Himself(47)

‘That so, his friends all come down the mountain when the weather turns but M’Kenna stays out hunting because he’s a gobshite?’

‘Because he’s a headstrong young man, yes.’

‘Aye, he’s a gobshite, so he dies running about after the hare in a snow storm.’

‘Well, William Carleton is telling us that no one quite knows what happens to the boy after we lose sight of him.’

‘And the father is beside himself, having cursed the boy to death for breaking his plough on a magic stone.’

‘No, that was the other tale we read. In this story the father remonstrates with Frank M’Kenna for putting his love of hunting over attending Sunday Mass. He warns his son of the dire effects of habitual and unchecked pleasure on his mortal soul.’

‘And then, because the son disobeys him, the father curses the son’s soul to hell that he might come back a corpse from the mountain for his defiance.’

‘He does.’

‘And they find the poor bastard when the snow thaws and bring his body back to the village strapped to the door of his own house.’

‘They do.’

‘And when the ghost of Eejit M’Kenna returns, he returns for one reason and one reason only.’

‘He does, Mahony.’

‘And that’s to tell his friends who should get his good trousers.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘No.’

‘Not how he died, or if the hare was a witch after all, or about how she got him?’

‘No.’

‘Stop the lights! That’s just like the f*ckin’ dead.’

‘So then, Desmond, the purpose of folklore is that it has no f*ckin’ purpose at all?’

Desmond takes a cigarette from Mahony; he won’t remember that he doesn’t smoke until tomorrow. He adjusts his glasses with a very serious kind of deliberation.

‘Now concentrate, Mahony. Folklore is the record of a dying civilization, romantic Ireland, the ancient untarnished imagination of the pure and noble peasant making sense of the harshness and beauty of their life and the landscape.’

Mahony hits the table, narrowly missing Lady Gregory, who sprawls open next to an empty bottle of whiskey.

‘Imagination, me hole. Who says this stuff doesn’t happen? There’s a lot of truth in folklore.’

Desmond frowns.

‘Can you not see the dead roaming about the place? What about that old fella sitting on that armchair over there?’

Desmond squints across the room. ‘That’s a commode.’

‘A commode?’

‘We got it for Mrs Cauley but she refused to use it.’

Mahony laughs. ‘I’m not surprised – there’s a priest already hatching on it.’

‘What does he look like?’

Mahony peers across the room. The dead priest sits with his head sunk to his chest, rolling his thumbs one over the other, round and round. A haggard bulk of a man, he’s the most impressive-looking priest, dead or alive, that Mahony has seen.

‘He looks like you wouldn’t mess with him.’

Desmond leans forward and whispers in Mahony’s ear. ‘It’s fitting, it came from the parochial house.’

The dead priest hunches over his dim hands, oblivious, grinding his big square jaw.

‘A priest haunting a commode.’ Mahony sways gently on the stool with an unlit fag in his smile. ‘It’s the place to be if you’ve a bit of time on your hands.’

Desmond smiles back at him. ‘You have your mother’s eyes.’

‘I do? Now, did I tell yeh who I was?’

‘You didn’t need to. I’d have known you anywhere.’

‘An’ what about me daddy? Do I look like me daddy?’

‘I’ve no answer for you there, Mahony.’

‘My daddy was anyone and no one, was he?’

Desmond looks down at his hands. ‘You were a bye-child; there wasn’t anyone that could have made her decent.’

Mahony lights his cigarette. ‘What was she like?’

‘I don’t know. She never said more than four words to me.’

It’s a soft lie, badly delivered. Mahony wonders if Desmond would have had the nerve to try it on him if they were both sober.

‘Jus’ tell me something about her.’

Desmond studies his knuckles. ‘Orla was from another world. As I said, I didn’t really know her.’





Chapter 20


May 1976


In the comfortable library of the parochial house Father Quinn wakes to a gentle parade of droplets on his nose and face. He had fallen asleep after a passable chop in front of the fire, and now, opening his eyes, he sees a playful spring bubbling up in the approximate centre of his hearthrug. Father Quinn watches it in a rapt sort of amazement, becoming aware of a strong smell of leaf mould all around him. Soon the air is thickly glazed with mist and the water is rising with a purposeful gush. When a jet of it spurts directly into his chest, knocking the breath out of his lungs, Father Quinn is galvanised into action. He leaps up from his chair and sinks to his ankles in the boggy substance of a wool-mix shagpile.

Bridget Doosey and Michael Hopper have been passing the evening peaceably in the kitchen. Michael has been flirting with the idea of applying putty to a windowpane he replaced last Thursday. It’s a pressing job. But having considered the failing light and the location of the putty in relation to himself (in the shed at the bottom of the parochial garden) he has almost decided against it. What’s more, he is enjoying the comfort of the kitchen and his current view of Bridget Doosey’s womanly proportions as she half-heartedly scours the burnt cooking pots.