Ruby's War

Author:Johanna Winard [Johanna Winard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749013790
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2014-07-04T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

Ruby adjusted the borrowed headscarf and opened the church door. She took her place at the end of the short row of penitents waiting for Confession, pushing the hem of her coat under her knees to spare her precious nylons from the kneeler’s rough surface. As everyone in the small group shifted, edging along the bare wooden kneeler, the sound of each tiny movement tumbled forward, rolling and splashing through the empty church. The chancery light winked in the gloom, and the greenery looped around the feet of each of the saints caught in the glow of the votive candles.

After Sadie had cheeked Father O’Flynn, everyone helped to do her ‘penance’. They’d worked in the hall until late on Saturday and gone back there on Sunday, spending most of the morning under the stage, dragging out the grimy, life-size plaster figures of the Holy Family and the shepherds from behind a pile of old scenery flats. It had been Con’s idea to use one of them – a picture of a garden and a blue sky seen through a French window – as a backdrop for the crib. They’d carried it into the hall, where he’d sketched out the skyline of the town of Bethlehem against the blue sky and the stark domed houses of a Bethlehem street. A few days later, she’d helped Sadie fill them in, using white paint stolen from the camp. Now the flat, with the figures of the Holy Family and the shepherds in front of it, was behind a curtain in the alcove next to the confessional box, waiting to be unveiled on Christmas Eve.

To ease the pressure on her knees, Ruby tried leaning on the bench in front, taking the weight of her body on her arms and cautiously raising each knee in its turn. She sniffed at the unfamiliar scarf. It belonged to Jenny who’d given it her to wear when Father O’Flynn had insisted that, if she was to take the part of Mary in the Nativity play, she must come to Confession. Ruby liked the pattern of fruit and leaves, and the fine, loosely woven wool felt expensive, but the colours – yellow, rust and orange – didn’t suit her and she pulled the edges down to cover her red hair.

Each person who came out of the confessional box clattered their way across the church to say their penance in the benches opposite. The first was an elderly man with a twisted ear, who whispered the familiar words of the Hail Mary, as if each prayer was a secret. When the next one – the plump woman who worked in the chemist – walked across, her movements set off an explosion that had barely stopped rumbling before she got up and headed for the door, leaving Ruby to wonder why she’d been given such a small penance.

The door of the confessional led into a small box. There was a square grille with a narrow ledge in front of it and a kneeler fixed to the floor.

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