“Gets me through the rest of the afternoon,” he said with a wink as he took his first sip. “I have a delegation of nuns coming in here next for my sins. Something about new bathrooms for their convent. Sure I haven’t the money to be spending on them when there’s priests calling every day about getting broadband installed in their homes. And that doesn’t come cheap.”
“You could always divide the money,” I suggested. “Half for the priests and half for the nuns.”
He let out a great roar of a laugh at that, as if I had made a terrific joke, and I smiled along to be sociable. “Very good, Odran, very good,” he said. “You were always quick with a joke, weren’t you? But listen to me now, how would you feel about a bit of a change?”
My heart sank a little inside my chest. I thought I was here for one conversation, but no, it seemed I was here for another. Was I to be moved? After all these years? I liked the walls that surrounded the rugby fields, the long driveway to the main building, the peace of my corridor, the silence of my own small room, the security of the classroom. I had dreaded the conversation that I thought I was here to have, but this was worse. This was far worse.
“I wouldn’t be looking for a change,” I said. It was worth trying, after all. Maybe he’d take pity on me. “I feel I still have work to do. There’s a lot of lads who need help.”
“Well, the work never ends,” he replied. “It just gets picked up by the next man. No, I’ve got a grand young lad that I want to send over to Terenure, I think it’ll do him the world of good. Father Mouki Ngezo. Have you come across him at all?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know too many of the younger fellows. Not that there were that many to know.
“Black fella,” said the archbishop. “You must have seen him about.”
I stared at him, uncertain whether the description was a purely factual one or whether there was something derogatory in the way he said it. Could you even say black these days or did that make you a racist? “I don’t…” I began, unsure how to finish my sentence.
“He’s a grand lad,” he repeated. “Came to us from Nigeria a few years back. But look, isn’t it a terrible thing all the same—the way we used to send our young lads out to the missions and now the missions are sending their young lads back here to us?”
“Doesn’t that make us the missions?” I said, and he thought about this for a moment.
“Do you know, I’ve never thought about it like that,” he said. “I suppose it does. That’s a queer pass, isn’t it? Do you know how many applications for the priesthood I’ve had this year from the Dublin diocese?” I shook my head. “One,” he said. “One! Can you believe it? And I met up with the lad and he wasn’t right for us at all. Something a bit simple about him, I thought. He kept laughing while I was trying to talk to him and biting his nails. It was like holding a conversation with a coyote.”
“A hyena,” I said.
“Yes, a hyena. That’s what I said. Anyway, I told him that he should go away and reflect on whether or not he had a vocation and then we could talk again, and he started crying and I practically had to carry him back outside. His mammy was out in the waiting room and she was pushing him into it, I could tell that.”
“Sure the mammies pushed us all into it,” I said, the words out of my mouth before I could even think about them.
“Ah now, Odran,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t think we need to go down that road, do you?”
“I only meant—”
“Don’t be worrying, don’t be worrying.” He took another drink from his glass, a longer drink this time, and he closed his eyes for a few moments, savoring the taste. “Miles Donlan,” he said after a moment, and I glanced down at the floor. This was the conversation I had expected.
“Miles Donlan,” I repeated quietly.
“You’ve read the papers, I suppose? Seen the news?”
“I have, Your Grace.”
“Six years,” he said, whistling through his teeth. “Do you think he’ll survive it?”
“He’s not a young man,” I said. “And they say that prisoners can be fierce rough on…” I had the word, of course, but couldn’t say it.
“You never heard any whispers, did you, Odran?”
I swallowed. Of course I had heard whispers. Father Donlan and I had worked side by side in Terenure for years. I’d never liked him, to be honest; he had a bitter air about him and spoke about the boys as if they both fascinated and disgusted him at the same time. But yes, I had heard whispers.
“I didn’t know him very well,” I said, avoiding his question.
“You didn’t know him very well,” he repeated quietly, and he stared at me until I could only look away. “But if you had heard whispers, Odran, or if you were to hear whispers about someone else, tell me what would you do?”
Nothing was the honest answer. “I suppose I’d talk to the man.”
“You’d talk to the man. I see. Would you talk to me about it?”
“I might, yes.”
“Would you go to the Gardaí?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Not at first, anyway.”
“Not at first. When might you?”
I shook my head, trying to decide what he wanted to hear. “Honestly, Jim,” I said, “I don’t know what I’d do or who I’d tell or when I’d say a word at all. I’d have to judge it at the time.”
“You’d tell me is what you’d do,” he said in an aggressive tone. “And you’d tell no one else. The papers are all out to get us, you can see that, can’t you? We’ve lost control. And we must regain it. We must bring the media to heel.” He glanced across at the drinks cabinet and the statue of Archbishop McQuaid. “Do you think he would have put up with any of this nonsense?” he asked me. “He’d have had the printing presses shut down. He’d have taken over RTÉ’s lease at Montrose and evicted the lot of them.”
“Times are different now,” I said.
“Times are worse is what they are. But look, I’m getting sidetracked. What was I saying before all of this?”
“The Nigerian priest,” I told him, relieved to change the subject.
“Oh yes, Father Ngezo. Actually he’s a grand fella all the same. Black as the ace of spades, but there we are. He’s not the only one, of course. We have three lads from Mali, two Kenyans, and a fella from Chad across there in Donnybrook. And next month a boy from Burkina Faso is coming over to be a curate in Thurles, I’m told. Did you ever even hear of Burkina Faso? I never did, but apparently it exists.”
“Is it somewhere above Ghana?” I asked, examining a map of the world in my mind.
“I have no idea. And even less interest. It could be one of the moons of Saturn for all I care. But look, we take what we can get these days. And I want to give young Ngezo a try out there in Terenure. He needs a change and he’s a great supporter of the rugby. You were never much interested in that, were you, Odran?”
“I rarely miss a cup match,” I said defensively.