by Paul Kelly
Dan pushed the empty glass away from him with thick fingers. “I was, still am, a bit of a tear-away, and not a very pretty sight.” He laughed again radiating a renewed wave of warmth as his rather large tummy shook and Peter smiled. “Well, anyway, being in love, we ran away together to Liverpool to tie the knot, but her father never did forgive me. He cut her off entirely, but I didn’t care about that and neither did Nella. Her name was Helena, but I always called her Nella.
She liked that.” Dan shifted uneasily where he sat. “Shall we stretch our legs or do you want something more to drink?”
“No more to drink, thanks, Dan, I think I would rather take a walk.”
They left the cafe and went into the street.
“Dan?”
“Yes, Peter?”
“Dan, you don’t have to tell me anymore, unless it helps ...you know that.”
“Yes, I know that, of course, Kiddo. In fact, I debated with myself as to whether I should tell you all this before we came out. I’ve never spoken to anyone before about it and so, I would be happy if I can tell you.” Dan looked at Peter for approval as he spoke.
“Of course you can.”
Peter felt a glow of warmth in the friendship between the Irish priest and himself that was becoming even warmer by the moment and as they crossed the road to the river’s side, Dan smiled as he waved to someone and a girl waved back.
“That was Pia, she’s the sister of a couple of students at the college and the daughter of the Pallucis,” he said as he continued smiling, but Peter said nothing of his previous encounter with the girl, as Dan furthered his information.
“She’ll get herself a priest-husband yet.”
“What?” Peter stopped in his path and his eyes grew wider as Dan laughed and his stomach shook.
“She loves the collar, Kiddo and she’s partial to Scotsmen too, so be careful. Loves the accent ... thinks it’s kinky ... A collar and a kilt would set her up for life... Ha! Ha! “ Dan coughed and shoved his fat, clenched fist against his lips, as he glimpsed at Pia as she passed them, as if to apologise if she had heard what he had said but she smiled at Peter; ignoring the fat one beside him. Her eyes pleaded in the language of silence and Peter swallowed hard as his gaze followed her. “Where was I?” Dan asked himself, “Oh yes… my two years of marriage.” He sighed with relief and looked to the sky. “Have you ever been in love, Peter?” he asked out of the blue, but he had hardly asked his question before he realised his indiscretion. “Sorry, Peter, I should never have said that ... sorry,” he added and Peter’s face grew sad as the river breeze ruffled his hair.
“No, I have never loved a woman,” Peter said with an innocent detachment and looked at Dan as he spoke. Their eyes met and the understanding was complete, as Dan screwed up his face in the sunshine and diverted the subject.
“How old were you when you came to the seminary, Peter?” he asked and his brow was furrowed with concern as he spoke.
“Nearly sixteen... Our lives are so very different, Dan.” Peter gazed across the shimmering waters as he went on. “I was thirteen whenI fell in love... with God. Well the God that my young mind could comprehend then. I fought it hard. I didn’t want to love Him like that.
I used to go about the streets crying until I could get into a church and this went on until I was fifteen before I gave way to the struggle.
I always felt this pull in my heart, young as I was. I knew, much to my shame now, that I would be a priest one day,” he said and his eyes were sad, but Dan looked admiringly at Peter, if also with concern.
“You mustn’t talk that way Kiddo. You are a priest now, a fine young priest of God and whatever happened yesterday or whatever will happen tomorrow has bugger-all to do with it.” Dan put his hand to his mouth, as if to apologise for his layman’s term of time and a small tug-boat sounded her horn on the waters as the sun darkened and a cloud cast her shadow across the earth. “Maybe God’s tellin’ me to behave meself,” he muttered and lowered his eyes as he continued to address Peter. “Yes,” he said, “we have very different lives Peter, but we are both priests.
We both arrived didn’t we?”
Peter pushed his hair from his forehead.
“It’s not a question of quantity, but of quality, Dan. You have so much more to offer,” he explained, but Dan was becoming impatient with Peter’s reasoning.
“You haven’t understood a single bloody word of what I ‘m trying to tell you,” he snapped and looked to the darkening sky with an equally dark look “Yes, we have had different beginnings. I worked on the farm; not my father’s farm you understand, he didn’t own it. He was a farm labourer himself. I worked the farm from the age of eight, when I wasn’t at school and after school, when I was. My brothers and sisters were all the same. We pissed and shit and ate under the stars most of the time. We were a close family and it’s strange that there was only one vocation from the whole lot of us. All devout Catholics but not a priest or a nun amongst us, saving me own holy presence, and I’m sure God chose me as an afterthought,” Dan commiserated and felt a wave of self-pity, but he did not do justice to the quality of his manhood that served God so totally and so unselfishly in the priesthood. “My father was a rough old spud, but full of love,” he went on. “My mother was the same, God rest their souls. We had nothing but the drawers we stood in most of the time and they were usually hand-me-downs. I never can forget that, but I also never forget the love... Even me father would cuddle us in the fields if he thought we were ‘lost’ as he put it. We had only to have the hint of a tear and somebody’s arms were ready to hold you. Brother to brother, sister to sister; we were all a crowd of loonies, but we loved. Many’s the good squeeze me old mother gave me when I came home at night, tired and weary; bones all achin’ an’ a sore arse, to boot. My God, those were the days. A cup of buttermilk and you started another day. A few tatties with a bit o’ butter and you were made…”
Dan laughed again as he looked to the skies and winked at God ... as if they were friends of many years and that liberty was allowed ... but there was a certain sadness in the melody of his mirth. Peter admired everything he heard and was about to speak when Dan interrupted him.
“Hey, there’s Pia again.” he called out and the girl crossed to where the two priests were standing. “It must be you she fancies Kiddo, She wouldn’t go for a big ole bear like me.”
Dan’s face creased and his stomach shook again as the sun came out from behind the clouds, as if to do his bidding. Pia minced past and smiled but Peter turned to Dan, to divert his thoughts.
“How did you live in Liverpool? What sort of work did you do,” he asked.
“Ho Ho Ho!... well you may ask, me bright beauty,” he joked. “I worked as a postman, road navvy, hospital porter, part time office cleaner; I was hot stuff in the toilets, you know... cleaning them I mean.” Dan’s eyes formed a slit again and he shook with laughter, “You name it Kiddo an’ I did it and then I got this job in one of their museums, showing people around during the day and doing a bit of cleaning in the evenings. The money was good, and I would probably still have been there today, but ...”
Dan stopped walking and talking simultaneously. He looked across the river and bit his lip as he leaned heavily on the marble wall that held the waters at bay. He turned towards Peter and stared into his face with eyes that gazed without sight and a voice ragged with emotion.
“Nella died giving birth to our baby ... She lived for four days after the birth,” he said and his voice was soft as his face was sorrowful. He turned away again and narrowed his vision across the rippling foam. Peter put his hand into Dan’s and pressed his fingers lightly as he responded in silence and followed Dan’s gaze across the water. They stood linked together unashamedly as the hooting tugs sailed merrily by. The seagulls spread their lustrous wings with pride above them and squawked with wild delight in the th
in crisp air. The world went by without a care as two clerics stood in the silence of pain; each with his own troubled heart, whilst sharing their tears of destiny ... Dan pulled his red handkerchief from his pocket, still gazing at the waters before him... and lowered his head as if in adoration. “It was a little girl ... we called her Dolly,” he said and his eyes filled with tears as he spoke falteringly and with emotion.
“Her name was Dolores really, but she was a little doll. She died with her lovely mother and I buried them both together.” He dabbed his eyes with his handkerchief and reached out to touch Peter’s wrist as Peter took the warmth of Dan’s hand and transferred it to his own cooling cheek. The silence seemed interminable, interrupted only by the sound of the lapping river and the impatient squawking of the ever-hungry gulls, but Peter eventually broke the silence.
“Come, Dan,” he said, pulling gently at his elbow. “Let’s walk on a little farther,” and the Irish priest moved like an obedient child and followed his friend.
“I didn’t mean to get morose, Peter I’m sorry,” said Dan, but Peter reassured him that he understood.
“No need to be sorry, I understand. Tell me what you want to tell me and talk as much as you like. I think it is good if you do talk, Dan. You have bottled this up too long.”
Dan nodded and blew his nose loudly into his scarlet handkerchief again. “You’ve used the right words there, Peter, lad. I bottled everything in those days; I drank so much I was constantly out of my mind. I lost all incentive to do anything when I lost the only two people in this world who meant everything to me… I couldn’t work, I couldn’t sleep, but drink ... Oh God, how I could drink ...” He sniggered amusingly into the air, blinking at the sky. “It got so bad, that a friend who worked with me phoned America, of all places, to try and get me a cure.
There was a place in Akron, Ohio, where they helped people who were ‘on the bottle’ ... but it was too far away for me to keep that up. My friend meant well, but I couldn’t afford the phone calls. I was a mess, physically, mentally and spiritually. I could have put a skunk to shame and eventually I took myself off to the Trappist Monastery for a weekend retreat. It was a rest really. I needed that rest, away from everything and everyone and it was during that time, that I realised I could not go on the way I was. I wanted to die, but I was afraid to take my own life. Not so much of the pain, but I reflected on the everlasting pain of hell in despair. I decided I had to do something positive with my life, but the thought of another marriage repulsed me.
I wanted Nella or I didn’t want anyone. God had taken her from me, so I decided to take myself to Him ... I’ll never forget the moment of that decision. One minute I was in the shit, and the next I had decided to become a priest. Laughable isn’t it?” he concluded as he looked at Peter and smiled. “I’m a funny old bugger, aren’t I? We both are, Kiddo. Neither of us have a wedding garment. We’d never get anywhere near a table at that wedding feast at Cana would we,” he remarked.
Peter squeezed Dan’s hand in reassurance of his worth as he smiled at his friend’s familiar quotation... and more particularly at the ease in which he spoke to God ... “I was your age when I first came to the seminary, Peter,” he went on and they continued to talk as they walked along.
“Let’s go and have a bite to eat eh?” Dan suggested the repast and Peter readily agreed. He was hungry and they found a little restaurant tucked away on a hill, overlooking the river, where they settled for lasagne with a bottle of cool Valpollicella. “You know, Peter. I’m sure a lot of these yobs know that we are priests but I feel better for not having the gear on. Does that seem strange to you?” Dan enquired between mouthfuls of delicious pasta as Peter reflected on not having a ‘wedding garment’ …
“Well Dan, it’s good to feel vulnerable at times, I think. I often feel that too many of us priests stand on ceremony and subconsciously use the dignity of our priesthood to blind ourselves to the men we are,” he said and Dan stopped chewing as he looked wide eyed at his friend.
“Good philosophical thinking …that is… Couldn’t have put it better…” Dan mumbled with his mouth full as he studied the menu for the sweet and ordered another bottle of wine and some brandy as Peter thought again of his ‘inadequacy’.
“No wedding garment ...?” he asked himself. “No wedding garment,” he replied, in answer to his own question and Dan had resumed his usual cheery self again by this time.
“Do you know Peter, I haven’t enjoyed the company of anyone so much as I have enjoyed yours today,” he complimented as he tucked into a large portion of sherry trifle whilst Peter stuck to the cheese and biscuits. “Peter, do you know what I’d like to do now?”
Peter snapped his biscuit and raised one eyebrow.
“I don’t know, Dan but I’ve got a strong feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.”
“I’d love to get drunk ... blind drunk ... that’s what, Kiddo,” he blurted out as Peter choked on his Valpollicella.
“Whatever next...I think a good walk would do us more good… Come on.”
They left the restaurant and headed for the Vatican, but Dan stopped suddenly in the dusty, paper-cluttered street and raised his hand in apparent protest.
“Now, I’m not visiting churches today, Peter. We’re not having a busman’s holiday,” he assured as he led the way down some narrow streets that led to another part of the river, where the water shimmered lazily in the rays of the dying sun. “Come and look here, Peter. This view is magnificent. I think that is what they call the Bridge of Sighs, the local one, I mean... not the original.” He explained and Peter followed to where his friend was standing.
“It is beautiful here. No photograph or even a painting could truly capture this scene, could it?” he said and as Dan inhaled the air, his large chest broadened enormously.
“And to think I owe all this to a weekend with the Trappists,” he exclaimed and Peter looked at him with deep thoughts of his own.
“Maybe I should have become a Trappist Monk or a Carthusian, somewhere, anywhere away from ...” He forced himself to utter the word with a deep sense of disloyalty and regret. “BOLARNE,” he said in a voice above a whisper, but Dan turned to him to reassure him.
“That wouldn’t do any good ... God will have His way wherever you run, wherever you hide or whatever you do,” he said and nodded his head with Bolshevik conviction. “What was your family like, Peter?”
Peter brought his thoughts back to the moment away from the haunting blue tartan that tantalized his mind.
“Very ordinary… really … My mother died when I was sixteen, just before I went away to become a priest. She was happy at my decision, and I always think how thrilled she would have been at my ordination.
My father, on the other hand would have preferred that I had married.
He wanted grandchildren; lots and lots of them so he tells me.”
“That would have worn you out a little bit, eh? Do you mind if I fart?” Dan giggled and stretched his bulbous nose as he stuck his forefinger up his left nostril and wiggled it about before he sneezed.
“S’cuse me,” he said with his eyes half shut. “Are you an only child?”
“Yes, my mother had a lot of illness throughout her life. She couldn’t have any more after I was born. She had difficulty enough having me ... or so I was led to believe.”
Dan picked up a stone from where he stood and threw it skilfully into the water where it bounced and rippled its way into obscurity.
“Would you have liked to have had a brother or a sister, Peter?” he asked and his face seemed to screw up into his forehead as he waited for another sneeze to come and Peter hesitated before he answered.
“Can’t say I’ve given it much thought … I was quiet happy the way I was ... Think I might have liked a brother... Yes, I would have liked to have had a brother.”
“Is your Da
d still alive?”
“Yes, but he is now very ill with the same complaints that killed my mother. He has cancer and he knows that he doesn’t have long to live, but he is quite resigned to the fact that he will soon join her. I saw him just before I came here to Rome.”
“Didn’t our parents know the true meaning of love ...” Dan remarked “They didn’t have it easy, but with love ... true love, nothing is as difficult as it seems,” he commented and Peter allowed his mind to wander again.
“No, I guess not,” he responded, but it was not his parents he was thinking about as a blond head and brown eyes flashed before him and Dan threw another stone.
They walked on, down under the bridge and peeped out from the arch just as the sun was leaving the sky and the earth was becoming cold and dark. A young woman darted from a nearby building and came towards them smiling as she clutched her shawl tightly across her breast. She muttered something as she stood beside them and Peter stood in awesome curiosity whilst Dan spoke to her in her own tongue and the woman scowled as she pulled her shawl even closer to her body and scuttled away.
“You have made her angry, Dan. What did you say to her?”
Dan belched and said, “Manners,”
“What was that Dan?” Peter asked again, ignoring the rudeness of his friend, but Dan held his head high and sniffed the air complacently.
“I told her to f ...” he did not complete his sentence and Peter glared at him in disgust. “I told her to fly off,” he said and looked to the ground like a scolded schoolboy.
“You told her what…”
Dan grinned. “That’s right,” he said and his eyes narrowed with a mischievous smile,
“I told her “What” ...
“You are a cool one, Daniel Farne,” Peter remarked with affected disdain and a smile on his face but the sturdy priest only grinned again and sucked his teeth as Peter asked him further “Why did you tell her that?”
