excerpt
Liam was sitting under the barber’s white sheet, watching in the large mirror as Jackie Harrison, with amazing dexterity, manipulated comb and scissors and shears to trim and tidy what was left of Liam’s straggly hair. If only he could transplant it, Liam thought whimsically. Behind him in the mirror he could see the Reverend Lucas MacNevin flicking through the pages of an old Picture Post. The Reverend Lucas was a tall man with a jowled face, thinning hair, and a body as round as a barrel. Of all the men he had ever met none filled Liam with more revulsion than this Presbyterian minister, and they knew it well in the village that no love was lost between them. Jackie Harrison felt uncomfortable when the Reverend MacNevin had followed Liam into his small barber’s shop in the village square near the stone steps that led down to the harbour. In the tense silence that had lasted several minutes they could hear the muffled boom of the waves as they broke upon the rocks and shingle of the shore and the squealing of the gulls that wheeled in the air above the boats in the harbour.
‘I find it a matter of increasing concern,’ said the Reverend Lucas MacNevin at last, ‘that so many women—married women whose husbands are away at the war—are giving themselves to other men for their mutual gratification. It is a Sodom and Gomorrah situation that will call down the wrath of God upon us.’ His voice was loud and deep and strong, like the bellowing of a bull. Nora’s grandfather, the heathen Finn MacLir, used to say that the minister should be tied to the breakwater light, or even to the light at Trafinney Point, and made to shout a warning to the ships at sea. ‘Nature gave him a voice like that to put to good use,’ Finn had said. ‘Instead of that he preaches with it.’
‘Something ought to be done to punish such women.’ Jackie was glad that the silence had at last been broken. ‘They should have their hair cut off as in the old days.’
‘That is a barber’s punishment that might appeal to you, Mr Harrison,’ the minister boomed. ‘For my own part I should prefer to revert to the practice of making them wear the scarlet letter on their breasts.’
‘Like Hester Prynne,’ said Liam, who surprised Jackie by joining in the conversation.
Jackie had never heard of Hester Prynne. He didn’t know anyone of that name around these parts.
Libros Libertad 