A Mersey Mile (31 page)

She looked at his authors of fiction. Shakespeare in his entirety filled a shelf, Dickens rubbed shoulders with du Maurier, Kipling kept company with Lawrence, Eliot and Agatha Christie, while
Geoffrey Chaucer lingered next to Aristotle. Father Foley owned an original 1928
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
, published in Florence, Italy, and a small collection of Edgar Allan
Poe’s grim stories. So here was a priest with a mind broad enough to encompass and learn from just about everything. She replaced Oscar Wilde and picked up George Bernard Shaw.

Chris came back. ‘Ah, you’ve met my friends, then. A motley crew, wouldn’t you say? I doubt I’ve read half of them.’

‘A mixture,’ she agreed. ‘But at least you keep pace with what’s going on in the world. I see you’ve read about the Holocaust.’

‘Just the once, Polly. My stomach heaved and I wept buckets. Pope Pius made love to Hitler while getting as many Jews as he could out of the danger zone. He became an expert in the ways of
bribery and corruption. People thought he was on the side of the Nazis, but he wasn’t. A good man. A very good man. What I don’t accept is the fact that people knew what was happening.
Not all Germans were for Hitler, you know. But to see what one dictator can do is frightening, because the Germans themselves were defeated by him. He shouted jump, and they jumped.’

Polly sighed. ‘Well, we won.’

‘Nobody wins in war,’ he told her. ‘It’s death and destruction, more or less. It’s one human flattening another’s house and garden, but on a bigger scale. Man
is the most territorial creature on the planet. Never satisfied with his lot. See, a tiger kills when she’s hungry, but man kills because he can.’

The bringer of supper rang the doorbell. ‘Here comes trouble,’ Polly said.

‘Will we leave him where he is?’ Chris asked.

‘No. He’ll start breaking windows or kicking your door in.’

‘True. I’m glad you have the wisdom to deal with him. Keep a chair and a whip to hand at all times.’

They sat round the table. Chris poured wine and toasted the bride-to-be and her beau while Frank doled out the food. ‘God bless you both and God help Polly.’

‘Hattie Benson was in the chippy,’ Frank said. ‘And she’s found your bridesmaid. She was in the paper last Wednesday under articles for sale.’

‘Kerry Blue?’

‘Who the heck’s Kerry Blue?’ Polly asked.

‘A dog.’

‘That’s not very nice,’ the man of the house opined. ‘She’s probably quite good-looking in her own way.’

‘Still a dog, though. Anyway, she comes with a stiff brush and a metal comb, and she needs grooming daily, even on Sundays. Very curly hair, you see. Because you’re a priest and
she’s from a good Irish Catholic family, you can have her for free. Hattie answered the ad on your behalf. It’s a full Kerry, blue-black with no white patches.’

‘Is she ready?’

‘Oh yes, she’s waiting for you.’

The penny had dropped. ‘So you want a dog?’ Polly liked dogs.

Chris nodded. ‘Oh yes, I do want one. Man’s best friend, a sight better friend than your fellow here, who accuses me of cheating at poker.’

‘My Frank never lies. If he kicks somebody, there’s truth in his boots.’

Chris eyed his new female adversary. ‘So you think a priest cheats?’

‘If he says you cheat, you cheat.’

‘Love is blind.’

Polly leaned across the table. ‘If he says you cheat, you cheat,’ she repeated. ‘Just eat your chips and feel grateful. Frank may have lapsed, but he’s agreed that his
children will be raised in their mother’s faith, and he’ll even go to Mass with them.’

‘Holy Moses, a miracle.’ The cheating priest blessed himself before beginning to eat chips with his fingers.

‘Not even civilized,’ Frank commented.

‘Shut up,’ his fiancée commanded. ‘It’s his house, so he can do as he pleases. But if he cheats on you anywhere else, thump him till you’ve knocked seven
shades of daylight out of him.’

Chris burst into laughter. Theirs was a marriage made in heaven; it was also proof that God had a sense of humour, because together, these two were hilarious. ‘Ah, you’ll have a
fierce and funny marriage. Will you live above the shop? Will you work alongside this man in the shop, Polly?’

‘No idea. I want to keep the cafe going for as long as possible. They’re used to it, you see. And so much is going to be taken away from them; I haven’t the heart to add to
their troubles.’

Chris told them he’d met Billy’s Daniel the spaniel. ‘A grand young dog and a grand young boy. Billy still insists that Father Brennan’s alive.’

They discussed the idea of second sight, though Frank begged Polly not to tell the tale of the deceased Mary Murgatroyd from Rachel Street.

‘She wasn’t sighted,’ Chris said. ‘Superstitious, she was. Billy’s a different kettle altogether. He says Brennan’s thinner, working on a farm and living in a
little house with wheels. Only you can’t always tell with children, lively minds and vivid imaginations. He still dreams about his attacker, but he’s no longer afraid because the man
isn’t frightening in what Billy calls his new life. This child, you know, is different.’

‘Do you believe in second sight?’ Polly asked.

‘I do, indeed. Many’s the time I’ve come across it, and many’s the time I’ve not listened. But in the case of little Billy Blunt, I cleaned out my ears specially,
for that boy is right. Father Eugene Brennan is very much alive.’

Polly and Frank stopped chewing. They laid down knives and forks.

‘I phoned the police in a place called Buxton, and they put me on to the right people. They found – well, we know what they found, and we are just now trying to eat, so we’ll
leave the details to one side. So I questioned the Derbyshire police about the rosary. Told them I was a colleague and asked them to describe it.’

Frank swallowed. ‘And?’

‘Dark blue glass. And it’s a very small one, a child’s, the sort that gets given to a little boy at his First Holy Communion and kept as a lifelong memento. Girls usually have
white ones. Brennan’s rosary is like mine, full-sized and made of brown wooden beads. He’s been filling in for me these past seven years, and I never saw him with a child’s rosary
or with any rosary other than the wood and silver one. So I told the police that the body they found was unlikely to be Eugene Brennan. Whether they took me seriously I’ve no way of
telling.’

‘I can’t finish this food, Father,’ Polly said.

‘It’s Chris unless I have the back-to-front collar on. Billy Blunt’s grandmother had the sight. It often leaps a generation. I had to grow out of my own stubborn and
know-it-all youth before I accepted that small miracles happen daily among mortals who will never be saints. I bet the two of you every book in this room that the man is still alive. When I’m
proved right, I’ll pick something special out of your junk shop.’

Frank pushed his plate away. ‘Chris, he’s just an ordinary kid.’

‘As was St Bernadette. Most of them don’t get noticed, and many grow up and forget the gift. Some throw it away deliberately, and I understand them, I do, because it must be a burden
as much as a blessing.’

Polly stared unseeing at the table. ‘I believe you, Chris. Billy’s a good kid. He wouldn’t lie. He’s simple. I don’t mean stupid, I mean he’s not a
complicated little soul. He likes toy cars and trains and Tarzan of the Apes. He loves my brother because he was always lower down with being in the wheelchair, and Cal’s good at crashing
Dinky cars.’

Frank remained unconvinced. He wasn’t sure about God, let alone the visions of children. But the rosary certainly provided evidence, he supposed, though no one could prove that Brennan
hadn’t hung on to his childhood keepsake. ‘And they found Scotch,’ he said quietly. ‘He always drank Irish.’

Chris carried on eating, though his visitors had stopped. ‘The Blunts are still intending to sue,’ he said between mouthfuls. ‘Whether or not Brennan is found, they’ll
sue the diocese. Our three teachers who were witnesses will be giving evidence about what they saw. I could lose them, and my school will be all the poorer. Good teachers, they are. But
they’re looking to disappear into the state system, which makes me sad. Mr Davenport will give evidence, as will you, Frank.’

Frank agreed. ‘I’ll tell the truth, Chris.’

‘And so you should. You’re not eating. Why?’

‘It’s the thought of him being alive in the world,’ Polly answered for both. ‘When we were told he was dead, that knocked everybody for six, because we wanted him to pay.
But what if he hurts someone else’s child?’

‘He won’t,’ was Chris’s answer. ‘He has a new life. The way Billy put it was to say that the bad man stopped being a priest, and he’s not frightening when he
isn’t a priest. I happen to know he was from a farming family and worked the land from childhood. He’s had a renaissance, born again in his fifties, possibly labouring and living in a
caravan.’

Frank swallowed some wine. ‘You take Billy’s sight seriously.’

‘Indeed I do. As for the explanation, I can tell you now that many a young Irish lad took Holy Orders just to please his parents. I’m confessor to one who has three children, but I
don’t damn him, because it’s his own life and his own soul. We all sin.’

‘But would you forgive Brennan?’ Polly asked.

‘Ah, no. He’s beyond the reach of my feeble powers. Assaulting a minor and endangering his life was evil. The murder of a good man is the same. He is accountable under the legal
system as well as to God. I wash my hands of him. If called upon to testify, I, too, shall tell the truth.’

‘Which is?’ Frank stared at Chris.

‘That I did wrong, because I knew in my bones that he was quick to temper. Others have complained, or so I discovered recently. He should have been removed from the locum list. The Church
will be forced to compensate Billy Blunt and his family.’

‘Doesn’t that bother you?’ Polly asked.

‘Ah, not at all. The Church sins, the Church does penance. The individual and the whole body are one and the same. All answer to almighty God. And anyway, this is a celebration. Frank, you
and I should share in the degradation of your lovely fiancée.’

‘She doesn’t do threesomes,’ Frank replied with mock seriousness.

‘Then we need a fourth.’

‘For what?’ Polly’s eyebrows moved north by half an inch.

‘Something sinful.’ Chris grinned. ‘You’re not ready for poker, so it will have to be whist. For money.’

‘I don’t gamble.’

‘You do now.’ Frank went to get Cal. ‘If he’s drunk, we’ll win a fortune,’ was his parting remark.

Alone with Chris, Polly reminded him about Frank’s burning ambition. ‘He wants to find lawyers and politicians who’ll be prepared to uphold the rights of children. The
politicians will make the laws, and the lawyers will uphold them and represent kids in trouble, frightened of their parents, frightened at school, scared of not getting enough to eat.’

‘And worse. There is much, much more abuse, Polly.’

She nodded. ‘I know. So if you think of anything or anyone, let us know. That’s his dream, and it might come true. Mine won’t.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. The Turnpike March into Downing Street could be the biggest waste of time and money this century, since they won’t rebuild here for us. It’s going to be a dead zone.
This will kill people as well as buildings, because they’ve lived here their whole lives, so this is where they belong. It’s their hearts’ home. Stick them out in the back of
beyond away from town, away from Scotland Road and Paddy’s Market, and loads of older people will give up and lose the will to live.’

‘The houses are beyond saving,’ he said. ‘But the earth below them would take new ones. It’s all tied up with roads and tunnels and bloody money. And yes, priests get
angry and swear and ask God why stuff happens. We go to London. We go so they might think twice before bringing a giant hammer down on some other communities. We go because you pay the government
to look after you and they don’t give a damn.’

She agreed. ‘We go because we can. We make war because we can. No weapons, but plenty of fury. And you’re right, we are territorial. This is our territory, our road, our streets. The
enemy is taking away our territory.’

He beamed at her. ‘You’d turn the words of any man to your ends.’

‘It’s called being a woman. Our job is to confuse and confound you, even if you’re a priest. You can blame God for that as well, because who took Adam’s rib and made a
woman?’

‘That part of the Bible’s figurative,’ he protested.

‘Stop digging, Chris. You’ve made a hole big enough to bury yourself.’

He wagged a finger at her. ‘Ah, you’re well able for Frank, all right. You’ll get nothing done because you’ll be arguing. Come away now. You wash and I’ll dry.
Let’s see can we tidy up without breaking anything.’

The kitchen was smoke-stained, but Chris advised his companion that the housekeeper would see to it tomorrow. They washed the dishes without any further argument. Chris noticed that
Polly’s hands showed considerable wear, and he offered her a jar of his hand cream. ‘Don’t laugh. These hands dole out Communion, put oils of unction on the sick and baptize frail
babies. They need to be smooth and gentle. Ah, here comes our company.’

Seeing her brother in an upright position was something to which Polly had grown used, but watching him here, out of context, caused a lump to form in her throat. It was suddenly so real and so
moving. The left leg wasn’t yet properly educated, but he had been assured that it would improve. ‘Hiya, our kid,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a double whiskey and
Father’s marked cards.’

‘He’s Chris when he’s in an ordinary shirt and stuff, and he’s Ginnie when in his pinny. It’s fancy, with flowers and a frill.’

‘Ginnie the Pinny,’ Cal mused aloud.

‘I have no marked cards, young man.’

‘They’re just a bit bent through being up his cassock,’ Frank said.

Polly sat. ‘Teach me poker,’ she ordered.

‘Ladies don’t play poker,’ was Chris’s response.

Frank stared hard at his beloved. ‘That’s all right, then, because my Pol’s no lady.’

Cal agreed. ‘I brought her up well. Scotty’s no place for a lady, so I made sure she was tough.’