‘Look, William. You already know far more about doctrine than any of my parishioners, and I’ve never seen much good come from all this probing,’ he was driven to state one late evening. ‘We are human. We cannot know God or Truth. It is shut away from our eyes. We can only accept and believe. It may be no more than the mother’s instinct for the child, and as blind, but it is all we have. In two weeks’ time, when I’ll ask you “Do you believe?” all I want from you is the loud and clear response, “I do.” There our part will end. Yours will begin. In my experience anything too much discussed and worried about always leads to staleness.’
William Kirkwood was far from blind. He understood at once that he had tired the old priest whom he had grown to like and respect. For the next two weeks, like the too obedient son he had always been, he was content to sit and follow wherever the priest’s conversation led, which, after the second whiskey, was invariably to the five purebred shorthorns now grazing on the short sweet grass that grew above the ruins of the once famous eighth-century monastery.
‘You can still see the monks’ tracks everywhere in the fields, their main road or street, the cells, what must have been their stables, all like a plan on paper. Of course the walls of the main buildings still stand, but they are much later, twelfth century. Great minds thundered at one another there once. Now my shorthorns take their place. It is all good, William,’ he would laugh.
At the end of the period of instruction, when the priest, a mischievous twinkle in his old eyes, asked, ‘Do you accept and believe all those revealed truths and mysteries?’ William Kirkwood smiled, bowed his head and said, ‘I do, Father.’
The next morning, beside the stone font at the back of the Cootehall church, water was poured over the fine greying head of William Kirkwood. As it trickled down on to the brown flagstones, it must have seemed a final pale bloodletting to any ghosts of the Kirkwoods hovering in the air around.
Annie May and Lieutenant McLoughlin stood as his godparents. Afterwards there were smiles, handshakes, congratulatory arm-clasps, and after Mass a big festive breakfast in the presbytery, attended by all the local priests and teachers and prominent parishioners. Annie May and Lucy were there as well. The only flaw in the perfect morning was that Lucy looked pale and tense throughout and on the very verge of tears when having to respond to a few polite questions during the breakfast. She had been strange with William ever since he began instruction, as if she somehow sensed that this change threatened the whole secure world of her girlhood. As soon as they got home from the breakfast, she burst into an uncontrollable fit of weeping and ran to her room. By evening she was better but would not explain her weeping, and that night was the first night in years that she did not come to him to be kissed on her way to bed. The following Sunday every eye was on the recent convert as he marched his men through the village and all the way up the church to the foot of the high altar. Lucy felt light-headed with pride as she saw him ascend the church at the head of his men. But the old ease between them had disappeared. She no longer wanted his help in the evenings with her exercises, preferring to go to school unprepared if necessary, and he did not try to force his help, waiting until this mood would pass.
‘Now that you have come this far, and everything has gone so well, you might as well go the whole distance,’ the Sergeant suggested with amiable vagueness one Sunday soon afterwards in Charlie’s. Rifle practice had been abandoned early. A ricochet had somehow come off the hill, had struck a red bullock of Murphy’s in the eye in a nearby field. The bullock, lowing wildly, began to stagger in circles round the field. A vet had to put it down. A report would have to be written. The accident had been the first in his command and William Kirkwood was inordinately annoyed. There must have been carelessness or wilful folly somewhere among the riflemen.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked very sharply.
‘It was nothing about today,’ McLoughlin interjected. ‘I think the Sergeant was only trying to say what we all feel. Everything has gone wonderfully well and it would complete the picture if we were to see you married,’ and both men saw William Kirkwood suddenly colour to the roots of his hair.
‘I’m too old,’ he said.
‘You left it late but it’s certainly far from too late.’
The conversation had brought on so much confusion that it was let drop. William left as usual after the one whiskey.
‘I’m afraid you struck the mark there,’ McLoughlin said as soon as they were alone.
‘How?’
‘You said what was plainly on his mind.’
‘It’s hardly Lucy.’
‘Lucy’s not in it at this stage, though she’s upset enough at school about something or other,’ the teacher said.
‘What are we to do, then? We can’t just go out and find any old bird for the last of the Kirkwoods. She’ll have to be able to flap at least one good wing.’
‘I suppose you’ll be changing to pints now.’ Charlie appeared at the doorway, and, without waiting for an answer, went and cleared the whiskey glasses from the table.
‘A pair of pints, Charlie,’ the Sergeant said exuberantly. ‘Nothing decent ever stands alone. How long is it since we bundled you into the car that Sunday and found your good woman for you?’
‘It must be the best part of five years, Sergeant,’ Charlie laughed defensively, and when he laughed the tip of his small red nose wrinkled upwards in a curl.
‘It was a drastic solution to a drastic problem. You had the place nearly drunk out after your mother died. The first six women we called on that Sunday turned us down flat.’
‘I doubt they did right. I was no great catch.’
‘We were about to give up for that Sunday when we called on Baby. She said before we finished, “I’ll take him. I know the bar and the farm,” and we brought you in out of the car.’
‘Maybe that’s when she made her big mistake,’ Charlie tried to joke.
‘She made no mistake,’ the teacher put in gently, afraid that Charlie was being hurt by the Sergeant’s egotism, oblivious of everything but his own part in that Sunday. ‘She made the best move of her life. Look where you both are today — children, money. Who could want more?’
‘Maybe it’s as good as the other thing anyhow.’ Charlie laughed with unchanged defensiveness.
‘It’s far better. This love business we hear so much about nowadays is a pure washout,’ the teacher said definitively.
‘One thing is sure,’ the Sergeant said after Charlie had brought them the pints. ‘We can’t bundle William Kirkwood into the back of a car and drive him around for a whole Sunday until we find him a wife,’ and at the very absurdity of the picture both men began to laugh until tears ran from their eyes, and they had to pound their glasses on the table. When they were quiet, the Sergeant said, ‘There are more ways of choking a dog than with butter,’ which renewed the laughter.
What they didn’t know was that Charlie had been standing in the hallway all the time, rigid with anger as he listened. ‘The pair of bitches,’ he said quietly, his anger calming as he moved to face the men who were growing rowdy behind the wooden partition.