The Miracle Man (21 page)

The old man took a little more notice of this.

“I don’t owe nobody nothing. Go away. Us personalities have got to get our beauty sleep when we’re appearing before the public.”

“Look, ye old eejit, I’m talking about you getting some money.”

Limpy lay quiet while this momentous statement registered in his drowsy brain, and then propping himself up on one elbow he said warily,

“What do I have to do for it?” If there was a suggestion of anything that could be classed as “work”, his interest would be at an end. Anybody could get money for work, that was easy. It was getting money without working for it that was difficult.

“Clean this place up, for a start.”

“Clean it up? What the hell’s wrong with it?”

“For feck’s sake, man, I can’t even see my feet! The place is a dump.”

“Now look, Healy, I don’t come in criticising your house, do I?” The fact that what Limpy called “that hallion of a wife of yours” would not have allowed him over the threshold with a fire hose had she been ablaze, went unmentioned. “What you don’t realise is that everything here is positioned exactly, so I can put my hand on it at a moment’s notice.”

“Listen to me, McGhee. There’s money to be made here – for nothing.”

Limpy pulled himself upright in the bed. “For nothing? Why didn’t ye say that in the first place?”

“Ah, ye’re interested now, you graspin’ old bugger. Look, there’s people already coming around here to this Mass Rock and before ye know it they’ll be arriving in droves, so they will. Dermot McAllister’s going to be charging them very nicely for the privilege. So while they’re here seeing the rock, can’t they pay a bit extra to meet the very man it happened to and see his wee house? I’ll go ye halfers on the money I take for visits to your house.” He gave an exaggerated wink. “And McAllister needn’t know nothing about it.”

“Halfers? Bloody halfers? Why should I go halfers with you?”

John Healy smiled. He really had to hand it to his wife.

“Because they can’t get to your house without crossing
McAllister’s land first,” he jerked a thumb at his chest, “and I’m in charge of McAllister’s land.”

Limpy screwed up his face and glared at his neighbour.

“Ye bloody robber. You’d wrestle a ghost for a ha’penny, so you would.”

“For God’s sake, man, all ye need to do is give them a guided tour of this great establishment of yours – the drawing room, the servants quarters, the library. Money for old rope.”

Limpy’s cracked and dirty fingernails rasped on his stubbled chin.

“And ye say I’d need to clean the joint up a bit?”

“Of course, man. Ye couldn’t take people on a tour of this feckin’ place like it is. You’d lose one or two on the way round.”

“And what would ye be charging them?”

“Well, I’d say maybe – a pound. That’d be fifty pence for each of us.”

“Fifty pence, eh? And how many people would you get?”

“Jasus, I don’t know. Maybe – two hundred in a good weekend. That’d be – a hundred quid to you.”

“A – hundred quid? In two days? Man dear,” Limpy got out of the bed with an agility that belied his age, “ye’ve got yerself a deal there, Healy!” He looked around the room. “And I’d say the first thing is to do a bit of clearing up around here. Damn it to hell, you can’t be showing paying customers round a tip like this.”

Outside Limpy’s front door the pile of debris from years of indiscriminate collecting – usually without the owner’s permission – was growing steadily and included one and a half orange boxes, a stuffed bull’s head with one horn missing that had been thrown out from a butcher’s shop, an assortment of tractor and car spares, two broken hurley sticks, a number of cardboard boxes and an old toilet seat. Against the wall leant two bent brass curtain rails, although since their acquisition a decade before, his windows remained uncurtained. In order to
remove other bulky objects and after a struggle accompanied by much cursing and swearing, Limpy had dragged his battered kitchen table outside and in a fit of pique thrown it on its face, its legs pointing skyward like some wild animal that had at last been vanquished. For a moment he supported himself against the wall to catch his breath. Despite what Healy had said, this looked and felt suspiciously like work. The big black dog came round the corner of the house and stopped, eyeing his master and the junk suspiciously, as though fearing that he would be next to be thrown onto the heap.

“Ye’re never here when you’re needed, dog. All you’re good for’s eating and pissing.”

The dog lay down on the grass and watched Limpy in anticipation of some entertainment, something which had not been in short supply since he had come to live in this outsize kennel. Then John Healy came running across the field that separated his house from that of Limpy, and he was waving a newspaper.

“McGhee! Hey, McGhee! Have you seen this?” He arrived outside the house breathless, his big moon face redder than usual. Limpy emerged into the sunlight, smothered in a dusty bearskin rug. With its front legs over his shoulders, it looked as if it was carrying him. Unable to see where he was going, he fell onto the pile of junk.

“Ah – shit!” He struggled to his feet, said “What the hell are you gawping at?” to the bull’s head and kicked it viciously.

“McGhee! Look at this,” John Healy said.

“Oh, it’s you! Come when I’m nearly finished, eh? How is it, Healy, I’m doing all the bloody work and you’re getting half the money?”

“Never mind that, McGhee. There’s a bit in the Northern Reporter about you and the miracle. Free publicity, man. They’ll be streaming in.”

Limpy smiled and tossed his head.

“I knew young Fergus would do a fine job.”

“Listen I’ll read it to ye.”

And so as Limpy continued to bring further articles from the house and dump them on the grass outside, John Healy followed him back and forth, both of them stumbling over old boots, beer bottles and a mildewed curtain that had been unearthed from the bottom of a cupboard. The piece in the newspaper under Fergus Keane’s name began with a fanciful description of the miracle and its subject, John Henry McGhee, followed by two sentences about the Mass Rock and its supposed history.

“‘Father Ignatius Loyola Burke’,” John Healy read as he followed Limpy who was carrying two chamber pots, “‘a native of Dublin and one of the youngest parish priests in Ireland’ – well, we know where he got that information – ‘has taken a direct interest in the case of the Mass Rock miracle since the beginning and is strongly of the opinion that it is genuine. He says that signs of a miraculous power at work have been clear from an early stage, with medical opinion backing the miracle claim, subsequent sightings of The Apparition and the sudden appearance of a stream from beneath the Mass Rock itself. Says Father Burke, “I don’t think it’s any exaggeration to say that what we have here might in due course come to rival the phenomenon of Lourdes.” There has, however, been at least one false alarm, when a pair of crutches was found propped against the Mass Rock. A local disabled man was later questioned by police and may face charges of indecency for relieving himself in a public place.’ Would ye believe it? It was that stupid old git Wag O’Donnell.”

“Never mind him. Does it say anything about the doctor?” Limpy enquired. “He’s the man. Nobody listens to them priests.”

“I’m coming to that bit,” John Healy said, following the lines of print with his finger. “Here we are.” He cleared his
throat. “‘A doctor, who for professional reasons did not wish to be named, recognised the medical signs of a possible miracle cure. “It was really quite remarkable,”‘ he said, “the amount of functionality that had been restored to the crippled limb and virtually in an instant. I have seen many rapid cures in my lengthy medical experience, but I have to say that Mr McGhee’s is in a class of its own. It was all the more remarkable for the fact that the subject himself was unwilling to believe that he could have been the beneficiary of such a thing. I found his humility quite touching. However, after a thorough examination of the patient, I was in no doubt that an extraordinary phenomenon had taken place, the results of which would appear to be permanent.” The small village of Inisbreen nestling beside the sea and at the end of a sandy beach, has been buzzing with talk of the miracle and the subsequent events. Already, people are coming from miles around to visit the site and take away bottles of what they now refer to as holy water. While there was a guarded “No comment” from the office of the Bishop of Down and Connor, there is little doubt that the faithful, the people of Inisbreen and the local countryside, have come to their own conclusion on the Miracle of the Mass Rock.’”

Both men had stopped beside the pile of rubbish and Limpy was standing with his eyes wide open and looking into space.

“Man, that’s a class piece of writing from young Fergus Keane, if ever I heard one. Yer man Shakespeare couldn’t hardly do better nor that.”

“Shakespeare wrote plays, McGhee. He wasn’t a reporter.”

“Well he needn’t bother applying. That’s one great piece of writing. They’ll be piling in here now, so they will, to meet The Miracle Man.”

He pouted, lifted his chin up and gave a handshake of great gentility to an imaginary admirer. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, yer honour.”

“At a pound a time,” John Healy said, with a smile and a nod of satisfaction at the riches in prospect. “At a pound a time, McGhee.”

John Healy had no better means than Limpy of transporting the heap of rubbish to the traditional dumping place in the river, and even if he had done, his wife would have come up with a number of reasons to disallow it, not least of which would be that they might “catch something from that boggin’ little scoundrel or that bug hutch he lives in”. For some time, therefore, Limpy wandered back and forth from the house to the heap of junk he had gathered outside, viewing it from every angle whilst drinking from a bottle of stout. The big black dog lay by the wall, watching him come and go and awaiting developments. And after some time an idea did seem to develop in Limpy’s mind, so that he smiled and looked at the dog before giving a little skip and clapping his hands together. He almost ran into the house and after some banging and the sound of falling objects, he came hurrying out with a long knife and a great tangle of rope stiff with age and dirt.

“I have her cracked now, boy,” he said to the dog, whilst untangling the rope and straightening the kinks in it. “Ah, isn’t it marvellous the power of the human brain. Is it any wonder boys like me have reached the peak of civilisation, while the likes of you dogs are still lying about in the dirt?”

Limpy cut two lengths of rope, each about eight feet long, and tied one to each of two legs of the table which still lay top-down where he had thrown it. Then he rummaged in his junk heap and pulled out the old toilet seat. “Here we are! By God, this is going to be some machine!”

He tied the two free ends of the rope to the toilet seat, one on each side, then laid it on the ground and began to fill the underside of the table with junk from the pile. When the junk was almost the height of the upturned table legs, with some of
the objects teetering on the top, he went over to the dog and grasped its collar.

“C’mon, dog. At least once in your life you’ll work for your living.”

The reluctant dog was stood facing away from the table and the toilet seat placed over its head and onto its shoulders, forming a kind of harness. Limpy’s conveyance was ready for action.

Standing behind it and trying unsuccessfully to crack a makeshift whip, with shouts and threats Limpy managed to set the precarious sled in motion down the sloping field. Railing against the chafing yoke, the dog went this way and that, stopped and then started again under strokes from the whip and verbal abuse from its master.

“Ye useless, God-forsaken, flea-bitten old whelp! Get your arse into gear! Hup! Hup!”

And so they proceeded, Limpy running to keep up, then almost pitching forward into the rubbish as the dog came to a sudden halt and barked long and loud. At the gate onto the road, Limpy came forward to open it and had to do a quick side shuffle as, teeth bared, the dog went for his miraculous leg.

“Ye ungrateful cur! Ye’d bite the feckin’ leg that feeds ye! Too used to the soft life, that’s your problem. Back! Get back!”

With some difficulty, he urged the dog through the gate and out it went onto the main road with the impromptu conveyance dragged after it. This made for an easier passage, as there were no hillocks or clumps of rushes with which to contend, and the dog at least had to keep between the two hedges. Every so often it would stop to sniff a verge or cock its leg, only to give a yelp and a growl as Limpy’s whip caught it on the hindquarters. The charioteer, attempting to steer the table by his grip on one of its legs, strode along behind it with such an air of self-importance that he might have been acknowledging the cheers of the crowds in the Coliseum. The
pile of junk wobbled precariously but somehow managed to remain intact.

“By God, she’s a great machine altogether!” Limpy shouted. “Marvellous! I’ve been wasting my time all them years. I could’ve been a – any damned thing I wanted. Bloody hidden talents,” he shouted at the dog. “That’s what I’ve got. Hidden talents! Hup! Hup!”

The car horn that blew behind him almost had him jumping over the table.

“Would you get that bloody contraption to hell off the road, you old lunatic!” the man shouted out the car window. “Jasus, they’re not all locked up yet.”

Limpy hauled on the two rear table legs until the dog nearly throttled itself trying to pull the table. Turning, Limpy glared at the man and began,

“Listen, shortarse, I’ve just as much – “ but the driver pulled the car out and went racing past, giving one long blast on his horn as he did so. This set the dog off and it went down the road at a gallop, towards where the river almost met the road at the dumping place.

“Bloody – fascist!” Limpy roared after the car. “Feckin’ dog! Stop, damn ye!” He ran down the road after the table from which the bull’s head fell and rolled into the ditch followed by two old pans clattering onto the tarmac. The whole pile on the table wobbled and threatened to topple to the ground. When Limpy caught up with his chariot, the dog was drawing level with the opening to the river. He hit it on its outside flank with the whip.