A Swift Pure Cry (6 page)

She couldn't help looking at it.
Gabriel Rose
, it said.

'Gabriel?' she wondered aloud.

Father Rose looked over and saw the licence. He chuckled. 'For my sins,' he said. 'My mother called us Michael and Gabriel and prayed for us both to be priests.'

Shell pictured Father Rose as Archangel Gabriel in his shining raiments, come to tell the Virgin that she was with child. 'I've never met a Gabriel before,' she mused. 'But plenty of Michaels.'

'It's not such a common name.'

'What about your brother? Did he?'

'Did he what?'

'Did he become a priest, like you?'

Father Rose's lips went flat. He stared through the windscreen, into the washed-out view, as if he were blind. He sighed, then changed down a gear as a bedraggled dog came barking out of a bungalow's front yard.

'Well, Shell, he didn't,' he answered. 'He died of meningitis as a boy.'

'Ming-ing-ji-tus?' She'd heard the word before but couldn't place it. 'What's that?'

'It's a kind of bad flu. It gets into your brain.'

The rain came down in such sheets the windscreen wipers could not cope. 'We didn't get him to the doctor soon enough.'

They drove over the high ground in a roll of cloud.

'I'll pull in here, Shell. Until the worst of this passes.'

He stopped in a lay-by. The rain got harder still. She smelled the damp seeping into the car. It made her yawn. She looked back to the licence and saw the year of his birth. She worked out his age in comparison to hers.

Shell's age = 15 going on 16

Father Rose's age = 25

Shell's age + Jimmy's age = Father Rose's age.

'Shell,' Father Rose said. 'Would you say you're happy?'

Nobody'd ever asked her that before. She didn't know what to say. She put the licence on the dashboard and scrunched up the chewing-gum wrappers.

'Happy,' she repeated.

The rain eased a fraction. They waited longer.

'I mean in your life,' Father Rose resumed. 'At home-at school?'

'School's boring,' she said.

He considered this. 'I used get bored at school too,' he said.

'Did you?'

'Often. Specially in triple Irish.'

She slapped her knee. 'I hate Irish too.'

'So we've something in common?'

Shell nodded. She held out a chewing-gum wrapper. 'And the chewing gum, Father. I like it too. Just like you.'

'I'm addicted to it,' he said. 'Since giving up the fags. But let's keep that a secret, huh? Coolbar isn't ready for a gum-chewing priest.'

Shell giggled. The rain was only spitting now. He started up the car and pulled out onto the road. The fog thinned and the hillside emerged once more.

'Father,' Shell said, 'I'm sorry about your brother.'

He nodded. 'He was a year older than me, Shell. He'd have made a better priest than me, if he'd lived.'

As they came down the hill, the sun broke over the inlet. The watery air shimmered and blue sky truckled over from Goat Island point. Shell could hardly believe what happened next. It was a holy visitation, an answer to a prayer: a rainbow appeared, half out to sea, half dangling in land. Its colours deepened, pulsating into jostling strands.

'My God,' said Father Rose in hushed tones. He stopped the car dead, in the middle of the road. The light grew strong. White horses ran races across the bay. Father's Rose's hands floated off the steering wheel, as if doing homage.

'When the sun shines in Ireland, Shell, is there any place on earth more beautiful?'

Ten

He let her off at the national school. She fetched Trix and Jimmy and brought them home.

Jimmy was unusually quiet. He'd no interest in the tinned soup she warmed. She felt him. Cold beads of sweat were on his forehead.

'You've to go to bed,' she decreed.

'No,' he said. 'Won't.'

'You must. Now.'

'No.'

'If I say you're to go to bed, you've to go.'

He stuck out his tongue and went
pfffthrwphff
.

Her right hand itched to slap him, as she'd done before. But he looked at her with such a small, white face on him the itch evaporated.

'Go on, Jimmy,' she pleaded. 'Please. If Mam were alive, she'd tell you to go. Y'know she would.'

Jimmy's face cracked like a smashed saucer. 'You're not my mam,' he wailed. 'I want her. Not you.'

Shell had heard it before. She sighed. She dragged him by his collar out of his chair. He fisted her on the arms but not so it hurt. She marched him to the back bedroom where they all slept, army like, in a line of three thin beds, crushed in tight. His bed was at the far end. Over the headboard were his colourings of black and orange felt-tip scrawled straight on the wall. He'd done them as Mam lay dying. They weren't of anything, just busy spirals warring with each other.

When she laid him down, the fight went out of him. She put the blankets over and stroked his cheek. He pushed her hand away. Trix came up to the bedside too and gave him Nelly Quirke, the chewed-up toy dog that had once been Shell's.

'There,' Shell said. 'Fine man.'

He took Nelly Quirke from Trix but pulled away from Shell, curling in a ball with his face to the wall. 'Want Mam,' he said. But now it was more of a mutter.

Shell and Trix returned to the kitchen. Trix took to the floor with some paper dolls Shell cut out for her from an old
Examiner
. The rain returned. The long afternoon passed. Shell did the dishes. She tidied out the fridge. She dusted down the piano. Then she made tea. Jimmy made no sound. She checked in on him, but he slept the day away.

Dad was due back from the collecting. He'd be hauling Jimmy out of bed, she thought, for the next decade of the rosary. They were onto the Glorious Mysteries now, the one where flaming tongues come down on the heads of the Apostles, making them speak loads of languages.

Six came and went. Dad didn't come. Shell put a saucepan lid over his tinned fish.

'I wonder where he is,' she said, more to herself than to Trix.

Trix pushed a tomato quarter off the side of her plate onto the plastic tablecloth. 'He's here,' she said. She flicked the tomato off the edge of the table onto the floor. 'Now he's dropped down a bog. He's deaded.'

Shell chortled.

She picked up the tomato and popped it under the saucepan lid onto Dad's plate. 'He's probably delayed in town,' she said.

Trix helped Shell clear up. Then she sat at Shell's feet so that Shell could brush out her matted brown curls. The job hadn't been done in days, and the nits were back. As she combed, Shell told another story about their made-up fairy, Angie Goodie. She was the size of pea but always managed to stop the bad things happening. Tonight, Shell made her fly up onto the church steeple in an electric storm and hover over the top of the iron cross. She saved the church from being struck by raising her arm with her wand at the ready. The lightning bolt hit the wand, not the church. Because she was a fairy, she didn't die. Instead her wings shone brighter and when the rainbow came out after the storm, she went sliding back down it to her nice warm bed. Trix went off like a lamb. Jimmy slept on.

Shell went to the front door and watched the darkness settle in the yard. She walked out as far as the road. She thought of Bridie Quinn in her fury. She thought of Father Rose, the rainbow and Nelly Quirke the dog, her ear in Jimmy's mouth. In the brown hush of the country road, she thanked Jesus for the good and bad of her day. It rained again. There being nothing else to do, she went in and made some scones.

Eleven

They were out of the oven and cool when the front door burst open. Dad stood before her, a man of the night. The rain flew in around him. His old jacket flapped, his chin bristled with growth. The collecting box was around his neck, tipped upside down, with the cord dripping. His tie was askew.

He blundered in.

'Where's tea?'

Shell put the plate before him, removing the lid.

He ripped the collecting tin from around his neck and dropped it to the floor with a curse. He ate in silence.

Shell watched in wonderment. His routine was broken. What might that mean? He'd never come in before like this on a
Friday
. Only Saturdays and Wednesdays. As he munched, she seemed to see a tear fall down his cheek and off the end of his red, wide nose, onto the plate of pilchards. She picked up the collecting tin and gave it a gentle shake. It was empty. Jesus tugged at a little string she'd never even known was in her heart. Father Rose was right: anger and love must go together.

'Are you feeling all right, Dad?' she asked.

He pushed the plate away and the cutlery fell from his hands to the table. His head dropped in his hands.

'Shell,' he said. 'You're a good girl.'

His forehead wagged. There was a moistness in his eyes.

'A good girl, praise God.'

She didn't like it. She'd almost have preferred the usual recriminations. Perhaps he'd got a touch of whatever Jimmy had.

'Ah, Shell. I'm a disappointed man.' He picked himself up and stared at her. 'Make me a cup, would you?'

She got the kettle boiling and the teapot warming.

'A disappointed man.'

She set the cup down before him. 'Why's that?' she said, passing him the sugar.

He put three spoons in and blew on the surface, then belched. The reek of Stack's was high upon him.

'You're old enough to know, I s'pose. I went courting tonight, Shell.'

Shell stared, thinking,
Courting? Him? He's out of his wits
.

'I asked a lady of my acquaintance out for a walk.'

Shell wondered who he meant.

'She'd always given me a smile and the time of day. I thought we both knew where we were going.' He shook his head and half smiled, half grimaced. 'You'd have liked a new mam, wouldn't you, Shell? You, Trix and Jimmy? Because that's why I did it. I did it for you.'

Shell shrugged. 'Dunno, Dad. We're fine as we are.' She took two scones off the cooling rack and laid them before him on Mam's favourite plate, a dainty china one with ducks and reeds painted on it. He ate the first scone, cramming it into his mouth at once. The crumbs dribbled from his lips, onto the lapels of his jacket and down his tie.

'So what happened?' Shell coaxed.

He swallowed the last bit and started on the next. His eyes went bleary and his hand shook.

'What happened, Dad? Did she go out walking with you?'

'She didn't,' he said. 'She told me no.'

'Who, Dad? Who told you no?'

He stared at Shell as if she were an idiot. 'I just told you. It was Nora. Who else?'

'Nora? Nora Canterville? The priests'
housekeeper
?'

'She's been leading me on with her fine cakes and jams for months. You see, she's the best cook in the whole of County Cork.' He shook his head. 'And now she won't have me.' His hand smashed down on the table so hard the plates jumped and the teacup rattled. 'She won't bloody have me.'

Shell stepped back.

'
Mr Talent
,' he said, mimicking Nora's cultivated accent from two counties eastward. '
It's an honour you're asking, but I'd rather stay in, if you don't mind. On these wet nights we've a grand fire going in the drawing room to keep out the chill and I'm happy out. It's where I call my home.
'

Shell thought of Nora Canterville with her tight curls permed fast to her head, her quaint suit of heather wool, her stockings of thick tan. Then she thought of Mam with her pink shiny dress and long slim legs, her hair of fresh-washed chestnut, singing her way through the morning chores. The man was crazed.

'But Dad,' she said. 'She's not even pretty. Not like Mam was.'

He shuffled from his seat and grabbed Shell's arm so fast she didn't have time to dodge. The china plate went flying and smashed to the floor. 'Shut it, Shell,' he menaced. His lips snarled back to his ears, his yellow teeth glistened, with the crumbs lodged between them. 'Don't you breathe a syllable.' He gripped her wrist, wringing it hard. 'What I just said. Don't-you-breathe-a-syllable.' Each word came out a hot, boozy hiss, and his face loomed over hers, getting closer every second.

She wrested her hand from his and picked up the broom. 'No, Dad,' she said. 'I won't.' She started up a clatter with the bristles zooming over the floor, fetching in the fragments of plate and the mess he'd made eating. 'Don't worry, Dad.' He swayed, watching her work. Then he gave her a royal salute, a little wave in the air with his right hand, and staggered out the door back into the night. She heard a sound down by the gatepost like a goat coughing. She knew what that was.

She closed the door to, but didn't lock it, and put the broom away. She put the tea towel over the rest of the scones on the cooling rack. Then she vanished into her bedroom. Jimmy and Trix were sleeping. Softly she drew the bottom bolt across the door, changed into her nightdress and got under the covers. She cuddled up to herself, listening to the sing-song breathing in the dark. Soon her mind was full of rainbows and lightning strikes. Nora Canterville was skating down the shafts of colour instead of Angie Goodie, a steaming tureen in hand. Father Rose was driving Jezebel over the cliff roads into the sky. Declan was tugging her by the arm to the top of Duggans' field.
Would you, Shell, or wouldn't you?
She slept.