Limitations
"Do you think he'll help?" Jeannie said, as she admired her boots
reflection in the puddles, illuminated by street lamps. It was the kind of
question her host's mind would have asked. She only needed an answer to
get acknowledgement of what she knew.
Lang stumbled on unfamiliar legs. They looked like two refugees from an
office party, lost on the wrong side of town. The constant light rain was
making his suit lose its shape. He could see now what the umbrella was
for. Jeannie, showing her empathy with the creatures, had kept hers.
"I suppose this is frustration," he said absently, fighting to keep his
focus on the moment.
"Stop fighting your legs," Jeannie said, a little annoyed that Lang was
turning out to be so incapable. "If I can manage on these heels, you
really should be able to do better."
She turned a complete circle, smiling as she caught sight of her graceful
movement on a shop window, and strode on. The loud clump of her heels on
the pavement lightened her mood even more.
"Can you slow up," Lang sounded a little short. "The pavement is hard to
keep balance on."
Jeannie stopped and looked in the shop window. It was only bathroom
fittings, as this was not some fashion high street. She plundered her host
mind and found it was only something that she should be interested in if
she had bought a house.
"Their minds," she said, still wanting to practice conversation. "They can
really feel things. I just have to touch mine and she screams so loud I
feel everyone must surely hear."
Lang fell hard, tearing the knee of his trousers. Jeannie laughed at the
sight of him slipping as he tried to rise. She skipped over to help,
pulling him back on his feet.
"Why do we both have to incarnate?" Lang complained.
"Oh, get with the programme," Jeannie said sharply, happy at her selection
of a stock phrase.
They passed under an iron railway bridge which seemed to mark the boundary
of the bleak and empty streets, peppered with the occasional tile
warehouse outlets or furniture store. They were now in a residential area.
One side of the road was taken up with a heavy, concrete local authority
housing project. The other was mostly older red brick houses, mostly run
down but occasionally fixed up with PVC windows. They were close enough to
the airport to hear the distant sound of passenger jets mounting the night
sky, marked out just by their lights.
They turned down a narrow road that ran back towards the railway
embankment where a newer house, painted stark white, had been squeezed.
"I'll manage the door," Lang said, but Jeannie already had it open. A bear
light bulb lit the hallway inside, blinding them for an instant. Lang
clicked the door shut behind them. The air inside stank of food fried with
old oil.
"Why does he choose to live like this?" Lang shook his head.
"He won't want to help," Jeannie said, "I'm not sure he'll see a reason
to."
"Of course he will," said Lang. Jeannie shook her head. He
really had no feeling for the place.
The doors all had individual numbers. They took a short stairwell at the
back of the hall up to a door numbered `5A', although the light did not
reach too well up the stairs so it was hard to make it out. Lang nudged
open the lock before Jeannie had a chance. They stepped into the darkness,
Lang crying out as he stumbled into a small table just inside. Jeannie
found the light switch and closed the door before switching it on. The
room was tiny, Lang was still complaining and the light was bright. But
despite the disturbance, the figure wrapped tightly in blankets went on
sleeping.
"Paul," Jeannie called, quiet but urgent, "Paul, wake up."
Father Bert was home from Boston to take a break from being a saintly
pastor and bathe in the adulation that came with being a local hero. But
he could not help noticing the pool of adulation grew a little smaller
every time he returned to the little Roscommon village. The country was
changed, he knew. He guessed that his old neighbours were just creating a
little oasis for him to bask in, so that he could not see how much was
different. That was some of the old Irishness; no-one saw a need to pain
him with truth.
He had been to a baptism earlier in the day. A woman had spoken to him at
the family house after the event. He recognised her dimly and knew she was
not important. Her parents were landless folk from the town, living in
local authority housing, but now seemed to live on this same road. It was
a tribute to the decent family that they had included such a one in their
invitation, but an impertinence that she thought this entitled her to
speak to a priest in a social setting. The country had changed indeed, he
thought, and not for the better as he firmly but politely left the woman
in his wake.
A few in the bar talked to Father Bert. The ones who knew they held status.
The rest knew to listen with reverence as he proclaimed on life in America
and what was right and what was wrong. He knew it was an empty illusion,
but it still gave him comfort to be able to claim authority over this
space as he drank too much and let out the gombeen in him, snatching at
profit at any cost.
He could drink in that bar until he had his fill. It was the early hours of
the morning when he left, still singing an old tune. The village was
small. The pub stood on one side of a small square with railings around a
bare patch of ground. The school was a little out one road, and a couple
of houses stood on the other side. A closed and ruined garage stood
opposite the pub and Father Bert's house was a mile out that road. He had
buried his mother on his last visit, so the house was now empty for most
of the year.
The night was cold and clear, and the frosty feeling penetrated even
through the fullness of beer washing through him. He stumbled across the
road to the railings, pulling himself around them, and set off past the
garage. His footsteps echoed loudly about him, as there was not another
sound to disturb the night. Then, for an instant, a blinding light shone
like a wall of pure white in front of him. Father Bert stood blinking to
regain his night vision. He could make out two figures, and man and a
woman, barely more than shadows in the inky blackness.
It took a shake, and a pull of the bedclothes, before Paul sat up to
acknowledge his two visitors. Jeannie was thinking of an introduction, but
he seemed to understand who they were.
"I didn't ask for help." Paul said, putting his bare feet into a pair of
scuffed, black shoes as he wrapped a blanket around him. He seemed to be
wearing a tattered old raincoat as night wear. "I'm doing fine here."
"Surely you could be more than this," Lang said, his face wrinkled in
puzzlement.
"I could, if I was bothered," Paul coughed a little, "I just wanted to be
somewhere that I wasn't seen as damaged."
"We are getting diverted," Jeannie said quickly, dragging her attention
away from her reflection in a mirror on the wall. "This is not why we are
here."
Paul shook his head.
"I'm not coming back. This is where I belong now."
"We don't dispute that," Lang sounded haughty. "It's plain you've settled
in nicely."
Jeannie slapped Lang across the face, not even thinking if their adopted
phenotype supported a more subtle way of making her point. She felt they
were losing whatever faint hope there was of Paul listening to them.
"Paul," she said, kneeling in front of him, drawing some instinct from her
host body that taking herself down to his level might aid communication.
"We are not here to try and help you. We are here because we need your
help. We need it badly. You see, things are not working out for us."
"They have a way of upsetting the balance, turning it against us," Lang
said, in a clinical tone. "You know what that means, more than any of
us."
"We're afraid, Paul," Jeannie added, smiling a little nervously.
"Afraid you'll all end up like me," Paul said. "Don't be. Its not so bad
once you just accept what you are."
Jeannie put her face in her hands and started sobbing. Sadness was part of
the human experience and she wanted to try it. She managed to control the
urge to peak to see if it was having any effect. She felt a hand on her arm,
and looked up finding Paul's eyes looking into hers.
"Really," he said gently, "Mortality is no burden. Not when you accept this
is what you are."
"And if you could be repaired?" Lang said, "That's the real question. You
might accept all this. But would you choose it?"
Paul paused. Jeannie was surprised that he seemed to need to think at all.
"No," he said, after the bare hint of a moment. "No, I would choose to be
eternal, if I could."
"Then will you help us," Jeannie said, clasping Paul's hands to her chest.
"Priest."
"Bad Priest."
Laughter cut the cold air. Father Bert felt a flush of anger.
"Who are you? You have no business here." Father Bert felt entitled to say
who did and didn't have business on that road in the early hours, even
before he knew who they were.
"Your judge and jury."
"As if you mattered enough to be judged."
The laughter came again, but seemed to come from all around and not just
from shadowy figures in front of him. Then, as suddenly as if a light
switch was flicked, the faces of the figures shone and Father Bert was
looking at two pale faces with tightly cropped blond hair. Their eyes were
closed, but flicked open. They smiled.
"This is a turning point," said the man, looking about. "Here in this
little speck of a moment."
"But you hardly matter," the woman was smiling broadly. "We could have
picked anyone. In fact the main thing was to have someone weak."
Father Bert felt a chill in his bones. Devils, he thought, wondering if any
of the rituals he had devoted his life to held any currency here.
"No, they don't," said the woman. "There's nothing you can do, you see, to
make things any different."
"But don't worry," added her companion. "We won't play with you too much."
"I don't see why you worry," said Paul. "If they try to attack, they will
lose one of their own for every one of you. Isn't that what I proved?"
"They have found a way," Lang explained. "They can upset the balance at
this level, and let the ripple spread. Add infinity to a disturbance and
any mild victory is enough to make a tide."
"So why do you need me? Surely you can stop them yourselves."
"Yes, but then ... ," Jeannie paused, and fought to find words.
"You would be wounded like me." Paul nodded.
"That's not it. Well, not all of it," Lang snorted at Jeannie before
continuing. "We find it hard to keep our minds in the moment. I can hardly
walk. But you actually belong here."
"I remember what it was like," Paul said, flexing his fingers, and reaching
out. "Nothing had permanence and I had no limit."
"How long have you left?" Jeannie asked, sitting beside him on the bed and
silencing Lang's startled look with a scowl.
"Less than two hundred years," Paul's voice broke as he said it.
"Then don't waste it," Jeannie put an arm around his shoulders. "Be a hero.
We'll always remember you for saving us."
"No you won't. Nothing persists in infinity. I'm not a fool. I've no reason
to help you. My allegiance is to my own."
"Then you should help us," Jeannie said sweetly, not certain that it was
the right emotion. She stored her intention to play with Dublin's
nightlife in her host's body once they had succeeded. "We are not cruel
like them. We would not toy with you."
"We only want the best," Lang added, although Jeannie thought it
unnecessary. "You surely know that. We are good. They are evil. Do you
want evil to win?"
There was a pause in the kicking. Father Bert knew he should feel pain,
but the alcohol seemed to bring some benefit. A thought seemed to just
arrive in his head. `Did I ever really believe any of it?' He had to
admit he probably never did. He just wanted to have power and regard, and
the priesthood seemed the way to achieve that. `They never made me a
bishop. I would have like that' he thought, even as he snorted at the
ridiculous limit to his ambition. His eyes were closed, so he hardly
noticed a brief, bright light.
Father Bert heard sounds of a scuffle. Either his eyes were adjusting or
the morning was starting to brighten. He could see a tramp, in a ragged
coat, beating back his two tormentors with a thick branch ripped from a
tree. They seemed to crumble quickly under his blows and Father Bert could
only wonder if he was sent by some higher power to give him a reprieve.
`But I never repented,' thought Bert, `I just admitted it was all a sham.
Is that enough?'
The tramp was not alone. Father Bert saw that a couple stood nearby, a man
in a smart business suit with a rip on the knee of one trouser leg and a
woman in a tight fitting office outfit and a short pink raincoat. The
tramp raised the branch over his head, both hands clasping it like an
executioner holding an axe, as if to signal a killing blow. But, instead,
he paused.
"So why should I do this for you," Paul said, simply. Jeannie and Lang
exchanged a frightened glance and fell to their knees on the dirt of the
road, calling out a confused collection of words of praise, the lines in
their faces showing no certainty that the branch would ever strike.
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