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1

IN THE OVEN'S BREATH of the quiet side room of the hospital, the woman lay waiting, listening for the footsteps of her son - and for death. It was going to be a close-run thing. Just for a moment her breathing faltered raggedly as if she was being tempted to give in to the dark seducer; then the life force picked up again. Inwardly she counted the shallow breaths until satisfied they fell into a regular pattern. How much longer? It would be so easy to drift off into oblivion without noticing.
      The woman picked exhaustedly at the harsh fabric of the white, over-starched cotton top sheet, her sole covering in deference to the heat wave, as if it lay too heavy on her frail frame. Long skeletal hands, so thin the skin was translucent, fretted mindlessly on the cover; anything to keep awake in that oppressively hot room until Vincent came. There were things she had to tell him; a lie to be put right.
      The name recorded on the medical chart at the bottom of the bed said Mary Mulholland, but that wasn't strictly true. Her full name was Mary Mulholland or Stuart, but the married surname had long gone, discarded never to be used again after her husband had walked out on her and their five-year-old son. Not eating, not sleeping, she had waited one week for him to return. When he had not, she had moved to a new district in the city, jettisoning her past. Nothing of it was allowed to break into the new existence she carved for the two of them. But that was twenty five years ago; and now she was dying.
      Outside the threatening summer thunder storm drew a little closer in a far-off grumble of sound. From beyond the open window, sash raised high to snatch a breath of gelid, sulphurous air, she could hear children's voices. With the unnaturally acute hearing of those on massive quantities of morphine-based pain-killing drugs, she could almost distinguish the words. They floated in above the noise of the traffic. School must be out. 3.50pm. How much longer?
      Without warning pain seared through her body, a lance of fire deep in her abdomen from the cancer consuming her, forcing out from her a low moan, but she embraced it fiercely, gladly. Pain was life. It meant she would live until Vincent came.
      As the spasm gripped her, a nurse barely out of her teens slipped into the room. She crossed quickly to the chipped and badly painted blue portable bedside locker and picked up the tiny plastic beaker of liquid morphine, an ever-present companion for the dying woman to blunt the bite of the cancer gnawing away her life. She brought it to Mary Mulholland's lips, tempting her to swallow, but the dying woman swivelled her head away.
      "No."
      The nurse walked over to the sink in the corner and wet a cloth, then returned and gently wiped her charge's lips, parched dry by the heavy medication and the pain. From sunken sockets the eyes blazed out at her, mutely questioning.
      The young girl took her hand and stroked it gently.
      "Not yet. He's on his way, though. He'll be here any minute. Sister spoke to him herself. . . Would you like me to sit with you for a little?"
      Mary's eyelids drooped in assent. "Don't let me sleep."
      It was not a request. It was a command. Peremptory, uncompromising.
      "I won't," promised the nurse, silently marvelling at the iron will keeping a heart pumping in that wrecked body long beyond all medical probability. But then Mary Mulholland's life had been governed and corralled by self-discipline; it was fitting that even death hovering patiently in that room would have to await her bidding.
      The door opened a second time.
      Mary Mulholland's eyes swivelled towards it and the tall, slim, dark-garbed man in black clerical shirt who entered.
      "Vincent."
      "I'm here, mother."
      With an athlete's grace, Vincent crossed swiftly to his mother's bedside, stooped over her and gently kissed the ruined face, then placed his wooden sacraments case by the bed. The nurse was still holding Mary Mulholland's hand.
      Without looking at her, Mary Mulholland said quietly, "I want to be alone with my son now."
      Dismissed, the nurse withdrew from the room, bobbed a half curtsey to Vincent - "Father" - and was gone, shutting the door mouselike behind her.
      Vincent shuffled a chair closer to the bed and took his mother's hand. It lay limp on his own, feather-light, mottled with liver spots, and the lace-work of blue veins pulsating ever so faintly. He stared down at them, hiding the moistening of his eyes, waiting.
      There was an unaccustomed softness in Mary Mulholland as she raised her hand and gently stroked his cheek. Her son. Her son Vincent, the priest. Father Vincent, of the Society of Jesus.
      "I did it all for you, you know. Everything," she whispered. "You've been a good son to me. I'm so proud of you."
      The naked idolatry in her eyes made Vincent uncomfortable, and he had to stop himself from jerking away his head.
      "I know."
      Now that her son was with her, Mary Mulholland's grip on life was less relentless. For one of the very few times in her sixty one years she felt she could let go; lower her defences, emotionally and physically. The words came out little louder than a whisper.
      "I've often wondered . . . was I a good mother to you?"
      "You were great," he lied, his mind leaping back to those early days. A woman driven by pride to go scrubbing bank floors wearing a business suit and carrying her cleaning utensils in an expensive leather briefcase. The no go area of her bedroom; not a hug nor a cuddle nor a romp for a five-year-old boy with no father and a puzzling, aching gap in his life. Just chores and duties and paper rounds. Every small nugget of affection had required to be earned, it was never volunteered. Still, it had been hard for her, too.
      "You were great," he repeated, trying to convince himself. "No boy could have had better."
      She gave a light sigh. "Will you hear my confession?"
      He nodded, wondering what litany of little sins were left to her. For eight months she had lain in this room, wasting away, a privilege extended to the Jesuits by the hospital Trust since the two-tier national health service had been formalised. From the sacraments case he donned his vestment and prepared to hear her confession, both he and his mother drawing comfort from the time-hallowed words as they gave and received the responses. Sometimes on such occasions he could feel the spirit of God transfiguring him, flooding his being with light and power, but never with his mother. With her, part of him remained always the child of her loins.
      The surprising strength of her grip on his hand pulled him from his reverie.
      "Vincent, do you ever wonder about your father?"
      The question startled him. He thought her mind was wandering, but the eyes were clear and focused.
      "He's dead. He died when I was five," he said automatically, unwilling to scratch deeper at an emotional scar long buried.
      "No. May God forgive me, I lied. . . he's alive. Somewhere."
      Vincent stared silently at his mother, trying to come to terms with the statement. With an inner certainty he knew it to be true. It was as if he had always known, and it had taken only the words to be spoken aloud to unlock the door to the truth. He was flooded by a sudden sense of betrayal. All those years she had lived with the knowledge, hidden it from him; never once hinted by deed or word that his father still existed. All those years, living a charade under the same roof; there wasn't even a picture of him. In the blink of a second he was six years old again, caught rummaging through his mother's old photographs from the top of her bedroom wardrobe, searching for the father he had lost. The stinging blows and the stinging words. . . "He's dead, I tell you, dead! Get out, get out, get out!" He realised with a great clarity that he had never really known his mother at all.
      The lie of a quarter of a century lay between them, an ugly thing in the light. Now that it was out in the open Mary Mulholland squandered her flagging life force with reckless abandon. The words came in short, panting bursts.
      "I thought it was for the best. I didn't want you pining for him. The way I did. Best just to bury him and let us get on with our lives. I know it was wrong of me, but I couldn't help it. Should have told you. . ."
      The pain racked her once more, making her eyes bulge. Drops of perspiration beaded her brow. Vincent brushed them away from the clammy grey skin. When the spasm passed, he said with a gentleness he did not feel, "It's all right. Don't reproach yourself. You did what you felt you had to do. . . There's nothing to forgive."
      Mary Mulholland's last vestiges of strength were spent. Her eyes closed tiredly. The voice was no more than a reedy whisper. "Loved him. Always. . .Why did he leave?"
      They were the last words she uttered.
      Over the still form of his mother, now in that twilight world beyond reach of mortal contact that presaged death, Vincent automatically performed the Last Rites. He sat on in the room, listening to her ragged, shallow breathing. He had made enough deathbed vigils to know that even though she was no longer conscious, somewhere deep inside she was aware of his presence.
      Sitting there, watching, he closed his eyes and tried to picture his father, but all he could remember was a child's eye view of a green waistcoat beneath a hairy tweed jacket that tickled his nose when he pressed against it and two broad hands with nicotine-stained fingers reaching down to lift him, as above his head laughter boomed like the thunder now rolling in on the hospital.
      With a sudden hiss, the rain came. Fat globules danced and splattered off the window sill into the room, forcing Vincent to close the sash. Just as abruptly it ceased, as if someone had turned off a tap, and the sun broke through.
      An hour passed; still Mary Mulholland lingered. Instinct told Vincent his mother was fighting against departing.
      "You can go now, mother," he told her. "There is nothing here for you now. You've seen me grown up and settled; your work here is done. Go now and be with God."
      It was the release Mary Mulholland was seeking. With a low sigh, she ceased to struggle against death. There was no rush of angel's wings; no sudden feeling of a life-force leaving; just a small, faint "Oh" of surprise as the last earthly thread was severed.
      Vincent said a prayer for the repose of her soul, then sat on for a few minutes, recalling their lives together. In all honesty, it had been as cold and barren as he remembered it, but at least now he knew why. The sins of the father had been visited on the son by an embittered woman too frightened to love.
      He rose, kissed Mary Mulholland on the forehead, and left the room in search of the Sister to tell her, that on this side of the veil, he had lost a mother. The news that he had gained a father he kept to himself.

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