A Swift Pure Cry (12 page)

'Boomerang.'

Shell managed a polite titter.

'Now,
that's
what I'd call poetry,' the librarian said.

Twenty-one

Shell lugged the shopping onto the bus. It set her down at the top of the village. The sun shone hard on the red berries on the browning trees and on the parting of her hair. She felt sweat on her back as she walked. Her palms ached from the way the handles on the laden shopping bag dug into them.

She walked through the village in the midday lull. The priests' house had no cars outside it. The dogs from Stack's pub were sunning themselves on the pavement. McGraths' was shut for lunch, with the venetian blind down. She was just about to turn off before the bridge into the fields, when she heard a strange spurting and rumbling from round the bend. It was like a plane in the cinema, when the engine keeps cutting in and out and you know the pilot's in big trouble. She stopped. She knew that sound by now.

Father Rose's purple car jerked over the bridge. The engine failed just as he saw her and the car stopped dead.

He sat with his hands on the wheel, staring down the length of the bonnet, expressionless. The side window was open and she could see his sideburns, fuzzy and rough, and his mouth, closed and tight.

He hadn't said so much as a hello to her in months. The most she got from him these days was a polite, distant nod.

She'd sat through any number of his Masses. But the spark had gone out of them. Something had shifted, gone slack. He read the words in that same even tone but the pictures had evaporated from his sentences. His eyes were fixed, always, on some distant place as he spoke. It wasn't heaven and it wasn't here: it was somewhere in between, a limbo.

She walked towards him. 'Father Rose?' she said. 'Is the car dead?'

He didn't answer, but slowly turned his head to her. 'Hello, Shell,' he said. His lips went up at the corners a fraction. He nodded. 'Not so much dead as resting. The engine's overheated. It will go again soon.'

'She's being bold again, is she? Jezebel?'

He half laughed, half grunted. 'I've a good mind to flog her,' he said. He tapped the steering wheel. 'You've a lot of shopping there, Shell.'

She hugged the bag to herself and felt her cheeks grow hot. It was as if everybody could see through the plastic to the big book that lurked within. 'Only the usual amount,' she muttered.

'I'd give you a lift home-only...' He raised his hands off the steering wheel and flopped them down on it again.

She knew what he meant. It wasn't the resting car. It was as if they could both still hear the echo of Father Carroll's voice whirling around the church sanctuary last Spy Wednesday.
We've no cause to be driving around with unaccompanied females, Gabriel.

'Don't worry,' Shell said. 'I can manage fine.'

'S'long then, Shell.'

'S'long, Father.' She turned into the field.

'And Shell?'

She looked back.

He was looking at her in that old way, the eyes hitting straight into hers like meteorites. She felt as if her sins, Declan, the book, the kissing and everything else were emblazoned on her forehead. She was more naked than she'd ever been in Duggans' field.

She couldn't hold his gaze and shifted her eyes off over his shoulder, biting her lip.

'What?' she managed.

'God bless.'

She nodded. The two simple words went to the heart of her, finding a home deep inside. She flushed, and turned to hide the smile his kindness brought to her face. She nodded at him and walked on up the hill.

Halfway up she heard the choke of his engine, burbling, dying, then starting again. She paused as the sound of his car carried on its way through the village, growing smaller, then dying away in the distance. She put down the bag.
God bless
. His voice was like smoke rising inside her, curling its way along her limbs, up to her head. She stared up to the copse. The trees were turning. The sun shone quiet and gold on their tops. She sat down on the track. The last grasshoppers sang. A sparrowhawk fluttered motionless overhead. In her mind she was up there with him, floating, looking down from a great height on the mundanities of the world.

Twenty-two

Over the next days, Shell spent many hours in the copse reading
Doyle's A-Z of the Human Body
. She kept the book in a plastic bag and hid it under some stones at the edge of the cairn. She took it out in the quiet times of day and read it on the fallen log, close to some timber shavings. That way, if anyone came along suddenly, she could plunge it into the shavings as a temporary hiding place. But nobody ever came. She read all the entries she could find to do with having babies. She looked at the pictures of foetuses, bulging in bellies like young salmon-trout. Then they grew noses and eyes and fists and fingers and slouched backwards, like a map of Ireland. She'd look at the pictures and look at her belly. She couldn't believe any such creature was growing inside her. Her belly was tougher than usual, less spongy. But apart from that it wasn't sticking out in the way the pictures made out. She found the entry again on amenorrhoea. She learned that sometimes the curse didn't come for other reasons.
That's what I have
, she decided.
I've a small dose of amenorrhoea
.

A chat with Mrs Duggan a week later almost convinced her. She'd come to pick up Trix and Jimmy of a Saturday, after they'd been to play. Mrs Duggan was slumped in a chair, her feet on a stool. She told Shell to sit down by her.

'I'm not a well woman, Shell,' she said. 'Trix and Jimmy are getting too much for me these days.'

'I'm sorry, Mrs Duggan. What's wrong with you?'

Mrs Duggan gave a strange smile that was not a smile. 'I'm expecting again. A baby. That's why I'm so tired and sick. Usually a woman gets sick in the first ten weeks or so. Then it goes. But I'm much more far gone, and still as sick as ever.' She grimaced and shuffled on her seat.

'You're
pregnant
, Mrs Duggan?'

She nodded. 'For my sins. I am.' She sighed.

They sat in silence. Shell looked around the kitchen. It wasn't as clean as usual, and Shell realized there'd been no home-made tarts made in ages. Then she looked at Mrs Duggan's belly and realized it was vast. Why had she not noticed before?

'Dr Fallon's told me to rest up to keep the blood pressure down, Shell. I've to ask you not to bring Trix and Jimmy over for now. They're too much on top of my two. Just at present.'

Shell nodded. 'They're terrible for the fighting,' she suggested.

Mrs Duggan gave a limp smile. Her eyes shut, as if she might nod off.

'Mrs Duggan?' Shell asked. 'Can I ask you something?'

'What, Shell?'

'When you're expecting. How can you tell?'

'Don't they teach you biology at school these days?'

Shell shrugged. 'Sort of.'

'I'll tell you how I know, Shell. Every time, without fail, within days, I go right off smoked salmon. Usually it's my favourite treat. We have it Christmas and Easter, or with guests. Jack gets it oak-smoked, from the fisheries the other side of town. But when I'm expecting, the mere thought of the shrivelled pink flesh makes my palms sweat. The smell makes me gag.' She laughed, and tousled Shell's hair. 'It's a sure-fire test. Put a scrap of smoked salmon under my nose and I'll know right off.'

She shut her eyes again, smiling.

Shell stood up. 'Bye now, Mrs Duggan,' she said.

'Bye, Shell. Sorry about Trix and Jimmy.'

'Never worry, Mrs Duggan. They're back to school tomorrow, anyhow.'

She put Mrs Duggan's theory to the test the next day after leaving Trix and Jimmy off at school. She'd stolen some coins from her dad's spare pants and headed into town, where she bought the smallest packet of smoked salmon she could find. She cut open the packet as soon as she got home and smelled it. Then she lay a pink ribbon on a cut of bread and butter and munched on it.

She cut another slice and munched on some more. Then some more until the whole pack was gone. She'd never enjoyed a snack so much.

She threw away the wrapping at the bottom of the rubbish and washed her hands so nobody would smell it off her. Then she sat back on her dad's armchair and breathed out long and hard. She heard Bridie laughing in her head:
Told you so. You're no more pregnant than Mother Teresa
. She saw the calendar, stuck still on May, and got up and turned the pages four months on to September. There was a picture of Jesus on the mountain, feeding the masses with the loaves and fishes. She rehung it and sat back with a smile, hugging herself. The thin needle of fear threaded its way deep into the back of her thoughts again, like an earthworm disappearing into the soil.

Twenty-three

The next day was Thursday. She'd been due back at school for the autumn term two days ago, but instead she mitched off again to meet Declan at the top of Duggans' field. A shock awaited her. The barley had been cut. The field was empty and open, exposed to view all round. Of Declan there was no sign.

She sat by the edge of the copse and waited. A half-hour passed. She picked a Michaelmas daisy and pulled out its petals. She scratched her kneecaps with the long grass ends. She wished she'd brought her body book to while away the time. Just as she thought he wasn't coming, she heard a car hooting from the road. She ran back over the back field to the gate. Declan was inside his dad's new French hatchback.

'Hop in, my lady,' he said, flourishing an arm.

She stared. 'Didn't know you drove,' she said.

'I've the provisional licence this past month,' he said. 'I've been out in it loads of times.'

'Your dad-does he know?'

'Hop in, or I'll drive off without you.' He reached over and opened the passenger door.

She grinned and got in. The seats were of soft grey cloth, the bonnet gleamed navy. It was as pristine and clean as Father Rose's had been jumbled and jaded. Declan pressed a switch to lower the windows and zoomed off. The wind whipped up her hair and coursed past her face. She scrunched up her eyes into the sun. She felt his hand squeeze the top of her knee. Her heart surged. They shot round the bends as if their lives depended on it.

He drove the back roads to Goat Island, the rocky peninsula where sheep grazed. He went down a narrow track to its hidden beach: a strip of colourful shingle, giving way in the middle to fine, pale sand. At the far end, boulders sprawled, fronting a tumbledown cliff.

The cocklers had been and gone. The schools were back. The place was deserted.

'Fancy a dip?' Declan said, changing where he sat. He'd his pants off already.

'Not me,' said Shell. ''S cold.'

'Go on. Just 'cos it's September, doesn't mean it's frozen.'

Shell shivered. 'I've no costume.'

'Go in starkers, then. There's nobody about.'

'I'll put my toe in.'

Declan laughed. He clouted her with his T-shirt, and ran straight from the car to the surf. She watched him striding in through the shallows, going '
Hoo-ha-ha-hoo
' as the breakers slapped up against him. She clapped as he took a nose-dive.

Suddenly something flip-flopped inside her. Like a leaf falling from a tree. Or a guitar chord hovering after it's been strummed. She grabbed her belly.

What the hell was that?

Declan's head bobbed up. 'C'm in, Shell. It's gorgeous.'

She couldn't breathe. Something was twitching under her hands.
God Almighty. What's happening?

She tore off her clothes and ran down to the sea, naked. She screamed as the cold water banged up against her and plunged headlong into a wave.

Her scalp stung. Her jaw was like ice. She could feel nothing.

Declan had her by the ankles and was dragging her in further. She splashed her arms as hard as she could. Anything so as not to think. The numbness spread from head to toe.

They had a seaweed fight. Then a game of Float-the-waves. But soon they got cold. They came out and dried off on Declan's towel. Shell shivered back into her clothes. They walked over to the cliff and crawled into a cave through a crack only the locals knew of. Haggerty's Hellhole, it was called. He pinched her behind as she led the way on all fours. She yelped.

'You're like a ewe on heat,' he said.

'You're like a bull with its horns stuck, Declan.'

'Stuck where?'

'Dunno. In a gate. No, a thornbush.'

He pinched her again.

There were four lager tins and cigarette butts left from the last occupants.

'Haven't been here in years,' she said, standing up in the silent dimness. 'I remember Mam showing it to me when I was little.'

'We boys used to bring victims in here for torturing,' Declan recalled. 'Girls. D'you remember?'

'No. You never caught me. I was always too fast for you.'

'You still are.'

'Give over. You're the fast one.' She shivered. 'What did you do to them when you got them in here? The girls you did catch?'