Future Popes of Ireland Read online

  Surprisingly, the hand-me-down that Granny Doyle procured from Mrs Nugent did the trick, transforming her into a princess instantly. Peg paraded down the triplets’ bedroom, a miniature Princess Di. Damien and Rosie watched appreciatively; John Paul’s eyes flashed at the challenge.

  ‘Let’s go OUTSIDE and play!’

  For a moment, Damien seemed genuinely torn. He did not need to be in constant motion like his brother and there was the gorgeous expanse of lace in front of him, fabric that begged to be admired.

  ‘Come on! I’m-I’m going to be Optimus Prime and BLOW you up!’

  There was no choice for Damien; John Paul would always win.

  Rosie hovered by the door.

  ‘Can I have a go of your bag, Peg?’

  ‘No,’ Peg snapped.

  Rosie shrugged and trailed after her brothers. Peg was happy to see them all gone, the mirror a better audience than the triplets, her reflection as thrilled as she was to have something that the triplets couldn’t ruin.

  *

  ‘It’s all right love, we’ll fix it.’

  Danny Doyle opened his curtains and held the Communion dress up to the light. A zigzag pattern had been cut around the hem, whole chunks of the dress in scraps on the floor of the triplets’ room.

  ‘I’m going to kill him.’

  ‘It’ll be all right, love.’

  ‘How?’

  Danny Doyle sat down on his bed, already tired from it all.

  ‘We’ll take it to your gran. She’ll know what to do.’

  Peg should have known not to consult her dad; there was only one person who could help her.

  ‘I want to see Aunty Mary.’

  A rub of the brow, very tired eyes squinting back at her.

  ‘You know you can’t, love, you know you can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  A look out the window, his daughter still there when his eyes returned.

  ‘Because that’s how it is. Your Aunty Mary’s staying in the house in Clougheally.’

  ‘I want to visit her.’

  A sigh that stretched the length of the country.

  ‘You can’t, love, you know that, so stop asking me about it, okay? We’ll take this to your gran and she’ll have it right as rain.’

  *

  Granny Doyle’s solution to the slashed Communion dress was the perfect fusion of thrift and fury.

  ‘I want a new dress,’ Peg sobbed.

  ‘You’ll be wearing this tomorrow.’

  ‘No way! I’ll wear my own clothes, I don’t care.’

  Granny Doyle gripped Peg’s wrist.

  ‘You listen to me, Missy. If I tell you you’re wearing this dress, you’re wearing this dress. You’re a cute one. Thought you’d slash up this old thing and get your little brother into trouble? Well, you’d want to be getting up very early to pull one over on me: I know John Paul wouldn’t do that. You’ll get your lesson about staging a show, so you will.’

  *

  It wasn’t long before the slagging started, the older girls in the choir setting the tone.

  ‘Is that a new fashion?’

  ‘Look, Peg Doyle’s having her period!’

  ‘Janey, I’d be scarleh if I was wearing that dress!’

  ‘Move over, it’s Scarleh Doyle.’

  ‘It’s Scarleh O’Huareh.’

  The strips of fabric that Granny Doyle had sewn onto Peg’s dress were bright red in colour, giving the alarming appearance of tongues of fire leaping upwards. It was not a fashion ever to be repeated in Killester Church.

  Peg held her bag on her lap, wishing it were about ten times larger so it could have some hope of covering her dress. Nobody showed her a shred of sympathy. Her father stared ahead, all his energies expended in producing a smile. Granny Doyle stared at the altar piously, her shoulders radiating triumph. The triplets were no better. John Paul was busy poking everybody in the row in front of him, indifferent to the agony he had caused. Damien was practising praying like a Good Boy, face squeezed as if he was taking a giant shite. Rosie stared into mid-air, the way she often did, as if she could see into another world. Not for the first time, Peg longed for her mother, the kind woman whose face Peg could only just remember. She wouldn’t have stood for this nonsense. She might have plucked Peg up in her arms and carried her out of the church, into a different life. Peg almost said a prayer to her, hoping that Catherine Doyle might prove to be the patron saint of dramatic interventions, looking down at the scene and sending some candle to the ground, Peg’s dress forgotten in the blaze of the church. The words stayed in Peg’s head; there was no more point in prayer than in believing that children could turn into swans, she knew that. Tears too were futile, the slagging would be much worse. Peg imagined that she was wearing a different dress – one made of armour! – and steeled herself for the fray.

  Time to receive Communion. Peg stood up, feeling none of the thrill she had anticipated when she brushed past the triplets to become a proper adult in training. At least Rosie and Damien had the decency to look down. John Paul caught her eye as she walked past and gave her a grin that might have been sponsored by the devil. He had banished Aunty Mary and ruined her Communion; he was winning.

  Father O’Shaughnessy swallowed his face in shock when he saw Peg’s dress. He plopped the Communion wafer onto Peg’s tongue like a bomb. It sat underneath Peg’s tongue, hard as sin, unpalatable as ash. Peg returned to her seat, the rest of the pew indifferent to her mortification.

  ‘Mortification’ was the perfect word for what was happening to Peg, its medical definition particularly apt: localized necrosis of tissue. The spiritual cells of Peg Doyle, the ones that collectively organized to believe in a higher being, had become necrotic, digestion of Holy Communion thus impossible. Peg waited until nobody was watching, scooped the thin disc out of her mouth, and left it on the floor. The door that Aunty Mary had left ajar fell off its hinges.

  Peg met John Paul’s gaze without flinching. He might have banished Aunty Mary but she had gone one better: Peg Doyle had exiled God.

  5

  Blarney Stone (2007)

  ‘Remember your Communion dress?’

  Peg didn’t answer; it didn’t matter, Rosie would tell her anyway.

  The fan whirred loudly through the heat of the New York spring; still, it was not loud enough.

  ‘I did it.’

  ‘What?’

  Rosie gulped.

  ‘I cut up your dress.’

  Rosie had imagined this moment many times, a weight being lifted from her shoulders. Instead, she felt the air becoming heavier, as if the room had shifted to a different atmosphere, breaths becoming harder to take.

  ‘Why?’

  All Peg could manage. To admit that she had never considered this possibility was to admit that she had never considered Rosie capable of something so solid.

  Peg’s question reverberated in Rosie’s ear: why? To get your attention? A thing she was incapable of, even now. Rosie swallowed. Any explanation was inadequate. She had thought that perhaps it was something they might have laughed about: Rosie had only been four, after all, she hadn’t forced Peg to wear the scarlet dress, which Rosie didn’t remember as quite so scarlet. Bits of fabric had been sewn on the bottom, yes, but hadn’t they been cream with a red trim? In Rosie’s mind, the incident had been on a spectrum of secret crimes she had committed during her anonymity at 7 Dunluce Crescent, similar to the Barbie scalpings that Peg had blamed John Paul for. No malice had been involved, only jealousy, and, if anything, a strange sort of love, the kind that kept her in New York even when she knew it would be better for both of them if she left.

  The silence expanded in space and time, a black hole swallowing words before they could leave Rosie’s head. It would have been different with a lover. Rosie could have wrapped her arm around him, nuzzled his shoulders, forced his face to turn to hers. There was no moving Peg’s back, though.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  A very long silen
ce; Peg was probably asleep.

  6

  Blessed Shells of Erris (1988)

  Peg might have exiled God but she couldn’t stop the Fourth Unofficial Miracle of John Paul Doyle: the appearance of the Virgin Mary in Erris three years later.

  Peg had only herself to blame. She’d convinced Granny Doyle to return to Clougheally, waging a campaign that capitalized upon Granny Doyle’s reliable concern for the happiness of John Paul Doyle. Wouldn’t it be great to search for pirates on a proper beach? Peg suggested, and can we go to Clougheally? John Paul asked and yes, Granny Doyle said, for after three years without a holiday, she was ready to endure anything, even her sister.

  Peg might have been glad to see Aunty Mary but Granny Doyle’s reluctant truce didn’t mean that she was comfortable being around her. Mary had made the house her own and knocked everything out of its place. Gone the St Brigid’s cross and the old kettle and the leathery books in Irish that nobody read. Replaced with God knew what, all of Mary’s trinkets and technology: electric kettles and figurines carved out of soapstone and a bookshelf bristling with ideas. Not to mention Aunty Mary, properly settled in Clougheally now that she’d bought Granny Doyle’s share of the house (and didn’t she need it, with Danny not showing any signs of getting regular work), putting some bright throw over the couch as if she owned the place, which, Granny Doyle supposed with a sigh, she did.

  So, the Blessed Shells of Erris washed up at precisely the right time.

  ‘Look, look, it’s Our Lady, isn’t it?’

  Everybody squinted at the shell John Paul had found on the beach. It looked more like a meringue than a regular shell: white, round and very fragile.

  ‘It’s like the statue at the Grotto,’ John Paul said, his fingers following the cylindrical groove in the centre of the shell. ‘That’s her body and that round bit at the top’s her head.’

  It could equally have been the outline of a cucumber.

  ‘Would you credit that?’ Granny Doyle said. ‘Our Lady of Erris.’

  ‘That’s the outline of an old sea slug,’ Aunty Mary scoffed. ‘Those things are all over the beach!’

  ‘I didn’t see any slugs,’ John Paul said, the truth, though he would have been well up for a lie.

  ‘This is as bad as all that Ballinspittle nonsense a few years back,’ Aunty Mary said. ‘You remember that mania that swept the country: fools thinking a statue of Mary could move! There was chat here about the statue in Pullathomas moving then – little wonder, with it right beside the pub!’

  Nothing could have convinced Granny Doyle more than the disapproval of her sister.

  ‘No, this is Our Lady of Erris! A miracle, so it is! We’ll have to collect them. And we’d better hurry before anyone else catches wind. There’s a cute enough crowd around here and they’ll be dying for a piece of this.’

  ‘This is nonsense!’ Aunty Mary said, to no avail. She might have settled into their old house, but she hadn’t a hope of denting her sister’s self-belief and there was nothing she could do to stop John Paul Doyle, already bounding out the door to fetch the other triplets, a lieutenant marshalling his troops.

  *

  All other leisure activities were suspended in service of collecting as many Blessed Shells as possible. The triplets worked as a team: John Paul scouting, Damien cleaning the shells, Rosie embellishing Our Lady’s image with watercolours. Something for them all to enjoy: John Paul the adventurer, Damien the carer, Rosie the painter. Granny Doyle oversaw the operations, smiling as bucket upon bucket returned to the kitchen she grew up in. God was munificent (or the molluscs were promiscuous) and soon everything from the pots to the bathtub was full of the shells, Our Lady smiling serenely in blobs of blue and yellow paint. John Paul was inspired to search further afield, the other two running along beside him, leaping over rock pools, daring high tide together, the three of them as happy as froth in the sea, the elastic band tight between them in those days.

  *

  ‘Get your Blessed Shells of Erris, two for a pound! I’ll do you a deal if you want, five for two quid, they’ll look brilliant on the mantelpiece, they will.’

  Even at eight, John Paul had sharp business sense. He kept Rosie and Damien behind the table outside the church, the two of them suitably angelic and trustworthy. John Paul worked the crowd, charming the old ladies and bringing a bit of Moore Street to Mayo.

  ‘Today only: get your Blessed Shells of Erris, two for a pound! Special chipped range, only 20p each!’

  Most of the parishioners assumed the money was going to charity, an assumption that John Paul did nothing to dispel. Granny Doyle’s mantra echoed in his head: charity begins at home. John Paul paid his workers in Fat Frogs, green slurp dripping into the sea each afternoon as they combed the beach for fresh miracles. He kept a cut for himself, saved the rest of the money for Granny Doyle, the profits reaching double digits.

  This was life, John Paul thought, loving the attention and the cut and thrust of commerce. He hadn’t a head for school like Peg or Damien; he was always in trouble or confused, or getting into trouble because he was confused, when it was hardly his fault that none of it made sense or that all the teachers were out to get him. Faced with such persecution, it was no wonder that he concentrated his energies on bringing the whole system down with admirable invention, the football pitch filled with forks and the inter-class milk-carton missile war already legendary. Here, though, was a scheme that John Paul could get behind, charming coins out of purses something he was born for; outside the church, John Paul didn’t feel one bit stupid. Here, most likely, was the birth of Pope John Paul III, although it would take him years to grow into this identity, several stumbles from grace ahead.

  He’d be doing even better without Damien and Rosie, not that he could fire them. Damien kept sneaking off and dropping money into the candle box in the church, even when John Paul promised to post some of the money to Ethiopia. Rosie was worse; she’d always been the only Doyle their father really cared about.

  ‘Thanks, love, I’ll drop it back to you later.’

  John Paul flinched as his father swiped one of his hard-earned fivers from Rosie and tousled John Paul’s hair with his other hand. Who knew where the fiver would go – smokes or a couple of pints – but John Paul was sure that Granny Doyle wouldn’t see so much as a copper.

  ‘That’s my boy! Doing great business so you are, J.P! I’ll see you at the house.’

  John Paul folded his arms and glared at Damien and Rosie in a way that he couldn’t at his father.

  ‘You’ll have to split a Fat Frog between the two of ’yis today.’

  *

  Damien dropped another fifty pence into the candle box and sat down on the empty wooden pew, his face shining as bright as the stained-glass windows. He didn’t know the old lady who’d spoken to him but he hugged her words to his heart: you’re a good boy, aren’t you?

  He was a good boy, Damien felt, and it was nice to have somebody acknowledge this. Neither Granny Doyle nor his father had commented when he’d read more books than anybody else in his class in the Readathon for children with multiple sclerosis; they’d signed his form without remarking what a feat it had been for him to get through seventeen different stories. They hadn’t noticed that John Paul had copied his sheet without opening a book, Granny Doyle thrilling that she always knew John Paul had the brains of a Nelligan.

  It didn’t matter. God and the Virgin Mary knew about the goodness of Damien Doyle, Damien reminded himself, looking up at the sparkling windows and swooning. God was like a radio channel that Damien could tune into and he loved hearing the soothing voice in the quiet of the church. God understood that even if Damien was picked last in football or had a head that was made to throw milk cartons at, he was a good boy who’d go far. So you will, the Virgin Mary seemed to say, smiling at him from stained glass.

  The bobbing candle flames nodded in agreement, the one he’d lit for his mother particularly emphatic. Damien knew from the photo on her
memorial card that Catherine Doyle would have been the kind of mammy to appreciate Damien; she would have noticed that Damien always picked up John Paul’s dirty clothes from the floor and never complained when Granny Doyle dished him out the least crispy roast potatoes. The nice smiling lady in the photographs would have loved her quiet son with the same sandy hair as her and noticed every Twix he forsook so he could send more pennies to starving babies in Africa. You are a good boy, aren’t you? Catherine Doyle would have said, or did say, for it was hard to say which channels crackled in the church and, for a moment, Damien heard his mother’s voice inside his ears.

  ‘Damo? What are you at?’

  Damien turned around: typical John Paul to shout in a church.

  ‘Come on, we’ve a shiteload more shells to shift,’ John Paul said, swearing not beyond him either.

  ‘I’m coming.’

  ‘What are you like? Checking out the knockers on those angels, eh?’

  John Paul was hanging out with some of their older second cousins in Clougheally, eager to prove that he had big talk in him, even as it strained in his mouth. Damien blushed; he wouldn’t defy his brother, not then. John Paul gave him a playful punch and led him outside.

  ‘Yer one there’s not bad, if she wasn’t stuck in that holy robe I’d say she’d have a decent pair of tits.’

  *

  Rosie smiled as she painted a big green line in the middle of one of the shells. One for Granny Doyle; one for her: a fair bargain. Rosie stretched out in the sun and added a pair of huge purple eyes: if the shells could contain the Virgin Mary, couldn’t they also be the home for sea slugs? Rosie added a purple smile and some pink polka dots; she would not be bound by convention and besides, these alternative shells weren’t for her, but decoration for the crabs and microscopic organisms that lived in Erris’s rock pools. Pleased, Rosie plopped the shell into the rock pool beside her, smiling at the thought of the little creatures cosying up to their friendly new neighbour. (Later, Rosie cringed at the thought of all the chemicals she’d inadvertently released into the sea.) She picked up another white shell and prepared to paint another blandly smiling Virgin Mary.