Mary O’Shea trills from somewhere behind my back, ‘Kate O’Sullivan, would you be so good as to step to one side. I was telling the good Father here about my trip to Lourdes last year. He was mighty interested, weren’t you, Father?’ I feel the tip of Mary’s finger prod violently between my shoulder blades. It hurts, and I want to poke her back to let her know just how much. ‘Before we were so rudely interrupted, that is. Honest to God, Kate O’Sullivan, you’ve got no manners. I don’t know what the good sisters teach you up there; nothing, to be sure, nothing at all. Bridget here is just the same. No respect for an old woman.’
Bridget glares. With a shrug, I reluctantly take a small step to one side. Mary eases her stout body forward and with some skill manages to edge me back a few feet. Undefeated, I stand on tiptoe, looking over Mary’s head in the curate’s direction. He glances up, I catch his eye and we exchange a knowing look. I can tell he’s feigning interest in Mary O’Shea’s prattle. His eyes smile; he knows I know. I enjoy the shared moment, and bask for another in the warmth of his smile. I watch him lean forward towards the young couple and exchange a few words I can’t catch before dropping to his knees to stroke the head of the small boy, who I assume is their son.
Bridget is also looking at Father Steele, her mouth open as if about to speak. She’s not sure what to say. I know, because she’s twisting her hair with her finger and thumb into a tight knot. She always does that when she’s nervous.
‘Father Steele, last July I organized the raffle at the church fête and we raised twenty-six pounds. I was wondering if I could do it again this summer.’
For the first time in my life I want to hit Bridget. We’d already decided that I’d do the raffle this year – she’d promised. That was, until she’d seen Father Steele, who was now smiling warmly in her direction. Not the same class of warmth as when he’d smiled at me, but then once again it could be wishful thinking on my part.
‘Twenty-six pounds, that’s grand,’ I hear him say. ‘I’ll speak to Father O’Neill. I don’t know what he’s got planned for the fête this year. What was it you raffled to raise such a grand amount?’
Peeved but smiling in spite of it, I say, ‘Two of my paintings, Father. An oil I did of the previous curate, and a watercolour of the village, and a –’
Bridget cut in: ‘A day-trip to Dublin, a truly beautiful dried-flower arrangement, done by Mary Collins who trained in all classes of floristry in London and Dublin, and a meal for two people at the Pig and Whistle.’
Not so nervous now, are we, Bridget? I think as I watch her drop the knot of twisted hair and beam like a bloody lighthouse beacon.
‘You must have been busy,’ he’s saying, still looking at Bridget. I’m seething and, though I’d never do it, I’ve the strongest urge to slap my friend hard. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’
For one awful moment Bridget looks like she’s going to do a cute little bob of a curtsey, as if she’s being introduced to the Pope or something. Just in time she stops herself and says in a really silly little-girl voice, the one she affects when she wants something, ‘Bridget Costello, Father.’
‘It was yourself, Bridget, who organized all the prizes?’
Before she has chance to say another word I pipe up with: ‘No, Father, I did.’
Bridget scowls, but says nothing; it’s the truth.
He looks first at Bridget, who has a sheepish expression on her bland face, then his gaze rests on me. ‘Well, I think if there’s to be a raffle this year both of you should organize it. How’s that?’
I want to refuse; I feel like stamping my feet and shouting, I don’t want to do it with Bridget because for all I love her like a sister there’s no denying she’s downright lazy, bone idle, and will let me do all the running around while she takes the credit, or most of it – at least the amount I let her get away with. I want to organize the raffle myself, like last time, only this year I’m determined not to let Bridget take the glory. But since I’m not wanting to make a bad impression I hold back on saying what I really feel, and say instead, ‘OK, Father, we do it together. On one condition: you let me paint your portrait for the raffle. Is that a fair deal?’
His blush surprises and delights me, and for the life of me I’m not sure why.
I repeat my question, ‘A deal, Father?’
‘I can’t be sparing the time for the likes of portrait-painting, Kate, much as I’d like to, and I don’t do deals.’
‘Time for what?’ Father O’Neill’s foghorn voice drowns out every other sound. He towers above the small gathering, making Father Steele, who must be well over six foot, look small.
‘Father O’Neill is built like a brick shithouse,’ Lizzy Molloy had said once. I’d thought it a good description but had never dared repeat it to anyone.
‘Kate here has suggested she paint my portrait to raffle at the church fête, but like I was telling her I don’t –’
Father O’Neill interrupts, ‘To be sure, that’s a grand idea, Father, a grand idea.’ He slaps a bear-like paw on Father Steele’s right shoulder and the curate winces. Father O’Neill says, ‘Never asked to do my portrait – this face too ugly for you, Kate O’Sullivan?’
I don’t know what to say; he scares me, this huge priest. In truth, he puts the fear of God – or is it the devil? – into me at the best of times. Now my face is getting hot and I’m dying to pee. I’m about to make some silly excuse when he begins to laugh. ‘Can’t say as I blame you, my child, for wanting to paint the young curate here; he’s a far prettier sight than an old man like myself.’
The same hairy paw moves and hits Father Steele full in the back. The curate coughs and Father O’Neill snorts like a pig, snot shooting up his right nostril. ‘Must say, she’s a good artist. Did a grand painting of the church last year. It’s hanging up in Tom Devlin’s front room, pride of place over the mantelpiece. Never thought he would take down our Sacred Heart but to be sure he did, put Our Lord on the bedroom wall – or so he says. Haven’t been up there lately to find out.’
The curate looks uncomfortable. I’m not sure if it’s Father O’Neill’s hand, back now on his shoulder, weighing him down, or the thought of sitting for his portrait. I have my answer in his next words.
‘I’m sorry, Kate, but I’ve not got the time to sit for a portrait, as much as I’d like –’
Father O’Neill’s bellow stops him in mid-sentence. ‘For God’s sake, man, you can make time. It’s a good cause and, to be sure, it’s a grand idea: we’ll have all the women in the parish bidding for it.’ Father O’Neill laughs, the sound coming from somewhere deep in his belly and rumbling around the churchyard, attracting several glances in our direction. Bridget looks sullen. I’m grinning, secretly pleased with myself and at the prospect of long hours spent alone with Father Steele. But when I look at the curate he’s wearing an odd expression, one I can’t quite fathom. He definitely doesn’t look pleased.
From where I’m sitting on the lavatory I can, if I strain my neck really hard, see through a narrow gap at the top of the door the branches of an apple tree in the orchard on the nuns’ side of the wall. It’s in full bloom this morning, after an earlier shower. It looks like a huge pink and white umbrella: the kind I’d seen in books, carried by ladies who called them parasols. Apples are not my favourite fruit, I much prefer plums and apricots. I don’t get either very often, and the thought of a big ripe juicy plum makes my mouth water. I love it when on the first bite the juice squirts out and runs down my chin, so I can lick my lips and taste it for ages afterwards. Last summer I pinched a couple from outside O’Shea’s shop. I ate one on my way home from school and saved one for Bridget, who hadn’t been particularly grateful since that very day she’d