Turbulent Priests (Dan Starkey 3) (4 page)

She dropped her head into her hands. ‘Dan . . . it’s so soon . . .’

‘We’ve a couple of months yet. Trust me, Trish.’ I gave her the smile of the century. ‘Have I ever let you down?’

4

The house felt empty.

It was, of course. Even with me in it.

As soon as I got home I opened a can of beer. Harp. I was collecting the ring-pulls. For every seventy-five you collected you could send away for a World Cup football. I had three hundred and eighty-seven but I was too lazy to post them. I put on some music. For once the guitar intro to The Clash’s ‘Complete Control’ sounded too raucous and I switched it off. I went upstairs and stood in the baby’s room with the can cradled against my chest.

Patricia had painted the room blue without any help from me. She’d had a hunch it would be a boy. We’d seen early scans, just enough to know the baby was healthy. The agreement was I would paint the room pink if she turned out to be wrong. Against one wall there was an old wooden cot
which her father had presented to us. There were teeth marks on it. Hardy toys from her past were piled in one corner. In another, presents which we’d bought ourselves. Patricia had specialised in big cuddly toys. I’d provided the inappropriate contraptions with batteries. Mickey Mouse was stencilled onto every wall.

I felt alone; I felt as one, where I should have felt as three. I felt guilty for being a selfish son of a bitch. I have often tried not to be a selfish son of a bitch, but at the end of the day you are what you are and people love you for it or hate you for it. Occasionally there is a little mixing of the two emotions.

I should have been more understanding. I could see the pain and the hurt in her eyes, as if I had laddered the tights of her soul. I should have shown more interest in the baby. I should not have mentioned the hair. You could probably grow to love ginger hair.

But I didn’t feel guilty at all for being economical with the truth about the Cardinal.

I hadn’t lied. He
had
offered me a cottage. There
was
a writer’s grant he administered. There is a saying that the camera never lies, but it does if you doctor the negative.

Sometimes wives don’t need to know everything. They don’t need to know about afternoon drinks. They don’t need to know about night shifts spent watching football. They don’t need to know about masturbation – when, where or how often, although they can probably guess.

She didn’t even need to know about Father Flynn because
I’d no great intention of spending my time on the island investigating him. What I observed in the course of living there could be relayed back to the Cardinal one way or the other, but I wasn’t about to make it a priority. He was looking at my writing a book as useful cover for observing the renegade priest; I was looking at it as the principal purpose of my presence on Wrathlin.

Ah, yes. Wrathlin. That news still had to be broken.

She was probably thinking: scenic Donegal.

Or: boating on the Fermanagh lakes.

Or: when will I see Tony?

I went back downstairs and lifted Patricia’s personal directory from beside the phone and ran my finger along the alphabet. When I found the number I took a deep breath and punched it in.

Fourth ring, a woman’s voice, a solidly Belfast mouth fulla marlies.

‘Hi. Is Tony there?’

‘Yes, Anthony is here. Who shall I say is calling?’

‘Uh, Willy. Willy from work.’

‘Okay, just a second.’

She called out.
William from your office
. Too refined to shout. I heard hurried footsteps on bare floorboards. They would be French polished. There’d be lots of expensive antiques and tea in china cups. I sipped my beer.

‘Who is this?’

‘It’s Dan Starkey.’

His voice dropped. ‘Oh. Hello,’ he said flatly, then
followed it quickly with a chirpy, ‘William. Yes. Indeed. What’s up?’

‘Patricia had a baby boy last night.’

He gulped. ‘Mmm-hmm, yes, I phoned the hospital,’ he whispered, then hurriedly added, louder: ‘Yes, I know the file. Is it okay?’

‘It was touch and go for a while, but I think he’s okay now.’

‘Good!’ he boomed. ‘I was hoping to get a good look at it earlier, but I’ve been tied up.’

‘I think Patricia was expecting a visit today.’

‘Mmmm. Yes. Indeed. Like I say. I’ve been exceptionally busy.’

‘Listen. The little bastard’s half yours, now get off your arse and go and see him.’

‘It’s been difficult to get away,’ Tony hissed. ‘I am married.’

‘Yes, I know you’re fucking married. So was I.’

‘I didn’t like to intrude.’

‘If you hadn’t intruded in her fucking vagina in the first place you wouldn’t be in this situation, would you?’

Tony began some serious coughing. I held the receiver away from my ear for half a minute.

‘Well,’ he said eventually, loud again, ‘I understood the file was closed. Obviously there are some loose ends that need tidying up.’

‘You’re a smarmy bastard, aren’t you?’

‘Obviously.’

‘You owe her. You said all along you wanted to look after the child. You have a funny way of showing it.’

‘Yes. Like I say, I’ve been tied up with those other files. But I’ll certainly give that one my full attention tomorrow. It’s good of you to take the trouble to call me at home. Yes. Indeed. See you soon then, William.’

‘Aye,’ I said and put the phone down.

I went to get another beer. Three, in fact. I needed another football.

Wrathlin sits about thirty miles off the north-west coast. It has a population of about a thousand, or had the last time I’d done any research on it: that was for a primary school composition. It’s famous for two things, Robert the Bruce’s cave, where he had an encounter with a spider, and the fact that Marconi, or at least some of his henchmen, carried out some of their earliest wireless experiments there. Oh yeah – and I remembered something fairly recently about Virgin boss Richard Branson doing one of his famous balloon crash landings there a few years back and the locals bartering a new community centre or something out of him in return for their invaluable help.

Not much.

Next morning, a Saturday, I wandered into the
News Letter
and sought out Mark Gale. Mark and I had trained together as reporters way back in the mists of time before the Pistols broke up.

He saw me crossing the newsroom. He sat back from his
computer and stretched. He scratched idly at his paunch. Then he smiled at me.

‘Dan, just the man. Perhaps you could answer a question for me.’

‘Sure.’

‘Who was Sam Andreas and why was it his fault?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘I thought not.’

I placed my thumbs on the edge of his desk and bent in over his computer. ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘perhaps you could tell me who Sam Quinton was and why they hated every inch of him?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘I thought not.’

He reached for his cigarettes. Berkeley Mild. A healthier death. ‘Maybe we could settle this by you telling me who Sam Francisco was and why they were going to him?’

I shook my head. He shook his.

‘Busy?’ I asked.

‘Nah, you joking?’ He offered me a cigarette. I refused. He lit one up. ‘Ever since that bloody truce there’s been nothing doing. The sooner they get back to blowing each other up the better. If you’re looking for a shift you better give the Provos a call and demand a resumption of the campaign.’

I sat on the edge of his desk. The computer system the
News Letter
had recently installed was supposed to have created a paper-free environment and thus help conservation.
Mark hated conservation. He liked things made with real trees. Rare ones, preferably. His desk had enough paper piled on it to reconstitute a small forest.

‘Not interested in work, Mark. Just wanted to pick your brains. Do you fancy a pint?’

He shook his head mournfully. ‘Off it for Lent.’

‘Seriously? I thought Lent finished . . .’

‘The wife insists.’

‘Jesus. How the mighty have fallen.’

‘Tell me all about it,’ he said miserably. ‘So. Pick away.’

‘You’re from Wrathlin Island originally, aren’t you?’

‘Sure.’

‘I thought maybe you could tell me something about it.’

‘Something?’

‘I’ve been given this grant to write a book. It means living in a wee cottage on Wrathlin for a couple of months. Kind of like a retreat. Far from the madding crowd, as Oliver Hardy might have said. I’m just wondering what it’s like.’

He smirked. I smirked. ‘Have you ever been to Barbados?’

‘Nope.’

‘Good. It’s nothing like that.’ He rubbed his hands together, then held them up to his face and scratched at a heavy stubble. ‘Ah, now,’ he said, ‘how do you describe Wrathlin? I suppose it’s a pleasant little spot for a day out during the summer. When’re you going, next summer?’

I shrugged. ‘Sooner. A couple of months.’

He tutted. ‘Coldy, coldy, coldy.’

‘Bad timing? We go as soon as the baby’s fully fit.’

Mark looked surprised. ‘Oh, aye. I forgot Patricia was due. What’d youse have?’

‘She had a wee boy.’

‘Congrats. Everything okay?’

‘Yeah. Great.’

‘You don’t look very excited.’

‘It takes a lot to get me excited.’

Mark looked a little closer at me. ‘You all right, mate?’

‘Fine.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘My wife thinks you have a drink problem.’

I stood up. ‘I don’t have a drink problem, Mark. I have a hangover problem. It’s a subtle but important difference.’

He looked a little bashful. ‘Sorry, Dan, I didn’t mean to . . .’

‘Never worry. Tell me about Wrathlin.’

‘Okay. Like I say, nice for a day trip when the sun’s out and sea’s calm. That’s about a week every year. Rest of the time it’s . . . well . . . a hole. Wind. Rain. Snow. Hail. Thunder. Lightning. Then you have your breakfast. Ach, maybe that’s not fair. It’s not so bad if you’re keen on the island life – it’s basic, it’s primitive, its attitudes, its morals belong to the last century.’

‘But it has electricity.’

‘Yes, of course it has, Dan. It’s not that bad. It’s very insular, but then you’d expect that with, what, a population of about eight hundred it must be down to now. During the winter
you can’t even see the mainland much. Isolated is the word. It’s a poor place. Not much work, and what there is is invariably seasonal.’

‘Fairly religious, would you say?’

‘Has its moments. For three hundred years it’s been something of a refuge for Catholics from all along the north-west coast. Those that could afford to fled to England or France or down South to escape persecution. Those that couldn’t ended up on Wrathlin. Most of them never left again. We’re crocheted. They’re close-knit.’

‘You left it, though.’

‘Aye. That’s the problem with Wrathlin. It’s not big enough to support a secondary school, so most of the teenagers get shunted off to schools on the mainland, they have their eyes opened a bit, and they don’t want to go back. Population’s dropping every year, I hear.’

‘Your folks still out there?’

‘Aye.’

‘You ever go back?’

Mark shook his head. ‘I should. Just never seem to get round to it. You know how it is.’

‘Aye. I know.’

‘You thinking of taking Patricia out there as well, then?’

‘Yeah. And the baby.’

‘You think that’s wise?’

‘You think it’s not?’

‘I wouldn’t go that far. But Patricia . . . well, Patricia’s a bit of a city girl, isn’t she?’

‘Yeah. I suppose she is.’

‘Wrathlin’s no city, Dan. You know they’re still waiting for
Gone with the Wind
to arrive?’

I gave him the raised palms. ‘Well, I’ve agreed to go. I’ll jump the Patricia hurdle when I come to it.’

‘And when’ll that be?’

‘In about half an hour.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘Aye. I know.’

There is a splinter group of the Ulster Volunteer Force called the Red Hand Commando. Sometimes it is referred to as the Barmy Wing of the UVF.

While the rest of the Province was celebrating peace it was planning murder. While I was lightly grilling Mark Gale about Wrathlin it was sending two gunmen into the Royal Victoria Hospital’s maternity wing to murder a Republican activist.

The intended victim was the big woman in the bed beside Patricia’s. They walked in cool as you like during visiting time, baseball caps, denim jackets and jeans, checked the chart at the foot of Patricia’s bed, shook their heads, moved up to the next, where the woman was sleeping. Patricia shouted at them. The woman woke up. Woke up and looked into the barrel of the pistol. Not more than five inches from her head. Point-blank. Her mouth dropped open. The trigger was pulled. The gun jammed. Pulled again. Jammed again.

‘One for luck, eh?’ said the commando, and pulled the trigger a third time.

Nothing. He laughed. ‘You’re one lucky bitch. We’ll get you next time. Have a nice day now.’ He swiped her with the pistol, slicing open her scalp, then the two of them walked calmly off down the corridor.

When I reached maternity it was cordoned off by the police and army. It took some persuasion and a tantrum to get through.

When I finally reached Patricia she was in tears. Ginger was in her arms. She was rocking him nervously from side to side. He was crying too. There was no sign of the woman from the next bed. It was neatly made and her locker was empty.

‘Take us away from here, Dan,’ Patricia cried as I put my arm round her. ‘I hate this fucking place.’

‘It’s okay, honey,’ I said, ‘we’re going far away, just as soon as we can.’

God was moving in a mysterious way.

5

Everything was fine and dandy.

Patricia came home. The baby was doing great. We bundled him up and brought him out into the real world for the first time. The sun showed its face for the first time in weeks. Tony hadn’t shown his. I’d cleaned the house. It had taken me eight hours, but I’d managed it. I’d discovered how the vacuum cleaner worked. It was a complicated procedure involving a plug and a socket. I lost three socks and a slipper in the process but I thought it was probably worth the sacrifice when I saw the look on Patricia’s face as I led her into the lounge.