by Maeve Binchy
“Take that nice warm rug, Brian. It might be cold here in the winter,” he begged.
“No, no, that rug belongs to the priest's house.” Brian struggled to be fair.
“Jaysus, you're like a pair of auld ones dividing up the assets after years of marriage,” Johnny said. Johnny had strong views about matrimony, all negative. “I don't know what all this fuss is about clerical celibacy,” he would say, shaking his head in amazement. “You're well out of it, I say. Steer far away.”
“You only say that because you haven't met the right girl,” Brian would counter.
“There is no right girl. They're all the same. When I see fellows, normal fellows, wiping sick off their shoulders, changing nappies, being tormented by things going wa-wa for hours on end, I wonder has the world as we know it gone mad?”
“Well, if we were to follow your line of thinking, Johnny, the world as we know it would die out completely because no one would procreate at all.”
“No harm either,” Johnny would mutter.
Johnny's flat on the first floor was full of exercise equipment. The only books were fitness manuals. His fridge had health drinks and there was always a bowl of fresh fruit on his windowsill. He was an easygoing, good-natured lad and very generous with his time and skills. He gave several exercise classes a week at the social center and encouraged people to run with him in the parks, Brian included.
“We'll have to get that clerical stomach off of you, Father,” he would mock. “If you're going to survive in the city you must be a much leaner lad.”
Tomasz had taught Brian some helpful phrases in Polish. He was far better at explaining the words of his language than Brian was about English, and as the weeks went on Brian found that his work was much more in the nature of a social worker than the tradition and ritual of the priesthood.
This was no bad thing. If, at the end of the day, you had helped with housing or child support, or intervened to ensure that the minimum wage was being paid, it was often a better feeling than having offered prayers to God for something that would surely never happen. If he'd had the joyful attitude of Father Tomasz he would have seen virtue and value in both approaches.
He took a train to Rossmore every week to see his mother, but as time went on she recognized him not at all. Neddy said he must have no worries, he would call Dr. Dermot instantly if anything were to happen, and in the meantime Mrs. Flynn was content living in her early girlhood and hoping that the nice young man she had met on a day trip to the Isle of Man would get in touch.
“Was that your father, Brian?” Neddy asked kindly always looking for a happy ending.
Brian knew his father had never been to the Isle of Man, but kindness was a higher law. “It was indeed,” he said and he saw Neddy's smile broaden.
Brian heard regularly from Neddy on matters such as his mother's having developed a liking for St. Ann's Well; and from his sister Judy, who had married Skunk Slattery; and sometimes from parishioners, who wrote to thank him for what he had done in the past and to update him on miracle cures for drinking husbands, reconciliations in loveless marriages, successes of once-wild children who had returned to their studies. But more usually credit for this was given to St. Ann and her mad well.
Brian learned more about Dublin in his runs with Johnny than he had ever found out anywhere else. As he paused for breath he would find little-known statues and memorials that had escaped him. He discovered too that even in this big, wealthy, shiny city, which was full of lights and bustle, there was intense loneliness. His heart went out to the young Eastern Europeans who clung to each other for company in this strange land. He learned to eat all kinds of strange, spiced foods; he made discoveries about cabbage and meatballs that flabbergasted him. Brian Flynn, who used to be a two-slices-of-meat, two-boiled-potatoes-and-carrots man, was now much more adventurous. And it was not hard to make friends.
Johnny had introduced him to Ania, who had made curtains for his flat and said she didn't want money because it was an honor to do a small service for a good Father. Brian reminded her that Our Lord had said the laborer is worthy of his hire, and Ania had told him that God was indeed good. She had met a lady doctor in a car park who had given her a job with huge money and great importance and now she felt she could do anything, be anybody that she wanted. Sometimes she came to the evenings that Brian organized where he invited various Irish personalities to talk about the country to the newly arrived residents.
Ania explained that people loved these evenings on different levels. Some were really interested in the country where they had come to live and others were hoping to meet people who would give them jobs. A lot of them were cold and lonely and relished the thought of a warm room and company. Brian built on this last reason for attendance and arranged that there should always be something to eat and an urn of tea at the ready. He even introduced a log fire, which they loved, and decorated the hall with pictures of Irish treasures or castles or beauty spots. He worried that they all worked too hard to earn money and didn't get to know the country where they had come to live.
It was on New Year's Eve that Brian met Eileen Edwards. Eileen had heard about the social center and wanted to be part of it. Gently, Brian told her it was really a drop-in and welcoming place for recently arrived immigrants. But Eileen insisted.
“I've heard you mention it at Mass, Father. I am one of your parishioners and I would like to be involved, if you see what I mean.”
Brian didn't really see what she meant. She was in her mid-twenties, a good-looking blonde with long, curly hair, well dressed in leather jackets. She lived in one of the very upmarket apartment blocks nearby. She told Brian that she was a freelance writer, but her real problem was that she had an allowance from her father, so she wasn't hungry enough to write, if he knew what she meant. Again, he didn't really know what she meant. To him it was simple: you were a writer or you weren't a writer. But then, what did he know? Here she was, a kind parishioner wanting to help. He must find her something to do.
Gradually, Eileen Edwards became part of life around Father Flynn's social center. She helped to teach English conversation classes. She was often there, pouring out the great tea urn. Always dressed as if she was going out somewhere very smart. Sometimes she let the girls in the center try on her jackets. She told them about her apartment, where she had a special closet just for shoes.
“She's slumming it, Brian, that's what she's at. She's only here looking for a bit of rough!”
“Ah, Johnny, always the hard word,” Brian said, shaking his head.
“But what else could it be, Brian? Hanging round here looking everyone up and down.”
“And has she hit on you yet?” Brian asked with interest. “I mean, she couldn't get a better example of rough than yourself. Broken nose and all.”
Johnny took no offense. He thought about it seriously. “No, she hasn't come on to me at all. She'd get short shrift if she did. No, I think it's you she fancies.”
“Me?” Brian Flynn was astounded. “A fat, middle-aged priest!”
“Of course you'd give up the whole priest business and be normal like the rest of us,” Johnny suggested.
“Normal? You? You're insane, Johnny, that's what you are.”
“I think I might be, all right,” Johnny agreed. “The only cure for insanity is a pint.”
“I don't know why you drag me on these punishing walks, then fill me up with beer again,” Brian grumbled.
“Someone's got to look after your social life before we let that lulu drag you down,” Johnny said.
Brian laughed at him. Johnny was a man who saw drama everywhere and predatory women round every corner.
But he wasn't the only one who took against Eileen Edwards. Judy Slattery, Father Flynn's sister, had taken against her too.
Judy was married to a man back in Rossmore whom everyone called Skunk, but she always addressed as Sebastian. She had found her husband through St. Ann's Well and would hear nothing against the saint or th
e so-called superstition surrounding her shrine. She was obsessed with trying to get her husband's name—which was and had always been Skunk—changed to Sebastian. Skunk had turned out to be not only the name of an offensive and smelly animal but also some horrible drug. Sebastian must not have such connections.
Sometimes her conversations with Brian could become quite sharp but Skunk Slattery was a great peacemaker.
“Will you leave the poor man alone, Judy? Isn't he only a confused cleric who doesn't know whether he's coming or going? Let him have his little rants and raves about St. Ann. It makes him feel adventurous.”
There was no Skunk around to keep the peace when Judy dropped in to see her brother in Dublin.
“What do you have that troublesome girl hanging round here for?” she asked.
“She helps. She's a volunteer.” Brian was vague.
“I'd say there isn't much she wouldn't volunteer for.” Judy was disapproving.
“Why don't you like her, Judy? She's harmless and possibly a bit lonely.”
“Hmm. I don't like the way she refers to you …’Oh, I'm teaching Brian to text-message; oh, I think Brian must learn the e-mail; oh, Brian's doing such a good job with these people.’”
“Mimicking someone is always very cruel.” Brian was cross now. “She can't help it if she speaks in a posh accent.”
“I'm not talking about her accent. I'm talking about what she says.” Judy was spoiling for a fight.
“Well, that's all true. She is teaching me how to use e-mail. She has taught me to text. All of this is very useful.” You could hear Judy's snort at the other side of the Liffey
A few days later Eileen turned up at Father Flynn's ground-floor flat.
“Hello?” he said, surprised.
“Well, I thought you sounded lonely in your e-mail.”
“My e-mail?” Brian was bewildered.
“Yes, the one you sent a couple of hours ago,” Eileen said.
“No, I didn't send any e-mail, Eileen.”
“But you did, Brian. Look…” She produced a sheet of typed paper from her handbag.
“I need my glasses,” he said.
“Then invite me in rather than leaving me to stand at the doorway.”
Unwillingly he asked her into his simple place. When Eileen saw it she screamed in horror.
“Brian, you can't live with that carpet, it's ancient!”
“I didn't notice,” he said.
“And there's not a matching chair in the place. It's like a first-year student's flat. And that lumpy, bumpy sofa. Really, Brian, you deserve better than this.” She shook her head.
“I'm fine here, thank you, Eileen,” he said and she seemed to notice the hint of resentment in his voice.
“No, I didn't mean to criticize. I just wanted you to know how valuable you are to everyone here. You should look after yourself more, give yourself a little comfort. I bet you haven't even got a proper kitchen …” Without being invited, she went into his kitchen and looked around it sadly, tutting and clucking to herself. “Look at all those uneven surfaces, look at that cold floor, that torn lino …” And before he could stop her, she had gone into his bedroom, seen his tousled bed, the clothes rail on wheels that served him as a wardrobe. The walls were covered with soccer posters hastily stuck up to cover damp or stained portions of wallpaper.
Quite.
As he loosened his collar with his finger, Brian felt very uneasy. Could there possibly be anything in what Johnny had suggested? Then he pulled himself sharply together. Eileen Edwards was a beautiful twenty-five-year-old girl, he was a fat middle-aged priest. Was he going mad thinking she might fancy him?
Eileen had got out a notebook and was beginning to make a list. Brian knew that this must be cut short immediately. “It's very kind of you, Eileen, and I know you mean well, but actually you're not helping me at all. I am blind to my surroundings really, and this carpet and this place are just fine with me. So I'll have to ask you to let me go my way.”
“But, Brian, you're shirts aren't even ironed. I mean, really.”
“They're drip-dry,” he said plaintively.
“No, they're not. They're all wrinkled and crushed. You need a nice, kind girl to do your ironing for you every week.”
“Please, Eileen.”
“It is important if you meet people, people of substance, who might help you and the center. What will they think if you turn up looking like a hooligan? Who would advance you money or support then?”
He was anxious that she should be gone. “I won't keep you anymore, Eileen, and as I say, I thank you for your interest. I will think about it all, I promise, but I couldn't have you doing my ironing for me …
Eileen gave a scream. “Me? You thought I was offering to do your ironing? Oh Lord, what an idea!”
He felt his face and neck redden. “I'm sorry, I thought you said I needed a kind girl to do it.”
“I didn't mean that Iwould do it. The center is full of girls who go out to clean houses, they'd do it quick as look at you.”
“Yes, of course. Sorry,” he mumbled.
“And I wouldn't have come round at all only that your e-mail seemed to suggest that you needed company.”
“I didn't send any e-mail, Eileen, I told you I didn't.”
“What's this, then?” And Brian Flynn found himself reading the sheet of typed paper that indeed did purport to come from him. It said that the evenings were long and lonesome and that a bit of pleasant company would never go amiss.
“What was I to think?” Eileen opened her china-blue eyes wide in puzzlement.
“I'm sorry, Eileen. I didn't write it,” he said.
“Well, it's got your name, your e-mail address.” And, true, it did say it was from Father Brian, which was his e-mail name.
“Okay, Brian, so the moment has passed,” she said, forgiving, understanding, all-knowing.
“There was no moment to pass,” he said despairingly.
She just looked down at the sheet of paper again. It was as if she rested her case.
• • •
Brian Flynn didn't sleep well that night. He examined all the possible explanations. None of them seemed reasonable or good. He said Mass the next morning and shook the hands of those who had come to pray.
“It would be wonderful if you had a Polish priest to give us a sermon sometime,” little Ania said. She and Lidia were there as usual, and Ania always spoke to Brian as she left the church. Suddenly the thought came to Brian that he would invite his friend Tomasz to preach once a month. Tomasz would love it, the people here would love him. His tired face lit up with pleasure thinking of how he would arrange it.
“Oh, and Father, Eileen was telling me you needed someone to do your ironing. It would be an honor for me—”
“No, Ania, Eileen got it wrong.”
“But she said she was in your flat last night having supper and you said your clothes looked crumpled and not like the clothes of a man who dined with gentlemen and she wondered would I—”
“No, Ania, many thanks, but no. And Eileen did not have supper in my flat last night or any night. She called with some cracked e-mail that I was meant to have written to her.”
“She says you are very good at the e-mail now, that you write her many letters.” Ania wanted to give praise where it was due.
“I have written her no letters. But, Ania, why am I shouting at you?. This is all a misunderstanding, that's all.”
“I know, Father Brian. But I will still come and iron your shirts.” The girl's gray eyes were kind and sympathetic. They were not the cold, china-blue, slightly mad eyes of Eileen.
Brian Flynn got on with his day, a heavy feeling of dread around his heart.
Tomasz was very excited by the chance of speaking to his fellow Poles. He wondered where he could stay in Dublin—everywhere seemed too expensive to him. “You could stay in my place for free,” Brian offered. “There's a lumpy sofa, but with a few cushions it should be all right.” Toma
sz thought that was a great idea and they fixed a date.
Tomasz e-mailed him a few lines in Polish saying what he was going to talk about. Brian picked it up at the Internet café, where they printed it for him. Out of interest he asked the proprietor was it possible to send an e-mail pretending to come from someone else.
“Only if you knew their password,” the man said.
This was it, then. Brian knew that nobody knew his password. So what could have happened? Had he in fact in a moment of madness really written that message to Eileen? Was he losing touch with reality?
Father Tomasz loved the old cobbled streets and tiny restaurants in Brian Flynn's part of Dublin. He had a half-pint with Johnny and a mate of his from the heart clinic, Tim. He did a tour of the center, discussed the next day's Mass and came back via a cheap Indian restaurant to Brian's place.
“It's lovely, Brian. Haven't you everything you need here?” he admired. Brian got a lump in his throat. This was what he had wanted to hear, not that he was a pitiable loser. The men sat and talked happily about Rossmore, the canon, Neddy Nolan, the new bookshop Skunk and Judy were opening and the goings-on up at the Ferns and Heathers, the resident home where the seniors always seemed to have a good time.
At midnight Brian Flynn got a text message: “No, Brian, it's too late tonight, it wouldn't be wise to come and see you. We'll meet tomorrow. Stay cheerful, try to sleep and don't contact me again like a good lamb.” It was signed, “Love, Eileen.”
Brian showed the text message to Tomasz. “The only thing is that I didn't contact her,” he said with a sad face like a bloodhound.
