simplicity of the conference table. Then His Grace asked, ‘Of course, you know to whom your scholarship belongs?’
Maitland came close to smiling at the pretentious word. His scholarship might perhaps have been vast enough, if he were a layman, to allow him to teach history to senior boys.
‘It belongs to me,’ His Grace said, ‘as much as it belongs to yourself, and if ever there was a question of obedience, it would belong to me or my successor more than to yourself. Remember that and your safety is assured.’
8
T HE NEXT DAY Maitland had a small letter of thanks from his cousin, Joe Quinlan. ‘We upped and invested in some land,’ said Joe. ‘For which much thanks to you.’ The letter evoked summer and the day of what was for Maitland a truer homecoming than a mere disembarking onto a wharf could ever be. The day had been a Thursday late in February on which he caught a train towards those flat towns he had known as a child. The sets of lines ran out molten blue to the suburb where his maternal cousin, Joseph Quinlan, lived.
In Europe he had remembered the sun but forgotten the summer. So, as he sat through fifteen station stops and watched old men’s brave morning collars travelling home sodden, the exact flavour of the Februaries of his childhood returned in a rush and remained. February, the crude exposer of the mortal and the makeshift, of the mortal and makeshift shirt and floral dress, of mortal and makeshift James Maitland, the sun boring at his left, window-side ear.
He was all prickly heat by the time a station came with Joe Quinlan’s address on it. Outside an empty supermarket stood the right bus. Rolling off at last, it showed him all the things he could have predicted. Down flat streets jury-masted with power poles, the bus was hailed by neanderthal wives near looted phonebooths, joyless service-stations, abject corner shops.
He got out at a street of plaster-board houses. Plaster-board might have done well in dainty Japan but could assert nothing under the massive censure of this sky. On his corner in the desert, he could hear a television set promising a trip to Tahiti for the neatest correct entry opened.
Maitland could not remember the seventeen-year-old who had gone to become a priest and himself at twenty-nine; could not even remember what the seventeen-year-old had believed (though it was bound to be nearly everything). But he knew that in that young lost mind marriage had meant a suburb like this one, out of which the clean eternity of the priesthood had called him. Maitland stood a second being sad for the boy, forgiving the boy’s zeal.
The Quinlans lived in 27, whose side had been barricaded with an iron gate. Beyond this he saw a fowlhouse and could hear the furtive birds. He climbed the barricade and came to the back of the house. Here a woman, hidden from him by oddments of family underwear, pegged out clothes. Sensing him, she pushed through the washing, and a small dog charged from beneath hung bedsheets.
‘Oh, father,’ said the woman, ‘you gave me a scare. They’ve been so many attacks in this district.’
She was a square, dark little woman, very tired, hardly a welcome left in her. But she had not had the scare she claimed. Maitland could tell she knew that if he were the local curate seeking money or sacrifice, she had him at a disadvantage by reducing him to a part of the general male threat.
‘You should use the front door, father. I’m not to know you’re a priest, am I?’
‘Mrs Joe Quinlan, isn’t it?’
She nodded and folded her arms, on the left of which hung a red plastic bucket of pegs meaning that she couldn’t give him much time.
‘Yes. We go to Mass up here at Saint Bernard’s, but Joe hasn’t got the time to join societies and things.’
‘Don’t worry about that. I’m Joe’s cousin. My mother was a Quinlan. My name’s James Maitland.’
She said without pleasure that she was pleased to meet him.
They stood in silence. You
Maitland came close to smiling at the pretentious word. His scholarship might perhaps have been vast enough, if he were a layman, to allow him to teach history to senior boys.
‘It belongs to me,’ His Grace said, ‘as much as it belongs to yourself, and if ever there was a question of obedience, it would belong to me or my successor more than to yourself. Remember that and your safety is assured.’
8
T HE NEXT DAY Maitland had a small letter of thanks from his cousin, Joe Quinlan. ‘We upped and invested in some land,’ said Joe. ‘For which much thanks to you.’ The letter evoked summer and the day of what was for Maitland a truer homecoming than a mere disembarking onto a wharf could ever be. The day had been a Thursday late in February on which he caught a train towards those flat towns he had known as a child. The sets of lines ran out molten blue to the suburb where his maternal cousin, Joseph Quinlan, lived.
In Europe he had remembered the sun but forgotten the summer. So, as he sat through fifteen station stops and watched old men’s brave morning collars travelling home sodden, the exact flavour of the Februaries of his childhood returned in a rush and remained. February, the crude exposer of the mortal and the makeshift, of the mortal and makeshift shirt and floral dress, of mortal and makeshift James Maitland, the sun boring at his left, window-side ear.
He was all prickly heat by the time a station came with Joe Quinlan’s address on it. Outside an empty supermarket stood the right bus. Rolling off at last, it showed him all the things he could have predicted. Down flat streets jury-masted with power poles, the bus was hailed by neanderthal wives near looted phonebooths, joyless service-stations, abject corner shops.
He got out at a street of plaster-board houses. Plaster-board might have done well in dainty Japan but could assert nothing under the massive censure of this sky. On his corner in the desert, he could hear a television set promising a trip to Tahiti for the neatest correct entry opened.
Maitland could not remember the seventeen-year-old who had gone to become a priest and himself at twenty-nine; could not even remember what the seventeen-year-old had believed (though it was bound to be nearly everything). But he knew that in that young lost mind marriage had meant a suburb like this one, out of which the clean eternity of the priesthood had called him. Maitland stood a second being sad for the boy, forgiving the boy’s zeal.
The Quinlans lived in 27, whose side had been barricaded with an iron gate. Beyond this he saw a fowlhouse and could hear the furtive birds. He climbed the barricade and came to the back of the house. Here a woman, hidden from him by oddments of family underwear, pegged out clothes. Sensing him, she pushed through the washing, and a small dog charged from beneath hung bedsheets.
‘Oh, father,’ said the woman, ‘you gave me a scare. They’ve been so many attacks in this district.’
She was a square, dark little woman, very tired, hardly a welcome left in her. But she had not had the scare she claimed. Maitland could tell she knew that if he were the local curate seeking money or sacrifice, she had him at a disadvantage by reducing him to a part of the general male threat.
‘You should use the front door, father. I’m not to know you’re a priest, am I?’
‘Mrs Joe Quinlan, isn’t it?’
She nodded and folded her arms, on the left of which hung a red plastic bucket of pegs meaning that she couldn’t give him much time.
‘Yes. We go to Mass up here at Saint Bernard’s, but Joe hasn’t got the time to join societies and things.’
‘Don’t worry about that. I’m Joe’s cousin. My mother was a Quinlan. My name’s James Maitland.’
She said without pleasure that she was pleased to meet him.
They stood in silence. You
Similar Books
