curate lets out a long sigh of obvious relief and stands up. He stretches his torso and I can see his chest muscles rippling against the cloth of his robe. Walking over to me, Father Steele directs his eye towards the canvas in my arms. ‘Can I see it?’
‘Not until it’s finished.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s bad luck.’
‘Stuff and nonsense, Kate. Who said it was bad luck?’
I’m cradling the canvas like a baby to my breast. ‘No one in particular, just a feeling I have, Father. It’s the same as when people say they are going to do something, then for some reason or another they don’t. It makes them look foolish, specially after they’ve told the whole world and her grandmother about it. Me, I never say I’m going to do something unless I’m certain I will. I don’t let anyone see any of my work until it’s finished.’
The curate gives me the odd look again, the one I don’t understand. ‘You are an unusual girl, Kate.’
I blush, feeling hot and foolish. I’ve been called a lot of things in my life but never unusual. ‘I am?’
He takes a step closer to me. ‘You’re an extraordinary young woman, Kate O’Sullivan, don’t let anyone ever tell you different.’
Now my cheeks are on fire, and I imagine what a fright I must look, as red as a lobster fresh out of the pot. Again I’m struggling for words, and all I can think of is hiding my embarrassment and getting out of the curate’s sitting room quickly.
I fumble with the zip of my bag, and when I look up Father Steele is waiting at the door. He’s holding it open. I slide past him, grateful for the darkness of the hall. I head for the door, his footsteps echoing behind me. As he opens the door his hand glances the side of my head; I jump as if bitten. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what is the matter with you, I ask myself. Pull yourself together, Kate O’Sullivan.
A blast of fresh air hits me full in the face. I breathe deeply before turning to face Father Steele. ‘Thank you for being so patient and all, Father. It’s not easy to be sitting for such a long time, and so still.’
‘I hope it’s going to be worth it, after all the bullying I’ve had from Father O’Neill.’ He smiles.
Sure, his smile could warm the cockles of the coldest heart, and I think how happy I’d be, just standing on the spot being warmed by it all day long. ‘I know it will be a most perfect likeness, the most beautiful painting I’ve ever done. When I’m long gone, Father, you’ll be still around, hanging in the Louvre.’ I grin. ‘To be sure, that’s confidence for you.’
I pause, hesitant, toying with my next words, playing and replaying them in my head.
‘Would you believe me, Father, if I was to say you are the most handsome person I’ve ever had the pleasure of drawing in my entire life?’ I’m blushing, I can’t believe I’ve just said that to a priest. I wait for his rebuke, my heart banging hard against my chest. I study his face, searching for a response, and, like wind on water, his expression changes from a sort of awkwardness that seems to me boyish to a look of deep tenderness, the like of which I’d rarely seen. One particular time sticks firmly in my memory. Lizzy Molloy had fallen and broken her wrist and I’d watched her father cradle Lizzy in his arms. With an intense pain in my chest I’d listened to his soothing words, and had felt my own tears pricking the back of my eyes when he’d ever so gently kissed away those of his daughter. The curate’s expression is very similar. All my life I’ve longed for a father, and it makes me wonder if he feels parental towards me. I feel weird again, only this time it’s different. I’ve got a terrible hunger, yet I’m not hungry.
My hands are shaking. I grip the strap of my bag tight, tighter as they shake more, and still I watch his face.
It’s my turn to smile when he says, ‘I’m not sure about the handsome part, Kate, but I’m beginning to believe you when you say the portrait will be good.’
I’m beetroot-red and tongue-tied again, and I just about manage to mumble, ‘Till next week then, Father?’
He nods. ‘Same time, same place.’
The door is closing, half his face visible. ‘God be with you, Kate.’
In my head I say, At times like this, Father, I really believe he is. Out loud: ‘And you, Father … and you.’
My insides are melting, my head’s hot and I’ve got a relentless throbbing above my left eye. I feel like I did last year when I’d eaten a rancid rasher and had been sent home from school early after vomiting over the back of the girl who sat in front of me in class. Only now I’m not sick, not in the stomach anyway. In the head, maybe.
My palms clogged with sweat, I glance in his direction; his expression is unreadable yet I suspect he’s nervous.
During the past six weeks I’ve sensed (perception was the word Mr Molloy used for what I called my inner sense) that there are two Father Steeles. There is the pious, God-fearing, I-want-to-be-a-saint Father Steele. This face, I must say, he wears most of the time and with practised ease. I say ‘practised’ because I’ve glimpsed the other Father Steele, the person who, when Biddy Flanaghan broke a vase, had flown into an unnecessary rage, suppressing it as quickly as it had risen when Biddy dissolved into floods of tears. I’d defended Biddy, saying that accidents happen and it wasn’t the end of the world to lose a gaudy vase. He’d glared at me, and I’d spent the remainder of the portrait-sitting smarting from the anger I’d encountered in his eyes.
Then there was the time I’d arrived early for our second sitting. The front door had been ajar and I’d crept into the hall softly calling his name. It was then I’d heard his voice. At first I’d thought he was talking to someone in the room, then after a couple of minutes I realized he was speaking on the telephone. Silently I’d waited in the hall, not deliberately eavesdropping but unable to avoid hearing Father Steele’s side of the conversation drifting through the half-open door.
He was talking to a woman called Siân. Twice his voice rose in anger: once when he asked her to listen to his side of the story, and secondly after a few minutes of silence when clearly she wasn’t prepared to listen he’d sighed deeply, saying she was a foolish woman who deserved everything she had coming to her. I sucked in my breath, not daring to let it out, when I heard him say, ‘How could you even suggest such a thing, after all we’ve been through? You’re a bitch, Siân Morissy, and I never want to hear or see you ever again, do you understand?’ I heard the slam of the receiver hitting the cradle before I crept out of the house the way I’d come, retracing my route to the gate and back again to the front door. It was an ashen-faced curate who opened the door and I couldn’t help thinking that there was a lot more to Father Steele than met the eye.
This did not put me off him; on the contrary, I found it endearing. It meant he was a man, a real flesh, blood and guts person, not a sanctimonious holier-than-thou super-being. He had faults and weaknesses just like the rest of us. It made him more acceptable and, to me, more accessible.
I never mentioned the telephone conversation to anyone, not even Bridget, but I did think about it a lot, often wondering what the woman called Siân was like. I built up an image of a tall, beautiful creature
