Turbulent Priests (Dan Starkey 3) (8 page)

I smiled and crossed to him. ‘Hello,’ I said, ‘I’m . . . I know you, don’t I?’

‘Of course you do, Dan.’

I stood before him. I glanced at Patricia. Back at him. ‘You’re . . .?’

‘Crossmaheart, Dan.’

I shook my head. ‘No . . . I . . . yes, of course . . . Father . . . Frank Flynn! Father Frank Flynn . . . God . . . sorry, yes . . . I’d no idea you were stationed here . . . yes, indeed, how’s about you? How’s the old ticker?’

Flynn set the cup and saucer on the floor and raised himself. He put his hand out. We shook. Firm grip. Warm grip. Bright eyes. He’d either had collagen treatment or he’d aged twenty years in the wrong direction.

‘I’m fine, Dan, and you?’

‘Great, just great.’

‘I saw your name down for the cottage a couple of weeks
back. I couldn’t wait to see you. I’ve never forgotten what you did for me back in Crossmaheart.’

‘I didn’t do anything.’

He turned to my wife. ‘He wrote the most wonderful article about me, Patricia. I don’t know, maybe he told you about me? Anyway, the thing is, I had a heart transplant, got a Protestant’s heart, and the local people didn’t like it. Gave me a very hard time.’

Patricia nodded. ‘I think I do remember . . .’

‘He wrote a very sympathetic piece about me in the paper. People wrote to me from all over the world, you know? Offered me support, sent presents, even sent money. I was feeling so down. So lonely. It really did me the world of good. And I always did mean to come up and thank you personally – but you know how things are, you never quite get round to it. And here you are on my little Wrathlin. Such an amazing coincidence.’

‘Indeed,’ I said. ‘Do you still enjoy an occasional whiskey, Father?’

‘I haven’t had a drink since the day I had my transplant, Dan. As you know, I emerged a new man.’

Indeed, a Paul Newman for his acting. I clearly remembered sharing a glass or three of Irish with him. It was three years past, but I tend to remember drinks I’ve had in particularly important surroundings. I remember the seven shorts before my wedding. The first and last Bacardi and Coke which nearly killed me before my first date. The can of beer I had sitting with my father in his bedroom, just after he died. Crying.

‘Oh, well,’ I said, ‘not that it matters. Prohibition seems to have returned.’

Flynn laughed. Patricia laughed with him. ‘Yes, indeed,’ he said, ‘it’s working wonderfully. You know there hasn’t been one single crime on the island since we outlawed the booze?’

‘Really?’ I said.

‘Just as it should be,’ said Patricia. ‘It seems a wonderful island. I think we’ll love it here.’

‘I’m sure you will.’

We chatted on for twenty minutes. He was good company. I walked him to his car.

I patted the bonnet. ‘The teacher, Duncan someone, came to see us earlier. He had a Land-Rover as well. Just like this.’

‘Aye, there’s half a dozen of them on the island. We got an EC grant for community development. Bought a job lot. We’ll be applying for some petrol next year.’

He laughed. I smiled.

‘You seem to have had an accident,’ I said.

‘Aye. An EC grant’s all very well, but there’s no one on the island qualified to give driving lessons. We’ve all had a few scrapes.’

‘It’s hardly a scrape.’

‘Aye, well.’

‘The Lord drives in mysterious ways, perhaps.’ He was silent for a moment. He looked up at the darkened sky. Sighed. ‘It’s a wonderful night,’ he said.

I looked with him. ‘Aye,’ I said. It was.

‘Dan,’ he said, casually, but not, ‘I know why you’re here.’

‘That’s good.’

‘I know what you’re here for.’

‘I’m here to write a book.’

‘Yes. I know you are. And you will.’

‘Good.’

‘But I know why you’re really here.’

‘Yes. You do. I’m here to write a book.’

He opened the car door and climbed in. Then he leant out again. ‘I thought if you had a while to spare tomorrow I could show you a bit of the island. Go for a bit of a dander.’

‘Sure,’ I said.

‘It’ll be good to talk, Dan. Get it out in the open.’

‘Get what out in the open?’

‘Dan . . .’ Shaking his head, he started the car. I waved him off.

Patricia was tucking Little Stevie up in bed when I went back in. ‘Nice man,’ she said, without turning.

‘Yeah.’

‘He invited me to come down to the church on Sunday.’

‘I hope you told him you would rather burn in hell.’

‘I told him I might,’ she said and, turning quickly, kissed me on the lips.

‘Why, Patricia,’ I said, ‘I’m most surprised.’

‘Well, you shouldn’t be, you fool. I do love you, even if it doesn’t always seem like it.’

‘Aw,’ I said.

9

I suffer from techno-fear. I have it bad.

It is a genuine illness. It ranks up there with vertigo and shares a small room with claustrophobia. It’s not that I dislike computers or videos or toasters. I’m no Luddite, it’s just that I can’t cope with them. I love the
idea
of them. It’s the practicalities that get to me. Sometimes I can replace a light bulb. Sort of. I mean, I can twitch it about until it fits, but you wouldn’t sit under a bulb I’d fitted, because it would get hot and fall out and singe a bald spot into your scalp. Similarly, I can wire a plug, but you’d have to watch it twenty-four hours a day to be sure it didn’t burn the house down. I’m electrically illiterate. I’ve hands like feet. Patricia’s the same. We once had to get The Man out to show us how to get a cassette out of the video recorder.

It was a foolhardy thing, then, to attempt erecting the satellite dish.

A swirly wind had blown up overnight and the delightful blue skies of the previous day were now an ominous grey. I manhandled the dish up a ladder and, perched somewhat shakily on the top step, I attempted to secure it to the cottage’s front wall using a screwdriver, a hammer and a screw. I dropped the screw thirty-three times. I dropped the hammer twice. Once on my head. Patricia watched me for a while, sniggering, but then had to go to answer a scream from inside.

An hour after I started, and still up the ladder, I became aware of a man standing at the end of the garden. I sort of half-watched him out of the corner of my eye. He just stood there, staring. For a few minutes I tried to make it look like I knew what I was doing but then I realised that he might have been there for twenty minutes and already be well aware that I was a fool. So I turned my head.

‘Morning,’ I said.

‘Morning,’ he replied. He was small. About five six. Old. About six five. He wore an elderly denim jacket, jeans and a threadbare woolly hat.

‘Bit chillier this morning,’ I said.

‘Aye,’ he replied, and kept on watching.

I made a final determined effort to secure the dish to the wall. Determined efforts and techno-fear do not mix well. I whacked my thumb with the hammer. I dropped the dish. I sealed in the scream.

‘What’re you doing?’ the man asked.

‘I’m baking a fucking cake,’ I snapped.

I dropped the hammer as well and set to sucking my thumb. He watched. After a few moments I said, ‘Sorry.’ He nodded. ‘I’m not having much luck with this.’

‘They’re not allowed,’ he said simply, and walked on.

Father Flynn arrived promptly at eleven. He parked his Land-Rover behind the Fiesta. I was shaving in the bathroom. Patricia answered the door. I heard him: ‘Locked away writing already, is he?’ Patricia, laughing: ‘Aye, burning the candle at neither end.’

I finished up, came out, shook hands. Patricia saw us to the door. Patted my bum on the way past, which was a nice touch. Flynn cast an eye over the satellite dish as we left. It was firmly affixed to the wall. What’s more, I could now get thirty-two different channels on my portable television. All of them static. Unless I met an expert, I would have to forgo the pleasures of world championship boxing. Flynn didn’t say anything about the dish.

‘You don’t mind a bit of a walk, do you?’ he said. His cheeks were flushed pink. He wore a green windcheater and trouser ensemble, with matching green wellington boots. I wore black jeans, trainers and a bomber jacket.

‘I’m game for anything,’ I said. And I was. For the first time in a long time there wasn’t even a hint of a hangover about me. Apart from my thumb, I felt on top of the world.

We turned right at the gate and continued on up the road
for about a hundred yards, then he guided me off along a muddy lane which quickly began to dip towards the coast. Before we’d progressed very far the mud had oozed up over the edge of my trainers. Flynn appeared not to notice. He strode along confidently while I slipped along uncertainly behind him. I hadn’t walked in mud since primary school.

We started out with the usual small talk, but after a while it trailed away and on the odd occasion when I managed to stay abreast of the priest I could see that his face was grimly set, his brow furrowed. He had something to say, and he was just working out how to do it.

Eventually the path ended in a thirty-foot drop to the sea. We stopped at the edge and for a few minutes we both stood staring out over the waves as they rocked and raced. The wind brought tears to my eyes.

‘Beautiful,’ said Flynn.

I nodded.

He pointed, first to the Antrim coast and then across in the direction of Scotland, although there was nothing visible in that direction. ‘Four times a day tidal pressure forces a billion tons of the Irish Sea through that gap between Torr Head over there and the Mull of Kintyre. On its way northwest it meets another current coming in the other direction and . . . whoa, then there’s trouble. They meet over there, just off Rue Point – see the lighthouse?’ I nodded. ‘The waves are so violent you can hear them a mile away. Makes you appreciate the power of God.’

I presumed this was his way into
it
, but if it was deliberate
he wasn’t taking advantage of the opening. We were silent for a few more minutes. He opened his mouth a couple of times, about to speak, then just gulped in some more air.

I returned to a well-used tack. ‘You know, Father,’ I said, ‘there aren’t many things in life can’t be summed up in a single sentence. It’s a basic rule of sub-editing.’

Flynn nodded slowly then turned to me. His eyes suddenly looked a little haunted.

‘I’ve been having visions,’ he said, simply.

I nodded.

‘I’ve been talking to God.’

I nodded again.

‘He’s told me the Messiah has been born. Here on Wrathlin.’

‘Oh,’ I said.

We began to walk along the edge of the coast. We were alone, barring rabbits. ‘They’re hares,’ Father Flynn corrected, then added, ‘You think I’m mad.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m sure they are hares.’

‘I mean . . . the Messiah.’

‘Not necessarily,’ I said.

‘It’s why you’re here, to write about me. To vilify me.’

‘Absolutely not.’

He shook his head. ‘If only you knew,’ he said.

I stopped, snagged his arm. ‘Tell me,’ I said.

‘You think I need this plastered all over the papers?’

‘I’m sure you don’t. And I don’t intend to. If you don’t want to tell me what you’re on about, fair enough, let’s get
on with our walk. But I think you do.’ I gave him my re assuring smile. It rarely works. ‘All you have to do is say the magic words.’

‘What, like, please leave me alone?’

‘No, like,
off the record
.’

He smiled. Nodded. ‘I always did like you.’

I shrugged. ‘So what about the Messiah?’

It was cold. I put my hands in my pockets. I switched the tape on. He never did say the magic words.

‘You should understand first,’ he began, ‘that I never have been particularly religious. That may seem a strange statement for a priest, but it’s the truth. Becoming a priest can sometimes be like becoming a plumber or an electrician, something you go into because it’s a secure job or because it’s something for which you have a natural aptitude. It isn’t necessarily something you have a particular love for. You learn it off by heart. That’s how I was before my operation. I was doing a job. Just a job. Then I had my illness. Then my transplant.’

‘And that made a new man of you, and alienated your flock.’

‘Yes. A new man. A man with a greater appreciation of life. Of science. Of love. But not necessarily of God.’

‘But that’s changed.’

‘Yes. Of course. It started with the sweats.’

‘A lot of things do.’

‘Really intense sweats. Seven nights in a row. Absolutely drenched, the entire bed, soaked through. I was scared. Very
scared. I thought my body was rejecting the heart. I was too scared to go to the doctor. I didn’t want to know. I thought I was dying all over again. Then on the eighth night I had this most incredible vision. The most perfect night of sleep and then this wonderful, wonderful vision.’

‘A dry dream.’

‘Dry. Comfortable. Warm.’ The words were coming quicker now; he was slightly breathless, he moved his hands a lot as we walked. ‘I was climbing stairs, old stone stairs, like in a castle. There were windows cut in the wall and every few yards I could look out over the most glorious countryside, all bathed in the most beautiful light. There was such an overwhelming feeling of peace and tranquillity.’

‘You weren’t in Crossmaheart, then.’

He laughed. ‘No. Clearly. It was like heaven. Or what I imagine heaven to be like. And then I got to the top of the stairs and there was this great wooden door and it opened before me and I entered this circular room. There was a great window at the far end of it and shutters had been pulled back to give this wonderful panoramic view over hundreds of miles. Before the window there was a sofa, and on the sofa there was a man, and that man was God.’

‘How could you tell?’

‘I just knew.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘He was small. Heavy-set. He wore a black, wide-brimmed hat. Small eyes.’

‘Sounds like Van Morrison.’

Flynn shook his head slightly. ‘He turned to me and said: “Hello, Frank, it’s good to see you,” and I knew immediately that I was with the warmest, most loving man in the universe.’