by Jacqui Rose
The priest was weary of the conversation. He had had it too many times. There wasn’t any more to say. He had tried, as he had tried before.
‘You might get more love if you showed some love.’
‘I’ve told you my sins. I don’t need to listen to any more of this.’
‘No one’s keeping you here, Donal.’
‘Are you refusing me absolution? Is that the story?’
‘Did you say an act of contrition before you came in here?’
‘I did.’
Kerrigan was easier now; they were back to the business in hand.
‘When you go out, say another one and reflect on what it means.’
‘I will, Father. It’s not much of penance.’
‘The penance is to think about what I’ve said to you.’
‘Right, I will so.’
Now that his back wasn’t up Donal Kerrigan did feel that he ought to take some notice of what the priest had said. A priest didn’t know anything about what a man and a woman were together, of course, but the farmer knew he was heavier with his hand than he meant to be. But he didn’t like the way people still talked about Sarah as a girl. Hadn’t the priest said it himself, ‘barely a girl’? She was a fragile thing. He thought that sometimes when his weight was on her, the way she sank underneath him, her eyes shut in the darkness. They were always shut, from the beginning to the end of it. Not for the reasons a woman should shut her eyes when a man was inside her, but because she didn’t want to see his face. She was young, very young. Almost twenty years younger than him. She was still a woman, not a girl.
‘Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat. By His authority I absolve you from every bond of excommunication and interdict. In quantum possum et tu indiges. In quantum possum; as far as I am able. I absolve you from the sins you have confessed. For the ones you haven’t you’ll need to do more than get on your knees. When you know what they are, that’ll be penance enough. Go in peace. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.’
Donal Kerrigan crossed himself, watching the dark outline of the priest, crossing himself on the other side of the grille. He’d like to have told the old man to fuck himself. On the priest’s side Father Boland felt like saying much the same. But they said nothing. And Kerrigan walked out.
As he knelt in the pew, looking up at the altar, at the Mother of God and at Saint John the Baptist on either side, mouthing the words he had been told to say, he felt short-changed. It wasn’t the first time the old priest had told him how to live his life, but he usually came out of the confessional with enough Hail Marys and sufficient decades of the rosary to make him feel that his place in Heaven was assured; with enough time in the company of the Joyful Mysteries and the Luminous Mysteries and the Sorrowful Mysteries and the Glorious Mysteries to give him the reassurance he wanted. He needed to feel the light come back into his head. It was dark in there sometimes. And the darkness frightened him. There were still times when he kept the nightlight burning by the bed all night, as he had done when he was a child. Being on his own made it worse; he needed Sarah back in his bed. She’d been away for three nights now. He hadn’t married her so that she could run back to her mammy like the girl people kept telling him she was. She was woman enough for some things. He’d heard that, before he’d married her. Not that it bothered him. She was his now and she needed to behave like she was. He would fetch her back from her mother’s. He wouldn’t let her walk out like that again. It wasn’t as if he’d hit her so hard in the first place. It was the way she’d looked at him, like he was something dirty. No man would take that in his own house. He stood up and stepped into the aisle. He genuflected in front of the altar, watched by several of the men and women sitting along the pew, waiting to go into confession. They had heard the raised whispers, even if they hadn’t heard the words. It wasn’t everyone who went into the confessional to argue with the priest. But Donal Kerrigan wasn’t very fussy who he argued with, or who heard him. He walked to the church door, stopping to cross himself with holy water, out into the Saturday evening sun.
Kerrigan stood for a moment, looking from the church towards the mountain behind it. The church stood at the crossroads, with the low buildings of the National School on one side and the derelict house that had been Ted Norton’s farm on the other. He owned Norton’s land now. He owned the long stretch of fields that ran uphill towards the mountain and half the mountain itself. Keadeen was caught in the crisp evening light, and its slopes were purple. The heather was thick this year. It was a long time since he’d seen heather so thick that it coloured the hillside like that, and a long time too since he had walked up the top of the mountain. He couldn’t remember how many years. He had an urge to stand along the ridge of Keadeen again, looking out towards Carlow and Kildare in the afternoon sun. He thought he might do it the next day. He’d be bringing Sarah back from her mother’s later; perhaps she’d come with him and they’d take some food. They would have a day without work, once the cows were milked and the stock was seen to. He knew he didn’t think about things like that enough. Maybe there was a bit in the priest’s words after all, even if the man was a holy gobshite. He wanted his wife to know him when the light was in his head. But for now he needed a drink. He turned back to the road and walked to the bar at Doyle’s shop, at the turning down to Humewood and Kiltegan. After the second drink he decided not to get Sarah. Tomorrow would do. She was the one who’d walked out, wasn’t she? She’d come back when he wanted her. She’d come back when she was told. That would be the last of her stuck-up days.
It was a long evening in Doyle’s in the end, most of it spent on his own, talking to no one, because there was no one he wanted to talk to. The light in his head hadn’t lasted long. It never did. And by the next morning the light had gone, and gone for good. Donal Kerrigan was dead. The shotgun that had killed him lay on the floor of the farm kitchen as he did. He had taken both barrels in the chest and face. The old black dog lay in the doorway whimpering. The hens that had wandered in through the open door with the morning were pecking around the room; by the time the body was found they were pecking at the dried blood on Kerrigan’s face. By evening the Guards had the man who killed him in a cell in Baltinglass Garda station.
*
It was the day after Donal Kerrigan’s funeral. David Gillespie stood in the yard at Kilranelagh, waving his arms at a lowering, disgruntled cow he was trying to push into the loose box next to the barn. The cow didn’t want to go in, and she was in no mood to have her mind changed by the farmer’s flapping arms and ash stick and all that rhythmic shouting, ‘Go on, go on, go on with ye!’ She was eyeing the dark door into the loose box, the figure of David Gillespie, arms and stick, and the space between him and the wall of the barn, and the open sky beyond the gate and the field across the road. Then she made her decision, and with a speed that belied her size she bolted, and as he leapt sideways to block her path she was past him, clattering down towards the gate. But as he turned after her she stopped abruptly. Coming up the track from the road, wheeling his bicycle, a cigarette stuck between his lips, was Father Boland. He stopped too. The black and white Friesian and the black and white cleric eyed each other. For a moment it was a stand-off.
‘Can you drive her back up to me, Father?’
‘I’ll do my best. But she may have the measure of me already.’
‘I want her in the loose box. I’ll stand the other side.’
David Gillespie moved back, standing on the other side of the door next to the barn, with his back to the stone farmhouse. The priest leant his bicycle against the ditch that ran up from the gate towards the yard. He walked forward slowly, his arms outstretched now too, as if in blessing.
‘Come on girl, come on. Gub, gub, gub, gub, gub.’
He made the soothing, meaningless sounds that go with calling stock.
‘Gub, gub, gub, come on with you now!’
For a moment the cow stood her ground. Then she took a step back. And then her
will was broken. She turned and made her way into the yard. The priest was right behind her now. He tapped her flank with his hand and she moved faster. She saw David ahead of her, to the side of the door into the loose box. He moved forward, narrowing the angle. With a snort of resignation she walked tamely into the darkness, straight to the net of hay on the back wall, and started to eat. David bolted the door loudly behind her.
‘Just in time, Father.’
‘Ah, by the grace of God,’ smiled the old priest.
‘Will you have a cup of tea?’
‘I will, David.’
The two men walked across the cobbles to the house. The priest was a rare visitor. The Protestant Gillespies were not on his rounds. But it wasn’t a long time since Father Boland and the farmer had spoken, and the visit, though unexplained, wasn’t a surprise. It was only the day before, when David had walked up to the hillside cemetery behind the farm, on the slopes of Kilranelagh Hill, to see his neighbour along the road buried. It was on the way down from the graveyard that the priest had caught him up and asked him if he could call in for chat some time; a ‘chat about all this’ was how he had put it, very quietly. What ‘all this’ was David Gillespie had no idea. Donal Kerrigan was dead. The man who had shot him was already caught. He had admitted the murder. Some people said Michael Burke had good reason to shoot Kerrigan; he wasn’t even in the ground before it was said. Whether it was true or not, it was unlikely to stop Michael Burke hanging.
In the kitchen David Gillespie pushed the kettle from the side of the stove on to the hot ring. He got out the pot and the tea, and within a minute the kettle was boiling steadily. The priest said nothing. He found an ashtray to stub out his cigarette and immediately took out another one and lit it. He moved across to the kitchen table and sat down. David put two cups and saucers on the table and the pot beside them to let the tea brew. He sat down too.
‘Isn’t that pull up the hill from Woodfield getting steeper? I swear to God it is. I don’t know whether it’s my breath or my bones it hits hardest.’
‘I wish I could say it’s your imagination, Father. But it’s not.’
‘Ah, you’re no age at all, David! Jesus, you’re only fifty!’
‘And a bit.’
‘It’s a bit I’d like to see again!’
David Gillespie picked up the tea and poured it.
The priest shifted in his chair.
‘I was in at the barracks to see Michael Burke.’
Whatever ‘all that’ was, he was going to say it now.
‘He’s still there?’
‘They’ll be taking him up to Dublin soon enough.’
David pushed the cup across the table.
‘He’s admitted it though?’
Father Boland nodded, reaching for the milk.
‘They had him brought in the next day. He was seen going up to the farm. And it’s no secret how he felt about Donal. There was a row in Sheridan’s last week. Donal knocked Michael flat in the street. I think there are some clothes too, with blood. That’s what Inspector Riordan told me.’
‘There’s not much to say is there. The only hope he has is that a judge is going to take some account of what was behind it, with Sarah–’
David Gillespie stopped; he doubted it would save Burke’s life.
‘He didn’t do it, that’s the problem, David.’
The priest said the words with a sad half smile and half shrug.
‘He’s told them he did. Didn’t we just say that, Father?’
‘Well, he’s a reason for that.’
‘And what reason would he have to say he killed a man?’
‘The same reason everyone thinks he has for murder.’
‘Sarah?’
Father Boland shrugged again; it was hardly a secret.
‘It wasn’t many years ago the whole town thought Michael Burke and Sarah Phelan were sure to be wed,’ said David quietly. ‘We’d made those two a match when were barely in their teens. Then one day he was gone to England, and she was on her own. Did they even know why themselves? It’s how it is sometimes. I’d still never have seen her marrying Donal though.’
‘No one would stop her,’ replied the priest. ‘God knows why.’
‘We all know why, Father. Because Davie Phelan owed Donal money, and when he died there was nothing to keep a roof over the family’s head.’
‘There should have been another way.’
‘Michael must have known,’ said David, ‘before he came back?’
‘He knew,’ answered the priest. ‘It was a mess. It’s a bigger one now, for the both of them. Now he thinks Sarah shot her husband, since he didn’t.’
‘And how do you know that?’
‘I went in to hear his confession.’
‘Have you told Inspector Riordan that?’
‘I’ve told him what I can. That he has the wrong man.’
‘So you’re offering Michael’s confession to you as evidence then, against the confession he’s already given Gerry Riordan?’ David smiled.
‘It wouldn’t count for much, would it? Michael wouldn’t let me say any of it, anyway, let alone mention her name. But I believe what he said.’
‘And what did the Gerry say?’
‘Oh, he thanked me for coming in,’ laughed Father Boland, ‘and asked if Michael was there on Sunday would I come and give Communion.’
‘Can I ask why you’re telling me this, Father?’
‘I have to tell someone. And if I’m going to break the seal of the confessional I might as well go the whole hog and break it to a Protestant.’ He grinned; then he looked more serious. ‘Someone has to help Michael. He won’t help himself so. There’s nothing for the Guards to look at. They have their man of course. They have his confession. I don’t know what to do. I’m not a policeman. I don’t know where to start. But you are a policeman.’
David stared at the priest.
‘I haven’t been a policeman for nearly six years.’
‘But you were in the Dublin Metropolitan Police, and a senior officer to boot. An inspector, am I right? So you’d know where to start, I’d say.’
‘To start what?’
‘It’s simple enough. If Michael Burke didn’t do it, someone else did.’
‘And I’m to find him?’
‘That’s it entirely, David.’
Father Boland shrugged once more; it did seem simple enough to him.
‘Father, I know you mean well–’
‘It’s not about meaning well, so don’t patronise me. I don’t believe Michael Burke killed anyone, but he’s going to let himself go to the gallows because he thinks the woman he loved did. I don’t lightly believe what people tell me, even in the confessional, but I believe Michael. I can’t stand by and do nothing, yet there’s nothing I can do. So I need your help.’
‘And what if he’s right?’
‘Right about what?’
‘What if the woman he loves did kill Donal Kerrigan?’
‘She was nowhere near the farm. She was staying with her mother.’
‘Because Donal beat the shite out of her. That’s what I heard.’
‘No.’ Father Boland shook his head
‘He didn’t beat the shite out of her, or she didn’t shoot him?’
‘She wouldn’t be capable of it.’
‘Did she tell you that in her confession?’
The priest laughed.
‘There you go, David. Even a bit of sarcasm is a start.’
‘There’s nothing I can do.’
‘But you will do it. Someone has to. You have to.’
‘I’m sorry–’
‘All I have is a lifetime listening to people telling me lies and telling me the truth. That’s maybe not so different to what a policeman does a lot of the time, is it? All I can say is that I do know the difference. I truly do.’
David shook his head.
But even as he said no, he knew he had already said yes.
‘Has there bee
n a detective in it?’
‘Inspector Riordan had a sergeant down from Naas.’
‘Do you know if he found anything?’
‘There were fingerprints on the shotgun.’
David heard the hesitancy in the answer.
‘Did they identify them?’
‘It wasn’t difficult.’
‘There were some of Michael’s?’
‘There were only Michael’s.’
David Gillespie took in his breath. It wasn’t getting any better.
The priest gave a faint smile.
‘I didn’t say he wasn’t there. I said he didn’t shoot him.’
*
Donal Kerrigan’s farm at Colvinstown was like any other small farm. Once it had been a single storey, thatched cabin; later the single storey had been rebuilt with foundations and a slate roof; fifty years ago the walls had been raised and a second storey added, with some cut stone to sharpen the window frames and replace the field stone under the grey rendering at the front of the house. It wasn’t very different from the house at Kilranelagh, but Kerrigan had been a far wealthier man that David Gillespie would ever be. Over the years he had spent his money wisely, almost obsessively, buying any land he could that lay in a rough triangle between Kilranelagh Hill, Kilranelagh Cross and Keadeen. He now owned a gaggle of small farms between the two hills and almost seven hundred acres including the rough grazing on the slopes of the mountain. Some of the farms were still tenanted, but sooner or later the tenants went; Kerrigan made it hard to stay and easy to go. And when they did go the houses were more often than not left to the winds and the rain. There was more money in farming the land than there was in rent. It was a lot of land though, even if it was cheap enough to buy the way things were in Ireland. And there were no children to have it now that Donal Kerrigan had gone himself. As David Gillespie walked into Kerrigan’s yard he had been walking past the dead man’s fields for over half an hour. It would all go to Sarah Kerrigan of course; there was no one else.
He looked back at the road he had just come along. Where he was standing was almost exactly where Jimmy Furlong said he had seen Michael Burke standing, looking at the farm, on the night Donal Kerrigan died. David had already stopped at the shepherd’s house on the way. Jimmy had seen Michael clearly enough as he had walked his dog up towards the mountain, to check some traps he had put down for foxes. He had said a word about the weather as he passed by, but Michael had barely replied, turning away from the farm and walking off. That the man was distressed, angry, in some fierce temper, was evident enough, but that was no surprise. He had good reason. Good enough reason, added Jimmy, that if the Guards had given him the back end of the arse of an idea why they were asking the questions, he’d never have told the feckers he’d seen Michael Burke at all.