Immaculate Heart by Camille Deangelis Page A

gave me a grim smile. “You can’t print it if I haven’t said it.” He sighed. “Look, I’m not trying to give you the runaround here. No one was playing tricks or telling tales. I understand your interest; I just don’t see how any good can come of encouraging it.”
    Then, all too conveniently, there came a gentle knock on the office door. “Father?” Louise called. “Mrs. Moloney is here.”
    â€œIt seems your twenty minutes are up, young man,” the priest said dryly.
    John’s phone beeped as I was leaving the rectory. It was a text message from Tess. Louise tells me you were asking for the tapes, she wrote. I’ll leave them with Paudie at the shop, so you can listen to them before we speak next.
    *   *   *
    It was early afternoon by the time I finished with Father Lynch, and Brona had promised me dinner at six, so I decided to get some work done and save Sligo for the following day. I didn’t want to feel rushed when I went to visit Síle.
    I typed out everything I could recall from the unrecorded portions of that morning’s interviews, taking pride in setting the gems down pretty much verbatim. She said I found it easier to love the poor and afflicted on a distant continent than the people I professed to love in my own home. I wanted to show the town as it was and the people as I found them, and a line like that would add just the right tenor, subtly unnerving. I needed this to be the best thing I’d ever done.
    Afterward I put in a couple hours on a story I had due at the end of the month, and then I powered down my laptop and went out. It wasn’t raining, but Shop Street was deserted apart from a few people coming in and out of the SuperValu. Through the bookstore window, I spotted Paudie behind the counter with a cup of tea and his nose in a hardcover. I drew out my pocket notebook, ducking into vacant entryways to jot down my thoughts as they occurred to me.
    Manorview Hotel shut since 1992. Redevelopment notice looks almost as old. Carvery menu (roast beef & turkey, baked sole in lemon & white wine sauce, banoffee pie—?) still posted in front window.
    Get numbers on towns near other main apparition sites (Bosnia, et al). Numbers for Ballymorris early 1988–c. 1993?
    Town’s economic fortunes hinged on Rome’s stamp of approval. Mysticism meets Church politics/bureaucracy (& commerce) = inevitable paradox. Play up “purity” of visionaries’ initial experience. Faith of Irish Catholics—quaint, peculiar—how they see the world & their place in it. Compare/contrast with American Catholicism.
    Web search: pilgrims (from Ireland & elsewhere) who may have written about their experiences here. Any international press?
    â€œHartigan’s House of Devotions”—dust on window is an inch thick. Front door padlocked, but someone got inside to write “Owen is a wanker” backward to be read from the street. Through cleared parts, can see there is still some stock on the shelves (including 4-foot toddler Jesus with scepter, mantle & crown). Same sort of junk as Old Mag’s. Have Paudie introduce me to Hartigan & other former shopkeepers if they’re still around.
    I reached the intersection of Shop Street and Milk Lane, and thought of Tess.
    Find someone at hospital who might talk to me? Nurses/orderlies? (The more devout they are, the more they’ll be willing to talk?)
    Then I remembered the look on Tess’s face as she said, “I need to gather my thoughts.” Maybe not.
    *   *   *
    After dinner we met Paudie and Leo at Napper Tandy’s for the third night running. “Did you have anything for supper, Leo?” Brona was saying as I laid the first round on the table and took my seat in the snug.
    The old man shrugged as he brought the pint to his lips. “Sure, I’ve a meal in a glass.”
    Brona clucked her tongue.