The Old Ways

    His head was killing him.

Eamon Ahearne’s wake was in full swing when Father Brian McCracken grudgingly made his apologies and left, weaving unsteadily to his rooms through the unlit streets in the wee small hours.

Waking with a pounding behind his eyes and a mouth filled with sand, McCracken reached for his clock, cursing Saturday morning and needing to be at the church of St Francis Xavier to undertake the morning’s sacrament of reconciliation.

“Never again,” he muttered.

    Collar turned up against the cruel wind from the river, he stumbled on the uneven pavements, cursing under his breath. Lighting a cigarette, coughing as he turned south onto Page Street, bitterly cold rain accompanying every step.

    He looked left and right at the pitiful state of the surviving houses stubbornly standing after the bombings of ’41, watching children play amongst the rubble where they built forts. The monochrome, sordid, smut covered buildings housed many of his congregation, each property beyond dereliction, dark and unwelcoming.

Even after all these years, attending the sick and needy in these places made him shudder. Families of seven or eight or often more would be crammed into one room, sharing a single cold water tap between six houses.

He witnessed the squalor and disease that came with it, babes dying within hours of being born, mothers dead with infection soon after. With fathers away at sea, at the docks or drunk, building roads and railways far from Liverpool, orphans and abandoned children were another responsibility for McCracken’s parish of All Saints. A charitable pipeline through Catholic orphanages. Some kids got lucky and escaped the Jesuit Brothers or the Sisters of Mercy, adopted into nice homes by nice families offering electricity, running water and occasionally love.

    He dodged the grim faced women in headscarves and old coats all of whom nodded respectfully to him as they pushed second-hand prams and dragged along wailing infants. Catcalls and shouting rang throughout the neighbourhood; life was everywhere, thriving despite the odds. Some children were even playing hopscotch or some such game with chalk on the flagstones.

Spying the church tower and its tall spire, McCracken breathed a sigh of relief as no doubt Mrs Donnolly would have a cup of strong, hot sweet tea waiting for him. He slowed as he thought he heard his name being called, followed by faint laughter. The kids round here were disrespectful little bastards.

He stopped because the voices had a quality to them he couldn’t quite pin down yet triggered a childhood memory. Was it a song they were singing, or some words from the old land?

He pushed on, through the creaking gate and into the relative warmth and comfort of the church.

“There you are, Father,” scolded Mrs Donnelly. “You had me worrying something was wrong, you not being here to hear the confessions.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs Donnelly,” McCracken said, slipping off his coat and giving it a shake.

“You were at poor Councillor Ahearne’s funeral weren’t you now?”

“I was.”

McCracken rubbed the bridge of his nose, the echoes of whiskey in his throat turned his stomach.

“Here’s a nice cup of tea to be getting on with.”

McCracken allowed Mrs Donnelly to fuss about him, twittering and flattening his gold edged violet stole.

“You’ll never guess who’s come in this morning?”

Mrs Donnelly’s tone turned a mite spiteful as she lowered her voice.

“Her from Page Street as had those run-ins with poor Councillor Ahearne.”

McCracken raised his hand and pressed a finger to his lips.

“Thank you for your kind assistance, Mrs Donnelly. I think I’d better crack on.”

Coughs and whispered voices, in prayer or gossip echoed within the depths of St Francis Xavier. A whiff of incense drifted towards the confessional as Father McCracken sat down and placed the cup of hot tea on a little shelf beside the screen, an allowance, along with the cushion on the cold wooden pew, he felt he’d earned after all these years.

He preferred not to see who was waiting. Invariably he’d know them by the sound of their voice, their profile in silhouette behind the screen if he cared to look, which, to be honest, he didn’t. He’d seen and heard it all before.

Sipping his tea, the bloody headache wouldn’t shift. He’d have to pop out and ask Mrs Donnelly if she had any aspirin on her person.

The door opened and closed on the other side of the screen, and someone sat down with a creak. They didn’t speak at first, but he could hear her breath, soft and controlled.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

Her voice was familiar, but like the chatter on the street outside the church, he couldn’t quite put a face to it. The Irish accent, like his, was strong. First generation migrant. Silence followed the customary salutation.

“Go on, my child.”

There was a brief hesitation before the woman spoke again.

“I played my part in a man’s death.”

McCracken held the hot tea to his lips, trying to sip quietly. He turned his head to make out the woman’s profile, but she wore a long scarf tied under her chin which blurred her features.

“What makes you believe you’ve played a part?”

There was another long pause, with only the sound of the woman’s breathing.

“Action was necessary father. I used the old ways to protect my family.”

She paused for a moment. There was a very faint sound just on the borders of hearing. McCracken again was reminded of something from his past. Were the sounds coming from outside the church or within?

A more earthly clatter made him jump, followed by Mrs Donnelly’s piercing remonstrations with the two young girls who’d dropped a vase whilst arranging the altar flowers.

“Go on,” McCracken said gently.

“As I said, it was necessary. May I ask you a question first, Father?”

“Of course, and I’ll do my best to answer, but remember, you are here before Christ to confess your sins and to hear what penance God requires of you. Is that clear?”

There was a silence and what may have been an uncomfortable shifting on the hard seat.

“You knew Councillor Eamon Ahearne did you not?”

“Very well, yes. He was a friend to the church and to the community. His is a sad loss.”

There was what may have been a snort from the woman, and McCracken felt he could hear a smile in her voice.

“A friend to some that’s for sure, but not to all.”

McCracken was aware of a scuffling near his feet. He knew better than to interrupt the flow of the sacrament so didn’t open the door to see who or what it was. He hoped it wasn’t rats again. The slums were a breeding ground for the fecking things, they costing a fortune in repairs by ruining the electric wires and wooden panelling.

“Why do you mention the late Eamon Ahearne? His death was a natural one. Tragic yes, but by no means anything other than a heart attack, seen by many including myself.”

McCracken had witnessed death many times. He’d attended to the frail, the sick and the suffering, reading them their last rites. Victims of violence and poverty and drunkenness and inequality.

Ahearne had been speaking at the City Council meeting on the proposed slum clearances and rehoming outside the city. He’d been a passionate advocate for change, to improve people’s lives by offering them homes fit for families to grow and thrive. He’d spoken with passion, a fervour McCracken himself could no longer summon.

“He brought it upon himself, Father.”

“You can’t blame yourself for poor Eamon’s death. It won’t be down to anything you’ve done.”

McCracken’s tone was a shade too mocking but bugger it, he thought, it’s the whiskey talking.

He listened to the woman’s breathing. Nearby he could just about make out other voices, faint and high pitched like those of children, but somehow different.

“Did you hear that?” the woman asked.

“Hear what?”

“I know you did. You paused to listen.”

McCracken gently pushed the door ajar to peep towards the altar, but the only people present had their heads bowed in solitary prayer. He allowed the door to close, hearing nothing more.

He coughed. This confession was getting nowhere, and he needed to move her on.

“You must be clearer. Please, explain what you think you may have done to influence Councillor Ahearne’s death.”

“When you come to the homes of us that live around here, have you noticed what sits on our windowsills?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. Tell me.”

“A small saucer or dish of water. We all have them. Before we start our day we let the morning light bless the water and then we splash ourselves with it. It cleanses us, sets us up fresh for the day.”

McCracken shook his head, although a tiny fluttering image arose in his memory. His grandmother’s home in Kilkenny. Sunlight reflecting off a saucer of water, making images dance across the low limewashed ceiling.

“Why do you tell me this?”

“Do you have any thoughts about Saint Patrick, Father?”

His hangover wasn’t getting any better and nor was his temper. This was neither the time nor place for games.

“I suggest you pray to our Lady and ask her for clarity in your thoughts and actions. Ask for guidance and be willing to listen to her answers. This will help you come to me with a clear mind, willing to accept God’s forgiveness.”

“Have you seen the snakes, Father?”

About to snap a reply, McCracken hesitated. Laughter, mocking and cruel from somewhere nearby, but so quiet as to almost be mistaken as the rushing of whiskey in his blood.

An image flashed before him. The battered houses with broken windows. The women pushing the prams. The kids playing on the pavement with chalk. A spiral on the ground.

“Snakes?”

“That’s right, Father. Didn’t Saint Patrick drive all the snakes from Ireland?”

He bowed his head and closed his eyes. The woman’s breathing was even, calm. He felt no contrition in her, only the arrogance of someone who knows a secret they refuse to tell.

“What do you want?”

His voice was stern.

“To confess. I used the old ways to end a man’s life, and it was justified.”

Resisting the desire to splinter the lattice screen and wrap his hands around the woman’s throat, he took a deep breath, exhaled fumes, and looked into his empty tea cup.

His grandmother had read the leaves, back in the day. Neighbours would consult old Mrs McCracken, and she’d patiently advise them, from the little bare table in the farm cottage, of whether they should first repair their wall in the field or see to the hole in their roof. Harmless. He barely recalled her now, she’d died before he’d left for the seminary in England. Why should this memory arise?

“Then tell me, what do you believe you did that led to the death of Eamon Ahearne?”

“I saw you there, Father. At the meeting in the town hall. We went, those of us that could. We were in the gallery, but I daresay you didn’t notice us.”

She gave a deep sigh.

“Ahearne was pontificating, so he was, pounding with his hands and telling all and sundry about how us that lived in those slums were all away with the fairies by wanting to stay in the city. We wasn’t educated enough to know that what we needed to do was shut up and move into nice new houses outside of Liverpool.”

She paused, and suddenly McCracken recalled the image of Mary Maguire. He knew he’d recognised her voice. Big family, one brother and six sisters, her sons and daughters all living around Sim Street and Langsdale Street. She still had little ones of her own on Page Street.

“I was there remember, and I don’t recall it in quite the same way. Carry on.”

He listened to her grow quiet before she spoke quickly, “When the bombings came in 1941, Ahearne was nowhere to be seen. How many died in your parish, Father? You stayed.”

“I don’t recall.”

“A hundred and seven. Women and children and a few of the older folk who didn’t reach the shelters in time. You and the Bishop conducted the funeral services. Everyone told us to go, get out of the city. But we stayed, my family and the other families from the old land. We kept ourselves going with no help from anyone except handouts from the church. We had to stay and guard the forts.”

McCracken clearly remembered the bombings. Terrified, huddled inside shelters as the pounding, brutal onslaught went on from dusk until dawn. In daylight he’d walked the broken streets, properties still aflame, distraught at the sight of houses flattened or blown apart leaving no floors but with shredded curtains at windows, prints of our Lady swinging on exposed walls.

“Did you hear that?”

It was McCracken’s turn to ask. He’d heard whispering and giggling nearby.

“Oh, I hear it alright, Father.”

He opened the door again and looked about. Mrs Donnelly was bearing armfuls of greenery towards the altar. The bowed heads were still there, lit by beams of grey light through the large arched windows. Was the noise coming from one of the side chapels, Our Lady of the Rosary perhaps, or the Sacred Heart?

“You won’t see them unless they want you to.”

The woman’s voice was hard and matter of fact.

“What won’t?” asked McCracken.

Laughing quietly, the woman remarked.

“Eamon Ahearne knew what he was up against in the end, that’s for sure.”

McCracken felt unwell.

He recalled the meeting when a number of Ahearne’s supporters grew concerned as the councillor abruptly stopped his impassioned plea for the demolition of the slums. He’d watched as the man ran a chubby finger along the rim of his tight shirt collar, beads of sweat visible on his forehead. Ahearne became breathless and leaned forward, supporting himself on the lectern, before grabbing his left arm, eyes wide with shock and pain. He hit the floor with a thud and the moment of horrified silence was broken by screams and cries for help.

McCracken knelt over the man as an ambulance was called, comforting him as his breaths grew increasingly uneven, knowing Ahearne was dying. He made the sign of the cross, whispering a request for Ahearne to offer up any sins he wished reconciled and sought penance for, to which there was no response except an unintelligible whisper. Hurriedly delivering the prayer of the Apostle’s Creed, he used his small phial of Holy Water to anoint the dying man’s clammy forehead. People around him joined in the Lord’s Prayer as McCracken heard Ahearne’s last rattling gasp and the man’s hand fell limp in the priest’s palm.

“You’re thinking about Ahearne, aren’t you, Father?”

The woman’s voice was hard and pitiless.

“Better you think about the families torn apart by these fecking plans to uproot us and scatter us to the four winds.”

The priest looked at his hands, veins standing out, his nails dirty and cracked, fingers stained yellow with nicotine. They shook.

“Eamon Ahearne was a good man. He only ever thought of our community.”

“He was the churches’ blunt instrument. He only ever thought of the backhanders he’d get when his brother won the redevelopment contracts. Ain’t that so, Father? Isn’t it the truth that the church is behind the developers?”

“Rumours and gossip.”

“Confession is good for the soul, isn’t that so, Father?”

McCracken had had enough.

“Leave now. When you’ve spent time in prayer and reflection, then, and only then, should you come back to me and seek God’s forgiveness. Do you hear me, Mary Maguire?”

He looked across and saw she’d already gone.

He felt lightheaded. He pushed the small door aside and stepped unsteadily on the stone floor, smudging something with his wet shoes.

What in the name of God was this?

A wide spiral, drawn in green chalk, stretched around the confessional, winding itself in to a point just beneath his seat.

How was this possible? The confessional was heavy, it never moved, and surely he’d have seen such mischief the moment he arrived. It wouldn’t have missed Mrs Donnelley’s sharp eye either.

 His grandmother’s voice, soft and warm as a freshly baked loaf, drifted close.

“Remember Brian, before the church, we had the little folk and our old ways. Saint Patrick may have driven out the snakes, but we held tight to some things. The Faerie Forts out near the river, they’re ours to protect. We look after our own, so we do.”

McCracken stumbled and fell to his knees with a sharp crack. He cried out but he appeared to be alone. His hands disturbed more of the chalk, and he tried rubbing it off, but he felt exhausted and hot, ever so hot.

There was that laughter again, barely there, taunting him.

He tried to speak but his mouth was dry and slow, his throat closed up. He felt disorientated, his eyes swam, and he felt dizzy. He fell heavily onto his side, looking up at the high ceiling filled with shadows.

More laughter, closer now. McCracken could hear that scrabbling again, rats, mice, something?

Images tumbled, one after the other.

A spiral, here in St Francis Xavier.

A spiral, on the street where Mary Maguire lived.

A spiral, on the council chamber lectern.

A spiral, on Grandma’s kitchen floor.

A spiral, curling around the Faerie Forts of Kilkenny.

The twisting snake St Patrick failed to excise.

McCracken clutched his arm, then his chest, which felt as if he were being pressed in a vice.

He was vaguely aware of people around him.

Mrs Donnelly screamed for help. She leaned in close as he tried to whisper over jubilant cackling.

“Did you hear that?”

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