She looked at him, asked,
“Really?”
He gave her the wolf smile, said,
“What’s mine is yours, dear.”
She got behind the wheel, turned the ignition, and felt a stirring as the engine roared. Since meeting Benjamin J. she was in a haze of simmering heat.
She looked at the truck, asked,
“You planning on some building?”
He laughed, said,
“Exactly the opposite. This is more about destructing.”
Yet again she’d no idea what he meant but loved the way he said it. He gave her a smile of utter malevolence, asked,
“So want to burn shit down?”
She thought,
God help me, I’m up for everything, even the sacrifice of Brid.
When I was a little girl
I used to dress my Barbie in a nun’s habit
So she could beat the hell out of Skipper
And not get in trouble.
Tiger Woods won the Masters, staging one of the greatest comebacks of all time. On the twelfth hole of the final round, the leader board was a mess of contenders vying for the top spot. You could almost see Tiger look at it, steel himself, think,
Enough of this shit.
And an electric buzz ran through the crowd as Tiger seemed to change. The energy was almost tangible as he bit down and intimidated the wannabes, took the title to huge cheers. The trauma, pain, sordid stories all seemed to fade away as Tiger exploded with joy when he sank the winning putt.
So redemption was possible.
One of the commentators said,
“It’s a miracle.”
I was in Crowe’s pub when Tiger sank that putt and even guys who hated him rose to cheer.
It took the focus off the lead national story: the president of the FAI, Delaney, tried to get a superinjunction to prevent details getting out of his lending the football association 100,000 euros.
This opened the door to details of lavish spending, the usual rackets most often associated with the charities. In a rapidly escalating farce, Delaney resigned as president, created the position of vice executive president, and — guess what? — appointed his own good self to this position.
The tragedy of all this thievery was the grassroots clubs, struggling to pay for the most basic amenities.
The Church, meanwhile, as shocking details emerged about the beloved Bishop Casey, revealed the affable popular bishop to be one of the most horrendous child abusers.
At first, even his most ardent supporters, though reeling in horror, refused to believe it, but the landslide of evidence proved the allegations. The last folk hero of the people was a monster all along.
A very bitter pill to swallow in Galway, which had defended him all those years.
A guy beside me in Crowe’s, reading the Sunday paper, said,
“I fucking believe nothing now.”
The Church had laid down a decree that details of payouts to victims, the crimes of the perpetrators, would be sealed for — wait for it—
Seventy-five years.
You had to shout,
“How are they getting away with this shite?”
A guy sitting on my right kept sneaking looks at me. At first I didn’t take too much notice but then it began to snip at my nerves. I asked,
“Help you with something?”
He had a shifty air about him, like he knew where your wallet was and, worse, where it was headed. He said,
“I know you, just can’t quite place it.”
There are times you sit easily in a pub, the TV is off and all you hear are the muted conversations; something comforting about it. You’re only half aware of your surroundings but it’s peaceful. As you tune in and out of the chat. That was now pretty much fucked.
Then he lit up, said,
“You’re that guy, the miracle fellah. A truck walloped you and those kids brought you back to life.”
Lord above, how stories get embellished. I hadn’t the energy to tell him the facts but he was far from done, he said,
“So, if I touch you, I’ll be like blessed.”
I turned round to full face him, said,
“You touch me, blessed is the very last thing you’ll be.”
If you ever walk past a nun
Immediately
Touch a piece of iron
Or say
“Your nun”
To a passerby
Passing
The bad luck
To them.
Connie still considered herself a nun but whether official religions would recognize her as such was open to debate. Back in her days as a prison chaplain, she had viewed nuns as basically lesser than her own profession but being stripped of her chaplainship had cut deep. Sure, she had violated some rules of the correctional facility, but she felt they overreacted by insisting she not be sacked but relieved of her profession.
She felt it was humility to reinvent herself as a nun — plus the scrutiny was less rigorous. You had to love California; you were a nun if you said so.
Now, she was deep in the affair with Benjamin J. Cullen. Piece by slow piece he had revealed his hobby.
Arson.
Shocked? She was less horrified than she might have expected. You had a man who treated you like a queen. So what if he indulged in a little mischief.
Brid. Ah, Brid, becoming more and more of a problem, whining on an hourly basis.
Benjamin disappeared frequently, on business he said, offering,
“How else can I continue to treat you like a princess, huh?”
He’d come back from a trip to France. If you’ll excuse the dreadful pun, he was all lit up, said to her in a tone of huge excitement,
“Damn near achieved a masterpiece.”
She’d no idea what he was on about. He said,
“Turn on the TV.”
She did.
Notre-Dame was on fire.
One of the investigators of the Notre-Dame fire, a veteran of global infernos, had once worked with Red Adair. The official verdict was, perhaps, an electrical spark. This investigator, named O’Rourke, decided to walk the surrounding perimeter and stopped as he noticed a small bundle of long-stem matches, picked one up, saw it was the nonsafety kind, pondered it for a moment, then shrugged, dropped the match, moved on.
Ireland was in shock; a young journalist, Lyra, aged twenty-eight, covering an event, was shot dead. Huge crowds turned out declaring they would not tolerate a return to the old days of violence.
I was watching a documentary titled Moving Statues: The Summer of 1985.
For fifteen mad weeks, the country was gripped by reports of life-size statues that moved, wobbled, wept, and swayed. Small villages, reporting a movement of Our Lady, would suddenly be engulfed by up to twenty thousand pilgrims, then a sighting in another village and the crowds moved on. Perhaps the most telling aspect of all this was the Church’s reaction: condemned it as manipulating the most vulnerable of the people. That, of course, was its province. Not to mention that the official shrines, the real money earners like Knock, might have a dip in revenue.
Mass hysteria was cited as the cause and one bishop termed it contagion.
The current miracle in Galway hadn’t really mushroomed. The absence of the children was one factor and the crowds began to fall off.
No matter all my inquires I hadn’t found the children; they seemed to have vanished. Monsignor Rael, the Vatican guy sent to quell the phenomenon, came to see me. He appeared to be well pleased the whole matter had evaporated.
He was in my apartment, looking with slight distaste at the lack of furnishings, asked,