Free Trauma by Ken McClure Page A

Jean O'Donnell.
    'Sit down Mary,' said Lafferty pleasantly. 'Are you off somewhere special?'
    'Down the coast on the bikes,' replied the girl.
    'The bikes? Motor bikes you mean?'
    Mary nodded. She was a pretty girl, a little small for her fifteen years but well proportioned.
    'Sounds exciting. But you don't have your own bike at your age surely?' asked Lafferty.
    'I'm going on the back of Steve's.'
    'Your boyfriend?'
    Mary nodded and said, 'He's got a GPZ 500.'
    'The Kawasaki's a nice bike,' said Lafferty.
    'You know about bikes?' asked Mary.
    'I wasn't born boring Mary,' replied Lafferty. 'I've always had a love of motor cycles. I keep abreast of what's on the road these days. There's a lot of nice machinery around.'
    'Steve's bike is the nicest. He takes good care of it. He wants to make bikes his career. He's really good. Everybody says so.'
    'How old is Steve, Mary?' asked Lafferty.
    'About twenty-three. What does that matter?' said Mary defiantly.
    'And you are fifteen.'
    'I’m not a little girl! I know what I'm doing.'
    'Maybe you do,' said Lafferty kindly. 'But your mother is worried sick about you and that's not right.'
    'I keep telling her not to worry but she won't listen! What else can I do?'
    'Your mother worries about you because she loves you. Try to see things from her point of view.'
    'She won't see it from mine!'
    'Maybe you're both being a bit stubborn,' said Lafferty.
    'I'm going out with Steve and nothing's going to change that!' insisted Mary.
    Lafferty shrugged and asked, 'What's your father saying to all this?'
    Mary lifter her hair from her forehead and revealed a black and blue mark above her right eye. 'This,' she said.
    'And you're still planning to go out this evening?'
    'He's down the boozer playing darts. I'm going out with Steve,' said Mary defiantly.
    'And your mother's left standing in the middle,' said Lafferty.
    Mary was stung into saying, 'She shouldn't be! I don't want her to be! I don't want to be like her! I don't want to spend my life in a dog kennel in the sky waiting for some drunken bum to come home every night. I want to live! I want to enjoy myself. Is that so wrong? Don't answer that. Your bloody church depends on people like her!'
    Lafferty was stung. 'What do you mean by that?'
    'You know,' said Mary.
    'Tell me.'
    'Mugs. Gullible mugs. Always on the losing side, giving away everything they've got, doing what they're told. Yes Fathering, No Fathering, wasting away their dreary lives because they've been conned into believing things are going to get better in the hereafter. But they're not! Are they? Because there is no bloody hereafter. It's all a bloody con!'
    'Mary! Control yourself,' stormed Jean O'Donnell as she burst into the room. How dare you speak to Father Lafferty like that! I'm so sorry Father. I don't know what's come over her. I honestly don't.'
    Lafferty held up a hand and said, 'There's nothing to be sorry for Jean. Mary has a right to her point of view and I am flattered that she’s confided in me. It's only healthy at her age to question everything otherwise we'd never make any progress in this life.'
    'You're too understanding, Father.'
    Lafferty shook his head and said, 'Mary strikes me as an intelligent, mature girl who is well able to form her own opinions and decide for herself what is right and what is wrong. I think you should trust her.'
    Jean O'Donnell looked at her daughter without saying anything but Lafferty was pleased to see a hint of softness appear in Mary O'Donnell's eyes.
    'And you, young lady,' said Lafferty to Mary. 'Make sure you’re deserving of that trust.'
    'Yes Father,' said Mary. 'I'm late. I'll have to go.'
    'Enjoy yourself,' said Lafferty. 'And if you'll take one last word of advice?'
    'Yes Father?'
    'Find a boyfriend with a CBR 600. It'll beat the shit out of a GPZ500.'
     
    When Mary had gone, Jean served tea and put a plate of Digestive biscuits on the hearth between them. 'Help yourself, please,' she said. Lafferty took a biscuit