But they held their fire with Moll and they let her return to her room and her bed without any quarrel, and they braved it up to the Church of Mary Magdalene. They took their time going down the lane to be sure they’d be at the tail end of the procession up the long hill, and they eased themselves past the backstanders and the yardboys around the door of the church, pretending not to notice anyone in particular, nodding curtly in ambiguous directions so that no one could say for sure that they’d been roundly ignored, and they slid gently into their usual seats in the second pew from the back, beneath the seventh station of the Cross, where the carved Christ, fallen for the second time on the Via Dolorosa, seemed to Paddy to be eyeing him balefully, saying, Look, Paddy, look what I suffered for you, you sinner, and here you are as bold as brass without your daughter, whom I sent back safely to you, whom I lifted gently from a dark and godless place and carried across the sea, and here am I, fallen on the ground beneath this cross to which I will be nailed, and no one to help me to my feet, and my friend Simon taken by the Romans for helping me, and as sure as My Father I’ll sort you out, Paddy Gladney, I’ll soon soften your cough, I’ll pay you back for this, Pad, you just watch. Leaving your daughter to sleep in her bed with no Mass got. You’re as bad as that Judas bollix the way you’re after turning on me. And Kit had her hand on Paddy’s arm suddenly, and she was squeezing his arm, and whispering softly, Paddy, Paddy, what’s wrong with you? And Paddy Gladney saw a single tear drop from his cheek to the lap of his Sunday trousers, and star darkly there, like a drop of blood from a forehead pierced by thorns.
They hooked it out of the door straight after communion, and the straggling backstanders regarded them smirkingly as they shuffled back to let them past, though Kit had always maintained that to leave early, and not to wait until the final blessing had been given, was bordering on being an affront if not an actual sin. But needs must sometimes and she resolved to say an act of contrition after the rosary to make up, and to light three candles after her next devotions, and they hurried down the long hill towards the turnoff for the lane. Paddy cursed himself for not having thought to cross the road in front of the church and climb the stile into Curley’s field and cross over home through the fields, because just as they reached the bottom of the long hill a motor-car drew alongside them, and Paddy could see from the side of his eye that it was a swanky, slab-sided one, and it was, of course, the Jackmans’ good car, and it was being driven by Ellen Jackman, and three of her four children were in it, all the girls, ranged from late childhood to early womanhood. There was no sign of Lucas Jackman or his only son, but it was known that they went together every Sunday to one o’clock Mass inside in Nenagh because, it was said, Lucas and Father Coyne had trouble finding common ground on certain matters, and Lucas wouldn’t please him to sit listening to him spouting. All four of the Jackman women were looking out of the car at the two renegades, who were standing red-faced on the roadside, and Paddy had his cap in his hand and Kit was fondling her epistle guiltily, and Ellen Jackman was saying, in quite a harsh voice, that she was going up to their house, and she was going to see this apparition for herself, and they could squeeze in if they wanted or they could follow her up the lane. There was nothing that could be said in reply because a question hadn’t been asked, and Kit and Paddy well knew that there was no way to prevent Ellen Jackman from driving up a lane that her husband owned, that ran through her husband’s land, that led to a cottage that was her husband’s rightful property, and had been the property of her husband’s father, and his father’s father, and all back along into the mist, though it had been occupied by loyal and labouring Gladneys for as many generations.
Kit and Paddy hurried up the lane in silence, their hearts thumping hard. More new ground. There was a lot of it, these days, too much for their old legs to cover, for their old hearts to take. There was no way of knowing what was being said. Ellen Jackman was a kind woman but hard, with a tongue when she was cross like a bullwhip. But what offence could Moll have given her? She’d had only sympathy for them these last five years, short words but always of comfort, and she’d sent down joints of lamb and mutton and veal, and blocks of butter and cheese, and baskets full of jarred preserves she’d made herself more regularly than ever before. But, of course, Ellen Jackman would have presumed like all the rest that Moll was lost for ever; she wouldn’t have nurtured that impulse to hope that Kit and Paddy had, for why would she? She had plenty of business of her own to look after, and plenty of children of her own to lavish love and worry on. Moll Gladney to her was a girl from her caretaker’s cottage, from a family of high morals but low standing. So there was no accounting for her mad rush to their house now to lay her eyes on this apparition, as she’d put it, with a face of murder on her. There was no accounting for the angle she’d abandoned her swanky car at on the hard patch below the oak at the bend of the lane, or the way the middle gate was opened out as far as the ditch, as though it’d been pushed hard in a high temper, and Paddy could hear a pounding in his ears, like the steps of a giant in a cut meadow, increasing in loudness as he neared the cottage.
When they reached the yard gate they saw that the three girls were standing in a sullen ring near the chicken run, looking at the preening cock as he scratched the ground in a sulk of frustration. Paddy couldn’t help but notice how womanly the eldest girl had gotten, how her summery-looking dress was blown tight to her body in the light breeze, how her hair was lifted gently from her face so that she put her hand up to keep it tidy, lifting the hem of her dress as she did so. He chastised himself, and told himself he was gone temporarily insane under the terrible and sudden weight of this series of events, as joyful as one of them was, and he checked the edge of his vision to see if Kit had seen him looking and had sensed the terrible thoughts he’d been having. Kit knew him better than he knew himself, better he supposed than God Himself knew him, and God sat at the centre of the soul of every man, looking out upon the world through that man’s eyes. But Kit was a step or so ahead of him, heading for the half-door without heeding the Jackman girls at all, and Paddy saw that her epistle had been put away into her pocket and her two hands had been formed into fists, like someone about to do combat, and his heart leapt in his chest in fright. He heard a raised voice from the kitchen, and the raised voice wasn’t Ellen Jackman’s, it was Moll’s, and the pitch and the tone and the timbre and the volume of it were so shocking and strange and yet so familiar – she hadn’t made as much noise since she was a baby crying for her mother’s breast in the dead of night. Ellen Jackman was standing between the half-door and the hearthstone with her back to them, and Moll was standing in the orange light of the fire, and her hair was unaccountably wet still, though she’d washed it hours before, and it was hanging lank in strands against her face, and her face was red and her eyes were blazing, and she was telling Ellen Jackman that she could fuck off and mind her own business, and that she, Moll Gladney, was no one’s property, and that she was beholden to no one, and Moll shouted again at Ellen Jackman to leave her alone, to just leave her alone, and her voice was high and breaking to tears and she shouted once more, Go on now, Ellen Jackman, you go back up to your mansion and your fine husband and do your penance and I’ll stay here and do mine.