The Brothers' Lot - Kevin Holohan [73]
“Up yer arse!” countered the boy as he disappeared through the bushes toward the warren of lanes behind the cottages.
How bad can it be? thought Father Mulvey to himself as he freewheeled down the hill toward the port. I’ve been in public houses before.
By the time he found The Wharf, he was beginning to have second thoughts. While he was leaning his bicycle against a lamppost, the sudden exit of one on the clients, horizontally and at great speed through the air, made him even more apprehensive. He locked his bike.
Mulvey stepped over the stunned customer where he had landed, took a deep breath, and pushed open the door. A wall of unhealthy heat hit him. His eyes smarted immediately under the assault of tobacco smoke. The air was thin and used, thanks to the gaslights that begrudgingly lit the bar. An odor of stale beer, smoke, and wet overcoats presided over the place. The dismal murmur of conversation faded into a suspicious silence. Mulvey nodded to a couple of the patrons who were staring at him and moved toward the nearest empty spot at the bar. The patrons ignored his greeting and went back to nursing the pints of stout on the counter in front of them.
Behind the bar Tony Loftus casually slapped a length of lead pipe down on the counter with a loud whack. “Any more of that carry on and you’re out on yer ear too, Maher! I can see you.”
In the corner beside the rings board where Maher was threatening Tommy Grogan with a broken glass, it was as if the barman had suddenly frozen time. Maher took one look at Loftus and through the haze of his drunken rage he recognized real trouble when he saw it. He set down the broken glass and hugged Grogan warmly. “Ah, sure, I was only having a bit of fun here with Tommy, wasn’t I?” Grogan, glad to be relieved of a broken glass to the face, was only too happy to concur with this fabrication.
“Just watch your step, right?” barked Loftus, and replaced the pipe in easy reach under the bar. He took a cursory glance along the bar: all of the patrons who were still conscious had drinks in front of them.
“A small port, please,” said Mulvey to Loftus’s face when it turned to him.
The barman exhibited no reaction beyond making a big deal of taking a very dusty bottle of port down from a high shelf and searching under the bar for a suitable glass. He eyed Mulvey carefully. The last time a priest had set foot in The Wharf, it had been a temperance raid by the Redemptorist Fathers who were having a retreat in the town.
Father Mulvey carefully glanced from side to side along the length of the bar. Could that scruffy urchin be telling him the truth? Could Marcus Madden, B.A., official biographer of the Venerable Saorseach O’Rahilly, really be in here among these broken, defeated men?
Loftus carefully placed the port on the counter and took the money Mulvey had left. When he returned with the change Mulvey caught his eye and smiled winningly.
“I wonder if you could help me out. I’m looking for an old pal of mine.”
Loftus nodded solemnly.
“I’m looking for a chap by the name of Marcus Madden, B.A. Do you know him at all?”
Loftus’s face creased into an ugly chuckle: “If B.A. stands for Bullshit Artist, I know your man.”
Before Mulvey could react to this unexpected piece of vulgarity, there was a burst of shouting and glass-breaking from the back room.
“Get out to fuck, Madden! You’ve never bought me a drink in yer life, ye stingy bastard!” A beer-soaked Marcus Madden, B.A., was propelled backward into the bar by some unseen fist. He stood reeling in the middle of the room, oblivious to the blood that was running freely from his nose. His eyes darted around the room and eventually came to rest on the unfamiliar Mulvey, who was staring in disbelief at this disheveled wreck of a man who seemed to be Marcus Madden, B.A.
“Ah, be gob, a man of the cloth. Sure aren’t the clergy of Holy Mother Ireland awful charitable. Would ye stand me a drink there now, Father?”
“Mr. Madden? Marcus Madden?” inquired Mulvey timidly.
“Who’s asking?”
“Martin Mulvey, S.J.,