‘You like Jerusalem, Francis?’ one of the American women asked him, and he replied that he hadn’t been able to take it in yet. Then, feeling that didn’t sound enthusiastic enough, he added that being there was the experience of a lifetime.
Father Paul went on talking about Co. Tipperary and then spoke of his parish in San Francisco, the boys’ home and the two promising footballers, the plans for the new church. The Americans listened and in a moment the conversation drifted on to the subject of their travels in England, their visit to Istanbul and Athens, an argument they’d had with the Customs at Tel Aviv. ‘Well, I think I’ll hit the hay,’ one of the men announced eventually, standing up.
The others stood up too and so did Francis. Father Paul remained where he was, gesturing again in the direction of the barman. ‘Sit down for a nightcap,’ he urged his brother.
‘Ah, no, no –’ Francis began.
‘Bring us two more of those,’ the priest ordered with a sudden abruptness, and the barman hurried away. ‘Listen,’ said Father Paul. ‘I’ve something to tell you.’
After dinner, while Francis had been out on his walk, before he’d dropped into conversation with the Americans, Father Paul had said to himself that he couldn’t stand the strain. It was the old woman stretched out above the hardware shop, as stiff as a board already, with the little lights burning in her room: he kept seeing all that, as if she wanted him to, as if she was trying to haunt him. Nice as the idea was, he didn’t think he could continue with what he’d planned, with waiting until they got up to Galilee.
Francis didn’t want to drink any more. He hadn’t wanted the whisky his brother had ordered him earlier, nor the one the Americans had ordered for him. He didn’t want the one that the barman now brought. He thought he’d just leave it there, hoping his brother wouldn’t see it. He lifted the glass to his lips, but he managed not to drink any.
‘A bad thing has happened,’ Father Paul said.
‘Bad? How d’you mean, Paul?’
‘Are you ready for it?’ He paused. Then he said, ‘She died.’
Francis didn’t know what he was talking about. He didn’t know who was meant to be dead, or why his brother was behaving in an odd manner. He didn’t like to think it but he had to: his brother wasn’t fully sober.
‘Our mother died,’ Father Paul said. ‘I’m after getting a telegram.’
The huge area that was the lounge of the Plaza Hotel, the endless tables and people sitting at them, the swiftly moving waiters and barmen, seemed suddenly a dream. Francis had a feeling that he was not where he appeared to be, that he wasn’t sitting with his brother, who was wiping his lips with a handkerchief. For a moment he appeared in his confusion to be struggling his way up the Via Dolorosa again, and then in the Nativity Boutique.
‘Take it easy, boy,’ his brother was saying. ‘Take a mouthful of whisky.’
Francis didn’t obey that injunction. He asked his brother to repeat what he had said, and Father Paul repeated that their mother had died.
Francis closed his eyes and tried as well to shut away the sounds around them. He prayed for the salvation of his mother’s soul. ‘Blessed Virgin, intercede,’ his own voice said in his mind. ‘Dear Mary, let her few small sins be forgiven.’
Having rid himself of his secret, Father Paul felt instant relief. With the best of intentions, it had been a foolish idea to think he could maintain the secret until they arrived in a place that was perhaps the most suitable in the world to hear about the death of a person who’d been close to you. He took a gulp of his whisky and wiped his mouth with his handkerchief again. He watched his brother, waiting for his eyes to open.
‘When did it happen?’ Francis asked eventually.
‘Yesterday.’
‘And the telegram only came –’
‘It came last night, Francis. I wanted to save you the pain.’
‘Save me? How could you save me? I sent her a postcard, Paul.’
‘Listen to me, Francis –’
‘How could you save me the pain?’
‘I wanted to tell you when we got up to Galilee.’
Again Francis felt he was caught in the middle of a dream. He couldn’t understand his brother: he couldn’t understand what he meant by saying a telegram had come last night, why at a moment like this he was talking about Galilee. He didn’t know why he was sitting in this noisy place when he should be back in Ireland.
‘I fixed the funeral for Monday,’ Father Paul said.
Francis nodded, not grasping the significance of this arrangement. ‘We’ll be back there this time tomorrow,’ he said.
‘No need for that, Francis, Sunday morning’s time enough.’
‘But she’s dead –’
‘We’ll be there in time for the funeral.’
‘We can’t stay here if she’s dead.’
It was this, Father Paul realized, he’d been afraid of when he’d argued with himself and made his plan. If he had knocked on Francis’s door the night before, Francis would have wanted to return immediately without seeing a single stone of the land he had come so far to be moved by.
‘We could go straight up to Galilee in the morning,’ Father Paul said quietly. ‘You’ll find comfort in Galilee, Francis.’
But Francis shook his head. ‘I want to be with her,’ he said.
Father Paul lit another cigarette. He nodded at a hovering waiter, indicating his need of another drink. He said to himself that he must keep his cool, an expression he was fond of.
‘Take it easy, Francis,’ he said.
‘Is there a plane out in the morning? Can we make arrangements now?’ He looked about him as if for a member of the hotel staff who might be helpful.
‘No good’ll be done by tearing off home, Francis. What’s wrong with Sunday?’
‘I want to be with her.’
Anger swelled within Father Paul. If he began to argue his words would become slurred: he knew that from experience. He must keep his cool and speak slowly and clearly, making a few simple points. It was typical of her, he thought, to die inconveniently.
‘You’ve come all this way,’ he said as slowly as he could without sounding peculiar. ‘Why cut it any shorter than we need? We’ll be losing a week anyway. She wouldn’t want us to go back.’
‘I think she would.’
He was right in that. Her possessiveness in her lifetime would have reached out across a dozen continents for Francis. She’d known what she was doing by dying when she had.
‘I shouldn’t have come,’ Francis said. ‘She didn’t want me to come.’
‘You’re thirty-seven years of age, Francis.’
‘I did wrong to come.’
‘You did no such thing.’
The time he’d taken her to Rome she’d been difficult for the whole week, complaining about the food, saying everywhere was dirty. Whenever he’d spent anything she’d disapproved. All his life, Father Paul felt, he’d done his best for her. He had told her before anyone else when he’d decided to enter the priesthood, certain that she’d be pleased. ‘I thought you’d take over the shop,’ she’d said instead.
‘What difference could it make to wait, Francis?’
‘There’s nothing to wait for.’
As long as he lived Francis knew he would never forgive himself. As long as he lived he would say to himself that he hadn’t been able to wait a few years, until she’d passed quietly on. He might even have been in the room with her when it happened.
‘It was a terrible thing not to tell me,’ he said. ‘I sat down and wrote her a postcard, Paul. I bought her a plate.’
‘So you said.’
‘You’re drinking too much of that whisky.’
‘Now, Francis, don’t be silly.’
‘You’re half drunk and she’s lying there.’
‘She can’t be brought back no matter what we do.’
‘She never hurt anyone,’ Francis said.