“Margie’s right,” nodded Seamus. “The cops had a quiet word with the bishop and the bishop had a quiet word with Swindells and it’s taxis everywhere now.”
“Never got to court?” I asked.
“You’re joking,” said Seamus.
“I wouldn’t have believed it,” said Jim.
Neither would I. And it was good to hear. Though you’d have thought somebody in the school would have told me.
“There’s a lot of things you wouldn’t believe,” said Margie. “Did yous not hear about the two oul Quinn sisters from Windsor Terrace?”
“I know them,” I said. “Sure they were at the front door a wee while ago. I think they might even be still in there in the sitting room now. What about them?”
“Well, that new wee priest in the cathedral started calling at their house once a week. Doing whatever you call it, pastoral visits.”
“Father Finucane,” said Willie Henry. Eyes gleaming and you couldn’t tell to look at him if it was from the gossip or the mucus.
“Was that not a bit often for him to be visiting?” said Seamus.
“It was but you see they’d always left a fiver on the edge of the sideboard beside the door of the kitchen for him to pick up on his way out.”
“A fiver a time isn’t bad for ten minutes and a blessing,” suggested Jim.
“Is that not how Protestants came about?” asked Seamus. “I mean, is that not how it all started?”
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The Wake - Table of contents
HumorTHE YEAR is 1968 and the Swinging Sixties are still swinging - though not in Ireland. But wait! An old woman dies in a northern Irish town and her wake becomes a rendezvous for lesbians, bisexuals and political revolutionaries. And in there among t...
