Divorcing Jack

by Colin Bateman

  He shook his head again, ridding the demons. 'They didn't tell you down below?' I shook my head.

  'Well, I suppose there's little harm in you knowing.' He did nothing for a moment, while the kettle came quickly to a high-pitched boil. He switched it off but made no effort to continue with the tea. He stood on the other side of the table, regarding me quizzically for a moment. Then he slowly removed his dog collar and set it on the table before him. He began to work at the buttons of his shirt, opening them one by one to reveal his bare chest beneath.

  I shifted uncomfortably.

  25

  I tried to look everywhere but his chest. I looked into his eyes, but he was looking into mine so I turned away. I looked at the cupboards. At the fridge. At a calendar still depicting a winter scene. At a drip hanging desperately onto the end of the tap. My face burnt with embarrassment as he undid the last button and pulled the shirt out from the confinement of his trousers. You hear about priests.

  'Well?' He asked.

  'Uh.'

  'What do you think?'

  'I'm, uh .. .'

  The hair was thick on his chest, grey and vigorous as a Brillo Pad; I couldn't help but bring my gaze back to it, the way you can't help staring at an amputee's stump or a winestain birth mark.

  'It's starting to fade a bit of course, but it's still pretty impressive, no?'

  'Uh, oh . . . yeah, of course.'

  'The surgeons say it won't completely disappear. But I can live with that. That's what I say a lot of the while now, I can live with that. Sums it all up really.'

  'I . . .'

  'It's the root of all my problems here, of course. But I can live with that.'

  He smiled at me. It was a nice, innocent, celibate kind of a smile that hacked away at my embarrassment. I clenched my teeth and focused my eyes on the fine curly filaments that made up the plantation on his chest. Through the grey.

  Like a river trace of lava on a winter landscape I discerned a thin red scar line.

  'Somebody stabbed you? Somebody stabbed a priest?'

  He laughed out loud. 'Stabbed! Not at all!' He thumped his chest with a clenched fist and exclaimed proudly: 'Self-inflicted!'

  He was laughing quite steadily now. He turned and poured the boiling water into a teapot and added a teabag, returned to me, his shirt still hanging open and his face wide with a smile.

  'Sorry, sorry,' he laughed. 'Self-inflicted! You think after all the troubles I've had here I took a knife to myself? Ha!'

  'Nah, I...'

  'Years of all the wrong foods, no exercise, worrying too much about nothing, that's the kind of self-inflicted I'm on about. Gets to the old ticker eventually. People like to think God looks after his own, don't they? In truth we look after ourselves.' He thumped his chest again. 'Yes, it gets to you. I was on the way out till the surgeons gave me a brand new heart. Can you believe that? You read about it happening all the time in England, but you don't expect them to extend the service to us Paddies, do you? I didn't even pray for it. I didn't dare. He has far too much on his plate as it is. But I suppose He was looking out for me, in his own way.'

  'A heart transplant? Jesus - sorry - but you're right, you don't come across many of them over here. Well done.'

  'Ach, it's not so strange if you think about it. Sure they're doing them every day across the water, they've got it down to such a fine art that they can nearly do it with their eyes closed. '

  'And it took okay?'

  'Well, I'm standing here, aren't I?'

  I started to apologize again, but he cut me off. 'I mean, you didn't see me before I had it, I didn't have the strength to stand. Could hardly breathe. They weren't sure I'd have the strength to go through the operation. Sure in the weeks before they found the right donor the whole church got together and gave me a party, gave me gifts and made their speeches like I was going to die. And I was ready for it. I had my suitcase all packed and I wasn't one bit fussed whether I was going to heaven or hell or London, I felt that bad. Then I went off and had it and spent a few weeks convalescing across the water. I came back and it was as if they were almost disappointed that I'd survived.'

  He poured tea into two big mugs and set them on the table. He got a carton of low-fat milk from the fridge and poured a little in both. He didn't offer me any sugar. I let mine sit. He sipped at his, dainty sips of simple pleasure.

  'How do you mean?'

  'Ach, it was just wee things at first. Y'know, not so many turning up for church. A fall-off in the various clubs. A few comments I just missed when I walked down the street. It didn't really worry me, because I felt so good. So alive. You don't really appreciate life until you have intimate experience of death.'

  'Mmmm . . .'

  ‘I tried to tell this to people ... but they really weren't that interested. The usual... nodding their heads and saying yes. Father, and then not paying a blind bit of attention. I think they actually preferred me when I was sick - and I hadn't been well for a long time, so they were kind of used to me huffing and puffing about. And suddenly there I was bouncing around like a five-year-old, preaching love and understanding. Then they really turned on me. Stopped coming to church. Turned me away from their doors. All sorts of names. A priest, their priest, and they were cursing me up and down! I couldn't believe it. And then one day the Cardinal came to see me. He took me into the church and sat me down at the back and he sat beside me and turned to me and said how pleased he was that I'd made such a splendid recovery, and did I feel now was the right time for me to be moving on, to a new challenge. I thanked him and said the challenge was greatest in Crossmaheart because I'd lost the faith of the congregation and I didn't know why. He took my hand and said, "Frank, the people are saying the English played a trick on you." "What kind of a trick. Your Eminence?" I asked. "They gave you a Protestant's heart, Frank, and you haven't been the same since." And I don't think there's ever been such laughter in the house of God. We were rolling in the aisles. So here I am still in Crossmaheart with the Cardinal's blessing, trying to convince these stupid people that although I have a new heart - and it is a Protestant's heart, I checked - they can still trust me.'

  'You've not started . .. like . .. going round shouting Kick the Pope or Remember 1690 or anything, have you?'

  'You'd've thought I had. I have an English Protestant heart. Sure they don't give a fig about Protestant and Catholic over there. But try as I might telling people ...' He stopped, rubbed at his chin for a moment while he gazed thoughtfully at the wall behind me. 'But. . . then again . . . maybe they have a wee point in that I have become a little more liberal. Less nationalistic maybe, more attuned to reconciliation if you like. It's not a word they say easily in this town. And definitely not one they can spell. It's like I was saying, because I've been given life, I can see the waste of deliberately taking it away.'

  He shook his head slowly and smiled wryly at me. 'I feel like I've just been to confession,' he said. 'Forgive me. I think I just wanted to get it off my chest, if you'll excuse the pun.'

  I took a sip of the tea, to be polite. 'It would make a great film.'

  'A film? Ha! A film? Imagine that! Who would you get to play me then? Charlton Heston?'

  He slapped the table with that, spilling some of my tea. 'I'm sorry, son, I'm getting carried away.'

  'Never worry.'

  'You came here for a reason and you've been listening to me rattling on like nobody's business.'

  I clasped my hands around the mug of tea and looked at it for a moment.

  'Take your time,' Flynn offered. Then he asked: 'You're not well?'

  'No. Not that.'

  'You're in trouble then? Is it sanctuary you're after? The church is always open to you, son, but I'm not sure the police look on it as sacrosanct.'

  He got up and poured himself another few mouthfuls of tea. I had enough. He replaced the pot and began to button his shirt again.

  'Father, you were in Bangor the other day, weren't you? You bought a cassette tap
e.'

  ‘I was. I did.'

  'That's what I've come about. It was actually sold to you by mistake. Father. It was my tape. It shouldn't have been on sale.'

  ‘I see.'

  'And I'd like it back. I'll pay you for it. I . . . don't have any money here and now, but I'd send it to you. Honestly. Just I need it kinda quick, y'know.'

  He tucked his shirt back into his trousers and replaced the dog collar. He took his seat again. 'And you came all the way down to Crossmaheart from Bangor just for this tape?'

  'All the way from Belfast, Father.'

  'But it was only a wee cheap thing.'

  'But of great sentimental value.'

  'And the sound quality isn't very good.'

  'It doesn't matter, I...' And I stopped. 'You've listened to it?'

  'I have.'

  'All of it?'

  'All of it.'

  'Oh.'

  His gaze was steady and confident, devoid of humour, but not malignant. 'I've never been much of a one for classical music. I suppose like a lot of people I didn't get the right education. But I do like some of the more widely known pieces.'

  'Like they use on the TV.'

  'Exactly.'

  'So that tape was exactly what you were looking for.'

  'Exactly.'

  'But then again . . .' '... not quite.'

  'Mmmm.'

  'So what I have is a tape with a couple of drunks talking on it. Of no good to man nor beast and certainly not one I'd want to keep around the house, not for a man in my profession.'

  I smothered a sigh of relief. 'Aye, Father, it was my mistake putting it into the wrong box, like, then my da just whipped it down to the shop to get some cash ... just a couple of mates of mine slabbering over their pints ... they lent it to me 'cause they said it was funny and I promised to give it back to them . . .'

  Flynn took another sip of tea. He swirled the remainder of it round in the bottom of his mug for a moment, his eyes circling the rim as the thin brown liquid leapt optimistically towards freedom. He set the mug down and his head slanted up towards me again. 'Unless of course you recognize one of the voices.'

  'Ah.'

  'So you're a drinking buddy of Mr Brinn's then, are you?'

  'Uh.'

  'The other voice I don't know, but our Mr Brinn's voice - well, you do get used to hearing it all over the place, don't you? A bit slurred maybe. But the man himself.'

  'Well, yes.'

  ‘I must admit it was a bit of a surprise. I mean, there was me looking for a bit of light entertainment and I get something very heavy indeed.'

  ‘I haven't heard it myself, Father.'

  'You haven't?'

  'No - I just need it.'

  'After hearing it I should think a lot of people need it. Mr Brinn especially'

  'Is it that bad?'

  'Well, now, I don't know. I suppose it depends whether you're Brinn or not. He might describe it as, well, cataclysmic is a word that springs to mind.'

  'Oh dear.'

  'One of the good things about this new heart of mine,' Flynn Observed, rising from the table and motioning for me to follow him, 'is that it gives one an incurable - and incurable is a word I know all about, so maybe it's a bit of a misnomer - sense of optimism.' He led me back out into the bright hall and then left into a study lined on two opposite sides by bookcases. Between them there were several cases of records and a box of cassette tapes and a fairly basic stereo system. Nothing on CD. There was a tan leather chaise longue and a single armchair of similar material. He directed me into the armchair and went to the box of cassettes.

  'Well, it would,' I ventured, eyeing the cassettes and wondering when to make my move. A quick grab? A shove and grab? A bloody good hiding and grab?

  'Optimism, for a start, that this tape, damnable indictment that it is, might do some good. In the right hands.'

  'You haven't passed it...'

  'No, no, it's still here. As a matter of fact I haven't even copied it and secured copies in various bank vaults, like I imagine one should in these situations. I'm only a local priest. How would I know whose the right hands were? The IRA, to destroy Brinn? Once, maybe, I would have. Before I had a change of heart. Brinn himself, to give him a chance to repent? The police, to give them the chance to show where their loyalties lie?'

  He held a cassette box in his hands now. It looked like the one Margaret had tossed to me decades ago, but I couldn't be sure.

  ‘I thought about it a great deal, and I prayed about it a great deal. And you see, I don't know if you're religious at all, but God doesn't, say, phone you back and advise you what to do. It just, I suppose, seeps into you, a feeling, an idea. My feeling was that I should just stay here with it and whoever came for the tape, I should give it to them. So here it is.'

  He held it out to me. I shook my head.

  His brows furrowed for a moment.

  'You don't want it?'

  I wanted it all right. I needed it. I was in a hurry. 'Play it. Father, would you?'

  26

  Afterwards he went to make more tea and opened a packet of Jaffa Cakes. Then he thought better of the tea and brought in a bottle of Bushmills and poured me a large glass.

  'Of course, I don't drink it myself these days,' he said, pouring himself a glass only slightly smaller. ‘I exist purely on a diet of farm-fresh vegetables and the barbed comments of my congregation.'

  We remained in his study. There were three framed photographs of children in school uniforms on top of the speakers. 'Yours?' I asked, and followed it immediately with, 'I'm sorry, what a ridiculous question.'

  Flynn laughed. 'No, not mine, of course. Well, perhaps — high achievers in school. Oh dear, I do sound a bit like Mr Chips, don't I? I suppose I do get a bit nostalgic for my flock.'

  He took the tape out of the stereo, put it back into its box and handed it to me. I put it into the inside pocket of my denim jacket.

  'What will you do with it?' He asked.

  I shrugged.

  'Well,' he said, 'as far as I'm concerned, God wanted you to have it.'

  I pursed my lips, nodded. I ate a Jaffa Cake. I grew up in a house where my old da couldn't make his mind up whether to be a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon and ended up with a foot in both doors. God was the second last person I asked advice off.

  'Of course,' he continued, a whiskey sheen on his lips, 'I haven't asked you anything about yourself. I presume it's better that I don't know. I mean, you could be a blackmailer or a murderer yourself, a terrorist or a politician. Or just someone who wants to do some good.'

  I nodded again. I thought about how great it would be to be able to sit back and let God take care of everything. Sort out the murders. Sort out the tape. Sort out Brinn.

  'Lost in thought?' Flynn asked.

  Lost in space. God and honesty. Straight talk and shame the Devil. 'Have you ever heard the expression. Father, I haven't a fuckin' notion what I'm doin'?'

  Flynn sipped on his whiskey. He savoured the taste for a moment, then set the glass down. 'Well, yes, I mean, you do down here, where no one really knows what they're doing. And that's okay. I can live with that. I might even feel it myself sometimes.'

  'Sure.'

  'But from where I see it.. .' He began, then stopped and lapsed into one of his thoughtful poses. I poured myself another drink, topped his up, though he didn't seem to notice. It was exactly what I did and didn't need. His eyes cleared. 'From where I see it, you have something very powerful in your possession. That is presuming it's authentic. You've told me nothing about its background.'

  'I think we'll have to go with it being real. Everything that has happened would be too sick if it wasn't.'

  'Everything . . . ?'

  'Yeah.'

  Flynn waited for a moment, saw he wasn't getting anything, sighed lightly, and continued. 'I believe they can do wonderful things with tapes these days. I mean they could make an authentic tape sound like a fake as well, couldn't they? However, taken
as real, in the right hands, indeed, in almost anyone's hands, it could decide the future of this country. What you have to decide is whether Brinn's past crimes should stop him having his chance to put an end to this civil war.'

  'Right.'

  'I mean, look at most of the countries that have emerged from civil wars or revolution. Their leaders are often men who were once denounced as criminals. It's often an important part of their development, that they believe so passionately in something they're prepared to put their lives at risk. If they later denounce violence and do some genuine good, should they not be forgiven? I mean, an end to the violence would be nice, wouldn't it?'

  'Brinn elected doesn't guarantee an end to the violence, Father.'

  'But he'll make a stab at it, if you'll forgive the expression. On the other hand, to withhold the tape from public scrutiny

  I switched off. He wasn't telling me anything that hadn't already raced through my tiny mind. He had a dog collar and all that training and God and the Bible and he was about to bring his advice full circle because his God hadn't fully seeped his thoughts through to him yet.

  After a while, I cut in. 'What are you telling me to do, Father?' I asked flatly.

  He drained his glass. 'I believe you might say, I haven't a fuckin' notion.'

  He walked me to the door. He put out his hand and said: 'Good luck.'

  'I hope you get your congregation back.'

  'It's all right. They're all papists anyway.' He smiled brightly and clasped my hand. Only joking. Don't pass it on.'

  I shook my head and walked to the car. He was still standing in the doorway as I drove off. He waved. I waved back.

  I headed back into Crossmaheart and tried to think about what I was going to do. The tape was my protection, and my danger. Whoever had the tape had the power, but only if he knew how to use it. And why. And when. I could go to the paper, expose Brinn. I could go to the police, trade it for my freedom. I could destroy it, give peace a chance. I needed time to think. My head was buzzing. I couldn't get things straight. Who was right, who was wrong. I needed a drink; Flynn had got me started. A big drink. No.

  The first thing I had to do was get the tape out of my possession. I could feel it glowing against my jacket. I knew well enough by then that I was an adventuring liability and to keep it about my person would be a silly mistake. At the very least security would be much tighter on the way back up to Belfast. If they didn't get me that way Cow Pat Coogan and his gang or Billy McCoubrey and his outfit or any other of the myriad interested parties would find a way to get to it. God knows I'd left enough clues about where I was going for the tape.