After the Lockout. Darran McCann

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      Stanislaus felt not a day over sixty-five as he reached the crossroads, a mile and a half’s walk from Madden, mostly uphill. Not bad for a man passed over on health grounds ten years before. He turned back and kept a good, even pace, his footsteps ticking like a metronome. Walking was always good for clearing the head. He thought about full bishops promoted since his retirement, all of whom Cardinal Logue, in his vast wisdom, had recommended. He knew of four who were not well and three more who frankly were incapacitated. Soon Madden was in sight, nestling in the gentle hollow. The street lamps flickered against the failing light. From up ahead, just outside the village, came bad singing and laughter, and Stanislaus saw two lads of perhaps eighteen horsing around. Stanislaus’s knuckles whitened on his stick. ‘John McGrath and Aidan Cavanagh,’ he cried. They stopped dead and straightened up in exaggerated protestations of sobriety. Eyes red like diseased rabbits. The stench of cheap spirit damned them. ‘It’s not even six o’clock and you boys are drunk as lords. Have you no work to be at today?’

      ‘Everybody quit early the day, Father,’ said McGrath, the post-master’s son.

      ‘Where did you get the drink?’ Stanislaus demanded.

      ‘I don’t know, Fa’er,’ said young Cavanagh, the schoolteacher’s brother. Stanislaus slapped the blackthorn stick against the boy’s thigh. ‘Pius, we got it off Pius!’

      ‘Is this. How you. Behave. When your families. At home. Haven’t even. A spare penny. To waste?’ Stanislaus uttered bitterly, punctuating his speech with slaps to their legs. They yelped like puppies. ‘You should be ashamed of yourselves.’

      This business of Pius Lennon and the poteen was getting out of hand. He was making the stuff in such prodigious quantities and selling it so cheaply that he was bringing many others to ruin with him. Nevertheless Stanislaus was troubled by the thought of the Victor fellow as the correcting influence, to Pius and to the wider problems connected to Pius’s dissolution. That such a person would be anyone’s idea of salvation! Obedience and discipline were the answers to vice, indolence and dissolution. People needed leadership from the cloth, not from radical politicals. Stanislaus had read many of the socialistic texts. Mostly screeds written by palpably troubled souls. He found most striking the universal rage and the rejection of authority – the former a consequence of the latter, he believed. Marxians said the meaning of life was struggle, but Stanislaus knew that grace required acceptance. True freedom came through surrender. Only rage was possible where grace was not. In lands where grace was banished, no depravity was unthinkable. The Russian experiment, for example, was sure to end in horror. He hung up his overcoat in the kitchen and opened the range door. As he poked at the fire and watched the flames rise higher, he wondered if he might work up his ruminations into a paper.

      ‘It’s after a quarter past six. I wish you would tell me where you’re going out and didn’t keep me late, Father,’ said Mrs Geraghty, standing behind him with her cloth coat pulled tight around her.

      ‘Your Grace,’ Stanislaus muttered, but knew it was pointless to keep correcting her. She’d never learn to address him correctly. At her age and station, she was disinclined to take in anything new. ‘Dinner smells wonderful,’ he said.

      ‘It’s been in the oven so long it’ll be dry as communion,’ she said with a bitterness he knew was affected. ‘Oh, and Father,’ she went on, softer now.

      She gently removed a letter from her coat pocket and held it up. ‘There’s a letter for you, Jeremiah McGrath brought it special delivery. It looks very official, Father.’

      Stanislaus reached for it but Mrs Geraghty seemed reluctant to let it go. She recognised the seal as well as he did.

      ‘Thank you, Mrs Geraghty, I’ll be fine from here on,’ he said.

      ‘If you’re sure there’s nothing else you need,’ she said, at length letting go.

      ‘Quite sure, thank you,’ said Stanislaus, nodding to the clock.

      ‘I’ll say good evening then,’ she snorted. She raised her chin and eventually took herself out the door. Stanislaus sliced the envelope open, relishing the crisp rasp of the water-marked paper coming apart. The handwriting was unmistakable. Only close friends and colleagues got handwritten letters.

      My old friend Stanislaus,

      I have this morning returned from Rome where the Holy Father has briefed the Conclave on a crisis of the gravest urgency. In accordance with the Holy Father’s instructions I am gathering together the most senior principals of the Church in Ireland to discuss the emerging crisis. I expect to see you at the Synod Hall in Armagh this coming Sunday at three o’clock.

      I pray this letter finds you well and fully restored from your illness.

      Your Brother in Christ,

       Michael Cardinal Logue + +

      Stanislaus read and reread the letter. The most senior principals of the Church in Ireland. Ten years had passed since Stanislaus had risen from his sickbed to be told he wasn’t getting the Bishopric of Derry. It was no reflection on his abilities of course, everyone thought the world of him of course, his counsel would still be invaluable of course. But His Eminence the Cardinal, the Archbishop, the Primate, had never sought the counsel of the parish priest of Madden. Not till now. In time of crisis though, the Cardinal wanted his old friend at his side. Poor old, sick old, pensioned-off old Stanislaus Benedict. The old enforcer. The man who made enemies so Mick Logue, the Northern Star himself, didn’t have to. Father Daly came bounding down the stairs and into the kitchen. He opened the oven door and reached for the plates, then withdrew his hand quickly and waved around chastened fingers. He bit his lip so as not to swear, then made a glove of a dish cloth and lifted the hot plates from the oven.

      ‘You’re ready for your tea, Your Grace?’

      Stanislaus nodded and sat at the head of the table. The curate set out forks, knives, a jug of water and two glasses on the table and when he sat down, they bowed their heads. In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua dona quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi per Christum Dominum nostrum, Amen. Stanislaus chewed slowly. It wasn’t quite as dry as communion СКАЧАТЬ