The Sin Eater(66)

‘I believe they can invert prayer to their own means,’ said N.S. ‘I don’t understand it, but I think it’s like turning a white bag inside out, so that you only see the black lining.’

The black lining . . . It was remarkable what images that conjured up. After a moment Cuthbert said, in a determinedly practical voice, ‘How would you live?’

‘That rather depends on you,’ said N.S. ‘In this monastery are a number of small, easily carried objects of considerable value. Mass vessels, gold and silver cups and chalices, candlesticks, silk wall hangings and altar cloths. Things I could sell in some large anonymous place, such as Galway.’

‘Then,’ I said, standing up, ‘we’d better start deciding what you can take.’

For the first time since entering the Church, that night I ended up so drunk I couldn’t walk. Fintan had to help me to my bed.

‘It’s a shocking thing,’ he said, ‘when a dissolute tinker like myself has to assist a venerable abbot of the Irish Church to his room.’

‘You’ll be in my prayers every night.’

‘Be damned to the prayers, put me in your Will,’ said the irrepressible Fintan. ‘And I’ll open a great little bar somewhere hereabouts and live a dissolute life so that everyone for miles will enjoy themselves disapproving of me.’

‘And Eithne?’

‘Ah, Eithne. There’s a girl, now. There’s a grand bit of comfort to be got from a night with her. I dare say I oughtn’t to say that to a monk.’

‘I’ve known the odd bit of comfort myself as a young man,’ I said.

‘I dare say. What about your man who came with us tonight? He’ll have known more than the odd bit of comfort,’ said Fintan. ‘I’d say he’ll struggle to follow the path of celibacy.’

‘We all have our struggles. But he’s promised to make sure those evil things are safely sealed up.’

‘Will they stay sealed up, d’you think?’

‘I don’t see why not. They seem to have been harmless inside Kilderry Castle all those years.’

‘They’re evil,’ said Fintan. ‘They’re leaking evil like – like a dripping gutter. What if someone were to take them out into the world one day?’

‘No one will,’ said I, and I climbed into bed and sank into a drunken sleep for which I did heavy penance next morning in the form of a mind-splitting headache.

And so N.S., that slightly arrogant young priest, probable scion of the Kilderry line, took the chessmen away.

We had a final word before he left St Patrick’s.

‘Last night,’ I said, ‘you mentioned starving the chessmen of everything – even of prayer. Does that mean . . . ?’

‘It means I will have to cut myself off from God,’ he said, and, without saying anything more, he turned on his heel and walked away.

It pained me then and it still pains me to think of him living in that hermit-like seclusion in the old watchtower on the Cliffs of Moher, not daring to open up that channel in his mind through which comes God’s blessed love and understanding.

I shall pray for him every day. And I shall pray that the power of the devil’s chessmen will quietly wither and die.

But will it . . . ?

The story ended there, although the book itself went on for another page and a half, with Fergal McMahon adding a conscientious homily about divine and man-made retribution and atoning for sin.


Michael had been so deeply immersed in Fergal’s world that when the phone rang it startled him so much he dropped the book on Wilberforce, who let out an indignant yowl.

The phone call was from Nell. She wondered if Michael would like to have supper at her flat the following evening.

‘It’s tomorrow I’m in London, sorting out the inventory at Holly Lodge,’ she said.

‘I know it is. What train are you catching?’

‘Well, actually,’ said Nell, ‘I thought I might as well go up tonight. I can get the seven forty-five or the six past eight train and Nina says I can stay with her. It would mean I could make an early start. That might even allow time for me to get that chess piece valued.’

‘Good idea. Shall I pick up a takeaway tomorrow so you don’t have to cook when you get back?’

‘That would be nice.’

‘Chinese? Indian? Fish and chips?’

‘Chinese, please.’ She appeared to hesitate, then in a slightly too-casual voice said, ‘Michael, would it be possible for you to meet me off the train tomorrow? I’ll probably get the one that gets in at quarter to seven. We could pick up the food on the way to Quire Court.’

‘I think I can,’ said Michael, reaching for his diary. ‘Yes. I’ve got a couple of tutorials in the morning, but that’s all.’ It was not like Nell to ask for a lift from the station; she hated being dependent on anyone else and on the few occasions Michael had offered to meet her from a train journey she had always said she was perfectly capable of hopping in a taxi or walking across to the bus station. He did not want to ask outright if anything was wrong, so to give her a let-out he said, ‘I expect you might have a lot of stuff to lug back.’

She did not take the let-out. She said, ‘It’s not that. It’s just that I don’t want to go into the court on my own in the dark. I thought someone was prowling around a few nights ago.’