Irish Mist

by Andrew M. Greeley

  Which I expect, and the sooner the better.

  This isn’t exactly her room. Nor is this the bed where she and her husband made love for the first time. But it had to be in about the same space. I suppose it took them awhile to get the hang of it, too. Maybe even longer, because they knew a lot less in those days than we do today. Still, too much knowledge can be a problem, can’t it now?

  Well, I promise You one thing: we’ll work it out before we leave here!

  And, Augusta Downs, I know you ‘re lurking around here someplace. I know you brought us here to do something for you. I half think you also are going to reward us for being here. Well, you know what I want.

  Give me the courage I need. I’m going out of my mind with desire, and I don’t quite know what it is that I desire so much.

  —28—

  WE STOPPED at the parish house in Garrytown on our way to Glenstal. Father Mike MacNamee, the P.P. (Parish Priest, the rank we would call Pastor in the U.S.), was a lively little man in his midseventies. He wished us a joyful welcome to Garrytown, threw a stick for Fiona, brought us into the house, offered us a pot of tea unless we wanted something stronger (we did not, Father, but thank you), congratulated herself on her wonderful performance on the telly, and assured us that we were part of a critical religious revolution in Ireland.

  Garrytown was little more than a hamlet through which a National Secondary Road, N-69, passed on its way to Loghill, Foynes, and eventually Limerick. A group of old stucco houses that whitewash, colored trim, and flowers made picturesque, it hugged the road in appealing pretense that it was the way Ireland used to be. But the healthy people, the TV antennae, and the cars belied that claim, if anyone cared about that It was a pretty little town with attractive stores, two pubs (the Limerickman and the Harp and Shamrock), and a small, neat church of the sort built at the end of the last century when the Church in the west of Ireland had finally struggled out of the famine disaster and begun to prosper from the redistribution of land.

  Compared to similar little towns along the north side of Galway Bay, however, it not only was snug and prosperous but had been so for a long time. Moreover, like the castle it was far enough out on the estuary to absorb the Gulf Stream warmth, which created a thin veneer of subtropical climate. Garrytown, like some places on Dingle, Kenmare, and Bantry Bays, enjoyed a few cautious palm trees.

  In his cozy library, lined with modern theology books, he poured our tea (not polluted by milk), served us scones, which “I hope aren’t too hard now” (they were not), and finally asked what he could do for us.

  “We want to know the whole truth about Lady Augusta McGarry Downs,” Nuala Anne said flatly, adopting a very direct and very American approach, perhaps because she sensed that this was the best way to deal with this attractive little man.

  She was wearing a summer suit, black with gold buttons, and the whole accompanying professional accountant regalia—panty hose, heels, makeup, hair in a tight bun. You have to establish with those Benedictines, and themselves all so smart, that you are a responsible, mature adult and not merely a silly little girl who sings on the telly.

  “Do you now?”

  “We do,” she insisted. “We know she didn’t start the fire. We know about Major General Sir Henry Hugh Tudor, we know about the death of Kevin O’Higgins, and we think it’s time the whole truth be told about her.”

  Even from someone who could play fast and furious games with the truth when she was of a mind to, this was a series of assertions that took my breath away.

  “Do you now?”

  “We do.”

  “And you’d be thinking that I know something about all these matters?”

  “We do.”

  “And suppose that I do now,” he said with an affable little smile. “Why would I be telling you what I know?”

  “Because it is time. Because Lady Augusta wants the truth to be told. Because she didn’t start the fire.”

  “You’re sure she didn’t start the fire, are you?”

  “I am.”

  “How would you know that? No one knows how the fire started.”

  “I do.”

  Father MacNamee sipped his tea, petted Fiona’s head, glanced at me, and then asked, “You’d be one of the dark ones, would you?”

  “Sometimes,” Nuala Anne admitted.

  “There’re still a few of your kind around, mostly older. ’Tis said there were more in the old days. I’m not sure whether that’s true.”

  “Maybe today the dark ones ignore the signs.”

  “Aye,” he said, nodding his head. “Maybe they do. … Your ma one of them?”

  “Of course not. Me aunt. You know that’s the way of it.”

  Maybe he did, but I didn’t.

  “Aye, I do that. … Funny thing, when I saw you on the telly the other night and saw how close you were to the music and its meaning, I half-suspected that you knew a lot of things about the music that no one else knew. … Tell me, does it bother you much to see things and know things?”

  “No, Father, it does not,” she said calmly. “I have this good man to take care of me. He’s used to it now. So isn’t it fine if I can do a little good with it?”

  “Where is this good man?” I said, pretending to search for him. Both the priest and my wife laughed, a little too readily, I thought.

  “You’re sure about the fire?”

  “Haven’t I said so?”

  “It makes sense,” he said, frowning in deep thought. “The McGarrys were all crazy, wonderful but crazy. She was the most sensible one in generations, but she was a little crazy, too. … I always liked to think that she was not that crazy.”

  “She was brilliant,” Nuala asserted, “wasn’t she now? I’ll give you that she might have started the fire if she’d thought it necessary. But, as much as she missed her husband, she did not want to die.”

  “Hm …,” said the priest. “Now suppose I can find out something more to tell you about her, what would you do with it?”

  “It might not matter if anyone else knows the truth, Father. We have to know it It’s time that someone knows it. On the other hand, it might matter that the whole truth be told. My husband writes wonderful novels. He’s thinking about one on her right now. He won’t write it if she wouldn’t want it written.”

  How the hell did she know that I was thinking about a novel?

  Oh, well, it was part of the package, wasn’t it?

  “Some people do know,” he said. “I suppose you’d say not enough?”

  “I would.”

  “Aye, I thought you would. … Now tell me, how do you get along with the folks up beyond above in the castle?”

  “They’re very warm and gracious hosts,” I said, since patently my wife did not think that the question pertained to her rubrics, “and very skillful. It’s a fine hotel.”

  “And himself?”

  I hesitated, suspecting that I was taking a test. “A good man, hardworking, creative, knows a little more than he lets on. Probably inherited a touch of the gombeen man from his father, the chemist up beyond above in Ennis, but herself keeps him in line.”

  The priest threw back his head and laughed like a diminutive Santa Glaus.

  “Now, Nuala Anne, which one of youse is the real dark one?”

  “Me man,” Nuala said, beaming proudly, “is not at all fey, Father. He’s just very, very smart.”

  I blushed. She’d never said that before.

  “And,” she went on, her chin tilted defiantly in the air, “he understands people and that’s why he writes novels. He knows me better than I know meself. He knows me so well that sometimes he scares me.”

  Do I now?

  This was my day to shine.

  “I suppose your man wants you to play golf with him, Dermot?”

  “It’s been mentioned.”

  “You’ve played golf before?”

  “A little.”

  Nuala snorted. “Me man just says that because he’s humble and
knows how to out hustle a hustler. His handicap, Your Reverence, is two, and that’s when he’s not being competitive.”

  “Between two and three,” I said to set the record straight.

  “Good enough for him!” The little priest pounded the coffee table and then poured us all another cup of tea. He also passed a piece of scone to a grateful Fiona.

  “Well, Dermot,” he went on, “you’ll teach your man a lesson he needs.”

  “Anyone who plays a man on his own course,” I said, sounding like a golf course Solomon, “ought to know his own limitations. Fair play to him if he takes me.”

  “Not a chance!” me wife proclaimed exuberantly.

  “I wasn’t really changing the subject, Nuala,” the little priest said with a self-effacing smile. “I know better than that. I think your man up beyond above in the castle knows more than he lets on.”

  “But not very much,” I observed. “He’s afraid to know too much for fear his charming legend of lovers from long ago might be spoiled. It could be disastrous for business.”

  “Aye, I think so, too. … Well, I’ll have to ponder all of this for a day or two. Maybe ask around a bit. … I hope you won’t mind waiting. You’ll be down beyond below in Glenstal singing with all me good Benedictine friends for a couple of days, won’t you?”

  “We will.”

  “Now I hope this won’t offend you too much, but I have to ask. Would you ever have a priest in America who knows you well enough to … well, act as a reference?”

  “What about your man here?”

  Nuala stood up, stepped over the bulk of Fiona, and removed a book from the little priest’s shelf. The Achievement of David Tracy.

  “You know your man?” the priest said, impressed.

  “Isn’t me husband’s brother his C.C.?”

  “Is he now!”

  “And himself telling a story at our wedding?”

  “And yourselves having friends in the hierarchy?”

  “A few,” I said, not thinking it worthwhile to mention our friend Eddy Hayes,1 the former Bishop of Galway, or my uncle, the Bishop Emeritus of Alton, Illinois, to say nothing of Nuala Anne’s good friend Cardinal Sean.

  “Isn’t that grand? Well, I won’t have to make any calls, will I now? Sure, could you stop back the day after tomorrow?”

  We could.

  We left the parish house with his blessings and best wishes for our session with the Benedictines.

  ‘Your man will call the little bishop anyway,” Nuala informed me. “Good on him for doing it.”

  “I didn’t know that I scared you because I know so much about you, Nuala Anne McGrail.”

  “Och, Dermot, you do. I don’t have many masks left to me that you don’t see through. Pretty soon you’ll take them all ‘way and I won’t be able to hide at all, at all.”

  “Then what will happen?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “What do you think will happen?”

  Silence.

  Fiona bounced into our car and curled up on the seat. We followed her.

  “Any news, Inspector Murphy?”

  “It looks like the IIA books are a terrible mess altogether. Father Placid apparently was taken in by some good Catholic laymen, the kind of fat, plausible crooks who took a lot of his money to ‘invest’ for him. Make a big killing quickly. Only the schemes didn’t work. He’d intended to use the receipts of the concert to cover his losses. He has, by the way, left the country.”

  “Oh,” Nuala said.

  “Any reason to think that his good Catholic laity are after us?”

  “The Commissioner isn’t sure. There’s layer upon layer in the scandal. Drug cartels involved.”

  “Great.”

  “Commissioner says not to worry.”

  “Great.”

  He closed the window between the back and front of the Benz. Nuala had expressed an intention to practice her Gregorian chant.

  ‘To return to my question, Nuala Anne McGrail?”

  “Maybe you’ll stop loving me.”

  “Do you think that likely?”

  Silence.

  Then, “I don’t know. You’re a good man. Too good. I’m a shite of a wife. I’d try the patience of a saint.”

  “I’ll leave you?”

  “No, but maybe you should.”

  “Am I permitted to worry about that instead of you?”

  “Maybe you know all there is to know already.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  “I’d better practice me chant.”

  So she practiced her chant and I pondered the difference between the self-confident young woman who had tackled Father MacNamee with such skill and the worried country girl who was afraid I’d stop loving her.

  SHE’S FAKING SEXUAL PLEASURE, the Adversary informed me. SHE WANTS TO MAKE YOU THINK YOU’RE A GREAT LOVER. SHE DOESN’T DISLIKE IT, BUT SHE’S NOT GETTING MUCH OUT OF IT. NOW SHE FEELS GUILTY.

  “Nonsense. How dare you think such things?”

  I DARE BECAUSE I’M PART OF YOU. YOU’VE SUSPECTED IT FOR A LONG TIME AND COVERED IT UP BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT.

  Nuala Anne playing the sexually satisfied wife role?

  How would she know what it is?

  For that matter, how would I know?

  What do I do?

  The mists that had been lurking just off the coast of Ireland during our time in the west had changed to rain clouds and then rain—drizzle (a soft day)—when we left Castlegarry and then a downpour as we neared Limerick. The estuary was the color of a tarnishing silver plate.

  My wife stopped singing long enough to comment as we drove into Limerick town, “Doesn’t it rain too much altogether in this focking country?”

  Limerick looked like Gary, Indiana, as we drove through; no, better, it looked like Whiting, Indiana, without the oil refineries. The windshield wiper on our car scraped back and forth resolutely, giving us an occasional glimpse of the road ahead. Good-dog Fiona struggled up to her haunches next to me and stared out the window, apparently fascinated by the rain.

  Nuala kept on at her chant practice. I closed my eyes and imagined I was in the chapel of a medieval cloistered convent and a haunting voice was singing behind the opaque chancel screen. My lost love.

  Except I hadn’t lost Nuala. Not yet. Not ever.

  And certainly not to a convent.

  I had just about persuaded myself that the Adversary was dead wrong about her when she paused in her practice.

  “Are you asleep, Dermot Michael, and yourself with the big bitch’s head in your lap?”

  “Woman, I am not. I am imagining meself in a medieval cloister, listening to a nun singing behind a chancel screen.”

  I opened my eyes. Fiona licked my hand to indicate she wanted to be petted.

  “Good girl,” I murmured to her. She closed her eyes.

  “I wanted to say again what I was after saying in the parish house. You’re the smartest person I know.”

  “Smarter even then George the Priest?”

  “The poor man knows a lot, but he’s not as smart about people as you are.”

  “Smarter than your friend the little bishop?”

  “Sometimes he’s a little slow.”

  “I’m pretty good at hitting golf balls, too!”

  “Och, you’re also impossible!”

  “I thank you for all the compliments.”

  She frowned, hesitated, and then blurted out, “When I’m with you I feel like I’m completely naked all the time. You know everything about me.”

  What do you say to that?

  “Nothing hidden?”

  “Not a thing.” She bowed her head miserably.

  “And I still seem to love you?”

  She nodded, her eyes averted.

  “Even more?”

  She looked up at me, her eyes filled with tears. “Even more,” she agreed in a whisper.

  Then she went back to her chant. I continued to pet Fiona and imagine that
the good wolfhound was my companion during my wanderings through medieval France when they were building Gothic cathedrals and earlier, a Celtic Catholic version of Henry Adams maybe.

  I returned to the question of marital sex. What were the odds that an inexperienced young woman like my wife would achieve full sexual satisfaction during the first week of our marriage?

  Practically zero.

  Then why would she appear to have done so? Because she had read the books about what it was supposed to be like and was a good actress?

  Why should she want to fake it?

  Because Nuala Anne had to be good at everything and immediately, whether it be Camogie or sexual romping.

  Also, she wanted to please me in the worst way.

  Oh, yeah, I was the smart one. I knew all about people, especially about her, right?

  I should have expected that would happen. How could I have been so dumb?

  HAVEN’T I BEEN TELLING YOU THAT ALL ALONG?

  “Beat it.”

  I was the experienced male lover, wasn’t I?

  Yeah, right!

  YOU DIDN’T WANT TO FACE THE POSSIBILITY THAT SHE WAS PRETENDING. YOU DON’T HAVE THE SLIGHTEST IDEA WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT EVEN NOW, DO YOU?

  My conversation with the Adversary was interrupted by the inspector’s announcement that we had entered county Tip and were at Moroe, the small town outside the abbey.

  We turned down a side road and into a hilly park with the usual tree-lined drive. Glenstal was a twentieth-century foundation in an old country home, larger and more elaborate than Casdegarry. However, it already looked like a medieval abbey with its cluster of gray stone buildings constructed around a quadrilateral courtyard into which we drove.

  Two monks and an attractive woman in her thirties waited for us. Inspector Murphy opened the door for us again, even though he knew I disapproved of a cop of his rank playing servant.

  Fiona, as was now her practice, bounded out ahead of us and headed straight for the monk who I assumed had to be the abbot.

  The cop winked at me as I followed herself out of the car. “Sure, don’t we have to keep up the act now?”

  Our hosts and hostess must have wondered what crazy people they had invited to participate in their recording. We arrived in a Mercedes limo, followed by a trailing car and preceded by a maniacally friendly wolfhound. One of us was a gorgeous young woman dressed in black like she was ready for a papal audience and the other a big gorilla-type character in a Notre Dame sweatshirt and jeans.