I will ride over to see the Skeffingtons tonight. Perhaps they will give me good advice.
I’M BACK from the Big House. They were as implacable as the Cardinal.
“It’s grand news, Dick,” Milord says. “Your man in Dublin wants someone out there that guides the Church through the Land League Wars. Who better than you?”
“And you’ll get away from the smell of the ocean,” Mary Margaret adds with a laugh.
“I don’t want to leave,” I say stubbornly.
“You really don’t have any choice,” Dick says patiently.
“I can simply refuse.”
“All your training and experience says you cannot and will not.”
His point is well-taken.
“I like it here.”
“I never thought I’d hear you say that,” Mary Margaret says.
“Neither did I,” I admit ruefully.
“You are not going to South Australia, old man. Besides, you need new challenges.”
“I feel like I’m going to South Australia.”
“Tuam is what, less than a half day’s ride from here … Well if you’re too busy to see us, we’ll ride down to see you.”
I write a crisp note to Mary Catherine that night, only the second I’ve sent.
“Dear Mary Catherine,
“I’m afraid that I must leave the parish and go elsewhere. I do not want to do so, but I have no choice. I will take many happy memories with me, however. I would not have expected that when I came.
“In any event, please tell your daughter and son-in-law that I have been named Archbishop of Tuam.
“I hope all of you will keep me in your prayers.
“Richard.”
21
“IS THAT all?” Nuala asked me. “Is that how it ends?”
“It is.”
“A real Irish comedy,” she said with a loud sigh. “A lovely grotesque ending.”
“Grotesque?”
“Och, Dermot Michael, sure it is. Poor dear man has pretty much lost his faith as well as his family and his love. He faces a life of more failure ahead and isn’t he made an archbishop? There’s only four of them, you know. Dublin, Armagh, Cashel, and Tuam. Dick Lonigan was one of the most important men in Ireland for the rest of his life, especially during the Land League struggles. I’ll bet we’ll find a lot about him in the history books.”
“Why did God send him our way?”
“He probably thought it was time that the book be published.”
“Would Dickie Lonigan mind?”
“Give over, Dermot Michael. If he would, God wouldn’t have sent this to us. You can look up the history of the time and write a wonderful book about it, now that Festivals is going to press. I don’t want you to be bored while we’re over in Connemara.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Wouldn’t it be brilliant if we could find the letters?”
“Which letters?”
“The ones between him and Mary Catherine, what others?”
“How do you know they wrote?”
“Because he didn’t keep the diary any longer. He could share his feelings with her now that she was safely married and he in Tuam.”
“Love letters?”
“Not to say love letters. Weren’t they letters between people who loved one another and not about love exactly?”
Was she guessing? Or did she know?
DON’T ASK.
I won’t.
We were in a private jet flying from Midway. The two of us, the three kids and Ethne sound asleep, and two of Mike Casey’s people as our bodyguards, Anna Maria and Amos, the latter a huge black man who did look like Hawk. The network had picked us up in a limo at Grand Beach and was flying us to National Airport, where another limo would pick us up and, with Secret Service protection (arranged by Katiesue’s ma), take us directly to the backstage of the mall concert. Then they’d drive us to National (pardon me, Ronald Reagan Washington National) and put us on the plane that would bring us back to Midway and another limo to take us back to Grand Beach. All in the same day.
Red-carpet treatment for the celebrity and her entourage, which included her supernumerary husband. The reason said celebrity demanded it was not, as she had hinted, to get back to her family and friends for the rest of the weekend. The reason was to be close to the disaster that might hit the O’Sullivans almost any time.
“Well,” I said, “we haven’t solved the mystery.”
“Sure we have. I thought I was right before. Now I know I am. I’ve brought the magic envelope with me. We’ll open it when the other mystery is solved.”
“Which will be before we leave for Ireland?”
“Haven’t I said it would?”
Damian had arrived that morning to watch the dogs while we were away and chat merrily with Ethne.
Nuala Anne had finally approved the rental of a golf cart to drive the kids around the village. A never-to-be-forgotten sight was the picture of our three ruffians and the two dogs bumping along on the golf cart. The latter had their snoots in the air like they were the monarchs of all they surveyed, traveling on their own royal coach. They had ignored the barking of other dogs and permitted any kid that was interested to pet them. The event of the summer.
Damian had filled us in on the recent events in the family.
“They found out about my new trial and are all upset. My mother phoned me and begged me to plead guilty again. She says there’s a shadow over the whole family now and Dad is very upset.”
“And you said?”
He had shrugged and muttered softly, “I told them that I could not be tried again and now there was clear evidence that I didn’t do it. She cried and said I was breaking Dad’s heart. Then she hung up on me. Same old stuff, Dermot. It still gets to me, but I’m mostly immune now, thanks to you and Nuala.”
“What’s going to happen to your family?”
“I don’t think they’ll give up. It’s too late in their lives for that. They’ll keep trying and finally it will pull them all apart.”
“What’s between himself and Ethne?” I asked Nuala. “Are they courting?”
“Not to say courting. Not yet anyway. She thinks he’s the nicest boy she’s ever met.”
“Oh my … You approve?”
“Well, Dermot Michael I don’t exactly disapprove.”
“To get back to Donegal, did Father Lonigan know who killed Tim Allen?”
“Probably. Though he missed it. He certainly knew who had shot his friend Bob Skeffington. So should you.”
“I don’t.”
She sighed and kissed me.
“That, Dermot, is because you are such a good person, unlike me.”
“Yeah, well.”
Damian was acquiring a reputation at the Lake as a storyteller. A group of kids ten and under would sort of drift over to our house late in the day when he would begin to tell stories to our three. I had listened once to a story. It was about a very cruel and wicked king, a nice young prince who was mostly clueless, and a beautiful and very tough princess. Well, the young prince organized a revolt that overthrew the wicked king and freed his beautiful daughter though there was always some doubt whether the prince was bright enough to carry the day. However, the princess sent messages through a dove to the prince to tell him what to do.
Finally, when they had won, the prince cornered the wicked king in his throne room and pulled out his sword to kill him. The king pleaded for his life, the prince hesitated, and then what do you think the princess said to him?
“Chop off his head!”
“Stick the sword into him and throw him out the window!”
“Cut him up into little pieces and feed him to the birds!”
“Lock him up in the cell where he kept the princess and starve him to death?”
“What do you think, Nelliecoyne?”
Instant answer:
“The beautiful princess said, ‘Forgive him. He’s old and harmless now. Let him live long
enough to see his grandchildren.’”
“That’s what she said all right. Why did she say it?”
“Because we should always forgive people then they’ll be sorry for what they did.”
“That’s right … How did you know?”
“Because that’s the way stories should always end … And they all lived happily ever after.”
“You mean you can’t live happily ever after, unless you forgive?”
“No way!”
Damian was magic, so too was my daughter. I fled the scene lest my kids see the tears in my eyes.
The plane to D.C. was on time. We were whisked over to the mall. In a rough-and-ready dressing room, my wife arrayed herself in a shimmering, shape-fitting white dress with a blue sash and a red scarf over her bare shoulders. Then with our bodyguards and the network’s bodyguards and a couple of Secret Service agents we walked the short distance to the wing of the main stage.
The MC introduced her as the world-famous Irish singer, she arranged herself on a chair next to a mike and fiddled with the strings on her small Irish harp, a necessary part of every concert.
“Sure, now I’m a citizen of this country, so I’m a Yank singer or that’s what they’d call me back home. I can vote in both countries, though, which is kind of nice. So tonight I’ll sing some very famous American songs.”
So she walked through the streets of Laredo, and mourned for the loss of Shenandoah across the wide Missouri, and celebrated dancing on a boat on the O HIGH O!
She was better than ever. Even the dubious amplification system could not hide the sound of the bells ringing out over the bogs.
And she had almost sold it all out for a job at Arthur Andersen.
The applause exploded in the night air.
“Won’t I be back later with my gang?” she said as she left the stage.
“Was I too terrible, Dermot Michael?” she demanded as she hugged me, leaning away to protect her makeup.
“Best ever,” I said.
“Och, aren’t you the sweetest husband in all the world.”
“Ma sing good,” Socra Marie said loudly. Backstage everyone laughed.
“You were wonderful,” the director enthused.
“Directors always say that,” she snorted in my ear.
She knew she had wowed them. However, it was bad luck, if you were Irish, to admit that you’d done well.
Before her other sequence three red, white, and blue chairs were arranged next to the harp. Then, to applause that was brilliant altogether, she led the mob out—Nelliecoyne in a white dress, the Mick in a blue jacket with white slacks, and the small one in a bright red dress. The last waved at the applauding audience.
It was a big risk to let her out on the stage. There was no telling what she would do.
Nuala introduced them. Each stood up in turn, Nelliecoyne and the Mick bowed politely as they had been told to do. Socra Marie waved both arms.
“The youngest not only looks like her mother. She acts like her mother.”
Nuala has been criticized for exploiting her children, a charge she doesn’t understand. “Sure, I sing for them and with them all the time, why shouldn’t they think that their mother can’t perform with them.”
Then we chugged down the Erie Canal from Albany to Buffalo at the rate of fifteen miles a day. The kids pretended to pull the barge, Socra Marie in the opposite direction. Next we celebrated the fact that it was a simple gift to be able to turn and come round right.
“The Shakers lived a very difficult life, like nuns and priests. However, they were also very happy folks. There’s another song written to the same tune that says the same thing.”
The kids rose from their chairs and clapped their hands and sang the chorus, “Dance, dance wherever you may be/ I am the Lord of the Dance said he.” The older kids sang on key and clapped their hands at the right time. Socra Marie was a little off on both but loved every second of it.
“Now they tell me I have to do two encores. So I thought both would be Irish, just to even things out a little for the other part of my heritage, one very short, the other a little longer. The first is the Connemara lullaby. Connemara is a barren and beautiful bit of Ireland so far out that the next parish is on Long Island. It’s where I’m from and I think my youngest needs a lullaby just now.”
She put the harp aside, stood up, raised the level of the mike, and picked up Socra Marie up from the chair from which she was about to slip.
“Sure, wasn’t this one born terrible early altogether and aren’t we happy to have her and doesn’t she have tremendous energy these days?”
On the wings of the wind o’er the dark, rolling deep
Angels are coming to watch o’er your sleep
Angels are coming to watch over you
So list to the wind coming over the sea
Hear the wind blow, hear the wind blow
Lean your head over, hear the wind blow.
She rocked Socra Marie back and forth gently.
The crowd applauded gently.
“Sure you won’t wake her up at all, at all. Will you hold her, Nellie, while your ma sings her last song?”
Nelliecoyne very carefully enfolded her sister in her own strong little arms.
“This is a song about a young woman who sold fish in Dublin and isn’t there a statue of her in College Green right outside of Trinity College where I went to school. She died very young, of TB I think. Yet as long as there is an Ireland or there are Irish we’ll sing in her memory. I’m sure somewhere with God Mollie Malone is pleased that we Yanks are singing about her. Why don’t all of youse join in the chorus. Incidentally, I once sang this song for a young man in O’Neill’s pub which is also near Trinity. It was not a typical Irish love story because it has a happy ending.”
A clip of the Mollie statue appeared on the monitor.
So she sang, for all of America and for me, the wondrous song about Sweet Mollie Malone. You could almost see Mollie’s ghost wandering through the rainy streets of Dublin.
She scooped up the little one, waved to the crowd, and shepherded the kids off the stage.
“Was I too awful, Dermot Michael?”
“Terrible altogether.”
She punched my shoulder. “You’re a gobshite!”
The tumultuous applause continued.
She raised her eyebrow to the director, who waved her out.
Still holding the small one, she bowed again, waved, and said, “Sure I don’t deserve all that, but thanks just the same.”
Did she really think that she didn’t deserve it? Well, not to say yes, but not to say no either.
She knew she had been damn good.
There were hugs and kisses and congratulations backstage.
“For your hour, Nuala, we’ll have ratings higher than the other four put together.”
Sure enough we did.
Ethne and Anna Maria took charge of the kids. Herself clung to me as she stumbled back to the dressing room.
“Did I make too many mistakes, Dermot Michael?”
“I’m faced with a dilemma, Nuala love. If I say you didn’t make any mistakes, you won’t pay any attention to me, and if I say you made tons of them, you’ll hit me and call me a gobshite.”
“Well”—she giggled—“it serves you right for marrying an Irishwoman.”
“The audience loved you.”
“Sure, they did that, didn’t they?”
I helped her out of her gown and into her street clothes (jeans and a Marquette sweatshirt). We collected the kids and our entourage and headed back to the airport. As we took off the mall was glowing with fireworks.
Everyone slept on the way back, except me and me wife, who relaxed in my arms as much as the seat belts permitted.
“Do you think Father Lonigan should have made love to Mary Catherine O’Flynn?” she asked me.
“Wouldn’t that have been a terrible cliché?”
“Well, as His Riverence would say, some men can’t he
lp being priests.”
“His Riverence” is my brother, whom Nuala always treats as though he’s only one step short of the Pope. On this matter even I was willing to concede he was right.
“You put a vigorous young man out there in a place like that without any other priests around to support him and of course he’s going to be obsessed. Yet he made it and that’s not a cliché.”
“’Tis true.”
“My fellow poet Robert Browning once wrote, ‘Why else does temptation come, save that we meet it, master it, and so be pedestaled in glory?’”
“The Ring and the Book,” she said sleepily. “Och, Dermot Michael, why didn’t you remind me to call Damian and ask about the dogs?”
She pulled up one of the phones on the side of the cabin and punched in our number.
“Well now, Damian, are you having a loud, noisy party there? … Thank you very much. We had fun … How are the girls? Exhausted? Good enough for them. Anything from your family? Well, that’s good. Don’t wait up for us. It’ll be late.”
“The dogs are exhausted and sleeping. He’s heard nothing from the family, which I don’t know whether that’s good or bad … What’s the matter with them, Dermot Michael?”
“Some kind of collective neurosis. Probably their father’s fault.”
“No, Dermot Michael, ’tis the mother. A woman with any sense would have put a stop to that early on.”
Probably she was right.
Then, her world taken care of, she sighed and went to sleep, leaving me awake to ponder the various crazy things we humans do to ourselves and our offspring.
Don’t let us do the same thing, I prayed to the Deity as I too slipped into the land of Winken and Blinken and Nod.
22
MARY ELIZABETH McBride was born the following week, a little early, at St. Anthony’s Hospital in Michigan City. However, she didn’t seem to mind the rush. Indeed she looked out at her new environment, which I had been told she could not really see, with bright and interested eyes. She also refused to let go her grip on my finger.
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