Unravelling Oliver(35)

I think I always knew I was going to be a priest. Of course my home life was very Catholic and that was undoubtedly a big influence, but the sacraments meant something to me. I enjoyed the rituals and, unlike most children, for me Easter was a bigger event than Christmas, the idea of the ultimate sacrifice and resurrection far more appealing than toys or Santa Claus. My father was pleased that I took such an interest in church matters, and encouraged it. Mum was less happy about it. I think she would have liked me to settle down with a girl and produce a brood of grandchildren. She tried to dissuade me from my chosen course. It was the source of a rare argument between my parents.

I dated some girls and experimented sexually, but it felt somehow like a betrayal of my faith, a rude distraction from what I knew was going to be my path. The word ‘vocation’ is often used as something mystical; you hear of ‘messages from God’ or lightning bolts or a simple ‘feeling’, but my decision to join the seminary was based on something far more prosaic. The fact was that I didn’t really want to do anything else. I wanted to work in a parish, to help and to serve a congregation, celebrate Mass, administer last rites. I had been volunteering in my church since I was a boy, and the priests there were men I looked up to and admired. Contrary to popular belief, I am neither scared of nor insecure around women. I enjoy their company enormously. I just have no need of a wife or children. Nor am I gay, as my mother speculated. I am happy to be celibate. Dad was absolutely delighted when I told him I wanted to join the seminary. Nothing, he said, could have made him prouder.

A few years later, when I was in the seminary, I found a photograph of Oliver Ryan in the newspaper. He was a publishing ‘sensation’. I recalled that he was a Ryan cousin but he was now going by the name of Vincent Dax. I mentioned it to my father when he next visited and asked him to explain the relationship that he hadn’t been able to explain to a small boy. Dad was still clearly uncomfortable with the subject. He told me that Oliver’s mother had been a woman of ‘ill repute’. I questioned the Ryan connection; it must have been Oliver’s father who was related to us, surely? Dad looked away and said that Oliver’s father had died young of tuberculosis. I knew that he was lying to me. I suspected that if Oliver’s mother had been a prostitute, perhaps his father had died of syphilis or some other sexually transmitted disease, and that my father wanted to hide the details. Seeing his unease, I moved the conversation along and asserted that at least it was good to have a famous author in the family. Dad actually flinched and suggested that if I wanted a successful career in the church hierarchy, it would not do to associate myself with a family scandal. I could see his point.

Still, as Vincent Dax’s notoriety grew, I followed the media coverage of his success. I even bought one of his books. It was very good indeed. So I was quietly proud of my cousin, but kept our relationship to myself.

On the day of my ordination, nobody was happier than my father. I was very glad to bring him such joy. We were always close, Dad and I. Like-minded in many ways, I suppose. He spent more on my ordination celebrations than he would have on a wedding, and insisted on paying for handmade robes. My mother, red-eyed, put her objections aside and genuinely wished me well.

I still find it impossible to believe that my father lied for so long about something so fundamental. Even on his deathbed, he couldn’t tell me the truth. It’s nearly eleven years ago now since I discovered the facts, and even then … how can I know for sure? The only person who knew with certainty is gone.

My father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just six weeks before his death. His suffering was thankfully short-lived and he knew it was terminal. I was coincidentally the chaplain appointed to the hospice where he spent his last weeks. It meant that I was able to be with him, sit with him and pray with him. Chemotherapy might have given him more time, but he declined it, choosing quality over quantity of life. His pain was managed well with medication, and he received visitors with grace and dignity. At the very end, when it was clear that it would be just a matter of days or hours, my mother and I kept vigil with him, both of us straining to maintain a tone of optimism though we knew it was hopeless. He was still conscious when I administered the last rites, or the Anointing of the Sick, as the sacrament is known.

For me, it is the most meaningful of all the sacraments. It is about giving the patient the strength, peace and courage to endure pain and suffering, it is to find unity with the passion of Christ, it is spiritual preparation for the passing over to eternal life and it is the forgiveness of sins. My father accepted my words and bowed his sunken head in prayer, but my mother, on the other side of the bed, took his arm and stroked it.

‘Francis? Is there anything you would like to tell Philip?’

I was confused, and a little annoyed with my mother for disturbing such a peaceful moment. My father grew agitated. He shifted in his bed and I moved some pillows underneath his shoulder in order to make him more comfortable. He closed his eyes and exhaled. I looked at my mother quizzically.

‘Francis,’ she said again gently, smoothing his furrowed brow, ‘it is time to tell.’

My father turned his face into the pillow away from both of us, and I could tell from the shaking form under the bedclothes that he was crying. I was distressed at seeing my father in such misery and berated my mother. Whatever it was, now was certainly not the time. I called a nurse, who upped the morphine dose in his drip. He relaxed then and we were able to take his hands again until he slipped into unconsciousness. A few hours later, he passed over. It was almost dawn.