He took a sip of the coffee, went on.
“Ouch, bitter.”
Of course.
He said,
“She is incendiary. If she goes public, as well the crazy bitch might, the Church will be deeply compromised. I can see the headline: ‘Miracle Girl Goes on Murder Spree.’ We can’t let that happen.”
I said,
“I know where she’s going.”
He was astonished.
He lit up, asked,
“Good man. Get us something stronger to celebrate, you’ll be full rewarded from the Church, my man, and you’re gold.”
As I poured two stiff Jays, he looked like he might hug me, God forbid. He stood, we clinked our glasses, and he said,
“To the inscrutable Mr. Jack Taylor.”
I let him savor the moment, then I hit with the rider, said,
“Before I reveal her whereabouts, I need something from you, from the Church.”
His smile lost some luster, but he gamed on, said,
“Name your figure.”
I let the drama build, then,
“I need a week in one of your hideaways, the houses where you stash the wounded priests, the fallen, and, if you deny having such, all bets are off and you can, as they say in the best churches, go fuck yourself.”
He sat back down, considered, then chuckled, said,
“Haven, you can stay in the Haven, and it’s just down the road so to speak.”
I was a little surprised he caved so easy, then pushed,
“I need to be left alone there, with a course of Valium for the duration.”
He said,
“We can manage that. May I ask why? Not the Valium but the need to go there at all.”
There were many bullshit reasons I could offer but I decided to go with the truth, see how that tasted, said,
“I am shattered.” My mind a whirling cesspool of
Burning horses.
Murdered friends.
Mutilated falcons.
“And I am bone sick to the point of falling down. I need a week to be, if I don’t sound too much like an asshole, still.”
He mulled that over. I expected some sarcastic reply, got this:
“Burnout. I get it. I’ve been there. Few years back, when we first heard rumors of Sara, I followed a false trail that revealed horrors involving children and I lost it, my mind shut down, I was a walking basket case.”
“Did you go to the Haven?”
He gave a bitter laugh, said,
“Yeah, right. The Church is not big on compassion for its, let’s term them, dark ops team.”
You might think we’d have bonded over our shared trauma but, no, there was something slithery about him. But I did concede,
“You’re okay now, I guess?”
He gave me a calculating look, then,
“I read Deepak Chopra’s The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success.”
I could get a copy in Dubray’s or Charlie Byrne’s. I said,
“It helped a lot, then?”
Another chuckle with a definite overriding of nastiness. He said,
“To quote a Galway philosopher, like fuck.”
I did warm somewhat to him. I showed him my arm, the tattoo of the dove, the figure 3.5, asked him if he had any idea what it meant.
He took my arm, peered intently, asked,
“You got a tattoo and you don’t know what it signifies. Jesus, you do need the Haven.”
I lamely offered,
“I was drunk.”
Now he gave a full deep amused laugh, said,
“If you get a tattoo every time you’re drunk, you’ll have more of them than David Beckham.”
My bonding, albeit small, was gone already. I snarled,
“You know or not?”
He let my hand go, wiped his glasses like Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws, said,
“We’re going to need a bigger boat.”
Saw the anger in my face, apologized.
“Sorry, I just love that movie. The dove is, I think, to represent the Holy Spirit, the 3.5 is from Proverbs. Trust in the Lord.”
Fuck.
I said,
“I can see why you love Jaws; you’re the spit of the main character.”
He was chuffed, beamed, asked,
“Really, Robert Shaw?”
I allowed him to savor, then answered,
“The great white.”
So it was arranged. I’d be picked up in five days by Father Pat, the former driver of Malachy when Malachy had been bishop-in-waiting. When he was demoted, he lost not only his dignity but Pat, who had turned out to be a smart little bollix despite initially acting like a religious prick.
I’d given Pat a taste for Jameson and he was now a daily devotee.
God knows, I’ve ruined many a priest, as indeed priests have ruined many a man.
I needed five days to attend funerals: the deaths from Saoirse Farm.
Ceola’s father had turned up and taken her home to Scotland to be buried under Ben Nevis. She’d like that. She might hear the melody of violins along the wind from Edinburgh.
No one claimed Dysart. He was to be consigned to that indignity I recalled from a bitter Irish past of
Magdalene laundries.
Tithes.
Rent men.
Evictions.
Pauper’s graves.
Not if I could fuckin’ help it.
And I didn’t even like him but a poor man’s burial, no.
Took some maneuvering but eventually I was able to get Joe Irwin — I can’t say my undertaker, lest I draw witchy drama on my own self. Plus, I had twenty large to splurge so burying Dysart with class wasn’t a stretch. I donated another wedge to the Simon Community.
I bought a new pair of 501s.
It is said
That an epiphany is most likely to occur
In a cemetery
Though
It helps
If you’re
The mourner
Rather than the deceased.
Tuesday, another biblical rain lashed the hell out of us. In Rahoon Cemetery, I and Father Pat were the sole mourners, participants at Dysart’s burial.
We were seriously drenched. This was ferocious rain like it had an attitude, a mission to drown us. Pat asked me if I’d like any special words.
I showed him my tattoo.
He was smart but not always, asked,
“You want me to say dove?”
I said with heavy patience,
“It’s Proverbs, look it up.”
He was still dithering, asked,
“Should I google it now?”
One of the gravediggers, drenched beyond ever dryness, chipped in,
“C’mon, fuck sakes, have the theological debate later. Can we just bury this poor bastard?”
We did.
The gravediggers shuffled off, muttering. Father Pat, rain dripping off every inch of him, asked,
“Were you very close to the deceased?”
I said,
“Actually, I disliked the fucker intensely.”
By the gate, a man was standing forlornly, asked,
“Jacques Taylor, n’est pas?”
Though well covered in rainwear, he looked defeated. I said,
“Oui.” (No Irish person can answer in French without thinking wee and being faintly amused as well as feeling ridiculous.)
He said,
“Je suis très désolée.”
I had pretty much reached the end of my French fluency unless I tried, Voulet vous coucher avec moi, which would be insanely inappropriate.
The man said,
“C’est mon frère.”
Father Pat trailing behind me translated.