky like a child.

‘A Catholic priest is not an object of desire. I won’t have you talking about the good father in that way. Blasphemous it is, you know so, Kate O’Sullivan. If you dare utter one more word about Father Declan Steele, I’ll see to it that you –’

I interrupt. ‘You’ll see to what, Sister Thomas? See me burn in hell? See me get my comeuppance?’ I can see her anger rising and feel a familiar panic. I’ve got what I call jelly belly and I take a deep breath.

‘What did you call me?’

‘Sister Thom—’

I glimpse the cane, like a rigid snake sliding down her sleeve. Now the jelly belly has gone to my legs and I’ve got to summon up every ounce of strength to say, ‘I called you Sister.’

‘It’s Mother to you, Mother, Mother, Mother! Say it, you evil girl. Say it, or I’ll see to it that you –’ The banshee shrieks have a familiar ring and I know she’s lost it, her mind that is, and as of now anything can happen. With all my strength I fight my fear. At the very worst she’s going to cane me, and I can survive that.

In a calm voice I say, ‘I suppose you’re going to do what you always do, give me a good beating, and not just a thump round the head, a really good hiding. How can anyone be taught a lesson unless they’re black and blue and bleeding like our Lord on the cross with nails in his hands, suffering so that we might suffer? When I was a little girl I really believed grown-ups when they told me I had to suffer for my sins. I don’t believe that any more, and I’m not afraid.’

I can’t believe I’ve just spoken to Mother Thomas like that and I’m not surprised when I feel her hand swipe the side of my face. It stings. I want to lash back but daren’t.

‘Hell is where you belong, Kate O’Sullivan. You’re a lying, evil child. Like I always said, the devil’s own, that’s what you are and that’s where you’ll end your days. With him, the devil in hell and damnation.’ With her cane she points at the other girls, screaming, ‘Get out of here, all of you, I need to teach this evil pup a lesson.’

The girls scatter. Before she leaves I catch a glimpse of Bridget. Her face reveals what I know she feels: concern and hatred. Now I have the nausea deep in my stomach, and it takes all my will power to keep from crying out. I take a long step back, away from the nun. My head hits the wall and for a moment the urge to throttle her overwhelms me. What joy to stanch the stream of abuse spilling out of her ugly mouth. Or, better still, I long to stick a knife in her fat belly, twisting it round again and again while she begs for mercy. For a few seconds I revel in the pleasure killing her would give me, then in a voice that doesn’t sound remotely like my own I hiss, ‘Don’t touch me. I’m warning you, don’t come near me.’

With her right hand she grabs me by the throat, cutting off my air supply. I try to resist but she’s too strong and a moment later I hit the bed face-down. With vice-like strength she pins me to the bed. I can feel her nails digging into my spine. Suddenly my head feels hot, my temples and forehead are burning, and I have this terrible image of the first time she did this to me, when I was six. As she drags my dress up and pulls my knickers down, I’m talking into the horse-hair mattress, repeating mantra-like: ‘I hate you, Mother Thomas, with all my heart, I hate you, hate you, hate you.’

The anticipation, those few suspended moments before cane meets flesh, is always the worst. I squeeze my eyes shut, thinking of how soon I’ll be leaving this place, of my own bedroom with sun streaming through big windows, and a pink rosebud bedspread. The monster nun from hell takes a deep breath before bringing the cane down. My entire body freezes in spasm and I bite my tongue. It hurts like hell and I want to scream but don’t. I won’t give her that satisfaction. In fact, it’s a long time since I’ve cried. I can hear her panting, and know she’s lifting the cane for the next blow. ‘You’ll burn in hell, Kate O’Sullivan, that’s where you’re going. The devil’s own, that’s what you are.’

Suddenly there’s a strange noise inside my head, like a light switch clicking on then off, and before she can hit me again I roll over and scramble to the other side of the bed.

My knickers are hanging around my ankles, my backside feels like it’s been torched, but the shaking has stopped and I no longer feel physically sick. We face each other on opposing sides of the bed. My eyes are harnessed to hers, and I detect to my glee a little uncertainty in those glassy beads. ‘Mother Thomas has eyes just like a raven,’ Bridget always says, and until now I’d agreed, but today they, like her, have diminished to those of a common sparrow. In the same strange detached voice I say, ‘You’ll never hit me again because if you do I’ve got orders from the devil to kill you. And if it’s hell I’m going to, you won’t be far behind.’ She’s staring directly into my eyes; hers don’t waver or blink, but she says nothing as I go on: ‘When I’m rich and famous, and I will be, you’ll be sorry, very sorry – that is, if you’re still alive.’

I know, as soon as I enter and kneel, that it isn’t Father O’Neill in the confessional box. Whiskey breath and sweaty feet do not smell of freshly squeezed lemons mixed with a trace of lavender. The smell is different from any I’ve ever encountered. I inhale, exhale, then say, ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s two weeks since my last confession.’

I know it’s him. Holding my breath, I wait for confirmation.

‘Tell me about it, my child.’ Father Steele’s melodic voice washes over me. I close my eyes and imagine bathing in spring water on a warm summer day. It isn’t something I do regularly, but I had, a couple of times last summer, been allowed to go on a picnic with a girlfriend from school. We’d gone in her father’s car to Kinsale, where we’d eaten tons of egg sandwiches and drunk gallons of lemonade. Then afterwards we’d swum in the river. It had felt like Father Steele’s voice: warm and soothing.

I sigh. ‘I’ve had a terrible row with Mother Thomas. I said some awful things to her. She beat me, not for the first time, and I’ve been punished by Mother Virgilus.’

I look down: my hands are red and sore, the skin peeling. Work-worn hands, like those I’d seen a thousand times in the village, attached to pink arms scrubbing front steps or polishing brass door-knockers. Ashamed, I try to cover them up. The sight of them makes me angry, and sad that I should have such hands at fifteen. My hands were intended to paint, not scrub floors and polish brass, or be submerged elbow-deep in boggy water in the laundry where I’d been since my tussle with Mother Thomas.

‘Sure, I said things I shouldn’t have, but she made me say them. She made me very angry, Father.’

‘Are you sorry, my child?’

I know the simple way to get off the hook is to say, Yes, Father, I’m very sorry; I won’t do it again. But today, with only a panel of wood and a foot-square grille separating me from the man of my dreams, I’ve no desire to get off lightly. And instead of feeling penitent, I’m busily inventing more sins to confess. The rate they’re popping into my head I reckon I could be in the confessional box all day.

‘Mother Thomas is mean and cruel, and if God were all he claims to be, he wouldn’t let her live. I told her to go to hell, and that I wished her dead. In truth, Father, to be sure, I meant every word.’

‘May the Lord bless and forgive you, my child.’

Exasperated, I raise my voice. ‘I don’t want forgiveness, Father. I want Mother Thomas to suffer for what she’s done to me.’

I hear him sigh. ‘Do you have anything else to confess?’

Before I can reply, a shuffling noise outside distracts me. I look towards the sound. I can see a pair of feet outside the confessional box. One black-booted foot is tapping impatiently. Another sinner waiting to be cleansed. Probably one of the men from the village, one of the many who get drunk every Friday night. I’ve watched them spew up their earnings in the alley behind the pub; heard the shouts – hasn’t everyone? – and the screams from their women. The lucky ones, the wives that is, get off with a black eye. Most of the people I know sin regularly, confess at the same rate, are absolved and go on to do it all over again. Religion – what a waste of time; stupid, to be sure. The more I think about it the less it makes sense. Suddenly I’m seized with a strong urge to get out of the confessional box, and out of church. My knees hurt and I feel very tired. With a deep sigh I say, ‘No, Father, I’ve nothing more to confess.’

‘For absolution, say ten Hail Marys and five Our Fathers. God be with you, my child. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.’

I rise and step out of the confession box muttering under my breath, ‘I hate Mother Thomas and I hope she goes to hell.’

For the first time in years I’m looking forward to Sunday Mass. Since confession on Wednesday I’ve been counting the days, hours and minutes for my next sighting of the curate. Bridget and I chatter while dressing in our Sunday best. Our church uniform consists of black stockings, dark blue skirt, white blouse and navy blue sweater. As I force my feet into my black brogues I long for a dainty pair of peep-toe sandals in red or white with a heel, like Lizzy Molloy wore to church last week.

Leaning forward to lace up my shoes, I say, ‘I wish I had a beautiful new dress to wear, like the one Aileen Shaunessy wore to church last week. Didn’t you think she looked just grand?’

Looking me up and down she replies, ‘Sure, Aileen’s dress was grand, but she hasn’t got your figure to carry it off. You’d look beautiful in a paper bag, Kate O’Sullivan. You’ve got the body of a bloody angel, a sight for sore eyes.’ She lowers her voice to a whisper. ‘Can you imagine Mother Thomas’s face if you swanned into church dressed up like a bloody film star? She’d probably have a heart attack.’

I grin. ‘I wish.’

‘And to be sure, one glimpse of your titties would be enough to make the new curate forget his vows.’

Still grinning, I say, ‘That’ll do, Bridget, and it’s very beautiful you’re looking this fine morning too.’

She beamed. ‘You really think so?’

I squeeze her hand. ‘I do that. You look grand.’ I’m telling the truth, not the whole truth but partly. The midnight-blue serge skirt trims Bridget’s stocky body, taking inches off her generous hips, and the colour complements her dark auburn hair. But beautiful she is not, nor ever will be, lest it be in the eye of the beholder. Given a beholder that is short-sighted, or just plain blind with love. I hope Bridget will find the latter. She is, after all, my best friend, better than a sister, and I love her very much.

Hand in hand we leave the dormitory and pass Rosemary Connelly on the stairs. She whispers, ‘Mother Thomas is on the warpath. She found a dirty sanitary towel on the floor of the downstairs lavvy.’ Mary looks directly at me.

‘Not guilty,’ I mutter.

As we continue downstairs Bridget digs me in the ribs. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

I know she’s referring to my first period. Mother Thomas had examined my knickers and after finding one spot of blood had made me wear them on my head for the remainder of that day. I have to fight hard to stop dredging up these unwanted memories, yet even in the doing I know it won’t make them go away – well, not forever. What was it Father Steele had said about our childhood baggage? I think instead about the future, it has always helped me to cope with the past and the present. Soon I’ll be sixteen. I’ve longed to be sixteen since I was ten. The magic age, time to leave the orphanage, to be in charge of my own life. Yet now it’s almost upon me I feel more than a little scared. You’re going to be famous, I remind myself, you can look after yourself. But could I? Would I? The doubts jump around my head.

I’m very tall for my age, five foot eight, and still growing, as Lizzy Molloy was fond of saying, in all the right places. ‘It’s a model for them fancy glossy magazines you should be, Kate O’Sullivan. A top model you’d make, to be sure.’ I can think of nothing worse than being a model: being told what to do; how to stand; what to wear. I was going to paint. The only time I felt truly happy was when I was painting. It made me feel different, whole and important, like I had something special to say. As we reach the foot of the stairs, I turn to Bridget. Tears well up in the back of my eyes and I’m not sure why.

‘I’m going to be sixteen soon. I’ve longed for the day, but as it gets closer I’m feeling a bit strange. I’ve never known anything but this place.’

The glassy sheen of concern in Bridget’s eyes makes my insides loosen, and I want to hug her when she says, ‘You, Kate O’Sullivan, are going to be a famous artist. You’re a brilliant painter. I only wish I was good at something.’ She squeezes my hand. ‘But I know how you feel.’ Her bright smile fades. ‘For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamt about leaving here. When I was very small I used to dream that my mam and da hadn’t died. They’d gone away to work, to make lots of money, and had put me into the orphanage until they had made enough to come back for me. The dream always ended with them leading me up a long path, their arms loaded with presents. At the end of the path there’s a lovely cottage covered in ivy. Mam and da tell me it’s our home; we’re all going to live there. I always hated waking up from that dream, and every night I used to go to sleep trying to dream it again. Yet now when I think about leaving here I get the shits. I’ve no place to go, I don’t have any family, only you, Kate, you’re like a sister to me and you’ll be leaving four months before me. I’m going to miss you so much.’

I can’t stand to see her sad, or afraid; I’ve seen both too often. The trouble is it makes me feel the same, so with more enthusiasm than I actually feel I say, ‘Why don’t you come to Dublin, Bridget? You can get a job and we can share a flat.’

Even in the saying I knew Bridget wouldn’t be coming to Dublin. She wasn’t going anywhere. Bridget was small town, and, after all, there had to be the Bridgets of the world. She would, I knew, let one of the local lads get inside her secret box, as she referred to it. Then she’d get married and let him pump his hot sperm into her every Friday night after the pub, because that’s what all the men round here did. She’d have babies, lots of them, be a good mother, try to be a good wife, and pretend to be a good Catholic. Doing without, and dying inside.

That wasn’t for me. I wasn’t like Bridget or Mary or most of the other girls I knew. I had my life all mapped out; I’d been planning it since I was ten. First I was going to go to Dublin, then London, perhaps even America. People would come from all over the world to buy my paintings, and I’d be rich; very rich. I’d be interviewed in newspapers, asked to appear on TV, on talk shows and the like. Of course I’d come back to the village to see Bridget and her fat babies. Then I’d cruise up to the orphanage in my chauffeur-driven car, dressed in beautiful clothes and smelling of expensive perfume. Mother Thomas would open the door. At first she wouldn’t recognize me, but when I spoke shocked recognition would register on her wizened face. With my head held high and wearing my best smile I’d say, ‘I told you so.’