“Is that so? I didn’t think it was your thing at all. But he’ll be great with the boys and it’ll do them the world of good to experience other cultures. Would you mind making room for him?”
“I’ve been there twenty-seven years, Your Grace.”
“I know.”
“It’s home to me.”
He sighed and shrugged his shoulders, half smiling. “We have no homes,” he said. “No homes of our own, that is. You know that.”
Easy for you to say, I thought, glancing around at the crushed-velvet seat covers and the lace curtains.
“I’d miss it,” I said.
“But it might do you good to get out of teaching for a while and back to parish work. Just for a while?”
“You realize that I’ve never actually done any parish work, Your Grace?” I asked.
“Jim, Jim,” he said in a bored voice.
“I’m not even sure I’d know where to start. Where were you thinking of, anyway?”
He smiled and looked down at the carpet, breathing heavily through his nose; he wore a slightly embarrassed expression on his face. “You can probably guess,” he said. “It wouldn’t be permanent, of course. Only I need someone to take Tom’s place.”
“Tom who?” I asked.
“Tom who do you think?”
My eyes opened wide in surprise. “Tom Cardle?” I asked.
“Actually, it was him who suggested you.”
“This was his idea?”
“It was my idea, Father Yates,” he said sternly. “But Tom was there when all the options were considered.”
I found this hard to believe. “I just saw him on Friday afternoon,” I said. “And he never mentioned a word about any of this.”
“Well, I saw him on Saturday morning,” replied the archbishop. “He popped in here for a chat. He thought you might fancy a change. I thought it myself.”
I didn’t know what to say. I found it hard to understand why Tom would discuss this with Jim Cordington without mentioning it to me first. After all, we had known each other for so long and were such close friends.
* * *
Tom Cardle and I had arrived at the seminary on the same day in 1972 and found ourselves sitting next to each other as the canon explained how our daily lives would be organized over the next few months. Tom was up from the country, a Wexford lad a few months older than I was, having turned seventeen the previous week. He was unhappy to be at Clonliffe; I could see that from the start. He gave off an air of utter despair, and I was drawn to him immediately, not because I shared that emotion, but because I was afraid of loneliness and had resolved to make a friend as quickly as possible. I was already missing Hannah, and somehow, even at that young age, I knew I might need a confidant of sorts, and so I chose Tom, or rather we chose each other. We became friends.
“Are you all right?” I asked him as we unpacked our bags in the small cell we were to share—we’d been put in together because we were sitting beside each other in the orientation—trying out a bit of Christian charity to see whether it suited me. The room was not much to look at it, two single beds pressed against either wall, a gap wide enough for both of us to stand between them, and a single wardrobe to store all our belongings. A bowl and a jug on a side table and a bucket on the floor. “You look a bit white about the gills.”
“I’m not feeling the best,” he said in a thick accent that pleased me, for I hadn’t wanted to be stuck with another Dub. When he told me he was from Wexford, however, I felt a wound inside me opening once again, for I could never hear that county’s name without an accompanying burst of grief.
“Was it the drive up?” I asked.
“Aye, maybe,” he said. “Those roads are a killer. And we came up on the daddy’s tractor.”
I stared at him. “You drove all the way from Wexford to Dublin on a tractor?” I asked in disbelief.
“I did.”
I sucked in the air. “Is that even possible?” I asked.
“We went slow,” he said. “We broke down a lot.”
“Rather you than me, boy,” I said. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Tom Cardle.”
“Odran Yates,” I said, offering my hand, and he shook it, looking directly at me, and for a moment I thought he was going to burst into tears. “Are you glad to be here?” I asked, and he snorted something unintelligible under his breath. “Sure it’ll be grand,” I said. “There’s nothing to worry about. A lad I knew came here a couple of years ago and he said it was great fun altogether. It’s not just praying and that. There’s games and sports and singsongs all the time. It’ll be mighty, just watch.”
He didn’t seem convinced. He opened his suitcase, and there was precious little in there, just a few shirts and pants and a couple of pairs of underwear and socks. Sitting on top of all that was an expensive-looking Bible, and I picked it up to examine it.
“My mam and dad gave it to me,” he said. “When I was leaving, like.”
“Must have cost a few quid,” I said, handing it back to him.
“You can have it if you want. I’ve no use for it.”
I laughed, wondering whether he was joking, but his expression told me otherwise. “Ah no, it’s yours,” I said, and he shrugged, took it from me, and threw it on the side table without much consideration. In the years that followed, I would rarely see him open that book.
* * *
“Tom’s only been in that parish a couple of years,” I told Archbishop Cordington, surprised, for this was a quick transfer and Tom had already been subjected to so many over the last twenty-five years. I used to say that he kept a suitcase on standby at all times.
“Eighteen months. It’s a fair run.”
“Sure he’s only settled in.”
“He needs a change.”
“It’s not my place to say, of course,” I ventured, wondering whether I might get myself off the hook with a little debate. “But hasn’t poor Tom been moved around enough as it is? Would it not be fair to leave him alone for a while?”
“What is it that Shakespeare says?” asked the archbishop with a wide smile. “Ours is not to question why?”
“Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die,” I said, correcting him. “Tennyson.”
“Not Shakespeare?”
“No, Your Grace.”
“I could have sworn it was Shakespeare.”
I said nothing.
“But my point stands,” he said coldly. “Tom Cardle’s is not to reason why. And nor is Odran Yates,” he added, taking another sip from his glass.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I only meant—”
“Don’t be worrying,” he said, slapping a hand down firmly on the side of his chair and smiling again; the man could turn on a penny. “It’ll take you a bit of getting used to, of course. All those parishioners in your ear every day. And you’ll be afloat in tea for the first couple of months as all the old biddies invite you over to size you up.” He paused and glanced at his nails, which were finely manicured. “And sure you might as well take charge of the altar boys too while you’re at it. You’re used to the young lads.”