Free The Furnished Room by Laura Del-Rivo Page B

building. Builders’ materials were in the yard, and there was a wheelbarrow in the porch. The presbytery was next door and was also new and sand-coloured. It was perfectly square, like a child’s drawing, with the door in the centre and symmetrical netted windows.
    Beckett was about to ring the bell when he happened to glance through the crack in the curtains of the nearest window. Inside, a priest sat alone at a table, his pale, aquiline profile bent over a chess-board. He picked up the red knight. His hawk-like hand holding the piece was beautiful, with long fingers like a medieval carving.
    Then two women emerged from the front door. One of them was saying: ‘... so I told Father Lestrade, the Children of Mary are being run in the hands of the few, with that Mrs Busybody Riordan and her little click, and all that trouble about the cakes at the social….’
    Their feet stabbed righteously down the road; their triumphant voices gossiping into the distance.
    He rang the bell, thinking, if things had been different I would have been dealing with complaining women like those. ‘Father Beckett, about the cakes for the Children of Mary...’ Could I have stood their stupidity and triviality? Yes, I suppose so, if I believed.
    The neat housekeeper opened the door. ‘Good evening.’
    â€˜Good evening. Is it possible to see Father Hogan?’
    â€˜Is he expecting you?’
    â€˜No, I’m afraid I just called on the off chance.’
    She said: ‘He’s just getting the car out of the garage. He’s going out with Father Dominic.’
    Beckett felt relieved. ‘Oh well, it doesn’t matter. I’ll come some other time.’
    â€˜Why don’t you come in and wait? I don’t think they’ll be long.’
    â€˜Thank you.’ He followed her into the house. In the passage he met the priest whom he had seen through the window. The priest made a slight bow to him, then asked the housekeeper if the car was ready.
    â€˜I think so, Father Dominic.’ She showed Beckett into the small parlour. It was plainly furnished, with a table covered by a cloth of Irish linen with a lace border, four hard chairs, and a glass-doored cupboard with books on three shelves and wine glasses on the fourth. The chess-board had been removed.
    â€˜Have you seen the new church?’ she asked. ‘Oh, but I expect you were at the consecration ceremony. We were all very worried in case the building wasn’t finished in time, but a number of parishioners lent a hand and between us we got it finished. We were very lucky, it was all completed in time except for the bike-shed, which the workmen are finishing now.’
    He said politely: ‘Really?’
    â€˜Yes. Well, I don’t expect Father Hogan will keep you waiting long. He likes to take the car out whenever possible because he’s practising for his driving test.’
    â€˜Oh, is he?’
    â€˜He’s taking it next week. I’ve been saying a decade of the rosary every night that he may pass.’
    When she had gone Beckett sat down on one of the hard chairs. There was a vase of gladioli on the table. There were no fallen petals round the vase. The flowers were tidy and sterile, like flowers in an undertaker’s window.
    He looked around. There was a crucifix on one wall, on another a picture of the Sacred Heart. The picture was a standard reproduction and he had seen it before; Christ parting his robe to display an embarrassing heart which bled crimson glycerine. Even as a child, Beckett had felt nauseated and insulted by that shameless heart, by the idea of drowning in a syrup of love and pity. His pride had revolted at the thought of Christ’s embarrassing love; and yet he had been terrified of committing a mortal sin which would