by Edward Toman
He looked slowly around him, taking in the boy and his father quietly reading the paper and finishing their drinks in one corner, and Paddy John pouring a measure behind the bar.
‘You’d want to be more careful where you throw the brock in future,’ he said.
‘Is it yourself, Guard O’Malley!’ said Paddy John. ‘I heard from the sergeant you were due to start today.’
‘Too many people are careless where they throw their rubbish,’ O’Malley went on. ‘We wouldn’t want a thing like that to get us off on the wrong foot.’
‘Nothing but a runaway, Mister O’Malley. He’s been hanging round for a couple of days. Gave the priest the slip when they stopped to answer a call of nature.’
‘I heard of no runaways reported.’
‘They don’t report the half of them. Makes themselves look bad. I get a few in here every year.’
‘You don’t turn them in? You’re asking for trouble.’
‘That’s Church business, Mister O’Malley. Best to let the Church take care of it. Haven’t they got the Sisters now for that very eventuality. Your man will try to get back home in a few days when he comes to his senses. I’ve seen it before, take my word for it.’
‘And how far will he get, now?’
Paddy John shrugged his shoulders. The answer was no concern of his. ‘You’ve time for a short one,’ he told the Guard. ‘It’s a terrible night out.’
O’Malley turned from the bar, glass in hand, to take a closer look at the pair in the corner. But Joe and Frank had left quietly, taking the door that would lead them, eventually, to the far-off mountains of the west.
The item in the Donegal Democrat that had caught Joe’s attention was nothing more than a snippet, written in the flowery style affected by the paper to hide a thin week. The news from the Rosses was the usual dire litany of deaths in the far west. But at the end, almost as an afterthought, Your Western Correspondent had mentioned something strange. Wild talk was always coming out of Donegal, and the Irish-speaking fringe in particular, and what Joe had read was nothing more than a hint, a rumour, a whisper. But from the furthermost point of the land, where the Yellow Meal Road petered out, at the very edge of Christendom, came stirrings of strange happenings. A broken-down church, its rafters open to the sky, and a dark statue that danced and wept in the deserted graveyard.
Joe read it three times carefully before tearing it out and putting it in his back pocket. There was no name given to the parish where these rumours were coming from. Few had heard of it, or knew of its existence. But he remembered the bottles that Sharkey had palmed off on him, and the cold hypnotic eyes of the Virgin that stared out from their labels. He remembered too the gross of Canon Toms he had moved across the border when there was still a market for them. Joe put two and two together. Somewhere to the far west was a decaying village with a broken-down church; he guessed at the shameful secret that cut it off, more effectively than the mountains even, from the rest of civilization.
It was odds on, of course, that it was nothing but a scam dreamed up by the locals out of desperation. All the same, he asked himself, could he afford to dismiss it?
Sooner or later, everyone was agreed, She would put in an appearance and set the country straight. It stood to reason. The times were ripe for it. Everywhere they were praying for it, searching for it. Why not Ballychondom? Despite its unsavoury connections, why not? It was just the sort of stunt She might pull, to test their faith. It might be nothing more than a wild goose chase, but if they took it easy they could make it over the mountains in a week, and the air would do the boy good. And if there turned out to be any truth in it, and if Our Blessed Lady really had put in an appearance in the far west, then Joe intended to be in on the ground floor.
Thirteen
Miraculous interventions had altered the lot of many a parish priest, turning them overnight into nationally recognized figures. Pictures in the paper, special guests on chat shows, playing record requests on the radio; the whole country beating a path to their door to drink the waters and pray for a cure. Ever since the first dark days of his exile Canon Tom had secretly prayed for such a deliverance, hardly daring to believe that heaven would answer his entreaties. And now it looked as if the Silent Madonna had come up trumps again. His head was crowded with a thousand schemes. If Our Blessed Lady had seen fit to squeeze Ballychondom into Her busy schedule, he would see to it in person that She was not let down.
His first thought, when he had calmed down sufficiently to tell Cornelius the good news, was to get the drinks licence organized, for he didn’t intend to let anyone else cream off the profits in that department. In the vestry he found a piece of wood that would do the trick. He sent for Noreen and instructed her on how he wanted it lettered.
MORAN AND PARTNER,
LICENSED TO SELL BEERS, WINES AND SPIRITS,
ON AND OFF THE PREMISES.
He carried it across to the house and told Cornelius to hang it above the door. ‘I didn’t know we had a licence, Father,’ said Cornelius.
‘A mere formality,’ the Canon assured him. ‘We’ll put in for it officially when the weather improves. Now come into the parlour and close the door. We need a council of war.’
‘The average PP,’ he told Cornelius in a burst of uncharacteristic confidence, ‘is too greedy for his own good! They’d kill the goose that lays the golden egg.’ He held in the lowest esteem those parish priests who, faced with the opportunity of a lifetime, let the chance slip through their fingers. Within a week’s walk of Ballychondom you could come across the ruined outlines of a dozen worked-out shrines and grottoes, the sheep nibbling the grass where the jumbo jets should be landing. ‘But we’ll not make the mistakes they did! If God in His infinite wisdom sees fit to send His Holy Mother down to this place to speak to your daughter, then we’ll see to it that it becomes a place of pilgrimage to rival Lourdes itself.’ Already the plans were forming in his head – the car parks on the lower bog, the refurbished chapel with its visitors’ centre where the derelict handball alley stood, the line of shops running down the newly tarred main street selling tasteful religious mementos. Every day he would personally lead a procession to the spot where She had made Her first appearance. Every evening, weather permitting, there would be a candlelit procession through the village to the church. A special fleet of coaches would ferry the pilgrims to and from the airport, earmarked for the disused hurley field down by the strand. He wouldn’t forget Saint Jude either. There’d be a special altar for the patron of hopeless causes.
Later that day he had Noreen repaint the sign that offered ‘Bia agus Leapa’, or bed and breakfast, and hang it conspicuously in the window. A flyblown advertisement for whiskey was unearthed from somewhere and stuck in the window upstairs. Noreen was set to work dragging a couple of trestle tables from the lean-to out into the front yard, one of which she festooned with an old golf umbrella left behind by a holidaying prelate many years previously. ‘By all that’s holy, I knew that would come in handy some day,’ exclaimed her father, admiring her handiwork.
‘We’ll make a fortune,’ insisted the Canon every time he entered the house. ‘Every Tom, Dick and Harry will want to get a look at the girl. We’ll clean up!’
Cornelius was more doubtful. The lounge bar business didn’t run in his blood. And something else was bothering him too. Churning out bogus French letters was one thing, but this sort of venture was subject to stricter rules and regulations. There would be forms to fill in; letters to the bishops; visitations from stern-faced investigators, possibly even (God between us and all harm!) a full-scale inquiry by the stony-faced Grotto Section of the Little Sisters of the One True Faith. The girl would be examined and re-examined. Everyone would be questioned. The peace of the place would be shattered forever. He didn’t like to contradict the Canon on Church matters, for it wasn’t the layman’s place to remind the priest of his duties, but when he saw the Canon struggling across the rocks with a barrel of porter he had ordered up f
rom Annagary he felt he had to speak.
‘Do you think we should get word to Armagh,’ he began, ‘or at least let the bishop in Letterkenny hear about it first?’
The Canon silenced him. ‘That, Mister Moran, would be your first mistake. No doubt about it. Start telling the powers that be about a thing like this and you can wave goodbye to any chance of ever getting it off the ground.’
‘But I thought it was our duty to inform them straight away. So I understood …’
‘A common misapprehension,’ the Canon reassured him, ‘a mistake easily made by a layman. Ask yourself this, sir. What would be the effect of that course of action? Need I tell you? Our Blessed Lady would hightail it as far as She could out of here the moment that crowd of merchants descended from UCD with their slide rules and their infra-red photography and their God knows what. I’ve seen it happen all too often.’
‘But if they find out …’
‘They’ll find out all in good time. But first we’ll let word slip out in our own way. We’ll build up a regular clientele. We’ll let the place become a real shrine of the people. That way they won’t have the nerve to close it down for fear of a riot on their hands.’
‘But as soon as the crowds start arriving they’ll be on to us.’
‘There’ll be no crowds for a while yet. The road isn’t built and there’s few would know how to get here even if Sharkey lets the cat out of the bag. We’ll let it build up slowly. Target it at a better class of person. Do nothing official till we’ve had our first few miracles. There’s no point in turning it into another Knock.’
‘Another thing I’m worried about is the girl,’ said her father. ‘It might go to her head. I’ve heard it’s very hard on the young ones when the crowds move off.’
The Canon wheeled on him angrily. ‘Nobody will be moving off! Nobody! This isn’t going to be another of those fly-by-night places; this isn’t going to be a one-night stand by Our Blessed Lady. This place will be a centre of pilgrimage long after you and I have gone to our reward. Mark my words.’
‘Whatever you say, Father.’ It stood to reason that in a matter like this, the man with the full training knew best.
But though he had his reservations, Cornelius had his hopes too.
Like everyone else from the Falls Road he knew of Big Mac’s one great ambition, that he would see one true convert before he died. The return of just one Protestant to the true fold would justify the old man’s life, maybe make a saint of him. And wasn’t something grander being hinted at here, if the girl’s understanding was to be trusted. The conversion of the whole tribe back to the faith! For a Falls Road man it was a heady thought, priests walking up the Shankill Road and the Brothers opening up schools in converted Orange halls in Ligonicl and Sandy Row. Surely Noreen had got it wrong! Such dreams were impossible! But nothing was impossible. He knew of the promise of Fatima, scorned for so long; now the basilicas of Saint Petersburg glowed in the light of ten thousand candles. If Noreen were right, the curse of the McGuffìns would be expiated forever.
After Mass each morning Canon Tom came running over to open the door for business. In the parlour, six tables of varying size and stability had been arranged and covered with oil cloth. Egg cups served as cruets for the salt and pepper, and Noreen had arranged a few sprigs of flowering heather in jam-pots on the dresser. The Canon seated himself at the table nearest the window and as she served him his bacon and eggs he scanned the road outside for signs of movement. He didn’t seem unduly discouraged by the lack of passing trade. The Yellow Meal Road was as lonely as ever. ‘Word will be out by the weekend,’ he assured them. ‘I never met a Donegal man who could keep his mouth shut for long.’ He mopped up the last of the egg with the heel of the bread and crossed over to the bar area where he settled himself behind the porter barrel. ‘Word will be out by the weekend,’ he repeated. ‘Then you won’t be able to move in here for people throwing money at you.’
Every day for a fortnight he kept his vigil at the window, scanning the village for anyone in need of cream teas or sandwiches. Every day Noreen was sent across to the cemetery to pray before the Silent Madonna. The Canon and her father questioned her when she got back. Had She smiled? Had She moved? Had She spoken? What they heard pleased them all right. The girl was innocent and pure, and there was no doubt that she was telling the truth. What she heard was secret, as is often the way of these things, but a return to the rosary had been urged, and the virtues of purity in marriage and chastity among the clergy had been reaffirmed. No great surprises there, thank God. Nothing to upset the applecart. Nothing to contradict Her earlier prophecies. Great things were afoot, thought the Canon, miraculous things. He encouraged the girl gently, without too much interrogation or interference. There would be time enough for questions later.
‘Bia agus leapa,’ said Joe Feely, indicating with his finger the notice in the window. ‘You’ll understand I’m not an educated man, Mr Moran’ – he defied the latter to contradict him – ‘but if I’m not mistaken that would mean food and a bed for the night?’
‘It might all right,’ said Cornelius dubiously.
‘A lovely language,’ Joe went on. ‘Suigh síos! Tá mé go maith! We have the Christian Brothers to thank for keeping it alive.’
‘Speaking of which,’ said Cornelius, lowering his voice, ‘I take it they had a hand in the poor boy’s wee affliction?’
Joe nodded. ‘All the same, where would we be without them?’
‘Where indeed?’ The two men fell silent for a moment. ‘Great men in their own way,’ agreed Cornelius again.
Father and son had appeared in the village overnight. Neither Cornelius nor the Canon had heard their arrival. It was Noreen who had spotted them first, sitting in the rain under the old golf umbrella, the boy silent and withdrawn, the father happy as a sandboy, smoking a pipe and commenting on the local topography. Cornelius wished the Canon would come. When you didn’t need him he’d be under your feet, night, noon and morning. Now when he was needed he wasn’t around. He hadn’t seen him since the previous evening, when he’d locked himself in the church and begun a prayer vigil, ‘to get,’ as he put it, ‘the ball rolling’. As far as he knew he’d been at it all night, sober and fasting, trying to cajole the Almighty into sending some bona fide pilgrims over the mountains. He had expected him an hour ago, foul-tempered and ravenous, for late nights on an empty stomach didn’t agree with the Canon’s temperament. Now here was a bucko from the six counties by the sound of him, threatening to eat him out of house and home, and a boy along with him that said nothing but as sure as God would have an appetite like a horse. Cornelius didn’t know their business or what he should do about them, but he could smell the rashers frying in the kitchen and he knew that if the Canon didn’t get a move on he would miss his breakfast.
‘Well,’ said Joe after a pause, ‘we won’t take you up on the “leapa”, having slept the sleep of the just on the side of the road a few miles back. But I can tell you that a spot of “bia” wouldn’t go amiss at this point in time.’
‘I can tell from your accent that you’re not from around these parts,’ said Cornelius.
‘True enough.’
‘You’d be from somewhere like Tyrone if I’m not mistaken?’
‘Not far wrong,’ Joe said, giving nothing away.
‘Belfast, maybe?’ Cornelius inquired nervously.
Joe blessed himself at the mention of the place.
‘That would be more your territory I’d say. The Falls Road if I’m not far wrong.’
Cornelius was growing uneasy.
‘And your good lady … ?’ Joe persisted.
‘Dead, God rest her. Dead these seven years.’
‘God rest the soul,’ Joe concurred.
Here was a turn-up for the books! The bold Cornelius, the fugitive, run to earth. Sweating under his interrogation, fearing him for a bounty hunter or a spy from the Palace, come to root him out. It was odds on that Schnozzle knew his hiding place ye
ars ago and had decided to let the hare sit. But he knew that Cornelius wasn’t out of the woods yet. Hadn’t he just been drinking with the brother-in-law? Was this an appropriate time to bring him up to date with family news? Tell him that the curse of the McGuffins had struck again and was about to inflict further misery on the hapless people of the ghetto?
The church door closed with a bang and the Canon came puffing across the rocks. Joe got to his feet and nudged the boy to do the same. ‘Good morning to you, Father,’ he shouted. Frank removed his cap and stood twisting it in his hands till the Canon motioned to him to sit down before he knocked something over.
‘Good morning,’ said the Canon, noncommittally.
‘I think I smell bacon back there, Father.’ Joe laughed. ‘Someone is in for a great breakfast at any rate.’ He reached into his pocket and extracted a wad of crumpled notes from which fell a couple of silver coins. He let the coins lie. Among the colourful punts of the Free State there sat a pair of tattered fivers bearing the profile of the English monarch. ‘But if you’re folly booked,’ he sat down again, ‘we’ll just head on a bit further.’