Fools of Fortune by William Trevor Read Free Book Online Page A

pocket. He played it skilfully, making it screech above the lilt of the accordion, and I could see the Sweeney girl eyeing him, even though she still had her arm around Tim Paddy’s waist. He winked at her, and I looked quickly over to where Josephine was sitting by the range, but she hadn’t noticed.’ Enniscorthy’s in flames and old Wexford is won ,’ sang Johnny Lacy, and I noticed then that Father Kilgarriff had entered the kitchen.
    He stood by the door, not saying anything, slightly smiling. The festivities were taking place because advantage had been taken of my parents’ and my aunts’ absence; Father Kilgarriff didn’t matter because he had no position in the household. Had he been a real priest the music and the dancing would have ceased on his entrance and only commenced again when it was clear that his approval had been gained. Had he been a Quinton relative or a friend of my parents there would have been embarrassment in the kitchen. Tim Paddy slanted his head at him in his particular way; Johnny Lacy saluted him familiarly. I realized it was the first time I had been in the main kitchen when he had been there also, if indeed he had ever been there before. He stood for a moment longer by the door, still smiling, seeming pleased because of the music and the dancing. Then he went away.
    ‘Up you go now,’ Mrs Flynn said, and all the way up the back stairs we could hear Johnny Lacy singing another song. I wondered if Father Kilgarriff could hear it too, in his bedroom in the orchard wing. My aunts’ stray dogs had begun to bark, and it was perhaps more likely that he had shut the windows in order to protect them from the unexpected disturbance. I didn’t know why I went on thinking about him, his Spanish looks vivid in my mind, his voice insisting softly that argument and persuasion were the only way. I had never been in his room, but I supposed it would have the red glow of a holy light and a statue of the Virgin, and a crucifix on the wall. It was odd to think of him there, dwelling upon Daniel O’Connell and the compassion of my great-grandmother, when but for a convent girl he might be esteemed and respected in Co. Limerick. And then, quite strongly, I sensed that Tim Paddy was right when he’d hinted that Johnny Lacy’s love of a story had resulted in a confusion of the truth: knowing Father Kilgarriff, there was something about his romance with a convent girl that did not quite make sense. I saw the girl’s teeth glistening in the confessional and heard the tap of her feet on the tiled floor: I wondered if she’d ever even existed.
    I couldn’t sleep that night. I went on thinking about Father Kilgarriff, and then I thought about Josephine and Johnny Lacy and Tim Paddy and Bridie Sweeney. I kept seeing the wink that had caused that look to come into Bridie Sweeney’s eyes, and remembering how Josephine hadn’t noticed any of it. If Johnny Lacy began to go for walks with the Sweeney girl instead of Josephine Tim Paddy would be miserable all over again, and so of course would Josephine. Eventually I got out of bed and gazed from my window out over the garden. Even though it was after ten o’clock it was still light. I pretended that a Black and Tan was lurking among the mass of rhododendrons and that I crept downstairs and crossed the lawn with my father’s shotgun. I led him into the kitchen, with his hands above his head, and everyone was astonished.
    The music of the accordion floated up to my window, and then abruptly ceased. It did not begin again. Tim Paddy and the Sweeney girl crept into the garden and while I still watched they kissed one another, thinking they were hidden by the rhododendrons. Through the gloom that was gathering I saw a flash of something white and realized that it was the Sweeney girl’s petticoat. Her flowered skirt was on the grass, and as I watched she lay down beside it and Tim Paddy lay down also. They had not ceased to kiss and their arms were still around