The Devil

20

I’ve also been holding off about Father Ralph.

Why?

Because I liked him.

When Malachy told me of his demise, I was utterly lost.

I’d never expected to meet a priest I not only liked but respected, and I’d truly thought I could relate this earlier.

I couldn’t.

Does it seem out of synch?

That’s how it felt and that’s how it will always feel.

I can only tell it after time has put some distance there.

If I hadn’t met him, I’m in no doubt he’d be still alive.

That’s a given.

So perhaps you can understand why I’m telling this in flashback – or in truth, in cowardice.

Plus it gives a feel of how Xanax and booze and the Devil distort everything.

Works for Paul Auster, so who am I to argue?

*

The morning started with all that luring promise of an Irish fine day.

You know it won’t last.

Dress lightly and yup, you’ll be drenched in jig time.

But you buy into this crap.

Why?

Otherwise you’d believe it rains all the time.

It does.

I was having me morning coffee – none of that latte shite, a double espresso and no sugar.

Was it bitter?

Like me heart.

I was going through the bookcases, trying to find an answer to Carl, to Kurt, to the Devil. Settled on this from that bastion of depressed priests, St Augustine:

Everyone who knows that he is doubting, knows something that is true, and about the thing he knows, he is certain. Everyone therefore, who doubts whether there is truth, has something true in himself, which he may not doubt.

I sat back, mused on this, sipped at the coffee and wondered if a Xanax would clarify it.

Did the X anyway and brewed more caffeine.

The sun was still conning us, of that I could be certain, so I headed out after the X kicked in.

How long since I’d been in a church?

Let’s say they still used the Latin version of the Mass, was when.

What drove me in?

No, not Augustine, I’m certain.

Rain and desperation.

I’d been feeding the swans.

As a Galwegian, there are certain things you do:

1. Talk shite.

2. Never answer a question.

3. Stay the fuck away from notions.

4. Feed the swans.

The heavens opened and down came teeming torrents.

And yeah, I’d bought into the con of the early sun.

Was wearing a light wind-breaker, T-shirt featuring Barack, my perennial 501s, Converse trainers and no hat.

No warning, of course, so you could dive for shelter.

Just lashed down like the last refrain of the song ‘Expectation’.

The Claddagh church has always been one of me favourites. The Dominicans had done one wondrous job on the restoration.

The church was nigh on empty.

One bent-over old lady doing the Stations of the Cross.

She seemed transfixed on the seventh.

I lit candles for my dead.

That took a time, not to mention a fair whack of Euros.

I was drenched, rain leaking from my hair down into the collar of my T. As I knelt before the array of candles, I tried to summon up the right prayer.

I had nothing, save ‘God mind ye well.’

Least I meant it.

I took a pew near the altar, and like the government, decided to sit out the deluge.

I never heard the priest approach.

They’d become the stealth bombers of our nation.

That or be crucified.

He gave me a start. Realizing, he said,

‘God forgive me, I didn’t mean to give you a fright.’

Way too easy to utter, Ye’ve been doing it for centuries.

I nodded.

Wetly.

He was tall, mid fifties, full head of white hair, thin, in need of spuds and bacon.

I said,

‘I’m used to frights.’

He gave a lovely smile. Then asked if he might sit for a moment with me.

If he wanted money, he’d have to raid the candle gig.

I said,

‘Your church.’

Sounded more bitter than I intended, but I was wet and cold and not in need of a homily. The Waltons were on DVD if I needed that shite.

The smile again – could get on your nerves a bit. He said,

‘God’s, actually.’

Wrong programme. I should have said Little House on the Prairie.

He indicated the barrage of candles.

‘You must have a long list.’

I could have said, And you have a long fucking nose.

But it was a church.

To rattle him, or just the bad drop in me, I said,

‘I’m trying to neutralize fifty black ones someone lit in my home.’

Worked.

He was rattled.

‘Mother of God.’

I don’t in fairness think he could lay it on her.

I didn’t reply, so he asked,

‘Why on God’s blessed earth would somebody do sucha…’

He couldn’t find an adequate description so I supplied,

‘Diabolical?’

Nice to help a priest and gets you all kinds of good shit in the hereafter. I even added,

‘A fiend.’

He was nodding, like he could see it, said,

‘Exactly. That’s precisely the term.’

A priest tells you that you’re so correct, watch yer wallet.

As I was on a clerical roll, so to speak, I said,

‘Left a headless dog too.’

That did him in entirely.

Horrified, he made the sign of the cross.

‘In Ainm an Athair,

An Mhic,

Agus,

An Sirioaid Naoimh.’

Said it aloud in Irish, In the Name of the Father…

I was impressed with his Irish. He spoke like a native speaker.

They were as rare as decency.

I could see he was wondering if perhaps joining me had been such a smart move.

There was just us two in the church now.

The old woman had packed it in on the eleventh Station, and who could blame her?

He ventured,

‘Might I pry into what in God’s heaven would possess a person to do such an act?’

Possess?

How apt.

I told him most of the story, omitting my…retaliation.

I know the clergy is big on retribution, but retaliation?

I painted a fairly comprehensive picture of Carl/Kurt and his minions.

He muttered,

‘The Devil’s minions.’

I almost slipped, Good name for a rock band, yah think?

Instead, I concluded with,

‘There is a Ban Garda – actually a Sergeant now – and she can verify everything I’ve told you, lest you think I’m a raving lunatic.’

It wasn’t that he didn’t hear me, he clearly did, but in his face, something had changed. He was remembering something he had hidden and wished it had stayed thus.

My dripping clothes had formed a pool of water at our feet. He stood and said,

‘You poor man, you’re drenched and perished. Come on, I’ll get you a towel in the Sacristy.’

The inner sanctum.

Dan Brown, eat yer heart out.

Could be, he intended calling the Guards.

I followed him along the altar, genuflected when he did before the Holy Sacrament and remembered a lovely line,

‘Walk gently as you walk on Holy ground.’

He opened a heavy oak door, ushered me in.

Took a set of keys from his cassock, bent down, fiddled with a lock and then produced not only a fine thick towel but, get this,

a bottle of Bushmills -

and not just any old Bush,

Black Bushmills,

the holy grail of Irish whiskey -

two heavy glass tumblers, made of Galway crystal and, I shit thee not, with angels on the sides.

I dried me hair as he poured healthy measures into the glasses, handed me one, said, ‘Is feidir liom.’

Made me smile. What Barack said to our prime minister on St Paddy’s Day.

‘I am able.’

Would that we were.

My kind of priest. I said,

‘Bheannacht leat fein.’ (Blessing on yerself.) Added,

‘No offence, but you’re not the usual…how should I term it…clergy I’m used to.’

I put out my hand, said,

‘Jack Taylor.’

He had a firm grip in more ways than one, said,

‘Father Raphael – after the Archangel of Healing – but most people call me Ralph.’

Pity it wasn’t Michael, who smote the demon, but you take what you get, like Bushmills.

Then a light went off in his eyes and he asked,

‘Jack Taylor, who saved the swans?’

Saved is overstating it.

Through luck really, and a lot of sitting under Nemo’s pier on miserable nights, I caught a psycho who was killing those beautiful creatures.

I, shall we say, smote him.

Last I heard, the said nutter was a doctor.

Go figure.

Ralph and I drank in what might have passed as comfortable silence.

Give me Black Bushmills, I’m comfortable.

He was taking my measure. Good luck with that. Long as he wasn’t measuring out the Bushmills in the same way.

I could wait.

Then,

‘I spent a lot of time in Africa, Jack, back in the days when priests were welcome. I saw a lot of things that don’t have what you’d call a rational explanation.’

The recollection was hurting him, but he had a glass of the best, so he continued,

‘I was down in the townships, in Jo’burg, and…’

He stopped. Poured us damn nigh lethal measures, then went on,

‘There was a rash of killings there. Now bear in mind that killings and violence were, God forgive me, commonplace, but these were different. Young men and women were being killed, gutted and…’

He took a large sip, very large.

Me too.

‘Headless dogs were sometimes found in the bellies of the deceased.’

Now it was like every breath of air had been sucked from the room.

And that to happen on Holy ground?

He took a deep breath, said,

‘Jack, the natives – decent, lovely people – told me that the young people, the ones who…the ones who were butchered had been spending time with a man they referred to as Monsieur K.’

I had…nothing.

As Mr K might have put it,

‘Rien.’

Save a warm glow from the fine booze. But I asked,

‘What happened?’

He gave a resigned sigh, said,

‘Monsieur K disappeared. The killings stopped and I prayed to God I’d never hear of him again.’

He was a priest – from what I could tell, an intelligent, level-headed, compassionate man. In my experience, such a person got fucked, one way or another.

You want to prosper?

Treat the world like the shite it is, then maybe, one day, if you meet a decent person, fuck him first.

But here was a man grounded in faith, taught Theology for what, seven years? And what do I know, maybe even Metaphysics. He knew stuff, had been freaking educated in it, so I asked,

‘What do you think now, Father…I mean, Ralph. This is way beyond coincidence, not to mention serendipity.’

He nodded, said,

‘Tis sad, tis true, that’s the Holy all of it.’

He was fucking kidding.

That air of resignation.

Where was the fight?

I mean, if the clergy hadn’t an answer to evil, what the hell was a poor bastard like me meant to do?

Pray?

Do the Lotto?

I wanted to shake him, demand a solution. He was a priest, our moral guardian, and if he gave in, what hope did the rest of us poor schmucks have?

But he was so visibly shaken, I eased on me ferocity, took the bottle, gave him a blast.

He didn’t even seem to notice.

The Sacristy had a beautiful stained-glass window and now a beam of light shone through.

You read a significance there?

Just Irish weather.

I said,

‘The rain has stopped, I should go.’

I put the towel on the back of the chair, put out my hand, said,

‘Thanks, Ralph, you’ve restored a lot of me faith in the Church.’

He walked me out, not saying a word. Outside, the sun having reappeared, the Claddagh Basin never looked so lovely.

For form’s sake more than anything else, I asked,

‘Any suggestions?’

I know defeat and despair, and it was mirrored here, and what had he got but cliché?

He took it.

I don’t blame him.

He said,

‘Ask God to rid us of this pestilence.’

I liked him, you’ve gathered that, but Jesus, I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t. Asked,

‘And if God lets more young people get killed?’

He reached in his cassock, pulled out his rosary beads like a coke head in need of the connection, muttered,

‘Jack, we have to believe. Faith is what sustains us.’

Sounded just like the government.

I said,

‘I have other options.’