In These Dark Places Read online

  ‘I can’t see us having any business together, I don’t know him from Adam and I’d just as soon keep it that way.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. Just looking at him sideways would be excuse enough for him to give you a hiding, and scream for help as you might, I tell you now, no one would lift a finger to help you, what with him being what he is and you being an outsider and all that… sorry, no offence.’

  ‘None taken.’

  ‘Yeah, he’s a bad one for sure. Steer clear, you hear me?’

  ‘Sure, I will. Tell me?’ I asked her hesitantly, ‘You seem to know an awful lot about him.’

  ‘It’s a small town.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘It was ages ago, and it was me who broke it off,’ she said as her face flushed a dark plum colour.

  ‘Oh,’ I said as I glanced back across the bar at him.

  ‘Like I said, I finished it.’ Her cheeks flushed further still.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought otherwise.’

  ‘Oh? Good.’

  ‘Why did you end it? If you don’t mind my asking.’

  ‘Well,’ she said sighing, ‘When you’re of the mind-set that everything and everyone owes you something, for one reason or another, you don’t take kindly to being told, ‘No’.

  ‘I see,’ I replied. I could feel my own face reddening.

  ‘And besides, he was more than a little possessive,’ she said as she got up from her seat.

  ‘So you’re well rid of him?’

  ‘Absolutely!’

  ‘Good. I’m happy for you.’ I felt my cheeks flush even deeper. What a ridiculous thing to have said to someone I had only just met. My embarrassment was infectious. Her cheeks, which had faded back to their porcelain paleness, reddened too, and she flashed me an awkward smile.

  ‘So, what has you down this way? Down from Dublin like?’

  ‘Is it that obvious?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s the hard T’s, there’s no hiding them.’ More blushing.

  ‘A long story short, my uncle went out of his way to get me a job out there in the meat packing plant and…’

  ‘Say no more, you felt beholden to him?’

  ‘Something along those lines, yes.’

  ‘Well, I’d better be getting back to it.’

  ‘Sure, it was nice talking to you…’

  ‘Abigail.’

  ‘That’s a pretty name.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘My father’s joy.’ My cheeks reddened instantly. I hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Your name, it means, ‘My Father’s Joy’, in Hebrew. She was King David’s wife,’ I stuttered.

  ‘Well, there’s a day not wasted. Aren’t you a fountain of knowledge? I’m sure you didn’t learn that reading about a posh whore,’ she said as she nodded at my upturned book on the table and flashed me a mischievous grin. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Gabriel. Most people call me, Gabe.’ I extended my hand. She took it in hers. Soft, warm.

  ‘The archangel.’

  ‘Guilty as charged.’

  ‘We’d make a pretty pair now, wouldn’t we?’ She said as she winked at me. My embarrassment multiplied and I withdrew my hand. I’m no prude, no wallflower. I wasn’t taken aback by her forwardness in itself, only by the fact that it was directed at me. Up until that point in my life, no woman had ever been that way with me. There are downsides to that comfortably insular existence. I returned to my book hoping that she would take it as her cue to leave.

  ‘Well, my archangel, I’ll let you get back to that posh whore of yours. It was nice to meet you.’

  ‘Likewise,’ I replied.

  ‘I’ll see you around the town I suppose.’

  ‘I’m sure you will. I’m going to be here for another while yet.’ She turned to walk away and then immediately turned back to me.

  ‘Listen, I’ve got a friend down from Dublin, we go back a few years the two of us… Anyway, well, we’re going to a party later, why don’t you come along with us? That’s if you’d like to of course…’

  ‘Thanks all the same, but I think I’ll give it a miss. Not much of one for a party…’

  ‘Aggh, would you go on out of that a young fella like ye, sure you’ll come. It’ll do you the power of good to meet some new people. Better than being stuffed up in here with your nose in a book and surrounded by aul lads.’

  ‘Alright then. Why not?’

  6

  It’s funny, the things you remember as a child. Apart from the memories of playing, bedtime stories, school field trips, Christmas and what not, there are, interspersed among these humdrum reminiscences, entirely random memories. They are recollections of events which seem to have borne no impact on the development of your personality, they exist in one’s mind for no other reason than that your brain held onto them. Then one day, out of a blue sky you might recall why you bothered to retain them, and at last they finally make some sense.

  I remember a conversation with Peter Donnelly. He was a neighbour of ours from three blocks over on the Black Tree Road. His father worked for mine, that was the limit of our acquaintance. We weren’t friends to begin with, just two lads thrust into companionship. One bright summers afternoon, the day and date now far from recollection, we were sitting on the kerb outside my house. Two boys eating corned beef sandwiches and slugging mouthfuls of milk right out of the bottle. The sun was beating down and the road was alive with the chatter of unseen birds, the buzz of insects and the gentle rustle of leaves in a breeze which offered no respite from the heat. We’d spent the morning digging a network of small tunnels in the waste ground at the back of Quinlan’s yard, through which we pushed our matchbox cars pretending for all the world that they were like the American highways we’d seen in the detective shows on TV. When the heat and the hunger became too much to bear we abandoned our cars, full sure they’d still be there when we got back, and we made our way back to my house in search of a bite to eat.

  We’d been sat there for ten minutes with nothing more than grunts passing between us as we handed the milk bottle back and forth. I liked Peter. Although at the time I didn’t know him very well. With both our father’s away for the day and with our mother’s long out of the picture, mine underground, and his away to London with a black man she’d met in the city, we were each other’s mutual minder while our Dads were at work down in the yard. Like I said, at the time, I didn’t know him too well at all, but I liked him. He was a quiet lad, never one to speak out of turn or say a bad thing about anyone. He had never, in so far as I knew, been in trouble, with anyone, ever. For such a young boy he was profound in his assessment of the world, looking out on life, not with the wide eyes of a nine year old, but with the pinch-eyed cynicism of an embattled old crone. He had the steeled demeanour of someone who had endured great pain for many years. What those pains might have been, I was at a loss to guess, but as sure as I knew that the sun rises in the east, I knew that Peter Donnelly bore some terrible secret. Some deep and well-hidden memory of a trauma, the recollection of which haunted his dreams.

  In all of the time that I had known him, the extent of our conversations had been myself putting a question to him, to which I would receive a muted yes or no in reply. That was it. Nothing more, nothing further. Just a simple yes or no answer. You might then imagine my surprise that morning when he spoke without cue.

  ‘Heads up,’ he said as he nodded toward the end of the road.

  I turned to see the local Curate, Fr Jessop, striding up the pavement with intent. Despite the heat he had his jacket on, which was buttoned up fully. He had his dog collar on too. I could tell by his hurried stride and the scowl on his face that somebody’s day was about to get worse. I hoped it wasn’t mine. For all the world I couldn’t think of any recent adventures of mine which might have landed me in hot water and warranted a house visit by Jessop. It had to be Rob, my older brother. I breathed a sigh of relief, yes, it had to be Rob. No doubt
he’d gotten himself caught in some delicate situation with one of the girls from the Protestant school down at the end of Casey’s Lane. Still, the fear gnawed.

  ‘Good morning, boys,’ Jessop beamed as he passed us and strode up our garden path.

  ‘Good morning, Father,’ I replied. Peter remained silent, his head bowed. I watched as Jessop bounded across our garden and disappeared around by the gable. I heard him rap the pane of glass in the back door and then open it without waiting for a reply.

  ‘It must definitely be Rob so,’ I said as I turned back to Peter, ‘Otherwise Jessop would have lynched me where I …’

  Peter’s face was as pale as cold stone. His eyes were glazed and distant as they stared off into the haze of some unseen horizon.

  ‘Are you okay?’ No reply. He sat there motionless. I tapped his arm. ‘Peter? Peter, are you alright?’

  ‘What?’ he asked as he turned to face me.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I don’t like him,’ he said.

  ‘Who? Father Jessop? Why not, I like him, I think he’s a nice man. He’s grand so he is.’

  ‘No. No he’s not. He’s a bad man.’

  ‘Oh,’ I replied. ‘How’s that then? What does he do that’s so bad?’

  ‘He’s a bad man. That’s all, okay? I just don’t like him.’

  I pressed him further, there had to be a reason why he didn’t like him. But Peter would not elaborate further than those same five words again and again.

  ‘I just don’t like him.’

  I soon got fed up of asking him and I let the matter be. A cabbage butterfly flittered past us, swooping down the street in undulating arcs, its white wings gleaming in the summer sun. I took off after it, intent on pulling its legs off, as young boys are wont to do. I caught up with it at the bridge and by the time I’d reached McCabe’s Yard I had it carefully cupped in my hands. I turned in triumph back towards my house to show it to Peter but he was gone. On reaching the kerb where we’d been sat I found his half eaten sandwich and the bottle of milk, now starting to turn in the heat of the summer afternoon.

  I didn’t see Peter for some time after that day. When I finally saw him again I knew better than to push the Jessop question at him, but by then I had even more questions for him. A curious, and if I’m honest with you, a mildly unsettling interaction occurred between myself and the Curate the following Christmas. Through a haze of childish innocence, and being a product of a stern Catholic upbringing, in which the doctrine that the clergy were infallible was neatly engrained in my mind, I was at loss to form a coherent assessment of the incident. After a time I had convinced myself that the entire episode had been nothing more than an overreaction on my part.

  It happened on the Sunday evening following our schools’ annual bazaar. Along with many other of the schoolchildren I had been roped into helping with the clean-up. I had pulled dish duty and I was happy for it. I was inside in the warmth of the Staff Room, my hands thrust deep into warm soapy water. Some of my classmates had gotten litter duty and I watched them through the window as they shivered in the cold while they went about clearing the car park and playground of a seemingly endless glut of discarded paper cups and popcorn cartons.

  Father Jessop was seated at a table behind me. He was busy counting the days takings and as such, citing security reasons, he had locked the door. The keys hung from his belt which lay hidden beneath the folds of his cassock. With that intuition which is hardwired into the brain, I became aware of his gaze. Even though my back was turned to him, I could feel his eyes on me. I turned to look at him and such was the intent of his gape, he didn’t even notice that I was now looking back at him.

  ‘Father?’ I said, believing full sure that the man was in the throes of a silent stroke and that in a matter of seconds I’d be alone in the room with a corpse. A priest’s corpse. He blinked and then raised his eyes to meet mine. No stroke, thank God for small mercies I thought. That piercing gaze continued. Despite the innocence of my young age, something in his stare unnerved me and I began to wish I was outside in the freezing cold picking litter instead of being locked in the staff room with the Curate.

  ‘You’re a fine young strap of a lad, Gabriel. Do you know that?’ He stood up and stepped out from behind the table and took another step in my direction.

  ‘Thank you, Father,’ I replied. Another step forward.

  ‘You know, you should try out for the football team. We could really do with a fella like yourself. Fit as a fiddle I’d say.’

  Another step closer.

  ‘I’m not very much into sports, Father.’ Another step closer. The gaze growing in its intensity.

  It was a strange situation. Here I was locked in a room with a man I had known very well for all of my life and yet something felt off. As of yet, there were no alarm bells ringing in my mind, but still, the dynamic of the situation was not lost on me, even at that young age. Why I should feel any threat from the man who had been beside Fr. Atkins on the altar as he administered my First Holy Communion I was at a loss to say. This was the man who was a more than frequent visitor to my home, a priest who sat by the fireside with my own Grandfather to sip whiskey and talk religion and politics. The self-same man who schooled me in Catechism, the person to whom I had confessed my impure thoughts about Catherine Dunbar. He was a man of the cloth and still, despite all of these assurances bouncing around in my brain, my subconscious continued to wave a red warning flag. ‘Go! Get out! Something’s wrong, go!’

  His hand on my shoulder shook me from my thoughts and I made to move away from him toward the door.

  ‘Sorry, Father, I need the toilet. I have to go.’ I tried to duck out from under his grasp but he planted his right hand on my left shoulder and held me still. Looking down at my upturned face, his eyes wide, his grin curling his upper lip over his teeth, he leaned down to me.

  ‘Honestly, Gabriel, a young brute such as yourself, well, we’d do well to have you on the team. If not the football, maybe the hurling then. I’d say you could well manage a nice shaft of ash in your hands…’

  ‘My Grandfather says sports are a waste of time in school, he says that I’m better off hitting the books instead of the pitch if I want to go anywhere in the world, Father.’

  The mere mention of my Grandfather, his friend and closest ally on the parish council, was like a slap to his face. His grin dissipated, his glazed eyes snapped back into focus and he released his hold on me. Like a man emerging from a trance he stepped back from me. He looked around the room, he glanced to the table where he’d been counting the money, to the locked door and then back to me, as though he couldn’t explain how on earth he’d gotten there.

  ‘Well,’ he said as he adjusted his cassock and brought out the keys. ‘Physical exercise is important for a healthy young mind as it develops, bear that in mind, Gabriel. Your Granddad’s a smart man, but he doesn’t know everything, nor does he need to. You understand me?’

  ‘Yes, Father,’ I replied.

  ‘Now,’ he said as he handed me the keys, ‘I believe you needed to relieve yourself.’

  ‘Yes, Father. Thank you. I’ll be back shortly to finish those,’ I said as I nodded at the pile of dirty cups and saucers on the counter top.

  ‘Oh, never mind them. Why don’t you run along home now, it’s getting late. I’ll have one of the sixth class boys finish them off. Send Johnson to me if you see him will you, he’ll have to… he can do them.’

  ‘I will, Father. Thank you.’

  I slipped past him, took my coat from the hanger and after what seemed like forever I managed to unlock the door. The snap of that lock flicking back was like angel song to me.

  ‘And give the keys to Johnson will you, there’s a good lad.’

  ‘I will, Father, I will,’ I shouted back at him as I ran down the hallway from the Staff Room and made my way towards the assembly hall. I was never so happy to leave a room and I couldn’t understand why. Not then, not for a long time. As
I rounded the corner at the end of the corridor I looked back over my shoulder to see Jessop standing in the doorway. That glaze had once more sheened his eyes. I felt the hairs on the nape of my neck stand erect, and the flesh on my arms puckered up under a rash of goose pimples. There was something in that look which pierced me, unnerved me. Jessop stood in the that doorway looking at me the way a fisherman on a riverbank watches the flickering silver of the one that got away, watching on helpless as his prize disappears back into the depths of the river. And he rues the fish for having the tenacity, for having the balls to fight back, to resist.

  It was nothing more than the naiveté of childhood which protected me from the realisation of what had happened in the staff room and of what might have happened had I not mentioned my Grandfather. Crossing the school car park, Jessop’s keys clasped firmly in my grasp and with Tony Johnson in my sights, Peter’s words from that long ago summer’s morning echoed through my mind.

  ‘He’s a bad man… I just don’t like him.’

  After that I gave Jessop as wide a berth as possible, not fully understanding why that was necessary, but trusting my intuition enough to steer clear of him. No mean feat given that he was such a regular visitor to our house.

  7

  I have never been one for a party. I have always purposely avoided social gatherings, preferring instead to spend my time alone. On nothing more than a whim I had agreed to meet Abigail and her Dublin friend and accompany them to the party. I still don’t know why I did. Nothing more complicated than a whim changed the course of my life. It brought me love, it brought me heartache, and any day now, that fleeting and whimsical response to an invitation will finally kill me, and I still don’t know why I agreed to go. Perhaps my social seclusion had eaten away at me deeper than I had cared to admit. At the moment of its utterance, the invite had appealed to me, it offered a reprieve from the loneliness, a break from my self-inflicted isolation.