A Month of Sundays Read online

  He was describing the first meeting between the master spy and the exotic leading lady, Fanny O’Plenty, but as the scene took shape, he was conscious that his mind was playing tricks with him and that the figures of Fanny and Karen were intermingling so that sometimes he seemed to be describing one and sometimes the other. He was aware therefore that the person he was describing and the person he was trying to impress with the quality of that description were one and the same but as is the way of things in dreamland, there seemed nothing remotely illogical about this. Pausing for a moment, he lit one of his specially blended Turkish cigarettes and sucked the cool, fragrant smoke into his lungs.

  For a few minutes, the ticking of the compartment clock marked the leisurely passage of time until, with a decisive movement of his Conway Stewart fountain pen, he wrote,

  As she emerged from the sea, dripping with water, her scanty clothing could not conceal the contours of her lithe body and the proud jut of her ripe young breasts...

  He stopped and drew on his cigarette, a faraway look in his eyes, before abruptly crossing out the final words and substituting,

  ...the firm swell of her proud young breasts...

  A moment later, his pen raced across the page once more, producing,

  ...the thrusting jut of her firm young breasts...

  Finally, putting all his eggs, as it were, in one basket, he wrote,

  ...the firm, proud jut of her thrusting, ripe young breasts...

  He stopped, temporarily exhausted, looked through the haze of cigarette smoke at the words on the page and sighed wearily. Suddenly, he straightened, picked up his pen and with that quickening of the pulse which all artists will recognize, wrote,

  As she emerged from the sea, dripping with water and moved with feline grace onto the beach, her scanty clothing could not conceal the contours of her firm, lithe young body. Yet she was more than just a graceful savage, for as she moved across the sand, the keen, darting glances she threw around her suggested that beneath the animal beauty there lurked a shrewd, native intelligence. As she moved forward, her ripe young breasts jutted proudly against the cloth of the skimpy garment that covered her form, the taut fabric straining against the thrust of those splendid orbs.

  Fleming/O’Driscoll sat back, satisfied that the passage had given readers a sufficiently nuanced introduction to the multi-layered character that Fanny would turn out to be, and it only remained to turn on the electric ceiling fan and call for another dry martini. When the master spy did pull languidly on the bell rope, however, it brought forth not the deferential, tuxedoed waiter he had expected but a belligerent be-turbaned bus conductor, at which point John O’Driscoll awoke abruptly and scuttled off the bus, realizing after he alighted that he had actually disembarked two stops early.

  Wednesday

  The following morning found O’Driscoll approaching the presbytery with a lagging step and with the watery bowels that always seemed to precede an interview with Father Kennedy. It was the final planning meeting ahead of the Year Six mass that was held every year to celebrate the achievements of the eleven year-olds who would soon be leaving the school. In truth, the term “planning” was something of a misnomer, for in reality the meeting, like all the others, would simply ratify whatever it was Father Kennedy had already decided and because Kennedy was a man welded so rigidly to his dogma as to make that of the North Korean politburo seem subtle and nuanced by comparison, there were usually few surprises.

  Sister Bernadette, Mr. Li, who taught science, Miss Gillespie the music teacher and Karen Black were also attending the meeting and upon entering the room, O’Driscoll’s heart skipped a beat as he noticed the only seat free was the one next to Karen. His attempt to slide into it in one graceful movement caused the table to move suddenly, almost upsetting a glass of water onto Father Kennedy’s lap and the priest stared balefully at O’Driscoll, the hairs in his nostrils danced crazily, but aware that he was in mixed company, he confined himself to grunting something unintelligible and turned back to continue his conversation with Sister Bernadette.

  “Hi John,” said Karen, and he felt a tantalizing scent of perfume. “I meant to ask whether you were all right at the end of the do the other night, you looked a bit under the weather.”

  O’Driscoll was caught between conflicting impulses. He could milk the “under the weather” query in the hope of getting some sympathy from Karen; on the other hand, Sister Bernadette was sitting only feet away and it was known up and down the school as a shrewd old cat. If she got wind of him not having been well, and put two and two together she might come up with four, which was, in pints, almost exactly the volume of vomit that had ended up in her bag on the night in question.

  Opting for a middle course, he croaked out a greeting from lips that had suddenly become as dry as sand. “Hi Karen,” he said. “No, I was OK,” and immediately kicked himself for the banality of his words. Here he was, sitting next to the most beautiful girl in the world, with the language of Shakespeare, Donne and Dryden at his disposal, and all he could come up with was “No, I was OK.” What a wanker, he thought to himself bitterly as he plumbed the depths of his being for something to say and finally, conscious of the growing silence, blurted out the words, “I see West Ham lost again.” Once more he cursed himself for a fool but to his surprise, Karen smiled and replied, “They’ll never get anywhere with that defence.”

  “You a football fan?” he asked, surprised.

  “Well, you have to use the term loosely if you support West Ham,” she replied.

  “West Ham,” interjected Mr. Li suddenly, and with his careful oriental diction, the words sounded like “Wester Harm.” He shook his head, “Never recovered from the loss of John Lyall.”

  Not for the first time, O’Driscoll marveled at the way that the game of football could bridge the most unlikely gaps. Here was a petite English rose on one side, and an elderly Chinaman on the other, the three brought together by a shared understanding of the treacherous waters that swirled around in the lower reaches of the Premiership. Mr. Li had taught at the school for several years and was one of that generation of Chinese whose English is self-taught and the result of painstaking labour over battered and tattered textbooks. Like many such students, Mr. Li’s English had an unusual rhythm to it, with formal, linguistically accurate sentences that nevertheless sounded odd to the ears of native speakers.

  He had picked up most of his conversational English from old editions of The Gem and The Magnet which had somehow made the journey to his hometown in Hubei province and which depicted a mythical pre-war world inhabited by characters like Billy Bunter and Harry Wharton. It was a world where the sound of rising bell summoned ruddy-faced boys to Greek and Latin prep and the start of Michaelmas term was signaled by grumbling porters decanting trunks onto a quadrangle that echoed to the sound of cricket practice on Top Side. Through much study, Mr. Li had absorbed the speech patterns of these battered tomes and the consequence was that his speech could, at any moment, lapse with disconcerting suddenness into the vernacular of a fantasy world from half a century ago.

  O’Driscoll was about to launch into an analysis of the London football scene when he realized Father Kennedy had called the meeting to order. “Thank ye all for coming,” said the priest, “I think preparations are well in order for Sunday.” He turned to Sister Bernadette and his face assumed a benign expression. “Did you want to say anything, Sister?”

  “Just that the choir sounded beautiful when I heard them this morning,” said the nun and Miss Gillespie inclined her head graciously at the implied tribute to her teaching. The music teacher had selected the dozen most angelic Year Six girls to line up behind her in the section of the church reserved for the choir, and was to stand in front of them leading the singing. Miss Gillespie was a prim, erect woman of uncertain but advanced years whose interactions with colleagues were formal and reserved and who lived alon
e and emanated a frigid disapproval when any talk of romance came up in the staff room. She was, in fact, the personification of the sort of spinsterish old maid popularized in fiction, and the subject of much staff banter, “poor sexless creature” being one of the kinder epithets employed by Mrs. Goodwin to describe her.

  “How are the programmes coming along, Mr. Li,” asked Sister Bernadette. “Vurr well,” came the answer, “the final proofs have been submitted to Father Kennedy.” At the mention of proofs, the priest snorted and Sister Bernadette gave O’Driscoll a look of sadness and quiet reproof combined in equal measure before saying, “Yes, it is so important that every piece of printing, no matter how small, goes through the proofreading process.”

  O’Driscoll had hoped the printing error might have been forgotten, but clearly it loomed large in the minds of the powers that be, and with teaching contracts up for renewal, it was not a happy thought. O’Driscoll was in his second year at the school, but in the newly deregulated world of education, his contract of employment remained a temporary one, with its renewal at the end of each academic year at the school’s discretion. There were a number of others in the same predicament and the shrewder of them had already done the maths which suggested that with next year’s shifting pupil demographic, unless there was a resignation from within the ranks of the permanent staff, one of the four teachers currently on a temporary contract would have to go. The prospect of being that teacher filled O’Driscoll with such dread he was barely able to contemplate it, for it would mean he would never again be able to spend large periods of his life gazing longingly at Karen Black from afar without summoning up the courage to actually do something about it.

  But it wasn’t only this that made the prospect of losing his teaching post an unwelcome one, it was also the fact that being employed at Saint Catherine’s laid to rest the thorny issue of what he was to do with the rest of his life. Like many before him, O’Driscoll had drifted into teaching because he hadn’t known what career he wanted to pursue and because he couldn’t be bothered to go to the trouble of researching the jobs market and thinking up what lies to put in the “hobbies and interests” section of his applications. Now that he was in teaching, it seemed to offer him a stable base from which to pursue his true vocation in life, which was spending as much time as he could in the pub with his mates.

  He was also aware, in the inconsequential way that the young consider their parents’ feelings if they consider them at all, that his mother and father were rather proud of the ascent their son had made to the rarified heights that the teaching profession still represented to their generation. “My son the teacher” while still not having the social cache of “my son the doctor” or “my son the lawyer” was still a massive improvement on “my son on the lump with McAlpines,” while the catty references made towards one poor soul and her son “on the dole but doing a little illegal drug dealing, wouldn’t you know,” showed how seriously these factors weighed in the world his parents inhabited.

  So, it was essential that O’Driscoll try to keep himself on the right side of the school leadership, particularly as staffing decisions for the next academic year would be made by the Easter holidays, only a few weeks away. He hoped his mishap with the poster might have receded from the collective memory but the fact that it was still registering on the ecclesiastical radar was not a promising omen.

  “You, what’s your name?” growled Kennedy, and with reluctance, O’Driscoll dragged himself back into the here and now and waited with trepidation for what was to come. “We’re hoping the job we’ve given you will not be beyond your powers,” the priest continued with elaborate sarcasm.

  “How is the rebinding of the hymn books coming along, John?” asked Sister Bernadette more kindly, and O’Driscoll pretended to clear his throat to disguise the “OOST!” that had been triggered by the priest’s words. He explained that thirteen of the Ancient and Modern series of hymn books - one for each of the choir, plus Miss Gillespie - had been rebound in red kidron with the title picked out in gold leaf and that the books would be delivered to the church on the morning of the mass. “That sounds lovely,” said Sister Bernadette and there was a murmur of approval around the table. O’Driscoll resolved to guard against the possibility of another mistake but consoled himself with the knowledge that having been once bitten, he would now be twice, if not thrice shy. After all, with such a simple task, what could possibly go wrong?

  The conversation meandered on in a similar vein with staff reporting back on their areas of responsibility and, as he listened idly, O’Driscoll became aware that the physical proximity of the lovely Karen was having a disturbing effect on him. At one point, she stirred slightly and he felt a tantalizing waft of scent. Acutely conscious of the fact that her thigh rested but inches from his own, he found to his horror that he was developing an erection. Desperately looking for an image to reverse the convulsion taking place in his trousers, he focused every fibre of his being on the figure of Sister Bernadette as she sat across the room.

  At first, this strategy appeared to be having the desired effect, but gradually the thin, angular figure opposite began to blur and a terrible shape-shifting seemed to commence. The face inside the wimple began to change, the cloth of the nun’s habit became deliciously contoured as it filled with the delectable shape of his beloved, and the outfit appeared to have developed an oriental-style slit at the side, through which a tantalizing sliver of thigh could be glimpsed. The figure seemed to envelop him, its slender fingers extended, as from moistened lips a soft voice whispered, “Mother Superior says we’re not supposed to do this, but...”

  There was consternation around the table as with a strangled yelp, John O’Driscoll suddenly leapt to his feet and left the room in a hunched, crablike scuttle, knocking against the table again and sending a dollop of water onto Father Kennedy’s notes. “Ah, feck,” growled the priest before hastily clearing his throat and bestowing an apologetic leer on the females present.

  It was a good five minutes before the door reopened and John O’Driscoll shuffled awkwardly to his place with the muttered words, “Sorry, cramp.” It had taken that long to restore himself to a state of physiological equanimity, and he had managed the feat by focusing his imagination on the least alluring person he could think of and when that didn’t work, refining the image to make it even more repulsive. That he figure conjured up turned out to be Margaret Thatcher in a black chiffon negligee took him aback somewhat, but having, as it were, no better material to work with, he decided to give it his best shot. And so it was that Mrs. O’Reilly, Father Kennedy’s elderly housekeeper cum cleaner came upon a lanky young man who appeared to be undergoing some kind of religious experience for he was kneeling in a corner of the corridor with his face to the wall chanting, “The Blessed Margaret... The Blessed Margaret...!” He then made a noise which she was unable to identify but later compared to the sound of air rushing out of a vacuum cleaner.

  Around the table, the few remaining items were dealt with and Father Kennedy finished the meeting with what he evidently considered to be a pep talk. “Thank ye all again for taking the time to come over. I don’t need to tell ye how important this mass will be for the school and the parish. Bishop McCarthy himself will be there, and I’m sure ye’ll all do ye’re best to make sure there are no hitches,” with a pointed look in O’Driscoll’s direction, adding, “and the service is one that we can all be proud of.”

  As people began to gather their possessions, Karen placed her hand lightly on O’Driscoll’s arm. He could feel the soft pressure of her fingers and, still reeling from the events of the last few minutes, fought to concentrate on the words she was saying. “By the way, John,” she said, “I heard that you were interested in the theatre.”

  “Yeah, I go occasionally,” he replied, wondering what was coming.

  “Well,” she said, and he had never been more conscious of her physical proximity, “it’s just
that I’ve got these two tickets for Antony and Cleopatra at The National and I was wondering...”

  For a moment the room swam around him as O’Driscoll digested the implication of her words. “I’d love to come...” he began, his heart thumping in his chest. “Shakespeare’s one of my...” he stopped, as he saw an expression close to panic appearing on her face.

  “No, no,” she said quickly, “It’s just that...” the words tumbled over one another in their hurry to get out, “you see, there’s been a change of plans and I ... we... won’t be able to go, so I was wondering if you’d like them?”

  The expression “his blood ran cold” was one O’Driscoll had heard many times but until that moment he had never realized how accurately it described the sensation he was experiencing. Desperate to say anything to remove the panic-stricken look from Karen’s face, he gabbled, “Oh, of course. Saturday night. Great! I’d love to take it... take them... the two of them. I can take my... I mean, I can take one of my... brilliant. Thanks.” He swallowed an “OOST” that had begun to form in his diaphragm and finished lamely, “I’ll get them tomorrow.”

  As he scanned the room to work out the quickest way of extricating himself from the situation, he realized the eyes of the others were on them and that the whole excruciating exchange must have been witnessed by them all. With a hurried farewell, Karen headed towards the door and as the rest of the group gathered their possessions prior to departing, O’Driscoll became aware that Father Kennedy’s little piggy eyes were resting on him with an amused gleam in them. “Well, Mister O’Driscoll,” said the priest with the self-satisfied air of a porker who has yet again successfully avoided the market van, “you seem to bring as much success to your personal life as you do your professional one.”