“Yes, but that’s not the same,” said Israel.
The Reverend Roberts laughed.
“No offense,” said Israel.
“No, none taken,” said the Reverend Roberts. “I know what you mean.”
“Pearce was…I don’t know. He reminded me of my father.”
“I see.”
“My father died when I was thirteen.”
The Reverend Roberts nodded.
“I felt I really lost my…I don’t know. Ever since then I just feel…I’m getting nowhere.”
“And where would you like to be getting?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere.”
The coffee was bubbling. “Shall I be mother?” said the Reverend Roberts.
“Do you get lonely here?” said Israel, as the Reverend Roberts fetched some small espresso cups.
“Of course, Israel. Doesn’t everyone feel lonely sometimes?”
“Yes. But I mean, really, really…”
“If you’re asking do I ever feel despair, then yes, I do.” The Reverend started to pour the thick black coffee into the cups. “I don’t know, but I suppose, perhaps a little like you, I’m alone here in Ireland. And sometimes it can be a very lonely job. People look up to you. They expect you to have the answer. Here. Coffee.” He handed Israel a cup. “The sermons. Every week you have to write something that will mean something to them. Three thousand words a week.”
“That’s a lot.”
“It is. And it’s rare you’re going to be inspired.”
“God.”
“Exactly. So sometimes one does feel a little…low. But again, I think it’s common. It’s not unique.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Milk?”
“No, thanks.”
“Sugar.”
“No. It’s OK.”
“I do think,” continued the Reverend Roberts, “that the state of being for Christians, and maybe for Jews as well, is a state of being banished, or exiled, ‘flung,’ if you like. That’s certainly something we find in Scripture. So I always try to remember that when I have…low moods. I try not to be surprised.”
“And when people die?”
“People are dying all the time, Israel.”
“And doesn’t it make you despair?”
The Reverend Roberts drank down the remainder of his coffee and poured another cup. He sighed.
“Last month I had to conduct the funeral of a soldier.”
“Oh dear.”
“He was from Carnlough. Second Para. He was killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.”
“Oh god, yes. I read about that in the paper.”
“Yes.”
“That must have been difficult,” said Israel.
“Yes. It was. The family…Funerals certainly make you think about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.”
“Does it strengthen your faith in God?”
“Not at all,” said the Reverend Roberts, laughing bitterly. “A God who could let this world be as it is. A soldier. Someone whose job it is to…And who is then himself killed? Monstrous. And then…a couple of years ago-before your time here-I did a joint funeral for a mother and her two young children, killed in a crash on the M2.”
“Oh god. That’s awful.”
“She was driving home from visiting her own sick mother. Drunk driver crossed the central median.”
“God.”
“And last year, Johnny Fowler-you remember him?”
“No.”
“Kicked to death in a pub car park.”
“Oh god.”
“I probably shouldn’t be telling you about these, Israel.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“So, of course, that sort of thing makes you doubt. The mother and her children killed in the car crash? The other driver got a two-thousand-pound fine.”
“That’s crazy.”
“It certainly makes you question the existence of a benevolent God.”
“I’ll bet,” said Israel.
“Yes,” said the Reverend Roberts, meditatively.
“So what’s the…point of being a minister?”
“Well…I think all we can really do is help one another as best we can to get through, isn’t it? So. I am sorry about Pearce, Israel. But I don’t have any answers, I’m afraid.”
“No. I understand.”
“More coffee?”
“No. Thanks. I should be going.”
“The hour is getting late,” said the Reverend Roberts wistfully. “You’re very welcome to stay.”
“No, thanks. I need to get back.”
He got up and the Reverend Roberts led him toward the front door.
“You drive carefully on those roads,” said the Reverend Roberts.
“I will,” said Israel.
“And ring me anytime if you need to,” said the Reverend Roberts.
“Yeah. Of course.”
Israel walked outside into the cold again and got back in the van. His heart was beating fast. It felt like he was anticipating something. Something that he knew would never happen. He couldn’t bear the thought of returning to the chicken coop. So he drove back down the coast road. Down by the sign that said “Try Your Brakes.” Down toward Ballintoy Harbor, the narrow windy road going down. There was a bright moon hanging in the sky. And he parked up at the bottom and looked out toward the sea. And after a while he went and lay down in the back of the van. He used last week’s newspapers as a pillow. And used his duffle coat for a mattress and wrapped the dog blanket around him for warmth. He lay with his eyes open for a long time.
12
He was awoken by the sound of banging. And it wasn’t a headache.
“Who’s there?” he said, turning over and opening one eye, his mind still fogged from bad dreams: dreams full of exits and entrances, about death and the dead. A dream in which he was a bird in a tree, not knowing which way to fly; a dream about a bed in which the sheets and blankets became bindings from which he could not escape. A dream in which his father came tapping at the window…
“It’s the tooth fairy,” came the answer.
“What?” For one weird confused moment, in a half-dreamlike state-during which he imagined himself briefly back at home as a child, tucked up safely in bed in suburban north London, his mother quietly slipping into his room, slipping fifty pence under his pillow and then quietly slipping out again-Israel considered the possibility that it was indeed the tooth fairy.
“And Santa!” called another voice. That broke the spell. The tooth fairy worked alone.
He lay there in a stupor. A kind of crushing hungover dullness descended upon him, weighing him down, a deep weariness-no, no, not weariness, ennui-overcoming him. He wondered whether he might need to spend a few more days in bed.
He started getting groggily to his feet, wrapping the dog blanket round his shoulders-even shabbier and more rumpled than usual. It felt like he was bruised around his ribs.
“Open up!” came the voice. “Now!”
He was almost at the door when it was wrenched open. It wasn’t the tooth fairy. Or Santa.
Israel found himself blinking into bright sunlight and the unsmiling face of his old friend Sergeant Friel looking in, mustache bristling, panting slightly from exertion and excitement. And out beyond Friel were the white limestone cliffs and the dark volcanic basalt rocks of the harbor. And out to sea, guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, fulmars. Birds.
“What the hell are you doing!” said Israel. “You’ve broken the bloody door!”
“Yes,” said Sergeant Friel, a “yes” not of pleasant agreement but rather a “yes” confirming a threat. Israel instinctively pulled the dog blanket a little tighter around his shoulders.
“But…look,” he said-to his shame-rather apologetically. The door hung limply from its hinges. “The lock! You’ve broken the-”
“And a very good morning to you too, Mr. Armstrong,” said Friel as he pushed past Israel onto the mobile library.
“But the door!” Israel repeated. “Ted’ll kill me!”
“Not if we do first,” said Friel.
“What?”
“Only joking. Have you lost weight?”
“What?”
“And the auld beard act as well, I see. Converted to Islam, have we?”