The Collar (18 page)

Clearly, the first thing was to get some information, and the following evening he called on the curate in Joyce's parish. He was a tall, gentle young man called Rowlands, with whom Fogarty had spent a few months in another part of the diocese.

‘Information, Ed!' Fogarty said. ‘Information about one of your parishioners!'

‘I'm sorry, Jerry, but the seal of the confessional is strictly observed in this parish,' Rowlands said with his old-maidish humour. ‘Who is it, tell me?'

‘A fellow called Joyce in St Mary's Road.'

‘A manager in Carr's?' Rowlands said, stroking his long jaw thoughtfully. ‘I know the man you mean. He's a small, bouncy little chap. It wouldn't be woman trouble, would it?'

‘Why?' Fogarty asked keenly. ‘Did he have woman trouble?'

‘Oh, I heard something I didn't pay much attention to. About two years ago. He used to be a traveller for Carr's before he got the big job.'

‘Anything else?'

‘Let me see! It's coming back to me. Mind you, I couldn't say it was anything but old talk. He was supposed to be having something to do with a married woman called Trench. She was a Protestant, of course. Anyway, herself and her husband left in a hurry. Is that the sort of thing?'

‘More or less,' Fogarty said grimly. ‘This time it isn't a Protestant, and I see no reason why the woman should leave town in a hurry. Don't you think I'm right?'

‘Oh, I'm sure you are, but all the same I'd be careful, Jerry. That sort of thing can get you into a nasty mess.'

‘Ah, aren't I always careful?' Fogarty said with a jolly laugh.

‘You are,' Rowlands said cautiously, ‘but in unorthodox ways. I'm very orthodox, Jerry. I like to go by the books.'

But Fogarty had heard what he came to hear and his mind was made up. Next morning he rang Joyce up at the shop and suggested that it might be more convenient for both if they met at the presbytery. Joyce fell in with this enthusiastically and arrived that evening at the presbytery, looking as though he hoped to sell Fogarty a new suite of furniture. As a subtle touch Fogarty had left the stolen brooch lying on the little table where Sheila had placed it, but he was disappointed in his hope of seeing Joyce discountenanced. He smiled and picked up the brooch.

‘That's a nice little article, father,' he said. ‘Fifty bob in the store.'

‘Three pounds, I believe,' Fogarty said sternly.

‘As much as that?' Joyce said, in what appeared to be genuine surprise. ‘Probably costs four and tuppence to make. But that's how we come to be millionaires, father.'

‘It belongs to the store,' said Fogarty. ‘It might help to make millionaires of you quicker if you took it back there.'

‘Me, father?' Joyce asked innocently. ‘Of course, I'll take it back if you like, but it might be a bit difficult to explain, mightn't it?'

‘Oh, I wouldn't say so,' said Fogarty, beginning to lose his temper. ‘You could tell them it was stolen at your instigation.'

‘At my instigation?' Joyce repeated quietly. He took a few steps forward and faced Fogarty from the hearth, his arms folded. ‘That's a very serious charge, father,' he went on after a moment. ‘Are you sure you're in a position to prove it?'

Fogarty was taken aback. The scene wasn't going at all as he had planned it; he was in no position to prove anything, and because of it he began to bluster.

‘Yes, and you know who the witness would be,' he said angrily. ‘Sheila Moriarty.'

‘Sheila Moriarty?' Joyce repeated phrases and names in the manner of one who thinks while he talks, to give himself time. ‘And do you think seriously, father, that the Bishop is going to accept the story of a girl you say is a thief and consider that it entitled you to go round making wild charges against me?'

‘You tried to seduce that girl,' shouted Fogarty, trying to brazen it out.

‘And what else, father?' Joyce asked impudently.

‘I believe there is also a lady called Trench, who may have something to say about it,' Fogarty said furiously.

‘I see,' Joyce said, but he didn't; again he was only playing for time. Then he suddenly changed from defence to attack, but even then he was very much master of himself as Fogarty was not.

‘Has it struck you, father, that Sheila is very well able to look after herself?'

‘It hasn't,' Fogarty said shortly.

‘Yet when she wants to be protected against me – that's her story, anyway, according to you – she goes to you and not the parish priest! Doesn't that seem peculiar?'

It didn't, so far as Fogarty was concerned. Whatever happened to Irish priests in the course of their career, young people who got into trouble always took care to avoid them when they became parish priests. And Dempsey, Fogarty's parish priest, was somebody whom anybody, old or young, would avoid.

‘That's her business,' he said, raising his hand.

‘You're trying to make it mine, father,' Joyce said reproachfully. ‘By the way, have you told the parish priest?'

‘That's none of your business either,' Fogarty said, losing his temper again.

‘Oh, but I might have to see the parish priest if this persecution went any farther, father.'

‘Persecution?' Fogarty growled furiously.

‘Yes, father, persecution,' Joyce said steadily. ‘Hysterical young women with sex on the brain going to young priests, who accept everything they say without making proper inquiries! That is persecution, and I hope it doesn't go any farther. In the meantime,' Joyce added contemptuously, ‘you'd be wise to put that brooch in the dustbin and forget about the whole business.' Then his tone changed again and became insolently personal. ‘Before I go, father, did Sheila Moriarty ever tell you what her mother's advice was before she left home?'

‘I'm not discussing her business with you,' said Fogarty.

‘You should really ask her some time,' said Joyce, and then he turned on his heel and went jauntily down the stairs.

Fogarty was furious. He knew he had been out-manoeuvred all over the shop, and by somebody he thoroughly despised and believed to be an arrant coward. He had an aching regret that he hadn't hit the man when he had the opportunity. It was clearly a public duty on someone's part to hit him. But he had been foxed, and the result was that though he had summoned Joyce merely to warn him off, it was himself who had been warned off. And Fogarty was not a man who was accustomed to being warned off.

And yet, when he woke next morning, he was full of cheerfulness and bounce. When he analysed the scene all over again, everything about it seemed all right. An unpleasant duty had been done, no matter how inadequately. In spite of his bluff Joyce was a coward and much too afraid to pursue Sheila further. Above all, he would say nothing about the brooch. Sheila's word against his might not count, but Sheila's word and that of her priest would satisfy any reasonable person that he was at the bottom of any offence she had committed. But though Fogarty knew he had won, he realised too that for the future he must be more careful in his dealings with businessmen and would have to get advice, if not from the parish priest, at least from some priest older than himself. It was all very well to know a few thousand sins theoretically, but to know a few of them practically gave the other fellow an immense advantage.

When Sheila Moriarty came that evening she saw at once from his manner that things had gone well. This time he told Mary to bring up the coffee at once and till it arrived he talked to Sheila about her native place. When he had poured out the coffee he smiled knowingly at her.

‘I had a visitor last night,' he said.

‘What did you think of him?' she asked ruefully.

‘To tell you the truth, I didn't like him very much. Smooth, of course. A smart salesman. Not one you could do business with, though.'

‘Do you think I don't know it?' she asked wearily. ‘What did he say for himself?'

‘Nothing much for himself, a lot for other people. I'll be quite honest with you, he was too smart for me altogether, not to mind you. But I'm sure of one thing. He'll give you no more trouble unless you make an opportunity for him.'

‘I promise you I won't do that if I can avoid it.'

‘You'll have to avoid it,' Fogarty said sternly. ‘Anything you have to do with that man for the future is going to injure you. He's frightened and sore, and he'll hurt you in any way he can.'

‘And the brooch?'

‘Never mind about that. Tell it in Confession, of course, but say you've taken steps to return it. I'll find a way myself sooner or later.'

‘I'm not going to thank you,' she said. ‘Only for you I don't know what would have happened me.'

‘I did nothing only what I'd be bound to do for anyone,' he said. ‘And even that much I mightn't have been able to do except that I knew something about him.'

‘What was it?'

‘Nothing much. Just an unfortunate married woman who found it advisable to leave town as a result of her association with him. That was something he didn't want brought up.'

‘I suppose I should have guessed it,' she said despondently. ‘It's our vanity that we can never bring ourselves to believe there could have been anyone else, isn't it? What else did he say?'

Fogarty realised with surprise that, bitter as she was, and perhaps because she was bitter, she could go on all night talking about Joyce.

‘Oh, he told me to ask you what the advice was that your mother gave you,' Fogarty replied with a jolly laugh.

‘He told you that?' she asked sharply, and at once he knew he had said the wrong thing. What there was wrong about it he couldn't see, unless it was that she was still so sore that every word she had uttered in confidence to a man she was in love with hurt her when it came from someone else.

‘Naturally, I didn't say you'd already told me,' he added to comfort her.

‘I'm glad of that anyway,' she said and got up.

‘There's no need to go so soon,' he exclaimed. ‘I can drive you wherever you want to go.'

‘I think I'd better go just the same, father,' she said with a smile, but he could have sworn she was fighting back tears. Something had gone wrong, dreadfully wrong, but he had no idea what it was and felt a complete fool.

‘You'll keep in touch with me anyway?' he said.

‘Indeed I will.'

‘And if that fellow annoys you again, don't waste any more time. Come straight out of the shop and let me know. You understand that?'

‘I promise, father.'

Then she was gone and Fogarty felt let down. Let down, bewildered, frustrated, and he didn't know why. What her mother had said couldn't possibly have anything to do with it. It was advice that any mother might have given her daughter when she was leaving home for the first time, except for saying that ‘all married men weren't like her Daddy', which only showed the ingenuousness of the poor woman.

But why then had Sheila withered up when he referred to it, and, above all, why had Joyce worn that complacent, insolent smile when
he
referred to it? Then he understood and he withered up too. Sheila's mother had said something else, something about not throwing temptation in the way of priests because they were more vulnerable than other men. And quite innocently she had thrown temptation in his way and quite innocently he had been tempted, and Joyce in his coarse worldy way had seen it all. Her mother had known she was a lonely vulnerable girl and realised where it might carry her. And where it might have carried her – and him – God only knew, if he had not accidentally shown her how it all looked in an enemy's eye.

Now, Fogarty had a strong impression that he would never meet the girl again and never know what her mother had really said to her about not associating with a priest, because priests were weaker than other men, because they were more unprotected than other men. And suddenly the loneliness he was for ever trying to banish descended on him in all its black bitterness and he added aloud, ‘O God, we are, we are!'

T
HE
F
RYING–PAN

F
ATHER FOGARTY'S ONLY REAL FRIENDS
in Kilmupeter were the Whittons. Whitton was the teacher there. He had been to the seminary and college with Fogarty, and, like him, intended to be a priest, but when the time came for him to take the vow of celibacy, he had contracted scruples of conscience and married the principal one. Fogarty, who had known her too, had to admit that she wasn't without justification, and now, in this lonely place where chance had thrown them together again, she formed the real centre of what little social life he had. With Tom Whitton he had a quiet friendship compounded of exchanges of opinion about books or wireless talks. He had the impression that Whitton didn't really like him and considered him a man who would have been better out of the Church. When they went to the races together, Fogarty felt that Whitton disapproved of having to put on bets for him and thought that priests should not bet at all. Like other outsiders, he knew perfectly what priests should be, without the necessity for having to be that way himself. He was sometimes savage in the things he said about the parish priest, old Father Whelan. On the other hand, he had a pleasant sense of humour and Fogarty enjoyed retailing his cracks against the cloth. Men as intelligent as Whitton were rare in country schools, and soon, too, he would grow stupid and wild for lack of educated society.

One evening Father Fogarty invited them to dinner to see some films he had taken at the races. Films were his latest hobby. Before this it had been fishing and shooting. Like all bachelors, he had a mania for adding to his possessions, and his lumber room was piled high with every possible sort of junk from chest-developers to field glasses, and his library cluttered with works on everything from Irish history to Freudian psychology. He passed from craze to craze, each the key to the universe.