Free Across the River by Alice Taylor Page B

hat into the ring too.”
    “One good man is enough for any woman,” David told her, rising from his chair and ruffling her hair as he slipped on his tweed jacket. She reached up her arms and drew his head down and they kissed long and lingeringly.
    “A day doesn’t begin any better than this.” David smiled down at her lovingly.
    “You might not be too attentive to conversation in the morning,” Kate told him, “but you’re all switched on in other departments.”
    “You smell so good,” David told her, burying his face in her hair.
    Suddenly the door burst open and Fr Brady shot in waving a letter.
    “We’re playing Ross in the final on Sunday …” and then he stopped short and smiled at them. “Isn’t that a great way to begin the day?”
    “Nearly as good as morning prayers,” David laughed, “but I’d best get down to the school and get the young in off the street before Fr Burke complains again that they are making too much noise.”
    “Never happy unless he is complaining,” Fr Brady assured him.
    “I’ll see you for training at lunchtime, and were you saying that the final is fixed for Sunday?”
    “Oh, that’s right,” Fr Brady told him.
    “That will sort out the men from the boys, as Jack would say,” David declared, going out the door and blowing a kiss to Kate over his shoulder.
    “Sit down and have a cup of tea with me, Fr Tim,” Kate invited him.
    “Delighted to,” he told her, “but stay where you are and I’ll get a cup myself.”
    “Well, how are things?” she asked as she poured.
    “Oh, the usual,” he told her, “himself complaining and me trying to turn a deaf ear.”
    “Nothing changes,” she sighed.
    “Sometimes I get fed up with it, to be honest,” he told her seriously, “and I wonder will I ever be able to stick it.”
    “Oh my God, I never thought that he was getting under your skin to that extent.”
    “Well, not all the time,” he admitted. “Sometimes there is a clear run and then all hell breaks loose. Maybe it’s just that we see the priesthood in a totally different light.”
    “Thank God for that. No parish could survive two of him,” Kate declared as she poured him a second cup of tea. It always amused her the way Fr Tim did everything so fast. It could not be good for him to be always on the go, and she felt sure that it was only when he was fishing that he came to a standstill. He was full of compressed energy, and she knew from experience that he moved first and asked questions afterwards. But for now he seemed to be putting thought into what he was about to say.
    “Well, what is it?” she prompted him. “You seem to havesomething stuck in your craw, as Jack would say.”
    “Kate, would you give me a straight answer to something that’s bothering me?” he asked.
    “Try me,” Kate told him, “and I’ll do my best.”
    “How am I shaping up as a priest?” he asked. “Sometimes I have huge doubts about my suitability for this business.” Kate looked at him in amazement.
    “You’re the best,” she told him. “You’re what it’s all about, and that’s not alone my opinion but the opinion of most people in the parish, especially the young ones.”
    “Sometimes I think that I’m a bit of a fraud,” he said grimly. “I preach the love of God to people, but there are times when I question if he is even there.”
    “Don’t we all?” Kate assured him. “But despite that we still keep going, and then one day something happens and you know that he is right there in the heart of everything. When I sit by the deathbeds of old country people who have lived close to the earth and God all their lives, I feel Him with them. Their simple faith confirms me in mine.”
    “I know what you mean,” Fr Tim agreed slowly. “Death is a sobering moment, when all the masks slip away and you see reality. Some of these old country people are amazing.”
    “Not all of them, mind you,” Kate smiled. “Probably only the ones who found