Chapters (43)
- Pronunciation
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Acknowledgments
We were supposed to wear ties for going to school, but I noticed that first night that she had already discarded hers, and at the open neck of her blouse I saw a small Saint Christopher medallion hanging on a silver chain.
“You’re papes, right?” she said, straight off.
“Catholics,” I corrected her.
“That’s what I said. Papes. I’m Catherine. Come on, I’ll show you how this all works.”
And we followed her to a table to retrieve wooden trays and queue up at the kitchen to be served our evening meal.
Catherine lowered her voice. “The food’s shit. But don’t worry about it. I’ve got an aunt somewhere that sends me food parcels. Keeps her from feeling guilty, I suppose. A lot of the kids aren’t really orphans. Just from broken homes. Quite a few get food parcels. Got to get through them fast, though, before the fuckers in here confiscate them.” She grinned conspiratorially and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Midnight feasts up on the roof.”
She was right about the food. Catherine steered us to a table, and we sat among the hubbub of raised voices echoing around the high ceiling of the great hall, slurping at thin, flavourless vegetable soup and picking at green potatoes and tough meat swimming in grease. I found myself sinking into a depression. But Catherine just grinned.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m a pape, too. They don’t like Catholics here, so we won’t be staying long.” An echo of Mr. Anderson’s words from earlier. “The priests’ll be here for us any day now.”
I don’t know how long she had been deluding herself with that thought, but it would be another year before the incident on the bridge finally brought a visit from the priest.
They didn’t like papes at school either. The school in the village was an austere grey granite and sandstone building pierced by tall arched windows set in stone dormers. Carved in the wall below the tower that held the bell which called us to lessons was a stone crest of the school board above a kindly lady in robes teaching a young student the wonders of the world. The student had short hair, and wore a skirt, and made me think of Catherine. Although I guess it was supposed to be a boy from classical times. It bore the date of 1875.