by William King
Nugent is in Rome when news of the accused priest’s death reaches us one evening in the bishop’s house. Two guards arrive with the details, and to offer their condolences. While Vinny Lynch is showing them out, Plunkett broods at the long table where we are making arrangements for the diocesan pilgrimage to Lourdes. Gilt-framed photos of former bishops line the walls.
When Vinny Lynch returns, he is fidgety: ‘Poor guy. Goes to show, doesn’t it, one can’t be careful enough on the roads nowadays. One slip and you’re a goner.’
Plunkett, who never smokes while Nugent is in the house, now lights a cigar. ‘Yes, slippery surface,’ he says. ‘I’ve to contact the Boss immediately. Get him back. That’s all them bastards in the media. Can’t you imagine the spin they’d put on that?’
‘He was alone.’ My own voice sounds like a cold stone hitting the base of a metal shaft.
They look at me.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Alone. Priests are usually alone in their cars.’
‘Straight stretch of road, the guards said, and he crashes into a wall,’ I say.
‘Ah no,’ Vinny Lynch taps the table, his small eyes are darting. ‘Ah no, Tom, ah no. He wouldn’t do anything – you know – anything foolish.’
Plunkett glares at me through a cloud of smoke. ‘God, what a thought. The poor man, God rest his soul.’
The following morning, Nugent takes the first flight out of Rome, and at the funeral, preaches about the dead priest’s many talents and how his death was such a huge loss to his family and the diocese.
That afternoon, when I have left the mourners and friends at the Castle Hotel, I phone the guards to talk about the accident. The sergeant invites me to drop up to the station – just beside Superffalu, he tells me. I park outside the single-storey redbrick with venetian blinds and a well-kept garden of marigolds and hydrangeas. Over the front door is the stern crest of the Garda Síochána. The sergeant is at a computer in the day room; a ban garda with a short back and sides is seated on a table, her stout legs dangle while she talks into a mobile phone. She throws me a cold glance, and turns away.
In a room at the back, the sergeant leafs through a file on the table: here and there, initials have been carved into the white deal: faint whiff of sweat and stale cigarette smoke lingers. He removes his reading glasses and looks at me: ‘Yes, a straight road, Monsignor Galvin. No oncoming traffic, and driving conditions … well, a bit of rain earlier – nothing much. God rest his soul.’
‘Amen.’
He looks at me: ‘None of my business, Monsignor, and this is just between ourselves, but he was never the same after what happened.’ He closes the file.
‘I know. And thanks for your time, Sergeant.’
‘Every week he reported here. At this very table I saw him age in a month. Ten or twelve years ago when he came here – fine figure of a man. Trained the hurling team. In God’s name, Father,’ he leans towards me, ‘have you no union? That man was condemned from the day you made that announcement.’
‘I was only following instructions.’
‘Oh, I know that.’ He stands.
‘No. No union.’ Children are having a great time on a swing in the back garden. ‘That would be against the grain – promises to the bishop at ordination, father-and-son relationship. That sort of thing.’
The sergeant shakes his head: ‘You are now doing the guards’ work, Monsignor.’ And he goes on about how his organization would not tolerate that for one moment, but I’m jaded from the funeral and mourners, and broken sleep.
‘We’re now doing the guards’ work to show the people and the media that we’re purer than the driven snow,’ I say at a meeting with Nugent, Plunkett and Vinny Lynch.
‘With respect, Tom, that makes no sense.’ Plunkett comes to the defence of the bishop.
I hold out. ‘Sealing a priest’s fate before he has a chance to defend himself?’
‘Look here. We’re following the regulations laid down by the statutory bodies. Take it or leave it. Now more than ever, this calls for all priests to be loyal to their bishop.’
Vinny Lynch squeaks his support, and then looks at me: ‘Our hands are tied, Tom. We’d never live it down if we didn’t take this course of action. We’ve got to show we’re not doing what was done in the past. The cover-up.’
‘I have no argument with the requirements of the statutory bodies, none whatever. If someone is accused, he has to step aside while an investigation is going on, but I know of no other organization that makes a public statement about an allegation, and then evicts a man from his house.’
‘Look,’ says Plunkett, raising his voice, ‘this is a mutual agreement between the priest and his bishop. You know that.’
‘Mutual agreement, my foot. Neither mutual nor an agreement.’
‘For the good of the Church, Tom,’ says Vinny Lynch. ‘We save money. We can show to the claimants that we have dealt with the matter.’
Nugent, who has withdrawn into a brooding silence, is massaging his ring and looking out through one of the tall windows. The stroking stops. When he addresses Vinny Lynch and Plunkett, his tone is measured. ‘This is something I never thought would happen: the day when a colleague, my vicar-general, would cause me such grief as I have suffered in the past while, and who now tries to put another obstacle in my way.’
His frail look shakes my resolve, yet I can’t give in now. ‘Why not invite in the legal experts then – canon lawyers – to argue the case, in front of the priests? If I am wrong, I will publicly apologize to you.’
The silence is intense; Vinny Lynch jumps up. ‘I’ll put on coffee. We’re all tired.’ He makes for the door.
‘Come back, Father Lynch.’ Nugent rounds on him. ‘Sit down.’ His eyes are fixed on the far wall where John Paul is still waving to the crowd with a rose. ‘This is outrageous; such gross defiance of my authority. Monsignor, you choose the darkest hour in the history of this diocese to inflict a wound on your bishop. You know full well that the policy adopted by the hierarchy has been found to be successful in America and other countries. So are you placing yourself above the authority of the Church?’
Plunkett makes a growl of indignation. ‘Well said.’
Vinny Lynch keeps shifting, and polishing the wooden armrest of his chair with delicate fingers.
‘In the long history of the Church, you wouldn’t be the first, of course, to do something like that.’ Nugent closes the stiff-backed folder where he keeps his notes.
A cynical grin appears on Plunkett’s face: ‘There was that monk.’
I stand my ground. ‘Anyone with a screed of common sense can work out what the Church is now doing: trying to make up for past sins. Priests are the new victims.’
A scowl shows on the bishop’s face. ‘That is a monstrous allegation to make. I’ve had enough of this,’ he says and rises from his chair behind the desk.
From then on, he cancels the morning conference and, instead, consults with Plunkett and Vinny Lynch in the library; I can hear the murmur of their voices on my way to the basement. Whenever I come upon them in the corridor, their conversation freezes.
As always, when I’m distressed, my ulcer flares up. I am waking at ungodly hours and staring into the dark until light begins to show at the edges of the curtains. Plunkett avoids me. Vinny Lynch, who tries to keep in with everyone, tells me that maybe, just maybe, I’m a little hard on the bishop, and when he smells sulphur between Nugent and myself, disappears with Caesar to the riverbank.
I meet him alone one morning in the stone corridor. ‘All I’m asking, Vinny, is that the diocese provide a proper forum where this issue can be discussed in front of the priests.’
‘They wouldn’t attend, Tom. My classmates said the other night that if there’s one more discussion on this at the deaneries, they won’t go.’
‘Even though it concerns human rights.’
As if his circulation is bad, he is hopping around on one foot, and keeping a lookout up and down the corridor
. His psoriasis is acting up again: red blotches show on his neck and on the back of his hands. ‘Come in here for a minute.’ We step into one of the parlours: old and dark, there is a smell of neglect in the air: pictorial books on the Pope and on Rome lie on the round table.
‘It’s way worse than we think, Tom. Everyone is scared. And you’ll get nowhere with his nibs, unless you go easy on him.’
‘Too late, Vinny. Too late.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame. Behind it all, his nibs has a high regard for you.’
He opens the door again, looks up and down the corridor, and touches my arm: ‘Tom, this will blow over in time. Don’t let it get you down. God love you, I admire your courage.’
28
MY DOCTOR talks me through the latest in tranquillisers while she takes my blood pressure: they aren’t addictive, and you could go off them whenever you like, she tells me. ‘You know you’re in bad shape, Monsignor. And nowadays many people take them to steady their nerves, if they’re going through a difficult patch, say, making a speech or attending an important meeting. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’d be surprised who is on them nowadays. And something to help you sleep also.’ Womanly compassion in her brown eyes.
‘And with respect, Monsignor, may I suggest you think about a holiday, or else you’ll run yourself into the ground. Heed my advice. The graveyards are full of people who couldn’t take a break.’
I follow her advice. For two weeks, I wander through the fields around St Benedict’s Monastery, where high in the October-tinted oaks the screeching of rooks penetrates the valley. Every morning I rise at four-thirty and make my way beneath gothic arches to the chapel, hearing only soft footfalls or a door being closed – monastery sounds in the low-burning lights of the corridor. When going by the sacristy, I catch the smell of polish and incense.
In the chapel, I sit and drift in and out of prayer. Ageing monks with wholesome faces shuffle into the stalls to pray or to sing the divine office. After daybreak and again in the evening, I wander down to the farmyard where the murmur of pigeons rises now and again above the steady beat of the milking machine. Honest hands that hold breviaries in the chancel work to fit on stainless steel cups to the cows’ teats.
I ransack every corner of my mind with one of the monks who had taught Shakespeare in the boarding school beyond the sweeping driveway; his rough habit gives off a slight whiff of the dairy. He is mostly silent: rubbing his farmer’s face or looking through the guestroom window at the tall oaks as though lost in thought. After a few days, he gives me a penetrating look: ‘Where did the youth who went up that lane … what did you call it?’
‘Eddington’s Lane.’
‘Where did he go to? And the man who fell in love with Lucy Campion?’ Again he rubs his face and looks out over the fields, waiting for an answer.
‘I have to say, I’m a bit lost here, Father Albert.’
‘The urge, Monsignor, the urge.’ The creases on his face deepen when he smiles. ‘It never leaves us. It’s like a river. But if you block the course of the flow, or deny it ever exists, it will take another route. For us priests, it might be the desire to be in the driving seat. One of our men here’ – he laughs – ‘if anyone else uses the sit-up mower to trim the lawn, he’s in a bad mood for the day.’ Standing now, he talks as if to himself: ‘The pectoral cross, of course, could make up for a lot of lonely nights.’ He chuckles: ‘That’s the way the Creator made us; in Him we trust, Monsignor.’ He looks at me: ‘Luke, chapter four, verse five for tomorrow.’
‘The temptation of Jesus.’ I want to delay and discuss the scriptural passage, and Eddington’s Lane, Lucy and the urge, but his hand is already on the doorknob. ‘The same time tomorrow.’
I hurry to my cell to look up the reference. Power. Wealth. The devil. All this will be yours if you worship me.
As with a jigsaw, I am putting together the pieces, and discovering that for most of my life, despite retreats, and – once in a while – reading books on the spiritual life, I had managed to live as a stranger to myself. Falling for Lucy should have cured me of my blindness. Indeed, the way I made demands, and used her subsequently, should have brought me to my senses; but, like M.J., deadlines and the desire to breast the tape caused me to avoid paying close attention.
For most of the time, Father Albert is silent, looking away into the distance through the guest-room windows. Towards the end of the two weeks, he talks a bit more. ‘That’s the difference between the Lord and us. We all want our hands on the tiller. It’s human. But priests especially. No one else, you see, to tell us that we’re such great fellows. No one else to turn to when we wake in the small hours. You know about all that now.’ His face becomes boyish when he laughs. ‘You’ve a big decision to make. Jesus was born in a stable; His successors have lived in some of the finest palaces in Europe. He didn’t seek power or possessions. God go with you, Monsignor.’
As soon as I seal my resolve to ask Nugent for a country parish, the ferment in my brain ceases; I sleep as if I’d been ploughing all day with a pair of horses. And in that mysterious city of the night, disconnected images surface: Deano is tumbling to his death; Lucy is playing the harp while Ronan and the children stand around the Christmas tree in Grafton Street; the train is leaving Ardglass station and M.J. is demanding answers from the monk who is standing on the platform: ‘What does it profit?’ he keeps repeating. But the monk keeps a steady gaze on the Ardglass hillside.
When I return to All Saints, Nugent, true to a clerical code of chilling silence, says nothing about my letter from the monastery, apart from a comment one day after lunch: ‘I’ll process your request for a parish without delay, Tom. And I’d be grateful if you would take in hand your successor; he’ll be here on Monday.’
‘Of course.’ From then on, we relate according to the way of middle-class manners, and give each other a wide berth, while I train in my replacement – a young man just back from Rome with a canon law degree and a gleaming Alfa Romeo.
Each night I listen in to the Heaslip Tribunal, and M.J. gives me an update on the phone – he curses the media, and them smart-alecky lawyers, and most of all Seery for being such a stupid bastard to get caught and land him in the shit. I hear actors’ impressions of voices I had known so well forty years ago and, to satisfy my curiosity, I leave the gloom of the bishop’s house and drive down to Dublin Castle. Over a shirt and tie, I wear a scarf to escape the curiosity of the journalists.
In the public gallery of the tribunal, they are still chatting after the lunch break. Beside me, two elderly women recall their nurses’ training in London. ‘And do you remember Matron,’ she chuckles, and does a high-pitched-Matron takeoff: ‘“Do not on any account, young ladies, go near that Galtymore place. Only by the grace of God do those navvies keep their trousers on.”’ I look around. Just as the papers had said, the retired find it the best matinee in town.
Mr Bartholomew Muldoon is called first. Stooped and with a head of white hair, Horse fills the witness box and swears on the Bible that he will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. By now his colourful tussles with the lawyers have made him into a likeable clown with the public.
‘You are the owner of a big farm and a luxury bungalow in County Roscommon, am I right Mr Muldoon?’ Counsel for the State, a weedy little fellow with rimless glasses and a bulky folder in his arms, sweeps the room with a smirk.
‘Not as much luxury as the barristers who live around Dublin 4, Mr O’Shaughnessy.’
Laughter explodes from the gallery; the smirk dies. Horse looks around with the same menacing grin I had remembered from that morning in Stevenage after he had kicked the youth up the backside, and the lad had to make his own way back to Kilburn.
‘And you were a trusted member of Mr Galvin’s workforce, both in London and here in Ireland.’
‘That’s right, sir.’
‘Did you have any knowledge that Mr Galvin may have been making deposits to an offshore account?’
‘I was a hirin’ foreman, not a bank manager. Mr Galvin wasn’t in the habit of askin’ his hirin’ foreman for bankin’ advice. That’s for experts like you; not for the likes of me.’
‘Come now, Mr Muldoon. Surely you would have been aware of the culture of salting away money in foreign banks.’
His tie loose around his bull neck, Horse gives the impression of one who could tear apart the witness box and fling it across the room. ‘Mr O’Shaughnessy, I know about buildin’ houses and gettin’ men to work, the same as you know about the law. But I know nothin’ about saltin’. The only thing I ever salted was a slaughtered pig when I was slavin’ for a farmer before I took the boat.’
Again, the put-down causes a ripple of laughter to spread through the gallery, and the silver-haired judge’s head to appear above the bench and threaten that he will not tolerate disturbance at his tribunal. And for Mr Muldoon to please answer the questions.
The crosscurrent of accents comprises two streams that have shaped the course of my life: the echoes of Ardglass and, later, the clipped tones of parents at the annual school outing to the opera festival, and at garden fêtes.
M.J.’s defence counsel calls him back to challenge the evidence of the Revenue Commissioner, which has shown him in a bad light: it claims bank accounts in Guernsey had suddenly disappeared when rumours of the tribunal began to circulate.
M.J. stands defiant in the witness box, telling how he had left Ireland just after Christmas in 1952. In a strong voice, he recalls selling hay, turnips, mangolds and potatoes at the market in town. Frosty mornings when people were still in their beds, he was out snaring rabbits. And, after all that, he had only a pair of wellingtons in a cardboard suitcase, his father’s pocket watch and a five-pound note when he stepped off the cattle boat at Liverpool.
Like a radio interviewer favourable to his guest, the defence lawyer cites a list of his achievements. ‘Am I right in saying, Mr Galvin, that in lean times your workers sent on substantial remittances to this country, which laid the foundations for the prosperity we enjoy today?’