The Collar (24 page)

At meals in the curates' house, Galvin had a tendency to chatter brightly and aimlessly that irritated Fogarty. He was full of scraps of undigested knowledge, picked up from newspapers and magazines, about new plays and books that he would never either see or read. Fogarty was a moody young man who preferred either to keep silent or engage in long emotional discussions about local scandals that grew murkier and more romantic the more he described them. About such things he was hopelessly indiscreet. ‘And that fellow notoriously killed his own father,' he said once, and Galvin looked at him in distress. ‘You mean he really killed him?' he asked – as though Fogarty did not really mean everything at the moment he was saying it – and then, to make things worse, added, ‘It's not something I'd care to repeat – not without evidence, I mean.'

‘The Romans used eunuchs for civil servants, but we're more enlightened,' Fogarty said once to Maginnis. ‘We prefer the natural ones.' Maginnis gave a hearty laugh; it was the sort of remark he liked to repeat. And when Galvin returned after lunching austerely with some maiden ladies and offered half-baked suggestions, Maginnis crushed him, and Fogarty watched with malicious amusement. He knew it was turning into persecution, but he wasn't quite sure which of the two men suffered more.

When he heard the explosion in the middle of the night, he waited for some further noise to interpret it, and then rose and put on the light. The housekeeper was standing outside her bedroom door in a raincoat, her hands joined. She was a widow woman with a history of tragedy behind her, and Fogarty did not like her; for some reason he felt she had the evil eye, and he always addressed her in his most commanding tone.

‘What was that, Mary?' he asked.

‘I don't know, father,' she said in a whisper. ‘It sounded as if it was in Father Galvin's room.'

Fogarty listened again. There was no sound from Galvin's room, and he knocked and pushed in the door. He closed the door again immediately.

‘Get Dr Carmody quick!' he said brusquely.

‘What is it, father?' she asked. ‘An accident?'

‘Yes, a bad one. And when you're finished, run out and ask Father Maginnis to come in.'

‘Oh, that old gun!' she moaned softly. ‘I dreaded it. I'll ring Dr Carmody.' She went hastily down the stairs.

Fogarty followed her and went into the living room to pick up the sacred oils from the cupboard where they were kept. ‘I don't know, doctor,' he heard Mary moaning. ‘Father Fogarty said it was an accident.' He returned upstairs and lifted the gun from the bed before anointing the dead man. He had just concluded when the door opened and he saw the parish priest come in, wearing a blue flowered dressing gown.

Maginnis went over to the bed and stared down at the figure on it. Then he looked at Fogarty over his glasses, his face almost expressionless. ‘I was afraid of something like this,' he said knowingly. ‘I knew he was a bit unstable.'

‘You don't think it could be an accident?' Fogarty asked, though he knew the question sounded ridiculous.

‘No,' Maginnis said, giving him a downward look through the spectacles. ‘Do you?'

‘But how could he bring himself to do a thing like that?' Fogarty asked incredulously.

‘Oh, who knows?' ‘I'd Maginnis, almost impatiently. ‘With weak characters it's hard to tell. He doesn't seem to have left any message.'

‘Not that I can see.'

‘I'm sorry 'twas Carmody you sent for.'

‘But he was Galvin's doctor.'

‘I know, I know, but all the same he's young and a bit immature. I'd have preferred an older man. Make no mistake about it, father, we have a problem on our hands,' he added with sudden resolution. ‘A very serious problem.'

Fogarty did not need to have the problem spelled out for him. The worst thing a priest could do was to commit suicide, since it seemed to deny everything that gave his vocation meaning – Divine Providence and Mercy, forgiveness, Heaven, Hell. That one of God's anointed could come to such a state of despair was something the Church could not admit. It would give too much scandal. It was simply an unacceptable act.

‘That's his car now, I fancy,' Maginnis said.

Carmody came quickly up the stairs with his bag in his hand and his pink pyjamas showing under his tweed jacket. He was a tall, spectacled young man with a long, humorous clown's face, and in ordinary life adopted a manner that went with his face, but Fogarty knew he was both competent and conscientious. He had worked for some years in an English hospital and developed a bluntness of speech that Fogarty found refreshing.

‘Christ!' he said as he took in the scene. Then he went over and looked closely at the body. ‘Poor Peter!' he added. Then he took the shotgun from the bedside table, where Fogarty had put it and examined it. ‘I should have kept a closer eye on him,' he said with chagrin. ‘There isn't much I can do for him now.'

‘On the contrary, doctor,' Maginnis said. ‘There was never a time when you could do more for him.' Then he gave Fogarty a meaningful glance. ‘I wonder if you'd mind getting Jack Fitzgerald for me, father? Talk to himself, and I needn't warn you to be creful what you say.'

‘Oh, I'll be careful,' Fogarty said with gloomy determination. There was something in his nature that always responded to the touch of melodrama, and he knew Maginnis wanted to talk to Carmody alone. He telephoned to Fitzgerald, the undertaker, and then went back upstairs to dress. It was clear he wasn't going to get any more sleep that night.

He heard himself called and returned to Galvin's room. This time he really felt the full shock of it: the big bald parish priest in his dressing gown and the gaunt young doctor with his pyjama top open under the jacket. He could see the two men had been arguing.

‘Perhaps you'd talk to Dr Carmody, father?' Maginnis suggested benignly.

‘There's nothing to talk about, Father Fogarty,' Carmody said, adopting the formal title he ignored when they were among friends. ‘I can't sign a certificate saying this was a natural death. You know I can't. It's too unprofessional.'

‘Professional or not, Dr Carmody, someone will have to do it,' Maginnis said. ‘I am the priest of this parish. In a manner of speaking I'm a professional man too, you know. And this unfortunate occurrence is something that doesn't concern only me and you. It has consequences that affect the whole parish.'

‘Your profession doesn't require you to sign your name to a lie, father,' Carmody said angrily. ‘That's what you want me to do.'

‘Oh, I wouldn't call that a lie, Dr Carmody,' Maginnis said with dignity. ‘In considering the nature of a lie we have to take account of its good and bad effects. I can see no possible good effect that might result from a scandal about the death of this poor boy. Not one! In fact, I can see unlimited harm.'

‘So can I,' Fogarty burst out. His voice sounded too loud, too confident, even to his own ears.

‘I see,' Carmody said sarcastically. ‘And you think we should keep on denouncing the Swedes and Danes for their suicide statistics, just because they don't fake them the way we do. Ah, for God's sake, man, I'd never be able to respect myself again.'

Fogarty saw that Maginnis was right. In some ways Carmody was too immature. ‘That's all very well, Jim, but Christian charity comes before statistics,' he said appealingly. ‘Forget about the damn statistics, can't you? Father Galvin wasn't only a statistic. He was a human being – somebody we both knew. And what about his family?'

‘What about his mother?' Maginnis asked with real pathos. ‘I gather you have a mother yourself, Dr Carmody?'

‘And you expect me to meet Mrs Galvin tomorrow and tell her her son was a suicide and can't be buried in consecrated ground?' Fogarty went on emotionally. ‘Would you like us to do that to your mother if it was your case?'

‘A doctor has unpleasant things to do as well, Jerry,' said Carmody.

‘To tell a mother that her child is dying?' Fogarty asked. ‘A priest has to do that too, remember. Not to tell her that her child is damned.'

But the very word that Fogarty knew had impressed Carmody made the parish priest uncomfortable. ‘Fortunately, father, that is in better hands than yours or mine,' he said curtly. And at once his manner changed. It was as though he was a little bit tired of them both. ‘Dr Carmody,' he said, ‘I think I hear Mr Fitzgerald. You'd better make up your mind quick. If you're not prepared to sign the death certificate, I'll soon find another doctor who will. That is my simple duty, and I'm going to do it. But as an elderly man who knows a little more about this town than you or Father Fogarty here, I'd advise you not to compel me to bring in another doctor. If word got round that I was forced to do such a thing, it might have very serious effects on your career.'

There was no mistaking the threat, and there was something almost admirable about the way it was made. At the same time, it roused the sleeping rebel in Fogarty. Bluff, he thought angrily. Damn bluff! If Carmody walked out on them at that moment, there was very little the parish priest or anyone else could do to him. Of course, any of the other doctors would sign the certificate, but it wouldn't do them any good either. When people really felt the need for a doctor, they didn't necessarily want the doctor the parish priest approved of. But as he looked at Carmody's sullen, resentful face, he realised that Carmody didn't know his own strength in the way that Maginnis knew his. After all, what had he behind him but a few years in a London hospital, while behind Maginnis was that whole vast historic organisation that he was rightly so proud of.

‘I can't sign a certificate that death was due to natural causes,' Carmody said stubbornly. ‘Accident, maybe – I don't know. I wasn't here. I'll agree to accident.'

‘Accident?' Maginnis said contemptuously, and this time he did not even trouble to use Carmody's title. It was as though he were stripping him of any little dignity he had. ‘Young man, accidents with shotguns do not happen to priests at three o'clock in the morning. Try to talk sense!'

And just as Fogarty realised that the doctor had allowed himself to be crushed, they heard Mary let Fitzgerald in. He came briskly up the stairs. He was a small, spare man built like a jockey. The parish priest nodded in the direction of the bed and Fitzgerald's brows went up mechanically. He was a man who said little, but he had a face and figure too expressive for his character. It was as though all the opinions he suppressed in life found relief in violent physical movements.

‘Naturally, we don't want it talked about, Mr Fitzgerald,' said Maginnis. ‘Do you think you could handle it yourself?'

The undertaker's eyes popped again, and he glanced swiftly from Maginnis to Carmody and then to Fogarty. He was a great man for efficiency, though; if you had asked him to supply the corpse as well as the coffin, he might have responded automatically, ‘Male or female?'

‘Dr Carmody will give the certificate, of course?' he asked shrewdly. He hadn't missed much of what was going on.

‘It seems I don't have much choice,' Carmody replied bitterly.

‘Oh, purely as an act of charity, of course,' Fitz said hastily. ‘We all have to do this sort of thing from time to time. The poor relatives have enough to worry them without inquests and things like that. What was the age, Father Maginnis, do you know?' he added, taking out a notebook. A clever little man, thought Fogarty. He had put it all at once upon a normal, businesslike footing.

‘Twenty-eight,' said Maginnis.

‘God help us!' Fitz said perfunctorily, and made a note. After that he took out a rule.

‘I'd better get ready and go to see the Bishop myself,' Maginnis said. ‘We'll need his permission, of course, but I haven't much doubt about that. I know he has the reputation for being on the strict side, but I always found him very considerate. I'll send Nora over to help your housekeeper, father. In the meantime, maybe you'd be good enough to get in touch with the family.'

‘I'll see to that, father,' Fogarty said. He and Carmody followed Maginnis downstairs. He said goodbye and left, and Fogarty's manner changed abruptly. ‘Come in and have a drink, Jim,' he said.

‘I'd rather not, Jerry,' Carmody said gloomily.

‘Come on! Come on! You need one, man! I need one myself and I can't have it.' He shut the door of the living room behind him. ‘Great God, Jim, who could have suspected it?'

‘I suppose I should have,' said Carmody. ‘I got hints enough if only I might have understood them.'

‘But you couldn't, Jim,' Fogarty said excitedly, taking the whiskey from the big cupboard. ‘Nobody could. Do you think I ever expected it, and I lived closer to him than you did.'

The front door opened and they heard the slippers of Nora, Maginnis's housekeeper, in the hall. There was a low mumble of talk outside the door, and then the clank of a bucket as the women went up the stairs. Fitzgerald was coming down at the same time, and Fogarty opened the door a little.

‘Well, Jack?'

‘Well, father. I'll do the best I can.'

‘You wouldn't join us for a – ?'

‘No, father. I'll have my hands full for the next couple of hours.'

‘Good night, Jack. And I'm sorry for the disturbance.'

‘Ah, 'twas none of your doing. Good night, father.'

The doctor finished his whiskey in a gulp, and his long, battered face had a bitter smile. ‘And so this is how it's done!' he said.

‘This is how it's done, Jim, and believe me, it's the best way for everybody in the long run,' Fogarty replied with real gravity.

But, looking at Carmody's face, he knew the doctor did not believe it, and he wondered then if he really believed it himself.

When the doctor had gone, Fogarty got on the telephone to a provincial town fifty miles away. The exchange was closed down, so he had to give his message to the police. In ten minutes or so a guard would set out along the sleeping streets to the house where the Galvins lived. That was one responsibility he was glad to evade.