Divorcing Jack (23 page)

The first story I ever wrote for the
Evening News
began with the lines: 'Of the twenty-three soldiers blown to smithereens in Crossmaheart on St Valentine's Day three are still alive.'

It took an irate schoolteacher to point out to our editor on the phone that soldiers blown to smithereens could not expect to enjoy the benefits of breathing, even if they were as resilient as paratroopers.

Crossmaheart lies about sixty miles south of Belfast. Years ago it consisted of a couple of white-cottaged streets and a handful of pubs, a village possessed of a quaint kind of poverty that looked well on a postcard. It was at the heart of a large but financially stricken farming community more famous for its rogues than agricultural produce. In the early seventies when the religious riots were tearing Belfast apart, the powers that be thought the solution to the problem might lie in shipping whole communities out to the country, getting them away from the maelstrom of hatred by providing them with cheap housing, grants and state-supported industry. Shangri-o-La. They chose Crossmaheart because despite the local population being predominantly Catholic, the borough council had a Protestant majority that could bulldoze through the planning restrictions with the minimum of fuss. And so they did.

The cottages are still there. Behind the cottages sprawl housing estates as wild and wicked as any in Belfast. They thought that by transplanting the disaffected to a life of comparative luxury they would heal the divisions, promote harmony. They'd never have it so good. Instead it was like treating the bubonic plague by transferring the infected to previously clean cities. Within a few years the industry had collapsed, the new houses were wrecked and Crossmaheart, slap-bang in the middle of what has become known as Bandit Country, was casually referred to by the security forces as the Congo.

You don't wander into the Congo without knowing what you're about. They don't hang back, sizing you up. They come up to you and poke you in the eye and say, 'What the fuck do you want?'

There's no such thing as silence in the Congo. It's such a high-risk area for the army that they no longer travel through, but skirt it in very large convoys. They've established a base on the outskirts of town to which they commute by helicopter, over three hundred flights a day, which makes it the busiest heliport in Europe. The buzz of choppers is a twenty-four-hour thing. They say the army knows everything that goes on in the town: electronic surveillance is so sophisticated that they can pinpoint trouble within three seconds of it breaking out; the only problem is that it takes them at least four hours to get to it. The word in Belfast has always been that they prefer to stay well out of the Congo. Seal in the trouble, let them fight it out themselves.

There's a big shopping centre on the edge of town, for the poor are nothing if not well off these days. But the heart of the town is still the Main Street. There are still small, family-owned shops with dull window displays made duller by thick metal security grilles. The international chains which have infested every other town in the North do not come here: there is no McDonald's, no KFC, no Pizza Hut. There is Victor's Chips and Bobby's Burgers and the Panda House Chinese Carry-out. There arc two pubs, twenty yards between them but worlds apart. Jack Regan's and The Castle Arms. The ones that made the mistake of going into the wrong bar are buried on the outskirts of town; well, parts of them are.

I didn't make the mistake of going into either of them though I'd a thirst on me, sure enough. I went into the post office. A young fella with glasses and straw hair peered out from behind a meshed hatch and said: 'Howdy, stranger.'

I nodded. 'Quiet in here’ I said.

'Only day we're busy is when they come to cash their giros. Then it's pandemonium.'

I leant on the counter and peered through the mesh. It was like a prison visit. I presumed.

'So you reckon I'm a stranger in town?'

‘I know you're a stranger in town.'

'How?'

'That hair. I saw it in the
New Musical Express.
Or something like it. Hair like that hasn't reached Crossmaheart yet. We're still waiting for the second coming of flares.'

'Well spotted.'

He shrugged. 'So what can I do for you? Sell you a stamp? Though we only have second class, to reflect the standard of our clientele.'

'That's a damning indictment of your clientele.'

'You haven't met them yet.'

'You must make a lot of friends with that attitude.'

'On the contrary.'

We smiled at each other for a second. 'I'm looking for a priest,' I said. 'Confession?'

'No, I'll tell anyone.'

‘What?'

'That I'm looking for a priest.'

'Tell me, when you're not looking for priests, do you spend all your time perfecting your repartee?'

'No, I'm just naturally gifted.'

'Well, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'd shake your hand but it wouldn't fit under the mesh.'

'My hand or your hand?'

'Neither. Though you usually find on giro days that the barrel of a gun fits quite well under it.'

'You have a lot of trouble like that?'

'Is the Pope a Catholic?' He laughed to himself. 'Sorry,' he apologized, 'under the circumstances, that's rather inappropriate.'

'Meaning what?'

'It is Father Flynn you're after, isn't it?' I shrugged. 'If he's the local priest. Yeah.'

'Aye, then, I suppose he's the man you want.'

'And what's inappropriate about it?'

'You've not met the man?'

'No.'

'Well, then, it wouldn't be my place to say, really.'

The door behind me opened. I stood back from the hatch. A young woman pushing a buggy with a dirty-faced toddler strapped into it.

'Morn', Janice,' my friend said.

'Hiya, Billy.' She looked at me for a moment, at my hair for a moment longer. 'We got tourists?'

I smiled and shook my head. 'Nah.'

'He's lookin' for Father Flynn,' Billy volunteered.

Janice nodded her head. 'Whaddya want with that old bastard?'

'Business.'

Janice had a fine-featured face, but her body looked clumpy inside a purple tracksuit. She nodded her head again, this time in a conspiratorial fashion towards Billy. 'Well, you'll probably find him up the road then, takin' Mass.'

'But not preaching to the masses,' Billy added. 'Up what road?'

The road outside' Billy said. 'Just follow it up the hill for a couple of hundred yards. You'll come to the church, his house is just behind it.'

I thanked him and left. I smiled at Janice, but she didn't smile back. I smiled at the kid and he didn't smile back either.

I stood for a moment outside the post office, contemplating. A helicopter flashed overhead, drowning the sounds of traffic from the street, its camouflage conspicuous against the summer sky.

The priest was standing in a small garden at the front of a middle-sized bungalow. In fact you couldn't really call it a garden at all. It was a small rectangle of undulating tarmac bordered by flowerbeds. Flynn stood erect, a long-handled brush clasped in his hands, but he was motionless, his eyes staring vacantly into the distance. He didn't even blink when I shut the car door.

I stood at the edge of the flowerbeds. I coughed lightly, but he paid no attention. I said: 'Father Flynn?'

His head moved slowly towards me and he regarded me silently for a moment, until he suddenly shook his head as if shaking off a dream, and smiled at me. He was tall and thin and his hair was cropped short and grey; his skin was grey and tightly drawn over a beak-like nose.

'Sorry,' he said, 'miles away.'

'Sorry to disturb you.'

'Ach, never worry. Sure I'd spend all day in another world if I could and that wouldn't be good for me, would it?'

I shrugged and said: 'Doing some gardening?'

'Nah, just tidying up.'

I nodded at the tarmac. At the hills and valleys and cracks and crannies, and weeds and moss, yet it had a black sheen that suggested it had only recently been laid. Unlike myself.

That's interesting tarmac' I observed.

'Yes, it is a bit rough, isn't it?' He gave it a token sweep with his brush. 'It's Gypsy tarmac. No one else in the town would do it for me. So I took the chance on the Gypsies and look what they did. I mean, they had a spirit level, I saw it, so I can only presume that at some point they drank it. Still, it's ecologically sound. They spread the layer so thin it allows the weeds to grow up through it. Someone will be pleased with that.'

'You should sue them. It's an awful job.'

‘I wouldn't like to. I don't think they did it deliberately. They're just inefficient. Like us all really.'

'You should have gotten someone from the town. I'm sure there's plenty wouldn't mind earning a few pounds, and I'm sure they wouldn't have botched it quite so badly.'

'Yes. You would think there would be, wouldn't you?' He moved the brush in an arc, moving loose gravel and chunks of tar around, not so much tidying as rearranging. 'Anyway' he said after a moment, looking up, 'did you just come to run the garden down, or is there something I can do for you?'

I blushed slightly and said: 'Yes, of course. Sorry.'

'You're not from round here, are you?'

'No. Belfast.'

'Ah.'

‘I was wondering . . . uh . . .'

'Perhaps you would like to come into the church?'

'It's a . . .'

'A confession?'

'Uh, no . . .'

He seemed disappointed. 'Oh, well . . . but perhaps a problem of a religious nature? I get so few these days.'

'Uh, not exactly, no, Father.'

'Well, there can't be many reasons to seek out a religious man other than religious reasons. Unless you've just come in a roundabout fashion to give me some abuse. If it's that I'd rather you just got on with it rather than messing about. Though I must say I'll be surprised if you come up with anything I haven't heard before. I believe antichrist was the last one I heard. Perhaps you could improve upon that one?'

There was something sad about his demeanour, the vacant way he pushed the brush about, the soft, clipped tones as he challenged me to abuse him. Being a priest in the Congo couldn't be a lot of fun.

'Are the Protestants giving you a hard time. Father?'

He looked round at me again. 'Protestants? No, not at all. They don't talk to me. It's the Catholics.'

I laughed, suddenly, involuntarily.

'There's nothing funny about it,' he scolded, his voice sharper but still quiet.

'I'm sorry. Father. It just - sounded so strange.'

He laughed himself then, but it was a hollow self-deprecatory laugh that failed to move the corners of his mouth towards a smile. 'Yes, I suppose it does sound a bit strange if you're not from around here.' He moved across to the wall of his bungalow and set the brush against it. 'Sure come on inside for a cup of tea then, and you can tell me what you're after.'

He pushed the front door open and led me through a bright hallway into a compact, modern kitchen. Spotlessly clean. He sat me down at the kitchen table and set about making some tea. I hate tea, but I wasn't about to ask him for Coke. I would have to grin and swallow it, though not at the same time.

He stood with his back against the sink as he waited for the kettle to boil.

'It's a long time since I had anyone in the house,' he said.

'I thought priests' houses were the centre of the parish?'

'Oh, they're supposed to be, all right. Just not here.'

I waited for him to continue, but his eyes were away again, lost in a dream. 'How come?' I asked.

He shook his head again, ridding the demons. 'They didn't tell you down below?' I shook my head.

'Well, I suppose there's little harm in you knowing.' He did nothing for a moment, while the kettle came quickly to a high-pitched boil. He switched it off but made no effort to continue with the tea. He stood on the other side of the table, regarding me quizzically for a moment. Then he slowly removed his dog collar and set it on the table before him. He began to work at the buttons of his shirt, opening them one by one to reveal his bare chest beneath.

I shifted uncomfortably.

I tried to look everywhere but his chest. I looked into his eyes, but he was looking into mine so I turned away. I looked at the cupboards. At the fridge. At a calendar still depicting a winter scene. At a drip hanging desperately onto the end of the tap. My face burnt with embarrassment as he undid the last button and pulled the shirt out from the confinement of his trousers. You hear about priests.

'Well?' He asked.

'Uh.'

'What do you think?'

'I'm, uh .. .'

The hair was thick on his chest, grey and vigorous as a Brillo Pad; I couldn't help but bring my gaze back to it, the way you can't help staring at an amputee's stump or a winestain birth mark.

'It's starting to fade a bit of course, but it's still pretty impressive, no?'

'Uh, oh . . . yeah, of course.'

'The surgeons say it won't completely disappear. But I can live with that. That's what I say a lot of the while now, I can live with that. Sums it all up really.'

'I . . .'

'It's the root of all my problems here, of course. But I can live with that.'

He smiled at me. It was a nice, innocent, celibate kind of a smile that hacked away at my embarrassment. I clenched my teeth and focused my eyes on the fine curly filaments that made up the plantation on his chest. Through the grey.

Like a river trace of lava on a winter landscape I discerned a thin red scar line.

'Somebody stabbed you? Somebody stabbed a priest?'

He laughed out loud. 'Stabbed! Not at all!' He thumped his chest with a clenched fist and exclaimed proudly: 'Self-inflicted!'

He was laughing quite steadily now. He turned and poured the boiling water into a teapot and added a teabag, returned to me, his shirt still hanging open and his face wide with a smile.

'Sorry, sorry,' he laughed. 'Self-inflicted! You think after all the troubles I've had here I took a knife to myself? Ha!'

'Nah, I...'