The Miracle Man (32 page)

Father Burke put his hand out to support himself on the door jamb. The whole world seemed to be falling about his ears. And could he believe what his eyes were telling him?

“Mrs McKay!” he said, and his words came out in a high-pitched tone. He tried again in a deeper voice. “Mrs McKay!”

This time she stirred, blinked her eyes open and sat looking at him with a glazed expression for a few moments. Then she gave him a lopsided smile.

“Ah it’s yourself, Father. I didn’t expect you back until this evening.”

In the circumstances, thought Father Burke, her speech was surprisingly clear. Perhaps she was used to heavy drinking.

“That, Mrs McKay, is patently obvious. This is absolutely disgraceful behaviour, not to mention an abuse of parish funds.”

The eyes of the housekeeper narrowed and she seemed to gather a cloak of sobriety around her. “Parish funds, is it?” Her lancing tone reminded the priest uncomfortably of his own mother’s combative style. “Parish funds, indeed. I’ll have you know that all of this – “ she swept her hand above the table, “ – all of this was bought by yours truly out of the reduced wages that I’ve had to endure since the Canon, God bless him, left this house.” Her look defied him to answer, but he made bold.

“Perhaps so, Mrs McKay, perhaps so,” Father Burke said quickly, “but there can be no excuse for such a show of drunken excess in a Catholic – indeed a Church – household. It’s a disgrace.” He felt he no longer needed the support of the door and clasped his hands gravely before him. “Mrs McKay, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to consider your future here very seriously indeed.” The housekeeper leant on the edge of the table and rose a little unsteadily to her feet. “Future, Father? What future?” she said. “Underpaid, overworked, running in and out day and night like a scalded cat to answer the ‘phone to people wanting to know about miracles. Walking to the Inisbreen Stores to get robbed by that Frank Kilbride now that the car – “ she drew a sneer onto her face, “ – is for restricted use only.” The young priest fidgeted with a button of his soutane. This was a point of some sensitivity. “And another thing while I’m at it,” Mrs McKay continued, warming to her task, “the food I’ve had to eat since you came here isn’t fit for a donkey. Porridge and turnips and carrots! I don’t know what kind of food they serve in the chapel houses of the South, but it’s not what I’m used to and it’s not what I’ll be having from now on.” She lined him up and fixed him in her sights. “If this is some idea of making sacrifices, then perhaps you should go
and live in a monastery.” There was a short silence, during which time the young priest stood looking at the older woman as though he was about to burst into tears.

“And now,” she said, taking a deep breath and smoothing down the front of her dress, “if you will excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”

She turned away from him and began to gather up the plates. For a little time Father Burke hovered in the doorway as if he had something to say but could not quite find the words. At last he said in a subdued voice,

“Mrs McKay, I may as well tell you that, due to recent events in this parish, I don’t feel that I can continue my work here. In fact,” he cleared his throat, “ I have come to the conclusion that this is not my true vocation and that I should leave the priesthood entirely.”

Mrs McKay stopped gathering the plates. For a moment she stood with her head slightly lowered before slowly turning to face Father Burke. She regarded him with soft, motherly eyes and said,

“Well now, Father, that’s a very big decision. A very big decision indeed, and not one that should be taken in the heat of the moment.” He made as if to speak, although in truth he had little to say, having got no further than the blind resolve to rid himself somehow of his intolerable burden. Then the housekeeper said quietly to him,

“Father, maybe if you would care to go up to your bedroom and have a wee lie down, I’m sure you must be exhausted, I could bring you up a cup of tea and a nice piece of cake. How would that do?”

As Father Burke gave a silent nod and turned towards the stairs, he felt the first glimmer of hope that things might just work out after all. They always had done when Mother had taken charge.

Because of the influx of reporters to the Glens Hotel, for the first
time ever during the off-season, Mr Pointerly and the Misses Garrison had been placed at the same table, and they showed even less signs of pleasure than normal at the forthcoming meal. Cissy sat with her eyes screwed up in concentration, as though she were making detailed calculations, while her sister and Mr Pointerly made minute rearrangements to the cutlery and studied the pattern of blotches on the table cloth to see what breed of creature would slowly emerge from the soup and gravy stains. Only one of the other tables was occupied, although a number were reserved for reporters, some of whom were still queuing outside the toilets on each of the two floors. One squat, grey-haired reporter from the Galway Telegraph, who looked like nothing so much as a granite chip, had simply come out of a toilet on the first floor and immediately joined the end of the queue again, having shrewdly calculated that the waiting time for the toilet almost exactly coincided with that between his attacks of what he called “the Kerry two-step”. In front of him a tall man with a grave face held his legs tightly together and breathed carefully while frequently consulting his watch.

“Did you guys ever stay in a place like this in your entire life?” the American reporter at one table asked his two companions, one of whom was a Londoner of Asian extraction who was determined to find a sex angle in the miracle story. The other was Mr Patel, who had come to England from India with his BA Eng. Lit.(failed) and to his surprise had quickly landed a job as a reporter on a daily tabloid. The Londoner said,

“Not me. There’s a chippy on the Commercial Road that runs it a close second, though.”

Mr Patel was more positive.

“They say that there are eating-houses in Calcutta where the holy man blesses you before you go in, and if you manage to walk out, he demands a fee.” He gave a smile which was not
returned by his companions. “I think perhaps we will see a holy man with a begging bowl when we leave here.”

After a few moments consideration the American said,

“God dammit, you know what? I think I’ll forget this miracle story and write a piece about this place. Except they’d never believe it back home.”

The Londoner looked at a notepad he had been scribbling in and said,

“How about this? ‘No Sex For Miracle Man Who Loses Stiffness After 68 Years.’ What d’you think?”

“Jee-sus,” the man from the Boston Globe-Tribune breathed and shook his head. “Listen, you guys, what d’you say we get the hell outa here and find somewhere that serves food fit for human consumption?”

“But I have not seen any other place near here,” said the man who was almost a graduate in English literature.

“Look, I don’t care if I’ve gotta drive from one end of the country to the other. I just want something decent to eat. What d’you say, Lou?”

“Lee,” the Londoner said, without looking up from his notepad. Then he tapped his pencil against his teeth and asked, “What about – ‘The Night The Senior Citizen Fell For The Virgin’? I’m with you, Don. Lead on.”

The American pulled a face and said, “Dan. And how about you, Shrivna – eh – Mr Patel? You wanna join us?”

“Ah, this is the famous American pioneering spirit, no? Even if there is nothing there, you will find it.” His eyes grew wide. “Yes. Perhaps even in this wilderness, there might be a curry house somewhere.”

Rising from the table the American said,

“A curry house? Hell, no. I’m looking for an improvement on lunch, not a repeat performance.”

As the three men walked through the foyer they met Dermot who glanced at his watch and said,

“Good evening, gentlemen. Are we not dining in tonight?”

Dan Kowalski, the American, shook his head and said,

“No sir, we’re not dining in tonight. We haven’t recovered from lunch yet. Tell me, where d’you get your cook? Dyno-Rod?”

“Ah – yes – very good.” Dermot gave a little laugh then leant forward to say in a low voice, “She’s not the best, I know, although she has her moments.” Mr Patel rolled his eyes. “But she’s only here in the off season.”

Mr Patel said to Lee,

“I think this means that everything is off, yes?”

“Look,” Dan Kowalski said, “is there anywhere else around here we could get a meal?”

“Well, you could try the Strand Hotel about five miles away, on the road to Castleglen. But it’s their off-season too.”

“Their cook isn’t a sister of this one, by any chance?” Kowalski said.

“Well, if she is, she doesn’t admit it. Ha ha.”

The American started for the door, saying to Lee and Mr Patel,

“Okay, guys, let’s go.”

“Oh, by the way – guys,” Dermot said. The three reporters stopped. “There isn’t that much to do around here in the

evenings.”

“You’ve noticed,” Kowalski said.

“But tomorrow night, there’s something that might be of interest to you. The Miracle Man, John McGhee? He’s holding a big party. I won’t be able to make it myself, but I’m sure you’d be very welcome. Apparently it’s open to all comers. You could do worse than go along? Meet the man himself, have a few drinks, enjoy yourselves, and you never know,” Dermot forced a laugh, “you might even pick up a good story for your newspapers.”

The three journalists glanced at each other and variously
recalled venues from Tierra del Fuego to a Finnish forest in midwinter that had been more full of promise. Dan Kowalski said,

“If we’re not whacked after playing dominoes, we’ll maybe give it a try. It’ll be the first time we’ve been able to clap eyes on this guy since we arrived here.”

“Well, you can’t miss it. It’s in the house about quarter of a mile past the bridge. Big place, red roof, front gates rusted away. I’d say it should be at full steam about eleven o’clock or so.”

When the three journalists had gone out of the front door, Dermot smiled and said,

“And then about twelve o’clock maybe you’ll get a story that’ll keep you writing all night.” And he laughed and rubbed his hands together.

Ten minutes later, when the Winter Cook came banging through the door into the dining-room with fourteen plates of soup on her trolley, she stopped and surveyed a room that was empty save for her three regular diners. Slowly she shook her head and said,

“Jasus tonight, they’ve all gone. I told McAllister we were feeding the buggers too well!”

Limpy McGhee’s big old Ford squeaked to a halt in the car park at the side of the Glens Hotel and gave a muffled bang before the engine shuddered two or three times and stopped. A few curses were laid on the head of a certain car salesman in Castleglen as Limpy fought to open the car door which, suddenly yielding, almost threw him face first out of the car.

“By Jasus!” he said, shaking his fist at the car, before slamming the door shut. A shower of rust flakes fell from the underside of it to the ground. Nevertheless, he stood for a moment, looking back and admiring the sweeping curves of the bonnet, the rake of the windscreen, the places where the hub caps should be. He was sure Cissy would be impressed.

Going through the little gate at the side of the hotel back yard, Limpy quickly took himself to the door leading to the back stairs, all the while keeping his eyes on the kitchen door further along the building, from which his sister Lizzie might well emerge at any moment. Safely inside, he was about to take the stairs to the first floor, when he stopped and rubbed his chin, scraped clean of stubble with a cut-throat razor he had sharpened on the back step of his house. Then opening the door to the hallway which led to the foyer, he looked out before
walking quickly and quietly to the foot of the stairs, all the while listening intently and glancing around him. Leaning to one side, he looked through the open doorway into the empty sitting-room. He gave a little smile.

On the foyer table beside him, there was a brass bell, a newspaper waiting to be collected and a vase of dried flowers which had shed most of their petals and now looked more like a corn stook. Limpy pulled a face and tiptoed back down the hallway to the dining-room, where he poked his head round the door. And when he looked at the nearest table, he gave a big grin and crept into the room.

Standing outside Cissy’s bedroom door, Limpy slapped his hair flat and straightened the mauve and puce tie which, not possessing an iron, he had laid under his mattress the night before in a vain attempt to flatten the kinks in it. He held up the bunch of dried flowers which he had taken from the dining-room table and gave a smile of satisfaction at the neatness of the fresh newspaper wrapping. Then he knocked lightly on the door. At first there was no reply, but after he knocked again, a little louder this time, a sleepy voice from within said,

“Yes, who is it?”

Limpy’s reply was a further knock. After a few seconds the door was slowly opened and Cissy peered out.

“Oh, it’s you. Well, I’m sorry, John, but I’ve got nothing to say to you. Please leave.”

The door began to close but Limpy stuck his foot in the gap.

“Cissy, wait a minute now. I just want a word. I brought ye these.” He thrust the bunch of flowers through the gap and into her hand. “Look, can I come in for a minute? I don’t want the whole world knowing my business. Only for a minute, please.”

“No, John, I don’t – ”

“For old times’ sake, Cissy. For what we once meant to each other? I’ve got something important to tell ye.”

Cissy looked at the old, lined face under the slapped-down hair. Then she slowly opened the door.

“Only for a minute, mind. And you’ll stay by the door. I remember old times too, John McGhee.”

Limpy gave a low chuckle.

“Ah, we had some good times, Cissy, eh? D’you remember when . . . ”

“Just say your piece, John.”

“Cissy, look. What happened in that bedroom with old Pointerly, that was none of my doing. That was a set-up job by Lizzie – Mrs Megarrity. You of all people should know I’m not like that.”