'Beauty,' he said.

I looked at him.

'The gift of beauty. Roseanne, I think without too much trouble I could – of course bearing in mind the opinion of your mother, and even yourself, although I must still account you almost a child, if I may so, and in grave, gravest need of advice, if I may say – but what was I saying? Oh, yes, that I think here in the town I could find you very quickly, very smartly, easily and in the nicest manner possible, a husband. Of course, there would be certain things to do first.'

Fr Gaunt was as they say warming to his theme. The more he spoke the easier the words came, all nice and milky and honey-touched. Like many a man in authority, he was sublimely happy as long as he was presenting his ideas, and as long as his ideas were meeting with agreement.

'I don't think…' I said, trying to roll back this great boulder of good sense he was pushing on my head – it felt like.

'Before you say anything about this, I know you are only sixteen, and it might not be the usual thing to marry so young, but on the other hand, I have in mind a very suitable man, who I think would have a great regard for you, maybe already has, and is in steady employ, and would be in a position therefore to support you – and your mother of course.'

'I can support us,' I said, 'I am sure I can,' I said, and less sure of anything in my life I had never been.

'You may know this man already, he is Joe Brady that now holds your father's former job at the cemetery, a very steady, pleasant, kind man, who lost his own wife two years ago, and will be quite content to marry again. In life we must look for a certain symmetry of things, and as your father once held -Hmm. And he has no children and I am sure…'

Indeed and I knew Joe Brady, the man who had taken my father's job, and come to see him buried. Joe Brady as far as I knew or could tell was about fifty years of age.

'You'd have me marry an old man?' I said, in my innocence. Because, since he was offering such magnanimous charity, I could hardly expect a man under thirty I suppose. If I wanted a man.

'Roseanne, you are a very lovely young girl, and as such I am afraid, going about the town, a mournful temptation, not only to the boys of Sligo but also, the men, and as such and in every way conceivable, to have you married would be a boon and a rightness very complete and attractive in its – rightness.'

His eloquence had momentarily failed perhaps because he had glanced at my face. I don't know what my face was showing but it wasn't agreement.

'And naturally, I would be so pleased, so relieved and delighted to be the agent, the author as one might say, of receiving you into the fold. Which I hope you will see is a politic and indeed marvellous and magical prospect.'

'Fold?' I said.

'You will be very aware, Roseanne, of the recent upheavals in Ireland, and none of these upheavals favour any of the

Protestant sects. Of course I will be of the opinion that you are in gravest error and your mortal soul is lost if you continue where you are. Nevertheless I can say I pity you, and wish to help you. I can find you a good Catholic husband as I say, and he will not mind your origin eventually, as, as I also have said, you are graced if I may say again with so much beauty. Roseanne, you really are the most beautiful young girl we have ever seen in Sligo.'

This he said with such simplicity and transparent – I almost said innocence, but something like innocence – he spoke so nicely I smiled despite myself. It was like getting a compliment from an old lady of distinction in the Sligo Street, a Pollexfen or a Middleton or the like, in her ermine and her nice tweed clothing.

'It is stupid of me to flatter you,' he said. 'All I mean is, if you will let me take you under my wing, I can help you, and I want to help you. I must also add that I held your father in the highest regard, despite his embarrassing me, and indeed had real love for him, because he was a straightforward soul.'

'But a Presbyterian soul,' I said.

'Yes,' he said.

'My mother is Plymouth Brethren.'

'Well,' he said, for the first time with a taint of animosity, 'never mind.'

'But I must mind my mother. And I will. It is my duty as her daughter.'

'Your mother, Roseanne, is a very sick woman.'

All right, I had not heard this expressed, and it shocked me to hear it. But, yes, I knew that to be true.

'More than likely,' he said, 'you will need to commit her to the asylum, I hope I am not shocking you?'

Oh, but he was shocking me. When he spoke those fearsome words, my belly churned, my muscles ached in their slings of bones. Without knowing I was going to do it, I suddenly and inexplicably vomited onto the carpet in front of me. Fr Gaunt drew back his legs with extraordinary quickness, neatness. There on the floor was the remains of the nice toast I had made for my mother and myself for breakfast. Fr Gaunt stood up.

'Oh. You will need to clean that up, I expect?'

'I will,' I said, and bit my tongue on the urge to apologise. I knew somehow I must never apologise to Fr Gaunt, and that from henceforth he would be a force unknown, like a calamity of weather waiting unknown and un-forecast to bedevil a landscape.

'Father, I can't do what you say. I can't do it.'

'You will think about it? In your grief you may make poor decisions. I understand this. My own father died five years ago of a cancer, it was a terrible death, and I mourn him still. Remember, Roseanne, grief is two years long. You will not make a good thought for a long time. Be advised by me, let me advise you in loco parentis, do you see, in place of your father let me be your father in this, as a priest ought. We have had so many dealings, he and I, and you, that you are almost in the fold already. It will save your immortal soul, and save you in this valley of sorrows and tears. It will protect you against all the foul tides and accidents of the world.'

I shook my head. I see myself, behind my eyes, shaking my head.

Fr Gaunt shook his head also, but in a different way. 'You will think about it? Think about it, Roseanne, and then we will talk again. It is a moment in your life when you are in the greatest danger. Good day to you, Roseanne. Thank you for the tea. It was lovely. And thank your mother.'

He went out into the tiny hall and into the street. When he was quite gone, long out of ear shot, and only the smell of his clothes lingered oddly in the room, I said:

'Goodbye, Father.'

chapter ten

Dr Grene today. He has shaved his beard!

I don't remember if I mentioned his beard. A beard on a man is only a way of hiding something, his face of course, but also the inner matters, like a hedge around a secret garden, or a cover over a bird cage.

I would like to say I didn't know him when he stepped in, because that is what you would expect, but I did know him.

I was sitting here writing when I heard his step in the corridor and just managed to get everything hidden in the floor before he knocked and came in, as always not an easy task for an ancient cailleach like myself. A cailleach is the old crone of stories, the wise woman and sometimes a kind of witch. My husband Tom McNulty was the master of such stories, which he told with perfect force mainly because he believed every word of them. Sometime I will tell you about the two-headed dog that he saw on the road to Enniscrone, if you like. How would I know what you like? I am getting used to thinking of you there, somewhere. This cailleach is deluded in the head! The old midwife. I am only the midwife to my own old story. It is midwifery enough.

Dr Grene was very subdued, very quiet, very shiny in the face. He might have rubbed some unguent onto his skin when he shaved it, to spare it some of the shock of the air. He wandered over to the table – I was now sitting on the bed, among the tiny landscapes of the coverlet, I think they are French scenes, there is a man carrying a donkey on his back and other things – and Dr Grene lifted from the table my father's old copy of Religio Medici and looked at it idly enough. I was surprised when my father died to see that the book was printed in