Lamb (14 page)

Michael fumbled with his money and put another tenpence in the slot.

Maguire's voice came back: ‘You're in no position to bargain. Where are you anyway?'

‘That's not important.'

‘How can I send the money to you? By the way, this is not a kidnap demand, is it?'

‘Don't be silly.'

‘Is the boy all right?'

‘Of course he is.'

‘Where can I contact you?'

Michael hesitated.

‘Can I trust you?' he said.

‘Sure. Just wait till I get a pencil.'

Michael kicked himself for his own stupidity. He had forgotten that to get the money he would have to reveal his whereabouts. If he used a postal address it would be watched until he picked the money up. If he went to Maguire himself he would certainly shop him to the police and pocket the money. He was sure Maguire was going to pocket the money no matter what happened. If he could catch a criminal into the bargain it would look well for him.

‘Hello. Righty-ho. Fire ahead,' said Maguire's voice.

Michael put the phone down.

He stood and noticed that his knees were shaking. His plan would have to go ahead. It was the only way. With a heart of lead, he climbed the stairs, each one an individual effort.

Money was at the root of the whole problem. Money could save them now for a while. If Owen had been born into a family which had not had to live on the borders of poverty for most of the time, then the situation would not have arisen. One of Owen's dodges had been to stop tourists on the street and offer to say three Hail Marys for them for five pence. Many showed him the back of their hand, but many paid to hear his accent and for the quaintness of the custom. He gave as little as possible of this money into the house but his mother knew the turnover and he had to give some. The luck to be born into such a family. What was needed now was a few even breaks to counteract the accumulated ill-luck of years. The old Irish woman didn't seem to have informed on them. He wakened Owen.

‘Come on, I think our luck's held,' he said.

They got dressed and Michael packed their bag. This time they had to leave the toys and the model plane, now almost completely assembled. Owen was loath to leave the toys but he just shrugged at the loss of the plane. Michael allowed him to keep two small things and he chose the gun and sheath knife to pack in the bag. In a small café with its seats arranged all along one side like horse boxes they had breakfast, in silence. Everything rattled loudly on the Formica surface of the table. There was a fat plastic tomato with ketchup congealed around its nozzle, and Michael slid it behind the menu. An Indian lady with an apron over her sari served them. She had a small red exclamation mark between her eyebrows.

When they had finished Michael said,

‘We can make eight o'clock mass somewhere if you hurry.'

‘Aw no,' said Owen, screwing up his face.

‘It's Sunday.'

‘I thought you said you'd forget about
everything
.'

‘There are some things you shouldn't forget about.'

‘It's crap. Preachin' and all.'

‘Some of it is,' Michael agreed. ‘But not all of it.' He consulted his
A–Z
and circled the nearest church with the pen Owen had nicked for him.

‘Will you go to communion?' asked Michael.

‘If you say so.'

‘No. Can you go to communion?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘I've done nothing. Sure I'm sure.'

‘Good,' said Michael, ‘I just wanted to know.'

The church looked near in the
A-Z
, but it was ten past eight by the time they arrived. It was a large dark Gothic building with stained-glass windows which were so dirty that they let in little light. It was like a church at night. Michael and Owen knelt down in their seat about half way up the church. The priest who was reading the psalm was obviously Irish. He was very old.

‘“Save me, O God,”' his voice quavered, ‘“for the waters threaten my life. I am sunk in the abysmal swamp where there is no foothold; I have reached the watery depths; the flood overwhelms me. I am wearied with calling, my throat is parched . . . ”' At this point the old priest took a fit of coughing and Owen laughed up at Michael.

‘“My eyes have failed with looking for my God. Those outnumber the hairs of my head who hate me without cause.”'

‘He's baldy,' hissed Owen, still laughing.

‘Cut it out. We didn't come here to make fun.'

‘“Too many for my strength are they who wrongfully are my enemies. Must I restore what I did not steal?”'

They stood for the gospel and then sat for the sermon.

Michael felt the lack of a night's sleep catching up on him. His eyes were heavy and the lids kept coming together. Once his head pitched forward and he woke.

The sermon was something about the early Christians, how they were persecuted and had to form secret societies. They used as a sign
Icthus
, meaning fish. Owen leaned over to Michael:

‘Is that the bloke we were reading about?'

‘Who?'

‘The guy that made the wings?'

‘No. That was Icarus.'

‘Pardon my iggerance,' and he laughed too loud.

‘Shhh.'

The Brothers were a bit like a secret society but they were neither fish nor fowl, neither lay nor fully clerical. The half-collar they wore was an indication of their status. When they had come recruiting to his school – ‘for fishers of men' – all those years ago and had offered the glittering lures of sanctity and safety, Michael had jumped selflessly.

It was a long time before the line pulled taut and he felt the pain of the hooks within him and the irony of the fisherman caught.

Owen nudged him again.

‘There's eighteen here,' he said.

‘What?'

‘Only eighteen people – and they're all old.'

‘Pay attention.'

Pay attention. Michael smiled within himself. What did it matter? There was a time when it did. ‘Must I restore what I did not steal?' The phrase hung on in his mind like weed snagged on a stick while the rest of it washed away. Here he was trying to force Owen to accept what he no longer believed in. But when he had been that age he had believed totally and absolutely, and on reflection the advantages had outweighed the disadvantages.

The guilt of his sins, the bad thoughts, the touching himself, had to be set against the warmth and security of having in his mind a Christ figure that loved him, that he could talk to intimately and as he believed then, who would listen to him. It was nice to be forgiven for something bad that he had done, to come back to Jesus saying: I am sorry for having offended You, I love You so much that I will never sin again. And the tears would be on the brink of his eyes with the beauty of it all. Love. Jesus. Him. Imaginary companions. His loving father.

He had loved the hymns. That feeling they gave him of prickles down his neck when the whole congregation stood and sang at the tops of their voices:

The church vibrated with the sound. His father had a good voice, like someone on the radio, and it rose above the others and Michael was proud he was his father. The only one who wasn't in the church was his mother. He had to save everything up to tell her when he got home from devotions. A bit of the sermon, what hymns they had sung, had anyone taken ill, had a priest thumped the pulpit, had he got the rosary exact, saying ten Hail Marys, not nine or eleven as he was wont to do.

He no longer believed in any of it. Faith was a bit like luck. Spiritual luck. By the end of his novitiate it had begun to drain away. He struggled and prayed to retain it but each morning that he awoke he realized that he had less of it. He had sprung a leak and he didn't know where to mend it.

Nevertheless he took his final vows. He did not know what else he could do. To back out at that stage would have killed his father. He was convinced of it.

Once he had discussed the problem with his Novice Master but he had averted his face and told him to pray. After this his prayers carried an extra phrase – if You exist. God, if You exist, help me. But this compromise eventually gave way to not praying at all. He felt totally trapped. The strange thing that he found was that he was still the same person, his actions remained just as moral, his desire to be fully Christian was still there. Love was what governed all he did. It was funny in a way that it was his love for his father and a desire not to hurt him that kept him for so long in the Brothers. But when his father died everything changed.

God forgive me, thought Michael, but it was lucky he died when he did. It gave me a chance. How different Owen would have been if he had had a father like mine. The whole thing was like a lottery. Owen draws a father who beats him, a mother who hates him. The odds are all against him. Would I have been the same as him if I had been born into a family like this?

Would he have been the same as me, with my parents?

Prayer was for fighting bad luck. If the prayer did not succeed then you had to accept the bad luck as the will of God. Please God, let me pass my examinations. Fail. I accept Your holy will. Pray for a miracle.

Miracles were good luck, if they ever happened. For some. Christ came to the man bound in fetters who was howling and gnashing and drove the devils out of him into a herd of swine. Then they all ran into the sea and were drowned. Good luck for the man in the fetters. Not so hot for the man who owned the swine.

He imagined his father applying to the Government for compensation.

‘Well, you see, there was this fella came into town the other night and . . . '

‘What are you smiling at?' asked Owen.

‘Never mind.'

He knew that his concept of God was old-fashioned. He tried to replace it with something not so naive, to see if that would work. God is love. But that slipped through his fingers, gave him no purchase and he was left with: I am love. If God ceased to exist tomorrow there would be enough love in every individual to keep the whole thing going, to make it worthwhile. Just so long as people like his father continued to be born, then it would be all right.

Thousands of saviours like his father in any one lifetime would be sufficient fuel for the world. They must exist. He knew because he was one of them himself. He knew he was good. I am love. There was no pride or pomposity in this thought for him. He just knew that he wanted to help in whatever way he could the suffering of the world. In the world was better. Of people in the world. Of Owen. Brother Benedict was right – he could not think.

The old priest shuffled through his mass on an altar that was an island of light in the gloom of the church.

‘Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, grant us peace.' His bald head shone as he stooped to receive the host. The feet of the others scraped emptily as they made their way to the altar. Michael received communion with Owen as he had done many times before, but this time he felt guilty. He was deceiving the boy. Would it not be better to tell him the truth of what he believed or disbelieved? The trouble was that he couldn't put it into words to tell anybody, let alone explain it to a child. Children copied the people they liked and Owen would follow him into his fog of unbelief without a moment's hesitation.

Michael peeled the host from the roof of his mouth with his tongue and swallowed it. He bent over as if praying, and stayed like that until mass finished.

The priest had gone off the altar but the old congregation sat on. A woman in front of them wore a hat that looked as if it was made of brains, convoluted grey material. She whistled her prayers and Owen started to make fun of her, making a noise like calling a cat.
Pss-wshhh-wshhh
.

‘Come on,' said Michael.

In the porch on a table beside an empty collection plate were some
Irish Weeklys.
Michael bought one and left the right money. He opened the inside leaves of the paper and saw a photograph of Owen staring out at him. He rustled it shut.

‘Let's get out of here,' he said. They walked quickly away from the church and saw a park.

‘Wait till you see this,' said Michael sitting down on the grass.

‘What?'

Michael showed him his picture. He was thrilled.

‘Hey . . . ' was all he could say. ‘Me in the paper.'

Michael read him the caption: ‘Boy still missing', and the story.

‘That means we'll have to stop being Catholics,' Michael said.

‘How so?'

‘Well this paper is sold to the Irish all over and they're Catholics. They'll see your picture. I bet you that oul' woman in the hotel will see it. We didn't leave there a minute too soon.'

‘Yeah.'

‘I bet you she'll phone the police this morning. We may say goodbye to London, Owney.'

‘I don't care. Where to next?'

‘Last night I was thinking. I couldn't sleep and I thought of a sort of a plan. Where is the last place they would think of looking for us?'

Owen thought for a while.

‘Japan,' he guessed.

‘No, y'egit. Seriously. Where?'

‘I don't know,' he said, giving up.

‘In Ireland,' said Michael. ‘The word is out that they are looking for us here and if that woman phones then they definitely will look for us here. Nobody will think of looking for us at home.'