Tested by Fire by David Costa (brene brown rising strong .txt) 📕

‘Yes, I’m not a whisky drinker but I’ve heard of Bushmills.’

‘Jameson’s will do, but it’s not Bushmills. Jameson’s I would use for making hot whiskies. Bushmills I can drink straight on its own it’s that smooth, did you know Bushmills is the oldest licensed distillery in the world 1608? The word licensed being the operative word. There were many other distilleries in places making the stuff before Bushmill’s, but they weren’t licensed or paying the tax man. I went to the Bushmills distillery once. Do you know what’s written above the door?’

‘No.’

‘Here we turn water into gold.’

‘The way you talk about it you might convert me.’ She laughed.

‘That’s why I thought we should have this drink. Not just to give you a lesson on whiskey but, despite me needing one right now I just wanted some free down time with you on my own. You know nothing about me. We should get to know each other, who we really are.’

‘Are you sure you really want to know the real me? You might not like what you hear?’

‘That goes both ways. I know where you were born, where you were brought up, where you live now. I know your age, where you went to school, and that you were married to Brendan. The you I don’t know is the one that made you who you are… the real you. What’s your favourite book? Your favourite movie? What makes you cry? What are you afraid of? These are all the things that people in a normal relationship know about each other.’

‘What’s a normal relationship? I don’t think I’ve ever had one. I was brought up by a strict Catholic mum and dad. My dad died when I was fourteen. I was at a convent school run by nuns who were even stricter than my parents. When I left school at sixteen, I was vulnerable and easily swayed. Brendan came along; the slightly older man of the world or so I thought. Someone who wanted to take care of me. Then, well, you know that part of the story and how that ended up, and here I am. What about you, what brings you to here and now?’

He was sipping his whisky. It might just be Jameson’s, but he wanted to take his time. He’d listened to her with interest in the way she was opening up beginning to relax. This was what he wanted. The whole thing with Costello would make anyone nervous and he was no exception.

‘Well, believe it or not, I come from a large Catholic family myself. I was born in Larne which was then a predominately Protestant town. My father was a bit like Brendan; a bully when he had a drink in him. My mother who was a lot smaller kicked him out when she found out that not only was he having an affair with another woman, but he’d gotten her pregnant as well. I had a lot of Protestant friends and in those days, religion was never a problem. In the estate where I lived the Catholic Chapel and the Protestant Church were the two buildings at the entrance gates to the local cemetery. On Sunday mornings both opposite congregations would finish their service at the same time and then everyone would stand between the two buildings chatting and laughing. Those were the good times when neighbours were neighbours before they started killing each other.’

‘They’re not all bad, Joseph, I have to believe that, you should too.’

‘I know, you’re right, I still have a few friends from those days but in my working life I’ve seen too much violence, too much hatred to know better. I fell out with the Catholic Church when the Priest at Mass started to spout off in his sermon one Sunday morning about fallen women. After my father had been kicked out, he moved to England with his new woman. My mother had originally been devastated. I was the eldest, only ten at the time and suddenly, I was the man of the house. After a while, my mother met and fell for another man, a Protestant. That day, in the Chapel, the Priest seemed to be looking straight at me, my brother, and sister. He was talking loudly about fallen women, jezebels as he called them. I knew he was speaking about my mother because everyone turned to look at us. I took the hands of my brother and sister and walked out. I told my mother what had happened when I went home. I also told her I would never go inside a Catholic Church again, and what’s more, I would have nothing more to do with that religion.’

‘My God, that was a big thing for a small child to deal with back then. You never went back?’

‘Just once when I attended the funeral of a Catholic police officer who was shot dead by the IRA. I was reluctant to go inside the church. I waited outside thinking I would be able to sit at the back when the church had filled up, but my plan backfired. When I went in the only seats left were at the front beside the flag-draped coffin, and I was ushered to one of those seats. My anger for the Catholic Church was reinforced when the Priest said in his sermon, “If anyone knows anything about this terrible crime, they should tell the police.”

‘I nearly laughed out loud. I wanted to shout, you fucking hypocrite, if the gunman came into your confessional tonight and told you what they’d done, you would absolve them of their sin and give them six Hail Marys and three Our Fathers and let them go on their way to kill more policemen and you would tell no one.’

Mary could feel the anger in his words and feel the pain he was feeling.