The Miracle Man (27 page)

On offering to show the parish priest the subject of the miracle, Dippy was quickly assured that that would not be necessary. In any event, Father Burke said, any claims of miracles had to be medically examined before they could even begin to be considered. He himself would be more than happy if it were shown to be a miracle cure, as he was convinced of the power of the Mass Rock and the water that had sprung from its base. So, he would ‘phone the doctor immediately, he said, to
arrange a time for an examination to be carried out. As he crossed the hall to the telephone, Father Burke was accosted by Mrs McKay, who had been listening outside the study door whilst dusting the picture frames.

“And what does that one want, Father, if you don’t mind me asking? I wouldn’t believe a word he swore to.”

“Mrs McKay, this is a private matter! I would be grateful if you would attend to your duties in the kitchen – and shut the door behind you.”

When the housekeeper had stumped off to the kitchen and banged the door shut, Father Burke dialled Doctor Walsh’s number and after a few moments delay, the telephone was answered and he was put through.

“Good morning to you, Doctor Walsh, this is Father Burke here. I believe we may possibly have another miracle cure on our hands and I would be very grateful if you could find time to examine the person in question.”

From Doctor Walsh there was a long, weary sigh that ended in a kind of croaking groan.

“Listen, Father, despite the rubbish printed in that Northern Reporter rag the other day – with whom, incidentally I have already lodged a complaint – I do not believe that that McGhee person underwent a miracle cure.”

“Ah now, I wouldn’t be expecting you to make that kind of judgement, Doctor. That’s for the Church to decide. No, no. I would simply want you to assess the person’s current state of health.”

Doctor Walsh gave another sigh and said in a monotone,

“Indeed. And who is it this time?”

“A young man who claims to have had a complete and virtually instantaneous cure by the application of the holy water from the spring at the Mass Rock.”

“I see. And from what ailment does he claim to have been cured, might I ask?”

Father Burke cleared his throat. It was a delicate subject whatever way you approached it.

“He had, eh – tertiary syphilis, apparently.”

There was a little choking cough from the doctor.

“Tertiary – syphilis? Is that right? And who, might I ask, is the unfortunate victim of this extremely rare disease?”

“Young man by the name of Cornelius Burns, Doctor. In his twenties, I should think. D’you know him?”

“Cornelius Burns, eh? Not the fellow they call Dippy, by any chance?”

“I do believe he did refer to himself in that way. You’re

obviously familiar with the case. That’s good.”

“It is, is it? I don’t suppose you know why they call him Dippy, do you?”

“I’m afraid not, Doctor. I’ve only just made his acquaintance.”

“Well I’ll tell you why,” Doctor Walsh said, as his voice grew louder. “Because he’s not half wise. Dippy Burns could no more get tertiary syphilis than I could get pregnant. Apart from passing water, I doubt if he even knows what functions his genitals are capable of performing. He’s in my surgery at least once a week, and if you can name an illness, he’s had it. One day it’s an ingrown toe-nail, the next it’s terminal cancer. He’s had diseases of the spleen, the liver, the bladder and the brain, and only the last one comes within a mile of being probable. And sometimes – just to make it more interesting – he has two illnesses at once. He’s a walking medical textbook!” Now Doctor Walsh was shouting down the telephone. “Good God Almighty, he’s even had beri-beri and denghi fever – and he’s never been out of the county! In short, Father, the man is a raving hypochondriac, and he’s driving me round the bend with him! Would you please – please – refrain from doing the same! Goodbye!”

Father Burke was left staring at the telephone receiver after
the line had gone dead. Exactly fifteen seconds later, Dippy Burns shot out of the chapel house front door as if a pack of devils were after him and he had to support himself on a gatepost to regain his breath, proof, if proof were needed, that the emphysema he had long suspected of clogging his lungs, at last had a fatal grip on him.

Pig Cully was leaning halfway across the hardware counter in the Inisbreen Stores, admiring the contours of Peggy May’s buttocks under the tightness of her short skirt as she bent low to sort the packages and small boxes that filled the lower shelves. Further along, Frank Kilbride stood near the top of a ladder, emptying the remains of one box of screws into another, re-wrapping metal items in greaseproof paper and tidying the stock that crammed the shelves.

“And what did ye say to her then, Frank? By Jasus I would’ve given her a piece of my mind if it was me, the old bitch.”

“I told her I was only supplying what people wanted. This is a business, not a charity, I said. I don’t go round her house telling her what she should have in her cupboards.”

“Damned right, Frank. That’s what comes of working with them priests. They think they own ye. Ye wouldn’t be wanting a wee hand there, Peggy May?” He gave his little chirruping laugh. “You can decide the spot.”

“Oh, ye’d only have to wash yer hands afterwards, Mr Cully. This is dirty work, so it is.”

Pig Cully squeaked.

“That’s just what I want, Peggy May, a bit of dirty work.”

“Give over, Cully,” Frank Kilbride told him good-humouredly.

The bell tinkled, the door opened and closed and there stood Limpy in what passed for his Sunday best – an old, pinstriped brown suit, a white shirt gone grey around the neck and
a silver and maroon brocade tie stiff with age. His damp hair was slapped flat to his head. On his feet he wore a pair of heavy black shoes that in harder times he had soled with the tread from a car tyre. The slabs of rubber having regained their curvatures, when Limpy walked he seemed to rock forwards with a nodding motion. In the damp weather he left tyre tracks on the pavement.

“God bless all here,” he said, determined to consolidate his role as a symbol of living Christianity. Frank Kilbride looked round, swayed and almost fell from the ladder.

“Jasus!” Pig Cully said when he glanced from beneath his cap, and Peggy May popped her head above the counter and stared.

“Is that you, Mister McGhee?” she said.

“None other, Peggy May,” he said. “None other.” He rocked towards the counter, looking from one side to the other as though acknowledging a cheering crowd. “Mister Kilbride,” he said grandly, “give me a bottle of yer best whiskey, if ye would. Black Bush would fit the bill, I daresay.”

Pig Cully adjusted his cap upwards, the better to see the phenomenon that stood before him. “Black Bush, is it? Ye given up drinking the parafeen, McGhee?”

“Not at all, Mister Cully, not at all. I’m celebrating a windfall, as ye might say. And any of them that counts themselves friends of mine would be more than welcome to participate in the said bottle, so they would. In other words, the drinks is on me.”

Pig Cully snapped his cap peak down over his eyes again and said,

“The drink’s is on you? Ye must be wanting the bugger on tick.”

“No credit here, McGhee. You know the rules,” Frank Kilbride announced, still up the ladder, but poised to descend.

“And who asked for credit?” Limpy said and drew a huge
roll of notes from his pocket, pulled off a twenty and slapped it on the counter. “Take it out of that!”

Frank Kilbride came down the ladder at speed.

“Jee-sus, McGhee.” Pig Cully squeaked. “Ye’ve never robbed a bank, have ye? Where in the hell did ye get all that? There must be – ”

“Never you mind, Cully, never you mind,” Limpy said and then with a broad grin, “If yez must know, I sold my life story to a magazine. `Exclusive’ the man said. Wanted to give me a cheque, but I says no bloody fear. It’s cash or nothin’.”

Frank Kilbride was examining the note against the light. Peggy May said,

“Is it all right, Mr McBride?” and he nodded in surprise and went off to fetch the whiskey.

“He just came up and offered ye a bunch of money, just like that?” asked Pig Cully.

“Oh, he wanted to offer me less, but says I, `Listen here, boy, this isn’t just any old story. This here’s of – national importance.’” He nodded, pleased with the phrase. “‘You don’t get a miraculous cure every day of the week.’ So he had to up the ante.”

“Bloody hell,” was all Pig Cully could reply.

“Ye got that whole bunch of money for tellin’ your life story, Mister McGhee?” Peggy May asked.

“Indeed I did, Peggy May. That and a lot more besides.”

“Jeez-o! I wonder how much I would get for telling my life story.”

“A lot more,” Pig Cully quickly volunteered, “if ye’d some juicy bits in it. That’s where I’d come in.”

Frank Kilbride put the bottle of whiskey on the counter. He was grasping the twenty-pound note like the hand of an old friend.

“Was there anything else while you were here, Mr McGhee?”

“Oh, Mister McGhee now, is it?” Pig Cully said.

“Well, let’s see, you could throw in a handful of them cigars and I suppose I’d better take a half dozen of stout as well.”

“Shouldn’t ye be setting a more sober example to the citizenry,” Pig Cully enquired, “you being a friend of the Virgin Mary and all?”

The storekeeper said sharply,

“The man’s entitled to a drink now and again. What else can I do for you, Mr McGhee? How about a few of these cream cakes here – lovely with a cup of tea – and that would just about round off the twenty nicely.”

“You’ll get rid of them buns yet, Kilbride” Pig Cully told him. “They must’ve been there this week or more. Sure the flies has half of them ate. You get the flies for free, McGhee.”

“I’ll have you know this is a hygienic establishment,” Frank Kilbride was saying as Peggy May swiped at a gorging bluebottle and sank the back of her hand into the yellow cream.

“Ah, to hell with poverty,” Limpy said, giving a magnanimous wave of his hand. “Throw in the buns as well.”

From round the corner of the shore road a small procession appeared, Father Burke striding out at its head and all of those behind him carrying hastily-made placards proclaiming, “Stop the sacrilege”, “No Profit From God”, and “God – Yes, Mammon – No!” Mrs McKay and her sister that was married to the water bailiff followed directly behind the priest, then two nuns on holiday from Belfast, three old men who had been press-ganged on the road, two women from the Legion of Mary and six or seven children who were not paying attention and kept bumping into the people in front of them. By way of conducting those behind him, Father Burke began waving his arms and then in a wavering voice he launched into “Faith of Our Fathers” about an octave below the range of those who followed him. They joined in as best they could. In this manner
they marched towards the Inisbreen Stores, in front of which they made a ragged halt and turned to face it, still singing. With an increasingly grave look on his face, Father Burke examined the contents of both windows and then as he walked to the door he thrust his hand into the air, fingers extended upwards, in order to encourage the choir to greater efforts. Without his lead their voices subsided and they finished at the end of the next verse. This revealed the lone voice of a small boy singing a different tune which was quickly silenced by a cuff on the ear from a nun who felt that, in the absence of Father Burke, she had to exert some authority, as she was for the moment Christ’s senior representative on this particular patch of earth.

Peggy May, Pig Cully, Limpy and Frank Kilbride behind the counter had been staring through the front window at the gathering outside. When Father Burke entered, his black soutane swirling round his ankles, Pig Cully sat on the bench and seemed to retreat under his cap, Limpy smiled and edged in front of the whiskey and stout bottles, while Peggy May scuttled behind the counter again. Frank Kilbride stood with his arms folded and waited.

“Mister Kilbride.” The priest had stopped in the middle of the store.

“Father Burke.”

“Mister Kilbride, I wish to protest in the strongest possible terms about that – sacrilege – in your windows. I demand that you get rid of them forthwith.”

“I’d be more than happy if I could, Father. If you’re offering to buy them all, I could do you a good price.”

“Of course I’m not offering to buy them! I want them removed from your window immediately! They’re an affront to the Catholics of this parish.”

Peggy May was confused.

“I think the Jesus one’s got a lovely wee face. I’m buying one for our Jennifer.”

Kilbride said,

“Father, people are coming from miles around to see the miracle site at Inisbreen – instigated by Mister McGhee here and your goodself – and some of them want souvenirs to take home with them. Where’s the harm in that? They tell me that Lourdes is heaving with souvenirs.”

Father Burke was a little taken aback at a Protestant quoting Lourdes as a precedent.

“Lourdes? What’s Lourdes got to do with anything? This is Ireland, and the Church has to sanction the sale of any religious objects.”

“Are you saying you’re going to tell me what I can sell in my own shop? I think not, Father.”

The subject of the miracle kept smiling but shifted uneasily, due to the proximity of the whiskey and stout. Under his cap, Pig Cully appeared to be asleep.

Outside, the band of protesters had given up any pretence of singing and were moving around restlessly, the supervising nun scanning the group of children for signs of the bad behaviour that she knew must be there somewhere, the public display of which would bring instant opprobrium and eventual ruination on the whole Catholic Church.

“Mister Kilbride, you can’t just go putting religious articles in a shop window. It’s not something I’d normally mention, of course, but after all – you’re not even of our religious persuasion.”

The storekeeper gave a tight little smile.

“Ah, you have a monopoly on God then, do you, Father?” The priest looked a little flustered. Trust a Protestant to use a devious and specious argument like that. In other circumstances, he might well have made a good Jesuit.