Lisa McInerney - The Glorious Heresies

She sat on the grass outside her borrowed tent and watched the sun set. Across the way, Saskia waved and eventually came to sit beside her, and Maureen gave her a beatific smile and patted her knee. As the dew formed they got to talking. Saskia told Maureen about her upbringing down in Kerry — ‘Not too different to this, if you can believe it’ — and Maureen listened with polite patience as crane flies skimmed the blades in front of them and faraway engines swept the roads.

‘It was so unstructured, so sloppy , my childhood,’ said Saskia. ‘No rules, no pressure, and I rebelled in all sorts of oddly conservative ways. Everything my parents believed in, I condemned. Consider they believed in personal freedom and you get a snapshot of a real buttoned-up brat. I studied hard and went to university to spite them, not to suit myself. Graduated a virgin and found myself at a loose end because I had absolutely no interest in my law degree. So what did I do? Ran off and joined a cult.’

‘A cult?’

There was something more on Saskia’s face now, threaded through sun-darkened freckles and crows’ feet. Disgust. It lit her up the way a smile should. Maureen winced in solidarity as the younger woman’s voice continued, cracked, ‘Well, when you look at Christianity that’s essentially what it is, isn’t it? Sorry, Mo. I hope you’re not offended by that, but it’s what I really think.’

‘I’m not offended,’ Maureen said, mildly.

‘I was baptised by a real shower of freaks. The kind that hate absolutely everything: men are masters to be obeyed, women are dangerous sluts, sexuality has to be controlled to the nth. I lived with them for a couple of years until I remembered that Jesus wasn’t supposed to be a subjugating bastard. I ran, and ended up with another bunch of Christians, but the doddering, smiley kind. But they had money and they had space, so I stayed with them and tried to live the life and be a decent disciple. Five years. Would you believe that?’

‘So what happened?’

‘Sudden disillusionment. A whole life swept away in the blink of an eye. We’re pretty fragile, you know?’

She was staring straight ahead. Maureen mimicked her. They divided the washed-out evening light between them. On the other side of the field, the hermit mother held one of the children at arm’s length to brush burs off its back and legs.

‘There was another girl down there with us for the last couple of years,’ Saskia continued. ‘Had problems with alcohol, wandered into the light pissed. She had a relationship with one of the men and she got pregnant. All that Christian love just melted away. The guy’s family muscled in and insisted on custody of the baby. Poor girl, she was distraught. The Christians refused to back her up. Told the guy’s family that they were right to assume guardianship because the girl had been on the game before she’d turned to Jesus. They waited for their opportunity to stitch her up and by God, did they take it. She ran off; who knows where she is now? About a week later I took off too.’

Small world , thought Maureen, but she said nothing.

‘I hope she’s OK,’ said Saskia.

‘And are you OK?’

‘I’m getting there.’

‘I thought I needed a confessor,’ said Maureen. ‘One time. Took me a while to realise but in the end it came to me…’ And she paused, let the thought permeate, like a bead of brilliant colour dropped into a glass of water. ‘There’s nothing there. No confessor, no penitent, no sin, no sacrament. Just actions to be burned away.’

‘Burned? Strong word.’

‘Nothing as cleansing as a fire,’ Maureen said.

Ryan knew it was going to be a disaster before they’d even packed the car. He stood in the sitting room with Joseph and stared down at the provisions with despair and affection; Karine, in the bathroom at the top of the stairs checking her festival braids, had stacked her life’s effects in the middle of the floor. Two bags of clothes. An inflatable mattress. Three pillows. A mirror. A toiletries case in which you could fit half-a-dozen small appliances. A pair of pink wellington boots with a faux fur trim, her knock-off Uggs and two pairs of flats. A duvet.

‘A fucking duvet, Cusack.’

‘I know.’

‘You’re going to have to talk to her.’

‘I know.’

She hadn’t wanted to go in the first place, so the notion of having to chastise her before they’d even left the house struck him as counter-productive. Karine loved music but Ryan could imagine occasional furniture more outdoorsy. Joseph had demanded a wingman for Electric Picnic and Ryan had been more than happy to oblige, but Karine would be damned if she was letting him go drinking for a weekend without a chaperone. She didn’t trust him. And he was glad she was coming with him because he didn’t fucking trust her either.

She’d tried to persuade him to select one of the ‘glamping’ options — some colossal wigwam that cost a grand to rent for the three days and came with its own monkey butler, he assumed — but he’d told her it wasn’t right to two-tier their party. They’d camp in the main grounds with Joseph and his buddies. She had pouted. He had told her she didn’t have to come at all. They had had an almighty row about it that had lasted a whole week.

‘A fucking duvet,’ Joseph said again.

Karine came down the stairs rooting in her bag and started when she saw them.

‘What’s the matter?’ she said, brightly, but her eyes were steel-set. Half past eight in the morning and she was raring for round two.

Joseph said, ‘We’re going to look like we’ve been looting.’

‘What?’

‘Seriously, Karine. There’s less shit in the Argos catalogue.’

‘What do you propose I leave behind?’ she said, folding her arms.

Ryan raised his eyebrows at Joseph, who met the challenge and scowled back.

‘Tell her,’ he said.

‘Tell her what, boy?’

‘Tell her this is too much stuff.’

Ryan sat back onto the couch and ran his hands over his head. Joseph took the car keys from the coffee table and bumbled around the installation and out of the room, tutting. Karine’s nails, specially painted black with neon rainbow stripes, drummed against her upper arms.

‘There’s got to be some stuff you don’t need,’ Ryan said.

‘What,’ she enunciated, ‘do you. Propose. I leave behind?’

‘I don’t know. Most of the shoes? A metric tonne of the make-up? We’re going to a festival, girl, not searching for Doctor fucking Livingstone.’

‘You’re being mean to me already,’ was her reply.

‘I’m not being mean to you already.’

‘You are,’ she said. ‘You never wanted me to come.’

‘Don’t be daft.’

‘It’s true. You’ve been trying to put me off for weeks. You’d much rather be up there on your own, wouldn’t you? You could fuck whatever slut you liked then.’

The words were caustic and he deserved them; Elena from Salerno had been the kick-off of a really bad habit. He looked up at Karine and she stared back at him, flushed, and maybe it was just because it was early morning or the start of a potentially great weekend or maybe even because he was a bit hungover, but he didn’t want to fight with her, couldn’t see the justification tucked into that pile of superfluous wossnames.

She identified the change in him and reeled back the tantrum.

‘I just don’t want to be uncomfortable, Ryan.’

‘But you won’t be, girl.’

‘I will be! I hate being mucky and I hate not having anywhere to shower and… and you know the girls he’ll have around him. Joseph. You know his mates. They’ll be all these ripped tights rocker bitches and that’s not me at all and…’ She exhaled. ‘They’re all gonna hate me.’