‘They’re splashed, right enough. I’ll get you a wee cloth,’ said Mrs Brennan, going to the kitchen.
‘Get me a big one,’ yelled Mary Lawless. As his mother said, Mary Lawless could always see the funny side. ‘Thank God for that perfume you’re wearing too much of,’ she shouted after Mrs Brennan. Martin loved the smell of it. In fact he had bought it for his mother at Christmas.
‘What is it?’ asked Mary when Mrs Brennan came back with a wet cloth.
‘Le chien mort,’ said Martin.
‘Nonsense.’
‘Chanel,’ said Mrs Brennan, getting down on her knees at Mary Lawless’s feet.
‘Gorgeous.’
‘What a thing to happen and you trigged out in all your finery.’
‘What are you talking about? Finery? Everyday duds, that’s what I’m wearing.’
They got Mary’s shoes cleaned. Father Farquharson arrived at the same time as Nurse Gilliland. When they were all settled in front of the fire, which they praised excessively when they heard Martin had lit it, Mary related the drunken story. Father Farquharson agreed that things were getting worse with regard to the drink. Being a teetotaller himself he could not see the charm of the stuff but he supposed a drink or two was a way of relaxing. But moderation in all things. Martin excused himself, saying that he had homework to do.
‘You’re fairly shooting up, Martin,’ said Nurse Gilliland.
‘I’m a growing boy,’ said Martin. He said it to get it in before Mary Lawless could say it.
At about ten o clock he heard the parlour door open and his mother call, ‘Martin, would you be so good?’ He made the tea and carried in one of the laden trays.
‘Just a wee bite to eat,’ said his mother. ‘Set it down here, Martin.’
On plates covered with paper doily mats Mrs Brennan carried in more sandwiches. They were cut into tiny triangles, the top slice of each was brown bread, the lower white. The crusts had been removed. Between the different colours of bread were lines of filling — yellow egg, pink salmon, green lettuce with red tomato, brown roast beef, purple ham. A few sprigs of parsley lay on top.
‘Glory be to God. There’s what would feed a regiment here, Mrs Brennan,’ said Father Farquharson. Mary Lawless, as she always did, tapped the arm of her chair in appreciation.
‘First class — the gentry wouldn’t get any better.’
‘What are you talking about, Mary? The gentry would never taste the likes of these,’ said Nurse Gilliland. ‘Not the way herself makes them.’
Mrs Brennan handed each person a paper napkin for their knee and a china plate.
‘Och away on,’ she said. ‘It’s just thrown together — nothing but a cup of tea in your hand. Some night I’ll take the time and do things properly.’
Mary Lawless selected a sandwich and bit into it.
‘What’s this?’ she said with feigned wonderment. Mrs Brennan looked.
‘Roast beef.’
‘That meat’s so tender you could ate it with your nose.’
‘Here, Father, take a napkin,’ said Mrs Brennan. ‘You wouldn’t think black would stain but it’s nearly worse than anything else.’
‘You’re right there,’ said Father Farquharson. ‘It practically highlights a stain.’
‘I hope my shoes don’t stain,’ said Mary Lawless. ‘The language of the young ones nowadays coming out of that pub — it would frighten you.’
‘Merciful hour,’ said Mrs Brennan. ‘They’re a holy terror.’
‘You were coming out of a pub, Mary?’ said Nurse Gilliland.
‘Indeed I was not. It was a crowd of young ones.’
‘Slang,’ said Father Farquharson, ‘there’s a lot of slang about.’
‘Who’s talking about slang? It’s the cursing I’m talking about. Giving everybody within earshot dog’s abuse. Unadulterated effs and c’s. If you’ll pardon my French, Father — being so blunt. And, God above, it’s not just pubs. It would curl the hair of your head to pass a primary school getting out these days.’
‘Martin — you wouldn’t say things like that, would you?’
‘No.’
‘God bless us and save us! He certainly would not — over my dead body,’ said Mrs Brennan. ‘I just love the innocence of wee children. Isn’t it the terrible pity they have to grow up?’
‘It is — but that’s the way the Lord has planned it. They can’t remain in ignorance for ever.’ Father Farquharson seemed very definite. He bit decisively into his sandwich.
‘Ignorance is innocence,’ said Martin’s mother. ‘And it’s lovely to see it. That’s what I always say.’
‘It’s not a philosophy you hear seriously espoused these days.’ Father Farquharson began to suck at something which had caught between his teeth.
‘Indeed Father, I would go so far as to say that it applies not just to — you know what — but to things like doctoring and what have you,’ said Mrs Brennan. ‘If I have cancer I’d prefer not to know. You’re better not knowing a thing about it. That’s my theory.’
‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,’ said Mary Lawless. ‘A doctor told me once what was wrong with my ear and he might as well have whistled “Blue Suede Shoes.” ’
‘Do you have a toothpick, Mrs Brennan?’
‘It’s the one thing I don’t have in the house.’
‘There’s those cocktail sticks,’ said Martin. He left the room and came back with a cocktail stick and handed it to Father Farquharson.
‘Thank you, Martin. Anyway this man in the restaurant — he had asked for a tooth pick. I think it was a well-done steak he’d been having — always a mistake, I say. And the funny—’
‘What kind of a steak is a mis-steak, Father?’ They all laughed.
Father Farquharson brushed crumbs from his trousers and said,
‘Oh you’re quick, Mary — far too quick for me.’
‘And …?’ said Mary Lawless.
‘And what?’
‘What happened? What was the funny thing …?’
‘Oh yes the funny thing was — it broke.’
‘What?’
‘The toothpick. Between his teeth. It was one of those plastic ones, like an old fashioned pen quill — have you not seen them?’
‘No, I can’t say I have,’ said Mary Lawless. ‘But we’re nowhere near as sophisticated as yourself, Father. We wouldn’t be out dining with this one and that one the way you would be. Bishop this and Cardinal that. Using toothpicks.’
‘Anyway,’ said Father Farquharson, ‘he had to get another toothpick to dislodge the toothpick. A toothpick for toothpicks. It really was quite amusing.’
Martin sat on the floor in front of the china cabinet eating a sandwich. From this low level he could see Mary Lawless’s hairy legs. The hairs were pressed flat against her skin inside her nylons or tights. Like wood grain. In contrast, Father Farquharson’s legs descended, white and hairless as candles, from his black trousers into his black socks which went into his black shoes. Martin made as if to lean back and his mother shouted at him, ‘Don’t you dare lean back on that china cabinet, Martin. It’s far too fragile.’
‘I wasn’t going to.’
‘Martin — a refill, if you’d be so good.’ His mother handed him the teapot.
When he came back into the room Nurse Gilliland said, ‘Isn’t it great to get to this age with all your bits still functioning.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ said Mary Lawless.
‘What? Whether it’s great or whether all your bits are still functioning?’
‘I think there’s bits of me haven’t functioned for years.’
‘Dare we ask which bits?’
‘Aw, now, that would be telling.’
‘There’s not too much wrong with the tongue,’ said Father Farquharson. ‘Isn’t that so, Mary?’
‘I’m saying nothing.’
‘It must be the first time that’s ever happened.’
‘What?’
/> ‘You saying nothing.’
‘Get away.’
Mary Lawless stirred her tea, the spoon chinging loudly against the china.
‘Did any of you ever think of leaving your body to science?’ she said.
‘God forbid,’ said Martin’s mother. ‘Can you imagine the going over you would get and you stone dead? Aww, no that’s not for me at all.’ Her cup clicked on its china saucer.
‘What does the Church have to say about it, Father?’
‘I’m off duty, Mary. Give me peace.’
‘It’s for the good of others,’ said Nurse Gilliland. ‘How else would doctors learn where things were — which organ was which?’
‘One thing that would worry me,’ said Mary Lawless, ‘would be Judgment Day …’
‘Crumbs! That’ll worry us all, believe you me,’ said Father Farquharson and they all laughed loudly again.
‘No — but if you were cut into bits and it came to the Last Day and God had to reassemble you …’
‘We’ll all be reconstituted, is that not the case, Father?’
Father Farquharson put up his hands, laughing.
‘Don’t ask me,’ he said.
‘Och come on now, Father,’ said Mary Lawless, ‘would I come back with all my veins and weight problems or would I come back in my prime? Would I be the fair and flawless Mary Lawless again?’
‘With a twenty-inch waist, Mary,’ said Nurse Gilliland.
‘Like an egg timer.’
‘Easy turned upside down.’
‘In your prime, Mary — you’ll return in your prime. Of that I have no doubt.’
‘Then I’ll be reunited with my appendix,’ said Mrs Brennan.
‘Father, when we — you know — pass on,’ Nurse Gilliland screwed up her thin face as she tried to phrase her question. ‘No, let me come at it from another direction. What’s the General Judgment?’
‘Oh this is very hard territory.’
‘Are you saying I wouldn’t understand it, Father?’
‘No — no I’m not, but it’s hardly the stuff of a pleasant evening with baking as extraordinary as this.’ He held up the bread he was eating.
‘Go on with you, Father,’ said Mrs Brennan. ‘It’s the same as you get every time you’re here.’
‘No, truly — it is wonderful.’
‘I hate people,’ said Mary Lawless, ‘who think of bread as simply a vehicle for jam.’
‘Bread is bread,’ said Mrs Brennan. ‘Bread is itself.’
‘You’re right there,’ said Father Farquharson. ‘Never spoke a truer word.’
‘The General Judgment?’
‘If you insist, Nurse Gilliland. The Church teaches that when each of us dies there is “the particular judgement”. We die, we come before Our Maker and we are judged accordingly.’
‘Ho-ho — that’ll be the day,’ said Mary Lawless.
‘We come into our rightful place beside Him. Or we are turned away. Then on the Last Day there is the General Judgment when Christ will come in all his glory to bring to light the conduct of each one of us and the secrets of our hearts.’
‘It’ll all be out in the open that day, won’t it, Martin?’ said his mother. Nurse Gilliland held up her hand as if to stop everyone.
‘Given that the Last Day might not happen for some years yet — some few million — what happens in the meantime, Father?’
‘Time is not the same for God. It’s not a continuum. The best way I can explain it … is to think of looking at a map. You can see everywhere at once. Time is two dimensional for the Maker of the Universe. He sees it all from first to last in the blink of an eye.’
‘Milton said something like that,’ said Martin.
‘Milton who?’ said Mrs Brennan.
‘The poet John Milton.’
‘Aw, the growing mind,’ said Mary Lawless.
‘May I try one of these?’ said Father Farquharson, reaching to the angel cakes.
Nurse Gilliland thinned her lips and wrinkled her eyes again. She said, ‘It’ll be a hard day’s work, Father, judging everybody who ever lived in the one day.’
Mrs Brennan laughed.
‘You never said a truer word.’
Father Farquharson swallowed his bite of bun and they all awaited his reply.
‘Do I detect banter,’ he said. Nurse Gilliland smiled and gave herself a little slap on the wrist.
‘May God forgive me.’
‘Always the stirrer,’ said Mary Lawless. ‘You were saying earlier, Father, that people drink to relax. I know some people who relax all night long. They become so relaxed they fall down.’
‘People nowadays don’t drink to relax, Father. When all’s said and done they drink to get drunk. The young ones especially.’ For some reason they all turned to look at Martin.
‘I don’t drink,’ he said.
‘What we need nowadays is the return of somebody like Father Mathew,’ said Mary Lawless. ‘Get everyone to take the pledge.’
‘Was he the man who was the curate in Ballyhackamore in the 1950s?’ asked Martin’s mother.
‘No, indeed he was not,’ said Mary Lawless. ‘You’d have to go a lot farther back than that, Mrs Brennan. As far back as the Famine, I believe. He formed the Cork Total Abstinence Society.’
‘And then they could neither ate nor drink,’ said Nurse Gilliland and laughed in her cackling kind of way.
‘Seven million of them took the pledge,’ said Father Farquharson, nodding his head to agree with Mary Lawless.
‘In Cork alone?’
‘No, Mrs Brennan — all over. Ireland, England — even the United States. Seven million of them took the pledge.’
‘There’s a polish called that,’ said Martin. ‘Pledge. Winos drink polish with ordinary gas bubbled through it.’
‘Seven million people drinking that stuff. It’d be some party, eh Martin? God forgive me — making fun of the afflicted.’ Nurse Gilliland winked at him.
‘Joking about things like that doesn’t really help,’ said Mrs Brennan. ‘Drink always leads to something worse.’
‘You never said a truer word,’ said Nurse Gilliland. ‘Father, have you been a Pioneer all your life?’
‘I have indeed.’ He thumbed his lapel where the Pioneer pin was stuck. ‘Alcohol has never passed my lips.’
‘I hope you don’t think I’m being cheeky, Father, but what about the wine at mass?’ said Nurse Gilliland.
‘I’m amazed at you asking such a question.’
‘Why, Father?’
‘By the time I’m consuming it, its essence has changed.’
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘I know essences are very difficult …’
Mrs Brennan stirred uneasily.
‘They keep for a very long time,’ she said. ‘I have stuff up there in the cupboard for years, and they’re as good as new. Vanilla is my favourite. Just one or two drops is all it needs. And almond is good for those wee Bakewells I make. The ones you’re so fond of, Father.’
Nurse Gilliland put her head to one side, as if there was something hurting her ear.
‘I’m not so sure I know what you mean. Does the consecration take away the flavour of the wine? Or the alcohol?’
‘No, it doesn’t. And very well you know it. It looks like wine, smells like wine — but it has been changed. To the Precious Blood. In essence.’
‘I see,’ said Mrs Brennan. ‘Are you ready for more tea, Father?’
‘I’m fine — fine.’
‘But …’ Nurse Gilliland was still screwing her face up. ‘I hate to even begin to suggest this but … but could a person get drunk? Would the alcohol still be there? Even though the essence is changed.’
‘You’re contradicting yourself out of your own mouth now. If its essence is changed, it’s not alcohol.’ Father Farquharson was beginning to show signs of agitation. He twirled and fiddled with his paper napkin.
‘Just while we’re on the subject, Father — I hope this do
esn’t sound cheeky or irreverent but …’ Nurse Gilliland paused and joined her hands tightly together then turned them this way and that. Palm up, palm down. ‘No maybe I shouldn’t …’
‘You’re among friends.’
‘But don’t push your luck …’ said Mary Lawless.
‘It’s difficult, Father. Because you might think it’s a mockery — and it’s not. I’m not mocking anything or anybody, Father. I’m just wanting to know.’
‘Unless ye be as little children,’ said Mrs Brennan.
‘Well?’ Father Farquharson tried to refold his napkin to its original creases. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you tonight, Nurse Gilliland. This is supposed to be a night off for me.’
‘If a woman — or a man for that matter — had been out early to buy the bread … And on their way home they popped into mass and sat up at the front …’
‘What’s coming next?’ said Father Farquharson.
‘When the priest says the words of the consecration why doesn’t … what’s to stop her bread turning into the … Lord, the Precious Body?’
‘Holy Frost! Where do you get them. Nurse Gilliland?’ said Mrs Brennan.
‘Your brains are working overtime,’ said Mary Lawless. ‘The oul head’s going ninety to the dozen.’
Nurse Gilliland shushed the comments, waiting for Father Farquharson to give her an answer. She tried to encourage him, saying, ‘The bread is somehow within earshot — it could even be a pan loaf, Father.’
There was a long silence as Father Farquharson considered his answer. He set the neatly folded napkin on his knee and joined his hands together beneath his chin, fingertip to fingertip. Finally he cleared his throat and said, ‘Sacerdotal intentionality.’ Everyone nodded. ‘That’s the key. Sacerdotal intentionality.’ He looked from one to the other waiting to see if anyone would contradict him. ‘The celebrant says the words, This is my Body, and the intention is — and the words are spoken to — what he holds between his fingers — the host. The miracle doesn’t leak out, as it were, to bread within the vicinity.’
‘Thank you, Father,’ said Nurse Gilliland.
‘Just as, for instance, now. I said the words of consecration without realising it — in this small room. There are plates of bread on the table. It remains unchanged.’
‘Thanks be to God. Who’d want to change Mrs Brennan’s baking?’
The Anatomy School Page 11
