Silver Wedding Part III

Helen, Desmonds second daughter is a difficult girl. She is living in a convent which is just an inner city house with women who mostly find her hard to make sense of. They think she's running away from ordinary life and she has a knack of causing problems and getting things wrong. She is it turns out running away from an unhappy sexual experience. While she was still at school, Desmond lost his job in Frank's firm, and Helen clumsy as always tries to find a way of getting it back for him. She flirts with Frank and makes out that she's older and more experienced than she really is. He seduces her, and she freaks out. He realises that she is not very stable and that she is young and he should never have touched her. He gives Des his job back and avoids the family as much as he can, and when Helen is a bit older, she goes to try to find a place in the convent. In the months leading up to the Silver Wedding, Helen meets Renata, Frank's wife, who wants to adopt a child. She visits the convent and gets talking to Helen and again Helen makes a crazy attempt to do some good. A girl whom the nuns visit has a baby, in her bathroom and is so out of her mind on drugs that she doesn't really know what happened. Helen takes the baby and calls an ambulance for her, telling the ambulance people that she did not see a baby. Then she brings the newborn child to Renata who is horrified. A major fuss erupts and the baby is given to a foster carer and Helen realises that she has messed up again. Frank talks to Brigid, one of the older nuns who tells him that she might be able to help him find a child for adoption who would be legally theirs. The nuns feel that this episode is really the last straw and proves that Helen is not suitable for the religious life... so they tell her that after the Silver Wedding she has to make up her mind to leave and find her own path in the world. We also learn about the life of Fr James, the priest who performed the wedding ceremony. He lives in Ireland and is happy with his life as a priest, and he has always had his doubts about Desmond and Deirdre as a couple. He felt that they were putting up a front of being a loving happy couple because that is all they can do... they particularly Deirdre, are facade people. In his personal life, he has had his own troubles. He has a sister who married late in life and had one son. Gregory was a charming boy and studied law, then moved to Dublin to practice. Fr Jim is fond of his nephew till one night he gets a phone call very late. Gregory tells him that he was drink driving, and that he hit a cyclist who came out suddenly. He didn't stop and is afraid to go to the police. His uncle agrees to help him, but when he gets to the accident he finds the cyclist, a young woman student is dead. He covers up for his sister's sake, getting the car repaired and saying nothing. He feels that while Gregory has shown emotion, it is largely selfish fear, not remorse. Gregory tells him that he has given up drinking, and that he is giving money to charity to try to make up for his sin, and Jim wants to believe him. But he soon realises that the non drinking resolution did not last very long, and that Gegory is returning to his bad old ways. He tries to avoid his nephew, and time passes. Then he is visiting his sister when Gregory comes to stay but he is in a sulk because his parents dont want to lend him money. He goes off on his own and Fr Jim decides to go and fetch him from the pub. Gregory is drunk and refuses to let him drive; he takes the wheel, drives too fast. They crash into a traveller family with a cart, and Gregory begs his uncle to take the blame. Fr Jim looks after the travellers and ignores his request to lie for him. He knows this time he has to call the police.