Small Things Like These(13)

‘Were your sailors in town this week?’

‘They’re not my sailors but we had a load come in on the quay there, aye.’

‘You don’t mind bringing the foreigners in.’

‘Hasn’t everyone to be born somewhere,’ Furlong said. ‘Sure wasn’t Jesus was born in Bethlehem.’

‘I’d hardly compare Our Lord to those fellows.’

She’d had more than enough now, and put her hand down deep, into a pocket, and drew out an envelope. ‘I’ll expect an invoice for what’s owing but here’s something for Christmas.’

Reluctant as he was to take it, Furlong stretched out his hand.

She escorted him as far as the kitchen then, where the young nun stood over a frying pan, breaking a duck egg in beside two rounds of black pudding. The girl from the coal shed was sitting in a type of daze at the table, with nothing before her.

They had expected him to go on, Furlong knew, but he paused, contrarily, and stood by the girl.

‘Is there anything I can do for you, a leanbh?’ he asked. ‘All you need do is tell me.’

She looked at the window and took a breath and began to cry, the way those unused to any type of kindness do when it’s at first or after a long time again encountered.

‘Won’t you tell me your name?’

She glanced back at the nun. ‘I go by Enda in here.’

‘Enda?’ Furlong said. ‘Is that not a boy’s name?’

She wasn’t fit to reply.

‘But what’s your own name?’ Furlong gentled.

‘Sarah,’ she said. ‘Sarah Redmond.’

‘Sarah,’ he said. ‘That was my own mother’s name. And where do you come from?’

‘My people are from out beyond Clonegal.’

‘Isn’t that well out past Kildavin,’ he said. ‘How did you come to be here?’

The nun at the cooker coughed and gave the frying pan a rough shake and Furlong understood that the girl could say no more.

‘Well, you’re upset now, and no wonder. But Bill Furlong is my name and I work at the coal yard, near the quays. If ever there’s anything, all you need do is come down or send for me. I’m there every day but Sundays.’

The nun was plating up the egg and pudding, scraping margarine from a big tub, noisily, across a cut of toast.

Deciding to say no more, Furlong went on out and pulled the door closed, then stood on the front step until he heard someone inside, turning the key.





6




‘You’ve missed first Mass,’ Eileen said, when he got home.

‘Wasn’t I up at the convent and then they wouldn’t let me leave without going in for tea.’

‘Well, it’s Christmas,’ Eileen said. ‘Wasn’t it the proper thing to do.’

Furlong made no answer.

‘What did they give you?’

‘Tea,’ he said. ‘And cake, was all.’

‘But did they not give you something else?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘For Christmas, I mean. They never let the year pass without sending down something.’

Furlong hadn’t thought more of the envelope.

When Eileen opened it and took out the card, a fifty-pound note fell into her lap.

‘Aren’t they very good,’ she said. ‘This’ll more than pay for what’s owing at the butcher’s. I’ll collect the turkey and ham in the morning.’

‘Show me.’

The card depicted a blue sky with an angel and the Virgin and child on a donkey, being led along by Joseph. The Flight into Egypt, he read, on the back. On the inside, in a hurried-looking hand, was written: For Eileen, Bill and Daughters. Many happy returns to you and yours.

‘I hope you thanked them,’ Eileen said.

‘Why wouldn’t I?’ Furlong twisted up the envelope and threw it in the scuttle.

‘What has you out of sorts?’ She was taking the card, putting it up on the mantelpiece beside her other things.

‘Nothing,’ Furlong said. ‘Why?’

‘Well, get out of those clothes then and change – or else you’ll have us late for second Mass.’

Furlong went out to the back toilet then and took up the soap and lathered his hands slowly at the basin and washed his face and began to shave, drawing the blade very close in places, and nicked his throat. In the mirror, he looked at his eyes, the parting in his hair and at his eyebrows, which seemed to have grown more closely together since last he’d looked at himself. Best as he could he scrubbed his nails, trying to get the black out from under them. With a fresh type of reluctance he then changed into his Sunday clothes and walked with Eileen and the girls to the chapel, feeling the pavement steep and very slippery in places.

‘Have ye change for the collection box?’ Eileen asked the girls, smiling, as they were entering the chapel grounds. ‘Or has your daddy given it all away?’

‘There’s no need for that type of ugly talk,’ Furlong sharpened. ‘Have you not enough in your purse for the one day?’

Eileen’s smile vanished and a type of astonishment spread across her face. Slowly, she drew out her purse and handed ten-pence pieces round, to the girls.