I'm God

Originally the vegetable garden and orchard had been developed as an experiment, with the idea of supplying a distraction for the kids at Joy, allowing them to experience something physical, and at the same time rewarding. In a short time, to everyone’s surprise, the production of fruit and vegetables had grown until the community was almost self-sufficient. In fact, when the harvest was particularly good, a group of the kids went down to the market in Union Square to sell their products.

Mrs Carraro appeared in the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘What’s this about eating without Father Michael?’

‘He’s been delayed. He has to say the 12.30 mass.’

‘Well, no one will die if we wait a bit. We can’t have Sunday lunch without that man.’

‘All right, colonel.’ John pointed to the inside of the kitchen, from which came the high- pitched echo of the kids’ conversation. ‘But you tell the alligators.’

‘They won’t say a word. I’d like to see them try.’

‘I’m sure you’re right.’

John watched as she disappeared from the doorway, her face set for battle. Even though Mrs Carraro was greatly outnumbered by the kids, he had no doubt who would prevail. John left the kids to work it out with their cook. She was an apparently gentle and submissive woman but on several occasions had demonstrated how determined she could be. He knew that when she made a decision it was difficult to get her to change her mind, especially if the decision favoured Father McKean.

He turned left and walked slowly along the side of the house, breathing in the air, which had a slight salty taste.

Thinking.

The sun was already hot and the vegetation was starting to explode with that silent green clamour that always surprised the heart and the eyes and knocked down the cold gray walls of winter. He reached the front of the house and set off along the garden path. He walked until all he had in front of him was the shiny tabletop of the sea and the green of the park on the other side of the channel. He stopped with his hands in his pockets and his face lifted to the breeze.

He turned again to look at the house.

Bricks and wood.

Glass and concrete.

Technique and manual work.

All human things.

What was inside those walls, whether of brick or wood, went beyond that. It meant something. And, for the first time in his life, he felt part of that something, regardless of the point of departure and arrival and the unavoidable accidents along the way.

John Kortighan wasn’t a believer. He had never managed to summon up any faith either in man or in God. And consequently not even in himself. But Michael McKean had somehow managed to open a breach in the wall that people had apparently built to keep him out, the wall that he had strengthened on his side in retaliation. God was still a distant, nebulous concept, hidden behind the obvious humanity of His representative. But in a way, even though John had never said this to him, Father McKean wasn’t just saving the kids’ lives, he was also saving his.

On the upper floor, behind the windows that reflected the sky, he glimpsed figures moving. Kids moving around in their rooms. Each had his experience, his fragment of life. Put all together by chance, like pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope, they made a vivid fragile image. Like all unstable things, it wasn’t easy to decipher but was surprisingly colourful.

He walked back the way he had come, entered the house by the main door and started upstairs. As he climbed, step after step, he let his thoughts wander.

The story of Joy was both very simple and very complicated. And as was often the case, its foundation derived from a tragic event, as if some plans needed to be born out of pain in order to find the strength to become reality.

John wasn’t living in the neighbourhood at that time, but he had heard about it from Michael, whose concise account had been corroborated by a couple of longer conversations with the parish priest of Saint Benedict.

It was …

a Friday and they were holding a funeral.

A boy of seventeen, Robin Wheaters, had been found deadof an overdose in a corner of the park on the other side of thebridge, at the junction of Shore Road and City Island Road. A couple who were jogging had spotted a body lying on the ground, half hidden in the bushes. They had approached and found that he was unconscious but still breathing. The ambulance had rushed him to hospital, but to no avail. Robin had died soon afterwards in the arms of his mother, who had been taken there in a police car, after she had contacted the police to inform them that for some unknown reason her son had been out all night. Nobody in the family had ever had the slightest suspicion that he had been involved with drugs. The cause of death made his appalling end all the more horrifying. The post mortem and the absence of marks on his skin had revealed that in all probability it had been his first time. Fate had decided that there wouldn’t be a second time.

His mother was the widowed sister of Barry Lovito, a lawyer of Italian extraction who practised in Manhattan but had chosen to continue living in Country Club. He was a rich man, unmarried and a workaholic, who had fought hard all his life to reach his position at the top of the heap. And had been so successful that the heap was now almost entirely his.

When his brother-in-law had died, his typically Italian sense of family had led him to take his sister and nephew into his house. The woman wasn’t in good health, suffering from all kinds of psychosomatic symptoms, and the loss of her husband certainly hadn’t improved her physical or mental condition. As for Robin, he was a sensitive, melancholy, suggestible boy. Left very much to his own devices, he had fallen into bad company, as often happens when solitude is forced on a person.

In church they were both there, the uncle and the mother. Counsellor Lovito was wearing an impeccably cut dark suit that marked him out in the middle of everyone as a wealthy person. His jaws were clenched and he kept his eyes fixed in front of him, out of grief and maybe also a sense of guilt. For him, the boy had been the son he had never had and, after a life spent chasing after success, was starting to miss. When his brother-in-law had died, he had deluded himself into thinking that he might be able to take his place, not realizing that the first duty of a parent is to be there.

The woman’s face was gaunt with grief. It was clear from her hollow red eyes that she had no more tears in her, and from her expression that she was not only burying her son but also any desire to carry on living. She followed the coffin out of the church, leaning on her brother for support, her thin body in a black pant suit that suddenly seemed to have become a couple of sizes too big.

Father McKean was at the back of the church, surrounded by a group of teenagers, many of whom had been friends of Robin. He had followed the service with that sense of

As Barry Lovito came out of the church, he turned his head and saw him in the middle of all those kids. His glance had lingered longer than might have been expected on the figure of Father Michael McKean. Then he had turned away and, still supporting his sister, had continued his sad progress to the car.

Three days later, Father McKean saw him again, accompanied by the parish priest. After the ritual introductions, Paul left them alone. It was obvious the lawyer had come to talk to him, although he had no idea why. McKean had been at Saint Benedict for just under a year and had exchanged only greetings with him up until that moment. As if reading his mind, the lawyer hastened to satisfy his curiosity.

‘I know you’re wondering why I’m here. And especially what I’ve come to say. I’ll only take a moment.’

He started walking slowly towards the priests’ house.

‘I’ve just acquired a property, up near the park. It’s a big house, with a decent plot of land. Six acres, more or less. The kind of place that can house up to thirty people. With a view of the sea and the coast.’

Father McKean must have looked bewildered, because a half-smile appeared on Lovito’s