When Furlong gets home from the convent, Eileen tells him that he missed mass. She also asks what he got from the nuns and we see that Mother Superior has put £50 in the envelope, which was a large sum of money in 1985. Eileen says, ‘aren’t they very good?’ This highlights how easy it was for the church to maintain control and dominance in the world of the text.
The card given by Mother Superior had a picture of the Virgin Mary and Jesus being led on a Donkey by Joseph. There is a contrast here between the devotion shown to the Virgin Mary who had just given birth and the horrific conditions endured by the young girls in the convent who have just given birth. The hypocrisy angers Furlong and we see him twist up the envelope and throw it in the bin.
Furlong gets ready for mass and on their way into the chapel, Eileen makes a dig at Furlong once again for giving away his loose change and he responds, ‘there’s no need for that type of ugly talk.’ Eileen is stunned at his reaction and knows that something is wrong. It is interesting that he does not tell her what he found at the convent. Is he scared that she will talk him out of doing something?
Before mass begins, we are given a description of the mass goers, the rich at the front, the gossips at the back, the smokers standing outside until mass began and how people were watching for a new coat, a limp or something out of the ordinary. When mass begins, Furlong is distracted, not paying attention to mass but instead concentrating on the stations of the cross where Jesus is forced to carry the cross before being crucified. Is Furlong thinking about the cross he is carrying or the cross that the young girls are carrying? Or is he questioning if the behaviour of the nuns at the convent was what Jesus sacrificed himself for? In the midst of all of this it is important to note that he refuses to go up for communion.
That evening after they put the Christmas tree up, Furlong decides to get out of the house and he decides to go visit Ned. On the way there he reflects on how he can’t enjoy Sundays like other men, who can take a drink and fall asleep at the fire. He thinks about previous visits to see Mrs Wilson and Ned and how he once asked Ned if he knew who his father was. Ned tells him that his mother never said but that there were visitors from England that summer. Ned tells him that it turned out well for him. ‘Didn’t you have a decent start here, and aren’t you getting on rightly.’
When Bill arrives at the house, the young woman at the door tells him that Ned was taken to hospital with pneumonia. She asks Bill if he wants to come in to speak to the Wilsons but he declines and as he goes to leave, she says, ‘I can see the likeness, is Ned an uncle of yours?’ Ned is stunned by what the woman has said and spends half an hour in the lorry before he starts the engine to make his way home. This makes the water bottle Ned gave him more important when we find out this information.
On the way home, he pushes his own worries from his mind and thinks about the young girl in the convent. Furlong is angry with himself for allowing the nuns to treat the girl the way they did, for not asking about her baby and for taking the money from Mother Superior. But he is even more angry at himself for going to mass that evening and calls himself a hypocrite. This explains why he did not go up for communion during mass.
Questions:
- Describe what happens at mass and what people do during the service.
- Why does the writer include the stations of the cross in this chapter? Was she trying to convey a message?
- Furlong is beginning to rebel against his cultural context. Do you agree with this statement? Explain your answer with relevant examples from this chapter.
- Furlong’s world is turned upside down in this chapter. Discuss.