Act 1-3

Father Ronan leaned back in his chair with arms folded. A soft-spoken man in his forties, his eyes were shadowed and his trim dark hair was beginning to grey. He wore the same black short-sleeves and trousers as he always did. Not once had Trevor ever seen him in colour. The priest addressed the sitting class from behind his desk, occasionally glancing at the mild weather outside.

'As you children may know, I'm leaving the parish on Monday.'

Trevor snorted when Father Ronan said “Children” in his queer accent. “Children” don’t smoke like Josefina. “Children” don’t snag cheap beer from their dad like Michael-John. “Children” certainly don’t get up to what Patricia and Declan do every time they sneak into that barn at the weekend.

Ronan shot Trevor a look.

‘You have something to say, Mr. Daly?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Good.’

The priest stood up from his desk and walked out in front, hands behind his back. He glanced at Leech’s empty desk, but said nothing of it. Then he cast his gaze across the room, seeing every face in turn. He saw Trevor, now eager to avoid being noticed. He saw Josefina, who stared back uninterested. He saw Del, whose eyes were cast down. Then he continued.

‘I want to speak to you children on a more personal level. Since I'm gone in a few days I think it appropriate that I open up to you all for once. Not as a priest. Not as a teacher. But as someone who was once young like yourselves.’

He raised one hand from behind his back and his fingers adjusted his collar as if it chafed, or perhaps to draw attention to it.

‘As you can tell by my accent, I wasn’t born in Ireland. Though my parents came from Cork and Waterford, I was raised in Manchester where they worked in a textile mill. They managed to drill the Irish into me when they could, hoping to keep me in touch with my roots.’

He sat on the edge of his desk and from his pocket he fished out his black leather wallet. Out slipped two photos, both laminated but still weathered with friction and age. He held up a portrait of a young girl, black and white like himself, for all the class to see. The girl sat on an outdoor step in her Sunday dress, hair in ringlets, smiling as she sheltered her eyes from the sunlight with her fingers.

‘Say hello to my older sister, Mary-Anne.’

One or two of the girls sitting in the class smiled back at her, but Father Ronan didn’t share their good mood.

‘Sadly, Mary-Anne passed of an illness when she was five. I’m sorry to say I have no memory of her growing up, as I was just an infant at the time. For all my life I’ve only had my parents word and this photograph to tell me that she ever existed at all.’

In his other hand Father Ronan held out an even older photo, depicting a couple indoors holding hands while sitting in separate chairs. Their formal clothes neat, their smiles slight.

‘My mother and father as you’d expect. Both of them passed shortly after I was ordained. So like my sister, this photo I keep of them is testament that they worked hard and lived honestly. My family is long gone but I carry them with me wherever I go.’

Father Ronan sat up from the edge of his desk, at long last commanding the class’s attention with his own words instead of dry gospel.

‘For you children six years is a long time, nearly half your lives. But for me it’s been like a short season. I’ve held mass, overseen weddings and funerals, and watched you grow up with each and every passing day. I may not be sure where my next charge takes me, but I’d like to believe my time here has left an impression on you all.’

For just that one moment Father Ronan’s speech held the room. But the thin smile on his lips vanished when the classroom door creaked open to his left. Everyone but Del turned to see Leech standing in the corridor, holding a wad of bloodied toilet paper to his scabbed upper lip. Father Ronan didn’t flinch when he saw Leech over his shoulder. Instead he asked in a flat tone, 'William Shields, is that blood on your face?'

Leech answered without making eye contact. The boy’s shirt collar was damp after a long spell at the sink.

'Yes, sir.'

'Would you mind telling the class as to why there is blood on your face? How you earned that deep cut above your lip?’

'I got into a fight, sir.'

The class giggled. Ronan closed his eyes for three seconds. Trevor guessed it was to hide him rolling them.

'With whom, may I ask?'

'A girl, sir.'

The class giggled again, only for Ronan to silence them with an absent wave of his hand, still holding a photograph.

'Was it Delilah McCabe?'

'Yes, sir.'

Ronan closed his eyes and sighed before speaking again.

'William, go back to the boy’s room and wash your face again. Then find the nurse. Delilah, come see me after class. Everyone else please return to your studies.’

Father Ronan stared at Leech until he left. Then he slipped the photos back into his wallet. He spared a glance at Del, who still sat with her eyes downcast. The room now quiet but for the sound of two dozen pencils pressing on paper, Father Ronan returned to his seat and clasped his hands on his desk, choosing to wait out the final minutes of class. His teaching career ending in utter silence.

Ten minutes later Trevor was standing by the classroom door, taking care not to be noticed either by the passing staff in the hallway or by Father Ronan inside. Leaning his head by the door frame, Trevor listened in as the priest bore down on Del.

‘Did you assault William Shields?’ said the priest.

A pause.

‘Look at me, Delilah.

No doubt she looked.

‘Did you hit him in the face?’

‘Yes. I did.’

‘Why did you do that?’

‘He touched me. Called me names.’

‘Did that give you leave to beat him bloody? To cut his face like that?’

No answer.

‘You spent the entire class looking down at something in your hands. What is it?’

‘It’s this, sir.’

There came the tiny clink of soft metal.

‘A silver chain? Hand it over.’

Trevor winced when he heard him. Del raised her voice.

‘What?’

‘I said, hand it over.’

‘But sir!’

‘No excuses, Delilah.’

‘My gran gave this to me!’

‘If I’m to believe that’s a family heirloom, Delilah, then I find it unlikely you’d be as base to use it as a weapon. Mr. Shields is going to be needing stitches, you understand.’

Del panicked. Trevor clenched his fist.

‘It was an accident!’

‘You’re already in enough trouble as it is, Delilah. Hand it over and this matter ends here. I won’t have to tell your mother anything else over the phone that makes this that more difficult.’

The silver chain clinked again, followed by a sob. Then came the rustle of a desk drawer’s contents.

‘Good. If there’s no visible consequences to one’s misbehaviour, then nothing is learned. You may go, Delilah.’

When he heard Del’s footsteps approach Trevor scrambled away from the door and bolted down the corridor, backpack slung over one shoulder. He was going to be late for Mr. Kearney’s technical graphics lesson, not that it mattered. As he ran, all Trevor could do was picture Del’s face. Dark eyes averted under her messy black fringe. Mouth pursed as she struggled not to cry. Unlikely to sing again now that her heart had been broken twice today.

Three short beeps and another long flat tone signalled the end of the school week. Doubling back to the classroom, the now sweaty Trevor moved through the crowd of other students, keeping an eye out for any teachers or a certain priest. He stepped inside the empty room, now bathed in soft light of the afternoon light, and walked behind what had been Father Ronan’s desk. After pulling out the left drawer Trevor rifled through it, finding only chalk, pens, and a broken protractor. As he expected the right drawer was locked when he tried the handle. So from his backpack he pulled out his metal ruler. With Trevor’s left hand holding back the lip of the handle, he used his right to jam the thirty centimetres of steel into the locking mechanism. It clicked open on the second try. Sparing a glance at the door, Trevor slid open the drawer.

Falling to one knee, he pored over the contents. A chocolate bar, but sadly containing raisins. Pass. A condom, still in its wrapper. Another pass. A half-empty yellow box of fags, those he pocketed. He could score a favour from Josefina later. On reaching the bottom of the drawer, all Trevor could say was,

‘Shit.’

No silver chain, no anything. He heard footsteps close by. Not pushing his luck any further, Trevor slid the drawer shut. He stood up, brushed his knees, and made for the door. Of course Mrs. Colgan walked in at that exact moment, both arms full holding an overhead projector. She looked as jaded as ever in her blocky eyeglasses and brown tweed blazer.

‘What are you doing here, Trevor?’ she said.

‘I just left my ruler behind, Miss,’ he said holding up the measure in question.

Mrs. Colgan didn’t bother to entertain the notion, being eager to ditch the weight in her arms.

‘Am I supposed to believe that, Trevor?’

‘Am I supposed to come up with anything better?’

She shook her head and made for a closet at the end of the classroom.

‘Just don’t let me catch you again, Trevor.’

‘You won’t, miss. Honest.’

Breathing a sigh of relief, Trevor walked out of the classroom, through the hallway, and into the afternoon air.

Josefina was leaning on the brick wall by the gate with both hands in the pockets of her zipped-up parka. Looking left and right Trevor asked her, ‘Where’s Del?’

Josefina shrugged.

‘She went on ahead home. Says she still needs time by herself. Also said that that holy roller took her bracelet.’

Trevor nodded.

‘Yeah, that’s right. He didn’t give a shit that Leech started the fight. Said he needed to teach her a lesson. So he took the damn thing. I, uh, may have listened in.’

‘Did you learn anything else?’

He shook his head.

‘I know that for a fact that he pocketed it, since I didn’t find it anywhere in his desk. Here, I got you a gift.’

He tossed her the fag packet and her right hand darted through the air to catch it. She inspected the box with a grin.

‘Sweet Aftons? That’s my boy. I think these might have been Tony’s. Mine now’

She pocketed them.

‘You think you’ll ever stop smoking, Jo?’

‘Same time you stop getting your fingers sticky, Trevor. Let’s go.’

The pair of them set off through the gates and out into the village. The afternoon air now quiet as the other students had since dispersed. Ahead lay the main street, where near every shop and tenement crowded together on either side of the tarmac, baying for attention. Peeking behind both sides stood the forest canopy, still trying to fight the growing village like blood clotting around an open wound. While Josefina may have lit up an old fag next to up him, Trevor couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose at something far fouler in the distance. For beyond the main street lay a grassy hill among the trees, where sat a parochial house. A cold, grey, stone mass of chimneys and gables; it was home to an even colder man who now carried the bloodied, broken chain of silver in his pocket.