Irish Tweed

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “So were you. So are you. So is he. He asks about you in every letter, indirectly and clumsily.”

  Angela’s heart was beating faster.

  “I killed it, Rosina. Permanently.”

  “Well, we’ll see . . . But I don’t want to talk about him anymore. I want to invite you to Mom’s pot roast on next Sunday. They’ll be so happy to see you! I beg you, little sister, please!”

  Angela desperately wanted to see the family again.

  “I’ll try,” she admitted.

  She actually bought a new flowery spring dress with matching sun umbrella. When Mrs. Marshal answered the door on Sunday afternoon, she spun the umbrella and said, “I was wandering through the park and thought I smelled pot roast!”

  Mrs. Marshal embraced her.

  “Honey, sure good to have you back and don’t you sure enough look like the goddess of spring.

  “Look who I found at the door,” Mrs. Marshall introduced her to those in the parlor. “A flower just walked in from the park.”

  The first reactions were from Angela’s nephew, who toddled over with a large smile on his Irish face. Just like his father’s. Just like Tim’s. Then a silly new wolfhound bitch called Joan who had to slobber all over her. Then her mother and father, both weeping, Rosina and Shay smiling proudly, and her little brother Vinny home from Baltimore, handsome in his clericals and so much smoother than his big brother. Finally, Bishop Muldoon, as gentle and genial as ever.

  “Such a handsome family, madam.” She bowed to her mother. “They have matured so nicely . . . well, some of them.”

  They fell into each other’s arms. More tears and yet more tears. Everyone in the room was weeping, except her adorable nephew and the irrepressible Joanie, who repeatedly nudged Angela’s thigh, wanting more attention.

  “Stop it, you silly puppy. I have to hug my dad before you.”

  “Well, little sister, we have a lot of vitality here, but you’re the first one who has brought spring.”

  Yet more tears.

  At first there was no mention of Timmy. Knowing they wanted to talk about him, she introduced the subject at the dinner table.

  “How is Tim enjoying his trip to Europe? Learning a lot, I hope?

  “He’s terrible homesick, dear. Sometimes he writes short, sad letters and other times long, interesting letters. He’s never been away from home during his life. He didn’t think he’d miss it as much as he does. He asks for you often.”

  Poor dear man. He wanted to bring part of home along with him. Not a good idea.

  “He didn’t like London or Paris,” her father said. “Loved Cologne and Berlin and Heidelberg, especially the beer gardens, I think. Now he’s in Vienna and goes to the opera very often and paddles some weird kind of boat on the Danube.”

  “He’s working hard,” Vinny picked up the story. “Says we can learn a lot from the Europeans, but they could learn a few things from us.”

  “The French asked him if he knew this formidable American woman,” Bishop Muldoon said, well aware what he was doing, “Angela Tierney, MD, and asked what she looks like—you know how the French are. He says he described her, and the French rolled their eyes and said tres formidable—that means very formidable.”

  “I know what it means, Bishop.”

  Much laughter.

  She came to most of the Sunday dinners after that. She needed the family more than they needed her. There were always news notes about Tim, who reported that Venice smelled and that Angela would not have remained in the city for more than a day because the water was so filthy.

  She even spent a long weekend every July, trapped in bittersweet memories. At the place on the lake where Tim had declared his love and kissed her, she did not weep but prayed for him.

  “Come home quickly, my beloved. I will always love you.”

  She said the words aloud, hoping that they would cross time and space and find her beloved wherever he might be.

  That night she tried to write him a letter, but did not progress beyond the first sentence . . .

  “Writing to Tim?” Rosina said, carrying her precious little daughter who, unlike her brother, slept quietly through the night.

  “Trying to . . . I just can’t . . .”

  “Find the right voice?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You will . . . Soon enough.”

  “When I stop being afraid.”

  “Of what are you afraid?”

  “I don’t know.”

  16

  THE RAIN was as thick as a curtain in a museum or a funeral parlor, both of which hid something that no one should see. Or a curtain in a woman’s dressing room in a store.

  Erotic fantasies?

  I’m too old to have them.

  And your wife sitting right next to you?

  The morning television had reported that the Des Plaines and Fox Rivers were at flood stage and that some of the viaducts on the Kennedy expressway were closed.

  The curtains of rain obscured the St. Joe’s playground across the street. There were few children in the school yard. The cement basketball courts were a river transferring the flood, which rushed down the alley behind the school to Southport Avenue, whose dubious drains tended to clog up, perhaps to protect the ancient sewers beneath the streets. The excess water would eventually be drained into the Deep Tunnel beneath and dumped into the giant reservoirs northwest and southwest of the city. No more flooded basements, save when the reservoirs were at capacity. Some water might be released into Lake Michigan and folks in certain neighborhoods might be advised to boil their water, though that happened rarely. The Sanitary and Ship Canal, which had reversed the flow of the Chicago River and whose construction Angela Tierney had so strongly supported, ended the cholera epidemics, as she had confidently predicted. It did not, however, clear the viaducts they would have to pass through to reach St. Wenceslas gym for another war in heaven inside the North Side Catholic league. The Kings were heavy favorites over the Cardinals because St. W was a much bigger school and its team is always well coached and very physical. I flipped on the cupola TV monitor. Nothing. If anything happened at recess, there’d be no record.

  Angela Tierney, MD was a strange one—smart, confident, and fragile beyond words. Her courtship, thus far, was the reverse of the story of Dermot Michael and Nuala Anne. She had made the first move, which I pretended not to notice. Then she had come to Chicago, moved in with me family (all of whom adored her) and I was a captive, though hardly unwilling . . .

  “If it is meant to be,” Ma (me grandmother) would have said, “then it will be.”

  “She’s a frigging eejit,” Nuala announced. “He didn’t really want her and maybe a baby cluttering up his wanderjahr. No reason she should feel guilty.”

  “Except to claim the moral high ground.”

  “And yourself knowing too much altogether about women, Dermot Michael Coyne . . . I haven’t claimed it lately, have I?”

  “You don’t have to. You already own it.”

  She slapped my hand and then picked it up and kissed it.

  The latest “Be nice to Dermot” campaign might last longer than some of the others.

  Then Mike Casey was on the phone.

  “Nothing yet on the marriage between Martin McGurn’s son to someone name McGowan. The puzzle is, which one might be the hard-liner. Both names could have a connection to the shootout in Cork Harbor.”

  “Let’s say,” me wife had picked up the phone, “that the McGurn child hated the Free State, and the McGowan daughter had the memories of the death of an uncle, perhaps. Perhaps the two of them met in the McGurn pub and found love in a common cause, a common hate. It wouldn’t be the first time. The one who might have recognized Julie’s fella could be a maternal grandson of such a union whose mother was a McGurn and whose father’s name we don’t know. So you wouldn’t know his name, Dermot love, if you had introduced him to our Finnbar at the links. He could have gone home and mentioned it in the pres
ence of his grandmother that he had met someone from Cork with the same name of the man that killed the member of the family.”

  Mike Casey and I listened, trying to keep straight the relationships which might be involved.

  “The grandparents would be in their late seventies by now,” Mike said.

  “No one is too old for revenge, and no crime too old not to demand revenge.” Me wife pronounced this truth solemnly.

  “I’ve been replaying the time in the clubhouse. I don’t think I introduced him to anyone in the clubhouse.”

  “Sure, couldn’t you have met them on the links—in your foursome or just behind you? Finnbar’s togs would interest some folks in introducing themselves.”

  “Come to think of it, I did. But I don’t remember who they were. I don’t think I knew their names.”

  “And yourself introducing people whose names you don’t know?”

  “Easiest thing in the world, if you’re Irish.”

  “And themselves not having a caddy manager at Ridgemoor?”

  That’s why she’s the detective and yourself the spear-carrier.

  Tell me about it.

  “You want me to call him, Dermot?”

  “He’s more likely to tell me than you.”

  “Well, Dermot, there’s your solution to the mystery. As easy as cherry pie, isn’t it now?”

  Why cherry pie should be a metaphor for something that is easy, I don’t know. However, it could be a solution. We’d know who had sent the thugs, but we wouldn’t be able to prove it.

  “Well,” me wife said, taking off her robe and disclosing light blue lingerie, doubtless to match the aura or halo that surrounded me, “I must face my weekly session with Madam. She’ll be upset that I haven’t practiced all week and meself with a Christmas show to lead next month.”

  Christmas shows came ’round a lot more frequently, it seemed to me, than Christmas came ’round.

  “Well, it’s nice of you to provide a preview of coming attractions.”

  I touched the smooth skin of her belly.

  “They call them trailers these days—and they become boring if you replay them often enough.”

  She swept up her robe and disappeared down the corridor.

  I called the caddy master, but he wasn’t working today because of the rain. Then Julie, the kids, and the dogs came in for lunch—salami and swiss cheese on rye with skim milk. I helped myself to a can of Guinness.

  “How’s your fella keeping?” I asked Julie.

  “Och, isn’t the poor dear man busy feeling sorry for himself, and himself hurting bad?”

  I defy anyone to parse that typical example of Irish double-talk to know whether it is an expression of sympathy or a complaint. You would have to see the sad look on Julie’s face to know it was the former.

  “You had a nice dinner with his parents last night?”

  “Sure, don’t they act like I’m already their perfect long-dreamed-of daughter-in-law and ourselves not even talking about engagement yet?”

  That might have been a complaint or an expression of satisfaction.

  Again the joy on her face strongly suggested the latter.

  “But I thought he’s your fella?” Mary Anne said, tongue in cheek I was sure.

  “Well, he thinks he is anyway.”

  If you were Erin born, you knew all these codes.

  “Da, it looks like the rain is going to stop.”

  Our eldest was building up to something.

  “It does indeed. All the better for driving out to St.W.”

  “Well, it will probably go down in the yard when school gets out.”

  “What will go down, hon?”

  “Gena Finnerty and friends will try to injure me so I can’t play tomorrow. It’ll be a totally excellent opportunity to practice my martial arts in real life.”

  “I don’t like this, Mary Anne, not one bit.”

  “I know you don’t, Da. But we can handle it ourselves. Anyway, if worse comes to worst I can run faster than those fat-ass sluts.”

  “Mary Anne’ll kick the shite out of them,” Socra Marie announced.

  “Socra Marie!” Julie, Mary Anne, and myself shouted our protest.

  “Besides, with all those cops you and Mr. Casey have all around, there won’t be any danger. The bad guys are really stupid. They don’t even watch cop programs on TV.”

  “Don’t bring the doggies,” I warned Julie. “We don’t want any fat-ass sluts to get their throats torn open.”

  “Might not be a bad idea,” Mary Anne said, a warrior psyching herself up for battle.

  Upstairs I climbed into the cupola and wiped the lens and leaned against the outside window. I adjusted the sound system to its highest level so we might be able to record the sounds of battle—now the second and last battle of St. Joe’s yard, please God.

  Then I called Mike Casey.

  “Mike, I hear it’s going down this afternoon.”

  “What is?”

  “The attempt to injure my older daughter so that she can’t play in the St. Wenceslas game tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Dermot, what is wrong with the world?”

  “Evil,” I said.

  “I’ll get a half dozen people over there in unmarked cars, Sergeant Wan-Ho in charge.”

  “I’m recording it all live on my secret television system, so tell your guys to go easy with the batons, as much as they might want to use them.”

  “Any rockets or automatic weapons involved?”

  “I doubt that. However, the media might show up, so no batons on them either.”

  Then I thought about another move which both Blackie and my sister Cyndi might want. I called our friend Mary Alice Quinn at WTB.

  “I got something for you, MAQ.”

  “You always do, Derm. What’s happening?”

  “You’ve been reading about the contretemps at St. Joe’s?”

  “Yeah, what the hell’s going on out there?”

  “A little experiment in Catholic education. They’re letting the bullies run the school.”

  “Yeah that’s what it sounds like . . . So this afternoon . . .”

  “This afternoon it is scheduled that three eighth-grade girls are going to beat up on a seventh-grade girl so she can’t play in a basketball game against St. Wenceslas tomorrow afternoon.”

  “No shit!”

  “It may not happen. They may lose their nerve. Someone with some sense, like the Pastor and the Principal, might see that there are cops all around and stop it.”

  “They’re involved?”

  “It’s called liberation theology Catholic education.”

  “No shit!”

  “And MAQ, it is altogether possible that I know someone who will have the whole thing on tape, maybe with sound.”

  “We’ll be there.”

  We were on the road to Armageddon.

  And me wife wasn’t there.

  Thank God.

  Promptly at 2:45 the kids began pouring out of the school, my daughter in her crimson jacket in the center of the scene. Gena and two of her thugs were right behind. Filth poured out of their mouths, language Mary Alice could not possibly use on TV.

  The she-demons grabbed her, one of them pulling on her arm. My daughter twisted away from them, assumed the standard martial arts defense, and began cutting at them with her hands. They continued to shout foul words. Mary Anne, true to the dicta of her revered teacher, ignored the verbal attacks and concentrated on self-defense.

  17

  SEAMUS MCGOURTY was the first one to report to Angela in her office at Rush that charges were being brought against her before the ethics review committee of the Chicago Medical Society, with recommendations that she be expelled.

  “Let them expel me, I don’t care.”

  “The problem is that the Trustees of Rush College of Medicine, terrified by the newly released Flexner report, have appointed your brother as Dean of the School with a mandate to bring it in full compliance with t
he report. If his sister is expelled from the Chicago Medical Society, he may have to resign.”

  “OK, we fight . . . Who is behind it?”

  “We don’t know for sure. Someone who doesn’t like you. The charges are that you fabricated your report to the American Medical Association about the nuns you cured of cholera, that there is not and never were data and records to support your brief report of the cures. The argument is that it should have been vetted by the Chicago Medical Society before it was submitted to the national journal.”

  “Where is the rule that says that?”

  “There isn’t one. They’re making up their rules as they go along. I will be your medical advocate. Clayton Lyndon, one of the best lawyers in town, will represent you legally and will warn anyone who gives false testimony under oath in this hearing that they will be liable to perjury charges in civil courts and slander charges from you. A three-man panel will hear the charges. The head of Chicago Medical will appoint one, you may appoint another, and they will together choose a third. Three votes are necessary for conviction, two for motions. Whom do you want?”

  “Not much time to think about it, Shay?”

  “I know. They’re striking quickly so they can hinder Tim before he assumes his deanship.”

  “Certainly I want Dr. Len Fredericks to be on the panel. He’s a good friend.”

  “Dr. Lorenz Schultz will present the case for the CMS. Your father wants me to defend you because I am such a tenacious arguer. You can ask for someone else.”

  “You’ll do just fine. The nuns?”

  “Their mother general, Mother Mary of the Holy Innocents has forbidden them to appear.”

  “It looks like the fix is in, Shay.”

  “Someone has engineered this whole thing. We’ll find out who it is before this is over.”

  The good news, she told herself that night, is that Tim is coming home. The bad news is, I’m being used to harm him.

  The next morning she went to Mass at St. Charles Borromeo, hoping to catch Bishop Muldoon.

  “Mother Mary won’t let the nuns testify?” he said with untypical impatience. “What is the matter with the woman?’

  “She doesn’t like me, Bishop.”