Chapter One

      In the quiet of St Winifred’s church I listen to his movements; from under half-closed lids I watch him mount the pulpit steps. He hasn’t seen me. I’m kneeling, hands folded in prayer, head bent, all manner of things going on in my head except worship. It’s dark in the church; he’s wearing a black soutane, his back towards me, clothed in shadow. Suddenly he lifts his head: a wedge of light from the window above the nave touches his crown, which is the colour of a roasted chestnut. Now he’s facing the empty church and, as if practising a sermon, he begins to mime. Desperate to stay hidden, I wriggle my body down into a crouching position and in the silence listen for his footsteps. When after a few moments I hear him descend from the pulpit, I raise my head a fraction to see him start down the aisle. As he gets closer I can see Father Declan Steele has full curling lips, darker in the centre, and heavy lids above navy blue eyes. Irish eyes, framed with spidery lashes, below ruler-straight eyebrows, thick and coal black. My best friend Bridget Costello had been right when she’d said he looked like Robert Redford in The Great Gatsby, except the curate is better looking.

      I want to sneeze; Sod’s Law, when I want to be as quiet as a mouse. I pinch my nose with thumb and finger, inwardly cursing the weather. For the love of God, I wish the rain would stop! It’s been lashing down for three days, the hard slanting type that stings bare flesh. In a mad rush as usual and thinking of other things I’d run out without my mackintosh. I hate my mac. It’s long, reaching almost to my feet, and made of a scratchy material in a dirty grey colour. But it’s the only coat I own, part of a set of clothes given to me by the Sisters of Mercy.

      So now I’m wet, soaked to the skin. But then we’re always wet in Ireland, wet or cold, or both. The cold is the worst; it seeps into my bones because there isn’t much flesh on them. Before November is out I’m wishing my life away. I’d cheerfully miss Christmas; it’s not a happy time for me anyway. Christmas is for families. I’ve seen them on my way back to the orphanage from church, quick furtive glimpses through sitting-room windows dressed with fake snow and bright tinsel: florid-faced mams, ale-swigging dads, grandmas and kids with glowing cheeks all gathered around gaudy Christmas trees, a wholesome family picture, opening presents and feasting their faces full of chocolates from a selection box. Later they would eat turkey and ham and Christmas pudding with lashings of brandy butter.

      Last year it snowed on Christmas Eve and the trudge to church, hand in hand with Bridget under a sky as blue as my eyes, had been like walking through another village, a magical place transformed to silver brilliance. Bridget and I, at the back of the snake of girls, as far from Mothers Paul and Thomas as possible, had played a game of placing our feet in the footprints made by the girls in front. On the surrounding hills a huddle of sheep formed a grey blob against the gleaming white. The unmarked snow lay in thick wedges on the rooftops of the village; the church spire was sullen in contrast. The trees surrounding the church were woven with white, and the snow cleared from the churchyard drifted into our faces and pricked our eyes.

      At the Good Sisters of Mercy Orphanage we have a tree dressed by the parish Christmas fund, and a make-believe present. I say make-believe because it’s an only-for-show present. On Christmas morning the parish priest visits to inspect the orphanage. The gifts under the tree are all wrapped in shiny Christmas paper. After he’s left they are all taken away. None of the girls knows where they go and no one dares to ask. One year we got to open the presents on the insistence of Father O’Neill. I got a pair of trainer shoes that were too tight: they nipped my toes. Foolishly I complained, and got a clip round the head for my trouble. The same year we got to eat the for-show-only meal. It was pork, rich and fatty, and it made me feel a bit sick. You could have played football with the pudding, and the custard was runny, like Maureen O’Leary’s snot. All in all, I was rather pleased when the following year there was no inspection and we had the usual porridge and a rasher with fried bread.

      I’d like to miss it all and jump straight into spring. Why do we have to have winter? Other countries don’t. Some people wake up to sunshine every day. I suppose that would get a bit boring, but every other day would be nice. No more huddling under blankets no thicker than toilet tissue, bony legs close to my chest, hands as stiff as a corpse and as blue as Mother Superior’s lips (she’s got a bad heart). What joy never again to hear the nocturnal chorus of chattering teeth, hacking coughs, rasping wheezes and the constant sniffing from noses that become, from December to March, like running taps.

      Thinking of winter causes the face of Theresa Doyle to surface. Countless times in the past couple of months I’d longed to throttle her or wished her phlegm would choke her. The sound of her coughing had made me feel physically sick. In that dark middle-of-the-night time when minutes turn to hours I would have given anything to stop the deathly rattle emanating from her infected tubes. After Theresa died of whooping cough, I’d confessed my sinful thoughts to Father O’Neill, who had given me double the usual ten Hail Marys and Our Fathers to say every day for a week. I’d been desperate to tell the priest that being in a state of grace and chanting Hail Marys in my head every day would make no bloody difference to poor old Theresa or, for that matter, to me wishing her dead. Well, not dead but quiet so I could get some sleep.

      I’d also wanted to ask him why God let bad people live and good people die. Like Theresa, a few months off her sixteenth birthday, or the kind-hearted Colleen Corrigan who’d worked in the bread shop. Why was Colleen, a good mam, taken by cancer at thirty-two, leaving a husband and four lovely kids? These sorts of questions are forever nagging at me, yet they stay where they are in my head, unuttered and unanswered. My confusion has nothing to do with Theresa’s death. No, my doubts had started much younger, as far back as I can remember.

      In my mind I challenge the priest: So tell me, Father, why is it the pair of them, Holy Father and merciful son, let so many terrible things happen? I visualize the face of Father O’Neill looming above me; inwardly I quake at his imagined reaction. He scares me, this