The Poor Mouth (12 page)

On the late evening of the seventh the two travellers, looking very spruce, were at their accustomed station in the kitchen, savouring refreshment from the crock and looking very pleased. For once Annie showed a slight strain of excitement.

–Could I make you hang sangwiches for the journey? she asked.

–God Almighty, woman, Mr Collopy said in genuine astonishment, do you think we are going to the zoo? Or Leopardstown races?

–Well, you might be hungry.

–Yes, Mr Collopy said rather heavily, that could happen. But there is one well-known remedy for hunger. Know what that is? A damn good dinner. Sirloin, roast potatoes, asparagus, Savoy cabbage and any God’s amount of celery sauce. With, beforehand, of course, a plate of hot mushroom soup served with French rolls. With a bottle of claret, the chateau class, beside each plate. Am I right, Father Fahrt?

–Collopy, I don’t find that meal very homogeneous.

–Maybe so. But is it nourishing?

–Well, it would scarcely kill you.

–Damn sure it never killed me when the mother was alive. Lord save us—there was a woman that could bake a farl of wheaten bread! Put a slobber of honey on that and you had a banquet, man.

–The only creatures who eat sensibly, Father Fahrt said, are the animals. Nearly all humans over-eat and kill themselves with food.

–Except in the slums, of course, Mr Collopy corrected.

–Ah yes, Father Fahrt said sadly. The curse there is cheap drink and worse—methylated spirits. God pity them.

–In a way they have more than we have, they have constitutions of cast iron.

–Yes, but acid is the enemy of iron. I believe some of those poor people buy a lot of hair oil. Not for their heads, of course. They drink it.

–Yes. That reminds me, Father. Hand me your glass. This isn’t hair oil I have here.

While he busied himself with the libations, there was a knock. I hurried to the door and admitted Mr Hanafin.

–Well, Fathers above, Tie beamed as he saw the pair at the range.

–Evening, Hanafin, Mr Collopy said. Sit down there for a minute. Annie, get a glass for Mr Hanafin.

–So we’re off tonight to cross the briny ocean?

–Yes, Mr Hanafin, Father Fahrt said. We have important business to attend to on the mainland.

–Yes, Mr Hanafin, I added, and you have just four minutes to finish that drink. I am in charge of this timetable. We all leave for Westland Row station in four minutes.

My voice was peremptory, stern.

–I must say, gentlemen, Mr Hanafin said, that I never seen ye looking better. Ye are very spruce. I never seen you, Mr Collopy, with a better colour up.

–That is my blood pressure, Mr Collopy replied facetiously.

I was strict with my four-minute time-limit. When it was up we embarked on the task of getting Mr Collopy into his ancient tight overcoat. That completed, Mr Hanafin and I half-assisted, half-dragged him out to the cab and succeeded, Father Fahrt assisting from the far door, in hoisting him into the cab’s back. The springs wheezed as he collapsed backwards on to the seat. Soon after the aged Marius broke into a leisurely trot and in fifteen minutes we pulled up outside Westland Row station. There is a long flight of steps from street level to the platform.

–Everybody wait here till I come back, I said.

I climbed the stairs and approached a porter standing beside the almost empty boat train.

–Listen here, I said, there’s a very heavy man below in a cab that wouldn’t be able for those stairs on his own. If you get another man to come down with you and give us a hand, there’s a ten bob each for you in it.

His eyes gleamed, he bawled for Mick, and soon the three of us descended. Getting Mr Collopy out of the cab was more a matter of strategy than strength but soon he was standing breathless and shaky on the pathway.

–Now, Mr Collopy, I said, those stairs are the devil. There are four of us here and we are going to carry you up.

–Well, faith now, Mr Collopy said mildly. I am told they used to carry the Roman Emperors about the Forum in Rome, dressed up in purest cloth of gold.

I posted a porter at each shoulder to grip him by the armpits while Mr Hanafin and I took charge of a leg apiece, rather as if they were the shafts of a cart. Clearly the porters were deeply shocked at the weight they had to deal with at the rear but we assailed the stairs, trying to keep the passenger as horizontal as possible, and found the passage easy enough. Father Fahrt hurried ahead and opened the door of an empty first-class carriage, and Mr Collopy was adroitly put standing on the floor. He was very pleased and beamed about him as if he himself had just performed some astonishing feat. Mr Hanafin hurried down to get the luggage, while I bought the tickets.

It was nearly three-quarters of an hour before the train moved and half an hour before anybody else entered our compartment. I produced a small glass and to his astonishment, handed it to Mr Collopy. Then I produced a flat half-pint bottle from my hip pocket.

–I have already put a little water into this stuff, I said, so you can have a drink of it with safety.

–Well, merciful martyrs in heaven, Father Fahrt, Mr Collopy said gleefully, did you ever hear the like of it? Drinking whiskey in a first-class carriage and us on a pilgrimage to kneel at the feet of the Holy Father!

–Please do not take much, Father Fahrt said seriously. It is not good to do this in public.

When the train pulled up alongside the mailboat at Kingstown, I repeated my stratagem with the two porters. We got Mr Collopy comfortably seated, at his own request, in the dining saloon. I felt tired and told him and Father Fahrt that I must be off.

–God bless you for your help, my boy, Father Fahrt said.

–When you get back, Mr Collopy said, tell Annie that there are two pairs of dirty socks at the bottom of my bed. They want to be washed and darned.

–Right.

–And if Rafferty calls about hydrometer readings, tell him to keep the machine in circulation. Make a note of this. Next on the list is Mrs Hayes of Sandymount. Next, Mrs Fitzherbert of Harold’s Cross. He knows those people. I’ll be home by then.

–Very good. Good-bye now, and good luck.

And so they sailed away. How did they fare? That peculiar story was revealed in dispatches I received from the brother, and which I now present.

About three weeks after the departure of the travellers I received the following letter from the brother:

Well, here we are in Rome at the Hotel Élite et des Étrangers. Spring comes earlier here and it is already very warm.

Our voyage to Ostia on the
Moravia
was without much incident and for me quite enjoyable. I haven’t been so drunk for years, though an Englishman I chummed up with went a bit further. He fell and broke his leg. Collopy, who never showed any sign of sickness drank plenty too but spent most of his time in bed. (Thank God we had decent beds and not those frightful bunks.) First, the job of trying to dress him on a tilting floor was at least an hour’s for Father Fahrt, a steward and myself. Once dressed, he found movement on shipboard almost impossible. I had to give another steward not tips but a massive salary to lend a special hand but gangways and steps were nearly insuperable. I used to bring people down to the bedroom to drink and talk with him. He was not in the least depressed by his situation, and the sea air certainly had a good effect. Father Fahrt rather let us down. He soon found there were four members of his own Order on board and was huddled with them for most of every day. He came down to Collopy only in the evening, and for some reason has refused all drinks. He is in very good shape and temper, though, and is now staying in a Jesuit house here. He comes faithfully to the hotel every morning at eleven.

Collopy is much easier to handle and dress on terra firma—indeed, he could dress himself if he was using the tramp’s rags he wears in Dublin—and we usually spend the first part of the day till lunch time sitting in the sun and talking. Irish whiskey is impossible to get, of course, and Collopy is drinking absinthe. I am drinking so much brandy myself that I sometimes get afraid of heart failure. In the afternoons we usually hire a wagonette and go for a slow tour of sights such as the Colosseum and the Forum; we have been twice to the piazza of St Peter’s. At night, I see Collopy put to bed and just disappear until the small hours. I find the Eternal City is full of brothels but I keep clear of them. There are some damn fine night clubs, most of them, I am told, illegal.

And now for the inside trickery. I knew we could rely on Father Fahrt to start secret schemings without even being asked. Yesterday morning he brought along a Monsignor Cahill, a remarkable character and a Corkman. He is a sort of Vatican civil servant and attends on the Holy Father personally. He is not only an interpreter who has expert knowledge of at least eight languages (he says) but he is also a stenographer whose job it is to take down ail remarks and observations made by the Holy Father in the course of an audience. He translates the supplications of pilgrims orally but takes down only the replies. He is a most friendly man, is always genuinely delighted to see anybody from Ireland, and knows exactly what to do with a good glass of wine. He took a great fancy to Collopy who, to my own great surprise, has a detailed knowledge of Cork city.

He promised to do everything possible to arrange a private audience but Father Fahrt has a far bigger card in his pack. He knows, or has made it his business to get to know, a certain Cardinal Baldini. This man is what they call a domestic prelate, and works every day in the papal suite. He has, of course, enormous power and can fix anything. Father Fahrt is very cagey and has promised Collopy nothing solid beyond saying that the Pontiff is very busy and one must be patient. Personally I have no doubt at all that this audience will come off. I believe in it sufficiently to have bought Collopy a monkey suit. Cardinal Baldini is a Franciscan and lives at the Franciscan monastery at the Via Merulana, where there is also the fine church of Santo Antonio di Padua. (My Italian is improving fast.) That is all for now. Will write again in a few days. M.

P.S. Keep your eye on Annie. I hope there is no canal nonsense going on.

The next letter I received was a short one, a week afterwards. Here is what he wrote:

Well, the expected happened. Father Fahrt came as usual this morning and after some small talk, casually told Collopy and myself to have our monkey suits on that evening at six because we were all going to pay a call on Cardinal Baldini at his monastery. It was a most dramatic revelation. Obviously Father Fahrt had been working quietly and silently behind the scenes, in the Jesuit fashion. I knew the private audience had been fixed but said nothing.

Having first fixed myself up, I took the precaution of beginning the job of getting Collopy into his dress clothes at five and it was a wise move, for it took nearly an hour. He looked very funny in the end.

We drove with Father Fahrt to the Via Merulana. The Monastery was a simple,. austere place but apparently very big. The reception room was comfortable enough but full of holy pictures. Cardinal Baldini when he came in was a short, stout man, very jovial in manner. We kissed his ring as he greeted us in perfect English. We sat down at our ease.

‘And how are all my friends in Dublin’ he asked Collopy.

‘Faith and they are in very good form, Your Eminence. I did not know you were there.’

‘I paid a visit in 1896. And I spent ten years in England.’

‘Well, well.’

Then Father Fahrt started yapping out of him about the charm of foreign travel, how it broadens the mind and shows the Catholic how universal the universal church is.

‘I was never one to roam,’ Collopy said. Somehow a man must stay where his work is.’

‘True indeed,’ Cardinal Baldini said, ‘but our vineyard is indeed commodious. And every year that passes it gets bigger. Look at the work that is yet to be done in Africa, in China, even in Japan.’

‘I realize how immense the job is,’ Collopy replied, ‘because I have been doing missionary work of my own. Not the religious kind, of course.’

Here Father Fahrt began talking about the central point of all religion—the Vatican and the Holy Father.

Finally, the Cardinal turned to Collopy and said:

‘Mr Collopy, I believe yourself and your little party would like to have a private audience with the Holy Father?’

‘Your Eminence, it would be indeed a great honour.’

‘Well, I have arranged it. The afternoon of the day after tomorrow at four o’clock.’

‘We are all most grateful to you, Eminence,’ Father Fahrt said.

That was about all. We drove back to the hotel very pleased with ourselves. I went straight to the American bar there to celebrate. The audience will be over by the time you get this. I will write immediately and give you an account of it.—M.

I must let the next extraordinary letter speak for itself It put the heart across me.

Several days have passed since that audience and it is only now that I am able, with Monsignor Cahill’s help, to send you this letter. Please keep it safely as I have no copy.

There was a frightful, appalling row.

As a matter of fact the Pope told us all to go to hell. He threatened to silence Father Fahrt.

The papal palaces are to the right of the basilica as you approach it and just past the entrance, Father Fahrt led us to a small office run by the Swiss Guards. It was a private rendezvous for in five minutes Cardinal Baldini appeared, welcomed us and gave each of us a thick guide or catalogue. As there was plenty of time to spare walking through this enormous and dazzling place talking all the time, showing us the loggia of Gregory XIII, a wonderful gallery; the Throne Room; the Sala Rotunda, a round hall full of statues; the Raphael salon, with many of the great man’s paintings; part of the Vatican Museum; the Sistine Chapel and many other places I cannot remember, nor can I remember much from the Cardinal’s stream of talk except that the Vatican has a parish priest (not the Pope). The splendour of it all was stupendous. God forgive me, I thought it was a bit vulgar in places and that all the gilt and gold was sometimes a bit overdone.