face. He made a reassuring gesture with his hand.
‘Don’t worry. I’m not trying to sell it to you.’
Lovito reflected for a moment, uncertain whether to continue with this preamble. Then he decided it wasn’t necessary.
‘I’d like that house to become the base for a community where kids with the same problems as my nephew can find help and comfort. It isn’t easy, but I’d like at least to try. I know it won’t bring Robin back, but maybe it’ll give me a few hours of sleep without nightmares.’
Lovito turned his head away. They both knew perfectly well that both things were impossible.
‘Anyway that’s my problem.’
The lawyer paused, took off his dark glasses, and turned to face Father McKean full on, with the resolute air of a man who is not afraid to say or do anything.
Or to admit his own guilt.
‘Father McKean, I’m a practical man and, whatever my motive, the result is the only thing that counts, the only thing that lasts. It’s my wish that this community shouldn’t be just a dream but become reality. And I want you to take charge of it.’
‘Me? Why me?’
‘I’ve been checking you out. And what I’ve learned has confirmed what I’d already guessed as soon as I saw you in the middle of those kids. Apart from all your other qualifications, I know you have a great influence on the young, and a great ability to communicate with them.’
The priest looked at him as if he was looking into the future. The lawyer, a man who had learned to know men, understood. And, being a lawyer, he hastened to forestall any possible objection.
‘I’ll provide most of the money. I can also get you a non-returnable loan from the state.’
He paused to let that sink in.
‘You may be interested to know that I’ve already talked to people at the archdiocese. There wouldn’t be any kind of objection. You can call the archbishop if you don’t believe me.’
After a long conversation with Cardinal Logan he accepted, and the adventure began. The house was refurbished and a fund set up to guarantee Joy a monthly sum that could meet most of the expenses. Thanks to the influence of Counsellor Lovito word had got out and the first kids had arrived. And Father Michael McKean had been there waiting for them.
Robin’s mother had been snuffed out like a fire abandoned on the shore a few months after the inauguration, eaten up by her own grief. The lawyer had gone the following year, cut down by a heart attack while working fourteen hours a day to. As often happens, he had left behind a lot of money and a lot of greed. Some distant relatives had emerged from the mists of indifference to contest his will, which had left the whole of his estate to Joy. The motives behind the action were many and varied, but they all had the same intention: to allow the plaintiffs to get their hands on the money. And while the verdict was still awaited, any further emolument to the community had been frozen. Right now, Joy’s survival hung in the balance. But, bitter as the struggle was, it was worth fighting.
And they would fight it together, he and Michael.
Almost without realizing it, he found himself outside the priest’s room on the top floor. He checked that nobody was coming up the stairs. Slightly anxious, knowing he was breaking a taboo, John opened the door and went in. He had done this before, feeling only a strange excitement, and no guilt at this violation of another person’s privacy. He closed the door behind him and took a few faltering steps inside the room. His eyes were a camera, recording every detail. He let his fingers play over a bible lying on the desk, picked up a sweater thrown over a chair, and finally went and opened the closet. All Michael’s meagre wardrobe was there in front of his eyes, on hangers. He stood there looking at the clothes and breathing in the smell of the man who, from the first, had fascinated and attracted him. Attracted him so much, there were times he had to walk away, for fear of what his face might reveal. He closed the closet and approached the bed. He ran his fingers over the blanket and then lay down on his stomach and put his head on the part of the pillow where Michael McKean’s head had been. He took a deep breath. When he was alone and thought about Michael, there were times when he wanted to be with him. And there were other times, like now, when he wanted to be him. He was convinced that, if he stayed here, sooner or later he would succeed…
The cellphone started ringing from somewhere in his pockets. He got up quickly from the bed with his heart in his mouth, as if that sound was the signal that the world had discovered him. He groped for the phone and answered.
‘John, it’s Michael. I’m on my way. Paul’s saying mass instead of me.’
He was still agitated, as if the man at the other end could see him, could see where he was. But in spite of the fact that the voice on the phone came to him filtered through his own embarrassment, it wasn’t the one John usually associated with Michael’s face. It sounded broken or distressed, or both.
‘What is it, Mike? Are you all right? Did something happen?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll be there soon. Nothing happened.’
‘Okay. See you later.’
John hung up, and stood there looking at the phone as if it could help him decipher the words he had just heard. He knew Michael McKean well enough to know when something had affected him so strongly that he was no longer the person everyone was used to.
And this was one of those times.
When he had asked him if something had happened, he had replied that nothing had. But, in spite of his reassurances, his voice had the tone of a person to whom everything has happened. He left the room and closed the door behind him. As he walked back downstairs, he felt like a lonely, useless man.
CHAPTER 16
The fork went in and took two strands of spaghetti from the boiling saucepan.
Taking care not to scald herself, Vivien lifted them to her mouth. They were half cooked. She drained the pasta and placed it in the sauce that was waiting in the frying pan. She sauteed it for a few minutes on a high flame until the excess water had evaporated and everything was the right consistency, just as her grandmother had taught her when she was little. Her grandmother had been the only person in the family who’d never resigned herself to the fact that their surname had changed over the course of time from Luce to Light. She placed the frying pan on the worktop and with the tongs started to separate the spaghetti onto the two plates.
She didn’t think it was necessary to sit down at table and had laid two places with bamboo mats on the counter.
‘It’s ready!’ she called to her niece.
A few moments later Sundance appeared in the living room of Vivien’s small apartment. She had just taken a shower and her long hair was still damp. The light coming from the window struck her full on. She had put on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and yet she looked like a queen. There were a few traces of her father, but mostly she was the image of her mother.
Beautiful, thin, fragile.
Hard to understand and easily hurt.
Vivien felt a pang in her heart. There were moments when the pain she carried inside her, congealed like a blood clot, suddenly broke free and overwhelmed her. It was pain at what had been, it was regret for all she could have been and fate hadn’t wanted her to be.
In spite of this, she smiled at her niece.
She mustn’t allow a sense of all the things they’d lost to spoil those that could still be recovered. Or to jeopardize those new, lasting things that could be built in what remained to her of the future. Time didn’t always heal every wound. For Vivien it was enough that it didn’t cause any more. The rest, as far as it was in her power to do so, she would provide. Not to silence the sense of guilt she carried inside her. Only to stop
