Leaving Ardglass

by William King

  ‘What’s the matter, Tommy?’

  ‘We went the full … you know.’

  ‘Are you sorry? It was only a matter of time.’

  ‘No. Just the risk. If you got, well … how could I live with myself?’

  ‘So that’s it.’

  I can feel her body relax. ‘No worries there.’ She reaches up and holds my head in her hands and looks at me. ‘I’ve been on the Pill for the past couple of months. I knew sooner or later that we would make love. I’d been waiting for you.’

  ‘The Pill.’

  ‘Would you prefer I became pregnant?’

  ‘God, no. Oh, no.’

  ‘Look, in case you don’t believe me.’ She opens her bag and shows me the blister pack with several empty cells. The Pill. The subject of my lectures on sexual morality every year to young men who will, one day, whisper the Church’s teaching to sin-haunted wives in the confessional. The brightest man in my ordination year left the priesthood rather than toe the party line. Others too.

  We go back and, without switching on the light, sit together on the bed. The street lights shine on the heavy wardrobe and the dressing-table she had been given in her mother’s will, and on the trunk from her boarding school days: Miss Lucy Campion, National Bank House. The remainder of the address has faded: somewhere in County Limerick.

  ‘Will you stay?’ she asks. The dark bell tower of St Mary’s Church shows up the driving snow.

  ‘Another night. I’ve an early start, and the traffic in the morning – you know what I mean. There’ll be other nights.’

  Her mouth hardens: by now a tell-tale sign of her rising anger. She gets up, closes the drapes and when she switches on a bedside light, tears are gleaming at the corners of her eyes.

  I try to draw her near but she resists. ‘No, I think you’d better be going. You have other commitments.’

  ‘Lucy, let’s not fight again.’

  ‘Stay then.’

  She reads refusal in my face, and turns away. ‘You don’t understand, do you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It makes one downright cheap. You have no idea how a woman can feel after making love. You and your theology and your seminary. Right. I don’t wish to delay you then.’

  As I drive back through slushy streets, and then open countryside, my head is throbbing. Many different voices are wrestling for attention, but I impose order: nothing to be alarmed about – a natural attraction between men and women. Fuck celibacy, as she once said when we were lying on the couch and I said no to the bedroom. I can see her laughing eyes, but that was early on and she was willing to be patient then.

  Guilt engendered by years of sermons and retreats, however, activates a panic button and wakes me in the mornings long before it is time to rise. And despite my years in Rome and novelle theologia, words and phrases like hell and the seven deadly sins loom up from the Green Catechism. We will never go that far again; never again, I promise the dark ceiling.

  The vow lasts until the June bank holiday when the world is out at Dollymount and Brittas Bay – building sandcastles, eating ice-cream cones and reading newspapers in the shade of windbreakers. I have sweetened the tedium of spending most of the day in the dim library by arranging to meet Lucy in the evening. On my desk is a bundle of letters to be answered. Some are from irate women who are walking out of churches because priests are making political statements about the forthcoming divorce referendum. When I’m finished, I give Boylan an update. ‘The fools. How some of them were ordained is beyond me.’ He shakes his head. ‘They’re ushering in secularism and they don’t know it.’

  While having tea and scones in the kitchen, we talk about the new tide of emigration. The conversation gets round to my summers in London, and, as on previous occasions, he is fascinated by my account of the men who worked on the building sites. I leave him in his rolled up shirtsleeves and braces, settling down to his well-thumbed copy of Homer’s collected works in the original Greek.

  When I arrive at Haddington Road, church bells all over the city are ringing out the Angelus: one following the other, as if in imitation. The laburnum trees are in full flower; rich perfume rises from the heliotrope and other plants along the footpath leading up to Lucy’s flat. Here and there, white blossoms are scattered along the kerb like confetti.

  In a restaurant nearby, we have dinner with a good bottle of red, and are still giddy when we return, so that resolutions are kicked aside in the privacy of her huge bedroom. And well after midnight, driving back to All Saints, when my head is in a spin, I resolve that this will be the last time. It’s not fair to her. Over that summer, however, when the trough of desire rises again, my resolution crumbles every time we are alone in that room, with her harp casting a perfect likeness of itself on the wall.

  We visit London a few times, and stay in the same Kensington hotel; knowing how Grace has become so wrapped up in religion, I arrange to meet M.J. on his own. ‘Always knew you had good taste in women, Tomásheen, boy,’ he says, when we are relaxing in a restaurant one evening. He looks amused as he belches and takes out his wallet to pay the bill: ‘You’re dead right. I don’t know how you lads live like that. By the way, if ever you think about getting hitched to your woman,’ he indicates with his thumb towards the Ladies, ‘you’re always welcome back; here or to the Dublin operation. I’ll get you a place at the table, and you’ll never want for anything.’ He reaches across and slides a roll of notes into my top pocket, ‘Here, look after Lucy while you’re in London. She seems a classy bit o’ goods.’

  ‘I’ll stay in M. J.’ s in Terenure tonight,’ becomes my stock excuse to Boylan when I sleep in Lucy’s flat. On one of those nights, she gets into a fit of giggling: ‘You and your resolutions.’ Hair loose over her naked shoulders, she settles herself into a comfortable position beside me.

  ‘What about me and my resolutions?’ I start to tickle her. ‘What about me, then, and my resolutions? Come on, Lucy Campion, speak up.’ We play about on the bed; both are aware that this is grist to our rising excitement. ‘Come on, Campion, answer the Grand Inquisitor, who intends to carry out a thorough search until he arrives at the truth. Don’t you know, young wench, that he has the power to put you to the sword?’

  Afterwards, when the rush of desire has been satisfied and yields to conversation, she begins to raise awkward questions. And, by now, I know her course of action: calm and reasonable at first, then a flare up without warning. This evening is no different.

  ‘So what’s to become of us, Tommy?’

  ‘Give me time to think it out.’

  ‘Time! Give me time. I’m sick to death of hearing Give me time.’ She moves away and pulls the sheet over her breasts. ‘Time to think it out. You’ve thought it out already. You’ll never change. You met someone long before me.’

  ‘Someone? What are you talking about? I love you; surely you must know that by now.’

  ‘The Church, career, ego – that’s your first and last love. And make no mistake about it.’

  When I’m leaving the following morning, she looks up at me: ‘I love you, Tommy, but I’ll not hang around. You want it both ways. I’ll not be a walk-on part for you or anyone else.’

  21

  ONE AFTERNOON THAT SEPTEMBER, I am taking a constitutional around the quadrangle with Pat Nugent: the weather is unusually warm for the time of year. Walking with Nugent, then a senior member of the staff, is a grudging task because he uses these occasions to fish for any piece of information that he may have missed about the diocese or from Rome. He even takes students on the same walk and probes with a throwaway question as he draws on his pipe: ‘What’s Galvin up to these times, lads?’ Then a harmless chuckle.

  Now he stops and nods towards a long black car parked outside the bishop’s house.

  ‘The Nuncio,’ he announces like a scout reading smoke signals on the horizon.

  ‘Yes.’ I put on a show of innocence. ‘I think that’s his car. I wonder what he’s here for?’ Wild shou
ts and the thud of a football rise from one of the playing fields below us.

  We had been discussing students who would need extra tuition to bring them up to the required standard, but now Nugent’s interest in the students’ welfare meets a sudden death. ‘Let’s walk over this way,’ he says, indicating the side of the quad nearest to the bishop’s house. Our conversation from then on becomes patchy and disconnected, and when the front door opens and the sallow-faced Nuncio appears with Boylan towering over him, Nugent quickens his pace. ‘We’ll have a word,’ he says. ‘Just to pay our respects. I met him in Rome once.’ He rushes ahead of me, his hand extended: ‘Benvenuto in Irlanda, sua Eccellenza.’

  About to get into his car, the Nuncio turns around in surprise and looks at him. ‘Grazie, grazie tanto.’

  ‘E molto benvenuto, sua Eccellenza.’

  ‘Grazie.’

  ‘Dr Patrick Nugent, Professor of Church History here at All Saints.’ Boylan makes what seems like a half-hearted introduction and then brightens. ‘And my good friend, Dr Tom Galvin, Professor of Moral Theology.’

  ‘Collegio Irlandese,’ Nugent wedges himself in again. ‘We met on St Patrick’s Day during the papal visit.’

  ‘Ah, yes, of course.’ The Nuncio takes our measure. ‘I remember. You played the piano for the Holy Father.’ And he runs his fingers along an imaginary keyboard.

  His recent arrival as Papal Nuncio in Ireland launches a train of sympathy from Nugent for all that living abroad entails: that morning the Nuncio had accidentally stood on his reading glasses and was urgently in need of a good optician, because he always liked to have a second pair.

  ‘Search no more, Your Grace,’ Nugent rushes in. ‘I play golf with a first-class eye man. In fact,’ he is already reaching into his soutane and taking out a diary, ‘I can phone him and take you over without delay.’

  ‘Sei molto gentile, Padre,’ says the Papal Nuncio.

  ‘Fa niente, sua Eccellenza.’

  For Nugent, the meeting is a windfall. From then on, he becomes a regular dinner guest at the Nunciature, sitting around with other fawning clerics and playing Irish airs on the piano.

  Though he knows well what is happening, Boylan never opens his mouth about the Nuncio’s new friend, nor about a future successor, except during a visit to Rome, when he asked me to go along with him. We are strolling across St Peter’s Square one evening when he stops and looks at the basilica. ‘When I hand in my gun and my badge,’ he says with a nod, ‘I’ll expect the Cosa Nostra up there to make you the next sheriff.’

  ‘I don’t think they would make such a blunder.’ I laugh loudly so that he can’t hear me purr.

  ‘You know the ropes better than anyone else by now, and the priests by and large are fond of you.’ That is all he ever said.

  Around the seminary, Nugent is in a combative mood against the liberal lobby that is taking root in the country. Over coffee in the priests’ parlour, he declares that ‘it is time to copper-fasten the legal position with regard to abortion. You see what’s happening in Britain and America – killing babies by the thousand. That must never happen here. The Holy Father has challenged us to uphold the teachings of the Church. Now is the time to put the boot in.’

  Whenever the Nuncio comes to dinner at the bishop’s house, or for some special occasion at All Saints, such as prize-giving day before the summer holidays, Nugent repeats his conviction that it is our bounden duty to support the Holy Father. ‘And Rome is right to hold out against contraception, Tom. That position has now been well and truly vindicated. Look at the way women are using the Pill as if they were taking Smarties; fornicating as if there is no tomorrow.’

  ‘How right you are.’

  Clusters of priests in tonsure suits and smoking cigars nod, and afterwards, among themselves, agree that Patrick has gravitas. Future leader there. Yes, future leader. And he has the Rome experience under his belt.

  He writes articles in theological journals, with many quotes from the Pope’s pronouncements on the evils of contraception and divorce. Men who have clout and money drive up to All Saints.

  One evening when I’m hurrying out to meet Lucy, Nugent breaks off his conversation with a man wearing a velvet collar on his tailored overcoat.

  ‘Tom,’ he calls. ‘Have you a minute?’

  ‘I’ve to give a talk in Wicklow. Nuns.’ I throw my eyes to heaven.

  ‘I won’t delay you.’ He introduces me to a couple of businessmen, lawyers and engineers, all of whose names I have now forgotten. And when they are going down the steps, turns to me: ‘They’re on our side, Tom; they have power and influence. Most are members of Legio Dei. They’ll do our work.’ He looks pleased with himself; his hand brushes my elbow as we walk to the front door: ‘Now is the time. To use a sporting metaphor, we’re still playing with the wind at our backs. And they’re the boys to draw blood, if needs be.’

  He waves to the gleaming cars moving off down the driveway. ‘FitzGerald and his lot would make this a secular state if they were given too much latitude. Is M.J. still friendly with that minister – Donaghy?’

  ‘Yes. I think so.’

  He talks above a whisper, even though the last of the velvet collars are getting into their cars. ‘I’d like to meet him sometime. His party is on our side. Say all you like about them, they have the faith.’

  The Papal Nuncio makes a surprise visit as I am going through the confirmation list with Boylan. ‘Enda,’ he says to the bishop, ‘I have found a worthy successor. Your Lordship can now retire in peace.’

  ‘And who, may I ask, Your Excellency, is the worthy successor?’

  ‘One of your own priests. Dr Patrick Nugent.’

  I watch the colour drain from Boylan’s face and another evening of trying to steer him away from the bottle of Jameson threatens. Years of Vatican diplomacy, however, have steeled him against making a hasty response: ‘A good man, Your Excellency, and a fine historian. And while I don’t question your sound judgment, may I say that he is a little short on pastoral experience – something priests and the people of God expect nowadays.’

  ‘Put your mind at rest, Enda, my friend.’ The brown Sicilian eyes are dancing, ‘Patrick is a fast learner.’

  After he has left, Boylan collapses into an armchair and sits there in a Churchillian pout, glowering through one of the high windows, while I put on a show of finishing off the confirmation list. Then, without moving a limb, he addresses the drooping willows on the lawn. ‘“Patrick is a fast learner”. Is he now? Well, that jumped-up-Johnny will wait another while before he gets the mitre.’ He turns to me: ‘I need your support for this one.’

  ‘Have no fears about that.’

  ‘Stay for dinner,’ he says when I’ve finished, and without waiting for an answer, picks up the intercom and phones down to the kitchen. Then he trudges out of the library to uncork two bottles of wine.

  Before the television news comes on, we watch the tail end of a nature programme: two young lion cubs are learning from their mother how to keep out of harm’s way, how to crouch in the long grass, bide their time and then spring on their prey. Mature lions grab weaker animals by the neck, drag them to the ground and tear them to pieces, limb from limb; blood gushes up into the blue sky. I sip a gin and tonic while Boylan dispatches a couple of whiskeys. ‘That’s it, Tom. Nature red in tooth and claw. We’re their dressed-up city cousins. Let us go and eat in God’s name.’

  When his part-time housekeeper and her teenage daughter have served the food, Boylan stands and pours from one of the wine bottles. ‘I was saving this for a special occasion, Tom. This is it.’ He raises his glass. ‘To friendship, agape, fellowship – call it what you will. I’d be dead and buried if it wasn’t for you.’

  We eat mostly in silence while Gigli sings ‘O Solo Mio’. In the manner of an aside, Boylan asks: ‘How is that sweet girl – what’s her name? Oh, the memory isn’t what it used to be. She played for the Pope in Galway.’

  ‘Lucy Campion.’

>   ‘Yes. Lucy.’

  So often, especially after a couple of drinks, he quotes poetry:

  For I am every dead thing,

  In whom love wrought new Alchemy

  and the teacher in him sets a test for me to identify the author. He waits for an answer.

  ‘Sounds like Donne.’

  ‘Top of the class. “A Nocturnal upon St Lucy’s Day”.’

  ‘Lucy is fine. She has a post in Trinity now.’

  ‘My goodness, that fortress of Elizabethan perfidy.’ His mouth twists in a mocking smile. ‘A good young Catholic girl who sang for the Pope. My predecessors must be turning in their graves.’

  ‘We meet now and again for a meal,’ I say.

  ‘So I’m told, so I’m told, Tom. Highly qualified, trained in Hungary: the Kodály Institute. My goodness. Top drawer.’

  ‘Yes. The Kodály.’

  He refills our glasses: ‘Beauty and talent. By God,’ he shakes his head, ‘that’s a powerful cocktail. And for any man who has a screed of humanity in him ….’

  ‘True.’

  He stops pouring and looks at me: ‘And you’re very human. You know that doesn’t help in the Church – if you want promotion, I mean.’ His wine-flushed face creases in a smile. ‘The army is the same.’

  Again he lapses into silence. The housekeeper, whose timing is always flawless, arrives to collect the plates and serve dessert. When she has gone downstairs, he gets up, goes for a cigar and pours us two brandies. Over the sideboard, Van Gogh’s ‘The Artist’s Bedroom’ is hanging aslant. Once, when in the doldrums, he had taken it off the wall and given me a short lecture: should be on every clerical student’s room, Tom. An object lesson on solitude, and the desperate searching of the heart for companionship. Might dispel their romantic notions about the priesthood.