‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry, child. Come into the sacristy and let me find some ointment for that. You’d be surprised how often we need it for the wee altar servers.’
‘No. I’ll go.’
‘Don’t be silly. Come on now.’
Calmed by his relaxed manner, she followed him. In front of the altar, he genuflected and she did the same. She felt almost mischievous, even a little honoured, to be walking past the altar to the door in the wall panelling.
She had never been in a room like this before. It was dark and musty with the smells of burnt incense and men’s clothes. This was a male space. A private space. Was she wise to be here? Not every priest was a holy man. Some – well, she’d take the eye out of his head if he tried.
‘There’s a toilet through there and a sink and a mirror.’
At first she was puzzled and wondered if this was some proof of the trivial thinking of men who had so little contact with others. Then she realised that he was telling her where she could tidy up. She went through to the little bathroom and saw that her face was streaked with mascara. And her hand hurt. ‘What a mess I am!’
She found tissues and cream in her handbag and mopped the mascara stains off and then removed all her make-up and washed herself and brushed her hair. It wasn’t the face she had planned to meet the day with, but it was the one she had now and it would have to do.
‘You don’t have to speak to me,’ the priest said when she came out. ‘But this is the house of God and most problems are a little lighter when shared with Him.’
She said, ‘I should talk to someone.’
‘Well in your own time, dear.’ She was surprised by the solicitous manner of the man, and she looked more closely at him. She saw that he was probably a little younger than she was. His hair was greying at the sides but he had a trim build. His black suit seemed polished where most worn.
‘I have found out things about my husband that have surprised me.’
‘That is a more common experience than you might imagine.’
‘He killed a little girl.’
‘Dear God,’ said the priest. ‘Are you saying it was deliberate, or was it an accident?’
‘It was an accident in that it was the wrong little girl, but he would have been happy enough with himself if he had killed the right one.’
Just saying it distressed her. The priest simply waited.
‘He was in the IRA.’
‘Ah.’ The priest sighed as if it was clear now and easier for him to countenance. ‘Well, a lot of good men did bad things, you know. And the blame can’t all be put on them.’
‘Don’t you think that if a man kills a child, he ought to suffer for doing that?’
‘Well, ultimately justice is with the Lord, you know. My dear, I have seen many good men crumple under the burden of what war wrought out of them. It may be that your husband needs you more than you know.’
‘He has to be sorry for what he did. He has to be made to be sorry for what he did.’
‘Come on, child. You know the country we grew up in and no one man needs to bear the blame for the war that was imposed on the Irish people.’
She paused. She had thought she was opening up to a man who understood the human heart and now he was talking like a politician.
‘Fuck you,’ she said, and then got up and walked out into the clean air.
***
If Terry was still in the office, she would be able to drive home and pick up the keys to the Damascus Street house and pack a case to get herself started. Of course, if he was guessing her moves, then he would go straight home himself and wait for her. Well, she had many strong feelings about him, but fear wasn’t one of them.
As it turned out, he wasn’t there when she arrived. She packed two cases, mostly with underclothes and clean bed sheets, toiletries and casual clothes, and took the keys for the house. On her way out, she saw Inspector McKeague’s business card sitting on the coffee table where he had put it the night before. She picked it up and put it in her purse, not knowing if she would ever need it. Then she drove towards town, as far as the university, and turned into the Holy Land area and Damascus Street.
***
Damascus Street, behind the university, is one of a grid of little streets called the Holy Land. There is Jerusalem Street and Carmel Street. Once these houses had been tiny homes rented by families from the city council. Women in aprons and headscarves had mopped the doorsteps and children had played hopscotch on the pavement. At least, that is how Kathleen imagined it had been. Now much of the area had been bought up by property developers like herself and converted, with the help of generous grants, into temporary homes for students. Walking through it was like discovering a town in which everyone was eighteen years old.
She turned the key in the frail flaky door, let herself into the musty house and scooped up the mail on the mat. Mostly it was bills for overdue parking tickets, bank statements and other letters with ‘final warning’ stamped in red across the front. There were copies of the republican paper An Phoblacht, New Internationalist and leaflets advertising pizza delivery, taxi companies, cleaning services and protest parades in memory of victims or support for prisoners. There were cards announcing prayer rallies and gospel meetings. Junk. She tried to remember when she had last been in the house. All this in two weeks!
Deeper inside the house were smells of decay, at best a piece of chicken someone had left in a bin, at worst a mouse that had died under the floorboards. The carpet in the living room was a cheap mustard colour. Terry had said, ‘Don’t spend money catering to your own taste; this place isn’t for you.’
A large Irish tricolour was draped above the double bed in the main bedroom. She whipped it from the wall, bundled it up and threw it into a corner. The bed itself had an uncovered duvet over a bare mattress that still had sweat stains on it. At least, she hoped they were sweat stains. How much could she do now to transform this place? Her brother worked in a furniture shop in town and she called him.
‘Bill, I’ve a house that needs a makeover.’
‘Today?’
‘I’d like to make one bedroom nice. Then for the living room, two armchairs and a sofa, smallish but tasteful. Let’s see, slate blue or something.’
Then she ordered a skip. They said it mightn’t come until tomorrow. There was a soft rhythmic thud from the house next door. She would have to do something about that too. But first … She knocked on her neighbour’s door. A youth with long ginger hair came out, and, slowly, a dark-haired girl settled behind him.
Kathleen said, ‘I have some furniture in here I need rid of. I’ll give you fifty quid just to lift it out.’
‘Whoopy doo,’ said the lad and shouted, ‘Cathal!’
‘Wha?’ his friend Cathal shouted from upstairs.
