The Truth Commissioner (27 page)

Perhaps out of respect for his observation, the priest sips this glass more slowly, once holding it up to the light as if
it is a vintage wine. ‘I'm thinking of taking a trip back to Ireland,' he says. ‘I still have a sister in Dublin and a couple
of cousins in Donegal. She tells me though that you'd hardly recognise the place. Big lot of changes everywhere and apparently
you couldn't afford to buy a house for love nor money. Even somewhere you couldn't swing a cat goes for megabucks. I like
the idea of Donegal – you ever been there, Danny? I went once as a young man. Had a bit of a sweetheart – before I was a priest
of course. Well I think it was,' he says, suddenly bursting into a raucous laugh that seems to shake his whole body. ‘Beautiful
place, Danny. Beautiful beaches, beautiful deserted beaches.' He rubs his eyes with the tips of his fingers. ‘You ever think
of going back?'

‘No, never.'

‘Nothing there for you, Danny?'

‘No, nothing there. Everything is here for me now,' he says and thinks that this is perhaps the moment to raise the purpose
of his visit but before he can speak Mulryne stands up, runs some water at the sink and splashes his face. He looks around
for something to dry it with but seeing nothing pulls up his vest and uses it, then sits down again at the table, seemingly
oblivious to the spreading bruises of damp left behind. There are still droplets shining on his cheekbones.

‘Have another drink, son,' Mulryne says and before Danny can refuse he is pouring it into his glass. ‘You're a bit of a dark
horse, Danny – where he comes from, where he goes to, nobody knows. Ask me no secrets and I'll tell you no lies – isn't that
right, Danny?' He touches the side of his nose with his finger.

He decides that he should go but when he tries to speak, Mulryne moves his finger to his lips. ‘Shush, son, shush. You're
a good lad because you're not always jabbering on like some of them do. You keep your own counsel and that's the way it should
be with a man. Listen, can you hear that?' The only sound is the chatter of the television. ‘You know what that is, Danny?
It's the sound of nothing, just an endless jabber that means nothing in this world, filling people's heads with mush so they
can't think straight any more.' One of the droplets runs down his cheek and for a second it looks as if he is crying.

"Why don't I put some coffee on?' he says and Mulryne waves his hand vaguely in the air in a slow gesture of indifference.
But he goes ahead anyway and brews up some strong black coffee, hands it to the priest.

‘You think this will make me feel better, Danny?'

‘I don't know, can't make you feel any worse.'

‘You know that song by Simon and Garfunkel? “The Sound of Silence” it's called. Good song, Danny; you know it, son?' And when he nods, ‘That's wrhat I like to hear more than anything – the sound of silence. Sometimes when the church is empty I go into the confession box, try to hear it. You know what I'm saying, son?'

He nods again and drinks some of the coffee in the hope that the priest will follow his example.

‘Do something for me, Danny,' Mulryne suddenly says, stretching out his hand across the table towards him. ‘Go and turn that bloody thing off.'

So he goes into the next room and does what the priest has asked and when he returns he finds him sipping from the cup of coffee. Once Mulryne pauses to run a hand through the thick mop of hair that has fallen forward across his brow but then he slips into silence staring intently at the contents of the cup.

‘What's wrong, Father?' he asks.

The priest does not lift his eyes away from the cup and for a second he thinks he's not heard the question. Then something
makes him say, ‘Maybe none of my business, sorry.'

‘You've nothing to be sorry about,' Mulryne says, looking at him as if he has suddenly remembered that he is still there.
‘Nothing to be sorry about at all – I'm the one who's sorry.'

‘You want to talk about it?'

‘What's there to say, Danny, except I'm shat upon? Shat upon from a great height.'

‘What's happened?'

The priest stares into his face and then cups the coffee in both hands. ‘You know how to listen, Danny, don't you? Know how
to listen and forget what you've heard,' and when he nods in reply, ‘Sure you do, son, sure you do.' Then there is only a
drip from the tap and the labour of Mulryne's breathing. ‘A child has made an accusation against me.' But then he drops his
eyes again and lapses back into silence.

‘What sort of accusation?'

‘An accusation that I touched them,' and then in a tone of voice as if quoting sarcastically, ‘inappropriately – I touched
them inappropriately.' He lifts the glass of Jack Daniel's again and drains it. When he has finished he licks his lips, pauses,
then says, ‘You're too polite a guy to ask so I'm going to tell you now just so that you know, Danny. I never touched that
child in any way I shouldn't. Never did. On the Holy Book, I never did.'

‘I believe you,' he says instinctively.

‘You believe me?'

‘I believe you.'

‘That's good, son. And why do you believe me?'

‘Because I've seen you round kids. Seen how you treat them.'

‘Been round kids all my life and never had so much as a whisper. This is the first and the last.'

‘Others will believe you.'

‘It doesn't really matter who believes me, I'm finished. Shat upon.'

‘How are you finished?'

‘Because an accusation has been made and even though they know it's a cheap, evil scam for money the Church will pay out and
I'll be moved to a desk somewhere out of sight. I'll never get within a mile of kids again.'

‘I could speak for you,' he says. ‘Maybe they'd listen.'

‘You don't understand, Danny. It's open season on priests. I'm dead in the water. It wouldn't matter if the Archangel Gabriel
spoke for me. The accusation has been made – a kid's word against mine – and I'm going to pay for all the times we didn't
believe kids, brushed it under the carpet.'

‘Who was it made the accusation?'

‘That little punk Marvin. He's a poisonous little viper.'

‘The kid who stole the shin guards. Did he say it happened that day?'

‘Yeah, the kid who stole the shin guards. Payback time. They claim it happened a year ago on an overnighter when we travelled
to Tampa for the tournament.'

‘And he waited to now to make the claim? Still came voluntarily every week to practice?'

Mulryne nods and almost smiles, then pours them both the remains of the bottle. ‘We'll have to raid the communion wine next,'
he says, pushing the empty bottle to the side of the table. ‘You work with his brother.'

‘His brother?'

‘Yeah, Edward. Now he was a player – could have played big-time basketball at college. I'd have put money on it. Don't know
why he dropped out.'

‘Marvin is Edward's brother?'

‘Yes.'

‘I think he's a decent guy. Maybe I could talk to him, sort this thing out.'

‘There's no point, Danny – it's a waste of time. They smell a fast buck. Like sharks in the sea they've got the scent of blood money and they're circling for the kill,' Mulryne says, then goes to the sink and splashes his face again, this time cupping some water and pouring it over his head. Without turning he adds, ‘I'm sorry you saw me like this. I've taken it hard. But the bottle doesn't help – I should know that.' He shakes his head and shoulders like a dog casting off its wetness. ‘You caught me at a bad time.' Then he turns and faces him. ‘I think I'd like to go and lie down now, Danny, try to get some sleep,'

‘You be all right?' he asks.

‘Sure, Danny, I'll be fine. Got it out of my system.'

‘You sure?'

‘I'm sure and if the worst comes to the worst at least I'll get a chance to go to Donegal and swim in the sea. But what was it you wanted to see me about?”

He hesitates, looks around the kitchen then says, ‘I'm thinking of starting up a small landscape business, wondered if you or the church needed some work done.'

‘I'll enquire for you. Outside this place could do with a tidy, that's for sure. I'll do my best. Would you mind finding your own way out, Danny? I need to get my head down. It's started to feel so heavy like it might drop off at any moment.'

‘No problem,' he says and before he turns to go the priest makes a cradle of his arms on the table and slowly lowers his head so the image he carries out into the night is of Mulryne's hunched shoulders, bulging out from under his vest, and the grey swathe of his doused hair falling forward to hide his face.

Once after a night out when taking a lift home in Scott's car they had dropped Edward off so he knows he lives somewhere in the little enclave that squats behind Fairfields and Alona Avenue. It is predominantly a black area, poorer than the rest of its environs and tucked out of sight. Maybe only a hundred houses, maybe fewer. As he elrives over he wonders why he is
going. Because he likes Mulryne? Because he wants Mulryne to help him over the wedding? There's a church on the corner of
Alona and as he stops in front of it on a red, the doors open and a choir of black women in white gowns cascades down the
steps into the dusk of the evening and lingers in conversation. It's like a sudden fall of snow, as if all the city's magnolia
buds have burst open at the same moment. The night feels illuminated, spinning in ceaseless clusters of light, and he stares
fascinated until the impatient blare of a horn tells him that the lights have changed. He drives on but it is as if the image
is burnt on his senses and he cannot blink its intensity away.

He lowers the window and tries to remember where Edward lives, trawling the streets slowly, staring at the faces who stare
back at him. He slows down even more to avoid some kids playing on bikes who dart out from between cars like minnows in a
shadowy pool. He begins to feel uncomfortable, uncertain of why he has come or what he is going to say. Just when he is going
to stop and ask someone for directions he sees Edward sitting on a fence with two other young men. They scrutinise him as
he parks and gets out of the car but at first Edward shows no sign of acknowledging him. As he walks towards them he tries
to assume a relaxed confidence he does not feel, lifting his hand lightly in greeting.

‘What's up, Danny Boy? You got yourself lost?' Edward asks.

‘Kinda. Was hoping to have a word.' He hesitates. All three faces stare at him impassively.

‘I'll be in work tomorrow – same as always.' He makes no attempt to move from the fence. ‘Maybe you've come to learn some
hotshot moves.' The other two men smile as Edward slowly pretends to shoot a basket.

‘I'm just a water carrier,' he says, smiling. ‘Too late for me to try any hotshot moves.'

‘Maybe you should take up boxing, bro – you got the quick hands.' He gets off the fence and, putting his open palms in front of his face, does a little shimmy. ‘Danny here did a little boxing in our last game. A real Muhammad Ali – isn't that right, Danny?'

‘Sure,' he says. ‘I coulda been a contender.'

‘What you want, Danny?'

‘A quick talk. Could we go somewhere?'

Edward walks off without replying and he follows. Once he turns to look back at his car and Edward sees him. ‘Relax, Danny – nobody with any pride would be seen dead driving a pile of junk like that.' He laughs at his own joke and shouts to his two friends, ‘Keep a good eye on that sweet machine – Danny thinks it might fill the bros with envy and tempt them to steal it.' Then he turns down a bare earth path running between two houses which leads them into a piece of land that is part cultivated and part scrub. Along a chain-link fence someone has started a vegetable patch and a row of faded sunflowers tiredly lift their still furled faces to the coolness of the night's breeze. At what looks like an old water tank Edward stops and leans against the rust-blistered sides.

‘You shouldn't have come here,' he says. ‘Everyone is entitled to their own privacy, their own space. I don't go around turning up uninvited on your doorstep.'

‘I'm sorry,' he says. ‘I didn't mean any disrespect. It's just something I need to talk to you about.'

‘I know why you've come.'

‘You know?'

‘Sure I know. You Irish stick together.'

‘I don't think Father Mulryne did what he was supposed to, Edward.'

‘And just how would you know that, Danny? You were there or something?'

‘No, I wasn't there but I've been around him a long time now – help out with the soccer sometimes – and I've never seen anything to make me think he would do some shit like this.'

‘Did he send you here?'

‘No, he doesn't know I'm here.'

‘Bullshit! He knows you work with me – that's why he told you. And being around him a long time don't mean nothing. You think
he does what he does when you're looking over his shoulder? What Marvin said he done, he done and no one's going to tell me
otherwise.' He leans off the water tank and his head juts forward. ‘We're doing a public service here, doing our duty as citizens,
because if he did this to one kid and got away with it then sure as hell he'll do it to some other. That what you want, Danny?'

‘If he did it he can rot in hell – deserves everything he gets. I just don't think he did it.'

‘You don't think he did it because he's a priest and he's Irish,' Edward says, kicking his heel against the tank and sending
a hollow reverberation through the stillness of the night. ‘I suppose you think all those other ones with their faces in the
paper didn't do it either.' He starts to walk slowly towards the fence.