The Death of an Irish Tradition

by Bartholomew Gill

  “Not one.”

  “And Murray himself thinking because of his gobshite of a father he—but I’ve said nothing.”

  “Nothing at all.”

  Fogarty picked the ten-pound note off the bar. His pate was hairless, his face wizened and tough, his nose bent like the blade of a hatchet. He glanced from the bill to the porter and finally at Ward. “What’s this?”

  “Paper,” said the porter, “and not much better than the stuff you dirty.”

  “I’d call it a bribe.”

  The bar crowd near them had quieted, listening to the exchange.

  “He would,” said the porter to Ward, “but then he’s called many a lovely thing by those few ugly words at his command.”

  Somebody beyond Fogarty began chuckling.

  “You’re buying information here, Inspector, and I want to know why.” The expression on Fogarty’s face resembled a snarl.

  “Thought I’d do a bit of college, put in a stroke in a legitimate profession—lip work,” Ward allowed his eyes to survey the newspaperman’s face, “the tripe-writer and all that lot. Paddy here’s acquainted with the back door.

  “You’re a Trinity man yourself, aren’t you, Ed?”

  “He is like hell,” said the porter into his glass. “He’s a bully, an ignoramus, and he should take to wearing hats.”

  Now all around them were very quiet.

  “Just look at his speckled pink pate,” the porter went on. “It’s got the size, the shape, and the consistency, I’m told, of a baby’s shitty arse.”

  Somebody behind them began a high, falsetto laugh that was contagious and spread around the bar.

  “When you’re through waving your flag,” Ward said to Fogarty, making for the door, “you can pass it back to Paddy. It’s his, and I’d hate to prefer a charge against an innocent man.”

  Livid, Fogarty dropped the bill.

  Ward felt good, very good, and he only wished McGarr and the others had been there to hear.

  “Flattened him,” somebody whispered, as he passed. “Have a drink.”

  “Hughie—have a drink, for chrissakes. Don’t rush off.”

  “Luvely,” said another. “Right on the money.”

  Several others laughed even harder.

  Only the odors of spikenard and myrrh were familiar to McGarr, along with the vestments of the priest—cassock, biretta, breviary in hand—and the ruby glow of the sacristry lamp that he could see through the window of a small door. All else in the modern church, the roof of which was absurdly rectilinear and more an insult than a challenge to older forms, was strange and a disappointment. The abstract shapes of the leaded glass in the windows, pure colors and brilliant, were better suited to a pub, and the pendants hanging near the old altar—Let us lift our voices to God, God is love, Let His word go forth—reminded him of revivalism and the tracts that were handed out by proselytizing members of newer faiths.

  At the door of the church the priest, Father John Francis Menahan, had shaken his hand. Later a woman in front of him turned and shook it again, saying, “Peace be with you,” her smile contrived and forced. He was then tapped on the shoulder and made to offer it to several other worshipers.

  Another priest, who had a curly beard and red, wet lips, led the singing of an alleluia that was called, “Alle, Alle,” and had a syncopated, folksong beat that made McGarr want to walk out of the church.

  Where were the dark interiors of the churches of his youth, the censers, the little tinkling bells, the chants in the Latin language—Introibo ad altare Dei; Hoc est enim Corpus meum—, the ceremony in which each worshiper celebrated with his priest and his God a sacrifice which one day would be the fate he himself would have to face alone—death, the promise of heaven and redemption, or the pain of damnation and hell? Where were the choirs and the organs that could make a deaf man hear? Where were the rich compositions, the very best of centuries of exquisite liturgical music that celebrated the glory of God but also the glory of man, who was capable of offering up such beauty—the high, clear alto joined by other melodious voices and the organ in intricate, convoluted patterns that mimicked the complexities of life, only to break clear and soar, time and again—that transported the humble supplicant or, at least, had transported McGarr?

  Gone, and only blond ugly pews, plastic tile floors, a ceremony that emphasized group sharing, and a big, peasant face—Menahan himself—staring out at them from over a table, mouthing the platitudes of the new rite which was downright…banal. McGarr could find no other term.

  But he waited until the end of the ceremony, kneeling and standing with the others, genuflecting and crossing himself when he left the pew.

  Again Menahan was at the door of the church.

  “Have you come to see me, Chief Inspector?”

  Once more McGarr was impressed by the sturdiness of the man. He was wide, his limbs and hands short and thick. And with the black, bushy hair that formed a peak on his brow and fleshy, plain features he looked more like a country farmer—strong, rugged, and corporeal—than a priest, although McGarr had made a few discreet inquiries and knew the impression was deceiving.

  Menahan had been reassigned from the National University at Galway, where he had taught mathematics and philosophy, to this parish on the other coast of the island for having evidenced, in the eyes of his superiors, signs of the first sin—pride—and here in Ballsbridge he was being watched closely.

  “It interests me why you’re calling about him, Peter,” McGarr’s source had asked.

  “We were thinking of having him speak at a Garda function,” McGarr had lied. Who was he to cause the man any undue trouble?

  “Ask him. He’s a wonderful speaker and a pianist. A real talent. He’s…a little intellectual, mind, but if he could make a go of it with you fellows, it might take some of the heat off him.”

  McGarr now said to Menahan, “If I could have a moment of your time, Father.”

  “The sacristry?”

  “I’d prefer to wait outside, if you don’t mind. I smoke.” That too wasn’t the truth exactly. The inside of the church, for all its light, made McGarr feel claustrophobic.

  But it was hot outside and bright. McGarr leaned against the trunk of a tall, blue spruce and in its shade watched the others move away from the church in twos and threes, mostly old women.

  He glanced across the hot lawn toward the rectory, a stodgy, brick Victorian structure with a glass-enclosed porch painted beige and a long flight of gray wooden stairs. The kitchen window was open and cooking smells came to him. Roast lamb. Menahan would eat well, he decided, although he knew the decision as to what wasn’t Menahan’s to make. Still, there was money somewhere—the Bechstein in the Caughey sitting room, a present from Menahan. A magnificent present. Why?

  For such a large man he stepped nimbly down the stairs, his eyes bright and playful. “Accept nothing as true which you do not clearly recognize to be so; accept nothing more than what is presented to your mind so clearly and distinctly that you can have no occasion to doubt it.”

  He stopped several steps up from McGarr, so he was speaking down to him. “Divide each problem into as many parts as possible.

  “Commence your reflections with objects that are simplest and easiest to understand and rise thence, little by little, to knowledge of the most complex.

  “Lastly, make enumerations so complete and reviews so general that you should be certain to have omitted nothing.”

  McGarr thought back; he had heard all of it before or read it, but it was too long ago and his mind did not run to the niceties of philosophical speculation. “Berkeley?”

  Menahan’s smile fell somewhat. “No, Inspector—, Descartes, the man who propounded modern, deductive reasoning. But I must admit that I’m surprised you came so close. Then again, I hadn’t really expected to see you in my church. Are you a religious man?”

  McGarr had been watching the priest closely. There was a certain…playfulness about him that he found engaging
but curious for a man of the cloth. “I am, though not like some.”

  “Do you come to church often?”

  “As little as can be helped, to be frank.”

  Menahan smiled. He cocked his head and his face seemed almost handsome. But his front teeth had been chipped and a scythe-shaped scar on his chin only emphasized the blueness of his heavy beard. “Then what does religion mean to you?”

  McGarr had the same feeling that he’d experienced as a child when being questioned about the catechism—a desire to be exact, but anger too, at the thought that so much could have been made so definite. He dropped his cigarette butt into the needles and placed the sole of his chestnut-colored brogue on it. “It’s a system.”

  Menahan clasped his thick hands in front of him, over the top of his belly. It was a gesture of delight, McGarr guessed. “A system. But aren’t all systems…impositions, ways of helping you to think of a problem, but false, when all is said and done?”

  McGarr again studied the man. He glanced from one of Menahan’s bright, dark eyes to the other, the sclerae of which were very clear, as seen only in persons who enjoyed great good health and had no bad habits. “No, Father. Religion strives through faith in the unknowable to transcend system itself.”

  “You were taught that?”

  “No, Father.”

  “That’s a pity. It’s…refreshing and intriguing. How did you come by it?”

  “Through…observation. And reflection.”

  “Ah—” the hands opened and closed again, “—the empirical method.”

  “A system of sorts.”

  “But can you trust your perceptions?”

  “I have no choice.”

  “But doesn’t it disturb you that they could be wrong?”

  McGarr cocked his head. “No, not really—a reasonable congruity is all I seek. Were I to know all perfectly, it would take the…discovery out of life.”

  “Then you believe you’ve been presented imperfect tools for an imperfect world?”

  “No—in God and His perfectly imperfect design.”

  Menahan’s laugh was short and sharp but mirthful. “You’re an unlikely policeman, I must say.”

  “And you a priest, Father. I understand you’re a pianist, and a teacher too.”

  Menahan’s smile fell somewhat and his eyes strayed toward the rectory. He checked his wristwatch. “Monsignor Kelly is a man who enjoys his dinner, as he calls it, and he’s punctual. On the dot. Would you mind walking me that way?”

  They stepped out into the sun and ambled slowly toward the large house, which a copse of towering ash trees shaded.

  McGarr waited, and finally Menahan said, “You’ve come about the piano.” He kept his eyes on his shoes, which were black and shiny but surprisingly small for a man of his size. “I’d like to get that out of the way before we get close, if you don’t mind.

  “You’d know why I bought it for her if you ever heard her play. You see—” he looked off, out across the lawn toward the sidewalks where the churchgoers could be seen getting into cars and waiting for the bus, “—most of us, myself included, are really just God’s pap. We’re rather…coarse and talentless, but Mairead is—” his eyes moved up, off into the glare, “—gifted. Inspired. She has that sure touch, an innate feeling for music. It doesn’t matter what it is.” He was smiling again. “And not ‘soft,’ mind you. Not ‘romantic.’ She’s…hard in the right way. What she needs now is the right kind of technical instruction.”

  “In London.”

  “Yes—I’m only a…dilettante, and I must be a priest first, it seems. I have neither the time nor the—” he paused again, “—skill to teach her anymore. When was it? A month? No—maybe six weeks ago she experienced what I can only call a breakthrough. The day or the week or the month before I could teach her something, then the following lesson or the one after, she was too advanced. Way ahead of me. Suddenly I was the student. We’d been working through Shostakovich concerti—difficult, modern pieces. At first she had trouble—then it was almost as though she became Shostakovich. There was nothing I could say or tell her, and she knew it too. She became…restless, when I was around.

  “I myself had studied in London, so I called one of my friends over there and I arranged for her to sit for the piano prize at the Conservatory. She won, of course.”

  “How did her mother feel about that?”

  They had reached the rectory, and Menahan placed a foot on the first gray stair to the porch.

  “She was proud, of course, but she was rather a…private person, but a darling, loving woman, God rest her soul.” Menahan’s eyes suddenly filled, and he struggled to control himself. “It’s not as though Mairead would really consult her, I don’t think. When was it—years ago; three or four at least—that Mairead began to—” he glanced down at the length of the long wooden stair, “—act on her own.

  “I mean—” he turned his gaze to McGarr again, “—all strictly proper, mind you—having to do with her work, her calling. As I said, she’s inspired and I do believe from God.” He was now sweating profusely. “But to answer your question, her mother wanted Mairead to stay at home, here in Ireland.”

  “You visited the Caughey apartment often to give these lessons?”

  “Three times a week, at least. But then, you know, it was as though we were family, after all this time.”

  “What time did you leave the Caughey apartment yesterday afternoon?” It was a guess, but based on Mairead Caughey’s and Sean Murray’s statements, which McGarr had had read to him earlier, over the phone.

  But Menahan didn’t even blink. “Three-fifteen.”

  “What was the victim doing when you left?”

  “I don’t know. She was busy in the kitchen. I said good-bye from the hall and let myself out.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us this last night?”

  “Nobody asked. I didn’t think it important. I’m not a policeman, Inspector, I’m a priest. At that point I was thinking only of her soul—may God grant it peace.”

  What was it—McGarr now asked himself, glancing at the contrite, almost self-satisfied purse to Menahan’s mouth—that made most priests seem…smug? Was that the word? No—patronizing, that was it. “Keegan, James Joseph. The mother’s brother, I take it. You’re from that part of the country. Tell me what you know about him.”

  “Next to nothing, I’m afraid. Only rumor and innuendo and the odd allusion Margaret made about him. He’s quite a bit older than I.”

  “What rumor, what innuendo?”

  Menahan glanced up at the porch door of the rectory. “I. R. A. and that class of thing. I guess he was just another romantic, a dreamer. When he came back to take over the farm, it went to hell in no time. He lost it in ten years.”

  “To Bechel-Gore?”

  His eyes shied. “I don’t know the particulars of the sale, but I think that’s right.”

  “And your own family’s property was contiguous to the Keegans?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you sold that property to Bechel-Gore as well?”

  Menahan turned to McGarr and searched his face. “You’re not really asking me, are you, Chief Inspector?”

  In fact, McGarr was not, having called the Galway Land Office earlier, he was only trying to assess the priest’s answers. “Was that the money you bought the piano with?”

  Menahan nodded. “Really now—I must get in there. Monsignor Kelly—”

  “Who is Doctor Malachy T. Matthews of Drogheda? He’s a vet?”

  Menahan’s eyes again moved away from McGarr. “That’s J. J. Keegan, I believe.”

  “You believe.”

  “Yes.”

  “You have good cause to believe that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why, may I ask?”

  Menahan glanced at his wristwatch and sighed, then looked directly at McGarr. “You may ask, certainly, and could I tell you I would. It’s no single fact, no one bit of knowledge. It’s just an…impre
ssion I put together over the years. And the Caugheys’ money had to come from someplace. They had none that I knew of before. Mairead mentioned a certain cousin in Drogheda; Margaret would say Doctor Malachy this and that, you know. I also knew Keegan was wanted by you fellows for something or other to do with the ‘army,’ which is one of the reasons the farm went down. And when I asked after the man, she’d always be evasive and…sly. It was her way, you see, but I mean not to libel the dead.”

  What was the man’s tone? It had changed, but McGarr wasn’t sure how.

  The priest turned and started up the stairs toward the door.

  “And who was Caughey? When did he die?”

  “I’m not sure he did. A bounder, I hear, but older than I, like Keegan. I know no more than that, I assure you.”

  “Then who would Mairead have as a friend—a person who studies in the National Library? An older friend, she said.”

  Menahan tugged open the door and stepped up onto the porch, the glass of which made the light inside pink against the brick of the rectory. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Pretty girl.”

  “Not pretty. Beautiful,” said Menahan. “A goddess in every way.”

  “Father!” another voice said, sternly. “You’re keeping us waiting with your talk about—what was it that I heard?”

  McGarr looked up to see an older man with a boiled face and a shock of white hair. He was standing in the inner door.

  “Nothing, Monsignor. Nothing at all.”

  “And who is that man?”

  McGarr turned and walked back the way he had come, toward the church and his car beyond.

  “Nobody,” he heard Menahan say. “A parishioner, a family matter.”

  McGarr had a feeling it was.

  McKeon had his notebook out. He had placed it on the library table directly in front of him, as he thumbed through the Official Catalogues of the Horse Show, not merely five years back, as McGarr had requested, but twenty. In his neat but cramped hand he was noting entrants in the donkey classes (nos. 81 through 88 in most of the manuals), and in particular those from either Leenane, County Galway, or Drogheda, County Louth. He too had put in periodic phone calls to his desk at the Castle, which Ban Gharda Bresnahan was presently occupying.