Free The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore

partner.’
    I wonder if he sold? Over fifty certainly. Maybe younger. But big, well-preserved, a man full of life and vigour. Did he retire, I wonder, or was it the accident to his leg? They don’t retire early in the hotel trade, remember Mr Bunting that was the manager of the Arcady hotel in Dublin, seventy, if he was a day.
    ‘Did you have a lot of running about to do in your job? In hotel work, I mean? It must have been a terrible strain.’
    ‘No, it was okay.’ He did not elaborate. He did not speak again until they reached the church and then only to ask if she preferred to sit up at the front. They made the Sign of the Cross together and his fingers brushed against hers in the Holy Water font. Then they walked up the aisle and he stood’ aside to let her pass into the pew before him. The seat he had chosen was directly under the pulpit. Before he knelt down, Mr Madden took a clean white handkerchief out of his trousers pocket and spread it on the dusty board to protect the knees of his trousers. He found his large brown rosary, wrapped it around liis knuckles, and placed himself in an attitude of prayer.
    But he did not pray. He thought: I wonder would she tell it in confession? When May said she ran offto early Mass this morning, maybe it was to tell the priest on both of us, he could ‘phone back to the house and raise hell, a child, May said, christ, some child, I should aave left her alone, none of my business. Pulled the blanket off her, he said. Ah, the priest couldn’t do a thing like that, secrets of the confessional. And she’s a scared kid, little roundheels, couldn’t have much religion, just ran out because she was scared to face me at breakfast. Ah, don’t worry, you’re okay, here in church with Miss Hearne, a free woman, a lady, a pleasure to talk to her it
     
    is. But if she knew about me, Miss Hearne, if she knew about last night-ahh, I’m no good, drinking like that, pulling at that kid, but she was old enough though, what a build. Christ - I mean, Blessed Jesus Christ - why did I think that right in the church, an impure and filthy thought right in God’s house. O my God i am heartily sorry that I have offended Thee and because Thou are so good, I will not sin again. Not a mortal sin, no, I never, only tried to break it up, teach her a lesson, didn’t do a thing. Act of contrition, that’s absolution, couldn’t go to confession today anyway. Sunday, no confessions heard, if I die tonight, be in the state of grace. Say a rosary now, show my good intentions. Forget all that dirty thoughts stuff.
    This was religion. Religion was begging God’s pardon on a morning like this one when the drink had made your mouth dry and the thing that happened last night with the serving girl was painful to think about. It was making your Easter duty once a year, going to Mass on Sunday morning. Peligion was insurance. It meant you got security afterwards. It meant you could always turn over a new leaf. just as long as you got an act of perfect contrition said before your last end, you’d be all set. Mr Madden rarely thought of Purgatory, of penance. Confession and resultant absolution were the pillars of his faith. He found it comforting to start out as often as possible with a clean slate, a new and promising future.
    Miss Hearne, seeing him begin to pray, took out her Missal and set a little marker at the Gospel of the day. She was not, she sometimes chided herself, a particularly religious person. She had never been able to take much interest in the Children of Mary, the Foreign Missions, the decoration of altars or any of the other good causes in which married and single ladies devote themselves to God and His Blessed Mother. No, she had followed her Aunt D’Arcy’s lead in that. Church affairs, her aunt once said, tend to put one in contact with all sorts of people whom one would prefer not to know socially. Prayer and a rigorous attention to one’s religious duties will contribute far more