A Swift Pure Cry Read Online Free PDF Page B

drags.
    'Mam says they're the devil's own curse of a fag. Only sailors and whores smoke them.'
    'Whores?' Shell said.
    'You know. Ladies of the night.'
    'Ladies of the night?'
    'Ladies who sell their bodies.'
    'Who what?'
    'You're having a rise with me, Shell Talent. You know a whore as well as I do.'
    She didn't quite, but a small inspiration made her say, 'Like Mary Magdalene, you mean?'
    'A whore of the first water.' Declan blew a smoke ring and together they watched it waft into the blue air. 'That reminds me,' he mused. 'I've just read this book my cousin over in London gave me. A big thick book. The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail . Not by one scholar, not by two, but by three. And d'you know what they said?'
    'What?'
    'They said Jesus married your woman, Mary Magdalene.'
    Shell's eyes opened wide. 'Never!'
    'Too right. And they had a child.'
    'A child?'
    'Yeh. A girl. Apparently after your man Jesus snuffed it, Mary M. ran away with the child and crossed the water. They say she landed in France.'
    'In France ?'
    'France.'
    Shell imagined a boat landing on a vast tract of empty sand. Mary Magdalene and her toddler climbed over the side and walked silently through the gentle tide towards the whistling dunes, into the new country.
    'Maybe she went north to Roskoff harbour,' Declan mused. 'And took the Brittany line over to Cork.'
    Shell clouted him. 'You're making it up.'
    'No. Honest.' He handed her the fag. This time she declined it, calling to mind the holy abstinence of Father Rose. Declan took another short puff. 'Well, the bit about coming to Ireland I am. But the rest is in that book. They claim the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church covered it up. They're in cahoots with the freemasons.'
    They sat together in companionable silence, Declan smoking and Shell thinking about the hidden life of Jesus. She saw him at the carpentry, barefoot, with his small child, a girl, pulling at his robe. Mary Magdalene was kneading the bread for the tea off to one side. His piercing blue eyes looked upon her. He picked up a plane to finish off the surface, murmuring sweet words of love.
    'Would you or wouldn't you, Shell Talent?' Declan said suddenly.
    'Heh?'
    'That's the question I've been asking myself.'
    Shell frowned. 'Would I what?'
    'You know.' His hand did a few cartwheels in the air. ' That .'
    'What?'
    'Was she born yesterday? Go into a field, Shell. With me. Do a Mary Magdalene. Take off your clothes.'
    'And why,' Shell said, 'would I do that, Declan Ronan?'
    He whistled through his teeth. 'I'd never call you smelly again, Shelly,' he teased.
    'You're a right one.' She got up and gave him a kick on the thigh. He caught her ankle again. She looked down on him, lanky and brown, with a curly top and a blue flash for an eye. She pictured them both in Duggans' field with the barley up, stark naked, scooting around on all fours. 'A real, right one,' she snapped, wriggling her ankle.
    ''S that a yes?' Declan's hand inched up her calf.
    'No!'
    'You mean it's a no?'
    'No.' She slapped his hand away from her leg.
    'So it is a yes?'
    'No, it's no!'
    He grinned up at her. 'Only codding,' he says. 'I wouldn't go with you if you were Mary Magdalene herself.' He ground out the fag on a stone before it was spent.
    'Bye, then,' Shell said.
    'Bye-byes, Shellies,' he sang. He started again:
     
' Shell smells like-- '
     
    Then he stopped. He pouted and shrugged, throwing away the fag butt. 'Ah, don't go, Shell. Give us a kiss,' he pleaded. 'Go on. Kiss and make up. I didn't mean what I said.'
    A kiss could do no harm, she supposed. She knelt down beside him and pushed out her lips. She closed her eyes.
    His hands came round her, one on the back of her neck, the other on the small of her back. His lips came up to hers. She expected a little putter on them, like she gave Trix at night-Jimmy had grown out of them-and when it didn't happen she puttered him instead. But his two hands got tighter and his lips stayed hard on hers, until a soft sliver