Future Popes of Ireland Read online

  *

  Magic was in the air. Fairy lights twinkled in the marquee. Everything flowed freely – drinks across the bar, jackets across chairs, limbs across dance floors. Rory O’Donoghue loved weddings because everybody was a little bit gay, the aunties and young lads YMCAing with the best of them, obstacles to dancing to cheesy songs removed, because you could pretend you were being ironic, because who cared?

  And then – magic – ‘It’s Raining Men’ coming on, the dance floor filling up, Clodagh and her pals clustering around Olly, who delivered each ‘hallelujah’ with the fervour of a Baptist minister. Rory had a following too – he could lip sync the song in his sleep, was every straight girl’s best friend, the guy they could grind to without consequence. Everybody was on the dance floor: Jason Donnelly pulled over by the girl he had been kissing; John Paul sashaying over to the group; lads from school that Rory could never have imagined dancing to this song with, layers of clothes left at tables, drinks in hand for elaborate gestures, nobody minding the sticky floor, or caring if beer sloshed towards them as somebody pointed to the sky; magic was in the air, or drunkenness, or, perhaps it was that John Paul and Clodagh were genies, or geniuses, enchanting every foot to tap, every torso to shake, every mouth to cry ‘amen!’

  Damien was there too: drunk, shuffling his shoulders awkwardly, doing a sort of bemused dad dance, his face hovering between mild bliss and slight terror. Rory caught his eye and then they were dancing with each other, on either side of the tent, and words were not necessary: Rory knew how Damien felt about a sky of raining men; Damien knew that Rory held no bitterness, was only glad to see him dancing with a weight off his shoulders. Then, they were really dancing together, Rory a great person to dance with, gifted, generous, somebody to mimic who could also take your lead, which he did, as Damien unleashed a force of imaginary rain from the roof of the marquee, pushed back his head, in parody or ecstasy, the lines had all blurred, imagined what it was to be absolutely soaking wet, eyes twinkling at Rory, because this was Rory’s speciality, innuendo, and it was a pleasure to share, especially with John Paul walking over, leading the Spanish waiter towards Damien, not missing a beat of the song in the process. Rory shot Damien a different kind of smile, and Damien blushed, before turning to the waiter, who had a smile more like Damien’s – bemused, unsure, excited – and Rory felt a complicated twinge, mostly sweet, the small measure of bitter. The song was still going, Olly bounding over, lovably dishevelled, pulling Rory into the circle, pointing at him, to suggest he had just fallen from the sky; Rory knew the exact coy face to make, shook his limbs in the light of Olly’s smile, gasped with the rest of the crowd when rain started, real rain, thundering against the tent, further evidence of the magic of the night, which was only getting more wonderful, because when the chorus of ‘It’s Raining Men’ was about to start, instead

  *

  it was Rihanna, Clodagh’s favourite song at that minute, everybody’s favourite song at that moment, perhaps; certainly, its intro was instantly recognized, elicited a whoop of joy, a gasp at a DJ so inspired, a smile from Clodagh, who caught John Paul’s eye, the way they had all night, as they satellited around the groups, keeping glasses full and people happy, nudging strangers towards each other, steering prickly relatives towards other rooms, a wonder of choreography that, between them, they had it all under control, as splendid as their movement now, limbs dancing in tandem despite all the bodies between them, both songs playing together, as everything merged, John Paul miming an umbrella as Clodagh pointed to the sky, where the roof of the tent ballooned up, as if it were talking to the rain, which was shooting sideways into the marquee now, not that anybody minded, because everybody was making the same sounds in their mouths, pushing their hands in the air to the beat of each ‘ella’, mouths wide as John Paul opened the champagne, which rocketed towards the sky and fizzed down like miraculous rain, towards the open mouths of dancing bodies, everything special and in slow motion, as if they were in a music video, wine raining from the sky, Clodagh not needing any alcohol, so full of life that she felt the movement of her limbs was absolutely necessary, as everybody danced, to Rihanna and the Weather Girls, the songs converging happily, like Clodagh and John Paul, who were getting closer, coming here to each other, shining together with the sun, everybody dancing around them, imaginary umbrellas all shaking out their spokes in delight.

  Series IX:

  Bust

  (2008–2009)

  1

  Anglo-Irish Bank Sign (2008)

  And then it all fell down.

  2

  Brick (2008)

  They were supposed to be solid, a safe place to shovel money, but they might as well have been made of clouds.

  3

  Keys (2008)

  It must be especially hard for them, it was said: what use a key without a door to open? Some, it was said, had gone wild, roamed through what was left of the hills and forest. Some lurked around the half-finished estates, scratched at abandoned holes, lamented that there was only one door to fit their grooves. Some stayed put, remained with owners who had no use for them, existed to provide the meaning of cold comfort.

  4

  Medical Card (2008)

  It was all mixed up. Things that seemed solid – with letters and numbers and indentations – could nonetheless be taken away, a government’s responsibility for the health care of the vulnerable apparently not fixed.

  5

  The Ryan Report, or The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Report (2009)

  It was all mixed up. Priests and nuns who were supposed to be above the physical had fingers and hands that were all too solid; men in power had ears that were all too blocked (it was not a good time for popes).

  6

  Envelopes, Multiple (2009)

  Some objects would not be stopped, insinuating their way through letterboxes and demanding what could not be paid (it was not a good time for companies).

  7

  Incandescent Bulb (2009)

  And what were the Greens in government doing during all this? Outlining their strategy to ensure that illumination within Leinster House complied with EU standards. Fiddling with bulbs while a city burned, the media said. An unfair assessment, perhaps, but the media could not always be relied upon for fairness; this was not the moment for a government to focus on objects whose benefit would outlast an election cycle (it was not a good time for governments).

  8

  Fibre-optic Christmas Tree (2008–2010)

  It was state of the art, it was said, worth the 300,000 euros.

  Its baubles lit up O’Connell Street, cycling through bright, hopeful colours.

  The toughest budget in years was passed.

  Its baubles flashed red, blue, green.

  Banks were propped up.

  Shutters came down.

  The tree flashed green, blue, red, white.

  Another budget came.

  Floods.

  A Snowpocalypse.

  The IMF.

  And the tree flashed red, blue, green, hope!, until it was shuttled off to Smithfield, the gap between its confidence and the street it lit up too stark for any eye.

  9

  ‘For Sale’ Sign (2009)

  9 Dunluce Crescent

  It was sad, Maria Hernandez thought, to see a garden like that. The old lady had always loved her garden. She sat out in her porch admiring it all of last summer, was there every morning when Maria went out to work and every evening when she returned. She had reminded Maria of her grandmother, who had a lovely garden back in Valencia, one that overflowed with things you wouldn’t find here, tomatoes like happy little hearts. The thought of her grandmother sitting alone in her big garden added another layer to the sadness of Maria Hernandez, because she wouldn’t be going back to Spain, not yet, not while she was clinging to her job here, while, by all reports, the situation was even worse at home. She would tend to the garden when she got home from work, Maria resolved, looking back as s
he turned the corner, feeling a bubble of affection for the old lady she had only ever nodded to, thinking that she might have to borrow shears for the weeds, that the hedge could use a trim, that she would phone her own grandmother that evening.

  2 Dunluce Crescent

  Would it have been different, Maureen McGinty wondered, if she had offered the spare bedroom? She had turned the idea over and over in her mind, gone as far as to clear out the wardrobe of the copies of Irish Catholics and old coats that she stored there. It was, after all, a thing that they had used to joke about – it had been Mrs Nugent’s idea: they would all, eventually, move into the same house, like the Golden Girls, Mrs Nugent had said, adding that she would need her own entrance for all her fellas. Mrs McGinty couldn’t have borne Mrs Nugent’s cackle, but she could, she had thought, have handled Mrs Doyle; she would have driven her to Mass in the mornings, maybe even have brought her to the Legion of Mary meetings, to bring her out of herself, take her mind off her grandchildren (it was a blessing, Mrs McGinty thought, that she hadn’t a family to disappoint her). Bridget would have had something to say about the developments on the street: a Nigerian family renting out the Nugents’ (at least they were Catholics, the boys good members of the Legion), some gang of foreign young things renting out old Mr Kehoe’s place (they were not religious), poor Mrs Fay. It would have been nice to have the bit of company in the evening, nice to go to sleep with the knowledge that if somebody broke in in the middle of the night she wouldn’t be murdered alone.

  7 Dunluce Crescent

  Cool, Chike Okorocho thought, watching Amara hop over the wall too, instead of waiting for him to open the back gate. No big deal, his face said, as Amara looked at him wanting something – praise? flirtation? – before her face also shifted into a ‘no big deal’ stance.

  She looked around the back garden, face stuck on ‘unimpressed’. Chike shifted on his feet, because he did want her to be impressed, because she was the coolest girl in second year, and he couldn’t help it if he looked five rather than fifteen at that moment; he wanted her to be excited.

  ‘So who lives here?’

  ‘Some old witch used to,’ Chike said, shrugging his shoulders.

  ‘No such thing as witches. What rubbish is your mam teaching you?’

  ‘Bet you think there’s no such thing as ghosts too?’

  Amara raised her eyebrows: are you kidding me?

  ‘Don’t scream too loudly,’ Chike said, glad that his hands didn’t shake as he picked the lock, happy to see that Amara brushed against his arm as he opened the door, almost holding on to him, a movement he replicated moments later as they walked in, Amara first, making a big deal of being fearless, not caring what ghosts the house held, thinking only of what would happen there that night, a different kind of tingle animating her arms.

  4 Dunluce Crescent

  She could do the hoovering in her knickers now, Irene Hunter thought, pouring the third glass of wine, saluting out her window to the empty porch, finally free of the binoculared battleaxes. Barry could park in the driveway and nobody would be taking down his registration number, remarking that his second name wasn’t Hunter, that he hadn’t fathered either of her two girls. His car was parked outside all the time now; he was ‘in between’ things, it made sense to share the rent, especially with Irene’s business in trouble. More opportunity for them to do as they wished, for them to play strip poker in the sitting room, for the blinds to remain drawn all through Sunday morning. Except, Irene thought, filling up Barry’s third glass, there wasn’t much to be spied upon these days: the two of them sitting on the couch, draining cheap bottles of wine while watching Fair City, corks and cable television suddenly luxuries.

  At least the contents of her recycling bin would no longer be subject to scrutiny, she thought, placing the Lidl bottle beside its empty predecessor. Another thought, less pleasing: she would cut down on the wine. Once she’d made some other cuts. Toilet paper for sanitary towels. Fewer hot showers for the girls. Sliced pans, no more things with seeds. She was wise to her pennies, because the thought of the amounts that she owed, or the size of the figures associated with the cards in her wallet, summoned vomit to her throat, a substance that could only be stopped with another glass of wine, something that would be cut, at a later date, another number that she couldn’t face just yet.

  5 Dunluce Crescent

  ‘I could have sued the little prick, if he had more than fuck all in his account!’

  ‘Didn’t I always say he’d come to a bad end, Jason?’

  Jason Donnelly rubbed his temple. It didn’t matter whether or not he responded; neither his mother nor sister had any need of communication from him. Denise was in the middle of her story describing how John Paul Doyle had ripped up a pen from the bank counter – weight and all! – and flung it at the cashiers. Each time the story passed across the table it gained more details; soon, Jason was sure of it, Denise would be due a medal, the first bank manager to survive near death by projectile pen.

  ‘And the cheek of people clapping,’ Denise said. ‘Different faces they had on when they were begging for loans and now they’re acting like it’s all the banks’ fault.’

  ‘I’ve always said: you reap what you sow,’ Mrs Donnelly added, a statement Jason could not disagree with, its wisdom proffered on many an occasion. He, too, had reaped what he had sown, shares and property offloaded at the right moment, hardly his fault if others weren’t so lucky. And yet, thinking about John Paul made Jason’s insides twist in a way he was sure wasn’t good for his abs. Jason made his excuses and sleeked into his car, confident that he too had made sacrifices (one of his properties had barely made a profit), contributed to charity (he had participated in two separate fun runs) and could not be responsible for the myopia of others. Denise said she wouldn’t stay for her dinner either, leaving Mrs Donnelly with all the satisfaction of sharing the accuracy of her prophecies with an empty kitchen.

  6 Dunluce Crescent

  She would google the price of the house across the road, Nnenna Okorocho decided, once Onyema got off the computer, which might be never; he was at that game again. No good, to have one son out all the time (and where was Chike, with homework to be done?) and the other attached to the computer, the chair grooved to his bottom at this stage. She would lift up those huge headphones and bellow in his ear to move!; she had to Skype her sister in Lagos and first, she would have to check the price of the house, so she would know how many trips in a taxi Igwebwe would have to make before they could buy their own place. Not a place like that, Mrs Okorocho would not be having such a house, fat with sadness, a porch that collected rain. She would get a house that could be boasted about. Could it be so much more than the rent? It was going up again, a rip-off, as they said, as she had learnt to say, holding up sandals in a department store, fruit at a stall (or, what they called fruit in Ireland; if her sister could see the pale things they called bananas, she would not be jealous). They might have been better off following her other sister to America; Chiamaka claimed her house was a mansion (a lie, Onyema had said: at least he was able to use Google Maps). But then what would happen to Chike in America? Mrs Okorocho did not like to think of it, because men would shoot at him and they were better here, even if black boys weren’t safe in Ireland either (she would clutch Chike to her heart and not let go, as soon as he came home). No, they would not go to America; Igwebwe would drive enough drunk people home, they would buy their own little house, would call it a mansion, and she would ask Onyema if there was any way to lie about the dimensions of a structure on Google Earth.

  3 Dunluce Crescent

  ‘We’ll have to tell Emma,’ George Geoghan said, fiddling with the volume on their computer’s speakers (his wife kept it too low; impossible to hear their daughters).‘She was in the same school as one of the Doyles, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Mrs Geoghan said, absorbed in Coronation Street (she would refuse to Skype with Emma until it was over), uninterested in any news th
at did not involve Tracy Barlow. And why would she be? She hadn’t grown up on the road like her husband, hadn’t played handball with Danny Doyle, couldn’t remember what 7 Dunluce Crescent had looked like before its porch. Emma would be interested, or at least she’d pretend to be (she was a brilliant daughter, a shame that she was stuck over in England); she always listened to the news on the street, was game to hear any of her dad’s rants, rolled her eyes when he’d talk about the good old days of the unions or the punt, pronounced ‘Dad’ in the tone he loved, enough affection to ease the irritation (terrible that she was stuck in England; emigration was supposed to be a thing of the past). Emma would be interested, would want to know the story (and yet, the truth of it was she seemed to be loving her life over there).

  ‘Rosie,’ Mr Geoghan said, remembering the name of the Doyle that Emma had gone to school with; the blondie one, ‘a bit of a quare one,’ Mr Geoghan had said, eliciting a ‘Dad!’ from Emma, who was always telling him what he shouldn’t be saying any more.

  ‘No, that one’s Sophie,’ Mrs Geoghan said, her eyes on the telly, her voice taking on the tight tone she used whenever anybody talked during Coronation Street.

  8 Dunluce Crescent

  ‘I wonder how much it will go for?’ Sarah Brennan asked, news as ineffective a condiment at her table as salt: nothing could revive the conversation or dried meat.

  Carl shrugged, all he did since he’d moved home, impossible to get a word out of him, even after she’d cooked chicken curry, his favourite, for dinner.