The Miracle Man (20 page)

“Ladies,” he said suddenly, “I think we should say a prayer together,” and he knelt down facing the rock, oblivious to the mud that squelched around his knees. The women followed suit and even Peggy May knelt down, albeit a little awkwardly. When Father Burke blessed himself the women did so too, with Peggy May lifting a paw and doing the same for the cat, presumably on the grounds that, with an injured limb, it was unable to do this for itself. Father Burke said three Our Fathers, three Hail Marys and the Memorare. He had intended to say a prayer specially for the occasion, one that he would compose as he went along and give out in ringing tones, but whether because of the dismal weather or the earlier taxing of his imagination, nothing appropriate came to mind.

When he had finished and stood up – the women rose in unison – he turned to see a man standing a few yards away from them, the light glittering on his waterproof coat. It was John Healy, Limpy McGhee’s next-door neighbour. He came forward a little hesitantly and gave a nod of his head.

“Hello, Mr Healy,” Peggy May said brightly and waved one of the cat’s paws. He nodded towards her and then began awkwardly,

“I don’t know if you know, Father, “but these people here are all – well, trespassing.”

“What?”

John Healy moved uneasily from one foot to the other.

“You’re all trespassing, you know,” he said to the women. “This land here belongs to Mr McAllister now. Private property. There’s no access allowed without permission.”

Father Burke took a step towards him.

“No access? What’re you talking about, man? People have been coming to worship here for hundreds of years without let or hindrance. Now away home like a good man and don’t be making a fool of yourself.”

Father Burke turned away. From an upstairs window the stolid gaze of Mrs Healy met her husband’s nervous glance backwards. He cleared his throat and tried again.

“I’m Mr McAllister’s agent, Father. And from tomorrow onwards there’ll be a charge made for anybody coming onto this land.” From the women there were gasps of disbelief. Father Burke stared at the unfortunate Healy who seemed to shrink beneath the visual onslaught of his wife from the rear and the priest and women to the fore. Angrily the parish priest moved to within inches of the new land agent. The women drew closer.

“You would make money from people coming to pray to the Lord Jesus? What sort of men are you at all?”

“A bloody pagan!” one woman shouted, and another started, “A money-grubbin’ little f – “, before being elbowed into silence by her neighbour.

“That’s the sin of simony,” Father Burke thundered at Healy, but this failed to make any discernible impression on him. In any competition between Satan and his wife, Healy knew who his money would be on.

“A man’s got to make a living, Father. When people start crowding in here, devil the bit of sheep can go on it. Mr McAllister says it’s simply a – “ he readied himself for the deliverance of the phrase, “ – a commercial undertaking.”

“Oh he does, does he?” Father Burke almost shouted.
“Well, we’ll see about that, Mr Healy. We’ll soon see about that.”

Having delivered his piece, John Healy turned abruptly and walked off towards his house, congratulating himself on having had the nerve to see it through. Maybe there would be a price to be paid for this in the next life, if there was one, but unlike Satan, his wife was very much in this life, he could reach out and touch her, and much more importantly, she could reach out and grasp him. Behind him, from the arms of Peggy May, the cat waved a cheery goodbye.

When Limpy received the five hundred pounds for his exclusive story from Fergus Keane, he did not even open the envelope but straight away put it at the back of the cupboard next to the fireplace. Normally, if he had any money besides that which was in his pocket – a rare event – he would stuff it into one of the tins on the mantelpiece. His “savings”, he would call it, but the money only remained in the tin until that in his pocket ran out, which was never more than a few days. Then it was off with the tin lids, one after the other, rummaging amongst the pieces of string, the foreign stamps which, if he had ever collected more than half a dozen would one day have netted him a fortune, the assorted buttons, badges, nails and screws. Now he couldn’t be too careful. There was an increasing number of people coming to the Mass Rock site and as his little house was adjacent to it, he was now subjected to complete strangers peering in his window and attempting to use his outside toilet, although it was unlikely that any of them, having used it once, would venture back without a gas mask and a flame-thrower.

He had thought up hill and down dale, as he liked to put it, about the best use for the money and had come to no firm conclusion. He could buy a new bed, of course and some new clothes, he could put a lick of paint on the house. With each
possibility, he had decided that he was happy enough the way things were, so why waste the money. He had even considered giving some of it to the Church, on account of it having been the result of a religious event, but he didn’t much take to the idea of the money going into Father Burke’s coffers to be used for who knows what.

The five hundred pounds in its tatty brown envelope lay in the cupboard for the best part of a week before Limpy removed it and laid it out on the table. It was more money than he had seen at one time in the whole of his life. He gazed at the creased and crumpled ten- and twenty-pound notes for a long time, hoping that the sight of such wealth would conjure up all sorts of delights on which he could spend it. He considered a foreign holiday, but what use would that be on his own? He pondered the amusement of a small boat in which he could potter around the river and the bay but when he remembered that he could be seasick just looking at a moored boat bobbing up and down, he quickly dismissed that idea. A car, now there was something that would be a major benefit. He could go where he wanted when it suited him. He could drive around the countryside, visit friends in Ballymane and Castleglen and wouldn’t be a slave to the erratic bus timetable. And all he would have to do was put a drop of juice in the machine now and again – and pay for repairs and tax and insurance and . . . maybe a car wasn’t such a good idea after all. He gathered the money up, put it back into the envelope and replaced it in the cupboard.

News travels fast in a village and Inisbreen was no exception. Whether by way of Mr Pointerly, the only other person besides Dermot who knew of the Garrison sister’s financial problems, or from Dermot himself, it was not long before most people heard that they had fallen on hard times. Some refused to
believe it. People like that knew how to hold onto money and the Garrisons had always been loaded. And anyway, they must still have it because what the hell did they spend it on? When Limpy heard the news he also refused to believe it and in O’Neill’s bar almost started a fight with Pig Cully who, being in favour of the distribution of wealth as long as it was primarily distributed in his direction, had taken delight in the story. Later, when he went to the hotel kitchen to visit his sister Lizzie, who was pleasantly surprised that he didn’t tap her for a couple of pounds, he learned from her that the Garrisons had indeed fallen on hard times and she related the snippets she had overheard from “that little weasel of a lawyer boy that came from Belfast.” And if Lizzie said it, it must be true. She had long since cornered the market for gossip in Inisbreen. On his walk back home Limpy was deep in thought, so much so that he quite forgot he had intended to make his daily visit to the Glens Hotel bar for a few restorative drinks. Mrs Megarrity, her suspicions raised when he left without having asked her for money, covertly watched him from the door of the hotel as he walked up the road and past the bridge. He clearly wasn’t going to O’Neill’s bar either. She might have lectured him long and often on his drinking, but when any creature strayed from its natural path, there was obviously something wrong.

Glancing into the sitting-room, where Margaret sat staring sightlessly at a book propped before her, Cissy stuffed inside her cardigan the bulky envelope which she had taken from the letter rack in the foyer of the Glens Hotel and began quickly to climb the stairs towards her room. Her receiving a letter – or a communication of any kind – was such an usual occurrence that she could hardly contain her excitement. And the envelope could only have been placed in the rack a short time before, otherwise it would have been spotted by Margaret who would have intercepted it with the excuse that any such missive
would require her interpretation before the contents were communicated to Cissy in the simplest of terms. After the incident with Mr Rowan, it was clear that Margaret was just waiting for a chance to get back at her.

As Cissy climbed the stairs, she felt the envelope beneath which her heart pounded from her exertion and unconcealed excitement. It must be more than a letter, it was so bulky, and yet what it could possibly be she had not the slightest idea. It was most probably a mistake, with the letter having been intended for Margaret. She stopped on the landing outside her room. Should she take it to Margaret now and thus avoid the embarrassment and reprimand that would inevitably follow her opening of it? She pulled the buff envelope far enough out from her cardigan to see again the details of the former addressee scored out and her own name written above in ill-formed letters. “Miss Cissy Garison” it said. She barely noticed the mis-spelling. Giving herself a little hug of excitement and with a smile broadening on her lips, she went into her bedroom, where she closed and locked the door behind her.

With trembling fingers she tore open the top of the envelope, which had been sealed by a great blob of some sticky substance and then in a paroxysm of anticipation, she paused. It was a joke. Someone was playing a cruel joke on her and when she drew the contents from the envelope something would flutter into her face or make a terrible noise or stick to her fingers. And it was probably Patrick McAllister. After all, he had once put a squeaky cushion on her chair in the diningroom and she had jumped up and spilled soup over Margaret who had never forgiven her. Pulling a face, and with the envelope held almost at arms length, Cissy slipped her fingers inside it. There were pieces of paper. Lots of them. She frowned and drew them out. Then her eyes sprang wide open and her jaw dropped as a wad of ten- and twenty-pound notes emerged, to slip from her nervous fingers and fall on the bed.
Cissy sat with her hand clutched at her throat, eyes staring and her chest heaving rapidly. Such a pile of money. Then she noticed the piece of white paper underneath the notes and drawing it out she unfolded it and read what had been written in the same poor handwriting as that of the envelope.

“Dear Cissy. I was sorry to here about yer finanshal trouble. I dont want you to think I was poaking my nose into yer bisness, but Inisbreen isnt the best place for keeping secrets. It was great bein able to talk to you the other week only yer sister came and spoyld it. I know I agreed not to see you after what yer father sed all them years ago but I coudnt see you in a bad way an not help. I had a bit of good luck and got this £500. At least Ive got a roof over my head and you might not have soon, so Ill pass it on to you. I hope itll be sum help. You can say its a preznt for a fine wuman and from my memory of old times. Maybe we can meet again some time soon, just you and me. Good Luck.

John.”

Cissy read the note several times and then sat looking from it to the money and back again. Slowly she shook her head and her face began to pucker as tears welled in her eyes.

“Oh, John,” she said. “John McGhee.”

Cissy sat with four of her father’s old cigar boxes in front of her on the bed. Slowly and painstakingly she was examining the pictures which they contained – small passport types of her mother and father long ago, medium-sized ones taken by members of the family, and large ones with protective covers done in studios by professional photographers. Some were very old and faded, the people in them long since dead, and others were so dark that she could make out little detail in them. Here were she and Margaret as children playing in a garden with big rhododendron bushes, and again with their parents, standing in front of one of her father’s shops. Over
some of the photographs she lingered, while others received the merest glance. In the third box she came across a photograph that showed about ten or twelve young men and women on the beach at Inisbreen – all smiles and horseplay – with herself and Margaret at the front.

Cissy studied each face in the photograph, holding it very near to her eyes and moving it the better to catch the light, then glanced at the back which was unmarked, before returning it to the box. The rest of the contents in the third cigar box were examined and then she started on the last one. Halfway down it, she picked up a small black-and-white photograph, examined it for a moment and then drew in her breath sharply. It showed her and a young man – both in their twenties – sitting on a grassy slope, he with his arm round her waist and she posing for the camera by resting her head against his shoulder and smiling broadly. Cissy Garrison turned the photograph over. On the back was written in faded pencil, “John McGhee, Inisbreen, August 19—”. The last two digits of the year were indecipherable. After looking at it for a long time, she slowly ran her fingertips over the surface, caressing the image on the shiny paper.

“Wake up, McGhee, for Christ’s sake!”

It was almost midday and John Healy was standing ankle deep in the litter beside the bed, shaking the recumbent Limpy, who gave a huge yawn which his stained dentures failed to follow. He opened one eye.

“Jasus, would ye leave a man to get his sleep, Healy. What the hell time is it?” He pulled the grubby blanket tighter around his chin.

“It’s after twelve o’clock. Would ye get up out of that. I’ve got something to tell ye.”

“What the hell are ye doing waking me up at this time? Don’t ye know the sunlight’s damaging to your skin at this hour of the day?”

“Come on, McGhee, get up! The sunlight’ll never get near your skin. I’ve got something to tell ye – about money.”