‘Father Giffley won’t return.’
‘I can only hope you are wrong.’
‘Besides,’ Father O’Connor pressed, ‘all that is over. It no longer serves any purpose whatever.’
‘I agree with you. But it will do no harm to leave it there until he returns.’
‘Among ourselves—no. We are both used to Father Giffley’s extraordinary . . . habits. But what about our guest?’
‘Perhaps he won’t notice it.’
‘He won’t,’ Father O’Connor said irritably, ‘if he happens to be blind.’
Father O’Sullivan said unhappily, but with no sign of changing his mind: ‘I am sorry it should distress you.’
‘I am concerned about Father Boehm,’ Father O’Connor answered. ‘He will suspect us of harbouring some madman with a passion for scrawling on walls. However, I will say no more. After all, he will be right.’
He went off to remind the housekeeper about the finger-bowl.
In the hallway Hennessy debated with himself whether to visit Rashers first or the Fitzpatricks. He decided to leave Rashers until last. He had a drop of whiskey and would stay to share a drink with him and to gossip about the goings on in the city. After that he would go up to his own place and his dinner. There would be a bit of bacon and cabbage to mark the feast day. He looked forward to that.
Fitz himself opened the door to his knock. Mary and the children had gone to mass and to look at the parades. He invited Hennessy to step in.
‘Am I disturbing you?’
‘Not a bit,’ Fitz said, ‘I’m all on my own.’
The room was still bare of any real furniture. But there was a fire in the grate and the table which had been cracked by the raiding police was serviceable. Fitz had improvised chairs out of wooden boxes. He waved Hennessy to one of them.
‘We’re a bit short on decent chairs,’ Fitz apologised.
‘The depredations of the militant months,’ Hennessy remarked sympathetically. ‘I still see them everywhere.’
‘I think things are getting better,’ Fitz said.
‘For some,’ Hennessy agreed.
‘For yourself—I hope.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Hennessy admitted. ‘I fell on my feet. A steady job as night watchman.’
Fitz smiled.
‘You seem to be a great draw as a night watchman.’
‘It suits my peculiar temperament,’ Hennessy said. ‘I can stay up all night, but early rising never agreed with me.’
He took a cigarette packet from his pocket and offered one to Fitz. He kept talking as he did so. He was anxious to share his riches without drawing any notice to the fact that circumstances had for the moment reversed their respective roles of giver and receiver.
‘It’s a tidy little job and of course—all bona feedy and above board. No trouble about the union. In fact I called to ask you about joining up.’ He thought a moment and then added, ‘Of course it would have to be on the Q.T.—for the moment.’
‘There’s no trouble about that,’ Fitz said, ‘just call down to number one branch in Liberty Hall. Say I sent you. You’ll get a card right away.’
‘And I can keep it quiet for the moment so far as the job is concerned?’
‘A lot of us have to do that,’ Fitz told him.
‘That suits up to the veins of nicety,’ Hennessy decided.
He had left his bowler on the table. He now stood up to retrieve it. It was, Fitz remembered, a size or so too large for his head, the overcoat too broad for his light body. Hennessy fumbled for some time in the pocket of the overcoat and produced a paper bag.
‘It’s a few sweets for the children,’ he explained, handing the bag to Fitz.
‘You’re a strange man,’ Fitz commented, ‘spending your few shillings on these.’
‘Now, now,’ Hennessy said, ‘they cost nothing. A little treat for St. Patrick’s Day.’
‘They’ll be delighted,’ Fitz assured him.
Hennessy put the bowler back on his head, using his ears as wedges to prevent it from falling down over his eyes. He had completed his business. Fitz saw him to the door.
‘Hennessy,’ he said, ‘I’m glad to see you fixed up. It wasn’t a pleasant experience having to stop you in your last job.’
‘All’s fair in love and war,’ Hennessy said agreeably.
‘Your wife didn’t think so.’
‘She was a bit put out,’ Hennessy admitted.
‘I didn’t blame her.’
‘Women seldom appreciates a principle.’
‘A lot of men have the same failing.’
‘That’s why I hope I can claim a modest place among the trusted and the true.’
‘You can,’ Fitz assured him.
Hennessy looked pleased.
‘Well, then. I’d better be leaving. I’ve to see Rashers and then go up to my dinner. I have a few sweets for him as well. You’d be hard set to decide which of them has the sweeter tooth—himself or his dog.’
Fitz smiled and held open the door. A thought struck him.
‘By the way,’ he said, ‘what sort of a place is it you’re doing the watching in?’
Hennessy hesitated. Then, with an air of apology he said:
‘Well—as a matter of fact—it’s a sweet factory.’
‘I see,’ Fitz said gravely.
He had been right. The expropriators were being expropriated.
Hennessy checked his pockets to be sure he had the sweets and that the drop of whiskey was still safe. It was. He anticipated a complaint from Rashers for not having visited him for so long. The new job and the night work had upset his routine. The whiskey would heal the breach. Maybe Rashers would be out in the streets, selling badges or playing his whistle to the crowds. If so he could go up for his dinner and call on him later. He went down the stairs into the hall again. A cold blast of air flowed from the streets through the open door. He went through the hall towards the backyard where a sack hung in place of the original door of the outside privy, then turned to descend the stairs that led down to the gloom of the basement. He expected the dog to start barking. There was silence. He hesitated in the half-dark, convinced now that Rashers was out. As he waited he noticed, for the first time, a heavy smell. It was not the usual smell of damp earth and decaying woodwork. It was sweet and sickly and, it seemed, intermittent. A thought struck him which made his blood turn to ice. He groped for his matches, lit one, held it above his head. The door to Rashers’ den was closed. He lit another match and slowly opened it. A stench of decay flowed out and choked him. He was certain now.
‘Jesus protect us,’ he said.
Through the window with its broken sheets of cardboard that flapped in the wind a feeble light entered the room. He forced himself to investigate, crossing the floor fearfully, step by step.
The Reverend Ernst Boehm proved both amicable and talkative. He said nothing at all about the notice on the wall. Perhaps he did not see it. He wore the thick glasses of the scholar with lenses that looked like the bottoms of twin jamjars. But he remarked appreciatively on each course as it was served and he praised the wine without reservation. Father O’Sullivan was delighted, Father O’Connor was proud. The huge fire blazed cheerfully in the grate, the dishes and the glasses reflected its red and yellow flames. Their faces above the shining white tablecloth were slightly flushed. St. Brigid’s was enjoying a rare moment of elegance.
Father Boehm spoke interestingly of St. Patrick and early Irish monasticism, referring frequently and often confusingly to the Annals of Innisfallen, the Annals of Clonmacnoise, the Chronicum Scottorum, the Book of Leinster, the Annals of Tigernach, the Annals of the Four Masters. He mentioned Plummer’s Vitae Sanctorum Hibernia and paused to offer some penetrating comments which, however, were difficult to follow. In a lighter mood he praised Kuno Meyer’s recently published Ancient Irish Poetry and, offering them a quotation, pursed his lips and wrinkled his massive forehead as he explored his labyrinthine memory. An abrupt and triump
hant exhalation of breath signalled that he had cornered one. In a deep voice which had a slight accent he began a poem of the ninth century called ‘The Hermit’s Song’.
‘I wish, O Son of the Living God
O Ancient eternal King
For a little hut in the wilderness
That it may be my dwelling
Quite near, a beautiful wood
Around it on every side
To nurse manyvoiced birds
Hiding it with its shelter’
The mention of birds and woods caused Father O’Sullivan to glance automatically at the shamrock in the bowl. It was withering fast from the heat of the fire. He quickly returned his attention to the poem, a little puzzled because it did not seem to rhyme.
‘A pleasant Church and, with the linen altar cloth
A dwelling for God from Heaven
Then, shining candles
Above the pure white Scriptures
Raiment and food enough for me
From the King of fair fame
And I to be sitting for a while
Praising God in every place.’
Father Boehm beamed at them. Father O’Connor praised its simplicity and grace.
‘What a pity we cannot all follow the poet,’ he remarked, regretting the need to be involved with the world.
Father Boehm said his sermon would treat of the three great saints of Gaelic Ireland: Patrick, Brigid and Colmcille. Brigid was peculiarly appropriate, he suggested, since she was the patron saint of their parish. Did they know there was a legend that she had once hung her cloak on a sunbeam? That was amusing, of course. But beautiful too. Had it not charm? Father O’Connor agreed to play for benediction on the harmonium. He hoped it was serviceable. It was so long since it had been used. Father Boehm wanted the final hymn to be ‘Hail, Glorious St. Patrick’.
‘With a thunder,’ he enthused, ‘Grandioso. An Anthem of triumph.’
Father O’Connor, thinking of the harmonium, promised to do his best.
It was at that moment the clerk knocked on the door and opened it with a look of anxiety and apology. Father O’Connor was displeased. But the clerk remained fidgeting and looking uneasy so he excused himself and went out to see what was amiss. When he returned Father O’Sullivan asked:
‘Is something wrong?’
‘A child has brought a message and it is somewhat garbled. Someone has been killed—or has been found dead, I cannot be sure which—in Chandlers Court.’
‘Do you know who it is?’
‘No. The message is very unsatisfactory.’
‘One of us had better go,’ Father O’Sullivan decided.
He rose automatically. But Father O’Connor knew his place. He was the junior. There was an important guest to be looked after.
‘No, no, Father—please,’ he said, ‘the duty is mine.’
‘Dear me,’ Father Boehm said.
‘I’ll go immediately,’ Father O’Connor decided.
‘Take a cab,’ Father O’Sullivan advised.
‘Yes. I’ll do that. It will mean I can get back in time for benediction.’
He made his apologies to Father Boehm who waved them away. He quite understood. He consented to a little more wine but studied the exact amount scrupulously and then motioned its sufficiency to Father O’Sullivan.
‘Wine is a blessing in moderation, an imperfection in excess,’ he explained. His genial smile pleased Father O’Sullivan, the attentive host. He listened with meticulous interest while Father Boehm discussed the early Irish Penitentials, referring initially to Zettinger on Cummean, but later and in more detail to Finnian of Clonard.
News of something wrong spread through Chandlers Court like a fire. A body found; a woman drunk, a suicide. By the time Father O’Connor arrived the details were known. People were spread on the pavement outside. They lined the hallway. They leaned over the basement banisters. Down below it was dark, but neighbours had provided candles which gave a wavering light. A man found dead. This was better than the parades and the make-believe. This was the drama of death. They had passed time and again along the street above the cardboarded window. Little knowing. A woman told another that only that morning she had remarked it to her husband. She had wondered, she said. There were women with shawls, subdued children, men with grave faces.
‘This way, Father,’ Hennessy said. He assumed a natural precedence, having been the discoverer. The people made passage.
‘What exactly has happened?’ Father O’Connor asked.
‘I called down to see him about an hour ago. He was dead.’
‘Called down to see whom?’ Father O’Connor asked shortly.
‘Rashers Tierney,’ Hennessy said.
Father O’Connor stopped.
‘It’s not a pleasant sight, Father,’ Hennessy said, ‘he’s been dead for some days.’
Father O’Connor had remembered a figure in candlelight lying on a coke heap. He could smell urine and the reek of spirits. The memory was arrestingly vivid.
‘Show me the way,’ he said, after a moment.
As he passed all their eyes were fixed on him, depending on him. For what he did not know. It was as though they expected him to do something about Death. He shook off the lingering influence of the white cloth, the wine, the learned talk that had so transformed the common room of St. Brigid’s. These were his parishioners. This was the true reality of his world. He was here of his own free choice. He had demanded to be allowed to serve them.
Led by Hennessy he passed between the candles they had set along the stairway and into the dimly lit room. The smell of corruption was overpowering. In the corner furthest from him sacking covered the body. They had decided for decency’s sake to hide it from him. He searched the faces of the few men in the room and recognised Fitz. He looked at the bulging sacking.
Is that he?’
Fitz nodded.
‘He’s been dead for some time?’
‘Several days, Father, by the look of it.’
‘Then there’s little I can do,’ Father O’Connor said. He meant it was too late for the administration of the last rites but they would know that already. Presumably. They nevertheless continued to regard him. Expecting what? The smell was sweet, sickly, unbearable. He could not minister to carrion.
‘Have you notified the police?’
‘We have,’ Fitz said.
There would be an inquest. They would take it to the morgue and bury it God knows how or where. The sooner the better. In the interest of health, if nothing else.
These were the ones who refused to trust him because they thought he had tried to break their strikes when all he intended was to give a little charity to the old and the destitute. They expected him as a priest to lead a prayer for the dead boilerman. That was their right. But he would do more than that. He motioned to Hennessy.
‘Remove the sacking.’
They had not expected it. He saw them looking uneasily at Fitz, waiting for him to answer for them.
‘He’s in a very bad way, Father,’ Fitz said, ‘the rats . . .’
Delicacy stopped him from finishing. Hennessy hung back. Father O’Connor removed his hat and handed it to one of the men. He had decided what to do. He went across the room, bent down, began gently to pull down the sacking. He sweated, strangling his impulse to cry out.
The head had been savaged by rats. The nose, the ears, the cheeks, the eyes had been torn away. The hands had been eaten. He forced himself to be calm.
‘Is this Tierney?’ he asked quietly.
‘It is, Father.’
‘And what is this?’
Hennessy came over obediently and looked. His face was a silver-grey colour.
‘It’s his dog, Father.’
For the moment they had forgotten all about that. The animal’s ribs were etched starkly against the taut skin of its carcass. Its discoloured teeth from which the lips had fallen away, wore the wide grin of death. The rats had ripped open its belly and exposed its org
ans.
In a voice that had found a new tone of gentleness Father O’Connor said:
‘It isn’t fitting to lay the brute beast and the baptised body together.’
Hennessy understood. He bent down and took the dog by the forelegs, dragging it slowly across the floor and steering it into the darkness of the far corner. Father O’Connor went down on his knees. The rest knelt one by one. He took a small bottle from his pocket and, making the sign of his blessing, gravely sprinkled with holy water what decay and the rats had yet left of the boilerman Rashers Tierney. He prayed silently once again, aware of how often he had failed, for the grace to know how to serve without pride and without self. He prayed, as was his way, to a crown of thorns and a pair of outstretched palms, his Christ of Compassion who always looked like the statue that had once stood in Miss Gilchrist’s ward.
It was some time before he remembered the others. He had excluded them from what he was about and that was wrong. Taking the mother of pearl rosary from his pocket he said:
‘Let us pray together for the repose of his soul.’
He began the usual decade of the rosary. At first only those in the room responded. Then to his surprise, for he had forgotten they were there, he heard the responses being taken up by those outside. The sound grew and filled the house. From those lining the stairway outside and the landing and the hallway above, voices rose and fell in rhythmical waves. The sound flowed about him, filled him, lifted him up like a great tide. He looked down at the ravaged body without fear and without revulsion. Age and the rot of death were brothers, for rich and poor alike. Neither intellect nor ignorance could triumph over them. What was spread on the straw before him was no more than the common mystery, the everyday fate, the cruel heart of the world.
The prayers finished. There was one more thing to do. He did it without hesitation and without reasoning why. He joined what was left of the two half-eaten hands across the body and wrapped his mother’s rosary beads about them. He pulled the sack back into position. He rose to his feet.
The man who had been minding his hat returned it to him and he put it on. There was nothing further to be done.
‘God bless you all,’ he said to the assembled men. They made a way for him through the crowd and saw him to his cab. At St. Brigid’s he had time to be sick and then to wash his hands and face before climbing to the organ loft to play for benediction.
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