Lynne Pemberton - Marilyn’s Child

A cold wind hits me full in the face as I step outside the orphanage. My hands, thrust deep in the familiar holes of my coat pocket lining, are warmed by my body heat. It’s quarter past ten. I know, because I’ve just checked the time by the hall clock. It’s never wrong. Not a minute fast, or slow. Mother Superior makes sure of that. She’s obsessed with punctuality, and neatness.

The journey to the village takes, if dawdling, about thirty-five minutes, if route marching behind the nuns it takes twenty. I walk briskly, and am pressing my face on the glass window of O’Shea’s shop at eighteen minutes to eleven, according to the clock on the wall above Mary O’Shea’s head. At the back of the display I can see a row of dusty bottles and jars full of jam and chutney, that I know for a fact Mrs O’Hara makes and, according to Bridget, pees and spits in depending on how much ale she’s had the previous night. In front of the display of jars there’s an assortment of cans – baked beans, processed peas and carrots mainly – neatly stacked on top of three discoloured boxes, half-full of biscuits and crisp packets. I would love to buy six bottles of red lemonade, my favourite, and six half-moon cream cakes, and every chocolate bar in the shop. I imagine myself standing in front of Mary O’Shea with lots of money, slowly ordering all her stock while her eyes pop out of her head. With a couple of minutes to spare I duck inside to see Bridget.

‘Top of the morning to you, Mrs O’Shea,’ I say to the back of Mary O’Shea’s bent head. ‘It’s a fine morning, it is that. What’s the crack?’

Mary O’Shea is standing on the second rung of a step-ladder, stacking beans on to an empty shelf. She turns and scowls. ‘It’s yerself, Kate O’Sullivan. I’ve no crack, too bloody busy for prattle, and if it’s Bridget you’ve come to see, she’s busy.’

‘It’s important I speak to her.’

She continues stacking can on top of can. ‘If it’s life-and-death important, you can be telling me.’

‘I’ll take a Mars Bar, thanking you, Mrs O’Shea.’

With a deep sigh Mary O’Shea places the can she’s holding carefully on the shelf and steps down from the ladder.

‘It’s a Mars Bar yer wanting, but I know what yer needing.’

I slap twenty pence on the counter. ‘And what, may I ask, is that, Mrs O’Shea?’

‘Insolent, to be sure, that’s what you are, Kate O’Sullivan. Honest to God, if you were mine I’d give you a good hiding.’

‘Well, since I’m not, give me a Mars Bar instead. And tell me, Mrs O’Shea, ’

.cause it’s curious I am, to know why it is you think I’m insolent?’

If looks could kill I’d be dead on the spot. I stare her out, counting the long black hairs on her chin. I get to six before she says, ‘In my day, children were seen and not heard.’

What is it with this ‘seen and not heard’ or ‘because I say so’ or ‘I’m older so I know better’? Why do grown-ups think kids are stupid, I ask myself, a question I’d considered many times in the past, particularly when I’d heard so much rubbish pouring out of adult mouths.

‘To be sure, I don’t know who you think you are, with all yer feckin airs and graces. Yer a bloody gobshite, Kate O’Sullivan, and I’m thinking that one of these days you’ll be falling flat on your face.’

I’ve a sharp retort ready on the tip of my tongue when Bridget appears on the other side of the counter, red-faced and sweating. She sweats a lot, does Bridget, God love her. I have to admit sometimes, in summer and before her period, it’s really bad. In the past I’d offered her my hard-earned, saved-up-for Lily of the Valley talcum powder. I’d only seen her use it once, when she’d gone out with Sean Connolly for the first time, and then she’d made me mad by using far too much between her legs. Most of it had ended up on the bedroom floor. I’d kept it hidden after that.

Mrs O’Shea hands me a Mars Bar and my change. With a loud grunt she mounts the bottom step of the ladder and continues stacking cans. I can see her ears prick up when she hears Bridget say to me, ‘What time are you meeting the curate?’

Opening the wrapper with my teeth, I say out of the side of my mouth, ‘Ten minutes.’

Bridget’s mouth drops open, and she looks a bit simple. I’ve told her before about her slack jaw but she never listens. ‘Wish it was me. Trouble is, I wouldn’t, couldn’t, for the love of God, say or do a thing fer just gawking at him.’

‘That’s what you do most Saturdays in here, Bridget Costello. I get tired of looking at your sour ugly puss, and you smelling like a bloody midden. Don’t they have hot water up at the orphanage? If I was younger and had the energy I’d take a stick to you. Now stop your crack, git out back and bring me those beans.’

Bridget pulls a face behind the old woman’s back. Mary turns just in time to catch the last of it, and looks ready to kill. I can’t help laughing, which infuriates the old bitch even more. Bridget smirks.

‘You –’ she points at Bridget – ‘git! That is, if you want to keep yer job. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, why can’t an oul’ woman have some peace in her old age? Worked all me life, fer what? To be pestered by young hooligans like you two.’ She steps down from the ladder with a wheeze.

‘Out of me shop and out of me sight, Kate O’Sullivan. Go on off with you, else you’re going to be late for the curate, and for the love of God that won’t do.’

As I step out of the shop on to the main street I spot Maggie Murphy coming out of the post office. Quick as a wink I bend my head, but not quick enough. She sees me and makes a big thing of sticking her nose in the air and turning her face in the opposite direction. I want to laugh and shout to her and anyone else who happens to be listening that her husband is a dirty old bugger who plays with his own sausage in the back yard lavvie, and doesn’t bother to wash his hands before going back to the front shop to serve sausages that are full of rancid pork fat and blood from the tins of cow’s liver to colour them. If folk knew what Mad Murphy put in his sausages they’d never eat another one as long as they lived. In fact, I’m surprised anyone lives very long after eating them.

As I lift the latch on the churchyard gate I still have the lovely taste of chocolate in my mouth. I lick my lips and stuff the Mars Bar wrapper into the back pocket of my skirt. It makes a scrunching sound as I walk briskly up the path towards the sacristy at the rear of the church. After one rap, the door creaks open and he’s there before me, in all his bloody glory, smelling for all the world like lemon sherbet. I wish I could pluck up the courage to ask him about that smell. I promise myself I will one day.

Silently I urge him to speak first. It’s not often I’m tongue-tied – actually, never – so this is a whole new experience for me, this odd feeling of uncertainty, and the shyness that’s giving me a sharp pain in my chest. I’ve been afraid before, many times. I’ve had the fear of God put into me by Mother Thomas and her partner in religious teaching, Mother Paul. Paul is to Thomas what I suppose Himmler was to Hitler. Often I’ve said to Bridget that the pair of them would have been kicked out of the Gestapo for cruelty. But this feeling is different, the butterflies in my stomach are similar, but I don’t have the horrible sinking sensation or the jelly guts I get anticipating what she, or they, may do to me.

With a short nod the curate says, ‘Come in, Kate.’

I step past him into the small vestibule that leads to the sacristy. It’s dark, but then all churches are dark. That’s another thing I don’t understand: if church is supposed to be a place of joyous worship, why did God make his houses so bloody gloomy? The only good reason I can see for going to church is to shelter from the rain, dry off, and hope it has stopped by the time Mass is over.