But there was Granny Doyle, a cloud across the sky.
‘What are the lot of ye doing? Mammy’s waiting in the car and we’d want to get going if we’re to miss the crowds.’
Aunty Mary braced herself and shot Peg a such are the trials of life glance.
Mrs Nugent stubbed out her cigarette on one of Peg’s shells and turned towards her granddaughter.
‘For the love of God, stop that, would you: you have your dress wet through! We had better get going: I’d say the Pope is only dying to get my autograph!’
6
Toast Rack (1979)
Catherine was the one to venture downstairs, eventually. She’d have to check the clock and phone Peg and deal with the day, though not yet. First, breakfast. She smiled as she caught a glimpse of her body in the kitchen window. Her bare toes drummed against the lino as she eyed the steel toast rack suspiciously; she wished the toast would pop faster, afraid the spell would break if she stayed away too long.
They’d eat the toast in bed, she decided, not waiting until it cooled to butter it.
7
Vatican Flag (1979)
Even the rain couldn’t break the buzz in the air. Granny Doyle didn’t even bother with her brolly. Nobody in Galway racecourse would have their spirits broken by a bit of drizzle. Pope John Paul II wasn’t going to be dampened. If anything, he had more energy, as if Ireland had recharged him, not a problem for him to burst into song upon request. The crowd started it, tens of thousands of voices roaring out the song that had become his anthem.
He’s got the whole world in his hands,
He’s got the whole wide world in his hands.
Granny Doyle looked around the crowd and beamed. Galway racecourse was a sea of Vatican yellow flags, like an All Ireland where everybody was on the same team. Everybody was singing along: Mrs Nugent waving her tea towel and belting out the tune; Mrs McGinty thrilling in her best Church Lady voice designed to test stained glass; her mother bobbing her beshawled head in time with the beat; the Clougheally crowd of second cousins joining in, joyfully out of key.
The Pope stayed on the stage after the Mass, joy widening his face. When he spoke it was with the heart-heave of a teenage Romeo, a fallible and unscripted pronouncement, one all the more charming for it: ‘Young People of Ireland: I Love You.’
The crowd erupted into a cheer that travelled like a Mexican wave.
Mrs Nugent chuckled.
‘Didn’t I tell you he’s always talking to me?’
Even Mrs McGinty managed a laugh at this; it was impossible to frown. If she’d had a bottle large enough, Granny Doyle would have captured the happiness in the field and been a rich woman for years.
‘Quick now, we’ll take a photograph.’
Granny Doyle passed the camera to Mrs Nugent, scooped up Peg and marched over to her mother. Aunty Mary was left to the side; no harm, she’d only spoil it.
‘Big smile for the camera, like a good girl,’ Granny Doyle said to Peg.
Mrs Nugent fumbled for the button.
‘All right now, one … two … three … cheese and onion!’
The photograph was a remarkable coup, heralding never-again-seen skills from Mrs Nugent. Peg, Granny Doyle, and Nanny Nelligan squinted at the camera in the foreground, Pope John Paul II was flanked by Bishop Casey and Father Cleary in the background, heroes all three. A special effect of the morning sun gave the appearance of halos, the smiles of all three women stretching to meet the light.
Months later, Peg clutched the photograph, thrilled at a memento she was allowed to keep. Granny Doyle had given it to her for Christmas, pleased that her plan had worked and that it was only a matter of months before some John Paul Doyle arrived into the world. Peg loved the photograph, even though her shoes were outside the frame. It was evidence that she was somebody who mattered, somebody who had once shared the sunlight with a pope. For years she clung to the sanctity of this snapshot, even when she might better have torn it in two. It captured the moment precisely: an island united, crowds of the devoted, everybody as happy as Heaven.
8
Bloody Tea Towel (1980)
The first miracle of John Paul Doyle was survival.
In other circumstances, the tea towel might have been kept for posterity, a version of Veronica’s sweat-soaked shroud. A former nurse, Granny Doyle cleaned up the kitchen her son couldn’t face. She picked up the chair that had fallen and scrubbed it down. She returned the phone to its table on the hall. She mopped the blood from the floor, decided it was best not to keep the mop. She scooped out the half-eaten breakfast cereal into the bin, washed and dried the bowl, returned it to the cupboard.
The tea towel was put in its own plastic bag and sealed in another bin-bag before it was thrown away.
9
Catherine Doyle Memorial Card (1980)
Danny Doyle lit another cigarette. He’d had to blow the smoke out the window, back when he was a teenager. Now it didn’t matter if the little room filled with smoke, with his Da dead and Granny Doyle too worn out to shout at him. She was busy with the babbies, leaving Danny to his old box room and its sad yellow aura, the source of which it was hard to locate. It couldn’t be the amber on the window from his smoking; the curtains were always drawn, especially in the day. The yellow of the curtains had faded to a pale primrose, hardly enough to explain the aura. So, it might just be the jaundice about his heart; what else was sad and yellow?
Another fag. Something to keep his hands busy. He wished there were cigarettes for the brain, something that his thoughts could wrap around and find distraction in. Brain cigarettes? He was going mad, he had to be. Sure you’re not high? That’s what she would have said, with an arch of her eyebrow – he could hear her voice clear as anything in the room – and Danny Doyle felt a sharp pain in his chest at the thought that the only place Catherine Doyle was in the room was trapped in a tiny rectangle.
There she was, smiling at him from a plastic memorial card. Her name (Catherine Doyle), her dates (1951–1979), some prayers and platitudes (May She Rest in Peace; Oh My Jesus, Forgive Us Our Sins and Save Us From the Fires of Hell). He’d let Granny Doyle pick the photo for the memorial card, and the sensible photo she’d chosen would not have been out of place in a Legion of Mary newsletter: this was not a Catherine Doyle he recognized. Surrounded by prayers and a pastel background, this woman was not the type to let toast crumbs fall onto a bed or push her face into silly shapes when Peg was taking a bath; this was not a woman who could quack. Staring at the memorial card, it was hard to remember the tone that she had used to tell the stories that put Peg to sleep or to admonish him when he’d forgotten to pick up milk, harder to imagine how ‘Danny’ might have sounded from her mouth, what shades of affection and exasperation might have coloured it.
