Leaving Ardglass

by William King

  But the Church is on the crest of a wave: fresh-faced youngsters, eager to wear Roman collars and soutanes, replace the fallen soldiers; they climb the lichen steps, the president meets them at the portico, and we help to carry their suitcases and show them around.

  Bringing with him something like the sound of dry leaves blown by the wind, the bishop, in flowing purple, sweeps into Walsh Hall one evening in early October to announce the construction of another wing to the seminary. He forecasts an expanding diocese and a consequent need for a big increase in the number of priests by the end of the century. We have to pray for vocations. We do. And we are infected by his optimism: a great harvest in store for the Church. Then more dry leaves in the wind when he blesses each side on his way out, the president at his elbow. The following week, builders arrive with dumpers, trucks, heaps of sand, and shouting; they erect wire fences, so we have to go out by a side door to the football field.

  Then the annual retreat before university lectures begin. For three days we roam the fields and stroll along the riverbank reflecting on our vocations. The director with a missionary’s tan prescribes books that will strengthen our commitment to be good priests: The Seminarian at his Prie-dieu by Robert Nash SJ, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, The Introduction to the Devout Life by St Francis de Sales.

  Wearing his cloak with its gold neckchain, the president speaks to us on the final night of the retreat. ‘Like a wheel rolling down a hill, young gentlemen,’ he intones, ‘your years in All Saints will pass as quickly.’ He is right, but no one believes him. And those of us, whether by temperament or for reasons that lie below the surface, stay, or to use a phrase that had a high currency in those days, persist with our vocation, and survive periodic attacks of sarcasm from Quirke, the dean of discipline.

  ‘Who do you think you are?’ he keeps reminding us, if we suggest any changes to our training. ‘All Saints was here before you arrived and will be here long after you have gone.’

  But my free-wheeling days of university lectures, inter-seminary football games and the annual play in Walsh Hall meet a sudden death the following June when the college is gearing up for ordinations. We have all trooped back from the oratory where the setting sun had lit up the stained-glass windows, caught the gold threads of the priest’s vestments and the glittering thurible when the deacon had raised it in front of the monstrance. With the scent of incense in the air, we all sang as one: a hundred and twenty-seven male voices resounding beneath the gilded ceiling.

  Veni, Creator Spiritus,

  Mentes tuorum visita,

  Imple superna gratia,

  Quae tu creasti pectora.

  In my room, I am looking over lecture notes, when a murmur of voices and bursts of suppressed laughter from Conaty, next door, disturb my concentration. The chattering sounds rise and fall, mingle with skittish laughter, and become quiet again. Then, out of the lull, a man, in splendid voice, is singing Panis Angelicus. When the singing dies away, Conaty applauds. Strangely, I associate his excited laughter with the flurry of dark lanes after dance-hall nights in Kilburn.

  I return to my study, and some time later the door opens, and, to my surprise, I make out the hushed voice of Old Spice, a priest of the diocese, once a professor of classics at the seminary. During the following weeks coming up to exams, a pattern unfolds: the light tap on the door, the whispers, and after a while the fitful giggling.

  Curiosity takes over. One evening, I tiptoe in the half-light of the corridor and hide in the cupboard that is a storage space for mops and rolls of toilet paper, and for almost an hour or so endure the smell of Jeyes Fluid, and one foot going numb in the cramped space. One after another, the fanlights go out, the corridor falls off to sleep, and with only a slight squeak of a hinge, two figures stand at Conaty’s doorway. ‘Good night, Declan.’ Old Spice whispers, and comes towards me. And through a chink between the cubbard doors, I watch his every movement. As he passes by, the light before the statue of the Blessed Virgin shows a smile on his chubby face. Someone is giving out in his sleep; then the corridor goes dead again and I steal back to my room.

  My heart is still racing when I lie on my bed, gazing at the squares of windowpane through the blind, trying to devise some course of action and wishing I hadn’t stumbled on this dreadful secret. Before sleep comes to my rescue, I resolve to get Meehan’s reaction.

  We kick a ball around on the back pitch the following afternoon, and when the others have gone, we sit on the freshly cut grass while I tell him.

  ‘What do you think?’ I ask.

  ‘I see what you are getting at, and you might be right. Then again you could be blowing it out of proportion, that’s what I think. Maybe he’s just a lonely old bastard looking for company.’ The incident puts him mind of his local parish priest who used to pack a gang of children into his Morris Minor on summer days, and take them to Strandhill. Then he’d let them off to play while he read his breviary and had a snooze.

  ‘“But don’t go far,” he would say to us, “I like to hear you around the place when I wake up.” And even though he never went next nor near us, people started whispering, and saying he was a bent old codger.’

  ‘Jesus! Craving for human contact. Is this what’s ahead of me, Séamus?’

  ‘Get out while there’s still time, Tommy. Some guys are made for the seminary; we’re different.’ He nods in the direction of the gothic pile beyond the playing field. ‘Actually, I never knew why you came in here in the first place.’

  ‘I often ask myself the same question. To give up everything, I suppose. You know: greater love hath no man than this….’ I look at Meehan, but he has lost interest, and is back in Strandhill.

  ‘“Lovely day for the strand,” he would say, when we had served his Mass.

  “Ah no, Father, we’re wanted at home for the hay.”’

  ‘Anyway, it won’t bother me – I’m pissing off out of this place in the summer.’

  ‘Do you have to make up your mind now? Couldn’t you wait till the summer is over?’

  ‘Tommy, I’ve had enough.’

  I make a snap decision: ‘I’m going to the dean about Old Spice. Will you come with me?’

  ‘And put my head in a halter? You must be out of your fucking mind.’

  ‘Well, I can’t live with it.’

  ‘You’ll have to go on your own. I’ll not risk being shagged out of the place now. I aim to marry Siobhán inside a year, and I’ll be looking for a reference from these pricks when I’m chasing a job. Two of us to think of now.’

  ‘You have to.’

  ‘There’s no have to about it.’ He stands and wipes his football boots in the grass. ‘You’re on your own, Tommy.’

  ‘Right, and thanks a lot. I’ll go on my own then.’

  ‘Do, and make a right fool of yourself.’

  ‘Ah fuck off.’

  He ambles away, football socks loose around his strong legs. ‘Don’t be stupid, Tommy,’ he says over his shoulder. ‘Old Spice is powerful in this diocese. A student going to take him on? You’ll never be ordained.’

  ‘I’ll take a chance on that.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Two nights later the hinge creaks again. The next day I ask to see the spiritual director, a kind old man whose Thursday night talks in the chapel put everyone to sleep.

  He listens from behind his desk and, when I’m finished, goes through his trademark gestures: clearing his throat and flicking back the cape of his soutane. A big crucifix hangs over the mantelpiece. Although the evening is close, one bar of an electric fire burns red beside his desk; in a corner of the room is a prie-dieu with a purple stole hanging over the armrest.

  When I have told my story, he gives me one of his deep sighs – a mannerism well-acted out in the college. ‘Ah no, Thomas, and is that all that’s troubling you? Ah, doubting Thomas. Sure the priest is only helping a poor student to do well in his exams. He’s a generous man; does that frequently, every year the same. Do you k
now, Thomas, he was offered a fellowship to Oxford? Oh yes, Oxford. That man could be a university professor now. Ah no, just an act of kindness. Isn’t that all?’ His bald head shines beneath the fluorescent light. ‘First in every exam since he was knee high to a grasshopper, Thomas.’ He flings back the other side of his cape. ‘No. Rest assured, everything will be fine.’

  ‘Right so Father.’

  His hand is soft, like an old nun’s. ‘Hearing great things about you,’ he says. ‘Keep that up and we’ll have a future bishop on our hands.’

  Later that evening Conaty is loitering around the ambulatory when I go for a walk to clear my head. ‘Tommy,’ he calls. He is fidgety and takes a cigarette from a packet: ‘Can I join you? Would you mind?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Laudatur Jesus Christus,’ he says, following the prescribed greeting when one student walks with another.

  ‘In saecula. Amen. Let’s go down by the river, Declan.’

  The white froth of meadow sweet, cow parsley and wild hemlock on both sides of the path brush against our soutanes as we make our way along by the river; sow thistles and water lilies grow wild on the mud bank. We rest on the sun-dappled garden seat and face the river; the harsh sound of ducks paddling upstream in an arrowhead shatters the quiet of the summer evening.

  ‘Can I discuss something with you in confidence?’ he asks timidly.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Did you hear anything unusual – sounds – anything at all, coming from my room lately?’

  ‘Unusual? No. No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No. No sounds.’

  ‘That’s all I want to know.’ He points towards the ducks: ‘Must be a great life for ducks. No problems.’

  I laugh, but stop suddenly when he begins to sob, his graceful hands holding a white handkerchief to his face.

  ‘Is it the exams, Declan?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you afraid you mightn’t pass?’

  ‘I wish it were as simple as that.’

  ‘I can keep a secret.’

  Red-eyed, he looks at me: ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘It won’t go beyond me.’

  He twists the handkerchief on his lap, a gesture that causes a mild stir within me and invades my prayer that night in the oratory when I see him in front of me. ‘I’ve been… well, a priest of the diocese. Are you sure you won’t …?’

  ‘Your secret is safe with me.’

  ‘He was helping me with revision and he put his arm around me. That’s all. But now he wants us to meet during the holidays. To go to England.’

  ‘Not a good idea, Declan.’ I glance at his profile. With long hair, he would pass for a girl. ‘Don’t go.’

  He grows silent, still twisting the handkerchief: ‘I think I’m different, Tommy.’

  ‘Aren’t we all? Sure that’s what makes the world so interesting,’ I say in a spirited manner, but I know where he is leading.

  ‘No. This is not the same.’ He is now chewing the inside of his lip: ‘Massabielle, the Lourdes play, we put on before Christmas. Who’s asked to play the part of the Virgin Mary? The same in boarding school. And more things too.’

  Suddenly, I become self-conscious and look around; beyond the shimmering poplars, a few from our year are kicking a football. ‘Not a word will pass my lips, Declan. Not to worry; I never repeat what I’m told in confidence.’ I stand. ‘Going to England with him could land you in trouble.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’ At the turnstile leading from the cinder path, he tilts his head, a girlish smile on his face: ‘Thanks for listening to me; you’ve heard your first confession.’

  Meehan eventually agrees to go with me to Doctor Quirke. ‘For one reason,’ he says. ‘You’ve helped me survive this hellhole until I could make up my mind. But I don’t want to do it.’ He studies me: ‘For a bright bloke you’re fierce thick at times. And by the way, you’ll do the talking.’

  ‘Right.’

  The following morning after breakfast, we make our way in a nervy silence to Quirke’s room. The traffic lights on his door show red, and a bad-tempered murmur is coming from inside – Quirke is slating a student. Doubts crowd in – Meehan could be right: ‘You’re as stubborn as a mule, Galvin.’

  Too late. The door handle turns with a squeak and the student comes out, red-faced. He looks at us, smiles and then gives a two-finger sign to the closed door. The light turns green.

  ‘Yes. What can I do for you two?’ With his belly stretching over the desk, Quirke is finishing off an apple. He flings the core into a waste-paper basket and licks his fingers.

  ‘It’s not easy, Doctor Quirke.’

  ‘Well, you’d better get it out. I’ve work to do. And you two should be at study.’

  I tell him about the proposed holiday, and my suspicions about Old Spice’s visits to a student’s room.

  ‘Who is the student?’ He keeps inspecting his fingernails: for a big man, his hands are surprisingly dainty. ‘Who is the student, Mr Galvin?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Doctor Quirke. I gave my word of honour that I wouldn’t reveal my source.’

  The inspection stops; he turns to Meehan: ‘You may go, Mr Meehan. Mr Galvin, I want to speak to you alone.’ When Meehan has closed the door behind him, he glares at me: ‘You have a vivid imagination and a dangerous one. You won’t name the student and yet you are willing to defame a man who was a highly respected member of the faculty of this pontifical seminary. A man who, out of the goodness of his heart is prepared to come in here after his day’s work and help students who fall behind in their studies. And a man who is fostering vocations: something that is much needed in the diocese, and in our mission fields.’

  Another quick inspection of his fingernails. ‘This time I’m going to overlook your baseless accusations against a good man. And my advice to you is this: go and say your prayers and rid your mind of such nasty thoughts. Unless, of course, you want to pursue this and put your future at risk. And if I know you, Mr Galvin, you’re too clever to do that. Now get out of my sight.’

  After that, the creak of the door hinges and the skittish laughter from Conaty’s room come to an end.

  The president had been right about the wheel rolling down the hill. Three years had flown by since we had climbed the mottled steps to the front door. Three years of making the thirty-mile journey each morning to the university in the college mini bus are now over. The students who hadn’t matriculated attended classes in the seminary and were told they wouldn’t need degrees anyway, out in Kenya. Three years of trooping to the chapel before we leave, and the prefect reciting the prayer that will expunge the demon libido: Averte, domine, oculos meus. Ne videant vanitatem. If you notice a pretty girl, you turn the other way.

  So, in late May when All Saints is in the grip of examination fever, the president calls me to his study. The hollow sound of my footsteps on the concrete flags breaks the silence of the warm evening as I cross the ambulatory to his rooms. All along Junior House the windows are thrown open, revealing my classmates in a last frenzy of cramming: soutanes and roman collars put aside, heads bowed over desks. Sparrows are perched on the lip of the fountain, dipping their beaks into the fresh spring water.

  ‘Mr Galvin.’ The president rises and indicates a chair in front of the mahogany desk. ‘I trust you will do well again this year in the final exams.’

  ‘I hope so, Monsignor.’

  He resumes his throne, a chair much higher than mine. ‘The Academic Council has granted you a place at the Irish College in Rome.’

  ‘Thank you, Monsignor.’

  ‘You will bear in mind that this singular honour is conferred on only a couple of students every year. A great privilege has been granted to you to study in the Eternal City and, should the Church find you worthy, most likely you will be ordained at San Giovanni in Laterano. Deo Volente.’

  ‘Deo Volente, Monsignor.’

  ‘I’m aware of your interest in
the foreign missions, but don’t foreclose on the diocese.’

  On his sideboard are silver-framed photos: pride of place is given to one of himself and President de Valera in the grounds of Áras an Uachtaráin.

  He relaxes and allows a weak smile to form about his thin lips. ‘I trust your brother is still prospering in England.’

  ‘He is, Monsignor, thank you.’

  ‘An exemplary Irishman. It was very kind of him to invite me to his wedding.’ He talks for a while about the Irish who are doing very well in England and yet we never hear of them: only the failures. I nod. Then, filling the air with aniseed, he stands. A gold cufflink shows beneath his soutane when he is stretching across the desk to wish me well in Rome, where, he reminds me, the world’s bishops are into the final year of the Vatican Council – the most important ecclesiastical event of the century.

  Senior students who are close to ordination and smoke their pipes outside a back door of the college after supper have been sounding off on the Council for a couple of years now; they predict a bright future for the Church as their sweet-smelling tobacco rises. In the dark, one evening, I linger at the edge of their discussion. They are debating complex issues such as birth control and whether the Pill is a natural form of contraception or not. ‘It is,’ one student declares, ‘so long as the woman doesn’t take it when she is about to make love with her husband. If she takes it, say, that afternoon while her husband is at work, then they are not interfering with the sexual act.’ His pipe is going out, so he has to stoke up the tobacco. This gives an opening to another student, who says: ‘I have no doubt but the Pope will, most certainly, come down in favour of the Pill.’ They nod their heads and move on to the Doctrine of Original Sin, and the men who will usher in a new dawn: Karl Rahner, Hans Küng and Joseph Ratzinger. All the old stodgy ways will disappear forever when the Church hears what these men have to say.

  ‘Strange that he never brought up the complaint we made,’ says Meehan, when I tell him the news about Rome. The amber globes at the fountain show up like a full moon as night falls over the college; ahead of us, theology students throw monstrous shapes on the ambulatory wall.