The Emerald Lie

Back to my hometown.

And back I came, not in glory or richness. The first person I ran into went,

“I thought you were dead!”

Uh-huh.

I went to my apartment and opened all the windows, like a sign proclaiming,

“Come all ye burglars and thieves.”

I was deeply conscious of the pup not being there. His treats and toys lay on the floor like abandoned prayer, joyless and futile. Opened the wardrobe to find

Brand-new Donegal tweed jacket with a note:

... If you ever come home

... Emily the deserted.

Tried on the jacket and it fitted like found money. Had patches on the elbows, giving me that worn John Cheever vibe, as if I were some underpaid elderly professor of lit at a hole-in-the-wall second-grade college. The kind of place where grammar still mattered.

And thinking of grammar...

My current client, the aunt of the alleged Grammarian, would be anxious to see what the hell I had done with her money. I don’t think a sabbatical had been her intention.

My first call was to the small house Maeve lived in. She was one of the nuns on the order’s outreach program.

Meaning, she lived outside the convent grounds to maintain a link to the people. The program had chosen well. Maeve was a real person, subject to fits of anger, joy, annoyance, and not afraid to show you. Most nuns kept all that good shit bottled up and hidden. As soon as I knocked on her door, I could hear the pup go wild. Short-term memory is ascribed to dogs. My pup hadn’t got the memo. The door opened and he was all over me.

Broke my heart anew.

Maeve said,

“I wondered if he would remember you and there’s the answer.”

Maeve gave the whole nun story some credibility. If love is, as they say,

“the selfless consideration for the welfare of another person”

Then she was love in a habit. Of course to blend in she wore civilian clothes mostly but she retained the air of someone who viewed the world from beneath a cowl. I was curious and asked,

“Did you always, you know, want to be, like, a nun?”

Hating myself for adding the qualifier like. The riff of the newly Americanized Irish youth. She massaged the pup’s ear as she considered her answer, then,

“I wanted to be a dancer.”

WTF?

I said,

“Seriously?”

She laughed.

“No, I won lots of medals for Irish dancing but this was in the days before Michael Flatley and there was no career in that world. I went into the convent because I was scared of life.”

Fuck, how many people are going to fess up to that? I asked,

“And now, are you fearless?”

She gave a lovely laugh, the kind that makes you briefly glad to be part of the human race. She said,

“I just learned what to be afraid of and, more importantly, how to avoid it.”

I didn’t believe most of that but I liked her so I let it slide.

I asked,

“Could I bring you for dinner?”

Good heavens, she blushed. I’m not sure where on a bucket list a blushing nun would merit but it is a rush. She said,

“Oh, Lord, I’ve never been invited anywhere unless you count the Irish stew competition in Loughrea.”

In the pup’s minimalist vocabulary there are some key words and dinner is right up there. He shook himself and bounced off a wall. In canine, that is delight, I think. She was all bothered, said,

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say yes.”

She did.

We went to the Park Hotel, it has a rep for genteel. I figured an egg and fast bacon caff wasn’t really the speed for a nun. We had left the pup with ample treats but he still whined. Dogs only know from,

“You’re present or you’re not.”

Bit like a tax audit.

Maeve ordered whiting with lemon garnish and lots of, her word,

“Chips.”

I identified with the childlike delight in having real chips all for your own self. Coaxed her into a glass of white wine and I stayed relatively good if you count a bottle of Bud as that. I ordered steak, burned to a damn cinder, for my own good self. As we had left her home, she had hefted a large bag, more like a satchel, and I asked,

“Your rosary?”

I come from the generation where nuns wore chain-like beads around their waists. Less for devotion than whacking. Now she reached in there and produced a blue volume, said,

“I want to give you this, you being a man of books and...”

She hesitated,

“Um... an inclination for drink.”

Just about the politest form of being called a rummy. It was The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. The whole mood just upped and fucked right off.

I limped out with,

“Oh.”

Deep, huh?

She said,

“My sister died from alcoholism and I found this among her things.”

The devil was in me to sneer,

“Didn’t do her a whole load of good, right?”

But managed to blow that off, went,

“You don’t exactly see me falling down, Sister.”

And okay, so maybe a tiny wee hint of hard leaked over my tone. She reached over, touched my hand, and that hurt me, in ways I can’t even begin to articulate. She said,

“I have seen you fall, Jack.”

Ah, fuck it, why’d she have to add my name?

The food came like a belated Seventh Cavalry and I said,

“Looks good.”

I think I meant the food. She unfolded her napkin in that facile, fluent way that nuns have, all biz and industry. She said, very quietly,

“There is a line in that book that says...”

Pause.

“... unless the alcoholic finds a spiritual solution.”

I shook my head, picked up my fork, and moved my food around the plate, like the very last line in a very bad poem. She got it, tried,

“I have offended you, Jack.”

Ah, sweet Jesus.

I said,

“No offense, Sister, but you don’t really know me well enough to do that.”

Of all the things that might have come down the pike after that exchange, the very last thing I would have called

Was

... tears.

A tiny tear sneaked out of her left eye and slowly trailed down her unlined cheek and hit the plate with the softest ping. My heart tore at its shredded remnants.

There must be a special circle of hell for those who make one of the very few decent nuns weep. I offered my napkin and pleaded,

“Please don’t.”

She dabbed daintily at the cheek and whispered,

“I have always been too soft. Reverend Mother said I was a pathetic excuse for one of God’s soldiers.”

It burst out of me.

“The bad bitch.”

And she laughed.

Oh, thank Christ. The waitress came over, asking,

“Is everything all right?”

I said,

“Two shots of Jameson.”

Maeve stared at the Jay when it came, said,

“I must confess...”

Like the opening of the song

“Finished.”

“I’ve never tasted whiskey.”

Oh, come on.

I raised my glass, clinked hers, said,

“Slainte amach.”

The shot hit her like a very bad novena, fast and nasty. She gulped, then,

“I could develop a taste for that.”

Man, I knew what she meant, that fierce kick in the gut and head of quality hooch. Why we chase the bitch for so long. I said,

“Could I share my current case with you?”

She laughed, now quite frisky, asked,

“You have a case of this magic drink?”

Jesus.

What had I unleashed?

I said,

“No, I mean I wish but I mean the situation I am supposed to be working on now.”

Mean... twice in one sentence, the Grammarian would kill me.

Bingo!

The solution to how to solve the case.

Sweet fucking disbelief.

Who knew?

Maybe it was hanging with the clergy, nun better, so to speak. Bring the war to him. Crash and burn language in his presence and see how he ran?

Maeve eyed my glass and burped, then,

“I have a very fat pink pig.”

Hello?

Did nuns see pigs where we mere mortals saw pink elephants?

She laughed, said,

“It’s a fat porcelain one and I put all my spare change in there for Enable Ireland, I call it ‘The pig sings charity.’”

I knew that reference from Anthony de Mello’s book Awareness.

“... Trying to get people to change is like trying to teach a pig to sing.

All it does is annoy the pig.”

Maeve then changed tack, said,

“I have holidays soon.”

They get holidays?

From what?

Piety?

She saw my skepticism, smiled, said,

“I go to spend a week on the Aran Islands with my sister.”

Serendipity?

I told her about my meeting on the boat with the man and boy and asked if she might inquire discreetly on them.

She was excited, said,

“I’ll be like an undercover agent.”

I said drily,

“Mind it doesn’t become a habit.”

And felt a thud in my chest and then a ferocious fit of coughing. Maeve, all concern, got me some water and the spasm passed. I paid the bill, left a hefty tip, and Maeve said,

“You are a generous man.”

“Naw, I just want her to like me.”

And fell on my face.