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 been scrumping apples and had a store under her bed. To be sure, I’d eaten my fair share of Bridget’s hoard, but only because I’d got the empty groaning in my belly. And when I get that I’ll eat just about anything that I can lay my hands on. As usual I’d eaten fast, too fast, and had farted all night long.
I’m always hungry. Mother Peter is fond of saying, ‘It’s hollow legs you’ve got, Kate O’Sullivan.’ Once I happened to say that it wasn’t my legs but my belly that was hollow, due to the measly portions of food we got in the orphanage. Growing girls could not grow much on half a bowl of porridge, one slice of bread with no butter, watery cocoa, mashed potatoes, and the occasional rasher and raw egg a special treat. No sooner were the words out of my mouth than Mother Paul had boxed me around the ears so hard her next words had been accompanied by the ringing of bells. ‘Ungrateful child! You should be thankful for the food Our good Lord puts in your belly, thankful for having a roof over your head. Spare a thought for Our Lord who suffered on the cross for you, and think yourself lucky to be alive, instead of complaining and gassing nonsense all the time.’ As if to emphasize what she’d said about the suffering and all, she’d given me another thump, only this time in my belly. It had hurt so much I’d felt the tears leap to my eyes, and it had been really difficult not to cry in front of her. But I didn’t; wouldn’t give her or any of them the satisfaction I’m sure they’d feel if they reduced me to a blubbering idiot, like some of the other girls.
The only time I really enjoy apples is when I get invited to Lizzy Molloy’s house and her mother makes apple pie. My mouth waters anew at the thought of the sweet apple taste, mixed with melt-in-your-mouth pastry and lashings of thick clotted cream. Lizzy is my second best friend after Bridget. I sit next to her in school. I’m much brighter than Lizzy, and I let her copy all of my homework. Bridget said that was the only reason she invited me to her house.
Once, when I fell out with Bridget – I can’t even remember what about – I told Lizzy she was my best friend, and would be for ever and ever. Of course it was a lie; Lizzy could never replace Bridget. Lizzy was from another world, she had a mam and da, a sister and two brothers, one in America – an accountant in Baltimore, thank you very much. The Molloy house, though not big, was spotless, and it always smelt of cooking, the sort of smells that make the mouth water. I never wanted to admit it, even to myself, but Lizzy’s main attraction was her mother’s cooking. I had food at Lizzy’s like I’d never tasted before. Thick gravy made from meat juices with chunks of onion in it, poured over floury potato mixed with real butter and not margarine; the same butter spread thick on doorstep slices of home-made bread and scones, washed down with gallons of cherry lemonade, the fizzy, quench-yer-thirst-from-the-pop-van kind. Yes, being Lizzy’s friend had its advantages. And you could eat off the Molloy floors, so Bridget said, although why you’d want to when you could eat off a lovely polished mahogany table with a white lace tablecloth was beyond me.
Every room in the Molloy house was crammed full of wooden ornaments Mr Molloy made in his spare time, and beautiful patchwork cushions and blankets Mrs Molloy made in her spare time. I often wondered when they had any time left over for five kids. One son had died when he was three; Michael, the lad in America, had married very well and was, according to Mrs Molloy,
