19

Philip and sam used to invite Father Tom for a meal when he returned from the missions. Afterwards, they would sit with him and a remnant of the Newman House group and, over a glass of wine, look through photos of themselves, at the Phoenix Park and in Galway during the Pope’s visit. One had been taken on Christmas Eve morning outside the Bank of Ireland when they were coming off their forty-eight-hour fast – their breath showing in the frosty air. And every time they scanned these photos, they had a good laugh at the one of Sam challenging a Garda inspector in her fight for Nicaragua.

They would return to Mass when Dylan was making his First Communion. Indeed, they composed sunny images of them-selves climbing the lichen steps of Raheny Church on a Sunday morning: Dylan beside his father, and Zara hanging on to her mother’s hand.

But Sunday was their only time to have a lie-in while they clambered up the ladder at a rate beyond their wildest dreams. After a while, the invitations to Father Tom and the Newman remnant fell away.

The relentless progress was consuming them, body and soul. Their determination to climb higher was as fervent as their one-time commitment to the soup run. They were winning trophies too: the house at Antibes, a growing trust fund for Dylan and Zara, the suv and the Beemer in the driveway. Encouraged by Sharkey, Philip, like most Nat Am staff, had taken out half a million Euro to invest in the bank.

The Lalors were changing: Sam would stop at nothing for a chance to sit at the directors’ table. Philip had been bending the rules, like being up to his neck with Sharkey, and a few others in conspiring to hide the millions Sharkey was taking out on loans from Nat Am. He was also in on the bank policy of advising clients to avoid dirt, by helping them to open non-resident accounts.

When Philip saw how money was draining out of the country, he hit upon the idea of opening a branch in the tax-free Isle of Man to attract investors, and talked it over with Sharkey and Kevin one night in Shanahan’s on the Green. He had to do some clever footwork, and get around Sharkey, who usually shot down any idea that wasn’t his own.

‘Don’t you remember, Aengus, what you said there a couple of months ago about some way of getting our clients to avoid a penal tax bill?’

‘Yes … Yes, I did.’

‘And you said something about the chance of opening in the Isle of Man.’

‘Now that you mention it, I was about to get around to it this week.’

At that time both Philip and Kevin were among the disciples. Philip was getting good at justifying what he was doing: other banks were in on the act and, anyway, hard-working people were being fleeced with punitive taxes. So, apart from Philip’s education project for Tanzania, the slow drift away from the Holy Thursday ideals got lost in the welter of plans they devised as they drove home in the dark after picking up the children.

They considered themselves lucky when they got Crina from Romania, who acted as nanny and housekeeper. Crina lived in a Baldoyle apartment with her husband, Lars. When Sam went back to work after having Dylan, Crina looked after the baby; the same when Zara came along. She also did the housework, washed and ironed, and the children loved her. She arrived each morning before Philip and Sam had gone to work, and when they returned, she drove away in her twelve-year-old Nissan Micra.

And when Philip and Sam went out for a meal or to the theatre with the Egans, or other colleagues, the children were glad to have Crina for a few more hours. Lars, who worked in construction at the airport, came now and again to cut the grass, trim shrubs and bushes, and tend to the flowerbeds.

For a week or so, when Crina flew back to Bucharest to see her father, who had suffered a stroke, Philip’s mother, Una, volunteered to come and stay at the house. At such short notice, Sam couldn’t get anyone she trusted, so she gave in.

The two women had never warmed to each other: Una always maintained that Philip gave Sam too much authority over their affairs. ‘There’s no doubt who wears the trousers in that household,’ she confided early on to her sister the nun as they paced Sandymount Strand. ‘And that father …’ She made a face. ‘Something strange about that boyo. God forgive me for talking like this. You should hear him go on about his ‘property portfolio’ in Alicante. Upstart.’

A practical woman, not given to too much reflection, Una believed that Philip could have done better. The two families met for the first time when Philip and Sam graduated; they all went to Dobbin’s Bistro for a meal. Although Ollie and Myra wore expensive clothes, Una feared the worst: Philip would marry beneath him. Used car business or not, they were working-class through and through: the father, with his suntan, was still the spray painter from Crumlin.

The following Saturday, in the convent parlour, she gave a blow-by-blow account to her sister. ‘You should see the get-up of him, with his rings and his bracelets. Like one of them swarthy fellows you’d come across trying to sell you carpets of a Saturday in Roscrea.’

Soon after, Philip brought Sam home for the first time; one look for Una was enough to know that it was too late now to stop him, yet she let Sam know where she stood in her affections. For most of the evening she talked to Philip and ignored her. At the dinner table, Una served her son a steak; Sam was given a salad. As the years went by, the gap between the two women grew wider, but by sheer effort and fearing the consequences, they stifled their mutual hatred. That effort – in a perverse way – fuelled their loathing. Una harped on to her sister about Sam’s obsession with dieting and how the blender is always at the ready on the kitchen island. ‘This vegetarian nonsense, and not a pick on her. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she didn’t have one of those – you know – eating disorders. And Dylan and Zara,’ she snorted. ‘What sort of names are they?’

Conversely, everything about Una set her daughter-in-law’s teeth on edge. Like the way she wrong-footed them at the table, making a lot of crossing herself and saying Grace Before Meals, when Sam was about to tuck into her food.

At the beginning, Sam coped by referring to her jokingly as the Queen Bee, and Philip took no offence then, but later, when they became snappy with each other, and the rows became bitter, she raged at him: ‘You’re fucking well in thrall to her … the Queen Bee.’

‘At least she acts her age, not like your silly mother, mutton dressed as lamb.’

When Crina had to fly to Bucharest, Sam was in a corner; not easy to get someone on a temporary basis to whom the children would adapt, and while Dylan was quiet and biddable, Zara was already proving a handful. Besides, Sam was now due for promotion, and taking time off wouldn’t go down well. Even with just two children, she had to endure the snide remarks of some of the men about women wanting it both ways. Like Nat Am, High Res demanded unconditional loyalty.

So on the evening before Sam left for London on a shoot that would take three days, Una and Seamus moved in to the house in Raheny. The arrangement seemed good for everyone: Seamus would potter about the garden, weeding flowerbeds and cutting the grass. He would also bring his poetry collections: Words-worth, Tennyson and Yeats – a life-long interest, which Una saw as a waste of time.

The weekend would become Una’s chance to put into action what she had been hatching for some time: to do something about the children’s lack of any religious formation. Philip and Sam’s decision to send the children to that place – the feeder school for Goldsmith Park, had appalled her.

‘Sure, there’s no religion taught there, by all accounts,’ she appealed to her sister. ‘And Dylan should be making his First Communion in a year’s time.’

The nun made clicking sounds with her tongue.

‘Not a sign of a religious picture in the house, but she can go into town and buy dear paintings from that gallery on the Green. It’s far from art she was reared.’

As soon as Philip had gone to Druid’s Glen with a couple of developers, Una told the children that she had some books they might like to look at. She rooted in her bag, while they stood in front of her with a look of expectation, as if they sensed that something out of the ordinary was about to happen.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘let us all sit and look at these.’

Very quietly they eased themselves on to the couch at each side of her.

‘Dylan and Zara, here’s pictures you will know. That’s who?’

They looked up with blank expressions. ‘I don’t know, Nana. Who is he?’

‘That’s Jesus, of course,’ she told them with an edge to her tone.

‘Oh Nana,’ Dylan grinned, sinking back into the couch. ‘You – ’ He covered his face with a comic book; Zara copied him. ‘You shouldn’t be saying that word. That’s a curse.’ They sniggered behind their comics.

‘What, child?’ She let the book about Jesus sink into her lap.

‘My friend, Josh,’ Dylan told her, ‘said that word when he fell, and his child-minder said not to be saying that word.’

Zara thought it was very funny and started running around repeating: ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.’

Una closed the book, and in the measured way she would explain the rules to fractious pupils in her school, she said: ‘Come here, Zara.’ Her lips tightened. The children stood in front of her.

‘Children, Jesus is a good word, a holy word, and it should be spoken only when you are praying. It is the name of the Son of God. He came to save us from our sins.’

Zara liked the sound of ‘praying’. She moved against her grandmother’s knee, and kept repeating the word.

When Sam returned from London, Dylan was bursting with news of Nana’s books, of men having dinner on one side of a table, with Jesus in the middle. ‘And Jesus is a good word, a holy word.’

‘Oh, really’ was all that Sam said, but Una received a frosty reception when she dropped in the following week. Philip had gone out on his bike, so they had the house to themselves. Both women stood in the kitchen contriving to make small talk, aware of what hung between them. Eventually Sam spoke her mind.

‘There’s an issue … and I’ll not sit here and pretend it hasn’t happened, especially since it concerns my children’s education.’

Una’s mouth tightened. ‘Yes, Samantha.’

Both had experience in dealing with conflict: Sam at work; Una, when irate parents came to her office to complain that their children were being treated unjustly.

‘Then I must insist that you will never again interfere.’

‘Interfere?’

‘Yes. It is our right as parents to introduce them to religion, if we so wish.’

‘So you think it is right to deprive them of the true faith that has served this country so well for centuries?’

Sam raised her voice: ‘Dylan and Zara are our children. We have the primary responsibility for their upbringing. I don’t share your ideas. Ireland has moved on. I’ve nothing in principle against religion but, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a private matter. For your information, Dylan will make his First Communion, and so will Zara. A priest comes to Goldsmith Junior; it’s not the heathen place that some make it out to be.’

Looking composed, Una was about to give battle, when she spotted Zara, who had come into the kitchen and was looking up at them. ‘Nana,’ she muttered, with her thumb in her mouth, ‘will you read us another story about the man with the beard?’

‘Lovey,’ Sam said, in a low voice, ‘go and play with Dylan. I’m talking to Nana.’

The two women were silent for a moment after Zara had left, both avoiding each other’s look. Una was the first to speak: ‘I owe you an apology, Samantha. You are perfectly right. Dylan and Zara are your children.’

Sam sank onto the couch where they sat as a family to watch a small television until the children’s bedtime. ‘It’s just the way I see things nowadays.’

Clutching her handbag, Una remained standing near the cupboards, but when she spoke, the edge had left her voice. ‘I may be stepping out of line here, but weren’t you and Philip very much involved with that priest in college? Masses and the soup round, and so on.’

Despite her resolve, Sam found herself becoming tearful; she began to play with a tassel of the throw. ‘It was … oh, I don’t know, I suppose a student thing. Stand up for the poor. But it didn’t really cost us anything. And we had the luxury of knowing we’d never be in their situation – or, most certainly, never have to live near them.’

The serious look on Una’s face was dissolving. ‘A cool thing to do as people say nowadays.’

‘Exactly. Thirty-six hour fasts. Change the world. Philip more than me. Some of the time I was only going along for his sake.’

Sam had another reason, which she wouldn’t reveal to Una. While she was ladling out soup to vagrants, she felt superior: her own worries seemed to disappear. She smoothed down the throw: ‘The world changed us, I’m afraid.’

It was a side of Sam Una had never seen before, but she made ready to go. ‘I just called in for a minute while Seamus is browsing around the library,’ she said. ‘I feel I need to apologize. As you say, your children are your responsibility.’

‘Thank you.’

It was a reconciliation of sorts, but the two women would never be friends, never stroll up Grafton Street on a Saturday morning, looking at shoes and then drop into Bewley’s for a cup of coffee and a croissant. And Una would never again bring books about the bearded man who came to save us from our sins.