Читать книгу Marilyn’s Child - Lynne Pemberton - Страница 9

It’s warm in church; steam rises from damp, closely packed bodies. Judging by the size of the congregation, I reckon most of the parish has turned out to get a glimpse of the new curate. My eyes follow the lead altar boy, Eugene Crowley, as he emerges from the sacristy. I used to like Eugene, but that was before he chased me around the school yard and tried to pull my knickers down. I have to admit he looks grand in his scarlet soutane and starched white surplice. I skip Father O’Neill and concentrate on the figure of Father Steele bringing up the rear of the small procession towards the altar.

A quick glance to left and right confirms the eyes of the entire congregation are focused in the same direction. If Gatsby had been in town he couldn’t have asked for a better reception.

Father Declan Steele, to give him his full title, looks wonderful: tall and handsome, God-like – or how I imagine God should look. My left knee begins to tremble; it does this nervous jig from time to time, it’s a damned nuisance and makes me feel stupid. I place the flat of my hand hard on my thigh just above the knee to stop the shaking. This sets the right one off and now both legs are jiggling like I’m having some kind of fit, a bit like Jimmy Conlon, an epileptic, who sits three seats in front of me in class. Only Jimmy froths at the mouth.

Bridget puts her head close to my ear, hissing, ‘He’s a film star all right, should be in Hollywood.’

I nod, whispering in her ear, ‘It’s handsome he is, the most handsome man I’ve ever clapped eyes on.’

Church, for the most part, bores me. Sometimes I listen to Mass, but rarely; I enjoy singing hymns, particularly for the harvest festival, and usually ask God selfish things during prayers.

I’m jammed between Emily Donaghue, the local publican’s new missus, on one side (her hair stinks of stale Woodbines, and there’s a sickly mixture of cheap scent and sweat wafting out from under her arms every time she moves) and Bridget on the other.

I repeat the prayers and responses parrot-like while studying the face of Father Steele. I focus on his deep mouth. I have, according to my class teacher, a fertile imagination. I smile to myself. If Mrs Rourke could see what’s fermenting in the young fresh earth of my mind at this moment, she would drag me off to confession by the ear. The new curate features heavily in sinful thoughts of him being normal – by that I mean not a priest – and of how it would feel to kiss him. Under my breath I repeat, Forgive me, Father, forgive me, Father, for I sin in my thoughts. Then with quick furtive glances I look from side to side, certain that what was going on on the inside must surely show on the outside.

Once Mother Thomas had said she could see into my soul and, to be sure, the devil was there. Foolishly I’d believed her and for months I’d had nightmares of being devoured alive by evil spirits.

My imaginings of Declan Steele the man make me moist between my legs. It’s not the first time I’ve been wet down there. I remember when I was thirteen and Elizabeth Bradley came to live in the orphanage. Elizabeth was from Cork, fifteen, and four months pregnant. She was big-boned and big-breasted and smoked Silk Cut cigarettes. One night I’d woken with a start to the tip of a cigarette glowing eerily in the dark, with Elizabeth Bradley attached to it. Before I could stop her, she’d slipped under my covers and, lying on her back, had handed me the cigarette. My first drag had burnt the back of my throat and made me cough, the second not so much, and by the third I was enjoying the buzz in my head. It was then Elizabeth had put her hand up inside my nightdress. She’d asked me to open my legs. Confused, I’d asked what for, and she’d whispered that she was going to do something nice, something boys did to girls if they let them. She was a lot bigger than me and packed a mean punch, so without questioning I did as she asked. When I’d opened my legs I remember thinking that it was all right to let Elizabeth inside my secret place; after all, how could it be a sin if she had one herself – a secret hole, that is – and anyway she wasn’t a boy. The tip of her forefinger had probed a little before beginning to rotate. Round and round her finger went, until I could feel the wetness on my thighs and I was embarrassed that it would wet the sheets. After a few minutes she’d guided my hand under her nightdress and had shown me how to do the same to her. She had thick hair on her legs and stomach and I was amazed at the big bush of hair between her legs. I had difficulty finding what she called her excitement button, but when I did, her back had arched and she’d spread her legs very wide. I did it to her for a lot longer and, unlike me, she made a lot of noise, moaning sounds, and kept urging me to go faster.

I wriggle my bottom on the hard pew wondering where Elizabeth Bradley is now. She’d left not long after her baby was born. Someone, I think it was Mother Peter, had said she’d returned to Cork.

I watch Eugene move the missal, then ring the bells for communion. Taking communion is the only bit of Mass I enjoy. There’s definitely something kind of divine and sacred about receiving the host and contemplating the visitor inside my body. In fact, it’s the only time I feel even remotely Catholic. I stand in line on the left of the altar rail and shuffle forward to take communion. It’s Father Steele who places the host on my lips, and it’s I who deliberately holds his eyes for longer than necessary. I’m convinced I can see a spark of interest in his midnight-blue gaze, but I’ll dismiss it later as wishful thinking.

In single file we troop down the aisle out of church. The pace is slow, as the congregation stops in turn to be introduced to the new curate. Bridget is far ahead and I’m stuck behind Tom Donaghue, the publican, who has the lumbering gait of a big ugly bullock. Too much beer in his belly, Mrs Molloy says. Where his hairline stops and before his shirt collar starts there’s a wedge of red neck covered in angry boils.

A thick slice of sunlight pours on to Tom’s crown and as I follow him out of church I peer over his shoulder to the top of Father O’Neill’s fiery head. It’s moving up and down rapidly in time to his booming voice. The curate, I guess, will be standing next to Father O’Neill; they usually do. And if he’s anything like the others before him, he will be smiling, the smile fixed as if it had been painted on his face. But then this curate isn’t like his predecessor Father Peter Murphy, who always seemed, to me at least, to be play-acting. ‘Got a secret agenda, that one,’ I’d overheard Mrs McGuire who ran the post office say to one of her customers. She was right. Father Peter was caught with his trousers down, literally, around his ankles, his dick in the mouth of Robbie Donovan, a lad from the next parish, and him a choir boy an’ all. I’d enjoyed the scandal enormously, we all had. It had broken the monotony for a couple of weeks. The men from the Pig and Whistle had raged: ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, a man of God and him a slip of a lad! To be sure, the dirty curate should be horse-whipped. If I was the lad’s father sure I’d do the job meself, priest or no bloody priest.’

Mrs McGuire had spoken of her outrage to the local newspaper, and Bridget and I had been thumped around the ears by Mother Thomas for calling Father Peter ‘a dirty old poof.’

Father O’Neill had arranged for the curate to leave the parish quietly, under cover of darkness, else, so Mrs McGuire claimed, the mob from the Pig and Whistle would have lynched him. I didn’t think the men frequenting the pub on Friday nights had the strength to do much lynching, it would interfere with the drinking, but I’d kept my thoughts to myself.

My brain is aching for something to say to the curate, something interesting to grab his attention. I could pretend to faint, have him catch me, and swoon in his arms. On the other hand, I might get Father O’Neill, who sometimes has rank breath and terrible dandruff. When I reach the entrance to the church I see Father Steele surrounded by a tight bunch of people. There’s a young couple I’ve never seen before, the man thick-set with a bull-like neck, his wife a tall, painfully thin woman who looks like she’s not long for this world. She’s holding the hand of a small boy with big doe eyes and the same thin face as her. Bridget is next to them, standing awkwardly, goggle-eyed and slack-lipped, staring into the face of the curate like he’s the new Messiah.

On Bridget’s right is oul’ Mary O’Shea, a widow who owns the village store where Bridget has just started to work on a Saturday – a trial period, according to Mary O’Shea, who might or might not offer her a full-time job depending on how she works out between now and October when Bridget turns sixteen. Oul’ Mary’s clutching her rosary beads as if her life depends on it, and edging closer to the curate, beaming for all she’s worth.

It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her smile. As I get closer I can hear her crowing about her trip to Lourdes last year.

Stepping in front of Mary O’Shea, I say in a deliberately loud voice, ‘Well, Father, it’s grand to see you again and on such a beautiful morning. What did I tell you last night, Bridget?’ Before Bridget can reply, I continue: ‘I said the sun would shine on the morning of Father Steele’s first Mass in Friday Wells. True, it rained earlier, but just look at the sky now, won’t you: not a cloud in sight. The sun shines on the righteous, that’s what I say.’

‘Is that so, Kate?’ There’s no mistaking a hint of mockery in Father Steele’s voice, and suddenly it’s unsure of myself I’m feeling.

Mary O’Shea trills from somewhere behind my back, ‘Kate O’Sullivan, would you be so good as to step to one side. I was telling the good Father here about my trip to Lourdes last year. He was mighty interested, weren’t you, Father?’ I feel the tip of Mary’s finger prod violently between my shoulder blades. It hurts, and I want to poke her back to let her know just how much. ‘Before we were so rudely interrupted, that is. Honest to God, Kate O’Sullivan, you’ve got no manners. I don’t know what the good sisters teach you up there; nothing, to be sure, nothing at all. Bridget here is just the same. No respect for an old woman.’

Bridget glares. With a shrug, I reluctantly take a small step to one side. Mary eases her stout body forward and with some skill manages to edge me back a few feet. Undefeated, I stand on tiptoe, looking over Mary’s head in the curate’s direction. He glances up, I catch his eye and we exchange a knowing look. I can tell he’s feigning interest in Mary O’Shea’s prattle. His eyes smile; he knows I know. I enjoy the shared moment, and bask for another in the warmth of his smile. I watch him lean forward towards the young couple and exchange a few words I can’t catch before dropping to his knees to stroke the head of the small boy, who I assume is their son.

Bridget is also looking at Father Steele, her mouth open as if about to speak. She’s not sure what to say. I know, because she’s twisting her hair with her finger and thumb into a tight knot. She always does that when she’s nervous.

‘Father Steele, last July I organized the raffle at the church fête and we raised twenty-six pounds. I was wondering if I could do it again this summer.’

For the first time in my life I want to hit Bridget. We’d already decided that I’d do the raffle this year – she’d promised. That was, until she’d seen Father Steele, who was now smiling warmly in her direction. Not the same class of warmth as when he’d smiled at me, but then once again it could be wishful thinking on my part.

‘Twenty-six pounds, that’s grand,’ I hear him say. ‘I’ll speak to Father O’Neill. I don’t know what he’s got planned for the fête this year. What was it you raffled to raise such a grand amount?’

Peeved but smiling in spite of it, I say, ‘Two of my paintings, Father. An oil I did of the previous curate, and a watercolour of the village, and a –’

Bridget cut in: ‘A day-trip to Dublin, a truly beautiful dried-flower arrangement, done by Mary Collins who trained in all classes of floristry in London and Dublin, and a meal for two people at the Pig and Whistle.’

Not so nervous now, are we, Bridget? I think as I watch her drop the knot of twisted hair and beam like a bloody lighthouse beacon.

‘You must have been busy,’ he’s saying, still looking at Bridget. I’m seething and, though I’d never do it, I’ve the strongest urge to slap my friend hard. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’

For one awful moment Bridget looks like she’s going to do a cute little bob of a curtsey, as if she’s being introduced to the Pope or something. Just in time she stops herself and says in a really silly little-girl voice, the one she affects when she wants something, ‘Bridget Costello, Father.’

‘It was yourself, Bridget, who organized all the prizes?’

Before she has chance to say another word I pipe up with: ‘No, Father, I did.’

Bridget scowls, but says nothing; it’s the truth.

He looks first at Bridget, who has a sheepish expression on her bland face, then his gaze rests on me. ‘Well, I think if there’s to be a raffle this year both of you should organize it. How’s that?’

I want to refuse; I feel like stamping my feet and shouting, I don’t want to do it with Bridget because for all I love her like a sister there’s no denying she’s downright lazy, bone idle, and will let me do all the running around while she takes the credit, or most of it – at least the amount I let her get away with. I want to organize the raffle myself, like last time, only this year I’m determined not to let Bridget take the glory. But since I’m not wanting to make a bad impression I hold back on saying what I really feel, and say instead, ‘OK, Father, we do it together. On one condition: you let me paint your portrait for the raffle. Is that a fair deal?’

His blush surprises and delights me, and for the life of me I’m not sure why.

I repeat my question, ‘A deal, Father?’

‘I can’t be sparing the time for the likes of portrait-painting, Kate, much as I’d like to, and I don’t do deals.’

‘Time for what?’ Father O’Neill’s foghorn voice drowns out every other sound. He towers above the small gathering, making Father Steele, who must be well over six foot, look small.

‘Father O’Neill is built like a brick shithouse,’ Lizzy Molloy had said once. I’d thought it a good description but had never dared repeat it to anyone.

‘Kate here has suggested she paint my portrait to raffle at the church fête, but like I was telling her I don’t –’

Father O’Neill interrupts, ‘To be sure, that’s a grand idea, Father, a grand idea.’ He slaps a bear-like paw on Father Steele’s right shoulder and the curate winces. Father O’Neill says, ‘Never asked to do my portrait – this face too ugly for you, Kate O’Sullivan?’

I don’t know what to say; he scares me, this huge priest. In truth, he puts the fear of God – or is it the devil? – into me at the best of times. Now my face is getting hot and I’m dying to pee. I’m about to make some silly excuse when he begins to laugh. ‘Can’t say as I blame you, my child, for wanting to paint the young curate here; he’s a far prettier sight than an old man like myself.’

The same hairy paw moves and hits Father Steele full in the back. The curate coughs and Father O’Neill snorts like a pig, snot shooting up his right nostril. ‘Must say, she’s a good artist. Did a grand painting of the church last year. It’s hanging up in Tom Devlin’s front room, pride of place over the mantelpiece. Never thought he would take down our Sacred Heart but to be sure he did, put Our Lord on the bedroom wall – or so he says. Haven’t been up there lately to find out.’

The curate looks uncomfortable. I’m not sure if it’s Father O’Neill’s hand, back now on his shoulder, weighing him down, or the thought of sitting for his portrait. I have my answer in his next words.

‘I’m sorry, Kate, but I’ve not got the time to sit for a portrait, as much as I’d like –’

Father O’Neill’s bellow stops him in mid-sentence. ‘For God’s sake, man, you can make time. It’s a good cause and, to be sure, it’s a grand idea: we’ll have all the women in the parish bidding for it.’ Father O’Neill laughs, the sound coming from somewhere deep in his belly and rumbling around the churchyard, attracting several glances in our direction. Bridget looks sullen. I’m grinning, secretly pleased with myself and at the prospect of long hours spent alone with Father Steele. But when I look at the curate he’s wearing an odd expression, one I can’t quite fathom. He definitely doesn’t look pleased.

From where I’m sitting on the lavatory I can, if I strain my neck really hard, see through a narrow gap at the top of the door the branches of an apple tree in the orchard on the nuns’ side of the wall. It’s in full bloom this morning, after an earlier shower. It looks like a huge pink and white umbrella: the kind I’d seen in books, carried by ladies who called them parasols. Apples are not my favourite fruit, I much prefer plums and apricots. I don’t get either very often, and the thought of a big ripe juicy plum makes my mouth water. I love it when on the first bite the juice squirts out and runs down my chin, so I can lick my lips and taste it for ages afterwards. Last summer I pinched a couple from outside O’Shea’s shop. I ate one on my way home from school and saved one for Bridget, who hadn’t been particularly grateful since that very day she’d been scrumping apples and had a store under her bed. To be sure, I’d eaten my fair share of Bridget’s hoard, but only because I’d got the empty groaning in my belly. And when I get that I’ll eat just about anything that I can lay my hands on. As usual I’d eaten fast, too fast, and had farted all night long.

I’m always hungry. Mother Peter is fond of saying, ‘It’s hollow legs you’ve got, Kate O’Sullivan.’ Once I happened to say that it wasn’t my legs but my belly that was hollow, due to the measly portions of food we got in the orphanage. Growing girls could not grow much on half a bowl of porridge, one slice of bread with no butter, watery cocoa, mashed potatoes, and the occasional rasher and raw egg a special treat. No sooner were the words out of my mouth than Mother Paul had boxed me around the ears so hard her next words had been accompanied by the ringing of bells. ‘Ungrateful child! You should be thankful for the food Our good Lord puts in your belly, thankful for having a roof over your head. Spare a thought for Our Lord who suffered on the cross for you, and think yourself lucky to be alive, instead of complaining and gassing nonsense all the time.’ As if to emphasize what she’d said about the suffering and all, she’d given me another thump, only this time in my belly. It had hurt so much I’d felt the tears leap to my eyes, and it had been really difficult not to cry in front of her. But I didn’t; wouldn’t give her or any of them the satisfaction I’m sure they’d feel if they reduced me to a blubbering idiot, like some of the other girls.

The only time I really enjoy apples is when I get invited to Lizzy Molloy’s house and her mother makes apple pie. My mouth waters anew at the thought of the sweet apple taste, mixed with melt-in-your-mouth pastry and lashings of thick clotted cream. Lizzy is my second best friend after Bridget. I sit next to her in school. I’m much brighter than Lizzy, and I let her copy all of my homework. Bridget said that was the only reason she invited me to her house.

Once, when I fell out with Bridget – I can’t even remember what about – I told Lizzy she was my best friend, and would be for ever and ever. Of course it was a lie; Lizzy could never replace Bridget. Lizzy was from another world, she had a mam and da, a sister and two brothers, one in America – an accountant in Baltimore, thank you very much. The Molloy house, though not big, was spotless, and it always smelt of cooking, the sort of smells that make the mouth water. I never wanted to admit it, even to myself, but Lizzy’s main attraction was her mother’s cooking. I had food at Lizzy’s like I’d never tasted before. Thick gravy made from meat juices with chunks of onion in it, poured over floury potato mixed with real butter and not margarine; the same butter spread thick on doorstep slices of home-made bread and scones, washed down with gallons of cherry lemonade, the fizzy, quench-yer-thirst-from-the-pop-van kind. Yes, being Lizzy’s friend had its advantages. And you could eat off the Molloy floors, so Bridget said, although why you’d want to when you could eat off a lovely polished mahogany table with a white lace tablecloth was beyond me.

Every room in the Molloy house was crammed full of wooden ornaments Mr Molloy made in his spare time, and beautiful patchwork cushions and blankets Mrs Molloy made in her spare time. I often wondered when they had any time left over for five kids. One son had died when he was three; Michael, the lad in America, had married very well and was, according to Mrs Molloy, doing very nicely, thank you very much. Mrs Molloy had an odd habit of tagging ‘thank you very much’ on the end of all her sentences. And there were a lot – sentences, I mean. She never shut up. I’d asked Lizzy about it once, and had been told to mind my own bloody business.

My knickers are hanging around my knees, the right leg lower than the left owing to the loose elastic. I wipe my backside with a square of newspaper and pull my knickers up to my waist, thinking of the underwear Lizzy has ordered from her friend Sally Heffernan’s mother’s catalogue: a bra and pants set in black lace, the see-through type with little red satin bows on the waist of the panties and the bra straps. Lizzy is very thin with a flat chest and one of those stomachs that go in – concave, I think, is the word – and I’m not sure the bra and pants will look the same on her as they do on the model in the picture, but I don’t say so. The underwear is being sent to Sally’s house, ’cause if Mr Molloy got wind of it there would be hell to pay, and the only thing she’d feel next to her backside would be his belt buckle. Lizzy wants to wear them for her third date with Frank Sheridan.

‘Honest to God, Lizzy, his eyes will pop clean out of his head if he sees you looking like that,’ Sally had said, her eyes popping.

Lizzy had winked. ‘Who says he’s going to see me?’

At that point I’d piped up with, ‘To be sure, if Frank’s not going to see you in the sexy lace you might as well just wear your old blue school knickers with the holes in the arse.’

Sally had said, giggling, ‘Kate’s right. What’s the point of spending all that money on underwear if nobody is going to see it?’

At this Lizzy had pulled a long face, the one that makes her look daft. ‘Wearing sexy underwear makes me feel different. You know, grown up and sexy. Who knows, I might let Frankie have a quick peek. Let him see what he can have if he waits awhile.’

Giving Lizzy an affectionate pat on the arm, Sally said, ‘If he puts a ring on yer finger and marches you down the centre aisle is more like it, Lizzy Molloy.’

Lizzy had stuck out her tongue but hadn’t argued. She knew Sally was right, so did I, only Lizzy didn’t want to admit it. She would tease and titillate Frank until she got a ring on her finger, then she’d let him into the secret place between her legs, and in her head she’d live happily ever after in a thatched creeper-clad house in the country, the one she went to in her dreams.

The one she’d have, more likely, would be a two-up two-down middle-of-terrace house with a new bathroom and a shiny kitchen on hire purchase – if she was lucky and Frank kept up the payments and didn’t throw his wages down his throat like his father and grandfather before him. Both are dead now. The drink killed them, according to Mother Paul. ‘The demon drink,’ she’d said, ‘puts the devil in good men.’

‘To be sure, it’ll be for me to decide when I wear the underwear, and who sees it. It’s costing me four weeks’ wages and I don’t have to tell either of you how hard I work on Saturdays for that old miser Sheehan.’

I can’t resist saying, ‘Not half as hard as Bridget for the oul’ bitch Mary O’Shea. Jesus, Bridget slaves in that shop from seven in the morning ’til gone seven at night, sometimes eight by the time she’s cashed up. Honest to God, she’s as mean a woman as ever lived. Wouldn’t give you the drippings off her nose, and that’s no lie. The oul’ bugger scrimps on everything: her clothes are darned to death, she’s cobbled her shoes so many times she’s two inches taller, and still she cuts up newspaper for the lavvie when the shelves are stacked full of toilet roll. Gives Bridget strict instructions when she makes her a sandwich to cut the bread wafer-thin.’ I form a tiny space with my thumb and forefinger. ‘She’s got an old press in the back shop (full of rubbish, so she says), and keeps the key on a chain around her neck like a bloody gaoler. Bridget reckons it’s stuffed with money, says that she’s forever moaning about bank charges, and how when her pa was alive and running the store he never believed in banks, said all bank managers were daylight robbers – worse than the feckin’ English.

‘Apparently he’d fought for a free Ireland.’ I imitate Mary O’Shea’s thin voice: “‘If it wasn’t for good men like me da, you, Bridget Costello and Kate O’Sullivan, would be working for some Englishman. A Protestant heathen, not God-fearing and generous like me. Yer should be grateful, thankin’ the Lord and me every day of yer life to be living in a free country, after eight hundred years of the English.”

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ll not be thanking the likes of Mary O’Shea, or the good Lord for living in this wet hole of a place, nor will I be blaming the English for all of Ireland’s problems.’

Sally, a finger to her lips, had said, ‘Hush, Kate, you’ll get me in no end of trouble talking like that.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Me da’s an IRA man, believes in the cause, hates the English. You know how it is …’

Distracted by a noise in the yard outside the toilet I forget about Sally’s dad and Lizzy’s underwear. It’s Mother Peter talking to Paddy Fitzpatrick, the man who owns the farm shop a couple of miles from the orphanage. With the flat of my ear pressed against the door I strain to hear what they are saying.

‘It’s very sorry I am, Paddy, to hear of your troubles, but like I was telling you last week my hands are tied, there’s naught I can do.’

‘What about the three girls due to leave?’

‘Bridget Costello, Mary Shanley and Kate O’Sullivan come of age this year. Kate’s the first, sixteen in a few weeks’ time. She’s an artist, got a grand future ahead of her, paints like her hands were touched by something sent from heaven. And Mary, sure, she’s a lovely child, going to enter a religious order. Bridget Costello, well, I’m not too sure about that one, forever talking about going across the water to that pagan country England. Sure that would be the death of her.’

A metallic sound drowns out all other noise, and I realize Paddy is closing the van doors. Then he’s speaking again.

‘Aye, she’s a grand lass, Kate, a sight for sore eyes. I remember coming up here when she first came to the orphanage. If me memory serves me well we had a fearful thunderstorm that night. Mother Superior, God rest her soul, had asked for a delivery of potatoes and cabbage. I was near out of cabbage, so brought some beets instead. She was grateful, said she liked beets. I says they were good for her, and the kids, no rumbling bellies if you fill ’em up with beetroot soup and potato pancakes. That same night as I’m pulling out of the gates who should I see but Father Sean Devlin – almost knocked him down. You remember Father Devlin, don’t you, Mother Peter?’

There was no reply. I assume she must’ve nodded, because I heard Paddy’s voice again: ‘He was in a fearful hurry, sweating like a pig, his cheeks bright red and all puffed out, like. He was carrying something in his arms, a little bundle. At first I wasn’t sure what it was, then it moved, and I could see it was a baby wrapped up real tight in a blanket. In fact it was the blanket that attracted my attention. I’d never seen anything like it: bright red and yellow zig-zags – Mexican, I think. I wound the window down and doffed me cap, as you do, but the priest just looked at me like he didn’t know me from Adam, and him usually so chatty and friendly like, and me a God-fearing man who hasn’t missed church since me communion. So I asks him if everything is all right, like, since he seems sort of agitated. Not stopping, he mumbles something about a baby having come a long way, and getting her into the warm. I don’t drive off straight away; I watch the priest in the rear-view mirror, running up to the front of the house, and I wonder why he’s so worked up, and why he’s carrying a baby. Aye, I remember the day well. How could I forget? The same day me missus went into labour. Eight hours later our Molly was born. Now she’s gone and got herself pregnant, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and her not yet sixteen. If I wasn’t such a God-fearing man meself, and for the love of God I love me daughter – our Moll has always been the apple of me eye – I’d send her far away up north to have the baby. The father, Sean, is naught but a lad himself. He’s gone missing, can’t lay salt to his tail, last seen boarding a boat headed for England. If I could lay me hands on the young bugger right now, I’d tan his hide so hard he wouldn’t be able to walk for a month at the very least. But soon as he was able, I’d make him walk up the aisle with our Molly.’

‘Now, now, Mr Fitzpatrick, calm yourself. Sean O’Halloran was an altar boy, I seem to recall. The son of Tom O’Halloran … A good man, Tom. The lad’s no more than a slip of a thing, no bigger than an ounce of copper. In saying that, I’m not condoning what young Sean has done, not fer a minute. Sure, the young pup needs a good hiding and to be made to do the right thing by Molly …’ She sighed. ‘But if it’s God’s will, so be it.’

‘It’s all well and good you saying that, Mother, but I’ve got ten mouths to feed at home. I can’t afford another one. I thought you might be able to help out for a while. At least the baby would be near so as our Molly could see it from time to time. Just a few months would do, maybe stretch it to a year until our Moll gets on her feet, gets a job and a place of her own, like, then she can have the baby back. The orphanage is always needing more veggies: I’ll see to it that you get them at the right price.’

‘Mother Virgilus says your prices are too high now, Mr Fitz.’

‘My prices, like I keep telling her, haven’t altered in nigh on five years, and if she was to go and buy the same stuff down at the supermarket she’d be paying twice what I charge. So if you could have a word with her, I’d be mighty grateful.’

A jackdaw crowed, drowning out the nun’s reply.

Then I heard Paddy’s voice again. ‘A good woman, so yer are, Mother Peter. I knew you’d try and help. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, so to speak.’ Paddy chuckled. The nun said nothing, so Paddy went on, ‘Good day to you, Mother Peter.’

‘God be with you, Mr Fitz,’ she says.

I hear the gravel crunch under his feet, the clunk of the van door, then the engine starting up. Without making a sound, I wait until the van rumbles past the lavatory then count out five minutes in my head before slowly opening the door to step outside.

The yard is empty. A quick peek in the scullery window reveals nothing. As I walk from the yard around the east wing to the front of the house Mr Fitzpatrick’s words are running around my head: ‘a baby having come a long way.’ I’d always been led to believe that I’d been left on the steps of the village church, less than three miles away. Well, surely that couldn’t, even in the wildest imagination, be described as a long way. It sets off bells in my head, the ones that ring whenever I think about who my parents were, and if, as in my recurring dream, they are still alive. I suppose I’m like the rest of the girls, the same as orphans everywhere: we all want to know where we’ve come from, who we are. Mrs Molloy, after seeing a film on TV, had told Lizzy I was like a young film star. Lizzy had said it was one of the star’s first films and she thought it was called Bus Stop. After that I’d become obsessed with films, to the extent of letting Eugene Crowley, warts and all, kiss me in the playground in exchange for a movie magazine. I’d spent hours poring over the glossy pictures, imagining my mother was a film star. That, I convince myself, would account for my platinum hair and beige skin tone. Who in all of Ireland looked like me?

I cling to the thought, the idea, the dream. It explains why I feel different. If I’d been born in America to a film star who couldn’t keep me for some reason it would make perfect sense. When we were about eight or nine, Bridget had stolen a telephone book from a box in the village, and we’d spent days picking out the O’Sullivans and Costellos, making a list of the numbers, imagining that one of them might be related and intending to ring them all when we had the money. But of course we never did.

I’ve reached the front door now. A makeshift dressing of cardboard and tape seals a wound in one of its panes of glass. As I push the door it makes an eerie creak, the sort they always have in horror movies. And I think, not for the first time – more like the hundred and first – that the house should have been demolished years ago. It’s damp: in summer the humid smelly type of damp, and in winter the bitter seeping-into-your-bones kind. There’s a wet patch above my bed that’s got bigger every year; now it covers half the wall and is furry to the touch. I know twelve girls shouldn’t be sleeping in a room that by rights should be condemned unfit for human habitation. After Theresa had died of the whooping cough I’d mentioned the damp to Mother Superior, who’d promised to look into it. True to her word, she’d looked at it, but that was six weeks ago and nothing’s been said or done since.

The house is deserted. It’s Saturday morning and most of the girls are working: the younger kids have household duties at weekends, on a rota system that includes cleaning rooms, washing floors, changing beds, gardening, swilling out the lavatories, and the dreaded laundry. The older ones are out working, like Bridget at Mary O’Shea’s, and Mary Shanley on Fitzpatrick’s Farm. Back-breaking labour: I know, I’d done it for two months last year before I got peritonitis – ‘For my sins,’ according to Mother Thomas; ‘Our Lord works in mysterious ways.’ Just as well I hadn’t been out picking crops on my own, else I might have been a goner. As it was I had to be carried off the potato field where I’d passed out in the most terrible pain, rolled up in a tight ball, face-down in the damp earth.

I’d spent three weeks in St Francis of Assisi Hospital; in truth, the best three weeks of my life so far. For the first time I’d had constant attention without having to fight for it. The nurses had chatted and the young doctors had taken pains to explain what they were doing and why – especially Dr Conway, who’d only to look at me with the gooey-eyed expression, the one I knew he kept specially for me, and I’d go bright red and feel a bit faint. Lizzy Molloy had come with her mother, who had brought me a box of Cadbury’s Milk Tray. I’d tried – not very hard, I have to admit – to make them last, but had ended up scoffing the lot in one long glorious chocolate afternoon. Once, Mother Peter came with a bunch of flowers. She said they were from all the nuns, but I knew she was lying; she’d bought them herself.

How anyone can say they are bored in hospital is beyond me. I wasn’t bored for a moment, there’s always so much happening. After I’d devoured my own supply of books and any others I could lay my hands on, I’d sketched all the patients on my ward, including a girl called Sinead Webster. She was ten, and had very white skin, even whiter than Bridget’s; she looked like an alabaster doll I’d seen once in an antique shop in Cork. She could sit on her brown hair, and had hundreds of tiny freckles on her thin face. Her mother had been delighted with the portrait, and offered to pay me. I’d refused but had been over the moon when she’d bought me a Yardley soap and talcum set smelling of lavender. Sinead died two days before I was discharged. When I’d watched them take her body away I’d tried to cry, because I thought I should, but I couldn’t. I was too busy thinking about presenting a caricature I’d done of Dr Trevor Conway, who had bright red hair and small owl-shaped glasses. It turned out he was less than pleased with it, said it made him look fierce, but the ward sister had chuckled and said, ‘It’s a very good likeness, Dr Conway, to be sure.’

As I mount the stairs that lead to the first-floor landing and the dormitory, I repeat in my head a promise I made to myself a long time ago. The first thing I’m going to have when I get to Dublin is my own room, and it will have a pink-and-white floral bedspread with matching curtains, and a kidney-shaped dressing table with a glass top and a frill around the base. Once I’m settled and selling lots of paintings, I’m going to hire a private detective to find my parents. I’m certain they are alive and, at this very moment, are no doubt searching for me.

I gather together my canvas, pencils, paints and treasured purse with the sheepdog on the front. Bridget had been given it, and she’d given it to me for my fifteenth birthday. It didn’t matter that it was second-hand, or third- as it turned out, it was as good as new. I put all my things into my bag. The bag is large and square, the type I’ve seen hanging on the shoulders of young women from the village when, all dolled up, they go out to the pub on Saturday nights. It’s green vinyl with two long handles and a zip. I wouldn’t have bought it myself, but beggars can’t be choosers. A few months before, I’d found it on a wall outside the library. After a quick look over my shoulder to check no one was watching I’d poked my head inside. There was an empty crisp packet, a dirty hairbrush, and a hard ball of chewed gum – nothing of any value. So I’d nicked it. Well, not exactly; I’d claimed it and not told anyone except Bridget, who’d urged me to confess. I’d promised her I would, then had deliberately forgotten. Honest to God, what was one old beat-up bag in the great scheme of things?

As I zip the bag I silently thank God that I’ve lost my Saturday job: sacked two weeks ago from Murphy’s pork butcher’s shop. I’ve missed the money, but I haven’t missed, not for a single minute, cutting up pork belly and offal from half past six in the morning (with hands so cold I could barely move my fingers by the time I’d finished) until gone eight at night: nigh on fifteen hours with no more than twenty minutes’ break, if I was lucky. Nor do I miss the feel of Billy Murphy’s fat belly pushed into my backside every time he squeezed past me in the tight space between the cutting block where I worked and the hanging racks he went to twenty or maybe thirty times a day. I’d had enough even before he accidentally on purpose put his hand on my breast, hissing between beery breaths, ‘Sure, Kate O’Sullivan, yer a nice piece of plump young meat for a hungry butcher boy like meself.’

After that I’d been deliberately late twice, refused to swill out the yard, dropped two pounds of sausage and bacon on the floor, and sold it to Kathleen Murtagh, who’d brought the dirty food back to the shop, ranting and raving about reporting the Murphys for selling soiled food. Mrs Murphy had railed at me like a banshee, threatening to thump me black and blue. I’d warned her if she did I might tell the whole village about her husband’s sinful actions, which had made her scream all the more, calling me a lying whore with the devil in me, fire and brimstone were too good for the likes of me. Her threats of hell and damnation were still ringing in my ears when I was way down the bottom of the lane. I’d told Mother Superior that the Murphys wanted a girl to work full time; she’d believed me, I think, but I wasn’t sure. I was never sure of Mother Superior; she said one thing and did another, and always with her own brand of a holier-than-thou smile. I didn’t trust any of the nuns, except Mother Peter. She was a good woman, of that I was certain. The rest, especially Mother Thomas, were good on the outside and downright evil inside. I’d told Bridget the truth and had gone that very day to confession. Father O’Neill had listened intently to my long-drawn-out story of Mad Murphy (as he was known in the village), of how he’d come after me, made advances, and me a good Catholic girl, a virgin, saving herself for her husband, how I’d been ‘just plain terrified, Father – to be sure, what’s an innocent girl to do?’

The priest in his infinite wisdom had doubted Mad Murphy had had any sinful thoughts. ‘Billy Murphy is a good Catholic, a good family man. A bit over-friendly, perhaps, but nothing more. But you, my child, have lied to the Murphys, and the good sisters, so now you must pray for God’s forgiveness, and say ten Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers.’

I notice my cardigan has two buttons missing but I’ve no time to change and I start back downstairs, Mad Murphy forgotten, my head stuffed full of Father Declan Steele. Today I’m to start his portrait. He’d given me the money, from church funds he said, to buy the canvas and paints. I’m to meet him at the sacristy at eleven. He could spare an hour, he’d said, no more.

‘An hour is plenty,’ I’d replied enthusiastically. ‘More than enough for the first sitting.’

I’m looking forward to painting Father Steele. He’s special. The portrait will be special, I can feel it in my bones.