A car coughed. She recognized the congested breathing of Mike’s geriatric Volvo. Relief flooded her veins, but it was contaminated by impatience and anger. He should not have put her through this. She now understood the moaning and groaning of so many neglected pub widows.
The door opened, and she was there in a flash. ‘Where the bloody hell have you been? Where’s your phone?’
He steadied himself against a wall. ‘Hospital,’ he managed. ‘Heart attack. Don’t start on me, Lily – I’ve had more than enough today.’ Today? He felt as if he had been gone for two or three weeks.
‘Oh, God. Are you all right? Why have they let you out after a heart attack? Shouldn’t you be plugged into the mains with about fifteen wires?’
‘Eh?’
‘Heart attack?’
‘Not me, woman. The dead man’s mother. She keeled over in the cemetery and I followed the ambulance to town. Phones had to be switched off, and I forgot to turn mine on again. I managed to get the necessary from St Pat’s, so I did Extreme Unction. She lived only four hours, bless her.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not as sorry as I am. She was good fun, a down-to-earth Dubliner, full of Irish jokes and a laugh that would curdle skimmed milk. I liked her, and she died holding my hand. Burying her only son was simply the last straw for her.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘Some days are just plain nasty.’
‘Sorry,’ Lily repeated. ‘But Philly and Dave have been coming and going all day. She’s in a terrible state, and he’s worried about her being in a terrible state. You’d better go through – they’re in the second sitting room. I’ll make myself scarce.’ She went upstairs in order to be out of their way. She knew what was going to be said, but they still required a semblance of privacy.
He walked into the room and saw Philly’s face. ‘Before you start,’ he said, ‘I’m pinching a drop of whisky. Just don’t ask me about today, Philly.’
They waited until he had furnished himself with the required medication.
‘We only did it that once,’ Philly began, hands twisting in her lap.
‘Just once,’ said Dave.
Mike grinned. ‘And you’ve made a baby? That’s the greatest news I’ve had in a while. Leave it to me. I’ll talk to the bish and we’ll get it over and done with before you can say wedding cake.’
‘How did you guess?’ Dave asked.
The priest continued to smile. ‘What else might it have been? Just look at the state of you, Philomena Gallagher, soon to be Barker. Anyone would think you’d bogged off to Wales and emptied the Royal Mint. There’s a new life inside you, a precious child—’
‘He’ll be Catholic,’ said Dave.
‘He’ll be fine,’ pronounced Mike. ‘So stop looking as if you’re responsible for the state of Iraq. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t care if he or she was Jewish or Muslim.’
Philly frowned. He was certainly unlike any other priest she had met, was a thousand miles apart from the clerics who had populated her childhood. What would Mam have thought if she had heard him saying it was all right to be Muslim or Jewish? And he was one for the ladies – she knew that well enough. He was kinder to women, and he listened to them very attentively. She thought about Lily, who was more beautiful than many film stars – they lived together here for some of the time . . .
Mike was going on about the rules, mentioning consanguinity, affinity and spiritual relationship as barriers to marriage. ‘That’s it, then,’ he finished with the air of one dismissing an audience. ‘Please, let me sleep. Today was a month long.’
They left. Mike finished his whisky, poured another, prayed for the lovely Mrs Maguire who had departed this life on the day of her precious son’s funeral. Her levity had been the cloak she had worn to disguise her grief, but the grief had killed her. How many people died because they had simply given up, because their reason for continued existence had been eradicated? Mrs Maguire had been fiercely alive. It was she who used to drag the family across the Irish Sea every time Liverpool FC played some special match, she who had organized the funeral, the wake, the flowers. No one had attended the wake, because they had all been at the hospital praying that she would live.
‘Mike?’
She was behind him. She was behind every thought, every step, every waking moment. Perhaps it was time to run, to start again at the other end of the country – just as she had. Was she an emissary from Satan, a messenger sent to tempt him? Never. ‘What?’
‘Sorry I was angry with you.’
He drained his glass. ‘No matter. I should have checked my messages, but the whole thing became a bit fraught.’
‘It would. Will she be shipped home, or will she be buried with her son?’
‘Dublin, I imagine. She was a beautiful woman. A widow. Five daughters, one son. She’ll go home, I think. The majority vote will carry her back.’
Lily came to stand next to him. The feelings she was experiencing in the presence of this man were supposed to be dead. They had died on the end of a far-reaching knife, words that had cut, fear that had turned her into a near-murderer. While she had fought for life in an intensive care unit, her lawyers had also borne arms, and charges against her had been dismissed. But this was her real sin. Her brain knew full well that there was no future with Father Michael Walsh, but her heart would not be quiet.
‘Difficult?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ How did he manage to know what she thought and how she felt? What had he said? Something about feelings as strong as these moving in two directions? This was not a one-way street – it was a ring road, round and round the edge, don’t turn left or right, do not pass Go, do not collect . . .
‘I’m falling in love with you, Lily Latimer. It isn’t your fault.’
‘Is it yours?’
He shrugged. ‘I should know better. When I see the bishop about Philly and Dave, I should talk to him about this, too. What normally happens in such situations is that the priest gets transferred. I ought to move on to a different place.’
‘I want you to stay.’ Feeling desperate, yet brave, she slipped her hand into his. ‘Never in my life have I felt like this, Mike. Like you, I know it’s wrong.’
‘Wrong?’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘It’s normal. We were created to create. And beyond the merely physical, I have this urge to protect and guard you, while—’
‘While I want to touch your hair. Don’t cut it. Don’t you dare.’
This time, his laughter was real. ‘No, I should get it cropped. If you can’t love me with short hair, the problem is solved.’
It would never be solved. By some strange quirk of fate, the newly created Lily had travelled from the outskirts of Taunton – well, from the centre of Taunton if she counted her business premises – to a largeish village in the north-west of England. Here lived a man for whom she was forbidden fruit, and she had become his Eve. Was this meant to happen? Could she have been sent to release him and to free herself of past nightmares? ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked.
‘You know perfectly well. Unless you really are too injured for such activity.’
Lily swallowed her fear. ‘I don’t know. But I was left in a mess. I have healed, but—’
‘But you may still have pain?’
She nodded. ‘I don’t care.’ She wasn’t a reckless woman, not any more. Since the incident . . . since the series of incidents that had ended in near-death, she had become protective of herself. But she wanted this man. Did she want him because she shouldn’t have him? Was the old Leanne still alive and kicking, still wanting to cock a snook at the world and his wife? ‘I’m not afraid of you,’ she said.
‘Nor should you be.’
The first kiss lasted for several minutes. Each was completely lost in desire for the other; it was so right that Lily concluded it had to be wrong. But her heart won the battle, just as she had expected. The whole thing was inevitable. Neither could make a decision about the future until after the event. So, when the kiss e
nded, she allowed herself to be led to the stairs.
In her room at the top of the house and on a three-quarter bed, Mike and Lily became lovers. There was no pain for her. Sometime in the future she might well find herself wishing that there had been some discomfort – it might help when options were discussed. But, for the present, she was deliriously happy. Lying in the arms of her man, she was too content to worry about the future. He was a priest, yet that no longer mattered.
Remembered reading Charlie Bronson’s Good Prison Guide. He was quite kind to Walton, as he had done thousands of pounds’ worth of damage to the roof, and he had a whale of a time. People can say what they like about Charlie, but he definitely has a sense of humour.
He was right about the Scousers. They are humorous almost to the point of being completely mad. I like them. They don’t suffer fools.
Am off 43, keeping my head down, just making chit-chat and listening to jokes. Bloke called Lofty came to see me. He’s under five feet tall, and very useful when it comes to burglary, because he knows alarms. Dan and I have got a solicitor’s clerk in our back pockets, and Leanne’s money is being traced. I bet a pound to a penny she changed her name.
See, the trouble with this country is that nobody gets paid enough. Bent screws are ten a penny, because their take-home pay is peanuts. Within a couple of weeks, you can get a screw interested in earning a few bob. Drugs, info, booze – whatever – you can get it all in here. All you need is cash – that would have been a better title for the Beatles’ song.
Same with solicitors’ clerks. All he has to do is find his boss’s password and I’ll be on to Leanne. Well, somebody will. Just a matter of time. Have to be patient. Am making boxes out of matchsticks. The excitement is killing me.
Eight
There was no embarrassment.
Lily woke the next morning to find her lover standing by the bed, a breakfast tray in his hands, a yellow rose stolen from her garden clamped between his teeth. With a flourish, he produced a tea towel, and when she had raised herself into a sitting position, he spread this rather less than clean item across her legs and placed the tray on top of it. The rose was handed to her with all due ceremony, then he sat down and poured tea. ‘Breakfast, madam. No orange juice, so no Buck’s Fizz.’ He stood back and bowed. ‘Should Modom require anything further, room service will provide anything within reason. Except, of course, we do not have the aforementioned Buck’s Fizz.’
‘Pity. But thank you all the same.’ She was strangely hungry. Having expected to find the morning after extremely difficult, she discovered herself to be completely at ease with him. Had this been casual sex and no more? She found herself hoping not. Last night had not been his first experience with a woman; he was adventurous, uninhibited, gentle, yet powerful. ‘Have you eaten?’ she asked.
‘Music is the food of love, so I listened to Lonnie Donegan.’
‘Who?’
‘“My Old Man’s a Dustman”.’ He sang a few bars for her, then mopped up spilt tea. ‘It’s a very romantic piece, and you should not be laughing – it betrays a lack of soul,’ he said. ‘If your spirit can’t share the moment with me, don’t spit tea, I beg you. Would you have preferred “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose its Flavour on the Bedpost Overnight?”? It lacks a certain romanticism—’
‘Stop it, or I’ll choke. You’re killing me, Mike.’
He stretched out beside her. The instinct that had drawn him to Lily in the first place was in no way diminished. He needed to make her happy; he wanted to make her laugh. There was, he knew, a lively woman buried deep under layers imposed by life, and he longed for her to tell him her secret fears. But he now knew that he must not push for disclosure, because she would tell him when she chose. He yawned loudly. ‘The good thing about you is that a man could never get truly bored. There’s always an alternative, you see.’
‘Really?’
He nodded solemnly. ‘When sex loses its appeal – as if it ever would – there’s always noughts and crosses.’
‘What?’
‘The scars. If you had a small tattoo to lengthen one side, you have the grid on your belly. Bags me being the X, though. I’m always X.’
He displayed none of the misplaced respect syndrome that might have inhibited any other man. The scars were a part of her, so he embraced them and tried to find a silly use for them. Mike Walsh was almost unbearably lovable. He took hold of life, bit down hard and got on with it. He was doing the same with her toast. ‘Get your own,’ she advised him. ‘I’m starving.’
‘Now, that’s a compliment,’ he said, rising from the bed. ‘I am going shortly to do my job.’ He stared through the beautiful, multicoloured window. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he whispered. ‘Whatever happens, I’ll be here for you – or somewhere for you. The somewhere I have to be today is with the Bishop of Salford. The wedding – Dave and Philly – plus a couple more diocesan matters, like how the hell can I run three churches single-handedly. Everyone expects miracles these days.’
‘Oh, yes. The wedding. She was frightened to death, poor Philly.’
‘I wonder if they’ll have a three-legged Labrador bridesmaid?’ he mused aloud. ‘There’s a possibility that I may mention another small matter to the bishop. Because I don’t want an affair with you, Lily. I want more. He’ll have to be told. Dishonesty is not an option.’
She touched his arm. ‘Mike, don’t do anything in a hurry. We may burn out, then you will have gone to a lot of trouble for nothing. Please wait.’
‘No. I’ve waited long enough, and I didn’t even know I was waiting. It has to be done, with or without you. Not something that can be taken lightly, I grant you, but the Church and I parted company somewhere between Spaghetti Junction and contraception. I have given absolution to several Catholic women whose pregnancies have been terminated for a plethora of reasons. I can’t condone abortion, but I uphold their right to make that terrible, often life-shattering decision. However, I have gone where no good priest should tread – off the map drawn by Rome. Until we get a pope under the age of seventy, priests like me will always be at odds with our bosses.’
Lily didn’t know what to say to him. He loved people, enjoyed his work, was at ease with himself and with God. ‘They used to marry, didn’t they? Priests, I mean. I think they should, then they’d have a better idea of their parishioners’ lives.’
He nodded. ‘True enough, they were married. Then some medieval anal retentive, who was probably impotent, decreed that celibacy was the flavour of his particular month. It stuck. We’re now running out of clergy, the seminaries are empty, and no pope has budged. I can live with what I have done, as can my God. But the bish will have to be told. Many priests go to him only when their women become pregnant. They keep quiet for as long as possible and hope they’ll get away with it.’
‘What happens when there’s a pregnancy?’ Lily asked.
He sighed heavily. ‘You won’t like the answer. Suffice to say that bishops, too, are human. Churches need to be staffed, so priests are encouraged to remain on board whatever the human cost.’
‘And their babies?’
‘Sometimes adopted. Often, the woman is left to her own devices. Husbands rear children who aren’t their own. When a woman is abandoned to her fate, she frequently makes a certain decision. In the eyes of the Church, the sin is hers and hers alone.’ He turned from the window and smiled down on her. ‘The hands of the hierarchy remain clean wherever possible. The women are allowed to pay the price on their behalf.’
‘And your paedophiles?’
‘Don’t make me angry, Lily. Oh, not with you – I didn’t mean angry with you. They hide behind their cassocks for as long as possible. When the stories break, they run to senior clergy and weep, blame the drink, blame a terrible childhood. Historically, they’ve got away with it. Some months away on retreat within a monastery, then back to work in a different place. But it’s also back to square one, because there is no cure. Recently, though, successful prosecution
has begun. I think America and Ireland led the way. So we’ll lose more clergy again.’
‘Thank God,’ she breathed.
Mike smiled sadly. ‘We’re not perfect, you see. Life is full of mistakes, and my church is a part of life.’ He kissed her forehead, then went off to begin another of his flawed days. ‘See you later for noughts and crosses,’ he called up the stairwell.
Lily knew that the flower man would have left her order in the back yard – he had a key. She also accepted that the shop would open a few minutes late today, and she could not manage to worry about it. She felt lighter this morning, steadier and healthier, almost optimistic.
Before stepping into the shower, she paused for a few seconds, because she didn’t want to wash his scent from her skin. That, she informed herself, was the reaction of an animal. Mike didn’t wear perfume. The aroma he had left was warm and embracing, but she had to be clean. ‘At least I won’t need an abortion,’ she said aloud as she stepped into the cubicle. The words of her surgeon were engraved on her soul – ‘It is unlikely that you will carry a child to full term. Pregnancy might even threaten your life. However, you are not going to find conception easy.’ Fair enough. She began to weep. It wasn’t fair at all, was it? Cassie. She was doing so well in her effort to avoid the child – Auntie Lee was probably guilty of neglect.
The tears dried. Lily could not continue unhappy today, because the night had been wonderful. She could love again in the physical sense. Even if that was all she had learned, it had been worth it. But, like him, she wanted more. Life with him was what she longed for. He would not be able to live without work. But Mike was one of the bright sparks who had used his brain before embarking on years in a seminary. He was a fully qualified psychologist, so, if he did quit the church, he would soon find employment. But could he be happy without his flock?
The Reading Room Page 18