Liam’s horrified face at such a prospect caused the other two to burst out laughing as Hugo went out in front, followed by Patrick, and finally himself. The horse walked calmly enough and once or twice Liam even looked up to see where he was going. He tried to remember all the instructions, to keep his heels down, his hands on the withers, which he learned was the end of her neck where it met her back, and his legs around her belly, but not too tightly because apparently that’s the sign to the horse that you want to go faster, which he absolutely did not. The lawn was an expanse of the greenest green Liam had ever seen. There were flower beds with riotous colour dancing on the breeze all around the perimeter of the gardens and a few ornamental trees here and there. Beyond the lawns was the expanse of ocean, filling the vista from left to right. He thought it was the most beautiful place he’d ever seen.
On they walked and eventually they were in the woods, where the sun dappled the leaves and created shadows through the canopy.
‘My father and I would come here all the time when I was younger,’ Hugo remarked as he fell in beside Liam.
‘Here, Hugo, this horse wants to go faster I’d say, he’s pulling mad to go on, will I let him?’ Patrick yelled back.
Hugo laughed and called out, ‘Let’s start slowly, shall we? You’ve only been up on him five minutes. There’s a meadow through the next gate on the left, you can go in there but keep him at a trot.’
Liam watched amazed as his friend raised one hand in the air like they’d seen in the Lone Ranger comics and took off down the path.
‘Will he be all right?’ he asked Hugo, trying to hide his worry.
‘Well, Diablo doesn’t like rough handling so if he’s unhappy with Mr Lynch’s approach, he won’t hesitate to make sure they part company. He’ll be fine on the straight, it’s the corners where you can take a tumble. Don’t worry though, he’ll be fine, that’s a soft meadow with nothing to injure him if he does fall.
Liam and Hugo walked on and stopped inside the gate of the field. There was Patrick, and while he looked tense, he seemed to be managing. As he approached the corner, Liam could hardly bear to look, Diablo cantered on and Patrick wobbled. His foot came out of the stirrup and they watched with concern as their friend grabbed round the horses neck. Amazingly though, he didn’t fall off but righted himself and raised his arm in a whoop of delight. Patrick was clearly cut out for horse riding.
‘Well, he’s not exactly graceful but I think Diablo and he have an understanding. Do you want to get down for a bit? Have a look around? There’s a little beach over there,’ Hugo suggested.
Liam was relieved to get off Delia, despite her docile nature, and dismounted as Hugo showed him. His legs felt strange as he walked to the secluded small beach through the trees.
‘Imagine having your own private beach and a wood and all those gardens, you’re so lucky, Hugo!’
Hugo led him to a seat overlooking the sea. No building could be seen and the only sound was the warm breeze in the trees and the odd caw-caw of a seagull.
‘I suppose so, but it’s just what we always had. Martha and I, you met her, used to play here all the time, swimming and jumping off those trees up there. My father made us a swing and we used to swing out over the water as far as we could and then we’d jump in. He helped me make a camp as well, further up the woods, I spent a lot of time in there, on my own, just thinking about things. I remember sitting there for hours after Mother told me I had to go to St Bart’s. I know it could have been worse, I suppose, most chaps like me end up in England at school, but I was terrified and miserable. I just wanted my pap...my father,’ he corrected himself, embarrassed.
‘It’s okay, I called my father Daddy, you called yours Papa. It’s fine. I suppose if they’d lived, we’d be grown out of it by now, but they didn’t so I always think of him as Daddy and you should go on thinking of yours as Papa if that’s how you remember him. What was he like?’ Liam was absentmindedly building a tower of the small pebbles on the beach.
‘Nice, kind, funny. Always joking and laughing, with Mama especially. He could make her laugh so much. She gave up a lot to marry him, you know? She came from an even grander place than this, don’t tell Patrick for goodness sake, but my grandfather on my mother’s side is a marquis and staunch Church of England, of course. When Mama said she wanted to marry an Irish Catholic they nearly went mad, even though Papa had a title as well. He was Earl of Drummond, it’s the name of this area. Papa always joked he never knew which part they hated more, the Irish part or the Catholic part. Anyway, she defied her father, and none of the family really speaks to us. When Papa was off fighting in the war, they wrote once I believe, wishing him well and maybe there was a bit of an olive branch there, but Mama can be quite trenchant, and she didn’t forgive them for their rejection of her and vicariously, of us. Then Papa came home. But as I said, he was never really well after being injured during the war, so he never really went back to his regiment, but they ran the estate here together and looked after the people that relied on us for their livelihoods. They were so happy together. I thought it would go on forever. When he died, Mama just went to pieces.’
Hugo’s voice was so sad, Liam knew exactly how he felt.
‘Mine were the same. When I was small, I used to listen at night and hear them talking and laughing downstairs. My daddy was very funny too, and he could make Mammy laugh even if she was cross over something. One time, I remember creeping downstairs and looking in and seeing them, Mammy sitting on Daddy’s lap, and they were just staring into the fire. He was rubbing her hair and they looked so happy. I keep that image in my mind. I told you before about the trouble with the woman next door, things could have been so different.’ Liam surprised himself; normally, he didn’t talk about it at all.
‘I’m sure they loved each other to the end, Liam. Your mother always talks so fondly of him.’ He paused, ‘Do you think you’ll ever get married?’ Hugo stared out to sea as he spoke.
‘No. I don’t think so, anyway,’ Liam answered.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. I just can’t imagine it. I...I just can’t see how I’d want to...’ Liam struggled to put words on how he felt.
‘Get married or have a girlfriend? I know. Though Patrick seems to have loads of girls after him.’ Hugo smiled and looked sideways at Liam.
‘Yeah, he does, he’s always going on about girls these days, and my brother Con is the same. I don’t know. I’m just not that interested. I think maybe I have a vocation, and then God takes away that bit of you that wants to go with girls.’ Liam knew it probably sounded stupid, but he didn’t mind in front of Hugo.
‘Well, if it’s what you want, I think you would make a truly splendid priest. I definitely don’t have a vocation, and anyway, someone needs to take over this place. I’ve known that was my destiny since I was born. I hoped that maybe I’d get a few years to be free, you know? To live my life, somewhere far away from here, but there’s nobody else, so that’s not going to happen. Mama does her best, but she’s just holding the fort as it were, watching the calendar until I come home and release her. Then I’ll be here, all on my own.’ Hugo sounded like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
‘But you, with all this, and you’re a nice person too, you’ll have girls queuing up to marry you, surely?’
Hugo looked at him, his face a mask. He looked deeply into Liam’s eyes as if weighing something up. The seconds ticked by, and Liam was about to apologise for interfering in his friend’s private life, maybe he shouldn’t have assumed he could speak freely.
Hugo’s voice broke the heavy silence, his voice cracking with emotion as he spoke quietly. ‘That’s the problem, Liam. It’s not girls I’m interested in.’
‘So what do you mean?’ Liam asked, perplexed. He didn’t want to be a priest and he didn’t want to get married, what else was there?
The silence crackled between the two friends.
Hugo’
s eyes glistened with moisture as a possibility dawned on Liam. They locked their gaze, and Liam could see the pleading there. Hugo was begging him not to reject him, not to turn away appalled.
As he tried to process what he thought Hugo might mean, Liam was shocked. He couldn’t believe that Hugo would just come out and say it. Maybe he got it wrong, he’d heard whispers from older lads in school about boys who went with other boys, or men, but surely Hugo wasn’t like that?
He knew it was a mortal sin, that to engage in any carnal activities, even with girls, was an occasion of sin, but to have intimate relations with another man was a most grievous sin. In fact, when he first heard about it, he was sure they were making it up. What on earth would possess a man to want to be with another man in that way? He had never really allowed himself to think those thoughts, knowing that God could see into your mind and knew instantly what any person was thinking.
‘I’ve shocked you,’ Hugo said quietly.
‘No. Well, I don’t really know...I don’t know anything about it, but...’ Liam was torn between wanting desperately to reassure his friend but to distance himself from the conversation. He felt his face redden with embarrassment. What Hugo was telling him contravened every law Liam knew, the law of the land, the law of society and, most importantly, the law of God.
‘You won’t say anything, will you?’
‘Of course not. No, of course, but...well...how do you know? That you’re not like other lads...I mean maybe you’re not...I don’t really know what Con and Patrick are on about with girls either, but I’m not…’
‘That I’m one of those? I’ve always known. I don’t think you become homosexual.’
Liam flinched at the word as Hugo went on, his voice choked with emotion.
‘I think you’re born like that, I’ve prayed and begged and pleaded with God to take it away. I don’t want to be like this, but I can’t help it. I just can’t. Maybe, it gets passed on in families. I have an uncle, my father’s brother, my uncle Piers lives in Paris, nobody really mentions him, but Papa kept in touch with him. When Papa died, I read one of the letters he wrote, telling about his friend. He lives with a Frenchman. To the outside world they’re flatmates but...I think, reading between the lines, he might be…’
Liam could feel his heart beating in his chest and sweat prickled his skin. He had no idea what to say. He knew he should tell Hugo that these thoughts were the work of the devil, that the devil was working within him and that he must cast him out, but he couldn’t make the words come out. Hugo and Patrick were his best friends, as different as chalk and cheese, but he loved them both dearly. He couldn’t hurt Hugo by saying he thought he was a sinner, but could he condone the way of life Hugo described?
‘But…that’s not the life you want though, is it? Like, not really?’ Liam was doing his best to stay calm, but he was floundering.
‘I don’t know what kind of life I want. I don’t know if I want to live at all to be honest.’ Hugo was barely audible.
The statement shocked Liam. Surely Hugo couldn’t be considering taking his own life. Trying to put aside his horror and doubts, he looked at his dear friend. He had to stop him even going down that line of thought.
‘If you didn’t have to take this place over, if you could live another life, is that what you’d want?’ he asked gently, hardly believing they were having this conversation.
‘If...if...if. Life can’t be lived on if, can it? To live that life, I don’t know, apart from the sin, it’s illegal, so you’d live like a fugitive, and it would break my mother’s heart. The estate would fall into rack and ruin, so no, I’ll marry someone suitable, I suppose, but I hate the thought. The idea of living here, with a woman, having a family, well…it makes me shudder. And some poor girl, getting stuck with me, thinking she was getting someone normal, who would love her properly and have children and all of that, but instead she gets me. I don’t think I can do it to someone.’
Liam heard the anguish in Hugo’s voice and watched with horror the tears flowing down his face. He wondered what his father would do in this situation. He would have been kind, he decided, he wasn’t as religious as Mammy was in the sense of following the priests blindly, he would have tried to understand. Liam put his arm around his friend’s shoulder. Hugo cried and his body shook with the pain of it all, and Liam just comforted him. When the sobs subsided, he reached for his handkerchief and handed it to Hugo who blew his nose and wiped his face roughly. Hugo then got up and dipped the handkerchief in the sea and wiped his face with the cold salty water. When he was finished, he came back and walked straight towards his horse.
Patrick was on the path ahead of them when they remounted. Hugo trotted on masterfully, his head bowed so Patrick wouldn’t see the evidence of his tears, and Liam and Delia plodded away. He wished he could catch up to Hugo, just to reassure him that his revelation didn’t affect their friendship, but he had no idea how to make Delia go faster, and anyway, he was afraid to try.
‘Ah lads, this horse riding is great craic!’ Patrick announced, falling in beside Liam. ‘I nearly came off a few times, but I managed to stay on. I could get used to this, Liam boy! Maybe yourself and myself will get a couple of auld nags and tie them up to the church railings, what d’ya thing Father Mac would make of that?’ He laughed. His good humour was infectious and soon all three friends were chatting happily again.
The two-week visit to Greyrock was an endless stream of new adventures, billiards, deer stalking—though they never shot anything—boating and swimming, archery, and they even tried fencing—activities Patrick and Liam only saw in books. They ate quail and venison and were stuffed to within an inch of their lives with cake and desserts of all sorts. No wonder Hugo was traumatised by the basic fare at St Bart’s, Liam thought as he reluctantly turned down another helping of Tiramisu. He couldn’t wait to describe everything to his mother, she’d never believe it. They parted for the summer with heavy hearts. Hugo was going to London to join his mother, from where they were embarking on a ‘Grand Tour of Europe’ as he called it, visiting various cities and meeting up with other families like themselves.
Patrick and Liam were going home to Chapel Street.
Chapter 13
1974
The boys sat transfixed in the sunlit classroom oblivious to the distant sounds of a hurling match outside, all eyes were on the guest speaker. The huge Brother Aiden in his brown robes and sandals was keeping the entire class captivated as he spoke about his village in Mali. In advance of the talk, Brother Jerome had asked each boy to locate Mali on the map in their geography books. The order ran a school out there and each year St Bart’s ran a big fundraiser, so the name of the village of Sangha was as familiar to them as Chapel Street or Blarney Street, but to see pictures, and to hear firsthand what life was like in this place so far away was mesmerising.
‘…after the rainy season we have to replaster the walls of the huts, they are only covered in a mud mixture so the rain washes it away.’ The brother pressed a button on the new slide projector and the image was beamed up onto the white wall of the classroom. Tiny huts, it seemed inconceivable that whole families could dwell within.
‘This is a picture of the council building, the village chief and the elders meet there to discuss various matters but as you can see, there is only room to crouch. It means if anyone gets too angry, he’ll bump his head and that will knock the fury out of him…’ The class laughed and urged the boys in the front to keep their heads down.
‘…this next one is of the chief. He’s a very nice man, and he lives almost all his life in his house, the villagers supply him with food and anything else he needs. He is the spokesman for the community, and he also settles disputes. It’s a hereditary position so his father was chief, and his before that, and his son will take over when the chief dies. It’s a hard life out there; the chief is only in his forties, I would think, though he looks much older…’
The boys were fascinated
as they gazed at the photograph of the chief who was squatting down outside another of the mud constructions. His face looked like the pictures the brother had shown of the dry river beds during the times of drought in the village. He had a silver beard and wore a very ornate pillbox-style hat, and what looked like pyjamas. Brother Aiden spoke with such enthusiasm and passion for his village it was infectious.
He showed them pictures of a place called the circumcision cave, where only men and boys entered for the annual circumcision rite. The entire class winced as he explained the process. He explained how important the crocodile was to the people of the village, how they believed that a crocodile led the first settlers there when they had searched for water. Antelope, hyenas, elephants, gazelles, all were features of the amazingly dry and flat landscape, as different from the lush green fields of Ireland as it was possible to be.
Liam could have listened to him all day. It sounded so exotic and so exciting. He tried to visualise himself out there, converting Africans to the word of God but also helping in practical ways, setting up schools, medical clinics, and making life better for the people of Mali. He was gearing up for his Leaving Certificate Exam in a few weeks and had made up his mind to apply for the priesthood. He prayed every night that the Lord would send him a sign of his vocation, but he still wasn’t sure. Not that he was unsure if he wanted to dedicate his life to the service of God and his church, on that he was absolutely convinced, it was just that he felt so ordinary, so unsaintly. All the priests he knew seemed to exude a kind of goodness, a peace, something otherworldly, and he felt such a mere mortal.
Brother Aiden was finished with the photos and was opening the floor for questions. Hugo raised his hand immediately.
‘Brother, how do the local people take to Catholicism when what they are used to is a very different system?’
The priest paused for a moment as if weighing up if the question was impertinent or was in some way disrespectful to the Catholic faith. He was mistrustful of Hugo’s accent but his innocent open face, blue eyes, and blond curls, which had not faded as he grew older, convinced the priest that the question was genuine.
Jean Grainger Box Set: So Much Owed, Shadow of a Century, Under Heaven's Shining Stars Page 89
