Chasing Angels Page 3

  ‘Blasphemy is a sin!’ Father McCabe said, taking another puff from his cigarette and peering at her through the smoke.

  ‘Christ, is that the best ye can come up wi’? Besides, as Ah say, it would suit me a damned sight better tae cut the proceedin’s tae the minimum. Ah’m quite prepared tae let ye aff the hook, an’ Rent-a-crowd tae for that matter. A quick trot in an’ oot wi’ a pause tae press the button, an’ then Ah’ll go back tae my ain life. Whit d’ye say?’

  The little priest glared at her in silence.

  ‘Aye, Ah thought so,’ she said. ‘Ye aye hing oan in there, frae the cradle tae the grave, daen’t ye? He’ll be yours till his ashes grow cauld. Ye’d climb in the urn wi’ him for wan last look just tae make sure if ye could. But just grit your teeth, efter this Ah’ll be oota your life, an’ merr tae the point, you’ll be oota mine. Noo is that no’ somethin’ worth shuttin’ your mooth for?’

  Later, as she sat on the floor of Old Con’s house, going through the pictures, birth certificates and insurance policies, laughing again at the evening’s events, she knew that Father McCabe had been right, though; she really would have to get a grip. After all, in the morning, after the final act took place, she would be free at last. After three months of camping in Con’s house, nursing him out of life, she would be able to return to her cottage and her real life on the West Coast. ‘But there again,’ she thought, feeling another burst of giggles approaching, ‘that’s likely why Ah’m laughin’ in the first place!’

  Her brother Peter hadn’t been there when Con died, in fact the beloved son hadn’t been there for many a year, but his name was still the last word on the old man’s lips. Father McCabe was in at the kill, of course, he’d almost kept vigil by Old Con for months, in case, she’d mused to herself, he really had taken up his bed and walked instead of doing the decent thing and pegging out. During that last week especially he’d hardly been away; the whole place reeked of his cigarette smoke.

  ‘Just as well my auld man is dyin’ already,’ she said, pointedly sticking another ashtray under the priest’s nose, ‘or ye’d dae him in wi’ fag fumes! Have ye nothin’ better tae dae than hing aboot here a’ day clutterin’ the place up anyway? Is there no’ a statue somewhere ye could be noddin’ at?’

  ‘My place is with your father,’ he intoned mysteriously, ‘as you well know.’

  ‘Ach, yer arse!’ Kathy retorted. ‘Ye’d have thought ye’d have merr tae dae wi’ Christ’s birthday coming up. This no’ wanna yer busy times? Ye’ve gied the auld man the Last Rites that many times Ah’m beginning tae wonder if ye’re oan piecework.’

  Father McCabe glared at her. There was once a more respectful age when that glare alone could control his most errant parishioner, though never, it had to be said, Kathy, and it was still the first weapon in his arsenal, long, long after that time had passed. ‘Will you never learn to show respect, Kathleen Agnes Kelly?’ he demanded, mentioning her grandmother’s name as a jibe.

  Kathy smiled to herself, flicking cigarette ash off the surfaces with a tea towel, refusing to take the bait. ‘Ah shouldnae think so,’ she replied coolly. ‘Whit aboot you?’

  ‘Even at your christening you were the same,’ he said, shaking his head. That was his other weapon, a headshake of disapproval guaranteed to keep the most defiant, rebellious child awake for a week with fear, though once again, never Kathy. ‘I’ve never known a child struggle so, screaming and squirming and refusing to lie quietly.’

  Kathy shook her head, laughing at the priest. ‘It was probably the Orange blood in me,’ she replied, ‘but ye still held on though, didn’t ye? There’s nae chance o’ escape wance ye get yer hands on somebody, even if it’s a wean wi’ nae say in the matter, eh, wee man?’

  ‘Your father was a good, faithful Catholic –’ the priest said wearily, going through a litany he had delivered to her remorselessly throughout her life without it ever having any effect.

  Right on cue Kathy interrupted. ‘He was a useless auld drunk as well! See when ye started dolin’ oot the wee drink o’ communion wine, ye made his day, he was never away frae the chapel efter that! Drinkin’ was his real religion, believe you me, but Ah don’t recall ye ever recommendin’ Ah follow him in that tae.’

  ‘– so,’ he continued, ignoring her intervention, ‘you should have been one too.’

  ‘Ye know, that’s wanna my highest achievements in life,’ she said. ‘It bothers the hell oota you that Ah got away. Go oan, admit it, it’s only us here and we know it’s true anyway. It does, doesn’t it? An’ Ah see ye havnae changed your tactics ower the years either,’ she laughed. ‘Still very selective aboot what questions ye answer, ye shoulda been a bloody politician! It must drive ye daft, though, seein’ that you really believe your religion is passed on through the bloodline, only wi’ wee Lily an’ me there’s that other bloodline frae her faither. Whit a helluva problem ma Orange Granda has been tae ye, auld man!’

  ‘Just once in your life, at this time of all times, you could call me “Father”!’

  ‘Christ, Ah don’t know,’ Kathy sighed. ‘You know fine whit ma experiences o’ the real thing have been like, an’ ye really want me to call you “Father”, dae ye? Ye’re a sad case right enough, wee man!’

  ‘You’ll never change, Kathleen Agnes Kelly,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘Aye, an’ neither will you,’ she retorted. ‘As long as Ah can remember ye’ve been a mean-minded wee sod, an’ a devious wan tae. An’ just like the good faithful Catholic in the bed there, ye’ll die that way. Get somebody tae tip me the wink when your time comes, an’ nae matter whit Ah’m daein’, if Ah havtae come frae the ends o’ the earth, Ah’ll be there tae remind ye o’ yer biggest failure! Rest assured, wee man, you’ll feel me dancin’ oan your grave when ye dae!’

  But Con’s final moment was always going to come first and, when it did, Father McCabe asked if he wanted his daughter. The dying man shook his head. ‘Peter!’ he gasped, turned his face to the wall and exhaled his last breath. ‘Ye’re merr like auld Aggie’s son than her son-in-law!’ she spat loudly, inches from him. ‘You miserable auld sod!’ She laughed bitterly, hoping it would be the last sound he heard. The priest glared at her disapprovingly. ‘An’ you can shut it!’ she told him. ‘Ye’re only here under sufferance as it is, an’ yer only supporter has gone tae meet his maker noo. So wan word frae you an’ yer arse will bounce aff the edge o’ every step on the way doon! Comprendez, pal?’ Father McCabe turned away, busying himself in performing his magic once again, presumably in case Con had managed to squeeze in a silent response to her jibe on his way out.

  Then the doctor arrived to certify Con dead as well as saved. ‘He’s gone,’ he announced solemnly. A pleasant enough young man she thought, though she didn’t know him. He was probably whichever anonymous name on the health centre notice board had been available, or else some equally anonymous locum. These days it was hard to tell; you saw them once then never again. She wondered if it was a defensive ploy in case something went wrong; in these more writ-conscious days it would be harder to apportion blame if it was shared out among so many instantly forgettable faces. If she had to pick this young man out of a police line-up, could she, she wondered. She looked at Con, now visibly stiffening, his face an ashen grey. ‘Ye’re sure?’ she asked him, sarcastically.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, dear, but yes, I’m afraid he has,’ the young man replied with quiet sympathy.

  ‘Ah’m obviously an auld biddy,’ she thought, ‘bein’ called “dear” by a wean like him.’ ‘What Ah’m askin’ ye,’ she replied coolly, ‘is to be certain. Can ye no’ hold a mirror under his nose tae be sure, like? Ah don’t want ye raisin’ ma hopes.’ She immediately regretted it. The lad was doing his best. He knew nothing about her, the family or even his patient, except that he was dead and the daughter was a bit odd; he was probably putting it down to her time of life and making allowances.

  ‘You are the next of kin?’ he asked. ‘Mrs…?’

 
; ‘Kathy Kelly, originally spinster o’ this parish, but against ma will. An’ aye, Ah’m his daughter, son,’ she replied. ‘Ah’ve tried a’ roads tae find a way oota that wan, but Ah’m sad tae say Ah canny. Ah’m thinkin’ o’ applyin’ tae the European Court for a definition of “Father” that doesnae just depend oan a quick fumble under the blankets, but Ah don’t hold oot much hope, dae you?’

  The young doctor looked pained.

  ‘It’s a’ right, son,’ she smiled, ‘just sign the certificate an’ ye can go.’

  He smiled tightly, in a vain attempt to persuade her that he wasn’t offended by her manner, or confused at being dismissed. ‘Will it be cremation or burial?’ he asked, in a determinedly businesslike tone.

  ‘Oh, definitely cremation!’ she smiled. ‘No’ that Ah doubt yer word or anythin’, but knowin’ ma faither there’s still an outside chance he’s fakin’ it. He spent his life playin’ the martyr for a bitta attention, an’ noo that Ah seem tae have the whip hand, Ah don’t want tae gie him a way back! Though Ah think we should warn the crematorium. Wi’ a’ the booze he’s soaked up doon the years it might be a case o’ lightin’ the blue touch paper an’ standin’ well back, wi’ the fire brigade in attendance, just in case.’

  ‘In that case you’ll need another doctor to see the body and give a second signature,’ the young doctor replied diplomatically, obviously deciding to do what had to be done without risking entering into lingering family conflicts by offering more sympathy. ‘I’ll arrange for someone else to call as soon as possible.’ He spoke on his mobile phone and within fifteen minutes another doctor, possibly even younger than the first, arrived and confirmed that Cornelius Patrick Kelly had died from the complications of a long-standing condition of the nervous system. No mention was made of the part booze had played in compromising his nervous system, but it hung in the air anyhow.

  Old Con, as everyone knew, had spent a lifetime literally pickling his nerves in alcohol, and for the five years leading up to his death he had been paralysed from the waist down. She had been at home in her cottage just outside Glenfinnan in Inverness-shire when he first became ill, and she was not at all amused. As far as she had been concerned he was part of a life she had left behind and would never return to, even if he had remained, against her will, in the back of her mind. She’d told the doctors this five years ago, when the long, final act had started. She’d do the necessary when the time came, and that was more to do with her own need to round things off than affection for Con, but she would not devote her life to caring for him indefinitely. It seemed that Old Con had set out for the Barras market as usual that day. It was how he had always earned his drinking money, doing odd jobs for the market traders. Then he had settled into the next part of his routine, propping up the bar of the Saracen’s Head pub across the road in the Gallowgate. Occasionally, in the weeks leading up to the great collapse, his legs had felt tingly, as though he had pins and needles, he said later, but if he sat down to rest for a while the feeling went away. And on this particular day the tingly feeling had happened again, so he’d sat down for a moment, but this time, when he tried to stand again, he couldn’t. From that moment on he was paralysed, it was as quick as that, though the gradual pickling of his nervous system had been underway for many years beforehand.

  There had been all sorts of tests done, and at one point he had been transferred in the middle of the night from the Royal Infirmary to the Neurosurgical Unit at the Southern General, by an overenthusiastic medic who thought Con had a brain tumour. That’s when Kathy had been summoned from Glenfinnan, the first of several summonings in the years to come, because in the absence of the adored son and heir she was the next of kin, and she felt the touch of the hovering hand as it grazed her life. In time the tumour had been ruled out, as had various other exotic conditions, until the consultant asked to see her.

  ‘Tell me,’ he had said tactfully, ‘does your father drink much?’

  ‘Only as much as he can get down his throat,’ she’d replied, ‘and believe me, his throat is wider than the Clyde.’

  In that case, the consultant had told her with the deepest regret, it was his considered opinion that Old Con was suffering from a form of polyneuritis, brought on by years of alcohol abuse. He would never regain the ability to walk, he would have to depend on a catheter to drain urine from his bladder into an externally-worn plastic bag, and for the rest of his life his bowel movements would be, as they coyly put it, assisted. As he had no feeling, and therefore no control, over the muscles from the waist down, the nurses would administer suppositories to evacuate his bowel when necessary, and if that didn’t work, as happened from time to time, they would perform manual evacuations, a process that didn’t bear thinking about as far as Kathy was concerned, but better them than her. She had often thought of poking her finger in his eye, but it was the only part of his anatomy she had ever considered, and she wasn’t about to change her mind now, so let the nurses get on with it.

  ‘Ah always knew he was dead frae the neck up,’ Kathy had replied, when his condition and future care requirements were outlined by the consultant that day, in the vain expectation that she would take them on. ‘Noo he’s dead frae the waist doon as well. Doesnae leave much, does it?’

  The consultant didn’t reply.

  She had served her time looking after her father, her apprenticeship had started the moment she was born, and when Lily died she had taken over completely. His entire life had been spent in the care of women. His own father had been a merchant seaman who died on a voyage and was buried at sea, leaving his widow with two daughters and one son, Con. When his mother decided she couldn’t cope, it was her daughters she had sent to the nuns at Nazareth House, and Con she had kept. That decision had set the pattern Con would live by; for the rest of his life he had to be the centre of attention for every woman he encountered. His two sisters had died in the care of the nuns, one of TB, the other after falling three storeys while cleaning windows. Quite why it should have been thought safe or appropriate for a nine-year-old girl to be cleaning windows so far from the ground, said much about the standard of care destitute children received from the good Sisters, but in a way their early deaths at least saved the two Kelly girls from the worst excesses of the nuns. Old Con, being as he was, decided to embrace both deaths with his usual Celtic sentimentality. In his mind he had been specially selected by some cosmic influence to suffer greatly; Con Kelly, being an Irish Catholic, was a martyr, born to be persecuted and discriminated against, as Irish Catholics were in turn-of-the-century Glasgow. The deaths of his sisters were part of his lot in life, but he would bear it bravely, if not in silence. Kathy doubted if he had any clear memory of the unfortunate Kelly girls, but he indulged himself in the fantasy that their deaths were somehow targeted at him alone, his tragedy to carry and weep over whenever he’d had a few, and he had a few often, to forget, he said. Not that it stopped at the people in his life, Con was prepared to accept any sad event as his and his alone. In 1962, when Glasgow finally got rid of its ‘caurs’, its legendary tramcar system, the old vehicles had been driven in one last procession through the city, and great crowds of people had turned out on a rainy Monday night to bid the ‘caurs’ farewell and to put coins on the rails for the trams to run over as mementoes. Con, overwhelmed by his loss, had lined up twelve brown pennies on the rail and then arrived home bearing the deeply dented coins and sobbing; what no one seemed to realise was that the tramcars were being withdrawn from service to cause distress to Con Kelly alone. ‘He’s only greetin’ because he’s realised he canny use the pennies tae buy booze,’ Kathy snorted. ‘That’s an entire bob that’ll never find its way doon his throat!’ And so to sentiment was added cruelty, prompting Con to subside once again in another rush of tears, for the beloved trams he would never see again and the insensitivity of his daughter. Later, when he had been carted off to bed and was safely if loudly snoring, Kathy picked up the twelve ruined pennies that had slipped from his grasp. Then s
he made her way across London Road and down to Glasgow Green where she scattered them into the air. Next morning Con asked if anyone had seen his souvenirs, and she replied caustically, ‘Mibbe the caur fairy took them!’

  ‘It was you!’ he accused, tearfully.

  ‘Whit a thing tae say!’ Kathy replied with gleeful innocence. ‘Ah’m cut tae the quick! As if Ah would dae that!’ It was amazing how childish you could be, what silly ways you could find to extract revenge when there was nothing more substantial available. She had been a child of less than ten years, and already so angry, so bitter. At the time she had thought she was in control, that she was handling her situation, but sometimes Kathy would think back to those years and look at that child she had been, and she would almost weep with pity.

  Even from her earliest days, listening to her father’s ramblings and his tears, Kathy would exchange looks with Lily, angry looks in Kathy’s case, always answered with pleading looks from Lily that her daughter had been reading all her life. ‘Please, don’t say anything,’ they said. ‘He’ll go to sleep soon if you leave it.’ Anything for a quiet life, anything to appease him and avoid upsetting him. It was an image of her mother she would never get out of her mind, and the memory increased her anger against Con. The slight figure of Lily, her reddish hair caught back in an untidy ponytail from her tired face, a functional arrangement rather than a hairstyle, her brown eyes silently begging her daughter to keep silent, to let it pass, though she knew that Kathy was unable to leave any business unfinished. When had she developed that resigned expression, Kathy wondered, like a trapped animal that knows there’s no escape? Had her involvement with Con done that, or had she always been one of nature’s victims? But Kathy could never hold back, even though there was no real satisfaction in fighting with a drunk man, especially one she could have tied in knots mentally even if he’d been stone cold sober. Fat chance of that, though. ‘Ye don’t gie a bugger aboot yer sisters!’ she’d shout at the sobbing Con. ‘Six months it took ye tae find oot they were even deid. Ye hadnae seen them in a’ that time, so that shows ye how much they mattered tae ye. But still we get the crocodile tears aboot the tragedies in yer life. Did ye ever think it was a bigger tragedy for they two weans?’ And he’d shout and yell his protests – oh what it was to be so misunderstood, abused and put upon by your own daughter, even though you sheltered the cruel creature under your roof! How much more sorrow was one man supposed to shoulder? He would throw his arms about in all directions till he overbalanced and fell down, still sobbing about how Fate had so badly mistreated him, before launching into his party piece, an uplifting ditty that started ‘Into each life some rain must fall, but too much is falling in mine.’