Mothers and Sons (17 page)

‘I’d say people will be very kind,’ he said.

‘Well, you don’t know them, then,’ she replied.

H
E LEFT HER
only when she insisted that he go. She checked the newspaper for the evening television and made her tea as though it were an ordinary Monday and she could take her ease. She put less milk than usual into the scalding tea and made herself drink it, proving to herself that she could do anything now, face anything. When a car
pulled up outside, she knew that it would be the girls, her daughters. The priest would have alerted them and they would want to come now, when the news was raw, and they could arrive together so that neither of them would have to deal with her alone.

Normally, they walked around the side of the house and let themselves in the kitchen door, but she moved quickly along the short corridor towards the front door and turned on the light in the porch and opened the door. She stood watching them as they came towards her, her shoulders back.

‘Come in,’ she said, ‘from the cold.’

In the hallway, they remained for a second uneasily, unsure which room they should go into.

‘The kitchen,’ she said drily and led the way, glad that she had left her glasses on top of the open newspaper on the table so that it would be clear to them that she had been occupied when they came.

‘I was just going to do the crossword,’ she said.

‘Are you all right?’ Eileen asked.

She stared at her daughter blankly.

‘It’s nice to see the two of you together,’ she said. ‘Are the boys well?’

‘They’re fine,’ Eileen said.

‘Tell them I’m nearly ready to take messages from them on an email,’ she said. ‘Miriam said one more lesson and I’ll be away.’

‘Was Father Greenwood not here?’ Eileen asked.

Margaret had begun to cry and was fumbling in her handbag looking for tissues. Eileen handed her a tissue from her pocket.

‘Oh yes, today and yesterday,’ Molly said. ‘So I have all the news.’

It struck her then that her grandsons would have to live with this too, their uncle on the television and in the newspapers, their uncle the paedophile priest. At least they had a different surname, and at least Frank’s parish was miles away. Margaret went to the bathroom.

‘Don’t ask me if I want tea, I don’t want tea,’ Molly said.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Eileen replied. ‘It’s the worst thing.’

Eileen moved across the kitchen and sat in the armchair.

‘Have you told the boys?’ she asked.

‘We had to tell them because we were afraid they’d hear in school.’

‘And were you not afraid I’d hear?’

‘No one would say it to you,’ Eileen said.

‘You didn’t have the courage, either of you.’

‘I still can’t believe it. And he’s going to be named and everything.’

‘Of course he’s going to be named,’ Molly said.

‘No, we hoped he wouldn’t be. He’s pleading guilty. So we thought he mightn’t be named. But the victims are going to ask that he be named.’

‘Is that right?’ Molly asked.

Margaret came back into the room. Molly noticed her taking a colour brochure from her handbag. She put it on the kitchen table.

‘We spoke to Nancy Brophy,’ Eileen said, ‘and she said that she would go with you if you wanted to go to the Canaries. The weather would be gorgeous. We looked at prices and everything. It would be cheap enough, and we’d
pay the flight and the hotel and everything. We thought you’d like to go.’

Nancy Brophy was her best friend.

‘Did you now?’ Molly asked. ‘Well, that’s lovely, I’ll look at that.’

‘I mean when the case is on. It’ll be all over the papers,’ Eileen continued.

‘It was good of you to think of it anyway. And Nancy too,’ Molly said and smiled. ‘You’re all very thoughtful.’

‘Would you like me to make you a cup of tea?’ Margaret asked.

‘No, Margaret, she wouldn’t,’ Eileen said.

‘It’s the boys you both should be worrying about,’ Molly said.

‘No, no,’ Eileen replied. ‘We asked them if anything had ever happened. I mean if Frank …’

‘What?’ Molly asked.

‘Had interfered with them,’ Margaret said. She had dried her eyes now and she looked at her mother bravely. ‘Well, he hasn’t.’

‘Did you ask Frank as well?’ Molly enquired.

‘Yes, we did. It all happened twenty years ago. There was nothing since, he says,’ Eileen said.

‘But it wasn’t just a single episode,’ Margaret added. ‘And I read that you can never tell.’

‘Well, you’ll have to look after the boys,’ Molly said.

‘Would you like Father Greenwood to come back and see you again?’ Eileen asked.

‘I would not!’ Molly said.

‘We were wondering …’ Margaret began.

‘Yes?’

‘If you’d like to come and stay with one of us for a while,’ Margaret continued.

‘What would I do in your house, Margaret?’ she asked. ‘And sure Eileen has no room.’

‘Or even if you wanted to go to Dublin,’ Eileen said.

Molly went to the window and looked out at the night. They had left the parking lights on in the car.

‘Girls, you’ve left the lights on and the battery’ll be run down and one of your poor husbands will have to come and bail you out,’ she said.

‘I’ll go out and turn them off,’ Eileen said.

‘I’m going out myself,’ Molly said. ‘So we can all go.’

‘You’re going out?’ Eileen asked.

‘I am, Eileen,’ she said.

Her daughters looked at each other, puzzled.

‘But you usually don’t go out on a Monday night,’ Eileen said.

‘Well, I won’t be able to go out until you move the car, because you’re blocking the drive. So you’ll have to go first. But it was nice to see you, and I’ll enjoy looking at the brochure. I’ve never been in the Canaries.’

She saw them signalling to each other that they could go.

T
HE TOWN
during the next week seemed almost new to her. Nothing was as familiar as she had once supposed. She was unsure what a glance or a greeting disguised, and she was careful, once she had left her own house, never to turn too sharply or look too closely in case she saw them whispering about her. A few times, when people stopped to talk to her, she was unsure if they knew about her son’s
disgrace, or if they too had become so skilled at the plain language of small talk that they could conceal every thought from her, every sign, as she could from them.

She made clear to her daughters that she did not wish to go on any holidays or change her routine. She played bridge on Tuesday night and Sunday night as usual. On Thursday she went to the gramophone society, and on Wednesday, after school, she was visited, as always, by her four grandsons, who watched videos with her, and ate fish fingers and chips and ice cream, and did part of their homework until one of their mothers came to collect them. On Saturday she saw friends, other widows in the town, calling on them in her car. Her time was full, and often, in the week after she had received the news of what was coming, she found that she had forgotten briefly what it was, but never for long.

Nancy Brophy asked her one day when she had called to Nancy’s house if she was sure she did not want to go to the Canary Islands.

‘No, I’m going on as normal,’ Molly said.

‘You’ll have to talk about it, the girls say you’ll have to talk about it.’

‘Are they ringing you?’

‘They are,’ Nancy said.

‘It’s the children they should be worrying about,’ Molly said.

‘Well, everyone is worried about you.’

‘I know. They look at me wondering how to get by me quickly enough in case I might bite them, or I don’t know what. The only person who came up to me at the bridge club was Betty Farrell, who took my arm and asked me, with them all watching, to phone her or send word or call
around to her if I needed anything. She looked as if she meant it.’

‘Some people are very good,’ Nancy said. ‘The girls are very good, Eileen and Margaret. And you’ll be glad now to have them so close.’

‘Oh, they have their own lives now,’ Molly said.

They sat for a while without speaking.

‘Well, it’s an awful shock the whole thing,’ Nancy continued eventually. ‘That’s all I’ll say. The whole town is shocked. Frank was the last person you would expect … You must be in a terrible state about it, Molly.’

‘As long as it’s the winter I can manage,’ Molly said. ‘I sleep late in the mornings and I’m kept busy. It’s the summer I dread. I’m not like those people who suffer from that disorder when there’s no light. I dread the long summer days when I wake with the dawn and think the blackest thoughts. Oh, the blackest thoughts! But I’ll be all right until then.’

‘Oh Lord, I must remember that,’ Nancy said. ‘I never knew that about you. Maybe we’ll go away then.’

‘Would you do something for me, Nancy?’ Molly said, standing up, preparing to leave.

‘I would, of course, Molly.’

‘Would you ask people to talk to me about it, I mean people who know me? I mean, not to be afraid to mention it.’

‘I will, Molly. I’ll do that.’

As they parted, Molly noticed that Nancy was close to tears.

*

T
WO DAYS
before the trial, as she was walking back to her house with the morning newspaper, Frank’s car drew alongside her and stopped. She noticed a pile of parish newsletters on the back seat. She got into the front passenger seat without looking at him.

‘You’re out early,’ he said.

‘I’m just up,’ Molly replied. ‘I go out and get the paper before I do anything. It’s a bit of exercise.’

When they reached the house, he parked the car and they both walked into the kitchen.

‘You’ve had your breakfast, I’d say,’ she said.

‘I have,’ he replied. He was not wearing his priest’s collar.

‘Well, you can look at the paper now while I make toast and a cup of tea.’

He sat in the armchair in the corner and she could hear him fold and unfold the pages of the newspaper as she moved around the kitchen. When the toast and tea were ready, she set them out on the table, with a cup and saucer for each of them.

‘Father Greenwood said he was down,’ Frank said.

‘He was,’ she replied.

‘He says you’re a lesson to everyone of your age, out every night.’

‘Well, as you know, I keep myself busy.’

‘That’s good.’

She realized that she had forgotten to put butter on the table. She went to the fridge to fetch some.

‘The girls are in and out to see you?’ he asked.

‘If I need them, I know where they are,’ she said.

He watched her spreading the butter on the toast.

‘We thought you might go away for a bit of a holiday,’ he said.

She reached over for the marmalade, which was already on the table, and said nothing.

‘Do you know, it would spare you,’ he added.

‘So the girls said.’

She did not want the silence that began then to linger for too long, yet everything she thought of saying seemed unnecessary. She wished he would go.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t come in and tell you myself what was happening,’ he said.

‘Well, you’re here now, and it’s nice to see you,’ she replied.

‘I think it’s going to be …’ He didn’t finish, merely lowered his head. She did not drink the tea or eat the toast.

‘There might be a lot of detail in the papers,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to warn you myself about that.’

‘Don’t worry about me at all, Frank,’ she said.

She tried to smile in case he looked up.

‘It’s been bad,’ he said and shook his head.

She wondered if they would let him say Mass when he was in prison, or have his vestments and his prayer books.

‘We’ll do the best we can for you, Frank,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

When he lifted his head and took her in with a glance, he had the face of a small boy.

‘I mean, whatever we can do, we will do, and none of us will be going away. I’ll be here.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want to go away?’ he asked in a half-whisper.

‘I am certain, Frank.’

He did not move. She put her hand on the cup; the tea was still hot. Frank smiled faintly and then stood up.

‘I wanted to come in anyway and see you,’ he said.

‘I’m glad you did,’ she said.

She did not stand up from her chair until she heard him starting the car in the drive. She went to the window and watched him reversing and turning the car, careful as always not to drive on her lawn. She stood at the window as he drove away; she stayed there until the sound of his car had died down in the distance.

A Journey

‘M
AMMY
, how do people die?’ he had asked, and Mary had explained how the soul left the body and then God … well, God … took your soul because he loves you.

‘Will everyone die?’

‘Yes, David.’

‘Every single person?’

She was amused by his earnestness, but tried to treat him seriously and answer as well as she could. He must have been about four then, going through the stage, she remembered, of asking questions and wanting to know how everything worked and why.

He was their only child, born after almost twenty years of marriage when Seamus and she had long given up hope of ever having children. At first she could hardly believe it and then was frightened; she asked herself why it had happened then and not years before but she could find no explanation. She felt that perhaps they would be too old and set in their ways to bring up a child. They were used to being free. Yet David did not really make the great change in their lives that she expected. Mrs Redmond, who lived in a nearby cottage and whose husband died just after
David was born, came in every day to help her and babysat at night if they wanted to go out. Their house was just beside the small country national school where Seamus was principal. As David got bigger he began to spend more and more time with Mrs Redmond. Often, when Mary went down to the cottage to collect him, he did not want to come home. But then, once he was back in his own house, he would start to smile again and follow her around asking her questions or, when he was older, telling her what had happened to him at school.