The Healing Place

by Clare Nonhebel

CHAPTER 42

  The waitress flounced back and removed the full soup plates, with an exaggerated flourish conveying extreme disapproval. Franz, lost in thought, didn’t appear to notice even when she sniffed resentfully in his ear.

  ‘Guys,’ said Ella, amused again, ‘fascinating though this story is, don’t you think we’d better get out of here?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rachel said, taking the point immediately.

  ‘Why?’ said Franz.

  Rachel gave Ella an expressive lift of her eyebrows that said clearly, woman to woman, Men! Ella smiled back, delighted at Rachel’s growing confidence with her.

  The day seemed to be half gone, the light becoming dimmer even though, for them, it was only just after lunchtime. They were all surprised when Franz checked his watch and said it was half-past three.

  ‘It might be as well to go back and have that talk with Sister Briege,’ he suggested, and they were all suddenly sombre, thinking of the reason they were together and of the old man lying cold, alone.

  ‘I think you’re right; we should do that now,’ said Ella, ‘but Franz, what about after that? Tonight and tomorrow?’

  She glanced towards Rachel, who looked pinched and anxious again. The connection between them was tenuous, Ella felt, and having been made shouldn’t be so soon broken.

  Franz picked up her meaning. Putting his arm around Rachel, he said, ‘Rach, Ella and I want you to think about coming back with us. If you’d like to.’

  ‘To the bed and breakfast place?’

  ‘No – well, yes, if you’d rather stay there than go back to your room at the nursing home. But I meant, to London.’

  ‘To visit?’

  ‘To visit, to stay with us, to think about it as a place you might decide to live if you don’t want to go back to Jamaica.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back to Jamaica,’ she said quickly.

  ‘Things not working out there?’

  ‘Not really.’ She stood up and looked towards the door. ‘Are we going to see Sister Briege, then?’

  ‘Sure, let’s go.’

  They’re alike in not wanting to be asked too many questions, Ella thought. She wondered what it might be like, living with both of them, and how they would get on together. There was definitely tension between them, as well as affection.

  She hoped they would get around to telling the rest of their story before they all went back to London. Once there, she was afraid that Franz would go back into work-mode at The Healing Place and let the past and Michael Finnucane be buried again, along with Father Francis.

  Sister Briege gave them a warm welcome. ‘Isn’t that perfect timing?’ she said. ‘Father Tony is just here. He’ll be saying the funeral Mass and I was just saying to him I’d have to ask if you had any preferences about the readings and the hymns.’

  They followed Sister Briege along a corridor to a small sitting room to meet Father Tony, a rather severe-looking man with hair cut too short above a red neck and gristly ears.

  He stood and gave Franz a quick up-and-down look. Recognizing his resemblance to Father Francis, no doubt, Ella thought.

  Father Tony shook Franz by the hand and nodded at the women. ‘Good to see you again, Michael.’

  Franz, Ella noticed, did not look pleased to see him. Rachel bit her lip, sat down in a far corner of the room and seemed to accept his ignoring her.

  ‘Sister Briege and I were discussing Father McCarthy’s funeral,’ Father Tony said. ‘Did he have any favourite hymns?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ Franz said.

  ‘Of course, it’s a long time since we were blessed with a visit from you,’ Father Tony said. Ella shot him a sharp look.

  ‘I think he would like to have 'The Old Rugged Cross' as one hymn,’ said Rachel suddenly.

  Unaccountably, both she and Franz laughed. Father Tony regarded them with astonished disapproval.

  ‘Sorry,’ Franz apologized. ‘He used to say it should only be sung while drunk, by a dozen men swaying in unison with pints of Guinness in their hands.’

  ‘I think we can discount that, at the funeral of an ordained servant of God,’ Father Tony said, with the utmost distaste.

  Ella found herself swamped by a wave of nausea. ‘Excuse me,’ she said faintly, and ran from the room.

  Going down the corridor, she hoped she wouldn’t be sick before reaching the open air. The front door stuck as she tugged at it, then gave way, catapulting her outside. She sat on the steps and put her head down, feeling the sickness billow and subside.

  She wished she wasn’t so weak. Franz had had to put up with disapproving looks and sarcastic comments all his life, on account of his father; so had Rachel. The least she could do was stay there and support them now.

  ‘What’s up?’ Sister Briege came and sat on the steps beside her.

  ‘Just feeling sick.’

  ‘What’s caused that?’

  ‘Oh, pregnancy sickness, you know.’

  Sister Briege wasn’t letting her get away with that. ‘What else?’ she asked.

  Ella pulled a face. ‘I didn’t feel comfortable in there.’

  ‘Don’t take any notice of Father Tony. He has a way of putting people’s backs up.’

  ‘No. It’s just – Father Francis told Franz to go. Not to come back for the funeral. Maybe he wanted to spare him … this kind of thing.’

  Sister Briege thought for a minute, then nodded. ‘I should have asked first if Michael and Rachel wanted to be involved, not assumed.’

  ‘They may want to; I don’t know.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’ Sister Briege asked her. ‘What’s your gut instinct?’

  Ella’s guts were churning, right now. ‘It’s not about me,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be selfish.’

  ‘It’s not selfishness, to know what’s right for yourself,’ Sister Briege said. ‘What do you feel is right for you now?’

  ‘I want to go home,’ Ella admitted.

  ‘Back to London?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right.’ Sister Briege patted her on the arm then stood up and went back into the house.

  It was cold outside, very quiet, with the light fading to grey with streaks of white.

  ‘You’ll get cold,’ said Franz, coming to sit beside her. He put his arm around her.

  ‘I wanted some fresh air.’

  ‘You want to go home?’

  ‘Franz. I don’t know.’

  ‘I think you’re right. There’s no reason for us to stay.’

  ‘Will people come to his funeral?’

  ‘There’ll be hundreds. But he won’t be there. So we don’t need to be, either.’

  ‘I want it to be your decision. I’ll stay if you want to.’

  ‘I don’t. I’ve put you through enough already.’

  ‘If you’d just told me, Franz! If you only hadn’t said it was a holiday we were going on, hadn’t said you’d picked Ireland on a whim because a letter came addressed to someone you said was a stranger ….’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry, Ella.’

  She was silent. In the woods, a solitary bird sang a loud, insistent note. A cry for attention? A warning?

  ‘Who will you be, when we go back to London?’ she asked. ‘Michael Finnucane or Franz Kane?’

  He hunched his shoulders. ‘You can’t turn back the clock. I’ve been Franz all my adult life.’

  ‘He called you Francis always?’

  ‘Michael in public. Francis at home. Francis, Francie or Franz.’

  ‘You kept his name for you? Stayed as your private self, not the public one?’

  ‘I suppose. I hadn’t thought of it like that.’

  ‘You weren’t rejecting him, then. You chose to be the person you were to him, not the person you were to other people.’

  ‘It felt as though I was rejecting him, all right. It must have felt like that to him.’

  ‘And starting The Healing Place on his father’s money? Was that t
he rebellion Sharma was talking about?’

  ‘It might be. I didn’t think of it like that at the time but certainly it wasn’t the kind of business venture my grandfather would have approved of.’

  ‘What did your father think of The Healing Place?’

  ‘He didn’t know about it, or not from me. Rachel didn’t know either, so he wouldn’t have heard it from her. I don’t know what he would have thought of it really. He would approve of trying to help people get well, and of anything that made them aware of their spiritual side.’

  ‘That’s what you were trying to do, in founding it, weren’t you?’

  He sighed. ‘Originally. I got sidetracked. There was rebellion in there, I suppose. I wanted to be a success, preferably in something he would have found superficial. He thought even spiritual things were a waste of time if they didn’t lead people to God by the most direct route.

  ‘And he hated the occult – anything from fortune tellers and horoscopes through to witchcraft. He saw it all as idolatry, an attachment to false authority, mocking God. So in that way, setting up The Healing Place was like mocking him and the values he stood for.’

  ‘Like building a house and inviting everyone into it, except your father?’

  ‘Something like that. Till that Luciferian guy, Leroy, turned up.’

  ‘Was that the crunch time?’

  ‘Yes, with hindsight. I knew I couldn’t avoid the decision. If I let him in, I would be shutting my father out of my life, definitively, forever. Shutting out his God.’

  ‘Isn't it strange that Leroy turned up when he did, at the same time the letters arrived from Ireland saying your father was dying?’

  ‘Yes. One of those inescapable coincidences. I didn’t mean to mislead you, Ella. I really didn’t know, even when we got to Dun Laoghaire, even at Glendalough, whether I was going to go through with it and come to see him.’

  ‘Are you glad you did?’

  ‘There you are!’ said Rachel, coming out to join them.

  ‘Rach. I’m sorry I left you with Father Tony,’ Franz told her.

  ‘You didn’t. I said I had to go and pack and he could pick his own hymns,’ she said.

  Franz laughed. ‘Why do I worry about you?’

  ‘Do you? There’s no need. I’m independent.’

  ‘So you’ve packed?’

  ‘Yes. Did you mean it, about staying at the B&B with you tonight?’

  ‘Sure. I’ll give Tom a ring to make sure but the place is empty. We’ll be paying for you,’ he added.

  ‘I can afford it,’ she said.

  ‘We invited you. And the boat ticket, if you decide to come.’

  ‘I’m not sure, Mick. I don’t know about London.’

  ‘Your decision. I’m going to try and get us on the boat tomorrow but you don’t have to make up your mind that quickly. If you want to stay on a few days and think about it, I could come back and meet you at Holyhead later in the week. Or at the airport. You could fly.’

  ‘I’d like to come for a visit. It’s just sudden, you saying this. And I don’t know London.’

  ‘Sure. There’s no pressure.’

  ‘I’ve told Sister Briege I’m leaving tonight, anyway. I’d better go and say goodbye to Sister Imelda and the other staff here.’

  ‘Shall we wait in the car or do you need a bit of time? We could come back in an hour, say?’

  ‘Would you mind?’

  ‘No. Is an hour long enough for you?’

  ‘Make it an hour and a half. I’ll have to say goodbye to the patients as well and some of them talk a lot.’

  ‘Say half-six or so, then we’ll go out for a meal somewhere. We could always go back to the Grange, I suppose.’

  ‘No!’ said Rachel and Ella in unison.

  ‘Just testing,’ he said, laughing at them.

  As Franz got into the car, Rachel bent down and said awkwardly, ‘If you want to tell Ella the rest, go ahead, okay?’

  ‘If that’s what you want,’ he said.

  ‘Do it before you come back for me,’ she said. ‘So that I'll know she knows.’