A Swift Pure Cry Read Free Page A

money calling to her from inside the envelope and wished she'd kept the pieces of silver for herself. She didn't dare take any more. A ball of longing itched her belly. She'd only had an egg all day.
    Mr McGrath saw her from within the shop. He beckoned, his bright red cheeks and big forehead wagging like a toy dog. Shell shrugged her shoulders, as if to say, If only . He came out with a handful of bubblegums. He gave them to her, putting a finger to his mouth.
    'Our secret, Shell. Don't be going telling, or I'll have all Coolbar on to me.'
    'No, Mr McGrath. I won't. Promise.' She blushed as pink as the bubblegum wrappers and went on down the street rejoicing. Jesus had surely rewarded her for the money she'd sprinkled earlier for the parish poor.
    The priests' house was a little way up the street, beyond the church. Father Carroll had lived there ever since Shell could remember with his housekeeper, Nora Canterville. The curates came and went, but they two stayed. Nora, it was proclaimed, was the best cook in the whole of County Cork, famed for a consomme soup as clear as a newborn baby's soul. Dad always said that if you were invited for a meal, you'd leave half a stone heavier than you'd come.
    Shell wasn't expecting to encounter Father Rose. She thought he'd be out on the parish rounds, up at the community hospital or out on Goat Island, the nearby peninsula, saying the mid-week Mass. She rang the bell, thinking of coffee cake, not him.
    There was a long wait before anybody answered. She was about to go, when she heard steps on the stairs, then an approaching tread, sure and measured: too firm for Nora; too swift for Father Carroll. She held her breath. Her stomach fluttered.
    The door opened. Father Rose looked upon Shell, an eyebrow raised, but said nothing.
    'My dad,' she said, holding the envelope forward, 'said to give this to you.'
    He took the envelope by its top, so that the money slid to the bottom. Her cheeks burned at the vulgar clink of change. Money and the Word of the Lord were far from fast friends, as he'd said last Sunday. He was surely thinking of the tables of the moneylenders.
    'It's charity money,' she said. 'For the starving of Africa.'
    'That campaign ended last month,' he said. 'Maybe it's for St Vincent de Paul? That's who we're collecting for now.'
    Shell shook her head as if to say she didn't know.
    'Your dad. He collects it in his spare time, doesn't he?' The money kept jingling. In devastation, Shell stared down at Father Rose's feet. With a shock, she saw they were bare. His dark priest's pants stopped short just above his white, long toes.
    'His whole time is spare, Father,' she stammered. 'He's no job.'
    'No job?'
    'Not since Mam died. He left off the farm work over at Duggans' on account of his bad back.' That was what Dad gave out anyway.
    'He's the job of keeping house and being mother and father to you and your brother and your sister, hasn't he?'
    'S'pose.' She could have said it was herself did most of that.
    'He's a religious man, your father. So Father Carroll tells me.'
    Shell shrugged. 'S'pose.'
    'Do you want to come in for a glass of something? Nora's shopping in town, but I can rustle up something for you.'
    Shell nodded. He didn't move to one side. Instead he made a tall bridge of his arm, so that she could walk under him, through the open door. As she passed beneath, she took care not to tread on his bare feet by accident. The smell of the woven wool carpet and the heavy velvet tick of the big wall clock made her feel the size of an infant.
    'This way, Shell,' he said.
    The way he said her name was like a blessing.
    He opened a door to the best room, at the front, where Shell had never been before. He waved her onto a huge chair of dimpled leather. Then he got a cut glass from a cabinet, and took a small bottle of bitter lemon from a drinks trolley.
    Shell had never liked bitter lemon until then. But as she sipped it now, it fizzed like sherbet on her nose and lip and slipped