The Miracle Man (23 page)

The room in Limpy McGhee’s house near the Mass Rock was silent apart from the muffled snores of it’s occupant, who was hidden in his bed under a swathe of blankets, from the bottom of which his cracked black boots poked. Through the newly-cleaned windows, the corners of whose panes still held the dirt of years, the sunlight fell on the empty floor and on the hindquarters of the dog. It lay at full stretch, long face resting on its paws, vapid eyes half lidded as it regarded the scene of devastation before it. There was hardly an item of interest left in the room following Limpy’s great clearance in anticipation of hordes of the paying public. No more boxes, bottles and heaps of clothing among which to root, no discarded crusts to gobble or makeshift battlements behind which to dodge a missile. And the walls were the only perpendicular structures left against which the dog could relieve himself. In fact, nothing of interest at all. Even the persistent smell of dog urine had gone, replaced by the stench of Jeyes’ Fluid, which Mrs Healy had instructed her husband John, on pain of death, to sprinkle liberally around Limpy’s abode. This was something she had wanted to do for many a year, but in fact was only second choice after her preferred option, a hand grenade, but even she
agreed, on her better days, that this solution might be a little harsh. Now the dog hardly stirred himself all day, although when the heat rose and the smell of the disinfectant got too much for him, he would slink outside and find a place out of harm’s way where he could lie in the sun. The dog gave a low, sorrowful whine and Limpy moved to find a more comfortable position on his bed.

The somnolent atmosphere was suddenly shattered by the door bursting open and crashing against the wall. The dog leapt to his feet, teeth bared and hackles rising. Limpy gave a jump and uttered an oath. In the doorway the sunlight was partially blocked by the bulky figure of the Winter Cook, wrapped in an old brown overcoat and with a woollen hat of the same colour pulled down over her ears and sticking up at a peak on the top. Seeing her pass through the village, Pig Cully had said,

“What the hell does she not look like?”

John Breen had replied,

“That’s the latest fashion, Cully. Designer dog turd.”

As she strode across the room towards the bed, Mrs Megarrity shouted,

“McGhee, ye wee maggot! Get up out of that!”

“What the hell – ?” he groaned, surfacing from the sea of blankets.

Another stride took the Winter Cook within reach of the Miracle Man, and she grasped him by the shoulder of his grubby shirt and shook him.

“Five hundred pound, ye conniving little git! ‘Ye couldn’t ever lend me a couple of bob?’ ye said, and ‘I’m down on my luck, Lizzie. I’ll pay ye back the minute I get two pounds close enough together to count.’” She reeled off a litany of his stock phrases for extracting money from her. “Tried to keep it a secret from me, didn’t ye?”

Limpy kneaded the sleep from his eyes and then rubbed his hands through his tousled hair.

“Jasus Christ, Lizzie, ye near had the heart jumping out of me. Is that any way to come into a man’s domicile? And me trying to get the beauty sleep to look good for the pilgrims?”

“I’ll give you feckin’ pilgrims! I’ll take yer head off at the waist! Where’s the money?” She began to look around the room. “Ye can’t have drunk it all by now.”

“Five hundred pound, Lizzie? Where in the hell would I get money like that, would ye tell me?”

“Don’t play the innocent with me, John McGhee. From one of them reporters, that’s where. And ye were going to keep the whole damned lot for yerself. Ye must’ve cadged five times that amount out of me over the years. By God!” She raised her hand as if to strike him and he cowered back in the bed.

“It was only a promise, Lizzie. He’ll hardly hand it over. Ye know what them boys is like.”

“Under the mattress,” she said, grabbing the striped ticking and yanking it upwards. Limpy gave a cry and tumbled off the other side of the bed and onto the floor. With a wary eye on the Winter Cook, the dog came over and sniffed his master. Holding up the mattress with one hand, the Winter Cook poked around the underside of it with the other before dropping it again.

“Where’s the money, McGhee? What’ve ye done with it?”

“I swear, Lizzie, I’ve never seen five hundred pound in my life.”

Sweeping up the pillow from the bed, Mrs Megarrity whacked Limpy round the side of the head with it.

“Ye lying little toad! Ye’ve already been given it – by a fella called Fergus Keane. I want my share of it now! Half!”

Limpy struggled to his feet and then began to back away as his sister came round the bed towards him.

“Now Lizzie, ye know I would give ye the shirt off my back if you needed it, but – ”

“The shirt off yer back, is it? And what would I be wanting
that for, only dusters? Never mind the feckin’ shirt, give’s the money!”

She swung at him again with the pillow but missed as he stepped back smartly. The dog had moved off to a safe distance. Although he had rarely seen the Winter Cook, he knew her sort and that definitely wasn’t his sort.

“Ah, Lizzie, I wish I could. God knows, I do. But ye see – I gave it to somebody that needed it more nor me. A worthy cause, Lizzie. As God is my witness.”

Rushing forward, she grasped Limpy’s shirt front and rammed him against the wall. Her big meaty fist was raised level with Limpy’s nose and pulled back ready to deliver the conclusive point in the argument. The top of her woollen hat wobbled like a jelly.

“I’m the best worthy cause there is around here. Hand over the money, ye little twister, or I’ll give ye a bad leg even a miracle won’t fix.”

“You’re choking me, for Jasus’ sake. Lizzie I swear, I gave the money away. All of it.”

For a few seconds the Winter Cook stared at him, her look alternating between bafflement and ferocity.

“Ye – gave it away? The whole five hundred pound?”

“I swear to God, Lizzie, on our mother’s grave.”

“Ye – are ye feckin’ mad or what? Who d’ye give it to? Come on, cough up!” She shook him like a terrier shaking a rat and his dentures clattered together.

“I can’t tell ye that, Lizzie. Now let go of me, will ye?”

A fistful of fat fingers brushed the tip of Limpy’s nose.

“John McGhee, you tell me where that money went or I’ll knock ye good-looking. As God is my witness.”

“Don’t be hitting me now, Lizzie,” he whined, “I’m an old man.”

The Winter Cook’s fist pressed against his nose and moved it sideways.

“I’m going to count up to five, John, and then it’s Goodnight Irene!”

“All right, all right, I’ll tell ye, just don’t hit me.”

The Winter Cook eased the pressure on his chest and he wriggled free from her, massaging his neck where his collar had tightened round it like a noose.

“Come on then, give.”

Her brother composed himself for a moment and then gave a smile which was almost beatific.

“I gave it all to the Church,” he said. “To Father Burke. Lovely man.”

“You – what?” Mrs Megarrity bellowed.

“I thought that was only fair, seeing as how the miracle got me the money in the first place. Ye know, ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul’.” He lowered his head and looked up past his eyebrows at her, a contrite expression on his face. “Was that the wrong thing to do, Lizzie?”

“Good God Almighty, you’ve hardly been inside a chapel in yer whole life.”

“It’s never too late, darlin’.”

“Don’t you darlin’ me.”

“Well, I can tell ye one thing, this miracle has made me realise there’s people a lot worse off nor me.”

“Ye’re damned right there is. Me!” But then she regarded him for a moment and her fierce look faded a little. She said in a softer tone, “I wouldn’t have thought ye had it in ye, John McGhee. I have to admit that was a fine thing to do.” Her features momentarily clouded. “Ye wouldn’t be lying to me, would you? If I thought for a minute you were lyin’ – ”

“Lizzie, would I lie about a thing like that? I’m just glad it’s going to do some good for somebody.”

The Winter Cook put her head to one side and looked at her brother, long the black sheep of the family.

“Ye know, despite your rough ways, I always thought there was a good streak in ye.” She rummaged in her handbag and brought out a five pound note. “Here,” she said and ruffled his hair, “get yerself a wee drink. You’re a man any sister would be proud of.”

Young Patrick McAllister sat up in bed with a smile on his face and his arms around two packets of crisps, a bar of chocolate, a bag of wine gums, a packet of peanuts and a large bottle of lemonade. He looked down at the collection again and gave it a squeeze just to reassure himself that it was real. Parents were difficult to work out sometimes. Mum was always telling him not to eat sweets and things. They were bad for him. They would ruin his teeth and make him fat and he wouldn’t be able to eat his dinner – which was good for him and his teeth and wouldn’t make him fat. And sometimes Dad would tell him that too, though not as often as Mum. Now, when Mum had gone out somewhere, Dad had said he should go to bed early as he had to get up for school in the morning and had given him all this stuff although he didn’t go to bed early any other nights. Maybe all this was for keeping the secret about Dad and Miss Quinn from Mum – the time they were doing something with the furniture and Miss Quinn had got hot and had to take some clothes off. Dad had asked Patrick if he had kept the special secret because it was going to be a surprise for Mum and he had told Dad he had kept it a secret except for Mrs Megarrity and Dad had said that didn’t matter because she knew about it already and she could keep a secret too.

He looked down at the riches before him and wondered which one he should start on first and should he eat everything before he went to sleep or keep some for the morning. But if he took anything to school they would all want a share and he would get hardly any and he didn’t feel like sharing because they didn’t share and they tried to eat things secretly by
sneaking them out of their pockets and up to their mouths and chewing quietly. He lifted the chocolate bar and tore away the wrapper, revealing the thick chocolate beneath, then slowly bit into it. Next he took the cap from the lemonade bottle and had a drink of that before deciding that crisps and chocolate would make a nice mixture.

When he had eaten some of the crisps he took another swig of lemonade, looked at the packet of peanuts, made a hole in the paper and poured some into his mouth. This was better than doing homework. He had tried to tell Dad he had homework to do, but when he had been ignored he hadn’t said it again. Dad had just told him to hurry up and get to bed and make sure he went to the toilet first so he wouldn’t have to get up again. He said that it didn’t matter about Patrick brushing his teeth after he had eaten the sweets and before he went to sleep because it wouldn’t do any harm for one night, and for a few seconds Patrick worried about the army of little bugs with drills and picks that would be banging away at his teeth all night. But only for a few seconds. The chocolate bar and the crisps and the peanuts and the wine gums were rapidly being washed down by the lemonade. He burped twice and then tried a third one at a higher pitch.

He was quite important now, and that was probably why he’d got the new bike and these sweets from Dad. And another time, Mrs Megarrity had said not to tell when he saw her drinking from the little bottle that smelt like the bar and was good for her health. But she hadn’t given him any sweets, only a fierce look. Somebody at school told him that Mrs Megarrity had about a hundred kids and they would come and take you away if they didn’t like something you did. That’s why there were so many of them.

Patrick finished off one packet of crisps, had another drink of lemonade and opened the second packet. He was beginning to feel a bit full up and he pulled up his pyjama jacket and
looked at his stomach, wondering where everything was going. He put the lemonade bottle to the side of his mouth and squinted down at his stomach to see if it got bigger as he drank but it didn’t and then the drink went down the wrong way and he coughed and spluttered. He finished the crisps and peanuts, although he didn’t feel like eating much more. The chocolate bar seemed more difficult to chew now, and there was no lemonade left to wash it down so he swallowed the last of it in two big lumps that he thought were going to stick in his throat and when they came to waken him in the morning he would be dead because the chocolate had blocked his tubes and then his Dad would be sorry he had given him so much to eat and his Mother would wish she hadn’t gone out without tucking him in and kissing him goodnight. Unknown to Patrick, there was a chance that his wish would be fulfilled. At the meeting in the chapel house to discuss the Mass Rock site, Agnes had just said that the best way to get Dermot to change his mind was for them to put their proposals to him as a committee, and that they should go and see him right away, as she knew he would be at home and at a loose end.

Dermot slowly and quietly opened the door to Patrick’s room and by the light from the hallway saw his son fast asleep in the bed. Beside it on the floor lay the empty lemonade bottle and the sweet wrappers. Smiling, Dermot gathered the debris then shut the door quietly before walking back down the hall to the sitting-room, where Nancy Quinn was stretched on the couch with her skirt rucked up round her hips.

“Dead to the world,” Dermot told her. “He won’t bother us this time.”

She held her arms out for him to come to her and after they had kissed long and passionately she rubbed her nose against his and said,

“Well, what d’you think of the idea? I read it in a magazine.
‘How to spice up your love life.’ I’m sure it’ll work. And it’ll make it more – “ she craned forward again and gave a little bite at his chin, “ – exciting.”

“I don’t know, Nancy. Sounds bloody daft to me. Maybe I’ve just developed some kind of – physical problem I can do nothing about.”

“Don’t be silly, Dermot. It’s all in your mind. Trying to do it in a car. That’s enough to put anybody off. I’ve been thinking about it.”