Under the Rose by Julia O'Faolain Page A

as secretary to one of the more go-ahead theologians working on the Council and found it hard, later, to simmer down. I used to tell him that the fiery haloes the old painters drew around saints’ heads showed that their brains were boiling like his, and that their purgatory was going on inside them. He’d laugh and say I should have been a theologian. When Iread his stories, I told him that his seal’s foam ruff was a fallen halo. Ash!’
    ‘Rome was the circus?’
    ‘Oh the Circus Maximus! What else?’ Lynch’s tone was lightly scornful. ‘I suppose you read the stories about him too? Later. In the press? Flimsy speculation amplified by gossip! To my mind they’d not have stood up in court. Remember what was said?’
    Sean nodded. How forget? It was a year now since Sergeant Breen had delivered his tip-off. The day had been clear and cool. A breeze, ruffling the lake, made it shiver like foil, and the dazzle in Sean’s eye lingered long after he’d stepped, squinting, into the shade.
    Broom in hand and clad in a cast-off cassock, he was busy cleaning the lake-side chapel for the May devotions when a shadow alerted him. The policeman stood in the arched doorway, blocking the light. The arch was narrow, and Breen was a burly man. The chapel, a Victorian-Gothic folly, stayed locked all winter, and Sean kept the key.
    ‘Mister Dunne!’
    ‘What can I do for you?’ Sean’s mock-formality matched the sergeant’s. He had been to school with Breen’s sons, Seamus and J.J., so being addressed as ‘Mister’ was either a joke or it meant something was up.
    ‘Let’s talk in my car.’ As Breen’s silhouette backed towards the light, the nap on his uniform glowed like filament.
    Sean followed him out, then, once in the garda car, wished he had stopped to remove the niffy, soiled cassock. It was only good now for use as an overall when clearing out the mould and mouse-droppings which collected in the chapel every winter. One year he had found bats.
    ‘You’ve been a sort of volunteer sexton, have you?’ Breen put the car into gear. ‘Since Father Cronin’s day?’
    There was something about his tone.
    ‘You know I have.’ Sean tried to get the cassock off, butlacked space for manœuvre, and the cloth tore. Rotten! At one time he had enjoyed wearing the old garment. It had carried prestige, set off his waist, and swung pleasingly when he strode. A label with a coat of arms was sewn into one seam. The young Father Cronin had had it made by a Roman tailor, and in its day it had had style. Now, well … Sean started to undo the buttons.
    ‘Good thinking,’ said Breen. ‘Between myself and yourself, Father Mac doesn’t like you wearing that.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘I thought you should know.’
    ‘Did he ask you to tell me?’ That would be like the new PP. Father MacDermot, Cronin’s successor, was leery of local resentments and fond of delegating.
    ‘In a way.’ Breen drew up in a rough slot hacked out between tall rhododendrons. Once prized, these were now growing too vigorously, and foresters had turned against them. Blossoms, filtering the sunlight, threw purple patches on the grass. ‘Have a read.’ Breen handed Sean a folder of newspaper clippings. ‘It’s background. Father Mac wants you briefed before we meet the men from Dublin. They’re trying to mount a case against Cronin.’
    ‘Against Father Tim? What kind of a case? Who?’
    The sergeant nodded at the folder. ‘That’ll help understand.’
    Sean ran his eye over headlines which someone had haloed with a yellow marker. ‘ Roman Catholic monks ’, he read, ‘ to attend sex-offenders’ programme. Church in disarray. Former headmaster denies assaulting boys in dormitories. Priests to resume duties after police find no basis for allegations of abuse. Teacher at St Fiachra’s suspended pending …’ St Fiachra’s was the school where Father Cronin had been teaching.
    Sean handed back the file. ‘What’s this about?’ he asked. ‘I’m