How anyone can say they are bored in hospital is beyond me. I wasn’t bored for a moment, there’s always so much happening. After I’d devoured my own supply of books and any others I could lay my hands on, I’d sketched all the patients on my ward, including a girl called Sinead Webster. She was ten, and had very white skin, even whiter than Bridget’s; she looked like an alabaster doll I’d seen once in an antique shop in Cork. She could sit on her brown hair, and had hundreds of tiny freckles on her thin face. Her mother had been delighted with the portrait, and offered to pay me. I’d refused but had been over the moon when she’d bought me a Yardley soap and talcum set smelling of lavender. Sinead died two days before I was discharged. When I’d watched them take her body away I’d tried to cry, because I thought I should, but I couldn’t. I was too busy thinking about presenting a caricature I’d done of Dr Trevor Conway, who had bright red hair and small owl-shaped glasses. It turned out he was less than pleased with it, said it made him look fierce, but the ward sister had chuckled and said, ‘It’s a very good likeness, Dr Conway, to be sure.’
As I mount the stairs that lead to the first-floor landing and the dormitory, I repeat in my head a promise I made to myself a long time ago. The first thing I’m going to have when I get to Dublin is my own room, and it will have a pink-and-white floral bedspread with matching curtains, and a kidney-shaped dressing table with a glass top and a frill around the base. Once I’m settled and selling lots of paintings, I’m going to hire a private detective to find my parents. I’m certain they are alive and, at this very moment, are no doubt searching for me.
I gather together my canvas, pencils, paints and treasured purse with the sheepdog on the front. Bridget had been given it, and she’d given it to me for my fifteenth birthday. It didn’t matter that it was second-hand, or third- as it turned out, it was as good as new. I put all my things into my bag. The bag is large and square, the type I’ve seen hanging on the shoulders of young women from the village when, all dolled up, they go out to the pub on Saturday nights. It’s green vinyl with two long handles and a zip. I wouldn’t have bought it myself, but beggars can’t be choosers. A few months before, I’d found it on a wall outside the library. After a quick look over my shoulder to check no one was watching I’d poked my head inside. There was an empty crisp packet, a dirty hairbrush, and a hard ball of chewed gum – nothing of any value. So I’d nicked it. Well, not exactly; I’d claimed it and not told anyone except Bridget, who’d urged me to confess. I’d promised her I would, then had deliberately forgotten. Honest to God, what was one old beat-up bag in the great scheme of things?
As I zip the bag I silently thank God that I’ve lost my Saturday job: sacked two weeks ago from Murphy’s pork butcher’s shop. I’ve missed the money, but I haven’t missed, not for a single minute, cutting up pork belly and offal from half past six in the morning (with hands so cold I could barely move my fingers by the time I’d finished) until gone eight at night: nigh on fifteen hours with no more than twenty minutes’ break, if I was lucky. Nor do I miss the feel of Billy Murphy’s fat belly pushed into my backside every time he squeezed past me in the tight space between the cutting block where I worked and the hanging racks he went to twenty or maybe thirty times a day. I’d had enough even before he accidentally on purpose put his hand on my breast, hissing between beery breaths, ‘Sure, Kate O’Sullivan, yer a nice piece of plump young meat for a hungry butcher boy like meself.’
After that I’d been deliberately late twice, refused to swill out the yard, dropped two pounds of sausage and bacon on the floor, and sold it to Kathleen Murtagh, who’d brought the dirty food back to the shop, ranting and raving about reporting the Murphys for selling soiled food. Mrs Murphy had railed at me like a banshee, threatening to thump me black and blue. I’d warned her if she did I might tell the whole village about her husband’s sinful actions, which had made her scream all the more, calling me a lying whore with the devil in me, fire and brimstone were too good for the likes of me. Her threats of hell and damnation were still ringing in my ears when I was way down the bottom of the lane. I’d told Mother Superior that the Murphys wanted a girl to work full time; she’d believed me, I think, but I wasn’t sure. I was never sure of Mother Superior; she said one thing and did another, and always with her own brand of a holier-than-thou smile. I didn’t trust any of the nuns, except Mother Peter. She was a good woman, of that I was certain. The rest, especially Mother Thomas, were good on the outside and downright evil inside. I’d told Bridget the truth and had gone that very day to confession. Father O’Neill had listened intently to my long-drawn-out story of Mad Murphy (as he was known in the village), of how he’d come after me, made advances, and me a good Catholic girl, a virgin, saving herself for her husband, how I’d been ‘just plain terrified, Father – to be sure, what’s an innocent girl to do?’
The priest in his infinite wisdom had doubted Mad Murphy had had any sinful thoughts. ‘Billy Murphy is a good Catholic, a good family man. A bit over-friendly, perhaps, but nothing more. But you, my child, have lied to the Murphys, and the good sisters, so now you must pray for God’s forgiveness, and say ten Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers.’
I notice my cardigan has two buttons missing but I’ve no time to change and I start back downstairs, Mad Murphy forgotten, my head stuffed full of Father Declan Steele. Today I’m to start his portrait. He’d given me the money, from church funds he said, to buy the canvas and paints. I’m to meet him at the sacristy at eleven. He could spare an hour, he’d said, no more.
‘An hour is plenty,’ I’d replied enthusiastically. ‘More than enough for the first sitting.’
I’m looking forward to painting Father Steele. He’s special. The portrait will be special, I can feel it in my bones.
A cold wind hits me full in the face as I step outside the orphanage. My hands, thrust deep in the familiar holes of my coat pocket lining, are warmed by my body heat. It’s quarter past ten. I know, because I’ve just checked the time by the hall clock. It’s never wrong. Not a minute fast, or slow. Mother Superior makes sure of that. She’s obsessed with punctuality, and neatness.
The journey to the village takes, if dawdling, about thirty-five minutes, if route marching behind the nuns it takes twenty. I walk briskly, and am pressing my face on the glass window of O’Shea’s shop at eighteen minutes to eleven, according to the clock on the wall above Mary O’Shea’s head. At the back of the display I can see a row of dusty bottles and jars full of jam and chutney, that I know for a fact Mrs O’Hara makes and, according to Bridget, pees and spits in depending on how much ale she’s had the previous night. In front of the display of jars there’s an assortment of cans – baked beans, processed peas and carrots mainly – neatly stacked on top of three discoloured boxes, half-full of biscuits and crisp packets. I would love to buy six bottles of red lemonade, my favourite, and six half-moon cream cakes, and every chocolate bar in the shop. I imagine myself standing in front of Mary O’Shea with lots of money, slowly ordering all her stock while her eyes pop out of her head. With a couple of minutes to spare I duck inside to see Bridget.
‘Top of the morning to you, Mrs O’Shea,’ I say to the back of Mary O’Shea’s bent head. ‘It’s a fine morning, it is that. What’s the crack?’
Mary O’Shea is standing on the second rung of a step-ladder, stacking beans on to an empty shelf. She turns and scowls. ‘It’s yerself, Kate O’Sullivan. I’ve no crack, too bloody busy for prattle, and if it’s Bridget you’ve come to see, she’s busy.’
‘It’s important I speak to her.’
She continues stacking can on top of can. ‘If it’s life-and-death important, you can be telling me.’
‘I’ll take a Mars Bar, thanking you, Mrs O’Shea.’
With