‘Father,’ said a thin woman, walking down the path from an open front door, ‘I saw you passing and, well, I wondered if you could say a prayer for a special intention.’ She wore a head-scarf and florid apron, the combination redolent of wartime courage: wives on their knees scrubbing doorsteps, despite the nightly visits of German bombers.
‘Of course,’ said Anselm, retracing a few steps. Every street was the same, he thought: hidden behind each small facade was a universe of disappointment and hope.
‘We don’t see our kind here very often,’ she said, nodding significantly at Anselm’s habit and tilting her head down the road towards the other kind.
‘I see,’ said Anselm. A bitter, foreign urge to slap the bony face warmed him like a flush of blood.
‘I’m Catholic, of course, like your good self.’
‘I’m sorry but I’m an Anglican,’ lied Anselm, his hand rising, the palm open; he put it on the gate.
‘Oh,’ she replied, discomfited, pushing stray dyed hairs under the scarf’s fold. ‘That must be nice.’
‘It is.’
‘Lovely Well, then.’
‘You have a special intention?’
‘Well, I won’t trouble you, it’s just one of the family playing up
… won’t go to Mass… not a problem for your sort…
Anselm heard the clip of a gate and looked round. To his amazement there was Lucy wavering on the pavement, her hands loose by her side. He ran, exclaiming, ‘Are you all right? What are you doing here?’
Dreamily Lucy looked aside to the bay window Anselm swiftly followed her drugged gaze: towards Victor, swaying uncertainly the barrel of a gun pointing at his face. Anselm rushed for the door, throwing his full bodyweight against the lock. He bounced back, mocked by strength. Wildly he struck it again, as though its tongues and grooves had given out all the needless griefs he’d ever known. And then, across a pause in the hammering, came a deafening short crack. Lucy cried out, like at a birth. Anselm held his breath until the tightness in his chest pushed out an oath. The woman in the apron and scarf scampered indoors to ring the police.