RYAN’S JOURNEY II – The Teen Years

EXTRACTS FROM BOOK II

CHAPTER ONE:

Sunday morning Mass, the pews filling up. A well-to-do, well-clothed congregation, settling in their usual places, clad in their ‘Sunday-Bests: shoes polished, trousers pressed, shirts starched, ladies’ hair adopting to the latest styles. For there must be no let up for the requirement of respectability. Solemn faces prepared for worship, even the smallest signs of frivolity severely frowned upon.

Here then were the Faithful, waiting for their priest’s entrance and prepared for the worst. Lately, they had become increasingly irritated by Father O’Donnell’s intemperate language, castigating not only Hitler and the Nazis but every German, civilian as well as military. He was becoming unbalanced; his vituperative pronouncements from the pulpit reaching the local ‘Star’ and ‘Gazette’ newspapers, and on occasions even the national dailies.

At first, they had been pleased with the publicity, unstinting praise for their patriotic priest, their church in the news, but no longer. Now they were embarrassed, even ashamed. Still, the two Union Jacks fixed to the wall behind the stout figure who roamed the spacious pulpit delivering his homilies, reassured them. Their priest’s undoubted patriotism made up for his deficiencies.

At the stoke of eleven, the vestry door opened with its accustomed squeak, and as one they lurched to their feet. A murmur like the sound of innumerable bees spread along the pews as men, women and children stared in astonishment at the pair of long legs, as lively as a spider’s, bounded forth, their owner finally coming to a breathless, undignified halt in front of the altar, his black cassock shiny and spotless in its newness with barely a crease, a sharp contrast to the crumpled attire of Father O’Donnell. The waist of the newcomer was a slim as a young girl’s, a quarter of the width of Father O’Donnell’s ugly expanse of gut that hung low over his belt like a bag of potatoes. The clerical collar loose on this priest’s stringy neck; an untidy flop of fair hair hanging over his forehead and a blob of a nose, like an oddly shaped potato. Most noticeable of all was the wide expanse of a smile on the wrinkle free face, revealing outsize teeth that protruded from small, pink gums.

Two spindly arms stretched wide in welcome, the newcomer cleared his throat, a twinkle in the bright blue eyes as his high-pitched voice rang out in the cavernous building. “Good morning, everyone, apparently I am to be your new parish priest. Help!”

A palpable sense of astonishment spread along the rows. What had happened to the mottled face and the bulbous nose with the thin, wavering blue lines signalling Father O’Donnell’s regular, but surely forgiveable habit? Where was the familiar scowl; the bushy eyebrows; the severe line of lips that could change as suddenly as a searchlight brightening up a darkened sky in an air raid, the corners turning suddenly upwards and something resembling a smile appearing for a few brief seconds with even a suspicion of a chuckle before just as quickly disappearing?

Who was this?