by Brian Moore
Bernard put a pudgy finger to his lips. ‘Shh! Keep your voice down. You’ll waken the whole house. I could make it sound bad against you too. And Mary would back me up. It would be two against one, remember that.’
‘You’re crazy . . .’ But what happened? Wearily, Madden tried to remember. Saw her. Only a kid. Like Sheila. I paddled her. Lost my head. That’s all. That’s ALL.
‘You screwed her, not me,’ he said angrily. ‘Don’t forget that.’
‘All right. But you pulled the blanket off her.’
Did I? What’s the matter with me? What a shit I am. Lost my head. The drink, my trouble. But him, he’s as bad. Worse. Did it sober. ‘All right, forget it,’ he said. ‘Let’s go to bed.’
In uneasy alliance they descended the stairs.
CHAPTER IV
SUNDAY was the great day of the week. To begin with, there was Mass, early Mass with Holy Communion, or a late Mass where you were likely to see a lot of people. The special thing about Sunday Mass was that for once everyone was doing the same thing. Age, income, station in life, it made no difference: you all went to Mass, said the same prayers and listened to the same sermons. Miss Hearne put loneliness aside on a Sunday morning.
And on Sunday afternoons there was the visit to the O’Neills, the big event of the week. It began with a long tram ride to their house which gave you plenty of time to rehearse the things you could tell them, interesting things that would make them smile and be glad you had come. And then there was the house itself, big and full of children, all shapes and sizes, and to think you had known even the big ones since they were so high. It was as though you were a sort of unofficial aunt. Almost.
On her first Sunday morning in Camden Street, Miss Hearne decided to go to eleven o’clock Mass. After all, Saint Finbar’s was now her new parish and it would be nice to see the other parishioners. She would wear her very best. Besides, some of the boarders might be going to eleven. Mr Madden, perhaps.
But when Mr Madden came down to breakfast, she saw that he looked ill, or (because she knew the dreadful signs of it) as if he had been drinking. Still, he said good morning to her very pleasantly. Although it was embarrassing the way he said it. Because all the others were there and Mr Madden did not speak to any of them.
Bernard said good morning to his uncle, unusually polite, Miss Hearne thought. But Mr Madden gave Bernard a very odd glance. As for Mr Lenehan, you could see he was still angry about what Mr Madden had said yesterday.
But thank heavens Mrs Henry Rice carried the conversation with a complaint about how, when she came home from eight o’clock Mass, she found that Mary had run off to nine o’clock and left her with the breakfast to make.
‘And with kippers to fry,’ Mrs Henry Rice said, passing a kippered herring and a slice of fried bread along to Miss Hearne. ‘It wouldn’t be any other morning she’d take it into her head to go to early Mass. No, she has to do it on Sunday and me left here with the biggest breakfast of the week.’
Miss Hearne agreed that you couldn’t be after the maids nowadays, they had it far too much their own way.
Miss Friel closed her book. ‘It’s a good thing the girl is attentive to her religious duties. It’s when they start missing Mass and Holy Communion that you should be worried. That’s when they’re up half the night with boys.’
‘No fear of Mary getting mixed up with boys,’ Mrs Henry Rice said. ‘Sure, she’s only a child, just out of school.’
‘This is a nice piece of kipper,’ Mr Madden said. ‘Nice to have a change. I mean, instead of toast and tea.’
Nobody could say anything to that, agree or disagree, without insulting Mrs Henry Rice to her face. So nobody said anything. The meal continued in silence, Mr Madden being the first to stop eating. He wiped his lips like an actor finishing a stage meal and put his napkin down in great satisfaction.
‘Do you have the time, by any chance, Miss Hearne?’
She blushed. Of course the little wristlet watch was not working, only there for show, and she hadn’t the faintest.
‘O, I’m sorry, but my watch must have stopped. I forgot to wind it.’
‘I think the clock’s right,’ Bernard said. ‘It’s twenty to eleven.’
Miss Hearne put down her napkin. ‘Goodness, I must hurry. I’ll miss the eleven o’clock if I don’t get a move on.’
‘I’m going to eleven o’clock Mass myself,’ Mr Madden said. ‘Mind if I walk along with you?’
‘O, not at all. I’ll be very glad of the company.’
Mrs Henry Rice looked at Bernard. ‘Are you going to eleven, Bernie?’
‘I’ll go to twelve,’ Bernard said, and the way he said it, Miss Hearne knew he had no intention of going at all. No wonder he talked like an atheist.
She and Mr Madden went upstairs to get their coats and hats. They met in the hall a few minutes later and he opened the front door for her, offering his arm as they went down the steps. She did not take it. It seemed just a little bit forward, the way he did it.
She was thinking of things to say as they went down Camden Street. Then she saw his dragging walk and all words left her. He has a bad leg, why did I never notice it? His walk, dragging his left leg, and that shoe is specially built. OmyGod, he’s a cripple!
At the corner of the street they came face to face with the reddish Gothic façade of Queen’s University. He looked up at it.
‘That Bernie. A college education, well they certainly didn’t teach him much.’
‘He is a little queer,’ she said tentatively.
‘Queer? He’s no queer, believe me. He’s just a no good mama’s boy, never did a day’s work in his life. Don’t let that poetry stuff fool you. That’s just a gimmick, so’s he can say he’s working. No, he’s got a cinch. Why should he work when May keeps him?’
He looked sideways at Miss Hearne. ‘You been to college? You seem like an educated woman.’
‘No, I’m afraid the Sacred Heart convent in Armagh is as far as I went,’ Miss Hearne said pridefully, because, after all, the Sacred Heart convent was the best in Ireland. The best families sent their girls there. Would he know that, being an American? ‘It’s considered the best convent, though,’ she added.
‘I never went to college. Had to get out and hustle for myself. I made out too, did fine.’
I wonder if he’s rich? Out walking on a Sunday morning with a strange man, what would Aunt D’Arcy have said? Still, he looks quite prosperous and respectable. That limp, you would hardly notice it. After all, I never noticed it before. All Americans have money, they say. I wonder what he did in the hotel, would it be rude to ask him?
‘And did you go into the hotel business right away, when you arrived in America?’
‘No.’
They walked in silence for a while. ‘Always had my own car,’ Mr Madden told the wind. ‘Always had my own car, even in the depression.’
She didn’t know quite what to reply to this, but something had to be said. ‘People earn a lot of money in America, don’t they?’
‘Some people. But it’s a young man’s country. They got no use for you when they figure you’re over the hill. Y’see, I always had it in mind to come back to Ireland when I was older. Maybe marry again and settle down.’
Miss Hearne felt something turn over in her breast. ‘And did your poor wife pass on long ago?’
‘The year we went over. She’s dead goin’ on thirty years. It was the crossing that killed her, the boats were different in those days. Had the baby about a week after we landed. Sheila, my girl.’
‘O, so you have a family then.’
‘Well, just the one. She’s married now. I was living with her and the husband before I come home. I figured I was in the way, lying up around the house after my accident. This leg, y’see. So I told them I’m goin’ back to Ireland, kids, I said. Back home.’
He’s lonely, thinking of his old age like that. But how odd that he would discuss his private affairs without really knowing her at all. It
was like something in a story, people meeting, struck by a common rapport, a spark of kinship or love. Although that was silly and she was being daydreamy again.
‘I’m sure your daughter must miss you, all the same.’
‘Some chance. Kids nowadays don’t care.’
They crossed the street as the light flashed green. He took her arm as they stepped off the pavement. She did not reject his aid.
‘O, children of the present generation are awfully thoughtless. Even here in Ireland. Friends of mine, the O’Neills . . .’
‘Same thing here,’ he interrupted. ‘Come back to settle down and you can’t even get respect from the likes of Bernie.’
‘So you’re planning to stay here?’
‘Maybe. I got a couple of deals cooking. I might go to the West Indies, I hear there’s a lot of possibilities there. Depends. Or I might go into business in Dublin. If I had a partner.’
I wonder if he’s old? Over fifty certainly. Maybe younger. But big, well-preserved, a man full of life and vigour. Did he retire, I wonder, or was it the accident to his leg? They don’t retire early in the hotel trade, remember Mr Bunting that was the manager of the Arcady hotel in Dublin, seventy, if he was a day.
‘Did you have a lot of running about to do in your job? In hotel work, I mean? It must have been a terrible strain.’
‘No, it was okay.’ He did not elaborate. He did not speak again until they reached the church and then only to ask if she preferred to sit up at the front. They made the Sign of the Cross together and his fingers brushed against hers in the Holy Water font. Then they walked up the aisle and he stood aside to let her pass into the pew before him. The seat he had chosen was directly under the pulpit. Before he knelt down, Mr Madden took a clean white handkerchief out of his trousers pocket and spread it on the dusty board to protect the knees of his trousers. He found his large brown rosary, wrapped it around his knuckles, and placed himself in an attitude of prayer.
But he did not pray. He thought: I wonder would she tell it in confession? When May said she ran off to early Mass this morning, maybe it was to tell the priest on both of us, he could ’phone back to the house and raise hell, a child, May said, christ, some child, I should have left her alone, none of my business. Pulled the blanket off her, he said. Ah, the priest couldn’t do a thing like that, secrets of the confessional. And she’s a scared kid, little roundheels, couldn’t have much religion, just ran out because she was scared to face me at breakfast. Ah, don’t worry, you’re okay, here in church with Miss Hearne, a fine woman, a lady, a pleasure to talk to her it is. But if she knew about me, Miss Hearne, if she knew about last night — ahh, I’m no good, drinking like that, pulling at that kid, but she was old enough though, what a build. Christ — I mean, Blessed Jesus Christ — why did I think that right in the church, an impure and filthy thought right in God’s house. O my God I am heartily sorry that I have offended Thee and because Thou are so good, I will not sin again. Not a mortal sin, no, I never, only tried to break it up, teach her a lesson, didn’t do a thing. Act of contrition, that’s absolution, couldn’t go to confession today anyway. Sunday, no confessions heard, if I die tonight, be in the state of grace. Say a rosary now, show my good intentions. Forget all that dirty thoughts stuff.
This was religion. Religion was begging God’s pardon on a morning like this one when the drink had made your mouth dry and the thing that happened last night with the serving girl was painful to think about. It was making your Easter duty once a year, going to Mass on Sunday morning. Religion was insurance. It meant you got security afterwards. It meant you could always turn over a new leaf. Just as long as you got an act of perfect contrition said before your last end, you’d be all set. Mr Madden rarely thought of Purgatory, of penance. Confession and resultant absolution were the pillars of his faith. He found it comforting to start out as often as possible with a clean slate, a new and promising future.
Miss Hearne, seeing him begin to pray, took out her Missal and set a little marker at the Gospel of the day. She was not, she sometimes chided herself, a particularly religious person. She had never been able to take much interest in the Children of Mary, the Foreign Missions, the decoration of altars or any of the other good causes in which married and single ladies devote themselves to God and His Blessed Mother. No, she had followed her Aunt D’Arcy’s lead in that. Church affairs, her aunt once said, tend to put one in contact with all sorts of people whom one would prefer not to know socially. Prayer and a rigorous attention to one’s religious duties will contribute far more towards one’s personal salvation than the bickering that goes on about church bazaars. Miss Hearne had her lifelong devotion to the Sacred Heart. He was her guide and comforter. And her terrible judge. She had a special saint, to whom she addressed her novenas: Anne, mother of Mary. She used to have a special confessor, old Father Farrelly, Rest in Peace. She had never missed Sunday Mass in her life, except from real illness. She had made the Nine Fridays every year for as long as she could remember. She went to evening devotions regularly and never a day since her First Communion had she missed saying her prayers.
Religion was there: it was not something you thought about, and if, occasionally, you had a small doubt about something in the way church affairs were carried on, or something that seemed wrong or silly, well, that was the Devil at work and God’s ways were not our ways. You could pray for guidance. She had always prayed for guidance, for help, for her good intentions. Her prayers would be answered. God is good.
As she knelt there, beginning her prayers, the organ ground out a faltering start and the choir started up discordantly in the gallery. Then the voices caught up with the music, lifted above it and the priest appeared, shuffling across in front of the altar, peering over the covered chalice so that he would not trip on the carpet. Two small altar boys scuttled after him, settling themselves on the altar steps with the ease and nonchalance of little boot-blacks on the steps of some great temple.
The Mass began. The choir sat down noisily in the gallery as the priest mumbled the opening prayers. Miss Hearne looked at him, the celebrant of the Mass, Father Quigley, he must be. She kept her eyes on him until he turned, a tall man with the hollow cheeks and white face of an inquisitor. His hair was still strong and black but it had made its own tonsure, leaving a little saucer of white baldness at the back. His hands, she noticed, were long, with long spatulate fingers, gesturing spiritual hands.
Then the organ groaned again and the choir stood up and sang. The crowd of worshippers immediately set off a tictac burst of coughing which rose in one part of the church, moved on, died, then started up afresh in an entirely different place. The latecomers jostled, whispered and shuffled at the back of the church, and the singing of the choir was all but drowned in the resultant noise and confusion.
But Miss Hearne knelt upright, her heart singing a Te Deum, a full chant which admitted no distraction. For here she was in church, after all these years, with a good man kneeling beside her, not the youngest or the handsomest surely, but a man who had not forgotten her in the moment of meeting, a man who had kept his faith and said his beads and had not been turned away from God’s love by bitterness or evil or any sinful temptation.
She gave thanks then to the Sacred Heart that He had sent her the trials and tribulations of her last lodgings that she might move to Camden Street and meet Mr Madden and walk with him to Mass, and from him hear the secret things of his life. And she went up unto the altar of her Lord, her Lord who rejoiced in her youth. She sang His praises and she asked her soul why it was sad and why did it trouble her. I believe in God, said the Missal, and she believed and praised Him again for He was her salvation and her light.
‘Confiteor Deo Omnipotenti!’ cried the priest and she confessed to Almighty God, to the Blessed Mary, ever Virgin, Blessed Michael the Archangel, Blessed John the Baptist, the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and to all the saints and to you father, that she had grievously sinned in thought, word and deed. It was her fault,
her fault, her most grievous fault. Thus, the Kyrie and Gloria passed in alternate praise and blame as the priest moved towards the first Gospel. The congregation groaned and shuffled to its feet and the Gospel was read. Then in the noise of the people kneeling again, the priest rushed ahead to the Offertory and turned around to become not the living speech of the Missal but Father Francis Xavier Quigley, tall, ascetic, hollow white, pointing an accusing finger at his parishioners.
‘Quiet!’ he shouted. ‘And let me tell those people who just came in at the back of the Church that they’re late for Mass, that they’ve not fulfilled their obligation and that they should be ashamed of themselves. They’d better leave now because they’ll have to come back to twelve o’clock Mass to fulfil their duty.’
Then whirled, with a swinging lurch of vestments, back to the altar. The congregation practised silence. But Mr Madden turned his head towards Miss Hearne and winked. No laughing matter, Miss Hearne thought. Father Quigley seemed like a terribly stern man.
The priest offered the chalice and she read her Missal, thinking of Father Quigley and of this tall man from across the water who knelt beside her. Both big men, both stern men, both men who were not afraid of anything. She shut her Missal and offered up a special prayer to the Sacred Heart, asking Him if this could be the answer to all her novenas and good intentions: if this man who knelt beside her might not be the one the Sacred Heart had chosen Himself to help her in her moments of pain and suffering, to uphold her and help her uphold the right, to comfort her and act as a good influence in her struggle with her special weakness. And at the sacred moment of the Consecration, she touched her breast three times and asked the Sacred Heart for a sign, a sign that would reveal to her whether He in His infinite patience and mercy had answered her prayers.
Before the last Gospel the congregation sat up on the seats and Father Quigley picked up the book of announcements and made his way across in front of the altar. A tiny altar boy ran ahead to open the gate and the parish priest went slowly across the aisle to the pulpit, leafing through the lists of the dead. As he mounted the pulpit steps, he was hidden from the congregation and the whispering started again. But then he emerged at the top like a watchman and the heads lifted, the sounds died to silence. At the back of the church, the ushers, moving quietly from long practice, passed the brass collection plates among their number.
