Anne Bennett - To Have and To Hold

Suddenly the priest knew what Carmel was talking about because shame and degradation were mirrored in her eyes and he said gently, ‘Carmel, I know the sort of home you come from and the sort or rearing you had.’

Carmel’s head shot up and she looked at him in sudden alarm.

He went on in the same soothing voice, ‘The nuns told me. They thought I should know.’

‘Oh, Father,’ Carmel said, and the tears began trickling down her face. She covered her face with her hands and moaned.

The priest took hold of those hands and pulled them from her face as he said, ‘Come, come now, Carmel. Don’t distress yourself like this. There is no need. Have I ever treated you differently because I had this knowledge?’

Carmel made an effort to control herself. ‘No, Father, you haven’t,’ she said. ‘In fact you have always been kindness itself to me. But that isn’t the same everywhere. In Letterkenny, for example, there were many there who looked down on us and I can’t expect Paul to want even friendship from the likes of me.’

‘Are you ashamed of your family, Carmel?’

‘Aye, Father,’ Carmel said. ‘And ashamed of being ashamed.’

‘Then be ashamed no more,’ the priest said. ‘Pity them instead. Take responsibility just for yourself. Seek out your young man and tell him about your background and see what he says.’

‘I couldn’t, Father,’ Carmel said. ‘I couldn’t bear it if he despised me.’

The priest gave Carmel’s hands a small shake and looked deep into her eyes. ‘He will never despise you. The love he has for you shines bright in his eyes and that will not be dimmed when he hears how you were reared. Carmel, you owe it to him to tell him.’

‘You really think so?’

‘I know so. And you speak of friendship—is that all you really want from Paul?’

‘Yes, Father,’ Carmel said. ‘As I said, I never intend to marry.’

‘And how does Paul feel?’

‘He admitted last night that he loves me, Father.’

‘And you can’t feel the same?’

Carmel shook her head and the priest said, ‘I know that I am a fine one to talk about love. But sometimes you have to open your heart and see what God wants for you in the future. I had to open my own so I could hear him calling me to the priesthood. Maybe you are approaching this with your head only, giving reasons why it isn’t sensible to become involved with someone, when really a person’s heart is often a better indicator of what will make them happiest and bring the greatest fulfilment in their lives.’

‘So you think I should keep seeing Paul?’

‘Not if you continue to feel only friendship,’ the priest said ‘That way only pain and anguish wait for him and, knowing you, even as well as I do, you will feel guilty for the hurt inflicted. However, the stumbling block in all this is your background and your home in Letterkenny. You must tell Paul. Give the man a chance and then see if it makes a difference to the way you feel.’

‘All right, then,’ Carmel said with a sigh. ‘I will be guided by you, but it will be the hardest thing I will ever do.’

Over the next few days Carmel didn’t see Paul to speak to. Any time they had off never fell together and, anyway, he was in the throes of studying for his finals, as Chris was. So Carmel and Lois were thrown together quite a lot, for Jane and Sylvia were courting strongly. Carmel had admitted to Lois what had happened on the walk home after the pictures, and some of what the priest had said, omitting all mention of her background.

‘So how d’you know you don’t actually love Paul, then?’ Lois asked.

Carmel shrugged. ‘How would I know? How does anyone know?’

‘Well, do you think about him a lot?’

‘It used to be just now and then,’ Carmel said. ‘But he’s rarely out of my thoughts at the moment.’

‘And can you imagine life without him, if he wasn’t here, or if he got on with someone else?’

Carmel had to think about that and eventually she said, ‘Yes, when I suggested Paul see other people, as I couldn’t feel for him the way he wanted me to, it gave me quite a pang to think of Paul with another girl, and that quite surprised me. Yes, I would miss him if he was no longer around, if he wasn’t an important part of my life. Oh God!’

‘You have answered your own question,’ Lois said, and hugged her in delight. ‘You are in love with Paul and I know he is besotted with you. I tell you, Carmel, if I can’t have the man myself, there is no one I’d rather he take up with than you. You’ll still have to be careful, though, for if Matron gets one sniff of romance between a junior doctor and one of her probationers they’ll likely be “wigs on the green”, as my Uncle Jeff is fond of saying.’

But, Carmel couldn’t think about Matron or anyone else. All she could take on board was love for Paul awakening in her and the joy and wonder of it. The thing spoken about in literature and poems, and sung about in ballads and laments down through the centuries, and the one thing she thought she would never experience because she wasn’t going to allow herself to. Oh, how she had underestimated the power of that emotion, she realised. Then she remembered that she still had to tell Paul all about herself and her family and she still shrank from doing that.

She decided to shelve everything till after her holiday, which despite the pleading of her mother for her to go home, she was spending again at the convent on the Hagley Road.

‘What about Paul?’ Lois asked.

‘What about him?’ Carmel said. ‘When his exams are over he can come and see me. I have my own room there and far more chance of privacy than here in the nurses’ home. I haven’t even had a chance of telling him my feelings have changed so drastically and I will need privacy then.’

Lois could see the sense of that and so could Paul when she told him of her plans. But really all his energies were centred on his finals.

At last, by early July, the dreaded exams were over and Carmel and Paul were making up a foursome with Chris and Lois the following night to celebrate that fact. Carmel was feeling very happy that evening as she was returning from benediction. It was just turning dusk and she was glad that she would be back in the hospital before the dark had really set in, when she heard a distinct groan coming from an alleyway to her right.

She stopped, her senses alerted, and listened as she peered into the gloom of the entry. The low moan came again. Tentatively, Carmel went towards the black hole. Attacks on individuals in the city centre had been getting frequent of late and had made everyone nervous. Carmel did wonder if this was some sort of trick to lure her into an unlit place. Her senses were on high alert as she moved cautiously, feeling the walls with her shaking fingers, expecting any moment to feel hands grabbing at her, pulling her further in.

Scared though she was, she knew even if she hadn’t trained as a nurse, she couldn’t walk past a person groaning in pain as if it was no business of hers.

Anyway, she told herself wryly, if anyone was to attack me in the hope of rich pickings, they would be on a losing wicket because I haven’t a penny piece on me.

All thoughts of it all being some sort of trick fled a few moments later, however, when Carmel’s shuffling feet came in contact with something on the ground. She could see virtually nothing, just a vague mound, and she was suddenly so scared the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She kneeled and put her hands out hesitantly and felt clothing, like a jacket. She wished to God she had some sort of light for she knew there was a person lying there too injured to move. More confidently now, she ran her hands expertly over the prone and twisted form, checking for any kind of injury. She could find nothing obvious until she came to the person’s head, where her fingers located a gaping sticky wound with blood still seeping from it. Gently, she laid two fingers against the neck and felt the pulse. She pursed her lips at the irregularity of it.