Women of Courage (87 page)

The voice from the other side of the box was gentle, sympathetic. ‘Take your time, my son. Tell me about it.’

So he went through it, slowly: the wait outside the station, the trouble they had had with the cart, the bomb that came too early and alerted the policeman, and then his - Sean’s - shout to Martin: ‘We’ve got to be sure of French. Can you not get closer and put a bomb right inside it?’ A few seconds after those words, Martin had died.

‘Were you his officer, to order him to do that?’

‘No, Father, I was just his friend. We were in it together. But he died and I lived.’

As he finished Sean heard the clock chime outside, and the murmur of voices, raised, somewhere in the nave.

‘My son, it was not you that killed Martin. That was done by a bullet from a British Army rifle. And it was not you that made him risk his life and run out into the road. That was a thing he chose to do. You ran into the road with him, as I understand it?’

‘I did that, Father. But only afterwards. I had no bombs left, you see.’

‘But it was a risk you took as well. You all shared it together. It has pleased God to take Martin to Himself now, and to spare you for other things. That is His way, and it is not for us to question the wisdom of the Almighty. But I am sure He did not mean you to wear a cross of blame for your friend’s death. That was a matter outside your control entirely. I absolve you of it freely. Let us say a prayer together for your friend’s soul, and let the burden be lifted from you.’

And it did feel like that, quite literally. As he prayed, following the priest with the ritual, healing phrases, Sean felt as though his shoulders were somehow lighter. He sat up, after the prayer, straighter than before.

‘As for the motive for your action, the military ambush upon Field Marshal Lord French …’ Father Desmond paused, as though seeking precisely the right words. The argument outside had not eased. It penetrated Sean’s mid dimly, as something vaguely improper in a church. The priest resumed: ‘Many things are done by soldiers in war, which involve men in a burden of most grievous sin. The deliberate seeking out of a human life is always one of them. But as in all human action, the underlying motive in our hearts is the key which must guide us. If a man kills another in warfare out of hatred or a desire for gain, that would indeed endanger his immortal soul. As his soul would be endangered if he killed with cruelty, or deliberately slaughtered noncombatants, like women or children or ordinary civilians – that would be a foul and cowardly business surely. But you have done nothing as low as that, my son. It is for you to look into your heart and be sure of two things. Firstly, that your motive for this action was pure; and secondly, that the action itself was one which you will be able to lay before the Lord God Almighty on the final Day of Judgement. If you can do that, then the sin was not a mortal one. Let us pray that it was so.’

After they had prayed together again, the priest laid a penance on Sean of twenty Hail Marys to be said every night. Then he said: ‘Are there any other sins I should know about, my son?’

Sean answered: ‘Oh. Well, there is one.’ He had not, truly, thought of mentioning this before, but the relief the priest had given to him was so unexpectedly great that he thought the man might understand everything. If he could confess it all, he would be able to walk out of here truly cleansed and innocent, and begin his life anew as the church intended.

He said: ‘I have lain with a woman.’

The priest sighed. It was a small sigh, quickly covered up, but it pained Sean greatly. The sigh implied that the sin was an ordinary one, the sort the priest had heard many times before. Sean was not sure, but it also sounded as though this sin might not be so easily forgiven as those which had gone before.

‘Tell me about it, my son.’

That was not easy either. Sean felt his face grow hot. ‘Oh, it … that’s not really necessary, is it, Father?’

‘If you wish to be absolved of the sin, first you must confess it, and lay it before the Lord. Tell me.’

‘Well, I … we went to my room and, we lay together, Father.’

‘You say that you lay together. Did you perform the carnal act of lust?’

‘I … well, yes, Father, we did.’

‘How many times?’

Sean’s blush had gone, and his face was now quite drained of blood, white. This was awful. He felt like a Judas, whispering secrets to some spy outside the door. But all through his childhood he had been taught that the rite of confession was sacred. He whispered: ‘Four times, Father. Four separate days.’

‘And the girl. Was she a street girl that you paid?’

‘No!’
His denial was so vehement that he wondered if it had been heard outside. He could not stand this. He thought he would get up and leave now. But somehow he could not. The weight of everything he had learnt in childhood kept him there.

‘So. Did she go with you willingly, or did you force yourself upon her?’

‘Oh, Father! Willingly, of course willingly! It was an act of love, for God’s sake! I should never have told you of it - it was between her and me!’

‘My son! My son! Don’t you understand? God was there in the bedroom with you, just as He is everywhere. Such an act of lust as you describe was a sin, not only for you, but for the girl also.’

‘I’m sorry, Father, I don’t want to talk about it.’ Quite suddenly, Sean pulled back the curtain, and stepped out of the box. He was shaking, furious. Everything he had ever learnt told him the priest was right and yet it was not so. What did he know about it after all, the shrivelled old fool? Probably knows nothing about women except what he hears in that box.

Sean felt more than ever like a Judas. He had betrayed Cathy to the Pharisees. Still white-faced, he stalked towards the door.

A hand gripped his arm.

He brushed it off angrily. ‘Leave me alone, you old eejit!’ Then he saw it was not the priest at all, but a big man in a thick coat and hat. Square, determined face, short thick moustache - what the devil did he want?

Two black-robed canons were tugging at the man’s coat, remonstrating with him. One said: ‘Really, Inspector Kee, you cannot … this is a holy place of sanctuary … in the name of God, I implore you!’

Then Sean understood. He remembered the voices he had heard arguing when he had been in the confessional. The police must have come in after the service, looking for anyone who had stayed behind. The detective snatched at Sean’s arm again but Sean jerked back, nearly falling over his own feet. He ran towards the door. The detective was held back for a few precious seconds by the fluttering canons, then he brushed them aside and sprinted after Sean. Sean was almost at the door when another man, big, in a thick coat like the first, stepped through it. There was a large uniformed constable behind him.

‘Lord save us!’ Sean turned to the right, and sprinted back into the church, up the nave towards the altar. He heard shouts, and the clatter of shoes on the polished floor behind him. They were chasing him towards the altar, for heaven’s sake! For a moment he thought of running up to it and seizing the altar table itself, claiming sanctuary indeed. But would they respect it? And where would he go then, anyway? They could just besiege the church until they got him out. He had a gun in his pocket but he couldn’t use it, not here, in a holy place like this.

I will if I have to, Sean thought.

There was a door in the south transept, too, but as he ran towards it two other detectives came through it. They crouched, and held out their arms wide, like rugby full-backs ready to bring him down. No way there.

He spun round, looking wildly to left and right. The first detective was only ten yards away, dashing up the nave. Sean tugged at the pistol in his pocket. The detective slowed. But Sean’s pistol was snagged in a fold of his pocket. As he tugged at it, the detective estimated the distance and nerved himself for a final dash.

Two choirboys came out of the vestry, to Sean’s right, singing sweetly. A priest in red robes, with a tall golden cross, came after them.

The vestry door! Sean slipped to his right, avoiding the detective’s outstretched arms like a scrum-half, and plunged into the procession. In the narrow doorway itself he collided with another priest carrying a censer. He swung the man round, shoving him and the now flailing censer towards the detective, and crashed into a gaggle of choirboys. Then he was past them and into a tiny changing room littered with boys’ coats. It had two doors.

Which?

He opened the first and it was a cupboard. A selection of coats and priestly robes confronted him. A mitre fell off a shelf on to the floor.

Sweet Christ! He turned and the detective was floundering towards him through the chaos of choirboys. The other door was three yards away, towards the detective. Sean put his hand in his pocket and this time the revolver came out without snagging.

The detective tripped, clutched a choirboy, and stood still. ‘Don’t shoot the boys,’ he said.

Sean said: ‘You stay there and I won’t.’ He cocked the pistol and stepped warily those three long yards across the room. Halfway there he stumbled on a satchel on the floor, and the detective crouched, ready to spring. But Sean didn’t fall and the detective had a choirboy in front of him, either as a shield or by accident.

Sean reached the door. It had a key in it. He had an idea.

‘Get back!’ he yelled. ‘Right back behind these boys! Or I’ll shoot!’

The detective stepped back. When he was four yards away Sean took the key, opened the door, and stepped outside.

It was harder than he expected to fit the key in the lock on the outside. He was doing it left-handed, and he fumbled. One second gone, two -
is there a bird’s nest in this keyhole, or what?
Then the key fitted and turned.

A second later a fist smashed against the inside.

Sean looked round the churchyard. He was on the opposite side of the church from the other two entrances, and there were no policemen in sight. Twenty yards away, there was a maze of narrow streets.

He sprinted through the graveyard towards them.

Kee had laid his plans carefully. He and Radford had watched the funeral without being seen; they had identified Brennan from his photograph as he went in, and had been certain he had not come out. He had set a guard on all the main entrances to the church, and they had made their way in without being challenged by any of the Volunteers or Fianna who had marshalled the service. He had been sure the operation would restore the prestige of G Division.

Now, inside the vestry, he gave the door a kick that shook it on its hinges. Then he turned to face the gaggle of terrified choirboys and shocked priests.

‘God damn it!’ he shouted. ‘God damn it all to bloody hell!’

The dissecting room was like a temple in hell, Catherine thought. A temple of a dozen altars, and on every altar a body, and round that body priests in white coats with knives. But it was not hell because it was too cold in here, and the bodies felt no fear.

She tested the edge of her knife with her thumb. It was sharp, like a razor - it did not rasp across her skin as she had expected, but lifted a wafer of it instead. A pearl of blood squeezed out. She wiped it absently on her white coat, and looked down.

The body of an old woman lay on the grey slate table in front of her. Human, but invulnerable. The skin pale, waxen, rigid. The old wrinkled breasts sagged sideways; the stomach hung in loose folds, obscene. The eyes were closed, but the mouth - by some error the mouth was open and the teeth gleamed, in a parody of a smile. As though the woman had died in ecstasy, eyes closed, mouth open and lips apart, head tilted slightly back, waiting …

For whatever was to come hereafter.

Do I look like that? Catherine wondered. Is that how Sean sees me? How will he see me in thirty years’ time?

She even looked down to see if the legs were open, knees raised, but of course they were not. It is an obscenity to think like this, she thought, but then everything here is obscene, all of it, and it is not. It is how we are. The final reality.

She met the eyes of the two other girls - eyes wide and fascinated as her own. The light in the vast dissecting room was pale, cold, clear from the windows high in the roof; the sound at once hushed and reverberant, as in a church or a tomb. Most of the other groups had already begun; there was a soft murmur of voices, a hushed intake of breath from the tables a few yards away. But here all waited on Catherine. She had been chosen, they had given her the knife.

She placed it at the point of incision, in the middle of the chest, where the ribs met, and pressed. Gently. It did not need much pressure. The skin parted easily, like an oilskin jacket but in silence. No sound at all of the tear that was leaving a long red wound all the way from the solar plexus to the navel, and beyond, below. All the way down and the skin peeled back as though the body were that of a rabbit or a frog, only it was not, this is real this is a human this is what I will be like in thirty years this is what we all are …

There was a foul gurgling sound as one of the girls opposite turned away to be sick in one of the bowls provided, and a corresponding snigger from one of the boys’ tables nearby. This was what the male students had expected, what one of them had already succumbed to himself. But it did not affect Catherine. She continued the incision, fascinated at the layers of fat revealed beneath the skin, the organs all more or less where the textbook had said they would be, but different sizes somehow.

And there was no blood.

Despite her care she had cut an artery. If this were a living body there would be blood everywhere, she thought, spurting up into my face and all over the floor - I would be red to the armpits. But although there was blood on her fingers and palms, there was remarkably little elsewhere. The organs, as she put the knife down and began to touch and feel and identify, were cold and slippery like meat. It was already easy to forget they were human.

Until she turned and looked at the face. Unchanged, smiling, ecstatic. Like the image of Jesus with his side transfixed by the spear, and his eyes turned up to heaven, visionary. This old woman gave her life for us, too, Catherine thought, so that people like me could study, and learn to cure others. I should not be afraid or disgusted, her body is beautiful in its way. We all are, every one of us. It is a privilege to do this, it is what I wanted to learn, I must not be squeamish now.