A quick glance to left and right confirms the eyes of the entire congregation are focused in the same direction. If Gatsby had been in town he couldn’t have asked for a better reception.
Father Declan Steele, to give him his full title, looks wonderful: tall and handsome, God-like – or how I imagine God should look. My left knee begins to tremble; it does this nervous jig from time to time, it’s a damned nuisance and makes me feel stupid. I place the flat of my hand hard on my thigh just above the knee to stop the shaking. This sets the right one off and now both legs are jiggling like I’m having some kind of fit, a bit like Jimmy Conlon, an epileptic, who sits three seats in front of me in class. Only Jimmy froths at the mouth.
Bridget puts her head close to my ear, hissing, ‘He’s a film star all right, should be in Hollywood.’
I nod, whispering in her ear, ‘It’s handsome he is, the most handsome man I’ve ever clapped eyes on.’
Church, for the most part, bores me. Sometimes I listen to Mass, but rarely; I enjoy singing hymns, particularly for the harvest festival, and usually ask God selfish things during prayers.
I’m jammed between Emily Donaghue, the local publican’s new missus, on one side (her hair stinks of stale Woodbines, and there’s a sickly mixture of cheap scent and sweat wafting out from under her arms every time she moves) and Bridget on the other.
I repeat the prayers and responses parrot-like while studying the face of Father Steele. I focus on his deep mouth. I have, according to my class teacher, a fertile imagination. I smile to myself. If Mrs Rourke could see what’s fermenting in the young fresh earth of my mind at this moment, she would drag me off to confession by the ear. The new curate features heavily in sinful thoughts of him being normal – by that I mean not a priest – and of how it would feel to kiss him. Under my breath I repeat, Forgive me, Father, forgive me, Father, for I sin in my thoughts. Then with quick furtive glances I look from side to side, certain that what was going on on the inside must surely show on the outside.
Once Mother Thomas had said she could see into my soul and, to be sure, the devil was there. Foolishly I’d believed her and for months I’d had nightmares of being devoured alive by evil spirits.
My imaginings of Declan Steele the man make me moist between my legs. It’s not the first time I’ve been wet down there. I remember when I was thirteen and Elizabeth Bradley came to live in the orphanage. Elizabeth was from Cork, fifteen, and four months pregnant. She was big-boned and big-breasted and smoked Silk Cut cigarettes. One night I’d woken with a start to the tip of a cigarette glowing eerily in the dark, with Elizabeth Bradley attached to it. Before I could stop her, she’d slipped under my covers and, lying on her back, had handed me the cigarette. My first drag had burnt the back of my throat and made me cough, the second not so much, and by the third I was enjoying the buzz in my head. It was then Elizabeth had put her hand up inside my nightdress. She’d asked me to open my legs. Confused, I’d asked what for, and she’d whispered that she was going to do something nice, something boys did to girls if they let them. She was a lot bigger than me and packed a mean punch, so without questioning I did as she asked. When I’d opened my legs I remember thinking that it was all right to let Elizabeth inside my secret place; after all, how could it be a sin if she had one herself – a secret hole, that is – and anyway she wasn’t a boy. The tip of her forefinger had probed a little before beginning to rotate. Round and round her finger went, until I could feel the wetness on my thighs and I was embarrassed that it would wet the sheets. After a few minutes she’d guided my hand under her nightdress and had shown me how to do the same to her. She had thick hair on her legs and stomach and I was amazed at the big bush of hair between her legs. I had difficulty finding what she called her excitement button, but when I did, her back had arched and she’d spread her legs very wide. I did it to her for a lot longer and, unlike me, she made a lot of noise, moaning sounds, and kept urging me to go faster.
I wriggle my bottom on the hard pew wondering where Elizabeth Bradley is now. She’d left not long after her baby was born. Someone, I think it was Mother Peter, had said she’d returned to Cork.
I watch Eugene move the missal, then ring the bells for communion. Taking communion is the only bit of Mass I enjoy. There’s definitely something kind of divine and sacred about receiving the host and contemplating the visitor inside my body. In fact, it’s the only time I feel even remotely Catholic. I stand in line on the left of the altar rail and shuffle forward to take communion. It’s Father Steele who places the host on my lips, and it’s I who deliberately holds his eyes for longer than necessary. I’m convinced I can see a spark of interest in his midnight-blue gaze, but I’ll dismiss it later as wishful thinking.
In single file we troop down the aisle out of church. The pace is slow, as the congregation stops in turn to be introduced to the new curate. Bridget is far ahead and I’m stuck behind Tom Donaghue, the publican, who has the lumbering gait of a big ugly bullock. Too much beer in his belly, Mrs Molloy says. Where his hairline stops and before his shirt collar starts there’s a wedge of red neck covered in angry boils.
A thick slice of sunlight pours on to Tom’s crown and as I follow him out of church I peer over his shoulder to the top of Father O’Neill’s fiery head. It’s moving up and down rapidly in time to his booming voice. The curate, I guess, will be standing next to Father O’Neill; they usually do. And if he’s anything like the others before him, he will be smiling, the smile fixed as if it had been painted on his face. But then this curate isn’t like his predecessor Father Peter Murphy, who always seemed, to me at least, to be play-acting. ‘Got a secret agenda, that one,’ I’d overheard Mrs McGuire who ran the post office say to one of her customers. She was right. Father Peter was caught with his trousers down, literally, around his ankles, his dick in the mouth of Robbie Donovan, a lad from the next parish, and him a choir boy an’ all. I’d enjoyed the scandal enormously, we all had. It had broken the monotony for a couple of weeks. The men from the Pig and Whistle had raged: ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, a man of God and him a slip of a lad! To be sure, the dirty curate should be horse-whipped. If I was the lad’s father sure I’d do the job meself, priest or no bloody priest.’
Mrs McGuire had spoken of her outrage to the local newspaper, and Bridget and I had been thumped around the ears by Mother Thomas for calling Father Peter ‘a dirty old poof.’
Father O’Neill had arranged for the curate to leave the parish quietly, under cover of darkness, else, so Mrs McGuire claimed, the mob from the Pig and Whistle would have lynched him. I didn’t think the men frequenting the pub on Friday nights had the strength to do much lynching, it would interfere with the drinking, but I’d kept my thoughts to myself.
My brain is aching for something to say to the curate, something interesting to grab his attention. I could pretend to faint, have him catch me, and swoon in his arms. On the other hand, I might get Father O’Neill, who sometimes has rank breath and terrible dandruff. When I reach the entrance to the church I see Father Steele surrounded by a tight bunch of people. There’s a young couple I’ve never seen before, the man thick-set with a bull-like neck, his wife a tall, painfully thin woman who looks like she’s not long for this world. She’s holding the hand of a small boy with big doe eyes and the same thin face as her. Bridget is next to them, standing awkwardly, goggle-eyed and slack-lipped, staring into the face of the curate like he’s the new Messiah.
On Bridget’s right is oul’ Mary O’Shea, a widow who owns the village store where Bridget has just started to work on a Saturday – a trial period, according to Mary O’Shea, who might or might not offer her a full-time job depending on how she works out between now and October when Bridget turns sixteen. Oul’ Mary’s clutching her rosary beads as if her life depends on it, and edging closer to the curate, beaming for all she’s worth.
It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her smile. As I get closer I can hear her crowing about her trip to Lourdes last year.
Stepping in front of Mary O’Shea, I say in a deliberately loud voice, ‘Well, Father, it’s grand to see you again and on such a beautiful morning. What did I tell you last