by Anna Smith
But eventually they would have to pay, and the ones who got into big debt with him had to hand over their family allowance books so he could collect the money and take it off their bill. My dad said it was taking the bread out of the mouths of children and he hated McCartney for that, even though he didn’t have our family allowance book. Dad never really had much to do with him, but he still called him Slippy Tits just the same. I wondered if it was because of the way he looked. Dad said he had children all over the village. McCartney was very tall and dark, kind of like a movie star from the old films. He had a thin moustache like David Niven and wavy hair all slicked back. He would drive his blue van from street to street and sit it outside people’s houses like a big advert that they owed him money. He smiled at everyone, even if they were telling him to bugger off, because he knew that in the end they would have to pay or their furniture would end up out in the garden. When he came to our house he was always being really smooth with my mum, commenting on her hair or telling her she was wearing a nice blouse. She would always ignore him and just hand him the money then show him the door.
As I passed him on the way to Tony’s he gave me a nod.
‘How’s young Miss Slaven?’ he said cheerily.
‘No bad, McCartney.’ I made sure I didn’t smile. If my dad didn’t like him then he was no friend of mine. He breezed on and into the gate of a house, whistling furiously as he rapped on the door.
Chapter Six
In the chapel we all sat in silence, waiting our turn for confession. Candles flickered at each side of the altar and occasionally an old woman wearing her mantilla would be kneeling in fervent prayer beside a statue. I was always fascinated to watch them praying, their lips moving as they made soft whispering noises, kind of whistling through their teeth.
If only I could get this morning over, I pleaded, as I looked up to the statue of the Sacred Heart, I promised I would never do anything bad again. The Sacred Heart stared straight ahead. He had heard it all before. He could see out of the back of my head, and he knew what I was going to say even before I said it. I asked him if Dan was being punished by losing his dad because of what we had done to Miss Grant’s clothes. I thought if I concentrated enough, like St Bernadette, maybe I would see a sign on the Sacred Heart’s face. But nothing. Tony nudged me.
‘Kath, what’ll you say if he asks about Miss Grant?’ he whispered.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just say I don’t know anything. He can’t see your face so he won’t know anything. Just deny it,’ I said, hoping Tony couldn’t hear the edge in my voice.
‘What about you, Jamie?’ Tony nudged Jamie, who was on my other side.
‘Nothin’, say nothin’. He’ll just be trying to get information, but he won’t know anything for sure. Stuff him,’ Jamie said.
We all sat waiting for our moment. There were only two more to go before us. We knelt down to prepare our conscience, but all of us knew we would just be adding on extra lies.
Finally it was Jamie’s turn, and he rose confidently and swaggered into the confessional. He was gone ages. When he emerged, his face was crimson. Tony and me looked at him anxiously, and much to our relief he winked and gave us a concealed thumbs-up.
It was my turn.
‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, it has been four weeks since my last confession.’ I knelt down in the musty confessional and blessed myself as I spoke. I could hear Father Flynn through the grille taking a deep breath.
‘Yes, my child. And what sins do you have to confess to the Lord God?’ Father Flynn’s voice sounded gentle, coaxing.
There was a standard list of sins that everybody said, and that were easy to explain. Lies, cheek, pride, envy, swearing, even stealing. The more difficult one was about impure thoughts. I reeled off my sins.
‘I told lies nine times.’ I always added an extra two just in case I was forced to lie in the confessional. ‘I was cheeky to my sister three times. I forgot my night prayers twice, and I swore six times,’ I said, my eyes shut tight, trying to will myself through it.
‘Any impure thoughts? What about impure thoughts?’ The question jolted me even though I had been expecting it, because I knew I was guilty. Thoughts of Shaggy Island flooded my mind. I felt my face burn.
‘Well? Any impure thoughts? Have you done or thought dirty things?’ Father Flynn pressed on.
‘Y … yes, Father?’ I ventured. I would have to say something.
‘Who with? Who did you do it with?’ His voice was edgy.
‘What?’ I was confused.
‘Who did you do it with? The dirty things? Who with? Was it yourself? Did you touch yourself? Or did you touch a boy? Or did he touch you?’ Father Flynn offered more options than I had ever imagined. He spoke fast, determined to get an answer.
I didn’t know what he was talking about, what he meant. But I had started it by admitting I had had impure thoughts. I had to cover my tracks. Suddenly I had a brain wave.
‘Er, Father … Er … I looked at the men’s underwear in the catalogue.’ I could hardly believe I’d said it. I was cringing. Imagine admitting that.
‘What? Like the boys and men in their pants?’
Father Flynn’s voice was loud and I flushed to the roots of my hair in case everyone could hear him outside.
‘Y … yes,’ I whispered, mortified.
There was a silence that seemed to last an age.
‘And did you enjoy the school trip, my child?’ I was stunned but relieved that he had changed the subject, though I knew what was coming next.
‘Yes, Father, it was brilliant.’
‘And did you hear what happened to Miss Grant? She was made to parade through the town in her swimsuit in the pouring rain because someone stole her clothes.’
‘Yes, Father, I heard … I mean, I saw her coming on to the bus.’ I knew I could do this.
‘There is a belief that someone on the trip stole her clothes. Now, my child, if you know who that was, then this is the place to cleanse yourself of that most heinous of sins. You do know that, don’t you? And that God will forgive you here and now and not another word would be said about it? You know that, don’t you?’ He sounded like a kind, decent father who would make sure you were protected at all times. But I was having none of it. I thought about him kissing Dan and making him terrified and upset. I was telling him nothing. I had to protect the gang at all costs. Something filled me with a new confidence. Maybe it was God. Maybe it was the Devil.
‘I know, Father. But I don’t know who would have done that. I can’t think anyone would have done that, Father.’ I was so convincing that I even convinced myself.
There was another silence while Father Flynn digested my words. Then he sighed, and told me to make an act of contrition.
‘I absolve you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.’
I was off the hook. Absolved and cleansed. I could die right now and I would have my wings on by the time they were carrying my coffin up the aisle. I came out of the confessional and smiled at Tony and Jamie, who were sitting waiting for me.
When I knelt down to say my penance I asked the Sacred Heart to try to understand why I had to tell the lies in the confessional. I didn’t mean to be bad, but if he was really honest with himself, Miss Grant had had it coming to her. The Sacred Heart stared straight ahead.
*
After school had finished we stopped in to see Dan. We all sat in his back garden in the sunshine. It was the first day of the summer holidays and we should have been bursting with excitement at being free at last. But all four of us just sat there, deflated, wondering who was going to talk next. We had tried to cheer Dan up by telling him about the confessional and how Father Flynn was fishing to find out who stole Miss Grant’s clothes. The only time he laughed was when I told him that I had confessed to looking at the pants in the catalogue.
‘I bet he looks at the men’s pants as well,’ Dan said.
‘More like the boys’ pants,’ Jamie
said.
It was Dan’s dad’s funeral tomorrow and it was beginning to dawn on the whole family now that they would have to close the coffin and would never see his face again. Dan said his mum had been crying all day and all night. He was getting to hold a cord at the graveside as they lowered his father into the hole in the ground. It seemed to make him feel important. But his face was sad.
I was surprised to see McCartney’s van in the street again when I was on my way back to the house, because he had been doing his calls when I saw him in the morning. His van was about four doors away from my house and I wondered where he was. I went round to the back door of my house, which was open a little, and I could hear conversation from inside. It was my mum’s voice, protesting, and there was the voice of a man, persuasive, insisting. It wasn’t my dad.
I strained my ears.
‘Listen, Maggie … A lovely woman like you … you wouldn’t have to be paying every week. I can work the books … my fiddle. You know what I mean? Oh Maggie! Oh Maggie! Oh, I’m so excited, Maggie. Oh Jesus, Maggie! You’re lovely …’ The voice was pleading.
‘No! Look … please don’t! Get your hands off there! Don’t!’
I sneaked around to the kitchen window and peeped in. I was horrified. It was McCartney. Big Slippy Tits. He had my mother pinned against the door and seemed to be pushing himself against her. His hand was on her thigh at the front and he looked like he was pushing her legs open. She was struggling even more and her face was red.
I was filled with rage and panic. The bastard. I had to save her. But I couldn’t let her know I had seen this or she would die. I had to think fast.
Suddenly I was bursting in the back door screaming and crying that I had hurt my leg and the pain was murdering me. McCartney jumped back from my mother and she almost leapt across the kitchen towards me. I screamed all the louder and my legs buckled as though I was about to collapse. As I was going down on to the floor I half opened my eye to see the shocked McCartney standing looking at me. He was as white as a sheet. He held his big red book over the front of his trousers and seemed to limp past me. He must have hurt his leg as well, I thought.
As soon as he was out of the door I began to calm down.
‘Where’s the pain? Where is it sore?’ My mother knelt beside me anxiously feeling my leg.
‘Oh! Oh! There! Oh! That’s it!’ I was trying desperately to feign agony.
‘Can you move it? What happened?’
‘I was jumping off the wall and I went over on my ankle. Oh, I think it’s easing up a bit now.’ I moved it slowly, careful to screw my face up at every movement.
My mother went to the sink to give me a glass of water. She looked straight into my eyes and right through me. She knew I was faking. Her face fell. How could she ever explain it? I wanted to tell her she shouldn’t be ashamed. I felt terrible, because I knew that she’d done nothing, and that McCartney was trying to touch her and she was pushing him away, but I couldn’t tell her because she would be mortified that I had witnessed it. I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but I knew that McCartney was trying to get her to pay him behind the door, as my dad used to put it. If he ever found out what Slippy Tits had done, he would pull his lungs out. Mum looked as though she was going to cry. I tried to stand up, faking a limp, but she could see it was all an act.
‘I’ll make the tea,’ she said, turning away from me.
I limped into the garden and sat on the grass watching her at the sink wiping tears away from her face.
*
The coffin rested at the front of the chapel and I slipped past it to light a candle below the statue of Our Lady. It was hard to imagine that Tommy Lafferty was inside there all cold and stiff in his white satin shroud. I glanced at the brass plate screwed on to the light oak wood. Thomas Daniel Lafferty RIP, aged 40. I wondered where he was, if he could see us, if he could see Dan and his mum and his brother and sister making their way down the aisle to sit at the front of the chapel. All Dan’s family were there, his uncle Brian and his wife and all their children. Dan’s mum kept looking at the coffin and sobbing. Dan bit his lip and tried not to cry, but it was no use. I knelt in front of the statue and prayed for Tommy Lafferty, for God to let him into heaven as soon as he could and for Dan and his mum not to feel sad for ever. I prayed for Tony that he would love me for ever, and that the Polack would stop hitting him. I prayed for my mum and dad and Kevin and Ann Marie. I prayed that none of us would get caught for stealing Miss Grant’s clothes.
It was a long, dismal mass, with Father Flynn speaking for ages about Tommy Lafferty and how he was one of the most decent men in the village, but that like a good Catholic he was always prepared for God and to go to a better place. He said God had chosen to take Tommy back and that he had only loaned him to us. He said that death comes like a thief in the night, and we must always be ready.
I thought of lying in bed at night when the streets are quiet and you can’t sleep, and all you can hear is someone’s high-heeled shoes clattering along the road from time to time. You never know the minute that God is going round the houses looking in people’s beds and wondering who to take. Like a thief in the night. The thought made me shiver.
Ann Marie’s face was chalk white and she squeezed out of her seat, past Mum, Dad and me. She looked as though she was going to be sick again. Dad looked at Mum, but said nothing. She looked worried. It crossed my mind that Ann Marie might be dying.
At communion there were sniffs and sobs from all around the packed chapel as everyone sang the sad, slow funeral hymn. Even my dad poked his thumbs into his eyes to stop the tears coming out.
Everyone sang: ‘They are waiting for our petition, silent and calm; their lips no prayer can utter, no suppliant psalm.’
I pictured all the souls in the dark never-ending corridor of purgatory trying to find a way to get out, but always ending up back at the same place. You were years in purgatory and you only ever got out if people kept praying for you, then eventually someone would give you a hand up and you were in heaven. You were made then. But purgatory seemed like a depressing place, and it must be frustrating waiting your turn among millions of other souls. But at least it wasn’t hell. You had no chance if you were down there.
When the mass ended, Dan’s Uncle Brian and Theresa’s brothers all carried the coffin on their shoulders. They were big, strong men but the tears rolled down their faces, and everybody wept as the procession passed each seat along the aisle. Dan held his mother’s hand and his face was flushed and wet with tears when he passed my seat. He looked straight at me and he sobbed his heart out. I felt helpless. There was a lump in my throat and my chest felt tight. I thought I was going to burst. My dad put his arm around my shoulder. God had come like a thief in the night. It wasn’t fair. I wondered who would be next.
After the cemetery I walked away on my own. I wanted to be alone because I didn’t want everyone to see my tears. I sat by the railway line and cried my eyes out. I was even crying out loud because I knew that nobody could hear me as the whole village was at Tommy Lafferty’s funeral and most of them would be in the pub by now. So I jumped when I heard a voice.
‘Kath? I’ve been looking all over for you. What’re you doing, sitting here all by yourself?’ It was Kevin. I immediately tried to compose myself and wiped away my tears. But he could see. He sat down beside me and handed me his handkerchief without saying anything. We sat for a while saying nothing, watching the heat rise like waves in the distance. He took off his jacket and tie, and rolled up his shirt sleeves. His strong arms were golden brown from working outside. He lit a cigarette and took a long, slow puff.
‘You know about Australia then, Kath?’ Kevin leaned back on one elbow so he was facing me.
‘Aye.’ I stared straight ahead.
‘Are you upset with me, Kath?’ He reached out and gently turned my face towards him.
‘You’re going away, Kevin. You’re going away to leave me. I’ll never see you again. And you’re my o
nly brother … it’ll be as if you’re dead or something. Why are you going away, Kevin? Why? Do you not like us?’ I blurted it all out.
Kevin knelt in front of me and took both my hands.
‘Oh Kath! Wee Kath! So much to learn. Listen, darlin’. It’s just that this place, you know, it has nothing for young guys like me with no qualifications. I’m not clever like you. I’m never going to get a good job or go to university or all the things you’ll get because of your brains. I’ll never get a decent job because I’m a Catholic with no qualifications, so I’ll be digging ditches or working for a brickie in the pissin’ rain until I’m old and riddled with rheumatics.’
‘What’s wrong with that? At least you’ll be here with your family … with me.’
‘But I want a chance of a better life, Kath, a better life. And when I make enough money I’ll come back here and open my own business … a shop, or a pub, or something like that. You’ll see.
‘Dessie and me are going on this cheap offer for people to emigrate to Australia. They’re desperate for workers, young blood like us, and it will be a great chance.’
I pictured him in Australia, working stripped to the waist in the blistering heat, or swimming in the sea, or shearing sheep like the way you saw in the movies. It was all tough guys and sweat, but everybody seemed happy and joking all the time and drinking big frothy pints of beer. It was nothing like here and I knew deep down that a boy like Kevin would have a great time there. I would miss him so much. He was the best friend I ever had. He would read to me when I was in bed sick, and the way he read made the story come alive from the page. One time he read Heidi to me and when I slept that night I was Heidi climbing the hills in Switzerland, running to meet the snowy-haired old grandfather. Kevin was the best brother anybody could hope for.
