A Swift Pure Cry Read Free Page B

over her tongue, sweet and sour at the same time. He leaned against the arm of the matching leather sofa as she drank. He folded his arms and watched. He smiled. A slow warmth filled the room.
    'I'm glad you called when you did,' he said.
    'Why's that, Father?'
    'I'd been having a struggle.'
    'A struggle?'
    'With myself. A terrible craving for the fags.'
    Shell chortled, remembering his sermon. 'You're still off them?'
    'For all Lent, I hope. Please God I last till Easter.'
    'Will you go back on them then?'
    'Maybe. Maybe not.' He shook his head. 'Desperate things, the fags. The hold they have on you. Don't you ever go on them, will you?'
    She didn't like to say she'd already had a few. Declan Ronan shared one around at school sometimes, swapping it between herself and Bridie Quinn: a token of honour, he'd quip, for the founding members of his harem.
    'I hope you don't mind me asking,' Father Rose said, as if he'd read her thoughts, 'but shouldn't you be at school?'
    Shell held up the glass to her face. She peered through the diamond ridges. 'School?' she said. ''S nearly over. We break up soon.'
    'I see.' He got up and walked the length of the room. He stopped at the casement window and stood for a long moment.
    'The other morning,' he said with his back to her. 'In the field. Why were you letting your brother and sister throw stones at you like that?'
    Shell almost drank the fizzing lemon the wrong way.
    'As I came up the hill,' he continued, 'I saw you, standing with your arms outstretched.' He turned to face her.
    Her eyes slanted over to the vase of silk flowers inside the fireplace. She finished the drink.
    'For a moment I thought I was seeing things,' he said. 'A vision from the gospel.'
    'We were only messing.'
    'It seemed an odd game, Shell.'
    There was something in the way he said the words that drew her eyes to his. A soft bowl of light sat in his look, so she told him the truth. 'I was praying, Father. I was making them hurt me so that I could feel the praying. Really feel it. Strong and hard.'
    He got up and took the glass from her. 'Would you like another?'
    'No, Father.'
    'Well, on you go, so.'
    'Yes, Father.'
    He showed her to the door, but as she stepped back out onto the front path, he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. She felt it there, a firm, kind touch.
    'Shell,' he said. 'Prayer doesn't have to be painful. Trust me.'
    She looked up. The wisdom of ages was in his eyes.
    'I do, Father,' she said.
    He let her go. She hurried down the path, through the gate and up the road. She knew he was watching her as she departed, for she did not hear the sound of the front door closing after her.

Four

    After tea that day, Dad led the usual decade of the rosary. They were on the first Sorrowful Mystery, the agony in the garden. Jesus was waiting in anguish of mind to be arrested. Jimmy had his tongue poked off to the side so that his left cheek was like a tent. He stared at the old piano longingly, and wiggled his fingers as if he was playing it. Trix sat back on her heels and stared up at the flypaper Dad had hung up earlier from the lampshade. The first trapped fly was stirring on it, dying. Shell closed her eyes. Dad's voice drifted away. Instead Jesus joined her in his trouble of mind. She walked with him along the gravel path of the priests' house garden. They approached the tall pampas grass, waiting for the soldiers to arrive, and sighed together to think of the coming cross and nails. Jesus , Shell said, I wish I could have the nails instead . He turned to her and took her arm. He had the face of Father Rose, but instead of priestly vestments he wore a long linen tunic of dazzling white. Beneath it, his feet were bare. His face was unshaven, his hair longer. Shell , he said in his dulcet Midlands tone, your sweet love is all the comfort I need on this dark day .
    'Shell!' Dad's voice, stern. 'You've stopped praying.'
    'No, I haven't,' Shell said. 'I was talking to Jesus in my head.'
    'That's blasphemy,'