Whitethorn Woods (2 page)

   They had a five-year plan, they told Canon Cassidy. They were saving to buy a little shop outside Riga.

   "Maybe you'll come to see us there?" Josef said.

   "I'll look down on you and bless your work," the canon said in a matter-of-fact tone, anticipating the best in the next world.

   Sometimes Father Flynn envied him.

   The old man still lived in a world of certainties, a place where a priest was important and respected, a world where there was an answer for every question asked. In Canon Cassidy's time there had been a hundred jobs a day for a priest to do. And not enough hours to do them. The priest was wanted, expected and needed at all kinds of happenings in the lives of the parishioners. Nowadays you waited to be asked. Canon Cassidy would have gone uninvited and unannounced to every home in the parish. Father Flynn had learned to be more reticent. In modern Ireland, even a town like Rossmore, there were many who would not welcome the appearance of a Roman collar on the doorstep.

   So as Brian Flynn set out down Castle Street, he had half a dozen things planned to do. He had to meet a Polish family and arrange the baptism of their twins the following Saturday. They asked him, could the ceremony take place at the well? Father Flynn tried to control his annoyance. No, it would take place at the baptismal font in the church of St. Augustine.

   Then he went to the jail to visit a prisoner who had asked for him. Aidan Ryan was a violent man whose wife had finally broken the silence of years and admitted that he had beaten her. He showed no sorrow or remorse, he wanted to tell a rambling tale about it all being her fault, as many years ago she had sold their baby to a passerby.

   Father Flynn brought the Blessed Sacrament to an old-people's home outside Rossmore with the ridiculous name of Ferns and Heathers. The owner said it was nicer in a multicultural Ireland not to have everything called by a saint's name. They seemed pleased to see him and showed him their various gardening proj ects. Once upon a time all these homes were run by the Church, but this woman Poppy seemed to be making a very good go of it.

   Father Flynn had an old battered car to take him on his travels. He rarely used it within the town of Rossmore itself since the traffic was very bad and parking almost impossible. There were rumors that a great bypass would be built, a wide road taking the heavy trucks. Already people were in two minds about it. Some were saying that it would take the life out of the place, others claimed that it would return to Rossmore some of its old character.

   Father Flynn's next visit was to the Nolans' house.

   The Nolans were a family that he liked very much. The old man, Marty, was a lively character full of stories about the past; he talked about his late wife as if she was still here, and often told Father Flynn about the miracle cure she had once got from St. Ann's Well that gave her twenty-four years more of a good life. His son was a very decent man, he and the daughter-in-law, Clare, always seemed pleased to see him. Father Flynn had assisted the canon at their marriage some years back.

   Clare was a teacher at St. Ita's and she told the priest that the school was full of gossip about the new road that was coming to Rossmore. In fact she was asking her class to do a project on it. The extraordinary thing was that from what you heard or could work out, the road would be going right through here, through their own property.

   "Wouldn't you get great compensation if it did go through your land?" Father Flynn said admiringly. It was pleasing to see good people being rewarded in this life.

   "Oh, but, Father, we'd never let it go through
our
land," Marty Nolan said. "Not in a million years."

   Father Flynn was surprised. Usually small farmers prayed for a windfall like this. A small fortune earned by accident.

   "You see, if it came through here it would mean they'd have to tear up Whitethorn Woods," Neddy Nolan explained.

   "And that would mean getting rid of St. Ann's Well," Clare added. She didn't have to say that this was the well that had given her late mother-in-law another quarter-century of life. That fact hung there unspoken.

   Father Flynn got back into his little car with a heavy heart. This insane well was going to become yet again a divisive factor in the town. There would be still more talk about it, more analyzing its worth, claims and counterclaims. With a deep sigh he wished that the bulldozers had come in overnight and taken the well away. It would have solved a lot of problems.

   He went to call on his sister-in-law, Kitty. He tried to visit at least once a week, just to show her that she hadn't been abandoned by the whole family. Only Eddie had left her.

   Kitty was not in good form.

   "I suppose you'll want something to eat," she said ungraciously. Brian Flynn looked around the untidy kitchen with its unwashed breakfast dishes, the children's clothes on chairs and a great deal of clutter. Not a home to welcome anyone.

   "No, I'm great as I am," he said, searching for a chair to sit on.

   "You're better not to eat, I suppose, they feed you like a prize pig in all these houses you visit—it's no wonder you're putting on a bit of weight."

   Brian Flynn wondered, had Kitty always been as sour as this? He couldn't recall. Perhaps it was just the disappearance of Eddie with the sexy young Naomi that had changed her.

   "I was in with my mother," he said tentatively.

   "Had she a word to throw to you?"

   "Not many, I'm afraid, and none of them making much sense." He sounded weary.

   But he got no sympathy from Kitty. "Well, you can't expect me to weep salt tears over her, Brian. When she did have her wits, I was never good enough for her marvelous son Eddie, so let her sit and work that one out for herself. That's my view." Kitty's face was hard. She wore a stained cardigan and her hair was matted.

   For a fleeting moment, Father Flynn felt a little sympathy for his brother. If you had the choice of all the women around, which apparently Eddie had, Naomi would have been an easier and more entertaining option. But then he reminded himself of duty and children and vows, and banished the thought.

   "The mother can't manage much longer on her own, Kitty, I'm thinking of selling up her house and moving her into a home."

   "Well, I never expected anything out of that house anyway, so go ahead and do it as far as I'm concerned."

   "I'll talk to Eddie and Judy about it, see what they think," he said.

   "Judy? Oh, does her ladyship ever answer the phone over there in London?"

   "She's coming over here to Rossmore in a couple of weeks' time," Father Flynn said.

   "She needn't think she's staying here." Kitty looked around her possessively. "This is
my
house, it's all I have, I'm not letting Eddie's family have squatters' rights in it."

   "No, I don't think for a moment that she'd want to . . . to . . . um . . . put you out." He hoped his voice didn't suggest that Judy would
never
stay in a place like this.

   "So where will she stay, then? She can't stay with you and the canon."

   "No, one of the hotels, I imagine."

   "Well, Lady Judy will be able to pay for that, unlike the rest of us," Kitty sniffed.

   "I was thinking about Ferns and Heathers for our mother. I was there today, the people all seem very happy."

   "That's a Protestant home, Brian, the priest can't send his own mother to a Protestant place.
What
would people say?"

   "It's not a Protestant home, Kitty." Father Flynn was mild. "It's for people of all religions or no religions."

   "Same thing," Kitty snapped.

   "Not at all, as it happens. I was there yesterday, bringing them Holy Communion. They are opening a wing for Alzheimer's patients next week. I thought maybe if any of you would like to go and look at it . . ." He sounded as weary as he felt.

   Kitty softened.

   "You're not a bad person, Brian, not in yourself. It's a hard old life what with no one having any respect for priests anymore or anything." She meant it as a kind of sympathy, he knew this.

   "Some people do, just a little bit of respect," he said with a watery smile, getting up to leave.

   "Why do you stay in it?" she asked as she came to the door.

   "Because I joined up, signed on, whatever, and very occasionally I do something to help." He looked rueful.

   "I'm always glad to see you anyway," said the charmless Kitty Flynn, with the heavy implication that she was probably the only one in Rossmore who might be remotely glad to see him anywhere near her.

He had told Lilly Ryan that he would call and tell her how her husband, Aidan, was getting on in prison. She still loved him and often regretted that she had testified against him. But it had seemed the only thing to do, the blows had become so violent that she ended up in the hospital and she had three children.

   He didn't feel in the mood to talk to her. But since when was all this about feeling in the right mood? He drove to her little street.

   The youngest boy, Donal, was in his last year at the Brothers School. He would not be at home.

   "Aren't you a very reliable man, Father?"

   Lilly was delighted to see him. Even though he had no good news for her it was at least consoling to be considered reliable. Her kitchen was so different from the one he had just left. There were flowers on the windowsill, gleaming copper pans and pots; there was a desk in the corner where she earned a small living by making up crosswords: everything was in order.

   She had a plate of shortbread on the table.

   "I'd better not," he said regretfully. "I heard in the last place that I was as fat as a pig."

   "I bet you did not." She took no notice of him. "Anyway can't you walk it all off you in the woods above? Tell me, how was he today?"

   And with all the diplomacy that he could muster, Father Flynn tried to construct something from his meeting with Aidan Ryan that morning into a conversation that would bring even a flicker of consolation to the wife he had once beaten and now refused to see. A wife that he seriously believed had sold their eldest baby to a passerby.

   Father Flynn had looked up newspaper accounts from over twenty years ago of the time that the Ryan baby girl had been taken from a pram outside a shop in town.

   She had never been found. Alive or dead.

   Father Flynn managed to keep the conversation optimistic by delivering a string of clichés: the Lord is good, one never knew what was going to happen, the importance of taking one day at a time.

   "Do you believe in St. Ann?" Lilly asked him, suddenly breaking the mood.

   "Well, yes, I mean, of course I believe that she existed and all that . . ." he began, blustering and wondering where this was leading.

   "But do you think that she is there listening at the well?" Lilly persisted.

   "Everything is relative, Lilly, I mean, the well is a place of great piety over centuries and that in itself carries a certain charge. And of course St. Ann is in heaven and like all the saints interceding for us . . ."

   "I know, Father, I don't believe in the well either," Lilly interrupted. "But I was up there last week and, honestly, it's astonishing. In this day and age all the people coming there, it would amaze you."

   Father Flynn assembled a look of pleased amazement on his face. Not very successfully.

   "I know, Father, I felt the same as you do, once. I go up there every year, you know, around Teresa's birthday. That was my little girl, who disappeared years before you came to the parish here. Usually it's just meaningless, but somehow last week I looked at it differently. It was as if St. Ann really was listening to me. I told her all the trouble that had happened as a result of it all, and how poor Aidan had never been right since it happened. But mainly I asked her to tell me that Teresa was all right wherever she is. I could sort of bear it if I thought she was happy somewhere."

   Father Flynn looked mutely at the woman, unable to summon any helpful reaction.

   "But anyway, Father, I know people are always seeing moving statues and holy pictures that speak, and all that kind of nonsense, but there was something, Father, there really was something."

   He was still without words but nodded so that she would continue.

   "There were about twenty people there, all sort of telling their own story. A woman saying so that anyone could hear her, 'Oh, St. Ann, will you make him not grow any colder to me, let him not turn away from me any more . . .' Anyone could have heard her and known her business. But none of us were r
eally
listening. We were all thinking about ourselves. And suddenly I got this feeling that Teresa was fine, that she had a big twenty-first birthday party a couple of years ago and that she was well and happy. It was as if St. Ann was telling me not to worry anymore. Well, I
know
it's ridiculous, Father, but it did me a lot of good, and where's the harm in that?

   "I just wish that poor Aidan could have been there when she said it or thought it or transferred it to my mind or whatever she did. It would have given him such peace."

   Father Flynn escaped with a lot of protestations about the Lord moving in mysterious ways and even threw in the bit of Shakespeare about there being more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. Then he left the little house and drove to the edge of Whitethorn Woods.

   As he walked through the woods he was greeted by people walking their dogs, joggers in tracksuits getting some of the exercise he obviously needed himself, according to his sister-in-law. Women wheeled prams and he stopped to admire the babies. The canon used to say that a playful greeting of "Who have we here?" was a great get-out when you came across a child in a pram. It covered both sexes and a failing memory for names. The others would fill you in and then you could take it up from there—grand little fellow, or isn't she a fine little girl?