Before the altar, the priest and altar boys formed an orderly group, processing down the central aisle, gathering the congregation in their wake. Pete ducked out of the pew as the procession came past, desperate to be near the chubby, greasy-haired altar boy who was his hero: BC, named for his grandfather. None of the family could bear to say his name since Con senior died. Baby Con’s name had changed as suddenly as the family dynamic.
Because the boys stayed at Trisha’s on Saturday nights it would have been difficult for Paddy to insist Pete didn’t go to mass. As well as avoiding conflict with her mother she had a superstitious fear that organized religion might hold some romance for Pete in the future if she didn’t cram it halfway down his throat as a child. He wasn’t baptized and hated the dreary rigmarole of mass, but he still wanted to be an altar boy like his cousin. He wanted to be everything like his cousin. He shuffled ahead of her in the aisle, ducking between clustered families to get closer, keeping his adoring eyes on BC’s back.
Paddy held on to his shoulder, following him through the throng, afraid of losing him.
Ahead of them, standing between the doors, Father Andrew was holding an old woman’s hand, steering her by the wrist out of the door, dismissing her with a blessing. His eyes were on Paddy, willing her to him. He had already developed the faintly despising attitude to his parishioners that many older priests had. They were as cynical as strippers, some of them.
Beyond the doors and Father Andrew, Paddy could see Sean Ogilvy out in the warm sunshine. Sean Ogilvy, teetering on his tiptoes to look back in for her, dressed in his Sunday suit, his dark hair receding from his face.
Father Andrew reached across the throng and grabbed Paddy’s hand as she came past, reeling her in through the crowd. “My dear Lord, what’s this I’m reading about in your headline today?”
“Oh, well.” She broke eye contact and tried to move on to Sean.
“Please, God, it’s not true.”
But Father Andrew had a firm hold of her hand. “Please, God.” He looked imploringly at her. “Please, please, God.” Then added, as he always did, “I’ll pray for you, Patricia.” He ruffled Pete’s hair. “And you, son.”
If Pete hadn’t been with her she’d have kicked Father Andrew’s shin and passed it off as a mistake. Instead she dipped her eyes. “And I’ll pray for you, Father.”
At the top of the steps Pete wriggled out from under her hand and ran over to Sean’s four kids. They were younger than him and therefore not as interesting as BC, but he could boss them and they loved him, especially now that he’d moved across the city and they didn’t see him all the time. Mary, the oldest, and Patrick hung on his arms, gurgling with delight at his presence.
Around the women a puddle of children gathered, dazed from the boredom of mass, holding on to their mothers’ legs, staring at each other or trying to eat stones from the ground.
Sean took Paddy’s elbow and pulled her aside. He looked grim.
“Tomorrow morning, OK?” he whispered.
“Tomorrow?”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you can’t come.”
“No, no,” she said, shaking her head, “I can come, I can come. Just didn’t think it would be so soon. There was a journalist up at my door last night asking about his release. He asked if he was going to stay with you.”
“Shite.” Sean looked around to see if he’d been heard uttering a curse word in the chapel yard. “I need you there, you know everyone, you’ll be able to spot them in the car park. I don’t know all the faces, you know?”
Elaine was looking at them so Paddy gave her a wave. Elaine was holding baby Mona on her hip and had Cabrini strapped tightly into a stroller. She was standing with another mother, equally laden. Elaine had qualified as a hairdresser and always managed to keep herself looking good. She had a short brown bob at the moment, a break from her usual blond hair. Paddy envied her slim frame, especially after four pregnancies, but she was so decent and straightforward that no one who knew her could fail to like her. She waved back to Paddy, the tight muscle in her jaw cutting sharply across her cheek.
“Seany, you don’t have to do this.”
He looked at Paddy’s chin, his hand still clamped over his mouth. It was going to happen. He had volunteered to assuage his conscience, and now it was actually happening. Callum Ogilvy, the notorious child killer, was coming to live in his tiny house with himself, Elaine and their four children.
“I do need to,” he said, sharply. “That’s the thing, I do need to do this. He won’t get out otherwise. But we’ll both be in deep shit if the News management hear about it and we don’t give them the story. You don’t need to do it.”
“I do. It’ll be something selfless to tell my son one day. I pass up a chance.”
Sean smiled at her. He hadn’t driven her anywhere for a long time and they both missed it.
“Elaine knows it’s tomorrow, does she?”
“Of course she does.”
Together they looked over at Elaine, who bumped the baby up her hip and ground her teeth. She sensed their eyes on her and looked back at them, suddenly rocking the stroller back and forth. Cabrini’s arms shot up in surprise. Paddy sensed that Elaine was trying to comfort herself, not Cabrini.
“And she’s all right about it, is she?”
“She’s fine.” He didn’t sound very convincing.
“Fucking hell, Sean, you were lucky when you married that woman. I wouldn’t have done it.”
Sean looked at his wife and nodded. “I know that,” he said, “I know.” He didn’t sound very convincing.
“Terry Hewitt was murdered,” Paddy blurted, surprised again to find herself tearful. “I had to look at the body, they said it was the Provos.”
“Hewitt? That fat guy you chucked me for?”
“I didn’t-oh, for fucksake, let’s not get back into that.”
Her words choked her and Sean softened. “Sorry.” He pulled her out of the crowd to the side of the chapel and the shadows. “Was he investigating something in the Six Counties then? I thought he did Africa.”
“No, he was killed in Scotland. Out on the road to Stranraer.”
He stepped away from her. “The Provos ’d never do that. Not a journalist. Not here.”
“Well, that’s what the police said.”
“Phff, what do they know? Our boys’d never do that.”
“Come on, Sean, don’t be naive, they’re kneecapping teenagers for selling hash.”
“They’re maintaining order.” Sean still believed the Easter Uprising was a week ago, that the Troubles were about goodies and baddies, and that an Irish Catholic with a gun could have nothing but God and the good of mankind on his mind. He was a season-ticket holder for Celtic and went to the Tower Bar on Sunday afternoons to sing rebel songs with all the other armchair revolutionaries. “The RUC can’t be trusted to police those areas…”
“Shut the fuck up. It’s just-it’s the last thing I need right now with Callum getting out. You wouldn’t believe the pressure I’m under.” She felt the note in her pocket. “The Times offered fifty thousand pounds for an exclusive. Maybe Callum should do one interview? Maybe that would get them off his back. Give him a bit of money to get going.”
“He doesn’t want to,” said Sean. “I think he should but he doesn’t want to.”
Elaine was waving Sean over to her. He dropped his foot down one of the steps and turned back. “I’ll pick you up at six.”
“Six a.m.?”
He wrinkled his nose. “I know. Sorry about Terry. I know you liked him.”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that, but thanks.”
II
Condensation streaked the window onto the messy back garden. The grass was two feet tall, almost obscuring a rusting twin tub, gathering around the trunk of the tree at the far end.
The babble from the radio and the crackle of the frying pan drowned out the noise of the two boys at the table. BC was breaking his fast and Pete was having a second bowl of cornflakes so that he didn’t feel left out. Caroline sat across from them, ignoring everyone, reading a magazine about hairdos. Five places were set at the table that used to hold seven. She couldn’t remember how all of them used to fit in here.