Gospel (20 page)

Lucy did some quick back-calculating: David must be 24, 25. Certainly legal marrying age.

David volunteered to carry her suitcase. Lucy surrendered the burdensome bag and David decided it was best to drag it, pulling it behind him by its leash. As promised, he led her through the elegant Georgian courtyards of Trinity College, by the grand, gray-stoned arches and neoclassical facades illumined at night, past the laughing, bustling groups of students, so much more alive and American-seeming than the oppressed, sniffling, pallid Oxford lot. David learned he had not received any mail so he and Lucy turned for the bus station and the bed-and-breakfast strip, down a slight hill during which the suitcase bit at their heels, rolling into them.

Lucy then asked, “What are Dr. O'Hanrahan and Father Keegan doing? This secret project at midnight?”

“Well, they wouldn't tell me exactly.”

Lucy was sure. “They must be acquiring the scroll
tonight.”

She explained to David that she was on a mission from her university following O'Hanrahan and helping his department decide whether he was onto the find of the century or merely insane.

“No, I don't think he's insane,” said David.

By the time Lucy finished relating the professor's adventure of the last three months, David was as curious as she was.

“Why don't
we
follow 'em?” suggested David. “I brought the car down last week from home, in order to drive Patrick up to see me folks.”

Lucy quickly checked her bags in at Mrs. O'Feagh's Bed & Breakfast, while David went to a corner a few blocks away where he had parked illegally in a spot one never got a ticket. A few minutes later, he drove by the bed-and-breakfast, Lucy hopped in, and David drove to Father Keegan's church, Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows.

They sat parked outside the church, waiting for midnight.

“This could be exciting,” said David.

In ten minutes they were both a little cold. No excitement, subsequently, had presented itself in twenty minutes. Lucy listened to David as he told her about his agricultural engineering degree, concentrating instead on his handsome features in the bluish streetlamp light. Lucy found herself infatuated by his irresistible brogue and his gestures with his thick, freckled hands. And when he had something of interest to say how he'd squint as he spoke, then smile after he made his announcement, so naturally, so openly.

“So what do you think?” David asked her.

“Oh, I'm sorry … about what specifically?”

“About coming up with Dr. O'Hanrahan and the rabbi to Ballymacross tomorrow?”

“I'm sure they'd hate it,” she said, hiding her delight.

“Patrick's a mangy cur, he is really. He's all bark. Ye mustn't give a thought to him—ye tell him you're going and that's that. Put them two in the backseat and you sit up front with me.”

Where exactly
was
Ballymacross? It didn't matter, she'd go!

“But it's bound to be trouble.”

“I'd tell ye if it were! I'd like ye to come, and plus I have an ulterior motive, you'll see.”

Probably not the one I have in mind, thought Lucy.

“I'd like to go to the States,” David said. “For a bit, ye know. Everyone goes but it's hard to get your visa 'cause once you're there you can work illegally and no one can detect you. We lose our accents like
that,
” he added, snapping his fingers. “If I go to the States I'll need someone to stay with at first or show me ‘round and Chicago's good a place as any. Only trouble with it, ‘s too many Irish there.”

Lucy laughed.

“That's what's so good about the mission work in Africa. I wanna go somewhere where no one's got red hair and gets pissed and sings fockin' Molly Malone, ye know?”

Hope he does visit, thought Lucy. May have to kill Judy to get the apartment to myself but my conscience could accommodate that …

(Oh Lucy, really.)

Could bring this one home to Daddy and Mommy, she thought.

(Getting a bit ahead of yourself there, My child.)

Lucy wondered suddenly, since David came from Northern Ireland, whether he was Catholic or Protestant.

(It doesn't matter to Us, why should it to you?)

“Look,” he said intensely.

Father Keegan and O'Hanrahan stumbled out through the chancery door, laughing about something.

“Must be gone to fetch his car,” said David.

“You don't suppose they're taking a long trip, do you?”

“I don't have loads of petrol, so I hope not.”

Soon a small black car emerged from the side drive, its clutch grinding and gears whirring. David waited until it reached the corner and turned, before starting his own car, turning on his lights, then following them.

“This is just like a television show,” David enthused. “Bet you're used to this stuff all the time in America…”

He pulled up right behind the small car as Lucy ducked down needlessly in the seat. The two cars wound their way out of the valley of downtown Dublin until residential streets and rolling hills surrounded them, houses now dark and occupants sleeping. Before Dun Laoghaire, the road afforded a glimpse of the Dublin Bay, glassy smooth tonight with a reflection of moonlight, tankers and foreign ships anchored calmly, while the only motion on the bay was a car ferry, bound for Wales and laced with sparkling lights reflecting in the still black water.

“Getting down to an eighth of a tank,” said David worriedly.

“I'll pay you back for the gas,” Lucy mumbled.

“'S not that I'm worried about.”

But soon Father Keegan's car slowed before an old-fashioned Irish junction sign, pointed panels fanning out in all directions, black on white, announcing Wicklow was 17 miles ahead, Dublin 13 miles behind them, and up a small road, lined by hedges, was Enniskerry and St. Rodan's Chapel, three miles beyond. The father's car turned for the Chapel. David slowed and went beyond the turn, so as not to seem to be following them. He drove on another fraction of a mile, then turned around.

“St. Rodan's Chapel,” said Lucy, considering. “Do you suppose the big handoff is going to take place there?”

(St. Rodan of the 570s. Battling a recalcitrant pagan king, Our inventive Rodan engaged in the greatest cursing contest of Ireland, reducing Tara to rubble, wishing the king the treatment of an animal skinned, a fish in a boiling pot, wishing a red-hot nail to fasten his tongue to the roof of his mouth, wishing that grubs and maggots and worms and sharp-jawed baby eels devoured the king from within. Christianity victorious, yet again.)

“I been there as a kid,” said David. “It's an old Celtic church, 1000s or so, like Glendalough? Ruins of a roundtower, you know?” Lucy nodded, unclear about Celtic architectural features.

David and Lucy edged slowly down the country road to Enniskerry, a crossroads village, and then up a further, narrower lane until they came upon the chapel in a clearing of pines. Father Keegan's car was parked in front. And the front door of the chapel was ajar and a flickering light glowed from within.

David said, “Father Keegan's in charge of a lot of the holy places and shrines in these parts. A local historian, he is, always writing things for the paper. He probably has the keys to St. Rodan's.”

They sat in the car not sure what to do next.

A chilling thought possessed Lucy: what if the parties involved were some of these rough-playing collectors or foreign dealers, armed and dangerous? What if Gabe wasn't merely being overdramatic about someone having been killed for this document? And what if Lucy and David's being there compromised this upcoming transaction?

“Maybe this was dumb,” she said slowly. “Maybe we're just going to ruin the deal, being here.”

David slipped out of the car. “Aw c'mon, let's go take a peek!”

“David,” she hissed, getting out of the car herself. “No! What if we're messing up the big handoff? Dr. O'Hanrahan will kill us!”

“I've known Father Keegan for a bit and Patrick since I was wee, Lucy. They'll think it's a laugh we followed 'em. Ah, I tellya what, we oughta jump out and scare the shite out of 'em!”

“I really regret doing this now,” said Lucy, fearful of O'Hanrahan's swift, assured wrath.

David stepped up to the chapel door and peered in. He motioned Lucy over. She reluctantly tiptoed across the gravel lot gingerly and took a look inside. It was a simple, dank stone church with spare decoration, a Celtic crucifix—a cross with a circle imposed on the transection—on the altar, and the interior illumined only by a few candles. Father Keegan was lighting another candle while chuckling about something but their echoing, indistinct voices couldn't be deciphered. O'Hanrahan stood holding a church candlestick, lighting up a small cigar with the flame. Father Keegan produced a rusted ring of old keys and unlocked a grate to a cellar beneath the altar … an ancient crypt! What a wonderful hiding place, thought Lucy. A foundation clear back to the lost Celtic mysteries of Ireland, the age of Patrick and Columkille.…

“The scroll must be in the crypt,” Lucy whispered.

David looked amused.

“What's so funny?” she asked, smiling back.

“Nothing,” he said.

But then they heard a triumphant yell from within. Lucy and David, huddled down low on the outside stairs, peered back into the dark church and Father Keegan was being helped from the cellar by O'Hanrahan. In the priest's hand was something like a gasoline can, like the container one uses back in America to fill a lawn mower. Then O'Hanrahan approached with a chalice from a nearby unlocked cabinet of Communion wares. David was snickering beside her.

“What are they doing?” she asked him.

“I knew it, I knew it…” David laughed.

Poteen,
pronounced puh-sheen. The Irish moonshine. Distilled in many a church cellar in the golden days of 19th-Century ecclesiastical tippling, its production now nearly a lost art form. Trust Father Keegan to know where you get the stuff, explained David in whispers, and trust O'Hanrahan to quaff it down in the Holy Grail itself.

“I had a feeling,” David concluded, sitting on the church steps.

“You let me think this had to do with the scroll,” Lucy protested, swatting him lightly to scold him. “Making me look like an idiot.”

“Nawww, I promise on me honor. But you see, they were talking about
poteen
before you came. That's what we were discussing, liquors of the world, you know? So I had a feeling that's what this was about.”

Lucy smiled back. “Want to knock on the door and get a glass?”

“That'll make ya blind, it will,” he said, shaking his head. “Or worse, keep a man from … ye know, functioning.”

We can't have that, thought Lucy, scooting a bit closer to him on the steps.

David proposed: “We'll sit here and give 'em both a right scare when they come out.” They both looked up to a clearing in the clouds, a window to a starry night. “Ah, it's nice for June but a bit cold. No rain, just a few clouds. You can see the moon behind that one … see? Not yet full.”

Lucy was anxious about their lack of conversation. She racked her brain for tips from all the women's magazines Judy and she had lying around the apartment. She recalled it being sound advice to make the man talk about himself. “So,” she began, “you were saying about, uh, agricultural engineering.”

“Well, it's sort of boring to talk about,” he said, stretching his legs down the stairs. “Master's degree. Agricultural Engineering for the Third World, Africa and all. How to help the Sudan or Somalia to feed itself. These places often have enough aid, enough base resources, everything but a decent government. And luck. I go with Austcare each summer for six weeks to a refugee camp and help out. All the people mad enough to go down there are really great—you'd love Georgie and Bobby. God, I bet you'd all get on.”

“You go down with the same group each year?”

“Well, it's only my third year. I've volunteered for poor old Ethiopia. Those buggers have had the worst luck, since the Russians got rid of Haile Selassie.”

“That crazy emperor,” said Lucy, trying to remember what she knew about that part of the world.

“It's a Christian country, ye know. He wasn't just emperor, he was the Lion of Judah, descendant of King Solomon—we got a handful of Rastas here in Dublin, believe it or not, with the hair all braided up ‘n everything, they think he's a god. And some will tell ye that since no body of Selassie was ever shown that he'll come back, right before the Judgment Day, and make Ethiopia the Kingdom of God.”

Lucy was feeling happy to be with David sitting on the steps of an ancient church in the Irish moonlight … but also unhappy at seeming so provincial suddenly, so untraveled and unread and blah. “Must be something to see Africa,” she said at last. “Must have to get a lot of shots.”

“Christ, horrible ones—typhus is the worst. Like I said, Austcare sends us down in six-week shifts and that's about all me Western stomach can take. I spend the next twelve weeks recovering from it.”

Almost an hour passed with Lucy following one question with another, interested in Africa but more in hearing David talk so warmly to her. Then the door to the chapel opened behind them and they heard a shriek from the father, followed by a string of Holy-this and Mother-of-that and importunings to St. So-and-So.

“Ye two scared me to death!” Father Keegan cried before regaining his smile. “Ah, but just as well you're here! I was nearly ready to set out for the town and fetch someone to help me with Paddy.”

“Is he sick?” Lucy asked, springing to her feet.

“Well, I wouldn't say he's exactly sick, mind ye,” said the priest. “He just needs to get back to the B & B. And recuperate.”

David and Lucy went into the chapel and saw O'Hanrahan arranged along the first-row churchpew, snoring and red-faced.