Roddy Doyle: Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha

The best story I ever read was about Father Damien and the lepers. Father Damien was this man and he was called Joseph de Veuster before he became a priest. He was born in 1840 in a place called Tremeloo in Belgium.

I needed some lepers.

When he was a small boy they all called him Jef and he was chubby. All the grown-ups drank dark Flemish beer. Joseph wanted to become a priest but his father wouldn’t let him. Then he did.

– How much do priests get paid? I asked.

– Too much, said my da.

– Shhhsh, Paddy, said my ma to my da. -They don’t get paid anything, she told me.

– Why not?

– It’s hard to – she started. -It’s very complicated. They have a vocation.

– What’s that?

Joseph joined a bunch of priests called the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. The priest that had started them up had had a life filled with narrow escapes and thrilling adventure during the French Revolution. He’d lived under the shadow of the guillotine itself. Joseph had to get a new name and he called himself Damien after a man called Damien who was a martyr when the Church was young. He was Brother Damien before he became Father Damien. He went to Hawaii. On the way there the captain of the ship played a trick on him. He got his telescope and he put a hair across the lens and he got Father Damien to look into it and he told him that it was the Equator. Father Damien believed him but that didn’t make him an eejit because they didn’t know about those kinds of things in those days. Father Damien had to make hosts for Holy Communion out of flour on the ship because they’d run out of paper hosts. He didn’t get seasick. He found his sea legs nearly immediately.

Vienna roll was the best for making hosts, when it was fresh. You didn’t have to wet it. Batch wasn’t bad either but ordinary sliced bread was useless. It kept springing back up. It was hard to tear the hosts into perfect round shapes. I used a penny from my ma’s purse. I told my ma I was taking it in case she saw me. I pressed the penny real hard into the flat bread and sometimes the shape came up with the penny. My hosts tasted nicer than the real ones. I left them on the windowsill for two days and they got hard like the real ones but they didn’t taste nice any more. I wondered was it a sin for me to be making them. I didn’t think so. One of the hosts on the windowsill went mouldy; that was a sin, letting that happen. I said one Hail Mary and four Our Fathers, because I preferred the Our Fathers to the Hail Mary and it was longer and better. I said them to myself in the shed in the dark.

– Corpus Christi.

– Amen, said Sinbad.

– Close your eyes, I said.

He did.

– Corpus Christi.

– Amen.

He lifted his head and stuck out his tongue. I gave him the mouldy one.

– How do the priests make hosts? I asked my ma.

– Flour, said my ma. -It’s just bread until it’s blessed.

– Not real bread.

– A different kind of bread, she said. -It’s unleavened bread.

– What’s that?

– I don’t know.

I didn’t believe her.

The real good part of the story started when Father Damien went to the leper colony. Molokai was the name of it. It was where all the lepers were put so they couldn’t give it to anyone else. Father Damien knew what he was doing; he knew that he was going there forever. A strange expression burned on Father Damien’s face when he told the bishop he wanted to go there. The bishop was pleased and edified by the bravery of his young missionary. The little church on Molokai was run-down and neglected but Father Damien fixed it up. He broke a branch from a tree and used it as a broom and began to sweep the floor of the tiny chapel. He put flowers in it. The lepers that were hanging around watching him just kept watching him for ages. He was a big healthy man and they were only lepers. After the first day the lepers still hadn’t started to help him. When he went to bed he could hear the lepers moaning in the dark and the surf booming on the barren shore. Belgium had never seemed so far away. After a while the lepers started helping him. He became friends with them. They called him Kamiano.

– Are there any lepers in Ireland?

– No.

– Any?

– No.

Father Damien built a better church and houses and did loads of other things – he showed them all how to grow vegetables – and he knew all the time that he was going to catch the leprosy as well, but he didn’t mind. His greatest happiness was to see his children, the boys and girls whom he had taken under his care. Each day he spent several hours with them.

Bits of the lepers fell off. That was what happened them. Did you hear about the leper cowboy? He threw his leg over his horse. Did you hear about the leper gambler? He threw in his hand.

One evening in December 1884 Father Damien put his aching feet into some water to ease the pain. He got red blisters all over his feet; the water was boiling but his feet were numb. He knew he had leprosy. -I can’t bear to tell you but it’s true, said the doctor sadly. But Father Damien didn’t mind. -I have leprosy, he said. -Blessed be the Good God!

– Blessed be the Good God, I said.

My da started laughing.

– Where did you get that from? he said.

– I read it, I told him. -Father Damien said it.

– Which one’s he?

– Father Damien and the lepers.

– Oh, that’s right. He was a good man.

– Were there ever any lepers in Ireland?

– I don’t think so.

– Why not?

– It only happens in hot places. I think.

– It’s hot here sometimes, I said.

– Not that hot.

– Yes it is.

– Not hot enough, said my da. -It has to be very very hot.

– How much hotter than here?

– Fifteen degrees, said my da.

There was no cure for leprosy. He didn’t tell his mother when he was writing to her. But the news got out. People sent money to Father Damien and he built another church with it. It was made of stone. The church is still standing and may be seen by travellers to Molokai today. Father Damien told his children that he was dying and that the nuns would take care of them from then on. They clung to his feet and said, -No, no, Kamiano! We want to stay as long as you are here. The nuns had to go back empty-handed.

– Do it again.

Sinbad grabbed my legs.

– No, no, Kam – Kam -

– Kamiano!

– I can’t remember it.

– Kamiano.

– Can I not just say Patrick?

– No, I said. Do it again and you’d better get it right.

– I don’t want to.

I gave him half a Chinese torture. He grabbed my legs.

– Lower down.

– How?

– Lower.

– You’ll kick me.

– I won’t. I will if you don’t.

Sinbad grabbed me around the ankles. He held me tight so my feet were stuck.

– No, no, Kamiano! We want to stay as long you are here.

– Okay, my children, I said. -You can stay.

– Thanks very much, Kamiano, said Sinbad.

He wouldn’t let go of my feet.

Father Damien died on Palm Sunday. The people sat on the ground beating their breasts in old Hawaiian fashion, swaying back and forth and wailing sadly. The leprosy had gone off him; there were no scabs or anything. He was a saint. I read it twice.

I needed lepers. Sinbad wasn’t enough. He kept running away. He told our ma that I was making him be a leper and he didn’t want to be one. So I needed lepers. I couldn’t tell Kevin because he’d have ended up being Father Damien and I’d have been a leper. It was my story. I got the McCarthy twins and Willy Hancock. They were four, the three of them. They thought it was great being with a big boy, me. I made them come into our back garden. I told them what lepers were. They wanted to be lepers.