A Swift Pure Cry (8 page)

'Joe collects for charity most days,' Father Carroll said. 'He sends me in small, regular sums. I'd say he keeps a good bit back.'

Shell bit her thumb to stop herself from making a sound.
Dad's thieving was known?

'And I say, let him have it,' Father Carroll continued. 'He collects for the poor and that's who he is. There's nothing wrong with begging, Gabriel. Beggars have always been close to God. Talent's just a beggar of the prouder kind. Good luck to him. That's what I do for the Talents. Before God.'

Father Rose didn't reply. He folded his arms and examined the floor.

Father Carroll continued. 'He spends the money on drink: is that what you're thinking? How should we know or judge if he does? A drop never did any harm.'

'They're not a happy family,' said Father Rose.

'How would you know?'

'I feel it. In my bones.'

'You've only been here a few weeks. You can't know.'

'I do know. From the way Shell is. I'm sure--'

'Sure of what?'

Father Rose shrugged. 'Sure something's not right. I'd have the social services onto them.'

'Shush!' Father Carroll pounded the communion rail. 'You're from a big town. That kind of talk may go down all right where you come from, but not here. In Coolbar we look after our own.'

There was a long silence. A cloud must have passed over the sun because the light in the church dimmed. Then Father Carroll put an arm on Father Rose's shoulder. 'Interfering in such cases may be sinful, Gabriel,' he suggested. 'You were seen giving that young one a lift-I'd advise you not to in future. With the scandal the church has had, we've no cause to be driving around unaccompanied females.'

Father Rose jerked away on the word 'scandal'. He in his turn grasped the altar rail so his knuckles showed. The tables of the moneylenders were about to go over. There was a hissing in Shell's ears. Father Carroll walked slowly back towards the vestry. Father Rose did not follow. At the vestry door Father Carroll turned. 'I mean the warning kindly, Gabriel,' he relented. 'You're still young in your vocation.' He drew an arc in the air. 'Leaving well alone is often wise. Mouthing off to the authorities may be no better than what Judas Iscariot did. Reflect on that. Today of all days.'

Father Carroll left. Father Rose's grip loosened on the rails, his head and shoulders slumped. It looked as if he was doing what he'd been told. He knelt at the altar rail, his head in his hands, and did not make a sound. Shell didn't move. The wood of the church creaked again. Hot angry angels were batting their wings silently all around. The painted faces of the statues of Our Lady and St Theresa looked down in anguish. But their loving didn't help him. His shoulders shuddered. From between them came a terrible sound, like a crevice cracking open the earth, narrow and deep. A sword pierced Shell's heart. The man was crying.

'Oh Jesus,' Shell mouthed silently. She clasped her hands together hard in prayer. 'My Jesus. Shell is with you in your garden of agony.'

Minutes passed. Father Rose slowly stood up, crossed himself and followed Father Carroll through the vestry exit. Shell waited. All was quiet. She crept down the creaking balcony steps with the bucket and the two bright spades. She went her way home across the fields. The spades were tucked under her arm, the bucket banged against her knees as she walked. But her glee in their bright colours had dwindled.

When she got home, Jimmy had turned the kitchen table upside down. He was sitting in the middle of it, pretending to dodge invisible soldiers through the legs and shoot them with the gun Dad kept on top of the dresser. Trix had Mam's mass cards down from the piano. She sat cross-legged by the stove, scissoring them up into misshapen dollies, leaving shavings all over the floor.

Fourteen

Dad was home late from his Wednesday night session. Shell took care to be in bed before he came in. She bolted the bedroom door again. If he noticed the mass cards had gone, he didn't say anything.

The following morning dawned fine. Shell drew the curtains in the bedroom and peered out on the back field. Light scudded over the hill.

'Wake up, Trix,' Shell said. She shook her leg, then Jimmy's. 'It's Maundy Thursday.'

'Laundry Thursday?' yawned Trix.

Shell laughed. The sheets of the house hadn't been changed since Christmas. The clothes in the bedroom where she, Trix and Jimmy slept plastered the floor.

'Laundry Thursday so it is,' she said. She conscripted Jimmy and Trix into service and started on a big wash.

The ancient twin-tub Mam had used for years had broken soon before her death and never been replaced. When she could get the money from Dad, she went to the laundromat in town. But today, all they had were two giant bars of good green soap, the kitchen sink and the bath. Shell boiled water in the pans. Trix and Jimmy used their new spades to prod the clothes as they soaked.

Dad didn't stir from his bed, so Shell didn't do his.

They pegged the clean clothes up on the line. When they ran out of space, they spread them on the hedges. The crisp white wind rippled through them and they dried crisp and bright.

Dad appeared at four. He'd shaved and put on his next-but-one best suit.

'I don't
wanna
go to the church, Dadda,' Trix moaned. ''S not Sunday.' She had the red spade in one hand, the apple-green bucket upturned on her head.

Dad seized them. 'If you don't shake a leg, I'll throw those yokes in the dump,' he said.

Trix put her two hands up in front of her face and behind them pulled an elaborate scowl. Shell shooed her out the door, bucket and spade and all.

When they got to church, they found Father Rose was in charge of the Mass. It was Father Carroll's turn for Goat Island. When the time came for the sermon, he walked down to the communion rails and welcomed everybody to the Last Supper. He said he wanted them all to go back two thousand years in time, to a modest house in the poor quarter of Jerusalem and picture a dim room, cramped, with chatter and laughter, wine and bread. 'Are you there?' he asked. Shell shut her eyes. There were chickens pecking grain from the floor, a big range and a long refectory table, such as they had at school. The apostles were clustered on a bench. There was a smell of new-baked scones and frying fish.
I'm there
, she thought.

Father Rose asked for eleven younger members of the congregation to come forward. Dad put a sharp finger in Shell's spine.

'Wake up,' he said.

Shell started. The two Duggan boys had gone up to the front, followed by the Flavin girl from Coolbar House and the younger Ronans. Shell stood up. She grabbed Trix's hand, but Jimmy wouldn't budge. She and Trix went up on their own.

That made eight. They were three short.

'Nobody else volunteering?' Father Rose said, smiling.

Two younger Quinns were ushered forward by Mrs Quinn.

That made ten.

The church was still.

Shell stared at Jimmy. He'd his tongue in his cheek again, poking it out like a tent. She imagined herself as a magnetic pole or a black hole. He was a thin pin or a clapped-out planet. He'd no choice but to come towards her. Her eyes went large as saucers with the effort. A miracle happened. He stood up. He put on his bored look and sauntered forward.

'Grand,' said Father Rose. 'I've all the apostles now, save one, who's missing tonight. And we all know why
he
isn't coming.'

Father Rose sat them down in a semicircle of chairs he'd prepared. He asked them to take off their shoes and socks. Then he came round with a bowl of water and a sponge. One by one he washed their feet. Shell was last in line. In her head, she was John, the youngest, the one that Jesus loved. Her feet were rough-soled and dimpled. She'd white broken skin on her heels and soles. Her toenails were long. She'd trodden many miles of roads in Galilee. As the cold sponge went over them, she felt its refreshment first, then the pure loving kindness of the hand that held it. She sat back and watched the crown of his head, soon to be punctured with thorns. The blond-brown swirl of hair had been cut short. It was like a field of stubble, waiting to be stroked. She'd to sit on her right hand to stop it from reaching down to him. The water dripped from her toes. He held her out a small linen towel of white with which to dry them.

The congregation of Coolbar looked on, amazed.

She put her feet into the towel so he could pat them dry.

As Shell returned with her ten companions to the pews, she saw the face of Mrs Fallon pulled long and sour. The washing of the feet had never been done before in the parish of Coolbar. Passing Mrs McGrath's pew, she heard her whisper loudly to her neighbour, 'That's a Protestant notion!' But Shell was sure that Jesus, the real Jesus, had washed her feet. He was back once more among their stunted souls in the shape of Father Rose. He'd come in loving kindness to save them from themselves.

Fifteen

Next day, the Stations of the Cross were held at three.

Father Carroll, Father Rose and Declan Ronan, altar boy again, paraded the cross around the church. After each of the fourteen Stations, the congregation sang another chorus:

'
At the cross her station keeping

Stood the mournful mother weeping

Close to Jesus at the last.
'

After the fifth Station, where Simon of Cyrene helped Jesus carry the cross, the whole congregation turned to face the Stations hung on the back wall. Shell realized that Bridie Quinn was sitting right behind her. Their eyes met. Bridie's nostrils flared. She showed her gums. Spite was in her eye. Shell mouthed a
Sorry
, but Bridie only glared, so Shell picked up her little bag of crocheted powder-blue, the present her mam had given her on her confirmation. She drew out a shopping list she'd scrawled on the back of an envelope and a pencil stump.
Sorry, Bridie
, she wrote.
Honest to God. Didn't know you were going with him.

She slipped Bridie the note when no one was looking. Bridie read it, frowned and thrust it back. Then she grabbed it again and beckoned for Shell's pencil. Shell slipped it to her as they moved round to the weeping women of Jerusalem. Bridie wrote something down on the other side of the shopping list, slow and hard, and handed it back, jerking her head towards Declan.
He'd make a dog sick in those robes
, it said in big scrawl.
You can have him Shell plus bra
.

A large tear came into Bridie's face. She looked pale and tired. She jerked her head towards the altar and mimed throwing up.
Sorry
, Shell mouthed again. She reached out an arm to touch Bridie's wrist, but Bridie only grimaced and shook her off. Dad's hand gripped Shell's shoulder. Shell thrust the note into the hymn book and started praying mad.

The Stations done, Father Carroll gave a sermon on the awful pains of Christ. Father Rose sat by, his face wrapped in holy abstraction. Was he at the cross's side? Shell wondered. Or back with his brother Michael as a child? Or in the car again, with herself, looking down on the rainbow bay?

As she pondered, a movement to Father Rose's side distracted her. It was Declan. He was half-winking at her, with his fingers intertwined, as if in prayer. Only his forefingers were wriggling together, like fat worms, all muddled up.
Two bodies naked in Duggans' field
. When he saw he'd caught her eye, he rolled his tongue out a tiny way, another fat worm, and flipped it up and down.

She was sure the worms he wriggled had somehow got inside her.

At the end of the long service, Jesus was laid in the tomb. Everybody went up to the rails to kiss the true cross. When St Helena found the cross of Christ, Father Carroll said, they'd ground it up into tiny crumbs so that every parish in the world could have a portion. In Coolbar the morsel-a mere speck-was contained in a bauble of glass set into the top of a brass crucifix. The speck was there, he assured them, only so small you couldn't see it. The people of Coolbar queued to kiss the bauble. The priest wiped it clean after each kiss and took it to the next person's lips. Every five or so people, Father Rose took over the job, then swapped it back to Father Carroll.

Shell prayed to be in Father Rose's batch. He took the cross from Father Carroll when there were only two people ahead of her. But just as she stepped forward, Father Carroll seized the cross back from Father Rose and held it out to her instead.

Shell kissed the place, expecting a rush of holiness. None came.

The service being concluded soon after, they left the church. Jesus had died, but there was no tempest. The dead did not arise and appear to many. Instead, a quiet evening of misting rain lay around them. Dad darted off-to do a message or two, he said. He headed fast down the street towards Stack's pub. She saw Bridie retreating up the hill, shaking rain off her hair, putting up her see-through umbrella. She nearly launched after her, wanting to make up, but Declan Ronan came up behind her and pulled her back by the ponytail.

'Shell,' he said. 'Sweet Shell.' His fingers tickled the back of her neck.

'What d'
you
want?' Shell said.

'I saw you looking at me in church,' he teased.