“You wouldn’t dare.”
Which defiance was in fact an invitation.
“You think I’m too old to do it?”
“I think I have no secrets from you at all, at all.”
I held her tightly in my arms so she couldn’t move.
“I’m a terrible wife, Dermot Michael Coyne.”
“Woman, in the last hour or so you provided excellent proof that’s not true.”
“I wear meself out worrying and fussing all day long and then at the end of the day I’m too tired for yourself.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t let you wear yourself out.”
“’Tis not your fault that I’m an obsessive bitch.” She was crying softly. “Och, Dermot love, I’m terrible sorry.”
“You’re not an obsessive bitch,” I argued. “You’re my Nuala Anne at a particularly hard time in your life cycle. It will get better.”
I believed that, mostly.
“I should get up and straighten out the room.”
“You’d just have to do it again later.”
She giggled again. “Sure you wouldn’t dare!”
I took a breast into my mouth and flicked my tongue against its nipple.
“Dermot Michael Coyne!” she gasped.
“Besides, tomorrow is Sunday and Danuta doesn’t come.”
“’Tis true.”
We were wakened very early in the morning by the Tiny Terrorist bellowing, “Glasses! Glasses!”
The little brat had learned to shout right at the monitor.
“Dermot, would you ever …”
“On my way.”
Normally she would ask.
“Da! … Where’s Ma!”
“She’s all tired out,” I said, arranging the glasses on her tiny, and quite adorable, nose.
“Aw, poor Ma!”
Nelliecoyne opened her eyes.
“She knows how to put them on herself, Da.”
“I know, but she wants to be sure that we’re still alive.”
Nellie closed her eyes. Socra Marie turned her full attention to getting her dolly dressed for Mass.
“What time is it, Dermot Michael?” Nuala said, as I slipped back into bed.
“Five-thirty. We have three hours before we have to get up.”
“We should feed the kids.”
“Nelliecoyne can do it this morning.”
“And I have to sing at Mass.”
“Woman, you do.”
“And my voice destroyed altogether.”
“No, it’s not.”
“And that awful man is coming this afternoon.”
“Maybe he’s not awful.”
“Och, Dermot, I know he is.”
“Nuala Anne McGrail, go back to sleep.”
“I don’t know whether I’m safe in this bed.”
“Probably you’re not.”
But she was. For the time being.
I have long since given up trying to account for Nuala’s behavior. For the Eucharist at Old St. Pat’s she dressed herself in a white sleeveless dress and found similar dresses for her daughters, even for “Dolly.” Each of them wore a blue ribbon as trim. Blessed Mother blue. Her son wore a blue jacket and white slacks as indeed did the boy’s father, because those were the clothes laid out for him on the neatly made marital bed. Fragrance spray had cleansed the room of all smell of sex, illicit or licit.
The four of them, Tiny Terrorist in her mother’s arms, created quite a scene as they swept in to Old St. Patrick’s Church. Heads turned as they walked up the steps and people whispered. Socra Marie waved at them. I followed along behind as security guard and spear-carrier.
We were in Easter season and the white was appropriate. Whether our romps the previous night suggested resurrection and rebirth, I did not know and I did not ask. Like the auras around us, the less I knew the better.
I was given charge of the threesome in the back of the church while she sang with the choir. Nelliecoyne knelt in solemn devotion, and sang the hymns and recited the prayers. Loudly. The Mick played with his trucks. The Tiny Terrorist roamed the pews. She smiled at strangers, climbed in and out of pews and ran around the back of the church and the vestibule, ducking in and out of places that might prove useful for hiding. I followed her out and discovered that she was already four steps up on her way to the choir loft (where the choir never performed). I carried her the rest of the way up.
“Pretty!” she announced at the view of the church from the loft.
Then, despite allegedly weak eyes, she spotted herself up with the choir in the front of the church.
“Ma!” she cried out. “Hi, Ma!”
Most of the people in the loft turned around and smiled at the pretty little imp. The priest who was preaching smiled too.
I brought her back down the stairs.
Nuala tried to blend with the choir, holding down her vocal power so as not to steal the show. Yet you couldn’t miss the sweetness and clarity of her now-well-disciplined voice, especially when the melody of the song took possession of her.
A long time ago, when we were just married, I hired Madame down at the Fine Arts Building as Nuala Anne’s coach. She had proved a quick and apt pupil, never to be an operatic soprano, but now a skillful singer of pop and standard songs—and Catholic hymns. At my insistence she quit her job at Arthur Andersen. When I remind her now that Arthur is in such deep trouble, that I saved her from all that, she waves her hand airily and announces that she was ready to quit anyway. She knows that she can’t get away with it, but, like I say, Nuala Anne is a shite-kicker.
At Communion time I assigned Nelliecoyne to watch the Mick and carried the Tiny Terrorist up to the front of the church. She flirted outrageously with the priest (who thought she was adorable), then waved to her ma.
“His, Ma!”
Nuala waved back.
After Communion the congregation was to sing the English version of the old Latin hymn, after my wife had sung it in the original and much richer Latin form.
O filii et filiae
Rex caelestis rex Gloriae
Morte surrexit hodie
Alleluia!
Et mane prima sabbati
Ad ostium monumenti
Accesserunt discipuli
Alleluia!
Et Maria Magdalene
Et jacobii et Salome
Venerunt corpus ungere
Alleluia!
In albis sedens Angelus
Praedixit mulieribus
In Galilaea est Dominus
Alleluia!
Discipulis astantibus
In medio stet Christus
Dicens pax vobis omnibus
Alleluia!
In hoc festo sanctissimo
Sic laus et jubilatio
Benedicamus Domino
Alleluia!
Herself was not only a singer but an actress. The joy of the song took possession of her body and soul as she clapped her hands with the rhythm.
“Now let’s sing it all in English,” she urged, “just like we were there on the happiest day in human history.”
Ye sons and daughters, let us sing!
The King of heaven our glorious King,
From death today rose triumphing. Alleluia!
That Easter Morn at break of day,
The faithful women went their way
To seek the tomb where Jesus lay. Alleluia!
An Angel clothed in white they see
Which sat and spoke unto the three
Your Lord has gone to Galilee. Alleluia!
That night the apostles met in fear
And Christ in their midst did appear
And said, My peace be with you here. Alleluia!
On this most holy day of days
To God your hearts and voices raise
In laud and jubilee and praise. Alleluia!
The congregation clapped, which probably it should not have done. Though maybe they were celebrating the song more than the singer. Socra Marie pounded her
little hands together enthusiastically.
“Ma sing good, Da.”
“She always does, dear.”
“And she didn’t practice hardly at all,” Nelliecoyne marveled.
One manic sexual episode would not lead herself back to her singing. She always had been ambivalent about it. Somehow it was calling too much attention to herself. She really did not have to work very hard to earn her fame. So when she went into postpartum depression after the Mick was born, music was the first thing she abandoned. Now, with the responsibility of her family, she didn’t have time for it. The first time around it was the psychosis speaking. Now she had an excuse to turn away from something that might interfere with her being a good mother.
Only a neurosis.
When she emerged from the church, the crowd cheered. Socra Marie shouted, “Ma! Ma! Ma!” and twisted to escape my arms. I put her on the ground and she ran to her mother, who scooped her up.
“Ma awesome! Totally awesome!”
Nuala, an accomplished performer, no matter what, waved her hand and smiled graciously at her admirers. I knew her well enough to know that she didn’t like it.
“Awesome! Awesome! Awesome,” our youngest chanted.
She didn’t quite know what it meant, but she liked the sound of it.
“That word is your fault, Nelliecoyne.”
The perfect six-year-old laughed.
“I might have taught her a worse one, Da.”
My wife leaned over to kiss my cheek.
“Friggin’ eejits,” she told me. “They shouldn’t clap for a singer in church!”
“Maybe they were cheering the song and not the singer.”
“Give over, Dermot Michael, that doesn’t mean a thing at all, at all.”
“Awesome, awesome,” the Tiny Terrorist insisted.
“Give over yourself. Maybe they were clapping for the Nuala behind Nuala.”
I was referring to Nuala’s version of Irish mysticism, in which there was always a reality, hiding behind the reality that appeared to our senses as in “the real mountain, the mountain behind the mountain.” Not being much of a mystic meself, ah, myself, I had no idea what she meant.
She pulled away from me and frowned.
“You mean because God raised Jesus from the dead? And ourselves too someday?”
“Didn’t someone say this was the happiest day in human history?”
“So when I sing again in church, that’s a kind of resurrection? I meant no such thing at all, at all.”
“What do I know?”
“Awesome! Awesome!”
“Hush, dear, your da already knows that he’s awesome … And Dermot Michael Coyne,” she whispered in my ear again, “you should not stare so lasciviously at me and meself singing in the holy choir.”
“I was not staring lasciviously.”
“You were so.”
“Well, at least it was respectful lasciviousness.”
We opened the door of the old Benz and arranged the brood in their car seats.
. “And you think that I rose from the dead because of last night.”
I really didn’t think that either.
“Would I ever think anything like that?”
“You would, Dermot Michael Coyne. You know too much altogether.”
“Awesome! Really awesome,” Socra Marie murmured as she drifted off to sleep.
We stopped at a bistro on Wells Street for brunch, a practice of many of the Old St. Patrick’s crowd. Nellie and Micheal dug into their French toast, I demolished a stack of pancakes with real maple syrup and whipped cream.
“Whipped cream, is it now?” Nuala remarked with a twinkle in her eye, as she toyed delicately with her bacon and scrambled eggs.
She often insisted that I devoured her with my eyes the way I lapped up whipped cream. I argued that it was her metaphor, not mine, but it was a good one.
“It was wonderful last night, Dermot Michael,” she said eyes averted. “Thank you.”
The Tiny Terrorist woke up and demanded to be put on the floor. She walked about the bistro, shaking hands with everyone like they were old friends. Of course they thought she was adorable.
“Thank YOU,” I replied.
“You deserve a better wife,” she said as she poured tea for me. We had given up coffee altogether.
“For the moment, I’ll keep the one I got.”
I heard someone tell Socra Marie that her mother was a fabulous singer. She rushed back.
“Ma fabulous!”
“Thank you, dear.” She picked up the mite and kissed her. “Don’t bother the nice people while they’re eating their breakfast.”
“Fabulous!” our daughter said proudly as she scampered around the room to bother more nice people.
“I guess I went over the waterfall,” Nuala continued our mysterious discussion, her face now suffused in a becoming blush.
“I like that metaphor,” I said, having no idea what she meant.
Before we could play the reprise of our romp, the Mick cried out, “Ma, she’s heading for the kitchen.”
Nuala sprang up, turned abruptly, and knocked over the teapot, which discharged most of its hot contents on my poor wife and her Easter dress.
“Ouch,” she cried, and dashed for the kitchen.
“We have real trouble now,” Nelliecoyne observed.
A moment later my wife emerged from the kitchen, much of her skirt dark with tea and her lips compressed in pain.
Fast-moving fellow that I am, I had managed to climb out of my chair.
“Take her,” Nuala snapped at me. “I have to see if I can save this dress.”
“I’ll help, Ma.” Nelliecoyne rose and followed her mother to the women’s washroom, accompanied by the woman of the house, who was only a year or so older than my wife.
“Can I have some more French toast, Da?” the Mick asked.
His mother would have told him that he already had enough and his eyes were bigger than his stomach.
“Sure, Mick, enjoy it while you can.”
“Ma mad,” Marie said, as we sat down.
“I think so, dear.”
“Me not spill tea.”
“I know that, dear.”
She cuddled in my arm, aware that she was in trouble but not quite sure why.
Sometime later, as I finished off the French toast that the Mick couldn’t eat, Nuala emerged from the women’s room, encased in a robe that the establishment had somehow produced. She carried the fragile white dress, soaking wet, on a hanger.
“I think we saved it,” she said, still angry.
“And you’re not badly burned?”
“Not at all, at all.”
“We put ointment on it,” Nelliecoyne confided.
“Ma love Marie?” the tiny one asked anxiously.
My wife melted. Altogether.
“Unconditionally.”
She took our energetic little child into her arms and sang the Connemara lullaby. The patrons applauded. Nuala Anne beamed and waved again.
“Unconditionally,” the Tiny Terrorist used her new word. Nelliecoyne rolled her green eyes.
I thought better of trying to resume the conversation that Socra Marie’s excursion into the kitchen had interrupted.
My wife said hardly a word as we navigated up to Southport. She was thinking through what she thought I had said after Mass.
“Well, Dermot love,” she informed me, as she carried the sleeping little terrorist up the stairs, “you’re probably right again as usual. So I’ll have to go back to practicing every day. Only fifteen minutes, mind.”
“We’ll all be there to listen.”
One of the rules of our marital discourse was that I was rarely right at all, at all, and then only when I agreed with my wife at the beginning of the discussion. Yet on this Sunday after Easter hadn’t I won an argument that I didn’t know was going on.
I SUPPOSE YOU THINK THAT THIS MEANS YOU’LL SCREW HER MORE OFTEN. The Adversary was being inappr
opriately cynical.
I take the opportunities when they come.
Inside the house, Nuala put our youngest in her crib, arranged the playroom for the other two, and warned them that when Day’s father came, they were to stay in the playroom. She opened the door for the hounds to frolic in the backyard. They immediately renewed their wrestling match, which neither ever won.
“I’m going upstairs to change,” she informed me.
“For Mr. O’Sullivan.”
“Would there be anyone else coming to visit us this afternoon?”
It would be not only a performance, it would be solemn high.
“Should I change?”
“Whatever would make you think that?”
It doesn’t matter what supernumeraries wear.
I would bide my time before the solemn high performance by reading the first segment of the manuscript that Ned Fitzpatrick had left for us. My wife argued solemnly that a century ago Ned knew about us and left it for us because he wanted us to solve the mystery.
Sure, time isn’t all that important is it now?
4
NED’S HANDWRITING, in only somewhat faded black ink, was clear as always. But the journal of the Rev. Richard James Lonigan, D.D. was impenetrable. We had to turn it over to an expert on nineteenth-century handwriting to translate it for us.
“This man is Irish?” the expert, a young mother about the age of herself, said to me skeptically. “He writes like he’s a Spaniard.”
We would learn later that Father Lonigan had studied at the University of Salamanca, which probably explained his writing style.
My brother, George the Priest, had come upon the manuscript down in the subbasement of his old rectory at Immaculate Conception parish on North Park.
“I can’t make head or tail out of it, little bro. But there might be something in it that will hold the attention of that witch to whom you’re married.”
The word “witch” was a compliment. My brother didn’t believe in psychic powers (unlike the little bishop, his sometime boss down at the Cathedral) but he did believe that Nuala was just a little scary and that despite the fact she always treated him with enormous respect She invariably addressed him as “your riverence” while the cardinal was simply Cardinal Sean and the little bishop simply Bishop Blackie.
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