Irish Cream

by Andrew M. Greeley

  The man who killed Tim Allen either was very lucky with his shot or very close to him. Tim claimed not to know who the gunman was. It did not follow that he did not know.

  Tim himself carried a gun with him when he made his rounds. I wondered if anyone had searched for that weapon.

  The Widow Cudahy, despite her mourning, might have grown weary of her role as a virtual slave to his lusts. She might have shot him as he was leaving the house. She did not seem like that kind of woman.

  I remembered the appraising eyes of Sean Toole as he considered her at the burial. Could he have wanted her badly enough to rid the world of Tim Allen? Mystery man that he was, Toole might have done anything. However, though Mrs. Cudahy was a striking woman, there were many attractive younger women he might have sought who would have been only too happy to find a husband, even one who lived something of a hermit’s life back in the hills. Yet there is no accounting for the obsessions that might afflict the male of the species.

  As I well know. I have more reason than most not to yield to such obsessions, yet I know what they are like and am never certain of my will to resist temptation. The risks, I perceived, were not merely a body one wants to possess but a person one wants to be with.

  My speculations are futile. I know no more than I told the inspector. I don’t think that, outside of the confessional, I ever will.

  May 1, Feast of St. Calla, who was first a monk, then a king, and later a monk. An interesting life.

  Also the pagan feast of Beltaine. I presume they will stage a bonfire in the village tonight. There is good news of life to celebrate.

  The postman rode up to our village from down below this afternoon with the telegram. The message was simple:

  “Richard Colm Skeffington. was born this morning at 3:30. Mother and son both well—and beautiful. Skeffington.”

  God continued to laugh.

  June 9, The Feast of St. Colm, Patron of Ireland. The real feast and not the one they celebrate sacrilegiously here.

  The gosson who had eavesdropped on my conversation with the inspector must have spread a good report. The next Sunday we sang the hymns and the people endeavored to be friendly after Mass. In response I was correct and reserved. I didn’t like this shunning business and intended that they would know it.

  Sean Toole appeared in my study this afternoon to engage me in a strange conversation.

  “I find myself in something of an awkward position, Father Lonigan.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find a way out of it, Sean.”

  “For twenty years I have not needed the company of women. My past experience has inured me to that need.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Now I find that once again, I do need the company of a woman, almost obsessively. As much as I hate to admit it, I must acknowledge that I can think of nothing else.”

  “You are not the first one to experience such feelings.”

  “I suppose not …”

  “Any particular woman?”

  “Mrs. Cudahy, of course … There is noble blood in her surely, a countess from long ago. I am considering whether I should assume the role of her protector.”

  “You surprise me, Sean.”

  In fact he did not.

  “You need not fear, Father”—he turned away and moved his hands nervously—“that I will not be both honorable and respectful in such a role.”

  “You love her then?”

  He sat upright.

  “That is not a word I have used yet, but I accept that it is not inaccurate. Surely I want her body and soul.”

  “Ah.”

  “You will say that there is no fool like an old fool.”

  “No, I will not say that. No age is immune to the demands of love. Or its delights.”

  “I suppose not”

  “Nor is there anything to be ashamed of if one is attracted to a beautiful woman.”

  “You agree that she is beautiful, Father? I find her so but I’m concerned that my passion deceives me.”

  “Surely not about her beauty.”

  He might have asked how a priest could make a judgment about womanly beauty.

  “Naturally, we have not spoken directly about it. Yet I have the impression that she does not view the matter unfavorably.”

  His fingers moved nervously, poor man.

  “You have been courting her?”

  “In, ah, a manner of speaking.”

  “Well, I see no reason why you should not marry her.”

  “Marry her! That’s not what I had in mind!”

  “Surely there’s not another union …”

  “No, certainly not … I don’t want to give up my privacy …”

  “You must certainly realize, Sean Toole, that you have already lost much of it. You cannot feel the way you claim to about a woman without having already entrusted yourself to her.”

  “In theory, Father, I know that is true. Still …”

  “Moreover, do you want to have to ride from one end of the parish to another in the kind of weather we have here?”

  “I had not thought of that.”

  He rose from the chair to pace around my room.

  “At the risk of shocking you, Father, your point is that from some points of view my life would be much simpler if she were in the same bed with me instead of at the other end of the townland.”

  “On a more philosophical level, Sean, intimacy requires some loss of privacy.”

  “And love demands intimacy, is that what you’re saying?”

  “At least the kind of love you’re experiencing.”

  He sighed heavily.

  “I am unable to debate the point effectively.”

  After he left I wondered when he had begun to desire the Widow Cudahy. While Tim Allen was still alive? A man in Toole’s state of emotional involvement might stop at nothing, especially if he were a lonely romantic.

  Should he take her under his protection, to use his own words, or marry her, would the parish begin to suspect that he had killed Tim Allen that he might have her?

  There would perhaps be murmurs that Sergeant Kyle might hear. However, that man’s ability to know only what he wanted to know—not unlike mine—would prevent him from taking action, especially since proof would be hard to come by.

  The fact that Sean Toole had come to Tim Allen’s funeral seemed to hint that he had already taken notice of Marie Cudahy and already wanted her. On the other hand, her grief, which was both unnecessary and unfeigned, suggested that she knew of no other possible “protector.”

  In any event, he must marry her. I would see to that.

  June 20, Feast of St. Phelan.

  Mrs. O’Flynn made a special dinner and a birthday cake for my faithful groom.

  The Belfast constables have left us, disappearing without warning. The stubborn peasants of our townland would not yield up a suspect to them, no matter how strong the enticements may have been. Sergeant Kyle, I hear, has been charged with “continuing” the investigation. That means he will continue to listen.

  June 29, Feast of St. Cocca, an abbess and a Cork woman.

  According to the story she made a large rock, like the one that dominates this parish, move across the bay when St. Ciaran came to visit her abbey. Of an Irishwoman, anything is credible.

  Speaking of miracles, today was the festival (I can think of no other word) in honor of the birth of Richard Colm Skeffington. Gentry from Donegal and Sligo—though not from Belfast—filled the Big House and the pavilion outside. God did not see fit to send rain. Doubtless he was still laughing.

  Lord Skeffington had caused a second pavilion to be erected beyond the first tent. No signs said so, but it was for the local peasants. To give them due credit, they dressed in their best clothes and behaved respectfully. Lord and Lady Skeffington mixed easily with them and displayed their son—a serene and healthy gosson— with as much pride as they had displayed him to the gentry. It was among my own kind that I first saw my namesake.

&nbs
p; “We had the Baptism in Dublin, Dick,” Milord whispered. “I didn’t want to create any problems out here.”

  I could hardly have baptized this young Anglican, though in truth I would have liked to.

  “We must have supper soon, Father,” the radiant Mary Margaret said to me. “Just us three.”

  Would I have been as proud of a son of my own? That was not something about which I would have thought ever since the seminary days. Now I wondered. However, it was an irrelevant question.

  The Feast of St. Etain of Cork, reputed to have been a beautiful woman, like all Irishwomen who bear the name.

  It is an appropriate feast for the day here in the parish. Sean Toole and Marie Cudahy married one another yesterday. Again God protected us from the rain, though the stink of the ocean was stronger than ever.

  It was a strange wedding and yet not so strange at all. There were only five of us in the church, the bride and groom, Dr. McGrath and Mrs. O’Flynn, and myself. Well, six if one counts Eileen O’Flynn, who had sneaked into the church, despite, I was confident, her mother’s warnings that she was not to do so. The groom was shaven and brushed and handsome. The bride wore a light blue dress. Sean was both proud of his conquest and agitated. Marie seemed happy and relieved. I had wondered how she felt about the marriage. Was she merely exchanging one form of servitude for another less heinous? However, the occasional shy and loving glances with which she took in her husband were unmistakable.

  The two of them were as much in love as any couple twenty years their junior.

  Mrs. O’Flynn wore a fawn-colored gown. Next to the bride she seemed almost a twin, similar handsome faces, similar elegant grace, similar generous shapes, appropriately corseted for the occasion. Both of them distracted me.

  “What do the women in the parish think of this marriage?” I asked Mrs. O’Flynn when she brought me my tea, still clad in the gown she had worn to the wedding.

  “They are very happy for her. It is time that she have a good husband. They stayed away from the wedding out of respect for her privacy. She knows that”

  “What do you think the chances are that it will be a successful union?”

  “Oh, she’ll take the rough edges off him and he won’t even notice it.”

  So much for Mr. Sean Toole.

  “You looked very handsome at the service, Mrs. O’Flynn.”

  I had not meant to say it. I had resolved not to say it, yet I had said it anyhow.

  She was not flustered.

  “Thank you very much, Father.”

  I had a second glass of poteen before I went to bed to protect me from a sleepless night in which I imagined the things that Mr. and Mrs. Toole would do to one another in their conjugal bed way up in the hills. And then I strongly resisted the overpowering images of my undressing Mrs. O’Flynn.

  15

  WE LEFT early Tuesday morning to return to Chicago. The children, who had run themselves into exhaustion through the weekend, were sound asleep in the back of the Cherokee. Mick and Nellie had class and heaven forfend that we be late for school. I thought it was a sin against nature to have school after Memorial Day. My wife opined that rules were rules.

  Our Tiny Terrorist had run wild on the beach, unable to resist the urge to explore it from one end to the other and greet all the people there present.

  “Me Socra Marie!”

  Naturally they supplied the adoration she expected as a matter of right.

  Her mother and I gave up and took turns accompanying her on her excursions. Periodically she would wheel around to make sure that we were behind her. Once when she couldn’t find us, she wailed, “Ma! Da! Faerie take me way.”

  So I scooped her up and carried her back to our section of the beach.

  “Me lost,” she told her mother. “Da find me before faerie.”

  “There aren’t any faerie at Grand Beach, Socra Marie.”

  She seemed disappointed.

  “Me see them.”

  Monday had been the kind of hot and humid day that we could not expect till July. I inflated the big Barney inner tube and we all played in the water. Nuala took her usual long swim, though this time she remained parallel to the shore.

  The rains returned on Tuesday morning, thick curtains of rain. My wife navigated the roads on the way home with firm caution. I had a hard time staying awake.

  “Well what did you think of Father Dick as a detective and himself a terrible lonely man altogether?”

  “I don’t think he has a clue.”

  “Fair play to you, Dermot Michael, and yourself having a clue yourself of course?”

  “I’m not sure I trust that Lord Skeffington.”

  “Hmnn.”

  “Do you?”

  “I have a pretty good idea. I’ll write the name down when we’re home.”

  I had played this game before. Nuala Anne always won.

  “And I don’t suppose you know who ran over Rod Keefe.”

  “That’s evident, Dermot Michael, isn’t it now?”

  “One of the sons, maybe.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “You’ll write that name down too.”

  “What will I get if I’m right on both?”

  “What do you want?”

  “One of them big Lincoln Navigator things.”

  “If you want a car like that, Nuala Anne, you can buy it.”

  “More fun to win it on a bet.”

  “Do you think Father Dick will make love with his housekeeper?”

  “That’d be a terrible cliché, wouldn’t it now?”

  At that point the angels of Nod carried me away. I woke up when we pulled to a stop in front of our house. The hounds were at the window barking happily at our return. Damian opened the door to let them bound down the steps.

  “Doggies!” Socra Marie shouted enthusiastically.

  Nelliecoyne and the Mick, barely awake, embraced the snow-white monsters. Then the dogs rose up on their hind feet and insisted on kissing me and me wife. All of this was done very delicately. The hounds had learned long ago how to play with us. You did not, repeat did not, knock anyone to the ground in your passionate ecstasy.

  I took the older kids over to school, despite their protests, and Nuala put the sleeping terrorist in bed.

  When I returned Danuta was chasing the weekend’s dust and looking suspiciously for wolfhound hair. Nuala and Damian were sitting at the kitchen table sipping from big mugs of tea.

  “Damian heard some bad news, Dermot Michael.”

  “My sister, Maura—she’s a lawyer at a big firm downtown—did not make partner. We all thought she was a cinch and she worked so hard. It’s a big disappointment for the whole family.”

  He was talking like he was a member of the family, which he was not and had not been for a long time.

  “Isn’t that terrible, Dermot?” Nuala asked. “And herself with a new baby.”

  I wasn’t sure how terrible it was. However, if Nuala thought that it was terrible, then it was terrible. For the moment.

  “’Tis.”

  “My father says they’re discriminating against her because she’s a mother and punishing her for not practicing birth control.”

  He would say something like that

  “He also blames some of the senior partners in our parish who don’t like him. He say’s he’ll blackball anyone they nominate for the club.”

  That’s really getting even.

  This was the same sister who had fired the public defender who would have won an acquittal for Damian.

  “Were you close to Maura, Day?” my wife asked gently.

  “I’m not really close to anyone in my family”—he sighed—“not even my mother. Maura is only a year older than me. So I kind of knew her better than others.”

  “I see.”

  “Dad often said that I was an afterthought and not a good thought either.”

  What an incredibly cruel thing to say to a child.

  “What’s her husband like?”
>
  “Jim Creaghan? Oh, he’s a good guy. He always treats me like I’m a member of the family, which I’m not. He works for Dad, though I don’t think Dad likes him very much. He graduated from Notre Dame too.”

  “Do you think he’d be willing to have a conversation with Dermot?”

  “Sure. He doesn’t buy the family enthusiasm. Dad is angry at him because he said that it was good Maura lost partner because she wants to spend time with their new baby.”

  Which is the opposite of what he might say under other circumstances. When he gets around to his doublethink, that’s the line he’ll be peddling himself.

  “I’ll give him a ring and ask him. Where?”

  “Can he get away from work?”

  “Sure. They don’t let him do too much up there.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “Over in Wrigleyville.”

  “A drink at five at the Billy Goat. Tomorrow maybe.”

  It would be the kind of place that might fascinate a Notre Dame engineer, who might think that a drink there was kind of transgressive.

  Cindy called us that afternoon.

  “I have all the material I need to ask for a new trial. The state’s attorney tried to give me a hard time until he saw what I had. Who the hell did run over him he asks me? That’s for you and the cops to find out. The point is this kid couldn’t have done it. He agrees that he won’t block a motion for a new trial. I think that if the motion is granted, he may drop charges for lack of evidence.”

  “Sounds great!” I said.

  “Nuala,” she asked my wife, who she knew was listening on another line, “do you know who really ran over Rod Keefe?”

  “Not to say that I could prove it.”

  “OK. We don’t need that. Damian has to authorize me to act for him. Can you work that out?”

  “Won’t it take a bit of doing now, and himself so ambivalent about his family? We’ll persuade him. Still.”