CHILDREN OF THE THUNDER Page 2

  Much to the annoyance of his professor, who did not approve of extramural activities by his students.

  There followed a stand-up row and a not-too-polite suggestion that he might consider studying elsewhere. When he rang TV Plus to complain about what had happened he met with a surprising response: the producer said he had been impressed by the lucid way Peter could talk about abstruse subjects, and the researcher he had met was quitting, so there was a vacancy. What about coming for an interview?

  He got the job, and spent the next eight years with the team that every week for twenty-six weeks out of the fifty-two put Continuum together, graduating from researcher to writer to co-presenter. During his stint the series won two prestigious awards. Then the producer emigrated, tempted by a higher salary, and the show was cancelled.

  But by then Peter Levin had a reputation, and plenty of contacts in the press as well as in broadcasting. He decided to set up as a freelance, and so far he had managed to stay afloat. Acting as a consultant here, writing a script or two there, occasionally helping to design and edit a coffee-table science book, he had in fact done very nicely to begin with. In particular he had had the chance to travel to places he could never have afforded to visit except at a publisher’s or TV company’s expense.

  Lately, though…

  He sighed. It wasn’t simply his problem. So long as computer generated panics kept driving the stock markets crazy, so long as Britain was excluded from the Japanese economic sphere—which meant in effect as long as this damned stupid government remained in power—things could only get worse.

  The phone rang. Startled, he realized he had paid no attention whatever to the rest of the news. Hastily cutting the volume with one hand, he snatched up the instrument with the other.

  “Jake Lafarge for you,” the phone said. That was the editor who had sent him to cover today’s conference.

  “Well, what did you think of my piece?” he demanded with feigned heartiness.

  “It’ll do,” Lafarge grunted. “It’ll have to.”

  “That’s all? I thought it was rather featly, considering. Some of the jokes—”

  “Peter, this paper is the Comet, not the Comic!” Lafarge interrupted. “Wasn’t there supposed to be a closed session this afternoon?”

  “Of course.” Peter blinked. “You saw the program.”

  “And you weren’t at it?”

  “How would you expect me to manage that? Sneak in with a forged membership card? Jake, this was a conference on security, for heaven’s sake!”

  “You didn’t pick the brains of the people who had been at it? You didn’t grab hold of even one and pour him full of booze to loosen his tongue?”

  “I talked to everyone I could!” Peter flared. “In fact I spent so long picking brains I didn’t get home until—”

  But it was obvious Lafarge was in no mood to listen to excuses. He was carrying on as though Peter hadn’t spoken.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a decent beat on a major scandal! What the hell is the use of having the best equipment in the business if I can’t afford to hire the best staff? Day after day, week after week, I see stories we ought to have broken turning up in the Guardian or Observer—the blunt end of the market for God’s sake, when we’re supposed to be the sharp one! We’re neck-deep in bocky computers and we still can’t use them to dig up the kind of dirt I’m sure must be accessible if you know how. At least I’ve finally managed to—”

  He broke off in mid-sentence. Silently Peter wondered how long Lafarge was going to keep his job. By the sound of it the guy was bending his elbow rather too often. After a long pause, he said maliciously, “You were saying?”

  “Forget it!” Lafarge snapped. “And I mean that!”

  Yes, baas! But Peter kept that to himself. Instead he reverted to the most important matter in hand. “Have you authorized my fee?”

  “Yes, of course. It’ll be in your account tomorrow. And”—effortfully—“I’m sorry I snapped your head off. Not your fault. Just bear in mind, will you, that I’m quite serious about needing a major break? I… Well, we do pay competitive rates.”

  There speaks the voice of desperation. Maybe those rumors about the paper going under are true!

  With half his mind Peter wondered where he could peddle that particular snippet of information; with the other, he uttered comforting noises and gloomily cradled the phone. The Comet wasn’t his best market, but it was a useful standby, and without it…

  But he was ravenous, and the rain had let up. Time to go in search of food.

  Thirteen-year-old Dymphna Clancy paused outside the Mother Superior’s office whither she had been bidden at the unlikely hour of bedtime. She wished there were a mirror nearby, but there were very few within the precincts of the convent school, it being held that to contemplate one’s own reflection was to cultivate the sin of vanity. But there was an uncurtained window, at least, in which she could catch a glimpse of herself. So far as she could judge her uniform was acceptably neat and her dark hair acceptably tidy. If she were at fault in either regard, of course, she could expect to be told, and in no uncertain terms.

  Not that it made—not that it could make—very much difference. Not nowadays. But having to face up to, then outface, the kind of tongue-lashing the nuns could bring to bear on a pupil was at best uncomfortable, making her palms sweat and her heart pound hammerwise, and all too often it was downright exhausting. Dymphna found it best to conform, at least on the surface.

  She wished she were not so afraid that one of the offenses she was now accustomed to committing as it were below the surface might have come to light. But how else to account for this late summons to the Presence?

  Steeling herself for a lengthy and unwelcome ordeal, she tapped on the office door. Mother Aloysia called at once, “Come in, child!”

  Child? What on earth makes her say that?

  More puzzled than ever, though a fraction less anxious, Dymphna opened the door.

  Mother Aloysia was not alone. Present also were Sister Ursula, the nun who had general oversight of Dymphna’s age-group among the pupils, Father Rogan, the school’s chaplain and confessor, and a stranger in a dark suit: a ruddy-faced man with a walrus moustache, balancing a black Homburg hat awkwardly on his knee.

  There was a vacant chair in the middle of the floor.

  “Sit down, child,” Dymphna heard. She complied, wondering at the unfamiliar expression on Mother Aloysia’s face. Seldom before had she seen it otherwise than as if carved in stone, the eyes narrowed, the cheeks sucked in, the mouth a compressed slit. Nor had she ever heard the least hint of tenderness in her reedy but authoritative voice.

  There was a pause. Then the Mother Superior resumed.

  “I am going to have to ask you to be strong, Dymphna. We—well, we have bad news. This is Mr. Corkran, a partner in the law firm that administers the estate of your late father. He has kindly come to inform you in person, rather than simply telephoning.”

  So I’m not here to be hauled over the coals!

  Dymphna relaxed, trying not to make the response too visible, and taking care to press her knees together in the prescribed fashion.

  She scarcely recalled her father, and indeed had never been told much about him directly. But malicious gossip abounded in the school, among the teaching nuns as well as the pupils, and from hints and insults she had pieced together the most crucial truth concerning Brendan Clancy. He had killed himself. Though it had been in a fit of drunken misery, he had indubitably committed a mortal sin.

  At first she had been terrified; were not the sins of the fathers visited upon the children, even to the third and fourth generation?

  Oddly, though, within a relatively short time, she had begun to feel quite otherwise. Now she had come to picture her background as rather romantic, and to look down on her more respectable schoolmates as unenterprising and conformist. Little by little she had taken to exploring the limits of her potential for misbehavior, commencing with minor
acts of defiance, graduating a year or so ago to offenses that in the normal way—committed, that was to say, by any other of the girls—would have resulted in punishment on the grand scale. For instance, had any of them been caught by a monitor in possession of photographs showing men and women embracing in the nude…

  But Dymphna had lots of them, that she had bribed from the baker’s delivery boy with kisses and occasional permission to grope inside her blouse, which she circulated among the older pupils—for a consideration. Within the past few months, moreover, she had started to earn some real money. The supplier of the material was the delivery boy’s older brother, a long-distance lorry driver, able to smuggle in the very latest magazines from France and Italy. Having nearly been caught once by the Gardai, he had needed a secure place to hide his stocks, and was willing to pay handsomely for one. Dymphna obliged. Who would think of searching a convent school for pornographic magazines? Not to mention condoms, sold at a markup of several hundred per cent!

  Was there no limit to what she could get away with?

  I think I must take after my mother!

  Of whom, equally, she knew little, for they met only once a month, on a Saturday afternoon, when a nurse brought Mrs. Imelda Clancy to the school in a taxi: a frail, vague woman looking far older than her age, with a drawn face and untidy gray hair, saying little and seeming to understand less. For years the other girls had been accustomed to poke fun at Dymphna after each visit, though lately they had given up, perhaps because in some remote incomprehensible sense they were envious of the difference between her background—redolent of sensational newspaper stories—and their own futures, as predictable as they were humdrum.

  It had been explained, in roundabout terms, that when her father ran away her mother had suffered a nervous breakdown, which was why the nuns had taken her into care. Yet that could only be part of the story. Further clues garnered from general gossip found their way to her ears, and she pieced them together. Allegedly her “father” was not indeed her father (though she lacked perfect understanding of biological parenthood despite her store of contraceptives and the pictures she possessed). In other words, her mother had been unfaithful to him with another man, and Dymphna was the fruit of an adulterous union.

  More romantic than ever! She must be a love-child! And thought there was no more beautiful word in the language.

  When she prayed—which she did at the times ordained, though without conviction, for she was far from satisfied about the Creator’s continuing interest in His handiwork—she begged not for salvation, nor for a vocation to the Order, but for something the nuns would have had conniptions about. She pleaded to be reunited with her real father, who must surely have other children. She wanted to meet her half-sisters and above all her half-brothers. She wanted to meet boys with whom she could… But at that point even her fevered imagination faltered. And in any case, this was not the moment to think about such matters.

  Carefully composing her small face into a mask that mingled puzzlement and apprehension—since that was obviously what they were expecting of her—she turned to Mr. Corkran and looked a mute question.

  He tugged a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and mopped his forehead before answering.

  “I won’t beat about the bush, Miss Clancy. It is my sad duty to report that your mother won’t be coming to visit you any more.”

  “You mean…?” Dymphna whispered with a show of anxiety worthy of a professional actress.

  Mr. Corkran gave a solemn nod. “I do indeed. She passed away earlier this evening, after a heart attack. All that could be done was done, I promise you. And the doctor who was called said she must have suffered very little pain.”

  There was silence for a while. They were all gazing at her expectantly. But what sort of reaction were they looking for? Should she break down in tears? Mother Aloysia had instructed her to be brave, so that could scarcely be it—Ah! Of course!

  As though repressing sobs, she forced out, “Was there time for her to see a priest?”

  They relaxed. She had guessed correctly. In a tone of unprecedented gentleness Sister Ursula—normally the fiercest disciplinarian at the school—replied.

  “I’m afraid, my dear, that by the time he arrived your mother was already unconscious. But we are assured that she had made confession very recently, and there can have been but little burden of sin on her poor weak mind.”

  “Besides,” rumbled Father Rogan, “God is merciful to those who have spent long in expiating youthful faults.”

  He crossed himself; so did the others, and Dymphna made haste to copy them. Then silence fell again.

  What was she supposed to do now? Several possibilities sprang to mind, and she settled on the one that struck her as most likely to be approved by Sister Ursula. Mother Aloysia was a comparatively remote figure, which was why the girls referred to visiting her office as “being summoned into the Presence.” Leaning forward, she ventured, “May I please not go straight back to the dormitory? I”—she introduced a convincing break into her voice—“I would like to spend a while by myself. In the chapel.”

  Sister Ursula glanced at the Mother Superior. After a moment the latter gave a nod.

  “I think in the circumstances that would be appropriate. Shall we say—ah—half an hour? We can talk about the rest in the morning: arrangements for the funeral, and the other sad necessities. Sister Ursula, please escort Dymphna to the chapel, then return to the dormitory and inform the girls of what has happened, to prevent any silly rumors breaking out. Tell them they must be especially kind to their friend during this period of trial.”

  “Yes, Mother Superior,” said Sister Ursula, rising. “Come along, child.”

  On the threshold Dymphna turned back. Almost inaudibly she said, “Thank you, Mr. Corkran. For taking the trouble to come and tell me in person. I appreciate it.”

  When the door swung closed, the lawyer said heartily, “She seems to be taking it amazingly well. I was rather afraid she might… And she’s most polite, too. Your standards must be very high.”

  Had that too not been a manifestation of pride, Mother Aloysia might almost have been said to preen at the compliment. However, she said only, “We do our best. And I think we may count Dymphna among our successes, especially in view of her background. For quite some time she was—well—troublesome, but over the past year or two I don’t believe I’ve heard a single complaint about her. None, at least, that can’t be ascribed to youthful high spirits.”

  She reached for a notepad and pen. “Now”—briskening—“what arrangements must we make for her to attend the funeral? Where and when is it to be held?”

  The chapel was almost completely in darkness. Thanking Sister Ursula, Dymphna glanced at her watch, which had been her mother’s. It was old-fashioned, pre-digital, and tended to gain, but it did have luminous hands. As soon as Sister Ursula’s clumping footsteps had faded out of earshot, she made for the corner where there was least light of all and sat down, shaking her head.

  Had they really expected her to weep and moan and scream on being told that that near-stranger, her mother, could no longer be brought here for those strained, boring hour-long encounters? Whatever Imelda Clancy had been like when she bore her only child, she must subsequently have altered out of recognition. It was impossible to imagine such a feeble, nearly mindless person conducting a passionate affair with a man she wasn’t married to.

  And that affair was the only thing about her mother that Dymphna Clancy had ever admired. Just as his suicide was all she could find to admire about her father.

  She consulted her watch again. Five minutes had passed. Sister Ursula might possibly return five minutes before the promised half-hour was up, but until then…

  She must make the most of the next twenty minutes, for such a chance might not occur again. The evening being mild, she would have liked to strip off completely, but that was far too risky; she could well become too lost in her own delight to notice Sister U
rsula’s thumping tread in time to dress again. She must content herself with thrusting her ugly, bulky knickers down around her ankles, sliding her left hand up inside her blouse and vest to stroke her nipples, probing with her right middle finger among the tuft of silky curls that since the onset of her menses had sprouted at the base of her belly, locating that special spot she had been taught about by “wicked” Caitlin, the monitor to whom, strictly speaking, she owed a considerable apology, as well as a debt of gratitude for enlightening her about the pleasure hidden in her body. In a phrase learned from her illicit reading, though: what the hell? Caitlin had been bright, popular, much approved; nonetheless she had been expelled last year on the day she turned sixteen, because a pornographic picture had come to light when Sister Ursula searched under her mattress, and it was far easier to believe that pretty, sexy Caitlin had sneaked it in than a mere thirteen-year-old—especially one who could lie so convincingly, and cared not a hoot for anybody’s reputation save her own…

  When Dymphna had come, she picked the lock of the ambry with one of her hairclips—something she had done before—took out the communion chalice and peed in it. Since, as usual, she had already relieved herself in expectation of bedtime, she passed only a few drops, but it was enough to make her quiver with unbearable excitement at her blasphemy. She poured the urine out of a window that stood ajar, and such was the thrill that she was able to make herself come a second time, and then a third.