by Anne Donovan
I know. Ms Harris turned tae Kevin, who was resting his heid on the table, eating chips sideyways. So Kevin, how was it for you?
I’ll never forget the sofa that Emily died on.
Night, girls. I’m just next door if you need anything. Ms Harris closed the door firmly.
D’you think that’s a gentle hint? said Alice.
How d’you mean? asked Lucy.
Telling us she’s next door so we won’t try and sneak into the boys’ room.
As if. Sana peered in a hand mirror. Why do spots always come in the most obvious places?
It has been known. Alice pulled her hair back in a pony tail. But then, Hassan would rather study, Lee has been going with Nicole since they were in Primary Four, Kevin has a mental age of eight, Danny prefers boys.
Danny’s gay? Lucy looked confused.
I’m not sure if he knows it himself yet. But trust me, he is.
Alice, you’re winding us up.
Wait and see.
That leaves Jas, said Katie. Mibbe she’s worried about you two lovebirds, Fi.
I could feel my face colouring.
You’re just jealous, said Alice.
Dead right, said Katie. He’s gorgeous, clever, polite, mature. For years everybody fancied him and he never went out with anyone – then along comes Fiona and ten minutes later they’re love’s young dream. I just wish he had a brother.
He has.
Really. Could you arrange a double date?
He’s a lot older, I said. Twenty-five. Lives in London.
Even better.
Brothers aren’t always alike, said Sana. Look at mine.
Yeah, look at them, said Katie. They’re both gorgeous too.
This is so superficial, said Lucy. I mean, how would you feel if guys were discussing us like that, just our looks.
They do, though.
That doesn’t mean we should do the same. Personality’s more important.
I just wish I’d the chance to find out – no one’s ever interested in me.
Aw you wee soul.
What is it like, though, Fiona?
How d’you mean?
Well, you and Jas have been together, what … six months?
Aye.
So … I mean?
Oh shut up, Katie – you’re embarrassing Fiona. Sana put her mirror away. I’m shattered – put the light out would you, Alice?
Sure, kids. Nightie night.
Lying awake in the dark, a splinter of light falling across my pillow – even though I was exhausted, I couldnae drop off. Katie’s questions kept running in my heid. She assumed, all of them probably assumed, that me and Jas slept thegether. Or at least had sex somewhere – in a car, in the park, in the house when everyone was out. And we never. But it was mair than that – it was that we never talked about why we never. I’d nae idea whether he thought I didnae want to or if he didnae want to or what. There was this invisible unspoken barrier between us. Of course the official line was that sex is only for when you were married, but could it really be that bad if you loved each other? I was sure Jas and me would always be thegether but getting married was something far in the distance. Did Jas believe we could wait till after uni, after we’d got jobs, afore it happened?
I turned on my side, put my cheek on the cool scratchy pillow. It felt so weird – the first time I’d spent the night under the same roof as Jas. A few feet away, through thin walls, he was lying on a bed like this, his cheek on an identical pillow. Lying, asleep mibbe, or awake, thinking of … what? My face flushed again at the thought of him, of us. And though the weariness of the travelling, of the day, seeped through me, it was a long time afore my mind could let go enough for me to fall asleep.
IT WAS COMING up Easter, make or break time. If I didnae go this week, it was a mortal sin. Even Da said, Make sure you get tae confession afore Good Friday, girls.
It was easy when Mammy was alive. Everything had a routine then, she held it all thegether. Ten o’clock mass every Sunday, confession the last Saturday of the month, slipping intae the dark cool chapel at five o’clock, hoping there wouldnae be too long a queue because if there was we’d miss Blind Date on TV. We all went, the six of us, in the same order every month; first Mammy, then Daddy, then me, Patrick and the twins when they were old enough. When Patrick started working he didnae always go with us tae confession but he went tae mass on Sunday right enough, and Mammy always worked out which mass he could go to on Holy Days of Obligation, depending on his shift. Whatever else happened we had tae get wur souls cleaned.
When I was wee I used tae imagine my soul like a cross between a cloud and a honeycomb; it had the insubstantial shape of a cloud drifting across the sky, but when you looked closely it was made of wee hexagonal shapes all joined thegether. It was in your chest, just underneath your simmet, but naebody could see it except God. I thought God’s eyes must be like a microscope. Miss Mackay once showed the class pictures of wriggling beasties which live inside your skin but you can only see with a microscope. But that couldnae be right either because the soul was huge, spreading out towards your sides under your oxters. However he did it, God could see your soul and he could tell by its colour whether you were good or bad.
Someone who was perfect, like a saint, had a shiny white soul, like new net curtains. The mair sins you committed the mankier your soul became till it looked like a greasy auld flaircloth, washed too many times. That’s if they were venial sins of course. Commit a mortal sin and your soul turned pure black instantly. My granny said if you died in a state of mortal sin you’d go straight tae Hell, a place I found hard tae imagine because it was supposed to be like a fire so hot you were just burning up all the time. That was afore we had the central heating and I could never imagine being too hot. Hell would of seemed mair real if it was like the cold draught doon your back when you were in the bathroom or the freezing sheets when you got intae your bed in the winter.
I didnae think I’d ever committed a mortal sin but was all too aware of the wee grey smudges of venial sins defiling the purity of my soul. Every night I knelt doon beneath the statue of the Sacred Heart and the grey plastic replica of the Lourdes grotto with its figures of Our Lady and Bernadette glowing luminously in the dark, and examined my conscience.
I never got out of bed right away when I was called, I never ate all my cornflakes that the starving children in Africa would of been grateful for, I dawdled on my way tae school, I laughed when James McCluskey wet hisself at gym, I didnae help my mammy in the hoose.
Each day was a catalogue of things done and undone, sins of commission and omission. Every night afore I went tae sleep I prayed that next morning I’d wake up and find mysel a new-born baby again. I closed my eyes tight, imagined mysel in my cot, able tae start all over again and this time I would be perfect. All my sins wiped out. If only I had another chance at life I could make a much better job of it.
It was that simple then. But with her gone, things had got intae a guddle. We still went to mass, but no necessarily thegether. Sometimes Da was too hungover fae the night afore to get up for ten so he’d go tae night mass, creeping guiltily out the house at hauf six. Sometimes we’d sleep in and have to go tae a later mass, twelve o’clock mibbe, which meant the rest of the day limped along as if haufy it had been lost. We went tae confession the last Saturday of the month as we always had – the days were still marked out on the calendar in the kitchen for us – but after a few month that stopped. The twins pretended they went at school and I’d given up on my da. I did go tae confession a few times by mysel. I wanted to talk about how I felt about the baby and my mammy, but I couldnae, and after reciting a list of faults like lossing my temper and being jealous and no concentrating hard enough at mass I’d leave the wee box feeling worse than when I went in. I couldnae believe God would forgive me for sins I hadnae the courage tae confess. So I stopped gaun. But it was Palm Sunday the morra, and next week was Easter. And if I didnae go by then it was a mortal sin.
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sp; Anyway, surely it couldnae be that bad. Father O’Hara was a fire and brimstone kind of preacher, using the word hell more often than was considered normal these days, and in nearly every sermon he talked about the necessity for Catholics to produce mair missionaries. Since Catholics in Scotland could barely scrape up enough young men to cover their ain parishes, this seemed unlikely. But in the confessional he was gentle and undemanding, saying softly, God bless you child. Da said it was because he was deif and couldnae hear yer sins, but whatever the reason, it’d be better tae get it over with. There was extra confessions on after mass this week and it’d be even busier than normal so he probably wouldnae even know it was me.
But next day, insteidy Father O’Hara bumbling about on the altar there was a new wee priest started at St Clare’s. He looked like a sixth-year pupil in his neatly pressed trousers, fair hair cut short round his ears and I kind of assumed he’d be a bit mair modern in his outlook.
Afore the mass started he tellt us that Father O’Hara had went intae hospital for a routine op and was expected to be convalescent for a while. A wave of muttering passed through the congregation then everything carried on as normal. And when the young priest took the lectern and produced a magazine which he waved in fronty him, the parishioners settled doon with interest. Mibbe we were in for some parallels between the life of Jesus and an article on one of the latest beauty treatments – beauty for the soul or some such.
Brothers and sisters, this magazine was given to me on a recent visit to Boots, placed in my bag along with my purchase of razor blades and toothpaste. Usually I would ignore such reading matter but I found myself flicking through it in order to help throw some light on contemporary life. And as well as the expected lamentable interest in expensive products designed to so-call improve bodies and faces that God in his infinite wisdom and love has created, I came across this particular article.
He opened the page and waved it at the congregation.
‘Me Time’, it’s called. Addressed to women, the main thrust of the article is that modern women have no time to relax, are stressed out by the demands of running homes and careers and need to carve out ‘me time’. The article is full of suggestions as to how they may do this, some of which, like going away to spas and health clubs, cost thousands of pounds, and all of which involve being selfish.
And that’s not my word, that is their word – it’s screamed at us in bright pink letters. BE SELFISH – you deserve it. So degraded has our society become that even a magazine handed out in a chemist’s shop encourages us to be sinful. Even worse – uses the words of sin as something we should strive for.
Be selfish. Shut your children out of your bedroom and take some ‘me time’ – chill out with a magazine and a glass of wine. Get a babysitter and go and have your nails done. The most precious gifts of God are not as important as trivial, superficial rubbish.
Would the Blessed Virgin have shut Jesus out of her room to take some ‘me time’? Can you imagine Our Lady dumping her child on an irresponsible teenager in order to beautify herself?
Brothers and sisters, it may look as if I am addressing myself to women and giving them a hard time. I am not. If men did not collude in such ideas then the women would not feel obliged to spend time beautifying themselves for they would know that their husbands saw their inner beauty. If husbands worked to support their families instead of spending their money in bars or on toys like expensive cars and suchlike, then women could spend more time with their children. If children were regarded as precious gifts of the Lord then we would have no babies sent to nursery every day from morning till night, no children farmed out to grannies so their mothers could spend Saturdays trawling the shops for designer clothes to look good at a party.
Brothers and sisters, in this season of Lent, just before the most precious and holy time of the church’s year, let us remember there is no such thing as ‘me time’, only ‘the Lord’s time’.
At the end of mass, I sloped out, trying to make mysel invisible. How could I go tae this guy and tell the truth, and if I didnae tell the truth what was the point in going? I could only pray that God would forgive me anyway.
WAKING TO DARKNESS, under the downie, fuddled, thinking at first it was a car alarm, I almost turned over then realised the sound was inside the house not outside. I jumped out of bed, threw the dressing gown round me and opened the door. In the hall the dark was thicker, the darkness of a fog, and smoke was seeping fae under the living room door.
I’d always thought I was a big feartie who’d panic at the least wee thing. But when it happened I went intae some kind of autopilot. All the things they’d taught us in that third-year safety course fae the guy in the Fire Brigade, suddenly came back to me.
I opened the twins’ door and woke them, tellt them to get out the house.
Mona, phone 999 on your mobile. Rona go round the close and get all the neighbours out. And don’t switch on any lights!
They were that stunned they just done as they were tellt, though when Rona realised I was gaun in the room tae get ma da, she tried tae stop me. Somehow, though, for the first and last time in her life she seen something in me that forced her to obey.
I rushed tae the bathroom and soaked a towel, wrapped it round my face over my mouth and nose, then opened the living room door carefully, remembering to stay behind it in case of flames shooting out. Instead a sick bitter smell swamped me, making my eyes sting and water. The familiar room was a grey blur, and when I shouted, Da, a muffled sound fell intae the darkness. Remembering the training, I dropped doon low – smoke is thinner nearer the ground – and a few blurred shapes became visible. I crawled, feeling along the wall wi the back of ma haund till I reached the couch. It seemed ridiculous that a normal sized room could seem cavernous and that in the middle of a fire there could be so much darkness. I felt ma da’s leg, moved up his limp body till I got to his shoulder and started tae shake and shake him. Da, Da, wake up.
Mmm … whhh …
For godsake Da, the hoose is on fire.
He jerked slightly.
Da, you have to help me.
I knew that though I could help him, I couldnae move him mysel but he wasnae waking up properly. Christ knows how much he’d had tae drink and with the effect of the smoke … I’d be a liar if I didnae admit that for a split second I did think of leaving him there for the Fire Brigade tae rescue. But I never.
Later on they said that’s what I should of done, no put mysel at risk like that. I don’t know what force I summoned up inside, never thought about what I was daeing, just pushed him aff the settee on to the flair, grabbed him under the oxters and pulled. At first I felt I wasnae getting anywhere, it was nae use, he was like a big deid lump. I screamed at him, Move ya big lump move, and the towel started tae unravel fae ma face. I wound it round mair tightly, took a deep breath and hauled and somehow his body started tae soften; he wasnae moving hissel but he was no longer resisting, no longer deid weight, then suddenly we were outside the living room and when ah turned ah seen two students fae the top flat heiding towards our door and Mr Flanagan puffing up the stairs. They helped me get him intae the close where the air was clearer and next minute there were firemen everywhere and I was sitting on the other side of the street wi Rona and Mona, their airms and legs wound round me like monkeys.
Assumptions. You don’t know you make them till after something happens. I suppose if I’d ever thought about it, which I never did, I’d have assumed that after a fire I’d feel glad tae be alive, glad no one was seriously hurt, that the fire was caught afore the whole tenement was destroyed. Actually I felt numb. Shock, I guess, but something else too.
We were all carted aff to the hospital to be checked out. They kept my da in overnight but me and the twins went tae Janice’s. Three of us bunked up in Evie’s room while she slept with Janice and Angela. Like auld times, the three of us squashed thegether, and somehow the shock of the fire had made the twins a bit softer round the edges, blurred that wire-hard
teenage look they’d been cultivating.
Janice lent us clothes. I didnae look too bad in her combats and an old jumper of Angela’s but the twins were dead skinny. Plus of course their fashion sense was mortified. Janice had two looks: semi-smart for her social work job and weekend stuff which was edgy for someone her age but, as far as the twins were concerned, might as well have been their granny’s.
Check this, said Mona, hoisting up a navy blue skirt and folding it over about ten times round her waist. Ah look like a nun.
And ah’m like an auld hippy or something. Rona picked distastefully at a crocheted top.
Good excuse for you to go shopping, girls. Janice rummled through Angela’s side of the wardrobe. Nope, that looks like the best we can do. Look, I’ll take you out this afternoon to get some underwear and a few basics, put it on my plastic till the insurance pays out. Patrick’s plane is due in at seven. What time’s your daddy getting out, Fiona? Did they say?
We’ve to phone after 12. Jas is gaun with me to collect him.
Great. We’ll hit the shops this afternoon and meet you back here.
I looked at Janice, amazed at her lightness, feeling anger begin to rise. We could of been killed last night and she was wittering about underwear. Then I caught a glimpse of her face as she folded a sweater, smoothing it gently as she would of stroked Evie’s cheek. She was biting her lip, hard.
The nurse was Irish, with a thin face and a strand of lank fairish hair escaping fae her cap. Mr O’Connell? He’s ready for you, but Doctor wanted a quick word first. She looked at me and Jas. You’re his daughter?
Aye.
Is Mrs O’Connell …
My mammy’s dead.
I’m sorry … I’ll just get Doctor.
A woman of about forty, wearing a white coat over a green sweater and smart dark trousers, walked out of the ward, holding a chart.
You’re Mr O’Connell’s daughter … she glanced at his notes where I was listed as next of kin … Fiona?