1
Kiss to say, honey, I’m home.
‘Hello, Mrs Sabharwal.’
Peg rolled her eyes.
‘I’ve told you, I’m not changing my name.’
‘I know, but today—’
‘That’s not how it works, you don’t own me because a year has passed, I’m not a washing machine that you bought in Walmart.’
A smile from Devansh.
‘You remembered!’
Kiss to say, of course you remembered.
Pause to savour the scent of New York City on an April evening: young love and fast food and the promise of heat.
Pause to detect something else.
‘You smell nice!’
‘Don’t sound so surprised.’
‘What is that smell?’
‘I showered after swimming. Borrowed some lady’s fancy shampoo.’
Kiss to avoid questions about rosemary and mint hotel shampoo.
Kiss to avoid questions about what Peg was doing in a hotel on a Tuesday afternoon.
Peg removed the wine and take-out containers and brandished a brown paper bag.
‘One year: paper!’
Kiss to reward ingenuity.
‘Sorry, I didn’t know you were going to cook.’
‘We can have a feast.’
‘We can’t have Chinese with pasta.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ll put some of this in the fridge …’
‘Come here.’
Kiss to stop motion.
‘You are looking sexy today!’
Peg opened the wine.
‘Today?’
Kiss to demonstrate love in the face of provocation.
‘You know I’d never be down on the librarian chic.’
‘I know.’
Peg found a way to take a sip of wine.
‘I had a meeting in the morning with a potential dissertation supervisor.’
‘And you thought you’d seduce them into accepting you.’
‘Exactly.’
A gulp of wine to wash down a lie.
‘Let me know if you need a reference. I’m happy to vouch for your many attributes.’
‘Generous.’
‘I’ll write a letter about your exceptional fingers which are excellent at typing …’
Kiss to demonstrate a relationship between word and thing.
‘… and I can recommend your ears which can listen to lots of lectures …’
Kiss to tickle.
‘… and these eyes …’
Kiss to touch.
‘I’m starting to feel like Red Riding Hood.’
‘Does that make me the wolf?’
‘Mmmm, you’re more of a bear.’
Kiss to say, fuck you, my love.
Kiss to say, Happy Wedding Anniversary.
Kiss to say, let’s fuck across the counter amid knives and chopped peppers.
Kiss to say, yes.
Kiss to say, let’s go.
Kiss to say, but not now, first, the dinner.
Pause to chop basil and let feelings settle.
‘So, Ashima asked me to be Sara’s godfather.’
‘What?’
‘They’re having her baptized. You know what Gabriel’s like and Ashima doesn’t care but she thinks she can get Sara into some fancy-ass Catholic school, like she can’t think of a worse fate for her child than public school.’
Shoulder-rub to comfort an underpaid, overworked public high school teacher.
‘You think I’m godfather material?’
‘Keep up that belly you’ll be fat enough.’
‘Whata ar’ya talkin’ about?’
Kiss to stop impersonations.
‘I couldn’t go to the gym today; I was doing important research about this godfathering business.’
Peg walked over to Dev’s laptop, knowing, before she looked, the site that would be open.
‘Wikipedia is gymnastics of the mind.’
‘Ha.’
‘And I’ve been getting this sauce ready.’
Kiss to display gratitude.
Kiss to atone for judgement of Wikipedia reading and editing as an appropriate pastime.
Kiss to atone.
Pause to acknowledge the difficulty of approaching the topic of Peg Doyle’s family.
‘What were your godparents like?’
Peg’s godmother was Aunty Mary.
‘I’m not really in touch with them.’
But what was there to say about Aunty Mary?
‘Were they relatives?’
Irish women disappeared from time to time and that was how it went.
‘My godparents weren’t really that important.’
And then they died and upturned your life in exile, but Dev couldn’t possibly know about that; Peg had been careful not to show him the letter.
‘Thanks.’
Kiss to acknowledge the appeal of pretend-hurt Devansh Sabharwal.
Kiss to avoid further questions.
‘The main requirements are enough money to stuff a card, the ability to remember the kid’s name, and, as far as I’m aware, being a Catholic.’
‘Two out of three ain’t bad? Ashima says they’re being flexible about it. I guess it’s silly. It’s not like I’m going to start believing that dead dudes can make miracles.’
Tiny pause to tense at where the conversation was headed and search for any way to stop it.
‘Did you see the news? Pope John Paul II is on his way to becoming a saint.’
A gulp of wine to wash down a lie.
‘No.’
‘Yeah! Mad isn’t it, only two years since he’s dead and already they’ve found some evidence of a miracle so he’s halfway to being …’
She had the word in her head, despite everything.
‘Beatified.’
‘Right! I guess some guy in France claims that praying to the Pope cured his Parkinson’s so now the Pope just needs one more miracle and he’s Mr Beatified. Record time: it can take decades.’
‘I guess men are working out their minds on Wikipedia across the world.’
‘Ha! Yeah, I guess I got a bit distracted this afternoon … you know who else has a Wikipedia page?’
Pause to banish all conversation about the past.
‘Pope John Paul III!’
Wine to wash away lies.
‘I hadn’t seen.’
‘More than just a stub too, lots of links to YouTube and some interviews and …’
Move to the counter to banish all possibility of conversation about John Paul Doyle.
Pause to drain pasta and bitterness.
‘So you’re going to become a godfather?’
‘I know, it’s silly … I definitely can’t provide spiritual guidance …’
Bite of lip to suppress knowledge of upcoming joke.
‘Or any guidance, ha! And I don’t want to be in the middle of one of Ashima’s and Gabriel’s fights. It’s just, Sara is a great kid, you know? And it’s nice to have that kind of official connection to a kid, especially if we’re not …’
Pause to imagine children in subjunctive tenses.
Kiss to acknowledge vulnerability.
‘You’d be a brilliant godparent.’
Tiny pause to say farewell to children in subjunctive tenses.
‘Well, it’s not like I have to do it: you don’t even remember yours.’
Wine to wash down a lie.
‘No.’
What was there to say about Aunty Mary? Fairy godmothers were for children, you couldn’t ask them to stick around.
‘I’m still her uncle.’
Irish women disappeared from time to time and that was how it went.
‘I’ll still be part of her life.’
That was the path of the Doyle women (Aunty Mary; her mother; Rosie; Peg): the only way to survive exile was to forget.
‘Peg?’
Wine to wash away the past.
‘You okay?’
Kiss to wash away lies.
‘Yeah.’
2
Would the Pope be getting one too? Surely, he would, with the millions who’d want to be remembering him, and who could keep track of everybody who’d passed without the handy rectangles that memorialized people? Not Granny Doyle. The balance had tilted, so that she knew more who were dead than alive; she’d be lost without her little box of laminated lives. She sat in her porch and flicked through her box of memorial cards and wondered if the Vatican had ever made a memorial card for Pope John Paul II: he was two years gone, after all, they’d plenty of time. There might even be a special memorial card now that he was bound to be beatified: some poor crater cured of Parkinson’s, already. She might have to start a new box; maybe she’d set up a special one for celebrities. Daft thoughts, she didn’t know any celebrities and, in any case, there wouldn’t be a special memorial card for the Pope – she had just checked, she hadn’t any for poor John Paul I – and Granny Doyle would have to wait for somebody else to die before she’d start a new box.
‘Daft,’ Granny Doyle said, though the radio on the chair opposite her didn’t respond. Some new yoke that John Paul had got her: Granny Doyle could swear that the news had got worse because of it. No mention of the Pope’s miracle, never any good news, only some eejit jingling on about the upcoming election (as if she’d ever betray Fianna Fáil) and the nurses on strike (never in her day) and people killing each other from Mogadishu to Kabul while ads jittered on about things she didn’t want: it was enough to send her to bed.
‘It’s a terrible world we live in,’ Granny Doyle said, although the folding chairs were silent. Poor Mrs Nugent had settled into her box of memorial cards a long time ago and her daughters hadn’t picked well at all; Mrs Nugent would have died a second death at the sight of the blotches and wrinkles in the photo. Mrs Fay hadn’t been the same since Mr Fay passed a year ago, though she at least had done well enough to pick a picture where he still had a healthy batch of hair. Mrs McGinty was still going (she’d live to a hundred; indignation would power her that far) but they weren’t talking to each other after the Pope John Paul III business. A shame, because the car outside Irene Hunter’s had been parked there all night and the Polish crowd renting Mr Kehoe’s house had received three packages in the space of an hour and all of that would have been enough to sustain the conversation for the morning.
‘Daft,’ Granny Doyle said, but the only occupants of her folding chairs were bits of plastic. Some new phone that John Paul had got her, with a camera on it, as if she wanted to be documenting her wrinkles. The new radio. And the Furby he’d got her, years ago, when she wanted company in the house but didn’t want some yappy dog or cat conning her out of cream. A daft thing it was, gibberish spouting out of its beak most days, but she had let John Paul keep it stocked on batteries, had bought them herself when he forgot. It was nice to have a voice in the house, even if all it said was ‘weeeeeee!’ or ‘me dance’ or ‘Furby sleep’. Nice to have some intelligent conversation, Granny Doyle would say, a joke between her and John Paul, something to be treasured, the thought that he was worried about her being lonely. And yet, if he were really worried about her being lonely, wouldn’t he stay over some nights like she asked?
‘Ah, well,’ Granny Doyle said, looking over at the blob of purple and yellow plastic.
You can teach it to talk, John Paul had said, back when he visited.
That thing looks like a demon, Mrs McGinty said, back when they were still talking.
Isn’t it lovely? Mrs Fay said, back when she still had some semblance of wits about her.
The Furby sat on the chair and slept. It spent most of the day sleeping, a sign of its intelligence. Granny Doyle stroked its fur but its eyes didn’t open; probably for the best – it could scare the wits out of you with its laugh. She might have forgotten to put the batteries in. She could ask John Paul to get her some, but he’d just get them delivered, along with all her messages, which was a shame when the truth of it was she didn’t mind about the milk – most of it ended up down the sink – it was her family she was starved of. Her fingers found her son’s memorial card: a fine man he looked, there. Funny how photographs couldn’t capture the size of a person. Mrs Nugent was diminished; no rectangle could capture the gossipy-eyed glory of the woman. Danny Doyle, on the other hand, looked bigger. A man who could build an empire, you might have thought. Well. She moved to the next one and there was Catherine Doyle, the dutiful daughter-in-law who’d left Granny Doyle three squalling terrors to rear instead of the one. And where were they now? Not in her box, thanks be to God, but the triplets had left her in an empty house, again. Not to mention Peg, a name like a paper-cut. Granny Doyle stiffened in her chair: no need to be remembering any of them. People made their beds; they lay in them. Except people never did make their beds properly any more, not the way her mother had taught her, not the way she had when she was a nurse, and this was a strange thing to be missing, to feel a pang for the house with all its perfectly made beds and nobody to lie in them.
‘Daft thoughts,’ Granny Doyle said, though the Furby stayed asleep.
She put the box of memorial cards under her folding chair; she couldn’t remember why she’d picked it up in the first place. A dangerous thing to be doing, the past waiting to ambush you with each turn of the card, and the threat of tears too, daft, when Granny Doyle had never been a crier. Still, now she was, tears surprising her at strange times; it struck her that there might be a medical solution, some sort of hip replacement for the heart, or at least the eyes. In the meantime, she had banned onions from the kitchen.
The Pope! That was why she had fished out the box. Two years dead, the poor man, and her knees couldn’t make it to the church to light a candle for him. She could have asked John Paul to drive her to the church, in a different life, where he hadn’t torn the heart out of her. Would Pope John Paul II be getting a card? She couldn’t remember what she had decided and she couldn’t ask Mrs McGinty. She decided instead to root out the old photos from Phoenix Park; she’d battle the stairs if she had to.
Or, she could ask John Paul to bring down a box of old photos for her; he couldn’t hire a company to do that. He was a good lad, despite everything that he’d done. He’d come if she called, if she could ever figure out which buttons on the phone to press. John Paul Doyle at least had turned out … well caught in her mind, impossible to add, because whatever successes John Paul Doyle had achieved, she couldn’t say that any of it had turned out as she’d planned, that giddy day when she’d practically conjured him into being. He might visit that weekend, yet, and the intensity of this desire – that John Paul sit beside her in the church for everybody to see – bowled her over, and she felt a hot liquid prick her eyes, and then somehow she was thinking about her other grandchildren, Damien and Rosie and Peg, taboo subjects, all of them.
The Furby opened its bright yellow eyes. Sometimes Granny Doyle wondered if Mrs McGinty was right: perhaps the creature was diabolical. Some dark nights, Granny Doyle wondered if the contraption had the voices of the disappeared trapped inside: perhaps it was on this earth to judge her. Daft thoughts – John Paul had only bought it as a joke. Still, she kept the batteries in it. Still, she was glad of its gabble, happy to have any sound in the house. Still, she chanced the name.
‘Peg?’
The sly old thing went back to sleep; if it had the voices of the disappeared inside, it wasn’t sharing them.
3
You’re a dirty pervert, Damien Doyle imagined Mark saying, once he arrived, feeling flushed at the thought of just how excited this sentence made him feel. He covered his blush with the Irish Times, sure that the O’Connell Street crowds were judging him, though they kept on walking. Damien stole another glance up at Clerys Clock, that grand structure that jutted out from the side of the department store and portioned out the city’s time. The minute hand was closer to a quarter past; Mark was late. Mark was always late but Damien couldn’t help his own punctuality; even the thought of turning up a few minutes late caused him distress. Besides, he didn’t mind the wait; this was still novel, having somebody to wait for. A lover. Only lovers met under Clerys Clock, so the story went. Damien conjured visions of smartly dressed men waiting outside the grand department store, their hearts lifting at the sight of some pretty girl in a smock, rushing from some country train, stopping her step to a stroll, as Clerys’ clockwork took over, sweethearts confidently tick-tocking towards each other for decades. Sweethearts who probably didn’t call each other dirty perverts, Damien imagined, blushing again at this subversive meeting place: it was just possible that Clerys Clock might crash to the ground in protest.
Damien flicked through the Irish Times for distraction. He was the only eejit waiting under the clock – everybody had mobiles now, sure – and he wanted to project the impression of an upright citizen and not the kind of man waiting for the touch of his boyfriend’s tongue in his ear. So, the news. More of the same: trouble in hospitals and protests against Shell in Mayo and the election in the air. The Greens had managed to nab a small piece about their education manifesto on page 4 but it was dwarfed by a story about the government’s new climate change strategy, irritating when the Greens could use better coverage if they were going to gain seats, which they were: they had to! Damien skimmed the rest of the paper, only stopping once he found a picture of Brangelina, which sent his brain on a worried spiral about whether ‘Marmien’ was a worse couple name than ‘Dark’ until—
‘Look at you, ogling Brad Pitt in broad daylight, you big pervert.’
Mark, surprising him as always, bounding up out of nowhere.
A quick kiss, the Irish Times and Brad Pitt quickly folded into Damien’s satchel.
‘You know only grannies and boggers meet under Clerys Clock?’ Mark said.
And lovers, Damien almost said, though he held the words inside.
‘I’m just appeasing your inner bogger—’
‘I’m from half an hour out of Belfast!’
‘“Bogger” just means “not from Dublin”.’
‘Sounds right. You, my love, are definitely an auld granny.’
‘Feck off, you stupid bogger.’
Another kiss, right in the middle of O’Connell Street, grannies and boggers be damned.
This was new for Damien, all these actions that Mark could do so unconsciously – kissing a man in the street or holding hands with a man in town, not wondering whether Mrs McGinty or Jason Donnelly or who knew who would be turning off Talbot Street. Damien looked up at Clerys Clock ticking away; perhaps it had seen worse. Damien felt more self-conscious on the Northside, especially O’Connell Street; this, after all, was the home of religious nuts, where Damien himself, in his Legion of Mary days, had held up placards and bellowed chants against abortion alongside Mrs McGinty. Though the fanatics had been moved along, exiled with the Floozy in the Jacuzzi, no sign of Granny Doyle, more space on the path for more types of people, and of course –
‘That fucking yoke,’ Mark said, weaving around the Spire and the circle of tourists. Mark couldn’t walk past the Spire without a mini-rant; Damien could have set his watch by it.
‘Wasn’t Nelson’s Phallic Pillar enough? Why did they need to build another giant penis? We keep shunting shite towards the sky, all part of the same problem – instead of making space to talk to each other we keep blocking the view.’
They had reached The Oval (Damien would have preferred the Front Lounge, but Mark only drank in old-man bars), Damien getting in the Guinness while Mark continued talking. ‘The same problem’ was the subject of the dissertation that Mark sometimes worked on: ‘The Celtic Tiger Eats the Commons, 1973–2002’.
‘It’s the same shite as shopping centres. We used to have squares to discuss ideas in, now we have The Square. A great name, sounds like a place you’d want to visit and then it turns out to be an air-conditioned tomb full of stereos and shite. It’s a smart trick, usurp the language of the thing you displaced: gouge out a valley and then call the monstrosity you plonk there Liffey Valley, brilliant really. But what we need is a square where we can share ideas instead of buy shite, you know?’
Damien did know; he’d heard this part of the dissertation before. Now that he was sure the bartender couldn’t, in fact, be somebody from Dunluce Crescent, Damien relaxed and basked in Mark’s monologue. Too many words, too many ideas to implement, but wasn’t the Green Party the space for that and Mark was one of their best volunteers. Damien took another sup and admired everything about Mark: the frayed Aran jumper that he’d worn since the last millennium; the big hands that moved too much when he talked; the blue eyes that didn’t move at all, lasered in on you, so that you could see every fleck of brown or grey in them, eyes that never seemed to need a blink or a break. Meanwhile, brightly coloured insects pirouetted in the region of Damien’s diaphragm, the words fresh, even after a year: my boyfriend.
‘… and this is why we need a space to freely debate ideas!’
Damien refocused. Mark had fished out the Irish Times to mop up some spilt beer and this was an article that Damien had missed: something about Pope John Paul II being beatified, not an election issue in Damien’s opinion, though there was no telling what would get Mark going.
A thing to love about Mark: he could be so single-minded, wouldn’t be swayed by any trivial distractions once he got going.
‘Fuck all this hagiography shite! Nobody has the balls to say anything genuine when a famous person dies.’
‘I suppose people need a period of mourning,’ Damien dared.
‘No,’ Mark almost shouted. ‘All this respect the dead stuff is just a way for the right wing to solidify their myths. It was the same with Reagan: the years after a public figure dies are the critical moment when their legacy is sculpted. You have to scrawl your graffiti before the concrete sets. Nobody has the balls to call the Pope out for some of his shite: preaching that condoms are a sin in Tanzania while people are dying of AIDS. It’s fucked up that this is what makes saint material …’
Damien took a sup of Guinness and nodded; it would be a while before Mark reached his pint or his point. He had to divert conversation from the Pope, away from any talk of Pope John Paul III. It had been years since he’d talked to his brother properly, not since that business, plenty of periods in Damien’s past that he skipped over euphemistically. That other business, with Peg, who Damien definitely didn’t want to think about. Damn the lot of the Doyles, Damien thought, nothing like family to stuck-in-the-mud you in the past, when Damien aspired to be all future. This focus on the future was what he loved about working for the Green Party, a political organization for the twenty-first century, not one rooted in the bogs of some civil war best forgotten, and here was the thing to steer them away from popes.
‘Don’t worry, babe, once I’ve got a new office in Leinster House, I’ll keep you a section of wall to graffiti whatever you want.’
A thing to love about Mark: his eyes were only gorgeous, even mid-roll.
‘Right,’ Mark said. ‘The whole country’s going to change with this election.’
It was, though; Damien knew it.
‘You won’t be able to move with the paradigms shifting each other when the Greens get seven seats—’
‘When we get ten seats,’ Damien corrected him. ‘And yes, it’ll be all change. Catholic Ireland is dead and gone: it’s with Pope J.P. in the grave!’
A thing to love about Mark: he was a great at impersonating radio talk-show hosts.
‘The question is, how can we as a nation come up with ethical values that aren’t tied to religion or nationalism? The question is, how do we become a people defined by the future rather than the past? Catholicism has been swept clear away, the question is how can we fill that gaping hole?’
‘What was that you said about filling a hole?’
Mark laughed.
‘Are you pissed already?’
‘I am!’ Damien announced, fizzy with the feeling; he felt drunk all the time now, even when he hadn’t touched a drop.
4
John Paul Doyle smiled. Smiling was his speciality: popes needed as many grins in their repertoire as politicians. A smile can take you further than a sentence, John Paul thought, something he’d write down, once he was reunited with his BlackBerry. It could be material for his biography. Or for a stand-alone stocking filler. Or, better, a self-help tome, paired with an exclusive seminar on smile-coaching. John Paul’s fingers twitched; he was lost without his BlackBerry to record the thousand and one ideas that pinballed about his brain and he was on form that morning, odd as coke wasn’t even involved: it must be the fresh air. Another idea: find something to bottle the fresh air here – a net? A bottle? – and ship it out to Dublin. Atlantic Air! John Paul was sure some eejits would drop a tenner for a sniff. He gulped in a lungful and let out a huge nowhere I’d rather be than on the edge of the Atlantic in a pair of boxers and a pope hat! beam.
In his few hours in Clougheally, John Paul had already trotted out several different smiles.
A Pope John Paul III has arrived in Clougheally! megawatt grin unleashed that morning.
A secret yeah, this kip is Clougheally, nice eh? smile flashed to the camera-guy.
A so nothing’s changed and here I am, back half-smile all for himself.
A fuck this fresh air! grin and yelp for the benefit of the camera-guy, as he stripped to his boxers.
And a let’s get to work smile and nod: he had to keep some of the smile power on reserve for the cameras.
John Paul couldn’t help a grin at the thought of the video: it was going to be a good one. The Official Miracles of Pope John Paul III followed a certain formula. A familiar biblical reference (loaves and fishes; healing the sick) was revitalized with a contemporary twist (famine in Ethiopia solved; an escalator opened so no poor soul would have to miss five floors of shopping). Often, the video required that John Paul stripped to his boxers, useful for the controversy and the clicks. Today, Pope John Paul III would walk on water, miraculously buoyed by the powers of natural gas. He’d fall in, of course – that was how Pope John Paul III rolled, no gag too cheap – but he’d be back on his feet for the finale: standing on the gas rig and pulling out nets of money from the water. Nobody had hired him to perform this particular miracle, but as a cultural figure of some importance, Pope John Paul III had the obligation to wade into controversial topics and provide clarity. Some people didn’t think that Erris was the right place for Shell’s gas pipe; typical, for bedrudgers followed progress like flies to fresh shite. Pope John Paul III would banish the protesters. Ignore the naysayers, his smile would radiate. Didn’t the Bishop of Kilcommon himself bless the gas rig a few years back? Believe in me and we’ll walk on water; he’d write that one down too.
First, the video! John Paul made his way over to the fellas by the currachs and gave them Pope John Paul III’s best I’m freezing my bollix off here, let’s get going lads, man among men grin. Then, John Paul couldn’t help it, even though the cameras weren’t rolling yet: he made a show of searching for a sail, kerfuffling about for a second before he unleashed his catchphrase.
Ah now, I wouldn’t know anything about that!
Coupled with one of Pope John Paul III’s gormless smiles, of course, the one that suggested that the poor holy fool had got himself into another mess again. Together, the smile and the catchphrase had helped launch him towards YouTube stardom (well, in Ireland at least). He’d secured an upcoming feature on Xposé on TV3 and a mention in the Sunday Independent. He even had enough money to throw a few bob towards a camera-guy, an essential expense as his routine became more polished; he’d get an intern next! All tax-deductible, and if any prying eyes had questions about irregularities in his accounts, he had his catchphrase at the ready: Ah now, I wouldn’t know anything about that!
The sentence proved reliably robust, especially when it was sheathed in irony. Most sentences these days had irony wrapped around them like a condom and so this one was a treat: an expression of not knowing that conveyed just how much you knew. He might keep it when he launched his political career, John Paul decided. Election season was on its way and he had a hunger to grace telegraph poles with his grin. Next time. Pope John Paul III was practically already a mascot for the government; he’d met half the Cabinet at the Galway Races. His grin at the end of the videos radiated optimism. Haven’t we all done well, it said. Onwards and upwards. Don’t let the begrudgers into government. Vote Fianna Fáil for five more bright years of prosperity. Vote John Paul Doyle for the best handshakes in town. He’d have to write some of this down, once he found his BlackBerry, and he’d have a real think about running in the next election, suss out some seat he could cruise easily through, a coy smirk and ah now, I wouldn’t know anything about that! at the ready if some reporter got wind of his ambitions.
‘Do I know you?’
John Paul turned. It was some auld one, weaving over to them before he could get in the currach. He shot the camera-guy a private smile: here we go …
It was hard to tell what views the auld one opposite might have about Pope John Paul III. If she were one of the ‘it’s a holy disgrace’ brigade, he’d have a sober smile at the ready, one that communicated respect and contrition and had ‘May he rest in peace’ hidden in its dimples. He even had an earnest, delighted, yes I did hear about his miracle, isn’t it great? smile ready if she talked about the latest news, a well, I have to be getting on crisp grin to be unleashed if she suggested that his antics were demeaning the very concept of miracles. But she might only be after an autograph, so he had a bigger grin in reserve too, one that announced that it was the only dream of Pope John Paul III to pose with her and that he was delighted to sign a photograph for her granddaughter.
‘You’re Bridget Doyle’s young one, aren’t you?’
That wiped the smile clean from his face.
‘Mary Nelligan’s sister’s grandson, isn’t that yourself?’
A central part of being John Paul Doyle was learning to live with the black hole inside of him. He had strategies to keep the vortex under control. It was surprisingly easy, most of the time. The trick was to keep moving. The trick was to avoid the Doyles. The trick was to keep conversation light. Certain proper nouns were taboo (Peg; Damien; Rosie). Certain periods of time were to be avoided, large pockets of the 1990s not to be thought of. Smiles to be stretched; to breaking point, if it came to it. Don’t dwell: that was a key one. The black hole liked nothing more than for you to stay still and dwell: that was when it grew, gulping away inside of you, reaching for internal organs.
The worst thing was that the black hole could surprise you. It could stay hidden away for a long while, hanging out beside an appendix or a gall bladder or whatever other useless things whiled time away inside a body. But then some small thing would activate it – some auld one asking if you were anything to the Nelligans – and there it was, pulling the heart and lungs towards it, swallowing everything, including whatever neurons sent messages to the mouth because even as John Paul searched for a smile he couldn’t find the shape of one.
He should have seen it coming. Once he got Aunty Mary’s letter, he should have realized: no avoiding the other Doyles now. Competing maxims had tumbled about in his head – Don’t Dwell wrestling with Seize Every Opportunity! – until here he was, dipping his toe back in Clougheally after ten years; he should have known he’d be recognized. There was the shop where he’d pinched penny sweets and there was the boulder he’d climbed and there were the shells on the strand that he’d seen the Virgin Mary inside and here was the past, a rush of feelings twisting away inside, the murder of John Paul Doyle their only aim.
Relax, he tried to say, willing his knees to stay still. It had been ten years since he’d been to Clougheally. The auld one didn’t know a thing. No need to get into the past. If he could stare down the sea without flinching, he could see her off too. After a moment, a smile found its way to his face: bemused, kind, you must be mistaken. He held out his hand, the master of all occasions.
‘Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Pope John Paul III!’
The auld one looked suspicious.
‘You’re sure you’re not Bridget Doyle’s grandson?’
John Paul flashed his best smile, the one in tune with his catchphrase.
Ah now, I wouldn’t know anything about that!
5
Of course, Rosie got onto the wrong subway and of course she ended up in the worst place in New York. Rosie wasn’t prepared for the intensity of Times Square. That comforting pocket of Irish accents by the Aer Lingus bag carousel had disappeared and she was surrounded by American voices. Heat charged through the streets without bends and promised to knock her horizontal. Cheerful chains sold donuts that could blind you and coffee that was mostly whipped cream, and M&Ms in so many flavours and colours that you might die before you decided what to eat. Huge billboards flashed confidence and sold clothes and Broadway shows and screamed Here You Are at the Centre of the Universe! making Rosie want to lasso the first plane she saw and hitch her way back to Clougheally.
Breathe, Rosie reminded herself. She was on a mission. She had travelled an ocean to find a long-lost sister; she would not be deterred by a few flashing billboards. Tourists barged into her rucksack and cursed at her in a variety of languages but Rosie wasn’t going to budge until she’d figured out how to get back inside the subway. She gazed up at the billboards, hoping that one of them might morph into a giant neon arrow; it was not too much to hope that the universe might be on her side. No space for directions in Times Square, though, only ads for H&M and news flickering across in an excited loop. Rosie felt even tinier. It was incredible that Peg lived in this city, which had no news about the election in Ireland or the protests in Clougheally. Not a peep about John Paul Doyle. Just a stream of figures, stocks and shares going up and down, and whatever things Bush was ruining (the climate and Iraq, today) and then, a sentence to shock: POPE JOHN PAUL II TAKES FIRST STEP TOWARDS SAINTHOOD.
The sentence whizzed past before she could question it, not that Rosie cared about the details. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, practising radiating love towards her enemies. She did this, every morning, as part of her yoga routine, imagining turquoise rays of love that matched her hair emanating from her body and rippling towards her enemies. Usually she focused on the living – her family provided ample material – but if Pope John Paul II could be counted as a nemesis, then she should try to overcome her anger and send him love. Her eyes opened quickly: she couldn’t picture it. And was nowhere safe from popes? Surely, here was a square that was safe from his reach, the home of Saturday Night Live – or its general vicinity, Rosie didn’t care about the details. Hadn’t Sinéad O’Connor stood in one of these buildings – or somewhere close; her aura remained, that was the important thing – and held up a photograph of the future saint, only to rip the picture into fragments. ‘Fight the real enemy,’ Sinéad O’Connor had said and twelve-year-old Rosie had known that the words were for her. This is the man who stole away your sister, Sinéad O’Connor might have said, as she ripped the photo into bits, while Rosie, curiously, had felt the opposite process, the formation of a solid identity, a core of steel inside the dreamy girl with her head in the clouds; in the aftermath of catastrophe, watching the Pope ripped to nothing on television, Rosie Doyle became a fighter.
Rosie stood mesmerized by the news ticking across the side of some building, but there was nothing more about the Pope. No sign of Sinéad O’Connor in Times Square: nobody to get upset about the news at all. The crowds around her showed no signs of perturbation: necks continued to crane upwards, fingers snapped at disposable cameras, voices squealed at the sight of women dressed as candy or cowboys wearing nothing. She had to leave, Rosie realized. It had been a mistake to come, foolish to knock on Peg’s door after all these years. Rosie started to walk. She didn’t care which direction, abandoning her desire to descend underground, charging past tourists and Sesame Street characters and a military recruitment centre that made her want to spew a kaleidoscope of vomit.
After a couple of minutes, she realized where her legs were taking her. She was walking uptown on Broadway, billboards disappearing as the streets hit the fifties. As if her legs had their own agenda, Rosie thought with a rueful smile. Manhattan was difficult to get lost in, another general point against it for Rosie, who was a great meanderer, but a feature that was useful at this current moment in her life, with sweat on her brow and turmoil in her chest and a giant rucksack on her back. The friend she was staying with lived uptown off Broadway so she could probably walk it and then she wouldn’t have to worry about taking an express train to the Bronx by accident. She was on a mission, after all; she couldn’t forget Aunty Mary’s letter.
Would Peg want to discuss Aunty Mary’s letter? Would she even talk to her? These were questions that Rosie might better have asked before her flight across the Atlantic, ones to be brushed away now. They’d find the words, Rosie was sure of it. She imagined her aura: turquoise, loving, strong. She’d get the best of this city and her family. Rosie Doyle was a fighter (wasn’t she?).
A breeze arrived as she reached Columbus Circle, some magic wind sent to ease her travels. Things would only get better from here. Soon the bodegas would outnumber offices and people would smile on stoops and the smell of green would rush across from parks and at the end of the path, waiting, would be Peg. They’d find the words, Rosie resolved, the soothing wind on her face a sign from the universe that everything might work out grand. The word sounded odd in her head – it had a different meaning on Broadway – but Rosie clung to it, anyway, appreciating its solidity, the smell of Ireland off it. Yes, Rosie thought, marching down Broadway towards a long-lost sister, everything might turn out grand.
6
‘What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?’
Peg added a giggle as punctuation; Gina, she figured, was a giggler. Nate pretended to take the matter into serious consideration, his head rattling from side to side.
‘The worst thing I’ve ever done?’ Nate repeated.
His name was not Nate though, no more than he was actually forty-nine. Peg did not mind. He knew what he was doing, something Peg loved about older men: he didn’t require reassurance or cheerleading, could swipe a credit card or roll his tongue across a buttock with the certainty that nothing would ever be found insufficient. If he wanted to be called Nate, so be it. This was how she liked things: names as temporary as hotel bed-sheets.
‘Yeah,’ Peg said, draping herself across the length of the bed.
It was a question she liked to ask in hotel rooms, where white walls were blank enough to absorb all sorts of misdeeds.
Nate knelt over Peg, knees knuckling into her sides, large hands firm on her chest.
‘Worst thing I’ve ever done?’
His hands moved towards Peg’s throat.
‘Yeah.’
He started to squeeze.
‘Haven’t done it yet, babe.’
*
After, Nate turned to Peg and smiled:
‘How ’bout you, babe? What’s the worst thing you’ve done?’
Killed a man, Gina should have said, perhaps a giggle afterwards.
Wait till you see, Gina should have said, flipping him over roughly: your turn now.
Wouldn’t you like to know, Gina should have said, turning onto her side.
Peg said nothing, tensed on the bed, the question ricocheting back to her, demanding to be answered.
She’d leave it be. Plenty of other things to entertain in hotels. Gina, Peg was sure, was a fan of miniature things. Little bottles of vodka, clear and fiery and amazing. Adorable bottles of shampoo with ridiculous ingredients. Rosemary and mint, a scent to banish all trace of the past. Ironic, when rosemary signified remembrance, Peg thought, though Gina kept her mouth shut. Each bottle to be replaced within the hour once they’d left, all part of the deal in hotels, which were brilliant at acting as if nothing had ever happened there before, every day a new start, anonymity the aim and amnesia the game; brilliant, really, that a whole industry could be built on the importance of forgetting.
Bored, Nate switched on the TV.
Gina was not married to Nate so she would not, Peg decided, object to the turning on of the television; Gina was not a nagger.
‘Wow!’
Peg rolled over and looked at the images of Pope John Paul II.
Nate sat up, suddenly alert. The kind of kink he was into, he could certainly be Catholic.
‘Holy shit, he’s already performed a miracle – that was fast!’
Peg watched Rome reel by, starting when she noticed the date on the screen.
‘Fuck!’
Nate turned around.
Peg could have asked Nate about the logistics of forgetting wedding anniversaries – he had a well-worn groove on his finger – but Gina was more of a giggler than a talker.
Nate put his arm around her.
‘You okay, darl?’
‘I’m fine,’ Peg said, certain that Gina was not a Catholic.
7
Peg removed the lid slowly. No surprises inside: sheets of loose correspondence, waiting to be sorted. Nothing that could be construed as an emergency. Nonetheless, the urge to dive in and escape into work overwhelmed her; she had to steady her hands against the box.
In the archive, at least, things were simple. Collections arrived smelling of garages and neglect, objects perilously stored in regular boxes. A survey was commissioned. Items were rehoused. Staples and paper clips, those perfidious collaborators with rust, were replaced with plasticlips. Carefully labelled acid-free folders were organized in archival boxes. Finding aids were written. Series were designed to guide the intrepid researchers of the future. Eventually, rows of archival boxes were lined up, awaiting transferral to an off-site warehouse in New Jersey, neat labels announcing the triumph of order over entropy.
‘What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever found?’
But here was Rosie, meandering through the stacks and haphazardly inspecting boxes, chaos trailing after her, as usual.
Dev answered, when Peg didn’t.
‘You’ve found lots of mad stuff here, right? One time, you found a bloody glove, right?’
Wrong, Peg thought, though she nodded. She sometimes worried that she had outsourced affability to Dev, but now, with a long-lost sister to be dealt with, she was glad of his chatter. If Rosie insisted on barging back into her life, then she would keep things on her terms, conversation kept on a leash, how did you like downtown? and what are you up to tomorrow? and this is where I work! enough for the evening, no need for why did you come back? or how is John Paul? or and Damien? or what on earth can you want from me?
‘You found a colony of cockroaches once too, yeah?’ Dev prompted.
He had quizzed her about her work too, early on, when question marks curved at the prospect of unexplored histories. Every archivist had a story. Strange hairs, found at the bottom of a box. A poem scribbled on the back of an envelope. An unsent love letter.
‘It’s mostly files,’ Peg said, pointing to the row of records she was working on.
Rosie nodded, clearly doing her best to feign interest. They might leave, yet.
‘Do you have any government documents?’
But here was Rosie, poking around as if she might find the folder to topple the Bush administration.
‘You’d have to go to DC for that,’ Peg said, half hoping she would.
‘Or Guantanamo,’ Dev said. ‘Wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve installed some room to bury documents there.’
Peg was about to say something about archival standards but then Rosie made a dark joke about the slender space required to hold the government’s proof of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and then they were off, the pair of them congratulating each other’s condemnations, while Peg stood by her desk, like some fool of a child eager to show her parents her homework. Rosie and Dev had only known each other a week, but they were already fast friends, protesting against Iraq that afternoon and sharing spliffs and debating whether Obama had any hope of beating Clinton. Of course they got on: the two of them were like dogs, so eager and affectionate, so ready to please, while Peg was some mean old cat, sleeking away from their weed-fuzzed observations and longing to do a line of coke in a hotel room with some man who’d never be vulgar enough to disclose who he voted for.
It had been a mistake to bring them to her workplace, an illusion that she could retain control. Or, the mistake had been having Rosie for dinner and introducing her to Dev. Or, perhaps, answering the phone at all. They were too different. Rosie liked tea, pot after pot, while Peg craved espresso. Peg was a Libra while Rosie was ‘technically a Gemini, but really I’m more of a cuckoo Aquarius’. Peg was doing a Master’s; Rosie couldn’t even decide what to order for lunch. Such a sister! Who else would come to New York unannounced after twelve years apart? Peg stared at her mess of a sister, with her bright blue hair and her indifference to nail polish remover – twenty shades visible on each nail, like some primary-coloured palimpsest! – and her insistence upon earnest conversation about the state of the world. Peg felt the need to shake her – such a sister – and yet shouldn’t she hug her, because she was looking back at her so sweetly, the way she always had.
‘Dev is showing me his dissertation materials,’ Rosie called across, tenderness softening her amusement.
‘The History of Mathematical Notation!’ Dev proclaimed, in the voice he used now to discuss academic matters. ‘You can see why I dropped out!’
Peg resisted the urge to stop Dev opening drawers.
‘Where are the stones, Peg? Cuneiform is the oldest form of writing here: thousand-year-old etchings on stones! And you know the best part, it’s not even poetry or the names of kings that gets recorded, just transactions of debt. As if thousands of years from now, all that remains of our lives is a receipt from Walmart!’
‘Here,’ Peg said, finding the box on her cart.
Dev removed the stone from its box and glowed with gratitude.
‘Amazing, isn’t it? How old are they again?’ he asked, already taking his phone out to check Wikipedia. ‘Peg introduced these to me, back when we were eyeing each other up across a crowded reading room …’
Dev left space for her scoff; Peg bristled at complying so reliably.
‘My dissertation was about the history of parentheticals, even more tedious, but Peg suggested I look at these too, dropped them on my desk, like roses that were … three thousand and twenty or so years old!’
‘Romantic,’ Rosie managed.
(It was romantic, though, that first night when they’d crammed onto a fire escape, drunk on tequila and ideas. Peg had listened to Dev’s theories about the kind of reading that mathematical parentheses created, the information in the brackets to be read first, until Dev was proclaiming that parentheses explained the universe and demanded an eye that did not track things from left to right so linearly. Exactly, Peg had said, that first drunken night, when her thoughts were anything but exact; this was a kind of history she was interested in, she explained, one where linear progress might be disrupted and the marginalized privileged: a history where losing did not require silence. That first night, drunk on tequila and infatuation, sex sparkling in the air, there was no problem that they couldn’t solve.)
‘It definitely has an aura,’ Rosie said, mercifully replacing the stone in the box before Peg snatched it; she’d bolt the doors when they left.
‘Properly pagan,’ Dev said, approvingly.
‘I hope so,’ Rosie said and they were off again, lost in some conversation about Celtic rituals and Hinduism, Peg tuning out until she heard Rosie pronounce: ‘I mean, nobody in Ireland is really Catholic any more.’
Peg dealt with this sentence of Rosie’s, stated as if it were a fact, though Peg knew that Rosie would not have any sociological data at her disposal.
‘I mean, no young people,’ Rosie continued, unabashed. ‘I mean, not after everything the Church has done. I can’t think of anybody who’d go to Mass voluntarily. I don’t think it’s even a consideration any more.’
The ease with which Rosie could shrug off Catholicism astonished Peg, as if the years between them meant they had sprung from different soil.
‘Things have changed,’ Rosie said, looking across at Peg, since you left dangling in the pause. ‘Things that happened before wouldn’t happen now.’
Rosie might have meant this as an olive branch but Peg only felt the poke of a stick.
This is my Master’s thesis topic. Examining the educational practices of nineteenth-century religious institutions helps us understand the ways in which religion seeps into current secular pedagogical theory. Ideology has long tentacles. It seems premature to dismiss the effect of Catholicism on my – our? – generation. Catholicism is there, a pea at the bottom of a stack of mattresses, shaping our thoughts, even as we claim not to feel its presence.
These were the sentences that arranged themselves in Peg’s brain as another sentence – don’t you see me? – jagged across. The conversation had drifted on before she had any hope of assembling them into a coherent point and Rosie was on to the time that she had dared to put My Little Ponys into Granny Doyle’s crib and Dev was wondering if unicorns had ever been worshipped and then he was checking a Wikipedia article he’d read on that very topic and Peg drifted off again until, getting ready to leave, Rosie looked around the dark corridors and asked, ‘Don’t you get lonely working here?’
They were too different. Rosie found the archive intimidating, while Peg loved the place. Rosie didn’t think much of Manhattan while Peg loved its anonymity, its surprising pockets of quiet, its websites where you could order anything from sushi to sex, its hotel rooms, where you could lie naked on white sheets and say your name was Katie, Gloria, Gail, whatever, knowing that the stranger shutting the door behind him had not used his real name either and that the chances of him being friends with your cousin or cousins with your neighbour were next to nil.
‘No,’ Peg said, staying put by her desk. ‘I don’t.’
8
‘Howda ya rate my godfathering so far?’
Rosie laughed at Dev’s terrible accent and joined him by the skylight window, an array of Sabharwals and neighbours below, in the New Jersey back garden of his childhood home.
‘Well, you didn’t drop the baby.’
There was Sara, happily gurgling away, as old ladies passed out food she couldn’t eat.
‘Phew.’
‘And you did some excellent uncle-work.’
The children who could talk were already asking ‘Where’s Dev?’, ready for another spirited dodgeball game.
‘Helps that my mental age got stuck at seven.’
Rosie took a drag of her spliff.
‘Though I’m not sure that sneaking up to your bedroom to find an old stash of weed is the best godfathering.’
‘You’re right,’ Dev said. ‘I should have invited Sara.’
Rosie laughed.
‘I won’t tell Gabriel if you don’t.’
‘Deal.’
At the mention of his name, the dreaded brother-in-law looked up; Dev ducked and pulled Rosie down with him.
‘Smooth.’
‘What can I say, I’ve had practice.’
Rosie settled into the floor and took in the room, bewilderingly stuck in time, with its games console and high school textbooks and posters of The Matrix and a periodic table.
‘I was cool,’ Dev said, following Rosie’s eyes.
‘Your parents didn’t want to use this room.’
‘No, they kept it like this in case I moved back,’ Dev said, with an eye-roll, every parental gesture of affection taken as an insult.
‘Right.’
Rosie hadn’t been inside 7 Dunluce Crescent since she ran away. She doubted that Granny Doyle had left the walls painted purple. Or carefully stored her crystals and dreamcatchers. For the best, no good getting bogged down with material things.
‘So, wanna play Mario Kart?’
Dev used a tone that suggested a joke, though he seemed amenable to staying longer, picking up a Rubik’s Cube and playing with it.
Rosie was in no hurry to return to the christening either. She’d agreed to come because she’d thought that Peg might appreciate an ally. But then Peg had felt sick after the ceremony and hadn’t wanted any company on the train back, quite the contrary, and Dev had seemed so sad that Rosie agreed to stay, even though she felt an eejit, with her blue hair and Peg’s dress too tight on her and the thin smile from Mrs Sabharwal, which assured her that she was used to disappointment from the Doyles.
Rosie needed a glass of water; she took another drag. It had been a mistake to come; she should never have left Clougheally. Apart from Peg, New York had nothing for her and suburban New Jersey was just as bad, if not worse. She had been a fool to think she could cross the Atlantic on a mission. She hadn’t mentioned Pope John Paul III, let alone Aunty Mary’s letter. It was as if Peg had some invisible force field which deflected any mention of the past and kept all talk small. She had nearly exhausted the generosity of the comrade whose couch she was crashing on; it was time to cut her losses.
‘We should probably go back down,’ Rosie said.
‘Probably,’ Dev agreed, rolling another joint.
Time stretched, the sun too.
When Rosie finished her joint, Dev was still playing with the Rubik’s Cube.
‘You’re pretty quick.’
‘Not bad,’ he said, scrambling the puzzle again. ‘My record was fifty-five point four seconds.’
Rosie let out an impressed sound.
‘It’s nothing: the record is twenty-two point nine five seconds. Or used to be, anyway.’
He didn’t check Wikipedia, tossed the cube up and down instead.
‘Dad entered me into a bunch of tournaments when I was younger. Like if I won, I could make it to the moon or Mensa.’
‘You were a cool kid.’
‘Oh yeah, I’ve got the medals to prove it.’
They were probably in the room somewhere, though Dev didn’t search; he put on the voice he used to make fun of academia instead.
‘Of course, it’s really the unscrambling that’s important. You know, there are approximately forty-three quintillion incorrect permutations but what if beauty lurks in truth? What if the Rubik’s Cube is really a type of mandala, a portal to enlightenment, the gateway to nirvana!’
‘Was that your pick-up line? No wonder you’ve got a poster of the periodic table.’
Dev pretended to be hurt.
‘I’ll have you know, your sister was very impressed by that speech. She made me a miniature paper Rubik’s Cube for our first anniversary, little notes written on every surface!’
The smile on Dev’s face faded.
‘Well, our first month anniversary. For our wedding anniversary, she got me a brown paper bag …’
Peg was the problem that brought them together but neither of them knew how to talk about her. Rosie stood and joined him, no sign of the baby below.
‘I should give it to Sara,’ Dev said, looking out the window, where the dusk was clearing the garden.
‘Yeah, she’s bound to solve it in under twenty seconds,’ Rosie said.
‘Or, she has, what, forty-three million—’
‘Quintillion.’
‘She’s got forty-three quintillion ways to fuck it up; I’m sure she’ll find the one that works for her.’
Dev laughed but his eyes remained sad. Rosie followed his gaze down the length of the garden, where he looked at sundry nieces and nephews attempting to climb the cherry tree. She saw them, she imagined, the phantom offspring that Dev watched, the boy and girl who joked at their dad’s jokes and their mam’s food and smashed every record the Guinness Book had. Or perhaps his eyes tracked those alternative histories, the ones where he didn’t give up on everything – Rubik’s Cube tournaments, dissertations, marriage. Or perhaps he was looking at the young woman standing by the tree, some neighbour probably, Rosie hadn’t been introduced, but perhaps if they’d shared the right sentences when they were teenagers, she could have been the person to make Dev happy.
‘Perfection is overrated,’ Rosie said, taking the cube from Dev. ‘I think it looks better when all the colours are mixed up.’
Dev let out a laugh.
‘Right! The completed Rubik’s Cube is so big on colour divisions it’s practically racist.’
Rosie laughed, relaxing into the conversation, as they ran off on absurdist tangents and composed imaginary letters to whoever Rubik was about the dearth of brown and black coloured squares. Perhaps it had not been a mistake to come, after all, Rosie thought, finding the scrambling of the cube strangely soothing – possible, even, to imagine some universe where she and Peg might talk. Granny Doyle might have stuffed all of Peg’s possessions into St Vincent de Paul bags, but they had history together; the Blessed Shells of Erris and Miraculous Fish Fingers could be summoned, still. Standing in Dev’s childhood bedroom, high on weed and vicarious nostalgia, Rosie resolved that she wouldn’t abandon her mission yet.
9
‘Do you remember my christening?’
Rosie shifted in the bed, pulling the sheet towards her. Dev was away for spring break so Rosie was staying in their apartment for a bit, no questions asked about why Dev preferred his friends for camping company. The fan in the living room was broken, so here Rosie was, in the same double bed as her older sister, who hadn’t lost her knack for pretending to be asleep.
Rosie focused on the stones arranged on Peg’s windowsill, summoning their auras. She couldn’t tell if they came from American beaches. It was certainly fanciful to imagine that Peg had carried one from Clougheally across the Atlantic (and yet, hadn’t she loved to collect trinkets on the beach, their old bedroom filled with them until the St Vincent de Paul bags swept in?). Nonetheless, in the absence of Rubik’s Cubes or carefully preserved rooms, the stones would have to do. Rosie focused on their aura, not minding about the detail – the feeling was important, not the fact! – and imagining magical properties contained therein. Why not? If stones could contain the oldest writing in the world or support the webbed feet of mythological swans, then couldn’t they have the power to induce speech?
Rosie focused on one of the small stones; in the dark of Peg’s room, it could have been the Blarney Stone, or at least a replica. It didn’t matter that nobody in Ireland had ever kissed the thing. It was a coincidence that the Blarney Stone had been the site of one of John Paul’s terrible Pope videos, where the Irish Pope puckered up alongside an elderly American tourist, who was induced to test his gift of the gab, shouting ‘Póg mo thóin!’ and beaming as he mispronounced everything, even the spaces between words. It didn’t matter that the stone on Peg’s windowsill might well have been purchased at Pottery Barn. Rosie had a mission to complete and so she plucked a stone from the mist of myth; it would have to do.
‘Did we really get christened in coats?’
This broke Peg.
‘No!’
‘I remember being hot in that coat.’
‘How could you remember? You weren’t even one.’
‘Babies have brains.’
‘Not ones that can store long-term memories.’
‘Well, not according to Western medicine—’
‘You all had your own robes. There’s no way you and Damien were christened in a coat.’
‘That’s what Dad told me.’
Peg sighed.
‘They didn’t have enough money for three christening robes, so John Paul got the nice one and Damien and I were shoved into some old white coat or a blanket, I can’t remember—’
‘My old robe, you wore my old robe—’
‘And then Father Shaughnessy screamed when he saw the two of us in the same coat, like a two-headed demon. We were shocked so we started to cry—’
‘All babies cry when they’re christened.’
‘And we were screaming and screaming until they took us away from the font and John Paul was christened and then we stopped like magic and the nuns started singing—’
‘It wasn’t The Sound of Music.’
‘The nuns burst into song, all sorts of impossible harmonies, that’s what I heard.’
Rosie followed scripture to the end.
‘Some of them couldn’t even sing. But they had beautiful voices that day, like angels.’
Peg stared at the ceiling, knowing what was coming.
‘It was a miracle.’
Here they were, at the edge of Rosie’s mission, the reason she had returned to New York, against her better judgement: the Unofficial Miracles of Pope John Paul III. Rosie stared at her imagined Blarney Stone; she could just make it out in the dark. Peg would take the bait, Rosie knew she would, letting the silence stretch, a task that years of sharing a bedroom had prepared her for.
‘That’s not what happened,’ Peg said eventually.
Rosie waited a moment.
‘What did happen, then?’
Peg sighed; it was too late to feign sleep. Part of her longed to, wishing she could kick Rosie and her sheet-hogging back into the living room. Another part of her liked this, though, the two of them in the same room, talking in the dark, they way they’d used to back in 7 Dunluce Crescent, Peg’s snores never fooling Rosie, even then.
Peg shifted around. She could just make out Rosie’s eyes in the dark. Here they were, at the edge of the Unofficial Miracles of John Paul Doyle. Peg had them all in her head.
Remember the Scarlet Communion Dress?
Remember the Blessed Shells of Erris?
Remember the Fish Fingers that Fed the Fifty?
Other historians might have picked a different miraculous origin (the bloody tea towel; the singing nuns at the christening) but Peg knew enough about alternative histories to select a miracle where she had a central role.
‘Do you remember The Chronicle of the Children of Lir?’