by Edward Toman
His one chance was to slip past the security as a down-and-out who had seen the path forward. McCoy would tolerate a certain quota of reformed characters, allowed free entrance to sit at the back and make the others feel more comfortable in their lifelong righteousness. From time to time he might call on one of them to stand up and testify his well-rehearsed life history. The good people of the locality would thrill vicariously to the details of misspent lives, the drinking, the womanizing, the consorting with papists. But McCoy would be careful to keep the numbers down. Too many cleaned-up alcoholics, smelling of carbolic and eyeing the congregation with restless cunning stares, would lower the whole tone of the evening and scare away genuine, fee-paying punters. Nor would it just be McCoy he’d have to watch out for. Professional vagrants, born again in the blood of the Lamb, constituted a closed shop. The circuit would only hold so many, and standards would fall if outsiders muscled in. He’d have to watch those bastards like a hawk.
He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the streaming pane of the tea-room window. He was dirty and dishevelled, his beard raw and unkempt, his eyes red and tired from too little sleep and the need for constant vigilance. He couldn’t go on like this much longer. He would have to risk it, he decided. McCoy opened tonight; he would be there. He carefully folded the handbill and tucked it into an inside pocket, told the girl politely to cancel the egg and chips and set out in the rain to track him down.
A fair-sized crowd had already gathered in the field by the time he got there. They stood around in groups, speculating quietly to each other about the delights that lay behind the canvas walls of the tent. But while they were curious they were cautious too, unsure of what new treats the preacher might have up his sleeve. Parting with money never comes easy to Antrim men. While they acknowledged that a penny spent on the Lord’s behalf here below would be repaid a hundredfold in the glorious life to come, when the moment actually came to dig deep in the long pocket they were hesitant until convinced they were getting their money’s worth. Joe passed among them, keeping his head well down. They looked him over the way they would with any face they couldn’t put a name to, but they didn’t bother or molest him. In the awning of the tent, huddled against the drizzle, stood a small hirsute group of reformed drunks, scratching compulsively as they waited for the off, for all the world like men waiting for licensed premises to open. He sidled up to them and took up a position at the end of the queue. They eyed him with mistrust but let him be, knowing that a scene of any sort at this juncture would upset the whole shooting match for one and all.
There was a blare from the piano accordion inside and the flap was flung open by butcher Magee. The reformed characters rushed forward, seeking the warmth of the tent, Joe among them, head still well bent. Magee gave him a cursory once over. If he recognized him, his goose was well and truly cooked. Daniel in the lions’ den! Though if he remembered correctly, Daniel escaped with his life. He didn’t cod himself that he stood any such chance here. He knew Magee’s eyes were on him and felt his blood run cold. He had sold him pigs on two occasions in the Shambles; Magee was the sort of bastard who would never forget a face. Was the butcher hesitating? But Magee lost interest, gave a perfunctory nod and without a word Joe was in the tent. He pulled the collar of his coat up round him, for the girl would be sharper than the other pair, despite the gloom. She was in the centre of the tent with her back to him, laying aside the instrument and preparing to usher the congregation to their seats. Before she could turn he had climbed up on to the precarious boards at the back along with the other non-paying customers, and wedged himself behind a tent pole.
Slowly the marquee began to fill up: couples, old and not so old; here and there a family group arguing with Magee at the door about special family rates; then a few boys on their own, slinking sheepishly in; a pair of girls past marriageable age; middle-aged men with Bibles, their mothers in tow. Chastity showed them to their seats, letting it fill from the front. They settled themselves on the benches and looked around expectantly. One half of the tent had been cut off by a curtain, in front of which Magee had erected a stage which was now illuminated by a spotlight. The accordion lay there on its side, and beside it a lectern with McCoy’s great Bible already open. There was no sign of any of the treats that he had promised, nor of the Madonna herself. Joe guessed she would be found behind the curtain in the back part of the tent. They would be charging separately for that bit, the way you had to pay extra at a circus if you wanted to visit the animals in the menagerie at the end of the show.
Satisfied that the last of them were settled, Chastity mounted the stage, picked up the unwieldly instrument and began to sing. The old favourites, to warm them up for her father’s entrance. They joined her, hesitantly at first, as if waiting to see what the catch might be before committing themselves. But she stuck to her task, leading them resolutely through the repertoire: ‘Fight the Good Fight’, ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ and ‘Abide with Me’. Specially for the boys at the back she played ‘Amazing Grace’, while the rest of the congregation took a breather. The chorus of hoboes stumbled their way through the hymn, Joe doing his best to croon along with them. For a terrible moment he feared that she might come bounding up to them, the way he had sometimes seen the entertainers on the television doing, sitting alongside the audience and thrusting microphones into their faces. But Chastity had enough problems with the bulky squeeze-box, and he put his head into his sleeve and sang along.
‘Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now I’m found
Was blind but now I see.’
Having someone else sing for their supper put the congregation into better fettle, and they joined enthusiastically in the next one, the one he remembered hearing her sing that night in Donegal – ‘To Be a Pilgrim’. And when they had finished it, she opened the bellows of the instrument and blared out a fanfare. The spotlight flickered and went out. Chastity blasted out another arpeggio. The light came on again. There, standing in its full glare at the podium, Bible in hand, was the man himself.
‘“By their sorceries were all nations deceived,”’ he announced solemnly.
‘Amen,’ shouted back some of the crowd.
‘“And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.”’
‘Hallelujah!’ No one needed reminding that these great words of Revelation described accurately the so-called Church of Rome, the great whore that sitteth upon many waters, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. The scriptures were clear on the point. The good book had many names for the obscenity of popery, and they had come here tonight to hear them all.
There was a thin line of perspiration on McCoy’s forehead, and the hands which clasped the Bible were white-knuckled and trembling. He stood before them twitching slightly, wondering how he would get through the next hour. It was a special occasion and he knew he had to pull out all the stops if the venture were ever to get off the ground and establish a reputation. It was Magee who had hidden or smashed the bottles, who had locked him in the van without as much as a shot of whiskey, and stood guard over him till it was time for curtain up. It was Magee who had threatened him that if there was a balls-up this time he’d personally gut him. McCoy now stood before them, his mouth dry and his palms sweating. Unfamiliar with the symptoms, they took it as a sign of emotion. He looked up at the rows of eager faces arrayed on the hard wooden benches, trying to focus on them; but despite the thudding in his head and the pain behind his eyes he knew that when he called them to Jesus they would come. His confidence began to return; it was a special occasion and he had not lost the old skills. He called on them to repent their sins. They did gladly. Some of the twitchers up at the back repented so enthusiastically that they fell forward with moans of self deprecation, renouncing the devil so vehemently that they shook the canvas and threatened the stability of the structure. He called on them to e
mbrace Jesus as their one and only saviour.
‘Jesus!’ they called.
Did they renounce the harlot of Rome, the great Antichrist? Rest assured that they did, and volubly too. Were they ready that day to stand up and throw back into the teeth of the Pope of Rome his blasphemous claim to be Christ’s vicar on earth? They were, to a man. Were they prepared to resist the blandishments of the so-called Church of Rome and its persistent attempts to extend its dominion over the free soil of Ulster? ‘No surrender!’ they shouted. Were they the men their fathers were? We are The People!’ they roared back at him.
It was what they wanted to hear, what they had parted with their money to be told. There was nothing new in the message; for as long as they had been in the country they had been a people under siege, and they wanted to hear it again and again, like an old familiar song or a story you would tell a child, endlessly repeating itself, every word in its rightful place. McCoy was their man, the one who would safeguard their heritage, the one who would lead them to their salvation. With any luck he might also provide them with some entertainment into the bargain, for had not entertainment been promised as part of the night’s proceedings? The big man was into his stride now. He stood before them on the platform, sweating in the spotlight, his face purple with fury, his voice hoarse with anger, the veins in his neck bulging. ‘The deluded papists steeped in priestcraft and idolatory …’ he pronounced each of the five syllables in the word separately, letting them roll from his tongue as if sorry to part with them ‘… have made unto themselves graven images to which they bend the knee in adoration. Like the pagans we read about in the Holy Bible, adoring the golden calf, or like savages in the jungle, they bend down before false gods. They rub their bodies up against them, hoping for the cure. They anoint them with the spittle from their mouths and I don’t know what else. Behaviour that would put a dark savage to shame they indulge in, with the connivance of their priests. They think that if they make enough plaster statuettes, light enough penny candles, hang enough rosaries and scapulars round their necks, kiss enough bishops’ rings – and what else they kiss I’ll not tell you, for there are Christian ladies here tonight – they think they’ll gain salvation. But let me say this one thing to you tonight, good people of Antrim, there is only one road to salvation. Here it is!’ He held the book aloft. ‘Here it is! The word of God! That’s all you need to know. God’s promise to mankind. Do you need priests in fancy frocks, pirouetting round altars like the crowd of nancy boys they are, ringing bells and perfuming themselves with incense?’
‘No!’ shouted the people of Antrim.
‘Do you need to creep into a dark confession box, and shut yourself in with a bachelor priest, and whisper in his ear your vilest thoughts while his breathing gets heavier and heavier and his big fat face, smelling of porter and black pudding, is getting closer and closer to yours, and he’s doing God knows what with his hands? Is that the road to salvation?’
‘No!’ shouted the people of Antrim.
‘And do you need to go round hanging miraculous medals on yourself, and pouring holy water over your head, and giving yourself a good rub of the relic to protect yourself every time you go out the door? Or are you able to walk tall like a Protestant, in the knowledge and the fear of the Lord, knowing that Jesus died for you, and that by his death he hath redeemed you, and that you are the elect of God and will share with him the joys of the kingdom hereafter?’
They stamped their feet in accord. The benches began to sway and buckle in the mounting excitement. This was the real stuff; they would never tire of talk of medals and confession boxes and bachelor priests. Though they had heard it all a thousand times before they loved every reference to it, loved the sexual overtones, the image of the sweaty priest confessing the young girl or boy, the thought of frustrated spinsterhood spent in windswept convents, the night life of the celibates who ran popery. The sex life of the average Antrim Protestant was, it must be said, nothing to write home about; how reassuring then to hear how much worse off the professional papists were. It was a vein rich in imagery and McCoy mined it now to advantage. ‘Every time I pass a papist chapel,’ he was shouting, ‘let me tell you what I feel like doing! I want to go into that place of idolatory, yea even into that dark and damnable confessional which stands in the centre of every one of those dreadful places. I want to go into that dark and damnable confessional, where the Roman Catholics entrust their wives and daughters to the bachelor priest, and while the tyrant was pressing his odious and obscene investigations, putting the poor creatures on a moral rack till they sink with shame at his feet, I would drag the victims forth from his grasp and ring in the monster’s ear – NO POPERY!’
This brought them to their feet. They wanted more, more stories of the heathens in their midst, more tales of the dark and dangerous side of those with whom they were forced to share a homeland, more stories of those backsliding so-called Protestants who were only biding their time before selling them into bondage to the scarlet-robed hag of the seven hills.
But they would have to wait. For the Reverend McCoy drew forth from his trouser pocket a large handkerchief and, overcome with emotion and exertion and the spirit of the Lord which was now palpable in the stuffy tent, proceeded to blow his nose lustily, mop his brow and dry his eyes at the same time, while Chastity struck up a rousing introduction to ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus’, and Magee produced a pair of plastic buckets and began to take up the collection.
‘Settle down,’ he ordered them when Magee signalled he could collect no more for the moment. ‘It’s time to introduce tonight’s star guest! A young man, brought up in the superstitious ways of Roman popery, in that den of vice, that open sewer they call the Falls Road. But you have nothing to fear from this young man tonight, for he has seen the light!’
‘Hallelujah,’ Magee shouted by way of encouragement.
‘He came to me one night, when I was alone, praying in my chapel. He came up behind me, but I trembled not, for I could feel the protection of the Lord all around me. And do you know what this young man said to me? He said, “Help me, Mister McCoy! What must I do to be saved?”’ Overcome by the emotion of the recollection, he pulled out the handkerchief again.
‘Hallelujah!’ Magee said, nipping behind the curtain. There was a rattle of chains and he emerged holding the bedraggled figure of the runaway firmly by the collar.
Even spruced-up for the occasion in one of McCoy’s old suits cut down, Patrick Pearse presented a doleful spectacle. Anything less like a Protestant it would be hard to imagine. The Antrim men began to shift uneasily in their seats.
The young man’s wild nervous,’ McCoy was saying. ‘But I know you will give him a warm welcome into the brotherhood of the Living Christ …’
Sadly, Patrick Pearse didn’t fool them for a minute. Under Magee’s prompting he began his halting testimony; but even the most gullible had him marked down as a damp squib the moment he opened his mouth. When the Spirit moves, He vouchsafes the gift of fluency and passion. This stuttering, cringing shadow of a man, cowering before the gaze of a thousand hostile eyes was fooling no one. The missiles began to fly, hymn-sheets and clods of earth and anything else that came to hand. With a sinking heart, McCoy realized that it would not be long before they started ripping up the benches and organizing a lynching party. He kicked Chastity in the shins and the girl began to belt out the next hymn while Magee hustled the star guest off-stage without further ado.
The hymn ended and McCoy was on his feet again. His voice was quiet this time, subdued and hoarse. He made them strain to hear him. ‘Forgive our young friend his first-night nerves. We’ll make a true-blue Protestant of him yet!’
The congregation, with the image of Patrick Pearse still fresh in their minds, doubted it very much.
‘None of you out there have any idea how far the journey is, from the valley of slavery which is the bondage of Rome, to the free uplands of the Bible. But I have been to the bosom of the great whore herself,�
�� he said, settling them down. ‘I have been to the very heart of Fenian treachery itself. I have undertaken, on your behalf, on behalf of every Protestant in Ulster who holds his heritage dear, I have undertaken a journey into the home of popery itself. The Free State! It’s a place few of you have ever set foot in; it’s a place I can tell you I had never dared to set foot in myself until a few months ago. But I put my trust in the Lord, our help in ages past, and armed with His righteousness I journeyed forth, leaving behind this beloved province that our forefathers bought with their very blood that it might stand as an everlasting bastion against the advances of the slavery of Rome, and I went into that dreadful place, that land of superstition and poverty. I went to confront the papist in his lair. I went to collect some of his obscene relics, his blasphemous idols. I wanted to bring these back and show them firsthand to the Protestant people of Ulster, to say to them, these are what they are worshipping in the south of Ireland. I wanted the people to see what popery had sunk to. I wanted to be able to throw back into the face of those backsliding so-called Protestants, those so-called ecumenists, those who would for thirty pieces of silver sell us out to the harlot of Rome, those Lundys in the World Council of Churches who preach that between Romanism and Protestantism there can somehow be a reconciliation, as if there could ever be any reconciliation between the foul lies of the harlot and the truth that will set us free! I went to the Free State. I saw with my own eyes what is going on there. No man can say that McCoy is a coward! But I can tell you now that my hand was shaking when I crossed over that border and left behind me the land of my birth. I’ll tell you something else too – it wasn’t just my hand that was shaking, soon every bone in my body was shaking! No one seems to have told them yet about putting a bit of tarmac on the roads! More like dirt tracks, I might as well tell you. The Salvation Van was shaken so much I thought the suspension had given up completely. I wondered if we’d ever make it home. Potholes the size of that bucket every foot of the way. And the people in rags. Rags! Still living in shacks, hardly able by the look of them to afford to put bread in their mouths. But let me tell you one thing, good people of the County Antrim. There’s another class of boy to be found there and he isn’t going the roads barefooted. No siree! I’m talking about their priests. In their cassocks – maybe I’d be more accurate to call them frocks – and their fancy hats. In every parlour, swilling like pigs at the trough while the people bring them food and drink and the services of their daughters. And across the road the chapels full to the doors, full of ignoramuses, craning their necks to get a dekko at a statue that was supposed to be able to move. And they have the statues half rubbed away, touching them every time they go past them, and sticking money and notes into them, and lighting candles in front of them. But now I’m going to let you into a wee secret. The papists are one statue less tonight. One Virgin less! They’ll be looking for her high and low, for by all accounts it was a very powerful one. They’d probably tell you she could do an Irish jig! But unless they come up to the County Antrim they’ll be a long time looking for it. Because, brothers and sisters in Christ, I’m happy to say that I took that blasphemous article from under their noses. When the guardians of the idol were lying in their own vomit McCoy stole in like a thief in the night and wiped their eye! And I’ve brought that particular plaster Virgin here tonight, to be a terrible warning to all Protestants of what the Church of Rome has in store for the world. If ever the Roman Catholics get the upper hand, you and me, and our children and their children will be forced to bow the knee to graven images like this one. But I’ll tell you one thing tonight, ladies and gentlemen, Oliver Cromwell McCoy will never bend the knee to Rome! Never! Never! Never! Never!’