The Miracle Man

by James Skivington

“Agnes? Is that you, Agnes?” He found himself smiling. “God, there’s a coincidence. Would you believe it? I was just thinking of ‘phoning you. How’s Patrick and that lovely mother of yours?”

  “My mother’s just fine. Look, Dermot, after what you did to me, I shouldn’t ever speak to you again. But – it’s Patrick.”

  “What about Patrick? What’s happened to him?”

  “Nothing’s happened to him. He’s perfectly all right, except that – well – he’s missing you – although God knows why.”

  Dermot settled a little more into his chair and smiled broadly.

  “Well, I could come down and see him, I suppose, but I’m run off my feet with the amount of business this miracle thing has generated. I suppose you’ve heard about it?”

  “Of course I’ve heard about it. It’s been in all the papers and on tv.”

  “You wouldn’t believe it. I’ve taken more money in a week than I would in six during the summer.” He gave a little laugh. “I’m up to my knees in cheques and banknotes here. Help!”

  Agnes was silent for a few moments, possibly calculating the implications of six week’s takings coming in every week.

  “Indeed. And what’s this I hear about the bishop coming to the Mass Rock?”

  Dermot looked surprised.

  “How did you hear about that?”

  “Dermot, you’re not the only person I know in Inisbreen. Is it true?”

  “So I’m told. And the sooner the better as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Since when did you take such an interest in Church affairs?”

  Dermot laughed.

  “Let’s just say that I’m tackling business with a religious fervour.”

  “Oh, I might’ve known you’d have some smart answer.”

  “And we’re holding a press conference at the hotel this afternoon.”

  “A press conference? Why?”

  “Oh, some of these reporters are starting to put the story about that the miracle wasn’t genuine. And you can imagine what that would do for business.”

  “Oh, I thought you’d be too busy with that little tramp Quinn to be worrying about business.”

  Dermot drew a deep breath. It was just as well he had anticipated a phone call like this. “Agnes, listen, what can I tell you about that? I realise how much it must’ve hurt you and – ”

  “Have you any idea of the embarrassment I felt? The disgrace of it – and Father Burke and the others there to see the whole thing! I’ll never be able to show my face up there again.”

  “Ah God no, Agnes, no. Sure, weren’t you the injured party? It’s me they’re down on. And I deserve it, God knows I do – for being naive, if nothing else. Listen, can you imagine the turmoil I’ve been through since? I swear to God, if I hadn’t had those few drinks – well, more than a few, I suppose – nothing would’ve happened. Not that anything did happen, mind you, but I tell you what, Agnes, it’s the last time I offer to help anybody with their personal problems. The little bitch. And you know what, at the heels of the hunt, it was money she was after! Wanted me to buy her a car, for God’s sake! A Porsche! Could you believe that? Jasus, the woman’s got a slate loose. And the best of it is, Agnes, it turns out – she’s as bent as a wooden half-crown! A lesbian! Mrs Megarrity found her in one of the rooms here – in bed with a female reporter! Absolutely abloodymazing. It shook me, I can tell you. So, Miss Quinn got fired out the door sharpish.” He gave a little pause, both to catch his breath and to give Agnes time to digest the facts. And then in a plaintive tone he added, “Agnes, why didn’t you ever tell me I could be such an eejit?” There was no answer from Wexford. “Look, to hell with my pride, I’ve got to say it. I need you and Patrick here to look after me, stop me making a damned fool of myself.”

  “Hmph, those are probably the truest words you’ve ever spoken in your life. But you never listened to me before. Why should you start now?”

  “Oh I did, Agnes. God, I did, believe me. Many’s the time I said to myself ‘Dermot, that woman’s got the wisdom of two, so she has.’ But I just didn’t let on I was listening to you. Around here a man’s got to have at least the illusion of independence. No, I need you here, Agnes, I need you here to keep me on the straight and narrow, I need you to work here beside me, I need you to – well, count the money. If business carries on like this, I won’t be able to handle it on my own. And once the extension is built, well – ”

  “What extension?”

  Dermot smiled to himself.

  “Oh, didn’t I mention it? I’m planning on having an extension built to handle the extra business. I’m beginning to think we’re sitting on a goldmine here.” Dermot paused and then said in his huskiest voice, “I’ll make it all up to you, Agnes, if you’ll just tell me you’ll come back home.”

  The line fell silent. Dermot thought he caught the sound of a sigh from the Wexford end, but he couldn’t be sure.

  “I – don’t know. I’ll have to consider it. If you think I’m just walking back in there to start up where I left off – ”

  “Anything you want, Agnes. Just you name it. It’s no more than you deserve. Can’t you just picture it, though? You and me in business together. Boy, would we make some team.”

  “Well – just supposing I was to come back and help with the hotel – no bar work, mind you, I wouldn’t lower myself to do that – I would need to be a partner. A full partner, Dermot, with an equal say in the running of the business – and that means the whole business.”

  “Agreed, Agnes. Fifty-fifty, right down the line.”

  “And the place would need to be redecorated to my specification.”

  There was a slight pause from Dermot.

  “Done, Agnes, done. I always said you had better taste than me.”

  “And that Mrs Megarrity. I want her out.”

  “Well, we could certainly discuss that.” Dermot was getting the distinct feeling that he was no longer in the driving seat, or at the very least he had acquired a co-driver. Yet in some curious way he rather liked this unusual sensation.

  “Not discuss it, Dermot, do it. I don’t want her on the premises.”

  “Okay, it’s done, Agnes. She’s as good as gone.”

  “Well, I’ll consider it.”

  “Good. That’s good. So, when will you call me?”

  “When I’ve considered it.”

  “Fair enough. Well then, I suppose I’d better start preparing for this press conference this afternoon. Because I’ll tell you what, unless these reporters go away convinced that the miracle was genuine, you needn’t bother coming back here, because I won’t be here myself.”

  chapter twenty

  The two small boys stopped at the telephone box outside the Inisbreen Stores and pressed their noses against the glass to look at the funny man inside who was waving his hands and talking to himself. Seeing them stare at him, Fergus Keane stopped in mid oration, pulled a face and shouted,

  “Clear off, you little buggers!” and although they could not hear what he said, they got the message and ran off down the street waving their arms and silently acting out Fergus’s conversation with himself. In the telephone box, the ace reporter sighed and tried again.

  “Look, Mr Martyn, I’m sorry. That story about the Miracle Man and all those women, I – well – I made it up. But you did say you wanted a sex angle on it. I mean, I was under a lot of pressure.” And then in an aside to himself, “Yes, that’s it. Under pressure.” That sounded good. Journalist on the front line, barely able to keep pace with the fast-moving story. Fergus shrugged. “You know what it’s like in this game, Mr Martyn.”

  But Harry Martyn was not the editor of the Northern Reporter for nothing, and after a few moments Fergus found himself replying,

  “Very well, Mr Martyn, if that’s what you want. I won’t even wait till the press conference this afternoon. I’ll come back to Ballymane right away and you’ll have my resignation on your desk this evening.”

  It would be a trag
ic end to a promising journalistic career. The door of the telephone box was suddenly pulled open by a woman wearing carpet slippers and with a purse in her hand, who said,

  “Excuse me, but if you’re able to talk to somebody without using the ‘phone, you could just as easy do it out here and let me in there.”

  Fergus gave an embarrassed grin.

  “I’m – going to use it now. I was just – practising.”

  “Well then maybe you should get a grown-up to do it for you, son,” the woman said and banged the door shut.

  Fergus drummed his fingers on the glass of the telephone box as he waited for the Northern Reporter’s telephone to be answered in Ballymane. Firmness, that’s what was needed. And he had it – until the telephonist’s perky voice said,

  “Good morning, Northern Reporter, how can I help you?”

  Fergus replied and then before he had time to draw breath, Harry Martyn was on the line.

  “Good morning, Mr Martyn. Fergus Keane here. I was – ”

  “Keane! Where the hell are you? What’ve you been doing? Why haven’t you ‘phoned? If you’re going to tell me you’ve been on this miracle story, you’d better have some damn good stuff! Do you realise how long it’s been since I’ve heard from you? And no contact number! Unforgivable, Keane. Un-forgivable!”

  “I – eh – I was going to – ”

  “What the hell’s wrong with you, man? Have you been drinking or what?”

  “Well – the last time we talked you – you didn’t seem too happy with what I’d been doing. I know you published my last piece but – I thought that I was maybe – “ why did he have to say it, why did he have to give voice to something that he had kept suppressed in his sub-consciousness, and to Harry Martyn of all people? “I thought I was going to – get the sack.” There, he’d said it now and that almost guaranteed that it would happen.

  “The sack?” Harry Martyn chuckled. “Me sack you? Keane, Keane, please, do I look like a man that would sack anybody? Do I? Listen, I’ve never sacked anybody in my life. Well, perhaps one or two left in debatable circumstances. Some resigned, others left without a word of explanation, one or two departed under what I suppose you could call a cloud and there was one fetched away by the police, but sacked? Never. I believe in developing my people, Keane, and if they fail to make the grade, I blame myself. Oh yes I do. Y’see underneath this bluff exterior, this carapace that one develops in the inksquirter’s trade, I’m really just a pussycat, a soft touch for every sob story in the book.” He gave a little snorting giggle. “Besides, your uncle owns too many shares in the Northern Reporter. Ha ha. Not that you don’t deserve sacking, Keane, being incommunicado like that. Oh, you’ve got a lot to learn, boy, but I’m the man to teach you. Now, this miracle story. The last piece you sent in – the sex angle bit – that was good, but I think you’ve just about wrung it dry. Time we pulled the plug on it, before we get into the realms of fantasy, eh?” The editor of the Northern Reporter slurpped at a large mug of tea. “Not unless you know for a fact that this guy’s having a gay relationship with the priest, or the Virgin Mary’s landed on a Martian spaceship in his back garden.”

  The ace reporter gave a silent sigh. What ever happened to truth and objectivity in journalism?

  “Oh but Mr Martyn, I’m sure there must be other angles we can find. They’re having a press conference this afternoon. Something’s bound to come out of that.”

  “No, Keane. Take it from me, that’s a sure sign the story’s running out of steam and somebody’s trying to breath new life into it. Now, if there were to be one or more spectacular cures, for instance, that would give it some extra mileage. But unless anything big happens, in a few days time it’ll be forgotten. A dead duck. One more miracle story that bit the dust, along with weeping Madonna statues, Christ’s face in the middle of a turnip or the piece of driftwood that looked the dead spit of Saint Patrick.”

  “But, Mr Martyn, there must be some substance to it, otherwise the Bishop of Down and Connor wouldn’t be paying an official visit to the site.”

  Harry Martyn’s slurp of tea ended more abruptly than usual.

  “Are you absolutely sure about that, Keane?”

  “Oh yes, an official visit, in two weeks. I ‘phoned his office this morning to confirm it.” Like he would’ve said something like that without checking his facts first. How much did Harry Martyn really have to teach him? When he spoke after a few seconds, there was an edge to the editor’s voice that had the young reporter standing a little more erect in the telephone box.

  “Keane, listen to me. This is what I want. Number one – a piece on this miracle from the point of view of the people who believe in it. Number two – why they believe it – anybody that’s been affected by it – strengthened their faith – cured of something – changed their lives – whatever. Get out there and dig up some human interest stories, all right? I want stories about – ”

  “But Mr Martyn – I thought you just said it was a dead duck?”

  “Keane! For God’s sake, man, use your loaf! We’ve got a religious controversy here, right? Dynamite! There’s a bishop saying one thing – the miracle’s kosher, mh? – and on the other hand we’ll have those cynical Fleet Street hacks saying its only the wild imagination of a bunch of Irish peasants. Now, who the hell buys our newspaper, eh? Who d’you think my money should be on? Look, if the Church is involved at bishop level, this is big, Keane, big, big, big – and I want you to go out there and get me a big story. I want the human angle, I want real-life drama, I want facts. But more than facts, Keane, I want a story for the front page. The lead story.”

  “The – lead story? Yes sir, Mr Martyn.”

  “And, Keane?”

  “Mr Martyn?”

  “Easy on the expenses, son. This isn’t the Daily Express, you know.”

  “Easy on – ? No, Mr Martyn. I mean, yes Mr Martyn. I’m on my way.”

  “And what’s them things supposed to be?” the Winter Cook said in the kitchen of the Glens Hotel, poking a grubby finger at the plates that were lined up on the table below the window.

  “Vol-au-vents,” said Mrs Standish, the Summer Cook. She carried on cutting ham sandwiches which she placed on doily-covered plates. The Winter Cook turned and fired a snarling look at the back of the woman who had been brought in over her head, as if she, who had cooked for hundred-strong gangs of navvies, couldn’t even throw a few bits of sandwiches together for a bunch of reporters. That was bad enough. What was worse was that the woman was English, married to a retired businessman with more money than you could shake a stick at and her only doing it for “a little diversion”, while there were others, who would remain nameless for the sake of decorum, who needed the money to keep body and soul together not to mention put a bite of grub into the mouths of five ravenous kids.

  “Volley whats?”

  “Vol-au-vents, Mrs Megarrity. Vol-au-vents. If you call yourself a cook, I’m surprised that you have to ask what they are.”

  At the open window above the table a dirty face appeared, and then another, before Mrs Megarrity noticed and angrily waved the boys away.

  “And what d’you mean by them remarks? I’ll have ye know that I was a cook here for many a long year before you came and put your neb in. And I didn’t need any of this fancy English grub to do it, neither.”

  “French, actually,” the Summer Cook said, bringing the knife-blade down onto the cutting-board with a snap. The Winter Cook swung her head from side to side and mouthed at Mrs Standish’s back, “French, actually.”

  An arm snaked in the window and a dirty hand swiftly removed a plate of the contentious snack. Mrs Megarrity was engaged in more weighty matters.

  “I don’t give a tinker’s fart if they’re from the Vatican. People round here like good plain grub, not these pansy bits of pastry and wee things on sticks. Those fellas’ll have them swallied up in ten seconds flat and then be looking for a proper bite of grub. Jasus tonight, if this is what yous live on i
n England, no wonder yous’re not fit to dig yer own roads.”

  A large knife in her hand, Mrs Standish turned to face the Winter Cook a second after another plate of vol-au-vents disappeared out of the window.

  “Mrs Megarrity, I do not have time to bandy words with you. If you have a problem, go and see Mr McAllister. Otherwise I’d be grateful if you would start putting those plates of sandwiches onto trays. The press conference is due to start in half-an-hour.” There was the sound of crockery clinking and both women turned towards the window. “What was that?”

  “Ah – it’s that bloody cat again. If I get my hands on it I’ll wring its neck for it. Mangy skitter of a thing.” The Winter Cook waddled over to the table and with bad grace began to lift the plates. “Maybe it took a fancy to your volley-vongs.” From outside the window there was the sound of retching, followed by a spitting noise. “It’ll be about the only one around here that will.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the big room in the Glens Hotel was rapidly filling with journalists from newspapers, two from radio stations and a BBC television crew who were busy setting up their camera and sound equipment at the back of the room so that they could shoot over the heads of the attendees. The room had a small stage at one end and in the middle of the ceiling was suspended a large mirror ball which would spin and throw little spots of light on the heads of the dancers below, “like bloody electric measles,” Pig Cully had said. One night, when the bulb in the spotlight had blown just before a dance, Dermot McAllister had paid Dippy Burns three pounds to stand at the back of the stage throughout the evening and shine a torch onto the mirror ball. It was, Dippy Burns maintained, from this feat of human strength and endurance that he had first contracted osteo-arthritis, which had left him permanently weak in one arm. Fortunately, it had never spread to other parts of his body, although when he advanced his theory to Doctor Walsh, Dippy was informed that in certain circumstances the disease had been known to affect the cranium and he had rushed home to look that up in his book too.

  At most functions, the tiny stage usually held the three musicians who called themselves the Hot Shots – although they were universally known as the Toss Pots – with their cracked-voice singer who also twanged a guitar, a drummer thrashing the life out of his skins, and a burly farmer who wrenched tortured notes from a cheap accordion and smiled while doing so. Now it had on it five chairs behind a small table. In front of the stage had been arranged four rows of seats that were now occupied by the representatives of the press and radio, among them Fergus Keane. Much to the surprise and delight of the journalists, two of the hotel girls were busy taking orders for drinks, “Courtesy of Mr McAllister”. The air was filled with a hubbub of talk and laughter, chair legs scraping as journalists turned to fire well-honed pleasantries at their colleagues on rival newspapers. Another two waitresses appeared bearing large trays crammed with sandwiches, sausage rolls, pork pies and what was left of the vol-au-vents. A number of locals had also come in to stand at the back of the room, and within a few minutes they too were munching sandwiches and quaffing Dermot’s free drinks. What with the food and drink, the chatter and the general air of expectancy, the atmosphere was more like that of a party. When Dermot stepped onto the stage and looked around the room, he smiled and gave a series of little nods of satisfaction. So far so good. In order to get their attention, he banged a glass on the table and little by little the talk and laughter subsided.