The Chimney Thief Read online

  The Chimney Thief

  1

  Every Sunday morning, dressed in smart trousers, shirt and tie, Jerry O’Connell walked the short distance from his small whitewashed house to St James’s Catholic Church. Here he sat and listened attentively to what Father Ryan had to say, while reflecting that this priest had still to fill those shoes occupied by his predecessor.

  But as Jerry had previously reminded himself, perhaps it wasn’t really fair to expect such a thing. For few priests (considered the Irishman along with most of the congregation) could hope to possess those many attributes displayed by Father Simon during his lifetime, of which modesty, warmth, wit, intelligence, humour, charm, self-deprecation, compassion and charisma had numbered only a few.

  The very real love and affection which Jerry had and continued to possess for the deceased priest, however, went a little deeper than this. Because it was Father Simon, more than anyone else, who’d comforted him upon the sudden death of his wife, Mary.

  Following the priest’s own funeral almost four years later, Jerry had drunk a great deal.

  ‘That man…’ he’d told himself during the short and unsteady journey home, ‘that man should be made a saint.’

  Was it any wonder, given this accolade, that Father Ryan should struggle to make anything like a similar impression?

  Some members of the congregation had gone so far as to leave – to try nearby St Margaret’s instead. And those who loyally remained, like Jerry, tried hard to concentrate on the new priest’s frequently rambling sermons.

  On this particular Sunday morning, however, Jerry’s mind steadfastly refused to focus on anything much at all. Mechanically he stood for the hymns, doing his best to mumble through the words. Usually he’d a good voice, which he employed, but today his throat felt dry and sore.

  He was seized by frequent spells of dizziness during the prayers, readings and sermon. He sneezed several times during the offering of the peace, prompting numerous calls of ‘Bless you’ from the same people who seemed curiously reluctant to shake his hand.

  ‘Are you all right?’ murmured a neighbour during collection.

  ‘I’m coming down with a cold,’ he grunted.

  In spite of this, he resolved to finish a spot of painting he’d undertaken in the presbytery adjoining St James’s. The walls of the backroom required a final coat of magnolia; the skirting needed glossing. Of course, Jerry had already – indignantly – refused Father Ryan’s offer of payment.

  The service having concluded, the Irishman prepared to get to work. As ill as he was, he felt certain that this job would take no more than a couple of hours.

  He failed, therefore, to account for the presence of Mrs Mulligan, the similarly-aged and extremely talkative woman who counted the collection following Mass. For although Mrs Mulligan was reliable and (need this be said?) scrupulously honest, it still took little for her to be distracted from her task.

  ‘Father’s had to pop out on some mission of mercy,’ she declared as she bustled into the backroom. ‘Oh, but work never stops for that poor man.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have it any other way, Jane,’ replied Jerry, forcing a brightness he didn’t feel to his voice.

  Now wearing his decorator’s whites (which, after several years of wear and tear were no longer very white), he stirred a half-full tub of magnolia with a wide brush.

  ‘He’s a good man,’ emphasised Mrs Mulligan suddenly, as though Jerry had dared suggest to the contrary.

  The Irishman raised his eyebrows as she lit one of her long white cigarettes, aware that this was a habit upon which (as had his predecessor) Father Ryan frowned. Then Jerry shrugged, and putting down his paintbrush produced his wallet of tobacco.

  ‘Ah,’ exhaled Mrs Mulligan, ‘but the sermons Father Simon used to give about the smoking.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ muttered Jerry, who had himself come under fire on a number of occasions.

  ‘I remember the time when he saw me light-up along the next road but one,’ she said. ‘He was riding that rickety old bicycle of his – and dressed in shorts, would you believe.

  “Caught you!’ he said.’

  ‘He was a clean-living man,’ noted Jerry, ‘but partial to the odd drop.’

  ‘Ah bejaysus, Jerry!’ laughed Mrs Mulligan. ‘Did you ever meet a priest who wasn’t? I tell you, if you didn’t smoke or drink you’d live to be a hundred – and you’d be counting every single second.’

  While nodding politely, Jerry reflected that the room seemed to be revolving slowly around him. Little darts of pain shot through each limb. But still he rolled and lit a cigarette.

  Mrs Mulligan smiled secretively as she stared at him. As she also came from an area close to Limerick, liked a good joke and was widowed, she considered that they shared a great deal in common.

  She felt that she could confide.

  ‘Yes, Father Ryan’s a good man…’

  Jerry realised that she’d something she wished to add to this repeated statement. Furthermore, he thought he knew what it was. She could not, however, come straight out with it. She required prompting.

  ‘And…?’

  ‘Well… Father Simon – or Monsignor Simon, as I should rightly call him… He’s a hard act to follow, isn’t he?’

  Jerry now knew for certain where this was leading. And being in wholehearted agreement, he sought to encourage it on its way by asking, ‘Did you ever hear about the man Father caught thieving from the poor box?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ said Mrs Mulligan, her heavy features registering surprise.

  She glanced around the room as though in search of an ashtray, compelling Jerry to proffer the small, water-filled jar he kept for his oil brushes.

  ‘And how was such a thing possible, I ask,’ she demanded, flicking her ash, ‘given that it’s got nothing more than a little narrow slit for the coins?’

  ‘He got a piece of sticky tape, and somehow managed to push it through.’

  ‘The little monkey!’ laughed Mrs Mulligan, her expression suddenly reposing as she realised the gravity of the offence.

  ‘But he can only have got pence,’ she said seriously.

  ‘Sure he did,’ agreed Jerry. ‘But that’s not the point. He was thieving because he was a poor man himself. He wasn’t a drug addict, an alcoholic or anything else. Anyhow, Father Simon caught him, listened to his story, and then gave the man a meal.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest,’ said Mrs Mulligan loftily.

  Jerry hesitated, wondering if he should finish the tale. He decided that Mrs Mulligan was sufficiently discreet, even if she could talk the hind-legs off a horse.

  ‘But that’s not all,’ he confessed. ‘Father also got this man a job.’

  ‘What as?’

  ‘Caretaker at Saint Catherine’s,’ he said, referring to the nearby Catholic secondary school. ‘He’s still there now, fifteen or more years on.’

  ‘God bless him, but I’d never have known!’ exclaimed Mrs Mulligan. ‘Little Mario, you say?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ nodded Jerry, re-lighting his cigarette. ‘But that’s strictly between you and me.’

  ‘Well, let me tell you,’ said Mrs Mulligan eagerly, ‘what first made me realise that Father Simon was a priest out of the ordinary.

  ‘It was the first Midnight Mass I ever attended at Saint James’s, and there was a drunk sat on one of the front pews. Bejaysus, but the smell of the man! Everyone, including myself, was trying to stay away from him.’

  ‘It’s a powerful thing, the drink,’ observed Jerry seriously.

  ‘No – I’m talking about the smell,’ she emphasised. ‘Like he’d not seen a bathtub since the Christmas Eve before.’
>
  Jerry wrinkled his nose in simulated disgust.

  ‘Anyway, the time came for Communion and he went up just like everyone else. I was watching to see what Father would do – I hardly knew him then. Well, Jerry, let me tell you that he didn’t flinch, or look uncomfortable, or rush that man’s blessing – for it was a blessing he took.’

  Again, Jerry proffered his glass jar for her ash. There was the faintest hiss as it hit the water.

  ‘No,’ she continued, smiling wistfully. ‘Father placed his hands right on top of that man’s head – and God alone knows what it was crawling with – and he stared deep into his eyes. And… and he’d such a look of love that it shamed everyone there.

  ‘It’s all very well attending Mass and saying your prayers; but that Christmas Eve, Father showed everyone just how a true Catholic should behave.’

  Jerry nodded, and both he and Mrs Mulligan recalled how Father Ryan, stood outside the church a few Sundays before, had recoiled from the attentions of a passing drunk. They thought they understood each other: if a little deviously, then the point to this conversation had still been made.

  Then Jerry sneezed several times in rapid succession – and for the first time Mrs Mulligan took notice of his red and watery eyes, his pallid face.

  ‘You’re ill!’ she exclaimed as she dropped the butt of her cigarette into his jar.

  ‘I’m all right,’ returned Jerry, covering his mouth and nose as he sneezed again.

  ‘You just get yourself home, and make up a nice hot toddy to take to bed,’ she said curtly. ‘It’s the best thing for the flu, rotten nasty thing that it is.’

  ‘I tell you I’m all right,’ he repeated, producing a handkerchief and mopping his nose.

  ‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re an extremely stubborn man, Jerry O’Connell?’ she questioned, while reflecting that it was this stubbornness which had borne him through his wife’s long illness, and eventual death.

  ‘I find…’ he began, interrupted by a knock at the front door.

  ‘Someone’s always seeking Father,’ she said peevishly. ‘I wish people would just leave him be – he’s got more than enough on his plate as it is.’

  ‘Hello?’ said a timid voice along the hallway.

  ‘Father Ryan?’ said another, almost identical voice.

  ‘He’s not at home,’ replied Mrs Mulligan loudly, adding in an undertone, ‘You’d think they’d wait for an answer.’

  ‘How’d they get in?’ asked Jerry in a similarly low voice.

  ‘I left the door open,’ she replied. ‘It’s too nice a day to be shutting out the world.’

  Two plump women revealed themselves in the doorway of the backroom. With their similar dresses and hairstyles, thought Jerry, they might well have been considered sisters, had they not already introduced themselves as ‘Miss Jones’ and ‘Miss Jessup’ respectively.

  Mrs Mulligan, however, had different names for these recent additions to St James’s congregation. Collectively they were ‘Busybodies’, and singularly ‘Tweedledum’ and ‘Tweedledee’. Of course, Mrs Mulligan only ever used such names when alone with Jerry.

  ‘We were looking for Father,’ said one of the plump women, watching as Jerry hid his cigarette behind his back.

  ‘He’s not at home,’ repeated Mrs Mulligan with a sincere stare.

  ‘Do you know when he might be back?’ asked the other fat woman.

  ‘That I don’t. But I’ll be sure to tell him you called.’

  The two women gave a mutual nod, glanced uncertainly at one another, and retreated back along the hallway.

  ‘There’s a couple of gossips if ever I saw them,’ said Mrs Mulligan quietly. ‘Lesbians, too, if I’m not mistaken.’

  She appeared suddenly contrite.

  ‘Not that I’ve anything against such types, you understand.’

  ‘They’re happy,’ said Jerry, who possessed a similarly liberal attitude. ‘What’s it to do with anyone else?’

  ‘Consenting adults,’ she agreed. ‘And besides, it must be nice to…’

  ‘Nice to what?’ prompted Jerry.

  ‘To return home to someone,’ she sighed, ‘no matter who that some-one might be. I’m forgetting now what it was like.’

  ‘I know,’ said Jerry quietly.

  ‘Of course you do,’ she returned. ‘And we could all do with taking a leaf out of your book.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you’ve always been so… Oh, what’s the word I’m looking for now…?’

  ‘Debonair?’ suggested Jerry humorously.

  ‘No,’ she snapped. ‘Pragmatic­ – that’s the one.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, beginning to feel embarrassed.

  ‘You know,’ she continued, ‘that my Tom was a great admirer of yours.’

  ‘Of mine?’ he queried, having barely exchanged ten words with that sullen man in as many years.

  ‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘He was always envious of a man good with his hands.’

  ‘But you’ve told me before that he had his own tools.’

  ‘True,’ she nodded. ‘And never happier than when he was bashing away at something in that shed of his.’

  ‘Well – there you go, then.’

  ‘No, Jerry,’ she said ruefully. ‘None of it was ever any good, no matter what he tried doing. And I was forever giving the man plasters. I used to say to him, ‘In your case, DIY stands for Don’t Injure Yourself.’

  ‘And did he see the laughing side?’

  ‘Actually, he did not,’ she admitted. ‘He’d sulk, and refuse to eat. He was like a spoilt little boy in many ways, God bless him.’

  Jerry realised that he, too, possessed a desire to talk. Something in Mrs Mulligan’s manner encouraged participation.

  ‘I’m hardly that handy myself,’ he said modestly. ‘I remember that Mary was always on at me to redecorate, and extend the kitchen. It’s the usual thing – a builder who won’t take care of his own place.’

  Privately, Mrs Mulligan considered that with Mary’s frequent ill-health, Jerry had had quite enough on his plate anyway. She recalled the time when Mary had stood up in the middle of Mass, demanding to know why everyone was whispering about her.

  And the widow now found herself slightly at a loss for what to say –

  ‘From the… occasions I spoke with Mary,’ she began, hesitantly, ‘I got the impression that you always obliged her with a game of cards, at least.’

  ‘Nothing made her happier, really, than a good game of rummy,’ agreed the Irishman with a wistful smile. ‘She found it such a treat.’

  ‘And don’t we all?’ demanded Mrs Mulligan as she lit another cigarette, sure of herself once more. ‘I sometimes play a few hands with the simpleton next door, not that he makes for much of a partner.’

  ‘You could always point him my way,’ sighed Jerry. ‘It’s been a while since I last played anything but patience.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said immediately. ‘I’m at home most evenings, lonely old soul that I am.’

  ‘Oh,’ he uttered, taken aback by this sudden invitation.

  ‘Wednesday?’ he then suggested.

  ‘Fine,’ she repeated. ‘Seven-ish?’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘’Afternoon,’ greeted Father Ryan as he strolled into the backroom, his nose wrinkling at the smell of smoke.

  ‘A wonderful job,’ he told Jerry, whose cigarette remained cupped in his hand behind his back.

  ‘I’ll be done soon, Father,’ he said.

  The priest transferred his attention to Mrs Mulligan.

  ‘I hope there’s no, ha, burglars out for their Sunday stroll, Jane,’ he remarked.

  ‘Really, Father?’ returned the widow innocently, tapping her ash into Jerry’s glass jar. ‘And why would that be now?’

  ‘Because the front door’s wide open,’ declared Father Ryan with determined good-humour, ‘and there’s a large sum of money lying on the table just ins
ide.’

  ‘It’s a pittance,’ she said disgustedly. ‘It only seems large because of all the coppers.’

  She and the priest then looked at Jerry as he sneezed. A slight groan escaped him as he again mopped his nose with his handkerchief.

  ‘You don’t look very, ha, well, Jerry,’ said Father Ryan with concern. ‘Shouldn’t you be at home tucked up in bed?’

  Mrs Mulligan decided that Jerry actually looked worse than he had five minutes before. Stubbornness was one thing, she thought; now he was just being foolish.

  ‘Home,’ she snapped. ‘This instant.’

  ‘I…’

  ‘I do really feel that Jane’s right, Jerry,’ said the priest wisely, while wishing that this room was finished and he could move his furniture back in.

  ‘I…’

  ‘If need be, Jerry, I’ll confiscate your paintbrush,’ said Mrs Mulligan. ‘You’re in no fit state to be working, man.’

  Further debate on the matter was clearly pointless; with a weak nod, Jerry replaced the lid on the paint and clambered out of his decorators’ whites. These, along with his paint-speckled shoes and brushes, could be left in the backroom, wrapped in plastic bags, until the following Sunday.

  Mrs Mulligan escorted him along the hallway to the front door, passing the wooden table with its many silver and bronze coins, and precious few notes.

  ‘That reminds me of something in the bible,’ remarked Mrs Mulligan. ‘But I can’t quite think what.’

  ‘I’ll be seeing you, Jane,’ said Jerry as he emerged outside, squinting his eyes against the bright, stabbing sunlight.

  ‘Seven o’clock Wednesday evening,’ she reminded.

  ‘Yes. I’m… I’m looking forward to it, you know.’

  ‘So am I,’ she said. ‘And remember – what you need right now is a good hot toddy. It’ll work wonders, I’m telling you.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

  ‘Be sure that you do,’ she instructed, with that turning and re-entering the presbytery.

  Feeling strangely flattered that this stout widow should care so greatly about his health, Jerry began the short walk home.

  ‘I’ll bring a bottle of something nice,’ he told himself.