‘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.
In the porch, they blessed themselves at the marble font, dipping their fingers in, making ripples on the surface of the water, before going on in through the double doors. Furlong stood down near the door as they walked up the aisle, and watched how easily they genuflected and slid into the pew, as they’d been taught, while Joan carried on up to the front, genuflecting and kneeling there where the choir was seated.
Some women with headscarves were saying the rosary under their breath, their thumbs worrying through the beads. Members of big farming families and business people passed by in wool and tweed, wafts of soap and perfume, striding up to the front and letting down the hinges of the kneelers. Older men slipped in, taking their caps off and making the sign of the cross, deftly, with a finger. A young, freshly married man walked red-faced to sit with his new wife in the middle of the chapel. Gossipers stayed down on the edge of the aisle to get a good gawk, watching for a new jacket or haircut, a limp, anything out of the ordinary. When Doherty the vet passed by with his arm in a sling, there was some elbowing and whispers then more when the postmistress who’d had the triplets passed by wearing a green, velvet hat. Small children were given keys to play with, to amuse themselves, and soothers. A baby was taken out, sobbing in heaves, struggling to get loose from his mother’s hold. Cigarette smoke and some bits of laughter drifted in through the porch from outside, where some of the men always stayed until they heard the starting bell.
Before long, Sister Carmel, who taught the music lessons, sat in before the organ, and began to play. Everyone but the very elderly and handicapped rose while the altar boys came out, leading the parish priest, whose purple robes swung out behind him, at his heels.
Slowly, he genuflected with his back to the congregation before taking his place at the altar. Opening his arms out wide, he began:
‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.’
‘And also with you,’ the congregation echoed.
The Mass, that day, felt long. Furlong didn’t join in so much as listen, distractedly, while watching the morning light falling through the stained-glass windows. During the sermon, his gaze followed the Stations of the Cross: Jesus taking up his cross and falling, meeting his mother, the women of Jerusalem, falling twice more before being stripped of his garments, being nailed to the cross and dying, being laid in the tomb. When the consecration was over and it came time to go up and receive Communion, Furlong stayed contrarily where he was, with his back against the wall.
*
Later that Sunday, after they had come home and eaten lamb chops with cauliflower and onion sauce, Furlong put up the Christmas tree then sat at the Rayburn and watched as the girls strung lights, hung decorations and arranged berried holly behind the picture-frames and over the dresser. Feeling not unlike an old man, he rethreaded the small ornaments the girls handed him whose strings had been broken. When the tree was fully decorated and the lights were plugged in and came on, Grace took up the accordion and tried to play ‘Jingle Bells’。 Sheila turned on the television and lay on the settee watching an episode of All Creatures Great and Small. Furlong wished Eileen would sit down but as soon as she’d washed up she took out the flour and the delft bowl and said they should make the mince pies, and ice the cake. Kathleen made pastry and rolled it out. Then Loretta cut out the rounds with an upturned tumbler while Eileen and Joan separated eggs and beat up the whites and sieved icing sugar. The Christmas cake, already covered in marzipan, was then lifted out and placed on a silver board, and Sheila took up an argument with Grace over the accordion, saying it was her turn to play.
Furlong got up and refilled the scuttle with anthracite from the shed and brought in logs, then took up the brush and began sweeping the floor.
‘Do you have to do that now?’ Eileen said. ‘We’re trying to ice the cake.’
When he threw what dust and dirt and holly leaves and bits of pine he’d gathered off the floor into the Rayburn, it spat and let out an almighty crack. It felt as though the room was closing in; the wallpaper with its repetitive, nonsensical pattern was coming before his eyes. A longing to get away came over him and he imagined himself being out in his old clothes on his own, walking the length of a dark field.