A Nurse's Duty (17 page)

Dear God! What in heaven’s name was making him so maudlin? Patrick shook his head and thrust his hands deep inside his pockets. Those days were long gone and there was no sense in dwelling on them. It had been so different when he had entered the seminary. He had met Sean Donelly there, the clever, saintly Sean who had befriended him and never minded that he was just a country boy from County Clare. He relaxed as he thought of Sean. It was good to think that he was in England too, after his year in Africa. What would Sean think of him now if he knew where his mind was going?

Patrick got down from the trap as the pony had reached the presbytery. He took the horse from between the shafts and led it into the stable to settle it down for the night. As he worked he struggled to free his mind from the depression which had settled on him. How was he to comfort the boys in that hospital when his mind was full of doubts? He had prayed and prayed and fasted and done penance but to no effect; there was no answer to his doubts. When he faced the wounded soldiers, the devout, the ones who believed unquestioningly in God and his Holy Church, whose faith was their very lifeline at this terrible time, he felt no empathy. He was a sham, no good to them at all.

‘I want to get away,’ he said aloud in the dark stable lit only by a candle lamp. ‘I want to live a normal life, be like any man, marry, have children.’

‘Is that you, Patrick?

He jumped and looked across to the house where Father Brown was standing in a pool of light by the back door. Had the old priest heard what he was saying? Patrick felt like a guilty schoolboy. Quickly, he closed the stable door and walked the few intervening yards to the house.

‘It’s me, Father,’ he said.

‘Come in now, and close the door,’ said Father Brown. ‘Is it not a terrible cold night to be out and about? Did I hear you talking to someone just now?’

‘Just the horse, Father. I was talking to Daisy, settling her down.’

‘Well now, come away in and we’ll have a nightcap together.’ Father Brown turned and led the way into the sitting room where a fire still burned in the grate. He sounded cheery and glad that Patrick had returned and given him someone to talk to. Not at all as though he had heard anything to disturb him, thought Patrick, glad that at least he did not have to explain anything to the old priest, not tonight. He accepted a glass of Powers whiskey and sat down in an armchair. Perhaps a chat to Father Brown about parish doings was just the thing to take his mind off his doubts. The older man chatted on and Patrick answered him, smiling and asking questions of his own, trying to keep a look of interest. He watched Father Brown’s face in the flickering light from the fire, animated as he discussed the work he loved. Just like Father Brannigan had been, at home in County Clare.

‘It is a noble calling, Patrick, there is none more noble than to be a priest of the Catholic Church. I hope when the time comes you will hear the call and answer it, my boy. To be privileged to serve God in such a way. And after that, to serve Ireland, to help free her from the yoke of the English,’ Father Brannigan had said to him, his voice full of emotion. Patrick remembered how his heart had swelled with pride at the idea that he could do either of those things. He smiled gently now and Father Brown looked strangely at him for he had been telling Patrick of how he had been out that very afternoon to comfort a poor mother who had lost her son in the war.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘you’re tired, Patrick, of course you are, and ready for your bed.’

‘I am, Father,’ he admitted. He drained his glass and rose to his
feet
. Everything looks black in the night time, he reflected. A good night’s sleep was what he needed all right, and then tomorrow he would be more cheerful.

‘Hallo there, Sister. You look very busy. Would you like a hand?’

Karen, who was on her hands and knees by the flowerbed outside Annie’s parlour window, grubbing up dead leaves and flowers with a trowel, hurriedly got to her feet and looked towards the gate which Patrick was just opening.

‘Father Murphy, how nice,’ she said, automatically putting a hand up to push back a stray lock of hair and smearing earth across her cheek in the process. In spite of the cold wind she felt hot and bothered and thoroughly at a disadvantage. Self-consciously she began to untie the sacking apron which she was wearing to protect her dress. ‘I didn’t expect to see you, Father.’

‘Oh? I thought I said I would be in the village today, Sister?’

Patrick walked up the garden path just as Annie appeared round the corner of the cottage with a basket of eggs in her hand.

‘Oh, a visitor,’ she said.

‘It’s Father Murphy, Annie. You know, I’ve told you he visits at the hospital. Father, this is Mrs Blakey, my landlady and good friend.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Father, I’m sure,’ said Annie, holding out her hand and shaking Patrick’s enthusiastically. ‘Won’t you come in and have some tea?’

He glanced at Karen, looking a little unsure of himself. What he had really wanted to do was invite her to go for a walk with him.

‘Well, I don’t know –’ he began.

‘Oh, come on, Father, it gives us an excuse to have a break too. I’ve new-baked scones and strawberry jam. You’ll like my scones, I’m sure. Will you take the Father into the parlour, Karen? I’ll soon put these away and put the kettle on.’

The parlour, she thought, suppressing a smile. Annie had a nice
sense
of what was right and for her that meant the vicar and the doctor were shown into the parlour, along with only a few select others. The Minister of Karen’s Chapel did not rate the parlour but evidently Father Murphy, as a priest, did.

‘It will be warmer in the kitchen,’ suggested Karen.

‘No, no, the parlour, Karen,’ Annie insisted as she led the way indoors. ‘The fire is laid just to put a lucifer to.’

The air in the parlour was distinctly chilly as Karen opened the door and went in. She shivered as she motioned Patrick to a horsehair armchair. She found the box of matches on the ornate marble mantelshelf and lit the fire, standing back to watch as smoke curled round the kindling until at last a tiny flame appeared. She lit the gas mantle on the wall to make the gloomy room look a little more cheery and then picked up the bellows and blew on the smoking fire. All the time she felt strangely shy, which was quite ridiculous, she told herself.

‘Karen,’ said Father Murphy, and she put the bellows down and moved over to the opposite armchair.

‘Yes, Father?’

‘Nothing. I mean … I hadn’t heard your Christian name before.’

‘It’s from the Bible. You know, “Job had three daughters, Jemima, Kezia and Keren-happuch”,’ said Karen, speaking quickly and nervously. She put her hands down on the edge of the chair, feeling the pricking of the horse hair on her skin. ‘My father is a lay preacher, he named his daughters after the daughters of Job. Though he changed the spelling of my name a little –a not e. Not his son though, he only has one son, and he’s called Joe. Joseph. We’re Methodists, you see.’

‘Yes, I believe you have said before,’ he said. Karen realized she had been babbling and fell silent, wishing Annie would hurry up with the tea.

‘The daughters of Job were beautiful too,’ the priest said softly,
so
softly that Karen thought she must have misheard him. She looked up and saw he was watching her steadily. Blushing, she jumped up and went to open the door for Annie whom she could hear coming down the passage from the kitchen.

Annie brought a touch of normality into the room as she bustled about, pouring tea and handing out plates, chattering cheerfully as she did so.

‘Please excuse me, I won’t be a minute,’ said Karen and escaped up the stairs to her room, where she was mortified to see in her mirror that she had a streak of dirt across her cheek and that most of her hair was falling down from the pins which had secured it on top of her head. He must have been hard put to it not to laugh at the sight of me, she told herself as she rubbed furiously at her face with a flannel dipped in cold water from the jug, and redid her hair. She would have liked to have changed her dress but felt she had already been long enough away, so with a last look at her reflection she went downstairs again.

In the tiny parlour the air was already warmer and Annie had drawn the curtains against the darkening day so the scene was quite cosy.

‘Come and have your tea, Karen, or it will be cold,’ she said. ‘I was just saying to Father Murphy, I don’t know how you manage to do what you do for those poor boys up at Greenfields House. I know I couldn’t do it, not in a month of Sundays, I couldn’t.’

‘Sister Knight is a very good nurse,’ said Father Murphy, and Annie smiled with gratified pride as though the compliment reflected on her somehow.

‘Just ordinary, I’m afraid,’ said Karen, sitting down and accepting the cup of tea handed to her by Annie. She looked at the priest and somehow caught his eye and held it for a moment. Something, she wasn’t sure what, passed between them, something which excluded Annie, albeit unconsciously. There was a
silence
for a minute or two and Annie looked at them both before putting down her cup and getting to her feet.

‘Well, if I can leave you two on your own. I hope you don’t mind, Father? There is the stock to see to.’

‘Oh, I’ll go –’ he said, rising to his feet.

‘Nonsense, you stay and have a chat with Karen,’ said Annie. ‘After all, it’s her you came to “see”.’ She left the room looking perplexed and concerned but Karen and Father Murphy didn’t appear to notice. They sat quietly for a while, the only sound the crackling of the fire in the grate.

‘Tell me more about your home and family,’ he said. ‘Your father’s a preacher, you said?’

Karen nodded. ‘Yes, a lay preacher. But he’s a miner really. All the men in our village are with the pit, one way or another.’

‘Is Karen a common name for a girl in your part of the world, then?’

‘Not really. Biblical names are common, though.’

She gazed into the fire, remembering home, and almost without knowing it she was telling him all about the village, the closed community it was with the Wesleyan Chapel as its focal point, about her mother’s weak heart and her father who carried his Bible everywhere.

‘Even down the mine?’ asked Patrick.

‘No. Everywhere else, though.’

And she told him of her sister Jemima who had gone away to Lancashire, and Joe who had gone away to Australia, and how now there was only Kezia left at home to help her mother. But she did not tell him about Dave. He was not only gone from her life now, he was dead, she need not think of him any more.

At last she roused herself and looked up. He was relaxed in his chair, his legs stretched out in front of him towards the fire and his hands clasped in his lap.

‘Now it’s your turn,’ she said. ‘Tell me about you. I don’t even
know
your christian name?’ Karen blushed, realising it might not be appropriate to ask. ‘What was it that decided you to become a priest?’

‘It’s Patrick …’ he began but his smile faded and he looked away quickly as though she had said something embarrassing to him.

‘Is something wrong?’ asked Karen.

‘No, nothing,’ he assured her.

‘It makes you sad to think of home.’

‘Yes.’ He jumped at the excuse. ‘Well, now, what can I tell you? I come from a small farm in Killinaboy, County Clare. There is my mother and father and Daniel, my eldest brother. And James, of course. He’s in the army and married now with a family in London. I am the youngest. It was the dearest wish of my mother that I should be a priest. She worked all the days God sent for it, she did. She would take eggs and butter into Corofin to the market and even walk to Ennis sometimes, saving every penny so I could stay at school and go on with my schooling. It was the proudest day of her life when I entered the seminary at Maynooth.’

Father Murphy –Patrick –fell silent and after a moment, Karen prompted him.

‘Corofin, did you say? Where is that?’

‘A mile down the road from home. And Ennis is the county town.’

The sound of Annie’s footsteps as she came in the back door of the cottage made Patrick glance at the clock on the mantelpiece.

‘Half-past five!’ he exclaimed, getting to his feet.

‘Oh, you’re still here,’ said Annie as she popped her head around the parlour door. ‘Would you like to stay for supper, Father? We have plenty.’

‘No, no, I must be on my way, though it’s good of you to ask me. Father Brown will be wondering where I’ve got to, though.’

Karen walked with Patrick to the gate. ‘I’ll see you at the
hospital
then, Father,’ she said. The evening was black dark, the only illumination that which came from the open cottage door.

‘No doubt, Sister, no doubt.’

To Karen he sounded cold and formal, not at all the man she had glimpsed beneath the priest’s garb as they sat and talked in the parlour. He said his goodbyes and went away without even taking her hand and Karen felt sad and lonely as he disappeared into the night.

Patrick lay in bed, tired but wakeful. He had eaten supper with Father Brown then gone up to his bedroom and stayed on his knees by the side of the bed much longer than he usually did. Afterwards he had got into bed, only to lie awake.

He thought of Karen, of the way the firelight had played on her face as she talked of her family, the special look of tenderness which she wore as she spoke of her parents. He was wondering how it would feel for her to look at him in that way when he caught himself up and tried to put her out of his mind.

Deliberately, he made himself think of his childhood, of when he was a small boy and carrying his sod of turf to school with him as his contribution to the heating, for the National Board provided none. He thought of the cold, stone floors of the school and the labourers’ children who would be barefoot and sometimes crying on a bad winter’s day as they had to walk over the stone flags or sit with their feet lifted uncomfortably so that they did not rest on the floor. He himself had boots but many did not. Was it any wonder that some of them learned little?