Chapter Fourteen

Aggie rang the bell of the Presbytery door and waited for what seemed an eternity before the housekeeper answered.

“Can I please see Fr. O’Halloran?”

The housekeeper was pleased to see Aggie and a large smile crossed her face.

“Oh! Hello, Aggie How nice to see you. Come in and how are you keeping? I’ll get him for you. Family all well?”

“Yes thank you, everybody is fine, Mrs. Dinneen,” she replied, hoping she had covered every enquiry in that one simple statement. Mrs. Dinneen was a kind woman, but she had a grass hopper mind and would enquire about a multiple of things in the one sentence and usually in the same breath. Aggie was shown into a small parlour with just a single table and two chairs, but it gleamed with its highly polished floor and immaculate if sparse surroundings. The white window ledges looked as though they had just been washed and dusted and the skirting surrounding the floor sparkled. Aggie liked the look of cleanliness that she saw and hoped one day, she too would be able to dust and polish, the House of the Lord. She had waited about five minutes when the priest appeared, blustering with an air of urgency.

“Glad to see you again, Aggie,” he said and thrust his hand forward for the quickest of hand shakes, “I can’t stay long ... the clergy have a meeting and dinner at the Cathedral today and I have to give a speech.”

Aggie felt awkward and out of place as she sat there with her problem, which seemed to her in that moment to be so insignificant and she thought it might be best to go home and come back another time, but Fr. O’Halloran settled himself suddenly and waited as he looked at her with his beady eyes.

“Perhaps I should come back another time Father you being busy an’ that.”

He seemed to shake himself out of a dream as she spoke.

“No ...No, of course not Aggie ... We can settle this matter in a few minutes. It is about the Convent, isn’t it?” Aggie nodded nervously. “Well, I have given a lot of thought to what you told me Aggie and I think you should pray about this, very, very much. Only prayer can give you the answer you need.”

He was not very tactful in his avoidance of his responsibility, but he was aware of that.

“Aggie,” he went on, laboriously as if he had hoped she would have accepted his final remark and go and do as he requested. “Aggie ...you are a good girl and you’d make a splendid nun, I’m sure but you are the oldest in your family. You have no father and your mother is not very strong, I understand.” Aggie wondered where Fr. O’Halloran got all his information as he went on ... “You have the responsibility of looking after your brothers and sisters and even your mother in her latter years perhaps. There is NO SIGN ...no sign at all at the moment that God is calling you to leave home and enter a Convent.”

He looked at Aggie and pursed his lips in his conclusion and she knew what he said was the truth well ... most of it but, it was the truth she had hoped to avoid. She fumbled in her handbag as she waited for him to continue and retrieved her handkerchief. “I have to go now Aggie. I can’t keep the clergy waiting. Come again when you like. Pleased to see you at any time. Good-bye.”

Aggie found herself outside the Presbytery again and standing alone in the street, before she realized it. She gazed at the pavement through misty tears as she gathered her thoughts.

“The priest is right,” she concluded, muttering her thoughts aloud to herself. “I will never become a nun and even if I could, it would not be possible for me to leave the family. They could never fend for themselves. Willie, at least, is to young and Charlie ... well, he couldn’t even boil an egg.”

She walked home slowly and looked up, apologising to a God that somehow she thought might be up there listening.

“I’m sorry God. I’m sorry for being so presumptuous,” she apologised meekly, “but I’ll never marry. Please don’t ask me to do that.”

Then she corrected herself in a moment, for being so self-willed. .

***

She went into the house and took her coat off as she entered the living room.

“Been out for a walk, Aggie?” Mary enquired as she rubbed her hands on her apron.

“Yes Mammy. I’ve had a nice walk, thank you. I’m back at the factory in twenty minutes. Do you want a cup of tea?”

“That would be nice, Hen but you sit down and I’ll make it. You’re on your feet all day.”

They drank their tea together in silence, for Agnes Blair had her mind on other things.

***

“Mammy Mammy I’ve got a job,” Meggie screamed with excited delight and Mary had to hold her down.

“Steady now, Meggie steady. Now get your breath back and tell me all about it.”

She had been accepted by the Fellowship Insurance Company as a filing clerk.

“I’m so excited Mammy. They say I might be able to use my French, although I know it’ll be a while before that. Lucky if I don’t get away from making the tea for the first six months, I would have thought,” she added realistically as she went into the bedroom and threw herself on the bed.

“Wheeeeh! ... Sixteen shillings a week ... I’m rich.” she shouted and purred with delight into her pillow.