Echoes

by Maeve Binchy

  She was given the key to her room and pointed towards a very dangerous-looking lift. Sean came towards her.

  “Are they gone?” he asked fearfully.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh Angela. Angela. Thank you, bless you for coming, bless you, and thank you from the bottom of my heart. Shuya says I must begin by giving you her thanks. She wants you to know that very specially.” He had his hands on her shoulders and his face was working uncontrollably.

  “Don’t . . .” she began.

  “If you had any idea what this means to me.” He shook his head from side to side. There were tears in his eyes, she hadn’t been mistaken.

  “Please . . . I’ll just go and . . .” She wanted to give him time to pull himself together, to stop this fawning tearful act, so unlike her confident brother the priest who was always so right and who knew what people should do and what they shouldn’t do, and who knew about duty and staying with one’s mother in Castlebay for all of one’s life.

  “I’ll come with you.” He lifted the suitcase.

  “No, you can’t. What would they think?” She hissed this furiously at him.

  In easy Italian he explained to the small fat man behind the desk. The man nodded, Si si. Father Sean could still charm them, Angela thought bitterly.

  There was barely room to breathe in the perilous lift. Angela held her breath as it groaned up the flights. Sean opened the door of the small room. There was a single bed, a dressing table and a chair. On the wall were five hooks with hangers on them. Single rooms didn’t have luxuries like wardrobes or washbasins. They had passed rooms called Il Bagno and Il Gabinetto on the corridor. Angela looked around her, this wasn’t how she had wanted to meet her brother. She had wanted to come in and lie down and gather her thoughts. She had wanted to have a bath and change her clothes, hanging up her wedding finery and the new hat bought in Clery’s this morning. Was it only this morning they had been in O’Connell Street with all those crowds? She had wanted Sean to leave her a letter suggesting a nearby café. She could have strolled there in the cool of the evening and they could have talked at a quiet table. Talked for hours if need be. She hated this hot, emotional, awkward meeting.

  He had put her case on the floor and laid the big bag carrying her wedding hat carefully on the dressing table beside the big room key. And as she stood not knowing what was going to happen now, totally out of control on her first time staying in a hotel, her first time out of Ireland and her first time meeting her only brother since he had left the priesthood, Sean put his arms around her and with his head on her shoulder he cried like a baby. She stood there dry-eyed, wondering how could anything be as bad as this. He wasn’t stammering how sorry he was that it had all happened, he wasn’t saying that he had made a mess of everyone’s lives. No, he was stumbling out words about the laicization and how long it was taking, and how glad he was to see Angela because he had been so afraid from her letters that she meant he was never to come back to Castlebay again.

  They all found the Spanish Steps with no problem. Marie, the girl who worked in Aer Lingus, had been in Rome several times, and David the middle-aged artist had been there years ago. Emer and Kevin would have found the planet Mars if that had been the rendezvous point, so excited and full of energy did they seem. Father Flynn was excited too— this was his show, his town now, and he loved every minute of the role of organizer. Angela was the last to arrive but she was only minutes after the others. She had paused to buy dark glasses and had found herself always in the kind of shop where these glasses cost a fortune. In the end she paid a fortune, and the woman in the shop admired them and said that now she had a bella figura.

  The others laughed when they saw the new Angela. They told her that it had not taken her long to go native and they joked about overindulgence in wine the night before. As they debated where to eat Emer asked Angela in some concern what she had done the night before.

  “Wandered,” Angela said. “You know me, wander and only half absorb where I am and what I’m doing. It’s a beautiful place, isn’t it?” Emer was satisfied. Years and years ago in Dublin, Angela used to wander like that, for ages along the canal, or in the Dublin mountains, walking around for miles. It figured she would do the same in Rome. Emer went back to the argument about lunch, they dismissed the very notion of Babbington’s Tea Rooms, an English-style place just beside them. They hadn’t been in Rome for a full day yet, it wasn’t long enough for them to start hankering over good old tea and scones.

  They walked companionably to a place that Father Flynn knew. “I haven’t completely wasted my time here praying and studying,” he said happily. “I’ve done some useful things like discovering where to eat and drink.”

  A man in a cream-colored jacket and a very showy handkerchief in his pocket made a play for Angela in the restaurant, jumping up from his table to ensure she had an ashtray and trying out his few lamentable words of English on her.

  “I think these glasses suit me. I might wear them all the time,” Angela said when the man had backed out of the restaurant bowing and smiling and ogling. She hadn’t seen that much attention in years.

  Then they left her alone. Once she had made a little joke they thought she was all right, she could opt out for a while and run the whole night over for herself as if it were a film. She had got Sean out of her room eventually, and he had written down the name of a café. She said she only needed an hour to calm herself and unpack; but as it turned out she did neither, her clothes remained in their suitcase and her anxiety grew ever more. She kept looking at the traveling clock and wondering why she had sent her brother, red-eyed, away. She was going to have to talk to him anyway, why hadn’t she left the oppressive bedroom with him and gone to one of those picturesque squares?

  They did walk to a square, the Piazza Navona. There were restaurants all around and the center was full of people selling things and doing tricks as if it was a carnival. Not a person seemed to have a care except the O’Haras, she thought. They sat and ordered tiny coffees.

  He had recovered himself fully. “Let me tell you all about my family,” he began. She listened. She heard of Shuya and how he had met her almost immediately after they had gone to Japan to regroup after the expulsion from China; she heard of Denis, who was three and the brightest child that had ever been known. And of Laki, who was a baby of eighteen months, so beautiful it would make your eyes prickle when you saw her. And of the life they lived in Japan in Shuya’s brother’s house, and what they did here in the strange villa in Ostia, and how they would get married here in Rome as soon as the laicization came through. He talked like someone possessed: he had always been a great one to hold the floor, but that was because he was the only one who could, at home. He had been away to seminary and then on the missions; he was a priest of God who had more right to tell tales and get a hearing, who had better tales to tell. She listened. Nothing had changed much except the content. He was sure of his audience, sure that she was glad to know details of Laki’s birth which had been a complicated one, sure that she was as absorbed as he was in the minutiae of the laicization process and his dealings with the Congregation for the Clergy.

  Once or twice she tried to interject, but he raised his hand slightly in that clerical gesture which was only slightly a courteous request for permission to speak further—it was mainly a statement that he was going to speak further.

  He wasn’t going to go back tonight: it was too far, it would be too late. He would stay in Rome. Shuya had insisted, said it would be less tiring because surely he would want to talk to his sister again in the morning. As the monologue went on Angela became grateful that he was going to stay in Rome. Since she was obviously not going to get any innings at all, she would need the morning to try to explain to him some of the things that stood in the way of his sunny view of the future. But where would he stay? Much of his chat had included how short of money they were and how even fares were a big consideration. But he was fine for a bed. A friend of his, an English p
riest who was staying at the English College, said there would always be a bed there for Sean. It was nearby.

  He talked of the priests he had met and the ex-priests, and of the spirit of change and questioning in the Church. He was prepared to talk forever about such things. Angela nodded and made the necessary sounds as he spoke but all the time her mind was racing. It was just like getting his letters; he ignored every point she had made in her own letters, and had written as if Angela had addressed no thoughts, pleas or words to him at all. She had written to say that she was coming to meet him to explain to him face-to-face how impossible it would be—laicization or not—to return to Castlebay with a Japanese or any wife and two children. He seemed to have ignored the main part of her letter, and acknowledged only the first sentence, that she was coming to Rome to see him.

  She hoped that a change of venue might change the tack of the conversation, so she suggested they have a meal. He hesitated. Angela said she would be glad to pay. He agreed. It was just that he felt so guilty spending anything on himself instead of on Shuya and the children. But nothing changed, he ordered for them in perfect Italian, bottles of mineral water as well as wine; told her he could make spaghetti thirty-four different ways now, and he made a salad every evening at home, often with leaves they plucked from the garden. You can actually eat all kinds of things like the leaves of flowers. Did Angela know that?

  She didn’t, but by the end of the evening, she knew a lot of things like that. She could have gone into Radio Eireann at home and asked to be a panelist on Information Please after all she learned in the Piazza Navona, as the lights came on and the musicians played, and other people had beautiful Roman evenings. From her handbag she took a piece of paper and wrote down four words. Then she handed the list to him.

  “What’s this?” he asked, surprised and even a little amused.

  “It’s our agenda for tomorrow morning. When we meet in the daylight. I want to discuss the subjects written down there and nothing else.” She smiled pleasantly; she took a sheaf of huge Italian notes in almighty denominations and signaled for the bill.

  Sean was reading aloud. “ ‘Hypocrisy and Betrayal. Family and Community. ’ What is this, Angela? It looks very like the title of some sermon or a pamphlet in the Catholic Truth Society.”

  She was still easy and relaxed. “Let’s leave it till tomorrow, will we? It’s been a lovely evening and it’s too late to start on these things now.”

  He was genuinely bewildered; he wasn’t acting. He sought to placate her. “Right, sure, whatever you like. And we’ll arrange for you to come to Ostia.”

  She shuddered at that. She felt a slow sweat form on her shoulders and back at the thought of meeting this Japanese woman who shared a bed with her brother the priest, and a dread of meeting these two children.

  “Not until after Emer’s wedding, not until next Tuesday.”

  She was firm: he was disappointed.

  “But we were sure you’d come for Easter itself.”

  “I’m going to go to the Holy Week Ceremonies tomorrow and all of the weekend with my friends. When that’s all over, I’ll come to Ostia.” If it’s too awful to face, she thought, I can always pretend to be sick. To have a fever or something.

  Sean was downcast. “I had thought that . . .”

  “It’s all fixed.”

  “No. I mean, I thought that maybe you were going to ask us to the wedding. To Emer’s wedding.”

  She looked at him, stunned.

  “I’ve met Emer, remember. I met her when you were in Dublin, and she came to Daddy’s funeral.”

  “Yes, she knows you as a priest.”

  “But surely you’ve told her?” He was amazed.

  A headache was beginning right across her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Sean. Of course I haven’t told her. I haven’t told anyone.”

  “This is much more complicated than I thought,” Sean said, shaking his head. “I thought it was only Mam you were keeping it from until the time was right. I didn’t know that you had such old-fashioned views and hard attitudes. I’m still a Catholic for God’s sake. I haven’t given up my Faith or anything. I still go to Mass and Communion.”

  It was far too late to debate it now. The bill was paid and they walked amicably back to her hotel. All the time he pointed out places to her as if she were an ordinary tourist and he were her ordinary brother. He kissed her on each cheek and walked away into the night to his friend who was still a priest and who would not lie awake all night anguishing about what had happened to Father Sean O’Hara, and what course his life would take now.

  She was businesslike in the morning. She said that she would prefer him to listen to her and only speak when she asked his view; otherwise her visit would have been wasted. He was startled but agreed. She examined the possibility of his coming back to Castlebay once more, once only and pretending to be still a priest. He was so horrified, he leaped up from the table. But she persisted. Examine it: technically, what would be the flaws? Did he still have any clerical clothes? Could he get away with it or would someone from the Mother House hear of it? No, don’t ask why was this necessary at the moment—just see if it could be done. According to Sean, even if he wanted to do an insane thing like this, he couldn’t do it. He would be found out in days, and as he wouldn’t say Mass in Father O’Dwyer’s church, he would be an object of suspicion at once.

  Could he say that since the Order had left China there had been a change in the Rule and priests had become workers and teachers and were working among the community more? Could he imply that all priests had been downgraded, not only Father Sean? No that was ludicrous too. You only had to read the papers to know that this was untrue, it wouldn’t hold good for five minutes.

  Could they pretend that he had died, been kidnapped? Sean looked at Angela as if she weren’t all there. Why on earth should anyone begin such a tissue of hypocritical lies and bungling?

  Angela’s eyes flashed. She would tell him why, because if he told their mother the truth it would break her, literally break her. The only thing of value she had done was produce a priest for God, it was the only constant and hope in her soul and it was her only standing in the community. That was what Angela meant about Betrayal. To tell the old woman with the enlarged joints and crooked limbs that her priest wasn’t a priest—that would be betrayal of a high order. Angela had come to Rome to beg her brother not to do this.

  He was patient with her. He began to explain that once the process of making him a layman was completed, he had as much right before God to marry as anyone had, so he had anticipated it but it would then be regularized, post hoc. Angela silenced him with a word, this was her time: last night had been his. He was to decide between hypocrisy and betrayal. She would listen to no more speeches about breaths of fresh air blowing through the dusty corridors of the Vatican and new thinking and the Congregation of the Clergy. There was no fresh air blowing through Father O’Dwyer’s church in Castlebay except what came in the windows on the day of the east wind. There was no radical rethinking in the O’Hara cottage, there was no spirit of brotherly love and understanding among people like Sergeant McCormack. Sean must decide between hypocrisy and betrayal. He must decide on the old principle of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Which way would less people get hurt.

  But, Sean protested, there could be no question of that. The truth was the truth—it was absolute. It couldn’t be tinkered with and played with like plasticine, deciding who should believe what.

  Their coffee cups were refilled over and over. Angela banged on the table to get him to stop talking and listen to her account of daily life in Castlebay. She didn’t intend it to be humorous, but sometimes she said things that made him smile and she smiled herself to acknowledge that she did exaggerate in some areas. But not in the general picture.

  She swore that it wouldn’t matter all that much for her; to be frank she would prefer not to have the pitying and patronizing stance of Immaculata for the rest of her wor
king life, and she would like not to have the knowledge that they had just stopped talking about it all every time she appeared. But she could live with it, she had lived with her father’s reputation after all. She’d survive, but she was going to fight with every breath in her body for her mother not to have to try to survive it.

  “When Mam dies, Sean, then I’ll walk with you down Church Street in Castlebay. Don’t come to her funeral, but six months later you can come back and I’ll stand beside you.”

  “That’s the wrong way to do things,” Sean said, “to wait till someone dies before you can bring your children home. How do you tell your son and daughter that you have to wait until their grandmother has been buried before they can come home, come home to where they belong?”

  Angela’s heart lurched again. He really and truly thought that these half-Japanese children and their mother belonged in Castlebay. She looked at her watch, and stood up to call for the bill again. It was time to go to lunch with the wedding party. He looked confused and unsettled.

  “You will come, you will still come and see us?”

  “Yes,” she promised.

  “On Tuesday, and you’ll stay a few days.”

  “No, I won’t stay the night. I might come again, but I’ll just come for the day. Thank you all the same.”

  “But why not? There’s a bed there.”

  “There’s a bed in the hotel too. I’d prefer to come back.”

  “Shuya will want to know do you send her a greeting.”

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “What is it? What is the greeting?”

  “Say I am happy to meet her.”

  “It’s not very warm,” he grumbled.

  “It’s all I’ve got. And you think about what I’ve said, because we have to sort it out. Will you discuss it with Shuya?”

  “Yes, I suppose so, but it’s hard—her family were so good, so welcoming, I don’t want her to think mine are like a row of stones.”