Annie had finished her morning shift in Fred’s and was getting ready to go home when she noticed the young seminarian who had been in a few days before that, taking the window seat again.

When she first saw him, she thought he looked nice. He had been painfully shy, barely able to look at her when she delivered his mixed grill. She had assumed he was a one-off customer but here he was, back again. And, my, but he was handsome.

It was strange for Annie to notice a man in that way. She could not remember ever having looked at a man that way before. When she first met Dorian she thought him handsome and kind. As a child, she had been charmed by him and fallen a little in love with him. That piece of love made Annie feel that, somehow, she had invited him to ‘love’ her that way. It was what he told her. When he abused her, and she saw the extent to which his appearance was the worst kind of lie, he robbed her of any interest she might have in boys and young men. Not that she ever came across any, but now that she had the opportunity, the freedom to love, she felt too tainted to even consider it. Men were a threat, or not a threat. And yet, here she was, looking at this man, this stranger, in a way she had never considered looking at a man before.

Some of the breezy attitude she had in front of the camera followed Annie home, and over the next few days she found she was feeling somewhat lighter in herself. Her pictures came out in the paper, and everybody made a great fuss of her. Fred told her she was ‘sex on legs’, which made Giuliana hit him across the back of the neck with a tea towel and Annie laughed until she thought she might be sick.

While she enjoyed the experience, she hadn’t really wanted to take it much further, but when Lara and Alex insisted she do some more pictures with them, she said that she would. Perhaps it would be fun to become a model, but for now Annie was happy to enjoy the small feeling of freedom that the one appearance in the paper had given her. She had been hiding for so long it didn’t do to rush into anything.

Perhaps it was because he was a priest, but there was a quiet, thoughtful air about him that made her feel safe.

He seemed to have more confidence today. When she brought out his mixed grill, he looked up at her, smiled and said, ‘Thank you,’ as if it held some significance. He had refined, delicate features for a man and his eyes were shining with kindness. He liked her. She could tell. Yet, she didn’t mind.

Annie felt the eyes of men on her all the time. Even if she dressed modestly, she felt herself being leered at, appraised. She always felt nervous in the company of men she didn’t know. Even with men she knew, Coleman, Arthur, Fred and Alex, she kept part of herself apart. She closed herself off from every man she met. No matter how nice they appeared, there was always the possibility that a savage demon might be lurking in their psyche. She would not be taken in again.

Sometimes, when she was serving a customer in the cafe, or simply talking to a man she knew, an image of violence would flash through Annie’s mind. A fist. A curse. A slash of pain. Somewhere between memory and fear, Annie lived with the intrusion of these momentary waking nightmares since Dorian first started abusing her. She hoped they would disappear with Dorian, but they returned in small, random shocks, like a trapped nerve jolting her when she least expected it. She believed this was God’s way of punishing her for killing a man. Dorian had been her abuser, but it was still a crime against God. Thou Shalt Not Kill. Annie had learned to clamber over these thoughts, not allowing them to paralyse her. But she knew they would never go away. Not as long as she carried the shame of what Dorian had done to her and the guilt of having taken his life.

The memories usually happened when she was in the company of men. It was why she insisted Lara come on photoshoots with her. Even though Alex was nice and certainly only interested in her modelling capabilities (she wasn’t sure that Alex was interested in girls at all), she did not feel safe alone with any man.

While God had not protected her from Dorian, Annie could not help thinking that perhaps He had sent this young priest into her cafe. There was something so delicate in the young man’s eyes that she noticed them as soon as he walked into the cafe. It felt almost as if his eyes mirrored her own. Was that God sending her a sign? Or could it be something as human as attraction? That seemed the more likely option to Annie but either way, even though she had finished her shift, she felt herself drawn over to him to take his order.

When she delivered his mixed grill, she took the unprecedented step of sitting down with him, rather in the same way Lara had done with her when they first met.

‘May I join you?’ she asked, putting down his plate while adeptly balancing a cup of coffee for herself in the other hand.

‘Please do,’ he said, and his face lit up in a smile that was, to her eyes, almost beatific. She smiled back, put the coffee on the table and sat down opposite him. The two of them sat smiling stupidly at each other for a second, before she nodded at his mixed grill. He quickly picked up his fork and pierced a large sausage, sending two squirts of fat flying – one across the table onto her coffee saucer and the other onto his hand.

‘I’m so sorry!’ he said, horrified.

She laughed and handed him a napkin.

‘Thank you,’ he said. He put it aside and put down his fork, confessing, ‘Actually, I’m not that hungry.’

‘That’s a big meal for someone who’s not hungry.’ And she felt emboldened. Playing her part in the photo shoot the day before gave her confidence. Maybe she could be somebody else. The girl who makes jokes. The girl who flirts. The girl who isn’t afraid.

‘I guess my eyes are bigger than my stomach,’ he said. ‘I’m Matthew, by the way.’ He held out his hand.

‘Annie,’ she said, looking at his oily fingers, then at him, and they both laughed again.

Giuliana was watching this exchange take place. A good Italian Catholic, she was delighted to see her young waitress flirting with the handsome seminarian, so she quietly removed his plate and slipped a cup of coffee in front of him.

Neither of the young couple noticed. They were utterly enraptured with each other, and seeing her sad young Irish waitress so happy made Giuliana go out to the kitchen and give her husband Fred an uncharacteristically tender kiss on his bald head.

Matthew and Annie talked about everything and nothing. Mixed grills, the smell of rain after a sunny spell, and how long it took to walk from Sloane Square to World’s End. She asked if he had ever eaten pasta and he said, ‘No.’ Then he asked her if she had been to the National Gallery and she said she hadn’t.

‘I could take you there,’ he said. When she blushed and looked away in response he added, ‘If you would like that.’

She turned her head towards him again and smiled and took his breath away. ‘I would like that very much,’ she said.

Every vein in his body, from his heart out, was fizzing. He felt so full of energy, he feared he might have to get up off the chair and jump with joy.

Was this God?

Even as he asked the question, he knew the answer. He knew the answer with every inch of himself. He joined the priesthood in search of his soul and found it in the paintings he studied. But he had never experienced that Godliness, that spirit, in himself. And yet, here in this girl’s face and the warm, teasing way she was looking at him, he felt something lift from deep within him. It seemed as if God had gifted his soul to this girl and she was returning it to him in her smile. Annie was the most beautiful piece of art he had ever seen. More beautiful than any painting because she was real. She was here. She was God’s art, the reason men painted. It was not simply her physical beauty, the pale skin and the curve of her neck, Annie was beautiful in every possible sense of the word. She was sweet and innocent, a rare example of untouched, untouchable perfection. Her warm, gentle manner lit a fire in him and made him feel alive. It seemed impossible to Matthew that this sublime creature, who seemed carved from another, better, age – an age before miniskirts and free sex and fashion – could be sitting here, in the flesh, in an ordinary cafe drinking coffee with him.

No. This was not God. Matthew was in love.

The exchange had not been at all what Annie was expecting. In some part of her, she had sat down to give a confession. She thought that, perhaps, she might be able to give an account of herself to this young man of the cloth. Seek some solace from simply being in the company of a good person. She could not give a full confession of what she had done. At least, not here in a cafe. Although it was something that she had considered and perhaps this young priest would be the person she could tell all to. Perhaps God had sent him in here to help cleanse her soul. But, instead of all that, Annie found herself laughing and flirting with him. She was unable to help herself. It was as if some strange force had taken her over. The groovy chick that had invented herself in front of the camera, That Girl, had tapped her on the shoulder, interrupted her melancholic thoughts and taken over the conversation. Annie would never have considered herself capable of deliberately trying to capture the heart of a priest. Such wickedness! Yet, she could tell he was attracted to her and the thought of that excited her. Even though, or perhaps because, she knew it could never go any further. It was almost as if in knowing that this young man could never be available to her, she was willing him to love her.

‘I could take you there tomorrow,’ he said. Then in a blaze of courage added, ‘We could have tea afterwards. I know a good cafe around the corner.’

She beamed and he felt as if a thousand angels were singing, then her face dropped.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I can’t.’

The tea had been too much. He should never have suggested it.

‘No,’ she said, reading his mind, ‘I mean, I would really love to but I’ve made a prior arrangement.’

‘No that’s fine, really.’

‘I’m meeting a man.’

That sounded bad.

‘I’m modelling for him.’

Worse again.

An irrational surge of panic flooded through Matthew. Another man was painting her! Of course he was. A creature like this could not go unnoticed by the art world. Who was he? Some lecherous cad no doubt.

‘It’s for a magazine. Vogue. The photographer is nice and I promised my flatmate I would do it for her boutique. I don’t want to let them down.’

The realisation that this girl had a life beyond here, beyond this moment, brought Mathew back down to earth with a bang. How had he ever thought she might be interested in him? He didn’t even look like a real man – he was just a wimp in a dress.

‘Why don’t you come along?’ she said.

‘No really, I don’t think it would be…’

What was he doing? Say yes! Say yes!

‘…appropriate.’ Oh my Good God and Holy Saint Joseph, Matthew thought, did I just actually say that? The ritualistic indoctrination of his training was taking over. Human passion was no match for the judgemental monsignor that was meticulously inserted into the psyche of every Catholic seminarian. Matthew’s eyes tried to plead with her. Ask me again! Ask me again!

Annie was crestfallen. Imagine thinking a priest, a good, kind man like that would be interested in her. He could probably see what she was. And yet, he looked different and there was such warmth in his eyes. So, Annie took a chance. There was, after all, nothing to lose.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘if you change your mind we’ll be meeting at the Peter Pan statue at two o’clock.’

‘Thank you,’ he said.

As he stood up to leave, she stayed seated. Her smile was small and timid. Matthew felt mortified, and he was not even sure why. All he knew was that he had blown it. Embarrassed the most glorious woman in the world. And himself.

‘It was nice meeting you,’ he said and held out his hand.

She took it, and when he felt the gentle touch of her warm hand in his, he thought he might cry.

‘You too,’ she said. She tried to smile, like before, but it wasn’t the same. That girl from the photo shoot had forsaken her. She was not appropriate.

All the way back to the seminary, Matthew cursed himself. And God. And, tripping twice in his rush to get back for evening prayers, his wretched frock. He was stuck now. There was no two ways about it. He had fallen in love and blown it in one afternoon. He was a worthless wimp of a man, good for nothing, only saying mass. He didn’t deserve to be with a woman. And even in thinking that – he knew the church had him now. The way the ‘appropriate’ had tripped off his tongue like that. He had said it – nobody else. He was that mimsy, judgemental, pinky-raising priest old women invited around to tea. If he wasn’t, he would have scooped that girl, Annie, up in his arms, skirts and all. But he hadn’t. And he never would.

❊

Arriving back at the seminary, Matthew immediately got the smell of lunch and was furious to note that, having not eaten his mixed grill, he was starving and would get nothing again until after evening prayer. He wished he was more resourceful like some of his fellow seminarians in Dublin who hid food in their rooms.

The pastor suddenly appeared at the door of the drawing room.

‘There is someone here to see you,’ he said, his face bent with distaste. Irish priests expressed moral disapproval more vocally, sometimes with a curse, often with a stick. The English clergy expressed it with a dry coldness that Matthew found infinitely more disturbing.

‘She has been waiting for quite some time.’

She? For a split second, Matthew thought it was Annie. Without thinking, he marched into the room.

Standing by the window, looking out, was an elegant woman whose raised elbows indicated she was holding a china cup and saucer in her hands. She turned when she heard him come in.

It was Lara.