Born & Bred (7 page)

“And well he should, but he is a little angel, my Danny. And he speaks very highly of you, too. It’s all ‘Uncle Martin said this’ and ‘Uncle Martin did that.’ It’s very good of you to take such an interest in the boy.”

“It’s my pleasure, I can assure you.”

“Well it’s still very good of you. There’s not many your age that would do that. Most of them are off chasing girls and learning to drink pints. Do you have a girlfriend?”

“I don’t,” Martin hesitated for a moment. “I think it’s best to leave all of that until after I do my exams, you know?”

“And you’re right too,” Granny gushed to put the young man at ease. “There’s plenty of time for that later. Here,” she held the plate between them. “Have another biscuit and don’t worry; I have put a few aside for Danny so you can eat as many as you like.”

“Ah thanks, Mrs. Boyle. That’s very kind of you.”

Granny nibbled her biscuit and watched Martin over the rim of her teacup but he didn’t look up.

“I’m a bit worried about Danny,” she finally announced to break the settling silence of the afternoon. “Something happened recently that has me a bit uneasy.”

“About Danny?” Martin sat forward on the edge of his chair to be closer.

“Yes. It was very strange. I was just sitting here when someone called on the telephone. I don’t get many calls that late; it was almost half-past-nine.”

Martin nodded in commiseration but not so much to cause distraction.

“‘Hello’ says I, dreading that it might be bad news—that late in the evening, you know?”

Martin remained still until she continued.

“‘Hello,’ says he. ‘It’s Father Reilly here. Is it too late to talk with Danny?’”

“What was he calling about at that hour?”

“True for you, Martin, calling like that and putting the fear across me and me having a few troubles right now. Anyways, I told him that Danny was in bed and he shouldn’t be calling this late. But he says that he and Danny had a little chat and that he was thinking about it and wanted to make sure that everything was okay. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ I asked him and then I asked him why he left it so late to call.”

She watched Martin closely and nodded at his reaction. He was nobody’s fool and she liked that.

“Anyway, he told me that he had been trying to come up with the right things to say.”

She waited again as she studied Martin’s reaction. She didn’t want to think badly of the poor young priest. She wanted to believe him. She could just picture him, sitting by the phone, twisting himself into knots. “He’s very young, you know? And he gets terrible shy around people. I usually avoid him in case he starts piddling himself.” She never told him her confession—he’d be too shocked by what she had to say.

Instead she went to Fr. Brennan, the parish priest, who was old enough to understand her motives, and wise enough to see her wisdom. She had done what she had to do and, if penance was required, she’d leave her house and her bonds to the Church—after Danny was finished with them.

Fr. Brennan always gave her absolution with a smile, and well he should. It was the least he could do for all that she and Bart had done in the service of the Lord.

They had him installed as parish priest and it wasn’t a bad parish. He made a good living out of it and he could look after his curate who, God love him, needed looking after—fresh faced from the seminary, full of Jesus and looking after the sick and the poor.

That was all very well, but, as Fr. Brennan often confided to Granny, someone had to pay the bills: mortgage and heating, the cost of wine and hosts, candles burning like they grew on trees, and all the other costs of the ritual to remember a poor man’s supper.

Bart had known Fr. Brennan since his days on the run when the priest’s family often sheltered him. Fr. Brennan often reminisced about that when he came by on Thursdays for afternoon tea.

Granny looked forward to his visits. It was good to be able to talk with someone who knew and understood. He often said that Bart and Granny had been his closest friends for years, and that they were very generous, too. Always ready to help out when a young girl had to be sent away before her shame was there for all to see. They used to send them off to England—to convents where they could leave their babies in the good care of the nuns—but they needed the fare.

She had faith in the parish priest but she wasn’t sure about the curate.

**

“Of course,” Granny continued when she returned from her thoughts. “I wouldn’t let him talk with Danny at that hour. Says I, ‘I’m the boy’s guardian and you can tell me whatever it is that you wanted to say to him.’ At first he was reluctant and said that it was a confessional matter and that he couldn’t discuss it with me. Can you believe it? And me the child’s only love in the world. Present company excepted, or course. Then I said to him: ‘You can tell me or you can tell Father Brennan.’ That put the skids under him, I can tell you,” she nodded in satisfied agreement with her own sentiment. “Then he tells me that Danny was asking him about God and why He doesn’t help his mother.”

She paused again to pour more tea but it wouldn’t warm her. Despite her best efforts the past was reaching out again like a restless ghost. She had been putting off thinking about it but now she had to face it: she was going to die and Danny was going to be left alone in the world.

“Has Danny ever mentioned any of this to you?”

Martin had been watching her, like he could sense some of the things that passed behind her impassive face. “He did, yes, but I told him not to think about stuff like that. I told him he was too young to understand, but that, in time, when he was bigger, it would all make sense to him.”

“You’re a very wise and decent young man, Martin, and I thank you for saying that to Danny.”

“You’re welcome, Mrs. Boyle, and it was no bother at all. Danny’s like a little brother to me.”

“Well I’m so glad that he has you in his corner.”

“Mrs. Boyle. Would you mind if Danny and I went out every week to see a picture? I can take him out for burgers and chips after, too, if that’s all right with you?”

“I don’t mind a bit as long as you let me pay for both of you.”

“I wasn’t asking you to do that, Mrs. Boyle.”

“I know you weren’t and that’s why I’m happy to offer.”

“Well,” Martin rose to take his leave. “In that case I’ll be very happy to accept, and this way Danny will have someone to talk with. Someone else,” he added so as not to give offence.

“Grand so,” Granny agreed as she showed him to the door. “And God bless you, Martin, for doing this.”

“It’s no bother, Mrs. Boyle. Danny and I are becoming mates, you know?”

“I do indeed,” she reached out and placed a ten-pound note in the young man’s hand. “That’s for the next time; only don’t be going for burgers on a Friday. People might start thinking we’re Protestants.”

CHAPTER 4

Fr. Reilly’s late night call had not sat well and Nora Boyle had called the Bishop about her concerns. And while they both agreed that there was nothing to worry about, he did. “I’m so glad that you told me, Mrs. Boyle,” he had said as he held the bridge of his nose between his fingers to deflect a nagging headache. “No. Not at all, Mrs. Boyle. You did the right thing and I’ll make sure that there’s nothing in it. And thanks very much again. I couldn’t function without the help of concerned people like yourself. I’ll have him in for a little chat and we’ll get to the bottom of this in no time.”

As he waited for Fr. Reilly, the Bishop sat at his desk and reviewed his appointments for the rest of the morning. He had his nephew, followed by the meeting he was dreading, but he still had time for a midmorning coffee and another quick scan of the newspapers before he had to face it all. His housekeeper brought his caffè latte, an affectation that had survived from his days in Rome when he was young and full of vigor. When he sent her over there on her pilgrimages, she took time from visiting churches to learn how to make coffee properly and now took great pride in it, buying beans from Bewley’s and grinding them herself, filling the palace with the aroma of the piazzas and the memories of warm sunny days. She was everything a man like him could want in a widow.

It was, he often reminded himself, when his mind would wander down paths he hadn’t chosen, a perfect situation. They were very fond of each and they were far too wise to do anything to complicate that. She kept his loneliness away with her endless bustling and fussing and he provided her with security and status—he baptized every one of her nieces and nephews and was godfather to more than he could remember. Mrs. Power kept all their names and birthdates and gave them to his secretary when it was time for him to send his heartfelt blessings.

His secretary was a good convent girl who had found love in the arms of a man she met when she was away at university in Belfast—her people were from up around that way. He served in the RAF and didn’t survive the War. Mrs. Mawhinney took the job with the Bishop when she was done mourning him. She liked to paint in her spare time so he sent her to Rome, too, but on a different pilgrimage. She always came home with armfuls of pictures and postcards to study and copy in her spare time.

He was, in the oddest of ways, a very contented man in a world full of misery and strife.

He scanned the headlines in
The Irish Times
, a paper he distrusted but read to keep informed. It had a long history of reporting things that, to his mind, would have been better left in the hands of those who actually steered the ship of state.

Not that he was against open dialogue and people having a say, but he had seen what could happen when moral authority ceded to populism. Europe had torn its self apart following Pied Pipers and Generalissimos. Even Ireland wasn’t immune with “the Troubles” in the North boiling up again, the old simmering sore that incited acts and reactions that were a shame to God and man.

His old friend, Seán Lemass, was remembered in the editorial and not too kindly either, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The “Contraceptive Train” had pulled into Connolly station the day before. The Irish Women’s Liberation Movement had gone to Belfast to bring back the dreaded contraband and flaunt it before the
Humanae Vitae
of all that was holy.

“What kind of women are these?” he asked Mrs. Mawhinney when she stuck her head around the door.

“They are the product of the changing times, Your Grace.”

“You’re not condoning them, are you?”

“Of course not, Your Grace, I was merely answering your question.”

“What’s the world coming to when our own women are out acting like hussies? I blame television, you know. Is there to be no end to the corruption it spreads?”

“Apparently not, Your Grace.”

The Bishop stopped fuming for a moment and tried to read her face. She was an educated woman who still took courses down at the university. And she painted. She would know something of the minds behind it all.

“How is it that we’re supposed to lead such people?”

“It was Gandhi, Your Grace, that once said: ‘There go my people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.’”

“You’re not suggesting . . . ” He couldn’t even finish the thought.

“Of course not, Your Grace. I just came in to tell you that Father Reilly is here.”

“Grand. Show him in on the hour.”

The Bishop was never sure of her but knew her to be an informed and considered woman. He’d wait until his mind was calmer and broach the subject with her later. It was good to have an ear in all camps.

He had a few moments to compose himself and rearrange his thoughts. His nephew was a good lad but he had to check, just to be sure. Bart Boyle was an old friend and a good man—the likes of which would not be seen again. They had often played a bit of golf when time permitted. It gave them a chance to consult and compare their agendas over a couple of balls of the best malt whiskey in a private room in the clubhouse.

Bart was a bit of a rogue whose private commitments to the teachings of the Church were a bit slack but publically he never put a foot wrong. And he was generous whenever the Bishop asked—with his own funds as well as the public purse.

His widow kept his generous spirit alive, often delving into her own savings and still capable of reaching the ears of cabinet ministers and the like. She wasn’t complaining about his nephew—she just thought that the Bishop should know.

He put the
Times
aside. He would scour it later for more whispers of dissent. It was essential that he be informed. That way he could help to formulate a better way of dealing with all the change the times brought. They couldn’t rely on the old ways of censure and excommunication anymore. They had enough problems getting people to come to Mass without banning them.

Not to mention they weren’t getting as many vocations as they once were. Since Vatican II priests and nuns were starting to leave the Holy Orders. It was still just a trickle but it was unheard of in his time. Yes, the Church was facing difficult times.

It was different when he was a young man in Rome and they were guided only by the word of God. Not directly, of course. God spoke clearly through his servant, Pius XI. The Bishop had once brandished the
Divini Redemptoris
as proof and still had an original copy somewhere among his papers.

He also had a copy of
Mit Brennender Sorge
, too, but he avoided rereading it. It made him feel that they had been caught between two stools and that was heresy against their “infallibility.”

His nephew entered on the hour and took his seat on the other side of the desk. He waited like a schoolboy while Mrs. Power fussed around with her tray. He declined coffee but accepted a cup of tea. He had never been to Rome, despite the Bishop’s urgings. “All roads . . . you know? Especially for a man of the cloth,” he often coaxed, but his nephew was one of the “New Breed” that wore their hair far too long, wisping out from behind their ears and falling across their forehead.

But God had called him and the Bishop wasn’t going to question His wisdom.