All weekend, while his hated brother was gone, John had been the rear end of jokes about what Fergal was getting up to in his prized jacket. That, mixed with the crushing defeat of that morning's match, was too much. He leapt on his unsuspecting brother from behind with such uncontrollable violence that Fergal hardly knew what had hit him.
'Where's my fucking good coat, queer boy? Where the fuck is it? Up your jumper? What the fuck have you done to it?'
Fergal didn't have a chance to answer. John winded him with a boot to the stomach and then grabbed him by the hair, dragged him to the ground and kicked him again and again, ignoring any protests.
'You're a queer cunt - a dirty queer fucking freak - what are you? Say it! You're a fucking twisted queer cunt!'
He ran out of breath and stopped for a second, panting like a wild animal. Fergal tried to crawl away from him, big drops of blood falling from his mouth.
~
Noreen woke up and started confessing to the empty room, 'Bless me, Father, for I have sinned... I was cruel to my children. I drove every one of them away. My nerves were at me and I couldn't stop them from crying, so I gave them something to cry about.'
She broke down and screamed into her sleeve. Father Mac heard her from downstairs and went to console her.
~
For a split second Fergal wondered if what had happened between him and Father Mac was written in the sky. He tried to tell John that it was Noreen's gin that he was hiding up his jumper but suddenly he felt his brother's full weight on his back - he had got his breath back and jumped on top of Fergal like the wrestlers did on the TV. Fergal's rib cage scraped against the concrete. The blows to his head felt like explosions. He was crying loudly now, but that only made it worse. John pulled his head up by the hair and punched him in the throat. 'Let's hear you sing now, queer boy! You won't even know your own fucking name when I've finished with you. Why did you bother coming back at all from your poofy holy-joe weekend?'
He dragged Fergal along the ground by the hair and planted a fist right in his mouth. His lip split against his teeth. There was blood everywhere. Fergal wondered, ridiculously, whether Noreen's gin bottle had survived. John was holding his fist in his opposite armpit shouting, 'Look what you made me do, you buck-toothed fairy! How am I going to play handball later, you fucking girl?'
He grabbed Fergal again but a woman with a dog screamed at him to stop. He shouted, 'Mind your own fucking business or you'll get the same!', but her dog wasn't easily threatened, it snapped at John as he aimed kicks at its mouth. The woman began yelling for help.
John turned back to Fergal and kicked him one more time, as hard as his hurling shoes would allow. 'Get up, you queer fucking cunt, before I really do you some damage. And if you think I'm ever going to wear that jacket after it's been near your queer body then you're dead fucking wrong. Oh, and another thing - if you tell anybody about this, I won't go as easy on you next time!' He cleared his throat and nose and spat the contents in Fergal's face. Then he headed back towards Walker Street with his chest puffed out and his reputation restored, in his own mind anyway.
Fergal spat out more blood. His jaw felt like it was on fire. The woman approached him carefully. Her dog wouldn't stop barking. 'Shut the fuck up, Columbo, will you? Let me try and see if this fella's all right. Columbo, fuck up!' She leaned over Fergal. 'Are you all right, love?'
His ears were ringing, but he dimly heard her say something about how she didn't want to worry him, but his head was badly swollen and he should get to a hospital in case he had brain damage. 'Although the other fella must've been brain-damaged to do that to you in the first place. Would you be able to recognise that animal, love? My eyesight isn't what it was.'
'Yeah, I hope so,' Fergal said weakly. 'He's my brother.'
The woman took a sharp intake of breath. 'He should be locked up and brought before God. It's beyond me how anyone could even do that to a stranger, let alone their own flesh and blood. I'm sorry for you, love.' Fergal spat out a clotted lump of blood and Columbo promptly swallowed it with a swipe of his big tongue. 'Oh, Jesus, Columbo, you're boggin', so you are! I'm sorry, son, that dog's a dirty bastard. Sure, he'd eat anything - birds' turds and all.'
She helped Fergal to his feet and offered to take him to the hospital but he told her he wasn't far from where he was going and that there would be someone there to help him. Miraculously, the gin bottle was a lot sturdier than it looked and had only suffered a few scrapes to the cheap label. As Fergal began to walk, his entire body protested and he yelped in agony. He stumbled on through the shortcut, ignoring the scared reactions of the kids playing in the road until he fell through the door of Noreen's house and onto the floor.
Father Mac was just coming down the stairs after calming Noreen back to sleep. He was convinced that Fergal had been shot, there was so much blood on his face.
'Oh my God, Fergal - what - how... Oh, Jesus help us—'
Fergal began to shake violently with tears and shock. Father Mac put an arm around him as gently as he could. 'Were you hit by a car or something?'
Fergal finally caught enough breath. 'It- it- it was our John. It was our fucking John, out of nowhere... I was running to get back with Granny's gin and he came out of nowhere, shouting about his oul' velvet jacket that Ma made me take - sure, I never wore it, even... Oh, God, my head...'
'OK - OK, Fergal... Look, stay there for a second and don't try and talk any more.'
Father Mac leaned him gently against a chair, went into the tiny kitchen and found a facecloth, but when he smelled it to check if it was clean, he nearly keeled over. He found toilet paper instead. He dipped wads of it into a bowl of water and began the slow process of cleaning the drying blood from Fergal's eyes and broken mouth. 'Oh, Fergal, what has he done to you... Look, I'm taking you to the hospital. Don't move for a second.'
Father Mac ran up to check on Noreen, taking the gin with him. She was out for the count, with some pharmaceutical help, so he left the bottle by her bed. Then he bundled Fergal into the car and headed for the hospital. Fergal was too weak to argue.
Because Fergal was being carried by a man of the cloth, they were rushed through the Casualty department reception and straight to a cubicle. A doctor examined him and his head was X-rayed to see how bad the damage was. Father Mac stayed with him the whole time.
An English nurse bandaged his bruised ribs and asked him what had happened. Fergal told her everything except the identity of the attacker.
'Do you remember what kind of shoes the man was wearing?'
Fergal mumbled painfully, 'His guddies - hurling ones, I think.'
'Guddies? Oh, you mean trainers. Sorry, you probably don't want to talk with your jaw being in such a bad way. Do you want to report the incident to the police?'
It hadn't even occurred to Fergal that he could. 'I'm not sure,' he mumbled.
'It's up to you,' she said, 'but bear in mind that, if he'd been wearing harder shoes, you probably wouldn't have survived - not without serious brain damage anyway.' Fergal retched up the last of the contents of his stomach.
The X-ray results confirmed that he had no serious head injuries and they gave him something for the swelling. They clipped the hair away from the cuts on his head, cleaned them and decided they didn't need stitches - the inside of his bottom lip needed two though. The doctors wanted to keep him in for observation but there were no available beds, all they could offer was a trolley in one of the corridors. Once Father Mac told them that he was trained in first aid and that Fergal would be staying with him, they gave him a prescription for painkillers and agreed to let him out.
As they arrived at St Bridget's, Fergal mumbled through a mouthful of gauze, 'I'm sorry for getting you involved in all this.' One of his ribs had a crack, and his jawbone was chipped, even breathing was almost unbearable.
'Don't be ridiculous,' Father Mac told him. He helped Fergal in the side door and up to his own room, where he knew the double bed would be waiting with fr
eshly laundered sheets. Then he told Mrs Mooney to lock the door behind him and keep it locked until he returned, and went in search of a chemist who was open on Sunday.
As he was driving back, he suddenly noticed John's deep-blue velvet jacket, lying unworn on the back seat. Father Mac almost had a crash as he spun the car around and headed towards Walker Street.
19
Sunday was never any different in the Flynn house. The main concern was how many potatoes the twins could fit into their mouths at once. Paddy Jr was eating his whole with an avalanche of salt, John was mashing butter vindictively into his with a fork, while Ciaran was breaking his in half with his hands and stuffing them in noisily. The TV was blaring an argument about the match and Angela was busy draining the last of the spuds over the sink.
Father Mac knuckled the front door angrily, holding the velvet coat in a death grip. Through an open window he could hear the sports commentator telling most of the nation that Kerry had the ball, to the sound of synchronised groaning from the sofa. Father Mac moved over to the window just as Angela came out of the kitchen holding the steaming pot of potatoes. She stopped in her tracks.
'Jesus Christ on the cross, either there's a priest in our window or I'm going to have to change these tablets.'
She put the potatoes down on the arm of the sofa and went to the door, unclipping an enormous single roller from the front of her hair. She expected to see Fergal but Father Mac said, 'I'm alone. And I'd better come in, unless you want the whole street to hear what I have to say.'
'What's our Fergal been up to, Father? And where is he?'
Father Mac moved past her into the living room. Paddy and the boys were all wearing the same sports kit. Paddy looked up, and John's head dropped. The crowd cheered from the TV.
'What do you want?' Paddy asked.
Father Mac walked over to the television and switched the semi-final off. Paddy stood up, dropping a bit of his dinner on the floor.
'Nobody but me touches that TV while I'm watching the match. I don't care who you are!'
'Where's Fergal?' Angela asked nervously.
'I think you should ask John,' Father Mac said. 'He was the last person to see him before I had to rush him to the Casualty Department.'
All eyes went to John, who had gone white as a sheet. 'I don't know what the Father's talking about,' he mumbled.
Father Mac took a deep breath. 'John, is this your velvet jacket? Did you not beat Fergal to a pulp because you thought he'd been wearing it?'
Angela took the wrinkled jacket from Father Mac and began smoothing it with her hands.
'Well, John? Here's your chance to tell the truth, in front of your family and God himself and admit the awful thing you did to your own flesh and blood.'
John shook his head and stared at his dinner.
'I'll refresh your memory for you,' Father Mac said. He told them about Fergal's injuries and about how he had only been allowed to leave the hospital because he would be at St Bridget's House under the careful eye of Mrs Mooney. In the silence that followed, Angela put her coat on.
'What are you going to do?' Father Mac asked Paddy.
Paddy didn't take his eyes off the blank TV screen. 'If our John says he didn't do anything, then he didn't do anything.'
'What? I just told you, in detail, what he did.'
Paddy stabbed a potato and wedged it whole into his mouth, chewing it momentarily before swallowing it in one go. 'You see, Father Whatever-your-name-is, our Fergal's an awful fucking exaggerator. He's always running home crying for his mammy like a wee girl.'
Father Mac realised he was talking to a brick wall. In John's case, he thought, the apple hadn't fallen far from the tree.
'God forgive you, Mr Flynn.'
As he left in disgust, Paddy switched on the TV again and turned up the sound. None of the boys dared move.
Angela pulled on her stilettos and made it to the car door in time to see Father Mac punching the steering wheel. As she opened the passenger door, he shouted, 'I'm amazed that Fergal survived at all - not just today, but his whole life! What is wrong with your husband?'
She looked at him for a moment and then shrugged. 'Paddy had a very hard upbringing himself, Father.'
~
Fergal was sitting up in bed, under strict instructions not to fall asleep even though he was exhausted. Slowly, he began to take in the details of Father Mac's room. His head periodically felt like it was attached to a washing machine on a rinse cycle, vibrating with pain and throwing his brain against the walls of his skull. He was convinced that, if he looked in the mirror, his head would be as big as a beach ball.
There was another crucified Christ on the wall - Fergal tried to decide whether they were following him or he was following them. The wounds that the centurion had made in Jesus' side made him look at his own battered ribs. An announcement from a distant, guilty pulpit somewhere in his head told him this was God's punishment for unnatural acts. Another, quieter voice asked, What's unnatural about loving someone?
He thought about where he was lying and about the night, months before, when he had stood in the darkness watching this very window from the other side. Now here he was, under the covers.
Father Mac didn't say a word to Angela as they pulled in behind the chapel. Mrs Mooney nearly had a fit at the footwear that ascended her polished stairs, but in the circumstances she decided to say nothing.
Father Mac knocked on his own bedroom door and opened it slowly. The room was full of shadows. 'Could you bear a lamp on, Fergal?' he asked softly.
When the light flicked on and Angela saw her wounded child, she dropped her handbag. 'Oh, Fergal... who did that to you, son?'
Fergal stared. 'Our John!' he spluttered. 'Our John did it, when I was coming back from Maguire's with Granny's gin. He just came out of nowhere, shouting about his coat, the coat you made me take - and I didn't even wear it once, did I, Father?'
Father Mac shook his head.
Angela took a breath. 'Oh, Fergal... I feel awful, son. I was just trying to make sure you had a good coat with you -1 didn't want them monks thinking you came from a bad home...'
'Does Da know?'
Angela reached towards him, her licked fingers ready to wipe what she thought was dirt from his cheek. He flinched and cried out, and she realised the smudge was one in a series of dark bruises. She dropped her head as if she was about to pray. After a moment she asked, 'Fergal, did you say anything to... to upset John?'
Father Mac didn't waste a second. 'Mrs Flynn, Fergal obviously didn't even have a chance to defend himself, never mind say anything,' he snapped. 'And no one deserves that kind of beating, no matter what they said.' He felt sicker still when he saw Fergal's unsurprised expression - he had obviously met this kind of reaction a million times over.
Thankfully, Mrs Mooney's timing was every bit as good as the tea she delivered. Angela was so unused to anyone making her anything that she stared at her cup as if it might be a trap, as Mrs Mooney asked her if she took sugar. She held the china cup in both hands and drank the sweet tea in a couple of gulps.
'You make a quare brew, missus, I'll give you that.' Then she asked, 'Fergal, wouldn't you be more comfortable back at Granny Noreen's?'
Father Mac took her empty cup. 'I gave the doctor my word that Fergal would get as much rest as possible,' he reminded her, in a steely, calm voice. 'The only reason he's here and not in a hospital bed is because there wasn't one available. He needs twenty-four-hour care. He'll be staying at St Bridget's House for the foreseeable future. When the doctor thinks he's well enough, we'll make further plans.'
'Father, I don't want you to think you have to go to any trouble looking after our wee Fergal—'
'Your son is not a baby, Mrs Flynn. He's a young man who's just turned seventeen.'
'Seventeen? Oh, Jesus - sure, I knew that - Jesus, I'm sorry, son. Happy birthday, for the other day.' She leaned in to kiss Fergal, but he shifted out of her way and yelped as his whole body proteste
d.
'Don't you worry yourself, Mrs Flynn, we'll look after Fergal,' said Mrs Mooney, and she led Angela out of the room.
Father Mac walked her to the front door. 'I'm sorry I can't offer you a lift back.'
Angela shook her head quickly, 'Ah, no, Father, I'll be glad of the walk. It'll clear my head.'
When the hall door was closed, he slipped up into his room again and sat on the chair beside the bed.
'I just can't believe your family, Fergal. I hadn't meant to, but I went over to Walker Street on my way back from the chemist.'
Fergal's face was wretched. 'I never want to see them again, Dermot. I don't.' He had known such extreme forms of hate and love in the space of only twenty-four hours that he couldn't take it all in.
Father Mac was lost for words. He reached over and held Fergal as carefully as possible, and they sat in silence in the low light. The very fact that Father Mac was there helped Fergal to calm down. He thought about Brother Vincent and began to understand how the abbey could offer at least some sort of shelter from things like this.
Father Mac took his shoes off and put his feet up on the bed. He felt even worse about what had happened between them on the Sligo strand. Was this God's way of punishing him for not remaining celibate - hurting the one he... loved?
Mrs Mooney knocked on the door, as quietly as she could, reminding Father Mac that it was time for the evening mass. She assured him that she'd keep a watchful eye over their patient until he came back.
No sooner had Father Mac left than Patrick Flynn arrived at St Bridget's House. Wee Mrs Mooney, against her better judgement, let him in and he stamped up the stairs behind her.
Fergal was as instinctively afraid of him as ever, and Paddy knew it. He stayed standing as the housekeeper left. 'Have you any idea how much you've upset your mother, bringing all this trouble home? And after us letting you go to Sligo and all... What the fuck were you thinking, getting the priest involved and the whole street in on it? We're fucking ashamed of you, so we are.'
The Arrival of Fergal Flynn Page 17