by William King
He draws closer so that the three of us form a huddle. Harty glances round. ‘One of your guests, a parish priest, with a round bald head and little eyes like a pig, came over to me. “We never go on like that in this country,” he says. “Out dancing like a teenager.” “Is that a fact?” said I. “Well, if some of your holy men would like to join me at Euston every morning at six for the night train from Liverpool, we mightn’t have as many good Irish Catholics begging on the streets of London, or young Irish women on the game, Father.” That shut him up.’ Harty’s face lights up. He throws back his head and laughs. ‘Himself and his Pioneer pin.’
His cousin excuses herself, and while she is walking away, Harty eyes her swaying hips; he turns to me, and rests his hand on my shoulder: ‘Mary is sound. She’d never say a word to anyone. Tommy, you mark my words: by the way things are going at present, in ten years time we’ll all be allowed marry. Crazy bloody life. The Lord never meant it to be like this.’
We chat about London. He tells me I look a bit worried; there’s no need to fret. And anyway, sure whatever happens, this is a great day for your mother. Pity your father isn’t alive to see it. Mary is returning. ‘You’ll see. Ten years.’ He taps my shoulder.
The dancers are getting tired – some are putting on their coats – and my neighbours from Ardglass are stuffing ten pound notes into my hand and talking about going to Kingsbridge to catch the evening train home. When they have gone, M.J. calls me over in the foyer: ‘I need to stretch my legs.’
‘Give me a minute to go upstairs and take off this harness.’
We saunter down O’Connell Street where green buses are stopping to let out bunches of young women in flared summer frocks; their high heels are clicking on the pavement as they giggle their way into Clerys Ballroom. Across the street, the Metropole is showing The Thomas Crown Affair. ‘Donaghy is asking me to start over here,’ he says suddenly. ‘A big farm out near the Dublin Mountains. Planning no problem.’
‘Can he be trusted?’
‘In my line of work, Tommy, I never trust anyone until I see the colour of his money, but Donaghy is OK. Has the good of the people at heart. We’re both countrymen, so we understand each other. He came up the hard way too.’
‘He’s a great dancer.’
‘Oh, there’s devilment in Sylvester.’ He laughs. ‘And some kind of oul mystery too. That’s why them journalists are always prying. He’ll be a minister if the party gets in at the next election. I wouldn’t be surprised if he became party leader some day.’
The little woman who had kissed the bishop’s ring appears out of nowhere, darts out in front of me and blesses herself. ‘Any holy pictures, Father?’
I give her one of my ordination cards.
She squints at the card and kisses it. ‘Ah, isn’t that lovely. Blessin’s ’a God on you, Father, an’ I hope you’ll be a bishop.’
‘She may be right,’ says M.J.
‘Not unless they’re scraping the barrel.’
But M.J. is more interested in his own future than in my career. ‘This city is on the move,’ he continues. ‘Donaghy says there’s plans for a big estate out by Raheny. And if it can be done, Donaghy is the man to swing it.’ He rests his powerful hands on the parapet of O’Connell Bridge; we both look down the Liffey where a Guinness boat is docked at City Quay. The scene puts him in mind of another evening he was returning to England after his first holiday in Ardglass. ‘I was on a train for Dun Laoghaire, and somewhere out near Sandymount – I think it was – blokes all in white were playing cricket. Most of those who were watching and clapping were also in white; women were sitting on rugs, eating sandwiches and drinking tea. They had a wickerwork basket open near them. And my stomach rumbling with the hunger.’
He throws a sour look at a bunch of fellows slouching towards us, their Elvis quiffs plastered in hair oil. ‘Wouldn’t they want a right kick up the hole?’
‘A spell behind the mixer wouldn’t do them any harm.’
We return to The Gresham, and all the way back he talks houses and office blocks and the money to be made in Dublin. On the northside. The country is on the move. Donaghy and the party will swing it.
18
THAT SEPTEMBER I return to baroque churches and the warm Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano, and outings to Formia, Naples and Sorrento. I fall in love with ceremony and privilege, and grasp any opportunity that comes my way. I learn more about the Roman method for success: who wields power and might give me a leg up. I begin to nurture a belief in my capacity to lead – and all in the service of Mother Church. By now, I am fluent in Italian, conversant with German, and am able to get by in French and Spanish; so each summer I leave the sweltering heat of Rome to minister in the cooler parts of Italy or Germany.
Once in a while, I take Monsignor Boylan, a priest of the diocese, for a meal to a good restaurant in Trastevere. He had lectured in Propaganda Fide until he began to work in St Peter’s. Now he makes sure I am on the invitation list whenever he throws a dinner party for prelates who have clout. And for his services to the papal household, he is made bishop. ‘As soon as you get your thesis finished, I have plans for you,’ are his parting words at Rome Airport. He grins. ‘That’s if you manage to hold on to your faith, living in the Eternal City, or should I say the Infernal City?’
Visits to Ardglass become more painful: fields wild with yellow weeds, broken-down fences, paint peeling from the front of the house. And a mother’s excuses: ‘He’ll settle. Gerry has a heart of gold. That crowd from the village keep him all night in the pub.’
‘The cows are bellowing to be milked.’
‘Are they now? Those that have polished shoes and walk around with bishops needn’t bother about cows bellowing.’
The next time I see her she is tipping towards the brink of death in the Bon Secours Hospital. In the corridor outside the cardiac unit, a doctor, who keeps looking at his watch, tells me that ‘Mrs Galvin must have hidden her pain for a long time, Father. The X-rays show major damage to the heart muscles.’ Later that morning, I say Mass facing her bed. Now and again, a student nurse checks the drip, and my mind wanders as I recite the prayers for the sick and anoint my mother’s work-hardened palms with the sacred oil. Yes, hidden her pain. How right you are, doctor. All her life. The pain of a shattered dream – Chicago. Fragments of the past take shape: the mornings when I was leaving for All Saints after the holidays, and the stolid look she wore for the world gave way to a twitch of sadness around her mouth. And her unvarying farewell. ‘Mind yourself, Tommy boy.’
A week later, I recite the Prayers at the Graveside while my brothers lower her coffin into the family tomb. Crying openly, Eily and Pauline have an arm around each other. Inside the tomb, the coffin rests on a bed of hay. When I close the Roman Ritual, neighbours shake my hand and tell me how she was so proud of me.
From then on, Gerry spends every day in Scanlon’s new bar that has a pool table and a television high up over the whiskey bottles. And when he leases the land to a young farmer from across the river, M.J. phones All Saints where I have begun to teach theology. ‘If that young grabber thinks he’s going to get what should have been my farm, he has another think coming to him.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about him. I doubt if he has the money anyway.’
By the following spring the young grabber owns the few hilly acres M.J. called a farm. Everything except the dwelling house. Soon after, Gerry takes in the barmaid from Scanlon’s. ‘Toppin housekeeper is Patsy,’ he assures me over the phone. I fail, however, to see the results of Patsy’s housekeeping. The rest of the family take holiday homes in Dingle or Kenmare, and I, like a subbie with a deadline, plunge deeper into my career. The weeks aren’t long enough – lectures at All Saints, weekend seminars in convents where young nuns are discovering beautiful sunsets, and the healing effect of hugging trees; theology is jettisoned in favour of interpersonal relations. Egged on by those in their communities who have returned from San Franscisco, aflame with C
arl Rogers and other gurus, the young nuns get in touch with their feelings. When their older colleagues have trudged up the stairs to bed, they light candles and sit around on bean bags. Some pack their suitcases; those who remain cast off their veils and exchange friendship rings with priests. And, in desperation, Reverend Mothers ask me to come and talk sense to them.
In the years that follow, my visits to London are confined to christenings and anniversaries when I spend a couple of days at M.J.’s Victorian redbrick in Hampstead. By now he is alternating between London and Dublin, where he has bought a house in Terenure. Donaghy makes it to the Cabinet table. Very soon, M.J. acquires over seventy acres out beyond Finglas: land that had been designated for a public park. The local residents protest, but he promises football pitches, shops and a cinema: amenities such as they had never had before. When the deal is done, and the planning rezoned, the land multiplies many times in value. M.J. resells within a year.
Around this time, too, he buys a farm in Westmeath with paddocks and a racetrack. And when others like him, who had made fortunes in England, feature in the rich list, he succeeds in avoiding publicity, except for the occasional photograph in the winners’ enclosure at Naas, Galway or Listowel. In one newspaper, his broad smile and Donaghy’s roguish look contrast with Seery’s shifty glance at the camera.
Seery returns to Dublin and sets up his own accountancy firm off Dame Street. Having played the field in London, he finally gets married – not to the doctor of his dreams, but to Maudie, a quiet Mayo girl who worked for the O’Connell Street branch of the Bank of Ireland and is now his secretary. M.J. and the London set – those who had worked for John Lang or McNicholas and who had kept their heads, and are owners of pubs and boarding houses around Kilburn and Finsbury – arrive in new suits for Seery’s wedding at the Church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar. Donaghy’s ministerial Mercedes also pulls up. Afterwards we all drive out to a hotel in Wicklow where Seery, still raising himself on his toes, tells a group of us standing in the foyer: ‘I got a little treasure beyond compare here.’ The little treasure lowers her head and smiles. Once or twice, while a few of us are chatting, he points out to her that she should hold the white wine glass by the base. ‘Look, Maudie.’ He gives her a demonstration. ‘Body heat takes from the quality of the wine.’ She blushes and smiles again. And he proceeds to explain the difference between Chardonnay and Sauvignon.
‘Did you hear him?’ M.J. says, when they have moved off. ‘’Tis far away from white wine, or any colour of wine, he was reared. Only helping his mother to sell periwinkles after Mass.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Outside the chapel gate with an ass and cart every Sunday in the summer. He told me that one time, when he’d had a few too many.’
Before we go in for the meal, Seery comes over, while his bride is chatting to her sisters.
‘Thanks for doing the honours, Tommy. Great to have someone I know on the altar. If there’s anything …?’ And he goes through a routine of reaching for his wallet.
‘Not at all, Christy. Glad to.’
‘Are you sure now?’
‘Glad to.’
The bride’s mother, a small woman, sits beside me at the top table and tells me they had to feed the few calves at five in the morning before they left Belmullet in a hired car. She keeps repeating: ‘I hope Maudie will be happy, Father.’
‘She will. Maudie will be very happy. Don’t you worry about anything.’
‘She’s a great girl. Sends me home five pounds every week without fail.’
‘She’ll be very happy.’
Late in the night when the floor is vibrating to Paul Jones, she begins to sob, wipes her tears with the back of her hand and clings to Maudie.
By now, the London set have thrown off their neckties and are loud around the bar and the foyer. A few of them are propping up the counter when I’m leaving. I try to get away from their offers of drink, but they won’t hear of a refusal. ‘A glass, Father Tommy, for old times’ sake; we don’t often meet.’ I remembered one of them from Cricklewood; he always led the floor in the Galty. Now he’s a quantity surveyor with McAlpine. I resign myself to their drunken geniality: Jack Lynch is doing a right good job as Taoiseach; so is Donaghy as a minister.
‘Did you ever come across a jiver like Donaghy?’ says the quantity surveyor. ‘You should have seen him last night in that club in Leeson Street … what’s that place called?’ He turns to his sidekick.
‘Club Monica, boy.’
‘Oh, Sylvester did all right for himself in Club Monica. And your big brother was in top form too. Cute hoor.’
‘M.J. Galvin is one right cute hoor,’ the other man echoes. While the two of them are ogling a young woman in a tight-fitting dress, the quantity surveyor clamps a big hand on my shoulder, breathes Guinness into my face and gives me advice: if I’ve a few bob I want stashed away where the taxman won’t get to it, Christy is my man. ‘Now that’s between me and you.’
‘Right.’
‘A nest egg, you know what I mean, Father Tommy. Guernsey, the Isle of Man, places like that. Remember now. Could come in handy in years to come.’
They are finished ogling. ‘Christy did well, Father Tommy,’ one of them chuckles. ‘That fine mare will keep him warm of a winter’s night. You should get one of them yourself.’
‘I might.’
‘Wily oul fox is Christy. Oh she’ll give him babies. I’d say them hips are ripe, wouldn’t you?’ Then he draws closer: ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the fox hasn’t already raided the hen-house.’
He was right. Six months later I was back at the Three Patrons to perform the baptism ceremony – the first of four. And each christening party marks Seery’s growing prosperity: first, it’s a new extension, soon after, a conservatory, later they moved to a Georgian house in Dalkey with a tennis court, and a tiered garden sweeping down to the strand. At the last party, while women are complimenting Maudie on retaining her figure and fussing about the baby in the sunlit patio, Seery stands on the marble surround of the fireplace so that he can rest an arm on the mantelpiece and tell me, matter of factly, that the move was necessary: ‘For the children’s sake, Tommy. The boys will mix with the right sort; help them later on in life. I’ve already put down their names for Blackrock College.’ His neighbours too are the right sort: well-known business people, developers, lawyers and a plastic surgeon, who has invited them to his villa in Barbados. The gilt-framed mirror shows the bald spot that Seery is failing to conceal despite the ridiculous hair-parting just above his ear. His eyes do a circular orbit around the room and he speaks out of the side of his mouth: ‘Most of this was through hard work and determination and using the head.’ He places his wine glass on the mantel and does a sweeping motion with his hand that takes in ormolu matching pieces, the brass fender, and paintings: ‘What did I tell you in The Stag’s Head many years ago?’
‘“Up here for making dosh,” I tap my forehead; “down here for dancing.”’
‘Now you’re talking.’
I am there with M.J. through all the twists and turns of his life. Nevertheless, except for times when he wants my advice, Grace is the one who invites me over to England for family celebrations. Like the time their son, Matthew, was playing the part of Miranda in The Tempest at Downside Abbey. A couple of times during the play, M.J. leaves the hall. He had been worried about a strike pending out at Heathrow Airport, where he had a contract to extend a runway, so I assume he is phoning for an update. In the half-light, Grace sits beside me, her eyes fixed on the stage. Every time Matthew makes an appearance and prances around in a white dress with branches in his hair, his father does a nervous clearing of his throat.
At the interval, while parents daintily sip tea in the foyer and the scent of perfume mingles with cigar smoke, I make an attempt to ease my brother’s abstracted look. ‘There’s always some hitch, I suppose.’
‘What?’
‘The strike. Is it going ahead? I saw you leave a cou
ple of times.’
‘The strike. What strike? Ah no. That’ll work itself out.’ Again he lapses into silence, and I chat with my nieces, Elizabeth and Margot, about college. Before we go back in to the hall, M.J. speaks close to my ear. ‘What’s Matthew up to, waltzing around with a frock on him?’
He is speaking my own suspicions, but I say: ‘That’s the part he’s playing. Miranda.’
‘Seems to me the part comes natural to him.’
I laugh in an effort to reduce the tension. ‘No, he’s only following stage directions.’
‘Is he now? Stage directions. I see, faith.’
We have tea in the oak-panelled refectory. As he does with other families, the headmaster sits with us, his manicured fingernails working on the cape of his black habit. Didn’t we think Matthew was a remarkable success? We did. M.J. stirs in his chair.
Before he leaves, the headmaster assures us that Matthew is a credit to his family. And Charlie is one of the most popular boys in Junior House, and so talented at art.
The circle of conversation breaks; Grace turns to me, and lowers her voice: ‘Matthew has a vocation.’
‘I see.’
‘Isn’t it great?’
‘Yes. I suppose it is.’
‘The master of novices has invited me to supper next week to discuss his future.’
M.J.’s irritation in Terenure the previous Christmas comes winging back to me. ‘She’s making a sissy out of him. I tried to get him out to the site. She wouldn’t hear of it. Piano lessons, and tennis – sure, they’re only for women.’
‘Wouldn’t he benefit from some experience of life first?’ I offer. ‘Unfortunately, many priests are dropping out now.’
The twitch over one eye becomes active. ‘You didn’t have much experience of life before you went into All Saints.’
‘No, but it was a different world.’
‘Well, the other morning I was speaking to my parish priest, Father Edward, and he says that a vocation is a great blessing from God, and God should not be kept waiting for an answer.’