by Tom Keneally
‘I don’t seek to have it,’ he protested.
‘That’s why it’s there.’ She maintained a fond silence.
‘I’m sorry about your brother. As Damian says, he isn’t you.’
There was a pause, then Maureen said, ‘Father O’Hanlon’s burying Stephen despite the suicide.’
‘He’s a decent man – a real human being.’ Docherty knew some priests who turned their face on suicides, standing with the aged parishioners who didn’t like those who killed themselves to be buried from the parish church. Indeed, the Vatican had only in the past two decades – in 1980 – advised that suicides could be buried in consecrated ground if there was doubt of the stability of the self-destroyer’s mind, the thinking being that there often existed psychiatric and medical reasons that diminished the victim’s supposed guilt.
‘If you want to go and see Liz,’ Maureen offered, ‘I’ll drive you, but I shouldn’t go in.’
‘That’s all right. I can get there. You have a number for the Cosgrove house?’
She did, and gave it to him.
That evening, when Paul might be home, Docherty rang the Cosgroves and was lucky that Paul answered.
‘I wondered if we could have a talk,’ Docherty asked.
There was a hesitation but no rancour in Paul. ‘Yes. It’s kind of you to call.’
‘I informed the cardinal, Paul.’
‘Oh? What did he say?’
‘It’s too early to know but I shall tell you when I hear from him. And I believe the coroner has released your brother’s body.’
‘The funeral is Friday, eleven o’clock.’
‘Would you or your mother object if I came as a mourner?’
There was a long silence, Paul Cosgrove weighing matters.
‘I can’t officiate from the altar,’ Docherty explained. ‘But I could serve Father O’Hanlon as an acolyte. I’m very distressed for your mother’s sake and yours – that’s my only reason for coming. By the way, I blacked out Brian Wood’s name. In the letter I sent the cardinal, I mean.’
‘Well, Brian is back in Sydney. I tracked him down and I’ve invited him to the funeral. He knows he’s in the letter. He’s not too pleased at it.’
‘Brave of you,’ said Docherty.
‘He called me after I left him a message. Should I show him the letter?’
Docherty said, ‘I have to leave that to you. But he’s a party to it all, isn’t he? That’s what I would have told him had he called me back.’
Next, Docherty phoned Father O’Hanlon’s presbytery. From within seemingly cavernous depths the priest eventually answered. Docherty introduced himself. ‘I remember you,’ said O’Hanlon. ‘You were having troubles with Cardinal Scanlon when I was having my own.’
He asked Docherty how things had turned out for him. ‘I know you went to Canada,’ O’Hanlon said. ‘Your case was held out to me by the well meaning as a warning.’
‘I’m glad I was a cautionary tale,’ said Docherty. ‘And now I was hoping I could ask you a favour. Paul Cosgrove says I can attend Stephen’s funeral Mass as a mourner. I wonder, do you need an acolyte? As far as I know I’m not permitted to say public Masses here – that was impressed on me back then. But I feel terrible – Liz Cosgrove was once a friend and parishioner of mine.’
O’Hanlon said, ‘I was at your lecture.’
‘I see.’
‘I agree with you.’
‘That’s a relief,’ said Docherty.
‘Please come, then,’ said O’Hanlon.
When Docherty presented himself at the sacristy on the morning of the funeral, O’Hanlon did look as if he had been through something wholesome but educative. His face was that of a man who knew himself and his frailties. Docherty knew that was rare in a man who did not have a wife to subject him to self-education. But there was nothing reticent in O’Hanlon’s grasping of Docherty’s hand. ‘Kind of you to come, doctor,’ he said, and then broke away to talk to a young woman who had come into the sacristy. They began to discuss the Communion anthem and recessional. ‘This is my niece,’ said O’Hanlon presently. ‘She’s the family soprano. I don’t want to muddle through the Mass and consign the poor little bastard to the earth without a wonderful voice announcing his dignity.’
Paul arrived, with a list of family members who would read the lessons. Cousins, an uncle, he himself. An aged parishioner dressed the altar as O’Hanlon and Docherty watched from the sacristy, O’Hanlon ready in his vestments.
‘I believe there was a suicide letter,’ said O’Hanlon.
‘I believe there was one,’ agreed Docherty. The old man out in the sanctuary placed the chalice, the pix, the water and wine. O’Hanlon breathed into Docherty’s ear, ‘I knew your father. My God, what a character! Typical Irish-Australian – telling fables and buying the wrong horse.’
‘That’s him,’ said Docherty. ‘He was a pilgrim.’ He was at home with O’Hanlon, and the beneficiary of a gracious fraternity. O’Hanlon said, ‘All right, Dr Docherty, let’s go.’
Docherty carried the missal before O’Hanlon and placed it on the stand. He saw Liz supported in the front row by three other women. It was a scene painted down the ages. Women supporting the unsupportable. He could see a figure powerfully resembling the Brian Wood of the Wood and Associates webpage, in an immaculate black suit and black tie, standing beside an extremely well-dressed and handsome woman – a non-Catholic, Docherty surmised by the way she followed his movements so studiously, like a Reformation queen ready to convert to win her king.
The Gospel reading O’Hanlon chose was the old standby. ‘Come to me all ye who are heavy burdened …’
Docherty watched Liz and Paul as O’Hanlon began the sermon. ‘The life of a drug addict is in many ways a life of worship,’ said O’Hanlon, ‘and in ending his life in a manner I in my own case could not brave, I dare to say Stephen was in his way a hero.’
Copious weeping. And that was good.
The dead man was to be cremated the next day, privately. In the churchyard after the Mass, a neighbour Paul clearly knew said, ‘You boys go and have a drink for poor Stephen. Don’t worry. We’ll get your mother into bed and watch her.’
Paul, the good son, frowned. He had just introduced Brian Wood to Docherty.
‘Go,’ said this gracious woman in purple. ‘It’ll do you a bit of good, Paul.’
Paul turned to Docherty. ‘Will you come, Father?’
‘Call me Frank, Paul, please.’
‘Let’s all go,’ said Wood neutrally. His elegant woman had left and he was alone. ‘Paul says you’re not a bad bloke.’ He flashed a thin smile to Docherty, sharp as acid. Paul went and kissed his comatose mother, and she clung frenziedly to him until her arms collapsed to her sides again, as if she despaired of retaining him, or anything. Two women led her to a car. She seemed to tread the middle air between her friends like a drunk under arrest.
‘Are we ready then?’ asked Wood, and the three men set off.
‘I got your message, Father,’ Wood told Docherty. ‘I didn’t want to answer it. Forgive me, but I didn’t know who you were and I couldn’t see the necessity.’
‘Fair enough. But you know Stephen mentioned you in his suicide note?’
Wood’s jaw looked set. ‘Paul mentioned it. He didn’t do me a favour, poor Stephen.’
The old redbrick vomitorium of a pub had been rendered and painted teal and lit artfully within – as could be seen through the tall windows – and retained only its former name, The Stag and Archer.
‘The old Archer,’ said Paul nostalgically, like a man remembering a distant, less fraught youth.
Wood led Docherty and Paul into a large bar twinkling with the cheap thrill of poker machines. Designed for a garrulous, bibulous crush, the space seemed underpopulated now, with a few clumps of mid-afternoon drinkers.
As they waited at the bar, Wood said, ‘I suppose the coroner’s got a copy? Of the letter, I mean.’
‘Yes,’ said Paul.
> ‘Oh fuck it, Paul!’
A fresh-faced young bar manager in his all-black like an informal undertaker met them and shook hands with Wood.
‘Is the Green Room empty?’ Wood tersely asked him.
The bar manager said yes.
‘Bring us a bottle of Black Bush, then,’ said Wood. ‘And some ice.’
Wood led Docherty and Paul upstairs, through pastel lounges and glittering bars into a small room with a conference table in its midst. They were barely seated before the man was back with a bottle of Black Bush Irish Whiskey on a tray, with glasses, ice, a jug of water.
‘Brian, what is this hooch you’re trying to get us to drink?’ asked Paul.
‘Northern Irish. Bushmills, where they said no papist hand would ever stir the mash. But it goes down papist gullets smoothly. A good one, I thought, to remember your brother with.’ And he began to pour three glasses.
‘Not for me,’ said Docherty. ‘I’m an inexperienced drinker.’
‘No exceptions today, Father,’ said Wood mid-pour, fixing Docherty with an apparently intractable gaze. ‘This is my pub and I say who drinks. Except for confessed alcoholics.’
Wood was choosing his words like a man testing Docherty. It was better than empty courtesy, however. He said then, remarkably softly, ‘A priest did it to me and a priest knows the man did it. I’m not happy about either. But that’s it! I don’t consider myself in this in any way. Except … poor damned Stephen …’
The glasses were poured. Docherty was allowed to dilute his with water. When each had doctored his drink to his pleasure, they looked at each other.
‘An awful business, Paul,’ said Wood. ‘Give us a toast to your brother.’
Paul raised his glass towards the roof. ‘To you, Steve, you poor little bugger!’ He paused and said with sudden ardour. ‘And may they all suffer public shame! The dealers! The abusers.’
‘Oh, Paul,’ Wood half-protested at the unlikeliness of that.
Paul drank a good mouthful and emitted an involuntary gasp of enjoyment. Docherty sipped. The unaccustomed whiskey went scalding down his gullet, wasted on him. Wood met Paul’s stare. He drank too, with a corresponding thoroughness and a connoisseur’s savouring, ensuring the liquor had time to declare itself on the palate.
‘I know what you want me to say,’ Wood admitted now. ‘I’m sorry, Paul. But it’s not going to happen. I won’t go after Shannon. All that’s dead to me. Sorry … but you know what I mean.’
‘Then no justice for Steve? He’s just a junkie who killed himself, eh?’
‘No one’s just a junkie. No one just kills themselves.’ He turned to Docherty. ‘I wanted to see you, Father. I was genuinely intrigued by the idea of a priest leaving a message. I sort of knew what it was about. I was convinced, though, that you were an investigator from the Church, asking me to say that … Well, that certain monsters were blameless.’
‘Well, you’re out of luck, Brian,’ said Paul. ‘He’s a psychologist too, and an old friend of Mum’s.’
Wood switched his gaze fully to Docherty and scanned him, frowning. Docherty stood gradually and put his glass down. ‘Perhaps I should go. Clearly there’s some talking you want to do.’
‘No, no,’ said Paul, red-faced, taking a gulp of Black Bush in embarrassment. ‘I expressed myself badly. Please stay!’
‘Yes,’ said Wood, earnest enough now, in the mode of a fellow mourner. ‘Please stay, Father. So, you read the note Stephen left?’
‘Paul showed it to me and gave me permission to send it to the cardinal.’
Wood seemed to be assessing all this now and was suddenly angry. He turned to Paul, ‘Don’t you think you should have asked me first? Before you gave a note with my name in it to Father Docherty?’
Docherty said hastily, ‘Your name was inked out. And the family are not expecting a prosecution. I did try to reach you through your Sydney office.’
‘Bugger you! Bugger you,’ said Wood. ‘You’ve sent it to the bloody cardinal?’
‘I felt he had to know.’
‘So he’d take severe action, I suppose? So he’d read the riot act? So he’d demote and discipline the bastard?’
‘At least that.’
‘Oh yes,’ Wood said in a cool sort of fury. ‘I imagine he’ll flay our monsignor and cast him out of the temple!’
Neither Paul nor Docherty responded.
‘Yes. I thought so. Pig’s arse, he will! Forgive my crudity, Father. But let me say again, pig’s arse!’ He laughed bitterly and shook his head. ‘You two don’t understand the beginning of it. Look, I’m an accredited success story. I’m not speaking in arrogance. I simply am. It means that companies turn to me, or the consultancy that carries my name, to help them with their restructures, their ambitions, their mergers and acquisitions and the rest. I have managed a relationship with a woman who has agreed to be my wife. And not one of those people knows what’s happened to me. They don’t know I was a so-called victim. I don’t want them to know, either. I barely know myself! It’s vanity, sure, but also I can’t afford to be seen under that category. They would forgive me for becoming a paraplegic. But they would not know what to do with me as an abused child. Would you ask an abused child to help you sort out your new corporate structure and table of organisation? So, just leave me out of this. It’s up to you both to make sure my name doesn’t get out.’
Docherty felt chastened. It was true. Even those who wanted justice done for a child could not help thinking of the child in any other category but that of victim. It was a further dimension to the enduring injustice of it all.
‘Forgive me for asking you,’ Docherty said. ‘But are you suggesting that you have recovered from the damage the man did you?’
Wood assessed Docherty, deciding whether to tell him to go to hell. Docherty maintained eye contact, sure that any evasion would infuriate Wood more.
‘All right,’ Wood said at last. He occupied himself pouring more whiskey for all parties, though Docherty had not drunk much of his. ‘You know as well as anyone that there is damage, but it’s damage I’ve lived with and assimilated. In the corporate world people don’t wear their heart on their sleeve. So, yes, I have recovered from the damage, if it was ever your right to ask.’
Docherty said nothing.
‘You doubt it? Let me tell you. I’m no more fucked up than most of us who survived a Catholic education, so-called. The education you’d wish on us, Father!’
Docherty spread his hands in a conciliatory way. ‘I’ll be delighted for your sake if that is the case,’ he assured Wood.
Wood stood up. ‘Look, Paul,’ he said. ‘This is a hard thing to say, and I’m sorry for you and your mother. But could it be that Stephen used this business as justification for being a junkie? I know I’ve used it as justification for being successful, so I’m not trying to be offensive. But by taking his own life, Stephen virtually lived for the man, for that monsignor. I can’t and won’t live for him. I can’t and won’t live under the terms of what he did. That’s the only possible cure to get over him. To transcend the bastard. That’s what I’ve done. I refused to remain the hapless kid I was. Your friend the priest here seems to think that’s an unreliable way forward and that something will catch up with me. Well, it’ll have to move bloody fast.’
Paul said, ‘No one will hear anything about you from me. I’m sure Frank will tell you the same thing. So, good fortune to you! And may the gods smile on you, Brian. You deserve it. No one here wishes you harm.’
Docherty said, ‘I endorse that assurance.’
‘And, listen,’ said Wood as they prepared to leave. ‘Don’t tell me I’m putting kids in danger by saying nothing. If parents aren’t wise now to what’s happening with these bastards, they never will be. They’re the ones who have a duty to be vigilant.’
‘Okay,’ said Paul, sounding hollow.
‘Thank you, Mr Wood. For the hospitality,’ Docherty murmured.
27
The Case of Sarah
Fagan, 5
1988
There was a supposed living saint and outrider of the Order – a woman named Sister Benedict – who had managed to get permission to go with another nun, Sister Patricia, to service an Aboriginal community named Nullaga in Far North Queensland. Benedict was considered the Order’s eccentric and had been one of the first to go by her secular name, Joan, the name she’d had as a child. Joan ran the school at Nullaga. Sister Patricia, however, had recently been laicised, forgiven her vows and allowed to leave the community and live in the world, meaning that Sister Joan was in the somewhat improper situation of being the only one of her Order in Nullaga.
After Sister Constance’s collapse, and her subsequent recovery in a clinic designed for nuns suffering from ‘nerves’, Mother Alphonsus, seeing her young colleague in a crisis of faith or soul, was willing to indulge her in any way. So, at Constance’s earnest request, Alphonsus allowed her to fly up the east coast of the continent and join Sister Joan.
Constance was pursuing the instinct that tells humans distance and newness will be the basis of a redeemed self. It was a long journey for her, involving two flights by commercial jet and a third in a small charter aircraft, which delivered her to a gravelly bush airstrip. There, a man named Sam O’Loughlin was waiting for her in his truck. He was the white official chosen by the community to serve as a buffer between the government and miners on the one-hand, and on the other the Indigenous people of the concrete school and scatter of tin-roofed houses, clinic and administration buildings at Nullaga. O’Loughlin was the same age as Sister Constance, yet seemed even more wearied than she was. She wondered, when he collected her in his four-wheel drive, whether she would find Sister Joan in the same strung-out condition.
The people at Nullaga represented a number of clans displaced from further north, where bauxite had been found, in the early 1970s by police. They had been evicted in the days when terra nullius was the legal doctrine, the belief that native peoples lacked title in, and thus ownership over, any part of the earth.