Lynne Pemberton - Marilyn’s Child

‘Do you speak Italian?’

‘Yes, fluently, and Spanish. At one time I wanted to live in Italy.’

‘What stopped you?’

His upper lip tightens. ‘My mother died. I came back to Ireland and stayed.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Then: ‘We have something in common – we’re both orphans.’

‘Yes, Kate, but I know who I am and where I came from. It makes us very different.’

We fall silent, a comfortable silence, the type friends share. It warms me. Side by side we walk down Potter Lane. Before we reach the end, Father Steele stops walking. As he turns to face me I stop and look directly into his eyes.

‘I want to explain about the portrait.’

With a perplexed look I ask, ‘Why didn’t you ask me if you could keep it?’

His hands open as if holding a book. ‘I can offer no excuse except to say I was embarrassed. When I saw the painting for the first time, I was surprised … No, more than that, I was shocked to the core.’ He pauses. I open my mouth to speak but close it when he continues: ‘What I saw in your interpretation of me wasn’t what I wanted to see. During the sittings I tried very hard to adopt a reverend air, an expression of goodness and serenity. But you cut through all of that, stripped the priest bare and found the man. That’s why I want the portrait. It’s not about ego or vanity, it’s about my calling, my dedication and my commitment. I desperately want to do the right thing, to be a good priest. You see, Kate, every time I look at the portrait it will awaken memories of the man I was, and still am sometimes, and the priest I want to become. Does that make any sense, Kate? I know you’re still a child but …’

My voice rises. ‘I’m not a child!’ Then it drops: ‘I’m sixteen next week. I’m a woman, and, yes, it makes sense. What I think you mean is we all have different faces, and some people are not always what they seem.’

My thoughts stray to Mother Thomas, who could, when she chose, be the kindest and most considerate person in the world. That was the face she wore to hide the evil, her dark side.

His deep mouth parts and he sighs. ‘You are without doubt a beautiful young woman with enormous potential, but, forgive me for saying this, Kate, you’re still an innocent. The orphanage, I’m sure, has taught you how to use your wits and every resource to survive, and you have a strong will and driving force that’s going, I have no doubt, to take you far. Yet you are still a lamb with no knowledge of the world outside this sleepy village. I can help you, Kate.’

My eyes widen quizzically. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Biddy Flanaghan is leaving to have a baby. Why don’t you take her place in the cottage? It’s not hard work – only me to look after and I’m not too messy, I promise. I can afford to pay you eight pounds a week, all found. Not a fortune, I know, but it’ll help out when you get to Dublin. I know you can’t wait to leave Friday Wells, but look on it as a stop gap for a few months before you go to art college.’

He senses my hesitation and rushes on. ‘If you’d like to learn, I’ll teach you Italian and Spanish and some knowledge of the world outside this parish, if in return you promise to give me painting lessons. Ever since living in Italy I’ve longed to paint. Will you think about it, Kate?’

I nod. ‘When do you need me to let you know?’

‘As soon as possible.’

He was right, I did need the money. I had a student grant but the extra money would come in handy for canvas and paints. It was only for a short while and it would give me an opportunity to get to know Father Steele better. I weigh all of this against my desperate craving to get out of Friday Wells.

I make a snap decision. ‘I’ll do it, Father, until the end of September. College starts the twelfth of October – that gives me a couple of weeks to settle on campus.’

He’s smiling and I know I’ve made him happy. I find myself smiling too. I had a lot to smile about. I was leaving the orphanage, going to art college, and Father Steele obviously liked me – he was even willing to give up his free time to teach me the ways of the world. He cared. God for once had listened to my pleas. Sometimes God was good.

I’d expected to feel different. Yet I feel the same as I did yesterday and the day before. I’d dreamt of this day for such a long time, how could it cheat me this way? Being sixteen meant freedom, so why didn’t I feel free? And why this heavy feeling in the pit of my belly, like I’ve swallowed a lump of lead? My hand under the covers slides across my groin; it aches just above my pubic bone. It’s June 2, too early for my period. Perhaps I’ve got a temperature. With my other hand I touch my forehead: it’s cool. I’ve felt like this a couple of times before, once after eating too much pudding at Lizzy’s house, and the time I try not to think about too much, when a couple of years ago Mother Paul punched me in the stomach. That had hurt a lot and I’d cried a lot, but not in front of her. At the sound of coughing, I swivel my eyes right. Christine Donovan has the worst cough I’ve heard since Theresa Doyle died. Her nose scabs and she makes it worse by picking at the scabs until they bleed. Bridget reckons she’s got bronchitis, but Mother Thomas won’t have it. ‘Nothing that a bit of Vick and cough medicine won’t sort out.’ The nun’s been saying that for the last six weeks; it’s not sorting it out, in fact it’s worse. Some nights her tubes rattle so much I think I’m on a railway siding. I can’t watch as she hacks then spits into a metal dish on the floor, but I can hear and I feel sick.

I’m sorry for her, we all are, but I wish she slept somewhere else. In that instant I remember I’ll be sleeping somewhere else very soon. Tonight. With both arms I pull myself into a sitting position, my legs sprawled wide. My mouth is dry, as are my lips. I run my tongue over the top lip and bite a piece of loose skin from the bottom. It’s early, very early, about six a.m. I yawn, glancing up and right to the window above my bed. Idly I watch a bird land on the windowsill; it pecks at the glass for a few seconds before hopping along the sill. I think it’s a thrush but I’m not certain. I turn over, the bed creaks and the bird, startled by the sound, takes flight. I close my eyes tight and think of where I’ll be tonight, and the ache in my belly starts to ease.

I’m going to be with him, in his house, just the two of us. The thought fills me with joy and just a tiny frisson of fear. Afraid of being alone with the curate? I ponder the question then dismiss it as silly and childish. The curate is a good man, I tell myself, his outburst over the broken vase an isolated incident.

I believe, rightly or wrongly, that Father Steele and I have formed a friendship, a bond. After the initial portrait sitting when the cat had given me back my tongue we’d talked a lot. He’d talked about his family, mostly his da, who he’d had a very close relationship with. I recall the pride in his voice when he’d talked of his father working all his life in the shipyards, till at forty he got to be foreman, the proudest day of his life. ‘God-fearing and honest, salt of the earth, my Dad,’ he’d said. ‘Allowed himself one Woodbine and a pint of Guinness a night. Said he’d seen too many good Irishmen go bad with the drink.

“‘Aye, there’s a great big wide world out there, Declan,” he’d say. “Way past Dublin and Ireland even. It’s out there for the taking, lad.’”

The priest was interested in me, I knew by the amount of questions he asked. No one had ever shown so much interest in me and I’d found myself responding to him in a way I’d never done before. He made me feel special and grown up. I think for my part I made him laugh a lot, and once he said I was like a breath of fresh air.