by Kitty Fitzgerald

Father Kerrigan would have bet the bones of St Ignatius that he would only once in his life hear a confession like the one Alice Noonan had made to him several years before. The particular subject of the confession hadn’t come up during his training and he was woefully ill equipped to deal with it. After he’d given her Absolution for her sins she asked if he had any advice he could offer about her ‘situation’. He was so disorientated, he told her the story of a village that lapped the edges of the Pacific Ocean and used the hairs of the Yak to fortify buildings against the pitiless advance of the sea.
‘Is there a moral for me in the story?’ Alice Noonan had asked, and in his desperation to offer help, he told her that when she unraveled the moral she’d find a solution to her problem.
He remembered the incident as if it happened barely a week since. And then barely a month ago, hadn’t he heard the self same problem revealed once more in the secrecy of the confessional. How could his small parish be so cursed, he asked his Maker. One person’s curse is another person’s blessing, his Master answered, enigmatic as usual.
Alice Noonan owned a boggy bit of land halfway down the valley between the Quinlan and Rahilly farms. It wasn’t large enough to pursue a good living and the water from the pump in Quinlan’s field was awful bitter and scaly, so she worked a couple of days a week skelping the fractious hens which belonged to Rody Rahilly.
Alice could turn crops with the best of them, and sometimes did, when the hen work was scarce, but what Rody really valued was her cooking. Each week she’d bring a slice of tart or a scone or some such thing, for his tea break. His wife, Enda, had what they called sour fingers; any shred of fresh food she touched grew fur. A look from her was enough some days. Alice Noonan secretly thought that Enda had been weaned on the Black Lake water below Snake Pass, for she was a wise lady of leisure since she’d hooked Rody with her pinched-in waists and the promise of dangerous pleasures which never materialized.
Alice Noonan lived alone; not that she hadn’t had proposals of marriage you understand. Virtually every bachelor within three counties, without a mammy at home, had got down on his knee to her at one time or another. Nor was she nursing a broken heart from some disastrous past love affair. But she made it abundantly clear, to anyone who cared to ask, that she preferred to live alone.
The lads who propped up the bar at the Beehive five or six nights a week, spent many an hour speculating about Alice Noonan’s desires. And this night I’m talking about, a month after Father Kerrigan’s second big confessional shock, was no exception.
Laurence Dolan, Tommy Prendergast and Jimmy Conlin were waiting for the latest member of their card squad, Mick Nugent, to arrive, so when Father Kerrigan came in they were pleased to draw him into their conversation; letting him down two pints with chasers, on top of a double malt, before attempting to get him talking.
‘I’d say he didn’t have much of a start in life now, wouldn’t you agree Father? Laurence Dolan began in his usual laconic fashion.
‘Nor did any of us if I’m not mistaken,’ Tommy Prendergast put in.
‘Ah, but we all knew who our father was, isn’t that the case?’ Dolan replied.
‘Only if our mothers are to be believed,’ Jimmy Conlin said in his half-hearted way.
It was a warm September evening that promised thunder later. Clouds edged with purple were scudding their way speedily over the hilltops, but the lads in the Beehive had other things on their mind.
‘Alice was wild with rage wasn’t she Father?’ Laurence Dolan said.
‘I’d say she had every right to be so,’ Father Kerrigan responded curtly.
Paddy Kelly had taken a bet – that he couldn’t get a photograph of Alice Noonan in the pelt – without blinking an eye. They’d all chipped in, Dolan, Prendergast, Conlin and Nugent, five pounds each. He’d borrowed the barman’s camera, which had a telephoto lens, and waited patiently on top of the bales of hay in her barn until he’d seen the light go on in her ground floor bathroom. He knew, from years past, that there was a short corridor between the bathroom and the stairs up to the bedroom and that through the plain glass in her back door this corridor could be clearly seen.
His vantage point in the barn was only a matter of a couple of metres from the house and he was comfortable leaning on the hay and swallowing the occasional mouthful of whisky from his flask. But still Alice took him by surprise when she did walk, stark naked, along the corridor towards the door with just a small towel around her hair. He was so startled he dropped the camera on to the concrete floor of the barn with an almighty clatter. Alice couldn’t see who was outside but she certainly heard the noise. Donning boots and a large overcoat she came after him like a mad sow with a fresh litter, waving Scully’s old axe in front of her. Kelly escaped with cuts and bruises but he was still paying back the barman for his damaged camera.
‘If she could have got her hands on Paddy Kelly he’d have been rashers, no doubt about that,’ said Dolan.
‘She ran after him over four fields with Scully’s axe in her hand,’ Jimmy Conlin added. ‘He had to chance Phelan’s bull to get away from her.’
‘Ah well, give me Phelan’s bull any day over Alice in a lather,’ said Prendergast, watching the priest out of the corner of his watery eye. ’What d’you say Father?’
Father Kerrigan ignored him and banged his glass on the counter signifying he was ready for more alcohol. The barman shook his head wearily, knowing he’d have to drag the priest out of the pub later and drive him home yet again.
‘She’s a fine woman all the same,’ Dolan said.
‘Will she never marry?’ Conlin added. ‘I hear she’s had endless proposals.’
‘She says she won’t,’ Prendergast answered. ‘It seems she can’t have children and she says that’s the only good reason she can think of for marrying. Though I myself can think of a few more.’
‘Did she tell you that herself, about not having children?’ Conlin asked
‘No. I met Brid Doherty at the market and she has a sister who’s married to the cousin of a fella who lives on the edge of Quinlan’s land and he had the story.’
‘Sure what harm,’ the barman chipped in.
‘What harm indeed,’ Conlin agreed.
‘Mind, I’d be lonely I’d say,’ Dolan ventured.
‘You’d be lonely in a crowd Dolan and frequently are,’ Father Kerrigan snapped.
‘That’s true enough,’ Prendergast added, with no intention of malice.
‘What could have driven Paddy to give up the cards and drink Father?’ Dolan asked.             Father Kerrigan banged his empty glass down on the counter again and ignored the question.
‘T’was the fear, ’Jimmy Conlin offered, ‘being pursued by an axe and driven into the arms of a bull. That’s enough to curdle the brains of any man, surely.’
‘Comprehensively,’ Prendergast said. He was the man for the words and always carried a small dictionary in his pocket to assist him in extending his vocabulary.
Dolan and Conlin exchanged anxious looks. Dolan had heard a rumour once about a farmhand further east who’d been caught with his joystick up the arse of a Friesian cow.
‘Not a bull, that would be suicide,’ Conlin said.
‘Everything that is on this Earth is of God’s making, don’t you understand that yet?’ Father Kerrigan said.
‘Of course Father, of course,’ Dolan replied. ‘Here, let me get you another drink. Sure a priest should never be without a drink after a hard day’s work, should he lads?’
‘Not at all, not at all,’the lads agreed.
‘Where’s Mick got himself to?’ Prendergast asked. ‘Look at the time, will you? He’s not a patch on Paddy for punctuality. There’ll hardly be chance for two games at this rate.’
The barman refilled the priest’s glasses again and hoped that the Lord God Almighty was appreciative of what he did for the auld fella and would maybe throw a bit of extra Grace his way.
‘Could Paddy have found a woman?’ Jimmy Conlin said into the comfortable silence.
A log suddenly fell out of the fireplace, crashing in a hail of sparks onto the floorboards and there were those who would say later that it was a sort of omen.
‘And who would it be that we wouldn’t know about it?’ Dolan answered and then lowered his voice and glanced around the room. ‘In fact many of his friends were worried that he might be a homeosexual underneath it all.’
‘Homosexual, you dolt!’ Father Kerrigan shouted. ‘Keep digging Dolan. You’ve tried Bestiality, now Homosexuality, what’s to be next?’
‘I beg your pardon Father but I’ve never tried either of those ‘alities’, if you don’t mind,’ Dolan said with a wink to the others. Father Kerrigan revealed most when he was drunk and angry as they’d discovered many times before.
As the priest opened his mouth to speak, Mick Nugent tore into the bar like a man possessed. He tapped on the counter in his characteristic way, demanding a pint, while he fought his laboured breathing.
‘Jesus!’ he said eventually. ‘Jesus! Excuse me father but ‘tis the only word for it.’
The lads gathered closer, knowing that this tale would be worth hearing. Mick Nugent was not known for exaggeration.
‘What man?’ Dolan asked, his curiosity making his left leg twitch. ‘What is it that’s making you curse in front of the priest?’
Nugent was still breathing hard as Prendergast and Conlin crowded even closer, demanding an explanation.
‘Alice Noonan and Paddy Kelly,’ he said breathlessly, creating silence in the room. Everyone held their breath, waiting for the rest of the sentence. ‘In the river, in the moonlight, bare as a bald man’s head. Dancing and singing like two nightingales. And both of them…..’
Nugent stopped there and glanced at the priest who was suddenly smiling like an inebriated cherub. For he had broken his confessional vow and phoned Alice Noonan before he came to the pub to tell her she had another like herself in his parish, and that Yak’s were thought to be bisexual.
‘If they were in the river, naked as peeled onions then they’ve lost the right to privacy,’ Prendergast said indignantly.
At which Father Kerrigan started laughing so loudly that he fell backwards off his stool and knocked himself out on the wooden floor. For once the barman didn’t rush to his aid. He too was hanging on Mick Nugent’s words. It was only the excess of drink, conveniently keeping his limbs supple, which prevented the priest from being badly injured.
‘Go on Mick, tell the tale, God’s representative is no longer listening.’ Dolan said.
‘Both of them,’ Nugent said again, pausing for greater effect, because he knew full well he had everyone’s attention. ‘Both of them with breasts and plonkers!’
The communal gasp that issued from the lips of the assembled men could have filled a flagging sail.
‘Hermaphrodites!’ Prendergast said into the space, for after all, he was the man who had the words.
In the stunned silence of the bar, all that could be heard was the cracking of the logs on the fire and Father Kerrigan’s legendary snores.

by Kitty Fitzgerald