A Swift Pure Cry

by Siobhan Dowd

  'Shell Talent,' she said. 'Only you. I thought I heard that jingle-jangle bell. What are you after?'

  Shell drew the mac around herself. No chance of Mrs McGrath taking a penny off anything.

  'I'll just take these,' she said, choosing some cheaper fruit gums.

  She paid for them.

  'D'you want a bag?' Mrs McGrath minced.

  'No, 's all right.' She put the pack of gums into one of the mac pockets.

  Mrs McGrath stared. Her flabby lips went crooked, her tiny eyes were sharp as pinheads. 'Why've you that big old coat on?' she said.

  'There's heavy rain forecast, Mrs McGrath,' Shell said.

  Mrs McGrath peered. 'I'd say.'

  'I'd best be off before it starts.'

  'Before what starts?'

  'The rain, Mrs McGrath. 'S due any minute.' She edged towards the door.

  Mrs McGrath came from behind the counter, as if she was going to pounce. 'It's a fine day, Shell. Not a cloud in sight.'

  Shell whisked herself through the door, closing it behind her with an almighty jingle-jangle. She could feel Mrs McGrath's pinhead eyes digging in between her shoulder blades as she strode off down the street. She'd not got far when, like an answer to a prophecy, rain came, even though the sun still shone. It plastered down, a freak deluge. She scrambled up the muddy hill, munching the gums as she went, laughing out loud as droplets trickled down her hair and neck.

  That'll show you, Mrs McGrath, she thought. Cabbage-face.

  Twenty-eight

  December arrived, misty and cool. Trix hung up the advent calendar from two years ago, the last one Mam had bought them, on the wall again. Shell had re-shut the doors with sellotape and every morning, Trix and Jimmy took turns to open one with the nail scissors. They counted down the days to Christmas.

  'Are the presents bought, Shell?' Trix asked.

  Shell blinked. 'Presents?'

  'Last year we had chocolate money. And bath cubes.'

  Shell remembered how Dad had surprised them on Christmas morning with some last-minute gifts. There was no chance of him doing the same this year, going by his current doom-laden looks. If there were any presents to be bought-or stolen-she'd have to do it.

  'Santa will surely bring something,' she promised.

  'Huh.' Trix shook her head. 'Santa's stupid.'

  'Who says?'

  'Jimmy says. He says only stupid people believe in him. Or flying reindeer. Or God.'

  'Does he?'

  'Yeh. He says they're all pretend.'

  Shell looked at the angel peaking out from behind a cloud through the advent calendar window. The angel, Santa, Jesus and the Virgin Mary all seemed to float away to the land of fairy tales.

  'Is he right, Shell?' Trix eyed her challengingly.

  Shell pinched her chin. 'Dunno, Trix. All I know is, there's nothing wrong with being stupid. Stupid people are sometimes right.'

  Trix frowned, considering. Then she put her hand out to touch Shell's belly.

  'Will it come for Christmas, Shell? Our secret? Like Jesus did?' Her eyes glistened.

  'Dunno, Trix. Don't think so. January, more prob'ly.'

  'January?'

  Shell nodded.

  'January?' Trix turned away, her lips wobbling. ''S ages away.'

  Shell stroked her neck. 'Whisht, Trix. Santa will have something else for you before then, wait and see.'

  Every morning she walked Trix and Jimmy to school, climbing up the back field, around the copse, and down the side of Duggans' field. Jimmy went first, Trix next and Shell last, hugging her vast middle. They were like the three kings with no star to follow. Shell was winded by the top of the copse, and in the frosty air her breath came out in white balloons. At the turn-off to the village, she shooed them on to the last lap without her.

  Dad stayed away in Cork, mostly. Shell had a notion he'd a woman there. One morning, while spying in his wardrobe, she'd found lipstick on his shirt collar. The money in the piano had shrunk down to the last hundred.

  One day, she thought, he'll go off to the city and never come back.

  In the day time she'd go into town for messages. She'd take the bus from the stop beyond the village, going in at lunch time, when no one was about. Then she'd come home, sweep the floor and maybe bake something if the humour was on her. In the dim afternoons she'd shuffle out of her shoes and sit on the armchair. She lit the electric-bar fire, listening to the fizz as the metal elements glowed red, then orange.

  The baby jostled when she was still.

  Kevin. Hughie. Paul. She shook her head. No. Gabriel. She smiled.

  What if it was a girl?

  Her mind went blank. Then she had it. Rose.

  'Shell,' Jimmy said that evening.

  'Get on with your homework, Jimmy.'

  He threw his pen down. ''S done.'

  'Don't believe you.'

  Jimmy poked his cheek out, tent-like, with his tongue. 'Mr Duggan's first cow's calved.'

  'Already?'

  Jimmy nodded. 'It was early. Too early, Mr Duggan says.'

  Shell stared.

  'Saw it coming out, Shell. After school. Mr Duggan let me and Liam watch.'

  'And?'

  'It came out the cow's bottom.'

  Trix stared up from her work, open-mouthed.

  'So?' said Shell. 'Where else would it come out from?'

  'Mr Duggan had some twine. He wrapped it round the small hooves and yanked it.'

  'Ugh,' said Trix.

  'Didn't pop out, Shell. Not like toast.'

  'No?'

  'Least, not at first. Once it started, then the rest slid out. Kind of.'

  'There then.'

  'Didn't look nice,' Jimmy said.

  Shell tutted. 'That was one unlucky cow,' she said. 'Usually they just drop.'

  'And Shell--'

  'Get back to that homework, Jimmy. You too, Trix.'

  'There was all this stuff came out too.'

  'Stuff? What stuff?'

  'Muck.'

  Trix grimaced. 'Ick.'

  'What kind of muck?'

  'Brown lumps. Ooze. Jelly, like. Mr Duggan said it was the afters. And know what?'

  'What?'

  'The cow tried to eat it. And she licked all the goo off the calf too.'

  Shell shuddered. 'Get back to that work. Now.'

  Jimmy picked up his pencil. Trix turned a page. The fridge hummed.

  'A cow's a cow,' Shell said. 'Babies come out soft and white. You'll see.'

  A terrible hunger came on her as they got on with their work. She went through the larder to find something to eat, but every last cut of bread had gone.

  'Shell,' Jimmy resumed.

  'What? '

  'When-you know what...' He pointed at her lump and rolled his hand around.

  She frowned. 'Yes? '

  'What are you going to do with it?'

  She stared at him.

  'She's going to hide it. Aren't you, Shell?' Trix piped up.

  Shell's lips pursed.

  'Where?' scoffed Jimmy.

  'She could put it in a drawer,' Trix mused. 'Or under the bed.'

  'Dad'd hear it crying, stupid,' Jimmy said.

  'No, he wouldn't.'

  'Yes, he would.'

  'Would.'

  'Wouldn't.'

  'Shush, the pair of you,' Shell shouted. She clapped her hands over her ears.

  Jimmy chewed his pencil end. 'Well? What are you going to do?' he called out.

  Shell thought of Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt from King Herod's rage. She thought of baby Moses, floating down the river in his basket. She took her hands off her ears. 'Don't you worry about that, Jimmy,' she said. 'You'll see. I've it all worked out.'

  Twenty-nine

  But she hadn't.

  She read and re-read the body book until she knew the birth section by heart. The words contractions, dilations, amniotic fluids, caesareans, episiotomies swam before her eyes, muddling themselves up into a labyrinth of nor
mal and abnormal, dos and don'ts, befores and afters. She slammed it shut, thinking, You just get down on your knees and push and hope. And push some more.

  Then the what-ifs started.

  What if...? She sat in the armchair on the darkening afternoons, with the wind howling around the guttering and the rain slanting in from the west. What if...? No. She hadn't it all worked out. She didn't know what to do. She bit her lip. She needed somebody. Somebody other than Trix and Jimmy. Somebody she could go and tell. If only Bridie'd been around. She'd have thought up some madcap plan, which was better than no plan at all. She looked at the holy calendar. The December picture was of Mary and Child. The Virgin's blue robe rippled over her front and knees, the baby sat up straight and blessed the world. Madonna with child plus a thirty-three J Wonderbra, she heard Declan quip. Who had Mary told? she wondered. Her own mother, probably. Then her mother had told her father. Then her father had told Joseph. Soon everybody'd known. Everybody'd understood.

  Her eyes fastened on the piano. The lid was up. Jimmy'd been playing the night before, as usual. She pictured her own mam on the stool, her right foot poised over the pedal, her fingers trawling over the notes, bringing out the light, soft tunes. 'Mam, I've something to tell you,' she tried out loud. The figure at the piano slowly turned, her eyes a question. A faint smile hung on her lips. 'What, Shell? ' The notes on the piano dangled, the tune hovered. Shell couldn't bring herself to go on. ''S nothing, Mam. Sorry. Go on.' But instead of turning to play on, the figure dissolved, leaving a great gap behind. Shell got up and shut the lid down to hide the keys.

  Then Shell thought of Mrs Duggan, Mam's best friend: she was the obvious person to tell. But she was in the regional hospital. She'd gone there before her own baby came and hadn't come back yet. They'd said there'd been a complication, but nobody knew what.

  Her only other friend was Bridie Quinn. Shell couldn't see what use she'd be, even if she wasn't up in Kilbran, as her family made out, or in America, as Theresa Sheehy claimed.

  There was nobody.

  Then she thought of Father Rose.

  She remembered him making a bridge for her with his arm. God Bless, Shell. Are you happy, Shell? Trust me, Shell. As I came up the hill, Shell, I saw you. His words swirled around her head, his eyes looked at her across the shafts of church light. In haste, before she could change her mind, she grabbed Dad's big mac and dashed out. In the driving rain, she clambered up the back field and down to the village. Her head bent into the wind, her hands went numb from cold. The rain blew hard, turning to sleet. The puddles rippled iron-grey.

  The village was quiet, with no life or soul to it. It was Tuesday, the usual afternoon for church confessions. She'd not been to confession for ages, not since Lent, when Father Carroll had absolved her of the usual rigmarole of sins she'd concocted. Arguing with my brother. Not doing what Dad says. Missing class. She said the same three sins every time, and if he noticed, he never said. Today, Father Rose might be hearing confessions instead. If so, she could go into the box and tell him everything. It'd be dark, with the metal grid between them, making his face a silhouette. He'd be bound by the vow of silence. He'd listen to her. He'd tell her what to do.

  She let herself into the church. She'd not been there in weeks.

  It was deserted. The wind chased itself around the four walls. The statues stared blankly down the aisles.

  She put her fingers in the font and blessed herself through force of habit. She bobbed her right knee down and walked softly to the confessional box. The sinner's door was ajar. Over the priest's door was the sign. FATHER ROSE. She stepped into the sinner's cubicle. With difficulty she knelt down.

  'Father?' she said. There was no reply.

  'Father Rose?'

  Nothing. She was on her own. There was no shape on the other side of the grid. Perhaps they'd changed the times of the confessions in her months of absence. Perhaps he'd given up waiting for sinners and gone off for his tea.

  She rested her head on the damp sleeves of her mac and spoke.

  'Bless me, Father,' she stumbled. 'For I have sinned. I've stolen two bras from Meehans'. I've gone naked in Duggans' field with Declan Ronan. Now I'm up the pole and don't know what to do.'

  Ah, Shell, she seemed to hear in reply. That's a litany of sins, all right. But nothing God won't forgive. If you say three Hail Marys and a Glory Be and try not to do those things again, you'll be right as rain and on the road to heaven.

  She felt her shoulders shaking; she was half giggling, half crying. Jimmy's right. Only stupid people would believe in it. She got up from the kneeler and struggled out of the box. The whole church is a show. Laughter threatened to erupt from her throat. She swallowed to choke it back. She didn't genuflect before the altar, but rushed down the aisle towards the door, desperate to get out. The vague incense smell, the dark shadows and eerie silent statues rushed in around her like crowds of bats. Just as she reached the back of the church, she heard the vestry door open and a brisk tread at the other end. She froze.

  'Hello there. Have you come for confession?'

  It was Father Rose's voice, calling out in the dark, strange and flat in the empty space.

  She paused by the side door. 'No, Father,' she said without turning.

  'Is that Shell, by any chance?'

  A warmth had crept into the words now, the familiar I-know-just-what-you-feel tone he'd always had for her. She looked over her shoulder, digging her hands deep into the mac. She saw him a long way down the aisle, standing, arms folded, in a dark cassock. She couldn't make his face out in the dimness of the unlit church.

  'It's been a while.'

  She gave a fragile smile. 'Yes, Father. 'S only me.'

  'Did you come here to pray?' he suggested, taking a step towards her.

  She bit her lip. 'Pray?' She faltered as if she didn't know the word.

  'Or maybe just to shelter. From the rain?'

  She nodded. 'The rain. That was it.'

  'Churches, Shell,' he said. His right hand flipped through the air, as if drawing back an invisible curtain. She heard him sigh. His hand dropped back to his side. 'They at least have that use.' The sentence rolled down the aisle towards her, with the words twisting around each other, cutting faith to ribbons. Something had slipped from him, like a mooring rope or a firm banister, just as it had slipped from her. It was as if they'd both been stranded, left in the same dark and hopeless place. She reached for the door, blindly. She couldn't turn, or he'd see what she'd turned into; she could never have lived with the shame. She fumbled for the handle.

  'They do, Father,' she cried. 'They do have that use.' She hardly knew what she said or meant, but before he could answer, she'd let herself back out into the relentless cold of the day. She half ran back through the village. Nobody was about. She breathed out in relief as she climbed up the blustery hill.

  The rain eased. She bent over halfway up, exhausted suddenly. When she stood upright, a pain unfolded, heavy and half-remembered. The curse, back again. Lemon clouds parted. A feeble sun filtered through. Her ears were hot. She panted, enjoying the last of the drizzle on her forehead. The pain curled up in a ball in the small of her back and faded away. She continued up the hill. There is nothing he could have done, she thought. I'm on my own.

  The wind carried a loud whooping up to her ears. She turned back. Trix and Jimmy were running towards her, waving their arms like whirling windmills. They were out already from school. She'd no idea where the time had gone. She waited for them by the copse, shivering in her mac. I'm on my own, apart from Trix and Jimmy, she thought. We three. We're in this together.

  Thirty

  Jimmy had the air of 'We Three Kings of Orient Are' picked out on the piano. He sat there, doodling on the keys most of the evening, while Trix and Shell made some angel wings out of an old cornflakes box.

  The dull pain came and went. The rain started up again. Shell lit the second bar of the electric fire even though Dad had forbidden it. It was Tuesday; there was s
mall chance of him appearing before Friday, so he wouldn't know. She laid his mac across the kitchen door to keep out the draught and pressed the curtains up against the windowsill with oddments from around the house. Her hands were ice-cold even so.

  She warmed oxtail soup, two tins of it, for tea. She drank her bowl quickly, feeling it scald her gullet as it went down. She was shivering again.

  The pain came again, stabbing and definite. She leaped to her feet with it. Her chair toppled to the floor.

  Trix and Jimmy stared. 'What's wrong, Shell?' Jimmy said.

  She didn't answer. Her eyes seized on the holy calendar above the piano, fastening on the drapes of the Virgin's robe, following the creases.

  'What's wrong, Shell?' Trix said.

  She grabbed the table. 'Nothing.' She picked up her chair and sat down again, grabbing her middle. 'Nothing's wrong.'

  'Nothing?'

  'Nothing. Just remembered something I forgot. That's all.'

  She got up and walked around the room.

  'What was it?' asked Trix.

  'What was what?'

  'The thing you forgot?'

  'What thing I forgot?'

  Jimmy tapped two fingers on his forehead. 'She's gone doolally,' he told Trix in a loud whisper.

  'Hurry up with that soup,' Shell said. 'It's bed time.'

  'No it isn't. It's only seven.'

  'If I say bed time then it's--' She stopped and dropped to her haunches. 'Bed time.'

  'What about my wings?' Trix said.

  'You can finish them in the morning.' The pain subsided. 'Or maybe now, if you're fast.'

  Trix and Jimmy drank down their soup. They clattered the bowls into the sink while Shell cleared the table. Trix got her wings out and opened her paint box up. She filled a mug with water and dipped in the brush. Jimmy went back to the piano. He'd 'Jingle Bells' going now as well.