by William King
‘They certainly did. Every week they sent home the postal order, or the five-pound note in the envelope.’ M.J. pauses, and glares at the Revenue Commissioner. ‘In fact, there might be no Celtic Tiger only for those men.’
The silver head appears again over the bench and reprimands the defence counsel: ‘This manner of discourse is not ad rem to the substantive issue of a non-resident account. Please don’t waste the tribunal’s time canonizing your client.’
‘Just to establish Mr Galvin’s creditable contribution to this country’s economy, Your Honour.’
With a throwaway motion of his hand, the judge dismisses him. ‘Get on with it.’
I have to be back in All Saints for a meeting, so I leave quietly and return to my car. The stippled Liffey waters reflect a blue sky and tall flags secured to poles that battle with the wind, and draw attention to another new hotel across in Ormond Quay.
Within a week, I receive a formal letter of appointment from Nugent. ‘Thank you for your work in All Saints. I have pleasure in appointing you to the parish of Kildoon, taking effect from 29 October.’ The rest I skim over – my contribution to the diocese and my support for his predecessors. In accordance with tradition and good manners, Nugent hosts a dinner in my honour and presents me with a canteen of cutlery. Afterwards, he plays the piano, and when I’m leaving, calls me aside: ‘I regret we didn’t see eye to eye, Tom, and while we disagree fundamentally, I admire your spirit.’ He throws a tired glance around the room: Vinny Lynch is hopping up and down taking photographs, Plunkett is recharging glasses. ‘I’m surrounded by fawning incompetents, and I relied on your experience. God bless.’
‘God bless, Pat.’
29
BEHIND THE PRESBYTERY here in Kildoon is the cemetery. The graves of my predecessors since before the Famine line a stone wall in the church grounds. Once, Boylan sent me down here to straighten out a parish priest who was on a bottle of Powers a day. In the selfsame kitchen in which I write this story, I had asked him to consider St Camillus’s for a couple of months. His father, a retired schoolmaster, had played ‘The Cualann’ on the concertina, and when he had finished, he had cried and knelt on the bare flags, pleading with his son to give up the drink. The priest vowed to take the pledge. ‘I will, Dad, right now before Monsignor Galvin.’
‘Promise me, son. As a priest of God, promise me.’
‘I promise, Dad. As a priest. I’d like Monsignor Galvin to give me the pledge.’ He kept that pledge and, by all accounts, no journey was too far for him, if asked to go and persuade someone to sober up.
My curate is a young man who lives near the chapel of ease two miles away. He is chaplain to two community schools and a technical college, and is so busy that the day isn’t long enough for him.
Nearly every Friday, he festoons the church with schoolchildren’s drawings in gaudy colours, and, instead of giving a sermon, sits with the pupils on the steps of the sanctuary and talks about his mother, and how ‘Jesus is full of love for all of us’. At present, he is on a high concerning a parish website; and, although I fail to see what benefits will come to Kildoon from a website, I go along with his zeal. We meet for lunch each Monday at The Kildoon House, and, in between answering calls on his mobile, he tells me about dinner parties he has been to with bishops. It is his considered view that ‘Henry Plunkett would make a great successor to the Boss. He has the gravitas, you see.’
‘Yes, he has. The gravitas.’
While he lists the virtues of Monsignor Plunkett, now the vicar-general, a night after an ordination at All Saints looms up in my mind. The brandy had been flowing in the bishop’s house, and in a haze of well-being and cigar smoke, Plunkett had dropped his guard: ‘Before I leave this house, Tom, I intend to be a bishop, make no mistake about that.’
‘The Boss wants me to become the vocations director for the diocese, but I’m not sure if I can fit it in with all my other commitments,’ my curate confides, and I remember a whisper from his last parish priest: ‘Look after him, Tom, he’s inclined to sink. Takes to the bed.’
Every morning, I say the ten o’clock Mass for a handful: the two old haberdashery ladies who ritually touch the hands and feet of the Sacred Heart statue when they arrive, and again when they are leaving the church. And Kevin, who hides the bell when he is away in Knock, or in Medjugorje.
For the past while, I have been helping a group of local men to clean up the cemetery; they are surprised I can use a pickaxe so well. The plot around the presbytery we also cleaned of alders and briars, and overgrown bushes that had hidden the house and had almost closed in the pathway to the front door. While he is showing me around, my predecessor makes a half-apology for the condition of the place. ‘But don’t worry, Tom, you’ll have few callers here, except for the postman, and an old dear who wants to consecrate her virginity.’ He laughs as he hands me the keys to the house and the church. Parishioners tell me he was full of ideas when he arrived first to the parish, but for the past few years had been disappearing after Sunday Mass and not returning until the following Saturday, leaving the weekday Mass to the curate.
Today the sacristan and I work at a pace that is comfortable for us both. He hobbles around dragging bushes and brambles to the centre of the long garden for burning. At first, I tried to talk him out of doing any work, but then discovered that he wants to feel he’s giving a helping hand. ‘This is therapy for me, Monsignor,’ he tells me. And for me too: my ulcer has cleared up.
The sacristan leans on his garden fork and takes a piece of newspaper from an inside pocket: it is a cutting from the Bedfordshire News about Irish builders who, last month, were found guilty of exploiting Polish workers at Dunstable Crown Court, and of not paying tax or social insurance.
I half-listen while he reads the judge’s decision: ‘This blatant transgression of the law in a civilized country, I will not tolerate. I will hand down a judgment one week from now after consultation with Her Majesty’s Inland Revenue.’ The sacristan crushes the newspaper into a ball and throws it onto the fire where it is consumed by the flames.
‘“Nothing new under the sun,”’ I quote as I heap up more brambles.
‘What’s that, Monsignor?’ He is studying the blaze.
‘Ah, just something. A long time ago. Can’t even remember where I heard it. Let’s gather up the branches in God’s name before the rain comes.’
Copyright
Published in 2008 by
The Lilliput Press, 62–63 Sitric Road, Dublin 7, Ireland
www.lilliputpress.ie
Copyright © William King, 2008
ISBN 978 1 84351 228 8
A catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library.
The Lilliput Press receives financial assistance from An Chomhairle Ealaíon / The Arts Council of Ireland.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior, written permission of the publisher.
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