Chapter 8

Chapter 8

 

 

Wednesday, August 13 1969

 

Brian was quick to decide that anticipation of the next leg of the journey – Dublin- and meeting most of Caitlin’s relatives for the first time was the cause of his restlessness. At the same time he was still smoldering emotionally from what the Monsignor McReady said about his father. And to a lesser extent, it bothered Brian that he had not been more forthright in telling James all of the things the monsignor had said. As the night chill settled in over Mayo and his wakefulness failed to abate, Brian got out of bed and moved to the cushioned wicker rocker by the bedroom’s only window. As his eyes acclimated to the inky darkness, Brian was amazed at how clearly he could see in what was supposed to be the depth of night, and how easy it had become for him to make out figures in the distance that escaped his eyes in the daylight. Then, after more than two hours of sitting quietly in the rocker with his thoughts racing aimlessly in his head, Brian returned to the bed, mentally and physically jaded, just as the first light of dawn began to appear on the horizon, and finally found his slumber.

 

Caitlin was the first to rise in the morning and had washed and was brushing her hair when Brian awoke.

“You must have been exhausted to have slept this long Brian,” she said, “Usually you’re up and dressed before I even consider waking. You probably needed all the sleep you got.”

“Not by a longshot, Caitlin,” he answered as he rubbed his face in his hands as if stretching his skin, “I was up most of the night thinking, or not really thinking so much as trying to make sense out of what’s been happening. Maybe I come back to life after breakfast. Let me wash up and we’ll see.”

 

Caitlin poured another cup of tea for each of them after the breakfast plates had been taken away. With Brian showing little sign of leaping into the day, she forced the conversation on him by saying “Brian, I have a thought, and I want you to listen and hear me out.”

“What’s…,” Brian began to ask when Caitlin interrupted him.

“I said I want you to listen and hear me out on what I have to say. Now be quiet

“I didn’t meet your cousin James until you did, so meeting him is new to both of us. And I don’t know whether he was just blowing off steam or that he may really be onto something. But after what you told me he said last night, I think we have to invest whatever time it takes to follow through and go back to Westport. I know you are not going to have any rest until you get to the bottom of this and find out the truth.

“This means Dublin may have to wait another day or two and we may have to cut another day off our sight seeing, but I think this is more important to both of us right now and God knows, for how long more into the future.”

“Can I say something now?” Brian asked.

“Now that that’s settled, say anything you want. But right now let’s get our bags, put them in the car and get on to Westport.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Brian answered, snapping a smart salute to his wife as he spoke.

 

Brian parked the rental car on the macadamized road outside the Monsignor’s cottage. As they approached the front door, Brian sighted the aging cleric, dressed in black trousers and a mustard colored cardigan over a green plaid shirt walking up the hill from the bay. The priest walked slowly with a fishing creel and a pair of waders on his left shoulder and a lengthy flyrod, secure in his right hand, pointing the way before him

They continued to the front of the house and rang the mechanical bell in the middle of the door. After several minutes wait Mrs. Hanley opened the door and seeing who had rung the bell, said in her most officious voice “And what do you want this time?”

“We’ve come back to see the monsignor again,” Brian said most politely.

“Well, he’s not here and I don’t know when he’ll be back. But I’ll be sure to tell him you were here.”

“He’ll be coming in the back door from fishing in a few minutes, Mrs. Hanley,” Brian said “ “and let me assure you, if it wasn’t important that we see him, we would not have come back today.”

“Wait here,” she said, “and if he does come back and is willing to see you after that disgraceful display yesterday, I’ll come back. If not, I hope you’ll have the decency to go away and stay away. He was very upset after you left and with his health, it will do no good for him to go through another day like that.”

The wait that followed seemed interminable and the Dineens found that as they waited, they had nothing to say to one another, which made the wait seem even longer. When she finally did return to the front door, a clearly unhappy Mrs. Hanley showed Brian and Caitlin in and led the couple back to the study. The priest was still dressed in the same trousers shirt and sweater but the fishing gear he had been carrying had been left somewhere else. He greeted the couple, extended his hand to Brian and after shaking hands, asked them to sit down as he slipped into the office chair behind his desk.

“Would you care for some tea and biscuits?” he asked before the housekeeper had a chance to leave the room. Caitlin said a cup of tea would be tasty. Brian nodded.

After Mrs. Hanley returned with the tea and biscuits, Monsignor McReady signaled toward the teacart and said “Please help yourself. I wont be having any so close to my dinnertime.”

Caitlin poured tea for Brian and herself and served her husband his cup as the young American began to tell the monsignor what he had learned the night before.

“Until I told people that I came out here and talked to you, no one could remember a thing about my father except that he was Peter Dineen’s younger brother and hadn’t been heard from in years. It was so long ago, they all said. Another time when things were different.”

Brian continued telling the bits and pieces he had learned the night before.

“The things that you are saying are particularly insulting remarks, young man, and I resent it, even if you are only repeating what you heard. I have no idea what they would be talking about. But only a fool would give credence to the talk of those drunks in Ballina,” the monsignor replied.

“You must remember, Brian and Caitlin too,” he continued, “that when you serve in a parish for as long as I did, you are going to make lasting friends and for each friend you make, you’ll make two lasting enemies. If you do something for one person who really needs help, there will always be another person or group of persons who resent it.

“It’s not very Christian of them but it’s pure West of Ireland to be sure. I don’t know what I did to displease those irreligious parishioners, but some of them have tried to blacken my name since the first day I set foot in Kilcummin as an assistant.”

“I understand that all too well, monsignor, I’m a lawyer.” Brian interjected, “I know there can be unreasonable resentment when it comes to serving people, even outside the religious context. But one thing I heard last night really bothered me.

“When I told one man that you said my father and you grew up together in Kilcummin and that you both served in the Mayo Brigade, he asked me if that was all you said. And then, before I had a chance to answer, he said – and let me quote him exactly here—‘Why don’t you and your lady go back and ask him why good men lose honor and the cowardly momma’s boy gets to live out his life in a luxury none of the rest of us will ever get to enjoy.’

Monsignor McReady could hardly conceal his anger. His pale white face flushed red suddenly, the color accentuated by his full head of pure white hair.

“That Peter Dineen – your uncle—has always been a trouble maker and has been out to destroy me with lies and innuendoes for as long as I can remember. That the man presents himself for the sacrament on Sunday is a scandal that parish will not soon outlive, you can be sure of that.”

Brian and Caitlin listened to the rest of the cleric’s tirade and when the scarlet of the priest’s face began to return to a reasonable pinkish white, Brian said quietly “It wasn’t Peter Dineen who told me that, monsignor, but now I’m sure if I put the right question to Peter, I might learn more about my father and you than I do now.”

“Now, sir, I would like to thank you for the tea and for the courtesy of your time. I’m truly sorry we bothered you and I assure you we won’t be bothering you again. If I’ve opened old wounds, I apologize for that too, and I hope you will forgive me. We must be going now.”

The priest was unusually quiet and after so energetic a tirade, Brian was concerned that he might have suffered some cardiac damage or some form of stroke. The priest raised his right hand as if to signal the couple not to leave.

When he recovered his composure, the old priest, in a voice more resigned and humble than earlier said “Brian, please stay.

“The way you spoke just now,” the priest continued barely above a whisper, “quietly and without rancor, it’s the way Martin, your father, would have spoken. His gentle, courageous soul, his kindness, and my God his generosity and his loyalty. He was a grand man altogether. A man I could never be.

“I’ve spent most of my life living in fear, living in dread of the day when someone—you or somebody else—would walk through my front door, at the rectory or even here, and tell me I’ve been found out. Yes, some days have been maybe less painful than others, but I tell you the best of them have been a living hell. I’ve watched it all, watched it all and cried, and there is nothing I can do to wash away the sin

Brian wasn’t sure if the priest was undergoing some kind of physical or mental distress. “Mrs. Hanley,” he called out loudly, “Mrs. Hanley come quickly.”

The old housekeeper responded immediately to Brian’s call and when she came through the door and saw the priest, yelled at the Americans “What have you done to him. I knew I shouldn’t have let you in today, but fool that he is, he insisted.”

“It’s all right, Catharine, go back to the kitchen and if I need you I’ll call you,” McReady told her. “There’s nothing you can do at the moment.”

The housekeeper left the room obediently and though visibly disturbed, closed the door behind her.

“I’m all right young man but thank you for your concern. I’m tired of being afraid. The fear has shortened my life as it is and I’m sick of it.

“I should have known when you showed up in Westport that my time was running out.” The priest rose from his desk and walked slowly back to the window. He looked glassy eyed out toward Clew Bay and made several wordless efforts to speak but to no avail. He turned to Brian once more, his eyed filled with tears.

“Your father left Ireland, which he loved, under the cover of darkness and in disgrace because he was protecting me for what I had done. And they all think it was him that done it. And I let them go on thinking it.

“I killed Michael Collins.”