A History of Loneliness

  Father Haughton arrived after our tea on Tuesday evening and for the second time in a week I found myself escorting someone from outside our family into my bedroom. When I heard his voice in the hallway I knew that it was me who he had come to see and I felt no sense of outrage or humiliation. The truth was that I welcomed his visit; in this, I was different to other boys of my age, who would have wanted the floor to open beneath them and swallow them whole. But I had trust in this man, complete trust, and I thought perhaps he could help me.

  Yes, I trusted him.

  ‘Where will I sit, Odran?’ he asked, looking around the room. ‘Will I take the chair here and you take the bed?’

  I nodded and he sat down at the desk where I often did my homework and looked out of the window at Mrs Rathley’s perfect garden next door. He faced me and smiled and I sat on the bed across from him, ashamed, staring at the floor.

  How old was Father Haughton then? At the time I thought he was about sixty-five, but looking back I suppose he was probably forty at most. He was a thin man, painfully thin, with sharp cheekbones and eyes that sunk deep into his face.

  ‘Are you well, Odran?’ he asked me.

  ‘I’m grand, Father.’

  ‘You’re enjoying school?’

  ‘I am, Father.’

  ‘That’s good. What subjects are you best at, do you think?’

  I thought about it. ‘English, I suppose,’ I said. ‘The reading and that.’

  ‘The reading, yes. And what are you bad at?’

  ‘Geography. And Irish.’

  ‘It’s a difficult language.’

  ‘I was never any good at it, Father.’

  ‘I was never any good at it myself. And what harm did it do me in the end? Did you never think of going to the Gaeltacht over the summer to learn it?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Mam says that all sorts go on there.’

  ‘They do, they do. Lads from all over the country. And girls, too. Getting up to no good. It’s desperate, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is, Father.’

  He sighed and looked around the room, his eyes falling on the photograph of my father that I kept on my bedside table, a publicity still from when he was the Young Covey in The Plough and the Stars. Mam had tried to take it away once but I had refused to give it up; it was the one time, the only time, in my life that I stood my ground with her and won. But it was also the only thing in the room that she never cleaned and every week I had to take a piece of kitchen roll and wipe the dust from the top of the frame.

  ‘You must miss him, do you, Odran?’ asked Father Haughton, pointing at the picture. ‘A man about the house, I mean. A father. You must miss him.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I never knew my father, did you know that, Odran?’

  ‘No, Father.’

  ‘Well you know it now. He died a month before I was born. Took a heart attack as he stood in a queue at the General Post Office, trying to buy a stamp.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Father.’

  ‘Ah sure.’ He looked away and sighed, lost in his own thoughts for a few moments, before turning back to me and offering something like a smile. ‘Do you know why I’m here, Odran?’ he asked.

  I shook my head, even though I knew well.

  ‘Your mam thought we should have a little talk. You don’t mind, do you? You’re willing to have a talk with me?’

  ‘Of course, Father.’

  ‘I was a boy myself once, you know. Don’t laugh’ – I wasn’t laughing – ‘but I know what it is to be a teenage boy. It’s not the easiest time of your life. All that schoolwork. You’re growing up. And then of course, there’s the … what shall we call them … the distractions.’

  I said nothing. I made a resolution with myself that I would not speak, I would not offer anything at all, unless he asked me a direct question. I would let him say whatever needed to be said and I would listen and that would be that.

  ‘Do you find yourself distracted, Odran?’ he asked and I remained silent, swallowing audibly and shrugging my shoulders. ‘Answer me, boy.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ I said.

  ‘In what way do you get distracted?’

  ‘Like I can’t concentrate,’ I suggested, wondering whether this might be the right answer. I thought suddenly of the minutes I spent waiting outside the confession box every Saturday morning where, rather than actually remembering my sins of the previous week, I would use my imagination to think up what I thought the priest wanted to hear. I’d said a bad word. I’d given cheek to my mam. I’d thrown a stone at a boy down the road for no good reason at all.

  ‘And why is it that you can’t concentrate, Odran?’ he asked, leaning forward with a look of concern on his face. ‘Tell me now. This is all just between the two of us. I won’t be talking to your mam about it. Nothing said within these four walls will ever go any further. Why can’t you concentrate?’

  I knew the answer that he wanted, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it; it was too embarrassing. ‘The telly,’ I said. It seemed like as good an answer as any.

  ‘The telly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He considered this. ‘Do you watch a lot of telly, Odran?’ he asked.

  ‘I do,’ I admitted. ‘Mam says I watch too much.’

  ‘And is she right?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What do you watch on the telly, Odran?’

  ‘Whatever’s on.’

  ‘But what? Tell me one of the programmes you like.’

  ‘Top of the Pops,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘That’s the music programme, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is, Father.’

  ‘Do you like the music?’

  ‘I do, Father.’

  ‘Who do you like? What singers?’

  ‘The Beatles,’ I said.

  ‘I heard they broke up.’

  ‘They did,’ I said. ‘But they’ll get back together. Everyone says so.’

  ‘Ah sure that’ll be grand. Who else do you like?’

  ‘Elton John,’ I said. ‘David Bowie.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Sandie Shaw.’

  ‘Now I know her, don’t I?’ he asked, his face lighting up. ‘She sings in her bare feet, doesn’t she?’

  ‘She does, Father.’

  He hesitated for a moment and I noticed how that thin neck of his bulged out as he swallowed. ‘Do you like that, Odran, do you? Watching her on the telly in her bare feet?’

  I shrugged, looking away. ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  ‘I think you do know.’

  ‘She has some good songs,’ I said.

  ‘Does she now? I saw her on the telly myself once, Odran. At the Eurovision Song Contest. Do you watch the Eurovision Song Contest, Odran?’

  ‘I do, Father.’

  ‘Did you see her on it?’

  ‘I did, Father. It was a few years ago now though.’

  ‘And what did you think of her?’

  ‘I thought she was great.’

  ‘Do you want to know what I thought, Odran?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘Will I tell you?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  He leaned forward. ‘I thought she seemed like a dirty girl. Like one of these wans with no sense of decency about her. Showing off her bits and bobs for all the world to see. How will she ever find a man to marry her if she carries on like that, can you tell me that, Odran?’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t know, Father.’ I wanted him to leave.

  ‘There’s a lot of them about though, isn’t there, Odran? Dirty girls. I see them myself, walking up and down the round without an ounce of shame. Sure this parish has gone to hell altogether. I see them at Mass on a Sunday and the way they dress makes it feel like I went to bed in Churchtown but woke up in Sodom and Gomorrah.’

  ‘Both of them, Father?’ I asked, chancing my arm.

  ‘Sodom or Gomorrah then. Was that a joke, Odran?’

  ‘N
o, Father.’

  ‘I hope not. Because this isn’t a laughing matter. No, it isn’t. We’re talking about your soul here. Do you realize that? Your eternal soul. You sit there with your pretty little face, like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, and all the time you’re trying to get away from me so you can go downstairs to watch the dirty girls on the telly. I’m right, Odran, amn’t I? Look at me, Odran.’

  I looked up at him, slowly, and he moved his chair closer. ‘You’re an awful man, aren’t you, Odran?’ he asked quietly. ‘That face of yours,’ he added with a sigh and his hand lifted for a moment to touch me, his fingers stroking my cheek gently. ‘I know that you struggle. We all struggle. But I am here to help you with your struggles, lovely boy.’ He took his hand away and placed them both in his lap as he looked directly at me. ‘Your mam told me what happened with the English girl,’ he said after a long pause.

  ‘Nothing happened, Father,’ I cried, but he raised a hand to silence me.

  ‘Don’t lie to me. I heard all about it from your poor ashamed mother. Imagine you behaving like that in a house like this, where you’ve always been given the best of everything. And hasn’t your poor mother been through enough with the way your father went? And that poor little lad that he took with him, that innocent poor little boy? So don’t sit there and lie to me, Odran. Don’t tell me that nothing happened, because I won’t stand for it, do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Father,’ I said, feeling anxious now, for his voice was rising and growing shrill.

  ‘I want you to tell me what happened with the English girl, the dirty English girl. Tell me what you did with her.’

  I swallowed and tried to find the words. ‘She wanted to see my bedroom,’ I said.

  ‘Of course she did. And what did she do when she came in here?’

  ‘She looked at my books. And my violin. And my posters.’

  ‘And did she tempt you?’

  ‘Father?’

  ‘Did she tempt you, Odran? Don’t pretend that you don’t know what I mean.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Did you kiss her, Odran?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘Did you like it, Odran?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How can you not know?’

  ‘I liked it well enough.’

  He breathed heavily through his nostrils and shifted on the chair. His thin face had grown flushed now. ‘And what did she do then, Odran? Did she show you anything?’

  I looked up, willing him to leave me alone.

  ‘Her little titties,’ he said and now I noticed how yellow his teeth were. Did he ever clean them at all? ‘Did she show you her little titties, Odran? Did she ask you to touch them?’

  I felt my stomach sink inside me. What was he asking? ‘No, Father,’ I said.

  ‘Did she touch you. Did she touch you down there?’ He nodded towards my crotch. ‘Tell me what she did, Odran. Did she touch you? Did you touch yourself? Did you show her what you’ve got? Are you a dirty boy, Odran, are you? I’d say you are. I’d say you get up to all sorts in this room, do you, Odran? Late at night. When you think no one can hear you. Are you a dirty boy, Odran, are you? You can tell me, come on.’

  I started to cry. I felt the room spinning, as if I was going to faint. He was saying more, lots more, but I didn’t hear very much of it. He moved closer to me, sat on the bed beside me now and put his arm around me, pulling me close to him, and started whispering in my ear and telling me how the dirty girls were out to corrupt all the good boys, the pretty boys, and we had to be strong and we should put our faith in each other and find comfort with the people we knew and the people we trusted and he was my friend and wanted me to know that I could trust him and sure wasn’t it all a bit of fun and nothing to worry about and I think I did faint then, for when I opened my eyes again I was lying back on the bed, the room was empty, Father Haughton was gone, and the door was closed.

  I sat up and stared across at the poster of Pluto, who was watching me with that great big smirk on his face and that obscene tongue of his lolling out like he wanted to lick me off the bed and swallow me whole; a moment later I was on my feet and ripping it off the wall, tearing that bloody dog into pieces and crumpling the bits into my wastepaper basket. I sat down on the bed and thought about things for a long time. And I moved some things to one part of my mind, and other things to another, where they stayed for many years to come. Then I went into the bathroom, washed myself, and went downstairs, where I found Mam crying at the kitchen table.

  ‘Mam,’ I said. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m happy, Odran,’ she said, looking up at me, her eyes red-rimmed. ‘That’s all. I’m happy. Father Haughton says it’s true, that you do have a vocation. He says that I’m right and that you should be a priest. Did you tell him that, Odran? Did you tell him that you want to be a priest?’

  And I stood there at that kitchen table as my mother cried and there I was, little more than an innocent child. And for all the memories that come flooding back when I think of those days, for all the fine detail of these recollections, for the life of me I can’t remember what it is I said to her in reply. But I know that it wasn’t long afterwards that I arrived at Clonliffe College on the bus while Tom Cardle made his way up from Wexford on his father’s tractor.

  And Father Haughton? Well, he died a few weeks later. He was crossing over to St Stephen’s Green from Dawson Street and wasn’t looking where he was going and didn’t he only get hit by a number 11 bus on its way to Drumcondra.

  Crowds turned out for his funeral. Crowds.

  CHAPTER SIX

  2010

  IT WON’T BE for ever, you don’t need to worry about that. Just a few years. And then I’ll send you back to your school, I promise.

  That’s what Archbishop Cordington – by now, of course, Cardinal Cordington – had said to me when I sat in the Apostolic Palace in 2006. Four years had passed since then and I was a curate still, in Tom Cardle’s old parish, with no sign of a return to the Eden I had once enjoyed. By now, most of the boys I had taught had completed their Junior Certs, their Leaving Certs, and were sitting in lecture halls in Trinity College, travelling by train from Paris to Berlin with a Eurorail pass secured in their backpacks or working with their daddies in banks or property management companies, wondering whether this was it now, whether this was where they were to stay till their own sons were born and reared to take over from them.

  One lad had died, a boy I knew only vaguely, killed when he took his car out along the M50 towards Dún Laoghaire while he had drink on him, taking himself, his girlfriend, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend with him. The funeral took place in the church at Terenure and the celebrant, the same Father Ngezo who had replaced me four years earlier, spoke in his deep voice of the boy’s commitment to the Leinster Schools Cup, a thought which could not have been much comfort to the three sets of grieving parents whose lives he had shattered. Another had reached the final stages of a television talent show and was all over the papers; it was said that he would earn millions over the coming years with the right management. A third had been arrested for an assault on a young girl at a local disco; he swore he was innocent but I remembered that boy’s attitude in the classroom, the swagger of him, the privileged vulgarity he cultivated among his entitled entourage, and somehow doubted that peacock’s blamelessness. I followed his trial carefully and was glad not to be called as a character witness; he was found guilty, but of course his daddy pulled a few strings and the boy served not a single day in jail for his crime. The judge declared that the boy had a bright future ahead of him and it would be a shame to deny him a second chance; community service was his punishment. One hundred hours. This was the difference between committing a crime south of the Liffey and north. A picture of the boy smirking on the front page of the Indo the next day, while the poor girl he attacked was shown walking out of the courthouse in tears, w
as enough to make you want to take a can of petrol and a match to all those high-walled schools that would see him and his ilk hailed as heroes for once running down 140 metres of grass to plant a ball on a painted white line.

  And yet I missed it, for all that. And I desperately wanted to return.

  I dreaded to think about the condition that the library, my library, might be in by now. Books out of place, authors shelved in the wrong sections. This modern thing that everyone claims to have, the OCD, when it came to the arrangement of the stacks in my library I always thought that I had a touch of that. But it gave me pleasure in the evenings, when the boys were foot-dragging their way home, to tidy that room, to put everything back where it ought to be. It relaxed me. And in my vanity I assumed that whoever was looking after it now would never appreciate my sense of order.

  Instead, I had been forced to settle into parish life, some aspects of which, the pastoral aspects, I came to enjoy and even grew better at as time went on. I felt my relationship with God grow in a way that it never had at the school. Prayer became more important to me than keeping order in the stacks. I had more time to myself and I spent much of it in contemplation, recalling the reasons why I had felt suited to the priesthood in the first place. I spent more time with my Bible, trying to scrape the surface of understanding it. I thought about my Church, the things that made me feel proud of it, the things that bothered me about it. And through it all, I felt like a better man, a more worthwhile man, and yet in my selfishness I still longed to go home.

  There were three of us in community together: the parish priest, an elderly man named Father Burton, quiet but hardworking. Committed to his vocation. And his two helpmeets, Father Cunnane and I. Father Burton lived apart from us with only his housekeeper for company, a formidable woman who treated him like a child, washing his clothes and cooking his dinners while acting with the authority of a Swiss Guard when it came to unwanted visitors. Father Cunnane and I had no such luxuries, living next door to each other in two small apartments annexed to the church. We didn’t get along, the pair of us, and would you believe me if I said that it was not my fault but his? He was younger than me, of course, only in his early thirties, and all the man wanted to talk about was rugby this and soccer that, boxing this and horse-racing that. I swear he would have been better off as the sports correspondent for The Irish Times than living as a curate in a North Dublin parish, and he in turn seemed annoyed to be forced to work alongside a man twenty years his senior, showing his contempt for me whenever I displayed an ignorance about the sporting events that so fascinated him.