A Sister’s Promise. Anne Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ arrange an appointment?’ Biddy complained to Father Clayton. ‘The child has not even been taught how to address a priest correctly, and as for questioning the ways of our Good Lord, well, words fail me totally.’

      Before the priest had time to reply, Stan burst in, ‘I think Kevin has a perfect right to ask what manner of God it was at all who allowed his parents to be taken away, and who else to ask but the priest? So you just leave him alone.’ He turned to Father Clayton and went on before Biddy could speak, ‘We’re taught that God loves us, aren’t we? Well, He sure as hell didn’t show much love to poor Nuala and Ted. That’s how I feel and so I know exactly what young Kevin means.’

      So did Father Clayton, and he was glad he had been the one assigned to take the Mass and not Father Monahon, for he would have torn the child to ribbons if he had been silly enough to say those things in front of him. As for Stan, a non-Catholic, Father Monahon would have a total lack of understanding for his pain. To Father Monahon, Catholicism and the pursuit of it was all that mattered. He was like the maternal grandmother, just recently arrived from Ireland, no doubt a devout and ardent Catholic, but not a woman he could take to at all. Father Clayton turned to her now as she burst out, ‘D’you hear that, Father? Blasphemy, and before the child too. As if I could leave a child in a home where such views are felt and, even worse, expressed. The sooner I get them both to Ireland the better I’ll like it.’

      ‘Come now …’ the priest began soothingly.

      He got no further, for what the women had said had penetrated Kevin’s brain. He had been shocked into silence when she had shouted at him, but now he said, ‘What do you mean about going to Ireland?’

      ‘Just what I say,’ Biddy almost hissed. ‘You and your sister are coming to live with me.’

      ‘Oh no I’m not! I ain’t,’ Kevin cried desperately. ‘I’m staying with my granddad, I am. Aren’t I, Granddad?’ He appealed as Stan stayed silent. ‘Tell her, Granddad. Go on, tell her.’

      ‘Ah, yes, tell me?’ Biddy mocked.

      ‘Have you no shame?’ Stan demanded of her coldly. ‘We have just buried the child’s parents. You might be holier than I am, but there isn’t a kind bone in your body.’

      ‘But it ain’t true, is it?’ Kevin cried. At the grave expression on his granddad’s face, he felt suddenly cold, afraid and lonely as he insisted, ‘Say it ain’t true, Granddad. Tell her.’

      ‘May your God forgive you,’ Stan said, picking Kevin up in his arms, ‘for I will struggle to do so.’

      Father Clayton watched Stan stride across the room and knew he was going to go somewhere quiet and explain to the child that his suffering was far from over yet. That now he had to go to some alien place with a woman he was so obviously scared of and live there until he was adult and could choose for himself. And tell him too there wasn’t a damned thing either of them could do about it. The priest felt suddenly terribly dispirited and heavy, as if his body was filled with lead.

      ‘They’re both wilful, those children,’ Biddy said fiercely. ‘Too fond of getting their own way and totally disrespectful.’

      ‘You don’t think it’s just that they are both still in shock and missing their parents, and maybe a little afraid of the future?’ the priest put in mildly.

      ‘I don’t go along with all this psychological claptrap,’ Biddy said. ‘Their parents are dead and gone, and that’s that, and it is obvious they will have to live with me. I am putting myself out too, you know? Do you think I want to start rearing children at my time of life?’

      ‘Then why do it?’ The words were out before the priest could stop them.

      Biddy stared at him coldly. ‘I would have thought you of all people would not have to ask that question,’ she said, ‘I know my duty and do not approve of my grandchildren being brought up with a heathen.’

      ‘Stan Maguire is no heathen,’ Father Clayton said quite heatedly because the woman was annoying him greatly.

      ‘I don’t see how you can say that so categorically when the man worships nowhere and neither did his son,’ Biddy said. ‘As far as I am concerned that makes him a heathen and I do not want my grandchildren brought up by one such as him. I am surprised that you are not similarly concerned. I think I need to talk to your superior about this and I fully intend to do that.’

      Father Clayton knew that Father Monahon would see things exactly as she did, and when she complained about his attitude, as he knew she would, he would be hauled over the coals himself. That in itself wouldn’t matter if anything had been achieved by his interference, but he knew it hadn’t. He sighed. Sometimes he found it difficult to follow the Church’s teaching in blind obedience as they were taught they had to, for he often found issues were not so black and white. He couldn’t help wishing that, regardless of Stan’s religion, or lack of it, the children could be left with the grandfather they loved.

      Molly had watched the altercation and knew by her grandfather’s determined strides across the room with Kevin in his arms that he was hopping mad about something and the same something was making her brother cry. She sighed as she followed them, for she didn’t have to be a genius to guess what it was all about.

      On the way in, Stan had noticed a couple of chairs set against the wall in the foyer and he sat down in one of these and set about telling Kevin what was going to happen to him and Molly, and why, despite his promise to them, he would be unable to fight against it.

      That is where Molly found them and her heart constricted in pity for her distressed little brother, who was weak from weeping.

      He turned anguished eyes towards her and said in a voice almost broken with sadness and disbelief, ‘Molly … has our g-granddad told you wh-where we’ve got to go and – live?’

      Molly nodded, and kneeled down beside Kevin and held his agitated hand between hers. Her heart hammered in her chest, her mouth was very dry and she felt the familiar lump in her throat, and willed herself not to cry.

      ‘But … don’t want t-to live with her,’ Kevin said. ‘Sh-she’s horrible. I want to … stay with G-Granddad.’

      ‘So do I,’ Molly said fiercely. ‘I hate her as much as you do, but I am not afraid of her and you needn’t worry, because I will look after you, fight for you if I have to.’

      Kevin looked at the sister who had always looked out for him before and said, ‘Promise?’ He didn’t know if he believed in the power of a promise any more. Hadn’t his granddad promised? But it was all he had.

      Molly said without any hesitation at all, ‘I promise, Kevin. I swear it on the Bible.’

      ‘Ah, Molly,’ Kevin said, and he leaned towards her with a sigh and she put her arms around him. As Stan’s arms encircled both children he felt a sharp pain in his chest. So, he thought, this is what it feels like when a person’s heart is broken in two.

      After the funeral was over, Biddy made her way to the presbytery and Father Monahon who had been expecting her. He listened to her proposals to take the children to Ireland and fully approved. In fact, he couldn’t see any viable alternative. In his opinion the sooner the children were removed from the clutches of their grandfather the better. Their immortal souls were at stake.

      ‘I’m gratified that you feel the same as I do,’ Biddy said. ‘At my time of life it СКАЧАТЬ