Born & Bred (22 page)

Fr. Reilly tried not to smile as the door closed, leaving him alone with Deirdre who sat in the armchair opposite him. “Perhaps we should have our chat, then. While we are alone.”

Deirdre didn’t answer and that unnerved him a little. When she was little she was like a shadow to her older sister and was never seen out on her own. She had changed a lot since then and her mother had once told him that she was learning how to wrap her father around her little finger. Fr. Reilly had no idea how to deal with her so he did what was expected of him. He talked about Mary, the mother of God, and what a great role model she was for women of all ages.

But after what happened with Miriam, he didn’t really believe in it anymore. Not that he didn’t believe that Mary was the mother of God; what he was beginning to question was the whole way they went about things—asking the people to do the impossible, modelling themselves after saints and the likes. Nobody could ever live up to them. It was no wonder that so many were just giving up.

“There is one thing I do have to confess, Father.” Deirdre said when he had finished. Her face was calm but tinged with a touch of contrition. “I was the one who gave Danny the drugs—not the other way around. Only I’m afraid to tell anyone. My father would kill me if he knew. And then he’d kill Danny, too, for spite.”

“Now, Deirdre. There’ll be no killing or anything like that, but I’m glad you told me.”

“Could you tell Danny . . . from me . . . that I’m terribly sorry?”

“I will indeed. When the time is right,” he added as her mother knocked on the door. They could have tea in the kitchen—if Fr. Reilly wouldn’t mind. Her husband was smoking and she preferred that he did that in the kitchen where the smell wouldn’t get all over the new furniture.

“Not at all,” Fr. Reilly assured her. “Wasn’t I brought up in the kitchen?”

“Don’t forget to let Danny know,” Deirdre whispered as she passed and followed her mother into the kitchen, where her father sat at the head of the table, with his wife and daughter to his left and Fr. Reilly to his right, where Deirdre normally sat.

“Don’t you think it best, Father, that we send her off to board at a good convent school?” he asked as they sipped their tea.

The mother looked like she didn’t agree so Fr. Reilly suggested that what Deirdre might need more now was the love and forgiveness of her family. He looked at the wife and the daughter for a moment before he looked back at the father. He could only guess what was going through the poor man’s mind.

Fr. Reilly had no idea what it was like to have a daughter. He hadn’t even known what it was like to grow up with a sister. In fact, other than his mother, the only woman who ever became a part of his life was Miriam. He wished she was there, sitting beside him. She would know the right things to do and say.

“Well that’s all very well and good for Sundays,” the father said in a controlled voice. Fr. Reilly could see that it was still surging around inside of him, almost bursting out through his eyes, and the edges of his mouth. He almost sounded like a kettle that was coming to the boil. “But what concerns me the most is my daughter’s reputation. I’ll not have the whole street snickering behind her back. I only want what’s best for her. You understand that, don’t you, Father?”

“I do,” Fr. Reilly lied a little white lie to ease things along. “But my advice to you is that you show everybody that you still love your daughter, and that you forgive her. You can set a good example for them all.”

He regretted it the moment he said it. That kind of talk only worked when they were young—or old. It was funny how that worked out, but it was not going to work on this father. He was starting to come to the boil again so Fr. Reilly decided to stop poking the fire and let everything settle down again.

“But of course, you’re the girl’s father and I’m sure you know what’s best for her. Only I’d ask you to let it alone for a few days, you know? Give yourself time to get over the shock and the anger, and come back to it when you’re calmer. I find that when I have something to decide that it is better after I turn it over to the Sacred Heart of Jesus . . .”

“With all due respect,” the father interrupted, “to yourself and the Sacred Heart.” He paused while he bowed his head briefly. “But I think this situation calls for a more direct approach, Father. It’s obvious that she can’t get the type of direction she needs from this house.”

Fr. Reilly couldn’t help it and stole a quick glance at the mother as the father sat back with his arms folded. The poor mother bowed her head with shame. He knew things hadn’t been great in the house since Deirdre’s sister had left home to go off and live with her boyfriend. The mother had been over to talk with Fr. Brennan, back when he was still sound. Fr. Brennan had told him that the thing the mother was most afraid of was what her husband would do when Deirdre’s turn came, as she was sure, even back then, that it would.

“What I might suggest, before any long term plans are made, is that we have Deirdre sit down and have a chat with a friend of mine. She’s taking her PhD over in UCD and I’m sure she would be the right person for Deirdre to talk with.” He paused as he checked with the daughter who quickly nodded her head.

“And what kind of person is this? She’s not one of those psychiatric types?” The father looked worried now—like he was going to have deal with the shame of his daughter being a bit touched, too.

“Well,” Fr. Reilly hesitated: this part always raised eyebrows. “She used to be a nun over in Chicago. And she’s back in Dublin now, studying, but I’m sure she would be the right person to give Deirdre some good advice.”

“I’m not so sure,” the father grumbled as he refolded his arms.

“What harm could there be in them meeting?” The mother pleaded.

“Well for one thing, she’s . . . defrocked.”

“And what’s the harm in that?” The mother pleaded again, even more dolefully.

The father didn’t react at first. He was looking around and gauging all of their faces. “Okay, let them meet but I’m still going to go ahead and look into getting Deirdre into a boarding school.”

Fr. Reilly noticed that Deirdre and her mother both eased a little. He had a good idea what would happen. The father would leave it for his wife to deal with it and she would drag it out until it was too late for this year. It was probably how they dealt with him, pushing everything on down the road before them.

Fr. Reilly knew he had done all that he could for now and rose to leave. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I talk with my friend,” he assured the mother as he left, as she squeezed his hand by the door. She was almost shivering but smiled again before turning back to the stony silence of the kitchen where Deirdre and her father still sat.

Fr. Reilly happily walked his bicycle to the side of the road where he stopped to put on his clips so his dark slacks would not get covered with oil. Old O’Leary, who looked after Gethsemane, had taken it upon himself to keep the parish bike in the best working order. “You can never have too much lubrication,” he always assured. “It’s what keeps the world turning.”

Fr. Reilly pedaled back up the hill, delighted how things had turned out. Miriam could be just the influence that Deirdre needed and he could get to see her again without it looking bad.

She was Joe’s sister, his old friend from the seminary who was now off in Boston working on the guilt of the privileged for the benefit of poor kids—a task he was particularly well-suited to. They kept in touch through weekly letters. “Missals of Disaffection,” they called them in which they could privately share their growing disillusionment with their vocations.

But a year back, Joe’s letters had changed. His witty and sometimes shocking commentary on all that was wrong with “
the damn fools who were running the world into the ground—present company exempted of course
,” started to mention the matter of “
those who gave in. Those that broke under the pressure and quit.”
And among them were men they had known since the seminary: “
The ones we assumed were the least riddled with doubt are often the first to tear off their collars and go out into the world as mere mortal men.”

At first Joe just wrote them as bylines tucked in the post-scriptum, or the post-post-scriptum where he told Patrick how he really was, after pages of enforced joviality.

He had always been the bright cheery one—the one friend that Patrick “
could take his problems to without risking being exposed to an Inquisition!
” It was something they could acknowledge now that they had been out in the world for a while. They lived in fear for themselves, their friends and their Church. It was spreading like leprosy among them, and, as Joe once wrote, “
it is a cause calling for a new Father Damien.
”

Patrick knew Joe was up to something. He had a great knack for knowing how to catch the winds of change in his sails and a happier knack of always landing on his feet a few rungs higher up the ladder. That’s how he got to America—that and the fact that he “
had an uncle a bishop in America!
”

Over time he began to write about his growing understanding of, and his inability to cut off forever, those “
who were once good friends and comrades, now fallen in battle because our general staff is comprised entirely of idiots. Well-meaning and pious, and devout to beat the band, but idiots nonetheless. They have forgotten that we are supposed to be a moral authority and not an endorsement of the status quo.

“
We came into this business to try to do a little good in the world and when we are not allowed—when we are told not to speak out against all the damn injustice in the world—some of us can’t take it and we go through the flailing corridors of shame where every ounce of our credibility is stripped from us and we are expelled and defrocked, naked to be abused and ridiculed by the world
!”

Patrick began to think that Joe was about to make his own jump and that was very unsettling. He had always been the one his bishop sent the troubled ones to, when he learnt that they were straying from the path. Joe had the knack of getting people to like and trust him, which was odd as Patrick knew he was the only one that Joe really trusted with his private self.

Then the letter came that cleared it all up. His sister was leaving the convent. She had been in Chicago since the late 1960s and had been considered mother superior material.

But she got herself involved with anti-war protests and into trouble with the American government.

“
She might even have been sent to federal prison were it not for the fact that our race has been blessed with the influence we can bring to bear on our public representatives. We simply mention the possibility of excommunication from the next St. Patrick’s Day Parade and our politicians are more than happy to bend a few rules for us.

“
However, she is, I suppose for the sake of penance, thinking of going back to Ireland. I knew I didn’t have to ask, so I gave her your address so she can look you up when she has had enough public humiliation. Be kind to her for my sake as she is too good a soul for this imperfect world.
”

**

He had hardly remembered her when she called, even though he said he did. “Of course I do. It’s Miriam, isn’t it?” Fr. Reilly lied and tried to sort her from the rest of Joe’s family. He had met them all from time to time but now they were a jumble of faces and confused details. “Now which one were you?”

“I was the one with the buck teeth and the pimples.”

“I don’t remember you like that. You used to have that big shock of red curls.”

“That was Claire.”

“Sure of course it was. What was I thinking?”

“I would think that you were wondering why I’m calling you.” She hadn’t been away that long but she had picked up a very American way of talking—very direct and informal.

“Not at all, Miriam. Joe just wrote to me and told me that I might be hearing from you.”

“And what did the bishop’s right-hand-man tell you about me?”

They both laughed in their shared love for Joe. “Ah now, he just said that you might be coming over.”

“Did he tell you that I’m out of the game?” She almost made it sound like she had quit streetwalking and Patrick grew more flustered.

“He did say that you were making a bit of a career change.”

“That’s a very good way of putting it. I must remember that. Well, what I wanted to know was, now that I’m at the university and living not too far away, and knowing nobody who wants to know me, if you would ever considering risking your reputation and be seen in public with me?

“Nothing complicated,” she assured him. “Just a priest and an ex-nun having lunch together in broad daylight so everybody can see there is no hanky-panky.”

Patrick hesitated as he tried to sort it out in his mind. He had never been spoken to like this before. He never had a woman invite him out for lunch before, either. What harm could it do as long as it was all above board? He would be doing it as a good priest to one in trouble; as a good friend to a friend’s sister, and as a man who was so damned lonely and cut off.

“Well Miriam, it would be wonderful to meet you again. I often go into Bewley’s when I’m downtown. Would you like to meet there, sometime?”

“Sure. When’s good for you?”

“I often go downtown on Tuesdays. I like to drop into a few books stores around Dawson Street. Perhaps I could give you a call one of these weeks.”

“You still buy books?”

“I do,” he laughed and his mind was made up. She would know what it was like to be a priest. Joe used to write about all the times she had to listen to his tirades. She would be a perfect friend for him—and she would know what not to do.

“I do have a bit of a book hobby. I collect antiquarian writings about travel and things like that. It lets me try to understand how people were before.”

“Does it help?”

“I can spend hours with my nose in my books, as my mother used to say.”

“That’s nice but I was asking if ‘understanding how people were before’ helped?”