Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [95]
Betrayed! She sat up alarmed. Was that the word the priest had used? Betrayed. He was talking about a child. “Who told you this?” Her voice was razor thin.
The priest didn’t move and for a moment she thought he hadn’t heard. Then, he shifted slightly, pulled himself upwards and gradually settled back into the same position. “My dear child.” He adjusted the glasses on his nose. “As a priest of God, I have an obligation to my parishioners. When we place someone in a position of trust, they have to be of exceptional moral character. We have to run a check and it was no different with Mr. Molloy.” He cleared his throat. “I have connections in Ireland, from my days over there in the seminary, so I was in a position to put out a few discreet feelers. It’s no trouble to find what you are looking for when you know where to look.” He peered at her. How neatly he had tied up the package to suit his own plans.
“Father O’Reilly.” She held his gaze. “Did he know that you had delved into his past, that you had checked him out?”
He dismissed her query, quite obviously sure of the righteousness of his action. “No, no point to that,” he said. “It was not necessary to disclose that.”
There was no embarrassment in that matter-of-fact look, no discomfort. His two big inward-pointing feet lay motionless on the worn rug. They seemed ridiculously large today, cumbersome and awkward, incapable of dancing. It occurred to her that he almost certainly knew something of her grandmother.
“Do you, by any chance, know what became of my grandmother, his wife?”
“Yes.” He stretched the word out as if reluctant to continue and then took a deep breath. “During the Troubles in the twenties when the Black and Tans were about the country terrorizing innocent people, they set upon the poor woman one night and burnt the roof from over her head for no reason, it seems, other than that she was a bit of a recluse and they decided she had something to hide. She lost everything that night. The boy, your father, was with her.”
Nora’s head nodded in agreement.
“I’m told she was never the same after that. There was nowhere for her to go but back to her brother’s place or the County Home. She went to her brother. It seems from then on the poor soul cried day and night. One day she took a shovel to the house and smashed every window and then started on the inside; anything that was breakable, she destroyed. She was taken off to the mental hospital and never came back. She died there, I’m afraid.”
“And my father, her son?” Nora could barely get the words out.
“He was away at school when she was taken away. He never came back to the uncle’s house. He stayed on at the school during the holidays. There were always the few youngsters who had nowhere to go. Then he joined the seminary, but of course, like his father, he left before ordination. But, my dear, I want to tell you this and I know it to be a fact: your father visited his mother once a month at the hospital until the day she died.”
Nora pushed her fist into her stomach to suppress a feeling of nausea. The space felt hollowed out, sour and barren. She needed to get back to her car. “I must go.” She pushed herself to her feet. The sudden movement made her feel light-headed.
“Please. Stay.” The priest struggled from the depths of his armchair.
She offered her hand. “Thank you.” Her voice was quiet.
“I’m sorry, my dear.” He took her hand. “But I thought you would want to know.”
“It’s okay, thank you. I have to meet someone. Thank you.” She hurried from the room into the hall, fumbled with the latch on the front door but couldn’t get it open.
“Let me do that. It’s a bit stiff. We could do with a new lock.” He moved forward and in a moment had the door open. She stepped eagerly into the sunshine, reaching for the handrail on the steps to steady herself.