Bad Catholics (2 page)

‘That's right. Can't miss me in London, can you? Another pint of Directors.'

Jimmy pulled out the pound coins again and counted out three.

‘Sorry, no more. One pint to find out why you're back and where you're staying will stand up with Nat but that information doesn't need two pints. I don't know what you're up to but whatever it is I don't want any part of it. A second pint and more chat puts me too close to you for real comfort.'

‘How do you mean, too close?'

‘The first thing you do when you get back to London is walk in here, which is bad enough, then you break up the staff, which is not a nice thing to do. It's very violent. If I have a heart to heart with you after that, certain people will start asking are we still close, like in the old days. Tell me, why do I feel that close to you is not a good place to be?'

‘Have it your way, George. It's not a very good pint anyway, not like it used to be.'

‘We don't sell enough to keep it, really. We should take it off and put in another joke beer with a name like Kilkenny Cats' Piss.' Doyle brightened. ‘In fact that's what I'll do, as soon as this barrel is finished. We'll get something cheap and fizzy, give it a real fancy name and ask three pounds a pint for it. There you are, see what you can do when you try? You can still help people make a few bob as well as cost them money.'

‘Always glad to help out, George. See you.'

Jimmy picked up his holdall, turned and walked towards the door.

‘By the way, have you taken up trainspotting or what?'

Jimmy stopped.

‘It does make a sort of statement, doesn't it?'

They both grinned.

‘Jimmy, don't ever come in here again,' Doyle said. ‘In half an hour I'll have somebody else behind this bar, somebody who could do more than just throw you out and make you bounce.'

‘I know you will, George. Nice to see you again.'

‘And you. Take care.'

Jimmy stepped into Kilburn High Road. It was still cold, windy and wet, but now there were white flecks of sleet among the raindrops. He zipped up his anorak and pulled up the hood. The coins felt heavy in his pocket.

It didn't used to be so hard to spend money in London. Things must have changed in three years. He paused for a moment then headed towards the nearest Underground station.

In the pub, George was on the phone.

‘Yes, Mr Desmond, Jimmy Costello. I thought you'd want to know … By the way, Billy's given in his notice, can you get me someone over here? We'll have our first coach-load for lunch soon. I'd prefer Vic. I don't think there'll be any trouble but you never know, Costello making this pub his first port of call. It's not as if it makes any sense, not unless he wants people to know he's back … Yes, that's what I thought, so I'd be happier with Vic here until we know what's going on. No sense in taking any chances.'

George put down the phone and stood for a while. He was beginning to get worried about the health of his old mum. He worried about her sometimes. He didn't visit her as often as he should and right now he was getting a strong feeling that this was a good time to think about going away and asking after her health.

Kilburn, December 1952

In the pre-dawn dark of a cold December day two figures hurried along the empty Kilburn streets, a woman and a young boy. The boy's skinny legs poked out from the bottom of a long, belted navy-blue mac and on his head was a school cap. The woman also wore a long mac and had a headscarf tied tightly under her chin. The boy had to hop and skip every few steps to keep up with her.

‘Mum, if the Jews don't believe in Jesus, why won't they eat pork?'

The woman sighed. Sometimes she just couldn't make him out, he said the strangest things.

‘Jimmy, what has believing in Jesus got to do with not eating pork?'

‘Well, yesterday at Sunday Mass Father McGinty was telling us about Jesus putting the demons into the pigs. But if it was Jesus put demons in pigs, then only people who believe in Him wouldn't eat pigs, and if the Jews don't believe in Jesus they could eat pork if they wanted, couldn't they?'

He was a strange child.

‘Did you work that out for yourself?'

‘Yes, Mum,' Jimmy said proudly. ‘It means the Jews are wrong, doesn't it?'

‘Not really. I think Jews didn't eat pork for a long time before Jesus. It wasn't because of the pigs in that story. I don't think Jesus Himself would have eaten pork.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because Jesus was a Jew and the Jews don't eat pork.'

‘But I thought Jesus was a Catholic, like us.'

‘No, Jesus was a Jew. So were Mary and Joseph.'

They hurried on in silence. Jimmy thought about it. He didn't for one minute believe that Jesus was a Jew, or Mary and Joseph. If God was a Catholic then Mary and Joseph had to be Catholics and Jesus was God's Son so He had to be a Catholic. But he couldn't accept that his mum could have got things so wrong. That would be just as threatening as the Holy Family not being Catholic. So he did what he always did, he put it away for the time being.

‘When will I be a proper altar server, Mum?'

‘When Mr Slavin says so.'

‘Will it be soon?'

‘It'll be when Mr Slavin thinks you're ready.'

‘I nearly know what to do, and I can say a lot of the Latin.'

His mother intoned the priest's opening words of the Mass, ‘
Introibo ad altare Dei
.' Jimmy parroted the server's response, running the meaningless sounds together. ‘
Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam
.'

They smiled at each other.

‘Well done, that was very good.'

‘What did we just say, Mum?'

‘I will go into the altar of God. To God who giveth joy to my youth.'

He thought about it. Into the altar? The priest didn't go into the altar, how could he? And Mum wasn't young, she was old, so what was that about youth? Faith was full of mysteries, he knew that, so he put away the deep mystery of the Mass and moved on.

‘How much longer, Mum? Maybe soon?'

‘Maybe, but serving at Mass is a very great honour, you represent all the people who'd like to be up there with the priest but can't be. It has to be done well, because you're not just serving the priest, you're serving God.'

They walked on through the wet Monday streets towards the church and the first weekday morning Mass. The dark sky still showed no signs of dawn and the street lamps gave out a comfortless light. Christmas was only three weeks away but this was where the Irish working-class lived and when daylight came and curtains were pulled back there would be very little show in the windows to welcome the great Feast. Money was too scarce to spend it on entertaining passers-by.

Eventually they arrived at the parish church. Two other people arrived at the same time and they smiled acknowledgment at each other as they made their way out of the darkness into the light of the church. This six o'clock Monday Mass would last no more than twenty minutes. Other weekday Masses were more leisurely and began at the more comfortable time of eight o'clock, too late for most workers but as early as the new parish priest would permit. He liked the sound of his own voice and a quick Mass with no sermon was not something he approved of. The Monday congregation was always quite considerable, about forty to fifty people.

The brightly lit church was warm and welcoming after the wet, dark streets. Jimmy and his mother blessed themselves at the holy water font just inside the door and Jimmy snatched off his cap, tucked it in his mac pocket, and ran up the aisle and into the sacristy.

A harsh voice met him.

‘Don't you know better than to run in church? Have you no respect for God's house? Get out of here and go back and walk like a good Catholic and don't run like some wild animal.'

Jimmy turned and slowly left the sacristy. Father McGinty had shouted at him loud enough for everyone in church to hear. He walked slowly down the aisle, his head bent in shame. Those already in the church, sitting or kneeling, avoided looking at him and embarrassing him further.

He wasn't ashamed so much for himself, it was his mum he felt for. Everyone would see him walk down the aisle and then go back to the sacristy and know that Father McGinty had said he was a bad Catholic, no better than an animal. And Father McGinty was a clever and important man, a priest, so he must always be in the right. Jimmy added the shame his thoughtlessness had brought on his mother to his growing store of Catholic guilt.

Suddenly she was at his side, taking his hand.

‘Come on,' she said in a voice unnaturally loud for the inside of the church, as if she was making an announcement, ‘We're going home.'

Jimmy's brain turned slowly all the way home. This was a completely new thing, a new and totally unexpected star in his private sky. He couldn't be sure, of course, but he had got the idea that his mum had defied Father McGinty, defied the priest, the parish priest, who had been to Rome and seen the Pope.

The only other person he had ever heard of who had done something as terrible as that was Tim Folan's father. He had heard his dad tell his mum that Mr Folan had sworn at old Father Shillitoe one night in the parish club and had never set foot in the club or the church since. Tim Folan and his mum now arrived just after Sunday Mass began and left just before it finished and always sat at the very back. Would that happen to him and his mum now, he wondered. Had his mum really defied the priest and would they have to sit right at the back of church on Sundays? And what about his altar serving, would he ever get to be a server? It took some thinking about. The seven years, eleven months, and twenty-eight days of Jimmy's life had not prepared him for this.

‘What will you tell Dad?'

‘I'll tell him you weren't well so I decided you should come home.'

So that was it, he was right, his mum had defied the parish priest and now she was going to have to tell Dad a lie. Now she would have to go to Confession and if anything happened to her before she could get to Confession she would go to Hell for ever and ever and never see God. And it was all his fault because he had run like an animal in God's house. Jimmy's sense of horror, sin, and guilt moved into an entirely new gear. Then his mind suddenly retrieved an earlier piece of information which was now ready to be dealt with. God had to be a Catholic or how could He forgive these terrible sins when you went to Confession, especially the mortal sins which closed the gates of Heaven and sent you to Hell for all eternity. And Jesus had to be a Catholic to be on the altar at Mass, because it was only Catholics who went to Mass. If Jesus and God weren't Catholics then none of the rest could work, could it? So God and Jesus were Catholics after all. Of course they were, and that meant that Mary and Joseph must be Catholics as well because they were Jesus's family, the Holy Family. Well, that was all right then.

TWO

Paddington, February 1995

‘People never cease to amaze me,' said Sister Philomena.

‘Really?'

She laughed and continued in her thick Irish accent, ‘Not you, Jimmy, you don't amaze me.'

‘Is that a compliment or an insult, Sister?'

‘A compliment if you're humble and an insult if you're proud.'

‘I'll think about that. Where do you want this box of paper towels?'

She pointed down the harshly lit, institutional green corridor which ran between the staircase and the dining room.

‘Down there, in the cupboard under the stairs.' They walked to the cupboard.

‘No, it's Lucy Amhurst who amazes me. It's not just that she gives her time in helping out here, it's that she's so good with the clients. She has no training or background in care or social work, yet she seems to know just what to say and do for them.'

‘It's a knack, some people have it.'

‘It's a gift. Here, I'll open the door. Put them on that shelf.'

Jimmy put the box on a shelf and closed the cupboard door.

‘What now?'

‘The toilets.'

‘Again!'

‘Sorry, but let those toilets go for a minute and we'd need to divert the Thames to get them clean again.'

Jimmy moved away to collect the necessary equipment. One bucket and one mop was never enough. Philomena's voice followed him.

‘And plenty of Jeyes Fluid, plenty of that. I only want to get the smell of Jeyes Fluid when I walk past those toilets, that and nothing else.'

Bartimaeus House was a day centre run by the Sisters of St Zita. In a more-than-usually run down part of Paddington, it was a shabby, three-storey property, its main door halfway down a grim cul-de-sac. It had been many things in its history before being donated to the Sisters by its last owner, whose generosity had been amply rewarded by the tax benefits he had obtained on the gift. Known locally as Bart's, it had become an established feature of the neighbourhood. A welcome waited there for everyone who came through the doors. Addicts, homeless, battered women, the abused, the mentally unbalanced, all were offered warmth, safety, food, clothes, and washing facilities. There was always someone to listen if they wanted to talk, and medical help and a bed for the night could be found if required. Local residents also came during the day for companionship and coffee. Many were elderly people who survived alone and forgotten. At Bartimaeus House they found a place where they felt cared for and listened to. However, Philomena had been told that the enterprise would have to be self-financing after ten years, a target she sometimes despaired of achieving. If she failed, Bart's would have to close.

Jimmy had gone to his unpleasant task and Philomena stood, preoccupied by her usual worries, when the first of what she called the ‘night shift' arrived.

Damn, she thought, as a hideously dirty, barefoot old man shuffled through the door, is it that time already?