O’Malley. John Joe, like everyone else who had arrived, would have his part to play in the momentous events of the morrow.
‘There isn’t time to stand about!’ Immaculata shouted, bursting into the kitchen where the major-domo and Frank were having a well-earned smoke. ‘Their Lordships need more whiskey; a cappuccino for the papal nuncio, and a brandy for the Taoiseach. Quickly!’
‘Brandy if you please!’ shouted MacBride when she was out of earshot. ‘Whiskey is good enough for the cloth, but John Joe wants a brandy!’ He rose unsteadily to his feet.
‘Sit where you are,’ Frank said. ‘I’ll see to John Joe.’
‘You’ll be lucky!’ the major-domo declared, holding up the Napoleon Four Star. The lumbago had been playing him up all day and the bottle was as good as empty.
‘He’ll drink whiskey with the rest of them! What is he anyhow but a jumped-up gombeen man from Annagery,’ Frank said with sudden vehemence.
‘Spoken like a true man!’ the major-domo concurred. ‘Take it in to them while you’re on your feet. You’ll easy recognize the Taoiseach, he’s the one in the morning suit, done up like a conjuror on the London Palladium. You’ll find him in the corner with Schnozzle’s hand up his ass, pulling his strings,’
‘I’ll recognize him all right,’ Frank said. ‘I remember the same boy from long ago.’
Frank carried the Waterford decanter carefully up the wide staircase. With each step the noise of male bonhomie grew louder, with each step the smell of cigars and aftershave grew stronger. Here was power, palpable power, a heady sensation. He paused at the door, steadied the tray and pushed it open carefully. The bulky shape of John Joe’s bodyguard sprang forward, barring his way. O’Malley! He recognized at once the close-set eyes, the sweat-flecked jowls of the guard. It was not O’Malley’s first trip across the border since John Joe had plucked him out from his contemporaries for special duties. But the North left him feeling uneasy. Amid all the splendour of Ara Coeli he stood out like a sore thumb. He wouldn’t stop sweating till he’d delivered John Joe safely back to his fancy woman in Monaghan town. He took the decanter roughly from Frank and ordered him back below stairs. But not before the boy had caught a glimpse of the splendour within, of the red capes and purple robes of the hierarchy gathered round Schnozzle, vociferous in their congratulations. And a glimpse too of the man in the corner, John Joe Sharkey, whom he had last seen at the end of the Yellow Meal Road.
At the stroke of midnight, Schnozzle’s limousine sped quietly down the drive, crossed the square and headed out towards Belfast. Its siren was silent, its lights dimmed. Only the Patriot, the last defender of the purity of the national dream, keeping vigil at the window, witnessed its passing. ‘Tá gluaistean ar an bhóthair’ he called up to Eugene. There’s a car on the road. There had been a procession of motorcars up to the Palace all that afternoon, but this was the first movement out.
‘The Easter Bunny is off somewhere in a great hurry,’ Eugene observed, staggering to the window in time to see it speeding away from the Shambles. He caught a glimpse of Immaculata McGillicuddy sitting at the wheel, and despite a lifetime rigorously devoted to the military cause, found himself wincing at the thought.
Major-domo MacBride, sobered up with a pot of black coffee and hastily dressed in his best soutane and surplice, marched the servants in through the back door of the cathedral while it was still dark and ushered them into a corner behind a pillar. They huddled there as slowly the great cathedral came to life. One by one the priests of the parish filed out of the sacristy to say their trinity of masses at the scattered side altars. At ten o’clock the organ began to play, great improvised voluntaries of joy. At eleven the choir scrambled into the loft and sang a glorious Te Deum of thanksgiving. The pews began to fill, and Frank was soon conscious of the vast, expectant congregation that was crushing into every nook and cranny. And though he could see nothing of the ceremonies that began at the stroke of noon, he wasn’t long in realizing the true import of what was happening on the high altar. The clouds of incense that hung in the air told him that every clerical dignity in the land was in the church that day, and the voice of the organ and the sound of the choir underlined how momentous the occasion was.
The procession moved out from the Lady Chapel, ranks of dignitaries leading the swaying and buckling canopy. Under the cloth of gold, closely flanked by Schnozzle resplendent in Pascal robes, Frank caught a glimpse of a frail girl in a white dress, her face hidden under a veil. A shiver of terror ran through him for what it might presage.
She was baptized in the Lady Chapel by the Bishop of Derry as the choir sang ‘Hosanna’. She was led to the confession box where the Bishop of Galway was waiting in the dark compartment; she confessed her sins and was shriven. At the High Mass that followed she made her first communion, receiving the melting host from the hands of the Bishop of Down and Connor. And then, as the carillon pealed out the news to the waiting city, she was led up to the great high altar and there formally confirmed in her new faith by Schnozzle himself.
On the grave of Big Mac the scarlet fuchsia round the Celtic cross burst forth miraculously into unseasonal blossom.
The congregation erupted from the cathedral and poured down the hundred steps into the Shambles, shouting and chanting and giving thanks for the miracle they had just witnessed. They swarmed into the Patriot’s, regulars and teetotallers alike, filling the bar with their chatter. A group of them broke away, and emboldened by the occasion, crossed the square to taunt McCoy with the news of his daughter’s perfidy. But McCoy didn’t need to be told. The Irish News, a special colour edition, had already hit the streets, with the story on its front page, in capitals six inches high.
‘And to think I nearly missed it!’ said Peadar for the tenth time, regaling the company with news of his good fortune in witnessing the conversion of Chastity McCoy.
‘It was a great day for the town all right,’ said a wee man from Drumarg who had been stranded in the bar since early evening. From somewhere further up the town there came the dull thud of another explosion.
‘Not that I saw a thing with the crowds, and the leg killing me after kneeling so long on the cold marble.’
The Tyrone man was at the window, cautiously peering out at the riot through a crack in the plywood shutters. ‘It’s as good as over, I’d say,’ he said.
‘Go off home then!’ Peadar shouted.
‘I will like fuck! Magee and that crowd will be out and about and they won’t rest till they’ve killed someone.’
‘They’ll be out searching high and low for her, no doubt about it,’ said the wee man from Drumarg.
‘The trouble’s only starting, if you want my opinion,’ Peadar said.
‘Aren’t we as safe as houses where we are,’ the Tyrone man insisted, ‘with Eugene on the roof.’
The Tyrone man had been right. The riot was as good as over, but Eugene stuck to his place. From the skylight in the attic he had control over most of the Shambles, a clear line of sight halfway down Irish Street in one direction and in the other, over the roof of the Martyrs Memorial the length of English Street. The Armalite felt good against his cheek again. Good too to smell the cordite and hear grenades once more at Easter. In the Shambles below him no one was moving. The square was littered with glass and cobblestones and strewn with coils of collapsed bunting. Beyond the concrete latrine he could make out the giant ice-cream cone on the roof of McCoy’s Salvation Wagon. He took
