‘Fuck,’ the boy said. ‘Fuck off, why don’t you.’
The girl, unashamed, handed Furlong a Christmas card.
‘We knew you’d come,’ she said, ‘and save us having to post it. Mammy always said you were a gentleman.’
People could be good, Furlong reminded himself, as he drove back to town; it was a matter of learning how to manage and balance the give-and-take in a way that let you get on with others as well as your own. But as soon as the thought came to him, he knew the thought itself was privileged and wondered why he hadn’t given the sweets and other things he’d been gifted at some of the houses to the less well-off he had met in others. Always, Christmas brought out the best and the worst in people.
When he got back to the yard, the Angelus bell had long since rung but the men were in good spirits and still clearing down, sweeping and hosing off the concrete, joking amongst themselves. Furlong took stock of what was there, marking it all down in the book, then locked the prefab and covered the bonnet of the lorry with sacks in case they got the weather people were expecting. They took turns then, washing at the tap, scrubbing their hands, rinsing the black off their boots. In the finish, Furlong took his overcoat from the lorry and padlocked the gates.
The dinners they ate in Kehoe’s that day were paid for by the yard. Mrs Kehoe, wearing a new, festive apron, went around the tables offering more gravy and extra mash, sherry trifle, Christmas pudding and cream. The men ate at their leisure and stayed on, sitting back with pints of stout and ale, passing out cigarettes and using the little red paper napkins she’d left out to blow their noses. Furlong didn’t wish to linger; all he wanted, now, was to get home, but he stayed on as it felt proper to idle there for a while, to thank and wish his men well, to spend time on what he seldom made the time for. Already, they had been given their Christmas bonuses. Before he went to settle the bill, they shook hands.
‘You must be worn out,’ Mrs Kehoe said, when he went up to pay. ‘At it all day, every day.’
‘No more than yourself, Mrs Kehoe.’
‘Heavy is the head that wears the crown.’ She laughed.
She was reconstituting leftovers, emptying gravy from the little steel boats into a saucepan and scraping out the mash.
‘It’s been a busy time,’ Furlong said. ‘Won’t the few days off do us no harm.’
‘What it is to be a man,’ she said, ‘and to have days off.’ She gave another, harsher laugh and wiped her hands on her apron before putting the sale through the till.
When Furlong handed her the notes, she put them in the drawer then came out from behind the counter with the change and stood in close, turning her back on the tables.
‘You’ll put me right if I’m wrong, I know, Bill – but did I hear you had a run-in with herself above at the convent?’
Furlong’s hand tightened round the change and his gaze dropped to the skirting board, following it along the base of the wall, as far as the corner.
‘I wouldn’t call it a run-in but I had a morning up there, aye.’
‘Tis no affair of mine, you understand, but you know you’d want to watch over what you’d say about what’s there? Keep the enemy close, the bad dog with you and the good dog will not bite. You know yourself.’
He looked down at the pattern of black, interlocking rings on the brown carpet.
‘Take no offence, Bill,’ she said, touching his sleeve. ‘Tis no business of mine, as I’ve said, but surely you must know these nuns have a finger in every pie.’
He stood back then and faced her. ‘Surely they’ve only as much power as we give them, Mrs Kehoe?’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure.’ She paused then and looked at him the way hugely practical women sometimes looked at men, as though they weren’t men at all but foolish boys. More than once, maybe more than several times, Eileen had done the same.
‘Don’t mind me,’ she said, ‘but you’ve worked hard, the same as myself, to get to where you are now. You’ve reared a fine family of girls – and you know there’s nothing only a wall separating that place from St Margaret’s.’
Furlong took no offence, softened. ‘I do know, Mrs Kehoe.’
‘Can’t I count on one hand the number of girls from around here that ever got on well who didn’t walk those halls,’ she said, splaying her palm.
‘I’m sure that’s fact.’
‘They belong to different orders,’ she went on, ‘but believe you me, they’re all the one. You can’t side against one without damaging your chances with the other.’