by Paul Kelly
He shivered as he remembered how Jonty had acted before on such a similar situation on the mountain when Fern and the priest had been stranded there… Tom raised his eyes to the dark rain-threatening sky, straining to remember what he had been told of that incident and struggling to force his mind to control his body. The act was not original ... he knew that, but it was all he could do as he stared transfixed at the eyes that pleaded with him and the bob-tail stump that would not be stilled.
“Here, boy…”
Tom took his handkerchief from his pocket and tucked it into the dog’s collar.
“Home now, Jonty. Home boy and see Rose ... see mummy,” he commanded and the dog pricked up his ears at the sound of the name, “Mummy” and cocked his head to the other side.
“Mummy ... Go for Mummy.” Tom screamed out in the brisk air as his echo reverberated, ‘Mummy ... Mummy,’ and within seconds, the knowing beast raced off in the direction of Bolarne and Tom could hear the barking fade until there was nothing but the cruel sound of silence and the beat of his own heart. He touched Fern’s temple and he could feel a faint pulse there but the boy’s hair was beaten into the blood that had surrounded him as he fell and Mahon shook with emotion as he rubbed his eyes. He picked Fern up and pulled the coat more closely around him as he carried his love burden carefully away from the water spray and into the woods. The boy moaned with the movement and another red trickle seeped from his empurpled lips.
“God help us,” Tom Mahon prayed for his young charge and for himself, that they would get help soon and he struggled, faltering as he took each step, to carry his burden as gently as he could and he had just emerged from the woods when he saw Rose in the distance with Jonty running madly in front of her. She was waving her arms and the dog’s ears flapped wildly in the wind; his eyes stretched and strained, appearing as slits in his wrinkled face against the wind.
“Here ... Over here.” Tom shouted hoarsely and fell to his knees, struggling at all costs to keep Fern warm and away from the cold and hostile earth. Three men from the mountain squad followed with his wife and Tom broke down and cried with relief.
“Are you all right, Mahon?” someone called from the rescue party as they approached and Rose glanced from one man to the other as the rescuers held her husband when he became overpowered with exhaustion and was about to fall. Both he and Fern, wrapped snugly in blankets that the rescue party had brought with them, made their slow and hazardous journey back to the valley.
“Gently there, please,” someone called out and Rose walked beside the stretchers as they proceeded to the hospital with the two loves of her life …
***
“He’s in a mess, look at the blood everywhere.” One of the three rescuers remarked as he unfolded the blanket from Fern and nurse Ritchie gasped as she recognised the face of her patient.
“Never mind that,” she snapped as she covered his nudity with a towel, until she could wash him properly and clothe him in a fresh hospital shirt whilst she waited for the doctor. Mahon, cared for in the Receiving Room before he was allowed to go home with Rose, suffered only from shock., apart from a minor touch of frostbite…Nurse Ritchie looked at the watch she produced from a small pocket behind her apron as she waited impatiently for Mr. Carswell hoping that no-one had noticed as she stroked the blonde head of her patient, for there was more to her gentleness than her nursing care demanded.
***
Tom sat down wearily as Rose rushed around making tea, where she tipped a large dollop of brandy into the mug before she handed it to her husband. He sniffed the hot liquid and squirmed.
“I know you don’t like it Mahon,” Rose pulled a face to show that she understood her husband’s intense dislike of the stuff. “But it will do you good. Your insides must be freezing, man.”
She looked at him and touched his hair with her fingertips, smiling affectionately as she sat near him.
“I love you, Mr. Mahon, Sir ... You know that, don’t you?” she said as she hunched her shoulders and wrinkled her nose and Tom Mahon proudly thrust out his arm and hugged her close to him.
“Where would I be without you, Rose? Where would any of us be?” he said and his eyes were moist as he spoke and he thought once more of the disaster at the waterfall.
“Do you think we should call Father Spinelli?” Rose asked and Mahon rubbed his knuckles as Rose made her enquiry. The events of the day had made him forget the incident of the evening before at the party and he was confused in his thoughts as he saw again the face of the priest as Fern was singing his song.
“Yes, I suppose he should know. I will telephone him later,” he said, staring at the telephone with suspicious eyes. “But I want to get through to the hospital first, to see how Fern is getting on.”
Fern lay motionless as the doctor examined him. He took out a syringe and filled it with a clear fluid from a small phial that nurse Ritchie held towards him.
“This will help him to breathe easier, as he is slightly laboured at the moment… How old is he, nurse?” he asked and nurse Ritchie put down the bottle of clear liquid as she stared at the patient before her.
“Seventeen, I think, or eighteen perhaps, I‘m not sure” she replied as the doctor scrutinized his patient.
“Not much of him is there?” he remarked, “I would have thought him to be much younger, about fourteen or so.”
The doctor left the ward leaving nurse Ritchie to settle Fern more comfortably as she straightened his pillows and checked his breathing, His nose was pinched and he was very pale but the nurse was afraid of the diagnosis that she had in her mind as she touched Fern’s cool cheek before she went into the duty room. As she dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief, she looked again at her patient through the window to the ward ... and started to bite her thumbnail.
***
Tom put the phone down and looked at Rose. “I can’t get Father
Spinelli. He left early this morning for Glasgow on his way to Rome.”
“Oh! dear …that’s a pity. I’m sure Fern would have liked to have seen him,” she answered as Tom moved into the kitchen and stared blankly out of the window.
“Yes, I’m sure he would,” he said, just above a whisper, but his eyes were hard and his voice was anything but sympathetic as Jonty lay at his feet and yawned before he licked his paw.
***
Fern recovered from his ordeal in the next few days, thanks to the tender attentions of nurse Ritchie. She bathed him with ice when his temperature was high and warmed him with hot water bottles when it was low and he was able to sit up in bed looking more like his old self but he remained very pale and the sparkle had gone from his eyes. The doctor was pleased that his suspected diagnosis of pneumonia was incorrect as indeed was the dutiful nurse who had feared the same and Rose and Tom came to visit him and brought Jonty, who stayed with the nurse in the duty room. He whined a little when he saw Fern through the ward window and his large paws rested on a pair of bathroom scales that intrigued him as the needle moved precariously to his touch, but Tom returned to him after a few moments, taking a dog biscuit from his pocket as he stroked the animal’s head.
“Fern is getting better. You’ve done well. Lad …You’re a good boy,” he said and Jonty shook his stump lazily, as his tongue lolled complacently around his mouth and he yawned before his eyes closed, taking him into a deep sleep. Jonty was known to sleep twenty three hours a day, but he accomplished a great deal in the hour that was left.
Chapter Forty-Three
PETER SAILED FOR ROME ... and a chapter of his life had gone from him forever. He had dropped in to see his father once more at the hospital before his departure. He knew he had seen him for the last time and he sadly gave him his blessing, wishing again that he had not taken the vows of a priest which meant that his obedience was to the church in all that was not sin …Even his own father was not inclu
ded in his allegiance to Rome. AND HE KNEW NOTHING OF FERN’S ILLNESS.
***
Fern’s progress in the hospital was not so good. His sudden resurgence had been short lived and he fell very ill again within a few days. Day past day and night followed night and Dr. Carswell went through his normal duties with his usual injunctions, but Fern did not improve and Rose fell ill with worry as Tom just stared out into space. He looked into the horizon for his answers but the same vital questions were always in his mind and his faith was sorely shattered.
“I think we should ask Shona to come home for a little while.”
Rose peered appealingly at Tom as she spoke and there was a note of doom and despair in her voice which she wanted to ignore. She was being gripped by a force that she did not understand and which would not allow her to be free and Tom agreed her request with a single nod of his head before he queried if what they wanted would be possible.
“But they will not let her come, Rose,” he said, “She is not a blood relative after all, is she? You know the trouble getting her home before.”
“Yes ... until she said that Fern was her brother ... You know a little white lie can come in handy at times,“ she replied, as Rose Mahon was a woman who did not give up easily on anything that she decided was best for her family ... or for those she loved. “Mahon,” she said with a defiant tone of voice, “Mahon …She will be here to be with Fern. I know she will. Haven’t you any faith? Don’t you know that Man proposes, but God disposes?
***
Shona did get home from London ... but her white lie was not that Fern was her brother ... he had progressed to being her fiancée ...
The nurse stood at the bed as Fern desperately tried to breath. His chest moved involuntarily into spasms and Nurse Ritchie watched, seemingly helpless as his eyes pleaded with her to help him and his fingers clutched weakly at the bed-clothes. Ritchie had prepared the injection for Fern when Shona arrived and the latter waited impatiently until the injection had been given before she rushed to where he lay, but her eyes could not believe the sight she saw before her and she broke down and cried hysterically.
“My darling ... My darling,” she sobbed and kissed his face so satinized with perspiration. His skin was smooth and unblemished. His eyes appeared to be sunken into his head and his hair was darkened with the sweat that seeped from his scalp.. His lips were cold and already turning blue and he moved, as though she had charged a battery within him and smiled weakly with great effort, but he did not speak. His large dark eyes closed again to extinguish the glow of life that lit up his face and Shona was content to remain there whilst he slept.
***
Rose and Tom waited for Shona to return from the hospital and even Jonty was in a mood of expectancy, as his head shot up as soon as he heard her at the door. She came into the living room and dropped her headscarf onto a chair and her tear-stained face confirmed their suspicions that there was no improvement in their darling boy. Shona dragged herself from the settee to look anxiously into the faces of her parents, as her eyes scanned theirs with fear and resignation.
“He is over the crisis, but he is so weak. Oh! Daddy, I do love him so,” she said and Tom took her in his arms, well knowing of the inadequacy of his actions as he saw again the face of Peter Spinelli.
“Try not to worry, my love. God will look after him. He will be better soon, I’m sure,” he tried to console as Shona sobbed, shaking with uncontrolled emotion and Jonty tried to kiss her hand.
***
That evening at the hospital there was a marked improvement in Fern’s condition and his temperature had returned to near normal. It was ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit and nurse Ritchie was delighted, if fatigued by the extra care and attention she had given him. She hummed quietly to herself as she wrote her report in the duty room and Shona reflected without guilt of the white lie she had told at college to obtain her leave. Well, if Fern wasn’t her fiancée now ... perhaps he would be ... one day soon and she sat by his bedside happily and full of hope. She knew that the situation was temporary and the doctors had warned her that there would be spontaneous bouts of high temperatures and fevers, but she reflected on something that she had read in the last day of her college term. ‘Sufficient for the day, is the evil thereof’ she reflected and her thoughts turned to Father Peter. She was no longer bitter or disillusioned and her only concern was for Fern to get well soon and come home again. He whimpered lightly as he moved onto his side and Shona was attentive to his every move as she touched his hand.
“Are you all right love?” she whispered tenderly as he opened his eyes and Fern looked at her with exhaustion and appreciation as he tried to move. “Let me help you. Do you want to sit up?”
Shona called the nurse and together they helped Fern into the position he wanted, but there was a long silence between the lover and the beloved until Fern spoke in a low and barely audible voice.
“Please ... please let him have my letters, Shona. I wrote them daily ...when I was well.” he muttered as he signalled to a drawer in the cabinet beside his bed and Shona opened it. There was a bundle of letters there, neatly tied with a piece of hospital gauze and all numbered and dated. Shona smiled at him. She knew to whom the letters were addressed although there was no name on the envelopes, but quietly and with resigned sadness, she put the bundle into her handbag. They spoke a few more words together before he soon fell back into the sleep that dominated his life in the past few days and Shona kissed him lightly on the cheek before moving her lips hungrily to his ear, but Fern did not move. There was no tickle ... no laughter in response ... all she could hear was a deep sigh.
“Words are for the past, my darling. Sleep well until I see you again,” she whispered before she left the ward, smiling her thanks to nurse Ritchie as she went.
Chapter Forty Four
PETER ARRIVED AT ROME and was met as he left the ship by a colleague he had known at the seminary, before he was ordained a priest and Father Daniel Farne was surprised to see him. Dan had been in the last year of theology when Peter was in his first in philosophy and now he was the secretary to one of the College Professors who guided and instructed the new priest-students from the English speaking countries. Dan was an Irishman, a large Irishman of nearly sixteen stone and very proud of his nationality where he always wore the shamrock on the lapel of his cassock on the 17th of March each year wherever he was.
“I know we didn’t know one another very well, Father but I probably remember you better than you do me,” Dan announced proudly. “You were the handsome one in first year philosophy, am I right?” Peter smiled humbly and shook his head. “You’re looking thinner, I think ... Peter, isn’t it?”
“That’s right, Father,” Peter spoke showing an obvious lack of energy but Dan Farne grinned and his face lit up.
“Call me Dan,” he said and grabbed Peter’s suit case.
“Thanks, Dan, I’ve been working a little over the top recently,” Peter lied innocently in defence of his lack of weight and Dan would have talked all night when they reached the college but he soon realised that Peter was tired, so he settled him in his room and left him alone.
“Good night, Peter. If you want anything, just call me, I’m just four doors along the passage…” Dan waved his hand around the room as he was leaving. “Its not much like what you’ve been used to in Bonnie Scotland, I fear…” he said and looked rather apologetic. Peter took stock of the surroundings in which he was to live for the next three years, but he had hardly noticed the sparse bed and the old worn chair near the prie-dieu, as his heart was elsewhere ... and slowly, he unpacked his few belongings.
“God help me ... please help me. I am so lonely and so afraid.”
***
The bells of the Vatican could be heard for miles as Peter walked blindly through the unfamiliar streets and Il Duce’s face, square and determined, glared at
him from every corner. Benito was the hero of the people and the Italian Dictator’s fascist salute dominated the posters on every street.
Peter’s cassock blew open in the wind and he buttoned it again. His biretta was strangely perched on his head and he knew he would have to get used to wearing it, as it was the custom of Rome and ‘when in Rome ... ‘ but he pondered more intensely about the hills of Scotland he had just left. He had never ever anticipated the loss of his beautiful country until now; the land where he was born and bred and the land he had grown to love. He closed his eyes to smell again the rich, colourful heather of the mountains and he could hear the sheep bleating, the cows mooing and the cocks crowing as he never ever wanted to open his eyes again. The scene in his mind could have been almost anywhere in Britain, but to Peter, in his mind, it was Scotland. It was Bolarne ... and he sat down on one of the long seats in the square and watched the pigeons as they begged for their lunch. At least, this was the same as his beloved Scotland… He wondered if any of these pigeons flew over Bolarne when he thought about the little church he had left behind, and Miss Harrison, kind and lovely Miss Harrison, but the pain of the picture in Thompson tartan was too much for him to take as he trudged wearily back to the college.
Dan was there to greet him …hopping between the pigeons with his cassock held up to his knees and they had lunch together in a nearby Cafe. He was as colloquial as ever he had been in the seminary and the memory of the Irish theologian was gradually returning to the first year philosopher. Peter would have welcomed his friend’s natural buoyancy had his circumstances been different and it was not long before Dan become aware that something was troubling his friend; asking outright in his forthright Irish manner what it was that was making him so quiet, but Peter was reluctant to satisfy his curiosity. They continued to eat in silence until Dan sighed with impatience.