Andrew Hurley - The Loney

‘Hello, Tonto,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine, Father.’

Farther came into the hallway and reached over my shoulder and shook Father Bernard’s hand.

‘Something wonderful’s happened, Father,’ he said.

‘So I hear, Mr Smith.’

‘He’s in the kitchen.’

Everyone stopped talking when Father Bernard came in. They all looked to him to verify the miracle, so that it could be theirs to enjoy properly.

‘Father,’ said Mummer.

‘Mrs Smith,’ Father Bernard replied.

The tension between them still hadn’t quite dissipated in the months since we’d returned from Moorings.

‘Well,’ said Farther, sitting down next to Hanny and putting his arm around him. ‘Aren’t you going to say hello to Father Bernard?’

Hanny stood up and put out his hand. ‘Hello, Father,’ he said.

***

Word got around and before long the house was full of people. So many came that the front door was left propped open with a telephone directory.

The hesitancy that had been there earlier, when everyone had been worried that Hanny’s speech might disappear as suddenly as it had come, was forgotten now. Hanny had been restored and they let themselves go in the praising of God. They sang around the piano and laughed like children.

Mummer took Hanny from person to person, showing off the gift that had been bestowed upon her, upon all of us. They passed Hanny amongst themselves like a chalice, everyone intoxicated by him. Everyone except Father Bernard who sat alone watching, a paper plate balanced on his knee, chewing the sandwiches I had helped Mummer to quickly prepare.

When I passed him with a tray of empty cups, he said, ‘Could I talk to you, Tonto?’

We went outside into the garden, where a few other people from church were standing about smoking and admiring Farther’s dahlias. Father Bernard said hello to them and then we walked down to the end where there was a bench under the apple trees.

We sat for a minute listening to the swifts in the wasteground on the other side of the tube line and saw their black arrowheads whip through the garden now and then for the insects dancing over the greenhouses.

Father Bernard sat down and loosened his collar. The heat was making him sweat and there were rings of dried salt under the arms of his black shirt.

‘So, now you know what a miracle looks like, eh Tonto?’ he said looking back towards the house.

‘Yes, Father.’

‘Quite a thing, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘How is he? Andrew?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I mean how does he seem?’

‘Alright, I suppose. Happy.’

He wafted away a bee that had droned towards him from the apple tree.

‘What happened?’ he said.

‘How do you mean, Father?’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘God cured him,’ I said. ‘Like in Matthew. Nine thirty-two.’

He looked at me and frowned.

‘When Jesus heals the mute,’ I said.

‘Aye, I do know the story, Tonto.’

‘Well, that’s what happened to Hanny, Father.’

‘Aye, but do you know the ending?’

‘No, Father.’

‘You look it up then, Tonto. I have to say I’m with the Pharisees.’

‘How do you mean, Father?’

He set his eyes firmly on mine.

‘Look, something happened to you and Andrew there at that house on Coldbarrow, and it wasn’t anything to do with God.’

I looked at him and then back at the house.

‘Why did you go there?’ he said. ‘I thought we’d agreed to steer well clear of the place.’

‘Hanny wanted to see the birds,’ I said.

He knew I was lying and couldn’t conceal a look of hurt or even anger before he spoke softly again.

‘Tonto,’ he said, edging forward. ‘If you’ve got yourself mixed up into something that you shouldn’t have, I can help you, you know. You mustn’t be afraid to tell me.’

‘There’s nothing to tell,’ I replied.

‘I don’t mean the nonsense that Clement was talking about. There are certain tricks,’ he said. ‘That clever people can pull to make you believe all kinds of things.’

‘Hypnotists?’

‘Not that exactly, but something like that. Whatever it is, it’s not real, Tonto. It doesn’t last. And I’d hate for all this happiness to be ruined.’

‘Is that what you think happened to Hanny? That he was hypnotised?’

‘Of course not. But you give me a better answer.’

‘I don’t know what to tell you, Father.’

There was a sudden burst of laughter and we both looked. Hanny was outside now and trying to talk to the churchwardens who were sitting on the bench next to the greenhouse, but a gang of children were dragging him away to play football. Eventually, the children won and Hanny began dribbling the ball around the garden with them all chasing and harrying, trying to dig it out from his feet.

‘ Can’t they believe it was God?’ I said.

‘You mean let them believe?’ Father Bernard replied.

‘Yes.’

‘That’s called lying, Tonto.’

‘Or faith, Father.’

‘Don’t be a smart arse.’

He looked at me and then we turned to watch everyone up at the house. There was music drifting outside. Mr Belderboss was playing his harmonica. Mummer was dancing with Farther. I don’t think I’d ever seen her so giddy with happiness, so much like she ought to be at her age. She wasn’t quite forty.

When I think of Mummer and Farther now, I think of them that afternoon, her hands on his shoulders, his hands on her waist. I see the hem of Mummer’s skirt playing about her thin ankles. She is wearing those shoes with the cork heels. Farther has his sleeves rolled up, his glasses in his shirt pocket.

Mummer cried out and smacked Farther playfully on the arm as he dipped her.

‘There’s a different woman,’ said Father Bernard.

‘Yes.’

‘It suits her.’

‘Yes. It does.’

He looked down at his hands.

‘I’m going be leaving soon,’ he said.

‘Do you have to go back to the presbytery?’

‘I mean the parish, Tonto.’

‘The parish? Why, Father?’

‘I’ve decided to go back to Belfast. The bishop’s not going to be all that enamoured, but I think it’s best if I do. I’m not sure how much more I can do here. Not now anyway.’

‘You can’t leave,’ I said. ‘Who will we get instead?’

He smiled and gave me a sideways look. ‘I don’t know, Tonto. Somebody.’

He breathed out heavily

‘Ah, look, I don’t want to go,’ he said. ‘But I’m not what they want, or what they need. I’m no Wilfred Belderboss, am I?’

He bent down and picked up a fallen apple that lay by his feet. It was full of cinder coloured holes where the wasps had chewed it. He turned it in his hand and tossed it into the long grass by the fence.

I thought for a moment, then said, ‘Father, will you wait here?’

‘Aye,’ he said and sat back while I went over to the potting shed.

It was warm inside. A smell of old soil and creosote. Farther’s tools hung up on rusty nails and above them at the back of some old cracked pots that he was always meaning to glue back together was a plastic bag under a seed tray. I brought it down and took it to where Father Bernard was waiting with one arm over the back of the bench, watching everyone milling around up at the house.

‘What’s this?’ he said.

‘I think you need to read it, Father.’

He looked at me and took out the book that was in the bag. He opened it and then quickly shut it again.

‘This is Father Wilfred’s diary,’ he said, holding it out for me to take back. ‘You told me you didn’t know where this was.’

‘I was keeping it safe.’