Echoes

by Maeve Binchy

  “No. I understand.”

  “Thanks anyway Angela. You’re doing your best,” he said.

  That’s what did it. That’s when the tears started, she threw some money on the table and stumbled away. Doing her best! God, wasn’t she doing her bloody best! The ingratitude and lack of understanding were no longer possible to take. She ran almost blindly away. She heard him calling that he would collect her at the hotel on Tuesday and she nodded, not able to look back. She ran until she was well away, then she began asking directions and from the concerned looks people gave her she realized she needed dark glasses if not a full veil to cover her red-blotched face.

  Father Flynn was a treasure, there was nothing he didn’t know the answer to. He said it was going to be as dull as ditchwater when he got back to Dublin after all this, and the place was so gorgeous too. Dublin was so gray and gritty. Kevin’s uncle David, considered a little eccentric by the rest of Kevin’s very straitlaced family, didn’t usually go a bundle on priests: he said that normally they gave him a pain in the top of the stomach. But this little Druid was an exception. He wore a soutane which didn’t at all suit his small round figure. Once when they were passing a lingerie shop which sold frilly waspy-waist corsets he asked Emer and Angela should he get something like that for himself to wear so that he would look good in wedding photographs. Father Flynn was full of stories about everyone and everything, all very ridiculous but not hurtful. And best of all, he could laugh at himself. He seemed to be well known everywhere they went. Italian shopkeepers setting out their cheeses on display would shout greetings to Fazzer Fleen.

  But he had his serious side too and he told them that it was an honor to be married in St. Peter’s, and that obviously they would remember it all their lives. Nobody was so forgetful as not to recall where they got married, but this was something special. He took them down to the crypt chapel and they looked at it in awe on Holy Thursday afternoon just as the huge basilica was getting ready for its Holy Week ceremonies. Emer and Kevin were to be married here—it was almost too much to take in.

  And the man seemed to know about clothes. He was fascinated by what they should wear at the wedding and thought that they would look absolutely great—apart from the shoes. There was something about Irish shoes that didn’t look quite right in Rome. Late on Thursday evening the strange party wandered along the Via Condotti, and Angela and Emer tried on different footwear and paraded them for Father Flynn, Kevin, Marie and David. Marie became so excited that she started trying them on too, and Father Flynn said if his soutane didn’t hide them he would be sorely tempted by those gray suede ones. Everyone in the shop was nearly hysterical, and when they settled on the fiercely elegant ones that all three had decided to buy, Father Flynn began to haggle like a fishwife about the price and brought the cost down enormously.

  He stopped them at a flower stall where he was well known too. He did great gesticulations and explanations about the color of dresses, Emer’s white with a blue trim, her hat blue with a white ribbon. Angela’s dress was beige and her hat was white with beige and brown flowers. The family who ran the flower stall became highly excited over the wedding and fought amongst each other about what the bouquets should be. Soon they were all shouting at each other while the Irish group looked on amazed. Flowers were being held up to Emer first, then to Angela, heads were shaking, arms were waving and in the end a satisfactory combination of flowers and timings and delivery to the hotel and prices was arrived at. The family gave everyone a buttonhole there and then as a gift. There were hand kissing and good wishes, and they seemed as pleased as if it were one of their own family.

  “Could you imagine my mother being as pleased as that over anyone’s wedding?” Emer said wistfully. “Is it any wonder people would love to come here to get married? Total strangers are delighted with us and at home there’s been nothing but fuss.”

  “My family would have half the geriatric priests and nuns on the move by now, all of them complaining,” Kevin said.

  “Less of that attitude,” Father Flynn demanded. “I’ll be a geriatric priest someday, and when your children are getting married in about thirty or thirty-five years from now, I want someone to come for me in a wheelchair and take me to the party.”

  He was so nice, Angela thought with a rush of affection. Despite all his jokey going on he was one of the kindest people she had ever met. What a sensitive little man he was; wouldn’t he be a great priest to have in a parish instead of dull old Father O’Dwyer; instead of people who couldn’t even stay in the priesthood. Stop. She was not going to think about Sean until Tuesday: that was her little treat to herself. She hoped she would be able to keep to that promise and enjoy herself.

  There had been a bit of a problem about the best man. He hadn’t turned up. But Father Flynn had that sorted out too. If the best man wasn’t there, couldn’t David stand in? David was doubtful, he wasn’t actually in the State of Grace, he said, he wasn’t what you would call a conventional person to take part in the ceremony, as one of the performers, that was. Father Flynn seemed to regard a public announcement of being in a state of sin as the most normal thing in the world.

  “There’s no question of being a performer,” he said. “You’re only a witness. You could be alive with mortal sin, reserved sins and all. It wouldn’t make a whit of difference to the ceremony. Of course, now that you’re here in Rome, if you wanted someone to hammer a good confession job on you, I know plenty that would see you right.”

  “Well, now I don’t think . . .”

  “No need at all—just letting you know it’s there if you want it. I know a priest who’s almost stone deaf. There’s a queue a mile long outside his box but I could get you up to the top of the line by shameless pull and influence.”

  It was hard to know if Father Flynn was joking or not. But in any event by the time they got back to the hotel after the wonderful warm afternoon wandering around Rome, the best man was there. His name was Martin Walsh. He was about six foot two tall and forty years old. He was painfully shy and he had got on the wrong train. He looked as if he was about to burst into tears. Father Flynn had it under control in minutes.

  He couldn’t have arrived at a better time the little priest said, because they were all going to split up now and meet again at nine o’clock. Martin would have hours to get over the shock of it all, and have a bath and a few cold beers and a chat with Kevin. Everyone else was perfectly capable of looking after himself or herself. He said this because Martin had kept babbling his apologies about not being there to organize the flowers and the bridesmaids. He had bought a handbook on the best man’s duties and he seemed to have fallen down.

  Father Flynn told him to throw away the book on the role of the best man. Everything was much simpler in Rome. Martin’s big sad face started to look human. Up to now he had looked like a thin wretched bloodhound.

  The little wedding party walked with faltering steps into the huge basilica which they had visited every day since they came to Rome. Today it was different. There was a mixture of formality and casualness. People shouted good luck in different languages and a group of Germans took their picture. The walk seemed endless, but then they were in and down the marble stairs to the little chapels beneath. Father Flynn disappeared to robe himself, and the others knelt silently, heads down.

  Angela prayed hard. She forced words to come into her head and she mouthed them to herself. She asked God to be kind to Emer and Kevin, and to make it a nice life. She explained to God that Emer had kept the rules and that it would be a good idea to reward her. Emer deserved to be happy. With her gloved hand she squeezed the white-gloved hand beside her and Emer grinned gratefully.

  Father Flynn shone in his gold and white vestments. He was smiling at them all. The words began and Angela felt her eyes water when she heard Kevin’s and Emer’s uncertain voices. Then it was done. They were man and wife. They pecked at each other chastely and went to sign the huge register. The photographer was anxious to get the
m outside and grouped—on the steps first, then down to the center of the square beside the big column, a great place to stand because you got a view of St. Peter’s in the background.

  Sean was in the foyer when she came downstairs.

  “Tell them you mightn’t be coming back tonight, just in case, and in case they worry about you.”

  “I’m coming back here tonight,” she said.

  “It’s so dear going up and down on the train,” he pleaded.

  “Shall we go now?”

  He shrugged; but soon he was in high good humor. Young Denis knew his aunt Angela was coming. Angela shuddered and hoped he hadn’t noticed the revulsion she felt coursing through her. She asked what language he spoke. Apparently he spoke Japanese and English and now because they were in Italy they were using a lot of that. Mia Zia, Sean said dotingly.

  “What?”

  “Zia, the Italian for aunt. Zio is uncle. Mia Zia, my aunt.”

  Angela wondered if this could possibly be happening. Was she really having a language lesson as they walked? It had all the qualities of a dream where the wrong people are in the wrong places saying idiotic things. But this had been going on too long for it to be a dream. She wasn’t going to wake up and find Father Sean still sending for stamps and silver paper from the Far East. That was long gone now.

  She tried to tell him about the wedding—anything, rather than fall into the normality of his life with him. She didn’t want to hear that this was the platform he normally sat on to wait for the cheaper train, she didn’t want to become part of his ridiculous pattern of commuting from this new home and family to try to get audiences and hearings and advance his documents further with the Congregation of the Clergy. She wanted this over. She looked at the station, at the monument to Mussolini, who made the trains run on time for the first and only period in Italy’s history. By the time she came back here tonight she would have met them. Sean’s family. It wouldn’t make her feel any different, she knew that.

  “What would you like best to happen now?” he asked her suddenly as they sat on the train opposite each other.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What would be the very best thing that could happen as far as you are concerned? Best for everybody.”

  She looked out the window at the buildings with all the washing hanging from sticks and poles that jutted through windows.

  “I don’t know, Sean. I really don’t. I suppose I’d like you to reconsider and to ask to go back to your Order, for Shuya to see that this is your vocation, and for her to return to Japan with the children. I know it’s not possible and it’s not going to happen, but you did ask me what I would like.”

  “Shuya must be a mindreader,” he said happily. “She said this is what you want.”

  “I’m coming to see them. I’m doing that much—stop getting at me!”

  “I know, and I’m so happy. Soon you’ll know them. A normal way of life is beginning for all of us.” He was like a child who thinks he’s getting a bike for his birthday. Angela closed her eyes and kept them closed to discourage further conversation.

  They waited in a hot noisy line of people for a bus and they didn’t get a seat. Sean was smiling, blinking into the sunlight and bending down to look out, squinting for landmarks to point out to her.

  After the bus ride, they walked for ten minutes. The gates of the villa were huge and wide, like the big gates of ruined Castlebay House at home. But the villa couldn’t be more different: it was yellow-colored with white shutters and there were flowers tumbling all over the walls. Sean looked through the gates with pride. Wasn’t it beautiful? The Italians knew how to do things with style. The Signor and Signora didn’t spend a great deal of time here of course, but they kept it up fairly well didn’t they, when you considered everything. Angela wondered why they weren’t going in. Maybe at this last moment he was getting some nerves, beginning to doubt the sense of the mad enterprise. It was only eleven o’clock in the morning and she felt she had put a whole day over her.

  They moved away, to her surprise. It must have shown in her face.

  “Our entrance is round here,” Sean explained easily. They went in a much narrower entrance a few hundred yards down the wall. It didn’t need to say “servants’ entrance,” that was so obviously what it was. Here the flowerbeds were overgrown and the walls of the out-houses were peeling in the sun. But there were flowers too, and as Angela walked beside Sean, she saw some small, dark-eyed Italian children playing in and out of the open doors. It would be a good place for a child to grow up in some ways, a bit in the shadow of the Big House of course but it was safe and friendly and there would be plenty of other children to play with. She was walking warily now: she must keep her wits about her.

  “There they are. . . . We’re home. . . . Shuya! Shuya, she’s here! Denis, come here . . . !”

  The little boy had his hand up to his face, shy, not wanting to be the first to make the move, hanging back. Behind him came waddling a small fat baby with nappies hanging down underneath its knitted knickers. And leaning against the door was Shuya. Not in Japanese clothes as Angela had thought she would be, not wearing a bun with two sticks coming out of it, no big wide belt with a rose attached to it, no tiny pointed feet.

  Shuya looked like an old, old woman. She had an Eastern face, like the face of a poor Chinese or Filipino woman holding out a begging bowl, the kind of face you saw in the missionary annals. Her skin was muddy gray, her hair was lank and tied back like Angela’s own. She wore a shapeless dress and over it a long, faded cardigan. This could not be Shuya. Shuya must be inside waiting to come out, this was somebody else minding the children for her, an older friend. The thin tired figure smiled at them both. “Welcome An-jay-la . . . wel-come. It is so good of you to come all this way to meet your family.”

  Shuya’s smile moved from brother to sister as she walked out of the shadow into the sunlight. Her smile was bright and it made her old thin face look less beaten, less resigned. Sean was staring at her with delight. In a flash Angela thought she understood it all. He was lonely. The poor stupid fool was lonely out there and she was kind to him, she was the first person to be kind and warm. That’s what it’s all about. It didn’t make it any better, but it was some explanation.

  “Hallo, Shuya,” she said. Every word seemed leaden, but she forced them out. “I’m very glad to meet you. Will you introduce me to the children?”

  There was a pause. She must say something a bit warmer, Sean had probably built her up to the skies, described her as beautiful and generous and brilliant, just as he had built this sad creature up when he had spoken of her to Angela.

  “This is Laki,” Shuya said. The toddler was whirling her two fat little arms round like a windmill in the effort to keep upright.

  “Hallo, Laki O’Hara.”

  When the limelight was off Denis he realized it was safe to approach. “I am Denis,” he said.

  “I knew you were. I knew it the minute I saw you.”

  There was no sending this lot back. Better banish the dream of Father Sean rediscovering his vocation, and his instant family being absorbed somewhere back in Japan. These were here to stay.

  She went back on the train every day. Sean had been right. It would have been much easier to have stayed the night, but she had to stay true to her earlier words, and not let it appear that her first visit had been an inspection, and that she would stay if they passed the test. She brought them toys, she bought ridiculous overdecorated boxes of sweets. Laki sat on her lap and Denis wanted to know why she couldn’t speak Japanese or even Italian. Shuya said little.

  On Thursday, Sean had to see two priests who knew better routes than the ones he had been following. There was great hope they would steer him in the right direction. Angela said she would still come to Ostia, as usual. This was only her third visit but already it seemed natural. In fact she was glad that Sean would be away. Perhaps Shuya might talk more, might say the things that Sean reported her as saying. The w
oman was so quiet that Angela could hardly believe that she was the author of such philosophical announcements as Sean had always claimed. Shuya said little or nothing in her presence, and served the simple salads and pasta as if she were a maid, sitting a little away from the others as they ate. But when Sean wasn’t there she would have to speak.

  At first she was content to let young Denis talk to his aunt, but Angela put a stop to that. She asked Denis to go and collect her ten different kinds of leaves, each one different, from the grounds, and lay them all out on a sheet of paper; then they would try to put names on them. Denis went off happily; Laki was playing with a fat Italian baby about her own age. The women were on their own. Shuya seemed to recognize it too: she sat with her hands folded, waiting for Angela to begin.

  It was hard because Angela had to be in the role of questioner for such a long time. Shuya replied dutifully. She had three brothers, and two sisters. Her mother was dead and her father had married again. Yes, they did like his new wife, but now he lived with his new wife’s people and they did not see much of him. Her family liked Sean. No, they didn’t really think anything about his having been a priest. Or being a priest still, as Angela said. No, you see it was just a job to them—he had been teaching when he was a priest; he was still teaching. He had not been married before; now he was married to Shuya. It was so simple.

  On close questioning Shuya proved to see some complications. She said that it was a very big thing, it was like being married to the Church and the Church would release you if you found a higher happiness. But there were a lot of formalities. That is why they were here, that is why Sean had gone to the Vatican again this day as he did so many days.