Quirke 06 - Holy Orders

blows.” She slowly shook her head. “She wouldn’t tell me, but then there was no more hiding it.”
    “Hiding what?”
    “That she was granen —in the way of a babbie coming. And she hardly more than a babbie herself.” She stopped, and Quirke saw to his surprise that she was smiling, coldly, with narrowed eyes. “She told him, though.”
    Quirke waited a beat. “She told Packie?”
    The woman nodded. “Aye. She told him it was the sharog, and all about the things he done to her—and not only her.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Sure, wasn’t he doing it with half the childer in the camp!”
    “There were other girls, like Lily—?”
    “Girls, aye, and the lads, too, the ones he was supposed to be teaching the book learning to. He didn’t care what they were, so long as they were childer.”
    “Why had none of them spoken? Why hadn’t they told what was happening?”
    She looked at him pityingly. She did not have to speak; he knew what the answer was. To whom would he have spoken, when he was a child at Carricklea? Who would have believed him? Who would have so much as listened?
    “What did Packie do,” he asked, “when she told him?”
    “He wouldn’t have it that it was the priest, of course, so he sent Mikey and Paudeen after that poor young fellow instead. Somebody had to pay the price.”
    “But you knew it wasn’t Jimmy Minor that she meant when she said it was the sharog . Y ou knew which of the two it really was.”
    “Ach!” She made a grimace, screwing up her mouth as if to spit. “What matter was it what I knew? Himself knew it too, anyway.”
    “But he knew it wasn’t Jimmy.”
    “What matter? It was the sharog done it, that was enough for him. Sure, you couldn’t touch the priest—you’d have no luck after that.”
    “And the baby?” he said. “What happened?”
    The woman was gazing at the child, her hand still resting on her forehead. She shrugged. “She hadn’t a strong enough hold of it. How could she, after the sinful way it came to her?”
    “I see.”
    “Do you, now.” The woman glanced at him from under her eyelashes, smiling in malice. “So you’re satisfied, then. Y ou had the great sleep, and learned what you came to learn, and now you’ll be off.”
    He gazed back at her, and slowly her smile faded, and she looked away from him.
    “Why did you tell me?” he asked.
    “Why would I not?” she answered quickly, with a flash of almost anger.
    “And what if I tell?”
    She brought out her tobacco and papers and set them in the lap of her red skirt and began to roll a cigarette. “Who would you tell?” she asked.
    “The Guards?”
    That seemed to amuse her, and she nodded to herself, bleakly smiling. “Mikey and Paudeen will be gone by morning, across the water, on the boat.”
    “To where?”
    “Over to Palantus—England, as you’d say. That’s the place to get lost in.”
    Quirke expelled a low, slow breath. “So,” he said, “Packie is sending them off, yes?”
    She shrugged. “They’ll not be found, the same two, and there’s no use that peeler looking for them—you can tell him that from me. Them are the boys that knows how to hide.”
    The moon was edging its way out of the square of velvety sky above the half door. How strange a thing, Quirke thought, a silver ball of light floating there in the midst of that dark emptiness.
    Molly stood up, the cigarette unlit in her fingers. Quirke looked up at her. “Go on,” she said, “go on off now. I’ve said enough and you’ve heard more than is good for you.” He rose to his feet. He was a head taller than she was. “ Y ou’ll not come round here again, I know,” she said, lifting her eyes to his.
    “Will I not?”
    She put up a hand and grasped the back of his neck and drew his head down to her and kissed him. He smelled the harsh scent of her body and breathed her gamy breath. He made to put his arm around her waist but she drew back from him quickly. “Go on now,” she murmured, pressing both her palms against his chest. “Go on with you.”
    He stepped back. Outside, the dog gave a soft, beseeching yelp. The faint music had started up again. Or was it, Quirke wondered, only the wind, keening?

20

    He walked back into the village and found a hackney cab to drive him home. Slumped in the back seat he had slept again, briefly, and had only woken up when the car was pulling into Mount Street. When he saw the figure slumped in the doorway he thought it must be one of the