Mission

by Philip Spires

  Title Page

  MISSION

  By

  Philip Spires

  Publisher Information

  Mission published in 2010 by

  Andrews UK Limited

  www.andrewsuk.com

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

  Copyright © Philip Spires

  The right of Philip Spires to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Quote

  In human works, tho’ labour’d on with pain

  A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;

  In God’s, one single can its end produce;

  Yet serves to second too some other use.

  So man, who here seems principal alone,

  Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,

  Touches some wheel, or verges some goal;

  ‘Tis but part we see, and not a whole.

  Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

  ‘Essay on Man’

  Dedication

  For Caroline

  Michael

  Enter Michael, dishevelled and panting. His movements are hurried, agitated and anxious. The kitchen door creaks on its hinges after his disinterested push. It does not close and it swings ajar behind him. In an instant, Michael has crossed the room as if out of a desire to distance himself from some pursuer, but now he is cornered. He stops, thinks for a moment and, realising the futility of trying to run away, returns to the door. He pauses there and, with his head cocked on one side, listens intently, trying to discern the frantic sounds of a shouted argument taking place outside. The sounds are dulled and muffled by echoes, but he stays where he is, afraid to approach them. There are several voices: at least five are shouting in apparent opposition without any one gaining the ascendancy. Thus all blend to form a single, incoherent and meaningless noise. Trying to listen is pointless and so, with a rueful shake of the head, he advances into the room again, but this time he moves more slowly, with greater resignation, beneath some weight.

  He decides to sit but cannot relax. Perched on the very edge of the settee, he leans forward with his head bowed and his hands resting on his knees. He seems poised to act but is powerless. He can do nothing, now. It is too late. Still without success he tries again to make sense of the garbled noise from outside. Although he knows what is being said, he is still curious to hear, to eavesdrop on this mêlée which is surely about him and him alone. He becomes so engrossed in what he thinks he can hear in the waves of sound, that he remains quite oblivious to his own discomfort. He is sweating profusely and his tanned face is flushed red. He remains totally engrossed until a drop of perspiration runs down the side of his nose. It tickles. A facial muscle twitches and his hand involuntarily rises to scratch.

  Partly out of tiredness, partly out of frustration, he continues to rub hard at his cheek long after the discomfort has waned and then he wipes his brow. For a moment he studies the beads of sweat which now glisten on his fingers and then, sighing resignedly through pursed lips, he finally removes his camouflage hat and uses it to fan himself. All thoughts of immediate discomfort are dispelled by the sound of an animated crescendo in the argument outside. Again he listens intently, but still only deciphers an odd expected word. Apparently without knowing, he twists his hat into a tight ball and does not let go. He is powerless in his frustration.

  Gradually he becomes aware of his tiredness. Sitting back on the settee, he rests his head. For a few brief moments he sifts through his recollections of the day behind closed eyes. As if to confirm this unfortunate reality, he tries to reorder his memories, to analyse them, perhaps understand them, but even the most recent are clouded in doubt and all paths lead inexorably toward the same unfortunate end.

  Tension again refuses him any relaxation. His eyes open and glance toward the sideboard beneath the iron-framed window. He stands, impatiently discards his crumpled hat without bothering to look where it lands and crosses the room. From within the sideboard he selects a small dainty glass - a sherry schooner, which happened to be the nearest - and proceeds to examine the labels of the numerous bottles. Just as he had expected, tucked away at the back of the cupboard for safety’s sake, he finds John O’Hara’s private store of poteen. The harsh liquor seems to clear his mind. The act of drinking, itself, seems to demand his total concentration; demands it so completely that he seems to be lost in some judgment of the quality of the brew as he savours every remnant of its taste. For a while he can ignore the complications of the moment as his thoughts follow the inch-by-inch progress of the liquid in his dust-dried throat. Slowly, thoughtfully, he wanders back to the settee, taking the glass and bottle with him, apparently only partly conscious of what he is doing, as if he might just have forgotten to let go of them. He seems to be consciously trying to exclude the here and now. His eyes are blank, as if his thoughts are removed to another time or place. But the voices are impossible to ignore. They will not go away.

  This time he is determined to relax, to ignore the noise before it destroys him. Having poured another whiskey and lit a cigarette, he begins to feel at least a little easier through the exhaustion. So, lying spread-eagled across the settee with one foot resting on the Bishop’s coffee table, he begins to doze. Consequently, he does not notice, after only a few moments, that the argument subsides. For him, it merely continues, apparently as it has done already for so long. The oft-repeated words and familiar pictures continue to fill his head and render him oblivious to all else. He is not even conscious that the kitchen door is opening.

  Enter John O’Hara, Bishop of Kitui. Like Michael’s, his movements too are hurried, but unlike Michael’s, their impatience is clearly born of great anger. His face too is flushed red, but his expression testifies to the frustration that reels inside him without release. His gaze darts about the room like that of a cornered animal, but then fixes with an intensifying glare on Michael. Carefully, O’Hara moves away from the door and faces the settee, moving silently save for the light rustling of his white nylon robe. Even his usual wheezy breathing is suppressed and inaudible. He stands by the low table staring at Michael for some time and, though he grows visibly more impatient with the passing of every second, he makes no attempt to rouse the priest from his apparent comfort.

  Eventually Michael opens his eyes and sees O’Hara standing before him, hands on his hips and face set in condemnation. Michael hurriedly tries to stand but O’Hara’s cold and calculated words pre-empt any movement.

  “Oh no, don’t get up, Michael,” he says, sarcastically. “Don’t let me disturb you. Sleep on. Sleep as long as you like. I’ll pick up the pieces.” As Michael stands, O’Hara turns aside offering a dismissive gesture of the hand.

  “What happened out there?” Michael’s manner is again nervous and hurried. His face is tense as he looks across to O’Hara who is now staring through the French windows into the garden, with his back squarely offered to the room. A number of near-explosive ripe passion fruit frame the view.

  O’Hara does not answer immediately. He is obviously trying hard not to over-react, which under the circumstances would be his normal reaction. But he loses his battle with himself and turns in anger to face Michael. “Didn’t you just look the perfect picture?”
O’Hara casts a long and condemnatory stare, but now Michael simply turns away. Both men know they are now following a script, which has been enacted before in less exacting circumstances.

  As O’Hara continues, Michael turns his back and slowly walks around the back of the settee. Though he is obviously trying to ignore the criticism, every word bites deep and causes much pain. “You have just murdered some poor wretch out there. You leave me to carry the can and then wander in here, help yourself to my whiskey and calmly go to sleep on the sofa... as if nothing had happened!” O’Hara’s voice begins to break with emotion.

  Michael too seems ready to explode with anger. He turns to face O’Hara and, counting out each point on his fingers for added emphasis, shouts his reply. “One: I have murdered no-one. Two: you ordered me in here because you said I was getting in your way. Three: if you had any idea what I have been through recently, and today in particular, you would begrudge me nothing!”

  O’Hara displays a complete lack of respect for Michael’s point of view. Shaking his head, he turns away impatiently and says, “Michael, a dozen people or more witnessed what happened. If what they say is true, you’re in deep trouble. Don’t you see that?” O’Hara’s pleading eyes demand that Michael should accept reason.

  “And what about my version? Aren’t you interested in that? Don’t you believe me?”

  “It’s not a question of what I believe. All I want to know is what happened so I can decide what we ought or ought not to do.” His fists are now clenched in despair. He wants to help, but all Michael’s actions seem to reject every offer. Perhaps he is not worth the trouble. O’Hara cannot begin to understand why his priest seems to resent any help or advice he is offered.

  During the strained silence that follows, both men appear to grow calmer. It is possibly fatigue that has silenced them. For an hour or more they have stood in the sun to argue with a shouting and hostile crowd. Pure shock has taxed Michael’s strength. Self-pity, a product of the frustration at being cornered, has sapped most of O’Hara’s strength. He slumps in the chair beside the French windows and buries his face in his hands. Michael stares at him at first. This is perhaps the first time he has ever seen the man admit any limitation. But then, as if through guilt, his gaze drops. He runs his fingers through his hair and bows his head. His hand grasps the back of his neck almost aggressively. He is powerless now.

  After some minutes of silence, O’Hara sits up in his chair, takes a deep wheezing breath and then speaks in a changed voice. Clearly he has used the pause to discipline his emotions. “Sit down, Michael. Sit down. Let’s go through the whole story. No-one can interrupt you now.” As Michael returns to his place on the settee, O’Hara lights a cigarette. His voice is suddenly ever so slightly paternalistic and falsely reassuring, which suggests to Michael that his mind is already made up. “Let’s start right from the beginning.” O’Hara leans forward with his palms outstretched, preaching.

  Michael vacillates for a moment, but then resignedly decides that whatever the outcome, he is trapped. In the current debacle, O’Hara is his one and only potential ally. He tries to cast his mind back several hours to that morning, but finds it difficult to remember anything with clarity. “My mind’s gone completely blank.” O’Hara watches him reach for the bottle to refill his glass.

  “You’ve been drinking far too much of late.”

  Michael glances across at him. Conflicting emotions force two instinctive replies to the forefront of his mind. He wants to tell O’Hara in no uncertain terms to mind his own business, to counter threat with threat, but his conscience knows that the Bishop is right. In silence, he continues to fill his glass with whiskey, but his internally acknowledged guilt shows through as attempted defiance.

  “I thought you would have realised long ago, Michael, that you have no secrets here. Reports about you have been reaching me for some time now and, as you know, if it has reached me...”

  “… Every other muckraker in the district knows already. I seem to have heard that somewhere before,” says Michael with deep and angry sarcasm.

  O’Hara is much calmer now and does not accept the obvious invitation to argument. Again he tries to defuse the tension that still threatens to break Michael’s voice. “You’re not doing yourself any good at all, Michael.” The older man’s words seem to be weighted with wisdom. He takes his chance. “We’ve got to start somewhere. Why don’t you start by telling me why you drove into town today?”

  Michael barely hesitates here. It is clear that, though there is a gulf between them, he retains an ultimate trust of the Bishop’s intentions. “All right, John -” his voice is suddenly and unpredictably animated, “ - but I’ve explained all this once when I made my statement to that whore of a policeman.” O’Hara remains vigilant. His silence tells Michael not only that this makes no difference to his desire to hear it again, but also that this time there will be more space. Inwardly, Michael is deeply grateful for this.

  “All right. First of all, you will remember that about a year ago my Thitani catechist’s wife had a baby?” Michael looks up and sees O’Hara nod. “Well there were complications. It finished up with me rushing the two of them, Boniface and his wife to Muthale. It turned out to be a breach birth and Sister Mary had to do a Caesarean. She needed some blood so I gave it. Anyway the result of it all was both mother and child survived. Now as you will know I have always had a very good relationship with Boniface...”

  “Yes I know him. He’s a fine, fine man.” For just a moment, O’Hara is trying to picture Boniface Mutisya. He sieves through recollections of the numerous reports relayed by Michael, which have spoken consistently of the young catechist’s devoted and conscientious work in Thitani.

  Michael then continues. “Well the fact that his child would have died without my help - without my blood - has made me in his eyes almost a member of the family.” He pauses for a moment. His frustration begins to return as he realises that all this is nothing more than irrelevant. It is mere background, no more than the mechanics of how he came to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He looks up toward John O’Hara with an expression of almost complete hopelessness.

  “Go on Michael. It’s all important.”

  With his eyes momentarily closed, he continues, but now more slowly, less impetuously. “I suppose you know that the child has been sick for some time. I was over in Thitani last week and even then the poor thing looked all but finished. I told Boniface that if things were to get any worse he should come to see me straight away and I would take them all to the hospital. Well, he came to me this morning.”

  At first John O’Hara nods, but his expression quickly changes to one of confusion. “I’m sorry, Michael,” he says, holding up his hand to enforce a pause in the story, “but why didn’t you go to Muthale? Why come all the way to Kitui?”

  An ironic smile spreads across Michael’s face as he stares pensively at the floor by his feet. He shakes his head as he frantically searches for a simple answer to the question. He can see a clear and tangible motive for his decision, but how can he possibly communicate it? Frustration tightens his grip on a handful of his own hair and his face apparently grimaces in pain; but, for all his efforts, all he can muster in reply is “Oh shit, where the hell do I start?” He looks up, apparently in search of help, though quite obviously without expecting to receive any. He is stunned by O’Hara’s calculated prompt.

  “It has something to do with Miss Rowlandson, I think?”

  With both surprise and contempt, Michael bursts out into a histrionic, sighing laugh. “You really do keep your eyes and ears propped open, don’t you?”

  “Eyes, Michael, not ears. I’m not, and never have been, interested in idle gossip, but I know that Miss Rowlandson has been in some kind of trouble. You’ve been expecting a letter from her for some time.”

  Sheer astonishment brings an involuntary smile to Michael’s face, but as O’Hara contin
ues it fades to be replaced by an expression closer to hopelessness.

  “Whether or not you realise it, you’ve been going around in a dream for weeks. Privately I have been very worried about you.” A slight scoff from Michael causes O’Hara to speak more sternly. “Should I say then that I have felt a lot of sympathy for you. I know what it’s like to be in a position like that...”

  “I doubt it.” Michael is mumbling sarcastically.

  “Well let me tell you, I do know. And let me tell you something else. Your letter came to my post-box by mistake. I don’t know why it happened, because it was correctly addressed, but you know as well as I do that things often go astray across the road in the post office. Anyway, after I’d put it in the Migwani pigeonhole down at the mission, I came back here to find Pat waiting for me with his parish accounts. I asked him to call in at the mission, pick up the letter and then to drop it in to you on his way up north. He obviously forgot. He left here in a hurry, you see, to collect his messages from Hassan before he closed the shop for siesta. It must just have slipped his mind.”

  “Well it did and it didn’t, it seems. He forgot the letter, all right, and then, when he called in on me late last night, he suddenly remembered he’d left it behind. Typical fucking Irishman. ‘Now I remember’, he says. ‘I’ve forgotten your letter. It’s in the mission in your box. I was supposed to bring it’. I almost set off for town there and then, but it was really late and I’d been out on the bike all day. I was just too tired... and Pat and I had finished the whole bottle.” The last phrase was delivered silently.

  “All right, Michael, never mind the ifs and buts. So you decided to leave it until this morning. Now carry on...”