The Loney (18 page)

‘Aye,’ said Father Bernard.

They knocked their glasses together and there was a moment of silence while they presumably took back whatever it was they were drinking.

‘Father,’ said Mr Belderboss.

‘Yes?’

‘I’d like you to hear confession.’

‘Of course, Reg,’ said Father Bernard. ‘If you’re sure you want me to.’

‘I am, Father,’ he said.

‘Well, finish your drink first,’ said Father Bernard. ‘Then we’ll talk.’

‘Alright.’

Edging back a little, I found a box that would take my weight. Lower down there was a crack between the wooden boards and I could see a narrow slice of the room. Mr Belderboss was sitting on a chair in front of the grubby curtain that curved around the washbasin.

He crossed himself and said the Act of Contrition.

‘What’s on your mind?’ Father Bernard asked.

‘It’s Wilfred,’ said Mr Belderboss.

‘Ah look, Reg, I’m sorry if it seemed as though I was prying the other day.’

‘Oh, no no, Father,’ said Mr Belderboss. ‘That isn’t why I came to speak to you. I’m not cross with you.’

He hesitated and rubbed the back of his neck.

‘Father, Mary doesn’t know, but the police brought me home from the cemetery one night the other week,’ he said.

‘Why, what happened?’ Father Bernard asked.

‘Nothing happened, as such,’ said Mr Belderboss, shaking his head. ‘I think they were going to take me in, but I got the impression they thought I was bit doolally, being out at that time of night, so I let them think it and they brought me home instead.’

‘What time was this?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. After midnight sometime. One. Two. Perhaps. I can’t remember.’

‘What made you go and see Wilfred at that time of night?’

‘I just wanted to make sure no one had pinched the flowers,’ said Mr Belderboss. ‘They were quite expensive, you see, but it wasn’t the money really. I just couldn’t sleep for worrying that he was lying there all alone and thinking no one cared.’

‘Wilfred’s with God,’ said Father Bernard. ‘He knows how much you miss him. I’m not sure you need flowers to convince him of that.’

‘But someone had taken them,’ said Mr Belderboss.

‘Oh,’ said Father Bernard. ‘So what did you do?’

‘Well this is it, Father. I wandered around for a bit, trying to see if they’d been put on someone else’s grave. People do that, don’t they? If they forget to bring some or they can’t afford them. Then I saw this woman. She was sitting in one of the little shelters they have there, you know the ones, Father?’

‘Aye.’

‘She looked quite normal at first,’ said Mr Belderboss. ‘She was dressed up in a fancy hat and she had a fur round her neck and new shoes, like she was on her way home from a party or something. I was going to ask her if she’d seen anyone acting suspiciously, but when I got closer I could tell she was a drunk. You know how they smell of the stuff? And when she moved, her coat opened and she wasn’t wearing anything on her lower half, if you know what I mean, apart from her shoes. She went on and on about someone called Nathaniel. I thought, who on earth is she talking to? But then I realised she thought I was him. She kept on thanking me for sending her these flowers. So I said—what flowers?—and she had Wilfred’s next to her on the bench. Even the little card was still there with them.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well I tried to take them off her and she started screaming and next thing I knew there were two bobbies coming along the path with torches. She’d disappeared and I was there holding this bunch of hyacinths. I felt such a fool, Father. I mean, getting into trouble with the law at my time of life, can you imagine?’

‘It’s perfectly alright, Reg. To miss people that have died, I mean.’

‘But not normal to go to their graves in the middle of the night?’

‘I’m not sure normal comes into it when you’re grieving,’ said Father Bernard. ‘But it might be better to go and see your brother during the day. I’m not sure I’d want to be wandering round Great Northern in the dark.’

Mr Belderboss looked up at the ceiling and sighed.

‘I just feel ashamed that I’ve kept it from Mary,’ he said. ‘I ought to tell her what happened, just in case she gets to hear about it secondhand. They’re a nosy bunch down our street. One flash of a blue light and the curtains are going.’

‘I’m sure she’d understand if you did tell her.’

‘So you think I ought to, Father?’

‘I can’t answer that. It’s up to you. You know her best.’

‘So it wouldn’t be a sin to keep something important from someone?’

Father Bernard paused.

‘Reg,’ he said. ‘I’m struggling to see what sin you’ve committed exactly. I’m not just going to send you off like a child to say three Hail Marys for mouthing off to your mammy. I think you need time to think about what to do for the best.’

‘But what does God want me to do?’

‘Whatever decision you make will be the right one, if you trust in Him.’

Mr Belderboss rubbed the back of his neck and breathed out heavily.

‘Look,’ said Father Bernard. ‘It seems to me that you need to be in a dialogue with God, not putting out your hands for a caning. Take some time, talk to Him, pray for guidance, not punishment. God will answer you, Reg.’

‘Yes, of course, I know.’

‘You need to think about what there is to be gained from telling Mary,’ he went on. ‘Are you going to be happier for telling her, but make her worried in return? Or would it punish you too much to keep it to yourself?’

Mr Belderboss shook his head.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It all just seems wrong.’

‘Well, grief can often make you feel like that.’

‘No, I don’t mean that, Father. I mean where Wilfred’s buried seems wrong.’

There was silence for a moment and then Father Bernard spoke.

‘Why did he choose to be buried away from Saint Jude’s, Reg?’

‘So that he could be with the family.’

‘You don’t sound so sure.’

Mr Belderboss said nothing but stared at the floor in front of his feet.

‘Tell me if I’m prying again,’ said Father Bernard. ‘But the other day you said that Wilfred seemed to change after you came here the last time.’

‘Yes, Father, he did.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know. He just wasn’t himself anymore. He just seemed to give up.’

‘Give up what?’

‘Honestly, Father?’ said Mr Belderboss. ‘I think it was his faith.’

‘Why would that have happened?’

‘I don’t know, Father, but for all he said every Sunday at Mass, I wasn’t convinced he believed any of it anymore. It just seemed like lip service. Like he was trying too hard. You know how if you say something often enough you can get yourself to believe it? And then in the end, well, he just seemed to shut himself away from everyone. Wouldn’t speak to me or Mary.’

Mr Belderboss closed his eyes.

‘Poor Wilfred,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It’s bad enough for anyone to stop believing, but it must be a terrible thing for a priest. It must have driven him out of his mind.’

***

Father Bernard pulled back the curtain and poured Mr Belderboss another drink, but he didn’t touch it. They sat for a while and didn’t really talk other than to eventually bid one another goodnight. They shook hands and Father Bernard patted Mr Belderboss on the shoulder.

‘Peace be with you,’ he said.

‘And also with you, Father,’ said Mr Belderboss.

When he had gone, Father Bernard stared at the door, deep in thought, then downed Mr Belderboss’s brandy as well as his own and got up, disappearing from the splinter of the room I could see. I heard him talking to Monro, scolding him affectionately, then he returned with a book.

I made no sound, but he suddenly turned as though he had seen my eye in the crack. He looked directly at me, but then went back to reading, shivering a little as the wind lowed against the window and dimmed the bulbs in the room.

A
gale battered Moorings all night long and I woke several times and clutched the rifle. Sometime in the small hours there was an almighty bang and in the morning I woke to find that the doors to one of the outhouses had been taken clean off and lay several feet away, scattered like playing cards.

Hanny was up and dressed already, standing at the window, stroking the stuffed hare. He set the hare down on the windowsill and put his fingers to his lips. He wanted to see Else.

‘Yes, Hanny, we’ll go back today,’ I said. ‘But you might not be able to see the girl. They might not let you.’

He kissed his fingers again. And rubbed his belly slowly like Else had done to soothe the ache of the baby inside.

‘I said, we’ll go back.’

This seemed to satisfy him and he picked up the hare again and looked out of the window at the outhouse.

‘Do you want to go and see?’ I said.

There was no one else around. Monro lifted his head when we came into the kitchen and I gave him some of the biscuits Father Bernard had left on the table to quieten him down. I wanted to have the outhouse to ourselves first, before it became everyone’s discovery.

We walked across the yard, trampling over the heavy wooden doors, and stood at the gap where they had once been.

Inside was an ark of stuffed animals—a hundred or more. These were the unsold, uncollected, unfinished works. Botched jobs. Seconds. The cold and damp had taken its toll and there were rows and rows of shrunken squirrels and rabbits. A poodle’s head had sunk in on itself like an old balloon. In the far corner we found a tandem being ridden by two mangy chimps. Neither of us wanted to touch them, so we fetched a broom and pushed them off. They fell stiffly to the floor, still grinning, their hands like claws, as though they had been frozen solid.

Hanging from the ceiling were dozens of bird skeletons, hawks of some kind, trussed up by the feet and left to decompose. Why he hadn’t stuffed them too, I didn’t know. Perhaps he had died before he’d had time, but there were so many of them and the way they were hung they seemed more like the hare and the rats Hanny had found stretched out on the fence. Proof of a victory of some kind.

Although the floor was littered with their bones and feathers, the smell of rotting was strangely absent, as the air had been allowed to move freely through the gaps around the wooden doors and out of the barred window set just above head height on the far wall. There was a chest of drawers underneath it with bootprints on the top where the taxidermist had stood to look out of the window. On the floor, almost obscured by dust and spiderwebs were spent bullet casings. This must have been a firing step, though what he was trying to shoot, I didn’t know. The hawks, perhaps, as they came out of the woods.

‘Look in the drawers, Hanny,’ I said and rattled the handles to show him.

He took hold of the top drawer and yanked it open. Spiders darted away, following the dark into the corners. Inside were dozens of old spanners wet with rust.

‘Try the next one,’ I said.

And here we found what I’d hoped was there. Under a thin cotton sheet were boxes and boxes of bullets. Hanny went to touch them, but I held his sleeve.

‘Let me get them,’ I said, and took out the nearest box and opened it. The bullets were set in a metal clip and were sharp and cold.

‘You mustn’t let anyone know that they’re here, Hanny,’ I said. ‘This is a secret now. We’ll take them down to the pillbox on our way to Coldbarrow.’

He stared at the bullets and I closed the drawer tightly.

***

Eventually, everyone came to look and wandered between the animals with curiosity or revulsion.

Miss Bunce stood in the doorway and refused to come in.

‘It’s awful,’ she said. ‘Poor things.’

David put his hands on her shoulders and steered her away.

‘That’s a decent-looking machine, mind you,’ said Father Bernard, nodding at the tandem that the chimps had been riding.

Hanny and I managed to haul it out and pushed it around the yard. The tyres had perished and the gears were clotted with rust but it didn’t seem as though it would take much to be able to ride it again and Father Bernard only put up a mild protest about his clothes getting dirty before he fetched his tool box from the minibus.

Before long he had the tandem upside down in the kitchen on sheets of old newspaper and was taking apart the cogs and gears, his usually well-slicked hair flopping in front of his eyes. He seemed to be in his element as he knelt down with a spanner in his hand. More at home with nuts and screws and other pieces of greasy metal than giving out communion.

Mummer tutted and fussed until she finally stood over us with her arms folded.

‘Boys,’ she said. ‘Will you please let Father have his breakfast now. There’s too much to do to be spending the day messing about with that bit of junk.’

‘It’s quite alright, Mrs Smith,’ said Father Bernard. ‘It’s nice revisiting one of the few genuine pleasures of my youth.’

She looked irritably at his black hands and the smudges on his face, as though she was, at any moment, going to spit on a handkerchief and start wiping.

‘Well, everything’s on the table, Father,’ she said. ‘We’ll wait for you to say grace.’

‘Oh, don’t let me stop you, Mrs Smith,’ he said. ‘I might be a wee while, getting all this oil off my hands.’

‘All the same. I think we’d rather do things properly, Father, even if it means eating things cold.’

‘As you wish, Mrs Smith,’ he said, looking at her with a curious expression.

I’ve thought about that look quite often as I’ve been getting all this down. What it meant. What Father Bernard had let slip just at that moment. What he really thought of Mummer.

A line of dominos, spinning plates, a house of cards. Pick a cliché. He had realised what I’d known about Mummer for a long time—that if one thing gave way, if one ritual was missed or a method abridged for convenience, then her faith would collapse and shatter.

I think it was then that he began to pity her.

***

Father Bernard went off to clean himself and Hanny and I went into the dining room to wait for him. Everyone was sitting around the table watching Mr Belderboss. He seemed in a brighter mood than he’d been in the previous night with Father Bernard, though I got the impression he was deliberately distracting himself from thoughts of his brother with the object he was examining. It was a small, brown earthenware bottle with a cork stopper in the end and a gargoyle face crudely scratched on one side.