excerpt
…lack of ambition contrasted remarkably with that of Clifford Hamilton who had different aims on human brains. Yet when Caitlin thought about it, she could not avoid the conclusion that maybe Liam’s desire to fill young brains with learning was more worthy, if less prestigious, than Clifford Hamilton’s desire to open them up for medical probing. She admired Liam all the more for his altruism. He was indeed a true disciple of his idol, Father Padraig.
Beyond the school the pebble-dashed, two-storey rectory stood back a bit from the lane. Lamplight shone through the window of Padraig’s room upstairs; the rest of the house was in darkness. Padraig shared the rectory with Father Donagh Costello, the priest of the neighbouring parish “over the bridge” in Aughnashannagh. The pious widow, Brid O’Flaherty, lived in the same house as servant and cook to the two parish priests.
Caitlin paused outside the rectory, then passed by and climbed the rough-cut steps to the church. Aligned along the ridge, Our Lady Star of the Sea church occupied a spread of flat ground covered with the same beach-pebbles as the footpath from the road. Caitlin paused in the doorway at the west end of the church, stayed for a moment by the clarity and peace of the evening. She gazed out over the gravestones and the grass to the errant line of the cliff-top. Dark grey was the sea beyond, and blue the sky above. The blueness of the sky paled to limpid opalescence where the sun had set. No sound. No movement. Only a shiver in the short grass where the breeze blew across it. Inland the evening shadows darkened the purple hills, the green fields, the grey stone walls, the yellow flowers of spreading whins. Lights in farmhouse windows twinkled like stars. Thin twines of smoke uncoiled from cottage chimneys.
Caitlin felt a surge of joy within her. No-one knows how much I love this land, she thought.
She opened the church door with a click of the latch and closed it gently behind her. The hush of the evening out of doors deepened between the white walls and the dark, varnished roof-beams of the church. Three small windows high up along each wall admitted light by day but they were gloomy now. Below each window a picture hung. Padraig had told Caitlin their stories. Along the right-hand wall that overlooked the sea the first picture showed Jesus calling the disciples Andrew and John as they worked at their nets by the shore; the second showed Him in a crowded boat ordering the stormy waters to be calm; and the third showed Him walking upon the sea, holding an outstretched hand to Peter. Along the opposite wall the first picture was of Jesus pulling ears of corn as He walked through a field with…
Manolis Aligizakis 