‘You should come and have your dinner with us,’ Jean said, putting the heart across Magda who had never had an invitation before.
‘Dinner?’ she said, blank. Did Jean mean in the bar?
‘Come this Sunday. To us. It’ll be all right.’
The thought of having dinner with a family made her giddy. She didn’t say anything, because it seemed unreal. And another thing. Would Father Doran be properly killed by Sunday, or not? She wondered what more she could do. Criminals in them old black-and-whiters never seemed to have this difficulty. She felt close to tears. She was trying so hard to do the right thing by everyone.
‘Thank you,’ she told Jean politely. ‘I accept.’
Jean chuckled. ‘I like her,’ she told her brother, quite as if Magda was elsewhere. ‘She’s unreal. You could do hell of a sight worse, the slappers that are about.’
Chapter Seventeen
Bishop MacGrath was less of a friend than he seemed. His great wish was to have inherited a different name than the one he possessed. Wrong, he was certain, to hate one’s heritage, but wearing a name identifying a person with this or that stamp was particularly onerous. He had felt this right from being small, when his wealthy family had directed him to the priesthood. From his earliest schooldays he could remember nothing but the destiny that waited for him. The Church invited.
He sometimes wondered if his response to situations like this at the St Cosmo – priest taken ill, a doctor with dark hints on the telephone, nuns in residence wanting everything made different than the situation seemed to dictate – was nothing more than that of a bureaucrat confronted with tiresome in-tray documents brought by some irritating mail clerk. Should there not be more than this?
He alighted from his car, thinking he really ought to get the tyres seen to. And the inevitable draught at the left side of his chin while driving seemed beyond the wit of motor engineers the world over. Several times he had taken it in for checking. And now here was this new Fiat, just the same, causing him a crick in the neck. He pretended to admire the gardens at the St Cosmo Care Home for the Elderly. So much deception, so much play-acting. A bishop must seem healthy, full of wit and vigour, in charge. More political analogy? He smiled with rue and went in, the door opening immediately.
‘M’lord.’
‘Good evening, Sister. Peace upon the house.’
‘Father Doran is in the sick room. Dr Strathan is on the telephone presently, speaking to the hospital consultant.’
‘Can I see him?’
‘Please.’
Bishop MacGrath made a brief pause in the second-floor corridor to hear Sister Stephanie’s impression of the patient’s progress, then spoke with Dr Strathan in private.
‘It is serious,’ Strathan began immediately. ‘I had the cardiac consultant here half an hour since. He is gloomy, not to say as puzzled as I.’
‘Is there any doubt about the diagnosis, Doctor? Heart attack?’
‘Of some sort. We are unsure as to the cause.’
‘Are they not spontaneous?’
‘His history gives no clue. The patient’s response gives no clue. If I were less suspicious, I would say he had taken cardiac medication, but I have spoken to his usual doctor, a GP I trained with, actually. He passed Father Doran fit a six-month since.’
‘His chances?’
‘Looking less with every passing hour.’
‘Can he be sent to hospital?’
‘Admitted? I desperately want him in, but don’t want to risk shifting the man at this stage. The consultant advises we keep him until morning.’
‘Will you transfer him then?’
‘If he’s able. I’ve provisionally already arranged it for nine o’clock. Sister Stephanie will bring in two SRNs for round-the-clock nursing.’
‘Can I see him?’
‘Yes. He wants you to.’
The bishop entered the sick room, his apprehensions worsened by the array of medical instrumentation. The priest seemed to have shrunk. Bishop MacGrath had no recollection of Father Doran being so small, almost a cartoon reproduction of a figure he once knew.
Doran was awake, and asked if he could speak in private. The nurse withdrew. The doctor also went, after suggesting the stay be not more than a few minutes.
Bishop MacGrath drew the one chair up to the bedside.
‘Father Doran? I am so sorry to find you like this.’
‘It came so suddenly.’
‘I’ve spoken to Dr Strathan.’
‘I think I am worse than I was when it came on.’
‘He says you may be transferred to the hospital in the morning.’
‘If I am spared, m’lord.’
‘You shall be, James. The whole diocese is praying for your recovery.’
‘I wish you to hear my confession.’
‘Certainly. Do you wish to compose yourself first?’
‘No. I am afraid I might withdraw from the sacrament.’
Bishop MacGrath was surprised and he hesitated. ‘Do you wish to make a general confession, James, or—?’
‘I wish to confess.’
‘Do you want to speak to Dr Strathan first? I mean, if you think it might prove…’
‘More drugs, to ease the spirit?’
The prelate was disturbed by the priest’s wan smile. He took his stole from his case.
‘Ready, my son.’
‘Yes, Father.’
The bishop intoned, ‘Vent, Sancte Spiritus, repletuorum corda fidelium, et tui amoris in eis ignem accenda.’
He waited. The patient was still, his face turned away from the confessor. The prelate continued with the Oremus.
‘Your confession, James.’
‘Father, forgive me, for I have sinned. While in a position of trust, I abused a girl child in one of the Church’s establishments.’
‘Was this recently?’
‘It aroused suspicion.’
‘Did it concern this diocese?’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘It was reported to me?’
‘I do not know. I only know you spoke to me about it.’
‘I remember.’
‘And I was then moved to my present post.’
‘Yes.’
Bishop MacGrath sat in silence. The memory was as fresh in his mind as on the day it was brought to his attention. Father Doran, it was rumoured, had been noticed in circumstances verging on the improper, in some of the homes operated directly by the Church. One incident in particular had resulted – perhaps culminated was a more apt term – somehow in the death of a girl, who happened to be seriously ill from some form of protracted chest complaint. She had died suddenly.
‘Do you wish to detail the events, James?’
‘She was close to death.’
‘The girl?’ Bishop MacGrath hated this.
‘Yes. She had been under the doctor for some time, but medical calls proved too expensive.’
The prelate bit back his reflexive justification.
‘She was in a dormitory with one girl in a bed opposite.’
‘Yes?’
‘I went in the night to see her.’ Doran’s face was still turned away. ‘I was not sure what I was there for. I gave her some explanation.’
‘Explanation?’ MacGrath floundered. He actually felt irritated at the sick man.
‘Of a particular need a person sometimes had.’
‘And then?’
‘I used her.’
‘With her agreement?’
‘She stayed silent.’
‘And the other girl, the one in the other bed?’
‘Stayed silent. I thought asleep.’
‘And afterwards?’
‘I left.’
‘Was anything said, or a complaint made?’
‘She died next morning. She had fallen down the stairwell.’
‘Who found her?’
‘The nuns heard something, or they were roused, perhaps by noise. I don’t know what time.’
‘Did they call the Gardai?’
‘No. I believe, I don’t know, the nuns returned her to her bed. They took her away next morning.’
‘She was certified dead by a doctor-on-call, if I remember the report.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where were you?’
‘I had left early. I do not know why, or where to.’
‘You never reported this to me, or to Monsignor O’Brien?’
‘No, Father.’
‘Did you put in for transfer to the Rosimians, in Upton, County Cork?’
‘No, Father.’
‘Was that discussed with you in this diocese by anyone, or elsewhere?’
‘No, Father.’
‘What was the outcome?’
James Doran moved his head to see the confessor. ‘I feel interrogated, Father, instead of confessing.’
‘My apologies, James.’ The prelate was silent a few moments. His fault had been to conflate his administrative and his confessorial duties. ‘Did you know the, ah, extent of the girl’s injuries or the outcome, before you made your next confession?’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘Did you commit the sin of presumption?’ And into the priest’s silence he said, ‘You know that despair and presumption are the two most heinous sins against God, James. They confer a character on the soul. Consider, and examine your spirit.’
‘I made a general act of contrition, Father. I fear I presumed.’
‘Have you anything further to say?’
‘No, Father. Except…’
‘Except?’
‘I wonder if the girl who was supposed to be monitoring the sick girl, stationed in the bed opposite for the night, truly was asleep.’
‘What makes you think so?’
‘I’m uncertain. She remained motionless, I’m almost sure, during my…transgression.’
‘Then what changes your mind?’
‘I wonder if I recognise a face, Father.’
‘Recently?’
‘Yes.’
‘Someone here? In this diocese?’
‘Perhaps. Maybe I am wandering on account of the medication I’ve received.’
‘Have you any reason to think the matter will be raised again?’
‘I do not know, Father.’
‘Your confession is completed, James?’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘Then make a sincere act of contrition, remembering that it is a ready sorrow for all our sins, because by them we have offended so good a God, together with a firm purpose of amendment.’
The priest began his prayer almost in silence, head back on the pillow. The prelate spoke with him, ‘Domine noster Jesus…’ and then to the ‘Deinde ego te absolvo…’ of absolution. ‘Go in peace, my son.’
‘Thank you, Father.’
The bishop rose and replaced his stole in the case. He returned to sit by the priest, whose face had taken on an ashen complexion. He pressed the button and the nurse entered almost instantly.
‘I shall stay a while, if that’s all right, Nurse?’
‘Of course.’
‘Could you let Sister Stephanie know?’
‘Certainly. I’ll be a minute.’
The bishop sat. Prayer seemed somehow superfluous. There had not been many instances of this sensation in his life, when the raising of the mind and heart to God became a fantasy, a monstrous irrelevance. He examined the recumbent form of the man on the bed, hearing the faint bleeps of the monitors. Who knew what those traces signified?
One of the great enigmas of his own seminary days had been a study of the Ogdens’ The Meaning of Meaning, published so long ago now. It had proved a difficulty, directly forcing the reader into a competitive debate with himself about names given to objects, events, activities. It had been a major impediment to his faith for a while. Confrontations with his own seminary tutor had been traumatic. The sensation had just recurred while hearing James Doran’s confession, for he, bishop of the diocese, had taken the decision to transfer Father Doran to a safer position – safer being one where his errors were unknown. Whole governments had been party to this trick, and even in the Dail itself a government had wobbled because of similar deceptions worked to conceal the evils in the Church.
It was difficult. To allow the Church to be vilified by the ungodly accusers was tantamount to surrendering to the forces of evil. To do nothing was to perpetuate the sins being worked on the children in the Church’s care. To transfer the priest was justifiable, he reasoned anxiously, because it protected the Church from unjust accusers, and allowed her excellent work to continue.
Excellent, though? Justifiable, though? Unjust, though?
There had been the fire at the St Joseph’s – so many St Joseph’s Industrial Schools – where many children died in a terrible conflagration there, plus, said the laconic report, ‘one old woman.’ The Church had survived, of course.
The prelate saw the nurse re-enter. He relinquished his place to her, and she went to make a printout of the patient’s indices.
He stood by the doorway another moment, then left. He wished he could go incognito into some bar and just sit a while not speaking, and maybe watch the racing results come through from Leopardstown or Fairyhouse in County Meath. Others of his ecclesiastical rank went, so why not he?
It was seriously dark outside now. He admonished himself for impropriety. It was the duty of the confessor to erase all judgement from his mind on conclusion of the sacrament, eliminate the memory, even, of the penitent’s narrative.
He collected his coat, declined the offered tea with Sister Stephanie, and left without discussing Father Doran.
Chapter Eighteen
Magda was truly frightened by morning. All night long she tried explaining to Lucy how she wanted the priest to die immediately, then God would have the problem. Being God, she told Lucy, He would know what to do with the priest before His celestial throne. There Father Doran would stand to say what he’d done that night, and would have to tell the truth. There was no way round it, for God knew anyway who tried fibbing that, no, God, it wasn’t quite like that, let me finish, you’ve got it all wrong. God would know straight off they were lying.
By dawn, she was in doubt. Did God give you a chance to put your case? Or He could say, ‘I know everything you did, you did this, you did that, don’t try getting out of it, so here’s what’s going to happen, Hellfire for you, or maybe just Purgatory for a few venial sins.’ That’s the way she had been told it would be.
Lucy was already up there, Magda told herself. She kept feeling sad that Lucy couldn’t tell her what went on, give her some guidance. It would have been so useful.
Arriving in terror at work, she said good morning to the other cleaners. Mrs O’Hare was in early. She had three children, all, by her frank accounts, destined for trouble in later life. They were nine, eleven and fourteen, and already causing trouble. The fourteen-year-old had been caught smoking at school, and was given some penalty points, the meaning of which Magda found difficult to understand.
‘Penalty points?’
She thought it was some kind of football thing, but girls at the convent couldn’t be doing that, could they? She asked Mrs O’Hare.
‘They give the class a bad mark, silly. Don’t you know anything at all?’
‘No,’ Magda admitted, because she had already made a terrible mistake over the priest, who wasn’t even dead from the way the St Cosmo Care Home for the Elderly was behaving this morning. She felt so hopeless. Mrs O’Hare talked over the most intimate matters – not in the nuns’ hearing, of course, but never mind who else was listening as long as it wasn’t a man – with the domestics. She was particularly frank with the two laundry women who only did mornings on account of their bad feet and being as old, almost, as some of the Elderly in the place.
‘Then the whole class gets told off.’
‘Told off?’ Magda dwelt on that a moment, getting her pail and her cleaning bottles ready and placing her two
mops second after Mrs O’Hare’s mops in the rack by the sluice sink.
‘Shouted at, daftie.’
‘Who whacks them, though?’
‘Nobody.’ Mrs O’Hare stared at the girl and laughed. ‘They had to stop that after the fuss about the Magdalenes and the Christian Brothers. Don’t you even read the newspapers?’
‘No.’
‘Time you started, girl. What d’you think children would do if they started that old game again? They’d be up in arms and give as good as they got. You know what?’
‘No?’
Mrs O’Hare checked with a few glances here and there. ‘Millie – that’s my eldest – says the class lost points because two of the youngsters were necking at the back of the class in Drama. Nothing to do with the subject.’
‘That can’t be true.’
‘True as I stand here, Magda. Kids do what they want these days. You’ve seen them down Great George Street and Crane Lane.’
‘No.’
‘Well, then. Here.’ Mrs O’Hare got her mops ready, tutting at a missing spare head for the smaller one. ‘You heard what went on last night?’
‘No?’
Magda felt her heart go thump. This was it, the priest dying or telling on her and the Gardai coming once she got out of the sluice.
‘Bishop MacGrath himself came in the dark hours.’
‘The bishop?’ The very word frightened Magda.
‘He heard Father Doran’s confession.’
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ Magda moaned. He would tell on her.
‘Don’t take on, Magda. There’s precious little we can do about the poor man’s plight.’
‘What did the bishop say?’
‘How do I know? I was doing a week’s washing at home by then, wasn’t I?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Wait until you get married, girl. You’ll know what hard work really is.’
‘What will happen, Mrs O’Hare?’
‘To the priest? If he gets well enough the doctor will send him to the hospital.’
‘He will?’
Magda felt faint. If Father Doran had said his confession, he might have told the bishop anything at all, including things she had come out with while minding the priest. This was her penalty for ignorance, though she knew enough to understand that ignorance, however deep and constant, was not stupidity. Since leaving the Magdalenes, she had come round to think that her lack of understanding, even of things to do with her own self, was due mostly to poor learning, not to being thick.
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