A Swift Pure Cry (26 page)

'Can I go?'

Father Rose raised an eyebrow. 'I'd sooner send you to the wolves.'

'But I
want
to go.'

Mrs Duggan's hand landed on her shoulder. 'We'll go together, Shell. All of us together. Like last Sunday. Will you be officiating, Father?'

'No. I've my Goat Island duties that day.'

'But surely--'

Father Rose shook his head. 'Father Carroll won't hear of it.'

Mrs Duggan raised a brow. Father Rose shook his head and raised up a palm. Mrs Duggan sighed. She went to quell an insurrection at the card game.

Father Rose settled himself in the chair. He took a long, slow sip of his whiskey. Shell kneaded a ball of fluff on her jumper. The fire crackled.
A and O. The two babies side by side on the slab.

'It's been a terrible time for you, Shell.'

She shrugged.

'Mrs Duggan told me how you went in and got your father to retract.'

She nodded.

'How did you manage it?'

She looked up. Father Rose was not looking at her, but into his drink.
It's not the first sip, Shell, or the second. But the third.

'I told him who the real father was,' she whispered.

Father Rose nodded. 'I see.' He got up from the chair and leaned against the mantelpiece, glass in hand, staring into the flames. 'On that subject, there's something I wanted to show you, Shell. If I may.'

She hunched her shoulders. 'What?'

Father Rose downed the whiskey. He put the glass up on the shelf and rummaged through an inner pocket. He pulled out an old envelope. 'Nora Canterville, our housekeeper, found this the other day. When she was sorting through the hymn books. She gave it to Father Carroll, who gave it to me.'

'What is it?'

'Take a look.' He passed it over. It was a shopping list in her writing.
Eggs. Back bacon. Pan-loaf. Oxtail soup. Stock cubes.
The list went on. Beneath was more of her scrawl, wilder, in a blunt pencil.
Sorry, Bridie. Honest to God. Didn't know you were going with him.
And on the other side, crammed in letters not her own:
He'd make a dog sick in those robes. You can have him Shell plus bra
.

She was at the Good Friday Stations again. Bridie's nostrils were flaring. She was showing her gums. Spite was in her eye. Simon of Cyrene had lifted up the back part of the cross. She remembered the note being written, how Dad had nearly caught them at it and her plunging it in the hymnal. The words swam before her.
Sorry. Dog. Sick. God.
Father Rose was waiting, saying nothing.
Please, let me die. Now
.

'The girl in the note, Bridie,' Father Rose said at last. 'She's the girl I saw you fighting with that day, isn't she? The day we drove over the coast road?'

Shell nodded, miserable. 'Bridie Quinn. We were friends. Until--'

'Until what?'

She couldn't answer.

'And who was it Bridie said would make a dog sick, Shell? Will you tell me that?'

Shell bit her lip.
Declan, your secret's out now.

'Won't you?'

She swallowed. 'You know, Father, don't you?'
Face down in a cowpat.

'I think I can guess. He's "not in Coolbar now", I think you said?'

She nodded.

'He's gone abroad? To America, maybe?'

She nodded again.

'And was he the father, Shell?'

'Yes.' Her voice was barely audible.

She looked at the note and longed to scrunch it up. The words
in those robes
were a torment. 'Is-is this note why Father Carroll won't let you say the Mass?' she stammered.
He thinks it's you, doesn't he? He thinks what Mrs McGrath thinks. What they all think.

'He's his reasons, Shell. Good reasons, probably.' Father Rose reached for the whiskey he'd laid on the mantel, forgetting he'd already finished it. He looked into the diamond zigzags of the cut glass as if the shape of the rest of his life was etched there. Then he looked up. His tired lids lifted. A soft gleam found its way to her. He smiled.

'Father,' Shell said, 'tell Father Carroll. Tell him the truth.' She passed him the note. 'Please.'

He passed it back. It was like a daft card nobody wanted, the joker of the pack. 'No, Shell. You keep it. Father Carroll didn't pay it much attention, don't you worry. And doesn't a letter belong to its author, in the eyes of the law?'

'I wouldn't know.'

'It does. So the note's yours. And your friend Bridie's, I suppose.'

'She's not my friend. Not any more. She's not spoken to me since the summer. And then she went away.'

'But she's back now, isn't she?'

'Is she?' Shell looked up, confused.

'I saw her, I'm sure, recently.'

'Never. Where?'

'She was walking up the coast road, on her own. Thumbing a lift in the dark.'

Shell frowned. Mrs Quinn was before her, talking.
She's in Kilbran, with her Auntie May. Helping with the B & Bs.
'When was that, Father?'

Father Rose considered. 'Let me see. I was on my way back from Goat Island after an evening Mass. Not this week, last. Just before Christmas so. I slowed right down to give her a spin, but when she saw who it was she shook her head and waved me on.' He grinned. 'She probably didn't fancy a ride with a priest. Not to mention the cut of my car.' He replaced the glass on the mantelpiece.

'You're
sure
it was her?'

'Certain. She's the kind of face you don't forget. You should call over and see if you can't make it up.'

Caterwauls and table-thumps rebounded across the room. 'Forty-five,' yelled Trix from the table. ''S my game.'

'Cheat!' hooted Jimmy. 'You reneged again.'

The cards at the other end of the room flew through the air like manna from heaven. Father Rose laughed and shook his head. His hand waved vaguely in the air. 'Isn't the world a mad fandango? Isn't it, Shell?'

Forty-eight

Not just Coolbar, but all Ireland waited for the doctors' verdict. Parliamentarians met in the Dail in heated conclave. The airwaves crackled with lamentations.
Only look at the state of a country where such a thing could happen
, a woman TD bewailed. A tribunal of inquiry was called for on national news. Coolbar was in a state of siege.

But within the Duggans' house there was a hush at the centre of the storm. No one came near them. The radio, TV and telephone were unplugged.

The weekend came and went. On Monday, John, Liam, Jimmy and Trix went back to school for the new term. They didn't want to go, but Shell and Mrs Duggan made them. Dispatching them from her car into the chill January air, Mrs Duggan warned, 'If anyone alludes to you-know-what, just look blank.'

Inside Shell's head there was a chattering going on like birdsong. You heard it if you listened for it, not if you didn't. When the house went quiet on Monday morning, the chattering got so loud she thought her brains would burst.

He'd make a dog sick in those robes.

An A and an O.

Haggerty's Hellhole. It's where all the girls go to fornicate.

She was walking up the coast road, on her own. Just before Christmas.

When Jimmy came home from school, he'd a cut lip and bruised cheekbone.

'What happened?' asked Shell.

''S that Dan Foley and Rory Quinn. They jumped me in the break.'

'Jumped you?'

'Jumped me and pumped me. They wanted the facts.'

'The facts?' She thought of Molloy with his tidy shirt and needling eyes.

'The gory facts. About you and the baby.'

'What did you tell them?'

'I said you'd had triplets, one, two, three. And the third was hidden up Miss Donoghue's ass.'

'Jimmy! She's been nice to us of late.'

He shoved his swollen cheek out, tent-like. 'So.'

'Are you friends with Rory Quinn?' she asked.

'No. We're enemies. He's a filthy toerag.'

'Could you do me a favour? Tomorrow?'

'What?'

'Could you ask him where his sister is? Bridie? And when he last saw her?'

The next day he came home with a face like a whipped pup. 'Did what you asked, Shell, coming out of school. And this is what I got.' He held up a swollen finger. The nail was hanging off.

'What? Rory Quinn did
that
?' Shell was appalled.

Jimmy nodded. 'I asked him, about Bridie. And instead of answering he knocked me on the ground. He stamped on my finger with his big boot.'

'Just for asking?'

Jimmy nodded. 'He's a toerag.'

'He didn't tell you anything?'

'No. He just said wherever Bridie was was none of my business. I reckon he's not sure himself. Or he's ashamed.'

'Ashamed? Why?'

'That Bridie. She was always shoplifting. Me and Seamus Ronan saw her do it once in Meehans'.'

'So?'

'She's probably in jail. Not in Kilbran, like her mam says. But in jail. And they're too ashamed to say. So Rory flattens me when I ask. What d'you reckon?'

'Doubt it,' Shell said. 'They wouldn't send her to jail just for that. But it sounds like she's not at home and Rory, for one, doesn't really know where she is.' She took Jimmy by his good hand and went to clean him up. She'd to remove the fingernail, which was only hanging on by a thread. Jimmy winced, but didn't cry.

When she'd done she got the phone book out and found the number of Bridie's Auntie May in Kilbran. She dialled it when everyone was out doing the cows. It rang and rang, then a woman answered.

'Can I speak to Bridie?' Shell asked. She'd the phone line twisted round her fingers with fright. Her voice sounded like a squeak.

'To Bridie?'

'Bridie Quinn.'

'Bridie Quinn isn't here. Why would she be? She's at home in Coolbar.'

'Wasn't she there over Christmas? With the others?'

'No. She couldn't come. She was on a school trip, her mam said. Skiing in France.'

A school trip? In France? Since when had the pupils of the Presentation School ever got as far as Ringaskiddy?
'So she was just there for the summer, then? Helping out with the B & Bs?'

'We stopped the B & B racket a year ago. Who
is
this?'

'Just-just a friend.' She hung up before she got asked any more questions. She nearly tripped over the wire as she replaced the hook. Skiing in France?

That night the chattering came back loud and strong. She switched the light on in the small hours and got out the note. She hunched over it under the blankets as if it might contain an answer.
Bridie white and pale, miming a retch. Bridie in Kilbran, making breakfasts for the guests. Bridie in America, going from coast to coast, like in the song. Bridie in Coolbar, walking down the coast road, thumbing in the dark. Why don't you call over to her, Shell? See if you can't make it up? Mrs Quinn, her face livid, turning away. If I'd known the kind of things you two got up to. If I'd known earlier, I'd have--

'What?' Shell whispered to herself. 'What would you have done, Mrs Quinn?' She switched out the light again. There was no answer but Trix and Jimmy's breathing so she tried an answer herself. 'Send us both off to England for an abortion, Mrs Quinn? Is that what you'd have done?'

Forty-nine

The next morning she woke up early. She pulled on her tights, then her pants over them. Over that she put on a warm shirt, with two jumpers on top. She crept downstairs and out before anybody was about. From the back barn she took Mrs Duggan's bike. She cycled down the drive, over the cattle grid and through the village. There was nobody to see her as she turned off onto the coast road towards Goat Island. She passed the Quinns' house on the left. A rusty bike was upended in the front yard. The curtains were drawn, dingy and yellow. Nobody was up. She'd half thought of calling there, but instead she cycled on.

It was slow going through the cutting wind of the morning. The sky was low and dim, but the birds were going strong. She reached the track that led down to the strand and the small patch of tarmacadam where Declan had parked his father's car. She left the bike by a paling and clambered down the shingle, onto the strand.

The tide was far out. The sands lay before her in long swaths of light and dark, pancake-flat. As the sun rose behind her, they began to gleam white and yellow. She walked across them, wishing she'd brought a scarf to keep her hair from flying about.

The sea has made the sand a mirror

Which my two feet destroy,

And in that mirror two eyes I see,

A sadness and a joy.

It was the ditty she and Mam had made up together in their walks on the strand. As she spoke the words, a lightness came over her. She hopped gaily as she walked, smiling for the first time in what seemed an age.