Irish Gold

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “You Galway good Samaritans are certainly efficient,” I said.

  He roared again, the biggest, most energetic laugh yet. “Ah, sure, you have great wit for a Yank.”

  “Irish American,” Nuala corrected our new friend.

  “Wasn’t I knowing that from the first time I saw his face with the rain pouring down on it? Now, where were you driving at this hour of the night and in the worst rainstorm to hit the West of Ireland in five years at least?”

  “Carraroe,” I said. We were limping towards his car, a big black Lancia, which stood at the side of the road, lights on and door open—a welcome port in the storm.

  “Isn’t that one of the most beautiful places in all the world? Sure, you can travel a long way before you find a nicer place or finer people. ’Tis one of the grandest towns in all of Ireland.”

  “Herself is from there, as were my grandparents.”

  “Well, now, then we must take special care of both of you. We can’t let folk from Carraroe be neglected, can we? Not at all, at all.”

  I suspected that he had found an excuse for generosity that would have been lavished on us anyhow.

  Who the hell was this fast-talking Samaritan with the thick West of Ireland brogue?

  “We should get our bags and the things in the car,” Nuala said.

  “Haven’t I thought of it already? Don’t worry another second about it. We’ll get you in out of the chill and then we’ll take care of your things.”

  We were ushered into the car and Ed trotted back to our car, oblivious to the rain.

  In a moment he came rushing back with our bags, Nuala’s purse, my camera, and the papers and maps from the front seat.

  “I think I have everything. If there’s something else, won’t the Guards collect it tomorrow morning? Don’t give it another second’s worry. We’ll take care of everything.”

  He climbed in the car and shut the door. I was in the front seat, Nuala in the back. She still seemed a little dazed.

  “If you weren’t wearing your seat belts, you’d both might be dead now.”

  “Himself made me,” Nuala announced.

  I had not. I had merely fastened mine and she had followed suit.

  Ed made the sign of the cross. “Praise be to God, sure there’d be a lot less traffic deaths in this country if everyone was that prudent, let me tell you.”

  He turned over the ignition.

  Nuala spoke to him in Irish.

  He turned off the ignition, surprised apparently, and spoke back to her in the same language. Their exchange was rapid and half humorous with a nod from each of them in my direction, a shrug from Nuala, and a laugh from Ed.

  “Wouldn’t I have the Irish,” Nuala returned to English, “and myself from Carraroe?”

  “The finest town in all the County Galway, bar none,” Ed insisted. “Mind you, don’t quote me or I’ll be in terrible trouble.”

  “I won’t. . . . Milord, may I introduce Dermot Michael Coyne from Chicago, Illinois, and himself not a bad man even if he is a writer. He has a brother a priest and his Uncle Bill is the bishop of Alton, Illinois.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Dermot.” He crushed my hand with his large paw.

  “Dermot, this is Dr. Edward Patrick Hayes, Bishop of Galway and Kilmacduff and Apostolic Administrator of Kilfenora.”

  “I’m knowing your Uncle Billy, a grand man altogether, and himself from a Galway family and concerned about justice for the poor and the oppressed. A brilliant man, great theologian, and terrible proud of the young priest in the family.

  “I’m happy to meet you, Bishop,” I said when I could find a pause in his torrent of words.

  “Since your uncle is a friend of mine and a bishop too, you’d better keep on calling me Ed. The lass, being from Carraroe, couldn’t possibly do that—wouldn’t the bishop’s first name stick in her throat?”

  A burst of loud laughter. “ ’Twould, milord,” Nuala said dutifully, my first hint that she was, beneath it all, a clericalist.

  “Sure, wasn’t the Mother of God good to have me coming home from a confirmation down on the Shannon right behind you when your tire blew up on you? There’s nothing to worry about at all, at all. We’ll take care of everything and you’ll be on the road to Carraroe first thing in the morning. Wouldn’t I have to insist that Billy Ready’s nephew stays the night at me house and himself barely surviving an accident?”

  “We really can’t—” I began.

  “Not another word! Not another word! We’ll just stop a few moments at the hospital and then we’ll find you some dry clothes, a place to sleep, and a drop or two to warm you up.”

  A bishop. An Irish bishop. As Nuala might have said under other circumstances, a focking Irish bishop!

  –– 58 ––

  “WHAT DID you tell them about me when you were talking that heathen language?” I demanded of Nuala Anne McGrail when the bishop left his parlor to make more Irish coffee.

  The bishop’s house was a big Victorian pile with a large yard and garden and Galway Bay in the distance, “though you won’t be seeing it in the rain.”

  Nuala, wrapped in robe, towels, and blankets, had been singing songs in Irish and English for an hour and was very content with herself.

  “Sure, didn’t he ask me if you were my fiancé or my lover and didn’t I have to say that you were a good man and a gentleman and that you were neither yet and worse luck for me.”

  My face, already hot from the huge fire blazing in the bishop’s fireplace, became hotter.

  “And he said?”

  “He said that you seemed a fine young lad and that I was lucky to have met someone as good as you and yourself being a Yank. And I said your man wants to be called an Irish American. And he said that you looked like your uncle only bigger and I said that, sure, you were a great big amadon, weren’t you now, and—”

  “Enough. Enough. . . . Does anyone ever sleep in this house?”

  “ ’Tis said that His Lordship often stays up all night singing and arguing with his guests and is at work the next morning bright and early, none the worse for wear.”

  “And his guests?”

  “Aren’t they destroyed altogether?”

  “I wouldn’t be the least surprised.”

  “Here’s the Irish coffee.” Bishop Hayes, wearing a black turtleneck sweater with his black trousers, burst into the room. “Sure, it’s my own special concoction. Wasn’t it invented in San Francisco by a Limerick man and myself being from Limerick? Now, drink it down while it’s hot. Sure, won’t it help you to sleep when you go to bed in another quarter hour?”

  I wasn’t sure of that because coffee doesn’t help you to sleep and bed had been scheduled for another quarter hour for the last hour and a half.

  ’Twas the singing of songs that was keeping us awake. The bishop and my Nuala were determined, I thought as I sipped the coffee (with thick cream and, it seemed, thicker whiskey), to sing every song either of them knew. She was having the time of her life, the simple peasant girl from Carraroe matching song for song His Lordship the bishop of Galway (and let us not forget Kilmacduff and Kilfenora, wherever the hell those places might be). I ached all over, despite the Irish coffee, and could barely keep my eyes open.

  In the back of my head an idea was forming. Bishop Ed Hayes was a man we could trust. If I turned the whole puzzle over to him, he’d probably know exactly what to do and what men in the government of Ireland to call for help.

  “Sure, don’t give the matter another second’s thought. Won’t I call a couple of lads and take care of the whole thing? It’s all settled, we’ll not have another word about it.”

  Not a bad idea actually. He was a lot less mysterious and spooky than Patrick, Patrick Michael as may be, and certainly knew this country a lot better. Monday morning, after we had poked around during the weekend, I’d come back here and lay it all out for him.

  He had swept through the friendly, sleepy hospital like a benign tornado.

 
; “Ah, ’tis his grace, the bishop of Galway,” the young nurse in the emergency room had announced at the top of her voice, “with two Yanks that were almost destroyed in an accident. Sure, we’ll take care of them right away.”

  “One Irish, one Irish American,” Nuala had mumbled, still shaken and dizzy.

  Almost at once a swarm of doctors and nurses and technicians descended on us. I had the impression that they were competent but under normal circumstances in no rush to do anything. However, with his gracious Lordship the bishop of Galway and whatever and whatever on the premises, the staff swung into high gear—ah, and they’d be telling the tales about his visit for the whole week.

  “And wasn’t the Yank a great big blond amadon from Chicago, a football player would you believe, but as gentle and sweet as you could ask?”

  “And herself being from Carraroe and as pretty as a picture and a student at TCD as friendly as you could imagine and herself being Irish and making fun of your man and of the bishop himself too and His Lordship loving it?”

  “Were they lovers? Well, now, that’s hard to say, but, sure, I don’t think in the technical sense of the word, if you take me meaning, but, mark me words, she’s set her cap for him and I wouldn’t blame her for it at all, at all.”

  “Aren’t there some lovely women from the Gaeltacht? The boobs on her were something special, let me tell you.”

  “No, there was nothing wrong with them at all, at all. His Lordship was just being careful. You know what he’s like. Wasn’t your man calling him the good Samaritan of Galway, and that’s true enough, isn’t it? We kept them there while we took some pictures and made some tests and put a butterfly bandage on his cut and sent them on their way.”

  “Sure, the ass on her was pretty neat too, wasn’t it?”

  “Isn’t that a terrible thing to say and the poor girl lucky to be alive? Well, I didn’t say it wasn’t true.”

  They didn’t know that your man was a writer and that he was imagining a story with that kind of dialogue as they shone lights in his eyes and tapped his knees with little metal hammers.

  It would be a grand story. Brilliant.

  Except would anyone believe that such a dazzling man as Bishop Edward Patrick Hayes existed anywhere in the world?

  Well, fock ’em if they don’t, says I.

  After the hospital was finished with us, and several of the nurses and the women doctors asking for the bishop’s autograph, there was no question about Salt Hill or Carraroe, no question at all.

  “Sure, isn’t it too late? The hotels would be closed and it’s too dark and wet to try to drive to Carraroe even if you had a car. And would Billy Ready ever forgive me if I turned his nephew and his translator out into a furious night like this? No, the matter is settled completely. You can sleep in me guest bedroom and herself can have the maid’s room next to the housekeeper who’s a little deaf so she won’t be hearing the noise when we come in. ’Tis all settled.”

  Naturally it was all settled.

  And we sang, well, Nuala and the bishop sang, till three o’clock in the morning.

  And I listened to the bishop’s stories of his days in London as a young priest when he decided that his people needed housing so “Bejesus, I built housing for them.”

  “The largest private housing scheme in London,” Nuala, who apparently was well informed about the Ed Hayes legend, added.

  The party went on. We argued about El Salvador and Nicaragua and Ronald Reagan and the Irish-American contribution to the IRA in the North. I tried in vain to convince the bishop that I was a Democrat and could not stand Reagan and had voted against the former president.

  “Your man is about to collapse on us altogether, milord.” She finally took pity on me. “Maybe we ought to let him go to bed.”

  “Bejesus, is it sleep you want, Dermot Michael Coyne?” He grinned broadly. “Ah, you’d never succeed as a bishop, not at all, at all. Well, to hell with you, says I. Go to bed and spoil the party and see if I care.”

  “It’s been a grand evening.” I hoped I could remember it all for my story.

  “Not another word about it. ’Twas my privilege to entertain you. Now, sleep as late as you want. It’s been a hard day for the two of you. First thing in the morning I’ll be ringing the store in Carraroe so they can speak to your parents, Nuala.” He pronounced her name so that it sounded like pure melody. “I’ve already rung the Guards and I’ll talk to the leasing company first thing in the morning. They’ll have a car here even before you wake up.”

  We were ushered to our rooms at opposite ends of the building, me carrying Nuala’s bag and himself carrying mine. The bishop then charged back down the stairs to “clean up some of my work and finish my breviary before I take my sleep.”

  As I was trying to organize my bemused mind to unpack and undress, Nuala knocked at my door.

  She leaned against the door jamb, wrapped cozily in the thickest robe, I thought, in all the world, a grinning womanly leprechaun, though not in her bedraggled state a particularly seductive leprechaun.

  “Don’t worry, your man is downstairs pounding away on his word processor. I only came to kiss you good night and to ask you whether you’re going to fantasize about making love in a bishop’s palace.”

  “If I wasn’t so tired, woman, and so shook by the accident and so befuddled by Irish coffee and by your man the bishop and by the whole day and if the right woman was here, yes, I’d have such a fantasy.”

  “I was thinking you’d say something like that, worse luck for me. Otherwise, to tell the truth, I wouldn’t have knocked on your door. So a good-night kiss will have to do.”

  Our kiss started out fervent and became passionate. I wanted to hold her in my arms for all eternity and beyond.

  “I’m glad I didn’t lose you out there on the road to Dramore,” she said when we stopped.

  “I’m glad I didn’t lose you, Nuala.”

  I tell myself today that if I wasn’t utterly exhausted I would have indulged in acting out the fantasy she had proposed. But I know that I would not.

  “I love you.” She broke away and slipped out of my room. “And, Dermot Michael Coyne, welcome to the County Galway!”

  –– 59 ––

  THE NUALA of Carraroe was the real Nuala, the Nuala I had presented to Chicago’s mayor in Dublin: a shy child not only in Bergman’s sense of the word as a vulnerable lover but in the literal sense—a young girl who was as quiet and as skittish as her charming and handsome parents. This Nuala was the sort who meekly said, “Yes, Ma,” when her mother gently rebuked her: “Ah, love, you shouldn’t be talking Irish with your young man here and himself not having the language.”

  Then she would apologize to me without a hint of irony. “I’m sorry, Dermot, I forgot me manners.”

  Later would she would whisper, “Sure, we’re awful quiet people out here in Carraroe.”

  “I like the Carraroe Nuala best of all.”

  “Do you really?” She seemed surprised. “Why ever would you do that?”

  “Because she’s so much like her wonderful parents.”

  She shook her head, unable to understand. Then she blushed and said, “Maybe I should have been like her more often.”

  Her Carraroe mode made her even more appealing. It also made me more fearful of violating her youthful innocence.

  Did I exaggerate that innocence?

  Asking myself that question from the distance of many months and many thousand miles and a lot of that prolonged activity of mine called thinking, I must say no. She was as innocent as she appeared. The Dublin mode was a mask, though not completely unauthentic—none of the masks were. My mistake that fateful weekend was to imagine that innocence was incompatible with elaborate scheming.

  After reading the translations of Ma’s diary, I should never have made that mistake.

  It was my turn to sleep till nine o’clock. I awoke to sounds of the traffic in the road by the bishop’s house and the blue of Galway Bay in the distan
ce glowing under a triumphant sun. I wanted to roll over and return to my pleasant dreams, whose erotic contents I could not remember. Then I realized where I was and what the day was. I jumped out of bed, raced through the shower (frigid), and hurried down straight towards the smell of breakfast.

  Ed Hayes, in clerical shirt without the collar, and Nuala were sitting over the table, babbling away in Irish—with herself doing most of the babble. A bit embarrassed when I came into the room, they returned to English and, I was quite sure, changed the subject.

  “I was explaining to herself,” the bishop began, “me plan for modifying the adult education program in me diocese.” He patted a folder on the table. “Haven’t I been working on it since half six this morning?”

  “You didn’t wait breakfast for us then?”

  “I say my rosary and my Mass and eat my breakfast every morning so that I can be at my desk at half six and get the work cleared away before the phone starts ringing. But, now, not another word, eat your own breakfast. Herself has left something for you?”

  “Not all that much.” I surveyed the table. “No brown bread at all, at all.”

  “Me cook will be delighted.” Ed Hayes stormed out to the kitchen.

  “More like it.” I sat down and smiled at Nuala. “Good morning, Ms. McGrail.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Coyne.”

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Well enough.” She smirked. “Not as well as I might have.”

  I attempted no response to that.

  She seemed inordinately pleased with herself, as if the bishop had given her advice that she liked.

  Bishop Hayes stormed back in with a vast plate of fresh brown bread. “Fionna is delighted. Eat up, you have all the time in the world. . . . Now.” He rubbed his hands enthusiastically. “There’s nothing more to be concerned about. The Guards have made their record of the accident. The car will be repaired here in Galway, though it will take at least a week and you shouldn’t give it another thought.”