The Lost Children Read online

  ‘You married or what?’

  ‘Eh, no. No, of course not.’ It was the first time they’d spoken since leaving the sanctuary of the nightclub and it gave him a kick in the guts, jolting him back to reality. He suddenly felt sick. ‘Look, perhaps this isn’t such a good idea, I’ll maybe just get out and get a taxi or something…’ He heard his wee weedy voice trail off into a pathetic whine as he grappled with the door handle.

  ‘This yer first time?’ the driver said, as though this was going to be a weekly occurrence. Tiny flakes of dandruff that had settled on his shoulder spilled off onto his thigh as he wriggled his trousers down to his knees.

  ‘Shite. What’re you doing?’ The sickness was getting worse. He wanted to throw up. Whatever the hell he’d thought he was looking for, this wasn’t it.

  The guy reached across and stroked the palm of his hand against the back of his neck. ‘Hey, just relax okay?’

  He nodded and felt like a complete arse for being there in the first place. ‘I’m sorry. I just—.’ There wasn’t really much point in finishing his sentence.

  ‘Hey, don’t worry. No big deal.’

  The driver’s hand was still caressing the back of his neck, generating an involuntary shiver.

  It was all the encouragement the guy needed.

  He didn’t move. Didn’t struggle. Didn’t try to get away. He just closed his eyes and lay slumped across the seat, trying not to gag as the guy’s sticky groin heaved up and down beneath him.

  *

  His eyes were still closed when the beam of a torch shone through the window and pierced the darkness. A hand rattled on the window, and Tom sat bolt upright, wiping slabbers from his chin.

  The driver made to open the door.

  ‘Christ’s sake. Don’t. Just drive away. Get out of here.’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid; they’ll have the registration number. I don’t want them turning up at home and getting my wife involved.’

  ‘Your wife? What the hell… Are you married? Oh Jee-sus.’ His insides turned to water and he dissolved into the seat.

  The driver opened the window. Calm as you like.

  ‘Got a problem there have we, sir?’ The policeman shone the torch into the car.

  ‘No, no problem. We stopped because the brakes were making a funny noise. But they seem fine now, nothing to worry about.’

  ‘So d’you want to tell me why you’ve got yer knob out, and why that yin’s drooling away like a dog on heat.’

  ‘I’m not drooling, I’m just—’ But the driver elbowed him in the ribs.

  ‘Just shut it? The game’s a bogey.’

  ‘Right,’ said the policeman, ‘get yer kecks back on and show me your licence.’

  The driver handed it over, while the other policeman stood by the passenger door, making sure Tom didn’t do a runner.

  ‘Look, this is ma first time… Ma wife’ll kill me if she finds out.’

  ‘Well, Mr…’ He took the pink slip from its plastic sheath and held it beneath the glow of the torch. ‘Mr Antonio… You should have thought of that before, shouldn’t you… hmm? Right, you two love birds… yer chariot awaits.’ He opened the door and gestured to the waiting patrol car where his colleague was now holding open the door.

  He was in no state to do a runner. Instead, he hugged a tree a few yards away as he threw up.

  *

  Down at the station they were made to empty their pockets.

  As a plain-clothed policeman walked past he recognised Antonio. ‘Charlie, what’ve you done now?’

  ‘Fuck… don’t ask.’

  ‘Who’s yer pal?’

  Charlie Antonio gave a non-committal shrug and shook his head.

  The desk sergeant sifted through a few of the belongings on the desk and picked up a driving licence. ‘So, you were his passenger, yes? And is this you?’ He tipped his chin.

  It was impossible to look up. His shoes became the focus of his attention. He said nothing. The taste of the fat man lingered in the back of his throat and made him gag again.

  The sergeant asked again. ‘Can you confirm your identity please? Father Tom Findlay? Is that you?’

  Charlie Antonio was almost dumbfounded. Almost, but not quite.

  ‘A priest? Is that right? Aw fur cryin’ out… Jesus Christ. Trust me… A piggin’ priest!’

  ‘Give them a warning and let them go,’ said the plain-clothed officer to the desk sergeant.

  ‘For God’s sake, you gettin’ saft in yer auld age?’

  ‘Come on. Give the guys a break. Just send them home… Drop it, okay.’

  Tom wasn’t listening. He was retching what was left of his life away in a corner.

  *

  That had been almost four months ago. A lifetime now.

  11

  Glasgow, 2000

  He should have guessed it was all too neat – the police letting him off – but nothing had prepared him for Charlie Antonio turning up at the chapel house the very next day.

  ‘Blackmail’s a dirty word, Tom.’

  ‘Look, I swear the stress of this will kill me. I can’t take it anymore, so tell who you like, I don’t give a shit.’

  Charlie was obviously good at profiting from tragedy.

  ‘What do you think’ll happen to you if the papers get to hear of your wee gay jaunts, eh? They’ll bloody crucify you. And what about The Blessed Saint Father Kennedy? D’ye think he’ll be chuffed to bits to find out his second in command is a shirt-lifter, an uphill gardener?’

  ‘You’re in as deep as I am, you can’t put me in the shit without being up to your knees in it as well.’

  Charlie let out a laugh. ‘I’m a bloody journalist. Bending the truth to suit the story is what I get paid for… It’s what I do for a living. All I have to say is that I set you up, posed as a queer to expose your sordid lifestyle. I’ll be held up as a local bloody hero. Saving all those innocent wee altar boys from your grubby mitts.’

  ‘For God’s sake, I’m gay, not a paedophile. I would never even look at a child let alone… Christ, you make me sick!’

  Tom buried his head in his hands, feeling a hell of a lot older than his thirty-six years.

  He looked at the clock. Father Kennedy would be home soon. He wanted Charlie out.

  ‘Just go, get out.’ He nodded towards the door, but made no attempt to stand up. He was too weak. He hadn’t been able to eat since his mouthful the night before.

  Charlie stood up. ‘For cryin’ out loud, Tommy, pull yourself together. It’s not as though I’m asking for a fortune. Just a wee bung now and then, to get me by.’ He walked into the hall and stood by the front door. He looked back at Tom, who was staring at the floor.

  ‘How the hell am I going to raise that kind of money?’ he pleaded.

  ‘You can hold a fucking tombola for all I care.’

  With that he had gone, and the whole sordid affair had begun to fester in Tom’s mind like an open, pus-filled sore.

  *

  He’d paid out almost a thousand pounds… and Father Kennedy was dead. But at least he’d finally told someone.

  ‘You’re going to the police with this,’ Oonagh told him. ‘Blackmail’s the lowest of the low.’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid. I can’t now, can I? They’ll think I killed him.’

  ‘Erm, you… told me you didn’t… didn’t you?’

  He looked stunned. ‘Oonagh, is that what you think? You honestly think I could kill anyone? Jee-sus Christ, I wish I hadn’t told you anything.’

  ‘Calm down, Tom, I only asked.’

  ‘Would you rather I went home after all?’

  ‘No, I think I can handle a drunk priest with a limp wrist.’ She smiled and he started to laugh, more because of the drink than anything else. Oonagh linked her arm through his and pulled him towards her on the settee. ‘Is that why you were so bloody scared when Alec Davies turned up to speak to you?’

  Tom nodded his head and looked pathetic. ‘I nearly shat
myself when they arrived.’

  Oonagh kept a straight face when she told him cops like Davies didn’t really do that kind of donkey work.

  ‘How was I to know that?’ Tom was whinging. He seemed pissed off at not realising how such things operated.

  Oonagh got him back on track. ‘So what happened the night before Kennedy died?’

  ‘President or Father?’

  ‘Look, I’m the sarcastic one here, no competition, please. Just the facts.’

  ‘Well, he came into the room while I was on the phone to Charlie. The conversation was getting more and more heated. He heard me shouting at him, and you know what I’m like, I told him to go fuck himself, before slamming the phone down.’

  Oonagh stifled a giggle and put her hand over her mouth. ‘My God, Tom, Father Kennedy must have been in a state of apoplexy hearing language like that. No wonder he keeled over the next day!’

  They both laughed, again more through intoxication and nerves than anything else.

  ‘It wasn’t funny, Oonagh, I thought he was going to have a heart attack there and then. Obviously he wanted to know exactly what was going on. He’d actually come in to speak to me about some cash that had gone missing. It was more… well, misappropriation of funds actually. And yes, before you ask, I took it.’

  Oonagh opened her mouth, but he cut in before she could say a word. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I was desperate. Shit, I was being blackmailed for Christ’s sake. Anyway, I’d already decided I’d stooped low enough, and told Charlie Shitfeatures he was getting no more, it was finished.’

  ‘So what did you tell Father Kennedy then?’

  ‘Said I needed it to pay off a gambling debt. Claimed it was a dodgy bookie on the phone. Not that unusual for a priest, you know. And it was only a grand after all. I mean in the great scheme of things…’ He sounded desperate and Oonagh stroked his arm, leading him gently back to the point of the story. ‘Anyhows, that was all he needed. He nearly bust a gut getting on the blower to head office telling them he wanted rid of me.’

  ‘So I wonder if that’s why he called me? I mean he never really liked me talking to you anyway, and always refused to co-operate with the programme. So he never really knew what was going on?’

  ‘Hell, no!’

  ‘So you’d no real reason to kill him then?’

  ‘Oonagh! For fu… Stop it! I told you, I had nothing to do with it. You don’t believe me, do you? Anyway, I’m going to see Father Watson in the morning. To tell him I’m leaving the Church.’

  ‘He won’t let you go without a fight. Priests are pretty thin on the ground in this neck of the woods. There’s a crisis of vocation, apparently – we covered it in the news only last week.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. When everything comes out he’ll probably be glad to see the back of me.’ He tilted back his head to tip the rest of his wine into his mouth.

  Oonagh wasn’t convinced.

  *

  Tom rose early the next morning and left the house quietly, careful not to waken Oonagh. He wanted to get back to the chapel house to shower and change before heading into town to see Father Watson. His head was heavy from the previous night’s wine, but he felt happier and lighter than he had done in months after offloading to Oonagh. Confession really did cleanse the soul.

  But happiness is a fragile thing.

  12

  Glasgow, 2000

  ‘Things were different in those days. I suppose you’re sick of hearing lines like that, but it’s true. You could leave school at thirteen then. I remember it so well. Not as though it was yesterday mind, because you know, I can’t remember much of what happened yesterday, but I remember then. I worked in a big house a few miles out of the village. Just cleaning and taking care of the laundry and the likes, you know, domestic. Oh, it was funny, we used to walk there every morning. Me and Mary Donaghy. She worked in a bakery just half a mile further on, so we used to meet and share a cigarette. She’d stolen it from her brother of course. Mother of God, there would have been hell to pay if ever he’d found out, but we didn’t care, or rather she didn’t care. God, she was a laugh… Oh, can you wait just a minute, dear, there’s the phone…’

  Oonagh pressed the pause button on her handheld recorder as the woman took the call. She had found Maureen O’Hara through the internet. The website had been set up by a support group trying to reunite mothers and children separated by adoption. Hundreds of people from all over the world used the site. Luckily Maureen lived in Bearsden, which was just a few miles from Oonagh’s house. And fortunately, or unfortunately, Maureen had been a Magdalene girl. Oonagh knew to tread carefully when she spoke to the former Maggies. Coaxing them to share their horror stories took tact and diplomacy.

  ‘Sorry ‘bout that. Where was I? Tea? No? Right then. What was I saying? Oh yes, Mary Donaghy. She was a girl if ever there was. Oh God, when I think of her—’

  ‘And what about the institute, Maureen?’ Oonagh cut in. ‘When did you first go to the Magdalene?’ She felt a bit rotten, but didn’t want to lose the thread of the story, and gently steered Maureen back onto the road again.

  ‘Oh right, love…’ Maureen’s eyes darkened and Oonagh felt like a heartless shit. ‘Well, as I said, we lived about twenty miles outside Galway; it could have been twenty thousand miles for all the difference it made. You know, I was fifteen and I’d never even kissed a boy, let alone… Mother of God, I was twelve before I knew that babies didn’t come out of your belly button!’

  Oonagh let out a laugh; Maureen, despite looking so serious, blushed and a smile played on her lips.

  ‘As I said, we lived in a small town, probably more of a village really, where everyone knew everyone else. So when I saw him for the first time, God, I nearly died.’ She slapped her hand against her chest, breathless at the memory. ‘He’d been to school in Dublin. That was like Hollywood to us. Honest to God, if he’d been a film star I couldn’t have been more smitten.

  ‘He was Mr and Mrs Spencer’s son. Did I tell you they owned the big house? Home from school for the holidays he was. He was a bit older than me, you know, eighteen I think, so perhaps he was at university, but to tell you the truth I didn’t really know the difference, and to be honest I didn’t care. I’d be in the kitchen scrubbing vegetables, or black leading the grate. Everything had to be done by hand in them days, you know. Not like today. Anyway. He used to pop into the kitchen and give me a smile, or wink at me and tell me how pretty I was looking. And the first day he leaned over and kissed me, well… Oh, I thought I would just burst.’

  ‘He used to wait for me some nights when I’d finished work, and take me for a walk. He’d tell me all sorts of nonsense about how beautiful I was, and of course I believed him, every word. Daft eh? I was no beauty. One evening he took me for a drive. I couldn’t believe it. I mean me, wee Maureen O’Hara from Duggan in a motorcar. I remember that night more than any other. He was kissing me, and I was too stupid to know what in heaven’s name he was doing.’

  ‘When he shoved his hand up my skirt, I remember crying. I think I asked him to stop. I can’t remember. But I remember crying. Sure, he just kind of laughed and got on top of me. I didn’t realise what he was doing, then I felt such a sharp pain I honestly thought he was trying to kill me. I’d never felt pain like it. And he was so heavy on top of me, I could hardly breathe…’

  Suddenly Oonagh could taste Mark Pattison’s rancid cigar breath on her face and felt the bile rise in her throat. She clutched the edge of the chair and Maureen shot her a look. ‘You’re doing well to talk about it, Maureen.’ Oonagh swallowed hard, her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘Please, carry on… if you’re able to.’ And Maureen nodded and closed her eyes for a few seconds as she relived the memory.

  ‘He held me down, and… anyway, he got off me and when I looked down and saw the blood between my legs, I started screaming. It was all over the top of my thighs and trickling down my legs. I thought I was dying. “Don’t tell me you’re a virgin,
” he said. A virgin? I didn’t even know what that meant. The only virgin I’d ever heard of was the Virgin Mary. I knew he couldn’t mean her. Anyway, he just started up the car and drove me home.’

  Maureen looked down at her skirt, twisting the material between her hands. Her voice dropped to a whisper.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t quite home, to be honest, he just stopped the car about half a mile away from my house and leaned over and opened the door. I’ll never forget what he said as I was getting out. “Don’t worry, Maureen, I won’t tell anyone about this, I’m a decent kind a’ fella.”’ She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes with her thumb and index finger. Oonagh leaned over and touched her gently on the arm, but she couldn’t look her in the eye.

  ‘Never saw him again, of course. He never came back to the kitchen to tell me how pretty I was. And there were no more walks in the evenings. Anyway, two months later I found out I was pregnant. Mam hit the roof and it was the first time I’d seen Da cry. That’s something that stayed with me. The sight of Da crying. The next few weeks I wasn’t to leave the house. The priest came round to speak to me. He told me I had broken Mam’s heart. But worse, he said, worse than that was that I had shamed the Virgin Mary. So much so she would cry tears of blood for the sin I had committed. They decided it would be best if the Sisters of Mercy took me in. I would work in the Magdalene laundry in Galway until I had the baby. A couple of days later, I kissed my mam goodbye. Da went into the back yard and refused to look at me as I left. I never saw either of them again. Father Kennedy took charge after that. He came with me on the train to Galway. Said nothing for the entire journey… never uttered one word…’

  ‘Father Kennedy?’ Oonagh interrupted. ‘Not Father Kennedy from here, here at St Patrick’s?’

  ‘Yes, dear, that’s right. I heard he died last week. And on the altar too.’ She blessed herself, making the sign of the cross. ‘You know, there’s a legend in Ireland that if a priest dies on the altar he has to come back from the dead to finish mass. You’ll probably think that a bit ridiculous, eh?’