Lara

Dublin, Ireland, 1966

‘I’m joining the priesthood.’

Lara was standing at the door of her hostel in Dublin, frantically searching for her key in the depths of her college satchel. It was nine fifty-five, and the nuns double locked the doors at ten. It wasn’t exactly an ideal arrangement, especially since she had started at the National College of Art and Design nearly two years ago. It had been that long since she and her childhood sweetheart Matthew had actually managed to catch a full film. Last year they had tried to get a flat in Rathmines, but her forged marriage certificate had not been good enough. One nosy old bag had reported her to the college and living in sin just wasn’t an option. It brought terrible shame on your family. Anyway, even if you were prepared to do that, Dublin’s landladies wouldn’t let you. The mere fact that she had been caught trying had upset her mother so much that Lara said she would move back into the hostel with the nuns until she graduated. But last week she and Matthew talked about the possibility of a no-fuss marriage service before they started their third term. They could both finish their degrees like civilised adults before moving to London, where Lara would pursue her dream of being a fashion designer, and Matthew could do a postgrad in religious art. That was their plan. Join the priesthood! Not an especially funny joke, but she laughed anyway as she finally located the key and fixed it into the lock.

‘Hilarious,’ she said, turning. ‘Are we having lunch together tomorrow or have you got a lecture?’

‘Lara.’ Matthew caught her hand. ‘I’m serious.’

His sky blue eyes were wide, set deep beneath a heavy brow and framed with unruly jet-black curls. Still, six years later, he was the boy she had first fallen in love with – her best friend’s brother. Shy, studious, raven-haired Matthew Lyons, the most beautiful boy she had ever seen. He looked away from her confusion. Was he being serious? No. It was too ridiculous. Before she even had the chance to chide him again he continued.

‘Really, Lara. I’ve been accepted. I go to Maynooth tomorrow.’

The words sounded rehearsed. His voice was sharp and steadier than it had a right to be. Defensive too, which she knew was just to cover the fact that he was afraid. This was no joke.

Surely, she must have heard him wrong or, at the very least, he had made some crazy mistake. Matthew was passionate, his ideas and emotions sometimes overcame him. He had an artistic temperament. Lara was the sensible one. If either of them were best suited to the cloying discipline of religious life, it was more likely to be her. This was one of his silly notions. Like the time when he was a teenager and decided to paint a Raphael nude on his parents’ sitting room ceiling. Lara had persuaded him to cover it up before they came back from their holiday. She was the one who protected Matthew from his impulsive self. He needed her.

She felt as if she couldn’t speak. For a moment she just stood and stared at him until she heard herself say, ‘When did you decide?’

‘A long time ago, Lara. I guess… I suppose I love God more than I love you. I’m sorry.’

Sorry? What was he talking about? Where had this come from? It was so out of the blue; it had to be a mistake. He loved her. Of course he loved her – but did he love her more than God? What did that even mean?

‘I’m sorry, Lara,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’ He was repeating the words as if the sound of them spoken aloud might add balm to the gash he had just sliced through her heart. His face collapsed, as if this was his pain instead of hers. As if, suddenly, he had some higher conscience to answer to. God? Lara knew she should say something to persuade him. Beg. What was a girl supposed to do at a time like this? Matthew was leaving her. The love of her life. Her soulmate. Her soulmate was leaving her. For God?

She felt Sister Attracta, the night duty nun, creep up behind her and, using her presence as an excuse to escape, Matthew began to walk backwards towards the road.

‘I’m sorry,’ he kept saying, tears streaming down his cheeks. Lara felt a quick panic rise in her chest. Come back, come back – we need to talk about this! But the words wouldn’t leave her. He picked up speed until he was out of earshot across Parnell Square, still mouthing, ‘I’m sorry.’

His slim, narrow back in its shabby, grey coat melted into the drab city landscape. Towards O’Connell Street and away from her. He was nothing more than a coward. Perhaps she would have screamed if the nun had not been standing directly next to her, urging her inside.

Part of her wanted to run across the road after him and scream, ‘Come back!’ He could not really be going. This could not, truly, be happening.

‘Never mind,’ Sister Attracta said, putting a kind hand on Lara. ‘You’ll see him again tomorrow. I’m sure it’s only a tiff and will pass over.’ With that, the nun pulled the large wooden door closed on Lara’s retreating lover.

Lara smiled at her. Yes. She was right. This was just one of Matt’s silly ideas. He would be back tomorrow. Join the priesthood? Ridiculous. Lara kept telling herself the same thing all night, repeating the words he’ll be back to herself until the sick feeling in her stomach subsided and, eventually, she fell asleep.

The next morning, Sister John came into the dorm and announced that Lara was wanted on the telephone. The nun woke up two of the three girls Lara shared with, neither of whom complained because they knew nobody rang the office phone unless it was an emergency. There was a pay phone in the hall but it could only make calls, not receive them.

Lara padded barefoot into the austere office with its institutional pale green walls and stood in her night attire under the huge crucifix on the mantel, the bloodied figure of Jesus looking down at her in all his glorious martyrdom.

‘Jesus, Lara, it’s Noreen.’

Noreen Lyons. Matthew’s twin sister. Her best friend.

‘I had to call you straight away. I just got the news now. The stupid eejit! I’ll murder him stone dead…’

Lara nodded at Sister John, who, satisfied that nobody had died, closed the door of the office. She would be irritated to have been party to a drama that wasn’t a bona fide emergency, but Lara could face that later.

‘A priest?’ Noreen continued. ‘I mean, Jesus Christ and Holy Saint fecking Joseph.’

So, it was true. Lara’s heart swelled inside her chest, suffocating her so that she couldn’t speak.

‘I can’t believe he’s actually going through with it! I thought he was joking. When did he tell you? Why didn’t you call me?’

Lara felt the truth slap her across the face.

Her oldest, closest friend noticed her silence.

‘Holy Mary, Lara – he did tell you, didn’t he?’

‘Of course he did.’ Her voice sounded too light. Like it belonged to somebody else. Noreen had known before her. His parents must have known for a while. Maybe everyone knew and Lara was the last person he had told. Of course. She was just the fool who was in love with him. The fool that had believed he loved her back, the fool that had thought they were getting married. The stupid, misguided girl, dreaming and saving for a future that was never going to happen. Maybe with his new superior conscience he was trying to spare her and hadn’t wanted to hurt her feelings. Well, he bloody well had.

‘Oh thank God. For a moment there… I mean, when he said he was thinking about it, about a month ago now, was it?’

‘That’s right,’ Lara said. There it was again. The voice that wasn’t hers. The lie. What could she say? Your bastard brother didn’t tell me until last night – I was the last to know. No. She might be the greatest fool that ever lived, but Lara didn’t have to admit that to anyone else. Not even Noreen. Not yet, certainly. Maybe never.

Noreen’s sing-song Cork accent trilled down the line. ‘We all thought he was joking. I suppose I should have called you when he first said it but – I thought – you guys needed to work it out yourselves.’

‘Of course,’ Lara said. There was an awkward pause. ‘Well,’ Lara found herself speaking, ‘it’s clearly what he wants.’

As Lara made the statement, so calm, so reasoned, every nerve in her body fizzled against it with fury and shock. Was it really what Matthew had wanted all along? He had never given any hint of it, not to her. She thought he wanted the life they had planned together. They had made love, as often as any young unmarried couple might expect to, which was not very often. There had never, for either of them, been any sense of urgency. Soon, they would get married and they would have a lifetime for making love. Matthew was always reserved, yes, but he told her he loved her. Had that been a lie? Had all of it? Noreen was talking about her brother becoming a priest as if it was annoying, inconvenient, unfortunate but true. Lara couldn’t help but see herself standing there on the cold convent floor, shivering in her flimsy cotton nightdress. Her feet were as cold and naked as the Jesus statue, and her toes pressed hard into the red, polished tiles with the tension of keeping her voice steady. Now that she knew for certain, Lara wasn’t going to lower herself by begging. She had been right to keep hold of herself last night.

‘He’s no more a bloody priest than I’m a nun, Lara, and we all know that was never going to happen, no matter what Mammy said.’

‘Noreen,’ Lara interrupted. ‘I had better go now. They are calling us down for breakfast.’

Breakfast wasn’t for an hour.

‘Are you alright, Lara?’ Noreen’s voice was full of concern.

‘Of course,’ Lara said.

‘I honestly think he’s just being an arse. He’ll be out in a week and begging for you to take him back.’

Noreen always said things with such conviction that Lara couldn’t help but feel that whatever she decreed might just happen.

‘If it’s what Matthew wants,’ Lara said, ‘he should follow his heart. I just want him to be happy.’

Noreen was certain that Lara was heartbroken over her brother. No one could truly love a man and be that magnanimous when they dumped them.

But she also knew Lara well enough not to push her. There was pride at play here, and the pride of a Cork woman, especially one as accomplished and confident as her dear friend, was not something to be chipped at.

‘Call me if you want to talk it through,’ Noreen said.

‘Thanks,’ Lara said, ‘I will.’

Although they both knew that was never going to happen.

When Lara got back to her room all three of her roommates were sitting on their beds in various states of undress. They stopped talking as soon as she walked in.

‘Everything alright at home?’ Helena Moran asked.

‘Fine,’ Lara snapped, going straight over to her locker. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

‘No need to bite her head off,’ said Elaine Tigue. ‘We were just worried about you.’

Lara grabbed her sweater and pulled it over her head with more vigour than needed.

‘Bertie McGrath was telling Da at the fair last week that your Great Grand Uncle Mikey Feeney is sick down there in Killaloe… we thought maybe…’

Lara saw Elaine and Helena exchange a look.

They probably knew. Not just about her uncle. About Matthew. If they didn’t know now, they would soon. Everybody knew everything about everybody in Ireland. Cork might be hundreds of miles away but in gossip terms, it was only around the corner. She knew what they were thinking right now, as they looked at her. There’s that Lara Collins who got engaged to a priest. She forced herself on him. She wouldn’t let him go. He was afraid to tell her he didn’t love her. She was the last to know.

Matthew had left her less than twenty-four hours ago. She had not even told her own family yet, but there probably wasn’t any need to. Bertie McGrath (whoever the hell he was) could inform her father at the next Fair Day.

A broken heart was one thing. People poking around at it and judging you was quite another.

Lara was brushing her hair when Sister Attracta stuck her head in the door and said, ‘Lara, might I have word with you? In private?’

The nun’s long face was even more mournful and concerned than usual. One look in her pitying eyes told Lara that she had just heard about Matthew. Of course she had. Nuns knew everything, and what they didn’t know they sensed. Lara was being called out for a ‘kind-nun’ lecture. She was, after all, the sort of girl who had fallen in love with a young man who wanted to be a priest. ‘Cross-nun’ talk was what you got by being a lawless, dirty strap who got caught having carnal relations out of wedlock. Lara would have taken the latter any day of the week. Suddenly, the truth was stark. There would be no let-up and no privacy until she left Ireland.

She would sit through Attracta’s lecture, smile and nod at all her kind wisdom. Then, as soon as it was over, she would go to the bank and empty the account where she had been saving for her future with Matthew. To hell with college. To hell with family. To hell with being a good girl and doing the right thing. Lara was going to put on her shortest skirt and head for the most Godless, shocking place on the planet: Swinging London.