Perspective

In Ireland, grandfather Mr Lannigan - a "true artist" - meets with local priest Father Moylan about a matter-in-hand: ostensibly, his grandson's broken hurling stick. As the conversation develops, the real issue turns out to be something much more cruel and damaging. Resolution achieved, Lannigan's thoughts return again to his art.

Transcript

Narrator
Mr Lannigan climbed the steps of the Parish Priest’s large house and stopped by the door to catch his breath.  He turned to look back down over the town: the harbour, the steeples of the several churches, the terraces of the poor immediately below.  A privileged view.  The day was close.  He took off his hat, rang the bell and fanned his face as he waited to be let in by the housekeeper.  He’d been once before, years past, a presentation made to him by the old bishop for his “contribution to Catholic life”.  Miss Corcoran led him down the mosaic-tiled hallway, its end wall dominated by a -life-sized crucifixion, the plaster Jesus jaundiced by age.  Back then he’d offered to restore it but was politely refused, the acknowledged expertise of his later years perhaps not guessed at; in any case untrusted.

The housekeeper accompanied him to the priest’s parlour, chatting on the way about the Tipperary-Cork hurling cup final being broadcast from Dublin.  He could hear it, the clamorous din echoing up corridors from the kitchen radio, along with smells that heralded a Sunday roast.  The new parish priest, Father Moylan, met Mr Lannigan at the open door, eager to make a good impression. 

Father Moylan
Mr Lannigan?  Come in, come in, ‘tis cooler here.   Is the heat not just powerfully oppressive now?  Did you drive up?

Mr Lannigan
Not at all.  It’s not far, sure. 

Father Moylan
Well, you’re right in a way.  But it does take you through the insalubrious bit of the town.  I know Lannigan & Sons, of course.  A bit of a landmark there by the harbour.  But ‘tis a long oul way be a plain road, as my mother used to say, God rest her.  Can I take your jacket?

Mr Lannigan
No, no, thanks… And thanks for the quick response. 

Father Moylan
I assure you, Mr Lannigan, there isn’t a matter of concern goes unaddressed by the Church, however embarrassing.  As you mentioned the school, however, over which we have little jurisdiction, I took the liberty of putting a call in to the Christian Brothers superior general up in Dublin.  So I’m briefed as the lawyers say.  And anyway I’m glad of the opportunity to get to know another parishioner, especially one as esteemed as yourself. 

Sit down, sit down… As it happens, Father Malachy’s at the cup final today and can’t attend to our usual examination of the books, so I have a little time to spare.  Malachy’s an awful fanatic for Tipp.  Where his people are from, you know.  The core of his wellbeing hangs on the latest score.  Will you have a drink?  Tea?  Something stronger?

Mr Lannigan
Thanks. I never drink till the work is done.

Father Moylan
- Good man, good man.  Have a seat.  Now.  Oh, before we start, I’m told the ‘marble’ pillars in the Friary below are an example of your work, Mr Lannigan?  Connemara marble? says I on first view.  No, Father, I was told: wood, ingeniously splattered with regular house paint!  Hats off, Mr Lannigan.  A true artist. 

Mr Lannigan
Ah, it’s a thing I do in idle moments.  Study the grain of a bit of wood or stone.  Marble took me a while to get the hang of, I admit.  Getting the paint to lie the right way. 

Father Moylan
Is it like the American modern artist there?  You know the one.  Flickety-flick.  Pollocks? 

Mr Lannigan
Father? 

Father Moylan
Maybe I have the name wrong.

Mr Lannigan
I’ve not heard of him.  And I wouldn’t call it art.  Just something I love to observe.  The apparent randomness of natural things.  Till you have the perspective to see the pattern.

Father Moylan
There you have it, Mr Lannigan.  A truth to instruct us all. 

Narrator
The priest glanced at the grandmother clock.

Father Moylan
Well.  To business.  Can you tell me how the matter in hand came to your notice?  It involved one of your grandsons, I believe.

Narrator
Before Mr Lannigan answered, a roar came faintly from the kitchen radio beyond.   A goal.  Father Moylan leant forward.

Father Moylan
Let’s hope that was for Tipp.   

Narrator
Mr Lannigan, knocked off his stride, took a breath before replying.

Mr Lannigan
It came to my notice with a broken hurl.  The boy was given the hurl for pulling fifty ash saplings for the school.  And on its first outing the thing broke in two.  It was the wrong wood, you see.

Father Moylan
Not ash, then.

Mr Lannigan
Sure it was made from the wood of a piano at the school.

Father Moylan
A piano! 

Mr Lannigan
Untunable, apparently. They’ve not had a Brother able to play a note these past twenty years; and it was kept too near the stove.

Father Moylan
Still.

Mr Lannigan
I don’t like to criticise a Brother, but it was an ignorant thing he did there.  Not just the wrong wood: it was cut against the grain.  And it had a big knot in the bas.  Did you ever hear anything so stupid?

Father Moylan
A knot, you say?  Well, now…

Mr Lannigan
The heel and toe came away at the slightest tap.  And when I questioned the boy, some other things came out. 

Father Moylan
Ah.  We’re not just talking about vandalism of the piano then?

Mr Lannigan
We’re not talking about vandalism of the piano at all.  That hurl was an offence against the natural order. 

Father Moylan
I’m sorry Mr Lannigan.  Are we touching here upon theology?

Narrator
The grandmother clock by the window slowed. 

Mr Lannigan
I’m just saying how I became aware of the whole thing.  And how you know something’s not right with the world.  All right, so.  Some weeks before this scheme for raking in ash saplings, the boy had been beaten by the same Brother.  When he came home for his dinner he had welts down the back of his legs which he’d tried to cover up.  And how did he come by them?  Stood on a desk and told to read - every mistake met with a belt from the tolly. The whole class was made to stand around to witness the humiliation of it.   It seemed a harsh punishment, but I don’t interfere when it comes to school discipline.

Father Moylan
The Brothers do come in for a bit of criticism for their strictness…

Mr Lannigan
Not by me.  Put the fear of God into a young boy, he knows right from wrong the rest of his life.   However, there was something excessive about this punishment.  And the grandson had never come in for that kind of thing before.  Quiet little man.  Wouldn’t say boo to a goose.  And here he is getting flayed alive over a few reading mistakes. 

Father Moylan
There was something else behind it, you’re saying.  Now that’s very serious.  That would suggest victimisation.  But where’s the evidence, Mr Lannigan?

Narrator
Mr Lannigan was very still for a moment, then he straightened in his chair and coughed to clear his throat.

Mr Lannigan
There was talk of an earlier incident.  Nothing to do with my grandson may I point out.  The Brothers and boys were delayed getting into the school one morning because some boyo acting the maggot had put stones in the lock of the gate.  The guilty party was never caught.  The talk was that my grandson was made a scapegoat for it.

Father Moylan
Now we’re getting to it.  Are we? 

Mr Lannigan
No.  That wasn’t the thing.  The thing of it didn’t come out till another grandson let slip something last Monday.  You’ll note that it was Monday I wrote to you.  Weeks after the stones in the lock and the welts on the legs and the hurl made out of the wrong sort of wood.

Narrator
Father Moylan reached for a notebook on his desk. 

Father Moylan
Just a moment, Mr Lannigan.  I think I’ll make one or two notes to get the chronology straight in my head.

Narrator
Another roar of the crowd on the radio penetrated the sticky air.

Father Moylan
Tipp again, let’s hope.  Are you sure you don’t want a drink?

Mr Lannigan
I’m nearly there, Father. 

Father Moylan
Let nothing you dismay, Mr Lannigan.  Bear with me.

Narrator
The priest wrote on the pad, saying aloud the key words as he inscribed them.

Father Moylan
Stones in lock.  Punishment of boy. Victimisation, question mark.  Prize of hurl.  Destruction of piano. In brackets: altogether wrong sort of wood; underlined.  Right.

Narrator
He looked up again.

Father Moylan
Crack on, sir.

Mr Lannigan
Well, after the stones in the lock incident, here’s your Brother going round the class while they’re doing some exercise to keep them busy.  Interrogating the boys one by one, d’ye see, trying to drag the name of the stones in the lock merchant from them.  And did any of them snitch?  The divil did they.  A pattern ingrained in the hard stone of our republican heritage.

Father Moylan
An honourable tradition, to be sure.  Of course, not beyond –

Mr Lannigan
And didn’t he – the Brother – also fail to extract the name of the artful stones in the lock dodger from my grandson?  He did.

Father Moylan
Presumably the same as the other boys.  So then why –

Mr Lannigan
Why was he victimised?  Exactly.

Narrator
The grandmother clock struck endlessly.  The parish priest checked his watch.

Father Moylan
Well, Mr Lannigan.  There’s our question, clear as the water in St Mogue’s well.  Why was he victimised?  I’ll be glad to make representations and get the right result here, Mr Lannigan.  He’ll be called and stood on the superior general’s carpet and asked to explain himself…  Well, now, how about that drink?  A little pre-prandial pick me up?  What’s your poison, Mr Lannigan?

Narrator
Mr Lannigan hesitated.  He appeared daunted, as if in need of some encouragement.

Father Moylan
Would you have a whiskey? - A man after my own heart!  Now, I could bewitch and bewilder you with the choice I have on offer here.  What’s your leaning?  Irish?  Scotch?  Bourbon?

Mr Lannigan
Bushmills?

Father Moylan
The choice of a connoisseur!  Irish, with a pronounced tip o’ the cap to our American cousins.  I have Original.  Or, if you want to venture more boldly, Black Bush.

Mr Lannigan
Original will do me fine. 

Father Moylan
Original it is, so.

Narrator
The hurling game was over.  The whiskey’s work was done. 

Mr Lannigan
May I ask… what had you in mind by way of… the ‘right result’ for the Brother?

Father Moylan
Of course you can ask.  Doesn’t he have a sick mother in Ballingaddy?

Mr Lannigan
Where’s that?

Father Moylan
Little country place in Limerick.  The superior general agreed: if we thought it could give rise to any kind of scandal, in the last resort they’ll re-locate him.  As it happens they have another school there.  They’d give out that he was undergoing an emotional crisis - the sick mother, etcetera - that gave rise to a misjudgement in the use of school property - to wit, the vandalised piano, etcetera, etcetera. 

Mr Lannigan
I see.

Father Moylan
Harsh, some might say, but distinguished parishioners like yourself need to know I’ll take appropriate action on their concerns.  Ah, Miss Corcoran.  Who won?

Miss Corcoran
Cork, your Grace.  The dinner’s ready.

Father Moylan
Oh, no.  I fear a week of black looks from Father Malachy.  I think Mr Lannigan and I are almost done…

Miss Corcoran
I’ll get his hat, so.

Father Moylan
Well, Mr Lannigan.  Any other worries, don’t hesitate.  A pleasure to share a drink with you. 

Mr Lannigan
They’ll send him to another school, will they?

Father Moylan
Probably.  I’d say definitely, now.  Best thing all round.  Don’t you think?

Mr Lannigan
The hell I do. 

Father Moylan
What do you mean?

Mr Lannigan
When they have him up, standing there on that bit of carpet, will they get him to explain the licking?

Father Moylan
Licking?

Mr Lannigan
The smooching?  The tongue in the ear? 

Father Moylan
Tongue!

Mr Lannigan
The hand down the shirt?

Father Moylan
Down the - !

Mr Lannigan
The hand on the –

Father Moylan
Mr Lannigan! 

Mr Lannigan
That Brother was a suitor scorned.  A pederast deprived.   I’ve no doubt it’s a question of a singular bad apple.  They have a pervert among their number.

Father Moylan
Mr Lannigan.  Let’s look at this calmly, now.  We wouldn’t know where a thing like this could end.

Mr Lannigan
I know exactly where it’ll end unless steps are taken to ensure that bastard never gets to lay a hand on another child.  Not to mention make another graceless, ill-begotten hurl.  Another school?  Buried in the wilds of the country?  Are the children of County Limerick more expendable?

Narrator
The grandmother clock needled and nagged as Father Moylan thought the matter through.  He took a deep breath.

Father Moylan
Let me put another call in to Dublin.

Narrator
As the door of the parish priest’s house closed behind him, the fetid air hit Mr Lannigan’s face like a damp flannel, shortening his breath.   Ah well.  The walk would not be long and the dinner would be waiting for him.  His appetite was all the keener for the satisfaction of a job well done.  

The Brother would be quietly retired to civilian life, his teaching certificate withdrawn.  He’d find work in the tobacconist’s the mother could no longer run.   

Mr Lannigan smiled, another commission in his pocket: to give the residence’s crucified body of Christ a fresh bloom of life.  As he descended from the heights, gravity and the steep incline exaggerating the spring of his step, Mr Lannigan happily set himself to thinking about the veins in a hanging body.  How blue?  How pale in the arms? How prominent in the feet? 

-ends-