A Swift Pure Cry (15 page)

'
Hail Mary, full of grace,

The Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou among women

And blessed is the fruit of thy womb...
'

His voice tapered off. Trix and Jimmy rattled on to the end of the prayer. They stared at each other nervously, wondering why he'd gone quiet. He'd never done so before. Trix started on another Hail Mary but faltered on the word 'grace'. They knelt in silence. Something was wrong. They waited for him to explode. But instead he got to his feet and wandered into the hallway without a word. They heard him go out into the night and he didn't come back before they'd gone to bed.

After that, there were no more evening rosaries.

A Sunday came when Shell couldn't get into her usual mass dress. It was a long-sleeved green corduroy, zipped at the back, gathered at the waist. The zip wouldn't go, not with Trix's tugging, nor with Jimmy's. She changed back into her jeans, which these days she kept up with a belt, covered over with the long, black jumper. She went out into the kitchen.

'Dad,' she said. 'Can't go church today. I'm sick.'

She tried to look pale and feeble. But she knew her cheeks were glowing.

He looked up from his chair. He'd been stooping over to do his shoelaces.

His eyes scooted off her onto the wall.

'Sick?'

'I've a pain, Dad. A headache.'

He nodded. 'Stay at home, so. You can mind the dinner.'

Every Sunday after that she said the same thing to him, and he made the same reply.

During the weekdays she borrowed his rain mac whenever she went out. It hung round her, reaching halfway to her ankles. She fetched Jimmy and Trix from school, did the messages at McGraths' and nobody said a word. Miss Donoghue did stare at her once when the weather was fine.

'Don't you like looking on the bright side, Shell?' she asked kindly.

Shell frowned, confused.

Miss Donoghue's firm hand caught a fold of her voluminous mac and shook it. 'There's not a drop of rain in sight, my dear.'

'Oh.' Shell shrugged. '
That.
The forecast isn't good, Miss Donoghue.'

'No?'

'No.'

Miss Donoghue looked dubious.

'There's a storm moving in,' Shell suggested. 'From the Atlantic.'

'That's the first I've heard of it.'

'It was on the radio, Miss Donoghue.' She rushed away as fast as she could.

Another day, she was lingering in McGraths' shop. She'd change in her pocket and wanted a treat. The front with its counters was empty, the door to the back of the house left ajar. She could hear voices from beyond, Mrs McGrath giving out about something, Mr McGrath defending himself. Her fingers itched to pinch a bag of liquorice all-sorts, a penny more than she had, but she stopped herself. The door opened and Mrs McGrath stood at the till with a face like thunder.

'Shell Talent,' she said. 'Only you. I thought I heard that jingle-jangle bell. What are you after?'

Shell drew the mac around herself. No chance of Mrs McGrath taking a penny off anything.

'I'll just take these,' she said, choosing some cheaper fruit gums.

She paid for them.

'D'you want a bag?' Mrs McGrath minced.

'No, 's all right.' She put the pack of gums into one of the mac pockets.

Mrs McGrath stared. Her flabby lips went crooked, her tiny eyes were sharp as pinheads. 'Why've you that big old coat on?' she said.

'There's heavy rain forecast, Mrs McGrath,' Shell said.

Mrs McGrath peered. 'I'd say.'

'I'd best be off before it starts.'

'Before what starts?'

'The rain, Mrs McGrath. 'S due any minute.' She edged towards the door.

Mrs McGrath came from behind the counter, as if she was going to pounce. 'It's a fine day, Shell. Not a cloud in sight.'

Shell whisked herself through the door, closing it behind her with an almighty jingle-jangle. She could feel Mrs McGrath's pinhead eyes digging in between her shoulder blades as she strode off down the street. She'd not got far when, like an answer to a prophecy, rain came, even though the sun still shone. It plastered down, a freak deluge. She scrambled up the muddy hill, munching the gums as she went, laughing out loud as droplets trickled down her hair and neck.

That'll show you, Mrs McGrath
, she thought.
Cabbage-face.

Twenty-eight

December arrived, misty and cool. Trix hung up the advent calendar from two years ago, the last one Mam had bought them, on the wall again. Shell had re-shut the doors with sellotape and every morning, Trix and Jimmy took turns to open one with the nail scissors. They counted down the days to Christmas.

'Are the presents bought, Shell?' Trix asked.

Shell blinked. 'Presents?'

'Last year we had chocolate money. And bath cubes.'

Shell remembered how Dad had surprised them on Christmas morning with some last-minute gifts. There was no chance of him doing the same this year, going by his current doom-laden looks. If there were any presents to be bought-or stolen-she'd have to do it.

'Santa will surely bring something,' she promised.

'Huh.' Trix shook her head. 'Santa's stupid.'

'Who says?'

'Jimmy says. He says only stupid people believe in him. Or flying reindeer. Or God.'

'Does he?'

'Yeh. He says they're all pretend.'

Shell looked at the angel peaking out from behind a cloud through the advent calendar window. The angel, Santa, Jesus and the Virgin Mary all seemed to float away to the land of fairy tales.

'Is he right, Shell?' Trix eyed her challengingly.

Shell pinched her chin. 'Dunno, Trix. All I know is, there's nothing wrong with being stupid. Stupid people are sometimes right.'

Trix frowned, considering. Then she put her hand out to touch Shell's belly.

'Will
it
come for Christmas, Shell? Our secret? Like Jesus did?' Her eyes glistened.

'Dunno, Trix. Don't think so. January, more prob'ly.'

'January?'

Shell nodded.

'
January?
' Trix turned away, her lips wobbling. ''S ages away.'

Shell stroked her neck. 'Whisht, Trix. Santa will have something else for you before then, wait and see.'

Every morning she walked Trix and Jimmy to school, climbing up the back field, around the copse, and down the side of Duggans' field. Jimmy went first, Trix next and Shell last, hugging her vast middle. They were like the three kings with no star to follow. Shell was winded by the top of the copse, and in the frosty air her breath came out in white balloons. At the turn-off to the village, she shooed them on to the last lap without her.

Dad stayed away in Cork, mostly. Shell had a notion he'd a woman there. One morning, while spying in his wardrobe, she'd found lipstick on his shirt collar. The money in the piano had shrunk down to the last hundred.

One day, she thought, he'll go off to the city and never come back.

In the day time she'd go into town for messages. She'd take the bus from the stop beyond the village, going in at lunch time, when no one was about. Then she'd come home, sweep the floor and maybe bake something if the humour was on her. In the dim afternoons she'd shuffle out of her shoes and sit on the armchair. She lit the electric-bar fire, listening to the fizz as the metal elements glowed red, then orange.

The baby jostled when she was still.

Kevin. Hughie. Paul
. She shook her head.
No. Gabriel.
She smiled.

What if it was a girl?

Her mind went blank. Then she had it.
Rose
.

'Shell,' Jimmy said that evening.

'Get on with your homework, Jimmy.'

He threw his pen down. ''S done.'

'Don't believe you.'

Jimmy poked his cheek out, tent-like, with his tongue. 'Mr Duggan's first cow's calved.'

'Already?'

Jimmy nodded. 'It was early. Too early, Mr Duggan says.'

Shell stared.

'Saw it coming out, Shell. After school. Mr Duggan let me and Liam watch.'

'And?'

'It came out the cow's bottom.'

Trix stared up from her work, open-mouthed.

'So?' said Shell. 'Where else would it come out from?'

'Mr Duggan had some twine. He wrapped it round the small hooves and yanked it.'

'Ugh,' said Trix.

'Didn't
pop
out, Shell. Not like toast.'

'No?'

'Least, not at first. Once it started, then the rest slid out. Kind of.'

'There then.'

'Didn't look nice,' Jimmy said.

Shell tutted. 'That was one unlucky cow,' she said. 'Usually they just drop.'

'And Shell--'

'Get back to that homework, Jimmy. You too, Trix.'

'There was all this stuff came out too.'

'Stuff? What stuff?'

'Muck.'

Trix grimaced. 'Ick.'

'What kind of muck?'

'Brown lumps. Ooze. Jelly, like. Mr Duggan said it was the afters. And know what?'

'What?'

'The cow tried to eat it. And she licked all the goo off the calf too.'

Shell shuddered. 'Get back to that work. Now.'

Jimmy picked up his pencil. Trix turned a page. The fridge hummed.

'A cow's a cow,' Shell said. 'Babies come out soft and white. You'll see.'

A terrible hunger came on her as they got on with their work. She went through the larder to find something to eat, but every last cut of bread had gone.

'Shell,' Jimmy resumed.

'
What?
'

'When-you know what...' He pointed at her lump and rolled his hand around.

She frowned. '
Yes?
'

'What are you going to
do
with it?'

She stared at him.

'She's going to hide it. Aren't you, Shell?' Trix piped up.

Shell's lips pursed.

'Where?' scoffed Jimmy.

'She could put it in a drawer,' Trix mused. 'Or under the bed.'

'Dad'd hear it crying, stupid,' Jimmy said.

'No, he wouldn't.'

'Yes, he would.'

'Would.'

'Wouldn't.'

'Shush, the pair of you,' Shell shouted. She clapped her hands over her ears.

Jimmy chewed his pencil end. 'Well? What
are
you going to do?' he called out.

Shell thought of Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt from King Herod's rage. She thought of baby Moses, floating down the river in his basket. She took her hands off her ears. 'Don't you worry about that, Jimmy,' she said. 'You'll see. I've it all worked out.'

Twenty-nine

But she hadn't.

She read and re-read the body book until she knew the birth section by heart. The words contractions, dilations, amniotic fluids, caesareans, episiotomies swam before her eyes, muddling themselves up into a labyrinth of normal and abnormal, dos and don'ts, befores and afters. She slammed it shut, thinking,
You just get down on your knees and push and hope. And push some more.

Then the what-ifs started.

What if...?
She sat in the armchair on the darkening afternoons, with the wind howling around the guttering and the rain slanting in from the west.
What if...?
No. She hadn't it all worked out. She didn't know what to do. She bit her lip. She needed somebody. Somebody other than Trix and Jimmy. Somebody she could go and tell. If only Bridie'd been around. She'd have thought up some madcap plan, which was better than no plan at all. She looked at the holy calendar. The December picture was of Mary and Child. The Virgin's blue robe rippled over her front and knees, the baby sat up straight and blessed the world.
Madonna with child plus a thirty-three J Wonderbra
, she heard Declan quip. Who had Mary told? she wondered. Her own mother, probably. Then her mother had told her father. Then her father had told Joseph. Soon everybody'd known. Everybody'd understood.

Her eyes fastened on the piano. The lid was up. Jimmy'd been playing the night before, as usual. She pictured her own mam on the stool, her right foot poised over the pedal, her fingers trawling over the notes, bringing out the light, soft tunes. 'Mam, I've something to tell you,' she tried out loud. The figure at the piano slowly turned, her eyes a question. A faint smile hung on her lips. '
What, Shell?
' The notes on the piano dangled, the tune hovered. Shell couldn't bring herself to go on. ''S nothing, Mam. Sorry. Go on.' But instead of turning to play on, the figure dissolved, leaving a great gap behind. Shell got up and shut the lid down to hide the keys.