Himself(41)

‘Peace be with you.’

‘The Mass is ended, go in peace.’

Mahony is the first out of the door, disappearing round the side of the church and out into the graveyard for a smoke. The graves are dotted with bell jars full of Virgin Marys and wreaths of plastic roses. To the right the graveyard wall slopes down towards the bay and to the left there’s a clear view of the mountains.

In the far corner of the graveyard is a quiet spot, where the graves are natural and unvisited and the Celtic crosses are softened by the weather of years. Here the uncut grass is scattered with pink-tipped daisies and the dark darts of crow feathers.

Mahony throws himself down between Patrick James Carty 1901–1925 and Joseph Raftery 1880–1913. Paddy and Joe have vacated their eternal resting places and are sitting up on the church roof nudging each other and whistling at the young ones walking home. They melt laughing into the lead.

Mahony lights a cigarette and lies back, turning his face up to feel the sun before it hits another bank of clouds. With his eyes closed he hears the gulls wheeling overhead and the voices below him as they swim up through the soil.

Tell Maggie her hair still shines as red as cherries and I kiss it when she’s sleeping.

Tell Johnny Gavaghan he’s a terrible bastard and when he dies of the drink next spring, by God, I’ll be waiting for him.

Tell Paddy I did it.

Tell Agnes I never did.

Never, ever, ever.

Mahony opens his eyes to see pale faces sprouting, like pockets of mushrooms, from every crevice. The dead blossom amongst the gravestones and monuments and push up between the stone flags. They shake themselves off and weave towards him with a famished look about them, as if, given half a chance, they’d lick the salt wind off the headstones.

Bridget Doosey, who has come wandering into the graveyard to visit her mammy, jumps a full foot off the ground when Mahony sits up and smiles at her.

‘Mother of God and all the Blessed Saints, are you actually trying to kill me?’

Mahony laughs. ‘I’m having a quiet smoke for meself. Will you join me?’

She puts down her handbag and takes three cigarettes from his offered pack, tucking two up the sleeve of her cardigan. She accepts a light and strays over to a headstone across the way.

‘There’s herself. She wanted a quiet corner away from the bustle of the main drag. Mammy was a thin woman, so they could shoehorn her in just here.’

‘It’s a grand spot.’

Bridget nods. ‘We had to shave a foot off her memorial. It’s lucky she had a short name.’ She rests her backside against the edge of her mammy’s headstone. ‘Do you know, I’ve loved this woman since the day she died. We have great debates now.’

Mahony watches as the late Mother Doosey climbs up out of her grave and tries to nudge her daughter away with a faint pair of fire tongs. He takes off his jacket and spreads it on the ground next to him. ‘Come and take the weight off.’

‘Why not?’ She settles herself next to him, stretching out her short legs. She’s changed out of her overalls into a shapeless dress but has left her boots on. Mahony suspects that they might have steel toecaps.

‘So how did you manage to drag your woman into the church?’ she says.

Mahony reclines on his elbow and looks up at her, paying no attention to his peripheral vision. ‘She dragged me in. She said she had a deal with the devil.’

‘Another deal, is it?’

Ignored, the dead begin to gather and complain. Mahony makes out a hazy clump of them squawking in a nearby yew. Several stand around in the shadow of the church wringing their hands and shaking their heads.

‘Father Quinn tried to warn her off me. We’re appearing to play ball.’

‘Ah, take no notice of him, the gobshite. I’m destroyed with the effort of being nice to him and not spitting in his fecking cocoa.’

Mahony laughs and Bridget looks sideways at him. ‘He’s an ignorant man and an intolerant man. Father Jim approached things a different way. You’d be happy to make the effort for him now. Father Jim’s passing was a blow to all of us. Did you see Mary Lavelle in church today?’

Mahony nods.

‘I don’t think she’s ever really got over the death of Father Jim, or de Valera for that matter. But then she’s always been very morbid in her outlook.’

‘It sounds like she’s been causing a stir.’

Bridget shrugs. ‘It’s Teasie I feel sorry for. Yesterday Mary made her fill a hip bath from the old horse trough outside the village. Then Mary got in it and wouldn’t get out again. She said it was the safest place in the house, what with the ghosts circling the ceiling. After five hours of this, and with Teasie worried that her mother’s pharyngitis would flare, Dr McNulty visited and administered an injection.’

‘Poor Teasie.’

Bridget smiles. ‘Of course Father Quinn heard about this behaviour and went round to warn her off it.’

Old Mother Doosey rambles slowly past. She fixes Bridget with a disapproving glare and tries to polish her headstone with the corner of her apron.

Bridget screws her cigarette out on the ground. ‘Quinn is an interfering bastard; why he can’t leave people to their own notions I don’t know. Mary told him straight up that water from the old horse trough was nearly as good as that from a holy well formed by the tears of St Brigid herself.’