‘Don’t stir.’ She went back down to the kitchen.
He found a cigarette and lit it. Lying on the carpeted floor did not bother him. He had slept on harder beds. The room was heavily furnished. There was a picture of Queen Victoria on one wall and photographs of uniformed groups. Souvenirs and trophies in the china cabinet recorded domestic comings and goings that had finished with the Boer War.
He sat up when Lily brought him tea and bread and butter. In an effort to conceal how he felt he asked. ‘How do you stick that oul wan?’
Lily, thinking he meant the landlady, said sharply: ‘I like that. She’s been good enough to let you stay.’
‘I mean her nibs,’ Pat said, indicating Queen Victoria.
Lily dismissed the picture with a shrug.
‘That oul wan let Ireland starve,’ Pat insisted.
‘She’s dead and Ireland is still starving,’ Lily said, ‘so I don’t see that you can put all the blame on Her Majesty.’
‘Ireland will be free one day. Royalty will go and the employers will go.’
‘You should have explained all that to your comrades-in-arms that gave you the clatter with the bottle.’
He gave up pretending.
‘God, Lily,’ he said, ‘I feel awful.’
‘Then lie back,’ she advised.
She took away the tea things and settled him comfortably.
‘I’ll take away your jacket and wash the collar.’
He took her hand and said: ‘Don’t go, Lily.’
She hesitated. Her face became sad. Then she disengaged her hand and touched his cheek.
‘I must,’ she told him gently, ‘you know I must.’ She put out the light and closed the door. Some time later he heard footsteps moving back and forth on the floor above his head. He knew it was Lily going to bed. He listened until at last they ceased. Then he lay thinking about her. It was hard to sleep, knowing her to be so near. It was hard not to rise and go searching in the darkness. His love for her had been like that for a long time, a lonely desire searching vainly for a room. When he closed his eyes the air became heavy and hard to breathe. He dreamed fitfully, knocking on door after door in search of Lily. Each in turn was opened by Queen Victoria.
‘This will do me,’ Father O’Connor said.
The cab stopped and he got out.
‘Sleep well,’ Yearling said, lowering the window.
‘Thank you for a most hospitable evening.’
‘A great pleasure,’ Yearling assured him and waved benevolently as the cab jolted forward again.
The night was mild and starless. In front of Father O’Connor the railings of the church were faintly visible and behind them the bulk of the church rose darkly. It had been a distressing journey through streets that looked as though they had been hit by a hurricane. Shop windows had gaping holes, lamp-posts were shattered and bent, the wheels crunched over scattered glass and skidded against bricks and debris. In Father O’Connor’s memory nothing like it had happened before. Yearling had refused to agree that it was the handiwork of the strikers. If not, then it was an indirect effect. The lowest elements of the city were prepared now to engage the police, challenging the law and social order in pitched battles. It was a sign that revolt had percolated to the degraded depths of slumland. Here was proof, if indeed proof were needed, of the evil fruits one must be prepared to expect. The challenge to God and religion would not be long delayed.
Opening the hall door he let himself in quietly and turned up the gas light. He put his hat on the hallstand and arranged his umbrella, taking care that it would not fall during the night, as Father Giffley’s so often did. As he turned the hall door opened and Father O’Sullivan stepped in. With a shock he saw that there was blood on his face and his hands and on the white band of his collar.
‘Father,’ he said, ‘you are hurt.’
‘Hush,’ Father O’Sullivan said, ‘don’t waken Father Giffley.’
Father O’Connor lowered his voice.
‘You were caught in the riots?’
‘Not at all,’ Father O’Sullivan said. ‘I’ve been out seeing what I could do. There were some who were badly hurt. A little soap and water will clean it all away.’ When Father O’Connor continued to look doubtful, he became concerned and said apologetically.
‘I assure you, Father, that I haven’t a scratch. Please don’t worry.’
He went past and down the hall. The shoulders of his coat were stained and there was dust on its skirt. Father O’Connor stared after him. He stood in the hallway for some minutes after Father O’Sullivan had gone. It was very quiet and he could hear the buzzing of the gas mantle. His face, reflected in the mirror of the hallstand, was suddenly haggard, his jaw tense with pain.
CHAPTER SIX
On Thursday, sixth of June 1912, Feast of Corpus Christi, white being the liturgical colour, Father Giffley took the eight o’clock mass. That evening, during the procession of the Blessed Sacrament, the Introit kept recurring to him. It had been his intention to speak briefly on it at mass, but at the last moment he had changed his mind. He could not bring himself to say:
‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
‘He fed them on the fat of wheat, alleluia; and filled them with honey out of the rock!’
To address metaphors of wheat and honey to unfortunates who were spending most of their time on strike seemed inappropriate. Father O’Connor, however, had found no such difficulty. During the ten o’clock mass his voice had penetrated to Father Giffley through the partly open door of the vestry. He told his listening congregation that however much they might lack for material comforts in comparison with the more well-to-do, as Catholics they had access to a daily Banquet which was nothing less than the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Here was a spiritual food, necessary to salvation, which was the daily right of the poorest Catholic in the world, but forbidden to the non-Catholic, however rich in worldly goods he might be. Here truly, said Father O’Connor, was no mere bodily fare, but the fat of wheat referred to in the Introit of the mass, here was the honey out of the rock. For these riches, the gift of the Father, let them join the psalmist in rejoicing to God our Helper on this great feast of the Body of Christ.
Father Giffley walked rigidly and angrily as the procession moved about the church grounds. Under the canopy, borne by four Confraternity men, Father O’Connor held the monstrance aloft, the chasuble draped about his shoulders and upheld hands. He had been celebrant at solemn benediction. Father Giffley, dressed only in surplice and soutane, assisted by holding his cope on the right-hand side; Father O’Sullivan assisting in the same manner on his left. Before them, walking backwards with occasional wary glances behind, a young altar boy offered incense from the Thurible. Three puffs of aromatic smoke rose at each incensing, accompanied by the threefold tap of the Thurible against its silver-coloured chain. Behind the priests walked the little children. Some with surplices or white veils, some even with bunches of cheap flowers sang ‘O Sacrament Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine’ and kept glancing about to locate their parents among the onlookers. Their voices reached out beyond the church grounds into the streets, which were hot and stuffy under the evening sunshine.
Where had the children got the flowers? Father Giffley wondered. Some had come from wasteland plots, for he himself had told them to gather the humble flowers that were free to all—the daisies, the buttercups, the wild, unnameable growths that for all he knew might be weeds. But some had the more cultivated kind. Father Giffley did not take much note of flowers. The wild kind that spread along grasslands and ditches were pleasant enough, but the gardens of the well-to-do he despised as so many useless acres of multi-coloured vegetation. Father O’Connor had suggested buying a supply of flowers to distribute to the first few ranks of processionists.