He was lying on the steps, face down, as though dead. What was he thinking? Was there a pain in him that had no right to be there, because his mother had not come? Cardinal Ralph looked through his tears, and knew there was no pain. Beforehand, yes; afterward, certainly. But now, no pain. Everything in him was projected into the moment, the miracle. No room in him for anything which was not God. It was his day of days, and nothing mattered save the task at hand, the vowing of his life and soul to God. He could probably do it, but how many others actually had? Not Cardinal Ralph, though he still remembered his own ordination as filled with holy wonder. With every part of him he had tried, yet something he had withheld.
Not so august as this, my ordination, but I live it again through him. And wonder what he truly is, that in spite of our fears for him he could have passed among us so many years and not made an unfriend, let alone a real enemy. He is loved by all, and he loves all. It never crosses his mind for an instant that this state of affairs is extraordinary. And yet, when he came to us first he was not so sure of himself; we have given him that, for which perhaps our existences are vindicated. There have been many priests made here, thousands upon thousands, yet for him there is something special. Oh, Meggie! Why wouldn't you come to see the gift you've given Our Lord-the gift I could not, having given Him myself? And I suppose that's it, how he can be here today free of pain. Because for today I've been empowered to take his pain to myself, free him from it. I weep his tears, I mourn in his place. And that is how it should be.
Later he turned his head, looked at the row of-Drogheda people in alien dark suits. Bob, Jack, Hughie, Jims, Patsy. A vacant chair for Meggie, then Frank. Justine's fiery hair dimmed under a black lace veil, the only female Cleary present. Rainer next to her. And then a lot of people he didn't know, but who shared in today as fully as the Drogheda people did. Only today it was different, today it was special for him. Today he felt almost as if he, too, had had a son to give. He smiled, and sighed. How must Vittorio feel, bestowing Dane's priesthood upon him?
Perhaps because he missed his mother's presence so acutely, Justine was the first person Dane managed to take aside at the reception Cardinal Vittorio and Cardinal Ralph gave for him. In his black soutane with the high white collar he looked magnificent, she thought; only not like a priest at all. Like an actor playing a priest, until one looked into the eyes. And there it was, the inner light, that something which transformed him from a very good-looking man into one unique.
"Father O'neill," she said.
"I haven't assimilated it yet, Jus."
"That isn't hard to understand. I've never felt quite the way I did in Saint Peter's, so what it must have been like for you I can't imagine." "Oh, I think you can, somewhere inside. If you truly couldn't, you wouldn't be such a fine actress. But with you, Jus, it comes from the unconscious; it doesn't erupt into thought until you need to use it."
They were sitting on a small couch in a far corner of the room, and no one came to disturb them.
After a while he said, "I'm so pleased Frank came," looking to where Frank was talking with Rainer, more animation in his face than his niece and nephew had ever seen. "There's an old Rumanian refugee priest I know," Dane went on, "who has a way of saying, "Oh, the poor one!" with such compassion in his voice .... I don't know, somehow that's what I always find myself saying about our Frank. And yet, Jus, why?"
But Justine ignored the gambit, went straight to the crux. "I could kill Mum!" she said through her teeth. "She had no right to do this to you!" "Oh, Jus! I understand. You've got to try, too. If it had been done in malice or to get back at me I might be hurt, but you know her as well as I do, you know it's neither of those. I'm going down to Drogheda soon. I'll talk to her then, find out what's the matter." "I suppose daughters are never as patient with their mothers as sons are." She drew down the corners of her mouth ruefully, shrugged. "Maybe it's just as well I'm too much of a loner ever to inflict myself on anyone in the mother role."
The blue eyes were very kind, tender; Justine felt her hackles rising, thinking Dane pitied her.
"Why don't you marry Rainer?" he asked suddenly. Her jaw dropped, she gasped. "He's never asked me," she said feebly. "Only because he thinks you'd say no. But it might be arranged." Without thinking, she grabbed him by the ear, as she used to do when they were children. "Don't you dare, you dog-collared prawn! Not one word, do you hear? 1 don't love Rain. He's just a friend, and I want to keep it that way. If you so much as light a candle for it, I swear I'll sit down, cross my eyes and put a curse on you, and you remember how that used to scare the living daylights out of you, don't you?"
He threw back his head and laughed. "It wouldn't work, Justine! My magic is stronger than yours these days. But there's no need to get so worked up about it, you twit. I was wrong, that's all. I assumed there was a case between you and Rain."
"No, there isn't. After seven years? Break it down, pigs might fly." Pausing, she seemed to seek for words, then looked at him almost shyly. "Dane, I'm so happy for you. I think if Mum was here she'd feel the same. That's all it needs, for her to see you now, like this. You wait, she'll come around."
Very gently he took her pointed face between his hands, smiling down at her with so much love that her own hands came up to clutch at his wrists, soak it in through every pore. As if all those childhood years were remembered, treasured.
Yet behind what she saw in his eyes on her behalf she sensed a shadowy doubt, only perhaps doubt was too strong a word; more like anxiety. Mostly he was sure Mum would understand eventually, but he was human, though all save he tended to forget the fact.
"Jus, will you do something for me?" he asked as he let her go. "Anything," she said, meaning it.
