Michael Russell - The City of Shadows

‘You shouldn’t, I agree, but what if Father Carey and the bishop take this all the way to the Four Courts? What if the Church drags you into a courtroom and persuades a judge that the interests of your son would be best served if he lived with his uncle and aunt. I’m not saying they can or will.’

‘But it’s possible,’ said Stefan quietly.

‘Stick with the question. Wouldn’t a lie be better?’

‘I suppose it ought to be.’ He said the words with a frown. It wasn’t easy to know why he felt he couldn’t even contemplate that. Why should it matter so much, if one simple lie could take the vindictive curate off his back? Emmet Brady had stopped again, rubbing his leg as he watched him.

‘You did promise the boy would be brought up as a Catholic.’

‘And he is.’

‘And you’re a fit man to do that?’

‘I’m his father.’

‘How many of us have ever really been fit for that?’ The solicitor smiled, setting off again, pacing up and down in front of the window.

Stefan shifted uneasily in the chair, following Brady’s movements as he walked back and forward. The constant motion was irritating him.

‘Let’s look at you, Stefan. You’re a guard who’s on suspension for assaulting a priest. That’s quite some place to start, wouldn’t you say?’

‘What’s being a guard’s worth? I’d probably be better out of it.’

‘No, that won’t do.’ The old man halted abruptly, shaking his head. ‘You have to stick with the job, at all costs. You’ll be back in what — ’

‘Six months. That’s what the Commissioner said.’

‘A man with a job is better than a man without one. A Garda sergeant with a blot on his record is better than a man who looks like he was kicked out. Hitting Father Carey is the biggest thing they have against you. The rest adds up, but on its own it wouldn’t amount to much. No one’s going to take you to the High Court brandishing a copy of The Communist Manifesto and a King James Bible! Walking into a synagogue with Tom for a couple of minutes might be high on Father Carey’s list of abominations, but it wouldn’t normally cut much ice elsewhere. Although taking the woman you had to talk to so urgently on Garda matters to your bed, is something else.’

Stefan’s lips tightened. It wasn’t Brady’s business or anyone else’s.

‘Is the curate right about that?’ insisted the old man.

‘If that’s how you want to put it.’ Stefan shrugged.

‘It’s not about how I want to put it, it’s how a barrister in the Four Courts would put it, when he describes you taking your four-year-old son into the synagogue, so that you could make arrangements for a sex session with your Jewish mistress. That’s what he might say. How does it sound?’

Stefan knew the courts; he could hear the words.

‘I see, and it’s even worse if she’s Jewish, is it?’

‘You need have no doubt that there are judges who would think exactly that. It’s a side of our Free State no one would want to admit to, but this isn’t about what’s right, Stefan. It’s about what you might have to deal with.’

The implications were sinking in. The man he had come to for help was making it sound worse than the Commissioner or the Garda Chaplain.

‘How does Carey know?’ The solicitor started to pace again.

‘He doesn’t. A good guess, that’s all.’

‘Come on, you said he’d written to the Garda Chaplain about you, even before this. He told him to feck off, but it doesn’t mean our curate hasn’t been busy elsewhere. Who else has he talked to? Who else knew?’

‘One other guard. Dessie wouldn’t — ’

‘For God’s sake, man, I hope you’re a better detective than that! You’ve lived in a Garda barracks before. Do you really think there’s a single guard at Pearse Street who didn’t know what you were up to?’

Stefan couldn’t help laughing. Who had he been kidding?

‘So who would Father Carey have talked to?’

‘Maybe my inspector. Inspector Donaldson. He’s a real Holy Joe. You know, Mass every day, novenas, the Knights of St Columbanus, the lot.’

‘Well, aren’t you the lucky one? So are there any more?’

‘Any more what?’

‘Any more women you’ve been fucking. Any affairs? Have you got a string of mistresses? Do you spend your evenings in a whorehouse? They need to find all the reasons they can to prove you’re not a decent man to bring up a Catholic child. If they go for it they won’t hold anything back.’

‘There’s been no one else, not since Maeve died.’

‘All right, next question. Do you believe in God, Mr Gillespie?’

‘What?’

‘If I was their barrister, I’d ask. You can always lie.’

‘This is crazy.’

‘You bet it is! Come on! Do you believe in God, Mr Gillespie?’

‘I was brought up to believe. I believe in what Christianity — ’

‘Do you believe in God? Yes or no.’

‘I don’t, but I — ’

‘There are no buts in the witness box. If I were you, I’d say yes. If you don’t, the next question will be how can this court believe a word you say? Didn’t you just swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Why did you do that if you don’t believe in God?’

Stefan couldn’t sit there any more. He stood up, angry, confused.

‘So are you saying they can take Tom away, or not?’

‘No.’ Emmet Brady stopped again. He smiled. ‘I’m not saying that.’

‘So what do I do?’

‘How far are you accommodating Father Carey now?’

‘Well, Tom starts at Kilranelagh Cross National School next week.’ Stefan found he was walking up and down beside the old man. ‘That’s what Carey wanted before. We’ll make sure he never misses Mass on Sunday. I’ll teach him his catechism and his rosary. My mother and father will never say a word about God or religion in the house. We’ll all keep our mouths shut.’

‘It’s personal with Carey. He’s made it very obvious, Stefan.’

‘I know that.’

The solicitor stood by the window. He turned briefly, looking out. Stefan stood behind him, saying nothing. It was quiet outside now. The noise of the cattle in the street below had gone. A car drove past.

‘So would you be happy taking on the Church, Mr Brady?’

Emmet Brady turned back towards him with a combative grin.

‘Why not, it’s my fucking Church, isn’t it?’

*

A week later Stefan drove his father’s John Deere tractor the mile or so along the road into the mountains, to the low stone building next to the chapel at Kilranelagh Cross. It was Tom’s first day at school. He sat on the trailer behind Stefan, by the pile of turf they were taking to the school, to keep the fires burning in the two classrooms. The crossroads below the big, long mountain called Keadeen was a bleak place on a January morning. There was nothing much there; the chapel and the school, a farm and a holy well, and further on along the road a shop with a bar in the back room. But Scoil Naomh Teagain, St Tegan’s School, was noisy with children starting back after Christmas now, and Tom’s nervousness was quickly swept away as he ran off into the classroom with his friend Harry Lawlor. He knew nothing about what was happening around him, only that he was suddenly going to school. Stefan and David and Helena all believed, in different ways, that the threat to Tom would pass; because to believe anything else was still impossible.

By the time Stefan had unloaded his turf into the shed at the back of the school, classes had begun. Driving back to the road he could see the desks in Tom’s classroom through the window. He saw Tom looking out, hearing the familiar noise, and waving. Then he saw Anthony Carey, stepping over the stone wall that divided the school from the chapel. The curate raised his hand in greeting; Stefan did the same. But Father Carey’s smile wasn’t a smile of reconciliation. It was a statement: don’t let yourself think this is the end. He had no intention of losing face. It wasn’t over.