After the Lockout (4 page)

‘I wasn't even in the House that day. Victor, whatever our differences, Connolly's execution offended every drop of Catholic blood in me.'

‘Every one of your boss's newspapers was baying for blood. Well, by God your boss got what he wanted.'

‘Mr Murphy isn't my boss. I'm just a lawyer.'

‘Mr Healy's trying to help me get back my licence,' says Phil. ‘He's representing Tom Ashe's family at the inquest too. Leave him alone.'

Charlie is beside me now, trying to coax me away. ‘Where did that happen?' Healy asks him.

‘Messines.'

Healy gets up and shakes Charlie's hand. ‘My boy was in the Dardanelles. People say Irishmen shouldn't be fighting for England, and maybe they're right, but there are many good and patriotic Irishmen in the trenches.'

Charlie directs me halfway back across the room but I'm still looking at Healy, standing at the door of the snug with smugness splayed across his big, blotchy face.

‘You were his right-hand during the lockout. I haven't forgot what you did, you and the rest of them. I haven't forgot the lockout,' I cry.

‘Oh, for goodness sake, nobody gives a damn about the lockout any more,' he says.

I shrug Charlie off and fling a whiskey tumbler as forcefully as I can towards Healy, but I stumble and my aim is off. The tumbler crashes into the window above the bar. Shards of smoked glass fly everywhere. I move towards Healy with every intention of ramming his head into the wall but before my third step Phil is standing before me with hurl in hand. He pulls hard and I feel the warm smack of the ash against my shoulder. I topple sideways and collapse in a corner, but in a flash Phil wrenches me powerfully to my feet and pushes me towards the exit. He's still the right side of forty and built like the athlete he is. He holds me with one arm and opens the door with the other before propelling me onto the pavement outside with a mighty push. There's a good reason why Phil's pub is the cleanest and safest in Monto. I crawl to the gutter and empty my guts of all the spuds and bacon and whiskey in me. Behind me, far away, a voice barks bitterly and a door slams. Lying on my back, I look up and see Charlie hovering.

‘All right, I'm ready to go home now,' I say.

It's been so long since she last even left the house you doubt your own sight. She's standing at the edge of the lake like a will o' the wisp, looking like she might blow away. You reach the spot, your spot, where you and Maggie meet, and look up at her in her billowing white robes. She doesn't seem to see you. The sun is melting like it does in autumn, and the wind gusts. You shout out and she turns to face you, an old woman at forty-five. She smiles beatifically, and you glimpse your mother, not the banshee she has become.

‘Victor, son: life is in the letting go,' she says.

She turns away and steps off the high edge of the lake. You watch her fall, serene as a snowflake.

Stanislaus felt not a day over sixty-five as he reached the crossroads, a mile and a half's walk from Madden, mostly uphill. Not bad for a man passed over on health grounds ten years before. He turned back and kept a good, even pace, his footsteps ticking like a metronome. Walking was always good for clearing the head. He thought about full bishops promoted since his retirement, all of whom Cardinal Logue, in his vast wisdom, had recommended. He knew of four who were not well and three more who frankly were incapacitated. Soon Madden was in sight, nestling in the gentle hollow. The street lamps flickered against the failing light. From up ahead, just outside the village, came bad singing and laughter, and Stanislaus saw two lads of perhaps eighteen horsing around. Stanislaus's knuckles whitened on his stick. ‘John McGrath and Aidan Cavanagh,' he cried. They stopped dead and straightened up in exaggerated protestations of sobriety. Eyes red like diseased rabbits. The stench of
cheap spirit damned them. ‘It's not even six o'clock and you boys are drunk as lords. Have you no work to be at today?'

‘Everybody quit early the day, Father,' said McGrath, the post-master's son.

‘Where did you get the drink?' Stanislaus demanded.

‘I don't know, Fa'er,' said young Cavanagh, the schoolteacher's brother. Stanislaus slapped the blackthorn stick against the boy's thigh. ‘Pius, we got it off Pius!'

‘Is this. How you. Behave. When your families. At home. Haven't even. A spare penny. To waste?' Stanislaus uttered bitterly, punctuating his speech with slaps to their legs. They yelped like puppies. ‘You should be ashamed of yourselves.'

This business of Pius Lennon and the poteen was getting out of hand. He was making the stuff in such prodigious quantities and selling it so cheaply that he was bringing many others to ruin with him. Nevertheless Stanislaus was troubled by the thought of the Victor fellow as the correcting influence, to Pius and to the wider problems connected to Pius's dissolution. That such a person would be anyone's idea of salvation! Obedience and discipline were the answers to vice, indolence and dissolution. People needed leadership from the cloth, not from radical politicals. Stanislaus had read many of the socialistic texts. Mostly screeds written by palpably troubled souls. He found most striking the universal rage and the rejection of authority – the former a consequence of the latter, he believed. Marxians said the meaning of life was struggle, but Stanislaus knew that grace required acceptance. True freedom came through surrender. Only rage was possible where grace was not. In lands where grace was banished, no depravity was unthinkable. The Russian experiment, for example, was sure to end in horror. He hung up
his overcoat in the kitchen and opened the range door. As he poked at the fire and watched the flames rise higher, he wondered if he might work up his ruminations into a paper.

‘It's after a quarter past six. I wish you would tell me where you're going out and didn't keep me late, Father,' said Mrs Geraghty, standing behind him with her cloth coat pulled tight around her.

‘Your Grace,' Stanislaus muttered, but knew it was pointless to keep correcting her. She'd never learn to address him correctly. At her age and station, she was disinclined to take in anything new. ‘Dinner smells wonderful,' he said.

‘It's been in the oven so long it'll be dry as communion,' she said with a bitterness he knew was affected. ‘Oh, and Father,' she went on, softer now.

She gently removed a letter from her coat pocket and held it up. ‘There's a letter for you, Jeremiah McGrath brought it special delivery. It looks very official, Father.'

Stanislaus reached for it but Mrs Geraghty seemed reluctant to let it go. She recognised the seal as well as he did.

‘Thank you, Mrs Geraghty, I'll be fine from here on,' he said.

‘If you're sure there's nothing else you need,' she said, at length letting go.

‘Quite sure, thank you,' said Stanislaus, nodding to the clock.

‘I'll say good evening then,' she snorted. She raised her chin and eventually took herself out the door. Stanislaus sliced the envelope open, relishing the crisp rasp of the water-marked paper coming apart. The handwriting was unmistakable. Only close friends and colleagues got handwritten letters.

Stanislaus read and reread the letter. The most senior principals of the Church in Ireland. Ten years had passed since Stanislaus had risen from his sickbed to be told he wasn't getting the Bishopric of Derry. It was no reflection on his abilities of course, everyone thought the world of him of course, his counsel would still be invaluable of course. But His Eminence the Cardinal, the Archbishop, the Primate, had never sought the counsel of the parish priest of Madden. Not till now. In time of crisis though, the Cardinal wanted his old friend at his side. Poor old, sick old, pensioned-off old Stanislaus Benedict. The old enforcer. The man who made enemies so Mick Logue, the Northern Star himself, didn't have to. Father Daly came bounding down the stairs and into the kitchen. He opened the oven door and reached for the plates, then withdrew his hand quickly and waved around chastened fingers. He bit his lip so as not to swear, then made a glove of a dish cloth and lifted the hot plates from the oven.

‘You're ready for your tea, Your Grace?'

Stanislaus nodded and sat at the head of the table. The curate set out forks, knives, a jug of water and two glasses on the table and when he sat down, they bowed their heads. In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua dona quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi per Christum Dominum nostrum, Amen. Stanislaus chewed slowly. It wasn't quite as dry as communion wafer but it was overdone. He put some of his food onto Father Daly's plate – it seemed that, no matter how often she was told, Mrs Geraghty would not accept that a man's appetite shrivels with the years – and the curate nodded appreciatively. Stanislaus set the Cardinal's letter on the table. Father Daly stopped chewing. He swallowed and picked up the letter. He read it quickly, then seemed to read it again. ‘It sounds serious, Your Grace. I can drive you to Armagh in my motorcar if you wish?' he said.

‘Yes, I'd appreciate that. After the last mass.' Stanislaus paused. ‘Have you any thoughts on what it might be about?'

‘Well, the fact that the Holy Father called together the Conclave … it's not a local matter. And this talk of urgency … probably a temporal issue. The war, maybe? Perhaps there's a peace treaty in the offing.'

‘Or perhaps things are about to get worse.'

Father Daly finished his dinner and Stanislaus permitted him to smoke. ‘There was something I meant to say to you,' the curate said as he exhaled. ‘Some of the parishioners want to use the Parochial Hall tonight.'

‘What for?'

‘They're holding a homecoming dance for Victor Lennon.'

Aidan Cavanagh and John McGrath had said everyone in Madden finished work early today. Stanislaus hadn't thought to ask anything further, but now here was the explanation.

‘I thought it was an innocent enough request,' Father Daly began falteringly, as though realising he might have overstepped his authority. ‘Everyone seems so excited about this fellow coming home.'

‘Who gave you the right to make that decision?'

‘Your Grace, I …'

‘What sort of man do you think this Victor Lennon is?'

‘Your Grace, I hardly think …'

‘He's a communist and a bolshevist and he has been up to his eyes in every kind of radicalism. Tim, people idolise this Lennon fellow, and we don't know what he's planning.'

‘Will we cancel the dance?' said Father Daly.

Stanislaus sighed. Father Daly and young priests like him would be responsible for the future of the Faith. Stanislaus feared they lacked the necessary toughness for dealing with the threats arrayed against it. ‘It's too late for that if you've already said yes. The dance may go ahead. But it must be strictly teetotal. I met youngsters on the road and they were full drunk. And I want everyone out by eleven.'

‘Victor and Charlie probably won't have arrived by eleven.'

‘Those are the conditions. And Father: this is not to happen again. The use of parish property is in my authority and mine alone. Is that understood?'