Becoming Billy Dare

by Kirsty Murray

  On Palm Sunday, the boys shuffled in for mass. Thin winter sunlight cut through the high stained-glass windows of the chapel. Paddy knew that tomorrow the Prefect of Studies would announce the winner of the poetry prize. He got down on his knees and prayed as hard as he could, pouring his heart into a prayer that God would allow him to win. In his imagination, he played out the scene when he burst into the kitchen at home with the silver medal in his hand and saw the look of pleasure on his mother's face when he gave it to her. She would be well again because the happiness brought with him would heal her. When he prayed with the thought of his mam before him there were no clouds in his mind. God could see into his heart and knew that Paddy wanted the prize only for his mam.

  The next morning, at Monday assembly, Father Gerard stood up before the whole school and read out the names of the entrants for the poetry prize. He spoke at length about the traditions of St Columcille's and why this prize was of special significance. Paddy watched his mouth moving and could hardly hear what he was saying. He just wanted the announcement to be over. To know if he'd won or if all that work had been a waste of time.

  ‘This year, the poetry prize is awarded to the youngest student ever to receive it, Master Patrick Delaney.’

  Paddy felt as if he was dreaming. Some of the junior boys were reaching over and patting him on the back and shoulders, but he sat frozen to the pew. Suddenly, Fitzgerald pushed Paddy to his feet.

  ‘Go on, they're waiting.’

  The Prefect of Studies pinned the silver medal on Paddy's breast pocket and then shook his hand. Paddy ran his hand over the medal, feeling the freshly engraved inscription. It was cold and smooth to touch.

  On Maundy Thursday, even though the mass was so bleak and the altar boys worked to strip the chapel of all its ornaments, Paddy's heart sang. He tried to feel the grief of Christ's suffering on this terrible day, the day before he was crucified, but all he could focus on was the pleasure his mother would get when she received his letter telling her of the prize.

  The next morning was Good Friday. Paddy was sent to see the Rector, Father Gerard. Father O'Keefe was there as well, his face very solemn as he opened the door to the Rector's office. The room was flooded with spring sunshine and outside on the lawn, the first daffodils shone gold against the green. Paddy raised one hand for a moment to shield his eyes from the bright rush of light after the gloomy hallway.

  ‘Patrick, I have very sad news for you,’ said the Rector. ‘But I want you to know that if you lay your suffering before Jesus, he can heal any pain you feel.’

  Paddy wanted him to stop talking right then. He wanted to cover his ears so that he wouldn't hear the next thing that Father Gerard was about to say. Instead he sat very still and stared out at the daffodils.

  ‘Yesterday, a letter arrived from your uncle. I'm sorry to have to tell you that your good mother has passed away. I understand you knew she was poorly. I am sorry that arrangements weren't made for you to see her, but it seems no one knew how quickly her health would fail.’

  Paddy felt as if all the brightness drained out of him as the priest spoke. When Father Gerard said they should pray for Mam's soul, Paddy knelt down beside Father O'Keefe and shut his eyes, but when he did, it was as if all the darkness of the world came to suck him down, down through the floorboards of the priest's office, down into darkness. He could faintly hear the sound of Father Gerard's voice chanting Psalm 129 and Paddy mouthed the words but no sound came from between his lips.

  8

  Falling from grace

  That night in the dormitory, Paddy lay staring into the shadows. His mind was churning with questions. Father Gerard had given him a short letter from Honor explaining how Mam had died on a Thursday night and they had buried her alongside the lost brothers on the following Sunday afternoon. She also wrote that she had married Liam O'Flaherty.

  Paddy had turned the letter over in his hands, as if there was something written on the blank pieces of paper between the lines, that perhaps there was some other message that he hadn't yet found. His mam had been dead for two weeks. Dead and buried in the ground. They hadn't even let him come home for the funeral and the wake. All this time he had been studying, trying to show himself worthy to his family, and they weren't even thinking of him. Was this his reward for trying so hard to be good?

  He swung out of bed and knelt on the cold boards. He prayed, silently and fiercely, but in less than a minute, the black clouds started to roll into his mind and then dozens of questions filled his head, like echoing taunts. Why had God taken his mam? Why hadn't anyone come for Paddy? Why wasn't there any comfort in prayer? Why couldn't he hear God if MacCrae could? Why didn't he know what he was meant to do?

  ‘Delaney,’ came a small voice in the darkness. ‘I'm sorry for your news.’

  Paddy looked across at MacCrae.

  ‘It doesn't make any sense,’ said Paddy.

  MacCrae was silent for a while. Finally, he spoke in a low whisper.

  ‘It's God's will. St Ignatius said that God has a plan for you. You have to believe that. If you surrender yourself into God's hands, he'll show you the way.’

  Paddy lay his head down on the bed and let his hands hang limply by his side.

  ‘I'm not like you, MacCrae.’

  ‘No, but you have your own path to follow.’

  Paddy's mind was full of dark thoughts and he couldn't see any path. At that moment, the only action he could envision was throttling MacCrae. If God bothered to look inside Paddy's dark soul, he'd probably damn him to hell. He got up off his knees, climbed back beneath the blankets and lay rigid, listening to the sounds of the other boys' breathing. Finally, when everyone was asleep, Paddy slipped out of bed. He dressed quietly, putting on extra layers and stuffing the rest of his clothes into his satchel. He pulled his cap low over his face and then, carrying his boots in one hand and satchel in the other, he tiptoed to the dormitory doorway.

  The gas lamp in the hallway sent a golden glow across the stairs. Paddy held his breath and clutched his boots against his chest. Any moment, someone might come out, one of the brothers or priests on patrol. What would he say to them? How would he explain himself? He wasn't sure. He only knew he had to get away from St Columcille's. With Mam dead, there was no reason to stay.

  Paddy made it out into the entrance without anyone raising the alarm. He ran across the grounds, the grass wet beneath his feet. Under one of the bare-leafed oak trees, he sat and wrung the moisture from his socks before putting them back on and his boots as well.

  All the way along the dark road that led to Dublin, Paddy's mind whirled with thoughts and images. He thought of his mam, of the last time she had hugged him, of her standing at Gort waving the train goodbye, and how he would never see her again. All the things she had wanted for him didn't seem to count for anything. He thought of Honor, her cruel letters and her impossible marriage. And over and over again, MacCrae's words came back to him about the plan that God had made for him. Was all this pain and confusion a part of God's plan for him?

  By the time he reached the shop, Paddy was shivering uncontrollably. He rang the bell. An upstairs window opened and Aunt Lil peered down at him.

  ‘Oh sweet Jesus!’ she exclaimed.

  Uncle Kevin's face emerged beside her for a moment and then they both disappeared. Uncle Kevin was still in his dressing gown when he pulled the door open.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he exclaimed. ‘It's the middle of the night, boy!’

  Paddy stared at his red-faced uncle. In the background hovered Aunt Lil, her face full of anguish. She was holding a lamp and standing at the foot of the stairs, one hand to her chin and her blues eyes brimming with tears.

  Uncle Kevin followed his gaze.

  ‘Lil, you get back upstairs to bed. I'll deal with this.’ Then he turned to Paddy.

  ‘My mammy is dead,’ said Paddy.

  Uncle Kevin sighed. ‘I told the Prefect of Studies that you would come to us in the summer but that it wa
s best not to interrupt your studies. Your studies, boy. It's what your mam would have wanted.’

  ‘But you had the funeral without me!’ shouted Paddy.

  Uncle Kevin flushed even redder and then looked up and down the street. In that instant, Paddy knew he felt guilty.

  ‘You shouldn't have come here, boy. But now that you have, you'd better be coming inside. I'll take you back to school myself in the morning.’ He stepped aside, gesturing for Paddy to cross the threshold. Paddy took a step back into the street.

  ‘I can't go back to St Columcille's.’

  Uncle Kevin stared at him. ‘Don't be a fool, boy. You've got your studies to tend to, your vocation. Now come in out of the cold.’

  It was hard for Paddy to get the next words out. All the way to Dublin, the one clear thing that he had seen was the impossibility of what his uncle planned for him.

  ‘Uncle, I don't have a vocation. I don't have the calling. The other boys, some of them, they know they can be priests because they know that they've been called. Maybe another boy wouldn't mind. But it's not like that for me. I don't feel anything in my heart. It would be wrong. It wouldn't be the truth, to be a priest if God isn't in your heart. If he hasn't spoken to you.’

  ‘Ah, he'll speak to you yet, boyo. You'll hear it if you keep to your studies. You can't be doubting yourself. It's what your mother wanted, and I promised her I'd see you through.’

  ‘But Mam's dead now.’

  ‘That doesn't change anything. You're promised. Promised from when you were a baby.’

  ‘I won't go back,’ said Paddy, clenching his fists. ‘I want to go home to the Burren.’

  Uncle Kevin grew redder in the face. He grabbed Paddy by both shoulders and shook him roughly.

  ‘Now you listen to me. There's nothing to go back for, boy. Your mam is dead and buried. Your sister's husband won't be wanting you underfoot. You're promised to the church.’

  ‘I can't and I won't and you can't make me,’ shouted Paddy.

  ‘Mark my words, boy, if you dishonour this family, if you turn away from your vocation and disgrace your poor dead mother, there'll be no place for you in this house - no place for you in this family. You'll go the way of your father. He was the devil himself, the selfish lout. And you're the image of him, right down to your selfish, useless ways. You and your sister, there's no Cassidy in you - you're all Delaney.’

  ‘Don't you talk about my mother or my father. If you'd given him an ounce of kindness, he wouldn't have had to go to England and leave us behind. And you never even came yourself to tell me of Mam's death. You kept me from my mam and now you want to keep me from my sister.’

  ‘Your sister!’ shouted Uncle Kevin. ‘I should wash my hands of the pair of you. She didn't want to see you, did she now? In the family way, she is, and no husband in sight. Mother of God, I don't know what to do with the pair of you. I told Liam O'Flaherty he could have the house and her with it if he'd give the child a name, and thank God he said yes. It was the two of you that killed your poor mother, drove her to her grave. You damned Delaneys!’

  Paddy stared down at the ground. The whole world was changing shape around him.

  ‘I've done more than most men,’ shouted Uncle Kevin. ‘I've brought you to Dublin, paid for your schooling, put up with watching your ugly face across from me on enough Sundays. You've eaten my food, taken my kindness!’

  ‘Kindness!’ flung back Paddy. ‘Taken your beatings, you mean.’ He was crying with rage now. He hit out wildly and punched his uncle in the belly. Uncle Kevin gasped, then slapped Paddy hard across the face. The blow sent him reeling into the street.

  ‘Get out of my sight. I'm finished with you Delaneys. Get yourself back to school. Either you go back to St Columcille's or you take yourself into the world and never darken my door again. Never again! Do you hear me?’

  Paddy ran, his heart thumping and blood pounding at his temples. He could hear Uncle Kevin shouting after him. But if there was nothing else he was sure of, he was sure there was no turning back.

  9

  Come back early or never come

  Paddy headed to Tyrone Street, counting his way along the houses, trying to remember which was the one he'd visited at Christmas. There were no lights on anywhere in the house and the hall smelt sour as he pushed the front door open and peered into the darkness. He felt his way up the stairs, counting the doorways along the hall by touch. Shyly, he scratched on Mammy Doherty's door. There was no answer and so he tapped again, this time more loudly. He heard anxious whispering on the other side and then the door opened a crack and a thin wedge of light slipped out into the hall. Mammy Doherty held up her candle and looked out anxiously.

  ‘Mercy, child. What are you doin' here at this hour, banging on our door?’

  ‘I'm looking for John Doherty, ma'am.’

  ‘Why, it's the little priest,’ she said, holding the candle closer. ‘Did someone tell you about our John? You've come to pray for him, have you?’ She peered into Paddy's face. ‘Are you in trouble, child? Come in from the cold.’

  The big shutters on the outside of the window had been pulled shut against the night, and the room was dark but for the candlelight. Paddy could see the outline of the children's small bodies on one bed, cuddled together. On the other side of the window lay the shadowy shape of a man lying like a king on his tomb, very still in the darkness. Paddy could hear the rattle of his breath. He stared in disbelief. Was this shell of a man the same person who had shared so many poems and stories with Paddy?

  ‘He'd found work in the country, but he's come home to us for the end,’ said Mammy Doherty. She took the candle over to the bed and stood there, stroking the hair away from John's face.

  Paddy took off his cap and sat on a little stool between the bed and the fireplace. There was a small piece of turf and the remnants of an old shoe in the fire grate, smoking.

  ‘Will you pray for him, Patrick?’ asked Mammy Doherty.

  Paddy wanted to tell her he couldn't pray for anyone. He wanted to explain that his prayers were useless, that they hadn't saved his mam and they wouldn't save John Doherty either. But there was so much need and longing on the old woman's face that he knelt beside the bed and put his hands together. ‘Thy servant John for whom I implore thy mercy, health of mind and body, that loving thee with all his strength …’

  ‘No, no, Patrick. You can't be praying for his strength, you have to be praying for a happy death,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘There's no cure for him but to rest in the arms of Jesus. You pray to sweet Mary or Joseph or to St Barbara. They'll see to him.’

  Paddy nodded mutely. ‘St Barbara, patron saint of the dying, obtain for John Doherty the grace to die, like thee, in the arms of Jesus and Mary. Amen.’

  But even as the words left his mouth, Paddy felt empty. He stayed kneeling, his hands clasped together but his mind was full of roiling blackness. He knelt until his body was aching. Mammy Doherty put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘You're shivering, child. Come.’ She guided him over to the bed on the other side of the window, helped him off with his boots, and hung his wet socks on the smoky grate before sitting down in her chair again. Paddy curled up against the cluster of small children in the other bed. They smelt sour and unwashed tonight, but their breathing was soft.

  When Paddy woke, thin rays of dawn light were seeping through the shutters. The small children slept on and Mammy Doherty snored in her chair by the fire. Paddy untangled himself from the children and went to stand by John Doherty's bed. John's breath moved in and out like the rattle of old bellows.

  ‘For he comes, the human child, To the waters and the wild, With a faery, hand in hand, From a world more full of weeping than he can understand,’ whispered Paddy.

  John Doherty's lids fluttered and for a moment, Paddy thought he would come to consciousness, but then the cold grip of his illness drew the man down again. His body shuddered and the rattle of his breath resumed.

  Paddy rested his
forehead on the edge of the bed frame. He tried to make a prayer in his head - not to God but to his mother, so that she would know John Doherty when he crossed over - but the words wouldn't form.

  Suddenly, Paddy couldn't think why he'd come. There was no place for him here. Without a word, he slipped out the door and downstairs into the street. It was still early, with the first grey light settling over the city. The milkman was out in his rattling cart, heading across town to deliver milk, and down the street a lamplighter was snuffing out the lamps.

  It started to rain in thin, icy needles. Paddy stood under the statue of Dan O'Connell at the bottom of Sackville Street, sheltering from the rain. Across the road, raindrops pocked the surface of the Liffey. Paddy looked up at the sculpture, dark against the morning sky. He felt very small. For some reason, he thought of MacCrae. MacCrae would be a great man one day. Fitzgerald would be a gentleman. But what would become of him? Perhaps he'd be a carter, like John Doherty and fill his life with poetry and Guinness. But even John had a mother to nurse him at his death.

  Paddy crossed the road and stared down at the Liffey's dark surface. He could faintly see the wavering outline of himself hanging over the edge of the bridge. He imagined himself sinking into the black water, imagined all the darkness of the river swirling around him as he disappeared beneath the surface. The river would draw him to it, down into the depths, and the black water would fill his dark heart. He leant further over the parapet and felt the medal in his pocket press against the stonework. He pulled it out and stared at it glinting on the palm of his hand. He'd worked so hard for the useless thing. He closed his hands around it tightly, so tightly that the edges of the medal cut into his palm. Then he drew his hand back and flung the medal as far as he could into the Liffey. It made a tiny plink as it hit the water. A Guinness barge was floating past, its deck stacked with barrels, blocking Paddy's view. The prize was sinking in the mud at the bottom of the river, with silt and slime closing over it, and Paddy knew it was lost forever.