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
It took a long time for her to find her voice and trust herself to speak. “That dirty fucking priest!”
I frowned, not yet understanding. How naïve I was. “The one with the comb-over?”
She nodded, her face still pushed into my shoulder. “He came into my room last night. He said he thought I might need a little comfort . . . given the circumstances.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What happened?”
She turned her head up to look at me now in disbelief. “What the fuck do you think?”
And it dawned on me.
At first I was shocked, that a priest of all people might do something like that. Then incensed that he had. And then almost overcome by the most powerful physical and mental urge to kick the living shit out of him. And I think, had he been there I would, and could, have killed him.
“Oh shit, Cathy,” was all I could say.
She buried her face in my shoulder again. “I thought the other one was coming for the same thing. I’m scared, Johnny. I don’t want anyone to touch me again, ever.”
“No one will,” I said. And all I could feel was anger and outrage.
I sat with her all night that night. There was no more talking. I felt her finally drift off to sleep after about an hour, and her body became a dead weight against mine.
We never ever spoke of it again.
The RMS Claymore left from the big pier the next morning. The nuns walked us through the town to the waiting room at the ferry terminal. Peter and I had one small cardboard suitcase between us, which I carried. Catherine had a tashed canvas holdall that she slung carelessly over her shoulder, as if train rides and ferries were everyday fare.
It wasn’t until we got to the pier that I realized we were going on the boat, and that the nuns weren’t coming with us. That came as a bit of a shock. The presence of the nuns these last two days, cold black shadows though they’d been, had provided a sense of safety and purpose. The thought of setting sail on this big boat that smelled of oil and salt water, all alone and with no idea of where we were going, filled me with an unaccountable dread.