jump around my head.
I’m very tall for my age, five foot eight, and still growing, as Lizzy Molloy was fond of saying, in all the right places. ‘It’s a model for them fancy glossy magazines you should be, Kate O’Sullivan. A top model you’d make, to be sure.’ I can think of nothing worse than being a model: being told what to do; how to stand; what to wear. I was going to paint. The only time I felt truly happy was when I was painting. It made me feel different, whole and important, like I had something special to say. As we reach the foot of the stairs, I turn to Bridget. Tears well up in the back of my eyes and I’m not sure why.
‘I’m going to be sixteen soon. I’ve longed for the day, but as it gets closer I’m feeling a bit strange. I’ve never known anything but this place.’
The glassy sheen of concern in Bridget’s eyes makes my insides loosen, and I want to hug her when she says, ‘You, Kate O’Sullivan, are going to be a famous artist. You’re a brilliant painter. I only wish I was good at something.’ She squeezes my hand. ‘But I know how you feel.’ Her bright smile fades. ‘For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamt about leaving here. When I was very small I used to dream that my mam and da hadn’t died. They’d gone away to work, to make lots of money, and had put me into the orphanage until they had made enough to come back for me. The dream always ended with them leading me up a long path, their arms loaded with presents. At the end of the path there’s a lovely cottage covered in ivy. Mam and da tell me it’s our home; we’re all going to live there. I always hated waking up from that dream, and every night I used to go to sleep trying to dream it again. Yet now when I think about leaving here I get the shits. I’ve no place to go, I don’t have any family, only you, Kate, you’re like a sister to me and you’ll be leaving four months before me. I’m going to miss you so much.’
I can’t stand to see her sad, or afraid; I’ve seen both too often. The trouble is it makes me feel the same, so with more enthusiasm than I actually feel I say, ‘Why don’t you come to Dublin, Bridget? You can get a job and we can share a flat.’
Even in the saying I knew Bridget wouldn’t be coming to Dublin. She wasn’t going anywhere. Bridget was small town, and, after all, there had to be the Bridgets of the world. She would, I knew, let one of the local lads get inside her secret box, as she referred to it. Then she’d get married and let him pump his hot sperm into her every Friday night after the pub, because that’s what all the men round here did. She’d have babies, lots of them, be a good mother, try to be a good wife, and pretend to be a good Catholic. Doing without, and dying inside.
That wasn’t for me. I wasn’t like Bridget or Mary or most of the other girls I knew. I had my life all mapped out; I’d been planning it since I was ten. First I was going to go to Dublin, then London, perhaps even America. People would come from all over the world to buy my paintings, and I’d be rich; very rich. I’d be interviewed in newspapers, asked to appear on TV, on talk shows and the like. Of course I’d come back to the village to see Bridget and her fat babies. Then I’d cruise up to the orphanage in my chauffeur-driven car, dressed in beautiful clothes and smelling of expensive perfume. Mother Thomas would open the door. At first she wouldn’t recognize me, but when I spoke shocked recognition would register on her wizened face. With my head held high and wearing my best smile I’d say, ‘I told you so.’
It’s warm in church; steam rises from damp, closely packed bodies. Judging by the size of the congregation, I reckon most of the parish has turned out to get a glimpse of the new curate. My eyes follow the lead altar boy, Eugene Crowley, as he emerges from the sacristy. I used to like Eugene, but that was before he chased me around the school yard and tried to pull my knickers down. I have to admit he looks grand in his scarlet soutane and starched white surplice. I skip Father O’Neill and concentrate on the figure of Father Steele bringing up the rear of the small procession towards the altar.
A quick glance to left and right confirms the eyes of the entire congregation are focused in the same direction. If Gatsby had been in town he couldn’t have asked for a better reception.
Father Declan Steele, to give him his full title, looks wonderful: tall and handsome, God-like – or how I imagine God should look. My left knee begins to tremble; it does this nervous jig from time to time, it’s a damned nuisance and makes me feel stupid. I place the flat of my hand hard on my thigh just above the knee to stop the shaking. This sets the right one off and now both legs are jiggling like I’m having some kind of fit, a bit like Jimmy Conlon, an epileptic, who sits three seats in front of me in class. Only Jimmy froths at the mouth.
Bridget puts her head close to my ear, hissing, ‘He’s a film star all right, should be in Hollywood.’
I nod, whispering in her ear, ‘It’s handsome he is, the most handsome man I’ve ever clapped eyes on.’
Church, for the most part, bores me. Sometimes I listen to Mass, but rarely; I enjoy singing hymns, particularly for the harvest festival, and usually ask God selfish things during prayers.
I’m jammed between Emily Donaghue, the local publican’s new missus, on one side (her hair stinks of stale Woodbines, and there’s a sickly mixture of cheap scent and sweat wafting out from under her arms every time she moves) and Bridget on the other.
I repeat the prayers and responses parrot-like while studying the face of Father Steele. I focus on his deep mouth. I have, according to my class teacher, a fertile imagination. I smile to myself. If Mrs Rourke could see what’s fermenting in the young fresh earth of my mind at this moment, she would drag me off to confession by the ear. The new curate features heavily in sinful thoughts of him being normal – by that I mean not a priest – and of how it would feel to kiss him. Under my breath I repeat, Forgive me, Father, forgive me, Father, for I sin in my thoughts. Then with quick furtive glances I look from side to side, certain that what was going on on the inside must surely show on the outside.
Once Mother Thomas had said she could see into my soul and, to be sure, the devil was there. Foolishly I’d believed her and for months I’d had nightmares of being devoured alive by evil spirits.
My imaginings of Declan Steele the man make me moist between my legs. It’s not the first time I’ve been wet down there. I remember when I was thirteen and Elizabeth Bradley came to live in the orphanage. Elizabeth was from Cork, fifteen, and four months pregnant. She was big-boned and big-breasted and smoked Silk Cut cigarettes. One night I’d woken with a start to the tip of a cigarette glowing eerily in the dark, with Elizabeth Bradley attached to it. Before I could stop her, she’d slipped under my covers and, lying on her back, had handed me the cigarette. My first drag had burnt the back of my throat and made me cough, the second not so much, and by the third I was enjoying the buzz in my head. It was then Elizabeth had put her hand up inside my nightdress. She’d asked me to open my legs. Confused, I’d asked what for, and she’d whispered that she was going to do something nice, something boys did to girls if they let them. She was a lot bigger than me and packed a mean punch, so without questioning I did as she asked. When I’d opened my legs I remember thinking that it was all right to let Elizabeth inside my secret place; after all, how could it be a sin if she had one herself – a secret hole, that is – and anyway she wasn’t a boy. The tip of her forefinger had probed a little before beginning to rotate. Round and round her finger went, until I could feel the wetness on my thighs and I was embarrassed that it would wet the sheets. After a few minutes she’d guided my hand under her nightdress and had shown me how to do the same to her. She had thick hair on her legs and stomach and I was amazed at the big bush of hair between her legs. I had difficulty finding what she called her excitement button, but when I did, her back had arched and she’d spread her legs very wide. I did
