‘A glass of whiskey,’ Father Giffley said.
The man recovered a little and said: ‘Certainly, Father.’
He went away.
Father Giffley examined the fittings behind the bar. There was an oval mirror, with the words ‘Three Swallow Potstill Whiskey’ encircling it. From the middle of the oval his face looked back at him. The grey locks of hair were flattened about it by the rain. His clerical collar looked ridiculous. When the barman brought the whiskey he leaned forward and suggested:
‘There’s a snug at the back, Father.’
‘Snug? I don’t understand. Snug?’
‘A private room.’
‘Leave it there,’ Father Giffley insisted. The barman left the whiskey on the counter.
‘Certainly, Father.’
‘Bejaysus,’ one of the men told the group, ‘but it put the wind up me.’
‘Why didn’t you clatter it?’
‘With what might I ask?’
‘With your belt.’
‘A mad cow coming at me down the gangplank?’ the man asked. ‘Oh no bejaysus—none of that for yours truly.’
The barman moved anxiously towards them.
‘What did you do?’
‘Jumped into the water.’
‘You were right,’ another said. ‘Better a watery grave than a gory end.’
The thought of his friend taking to the water before the charge of an enraged animal amused one of the company so much that he spluttered over his drink and said:
‘Well, Jaysus, Mary and Joseph but that’s a good one.’
The barman with signs and whispered admonishments drew their attention. Then they all turned round and lapsed one by one into silence. One of them said sheepishly:
‘I beg your pardon, Father.’
Father Giffley removed his eyes from the caricature in the mirror and said:
‘Why apologise to me? My name is not Jesus.’
An astonishing thing happened. When he said the name ‘Jesus’ the men automatically raised their hats. That was habit. He had said the Name. Not at all the same thing as swearing with It. What were they? Dockers, cattle-drovers, seamen back home from voyaging? Dublinmen anyway. The raising of the hats proved it.
He looked again at the caricature; the oval advertisement, the grey, drowned locks, the priestly collar, aware as he did so of the unease which his presence was causing. He was a Catholic priest in a public bar. He was giving scandal. That could be put right.
‘I was caught by the rain,’ he explained, ‘don’t let me disturb you.’
After a moment one of them, more courageous than the rest, said heartily. ‘Divil the disturb, Father.’
Then he called to the barman:
‘Why don’t you offer a towel to his reverence. He’s soaked to the skin.’
But Father Giffley held up his hand and forbade it.
‘This is the best towel of them all,’ he said, finishing the whiskey. ‘And now,’ he added, ‘give me another for my journey, so that I won’t take pneumonia. And give the men here whatever they fancy.’
They protested, but he insisted. They had a consultation of some sort while they waited for the drinks. At the end one man left. Then the drinks came and they vied with each other to be agreeable to him, saying what a terrible evening it was and how easy it would be to take a sickness out of such a wetting and how wise he had been to take the right kind of precaution. They told him they were dockers. He noticed the buttons in their coats.
‘Followers of Mr. Larkin, I see,’ he remarked. They said they were. Then, to their surprise he said firmly: ‘You do right.’
At that moment the door opened and the man who had left earlier reappeared. He was now almost as wet as Father Giffley.
‘Did you get it?’ they asked him.
‘It’s outside the door,’ he said.
‘What’s this?’ Father Giffley asked.
‘He went to find you a cab, Father, it’ll save you another drenching.’
For the first time in several lonely years someone had done him a kindness. Father Giffley was moved.
‘I am extremely obliged and grateful.’
‘For nothing, Father,’ the men assured him, ‘you’re more than welcome.’
They saw him to the cab, which brought him home to a warm bath and a change of clothes. That was why he had taken the unusual course of using the general sitting room. His jacket and trousers were drying at the fire in his own room.
‘I think my presence here made Father O’Connor uneasy,’ he said.
‘He always retires early when he has the early mass,’ Father O’Sullivan explained.
‘That is not what I meant. He forgot this.’
Father Giffley rose and picked up Yearling’s letter from the arm of the chair that Father O’Connor had been using. He took it back to his own chair with him; then, holding it up, he asked: ‘His Kingstown friends—do you think?’
Father O’Sullivan avoided reply by rising to put the whiskey bottle back in the press.
‘Leave it where it is,’ Father Giffley commanded sharply.
‘I am sorry,’ Father O’Sullivan said. ‘I thought you were going to bed.’
‘We’ll see what his friends have to say first,’ Father Giffley said. ‘Listen.’
As he deliberately opened the letter Father O’Sullivan advanced quickly towards him and said: ‘Please—I beg you not to.’
Father Giffley looked up at him. ‘You will sit down, John. Over there, opposite me. Do as I tell you.’
Knowing there would be a scene if he refused, Father O’Sullivan did so. As the other read the letter aloud, deliberating on it sentence by sentence, he gripped the arms of his chair and strove to keep the horror from his face. Opposition of any kind would precipitate a storm. His parish priest, he realised, was very near to madness.
In the morning, when Father O’Connor and Father O’Sullivan were at breakfast, Father Giffley joined them briefly. He took the letter from his pocket and pushed it towards Father O’Connor.
‘Your property, I believe.’
Father O’Connor stared at the pages; Father O’Sullivan lowered the cup he had been raising to his lips.
‘I am sorry your friend finds difficulty with the doctrine of the Fall,’ Father Giffley said, ‘his sympathies otherwise are admirable.’
He turned to Father O’Sullivan. The skin of his face was blotched and taut, a pulse beat in the black vein which showed as a knot in his left temple.
‘Of France I know very little,’ he continued, ‘but Darwin, I believe, holds that we are descended from the apes. Isn’t that so, John?’
Father O’Sullivan remained frozen, with nothing at all to say, until at last Father Giffley turned away from him and went to the door, where he paused and said generally:
‘It is possible—I think it eminently possible.’
The door closed. They looked at each other.
‘He read it,’ Father O’Connor said, ‘he read my letter.’
‘The man is not well.’
‘My private correspondence—how dare he!’
‘He’s become very odd. You must try to understand him.’
‘I understand him very well,’ Father O’Connor said.
‘Father Giffley is sick.’
Father O’Connor rose angrily and pushed back his chair.
‘A drunkard,’ he said, ‘who hates me.’
He had almost reached the door when Father O’Sullivan’s quiet voice stopped him. ‘Your letter, Father.’
Once again he had forgotten it. It lay on the tablecloth where Father Giffley had thrown it. This second oversight embarrassed him. He put the letter in his pocket without thanking Father O’Sullivan.
‘I am beginning to consider seriously what I should do,’ he said.
‘Forgive him,’ Father O’Sullivan suggested gently.
‘It is no longer a question of forgiveness only,’ Father O’Connor said bitterly. ‘There are other considerations.’