The Rosary Garden by Nicola White (best books to read now TXT) 📕

a desk in the middle, swinging her crossed legs for an audience of two young men in shirt sleeves.

‘Ali!’ Mary cried when she spotted her, thrusting both arms out as if a hug was expected. The men turned to look at her, appraising. Ali threaded her way towards them through a maze of desks.

‘Look at you! Look at your dress – so sweet.’

‘Maybe I should have worn something more—’

‘No, sweet is fine. Sweet is more than fine. We don’t want them thinking you’re a hard-nosed old bag like me.’ And Mary threw back her head and laughed at the thought. The men joined in.

‘I’m worried what to say.’

‘Just nerves. By Tuesday you’ll be a pro.’

‘Tuesday?’

‘My radio show. Remember? We’ll see how things go tonight and work up a few topics together beforehand – that thing you said the other day about girls not knowing their sexual desires – that could be dynamite.’

The two men looked at Ali with renewed interest. Mary put an arm round her and was saying how fine everything was going to be, when there was a shift in the atmosphere.

A slight figure in a blue suit had entered the room, causing all around to change their behaviour; the loud ones fell silent, the diligent ones lifted their heads from their typewriters and called out for attention.

It was Gay. Gaybo. Mr Byrne. He managed to looked both mild and of consequence, and his charisma was unsullied by a ruff of tissues sticking out from his collar to protect it from the fall of peachy powder that covered his face. He had a certain grace, like a dancing master.

Gay made even Mary look like an ordinary joe. His radio show was bigger, and his TV show was required viewing, as obligatory as mass. The Late Late Show had always been there, as long as Ali could remember. You never knew beforehand who would be on – politicians, movie stars, farmers, ventriloquists – and there might just be something remarkable.

Gay waved over in their direction.

‘He never talks to guests before the show,’ Mary whispered.

Ali watched him now on the green room monitor, swivelling behind his desk and chatting to the currach men, taking polite questions from a beaming audience, laughing often. It would be okay. The beer in her mouth tasted of nothing at all, but something like vinegar was swilling around her stomach.

The girl with the snake hips appeared beside her. ‘You’re next.’

She gathered up Mary O’Shea and the quiet man from the corner and herded the three of them downstairs to stand together in the darkness at the edge of the bright studio.

‘… and we’ll be back with you after the break.’ Gay’s voice came from beyond a tangle of cameras and equipment.

The audience chattered while Ali’s group was guided forward over cables into a lit arena. They were directed to a curved line of chairs facing the seating bank, full of people. Microphones pointed at them from the low table in front. A hundred lights pressed down, baking the mascara the make-up girl had pasted on Ali’s lashes to a tight crust.

Someone called for hush, and Gay walked towards the audience. Ali looked across to Mary for reassurance, and Mary smiled briefly at her before reapplying her eyes to Gay, who had started to speak.

‘… we’re not going to go over old ground here, so you can put your badges and banners away. What we have here is a human story, a sad story – a story about some things that maybe don’t change, even after all the talk. Tonight we have with us a young woman, Alison Hogan, from here in Dublin. You might know from the papers that Alison was the person who found the child now known as the Rosary Baby. Despite this ordeal, she’s gone on to make a public plea for better sex education in schools and for the abolition of illegitimacy as a legal category.’

Ali frowned at his back, not recognising the girl he was describing. He was making it sound like she had held a press conference or something.

‘And we’re delighted to welcome back journalist and women’s rights campaigner Mary O’Shea, who has been collaborating with Ali. We also have with us an expert on sex education in schools and author of the bestselling pamphlets Life Talks for Boys and Life Talks for Girls, Dr Donald Beasley …’

The audience were clapping politely now, but Ali wasn’t looking at them. She had turned to stare at the man who had been in the green room and was now sitting just on the other side of Mary.

How could she not have recognised him? The knitted brow and slightly prissy expression. Dr Beasley was the man who had spent a day with the second-year girls of St Brigid’s explaining the romance of the sperm and the egg. His detailing of private parts and monthly cycles had impressed them, because they had never heard anyone speak in that way. She remembered the manic embarrassment of that day, and her class leaving the hall quietly, carrying strange knowledge like a weight.

Before she had time to collect herself, Gay was upon her.

‘Alison, we’re not here tonight to talk about the Rosary Baby case. The Gardaí are still looking for the mother, and it’s all hush-hush for now.’

Ali nodded, not chancing a word.

‘I was wondering, though, how have you coped with coming across something like that? A thing no one – let alone a young girl – should see?’

Ali turned her face so that he was the only one in her vision. She would pretend that this was a normal conversation.

She opened her mouth and spoke, realising within a sentence that she had to make a choice between thinking and talking. She started with something her mother had said, about not being able to understand why someone couldn’t have handed the child over alive, and let her mouth flow from there, listening in to what she was saying after she had said it. She railed against