Father Pearse looked for Kathleen after the novena but she was already gone. He’d seen her up the front. He’d seen the look on her face while she was praying; he’d seen it a thousand times before. It was the women that suffered worst, he always said.
‘Such good people. On the bus every week, off to the Kesh,’ he told
Father Fitzgerald as they took a cup of tea together after the service.
‘Dragging one wee child or another. All dolled up. Half-an-hour’s worth of hope.’
‘I know where you’re going Brian, I know what comes next.’ The elderly man slipped the purple advent chasuble over his head, leaving just the white surplice. ‘It’s becoming your daily rant.’
‘You’ve a lot of faith, Michael, you’re lucky,’ said Father Pearse, dipping a pink wafer sandwich into his cup. The older man went out and came back with a letter.
‘See this. This is what we’re proposing to send up to the Northern Ireland Office. Read it, if you please.’
Father Pearse skipped the niceties and read out loud from where he deemed it important. ‘Anyone who has his ear to the ground and who knows how tensions are building up will be aware that the danger of a hunger strike is real. And that there will be consequences outside of the prison. Well,’ he said, looking up. ‘They won’t appreciate that.’
‘Go on.’
‘. . . must take into account the mental and physical strain under which the prisoners have been living. After up to three years for some, the situation has deteriorated into a deadlock. Aye so it has, that’s right. A priest who is close to the situation and can see which way the wind is blowing . . . prison uniform is the crunch issue as it symbolizes “the status of the criminal”. Now, now what does it go on with, aye. ‘With greater freedom of dress, a door to a solution would be open . . . after all female prisoners are not obliged to wear uniforms.’ He lay it down. ‘Prisoners of war one day, criminals the next. Criminals that need an army of soldiers to catch them; seven thousand is it now? Well, it’s a very nice letter, it is,’ he said. ‘But it doesn’t recognize the nature of the beast.’
‘It makes the case for talks,’ said Father Fitzgerald.
‘But no one’s looking for talks, for a middle ground, they’re all looking for a clear win.’
‘Well, no,’ said the older priest, rolling a cigarette. ‘There’s us and those women of whom you spoke looking to save lives, not lose lives. That’s something. The women can be awfully powerful, so they can.’
‘What about the church? They can be awful passive, so they can,’ said
Father Pearse. ‘Awful preachifying, awful safe.’
Father Fitzgerald sighed. ‘It’s no sin to err on the side of caution. My guiding principle, Brian,’ he said, licking down the side of the roll-up and sitting back into the steel-framed chair one vertebrae at a time, ‘will be to safeguard life, one life at a time, by doing nothing. Precipitously. I shall do all I can against the hunger strike.’
‘And the women, they’ll be with you, you think?’
‘They’re mothers, Brian, they’ll put their boys first.’
‘Aren’t we told to love God with all our hearts, mind and souls? These women, there’s many of them are very religious in themselves. They’ve trained temptation out of themselves over the years; they’ve had a lifetime of suffering, of hardship, of loss. Like Abraham with Isaac, they’ll make that sacrifice, Father. They love their God and where they think He is, that’s where they’ll be.’
‘Nonsense, Brian! They’ve yet to find him. The point is the looking. And no living unsainted woman is strong enough to let her son die. They haven’t got it in them. Abraham was a man. It’s not a criticism, God help me, it’s a fact. God appoints us for different things, men and
women. He knows what He’s about. And will you stop confusing God with a United Ireland,’ said Father Fitzgerald crossly, laying down his roll-up. ‘Brian, I’m trying to be patient with you, but you’re going down the wrong road, blind.’
‘I serve the people on His behalf. The church ought to stop condemning the IRA and start understanding why it’s come about, why people feel the way they do.’
‘That’s cart before horse. The people are sinners not saints, no matter what they’re suffering. They’ve yet to walk in the way of the Lord. And the church is there to try to impart His words to help them.’
‘Well it’s not working.’
‘You know Brian, there are two things I’ll say to you – first, that you’re in the wrong job and second that I’m too old for this.’ Father Fitzgerald took some time to raise himself from the chair. He put his weight on his arthritic hands as he did so, levering against the table. His hands were like marooned sun-baked crabs, shells about to crack. ‘You bring to mind that fellow, Camillo Torres. He was a priest. Not a very good one. Didn’t he say he had to take off his cassock to serve God better. With a shotgun. Some young hoodlum reminded me about him the other day, the cheeky wee git, using the confession to give me a sermon. Watch your step, Brian. You’ve had too much knowledge of the tree of good and evil. You’ll have to ask God for guidance.’ He stood looking towards the Celtic cross on top of a far shelf. His eyes and mouth were open and dark, the rims around them pale and dry. ‘Don’t leave Him out of this, Brian. And when you advise those you say you serve, try and remember it’s them that stand to lose their children. He didn’t ask that mortals should do the same as Him. He sent the Son so they needn’t.’
Father Fitzgerald closed his mouth, opened it for a breath of air and, closing it again, felt a terrible ache in lower skull. He tried to let his jaw hang slack. Lately he’d been sleeping with his teeth too tightly clenched.