She pauses, and I have the feeling her mind is travelling down a path of a possibility not taken. She’s thinking that if she’d left her daughter at her mother’s house on that day nearly twenty years ago, Rachel would still be alive.
“I don’t even know why I took the photo,’ she says. “I mean, I remember taking it, and I remember asking her to smile, but I don’t really know why I went about it. I’d already taken lots that day. I sent it to Father Julian. He’d asked for one. This, this is all about Father Julian, isn’t it? About Stewart? You having this photo. You took it from him. And he’s dead and Rachel’s dead and there’s something to that, isn’t there? That’s why you’re here.’
‘What happened after you had the baby?’
‘Things were already in motion before Rachel was born. We both knew I could never have an abortion. He wouldn’t allow it, and anyway, it wasn’t something I would have considered.
I also knew he couldn’t be with me. I was going to be a single mother, but it wasn’t going to be the end of the world. I had to give up work for the first year and a half. Stewart told me he would support me. We set up bank accounts. Once I got married, Stewart didn’t have to pay as much but he did keep paying.
I never asked him for anything more, and he never asked to see Rachel.’
I think about this for a few moments, sure that there is something else here. If Julian did Father those other children, was he paying child support to all of them? If so, how did he get the money?
I keep the conversation moving along, but make a mental note to come back to this.
‘Did Rachel know?’
‘When she was old enough she figured out Michael wasn’t
her real dad. She asked who her father was, but I never told her.’
She takes a drink. “I could really do with something stronger. Can I get you something?’
‘Water’s fine,’ I say, and I take a sip to show just how fine it is.
“I guess water’s fine for me too. I know how it sounds, getting pregnant to a priest of all people, but, well, I don’t regret it. Things were different back then. Father Julian … huh, it sounds so funny when I call him that, doesn’t it? The father of my child, and here I am calling him Father Julian instead of Stewart. I wonder if that means anything.’
“I don’t know.’
‘Look at me, I’m starting to ramble.’
“No, please, it’s all important.’
‘Back then Stewart was a young man, and he was very, very striking. Almost insanely handsome. I think women were going to church just to see him, not to hear what he had to say. He had this — well, this magnetism — and it was more than just his looks. Everybody liked him; he was very charming, very likeable.
But he was also lonely, really lonely, and seemingly vulnerable, and somehow that made him even more appealing. One day that loneliness became too much for him, for me, and we, we …
well, you know the rest. Anyway, he would always be quiet after we … you know, after we were together in that way. He was intense too, and even though he knew he was making a mistake, neither of us could help ourselves. He would tell me that when he was around me it was like somebody else was taking over, like he was a different man. I think he was a good man trapped in the wrong profession.’
‘Did you ever tell him that?’
‘More than once. But he said the priesthood was a calling, that he could help people, that he could do more good with a collar than without one. It was hard to watch. He was so dedicated to the church, it pained him every time we were together. In the end, I finished it, I had to. I didn’t want to, but what choice did I have?
It was tearing him apart. A month after we stopped seeing each other, I found out I was pregnant.’
‘What happened when you told him?’
“He wanted to do the right thing, only the right thing didn’t fall in line with his big picture of right things. It was like every day he was fighting a personal war within himself. I think that war was there his entire life. He was never going to leave the priesthood to be with me, and he couldn’t stay being a priest if others found out. So we both agreed to keep it quiet. I also stopped going to church.’ She dabs her knuckles into the bottoms of her eyes and pulls away some tears before taking another sip of water.
‘Did Michael know?’
‘He knew. I had to tell him. Can you imagine if he hadn’t known? Every day he would wonder. He would think maybe
I was sleeping with so many people that I didn’t know who Rachel’s dad was. I told him, and he wasn’t angry or disappointed.
He was relieved, for some reason. I’m not sure why exactly. I think maybe knowing a priest had got me pregnant was much better than thinking I’d slept with some drug addict or criminal.
Purer, or something. If that makes sense.’