In These Dark Places

by Stephen Duffy

  That each of these films had the Jewish People portrayed by slightly tanned Caucasians and the Arabic people played by similar fellows with deeper tans and a generous daub of blackface thrown on for good measure was a source of constant amusement to us. We may have been dumb, semi-rural Catholic kids, but we knew slap and grease paint when we saw it. Still, we paid attention to the story, noting the important scenes as required. We had to. Father Jessop administered an exam on each screening at Bible Club the following Thursday night. It would be on an outing of The Cinema Club that my eyes would finally be opened to Jessop’s true nature but until that day, I was caught up with the rest of the parish in proclaiming the man as a boon to our town. Since his Whit Sunday sermon the mood of everyone in the parish had swung towards the notion that the young curate should be our new, permanent Parish Priest. The idea was no longer the murmured longing of a privy few, we wanted it, all of us.

  He knew us. He knew our needs, both spiritually and socially. What could some stranger who had spent the best part of his life administering the faith to the natives of a tiny island in the middle of God knows where have in common with us, Jessop’s flock? Nothing, nothing at all!

  When January 1965 came and went and there was still no sign of our new Parish Priest, a committee was formed with the express intent of lobbying the Archbishop into giving the nod to Jessop. My father signed up, as did Granddad. Speeches were given, letters were written, pamphlets were handed out to all and sundry after mass with instructions on how to make direct contact with the Archbishop by letter and by telephone. With his impassioned sermon still ringing in my ears, I fell in with the rest of the mob. I thought he’d do a fine job of it, just fine. I even had a badge which said as much. The Ladies’ Auxiliary had a arranged a bake sale, the proceeds from which went into the minting of said badges. Our petitions to the Archdiocese were met with stony silence. Not one phone call or letter was reciprocated. No news of the whereabouts our new Parish Priest or his projected arrival date filtered down to us in the parish.

  When April rolled around that year it brought with it the news that our new Parish Priest would indeed be Father Earl Jessop, Father Atkin’s original replacement had been laid up in Manila with a dire case of Malaria and would not be fit to travel for some time to come. We were ecstatic, each and every one of us. April also brought with it, ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’. Just in time for Easter.

  There would be no coach trip down to the decrepit Jasmine Palace for this one, no sir! We were going to watch it in style at The Carlton in Dublin. Jessop, with that innate ability to wrangle his way for anything with anyone, had secured us free tickets to the matinee screening on Good Friday, just a week after the film was released. This was a feat which confirmed among the entire parish that we did indeed have the right man looking after us. Once more, Jessop rose in my esteem. For a little while at least.

  With half a crown burning a hole in my pocket I boarded the coach in the church car park that Friday afternoon. The sombre ritual of the Stations of the Cross dispensed with, us kids were frantic to get going and I for one couldn’t wait to break that half-crown into a shrapnel of pennies. The bus was alive with the excited chatter of all the kids. I think we were more excited by the trip into the city and the prospect of all the goodies available at the concession stand than by the film itself. Before we set off, Father Jessop dampened the joy somewhat by delivering a stern lecture from the front of the bus.

  ‘Children,’ he said after clearing his throat. Nobody paid him any mind, caught up as we were in the excitement of the day. ‘Children!’ he said once more. Louder this time, that sombre tone of altar speak in his voice. We eventually quietened down, the silence sweeping from the front to the bus toward the rear.

  ‘I know that all of you are excited…’ A cheer arose, rippling from the back to the front of the bus this time. ‘Alright, alright, settle down. Now, I do want you to enjoy yourselves today. But I also want all of you to be on your best behaviour. Today, you are not only representing your parents and your school. You are also representing our parish. And what we don’t want is any adverse or damaging attention to ourselves… So, we will be polite, we will be orderly. We will remember our manners and above all, we will be a credit to ourselves, our school, our parents and our parish. Does everybody understand that? Does everyone agree to be on best behaviour?’

  ‘Yes, Father!’ came a chorus of voices.

  ‘Excellent,’ Jessop beamed as he took his seat and signalled the driver to get underway.

  As soon as the bus trundled out onto the N11, belching blue fumes as it went, we kids took to singing the bus ride songs known to kids all around the country.

  ‘Everywhere we go, everywhere we go-oh, people always ask us, people always ask us, where do we come from, where do we come from? And we always tell them, and we always tell them, we’re from the Barrow, The Crannston-Crannston Barrow…’

  Even Jessop joined in the festivities, taking a standing position in the centre of the aisle, he mock conducted his choir of happy children to the delight of all on board. A capsule of happiness with steamy windows and bursting with the raucous laughter of excited kids, the bus whisked us through the streets of Dublin. The big city, which to all of us kids, not country bumpkins, but not metropolitan either, seemed exotic and full of the promise of adventure. The hour we spent on that bus was a watershed to innocence, it was the last happy moment of my youth. Soon Peter would be dead and my childhood would whimper out alongside him.

  18

  As the days carried us further and further from that terrible night in the woods down in Carneydonnagh, and as the memory of what we had done to Dan Maguire began to fade, Ellie and I stopped looking to the past and instead we embraced what the future might hold for us. We were crazy in love, never spending more than a few hours apart from each other and that was only when either work or the need to sleep separated us. To begin with I had believed that I was a crutch for her, something to help her over the initial trauma and shock of having done what we had. I fully expected that as she came to grips with her conscience, and when she had gotten the guilt that plagued her somewhat under control, that she would cast me aside and be done with me.

  The summer had faded into autumn and still we clung to each other. I could never understand that. It were as though what we had done to Maguire had cemented something unspoken between us, we were bound together, one soul to another, shrouded beneath a terrible secret which served for nothing else but to push us closer and closer together. After a time we stopped speaking of Maguire altogether. Months had passed without us once mentioning his name or even alluding to the fact that we had spent anytime down there at all. When a postcard from Toronto arrived from Abigail, our last link to Carneydonnagh was severed. Unable to stay in town carrying the knowledge which she did, Abigail took her cousin in Canada up on a promise of sponsorship and a job in a bar in the city, hightailing it out of that dismal town as fast as the bus could get her to the airport.

  That day when the postcard arrived we walked out to The Dell and sat in silence for a while before Ellie abruptly and bluntly brought it up.

  ‘So, that’s it then.’

  ‘What is?’ I asked her as I lit a cigarette.

  ‘With Abigail gone you can quit your worrying about her tattling to the cops.’

  ‘What?’ I snapped. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Gabriel, you know exactly what I mean. You were never completely happy with Abigail still being down there, free to talk to anyone she took a mind to…’

  ‘You’re being ridiculous!’ I told her. ‘That thought never crossed my mind. Not even once.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Look me in the eye and tell me that, I’ll bet you can’t.’

  I turned to her, my eyes locked on hers. ‘I swear to you now, right here and on everything that I hold dear to me that I never even thought about that, and that’s the truth.’

  ‘Do you promise?’ she asked, her eyes welling w
ith tears.

  ‘Ellie, Abigail would have as much to lose as you or me. She gave us an alibi, and a damn good one at that! She implicated herself in the whole bloody mess that morning. She was the one with the clear head and the plan. Why would she…? What would she even have to gain from going to the police? And besides, even if she had done, would they have believed her? Things couldn’t have turned out better for us. Just like I said they would, they ruled his death an accident. The paper said there was nothing much of him left anyway for them to…’

  ‘Stop it, Gabe. I don’t want to hear that. It’s horrible. I can’t stop thinking of it. I killed him, I killed a man for God’s sake…’

  ‘Yeah, you did, and it’s a good thing too or neither of us would have ever come out of that woods back then. He was going to kill me, Ellie, for sure, and you saved me. You did what you had to do and I’m glad that you did it. It brought us together didn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, but…’

  ‘No buts about it, he came looking for trouble and he found you. He got what he deserved, there’s no doubting that and don’t you ever think otherwise you hear me?

  ‘Yeah, but still, Gabriel. I did a terrible thing. No matter the reason, no matter the circumstances, I killed a man, Gabe! I killed him dead and it’s eating me up inside. I can’t get it out of my head, it’s there all the time and I can’t talk to anyone about it.’

  ‘You can talk to me can’t you? I’m here for you whenever, wherever you want me, okay?’

  ‘That’s not the same, Gabriel and you know it.’

  ‘Ellie, we’ll work past this, okay? We will, I promise you. Look, whenever you need to get anything off your chest, you come to me. Just speaking about it will help.’

  She didn’t reply, she just stood up and walked to edge of the dell and looked down to the Fola as it rushed past beneath us. I left her to her thoughts for a while. I knew her well by then, she was looking for validation, for a reason for things being the way they were. In the days and weeks after we came back from Carneydonnagh it had been the same. She wouldn’t mention it for a day or two and then as though it had been welling up inside her, like a geyser she would erupt with spasms of guilt and regret. I’d reassure her, listen to her, reason with her, and then the silent reflection would follow. It was the same that afternoon up in The Dell as she stood by the ledge, Abigail’s postcard clasped in her hand.

  ‘We’ll carry it forever, Gabriel, do you know that?’

  ‘I know,’ I said as I stepped up beside her. ‘But in time it’ll pass. You’ll see, I promise you.

  ‘Not the memory, Pet,’ she said turning to me. ‘The sin. We committed a mortal sin and it will mark us forever. We’re marked down in the book of judgment, right now, even as I speak to you here in this beautiful place, our names are there, they are there forever and we will never see Heaven, do you know that?’

  ‘You know I don’t believe in all of that anymore,’ I said as I took her hand and stared down into the Fola.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s all bullshit as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘How can you even say that?’

  ‘Because it’s the truth, Ellie. It really is.’

  ‘I don’t believe that, I can’t believe that. There has to be something more to it, God has a plan for all of us, whether we like it or not, He has a plan and…’

  ‘Did he have a plan for Dan Maguire?’ I snapped. She ripped her hand free of mine and stormed back to our log seat.

  ‘There’s no need to be smart about it!’

  ‘I know, I know, I’m sorry,’ I said softly as I sat down to face her. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out like that, but I did mean the question. Let’s say there is a God and that He does have a plan for all of us, he knows everything every one of us is going to do, every thought, every desire, every sin, everything!’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Remember your scriptures? “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?”

  I snapped my mouth closed on my words. Earl Jessop’s voice boomed in my head. My chest tightened as I remembered the day he had quoted that very passage to us just a short while before Peter died and I felt sick. For years I had avoided him at all costs and he had done the same with me. He no longer came to our house to visit with Granddad and I had stopped participating in the church just as soon as I was old enough to make such decisions and stand by them. In time, what had passed between the two of us had all but been forgotten by everyone in the parish, save for Jessop and myself. I held a deep hatred towards the man and he held nothing more sophisticated for me than a grudge. He had an axe to grind and he had patiently waited all those years for the opportunity to do so. In just a few short months his patience would bear fruit and it would change my world forever.

  ‘Gabriel, are you alright? You’re as white as a sheet.’

  ‘I’m fine, I promise. Hey, can we just go home now? I don’t feel so great.’

  ‘Yeah sure. Let’s get you home and get you to bed. Was it something you ate maybe?’

  ‘That’s probably what it is,’ I said as we got to our feet and made our way to the granite stairway. I passed the giant cedar at the top of the stair with barely an upward glance. Poor Peter.

  We walked home in silence, hand in hand, thoughts of my childhood friend filling my head and my heart. Despite living in the same town as the man, what with each of us actively going out of our way to avoid each other, Jessop and I rarely crossed paths anymore. I might see him in his car as he went from one end of the town to the other, or I might catch a glimpse of him in the supermarket, no matter the when or the how, it was a certain thing that one or the other of us would hightail it so as to avoid a face to face confrontation. That was the way things had gone for years now. He hadn’t gotten into my head in a long time, so to have heard his voice quote that bible passage had taken me by surprise and it angered me that after all that time, the man still had a grip on me.

  That day up in The Dell was the last time Ellie and I spoke of Dan Maguire for a long time to come. When next we saw each other, Ellie was doing better, it appeared that she was feeling better about the entire situation too. Her smile was back, as was the sparkle in her gorgeously bright eyes. When I asked her if she needed to talk she batted me away gently and said that she was fine. I really hoped that she would be. When the first snow of winter swept in at the beginning of December that year it wiped all trace of Autumn from the world and with it the ghost of Dan Maguire.

  Christmas of 1973 found me working in The Witch House for Ellie’s father. It had been Chrissy’s idea, that sweet woman who had taken to me as though I were one of her own. The money was good, the hours were terrible and being bumped and hazed by Joe Brandon all the live long day wore me out in no time. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, give him the satisfaction of knowing that he was getting to me so I brushed off each and every one of his jabs and jibes with a light hearted laugh and soon enough he grew tired of it. Everything was going well for Ellie and I. She had gotten herself a permanent position as a secretary with a doctor outside of town, and as for me, when Tadgh Brandon saw that I could be a diligent, honest and reliable part of his team at The Witch House, better hours and more pay came my way. Both himself and Chrissy had long since abandoned their initial reservations about their daughter going out with me.

  ‘Sure, doesn’t he come from a good family. And a Catholic one too. Sure couldn’t his own grandfather be Pope with just a little spit and polish. Besides, all that apart, he’s a nice lad and Ellie adores him.’ I heard Chrissy say this to her husband in the back office of the pub as I took delivery of a minerals order one Saturday morning. To hear her speak of me in such glowing terms made my heart soar. To hear Tadgh Brandon concur made me honestly believe that everything was going to be alright.

  The only stone in my shoe was Ellie’s brother, Joe. After a time, he too came around to me. It was hard fought, countless times of biting my tongue and unclenching my f
ists. We were never going to be the best of friends or drinking buddies but at least we could stand to be in each other’s presence and that was more than enough for me. Invitations to tea and dinner became an almost everyday occurrence up to the point that I no longer awaited the invitation, a place was always set for me at the Brandon table. If work were to keep me away, Chrissy would arrive at the bar with a plate of steaming potatoes, cabbage and bacon to make sure that I had something decent in my belly. Her kindness even stretched as far as picking up a few shirts and a pair of trousers for me when she made one of her monthly trips into Dublin. Her thoughtfulness toward me knew no bounds and I’ll be honest, for a time I wrestled with it, believing it to be nothing more than charity, or worse, pity for the guy with no mother. Pity and charity, however, were the furthest thing from her motives and as I grew to know her I saw that she was like that with almost everyone. Chrissy Brandon was a saint walking among mortals and could not have done anyone a bad turn even if she had tried to. It came to be that I would look forward to picking Ellie up for a date to find that she wasn’t yet ready and that Chrissy and I would have some time to sit and talk over a cup of tea.

  ‘Ellie tells me that you have left the church, is that true?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that I had left, but she’s right in saying that I no longer go to mass or take confession.’

  It was the beginning of January 1974 and Ellie and I were heading into town to see Rory Gallagher play at the Carlton Cinema. The tickets had been a Christmas present from Ellie and although I was looking forward to the gig, I was a big fan, I was fretting a little over the venue. The last time I had stepped foot in that building was Good Friday 1965. The last day of my childhood, the last time I ever saw Peter Donnelly alive. To find myself bogged down in such a conversation with Chrissy that night did no favours for my mood. I was delighted for once to find that Ellie was ready to go quicker than usual. I happily took my leave of Chrissy, promising her as we went out the kitchen door, that we would finish the conversation at another time.