Lizzie reasoned that he had had some sort of conniption fit, brought on by all the blood running to his willy. I scolded her for making light of it and she backtracked with stories of how young lads get all wound up listening to the men at home and in the pubs and how they’re apt to repeat stuff they’ve heard even if they don’t mean it. I didn’t like my voice, it sounded like Mammy.
– If you don’t mean something, you shouldn’t say it!
– He was showing off! Trying to look hard to impress you! He’s never been a dick before! Come on!
– He doesn’t know me too well if he thinks I’d be impressed by that bullshit talk. I hate all that ‘us’ and ‘them’ and who’s to bloody blame. We have to live in the middle of it, do they ever think of that? I mean, for Christ’s sake, when did somebody dying get funny or have I missed something?
– You haven’t missed anything, but just calm down, Mary! Joe was just being a knob, he wouldn’t have meant it.
– He’s a tosspot!
– Aye, he is, but he’s still your tosspot!
Damn her for making me smile. From the first moment I met her, she could crack me up. Everything about her is warm, from her red hair and rosy freckles to her huge brown eyes like Ginger Nuts. I loved being near her. She made me feel coloured in.
I saw Joe collecting his dinner later. He’d been crying, I could tell, even though he still had his Provo face on. To make up for the blotchy neck he carried his tray in one hand and kept the other one in his pocket, like he had a grenade in there and could throw it at any minute to set the whole of Ireland free. Bloody stupid little dickhead; if I wanted an idiot I’d get one anywhere. I expected more of him. He was supposed to be better than me and my weak material: a better class, a gamble worth taking.
It took Lizzie Magee nearly three hours to wear me down. She brushed my hair as she talked me into it. He was just flexing his political muscles, this was his first time away from home too. He was probably a nervous wreck at the thought of the night ahead. Sure he was only young, as young as us? He was just being a lad. With every repetition it seemed a lesser crime; she kept telling me I knew him, that I knew he wouldn’t know how to be unkind, and I found myself nodding, yeah, yeah, he was a good boy with a good heart. He had been good enough to pick the likes of me, I should be grateful. And tonight was my first step towards America; we’d be bound together before we got to the boat.
I waited ’til nearly 11pm. I hoped he’d wait for me. I hoped he’d give up and go to bed. I hoped I wouldn’t be sick with fear. Lizzie and me watched Sister Pious cast one last glance into each room. She was secure in the knowledge that, with her by the exit doors and the French assistant helping two Christian Brothers keep guard on the other side of the compound, all was well: our reputations would make it back to the countryside intact. Lizzie held out a cherry drop and I let her put it on my tongue like Holy Communion. She spun me round and kissed me on the back of the head and after a quick hug propelled me forward. I was instantly lonesome. She pulled me back and tucked the rubber johnny into my bra, choking on her giggles. I promised myself I’d get even one day.
I tiptoed past the closed door of the staffroom. There was a low murmur of contentment. They knew that boys and girls would always try to meet but for a start they were watching the well-known sly girls and had already put them at the end of the long corridor furthest away from the exit. Mhaire Doherty was one they had their eye on because they had already lost her big sister’s virginity to a freshly ordained priest, one Father Martin O’Hara. As soon as the poor girl was pregnant, the Bishop suddenly decided that Father Martin O’Hara was urgently needed in the next parish along for a few months. Dymphna Doherty was left without so much as a blessing. When she wheeled her baby boy up to the convent to meet Mhaire, Sister Pious had sailed forth to shoo her back out of the school gates.
She could not be allowed to stand on Church land. She was a bad example, a reminder that you can’t trust a young girl around a young priest. But Dymphna cracked and got her by the back of the neck and shoved her face into the pram! An indignant Pious had had to wrestle herself free, re-pin her habit and storm away without a word.
– He’s just as good as you, better. He’s innocent, just a wee babby, not all covered in sin. Where’s his da? Eh? Where’s Father Martin O’Hara? Where’s the da, Sister Pious? The boy could use a few auld nappies and such. Can you hear me? Where’s the da? Where’s Father Martin O’Bloody-Hara now?
I put the image of poor abandoned Dymphna out of my mind. Tonight was my night to fly. It was so beautiful: cool for April, dry, the air still sharp with cut grass like a hayfield only it was a lawn. I had on Lizzie’s red gypsy dress and no knickers or shoes so that I could creep out and I felt fantastic. I was loose!
She’d done a great job on my hair; it hung down like real hair. The anger I had felt earlier was largely gone, leaving me tired, but I had been tired for as long as I could remember, tired and lonely. I wanted him again, I wanted to be touched, to be held, to be somebody’s. My mother was miles across the country. I was free of her and The Hill and him, my modest father. I liked the taste it left in my mouth, my mouth that tasted of cherries.
Over the garden walls the tops of the cypress trees stood still against the light sky. There was a crescent moon. I had arranged to meet Joe just past the confines of the herb garden. There were some old table gravestones in an alcove on the back wall and the whole place couldn’t be seen from any of the windows. A blind spot full of healing plants, ha ha ha.
Should you make jokes when you’re about to throw away your virginity? Or when you wanted to punch your boyfriend in the teeth but you couldn’t risk being like your mammy? Or when you felt so brittle you could break at any minute? Or when your heart was swelling because your mother was a coach trip away for the first time in sixteen years and couldn’t hurt you?
I wished Daddy was beside me though he’d be unlikely to put his arm around me and tell me I was safe. He might manage another round of ‘watch yourself, watch yourself’. It was the only advice he ever had. It was always said with concern, maybe even love if he knew what that was, but I’d lost count of the number of times I wished he’d do the watching. He was a hopeless guardian. I adored him all the same. He had shrunk a bit every time he lost one of the boys. Like me, he was probably as glad as he was sad that Matthew would never have the courage to escape.
I strolled across the edge of the lawn. I should have brought a cardigan but Lizzie said it would spoil my ‘whole look’. I hardly ever wore dresses, Joe would be so surprised! I’d never had anything red before. Mammy said it was too flashy but it was absolutely my colour.
The chilly air felt good. Goosebumps raced up my bare arms. The tang of rosemary came above all the other herbs growing there along with lovage, which we had had in handfuls in the soup of the day and which we’d still be tasting at Christmas. I wanted to cry when it was the first time for ages I didn’t feel sad.
I looked to see someone coming. He was strolling too. He had come. He had waited for me. I did love him, he did love me! We had loved each other for years, hadn’t we?
– Joe! Joe, over here!
He came towards me and I nearly passed out. It was Jacques Bernier. I was in deep trouble.
– ’ello.
– Hello.
– Who is Joe? Your boyfriend, I think?
– Yes, no. He’s more a friend really …
– He must be a very good friend if you cannot wait to see him tomorrow, non?
– Yes, a very good friend. I’ll just go back now …
– It’s okay. I found your Joe and locked him away! It’s a beautiful night, don’t you think?
– Yes, sir, and it’s not even raining.
– Non! It is not even raining. Which is strange for Ireland. Such ugly weather and such beautiful girls. Is it the rain which made you so beautiful?
– I don’t know. I better go in now before I get caught?
– You will not get caught. All the good sisters are asleep. A little too much sherry and other intoxications involving the company of Father Kevin. They all went off giggling like schoolgirls. You know all about giggling, don’t you, Mary?
I was stuck. What could I say? He was laughing at me and teasing me at the same time. I felt like I didn’t have a dress on at all, never mind no knickers. I shivered. I bet he would tell Pious. He was looking at the stars; there were fewer here than at home because of the light pollution from Belfast. I looked too, just to join in and try to feel like it was okay. He wouldn’t know that they’d be reflected on the water of Lough Neagh, lying dark and vast close by. I hardly felt him move next to me. He backed me on to the cold slab.
– You are cold?
– I’m grand.
– Grand?
– Fine, you know, fine.
– Yes, very fine.
He was moving his arms from my hands up my bare arms to my shoulders and back again. I didn’t breathe. He leaned in for a kiss and I just sat there. He lingered a few inches from my mouth so I kissed him. If he wanted to play games with me, fine, grand. I can play. He was a good kisser, a great kisser, but then so was I, I’d had years of practice.
He moved his hands back down my arms and kept moving ’til he had his hands on my knees, kissing me all the while, deeper and deeper. He stroked my thighs, higher and higher and then he reached my … oh! He pulled back then and looked at me. His face was impossible to read; it wasn’t shock or disgust. I’d totally taken him by surprise and I was delighted. He was firmly on the back foot!
His mouth was still open but he didn’t need to speak; I knew how it seemed and strangely I didn’t want him to stop. I wanted to be on his level, I was tired of being a little empty girl. I wanted to be exotic, I wanted to be louche. I wanted to be worldly. He smelt of cigarettes. He tasted of them, too. I’d put my tongue in his mouth and he suddenly didn’t seem so far above me, me, Mary the weed!
I looked over at the boys’ dorm but there was no one coming, there was no Joe, he was locked in. Jacques turned my face to his with one finger and kissed me again. He pushed my hip bones with his thumbs and I lay back on the cold granite.
What happened next cut me to the bone. He bent his head between my legs and started kissing me there. I tried not to make a sound. He was kissing me so softly, French kissing me, and I didn’t even have to join in. This was NOT in the Girls Growing Up book! Sister Dolores had definitely NOT mentioned this kind of carry-on inside or outside holy matrimony! What chapter would it have been in? A clean mind in a clean body? Did I miss that class?
I felt a pulsing start in my legs, I thought it was because I’d held them rigid for so long but, when I looked down, my legs were actually flopped out to the sides and Jacques’s head was still moving slowly over me. His hair tickled my stomach. I was lost. I felt something inside me break free and start to swirl and swirl. And then he was inside me. Just like that, no real pain, no fear and no way back.
He moved slowly at this too and after a while when he put his thumbs on me down there I crashed on to him like a wave while he cried out and threw his head back. I didn’t make a sound. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and kissed me briefly on the lips before he rested his head on my breastbone. He seemed happy, content. I felt like I’d been handed a gift, a beautiful gift which even now was turning cold as it ran out of me. All the girls fancied Jacques Bernier but it was me, ME, who got him in the end!
I put my arms on his shoulders and moved him away. He zipped his trousers and lifted me on to the ground, light as a feather with a ton of guilt already starting to pull at my heart. I had just cheated on Joe Loughrey. I had replaced him in a heartbeat after years of longing. I was a T.R.A.M.P. after all.
Maybe it was because Jacques was more manly, someone who didn’t give a fig for the Six Counties, the sickening see-saw of them and us? He was lighting a cigarette. He blew the smoke up and away but it blew back. His hair flickered around his face. He picked at a bit of loose tobacco which was on his tongue. His tongue, my tongue. My God. For a second that rush ran through me again. What had he done to me? I hugged myself tight and started to look around. How long had we been there? I couldn’t grasp the time. I thought I might cry. But something between my legs was still happy, still open. I had been touched. I was a woman at last.
– Your boyfriend, ’e doesn’t have to know, yes?
– Joe?
– Joe, yes. His loss is my gain, I think, Merise?
I wanted to run but women don’t run so I walked away without even saying goodnight. I was already cheekier and it had only been minutes! Joe would never know. He hadn’t made it to the gardens so he wouldn’t know if I had been there or not. I’d say I’d set out and then got frightened. I hadn’t waited long, it was cold. I knew somehow, somehow that he wasn’t coming. I wouldn’t tell a soul. Not even Lizzie Magee. Never.
She would kill me anyway; she would kill me just for looking at Jacques! She thought she loved him. Imagine what she would do if she knew I’d tasted his tobacco? Christ alive, she’d stone me in the street! I consoled myself with thoughts of secrets. I was an expert at secrets, even better than I was at kissing. I had been taught by the best. I was trained from the cradle to keep quiet. I would take it to my grave.
I closed the big monastery door on the night and felt the relative warmth of the old flagstones as I tiptoed back to my life. Lizzie Magee was asleep! Miracles do happen! She’d swore she’d stay up ’til I got back but she didn’t stir even when I put the light out. I pulled off her red dress in the bathroom. The rubber johnny fell on the floor, intact. I put it in the bin. I wanted to wash myself. I looked in the mirror: my lips were swollen and I liked the look in my eyes. I wasn’t totally ugly. I wasn’t nothing any more.
I knew what the big fuss was about. I knew it didn’t hurt and I knew that no one in my class would know that French boys liked to do kissing way south of the border, properly in bandit country! I didn’t know anybody else who could dream about those things! I was clever now. I knew I’d never get caught. Never.
I wiped myself with a flannel; it was cold which I was glad for. I put my nightie on and slid into the bed. Under Lizzie’s scrutiny I might have slipped up. She had a knack of rumbling me; she would know I’d been kissed but not how this time. I nestled down and waited for the warmth on her side of the bed to reach me.
Joe Loughrey would be none the wiser. He hadn’t been in the right place at the right time, that was all. If he had been in the right place at the right time he could have had me for himself, we would have been united. I would have been his and he would have been mine but now it was too late.
I’d done it. I’d done it and got away with it. I was over the moon, I’d broken out, had slipped Mammy’s net. I smiled in the dark ’til my cheeks ached. Auntie Eileen was right: it was lovely being a woman.
The next day it took Lizzie Magee nearly an hour to get rid of her rage at Joe Loughrey. He was useless, a waste of bloody space! I had been right all along; he was a tosspot, a wanker, a bollix! Did he not know how long she had planned this week. I shushed her and soothed her and told her it would be alright – there was plenty of time for me to dodge the virginity bullet. She would not promise to cross her heart and hope to die that she would not under any circumstances say anything to Joe about how LONG I had waited. So long she had fallen asleep! Oh, she was frothing at the mouth!
We both saw him at breakfast, all saucer eyes over the bowls of porridge, and he caught up with us as we set off to tidy our rooms.
– Mary! Mary!
– Wanker, tosspot, bollix!
– Yeah, thanks for that, Lizzie! Mary, wait!
– What is it, Joe? The bus is going to be here in a minute.
– I tried to get out but that French bloke got in the way! I waited, Mary, but he stayed out in the gardens! Did he see you?
– No, of course he didn’t!
– We’ll talk about this when we get home, aye?
– Aye, sure!
For him, home was a safe place: two darlings to dote on him in a rose-scented box. Memories reared up of Doctor Loughrey ruffling his hair like a pet dog. Joe got smaller in my eyes, and my heart ached. For the first time I could see past him but I still didn’t want to; I wanted him to be my whole horizon because I needed to keep my eyes fixed on something.
I saw Jacques on the bus home. Instead of running his eyes all over me, he glued them to a spot just past my head. I didn’t mind in the slightest. I drew a line under it and moved on. I could block things out as if they had never happened. I added Jacques and the cold granite, the sliver of moon and the smell of rosemary to my cache and threw away the key.
We were all subdued on the way back to Carncloon; we’d talked and talked and resolved nothing. Britain was at war with Argentina, we were part of Britain and we didn’t want to be; our own little war was ticking away, like a bomb. Lizzie was gloomy that she had had five days to pull Jacques and failed. She snivelled the whole way home.
She was going to ask her mammy if she could have chips and spaghetti hoops and loads of ketchup for her tea in a desperate bid to cheer herself up. I watched her wander off to the housing estate, her red hair swinging from a ponytail making her look even more dejected.
Joe called Dermot Darling from the phone box to pick us up and take us back to the hills. He wanted to get us sweets to pass the time; I didn’t want any. He wanted to step into the Long Lounge; I didn’t want to. He wanted to know if I was alright; I wasn’t but I told him I was. I was standing on the ground right beside him but with an army-issue riot shield between us. His questions bounced off me; I was untouched.
My heart was floating on a salty sea, burning and freezing by turns as it bobbed this way and that. I pulled back from Joe Loughrey and the more he whined the more I wanted to smack him. If only you hadn’t taken your eye off me, I wanted to shout at him, I wouldn’t have ruined myself in a minute.
For once Mammy and her temper proved useful. I said I knew I wouldn’t be able to get out after nearly a week away from chores; I said I’d be under lock and key. I practically tied a bonnet on her head and gave her big eyes and big hairy paws all the better to batter me with. He nodded that he understood.
Dermot Darling finally eased his car over the ramps at the top of the town, all teeth that Joseph was back. He’d been missed; bungalow land just wasn’t the same without him. Mrs Loughrey (Mummy Darling) had made a cake, a cake with chocolate sprinkles to welcome him home sweet home. When I was dropped on the street at The Hill, I stood and waved and waved ’til they were gone then I walked around to the back door and let myself in.
– Hello, Mammy …
– Oh, it’s only you! Get changed into your work clothes now you’re done gaddin’ about! Spuds don’t dig themselves, y’know?