‘So tell me all about yourselves. I can’t tell you how exciting this is for me. You know, I only found out about your dad a matter of months ago and to be sitting here with you right here, right now — well. I just don’t know what to say.’
Mary Rose was looking up through her lashes at Viv and smiling, while Pohraig was staring on, a frozen look on his face, his mind no doubt on other things.
‘So, I’m sorry to rush right in here but, hey, what can I say — I’m a New Yorker — is it too much to ask you to talk about your dad? I’ve just got so many questions but I don’t want to upset either of you. Is that okay?’
Mary Rose looked at her brother, then took a deep breath and started to speak.
‘Of course, Vivienne,’ she said in a surprisingly strong voice for one who seemed so meek. ‘This must be pretty painful for you too. We realise that. Shall I start by filling you in a little on the details and then we can take it from there.’
‘Ah, but here comes Gerry with a round of drinks,’ Pohraig broke in. ‘I’ll grab that pint, Gerry, was that for me? Right so.’
Mary Rose shot him a look and continued. ‘I’m 33 and Pohraig here is 30. We grew up not half an hour from here in a place called Tarooragh.’ She stopped and watched her brother gulp his pint.
‘Our mother died when I was six — are you all right with this, Father Paudie? Shall I go on?’ Mary Rose looked across at her brother and reached over and squeezed his hand. He took another gulp from his pint.
‘We were brought up by our father, Tom — your brother, Vivienne. He was a great man. He was a great man, all right. Very well thought of in Tarooragh, that’s for sure. He farmed cattle and he bred some of the best working dogs in the area. He loved animals.’
Pohraig downed another third of his pint. Molly was whipping through her martini or whatever it was. Vivienne hadn’t touched hers. Mary Rose was sipping at a Coke, and Gerry was beaming and smiling at the lot of them and didn’t have a drink at all.
‘The thing is, you have to realise that it isn’t easy to bring up two children on your own in an isolated area like Tarooragh,’ Mary Rose went on. ‘He was lonely. Sure, it was a pretty desperate life he was living. Even we could see that. So when Pohraig went up to Dublin, to the seminary — oh we were so proud — Dada sort of, er …’
‘He died?’ asked Viv. Mary Rose shook her head.
‘He drank?’
‘Oh, no. Dada never touched a drop. He just, er …’
‘What is it, Mary Rose? What happened?’
‘He just disappeared,’ Pohraig interjected, finishing his pint. ‘He just up and ran away on us.’
Mary Rose looked at him with a pained expression.
‘Drinks, anyone?’ Molly asked, rising to her feet. ‘I’m going to the bar.’
Viv and Mary Rose shook their heads. ‘I’ll have a pint, thanks, Molly,’ Pohraig said miserably, and she snatched up his empty glass and left.
‘Pohraig, I am so sorry,’ Viv said softly. ‘It must have come as a terrible shock. To the both of you. Where did he go?’
‘Well, for the first year we didn’t have a clue but then I got a letter from somewhere in Nepal,’ explained Mary Rose, ‘saying that he loved us both dearly but that he had found a new life and wanted us to carry on ours without him.’
She put her hand on her brother’s, which was clenched and lying on the table.
‘And that’s just what we did. Pohraig and me against the world.’
‘Pint,’ said Molly, sloshing Pohraig’s drink down on the table in front of him with a thud.
‘Molly, be careful!’ her aunt scolded her. ‘You spilled it.’
‘Oh, I’ll be careful, all right,’ Molly said, cryptically, taking a slug of her new martini. ‘I will be very careful from now on, Viv, you can be sure of that.’
Viv looked at her niece, perplexed. Boy, but the girl was moody.
‘So you never saw your father again?’ she asked the priest.
‘Well, I had plans to go looking for him when I was younger but the money was a problem,’ Pohraig was rattling through his second pint as well, ‘and when I got older I started to think that if the man didn’t want us to find him, perhaps we shouldn’t go looking.’
Viv looked unbearably sad and even Molly felt a stab of sympathy for this poor little dysfunctional family.
‘Oh, but Pohraig, I don’t think that’s true. I would have gone looking for him if I’d known about him. I would have. Whether he wanted me to or not.’
‘I think it’s important to be realistic, though, Vivienne,’ Pohraig said. ‘After all, he knew about you but he didn’t go looking.’
‘Well, that’s a horrible thing to say,’ spat Molly. ‘What kind of a priest are you?’
‘Molly!’ Vivienne turned on her niece. ‘What the hell has gotten into you? Pohraig, I am so sorry. She’s just not herself at the moment. Please, Molly, get a grip. Pohraig is absolutely right. Tom obviously didn’t want to be found so maybe it’s better this way. He got what he wanted and here I am sitting with his two wonderful children and just look at them — if only Bobs was here to see you two. I’m sure she will want to come now we’ve found you.’
‘Right so,’ Gerry said politely. ‘And who is Bobs?’
‘That’s Molly’s mother, my sister,’ Viv said. ‘She couldn’t make it this trip but I’m sure she will want to in the future.’
‘From New Zealand, is she?’ Gerry asked. ‘Well, there will always be a room for her at Ballymahoe, of that she can be sure.’
‘So you live in Ballymahoe, then, Pohraig?’ Molly asked, finishing off her drink.
‘No, no, we’ve brought him here specially to meet you,’ Gerry interjected.
‘That’s right, yes,’ Pohraig said dully, staring into the fire.
‘From Cork City at the moment but a young priest never knows where he’s about to be sent,’ Gerry beamed at Pohraig. ‘Isn’t that so, Father?’
‘That’s right, yes.’
‘Mary Rose, on the other hand, lives right here in the village and you can contact her anytime you want to.’
Mary Rose looked at Vivienne and smiled and Molly was suddenly struck by how pretty her cousin would be without the lank hair and thick spectacles and dowdy clothes.
Sensing she was being watched, Mary Rose turned to her. ‘How did you break your arm, then?’ she asked, eyeing the cast as Molly clutched her empty martini glass.
‘Oh, I had a bit of a fall in Dublin, at a nightclub actually. The Sugar Club — do you know it? Salsa night.’
‘Oh, I’ve never been up to Dublin,’ Mary Rose gasped. ‘Or to a nightclub.’ She emphasised ‘nightclub’ as though it were ‘whore-house’ or ‘crack den’.
‘I’d like to, though. Go up to Dublin, that is.’
Viv smiled at her. ‘Perhaps you can come up with us on our way back? Molly could even take you out dancing — if you’re not scared of winding up in hospital that is.’
Mary Rose’s eyes widened for a moment and then she looked quickly across at Gerry. ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly,’ she said, flustered. ‘I couldn’t get away. No, it wouldn’t work. Not at all. I shouldn’t have said anything about it. Going to Dublin.’
Viv, slightly bewildered, saw that she had upset the girl.
‘Of course you can’t just leave everything at the drop of a hat, Mary Rose, it was silly of me to even mention it. Gerry, would you like a drink? I think Pohraig would and, oh, what a surprise, Molly too.’ She looked darkly at her niece, who ignored her.
‘Ah, no, I’m right as rain, Ms Connor, but can I leave you for a moment — there’s a man in the corner I’m desperate to catch up with. Okay there, Mary Rose?’
Vivienne and Gerry dispersed into the crowded bar, leaving the three cousins on their own.
‘I’m just going to the toilet,’ Mary Rose said nervously, and, standing abruptly, disappeared.
‘You bastard,’ Molly wasted no time laying into Pohraig. ‘You complete and utt
er wanker. And they wonder why young people turn away from the church. What sort of an example are you setting exactly? Oh,’ she laughed bitterly and drained her drink, ‘I suppose I should be grateful it’s strange women you’re after and not little boys.’
‘I’m so sorry, Molly,’ Pohraig started to say, ‘but it’s not—’
‘I told you everything,’ Molly said, tears springing into her eyes. ‘I told you all about me and Jack and what a shitty, horrible time I was having and then we had such fun and now I find out you’re a priest and you’re my cousin but last night I thought that you, that there, that we …’ She floundered and fizzled.
‘That what, Molly? That there was something between us?’ Pohraig had an unreadable look in his eyes. ‘What are you upset about: that I’m a priest or that I’m your cousin? Or that I left you there like that?’
‘What does it matter?’
‘It matters a lot. I might not always be in the church.’
Molly gagged on a piece of ice.
‘What kind of a priest are you? Remind me not to come to you for confession. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It is two months since my last confession. Since then I have danced the fandango with the local parish priest, let him feel me up, tongue-kissed him and then—’
‘And then what, Molly?’
She didn’t answer him, looking over his shoulder instead for any sign of Vivienne’s return.
‘And then wished that he hadn’t run off and left me? Is that what you wish, Molly?’ The priest looked quickly around him and then leaned over and grabbed Molly by the wrist. ‘I haven’t stopped thinking about you for even a second,’ he hissed. ‘Have you any idea how much I wanted to stay with you in that room? I’ve been racking my brains all day trying to figure out how to track you down. I made a mistake last night, Molly, a huge mistake, but there are things about me that you just can’t know right now.’
‘Well, the whole priest thing has come as something of a surprise,’ Molly said dryly, trying to pull her arm away, but at the same time tingling from his touch.
‘I thought you were going to Cork. I didn’t think for a moment—’
‘You two seem to be getting on much better, thank God — oh, sorry, Pohraig,’ said Vivienne, arriving with their drinks. ‘I can see that having a man of the cloth in the family is going to take some getting used to.’
She watched in amazement as Pohraig downed half his pint in one gulp and Molly knocked back the best part of her cocktail.
‘Jesus bloody Christ himself couldn’t have put it better, Viv,’ said Molly, feeling Brendan’s specialty finally hit the spot. Oblivion was close. Everything suddenly seemed much, much better and as she looked at her aunt’s shocked face and Pohraig’s handsome one, she suddenly started to laugh. The impact of her three-day drinking spree suddenly addled her brains.
‘Drink!’ she yelled almost deliriously as Mary Rose slunk back to the table. ‘Feck! Women!’
‘Is she all right?’ Mary Rose asked.
‘I have absolutely no idea,’ said Viv. ‘Let’s just ignore her.’
Molly rose to her feet and started sashaying to imaginary music as she wiggled her way up to the bar. A warm feeling washed through her and nothing mattered any more.
‘Brrrrrendan, my good man!’ she said happily. ‘A bottle of your finest Bailey’s Irish Cream! To go on Vivvy’s tab. And another one of your little specialties while I’m waiting.’
Brendan, not that Molly noticed, looked swiftly around for Gerry but couldn’t quite place him. ‘You’re sure about that, now, are you, Molly?’ he asked. She nodded vigorously in reply.
‘Everything going okay over there?’
‘Oh, it couldn’t be better,’ said Molly, clicking her fingers and boogying to her own tune. ‘I have two new cousins and one is a Catholic priest.’
‘Well, you couldn’t ask for much more than that, now, could you?’
‘Couldn’t I? Excuse me,’ she said to an old man who was sitting at the bar, sipping on his pint and watching her in amazement. ‘You are very, very spunky. Would you like to dance?’
Mickey O’Meara just about choked on his pint. ‘Is she talking to me, Brendan?’ he asked the barman.
‘There is only one good-looking guy in this whole place and it is you, Mister,’ Molly said, pulling the 85-year-old to his feet.
‘When I get this feeling,’ she sang, throwing her arms in the air and attempting the hustle, ‘I want sexual healing.’ Mickey clutched at his walking stick, which promptly fell down between his stool and the bar.
‘Come on, Big Boy,’ Molly said, bumping the man with her hips as he bent to pick up his stick. ‘I believe in miracles, you sexy thing, you sexy thing, you.’
Mickey stood up straight with a look of pure terror on his face. ‘God help me, Brendan. She’s after killing me!’
A tall good-looking man in his forties was watching from the end of the bar, highly amused. Putting down his glass, he sidled up to Molly and placed himself between her and the terrified Mickey.
‘A girl as gorgeous as yourself shouldn’t be wasting her time on Grandpa over here,’ he whispered in her ear, narrowly missing her plaster cast as it whisked around in front of her. ‘I’m Colm. I’ll dance with you.’
Molly’s eyes were shut and she was living in a world inhabited solely by Ricky Martin and La Vida Loca.
‘Put a bullet in your brain, wipe away your pain,’ she sang as Colm pressed himself into her groin, Brendan and Mickey looking on in disgust.
‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ the barman said.
‘You’ve got a bad feeling?’ Mickey grumbled. ‘I think my heart’s going to explode. Did you see that girl try and knock me off my feet?’
‘Where the hell did Gerry go?’ Brendan asked, looking over the heads in the busy bar to try to spot him.
‘I think he’s talking to Eamon about that South African business. They might need Betsy to step in and the old wagon is putting up a struggle, all right. Do you mind?’
He was talking to Molly’s butt, which was knocking his stool as she sexy-danced with Colm.
‘If she starts taking off her clothes, I’m leaving,’ the old man said grumpily.
‘Let’s go, gorgeous,’ Colm was whispering in Molly’s ear. ‘Come outside with me.’
Molly, her hands held high above her head, mid-swivel, opened her eyes and looked at him. It wasn’t the best light in the world but he looked okay. Better than the old fella, anyway.
‘Okay,’ she said, reaching over to the bar and draining her cocktail, then swiping the bottle of Bailey’s. ‘Hurrah,’ she said to Brendan who was busy giving Colm the evil eye.
‘If you so much as—’ he started to warn the big man.
‘Just taking the young lady home, Brendan. No need to get your knickers in a twist. Goodnight, gentlemen,’ and he turned the slightly swooning Molly towards the door and steered her out into the night.
The cold night air did nothing to sober her up. If anything, it made her feel even more lightheaded.
‘I’m a genie in a bottle, baby,’ she sang as she ran to the stone wall at the water’s edge. ‘It’s beautiful. Look, um, Thingie, isn’t it beautiful?’
She flopped onto the wall and stared out at the water, undoing the top of the bottle of Irish cream and taking a sip. Colm sat beside her and put his arms around her, gently kissing the back of her neck.
‘There’s only one thing around here that’s beautiful, baby, and that’s you,’ he murmured, his hands moving slowly up to her breasts as he slipped a finger inside the low-cut neck of her dress.
Molly sat still and took another swig from the bottle, the music suddenly gone from her head and a huge solitary tear making its way from her eye down her cheek to fall on Colm’s wrist. He didn’t notice.
‘Get your hands off her.’ The voice made them both jump and Molly turned around to see it was Pohraig, carrying her coat.
‘Go away,’ Colm said, not moving.
/> ‘I said get your hands off her or I will be on the phone to your wife so fast she will be down here and boxing your ears before you can say “Don’t beat me”.’
Colm withdrew his hand from Molly’s bodice with almost indecent haste and, standing up, spat at Pohraig: ‘You would, too, you little prick,’ before turning his back on them and marching up the road, away from the pub.
Pohraig and Molly watched his retreating back, then Pohraig moved slowly towards the wall and slipped the coat over Molly’s shoulders. She took another swig out of the bottle and wiped her wet eyes with the back of her hand.
‘Come on, Molly,’ he said gently. ‘Your aunt has asked me to see you home.’ She stood up unsteadily and Pohraig helped her slip properly into her coat.
Putting his arm around her, he steered her in the direction of the hill road up to Nell’s. Staggering slightly, she leaned into his armpit.
Neither of them spoke until they reached the driveway of the stone cottage, and then Molly turned to look at Pohraig, taking in his beautiful smooth skin and his sad green eyes.
‘He shouldn’t have called you a prick,’ she said sadly, feeling the hiccups coming on.
‘Molly,’ said Pohraig softly, ‘there’s so much I want to tell you.’ And reaching one of his big, strong arms around the small of her back, he pulled her to him and kissed her like she had never been kissed before.
Chapter 32
Late 1990
‘And then,’ Patty Patinkin was explaining to her coffee group, ‘the bus arrived at Ballymahoe and just look at this gorgeous little pub.’ She clicked the remote on the slide machine and a slightly out of focus image of Sullivan’s est. 1654 filled up the screen.
‘They had the most darling polo shirts for sale,’ she told the women. ‘I bought one in every colour for Laurie and Lou got one for Lenny too. Green.’
She smiled at her friend Lou, sitting on the flowery sofa balancing a coffee on her knee, who smiled back. The trip had been just what Lou needed and Patty was sure that husband of hers seemed to have returned to the nest, for the time being anyway. Leastways, Laurie said that little strumpet of a receptionist was no longer there.