“It makes a lot of sense,” I said.
The phone rang, and Tess reached for it with an apologetic smile. “St. Brigid’s Youth Centre, Tess speaking,” she said, and listened. “Ah, sure. Of course, of course. I’ll be over to you shortly.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said as she put the receiver down. “I’ve got to begin work now. Next time I see you…” She took a deep breath. “Next time I see you, we’ll have a proper chat.”
* * *
I went back to Brona’s, loaded the next interview tape (Orla Gallagher, 13 February 1988) into the Walkman, and brought it with me. The sun didn’t seem to be going anywhere for once, so I decided to go for a drive. Paudie had mentioned a passage tomb in a field three or four miles northwest of town, and I wasted half an hour trying to extract the Micra from a series of muddy country lanes before giving up looking for it.
The light withdrew suddenly on my way back to Ballymorris, and as the downpour started, I found myself taking the turn for the grotto. Mag O’Grady’s little white truck was there, sure enough, but this time I didn’t get out of the car. I put on the old-fashioned earphones, and when I pressed the PLAY button, I saw Orla sitting before the priest twenty years younger, her cheeks still full with lingering baby fat and her skin as pale as it ought to be.
ORLA
She was so beautiful I could hardly look Her in the face, Father. I told Her … I told Her I didn’t feel worthy.
The priest reacts more skeptically than he did with Teresa. There is no hostility, as with Declan, but the sense of rapport between questioned and questioner is noticeably lacking.
FATHER DOWD
And what did she say to you?
ORLA
She blessed me and said She knew that from now on I would try to be worthy, and that was all She could ever ask of me.
FATHER DOWD
What about Declan? D’you reckon he feels unworthy, too? I spoke with him last week, as you know, and I can’t say he was as cooperative as you and Teresa have been.
ORLA
He means well, Father, he really does. He just doesn’t know how to feel easy about any of it. He’s so used to everyone givin’ him a hard time for how he looks.
FATHER DOWD
You’ll understand when you’re older, Orla, that “givin’ a hard time” to a young person is all to a purpose. With every word you speak, every gesture, every impulse you give in to without reflection, you’re building your character. At the end of your life, your character is all you have to show for yourself. Do you see that?
The girl’s manner is still respectful, but she crosses her arms and sits taller in her chair.
ORLA
I see, Father. But I don’t believe that when two people don’t see eye to eye, one of them has to be wrong for the other to be right.
FATHER DOWD
(sighing)
Someday, when he’s much older, Declan may look in the mirror, and he won’t like the man he sees. And by then it will be too late.
ORLA
I don’t see that, Father. Declan wants a different sort of life for himself, and I don’t see how that’s wrong.
FATHER DOWD
You don’t see it yet.
An icy note enters into the girl’s voice for the first time, and if the priest notices, he doesn’t follow suit.
ORLA
I thought we were meant to be talking about Our Lady.
FATHER DOWD
It’s all of a piece, child. Why d’you suppose she came to ye, and not to me?
ORLA
I don’t know, Father.
FATHER DOWD
I don’t pretend to know, either. But I can say she’s asked a great deal of ye, and ye must try your very best to be worthy of the blessing, as you yourself have said.
The priest grows animated, gesticulating with both hands.
FATHER DOWD (CONT’D)
Ye are the messengers! The bringers of peace in our own time! Do you see that?
The priest’s fervor rises to the point where the girl has to lean back in her chair to keep from being overwhelmed by it.
FATHER DOWD (CONT’D)
This is what Declan must grow to understand: now isn’t the time to turn in on yourselves. Your friends and schoolmates may behave as they like, but ye haven’t that luxury now. Ye’ve been called, and the call must be answered.
ORLA
I don’t know, Father. I’m not sure of what I saw, and if I can’t be sure, then it wouldn’t feel right to go out into the world and talk about it.
The priest stares at her, shocked by the sudden about-face, and when he speaks again, there’s a subtle note of panic in his voice.
FATHER DOWD
How d’you mean, you’re not sure? Didn’t you say you saw her? Didn’t you say she was the most beautiful woman you ever laid eyes on?
ORLA
If I really saw what I thought I saw, I think I would feel differently about it. I would want to go out and speak of it.
FATHER DOWD
A heart in doubt: that is a sign, Orla. So is reluctance, and the not feeling worthy. Tess feels it, and I can see you feel it, too. It means you understand deep down that this glory, the glory ye must speak of and spread to anyone who is ready to listen: ’tis God’s glory, not yours. ’Tis a beautiful thing, to understand that.
ORLA
That’s not what I mean, Father. I know this isn’t about me.
(pauses)
I don’t know if it was real. That’s the simple truth of it.
FATHER DOWD
If you don’t think you saw Our Lady … what do you think you saw?
ORLA
Nothing. I … I think I made myself see something so that …
The girl draws a trembling breath. She can’t look the priest in the eye.
ORLA (CONT’D)
I don’t think I saw it. I think I only made myself see it.
FATHER DOWD
But why? Why would you think that?
ORLA
For Síle. So she wouldn’t be seeing things, Father. That’s why.
FATHER DOWD
Now, Orla. I have interviewed each of you on your own, and you have each described Our Lady in terms that would lead any reasonable person to conclude that you were experiencing the same phenomenon. I have asked certain questions of each of you, and both you and your friend Tess have answered them in a fashion which would satisfy any skeptic. Did Tess tell you the questions I’d asked her in strictest confidence? Did ye take the opportunity to agree upon your answers beforehand?
The girl’s reaction is too shocked to be anything but the honest truth.
ORLA
No, Father!
FATHER DOWD
Was there any drink involved?
ORLA
No, Father! I never drink except when my dad offers it at Christmastime.
The priest shoots her a doubtful look, and a flash of contempt passes across Orla’s face (“This is just what I was talking about. You see I’m with Declan, and you make assumptions.”)
FATHER DOWD
Then explain to me how you could be misled by your own eyes.
ORLA
(hesitatingly)
It seemed so clear at the time. I accepted it. It felt real. But now I don’t know, and Declan doesn’t know either, and I don’t know what to think.
FATHER DOWD
It seems to me that when the two of ye speak of the visitation ye’ve only been confusing each other.
ORLA
But it’s not as if I could somehow make myself sure again. I wish I could be sure of everything, one way or the other.
The priest is well and truly exasperated now, but he’s making a visible attempt to suppress it.
FATHER DOWD
What about Tess? Do you believe she saw Our Lady?
ORLA
Tess is the most honest person I know.
FATHER DOWD
I would say so, too. Tess has a strong character.
When Tess opens her mouth to speak, you can be sure the words that come out are the truth.
ORLA
I know, Father.
FATHER DOWD
And Tess knows what she saw. She has perfect conviction.
(pauses)
So if your sister were seeing things that weren’t there, then Teresa would have to be seeing them, too.
ORLA
Aye, Father. I’ve thought of that.
FATHER DOWD
Sometimes the most extraordinary explanation also happens to be the correct one, Orla.
I guess they don’t teach Occam’s razor at the seminary, I thought as the tape clicked off. If people used their own common sense, then what would they need the priests for?
A flutter of movement near the grotto drew me away from my notebook. A lanky figure in a black hooded sweatshirt stood with a hand on that ledge lined with all the pillar candles and glow-in-the-dark Virgins, and when the boy turned to look at my car, I recognized him by the size of his Adam’s apple.
I rolled down the window. “Hey,” I called. “Didn’t I see you down at the youth center the other day?” The boy looked at me blankly, so I added, “With Tess?”
The sound of her name seemed to soften him, just as it had everyone else. “You a friend of hers?” the boy asked.
“Yeah, I am. I’m in town for my uncle’s funeral.”
“Who’s your uncle?”
“Johnny Donegan?” I don’t know why I said his name as if it were a question, or why I even felt the need to talk to this kid.
He nodded. “Sorry for your loss.”
“Yeah, well.” I coughed. “He was a nice man, but I hadn’t seen him since I was a kid.” I flipped up my hood and got out of the car. “What are you doing up here, anyway? It’s nasty out.”
The boy shrugged, and I glanced back at the tchotchke truck. The light was on, but I couldn’t see the little old woman inside.
“Were you asking Tess about the apparition?”
I turned back to him, caught off guard, and he stifled a smirk. “I didn’t think it was something she talked about,” I said.
The boy shot me a pointed look. “Then that makes two of us.”
We both turned to the water-stained statue of the Virgin in her cement niche. “Is she why you’re up here?” I asked, burying my hands deeper into my pockets and hunching my shoulders against the wind. “I didn’t think anybody really believed in this stuff anymore.” Certainly nobody young enough to know better. Then again, what was I doing here?
There was a gawkiness to him that some boys never grow out of, and I suspected he’d be one of them. “Tess believes,” he said.
I quirked a brow. “Do you?” She’d come up here by herself, Síle had said. Had the apparition come to her then? What had it said to her?
The boy turned to the statue with an unreadable look on his face. There was an awkwardly protracted pause, and it hit me that he was listening to something. I cleared my throat. “Hey. Are you okay?”
The boy turned back to me then, but he wasn’t entirely there. He nodded vaguely.
“You need a ride back to town?”
“Nah,” he said, and in another beat, he’d come back to himself. “I’ll be all right.”
Casting me one last wary glance, the boy turned and stalked down the hill toward town, and I looked up at the blank-faced statue with the unnerving sense that I’d been excluded.
I walked over to the tchotchke truck. Tiny old Mag O’Grady had propped herself against the back wall of her shop, snoring softly as her toothless jaw went up and down, up and down, like she was dreaming of dinner.
* * *
I had my laptop with me, but I got blank looks in cafés and pubs whenever I asked about the Wi-Fi. I had to go down to the library to dash off an e-mail to Andy, my editor at the magazine. It’s along the lines of weeping statues, minus the religious nuts, I wrote. I’m talking to the women who saw it when they were teenagers. Social and economic angle as well. Mysticism and the Celtic Tiger. The next time I signed on, I’d find a reply from Andy, cautiously approving, and then I’d go ahead and draft the piece. Every time my thoughts wandered back to the boy on the hill, I brushed them away again. If religious visions were as common as that, Mag O’Grady would be raking it in. Síle would sketch and paint in a studio without bars.
At lunch I told Brona I’d booked a room at Mrs. Halloran’s B and B for the rest of my stay in Ballymorris. “Take it up with my grandmother,” I told her when she protested. “She’s the one who says fish and houseguests stink after three days, and I’ve already been here five.”
“She didn’t mean your own family!” Brona cried, but I wouldn’t let her sway me. It felt too good to know she didn’t want me to leave.
“And how did you find the Mass this morning?” she asked, once she’d resigned herself.
“It was over in less than a half hour,” I said. “There were more people there than I thought there’d be. And I saw Mrs. Keaveney. Tess pointed her out to me.”
Brona replied with that automatic click of the tongue. “The poor dear!”
I gulped down the last of my toasted cheese sandwich before I spoke again. “Can you tell me where she lives?”
Brona cast me a squinty look. “Why d’you ask?”
“I thought I might speak with her, if she’s willing.”
“Oh, she’ll speak to you,” she sighed. “As for whether she’ll speak any sense, that’s another matter altogether.”
“Father Lynch did say she’s not…”
“Not quite right?” Brona took a sip of tea, and sighed again. “I’m afraid so. She’s convinced Declan’s coming home any day now. She’s been sayin’ it for years, and he never comes.”
“So you think I shouldn’t try to see her, then?” I don’t know why I bothered asking, when I was going regardless.
“Sure, you can speak to her. I just can’t see what you’ll gain by it.” Brona shook her head. “Poor Peggy Keaveney. There’s some of us who’re worn down by the business of life. The falseness. First the husband, then the son.”
“Are you sure they left her? You hear about people having accidents sometimes and no one ever finds out what really happened.”
As she cleared our plates, Brona gave me an eloquent look. For all their reputation for chattiness and storytelling, the Irish I knew were so skillful with words there was sometimes no need for them at all.
She gave in, though, and it turned out Mrs. Keaveney lived just around the corner. From the outside, the house seemed better kept than I’d’ve expected, the hedge under the front window neatly pruned. I knocked a second and third time, and only then did I notice there wasn’t any smoke coming out of the chimney. Next door a very old man stuck his head out his front door and said, “She’ll be havin’ a kip right about now.” I opened my mouth to ask what a kip was, but he went on: “You’re Johnny Donegan’s nephew, aren’t you?”
I nodded, and he nodded back. “Come back later this afternoon,” he said gravely, as if he’d put a considerable degree of thought into it. “’Twould be a good time to come, right about four o’clock. Will I tell herself you called?”
I thanked him but said no, that wouldn’t be necessary. When I turned to leave, he said, “I remember you, lad. It’s a long time since you were here, but I remember you.”
“That was twenty-five years ago,” I said, laughing a little. “You couldn’t possibly!”
“Ah, but I do. Johnny brought you round to the parish picnic, and your gran told us all about you,” he replied, and then he called me by a nickname I hadn’t heard since I was fourteen.
I shivered as I turned the corner for Brona’s. I couldn’t help feeling again as if I were being watched.
* * *
It was turning into a wasted sort of day, but there was no use fighting it. I walked back to Brona’s in the rain and told her I was going up for a “kip” myself, but when I drew the curtains and got into bed, the Walkman—and the pi
ece of Síle inside it—beckoned to me from the dresser.
The young girl sits demurely in the chair opposite the priest, her hands folded in her lap, a serious expression on her lovely face as she answers his questions. For his part, the priest looks more stern than we have yet seen him.
FATHER DOWD
Now, Síle. We’ll start from the beginning, and with no embellishments.
SÍLE
I don’t know what I’ve done to make everyone think I’m lyin’ about what I’ve seen, Father.
FATHER DOWD
Let me put it to you this way, child: do you feel that the Blessed Virgin has singled you out? Has she given you a special mission? A calling no one else can answer?
The girl looks down at her hands.
SÍLE
I don’t feel I’m special in any way.
FATHER DOWD
That’s the truth, is it?
Síle looks up, her pale face suddenly alight with righteous indignation.
SÍLE
I don’t mean to be thick wit’cha, Father, but you’re askin’ questions you think you already know the answers to.
FATHER DOWD
You’re right, Síle. You are being thick with me.
SÍLE
If you think I’m no good, then why am I here? Why did you ask me here if you think I’m makin’ it all up for the attention?
FATHER DOWD
I know you’re not “makin’ it up.” Tess saw her, too. And your sister. And Declan.
SÍLE
But you wouldn’t be takin’ us seriously if it weren’t for Tess.
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