“I WANT to thank everyone who helped me,” the somber cleric began. “A lot of people let me down, but you have to expect that’s going to happen when you serve the poor and the hungry. I don t have to name the people who let me down. It should be obvious to everyone.”
The audience did not know quite what to do. Most of them did sit down, partly out of politeness and partly, I suspect, out of curiosity.
“Everyone thinks that there are no expenses,” he continued, “in running a concert like this. You hear that the singer isn’t taking any money, so you figure it’s all free. Well, let me tell you that no celebrity is ever free. They want all kinds of things and people to flatter themselves, and that costs money, money that could just as well have gone to the poor. They’re spoiled folk and you have to pay a lot to keep them happy, let me tell you. We take all the risk, and they get all the free publicity.”
Next to me Annie McGrail went stiff. Her husband’s fists were clenched, as were mine. I wanted to poke the bastard in his twisted, hateful mouth. The audience was immobile. The stupid fool was killing himself and his organization. The Irish do not take kindly to men who violate the rules of hospitality.
He ranted on, attacking abortion, divorce, premarital sex, television, the media, American consumerism. He predicted the ruination of the Irish people because of selfish American materialism. He didn’t miss many bases.
People began to drift out, quietly and sullenly. They were angry that a wonderful evening had turned bitter. He had destroyed the spiritual impact that Nuala had worked so hard to create.
Would he ever stop?
Good-dog Fiona watched him grimly. He was, the wolfhound realized, a bad man.
The members of the company stirred uneasily, not quite sure what to do. Their final curtain call had been aborted. Should they walk out? Should they try to silence this terrible man?
He returned to Nuala. He said he would pray that as she grew up she would learn the meaning of poverty and suffering.
Would he ever stop?
Fool that I was, I figured I had to stop him.
Me woman beat me to it.
Accompanied by Fiona, she strode up to the raving priest and snatched the microphone from him. He tried to pull it back but retreated from Fiona’s growl.
“ ‘Hail, Holy Queen, enthroned above, O Maria!
Hail Queen of mercy, Queen of love, O Maria!
“ ‘Triumph all, ye Cherubim!
Sing with us, ye Seraphim!
Heaven and earth resound the hymn,
Salve, Salve Regina!’“
The remnants of the crowd caught on. They joined with the Cherubim and the Seraphim.
“ ‘Our life, our sweetness here below, O Maria!
Our hope in sorrow and in woe, O Maria!
“ ‘Triumph all, ye Cherubin!
Sing with us, ye Seraphim!
Heaven and earth resound the hymn,
Salve, Salve Regina!’ ”
With the air of a man who expected to be martyred, Father Placid slithered away. I relaxed.
In response to cries from the crowd, Nuala sang “Molly” again.
As she sang, the nervous young man leaped out of his seat, produced a Swiss army pocketknife, and raced for the stage. Berkserker that I was, I charged after him, knocking aside a couple of kids who were cheering enthusiastically for my wife.
Naturally I forgot my shillelagh—Sir Lancelot without his lance.
No one noticed the man with the knife. He glided through the crowd like a slippery ghost.
The stage manager arrived with my two dozen roses and presented them to Nuala. She accepted them with a bow and a hoyden smile, a little girl who had received a reward for at last doing something presentable.
In the confusion of the departing crowd and the celebration on the stage no one had seen the man with the knife. He vaulted onto the stage, much too big a jump for a man as slight as he was.
I jumped up onto the stage after him. It didn’t look like I would catch up to him.
Suddenly a fierce howl filled the Point, a howl from the forests and the bogs of the Ireland of long ago, a howl from the days of Finn McCool, a howl from a descendant of Finn’s faithful Bran, the howl of an angry wolfhound.
I didn’t need to catch up to the man with the knite.
With a single bound Fiona sank her huge teeth into his shoulder. He screamed in pain and dropped the knife. He tried to break free from her implacable grip. He kicked and jabbed and twisted. Fiona hurled him to the floor, released his arm, and gripped his throat with her vast mouth. The young man was crazy enough to try to fight her off. Perhaps the Gardai had taught her not to kill unless there was no choice. Her teeth were poised to sink into his throat, she was holding him down with her massive weight, but she had not yet torn the throat out of his body.
The young man groped for his knife.
Fortunately for him, I got there first.
“All right, Fiona, girl!” a young woman Guard shouted. “Good dog, good dog! You can let him go now!”
Fiona was not about to let him go.
The young man yelled and pushed and begged, but the wolfhound clung to him like a cat playing with a captive bird.
“This seems to have got through your metal detectors,” I said to Gene Keenan, who had materialized next to me, as I gave him the Swiss army knife.
I turned to see my wife standing next to me, her harp held in the air like a weapon.
“Nice, Fiona,” said the Guard. “Good dog. It’s all right now.”
Fiona did not seem so sure about that.
A phalanx of Guards swarmed around us on the stage. Everyone seemed to be screaming.
Except my wife, who was ready for battle.
Gently I took the harp out of her hands and replaced it with the roses she had dropped to the floor.
“Isn’t she a cute little thing?” she said.
“Who?” I asked foolishly.
I didn’t argue that Fiona seemed just fine.
“Let him go, Fiona,” she said firmly.
The wolfhound did as she was told. She eased off the terrified young man and barked at him, as if warning him never to try such foolishness again. He sobbed hysterically as the Guards pulled him to his feet and slapped handcuffs on him.
He was a little guy, at least eight inches shorter than me and two inches shorter than herself.
“He had opened the nail file,” Commissioner Keenan murmured.
I extended my arms around Nuala Anne, who rested her head against my chest.
“This is a nightmare, isn’t it, Dermot Michael? I’m going to wake up in a few minutes and know it’s all a dream, won’t I now?”
Of course my Nuala Anne wouldn’t turn hysterical.
She probably didn’t need me or Fiona, who was now pacing around nervously, edgy after her triumph. If the would-be assassin had reached Nuala Anne, she would have smashed his head with her harp, my harp, the harp I had given her the first day she came to Chicago.
I felt a solid nudge against my thigh. It was Fiona, demanding attention.
“Fiona, leave the poor man alone,” said the Guard who was tugging on the wolfhound’s leash.
I bent over and embraced our canine heroine.
“Fiona, you are the absolute greatest.”
She barked contentedly and wagged her huge tail.
“The poor little girl just wants some attention.” Nuala knelt next to me and rested her face on the dog’s huge head. “Don’t you, doggy?”
Fiona showed her agreement by trying to lick both our faces at the same time.
“Hasn’t she bonded with the both of youse?” said her handler.
“Aren’t we going to have to take her home with us?” Nuala Anne pleaded with me, as if I would have any say about such a decision.
I was aware that flashbulbs were popping all around us. Great shot for the morning papers—wolfhound and friend.
“Dermot Michael,” the friend said to me. “ ’Tis, too, a dream. Poor little Fiona is just a dog in a dream.”
“It’s not a dream, love. Both Father Placid and this punk are real.”
I continued to pat the dog, who seemed especially fond of me.
“Me poor ma and da out beyond; won’t they see it all on the telly?” She continued to lean against me.
I looked around. Annie and Gerry were waiting patiently beyond the line of Guards.
“That good-looking couple over there,” I said to the Commissioner, who was still standing next to us, “the woman looks like Nuala. They’re her parents.”
“Right!” he said and waved at the Guards who were keeping them off the stage.
“Me ma and da!” herself shouted and ran towards them, leaving me and the wolfhound to fend for ourselves.
She began to sob only when she held both of them in her arms.
“Ms. McGrail is fine.” The Commissioner had found a microphone somewhere. “The Gardai have taken the young man who created the disturbance into custody. It’s all right to go home now.”
The crowd left reluctantly, perhaps wondering what we would do next.
Later at the party in Jury’s—at which vast quantities of Guinness were being consumed (though not by Nuala and her parents)—Maeve Doyle showed up with her huge black-bearded scowling husband. No one had invited them, but they were there anyway. She was dressed in a black skin-tight dress with an enormous gold belt that was not adequate as a corset Before I could intercept her, she went straight to Nuala, a bulging Celtic Valkyrie bent on revenge.
“I just want to congratulate you, child,” she said, oozing passive-aggressive sweetness. “You were really wonderM. You deserve all the praise you’ll receive.”
‘Thank you,” my wife said, taken aback by this weird apparition.
“You shouldn’t forget that they’ll turn against you eventually. They always do. I’m sure you’ll have the courage to stand up to them.”
Pure poison.
“That will be as may be,” I said, cutting in front of her. “Nuala Anne, you owe me a dance.”
We danced away from Maeve, who glared at me like an angry banshee.
“ ’Tis yourself that’s quick, Dermot Michael,” herself sighed into my chest “Another second and I might have clawed her eyes out.”
Maeve whispered into her huge husband’s ear. He nodded and began moving towards us.
I hoped he’d keep coming. I was in the mood to flatten someone.
Gene Keenan slipped up easily on the advancing giant and said something with a casual smile. The giant and his outsize wife departed quickly.
“Och, Dermot, didn’t your man just save that fella’s life.”
“I wouldn’t have killed him, Nuala Anne.”
“Ah, no, but wouldn’t you have put him in the hospital.”
“Just thrown him into the swimming pool.”
MACHO ASSHOLE, the Adversary reprimanded me.
Gene Keenan winked. Later, when herself was dancing with one of the drummers, the Commissioner reported to me.
“The kid with the knife is a nutcase, Dermot. They just let him out of a home. He thinks he’s St. Patrick and has a mission to purify Ireland. Your man’s little diatribe up beyond set him off.”
“You should put Father Placid in a home, too.”
“I don’t think they’d take him. … Seriously, he couldn’t have done too much damage with a blunt nail file, not with our secret weapon and your wife’s harp.”
“It looks like we’re stuck with the secret weapon.”
Fiona was curled up in the corner of the party, sleeping the sleep of the just.
“You’re welcome to her, God knows. … Still, Dermot …”
“You don’t think the kid …”
“Sean MacCarthy. …”
“Is involved with the other characters.”
“I shouldn’t think so.”
I nodded agreement. “Not very likely.”
“We managed to keep your little escapade in Thomas Street out of the media. No word from the allegedly ‘Real’ IRA about it, so it looks like they were tagalongs.”
“That’s nice. … Do me a favor and get them anyway.”
“We’ll try. … I noticed, by the way, you didn’t have your shillelagh with you on the stage tonight.”
“No time to pick it up off the floor,” I said lamely.
His wife appeared with diet Cokes for the two of us and slipped away. She had apparently been told that her husband needed a word or two with me.
“You have a tough decision ahead of you, Dermot Michael.”
“Do I now?” I said, sipping at the Coke.
“Your wife is a beautiful and incredibly gifted young woman.”
“Funny that you should mention it, but I noticed the same thing.”
“Her performance tonight was a tour de force if I’ve ever seen one. She knows what Catholic Ireland really is because it’s all there in her Celtic soul. Your man over at Drumcondra ought to hire her to teach religion on RTE every night of the week.”
He was referring to Dublin’s hand-wringing archbishop.
“He won’t be that smart.”
“Probably not. … Incidentally, if you haven’t heard already, RTE cut off your man just as he started to talk. He has a bit of reputation, you know.”
“I didn’t know.”
“But my point is …”
He said “pint” of course.
“Yes?”
“I’m not making excuses for our failures so far. Still, the point is that she is so spectacular that she is bound to stir up resentment not only here but back in America, too. I don’t think she understands that or ever will.”
“I very much doubt that she could imagine such twisted perceptions.”
“You saw how the witches from the media treated her at the airport. They hated her because she was beautiful and brilliant and happy and had a wonderful husband.”
“Yeah?”
Wonderful, indeed!
“They had to lay off because she put them down and because she won everybody’s sympathy with that show over above at the Grand Canal. The reviews will be good tomorrow because if anyone attacks her just now they’ll be laughed off this island. But once she’s back in Chicago they’ll start in again.”
“Sick!” I exploded.
“ ’Tis all of that,” he sighed. “Envy is a great sickness.”
“Where does my decision come in?”
“Whether she goes on with her career. If she does, there will be a lot of sick people who will want to hurt her.”
That was true enough.
We both glanced across the room. Riding the crest of a wave of triumph, Nuala was dancing with her da.
“You think I can stop her?”
He shook his head sadly. “Of course not.”