Death at Christy Burke's

by Anne Emery

  Only Dominic was oblivious; the baby was playing happily with a set of brightly coloured plastic rings. He stuffed them in his mouth, found them to his liking, then crawled over to Leo, reached up and offered them to him, with a word that sounded like “Da!” Leo laughed and ruffled the child’s dark hair, and the tension was broken, at least for the moment.

  “You’ll be wondering where dinner is, I expect,” Finn said. “It’s due to arrive any minute, from the Greek place down the street. In the meantime, let me refresh your drinks.” He did, and the food arrived and was plentiful. When the meal was over, the dinner guests thanked Finn for the evening and said goodnight. They dropped Maura and the children off at the convent with a plateful of Greek delicacies for Kitty Curran.

  Michael

  Michael O’Flaherty went to the Aughrim Street church the next day, Friday, for morning Mass. When he got to the Confiteor, when he confessed that he had sinned “in what I have done and what I have failed to do,” he thought about himself as a sinner, and about the sinners who came to him to make their confessions. Depending on what he heard in the confession box on any given day, his feelings ranged from amusement to exasperation to outrage, but almost without exception he felt compassion and pity for the people whose transgressions he absolved. He thought about this as he made the short walk home, and he realized he had recently acted in a manner unbefitting a man of his calling. The only person who would understand was another priest. When he got to his room, he gave Brennan a call and asked to see him. He said he’d take a walk over to Brennan’s place, but the younger man quickly offered to come to Michael.

  “I failed a man the other day, Brennan,” he told Father Burke when the two were seated together in Michael’s room.

  Brennan looked at him and waited for him to continue. “A man came to me for, well, I wouldn’t say he came to me for help. He came to thank me for . . . a small kindness I had shown him. And then he started to tell me something. Something dreadful that had happened, that he had done. And I cut him off, refused to hear it.”

  “You’re not saying you were his confessor during this encounter, are you, Mike?”

  “No. Or at least I don’t think he saw it that way. He knows the drill and would have made it clear, if that had been his intention.”

  Brennan nodded as if he understood. Had he caught on that Michael was talking about Tim Shanahan?

  “I can’t condone for a minute what he did, Brennan, but . . .”

  “What was his attitude? Was he callous about it? Was it something he was boasting about? Or was he unburdening himself, so to speak?”

  “I don’t think he was boasting. If that was his intent, I never let him get that far. But, no, I don’t think so. I think he wanted to talk it through, and he might have thought I would be sympathetic, given the . . . situation I had found him in, and the assistance I had provided. A simple act of goodness that I then repudiated and undid by my arrogance in refusing to let him speak!”

  “You couldn’t stomach whatever it was he started to tell you.”

  “That’s correct. But now I feel I let him down. I know I did. If it had been a confession, I would have listened to whatever he had to say and then decided whether or not I could grant absolution. Instead, I gave him the brush-off, turned him away. Spoke some harsh words while I was at it. He is so obviously a man in need that, no matter what he has done, I should have heard him out, and tried to direct him as best I could.”

  “I know what you’re saying, Michael. We all make mistakes. We all do things we’re not proud of. And there comes a time for most of us when we need someone to hear us out. You’ve done that for me, you’ve done it for thousands of others, and something tells me you’re going to do it for this poor devil as well.”

  “I am.” Michael stood up. “I’m going right now.”

  Less than twenty minutes later, Michael found himself once again at Tim Shanahan’s door. He knocked and waited. Not a sound from inside. He tried again. This time he heard footsteps, and the door opened wide. Shanahan stood there with a book in his hand. Dante, in Italian. He was wearing a pair of blue gym shorts and a grey UCD T-shirt, which was too big for his thin frame. His black hair was clean but dishevelled, as if he had been running his hand through it while reading. He stared at Michael in silence. After a few seconds, he stepped back and made room for Michael to enter the flat. An armchair was bathed in soft light, and there was a cup of tea on a small table beside the chair.

  Tim Shanahan sat in his reading chair, and his guest perched on the couch beside him. Michael said, “Bless me Father for I have sinned.”

  Shanahan looked at him in astonishment, but Michael continued: “I committed the sins of pride and anger. And intolerance. I failed to carry out my responsibilities as a priest and as a man. Please forgive me. Grant me absolution, and allow me to make up for what I have done.”

  The younger man stared, almost, it seemed to Michael, with apprehension.

  “Father,” Michael prompted him.

  Shanahan started to raise his right hand, then faltered and let it drop. “I haven’t . . . it’s been years . . .”

  “Go ahead.”

  The man then sat forward in his seat, raised his right hand, and made the sign of the cross over Michael. He spoke in a voice that was barely audible. “I absolve you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” After speaking, he fell back in his chair as if exhausted, his eyes closed.

  “I’m here today to listen,” Michael told him. “Please tell me your story.” He eyed the cup of tea. “Could I, em . . .”

  “Tea? Certainly. I’ve a potful out there.” Shanahan seemed relieved to turn to mundane matters, and got up and headed into his tiny kitchen. He was back in a trice with a cup of tea, cream and sugar.

  He looked at Michael and opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  Michael got the conversation going. “You told me about the young girl who was your student, a very engaging little child. Before I cut you off so abruptly that day, you said she was in bed with you.”

  Shanahan cleared his throat. “Yes. I awoke to find her in my bed. She certainly hadn’t been there when I went to sleep! She had left the school a year or so before this. One day, the class filed in and Sabine wasn’t there. I never heard from her or her family; I went to their home a couple of times to inquire but nobody answered my knock. Anyway, on this occasion, I woke up to find her, unclothed, in my bed with . . . her hands on me.”

  Michael steeled himself not to react.

  “It was at that point, the other day, that you decided you’d heard enough. I have to warn you. It gets a lot worse, though not in the way you’re expecting.”

  Michael sat silently and waited for things to get worse.

  “I reached for my clothes, held them against myself and went outside the room to dress. I returned to the bedroom and grabbed my bedsheet, wrapped it around her from behind, picked her up and placed her on the chair in my room. She looked up at me as if nothing untoward had happened. ‘Victor told me you’d like it,’ she said to me.

  “‘Victor is wrong, Sabine. This is wrong. You know that. Go out there and put your clothes on. I’m taking you home.’ The sooner I got her out of there, the more likely Victor would realize nothing had happened.”

  “Who was Victor?”

  “Her brother.”

  “Oh!”

  “I took her home, all the way trying to persuade her that this kind of behaviour was wrong, it went against everything she’d been taught, she was better than this, it would ruin her life, on and on. I knocked at her family’s door. No response. But they were in there, I could tell. Finally, I opened the door and gave her a gentle shove into the place, then left.

  “I learned soon afterwards, however, that it wasn’t her home anymore. She had a new place of residence. But her family would have delivered her there, I
knew. Her brother, you see, with the connivance of their mother, had sold her — sold her! — to a child trafficker. To be his whore and his slave, whatever he wanted her to be. He owned her; he could sell her if he chose to. He pimped her out and took the profits. A thirteen-year-old girl. Naturally, they had taken her out of the school. That was the end of higher education for Sabine. She still saw her mother and brother. No problem for them. Well, they had gained great riches from the sale of her. They got a television, and the mother got a cordless phone. Which didn’t work, of course, but she had it on display. The brother got a brand-name sweatshirt and a pair of track shoes. The pimp tarted Sabine up in trashy western clothing, hung jewellery on her, and made her the envy of some of the other girls at the school. So we had a devil of a time trying to keep the other girls in school and out of danger.

  “The whole episode — that man buying the girl — tipped the balance of power in the area. This thug, who owned Sabine, was in ascendance. He was making a name for himself in child-trafficking circles in the region, and was making enemies along the way. One of those enemies was a powerful figure in our community who had acted as a protector of our parish; we could not have functioned without the goodwill of this individual. Now he — our man — was forced into a defensive position. Violence erupted sporadically and looked as if it would get worse. I was so disillusioned by it all, by a mother selling her child for a couple of shoddy western consumer items, and by the lack of appropriate reaction in so many members of the parish, I fell into a depression, took to drinking — something I had a weakness for but had always controlled until then — and I walked out on them. Just left them. Feck ’em, was my attitude.

  “I think I told you I broke my leg while building the church. The fracture took a long time to heal, and I developed a bone infection. It got so bad I started taking a morphine derivative for the pain. I obtained the drug from the mission hospital and kept it in a very secure location while I was there, and that’s all I took with me when I left. My supply of drugs. I got on a freighter to Lisbon, started drinking, and went on a months-long bender. I couldn’t get a prescription for my medication but it was no problem getting heroin on the street. That was the beginning of my addiction to smack. Eddie Madigan keeps me supplied. At my request. Otherwise, he doesn’t deal heroin. At all. I’m desperate to get off it. I’ve tried methadone, but I’m a backslider. I hope to try it again.”

  “Tim, I am truly sorry. About Sabine, about your mission there, and about your addiction. I apologize again for the way I treated you the other day.”

  “Michael, don’t even think about that again. Little wonder you stopped up your ears when I began that sorry tale. I can’t bear to hear myself repeat it. You were so kind to me when you found me in my flat, lying there in my own filth.” Tim’s voice broke, and he looked away. Then he got up from his chair, stood in front of Michael, and put his hand out for Michael to stand. Tim put his arms out and embraced him. “Thank you, Michael.”

  When they were seated again, Michael said, “How can I help you, Tim? I mean help you take up your vocation again.”

  “Oh, they’re not on fire with the Holy Spirit over at headquarters when it comes to reinstating Father Shanahan as a parish priest. Drinking priests are one thing; heroin users are quite another. And if I ever succeeded in getting off that, there’s still the Africa shambles on my record.”

  “But surely they understand that wasn’t your fault.”

  “It’s not that simple to them.”

  Michael had the impression that there was more, that Tim was being evasive, but he was not about to interrogate the man after all he’d been through. He did, however, offer a suggestion. “I’m wondering, Tim, if being a priest, celebrating the Eucharist and performing the sacraments, would build up strength in you. The grace of our Lord working in you to help fight your demons, so to speak.”

  “It’s a lovely thought, Michael.”

  “Are there any other complications in your life? Besides those we just discussed?”

  Tim smiled. “Aren’t those enough? But if you’re asking whether I’ve hooked myself up with a woman, the answer is no. The temptations have been there, but no.”

  Because he still saw himself as a priest, now and perhaps more fully again in the future.

  Michael got up. “I’ll leave you now, Tim, but I’ll see you again soon. On familiar ground! Was that by any chance your sister and niece in Christy’s yesterday? A family resemblance, I thought.”

  Tim’s face lit up. “Yes! My sister Meg and little Susie. She’s a dote, isn’t she?”

  “I’m sure she is. All I saw was a tiny fist outside the blanket.”

  “I’ll introduce you next time she’s in.”

  “Wonderful. All right, then, Tim. See you soon.”

  “Pray for me, Michael.”

  “You don’t even have to ask.”

  Michael would indeed pray for Father Tim Shanahan. But he would do more than pray. That same afternoon, he was on the bus to Drumcondra to see the Most Reverend Thomas O’Halloran. When he spotted his destination, he got off the bus and headed for the brick palace, as it was known: the home of the Archbishop of Dublin. He had called ahead and introduced himself to the receptionist on the phone as a visiting priest, and had secured an appointment for two-thirty. He walked under the rounded arch of the entrance with five minutes to spare and gabbed with the receptionist, Florrie, until it was time to be shown into the bishop’s office.

  Thomas O’Halloran was a giant of a man, nearly a head taller than Michael and maybe seventy pounds heavier. His face was beefy but handsome under his thick grey hair. The bishop was dressed in a black clerical suit, light grey shirt, and Roman collar, with a pectoral cross on a silver chain. He waved off Michael’s approach to his ringed hand and bade him sit in a comfy chair by the window. Michael gave a little spiel about his frequent visits to Ireland, and they shared a laugh over the things tourists wanted to see and local people never did.

  “I’m going to Belfast on Sunday,” Michael said. “Not as many silly tourists up there. You may have heard about the concert they’re putting on, for peace.”

  “Ah, yes. You’ll want to watch yourself while you’re in Belfast, Monsignor. We’re all on edge over the disappearance of the American minister.”

  “I know. I’ve been very concerned. If this follows the usual course, Catholics will be targeted in response.”

  “That may be happening already.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen the news coverage. The riots, the violence —”

  “I’m referring to something a little more specific than that.”

  “Oh, no! What’s happened?”

  “There may have been another disappearance. We’re not sure. We’re trying to find out, but it’s difficult.”

  “Another disappearance? A Catholic, you mean? Kidnapped as a swap for Mr. Odom?”

  “We don’t even know that. There is a person who has not been heard from since around the time the American vanished. But it’s not at all clear. The situation is ‘fluid,’ as they say. If it’s true, it could be just the beginning of reprisals and counter-reprisals — Catholics, Protestants, people at risk on both sides. It’s unbearable to think about.”

  “Who is it, the person who is missing?”

  “Oh, I can’t tell you that, Monsignor.”

  “Of course not, Your Grace. I apologize. People tell me I’m too nosy for my own good, and they’re right.”

  “No apology necessary, Michael. I understand your concern. It’s just that none of this is public and the . . . the family wants it kept that way. These things spiral out of control once they turn into a media circus.”

  “They certainly do.”

  “Please keep this confidential, Michael. I shouldn’t even have mentioned it, but it’s in the forefront of my mind.”

  “I won’t say a word, I promise you.”<
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  The archbishop returned to small talk for a few minutes, and then it was time to bring the conversation around to the real purpose of the visit.

  “I’ve met an interesting man this time out, Your Grace. Tim Shanahan.”

  “Ah.”

  “I understand he’s a daily communicant at St. Saviour’s.”

  The bishop nodded, then sat silently, waiting for whatever was to come.

  “He strikes me as a good man in spite of his difficulties. And I believe he is still utterly committed to his vocation.”

  “So you’re here to plead his case, are you?”

  “I confess that I am, Your Grace.”

  “The situation with Shanahan is complicated. You mentioned his difficulties, by which I take it you mean his addictions.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of his dependence on drugs.”

  “Where did you meet him, Michael? At Mass? Or . . .”

  “Em, well, we actually became acquainted at an establishment owned by the family of . . .”

  “You met him at Christy Burke’s.”

  “Correct.”

  “That doesn’t do him a lot of good in terms of appearances, as I’m sure you can appreciate, Michael. Christy’s is a popular spot. Many’s the Dublin man and woman who sees Father Shanahan, day after day, at his regular place at the bar.”

  “But if he were to resume his position as a parish priest, that would cut way down on his pub hours. The man needs company, and he finds it at his local. Like so many others. I just think being accepted again by the priestly fraternity would help motivate him to work very hard at overcoming his troubles with the drink and the drugs.”

  “But that’s not the only problem with Shanahan. There’s the political angle as well.”