Himself(40)

Shauna throws the old woman a stern look.

Mrs Cauley leans in close to Mahony and whispers loudly. ‘Of course, getting anything out of them would be like getting shit from a stone.’

Mahony watches as a line of dead priests in faint vestments take up their positions behind the altar.

Mrs Cauley grins and nudges Mahony. ‘And there’s Tadhg next to her, trying not to scratch the crack of his arse. And Jack Brophy, bless him, sitting with Bridget Doosey. God love her, she’s wearing that old collar made of dead cats.’

Mahony looks over at Bridget, who is fanning herself with a hymnbook.

‘She’ll start to smell gamey soon – just wait until the church starts heating up with all the action.’

Mahony laughs, Shauna glares, and the dead priests begin to shuffle and look off in different directions as Father Quinn steals in from the wings to bring the church to a hush.

And all the mammies start writing shopping lists in their heads and all the daddies start thinking about the comfort of the bar stools at Kerrigan’s. The old ones concentrate on staying awake and the young ones on trying to kick the arses of those in the pews in front without getting caught.

Father Quinn unfolds an oily smile. ‘This morning I invite you to reflect upon the subject of superstition. I am talking about the bad old country ways.’ He glances around the church with an incredulous look on his face. ‘I’ve started seeing things.’ He drops his voice. ‘Incredible things: owls nailed to barn doors, salt scattered in patterns, stones ranged about doorways.’

Father Quinn spreads his hands, opening his fingers. ‘We are not pagans, are we? We do not need charms and magic in this day and age. This is the year of Our Lord nineteen seventy-six. Should we fear vampires, ghouls and spectral attack?’ He looks around himself with an excited kind of expression, like he’s just won a big prize but he has to keep it secret.

Something flickers in the cave of Mrs Lavelle’s mind. A thought is sewn together in the shadows there. She moistens her lips. Teasie holds on tighter, her knuckles white on her mother’s arm.

‘Or should we rather fear the corrupting wind that blows in from our cities?’ Father Quinn looks at Mahony. ‘The wind of progress, of modernity, they say. I say it is the wind of vice, of wanton fornication and absent morality.’

In the front row Mrs Cauley farts audibly.

‘It’s all this talk of wind,’ she says under her breath.

A few children snigger.

Colour rises under Father Quinn’s collar. ‘I ask you all to join me in prayer.’

He bows his head and the congregation avert their eyes from his bald spot, which has a private nakedness about it as it nestles in his thatch of coarse greying hair.

‘Almighty and merciful Father, unite us against the trouble that has stalked uninvited into the heart of our village and bind us together in our fight against sin and darkness. Let us not invite heathen evils, old or new, into our community, our hearths and our hearts.’

The priest looks up, his gaze sweeping over the congregation to alight on Mrs Cauley. ‘Heavenly Father, forgive those who seek to resurrect old stories and promote bad histories, thereby corrupting the feeble-minded, the gullible and the ignorant.’

Mrs Cauley winks at him, sending the muscles in the priest’s jaw hopping.

‘We ask you to forgive the weak among us who have erroneously turned to dark traditions. Banish from us all spells, witchcraft, maledictions, evil eyes, diabolic infestations, possessions and ghostly curses.’

Father Quinn takes a step back and the row of dead priests open their eyes in alarm. One tries to flap him away with the sleeve of his alb.

Mrs Cauley nudges Mahony. ‘He’s getting to the point now; he looks like he’s about to pass a difficult shit.’

Father Quinn adopts the spiritually authoritative face he has perfected in the bathroom mirror. ‘Bring clarity and wisdom, Lord, to those who question the priest’s homily and who fail to take his direction, which is only ever given for their own good.’

In the front row Mrs Cauley snorts loudly.

Above Mahony’s head are the Stations of the Cross. He counts fourteen painted wooden plaques, each the size of a platter of Tadhg’s sandwiches. The pictures are numbered, so that you can follow Christ’s journey as he hauls his cross through town.

In the picture just above Mahony, Jesus is centre stage, his legs are buckling under the weight of his cross, his eyes are narrowed and his muscles are roped. There are women in long robes stretching out their hands towards him in a way that would really piss you off if you had something heavy to carry. Jesus scowls back at them with the lean countenance of a bare-knuckle fighter.

Mahony knows how it will end.

On a wide stone pillar just right of the altar is a six-foot cross with a marble Jesus nailed to it. Jesus’s eyes look up to heaven and his beard curls down.

Mahony lets the familiar tide of sound and counter-sound lap at the edges of his mind. And lulled, Mahony gets down on his knees or up onto his feet with the best of them as he is rocked in the cradle of old words and swaddled by the murmured refrains.

The bright chalice is raised and the bell rings, clear and pure through the calm air. The altar boys move lightly and the people make the sign of the cross with intimate and simple grace.

They offer each other the sign of peace, taking each other’s hands without reservation.