Future Popes of Ireland

‘Look at you, ogling Brad Pitt in broad daylight, you big pervert.’

Mark, surprising him as always, bounding up out of nowhere.

A quick kiss, the Irish Times and Brad Pitt quickly folded into Damien’s satchel.

‘You know only grannies and boggers meet under Clerys Clock?’ Mark said.

And lovers, Damien almost said, though he held the words inside.

‘I’m just appeasing your inner bogger—’

‘I’m from half an hour out of Belfast!’

‘“Bogger” just means “not from Dublin”.’

‘Sounds right. You, my love, are definitely an auld granny.’

‘Feck off, you stupid bogger.’

Another kiss, right in the middle of O’Connell Street, grannies and boggers be damned.

This was new for Damien, all these actions that Mark could do so unconsciously – kissing a man in the street or holding hands with a man in town, not wondering whether Mrs McGinty or Jason Donnelly or who knew who would be turning off Talbot Street. Damien looked up at Clerys Clock ticking away; perhaps it had seen worse. Damien felt more self-conscious on the Northside, especially O’Connell Street; this, after all, was the home of religious nuts, where Damien himself, in his Legion of Mary days, had held up placards and bellowed chants against abortion alongside Mrs McGinty. Though the fanatics had been moved along, exiled with the Floozy in the Jacuzzi, no sign of Granny Doyle, more space on the path for more types of people, and of course –

‘That fucking yoke,’ Mark said, weaving around the Spire and the circle of tourists. Mark couldn’t walk past the Spire without a mini-rant; Damien could have set his watch by it.

‘Wasn’t Nelson’s Phallic Pillar enough? Why did they need to build another giant penis? We keep shunting shite towards the sky, all part of the same problem – instead of making space to talk to each other we keep blocking the view.’

They had reached The Oval (Damien would have preferred the Front Lounge, but Mark only drank in old-man bars), Damien getting in the Guinness while Mark continued talking. ‘The same problem’ was the subject of the dissertation that Mark sometimes worked on: ‘The Celtic Tiger Eats the Commons, 1973–2002’.

‘It’s the same shite as shopping centres. We used to have squares to discuss ideas in, now we have The Square. A great name, sounds like a place you’d want to visit and then it turns out to be an air-conditioned tomb full of stereos and shite. It’s a smart trick, usurp the language of the thing you displaced: gouge out a valley and then call the monstrosity you plonk there Liffey Valley, brilliant really. But what we need is a square where we can share ideas instead of buy shite, you know?’

Damien did know; he’d heard this part of the dissertation before. Now that he was sure the bartender couldn’t, in fact, be somebody from Dunluce Crescent, Damien relaxed and basked in Mark’s monologue. Too many words, too many ideas to implement, but wasn’t the Green Party the space for that and Mark was one of their best volunteers. Damien took another sup and admired everything about Mark: the frayed Aran jumper that he’d worn since the last millennium; the big hands that moved too much when he talked; the blue eyes that didn’t move at all, lasered in on you, so that you could see every fleck of brown or grey in them, eyes that never seemed to need a blink or a break. Meanwhile, brightly coloured insects pirouetted in the region of Damien’s diaphragm, the words fresh, even after a year: my boyfriend.

‘… and this is why we need a space to freely debate ideas!’

Damien refocused. Mark had fished out the Irish Times to mop up some spilt beer and this was an article that Damien had missed: something about Pope John Paul II being beatified, not an election issue in Damien’s opinion, though there was no telling what would get Mark going.

A thing to love about Mark: he could be so single-minded, wouldn’t be swayed by any trivial distractions once he got going.

‘Fuck all this hagiography shite! Nobody has the balls to say anything genuine when a famous person dies.’

‘I suppose people need a period of mourning,’ Damien dared.

‘No,’ Mark almost shouted. ‘All this respect the dead stuff is just a way for the right wing to solidify their myths. It was the same with Reagan: the years after a public figure dies are the critical moment when their legacy is sculpted. You have to scrawl your graffiti before the concrete sets. Nobody has the balls to call the Pope out for some of his shite: preaching that condoms are a sin in Tanzania while people are dying of AIDS. It’s fucked up that this is what makes saint material …’

Damien took a sup of Guinness and nodded; it would be a while before Mark reached his pint or his point. He had to divert conversation from the Pope, away from any talk of Pope John Paul III. It had been years since he’d talked to his brother properly, not since that business, plenty of periods in Damien’s past that he skipped over euphemistically. That other business, with Peg, who Damien definitely didn’t want to think about. Damn the lot of the Doyles, Damien thought, nothing like family to stuck-in-the-mud you in the past, when Damien aspired to be all future. This focus on the future was what he loved about working for the Green Party, a political organization for the twenty-first century, not one rooted in the bogs of some civil war best forgotten, and here was the thing to steer them away from popes.

‘Don’t worry, babe, once I’ve got a new office in Leinster House, I’ll keep you a section of wall to graffiti whatever you want.’

A thing to love about Mark: his eyes were only gorgeous, even mid-roll.

‘Right,’ Mark said. ‘The whole country’s going to change with this election.’

It was, though; Damien knew it.

‘You won’t be able to move with the paradigms shifting each other when the Greens get seven seats—’

‘When we get ten seats,’ Damien corrected him. ‘And yes, it’ll be all change. Catholic Ireland is dead and gone: it’s with Pope J.P. in the grave!’

A thing to love about Mark: he was a great at impersonating radio talk-show hosts.

‘The question is, how can we as a nation come up with ethical values that aren’t tied to religion or nationalism? The question is, how do we become a people defined by the future rather than the past? Catholicism has been swept clear away, the question is how can we fill that gaping hole?’

‘What was that you said about filling a hole?’

Mark laughed.

‘Are you pissed already?’

‘I am!’ Damien announced, fizzy with the feeling; he felt drunk all the time now, even when he hadn’t touched a drop.

4

Mitre (2007)

John Paul Doyle smiled. Smiling was his speciality: popes needed as many grins in their repertoire as politicians. A smile can take you further than a sentence, John Paul thought, something he’d write down, once he was reunited with his BlackBerry. It could be material for his biography. Or for a stand-alone stocking filler. Or, better, a self-help tome, paired with an exclusive seminar on smile-coaching. John Paul’s fingers twitched; he was lost without his BlackBerry to record the thousand and one ideas that pinballed about his brain and he was on form that morning, odd as coke wasn’t even involved: it must be the fresh air. Another idea: find something to bottle the fresh air here – a net? A bottle? – and ship it out to Dublin. Atlantic Air! John Paul was sure some eejits would drop a tenner for a sniff. He gulped in a lungful and let out a huge nowhere I’d rather be than on the edge of the Atlantic in a pair of boxers and a pope hat! beam.

In his few hours in Clougheally, John Paul had already trotted out several different smiles.

A Pope John Paul III has arrived in Clougheally! megawatt grin unleashed that morning.

A secret yeah, this kip is Clougheally, nice eh? smile flashed to the camera-guy.

A so nothing’s changed and here I am, back half-smile all for himself.

A fuck this fresh air! grin and yelp for the benefit of the camera-guy, as he stripped to his boxers.

And a let’s get to work smile and nod: he had to keep some of the smile power on reserve for the cameras.

John Paul couldn’t help a grin at the thought of the video: it was going to be a good one. The Official Miracles of Pope John Paul III followed a certain formula. A familiar biblical reference (loaves and fishes; healing the sick) was revitalized with a contemporary twist (famine in Ethiopia solved; an escalator opened so no poor soul would have to miss five floors of shopping). Often, the video required that John Paul stripped to his boxers, useful for the controversy and the clicks. Today, Pope John Paul III would walk on water, miraculously buoyed by the powers of natural gas. He’d fall in, of course – that was how Pope John Paul III rolled, no gag too cheap – but he’d be back on his feet for the finale: standing on the gas rig and pulling out nets of money from the water. Nobody had hired him to perform this particular miracle, but as a cultural figure of some importance, Pope John Paul III had the obligation to wade into controversial topics and provide clarity. Some people didn’t think that Erris was the right place for Shell’s gas pipe; typical, for bedrudgers followed progress like flies to fresh shite. Pope John Paul III would banish the protesters. Ignore the naysayers, his smile would radiate. Didn’t the Bishop of Kilcommon himself bless the gas rig a few years back? Believe in me and we’ll walk on water; he’d write that one down too.

First, the video! John Paul made his way over to the fellas by the currachs and gave them Pope John Paul III’s best I’m freezing my bollix off here, let’s get going lads, man among men grin. Then, John Paul couldn’t help it, even though the cameras weren’t rolling yet: he made a show of searching for a sail, kerfuffling about for a second before he unleashed his catchphrase.

Ah now, I wouldn’t know anything about that!

Coupled with one of Pope John Paul III’s gormless smiles, of course, the one that suggested that the poor holy fool had got himself into another mess again. Together, the smile and the catchphrase had helped launch him towards YouTube stardom (well, in Ireland at least). He’d secured an upcoming feature on Xposé on TV3 and a mention in the Sunday Independent. He even had enough money to throw a few bob towards a camera-guy, an essential expense as his routine became more polished; he’d get an intern next! All tax-deductible, and if any prying eyes had questions about irregularities in his accounts, he had his catchphrase at the ready: Ah now, I wouldn’t know anything about that!

The sentence proved reliably robust, especially when it was sheathed in irony. Most sentences these days had irony wrapped around them like a condom and so this one was a treat: an expression of not knowing that conveyed just how much you knew. He might keep it when he launched his political career, John Paul decided. Election season was on its way and he had a hunger to grace telegraph poles with his grin. Next time. Pope John Paul III was practically already a mascot for the government; he’d met half the Cabinet at the Galway Races. His grin at the end of the videos radiated optimism. Haven’t we all done well, it said. Onwards and upwards. Don’t let the begrudgers into government. Vote Fianna Fáil for five more bright years of prosperity. Vote John Paul Doyle for the best handshakes in town. He’d have to write some of this down, once he found his BlackBerry, and he’d have a real think about running in the next election, suss out some seat he could cruise easily through, a coy smirk and ah now, I wouldn’t know anything about that! at the ready if some reporter got wind of his ambitions.