She was turning her cup in her hands, like a child trying to read the tea leaves. The overfed fire was making both of them sweat. Angela glanced up at the framed picture of her mother and father, hanging on the opposite wall.
'So, Angela, will you sign his passport form? Will you?' Father Mac asked, as softly as he could.
At last she nodded. 'But I don't have a pen.'
He produced a silver one from his inside pocket and she placed her little-girl's signature in all the places he had highlighted. When she was done, he folded the paper precisely and put it next to his heart for safekeeping.
'You've done a great thing,' he reassured her. Then he read her quick upward glance and added, 'And don't worry - I promise your husband will never find out.'
As he turned out of Walker Street, Father Mac looked in his rear-view mirror and saw two of Angela's neighbours racing each other to her door, desperate for details. She took her time answering the door and, when she did, she refused them entry.
~
Father Mac arrived home wearing a grin the size of the Royal Victoria Hospital. He found Fergal upstairs in his room, lying on the bed, half dozing and half reading. He held up the signed form. Fergal leapt up and jumped up and down on the bed, waving his arms and narrowly missing the lampshade, then he trampolined right onto Father Mac, and they fell on the floor in a heap.'How did you do it? How did you do it? Let me see, let me see!'
They got their coats and drove to the main post office in the city centre. Once inside, Father Mac's collar was a kind of passport in itself. They managed to skip an enormous queue when he explained that Fergal was expected in Rome as soon as he could get there. That was all it took. The security man unhooked a velvet rope and they were shown to a special desk.
Father Mac witnessed the application, handed over twenty-five pounds from the fundraiser kitty, and made doubly sure the passport would be posted to St Bridget's House and not to Walker Street. That was it. Within ten minutes, they were back outside.
Fergal was still in shock. He had believed that neither of his parents would sign anything that would be of benefit to him, but his mother had proved him wrong. He would never forget it. He had to find a way to see her and thank her.
Mrs Mooney made a special celebratory dinner, and they shared a bottle of blood-red Italian wine. Afterwards, Father Mac telephoned Alfredo Moretti and told him the good news. Alfredo was very excited and congratulated Father Mac on his hard work, and reassured Fergal that everything would be ready for his arrival in a little over a month. Suddenly, their lives seemed to be on fast forward - and, as excited as Fergal was, he was also extremely nervous.
The wine had made them both sleepy so they said good night and retired to their separate rooms. Fergal's asthma woke him early; he was breathing as though a gale was blowing through his tight lungs. He sucked at his inhaler and began to breathe normally again, then he looked at himself in the bedroom mirror and said, 'Ah, Jesus, Flynn, don't tell me you're allergic to Italian wine?'
He got into the shower and let the water run over the top of his head like a warm waterfall. For a few precious moments, he was able to think about nothing and nobody.
As he stepped out to towel himself dry, Father Mac knocked at the door. 'Leave the water running for me, will you?' Fergal wrapped a towel around himself and opened the door. Father Mac shyly stepped out of his bathrobe and into the shower as quickly as he could. As the steam rose and the water collided with his waking body, he began singing to Fergal from behind the shower curtain about what a beautiful day it was going to be. Fergal thought about giving up on getting dry, dropping his towel and joining him, but his instinct told him not to.
'I can't believe that I'll have my own passport soon, Dermot. I can't wait!'
Father Mac turned off the water and reached for his bathrobe again. 'Oh, it's all real, Fergal - you're not about to wake up in Walker Street, late for school and exhausted from such a long dream!' That made Fergal smile.
Father Mac went about his duties, and Fergal headed off for a walk into town. People were being stopped and searched at the barrier by the police station and he had to wait in the queue. Prams were turned upside down while kids howled, red-faced and teething in their mothers' arms. Soldiers no older than nineteen searched and questioned men at least twice their age. Fergal passed the time by trying to figure out how best to approach his mother one final time before he left. He knew he couldn't risk going to Walker Street.
Then his heart jumped. Across the road was his brother John, arm in arm with a heavily made-up, bleached-blonde girl. They seemed to be in the middle of an argument and they both looked very unhappy, or very hungover. Fergal wondered whether his imagination was playing tricks, or whether John had gained a fair amount of weight around his belly since the last time they'd seen each other. Then he remembered, Angela had told him John was working in the brewery.
The woman stopped and slapped John hard across the face, shouting, 'John Flynn, you're nothing but a tight, drunken, nasty bastard. Go and fuck yourself!' Then she marched off in the opposite direction. John rose up on the balls of his feet, as if he was going to hit her, but then he realised that people were staring and he shrank back down again, red-faced.
Fergal hid behind a very fat couple who were excitedly telling anyone who would listen that they had saved up and were going into the town to buy a video recorder. 'We love films, so we do. Anything with Clint Eastwood or Paul Newman and you won't get us shifted from that sofa - not until the vodka runs out, anyway!' Fergal watched John from his safe distance and saw how vulnerable he looked, now that he wasn't in familiar territory. Suddenly he felt sorry for him. He wondered what kind of life John would make for himself. How much trouble he would create for himself and for any poor girl stupid enough to marry him and how precisely he would continue the awful Flynn cycle of violence.
Fergal knew he would never have a life like that - never, no matter what happened. He vowed to himself that he would rather die than end up in some dead-end existence, terrified and dulling the terror by getting drunk at every opportunity. As John shuffled off towards the taxi that would take him back home, all Fergal could think about was going forward.
Finally the queue started to move and Fergal was on his way into the city centre. He wandered around City Hall and looked into shop windows. One day, Fergal Flynn, you’re going to have your own money - you're going to be able to go into any shop and buy anything you want! Imagine that... He thought of the docks, not far away, and remembered the last time he had been there. Father Mac had been right, he realised, in the short space of time since then, his whole life had turned around.
He bought a can of Coke and decided to walk home instead of getting a taxi. As he walked down the Falls Road, he realised he knew it so well that he could have travelled the length of it blindfolded, giving a running commentary on the details of every building. When he reached St Bridget's, he went into the church and lit a single candle. Kneeling in front of it, holding his St Christopher medal, he said a prayer for Noreen and one for his mother.
~
Exactly one week later, a little parcel addressed to Fergal arrived at St Bridget's. Father Mac propped it up against the teapot and Mrs Mooney called Fergal, who was still in a deep sleep. He untangled himself from some forgotten dream, struggled into his clothes and stumbled downstairs, still half asleep but, when Father Mac pointed to the package, his eyes lit up.
He could only stare, unblinking, at the little purple book that meant he could go anywhere in the world for the next ten years. He looked at his picture and wondered what his life would be like in ten years' time. He would be twenty-seven. He thought it sounded ancient until he remembered that Father Mac was about that age - but, sure, that didn't count. Each page of the passport was smooth and new, and he wanted to smell them over and over. Mrs Mooney thought his picture looked lovely - 'All grown up,' she said - and Father Mac made him promise to keep the passport safe in his dresser.
After
breakfast, Fergal went straight back upstairs. He sat on the bed and studied his passport for a long time. As he finally put it in the top drawer of his dresser, under a Bible, he thought it was like a precious patch of purple cloth from the robes of the Sligo monks.
The next few weeks melted away. Father Mac arranged Fergal's plane tickets to Rome through the travel agency that the Church always used. Mrs Mooney, for all her resentment of Fergal, kept bursting into tears at very odd moments. She washed the few clothes he had three times over, and one day he caught her ironing his socks. Her efforts touched him and made him uncomfortable, all at once.
And suddenly it was Fergal's last week in Belfast.
Fergal knew that, on Wednesdays, his mother worked at one of her cleaning jobs on the Ormeau Road and finished early -he'd accompanied her there every now and again, if the load of laundry was too heavy for her to manage by herself. It was just after two o'clock when Angela started down the Ormeau Road, pulling her headscarf out of her bag, and heard, 'Mammy!'
She looked up with a start. 'Jesus, our Fergal! What are you doing here? Is something wrong?'
Fergal looked at her little frame. It was hard to think that someone so small could have caused him so much pain. 'Why does something always have to be wrong?'
She looked up at him like a scolded little girl.
'Do you have time to go for a cup of tea somewhere, Mammy? We're not far from town.'
Angela walked beside him towards the city centre. They found a table by the window in a wee café called Lundy's, on the Donegall Road. A waitress with the thinnest eyebrows Fergal had ever seen came over and gave them a menu.
Angela glanced around, keeping her handbag on her lap as if she was about to leave at any second. 'Your da would kill me if he knew I was here.'
Fergal wondered for a second what his mother would have been like if she had never met his father. He hated the fact that she couldn't even relax over a cup of tea with him in case someone she knew saw them and his da found out. As he looked into her little tired face, he realised she had risked life and limb by going to his concert. All of their neighbours had been there and Paddy could easily have heard that she had gone. Fergal had been convinced that Angela hated him - she had beaten him enough times - and he had thought she would refuse to sign the passport form out of pure spite. But she had taken the risk and helped him, when it would have been so easy for her to say no. If his da put two and two together, she would probably end up in hospital. She didn't have a passport herself - she'd only been outside Belfast a few times in her life - now he was off to Rome and she had played an important part in making it happen.
'I didn't want to cause any trouble by coming to Walker Street, Mammy. There's been too much of that already. I just wanted to say... well... thanks. Thanks for signing the form for my passport. I'll never forget it. Look, do you want to see it? Here it is.'
He pulled it out of its new permanent home in his pocket (it was supposed to be in his top drawer at St Bridget's, but he couldn't bear to let it out of his sight), and she unzipped her bag and fished out her National Health glasses to study it. Fergal couldn't believe how much they made her look like Noreen, and he told her before he could stop himself. 'My God, Mammy, you look so much like Granny with them glasses on.'
Angela's eyes flooded, and she found a paper napkin. 'Fergal, I miss her. I didn't think I would, not this much, but I really do. I mean, she was an oul' bitch at times - don't get me started - but I nearly made her dinner the other night. I miss her... I'm nobody's child now.'
'I never thought about it like that.'
She blew her nose and stared at his passport picture for a long time. 'She would've adored to see you at that concert, you know. So would my daddy.'
'What did you think of it? I saw you, you know - just for a second.'
'Fergal, you reminded me of my own daddy, God rest his soul. He sang a wee bit himself, when he thought we couldn't hear him. He was very shy, but he had a lovely voice.'
'I know. Granny told me about the lamppost and all.'
'Did she? Jesus, she probably told you more than she ever told me.'
They sat together in silence as the café filled up. Fergal caught sight of their reflections in the mirror tiles along the opposite wall. There they sat, mother and son. Fergal suddenly saw how much bigger he was than her. He had always thought she was huge, but she wasn't any more.
The waitress was none too pleased when they only ordered tea, but Angela kept her glasses on and started giving out about the prices on the menu. 'Jesus in high heaven, Fergal, do you see how much they want for a sandwich? For fuck's sake, you could buy a whole loaf and a quarter of ham from oul' Da Moore's for that, and still have taxi fare home.'
'Mammy, I leave at the weekend. Father Mac has it all organised. I'm going to live with my voice teacher's sister, near the centre of Rome.'
'Is that right? Did I tell you Paddy and John are working, and they've steady girlfriends and all?'
Fergal thought of John and his steady girlfriend fighting near the police station, but he kept the memory to himself. 'Yes, Mammy, you told me.'
Fergal paid for the tea and walked Angela back to Castle Street. A black taxi, nearly full, was about to leave.
'See you, then, Mammy.'
'Aye, Fergal.'
All she could do was hug him and step up into the back seat of the taxi. Fergal watched the back of her head disappear and felt a shadow move across his heart. He was glad that he had been able to see her in a different light before he left, but he knew it would be a long time before he saw her again.
As he walked home through the back streets with the passport burning a hole in his pocket, Angela Flynn realised that no one had ever thanked her for anything in her life, until now.
25
The next day, Alfredo Moretti phoned to say that everything was ready at his end. He had arranged for Fergal to have a job at his sister's restaurant where he would start off by washing up in the kitchens until his Italian got good enough for him to work on the floor with the customers. Alfredo reminded Fergal that many great singers had started this way. He had also arranged for an old friend of his, who was a schoolteacher, to tutor him in the language. 'I know it sounds like a lot, Fergal, but you will get used to it. And, above all, it will be fun - I promise! What a singer we are going to help you become.'
Father Mac seemed busier than ever. The phone and the doorbell never stopped ringing, as one needy parishioner after another came looking for him, and in the final few days he and Fergal hardly saw each other. Even at night, which was their only private time, Father Mac would talk about anything but the imminent departure, then he would kiss Fergal on the forehead and head up to bed alone. In his own way, he was trying to let him go. One night Fergal went to his bedroom door, but Father Mac pretended to be in a deep sleep, so Fergal crept back to his own room, deflated.
But on their last night together, Father Mac ordered a Chinese takeaway, and they sat on cushions as he shared out the portions on their plates. He had bought some wine, and as they raised their glasses he made a toast, 'I wish you the very best and only the very best, Fergal, in all the days, weeks, months and years to come.'
Fergal leaned across to him, and all Father Mac could do was surrender his lips. They slept in the same bed that night. Their intimacy was slower and more intense than ever, as they whispered that they would miss each other, that they would always stay in touch. But it all felt very final.
Fergal made Father Mac promise him, over and over again, that he would do his best to visit him in Italy.
'Of course I want to - of course I'll try... But you know it's not my decision. This isn't a nine-to-five job, Fergal. You live here. You see how people ring or come to the door at every hour of the day and night. That's my job.'
Inevitably, lust drowned out logic. They climaxed together for the final time, then lay apart wordlessly, until sleep finally took over their bodies.
~
The next
morning, Mrs Mooney was inconsolable. She burnt the toast for the first time in all her years working for the priests. When Fergal had put his packed bag into the boot of the car, she wouldn't come to the front door - she stood in the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron over and over. Finally she threw her arms around Fergal and pushed a twenty-pound note into his hands.
'Mrs Mooney, I have enough money - I can't take it from you.'
'It's from me and my husband. Light a candle for us when you're passing the Vatican.'
'OK, I will, but I don't know if they're that big.'
She had to stand on tiptoes to reach his forehead with her maternal kiss.
It was early, and the air was bitterly cold. Father Mac had the car engine running to clear the windscreen. They drove through deserted streets towards the mountains and up over Hannaghstown Road, the scenic route to the airport. Father Mac suddenly reached over, took Fergal's hand in his and squeezed it, hard, for a long time.
After being waved on through the army checkpoint, they found a space in the airport car park. At the Departure Desk, Fergal brought out his ticket and his precious passport. He would be changing planes in London, but could check his one bag through all the way to Rome. Father Mac accompanied him as far as a sign that said 'Passengers only beyond this point'.
They looked at each other in silence. At that moment Fergal wanted to kiss Father Mac more than he ever had before, but they had to make do with a long hug and a flow of tears.
As they let go of each other, Father Mac said, 'Oh, I nearly forgot to give you this - just something to remember me by.' He handed him a neatly wrapped packet.
'Dermot, you've given me so much already—'
Father Mac winked. 'Don't open it till you're on your own.'
Then he gave Fergal an envelope with the rest of the money they'd raised. 'Don't forget to put your return ticket somewhere safe when you get there. It's valid for a year, remember. Alfredo and I will sort out the tuition fees, so you're not to worry about any of that. Just work hard, won't you? And mind yourself. Oh, yeah - and have fun too.'
The Arrival of Fergal Flynn Page 24