She had flicked through a magazine
and read that La Lollo had prayed to the Sacred Heart as a girl, and asked Him to send her a doctor husband, fame and a lovely daughter. And by the age of twenty-one, she owned a princely mansion
and had married a millionaire. But the Sacred Heart was not so flush twice and she had to settle for a room in Moss Side where the club across the street played Connie Francis records into the
small hours and, to the sound of girlish innocence, Josie stared at the ceiling as they travelled her body smelling of tobacco and guilt. Cassie was always in her mind at those times in a happy
place that would not end, where her father smiled down, clean-shaven and said softly, “There’s nothing, only goodness in this world and you Josie pet, you’re the one and only
apple of Willie Keenan’s eye.”
She went into the bedroom and sat in front of the mirror. She brushed her hair and drew an arc over one eye with a pencil. She pouted. Mmmmm—ah! She stroked her profile.
She thought of the pin-ups in the daily papers. Kittenish women curled up in straw. The way she had been when they smiled at her in a room above a Manchester bar.
She thought of the first night a Carn man had come to the cottage in the Hairy Mountains. Like Phil Brady of years before, a frail body soon to be invaded by the moloch of age. Standing in the
doorway, a cigarette shaking in his hand. “Maybe I could come back another time . . .”
Josie
knew
.
And the word of her knowledge soon travelled among the old and lonely men of the town and its hinterland.
She gave them the dark womblike world they wanted, drew them further into the web of their own weakness which they hated but could not best, she took them into the corners of their souls best
left alone. And anything she felt within herself, she kept hidden from them. Only once had it got the better of her, when one of them had drooled like an infant at her breast, taking the nipple in
his mouth and crying
mama mama
.
She emptied her stomach into the sink that night crying,
Why please what makes them do it Jesus Christ sick
—
Since then, she kept their gnarled obsessions as far from her as she could.
But now as she thought of it, the disgust crept up on her from that time. She dabbed two powder spots on her cheeks and laughed. She told herself it was a laugh that couldn’t lose. She
laughed louder and tears came to her eyes. Then she stopped laughing altogether. She fell on the bed and tried to stop the feeling that was coming over her, that nothing was ever any good, that
nothing would ever be any good again. It was a feeling she had come to know well, and when they started again, she felt her hands begin to shake. The voices crept up on her, in no hurry, whispering
in the distance at the back of her mind.
Come in for your tea Josie—isn’t our Josie a wee pet? He passed away an hour ago sister, the poor child she’s as well to know nothing.
Tell her he’s gone on a holiday poor thing and her with no mother
. . .
An acidic taste came into her mouth. She went to the dresser and took down the bottle. She emptied two of the capsules into her hand and washed them down with a vodka.
She stared out at the bending branches of the hazel that reached towards the wreck of the railway and the town and, as the wind whistled through the leaves, she held back any tears she felt
rising and saw the sunlight on the river again as her mother stood on a bucket half-buried in the field and snipped the catkins cleanly with a pair of scissors, handing them down to her. She
bunched them in her arms and smiled as her mother stepped down gingerly and wiped the yellowish motes from her apron before they set off once more for the town.
I might as well do it now, go to that place where you are, that blue place far away from here. I haven’t a thing to lose in the town of Carn or the world
.
Then the drug began to cloud around her and her hard-edged thoughts softened, all the
and read that La Lollo had prayed to the Sacred Heart as a girl, and asked Him to send her a doctor husband, fame and a lovely daughter. And by the age of twenty-one, she owned a princely mansion
and had married a millionaire. But the Sacred Heart was not so flush twice and she had to settle for a room in Moss Side where the club across the street played Connie Francis records into the
small hours and, to the sound of girlish innocence, Josie stared at the ceiling as they travelled her body smelling of tobacco and guilt. Cassie was always in her mind at those times in a happy
place that would not end, where her father smiled down, clean-shaven and said softly, “There’s nothing, only goodness in this world and you Josie pet, you’re the one and only
apple of Willie Keenan’s eye.”
She went into the bedroom and sat in front of the mirror. She brushed her hair and drew an arc over one eye with a pencil. She pouted. Mmmmm—ah! She stroked her profile.
She thought of the pin-ups in the daily papers. Kittenish women curled up in straw. The way she had been when they smiled at her in a room above a Manchester bar.
She thought of the first night a Carn man had come to the cottage in the Hairy Mountains. Like Phil Brady of years before, a frail body soon to be invaded by the moloch of age. Standing in the
doorway, a cigarette shaking in his hand. “Maybe I could come back another time . . .”
Josie
knew
.
And the word of her knowledge soon travelled among the old and lonely men of the town and its hinterland.
She gave them the dark womblike world they wanted, drew them further into the web of their own weakness which they hated but could not best, she took them into the corners of their souls best
left alone. And anything she felt within herself, she kept hidden from them. Only once had it got the better of her, when one of them had drooled like an infant at her breast, taking the nipple in
his mouth and crying
mama mama
.
She emptied her stomach into the sink that night crying,
Why please what makes them do it Jesus Christ sick
—
Since then, she kept their gnarled obsessions as far from her as she could.
But now as she thought of it, the disgust crept up on her from that time. She dabbed two powder spots on her cheeks and laughed. She told herself it was a laugh that couldn’t lose. She
laughed louder and tears came to her eyes. Then she stopped laughing altogether. She fell on the bed and tried to stop the feeling that was coming over her, that nothing was ever any good, that
nothing would ever be any good again. It was a feeling she had come to know well, and when they started again, she felt her hands begin to shake. The voices crept up on her, in no hurry, whispering
in the distance at the back of her mind.
Come in for your tea Josie—isn’t our Josie a wee pet? He passed away an hour ago sister, the poor child she’s as well to know nothing.
Tell her he’s gone on a holiday poor thing and her with no mother
. . .
An acidic taste came into her mouth. She went to the dresser and took down the bottle. She emptied two of the capsules into her hand and washed them down with a vodka.
She stared out at the bending branches of the hazel that reached towards the wreck of the railway and the town and, as the wind whistled through the leaves, she held back any tears she felt
rising and saw the sunlight on the river again as her mother stood on a bucket half-buried in the field and snipped the catkins cleanly with a pair of scissors, handing them down to her. She
bunched them in her arms and smiled as her mother stepped down gingerly and wiped the yellowish motes from her apron before they set off once more for the town.
I might as well do it now, go to that place where you are, that blue place far away from here. I haven’t a thing to lose in the town of Carn or the world
.
Then the drug began to cloud around her and her hard-edged thoughts softened, all the
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