Makes a Body Feel Alone

The instant I screech the heavy black-iron bolt from its floor socket, the tall church door sweeps inward, forcing me to skirt outta the way too fast for my hangover. Tommy, the shopkeeper, Lawless’ shock of bristly white hair shuffles in past me sullen-silent, his red face scowling down at the front porch’s white mosaic tiled floor, in the bulging open the pocket of his saggy, brown-tweed sportscoat is an orange.

“What’s thee meaning of opening thee church tw… enty minutes late?” Michael Egan’s sneering, bulbous face is suddenly so close, I can see the dark-pink skin pores on his forehead, smell the Brylcreem smearing his barely-hair flat to his scalp. I involuntarily inhale, imagining my breath reeks of stale Smithwicks and puked-up-fish-n’chips. 

Egan’s stubby-round body bulges a pinstriped, navy three-piece-suit, an altar-wine-purple tie cinching his fat pink throat, as he huffs and puffs, waiting for an answer that’ll never be recovered from my hangover-addled-brain.  Sensing confused fear, his skin pores press closer-bigger; glasses jammed magnifying-hard against his face; eyes ablaze with the-world-must-do-what-I-demand-anger.

“Fath…her Blake will most cert…tainly hear … all about this!” he growls; intense anger in a voice well trained in intense anger by a lifetime of as an Irish bachelor in England, keeping British Rail trains running on time, before retiring to his birthplace in Castlebar.

My scrambled-by-the-fourth-pint brain – three pints a Smithwicks and I’m a smiley drunk, waking with a sour stomach; four and I’m a wobbly-eyed stumbler, waking with a crushing hungover – immediately jumps into excuse mode.  Not for Egan; no one pays him no heed; he complains about everything to everyone.  But opening the church twenty minutes late is real. Father Blake, the parish priest, could complain to my boss, Pat the sacristan, about people barely getting in for Saturday morning’s eight o’clock mass.

I don’t have time to think as Miss Flynn’s short-stooped frame is a half-step behind Egan; her trademark kind smile on her thin-pale-wrinkly face, that every week greets so many across the Dole Office counter.  Instinctively, I grab the inside porch door, swinging closed behind Egan’s waddle, to hold it open for Miss Flynn.  She unsheathes her rosary beads from a leather purse, and this genuinely holy woman heads for her usual seat just in front of the reddish-brownish-white marble pulpit in the middle of the church – from where every evening at half seven, except Sunday, she leads a group saying the Rosary for Peace up the North. 

The sudden movement of grabbing for the closing door is too much, retching scalding bile up my throat.  

Stomach knotting; hand cupped over mouth; I dart out the gaping church doorway to the relative puking-safety of Chapel Street. 

Stale fish n’ chips burp!

Mouth and nose tasting last night’s fish n’ chips with particular bitterness: One minute I’m swaying home across Market Square; suddenly I’m passing a pound in the chip van window to the sad-eyed, red-haired lady; minutes later a steaming luvly-smelling brown bag comes out the window.  Mouth-burningly I wolf the lot all down, dropping the greasy contents in on top a four pints a Smithwicks.  Ten wobbly minutes later, I volcanically deposit the pound’s worth of food onto long-gone Smiler Murphy’s front lawn.

Now, hand cupping my rebellious bile out, I’m on Chapel Street with the risk of my hangover creating suspicion of underage drinking shooting up as late arrivals fast-walk towards the church door: Lilly McDonald’s squat figure in a beige raincoat, jet black hair, short-rapid-steps up from her newsagents down Tucker Street where we used to buy single cigarettes for 2p; Dr. Caulfield, my dentist, leaning his bald-greying head forward, steps quickly across the street from his car; a black-bereted, hands in navy raincoat pockets, red-faced-straight-backed Brian Hoban, slow-stepping it from his Newtown newsagent, from where, in National School we stole sweets when he turned his back to put coins in the till, nods curtly suspicious as he passes; a skinny-gaunt De La Salle brother, new to the National School and whose name I’ve never heard, walks so fast his black soutane billows behind in his own wind.

Gulping burning-bile down, I scurry over to the side of the church where I can make it back to the sacristy from outside.  Sweat oozing from every pore, I stop for two seconds to sooth my throbbing forehead against the flat cold edge of the side entrance’s eight-foot tall, black wrought iron gate.

Scared whatever priest is saying mass will come across me and know what’s wrong, I jog-walk towards the sacristy.  As I pass Archdeacon Nohilly’s grave, I wonder at the power of this parish priest who made me so afraid as a five-year-old, that even eleven years later my stomach still tightens every time I pass his grave.

Inside the sacristy Father McCarthy is already arms-over-head pulling on the lily-white Alb, the first of the vestments for mass which thankfully, Pat had laid out yesterday after First Friday’s evening mass.  With my jaw moving as I rapidly make and swallow spit to force down the bile, I quickstep to the sacristy bench to get the wine and water cruets filled for the one altar boy who’s shown up.

“The … candles,” the slight altar boy whispers; standing on his tippy-toes, leaning forward; his serious eyes fighting to suppress his joy at getting to do all the altar boy jobs.

“I needa light the candles,” he whispers, nodding toward the altar.

“Yeah, yeah, here,” I grab a taper off the top a the drawers above the sacristy bench, yank open the matches drawer and hand him both.

His eyes widen in sheer delight.

“You light that, I’ll brin’ out t’water an’ wine,” I loud-whisper, distractedly creaking open the sacristy bench’s wooden cabinet door revealing the cruets, two bottles of altar wine and large cardboard box filled with thousands of communion wafers, which is just bread for now as they’ve not yet been transformed during mass into the body of Christ.

I stop for a half-second wondering if, with an empty sacristy during mass, a fistful of bread communion wafers would calm down my bile.

“Don’t forget me chalice,” Father McCarthy says in his singsong voice, “not much of a mass without a chalice!”

He laughs his good-natured laugh that always makes me want to help him as much as I can.

“Sure, sure,” I reassure, leaving the offerings-cabinet, skirting sideways to the middle of the sacristy bench. I unlock the sacristy kinda-sorta tabernacle, made of dark, intricately carved wood, where we keep the chalice. 

I place the chalice in the thin cork mat in front of this kinda-tabernacle; it’s covered already with its paten – a little golden disc for holding the host.  Then I start to gather all the chalice’s bits and pieces: Grabbing the clean white cloth Father McCarthy will use to purify the chalice, slipping it in under the paten. I reach into the back of the tabernacle-shaped cabinet to get the short, but heavy, silver jar filled with as yet un-transformed hosts.  I unscrew the silver lid, place a host on the paten, then cover the paten and host with a square of heavy-stiff cardboard enclosed in white fabric, in the centre of which is a blood-red double crucifix.  Checking what vestments Father McCarthy is pulling on, I finish with a chalice cover of the same colour.

“Come on, come on,” Father McCarthy says, “the wee lad can carry the cruets out with him.”

Father McCarthy is a fierce nice priest, and he always likes to get through things quickly: Mass, confessions, weddings, even funerals. 

“I do luv ta see him come out on t’altar,” Da says, “he’s the best wan below in that Castlebar presbytery for a good, quick mass.”

As I hurry to fill the cruets, the altar boy wanders back in from the altar starry-eyed staring at the flame tipped taper.  I yank the taper from his hand, pushing in its place the water cruet, wave-mumbling at him to fill the cruet from the sacristy sink.  A huffing breath blows out the taper with a smoky, blackening melted wax death.  Flinging the taper onto the bench, I start too fast filling the wine cruet and spill red altar wine all over the glass cruet tray. 

The sweet smell of wine fills the air and I’m not sure if I should try to dab it up from the glass cruet tray, but there’s no time. 

Father McCarthy shoos the altar boy into place, the fully loaded, and wine stained, cruet tray wobble-clinking in the boy’s hurried hands. 

Together they float out onto the altar: Feet unseen beneath their floor-draggingly-long vestments.

It’s only when Father McCarthy’s “Good more…ning,” crackles over the sacristy speaker that I realize I’m sweating hard; panting; ready to puke. 

I dart for the sacristy toilet; flip up its ancient wooden seat; knees collapsing to the tiled floor; head into the white toilet bowl.  

Panic! Is the toilet door locked?  My hangover puking will surely unmask underage drinking.

I force myself up off my knees; gulp down burning bile; fight the never-works-in-a-hurry door bolt.

Barely in time, my knees whack onto the tiles:

HHHUUUUAAAHHHHH!

Belly knots in white-blinding pain, bile scorches up along my throat.

Two sticky-drippy bile pukes: Spit-spit-spit into the shadowy-shimmering water.

HHHUUUUAAAHHHHH!

Doubled in pain, yet somehow forced to stand-stand-stand away the belly pain; hands grab the cold white toilet rim; legs try to straighten; a flash of white-blinding pain!

Knees whack the tiles; hands slip from the shiny white rim; head inside the bowl; immediately whipped back.

Prickly sweat oozing from every pore; heart thumping; head throbbing.

Breath … breath … breath.

Deep long breaths, relax belly muscles.

Finally standing.

Belly fake-knots into retch-retch-retching: Nothing left to empty but pain.

Jumper sleeve wipes standing sweat from brow.

Breath in … breath out … breath in … breath out.

Pull the toilet chain: The sound of water rushing away the evidence of my sin.

Fight the stubborn door bolt; heavy-the-bile-down breaths; back in the sacristy; walls shimmying; closer the altar door!

The door closer’s metallic click signals in a few seconds I’ll be safe from the altar.

“Blessed art Thou, … the Lord God of all creation,” Father McCarthy’s voice crackles out of the sacristy speaker.  “Thru your goodness … we have this wine ta offer, fruit a the vine, work a human hands, it will become our … spiritual drink.”

Head inta the sink; cold water splashing face; deep breaths; eternally-damp sacristy towel mopping forehead … cheeks … lips.

“Let your spirits come upon these gifts …,” Father McCarthy continues, “ta make them holy, so they become for us the body … an’ blood … of our Lord Jesus Christ.”