“Celia, that’s enough,” my mother said.
I didn’t understand what charade she was talking about, but it seemed bad. The electric tension between the three of them was palpable.
“The hurt Brendan’s already caused our poor family before becoming a priest,” Auntie Celia lamented.
A decent cough would have floored me. Now, I understood. In one utterance, Auntie Celia had transported us back to the time when Uncle Brendan had gone out with a girl and upset Granda, who’d badly wanted a priest in his family.
“I said that’s enough, Celia. You’ll get over it.”
“Fine for you to say, Eileen, but you don’t understand things from the Harkin perspective,” Auntie Celia continued. She shook her head and laughed falsely, speaking as if Uncle Brendan wasn’t present. “You can’t understand, because you’re not his sister. You’re not a Harkin. You won’t have to face the people knowing they’re laughing because one of the Harkin’s has left the priesthood.”
“I’m married to a Harkin,” said Mammy. “I sign checks using the Harkin name. I believe that makes me one of yous in people’s eyes.” She laughed shrilly. “Yes, that’s more than sufficient to cover me when the muck starts to fly.”
“If I’d known it was going to cause this amount of trouble,” said Uncle Brendan, “I’d have stayed away for good. Then, you’d all have been none the wiser.”
Auntie Celia’s mouth opened for a moment and then closed.
“I know you’re upset, Celia. You’re my only sister and have every right to be. I’m so sorry to inflict such pain on the family.” He turned his head from her as if it were too painful to look at her. “There’s no woman involved and I’ll stay single for life. The simple truth is I should never have entered the priesthood.”
Uncle Brendan paused, then continued, “When I took Holy Orders, I thought I had a vocation, but I was fooling myself. I was trying to please someone else. That was wrong.” Uncle rose, walked over to the sideboard, and began to stroke the reddish breast of one of the shiny bird ornaments I’d always liked. He emitted an odd little chuckle as he picked it up and examined it. “Why, Eileen, I remember these pretty birds! I remember Mother and I spent a whole day searching china shop after china shop to find just the right wedding gift. She said I was being too pernickety, because Harry wouldn’t look at them more than once, anyway.” He chuckled again. “I’ll bet she was right, too.”
Mammy’s eyes showed her confusion, but her tongue activated quickly. “I could see you took care in picking them.” Her eyes cut to Auntie Celia. “I’m very fond of my wee budgies. Harry is as well, but you know how men are about such things. Men never pass remarks on an ornament, whether its quality or not.”
“Cockatoos,” Uncle Brendan said.
“Pardon!” Mammy’s eyes crinkled.
“They’re cockatoos,” said Uncle Brendan.
Mammy gazed at the birds as if seeing them for the first time. “I see . . . very good.”
There was an awkward silence, as all eyes focused on the glittering ornament.
“I was just as careful about deciding to leave the priesthood,” Uncle said. He set the ornament down carefully. “It’s taken me a long time to leave, precisely because I didn’t want to disgrace the family. But the truth is, it’s been gnawing at me since the second year of my ordination. At first, it was doubt I fought against. I reckoned every priest has doubts at some point, so I just put my shoulder to the wheel and worked harder. But doubt was replaced by the certainty I’d made a grave mistake. I’d gone into the priesthood because I felt guilty about letting everyone down. I’d gone in because Father wished it and I thought it would make everything right between us again.”
Auntie Celia sat tight-lipped, eyes still riveted on the glittering cockatoo.
“I didn’t have these feelings in the seminary. I don’t know why I didn’t have them. Maybe I was suppressing the thing . . . or maybe I was in denial. I already knew I’d made a mistake during my last visit to Ireland, but I’d resolved to continue serving and do the right thing. I knew I wasn’t the first priest who’d made a huge mistake.
“Celia, believe me when I tell you that I’ve fought against leaving. I’ve fought it and fought it every hour of every day, until my mind knew only frustration. And despair. And still I had to go on, for the sake of my pupils. I was in despair so deep and shapeless, I’d never known it could exist in the human condition. I honestly don’t know how I got out of bed in the morning, or how I made it back to bed at night. I prayed and prayed, until even that failed and God abandoned me completely.”
Uncle Brendan fell silent for a moment or two. I couldn't breathe. He’d endured the same pain as me.
“I even thought it’d be better if I just ended—” The corners of Uncle’s mouth trembled. “I had the breakdown instead.”
The air was viscous as my mother toyed with the collar of her blouse and Auntie Celia stared at Uncle, her mouth agape. I pondered which would have been the bigger disgrace to her. Would it have been his leaving the priesthood, the going out with a darkie girl, or the big unmentionable? None of them probably thought I knew about the last. My heart beat faster as it tried to pump blood that was surely as viscous as the air in the room. The thought of Uncle Brendan far away in his sun-filled mission, rising and praying and pushing away the despair, filled me with a curious mixture of pity and selfish relief. I felt a burst of immeasurable closeness to him and would have crossed to him and put my arm around him, if I’d been brave.
“We have to deal with it,” he said, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping his brow. “I’ve come through a breakdown and I’m not going to allow it to happen again. Life for me is outside the priesthood. I know it will be difficult for all of you for a while, but I must move on. I’d like you to accept my decision, or at least stay silent if you don’t.” He returned to the sofa and stared into the dark hearth.
“Brendan, I knew you had a breakdown, but this other thing . . . I had no idea.” Auntie Celia went over to him. “I didn’t know you were having thoughts of that nature. Listen, I’ve been very selfish. You’re my little brother. We’ll deal with it. We’ll work through this.” She shook her head at my mother. “I had no idea it was so bad.”
“We’ll pray and stick together,” my mother said.
“You’re family and we’ll support you, no matter what,” Auntie Celia said. “My God, just let anybody dare say a word against you or give you so much as a sidelong glance when I’m around. I’ll throttle them. You’re a Harkin. We’ll get through the scandal. Why, we’ll laugh and wonder what all the fuss was about a year hence. By then, people will be busy feasting on some other scandal, please be to Jesus. Aye, this scandal will be dropped by then, like a dog drops an old soup bone for a fresher one.”
She placed her hand on top of his, and they looked into each other’s eyes, seeming to forget about Mammy and me for an instant. “Are you all right now, Brendan? You’re not having dark thoughts anymore, are you?”
Uncle shook his head slowly.
Mammy asked if he had any plans for the future and Uncle said he wanted to do a social work course in America. Neither Auntie Celia nor she knew anything about social work and listened intently as he explained it in detail. After he finished, Auntie Celia looked at the clock and suggested she and Uncle Brendan start doing the rounds to inform the rest of the family, as everyone would now be home from work. Twice, my mother offered to accompany them while they debated their itinerary. There was no response until my aunt muttered it wasn’t necessary, at which point Mammy insisted on going. Auntie Celia and Uncle Brendan went out to the car and my mother whipped on her coat.
“Get your father to take Caroline to the Chinese restaurant when they get home,” she said, opening her purse.
“Might it be best for Uncle Brendan and Auntie Celia to go alone?” I said. “They’ll be better able to talk as brother and sister in the car without you.”
“They don’t want to
be alone.” She ceased rummaging in her purse for a moment. “You heard her ask for my support.”
“Only to tell the neighbors. Now, it’s only family.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. And don’t say a word about this to your father. Not one word until I get back, so he can be informed properly.”
Auntie Celia’s car revved up, prompting Mammy to root furiously in her purse and complain about my aunt’s lack of consideration. Finally, panicked by the sound of the reversing car, she thrust the purse in my hand and raced out the door.
They returned after nine o’clock. Caroline, James, and I ceased studying and ran from our bedrooms to the living room, where Father was watching TV. My mother peered at him and then at me, trying to determine whether I’d said anything. Father and Uncle Brendan hugged and then Uncle asked if he’d heard the news. Mammy’s face softened at the sight of Father’s blank look and she commenced telling the story, though an abbreviated version this time.
Uncle finished where she left off, and when it was done, my mother asked, “Aren’t you going to say something, Harry?”
“It’s not as if it’s the end of the world.” Father looked at Uncle Brendan. “Whatever makes you happy is all that matters. If you weren’t happy, then you did the right thing.” He studied the TV screen for a moment before turning back to him. “You have to do what’s right for yourself, and to hell with what the neighbors say.”
“It’ll be hard, because of all the gloating our neighbors will do,” said Auntie Celia.
“The neighbors be damned,” said Father.
Auntie Celia solicited Father’s opinion on the best way to break the news to Granny Harkin, but Uncle Brendan insisted he tell her on his own.
“Granny will take it well, Uncle Brendan,” I said. “I know.”
He smiled and pressed his hand gently on my shoulder. The subject was dropped as Father chatted to Uncle Brendan about his business. He launched into the usual litany about how useless his workers were, and how some of them wanted to work and collect the dole on the sly at the same time.
Before Uncle left, Father took him outside to see a large shed he’d built to store his equipment in, as well as the gleaming new track excavator he’d purchased. It was my first time to see it, too. James, anxious to show off, climbed into the cab, started it, and moved the boom about until Father told him to stop. I hung by the big doors and watched, observing by their easy manner that the two brothers had a great deal of love for one another, although Father’s was disguised by machismo.
“I can’t stop that one from driving my machinery,” Father said. He jingled coins in his pockets. “James is a character.”
Uncle Brendan turned to me. “Can you operate it?”
“He’s just like you, Brendan,” said Father. “Gabriel’s better at the books and has no time for diggers.”
“It takes all types to run a world, Harry.”
We watched the taillights of Auntie Celia’s car streak out the gate.
“Poor Brendan, this is going to be such a hard cross for him to bear,” Mammy said after we went into the living room.
Father sat and picked up the newspaper.
“Let’s talk no more about it. Sure there’s not much scandal in that nowadays, with the way the world’s turning.”
“Tell that to Celia. She squawked like a half-shot crow this afternoon and said he should never have entered the priesthood to begin with.” Mammy paused to await Father’s response, but he offered none. “Did he talk much about being a priest when he was Gabriel’s age?”
“I don’t remember.”
“It was your father’s pushing,” she said, clearly displeased by his unwillingness to be drawn into conversation. “Pushing never works. It’s either in them to be priests, or it’s not.”
“Quit your talking.”
“Your father pushed and now the cock’s come home to roost. He should have accepted that Brendan wasn’t meant to be a priest. Brendan started associating with that girl and that was a sign for your father to stop pushing him.” Mammy looked about fleetingly, taking in what we were each doing: Caroline and James had settled down to watch the news and Nuala and I were setting up the checkers board. She must have suspected I was listening, because her eyes returned quickly to me and caught me watching her.
“I’m glad you told Auntie Celia to forget the past,” I said. “It was disgraceful, making such a big deal about the fact Uncle Brendan disgraced her and the others just because he had a fling before he went to the priesthood.”
“Your auntie was raving herself to distraction,” said my mother. “It was the shock talking. I thought she’d been far too quiet on the journey down from the airport.”
“She overreacted,” I said, “just like Granda overreacted, right?”
“Don’t speak ill of the dead, Gabriel.”
“I think Granda was very uncharitable. He got what he wanted in the end.”
“Your granda saw it as a threat. The woman was pretty, with big, sparkly eyes and a smile to match. Always clad in the latest fashion.”
“You told me once that you never met her.”
Mammy’s face reddened. “Once or twice, but not for long.”
Father glanced up from the newspaper.
“Was she from around here?” Caroline asked, and she moved closer to Nuala and me.
“No.”
“Do you think Uncle Brendan regrets letting her go?” she asked.
“That’s your uncle’s business and not our concern.”
“Things don’t add up,” I said. “Granda’s deep bitterness makes no sense. I told you that before.”
“You’ve been told already that your Granda was pig-stubborn. Isn’t that right, Harry? Look, tomorrow’s a school day, so off yous go to bed. It’s been a long afternoon and I need a bit of peace. Besides, you should be studying instead of trying to play Sherlock Holmes. It doesn’t take much detective work to investigate the shambles you made of your mock exams.”
The cut silenced me.
“Nuala, you go to bed,” Mammy said. “The rest of yous to your rooms and study, now.”
As I sat at my desk, I knew Mammy was raking up Uncle Brendan’s past with Father. It proved too great a temptation. I sneaked down the hall and stood by the living room door. Indeed, Father was talking, but the TV volume was turned up. I couldn’t hear a thing. I put my palms on the door and pressed my ear closer. Suddenly, it burst open and I spilled inside.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” my mother said. “Are you snooping? That’s the only thing you’re good at these days, in addition to failing exams.”
I gawked idiotically at her as Caroline’s door opened in the background.
Mammy turned her head to look at Caroline. “Take a good look at your sneaky brother. He’s nothing but a good-for-nothing snoop.” She looked back at me. “Go to your room this bloody instant and get that nosy beak of yours into a textbook. Don’t let me see it again until you’re at the breakfast table.”
Twenty-Five
The scandal washed into every Knockburn home and surrounding Catholic town. My mother reported daily how she noticed people whispering as they came out of shops, or while they stood in line for confession and behind graveyard headstones, how they became silent or suddenly began talking about the weather as she passed by.
Auntie Celia said her shop sales were up, though only for ices, fruit, and vegetables. Farmers’ wives who’d always gossiped behind her back that her china selection was limited and daylight robbery had the gall to come in now under the pretext of shopping for wedding gifts. When they finished asking their pointedly indirect questions and saw they were to get no information, all but the most brazen felt obliged to buy a carrot or a couple of pears in order to save face.
“You’re fine about what Uncle Brendan’s done, aren’t you?” I asked Granny Harkin during a visit not long after Uncle Brendan’s return. He’d gone to visit an old school friend.
In response
, Granny placed a large slice of warm, home-baked rhubarb tart on a plate and set it before me.
“I’m full, Granny, but thanks.”
Her rhubarb tarts had become a long-standing grievance between us. I’d once forgotten myself in her presence at a wake and accepted a slice of her neighbor’s rhubarb tart. It hadn’t mitigated matters when I informed her the offending slice contained much more strawberry than rhubarb, or that I’d taken just two small bites and set it aside as soon as she reminded me I detested rhubarb.
“Brendan must do with it whatever God intended,” Granny continued. “If that means social work, he’s got my blessing.”
“You’re educated, Gabriel,” said Uncle John. He wiped crumbs off his lips with his gnarled fingers. “I can’t make heads or tails of what Brendan says about this social work business and I didn’t want to appear ignorant probing him about it. He says it’s some kinda counseling. He says people get counseled when they have mental problems, or lose limbs in an accident, or when they have problems of . . . well, you know, of an intimate nature.” He paused. “Jimmy Kelly didn’t get counseling when he had his arm yanked off by the combine harvester last year. He got nothing from the government.”
Granny, who had the pie dish in her hand and was about to rise, set it down on the table again. “Exactly what is social work, Gabriel? More to the point, will he be able to make a living at it?”
“It’s done more in the big cities.” I didn’t wish to appear ignorant about the subject, either. “There’s lots of counseling in Belfast and people do make a living at it.”
“What’s the world coming to?” asked Granny. “City people always were peculiar. Imagine running around airing problems of an intimate nature to strangers. If things like that need airing, they should be aired behind a closed bedroom door.” She shook her head like a sage. “Did anybody’s limb ever grow back as a result of this counseling, is the question I want answered?”
A Son Called Gabriel Page 24
