Authors: Maeve Binchy
Gradually, Eileen Edwards became part of life around Father Flynn's social center. She helped to teach English conversation classes. She was often there, pouring out the great tea urn. Always dressed as if she was going out somewhere very smart. Sometimes she let the girls in the center try on her jackets. She told them about her apartment, where she had a special closet just for shoes.
“She's slumming it, Brian, that's what she's at. She's only here looking for a bit of rough!”
“Ah, Johnny, always the hard word,” Brian said, shaking his head.
“But what else could it be, Brian? Hanging round here looking everyone up and down.”
“And has she hit on you yet?” Brian asked with interest. “I mean, she couldn't get a better example of rough than yourself. Broken nose and all.”
Johnny took no offense. He thought about it seriously. “No, she hasn't come on to me at all. She'd get short shrift if she did. No, I think it's
you
she fancies.”
“Me?” Brian Flynn was astounded. “A fat, middle-aged priest!”
“Of course you'd give up the whole priest business and be normal like the rest of us,” Johnny suggested.
“Normal? You? You're insane, Johnny, that's what you are.”
“I think I might be, all right,” Johnny agreed. “The only cure for insanity is a pint.”
“I don't know why you drag me on these punishing walks, then fill me up with beer again,” Brian grumbled.
“Someone's got to look after your social life before we let that lulu drag you down,” Johnny said.
Brian laughed at him. Johnny was a man who saw drama everywhere and predatory women round every corner.
But he wasn't the only one who took against Eileen Edwards. Judy Slattery, Father Flynn's sister, had taken against her too.
Judy was married to a man back in Rossmore whom everyone called Skunk, but she always addressed as Sebastian. She had found her husband through St. Ann's Well and would hear nothing against the saint or the so-called superstition surrounding her shrine. She was obsessed with trying to get her husband's name—which was and had always been Skunk—changed to Sebastian. Skunk had turned out to be not only the name of an offensive and smelly animal but also some horrible drug. Sebastian must not have such connections.
Sometimes her conversations with Brian could become quite sharp but Skunk Slattery was a great peacemaker.
“Will you leave the poor man alone, Judy? Isn't he only a confused
cleric who doesn't know whether he's coming or going? Let him have his little rants and raves about St. Ann. It makes him feel adventurous.”
There was no Skunk around to keep the peace when Judy dropped in to see her brother in Dublin.
“What do you have that troublesome girl hanging round here for?” she asked.
“She helps. She's a volunteer.” Brian was vague.
“I'd say there isn't much
she
wouldn't volunteer for.” Judy was disapproving.
“Why don't you like her, Judy? She's harmless and possibly a bit lonely.”
“Hmm. I don't like the way she refers to you …’Oh, I'm teaching Brian to text-message; oh, I think Brian must learn the e-mail; oh, Brian's doing
such
a good job with these people.’”
“Mimicking someone is always very cruel.” Brian was cross now. “She can't help it if she speaks in a posh accent.”
“I'm not
talking
about her accent. I'm talking about what she says.” Judy was spoiling for a fight.
“Well, that's all true. She
is
teaching me how to use e-mail. She
has
taught me to text. All of this is very useful.” You could hear Judy's snort at the other side of the Liffey
A few days later Eileen turned up at Father Flynn's ground-floor flat.
“Hello?” he said, surprised.
“Well, I thought you sounded lonely in your e-mail.”
“My e-mail?” Brian was bewildered.
“Yes, the one you sent a couple of hours ago,” Eileen said.
“No, I didn't send any e-mail, Eileen.”
“But you
did,
Brian. Look…” She produced a sheet of typed paper from her handbag.
“I need my glasses,” he said.
“Then invite me in rather than leaving me to stand at the doorway.”
Unwillingly he asked her into his simple place. When Eileen saw it she screamed in horror.
“Brian,
you can't live with that carpet, it's ancient!”
“I didn't notice,” he said.
“And there's not a matching chair in the place. It's like a first-year student's flat. And that lumpy, bumpy sofa. Really, Brian, you deserve better than this.” She shook her head.
“I'm fine here, thank you, Eileen,” he said and she seemed to notice the hint of resentment in his voice.
“No, I didn't mean to criticize. I just wanted you to know how
valuable
you are to everyone here. You should look after yourself more, give yourself a little comfort. I bet you haven't even got a proper kitchen …” Without being invited, she went into his kitchen and looked around it sadly, tutting and clucking to herself. “Look at all those uneven surfaces, look at that cold floor, that torn lino …” And before he could stop her, she had gone into his bedroom, seen his tousled bed, the clothes rail on wheels that served him as a wardrobe. The walls were covered with soccer posters hastily stuck up to cover damp or stained portions of wallpaper.
Quite.
As he loosened his collar with his finger, Brian felt very uneasy. Could there possibly be anything in what Johnny had suggested? Then he pulled himself sharply together. Eileen Edwards was a beautiful twenty-five-year-old girl, he was a fat middle-aged priest. Was he going mad thinking she might fancy him?
Eileen had got out a notebook and was beginning to make a list. Brian knew that this must be cut short immediately. “It's very kind of you, Eileen, and I know you mean well, but actually you're not helping me at all. I am blind to my surroundings really, and this carpet and this place are just fine with me. So I'll have to ask you to let me go my way.”
“But, Brian, you're shirts aren't even ironed. I mean, really.”
“They're drip-dry,” he said plaintively.
“No, they're not. They're all wrinkled and crushed. You need a nice, kind girl to do your ironing for you every week.”
“Please, Eileen.”
“It is important if you meet people, people of substance, who might help you and the center. What will they think if you turn up looking like a hooligan? Who would advance you money or support then?”
He was anxious that she should be gone. “I won't keep you anymore, Eileen, and as I say, I thank you for your interest. I
will
think about it all, I promise, but I couldn't have you doing my ironing for me …
Eileen gave a scream.
“Me?
You thought I was offering to do your ironing? Oh Lord, what an idea!”
He felt his face and neck redden. “I'm sorry, I thought you said I needed a kind girl to do it.”
“I didn't mean that
I
would do it. The center is full of girls who go out to clean houses, they'd do it quick as look at you.”
“Yes, of course. Sorry,” he mumbled.
“And I wouldn't have come round at all only that your e-mail seemed to suggest that you needed company.”
“I didn't send any e-mail, Eileen, I told you I didn't.”
“What's this, then?” And Brian Flynn found himself reading the sheet of typed paper that indeed did purport to come from him. It said that the evenings were long and lonesome and that a bit of pleasant company would never go amiss.
“What was I to think?” Eileen opened her china-blue eyes wide in puzzlement.
“I'm sorry, Eileen. I didn't write it,” he said.
“Well, it's got your name, your e-mail address.” And, true, it did say it was from Father Brian, which was his e-mail name.
“Okay, Brian, so the moment has passed,” she said, forgiving, understanding, all-knowing.
“There was no moment to pass,” he said despairingly.
She just looked down at the sheet of paper again. It was as if she rested her case.
• • •
Brian Flynn didn't sleep well that night. He examined all the possible explanations. None of them seemed reasonable or good. He said Mass the next morning and shook the hands of those who had come to pray.
“It would be wonderful if you had a Polish priest to give us a sermon sometime,” little Ania said. She and Lidia were there as usual, and Ania always spoke to Brian as she left the church. Suddenly the thought came to Brian that he would invite his friend Tomasz to preach once a month. Tomasz would love it, the people here would love him. His tired face lit up with pleasure thinking of how he would arrange it.
“Oh, and Father, Eileen was telling me you needed someone to do your ironing. It would be an honor for me—”
“No, Ania, Eileen got it wrong.”
“But she said she was in your flat last night having supper and you said your clothes looked crumpled and not like the clothes of a man who dined with gentlemen and she wondered would I—”
“No, Ania, many thanks, but no. And Eileen did
not have
supper in my flat last night or any night. She called with some cracked e-mail that I was meant to have written to her.”
“She says you are very good at the e-mail now, that you write her many letters.” Ania wanted to give praise where it was due.
“I have written her
no
letters. But, Ania, why am I shouting at
you?.
This is all a misunderstanding, that's all.”
“I know, Father Brian. But I will still come and iron your shirts.” The girl's gray eyes were kind and sympathetic. They were not the cold, china-blue, slightly mad eyes of Eileen.
Brian Flynn got on with his day, a heavy feeling of dread around his heart.
Tomasz was very excited by the chance of speaking to his fellow Poles. He wondered where he could stay in Dublin—everywhere seemed too expensive to him. “You could stay in my place for free,” Brian offered. “There's a lumpy sofa, but with a few cushions it should be all right.” Tomasz thought that was a great idea and they fixed a date.
Tomasz e-mailed him a few lines in Polish saying what he was going to talk about. Brian picked it up at the Internet café, where they printed it for him. Out of interest he asked the proprietor was it possible to send an e-mail pretending to come from someone else.
“Only if you knew their password,” the man said.
This was it, then. Brian knew that nobody knew his password. So what could have happened? Had he in fact in a moment of madness really written that message to Eileen? Was he losing touch with reality?
Father Tomasz loved the old cobbled streets and tiny restaurants in Brian Flynn's part of Dublin. He had a half-pint with Johnny and a mate of his from the heart clinic, Tim. He did a tour of the center, discussed the next day's Mass and came back via a cheap Indian restaurant to Brian's place.
“It's lovely, Brian. Haven't you everything you need here?” he admired. Brian got a lump in his throat. This was what he had wanted to hear, not that he was a pitiable loser. The men sat and talked happily about Rossmore, the canon, Neddy Nolan, the new bookshop Skunk and Judy were opening and the goings-on up at the Ferns and Heathers, the resident home where the seniors always seemed to have a good time.
At midnight Brian Flynn got a text message: “No, Brian, it's too late tonight, it wouldn't be wise to come and see you. We'll meet tomorrow. Stay cheerful, try to sleep and don't contact me again like a good lamb.” It was signed, “Love, Eileen.”
Brian showed the text message to Tomasz. “The only thing is that I
didn't
contact her,” he said with a sad face like a bloodhound.
They talked late into the night. Tomasz was full of theories. Maybe Brian's kind manner had given Eileen some sort of false encouragement? But that couldn't explain these e-mails and text messages that she claimed to have got from him. Possibly she was a reformer, someone who had to change other people. That might be why she felt free to walk through his house commenting and criticizing.
Yes. But it still didn't explain the messages.
“Perhaps she is a mad person,” Tomasz said eventually.
“Yes, I think that must be it,” Brian agreed sadly.
They had another mug of tea and sighed over it all.
“Maybe you could get in touch with her family?” Tomasz suggested.
“I don't think she is close to them. She talks about her father giving her an allowance. She never says anything about them. Any of them.”
“And does she live alone?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“You don't know much about her, Brian.”
“You're right, Tomasz. I hardly know anything about her at all.”
Johnny was in the heart clinic doing cardiac exercises with a group of patients. The group included Kitty Reilly, who kept insisting that any good health or improvement was due to the direct intervention of some saint or other and blamed the world in general for ignoring this saint whenever she was not feeling great. There was the kindly Judy Murphy, who was now so fit that she was like an assistant to Johnny, helping the wild, flailing limbs of people like Lar to stay in some way contained. Bobby Walsh with his anxious, sad face, said that he would do anything to get more strength in his arms, so Johnny had put him for a sustained period on the arm machine. Everyone was getting along fine at their various stations when Clara came in.
“An urgent phone call for you, Johnny,” she said.
Johnny was surprised. Who could be ringing him at the heart clinic? His mobile phone was on answer. He could have got the message later.
“I'm sorry, Clara. I don't know what it's about.”
“It's a priest, a Father Flynn. He sounds very distressed. Go and deal with it, Johnny, I'll supervise the class here.”
“Oh, good, we can relax a bit now that the sergeant major has gone,” said Lar with some relief.
“Oho, you haven't seen me in action. I'm a devil for the treadmill
,” Clara Casey said. “You'll be praying for Johnny to come back, believe me.”
“Hello, Brian, how's tricks?”
“Not good, Johnny. That Eileen came up to me after the Polish Mass today and said I'd asked her out tonight and that she was buying a slinky black number.”