In These Dark Places

by Stephen Duffy

  ‘Show me,’ I said as I climbed down from my chair and made my way around the table to where my brother sat in bemused silence.

  ‘I can’t, it, it won’t,’ he stuttered.

  ‘It will. Granddad, he just fixed it.’

  Rob unfolded his arms and reluctantly tried to straighten the right one, his face twisted in anticipation of the pain he was sure was about to ensue. There was no pain. He stretched it out and then curled it back towards his body before stretching it out again. There was no pain, no cracks or creaks of taut tissue stretching beyond breaking point. There was nothing except for the excited tittering emanating from Rob as he came to terms with his newfound mobility.

  ‘It’s a miracle, Gabe! It’s a bloody miracle!’

  From the drawing room came the booming thunder of Granddad’s voice.

  ‘That’s two cracks of the Botta for you, Boy. One for blasphemy and one for swearing. It’s no miracle, just a tripped switch like I told you. Now come in here for your scolding.’

  Rob sulked his way down the hall to receive his reprimand while I stayed at the table, eyes wide, my mouth agape like a child who has just discovered that magic really does exist in the world. Granddad had believed in the power of the body’s automatic response to danger and he had gambled the possibility of stabbing his grandson in the hand on it. He had known that Rob’s reflexes would instantly respond to the threat. We all do, whether we like it or not, whether we think about it or not.

  In that tussle of my hair, in the fleeting instant in which I had recalled that morning with Granddad and the knife, waiting for a flinch which never came, I surrendered. I had no need or want to be afraid of Fr Jessop. With his hand still on the top of my head he stood over me beaming down at me, a smile which stretched his face and lit his bright blue eyes.

  ‘What is it, Gabriel?’, he asked.

  ‘Well, Father…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Your sermon, the one you gave…’

  ‘Which one, Gabriel? I’ve given so many of them of late what with having to do so many masses until our new PP gets here that I’m afraid I forget them as soon as I’ve delivered them.’

  ‘The one on Whit Sunday, with the heart and the king, Father.’

  ‘The sick king? Yes, I do like that one if I’m honest.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the one, Father. Well, I just wanted to tell you that I really liked it. It made me feel…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It made me feel happy, Father. And special too. And it made me want to make it up to Jesus and to…’

  ‘And what?’ he asked, another smile cracking the corner of his mouth and pinching out crow’s feet in the sallow skin around his eyes.

  ‘And to make it up to you, Father Jessop. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry for what?’ he quizzed as he crouched down beside me, his cassock ballooning out on the scratched oak floorboards which made me think of the Wicked Witch of the West as she melted at the end of the movie.

  ‘I’m sorry for not being kind to you. Being kind of spirit, if you see what I mean.’ He placed his hands on my shoulders, again, there was no flinch, no involuntary retreat from his touch.

  ‘Gabriel,’ he said. ‘You’re being kind now, aren’t you?’

  ‘Am I, Father? How?’

  ‘Well, just by the very act of talking to me and telling me how you feel. That’s a kindness in itself. And the fact that you feel the need to come to me with something that has been bothering you, well, that shows trust too, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so, Father,’ I mumbled.

  ‘So there you have it. Whatever it is that has been bothering you about me, you have come to me, trusted me enough that you can talk about it and I tell you now that you have nothing to be worried about. I know that at times I can be a little, well, a little too involved, too passionate in my ministry but all I mean to do is to spread the word and the love of Jesus. And I suppose that to you and to your friends that can come across a little scary at times. You’re not the first child to be wary of me, I know that I can look a little stern and frightening at times, and you certainly won’t be the last. You friend, Peter, for instance. Now there’s a chap who won’t be rushing out any time soon to buy me a birthday present…’ I laughed. Just a little chuckle. But I had laughed all the same.

  ‘Why? Why doesn’t he like you, Father Jessop?’ A smile, genuine and warm, spread across his face once more.

  ‘You know?’ he said, the smile broadening. ‘I haven’t the foggiest.’

  16

  My relationship with Father Jessop was greatly improved after our conversation in the freezing cold of the Parish Hall. We’d never be bosom buddies, nothing of the kind. However, I no longer found it uncomfortable to be in his presence. To my amazement I found myself actually looking forward to his Thursday night talks at Bible Club. Our newly minted relationship went so far as to see me accompany him, along with Mark Shanley and John Connolly, on a walk up to Knocknabrían Woods one Saturday morning late in October. Even Peter tagged along, however, his presence was not entirely of his own volition. The suggestion of a walk had been made the previous Sunday morning as the parishioners and their curate enjoyed the late autumn sun in the church car park after mass.

  With the youngest of the children tearing here and there, their shouts and screams of delight at finally being out of the stuffy church, where they must sit still and stay silent, piercing the air, the beaming Curate ambled from one group to another. Everyone was turned out in their Sunday best and were delighted to be graced with a short chat with the Fr Jessop. After a short time he made his way to where I stood along with Saoirse, Rob and our Father. Granddad had nipped across to the Parish Hall to relieve himself, something which was becoming increasingly more frequent as he aged. Peter’s father, who worked for my Dad down in the yard as I have already told you, had approached my father to ask of the possibility of taking the following Saturday off so that he could travel down to Carlow to visit with his sick mother. As Jessop joined our little group I couldn’t help but notice how Peter shrunk in behind his father.

  ‘Good morning all, and what a glorious morning God has blessed us with.’

  ‘Good morning, Father,’ I beamed up at him. I was at once acknowledged and then gently dismissed with a swift tussle of my hair. Peter slunk further into his father’s shadow, his eyes cast firmly downward. He appeared to shrink before my eyes as he cowered deeper into the black eclipse of his portly father.

  ‘It won’t be long now before the weather turns, Gentlemen,’ Jessop pronounced. ‘Mornings like this will be in short supply once again.’

  ‘Indeed they will,’ replied my father.

  ‘Aye,’ Peter’s father chimed in.

  ‘It’s such a shame to see them go by and not be in a position to take advantage of them,’ said Father Jessop.

  ‘And why is that then?’ inquired Mr Donnelly.

  ‘Well, since Fr Atkins’ passing I’m afraid that I’ve been somewhat snowed under with the affairs of the parish. I can hardly spare the time for a walk around the rectory garden let alone to get in a hike up in the hills.’

  ‘That’s a shame alright,’ my father chimed. ‘Still, it won’t be long now until we have our new man and that ought to free up a bit of your time. By the way, is there any word of him? Do you know him, or at least know of him?’

  ‘Agh,’ said the Curate with a hint of irritation sharpening his tone at the mere mention of the man who had deprived him of his dream, ‘Sure, he was out of Seminary while I was still up in Heaven sucking on oranges. I have heard of him though, bit of a liberal is what I’m hearing. To be honest with you, that concerns me greatly. Not such a good thing, a liberal, for a parish with so many youngsters if you follow my meaning.’ Whether they did or not, the two men simply nodded in silent agreement.

  ‘No, the young ones, a firm hand is what they need. These liberals, they can offer alternate and fractious interpretations of Scripture. They do their best to loo
k current, trendy even, in how they try to bend the ancient edicts set down in the Bible so that they accommodate themselves to the youngsters these days. Not such a good thing, not a good thing at all.’

  The two men nodded in assent and tutted their disdain although it was clearly apparent, even to me, that neither wanted to enter into a debate or discussion on the matter.

  ‘So, Father, do you plan to take advantage of one of these fine mornings before the winter finally steals them away? Or do your duties to the flock put paid to that notion?’ my father asked. The Curate’s face brightened.

  ‘Why in fact I do,’ he said, ‘Myself and a couple of boys from the scouts, Shanley and Connolly… we plan to head up to Knocknabrían next Saturday morning. There’s a few nice trails up that way and if you’re lucky enough, quiet enough too, there’s a good chance of seeing a deer or two. They can come right down onto the tracks if they take a mind to it. Fascinating animals. So exquisitely beautiful, another fine example of the Lord’s work…’

  ‘That sounds lovely,’ my father interrupted, having no mind to listen to the Curate extoll the virtues of God’s works, suffering as he was with a whiskey hangover. ‘Room for one more?’ he asked as he placed his hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Indeed there is,’ beamed Jessop. ‘As is always the case, the more the merrier!’

  ‘That sounds like a fine idea,’ said Peter’s father as he turned and brought his son out of the umbra of his portly frame and nudged him towards the priest. ‘And for this fella, any room, Father?’

  To say that Peter withered would be an understatement, he practically shrunk away to nothing as his father pushed him in Jessop’s direction. His face contorted as though proximity to our priest caused him actual physical pain.

  ‘No, Da!’ Peter exclaimed. ‘I don’t want to! I don’t like him… hiking! Hiking. I don’t like hiking. I don’t like it at all.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said his father as he tapped his palm on Peter’s stomach. ‘You could stand to lose a couple of pounds. You’ve been hitting your Aunt’s baking too hard lately. You’re going and that’s that! It’ll do you the power of good.’ And then turning to Father Jessop, ‘Provided that’s okay with yourself, Father?’

  Jessop beamed that lopsided grin of his once again and took a step closer to Peter. He tossed my friend’s hair with the palm of his hand and Peter shrunk from his touch.

  ‘There’s always room for one more,’ he said as a chuckle broke his words. ‘Next Saturday morning so, be on the rectory steps at eight o’clock. Be there or be square.’ With that Jessop turned away from us and ambled his way towards the next clutch of worshippers all dolled up in their Sunday Best and anxiously awaiting for the curate to fall into the orbit of their presence.

  Newly enamoured with Jessop since his Whit Sunday Sermon, and taking the relaxed attitudes of all the other boys in Bible Club into account, I honestly believed that Peter was being nothing more than a dramatic attention seeker. He was overreacting to a perceived threat which he had absolutely no grounds in reality on which to base it. It was quite obvious to me that he too had misunderstood one conversation or another with the man, just as I had done that evening in the teacher’s room. Time and again I had pressed him on why he didn’t like the man. His response was always the same, a rote mantra of the same five words. ‘I just don’t like him.’

  He had mistaken a genuine query or remark as an overture, his mind was running riot with it was all there was to it. Or so I thought. Only time could show me my error in that naïve assessment of the situation, and pretty soon thereafter, it did.

  17

  With Autumn fire just beginning to tinge the fringes of the leaves and with high mackerel scale clouds frozen into place in the sky above us, we walked for hours, with Father Jessop animatedly pointing out various items of interest, which he told us would help us in our Geography lessons. A glacial moraine here, a residual boulder there. By the base of a towering cliff he brought our attention to the different types of strata in the rock, reconciling them to the various geological processes that had laid them down.

  ‘Of course,’ he said as he sat down on the scrabble of scree at the base of the cliff. ‘That’s what the scientists, the geologists and of course, your teachers, would have you think. But we know that the Good Lord created all of this, didn’t he, boys? He created it all in just six short days. All of this beauty, this profound, diverse and magnificent beauty… in just six days. And he created it all for us. What do you think of that, boys?’

  His query was met with the silent response of shrugged shoulders and averted gazes down at the grey granite scree of the Wicklow Hills.

  ‘But still, I suppose that it’s no harm to know these things in terms of your curriculum. We can’t let your grades suffer despite the fact that it teaches a godless solution to the creation of the world. However, and you must always remember this, boys, even if these scientists, these rock lovers, if they throw mountains of evidence at you, pardon the pun, always remember that it was the Good Lord who cast the die and set the whole shebang in motion. They might even be right in their guessing, but it was the Lord our God who shaped this earth, carving this beautiful sculpture through said processes. God is all, God is everything. No matter what you may come upon in your lives, remembering that it is the will of the Lord will see you through it each and every time. Everything that happens in the world is driven by the divine. The rise of every tide, the fall of every autumn leaf. The death of every sparrow, every sunrise, every sifting snowflake, even the wars, the muggings and the murders… God knew of them before He even bothered to raise His hand to create the heavens and the earth. Do you remember your scripture, boys?’

  More downward glances and the awkward shuffling of feet.

  ‘Remind me never to enter you boys into the diocesan table quizzes,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘Job, Chapter thirty-eight, Verse four, boys;

  “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?”

  God is all, boys. God drives all. He is responsible for all of it. Always remember that, hold onto it in your hearts and no matter what befalls you in this life, know that it is happening because God loves you and remember that He will never send you anything which He does not believe you can deal with.’

  An innocuous remark and coming as it did in the wake of his magnificent sermon at the start of the now fading summer, it fell in perfectly with my newly assumed assessment of the man. That being that he truly loved God and wanted to do nothing more in this world than to spread that message, that good news. Like a young man who finds himself deep in the throes of love, he wanted to shout it from the hilltops. He wanted to tell the whole world.

  As we made our way back the long miles to the village where Father Jessop had parked his car I mulled over his little speech by the foot of the cliff and I felt warm inside, fuzzy, if you take my meaning. That God was always looking out for me, that he would send nothing my way which he didn’t believe I could handle was a revelation to me. Too much homework, too many chores? The bullies in the playground? None of that seemed to matter to me anymore when viewed in the light of Father Jessop’s philosophy. God trusted me to deal with it. God believed in me. I had the right stuff! I can’t tell you how good that made me feel about my place in the world. At such a young age I could never have known that our Curate’s little sermon on the mount had been nothing more than a precursor, a primer.

  I could never have known it back then, I was only a kid, but everything which Jessop laid his hand too, everything he turned his immense attention to was nothing more than a primer. Even his newly established Cinema Club, which was not as hip and exciting as it may sound, was nothing more than another avenue of access for him. It was merely an extension of Bible Club. The movies we were taken to see were nothing more than visual aids to help bolster the lessons drummed into us on Thursday nights and Sunday mornings. There was never a chance of taking in a Western, a Thriller, a Horror or a Sci-Fi movie. It was biblical epics, always. Wit
hout fail. When we ran through the course of our repertoire we simply repeated it, again and again. Over and over. Monday nights were our slot. Not every week, but often enough for it to become tedious, boring and something that each and every young adult in the parish came to dread.

  Through a convoluted network of parishioners, friends and associates, the ever resourceful Curate had secured access, free access, which is always a good thing in the eyes of the Parish Bursar, to a cinema in Rock Harbour, a short coach ride south on the N11 from Crannstonbarrow. The Jasmine Palace was as old as it sounds, even back in the sixties it was decrepit, many a year past the glory of its heyday. Its billboard was a dirty yellow, like the moon shining through soot. There were always letters missing from the film titles and the bulbs in the bottom section never worked. The lobby carpet was shiny from years of wear, sticky too from the tonnes of spilled cola and candyfloss that had no doubt been trampled into its pile since time began.

  The Palace never showed the latest releases, it was always old film stock down there in Rock Harbour. The celluloid, spooled onto what I imagined were stain spotted and rusting reels, was scratched, moth eaten and dust laden. The images cast down through the black and mildew scented vault of Screen One flittered and stammered on the worn and sagging screen. The sound which poured into our ears in the musty dark was like echoes of rainfall heard through a tin can. Despite boasting a repertoire of classic B movies, Hammer House Horrors and a collection of Spaghetti Westerns which would have made my father’s eyes water, like I already told you, it was always the high gloss Biblical Epics of the 1950’s to which we were taken.

  ‘Quo Vadis’, I hated it. ‘Barabbas’. Antony Quinn, a rock star actor as far as I could see, I loved it. ‘The Robe’ was boring. ‘Ben Hur’, Charlton Heston with a cheesy grin and a chariot, I loved it. We sat through every mishmash of Christian biased, Jesus loving movies which Hollywood had puked up after the Second World War. Despite his love of the Bible film genre, Granddad had told me that they were churned out en masse by the Americans to convince the world that the States was a God fearing, God loving country that hadn’t, not so very long ago, dropped two parcels of sun on Japan and vaporised upwards of a quarter million people as they went about their morning chores.