Galway Confidential

27

I was deep in sleep, enduring a nightmare about Roe v. Wade.

It involved priests, women with bloody placards, dead babies, and a nun screeching at me about where I stood on the above amendment, I don’t know what, if anything, I answered.

Such was the force of the dream and the pounding on the door that I fell out of the bed. I cursed like a trooper, pulled on a T-shirt that had a faded logo for The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and struggled into my 501s, muttering,

“This better be something epic.”

And opened the door... to Father Pat.

I presumed he was out there doing priestly gigs in a sober fashion.

Wrong.

He fell into my apartment, reeking of booze, shouting,

“What took you so long to answer?”

I took a deep breath, counted to ten.

Then I punched him in the gut.

He didn’t vomit all over me but simply sank to his knees with a surprised sigh. I went to make some coffee and could hear him muttering prayers as he tried to rise from the floor. I got my coffee, went and sat on the sofa and waited. The coffee was good, black, bitter with a nasty kick. I debated throwing half in Pat’s face.

He finally managed to get to his feet, tried,

“I’m sorry, Jack.”

“You’re not sorry, you’re an alkie. You’re full of self-pity, but sorry you aren’t.”

He mumbled,

“I’m sorry about Miss Winston.”

What?

I stared at him, snarled,

“What about her?”

He looked frightened, as well he should. I felt homicidal rage building. He was almost too fearful to answer but managed,

“She was found dead this morning; it was on the news.”

Christ Almighty.

I asked how but I knew in my heart the answer. Pat eyed me nervously, said,

“They suspect foul play.”

I nearly laughed. Foul play, too fucking right.

My TV was on behind Pat and Sky News was reporting on yet another shooting in the US. The shooter had been captured and was as now almost mandatory, an eighteen-year-old white male.

Pat was shuffling his feet, said,

“Did you hear Boris Johnson resigned as prime minister?”

I had no sane reply to that. The world was just so utterly broken.

I was up to my arse in nuns.

Can you say that?

Probably not.

The Mother Superior had summoned me. And you can guess that being summoned is not on my list of favorite activities. The last thing I’d heard was that the nuns were no longer praying for me. Father Pat had delivered the summons, on his first day of not drinking since his relapse.

I was in no mood for nuns or indeed for Pat, snapped,

“No.”

He was confused, asked,

“How do you mean?”

I thought it was clear and concise, but then, he was in a twenty-four-hour blitz of alcohol withdrawal, and I knew how that goes. So I practiced patience, said,

“No means I won’t go see the Mother Superior.”

I did go.

Out of curiosity and to pay my respects for the death of Sheila Winston too. The convent was bathed in sunshine. A more fervent soul might have said,

“God shone His Light.”

I saw an uncommonly fine day; my time of miracles was long past. A young nun answered my knock, invited me in, offered refreshments, and the devil was in me to ask for a large Jameson, no ice. But with nuns, who knows? I’m sure there was Jameson on the premises, probably stored in a wood barrel in the basement.

I was told to sit, and the Mother Superior would be with me shortly. There was a large picture of the Madonna, and a caption identified her as Our Lady of Galway.

That was news to me, I didn’t know we’d our own personal Lady.

Go figure.

The convent was quiet, not an oppressive silence but a calm comfortable absence of noise, something that was nicely soothing. No wonder nuns looked so Zen.

The young nun returned, said I could now enter the office on my left.

I did.

The Mother Superior greeted me formally with,

“Mr. Taylor.”

I tried,

“Call me Jack.”

She didn’t.

I asked her how I should address her?

She conceded that Kate would be fine.

Seemed odd to me, but then how normal is sitting before a Mother Superior, an abbess, ever going to be?

I gave it a shot, ventured,

“Kate, my deepest sympathy on the loss of Sheila.”

A silence hovered over us for what seemed ages, then she said,

“Sheila was a wonderful human being.”

I agreed, waited.

She continued,

“She had tremendous faith in you.”

She didn’t say it but the tone of disbelief inherent in the phrasing was plain. I said,

“I am so sorry we didn’t get a resolution, but we do know who the perpetrator is.”

Kate, looking me full in the face, asked,

“And are you near to catching him?”

When in a tight spot, bluster.

“I’m sure ’tis but a matter of time.”

Lame, right?

She said,

“You have no idea really.”

She sighed, changed tack, said,

“The great love of Sheila’s life was Trip.”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard right, echoed,

“Trip, like to travel?”

She nearly smiled, said,

“Trip is, was, her shih tzu.”

Fuck.

I had a frightening premonition of where this was going and I tried to cut it off, said,

“I have a bad history with dogs.”

She smiled, said,

“And you have such a wonderful track record with people.”

She stood up, business concluded, went,

“Sister May is waiting in the hall with Trip. You’ll be pleased to know a leash, dog bowl, treats, rubber bones are all neatly packed for you two.”

I made up my mind, no way was I being railroaded, or is that dog railed?

I said,

“Ain’t happening, Sister.”

Injected as much hard into it as you’d allow for a nun. I can do hard-ass. Kate brushed past me, said,

“Don’t be ridiculous, the dog is waiting, and I have a convent to run.”

And she was gone.

I headed for the door, and sure enough, there was Sister May with the dog and a holdall. She handed me the leash and the dog looked at me with what appeared to be contempt.

Boris Johnson finally resigned as prime minister, after near sixty MPs deserted him. His resignation speech outside No. 10 was full of bluster and seemed more like a victory speech than a resignation.

This meant that the Northern Irish Protocol might yet be saved, though, as the dreaded 12th of July rolled up, the orange order burned two hundred fifty bonfires throughout the province. Some hatred just didn’t want to die.

A heat wave raged through Europe, with temperatures reaching forty degrees. Massive fires in France, Spain, Portugal continued for days.

We had three days of the heat wave, the highest temp reaching thirty-three degrees, leaving the country in a state of utter befuddlement. We just don’t do heat.

We now had forty thousand refugees from Ukraine and the scarcity of accommodation resulted in hundreds of refugees having to sleep on the floor of Dublin airport.

Inflation was out of control and every day brought new warnings of shortages of fuel, petrol, energy.

I sat in my apartment, the dog sitting in front of me, his head cocked to the side. I said,

“I’m all you’ve got.”