Agnostic by CAROL MCGUIGAN PAGE1 | PAGE 2 | PAGE 3 This is enough. You’re back in Vera Street but your hands are hurting. Sticky, sore. You open them. They smart pink, then blood comes. Red, round the bits of glass. Water stings like penance. This might be blasphemous. Or a mortal sin. You crouch by the tap in the yard. Hiding from your mother. Concha will be home any minute. You grind the tap off. The kitchen extension windows are solid steam. You sneak in the door while your mam bangs the colander and drains cauliflower off in the sink. She doesn’t turn as you whip through the kitchen. Her face is wet, intent. Above your bed, the blue evening picture of the angel flying over the town carrying the sleeping child makes you wonder. You need a benediction. Carefully, you lift out the plastic dish from the plaque edged with scallops Concha brought you from San Sebastian. Concha is short for Conception but it means seashell as well. You get off the bed. The water in the dish is dusty but Concha said it was blessed. You walk slow so as to not to spill it. You lay out the grasses, the stones and the jewels of glass. In the middle, the lolly stick cross. Concha’s dad’s car arrives. She gets out and sees you kneeling at the corner. Her cardigan is like snow. She walks toward you in her white silken shoes with the soles the colour of skin. You pick up the dish, it’s like mother of pearl. Concha watches. You turn it over your head. The water runs down your brow and your cheeks and a drop runs into your mouth. You are an agnostic apostle. Concha is your dove. You spread your hands. Your palms feel raw. Concha stares. She holds her breath and clutches her little white prayer book in her white net gloves. You struggle, then find your tongue. ‘In the name of the something and the everything; the body and the soul.’ Your hand trembles. The smell of warm carpets and gravy wafts across the street. Concha has the Holy Spirit in her now. Her voice is quiet and sensible. ‘I have to go in,’ she says.
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