Chapter 30
Father Matthew Mackie walks slowly up the hill, through the avenue of trees.
He had hoped Tony Curran’s death might be the end of all this, no need for any further action on his behalf. But he visited Ian Ventham to put his case, and he had been disappointed. The Woodlands was continuing as planned. The cemetery was to go.
Time to conjure up a plan B, and quickly.
As the path curves to the left, then straightens, the Garden of Eternal Rest comes into view, farther and higher up the path.
From here Father Mackie can see the iron gates, wide enough for a vehicle, set into the redbrick wall.
The gates look old; the wall looks new. In front of the gates is a turning circle, once for hearses and now for maintenance vehicles.
He reaches the gates and pushes them open.
There is a central path leading to a large statue of Christ on the cross at the very far end.
He walks silently toward Christ, through the sea of souls.
Beyond the statue, beyond the garden, are tall beech trees, reaching farther up the hill to the open farmland.
Father Mackie crosses himself by the plinth at Christ’s feet.
No kneeling for him these days, though, arthritis and Catholicism being an uneasy mix.
Matthew Mackie turns and looks back across the garden, squinting into the sun.
On either side of the path are the gravestones, neat, ordered, symmetrical, stretching forward in time toward the iron gates.
The oldest graves are nearest to Christ, with the newest joining the queue when their time had come.
There are about two hundred bodies high on the hill, a spot so beautiful, so peaceful, so perfect, Mackie thinks it could almost make him believe in God.
The first grave is dated 1874, a Sister Margaret Bernadette, and this is where Mackie eventually turns, starting his slow walk back.
The older gravestones are more ornate. The dates of death flick slowly forward as he walks.
There are the Victorians all neatly in a line, probably furious about Palmerston or the Boers.
Then it’s the women who sat in the convent and heard about the Wright brothers for the first time.
Then the women who nursed the blind and the broken who flooded through their gates, as they prayed for brothers to return safely from Europe.
Then there were doctors and voters and drivers, women who had seen both wars and still kept the faith, the inscriptions getting easier to read now.
Then television, rock and roll, supermarkets, motorways, and moon landings.
Father Mackie steps off the path sometime around the 1970s, the headstones clear and simple now.
He walks along the row, looking at the names.
The world was changing in the most extraordinary ways, but the rows are still neat and orderly, and the names are still the same.
He reaches the side wall of the garden, waist-high and much older than the wall at the front.
He takes in the view, which hasn’t changed since 1874.
Trees, fields, birds, things that were permanent and unbroken.
He walks back to the path, clearing a leaf off one of the headstones as he passes.
Father Mackie continues to walk until he reaches the final gravestone: Sister Mary Byrne, dated July 14, 2005. What a lot Mary Byrne could tell Sister Margaret Bernadette, just a hundred yards up the path. So much had changed, yet here at least, so much had stayed the same.
Behind Sister Mary Byrne there is room for many more graves, but they had not been needed. Sister Mary was the last of the line. So here they all lay, this sisterhood, with the walls still around them, the blue skies above them, and the leaves still falling on the headstones.
What could he do?
Exiting through the gates, Mackie turns back for a final look. He then begins the walk downhill, back through the avenue of trees toward Coopers Chase.
A man in a suit and tie is sitting on a bench set just off the path, enjoying the same view that Father Mackie had been enjoying. The view that never changed. Through wars and deaths, cars and planes, Wi-Fi, and whatever was in the papers this morning. There was something to be said for it.
“Father,” acknowledges the man, a folded copy of the Daily Express by his side. Matthew Mackie nods back, keeps walking, and keeps thinking.