When he walked back round to the main entrance, past the open gates and on up the driveway, the yews and evergreens were pretty as a picture, just as people had said, with berries on the holly bushes. There was but one set of footprints in the snow, heading faintly in the opposite direction, and he reached and easily passed the front door without meeting anyone. When he got to the gable and went round to the coal-house door, the need to open it left him, queerly, before it just as soon came back, and then he slid the bolt across and called her name and gave his own. He’d imagined, while he was in the barber’s, that the door might now be locked or that she, blessedly, might not be within or that he might have had to carry her for part of the way and wondered how he’d manage, if he did, or what he’d do, or if he’d do anything at all, or if he’d even come here – but everything was just as he’d feared although the girl, this time, took his coat and seemed gladly to lean on him as he led her out.
‘You’ll come home with me now, Sarah.’
Easily enough he helped her along the front drive and down the hill, past the fancy houses and on towards the bridge. Crossing the river, his eyes again fell on the stout-black water flowing darkly along – and a part of him envied the Barrow’s knowledge of her course, how easily the water followed its incorrigible way, so freely to the open sea. The air was sharper now, without his coat, and he felt his self-preservation and courage battling against each other and thought, once more, of taking the girl to the priest’s house – but several times, already, his mind had gone on ahead, and met him there, and had concluded that the priests already knew. Sure hadn’t Mrs Kehoe as much as told him so?
They’re all the one.
As they walked on, Furlong met people he had known and dealt with for the greater part of his life, most of whom gladly stopped to speak until, looking down, they saw the bare, black feet and realised the girl with him was not one of his own. Some then gave them a wide berth or talked awkwardly or politely wished him a Happy Christmas and went on. One elderly woman out walking a terrier on a long strap confronted him, asking who the girl was, and was she not one of those wans from the laundry? At another point, a little boy looked at Sarah’s feet and laughed and called her dirty before his father gave his hand a rough tug and told him to whisht. Miss Kenny, wearing old clothes he’d never before seen her in and with drink on her breath, stopped and asked what he was doing with a child out in the snow with no shoes on, assuming Sarah was one of his own, and marched off. Not one person they met addressed Sarah or asked where he was taking her. Feeling little or no obligation to say very much or to explain, Furlong smoothed things over as best he could and carried on along with the excitement in his heart matched by the fear of what he could not yet see but knew he would encounter.
As they were nearing the centre of town and the Christmas lights, a part of him considered backing off and taking the long way home but he braved it out and carried on, following the path he ordinarily would have taken. A change, it seemed, was coming over the girl and soon she had to stop, and vomited on the street.
‘Good girl,’ Furlong encouraged her. ‘Get it all up. Get that much out of you.’
In the Square, she paused to rest at the lighted manger and stood in a type of trance, looking in. Furlong looked in, too; at Joseph’s bright robes, the kneeling Virgin, the sheep. Someone, since last he’d seen it, had placed the figures of the wise men and the Baby Jesus there but it was the donkey that held the girl’s attention, and she reached out to stroke and push the snow off his ear.
‘Isn’t he lovely,’ she said.
‘We’ve not far to go now,’ Furlong assured. ‘We’re almost home.’
As they carried on along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?
How light and tall he almost felt walking along with this girl at his side and some fresh, new, unrecognisable joy in his heart. Was it possible that the best bit of him was shining forth, and surfacing? Some part of him, whatever it could be called – was there any name for it? – was going wild, he knew. The fact was that he would pay for it but never once in his whole and unremarkable life had he known a happiness akin to this, not even when his infant girls were first placed in his arms and he had heard their healthy, obstinate cries.