Lonie19

Lonie was intrigued to see a room with a pool table and darts body on the wall, but after his introduction to the secure unit it didn't seem that strange, but he did wonder who got to use it. There was also a large lounge, with soft chairs and TV, better than anything he’d at home. He followed Brother Connelly and Jerome past a glass window which was plainly an office. There were three people inside looking out. One of them was wearing clerical robes. Lonie took that to be Father Campbell. He’d a monk’s tonsure. Lonie guessed that was the affect of male pattern baldness rather than the effects of a razor. His white cotton gloves made him look like a respectable head waiter in the secure unit. Lonie also took it as a sign of humility. He was covering any signs of stigmata that had led to his celebrity and being hounded by TV cameras and film crews as soon as he stepped out of the parish house at the back end of Drumchapel. Lonie looked for other reasons for the cotton gloves. He’s bad psoriasis. He was vain and had hideous hands. He’d arthritis and the gloves helped keep the heat in, and made them less sore. Or he just didn’t want to bleed all over the place.

What had surprised Lonie was the sight of two lay people, a middle-aged man and a younger woman, sitting on the edge of a desk, nibbling a biscuit and drinking tea out of a yellow glazed mug. He wondered, at first, if this was Carol Peters the most dangerous woman in Britain, but this woman was younger, girlish even, her chestnut hair flowing down her back, with a hint of breast beneath her wide blouse. But she had what seemed the mandatory gold chain with a crucifix hanging down from her neck, neutralising her high cheeks bones, wide open blue eyes and any thoughts of being a sexual being.

The layman flicked through a newspaper on his desk. Not the Glasownian, Lonie noted. Some other daily that had reduced their price to squeeze the market, all page 3 girls, tits and bum. He didn’t seem the type. More of a fat overgrown altar boy, clean shaven with short- back- and- sides and an apple- to- please- the- teacher type. He turned to look up at Lonie through thick NHS prescription lenses and then back down at his newspaper.

Lonie felt that he’d caught the group in the middle of something, but nobody was saying. The phone was ringing and Father Campbell answered it, speaking softly in what sounded like Italian. Sweat began to pool at the back of Lonie’s pants. The office was too warm and cramped until Brother Connelly and Jerome soft-shoed away along the corridor to somewhere else in the building.

‘Where’s my manners? You want tea? Coffee? Lemonade? Barley water? That’s meant to be good for you. ’ The girl, for that was what she seemed to Lonie, spoke very quickly. She slid her bum off the desk and stood facing Lonie, brushing crumps from her lips and smiling at him. She wiped her hand before sticking it out. ‘I’m Lorna.’ She had a firm no-nonsense handshake.

‘Peter. But my friends call me Lonie.’

‘Lonie it is then.’ She slapped the man sitting and reading the paper firmly on the shoulder. ‘And this cheekychops is Jim.’ The man half turned, his feet stuck underneath his chair and held his hand out for Lonie to shake. They touched hands before Jim turned back to his newspaper. He was doing a crossword.

Lonie looked over his shoulder. ‘Acerbic. Two down.’

‘Cheers,’ said Jim, pencilling it in.

‘He hates people doing that.’ Lorna said helpfully. She frowned and shook the thought from her head. ‘What was it you wanted again?’

‘Tea. Four sugars.’ Lonie looked about for a chair. He dragged himself close to the office window. There was an orange plastic backed seat to the side of Jim. He sat diagonally across from him, close enough to see the crossword and cute enough not to shout out the answers. In the silence, of Jim scratching his chin, he felt Father Campbell watching him, or studying him would be nearer the mark. Lonie knew he was going to be in for a rough ride, as much interviewee as investigative reporter.

‘I’m Father Campbell.’ He stuck his gloved hand out.

‘Ah’m,’ but Lonie didn’t need to say anything else. He’d a firm grip for such a thin faced man, but the power was in the eyes, and not the handshake, the deepest brown that seemed to drop into black and look beyond him and into him.

‘And are you Catholic, Mr Lonnigan?’

Lonie smiled as he corrected him. ‘Lonie.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Kinda Catholic and kinda not.’

Lorna came back with a mug of tea and a plate of biscuits placed it down carefully in front of Lonie, and smiled at Father Campbell, as if she’d done it to please him and not Lonie.

Father Campbell beamed back a smile at her. ‘Can you check on Carol?’ If he hadn’t been a living saint, with his dick chiselled off at birth, Lonie thought there might have been something going on. ‘And you.’ He leaned over and thwacked Jim on the wrist, ‘have you nothing better to do with your time? You go with her.’

Lonie had started munching his way through his second Custard Cream when Father Campbell took Jim’s vacant seat and turned back towards him.

‘How’s the tea? Father Campbell asked.

‘Nice.’ Lonnie held his mug up in appreciation.

‘And the biscuits?’

Lonie chewed and munched before he could swallow to answer. ‘You can’t beat a Custard Cream.’ His face puckered as he changed his mind. ‘Maybe a Kit-Kat would run it close.’

‘I prefer a Bournville myself,’ said Father Campbell.

Lonie laughed. ‘Now you’re talkin’. You certainly know your biscuits.’

Father Campbell leaned across and in a conspiratorial tone whispered, ‘I certainly do, but don’t be telling anybody. Most folk think I live on air and the Holy Eucharist.’

Lonie yawned, which created a pause which gave him some mental distance. ‘And do you?’

‘Not at all.’ Father Campbell laughed easily and often. ‘I eat and drink and go to the toilet, like everybody else.’

Lonie picked up the last of the biscuits on the plate. ‘All at the same time? Like one of those anorexics?’

Father Campbell giggled and held his hand up in acknowledgement before he spoke. ‘I think you mean bulimics. But I’m not one of those either. I’m simply a man that happens to be a priest.’

‘Man or priest first?’ There was an ashtray on the table with the butts of some cheroots in it, so he thought it would be ok to smoke, but Lonnie took a fag out of his pocket and held it up asking for permission.

‘Both.’ With a nod of his head Father Campbell gave his consent. ‘I can hardly believe that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost are all one and the same and quibble about the separation of man and priest. Can I?’

‘Yes, you can. Because Ah don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. ’ Lonie reached into his pocket and fished out his pen and notebook. ‘You mind if Ah take a few notes?’ He brushed crumbs from the table onto the hard grey tiles of the stone floor.

Father Campbell shrugged. ‘Of course you can take notes. It’s probably better that way, because those tape recording devices don’t seem to work that well in here.’

‘Why’s that? Static or something?’

‘No a build-up of psychic energy. Cassettes often malfunction. Tapes are often erased or simply disappear.’

Lonie wrote down ‘psychic energy’ and underlined it. ‘And where does this psychic energy come from?’

‘It comes from all living things. It comes from me. It comes from you.’

‘Ah don’t want any.’ Lonie tapped his pen against the paper. ‘You can have my share.’

‘What are you scared of?’ Father Campbell closed his eyes, as if in pain. ‘You can accept your head is the seat of wisdom. You can accept your hands are the measure of your doing, but you cannot accept the heart is the seat of the spirit?’ His eyes were like pinpricks of light burrowing into Lonie.

‘Nah, ah cannae accept any of it. Ah can only accept what my eyes can see and my ears can hear.’

‘Gosh. It’s very warm in here.’ Father Campbell pulled at the black poly-cotton neck of his outer cassock and fiddled with his white collar. ‘You feel that?’

‘Nah,’ Lonie chapped the desk, producing a clunking sound. ‘A’hm tough, fae Partick.’ He pushed his chest out, shook his head from side to side and his eyes widened. ‘Ah don’t feel anythin’. And anyway Ah’m no’ here to talk about me. Ah’m here to talk about you. You’re a smart man. You know the script. Let’s start at the beginning.’ Lonie smoothed out the crinkles on the page of his notebook.

‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was made God.’ That kind of beginning offered Father Campbell. ‘Or the historical beginning. The marriage of Mary Campbell to Robert the Bruce, or perhaps the dark history of Colluden?’ He looked across and Lonie was shaking his head. ‘Perhaps my family history? How many brothers and sisters I had and what we had for breakfast?’

‘Ah’ve no’ got that long.’ Lonie searched his pockets for matches and lit another fag. ‘Ah’m bettin’ it was porridge. Maybe skip the breakfast and get onto mummy and daddy and happy families.’

Father Campbell started giggling. ‘Gosh, you’re a hard man.’ He put his hands up to show he’d settled down to talk. Lonie poised his pen over the paper.

‘I was born in Old Kilpatrick at the start of the war. My dad was in the army. As far as I was concerned my world consisted of mummy, granddad- he and I formed a very strong relationship-and my brothers and sisters, but they were all much older than me, working adults. But to be fair, you started work whenever you could in those days and it wasn’t unusual for a boy to leave school at twelve and start in the yards. That was what my brother Brendan did. But he died. And I was kinda the replacement.’

‘What did he die of?’

‘Scarlet fever. It was quite common in those days, especially when lots of people were packed together into a room and kitchen.’

‘Ah’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. He’s in a better place.’ Father Campbell frowned. He got up and rifled through the drawers in his desk, pulling out a small tin tray, opening it he pulled out a cheroot and holding it up to his mouth leaned across to Lonie to get a light. He puffed contently. ‘Don’t tell anybody. Priests are only meant to smoke the cheapest tobacco droppings from the factory floor, but as you can see I like my pleasures. Where was I?’

Lonie looked at his notes, even though he didn’t have to. ‘You were at the replacement baby stage.’

‘Oh, that’s right so I was. The most important person in my life apart from my mum was my granddad. He was an old-fashioned lawyer…’

‘Hing on. Hing on. I thought you said you were poor, living in a single end? And now you’re sayin’ granddad was a lawyer.’

‘Well, he was, but that couldn’t be helped. Mum and dad married very, very young…’

‘Pregnant.’ Lonie held his pen up and tapped it on the desk to show he knew best.

‘Possibly, but they were very proud and wouldn’t take anything from granddad. Anyway, he wasn’t one of those rich lawyers. He was a pastor, doctor and lawyer all rolled into one. And the best thing about him was he was cheap. People felt they got their money’s worth.’

‘Lawyers are aw cheap. It’s their bills that are expensive.’ Lonie didn’t look up to see Father Campbell’s reaction. ‘That’s probably where you got your liking for expensive cigars.’

‘Possibly.’ The smell of his cigar filled the room, trumping the smell of cigarette smoke, creating an aura of wealth and indolence. ‘We didn’t talk much about God. But granddad was an elder of the Church of Scotland. I think I caught my faith from him. I don’t think it’s something that can be taught. I think it jumps from heart to heart, carried by the Holy Spirit.’

Lonie had a coughing fit. His eyes were streaming and he waved his arms at Father Campbell. ‘Hing on. Hing on. You’re granddad was a Protestant?’

‘Yes,’ said Father Campbell.

‘Whit was your mother?’

‘Protestant.’

‘Whit was your father?’

‘Protestant.’

‘How come you ended up a Catholic, a jump the dyke, and a Catholic priest at that?’ Lonie had read the archives, but nobody had ever mentioned this to him. The phone on the desk beside Father Campbell began to ring.