Excerpt

…his training at the seminary, his acceptance by the Church. Obviously His Holiness did not know the full story of this dark man from the mountains of Drumard or wherever it was he came from in the first place. Obviously His Holiness did not know from whom this same man received his education: from pagans and harlots. To have sent back to them this man from the shadow side of time and place, to have ordained him as their own new priest, the old ones regarded as an insult and an outrage. Padraig knew when he returned to the village that few of his flock had accepted him with any willingness and far less with trust. But he had proved himself in only a short time. Now all was lost. Their old suspicions had returned. They remembered. They talked. They retold stories. Some no doubt had seen him shudder or shake or stiffen or stumble and fall. They knew that Satan had come back for him. They knew that his celebration of the Mass was a sacrilege. They were affronted. Their gaze burned like hell-fire. Even the young spurned him; they spat at his passing in the street. When he stood at the altar, holding aloft the Host in celebration of the Eucharist, Padraig could feel their conspiratorial sneaking-forward down the hushed nave of the church, their long knives drawn, their white teeth gleaming like the fangs of wolves, their wild hearts pounding with the urgent wish to kill him.
Padraig no longer had his arm in a sling, but the cuts and bruises on his face had not yet completely healed, though the earlier discoloration was fading. He strode across the stone floor of the sacristy and stopped at the door, his hand outstretched but unwilling to lift the wrought-iron latch. His head ached. Satan thumped the insides of his temples, punched the backs of his eyes, drummed loudly in the whorled cavities of his ears. Padraig opened the heavy, dark door, and his arm jerked with pain. He looked out into the church. In less than two hours he must face the hostile crowd that would come to the wedding of Caitlin MacLir and Michael Carrick. The church was empty yet, except for two young altar boys who were talking earnestly in the front pew.
“Stephen,” Padraig called, steadying himself against the door post. “Stephen, come here a minute.” His voice boomed like explosions in his head.
One of the altar boys, one of Joe Carney’s sons, came forward, unsurely as the young Samuel. “Yes, Father?”
“Stephen, do you have your bicycle outside?”
“I do, Father.” The surprise that showed in Stephen’s eyes was a response either to the unexpected question or to the look of black-eyed distraction in the drawn face of the priest.

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excerpt

The old woman knew that Caitlin and Michael had started sleeping together again sometime after the night that Caitlin had not come home, and Padraig had been beaten up in the church. Even if Caitlin had not told Mother Ross the full story of that night, the old woman would have known without any doubt everything that had happened.
Poor Caitlin. There’ll be fingers counting soon and they won’t make it to nine. Respectability holds us all to ransom. And we have to pay something in the end. The dearer we regard respectability, the higher we have to pay. I got off lightly, I suppose. But I can recognise respectability for the blackguard it is. And yet I too paid a price in the end.
Mother Ross sat down on the iron bed. One of the brass knobs shook, fell off with a thud on the floor and rolled under the bed.
“You can stay there,” she said.
She rubbed the finger of her left hand where her ring used to be. It had been her mother’s wedding ring, then her own, and yesterday she had taken it off and given it to Michael. Today Michael would use it to bond the two lives, the two bodies, the two souls, of Caitlin and himself.
And Caitlin. Sick and straining with the baby already unfurling inside her like a sticky little bud in spring. Wearing her white gown like the thorn tree on the hillside. The white gown she had stitched herself in the evenings by the fireside.
Mother Ross heard Caitlin climb slowly up the stairs and go into her room to prepare herself for the wedding. The motor-car would call in a couple of hours: Liam Devlin’s newest Ford. Michael had been proud to hire it for the afternoon to drive his bride to church. Liam was proud to drive it. Half the village would line the road, not just to admire Caitlin, but to marvel at the new miracle of the machine age: Liam Devlin’s Model T Ford. Soon every man in the village would want one, and Liam’s ambition was to open a garage on the Lisnaglass road to sell new motor cars, the petrol that made them go, and all the spare parts that likely would be needed after miles of bumpy travel on the rough and muddy roads of the country hereabouts.
Caitlin left the door of her room open, and Mother Ross could hear her sobbing. So rarely did Caitlin weep that it moved Mother Ross all the more when she did. Like hearing a man cry. Mother Ross sighed a sigh that pulled her heart up with it into her throat. She swallowed it painfully and wanted to cry herself from the agony she felt.

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excerpt

Six people crowded the car as it sleeked through the night, climbing into the mountains on winding, unlit roads. Nora sat in the back between Susan and Ian. Ian smelt her perfume, and it tantalised him. He pressed closer to her in the shadows. His left arm rested along the top of the seat. Nora, leaning her head back with a contented sigh, touched Ian’s arm and sat up straight again.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘That’s all right. Lie back if you want to.’
‘No, I’m fine,’ she said disingenuously.
Clifford slowed the car almost to a stop, then swung it to the left down a steep, stony, track not much wider than the car, its headlights illuminating the constricting dry-stone walls. He eased the car round a corner into a grassy yard in front of a small, two-storeyed, white-washed, slate-roofed cottage.
‘Home from home,’ he said. ‘Country style.’
Clifford cut the car’s bright beams, plunging the passengers into pitch darkness. Then the interior lights came on as the Bentley doors opened. Ian took Nora’s hand and helped her out.
‘Thank you, kind sir.’ She bobbed him a little curtsey. Even in the gloom Ian caught her captivating smile.
The cottage was dark. Everyone stood in a huddle inside the door till Clifford located and lit an oil lamp. Then they moved into the room and looked around at the white-washed walls; the old, dark-toned, wooden table; the dresser; the chairs; the big, deep, well-used armchair beside the hearth. In the spacious fireplace a fire was already set. All it took was a dash of paraffin oil and a lighted match and the flames and sparks were leaping in a crackling frenzy into the large, blackened chimney. On the mantelpiece an old pendulum clock stood at rest between two creamy china dogs. On the dresser shelves an array of blue, willow-patterned plates and cups and large, stout mugs with blue rings gleamed in the light of the fire and the lamp. Fiona lit a second lamp.
‘This is just heavenly,’ Susan exclaimed in a high, excited voice. ‘John, wouldn’t you just love to live in a place like this?’

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