Immaculate Heart (14 page)

At halftime the soccer fans made for the door to smoke their cigarettes, but a few of them lingered outside the snug. “Evening, gentlemen,” said one, as another came out with, “How're ya, now?” The first man bobbed his chin in my direction. “Who's the Yank?”

“None of that, now,” Paudie said coldly. “We'll have none of that tone here.”

“He
is
a Yank, isn't he?”

“
Céad míle fáilte
,” sneered the other man from behind the first. “Ireland welcomes you home to her shriveled bosom.”

“James Hennessey!” Brona piped up. “Your mam never raised you to speak that way, not to anyone.”

Brona's talking-to drew several more men to the table. I could see them staring at me out of the corner of my eye. “Sure, I don't mean to offend ya, Mrs. Tuohy,” Hennessey said. “It's just that this one shows up from America, and all he's doin' is askin' questions about things we're better off forgetting.”

I leaned forward, eager to defuse this without any more help from a well-meaning widow. “Excuse me,” I said, “but I have no idea who you are. I can't see why my presence here should matter to you in the slightest.”

From the back of the crowd a shrill voice parroted, “
I can't see why my presence here should matter to you in the slightest!
”

Good grief. How had this pub suddenly turned into middle school all over again? “Pay them no mind, lad,” Paudie was saying under his breath. “They're most of them on the dole.”

“Ye ought to be ashamed of yerselves.” Brona was fierce, and I felt a little explosion of love for her deep in my chest. “Take that nonsense back to the schoolyard, the lot o' ye.”

The man in the green jersey flicked me a look—as if to say
we haven't finished with you yet—
but there was no arguing with Brona Tuohy.

“Nearly forty years of age, and would you look at them,” Brona sighed as the last of the men filed out the door.

“I'm just glad I didn't meet them when they were twelve,” I said. Everyone laughed, and for a while we talked of other things.

When there were thirty seconds left in the match, I excused myself and made for the front door. “You didn't tell us you smoked,” Leo called after me. He'd rolled one earlier but hadn't gone out all evening, no doubt because of the company on the sidewalk.

“I don't,” I replied from the doorway. “I just need some air. I'll be back in a few.”

There was a little grocery shop across the street, open late. I hadn't bought a pack of cigarettes in at least a half a dozen years. In my jacket pocket I had a matchbox I'd picked from a bowl at the bar the evening before.

When I left the shop, the men were outside again. The match was over, their team had lost, and the looks on their faces were even more sour than when I'd first seen them.

I stopped a few feet away, lit a cigarette, and waited for someone to speak to me. They ignored me at first, but I knew they weren't going anywhere. The end of the match never meant the last of the Guinness.

After a few minutes, some of the men heeled out their cigarettes and went back in. Hennessey and his friend remained, silently finishing their smokes and eyeing me warily. They reminded me of wolves who hadn't had anything to eat all winter long, only in this case, they were hungry for an argument.

“What's the crack?” the second man said finally.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I never got your name.”

“Yeats,” he said as he flicked what was left of his cigarette into a puddle in the road. “Willy B. Yeats.”

“Well,” I replied as I held out the pack of Player's. “I never thought I'd be offering a cigarette to a dead poet.”

He pulled one out, stuck it in his mouth, and spoke through pursed lips. “Sure, we never stop needin' a bit o' comfort on a cold night,” he said in a quavering falsetto, like the voice of an old Irishwoman, and his friend snickered.

“Can we cut the bullshit?” I asked.

Willy arched an eyebrow as he brought his lighter to the end of the cigarette. The spark momentarily threw a red glow over his wolfish features. “Just like a Yank.”

“You don't like me asking questions about the apparition? Is that it?”

He took a deep drag. “Now, whatever gave you
that
idea?”

“Sarcasm duly noted,” I replied. “I'm going to assume there's a legitimate reason for this hostility, and I'd really like to hear what it is.”

“I'll tell ya what it is,” Hennessey said. “You come back here in your little Nissan Micra, talkin' all this shite because you think you've a claim to the place.”

“A claim to the place,” I echoed. “What's that supposed to mean? I only came here to go to a funeral.”

“Aye, and look where you've been since then,” Willy scoffed. “They say you've been all the way up Benbulben to see the fairy queen.”

Smoke streamed out of Hennessey's mouth as he laughed. “Aye! To rescue her!”

“Did anyone ever tell you that you guys gossip like a bunch of old women?”

I was surprised this comment provoked no reaction. Hennessey finished his cigarette, and again I held out my open pack. “See, this here's the trouble with you Yanks,” he said. “It's nothing to do with you. Do ya see?”

“But what does it have to do with you either?” I asked. “Is it just because you were born in Ballymorris that you feel like you own whatever happens here?”

For a minute no one spoke. A scowl, apparently, was all I'd get from Hennessey for an answer.

“You know nothin' about anythin',” Willy said finally. “You know feck all.”

“You're right,” I said. “So why don't you tell me?” I looked at their crow's-feet and the silver at their temples. They could've been friends with Declan, back in the day. Of course they had been. “Was it real?” I asked.

Willy shook his head. “And
I'd
know feck all if I thought I'd an answer to that.”

“It was something.” Hennessey stared down through the pavement with his arms crossed, cigarette crimped between his lips, breathing the smoke out and in like an automaton. “It was something—whatever it was.”

“
It
?” I asked, as the face of the boy on the hill flickered before me.

The man took the cigarette away from his mouth and looked at me as he exhaled. “If you really think it was the Blessed Virgin Mary they saw up there, then you're every bit as daft as we took you for.”

*   *   *

My room at the B and B bore a similarity to Brona's spare room—maybe it was the vague whiff of mold—and though I had a full-size bed, it wasn't any more comfortable. The little room was crowded with furniture, a floral armchair blocked the door to the wardrobe, and the faded print of Christ and his crown of thorns above the bureau mirror made me cringe. At least my grandmother couldn't nag me afterward about putting Brona out.

I switched off the light and felt the springs dig into my ribs as I settled onto my side. I thought of listening to Síle's second interview tape, but I was already so riled up that if I did, I'd probably never get to sleep. What had they implied about the apparition—that it was real, but something only pretending to be the Virgin Mary? How had they come to believe that?

As I was finally nodding off, lulled by the analog alarm clock ticking softly at my ear, I suddenly rose with a start. I could have sworn I heard someone, a woman, sigh.

 

6

NOVEMBER 10

After the listlessness of the day before, I was even more determined to drive back up to Sligo after breakfast. My hostess at the B and B was on the chatty side, but she didn't seem to mind when I put on my headphones once she'd brought out my plate of eggs and black pudding. Síle's second interview tape was dated the third of March—a week after the first tape.

 

FATHER DOWD

Did the Blessed Mother reveal herself to you in any way?

 

SÍLE

(puzzled)

How do ya mean, Father?

 

FATHER DOWD

I'm only attempting to reconcile your account with the others'.

 

SÍLE

But I don't know what you mean by “reveal Herself.”

 

FATHER DOWD

(smugly)

You'd know it, if she had.

 

SÍLE

But I might. There are things I'm not supposed to talk about yet.

 

FATHER DOWD

Did she tell you not to speak of them?

 

SÍLE

She said She'd tell me when the time had come to tell you.

 

FATHER DOWD

Pardon my cynicism, but that's rather convenient.

 

SÍLE

I'm only tellin' ya what She said to me.

 

FATHER DOWD

The Blessed Mother didn't give any sort of
secret knowledge
to the others. Tess spoke of no such thing.

 

SÍLE

It isn't always when we see Her on the hill. Other times, too.

 

FATHER DOWD

(taken aback)

She doesn't only come to you at the grotto?

 

SÍLE

(nodding)

There's a voice at my ear, tellin' me things. It might be Our Lady's voice, but I can't say for certain.

The priest's brow furrows in concern. This young girl is even more troubled than he suspected.

 

FATHER DOWD

What sort of things?

 

SÍLE

She tells me if someone's about to call by, or if someone's going to ring, and they always do. Or I'll know somebody's name before they tell it to me.

 

FATHER DOWD

(scoffing)

And just when d'you ever meet anyone new to you?

 

SÍLE

Yesterday there was a girl down at the shop with her parents. They were only drivin' through town on their way to Derry. She smiled at me, and I told her I could guess her name, and I was right. It was Alice.

 

FATHER DOWD

It must have been embroidered on her jacket.

 

SÍLE

It wasn't, Father. I didn't see it anywhere, I only heard “
Alice”
in my ear. A whisper, like. She had dark hair; she didn't even look like an Alice.

 

FATHER DOWD

Why do you think Our Lady is telling you these things? What purpose does it serve?

 

SÍLE

She's askin' me to trust Her. I told Her I trusted Her from the very beginning, but She says every foundation must start from the ground. If I hear right when it's only the small things, I know I can trust Her about the big things when the time comes.

 

FATHER DOWD

(with the tired air of a skeptic)

And what are these “big things”?

 

SÍLE

I don't know. But someday I'll know things that
will
matter, and when that day comes, I'll tell you straight away.

 

FATHER DOWD

You confound me, Síle. Every time we sit down to speak, you confound me. None of the others have heard what you've heard. No wonder the bishop is looking on all this as if it were a Gypsy carnival. So much talk, but too few answers and precious little sense.

 

SÍLE

I know it seems that way, Father. She's telling Tess something else altogether. We've asked Her about it, but the Blessed Mother says not to fret about it, that it's all part of loving us equal but different.

 

FATHER DOWD

(sighs)

Let me put it to you this way, Síle. You can't say whatever you like and expect the world to hang on your every word. There's no proof in anything you've said to me, only imaginings, or at least that's how the bishop is inclined to see it. If you've a message for the world—if Our Lady is truly appearing to you—then I must have consistency among your accounts, or no one will heed your story. Do you understand?

Síle's response wasn't audible, whatever it was, and the priest sighed one more time for good measure before he came down on the
STOP
button.

*   *   *

After a perfunctory pat down, Martin accompanied me up the stairs to Síle's room, and this time she met me at the door. “It's a lovely day,” she said. “Let's go for a walk on the strand.”

“They really let you out for walks?” I asked.

She cast me a sly look as she shrugged on her jacket. “They let me do more than you think.”

I may have imagined the glance that passed between Síle and Martin as we came out of her room. The orderly followed at a discreet distance as we went down a set of service stairs and out the back door. “Tell me the truth,” I said quietly as we passed into the garden. “What's it really like, living here? Don't you want out as soon as possible?”

“I don't think much about leaving. Not just yet.”

“But you won't live here forever,” I prompted. It occurred to me then that it was Saturday, and Dr. Kiely probably had weekends off.

“That's true. But it's where I live today, and where I'll live tomorrow, and probably the day after, too. As for the day after that, now, who's to say?”

We passed through a gate in the high stone wall, onto a narrow concrete path leading through the dunes, and I watched as she pulled off her shoes and socks.

“You sure you want to go barefoot?” I asked as she stowed her sneakers just off the paved walkway. “It's freezing out.”

“For you, maybe.” She cast a smile over her shoulder as we passed softly onto the sand. “We always talk about me. What have
you
been up to the last twenty-five years?”

I glanced back and saw Martin standing at the gate watching us. “I'm not nearly as interesting as you are.”