Mission to Argentina

He crossed the river. At least he was in good physical shape, no matter what the state of his psyche might be. A couple of drunks were happily throwing up on the bank below. Two leather-jacketed teenagers with outrageously greased quiffs were watching them from the bridge and laughing. They had empty Chinese food cartons all around them, probably bought with the spoils of a mugging. A walk across Glasgow in the early hours of Sunday morning might be a good SAS training exercise, Docherty thought. Requiring stamina, unarmed combat skills and eyes in the back of your head. Not to mention a sense of humour.

Another couple of miles brought him to his friend’s parish church, which stood out among its high-rise surroundings rather like the Aztec pyramid Docherty had seen half-excavated on the edge of Mexico City’s central square. Father McCall, whom even the schoolkids simply called ‘Liam’, was standing on the pavement outside, apparently lost in thought. He looked older, Docherty thought. He was nearly sixty now, and his had not exactly been a life of ease.

‘Hello, Liam,’ he said.

The frocked figure turned round. ‘Jamie!’ he exclaimed. The eyes still had their sparkle. ‘How long have you been back? I thought you’d be gone, you know, on duty or whatever you call it.’

‘Duty will do. But no. No such luck. There aren’t enough ships to transport all the men who want to go. I’m on twenty-four-hour standby, but…’ He shrugged and then grinned. ‘It’s good to see you, Liam. How are you? How are things here?’

‘Much the same. Much the same.’ The priest stared out across the city towards the distant Campsie Fells, then suddenly laughed. ‘You know, I was thinking just now – I think I’m beginning to turn into a Buddhist. So much of what we see as change is mere chaff, completely superficial. And deep down, things don’t seem to change at all. Of course,’ he added with a quick smile, ‘as a Catholic I believe in the possibility of redemption.’

Docherty smiled back at him. He had known the priest since he was about five years old. Liam would have been in his early thirties then, and the two of them had begun a conversation which, though sometimes interrupted for years on end, had continued ever since – and seemed likely to do so until one of them died.

‘Do you have time for a walk round the park?’ Docherty asked.

Liam looked at his watch. ‘I have a meeting in an hour or so…so, yes. And you didn’t answer my question. How long have you been here?’

‘I didn’t answer it because I felt guilty. I’ve been here almost a week. My father’s dying and…well, I always seem to end up dumping all my problems on you, and, you know, every once in a while I get this crazy idea of trying to sort them out for myself.’

Liam grunted. ‘Crazy is about right. Are you trying to put me out of business? How long would the Church last if people started sorting out their own problems?’

Docherty grinned. ‘OK, I get the message. You…’ He broke off as a football came towards them, skidding across the damp grass. The priest trapped the ball in one motion, and sent it back, hard and accurately, with a graceful swing of the right leg. ‘Nice one,’ Docherty said. Maybe his friend was not getting old just yet.

‘You know, it’s a frightening thought,’ Liam said, ‘but I’m afraid I shall still be trying to kick pebbles into imaginary goals when I can barely walk.’

‘Makes you wonder what sort of God would restrict your best footballing years to such an early part of life,’ Docherty observed.

‘Yes, it does,’ the priest agreed. ‘I’m sorry about your father,’ he went on, as if the subject had not changed. ‘Of course, I knew he was seriously ill…Is there no hope?’

‘None. It’s just a matter of time.’

‘That’s true for all of us.’

‘It’s a matter of weeks, then. Maybe even days.’

‘Hmmm. It must be very painful for you.’

‘Not as painful as it is for him.’

Liam gave him a reproachful glance. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘Aye. I’m sorry. And yes, it is painful. He’s dying and I don’t know how to deal with it. I don’t know how to deal with him. I never have.’

‘I know. But I have to say, and I’ve said it to you often enough in the past: I think he must carry more of the blame for this than you…’

Docherty scratched his ear and smiled ruefully. ‘Maybe. Maybe. But…’

‘Everybody loves him. Campbell Docherty, the man who’d do anything for anyone, who worked a twenty-hour day for the union, who’d give his last biscuit to a stray dog. One of our secular saints. He loves everybody and everybody loves him.’

‘Except me.’

‘There was no room for you, no time. Or maybe he just couldn’t cope with another male in the family circle. It’s common enough, Jamie. Glasgow’s full of boys sleeping rough because their fathers can’t cope with living with a younger version of themselves.’

‘I know. I agree. But what do I do? It’s nuts that I let myself get so wound up by this, I know it is…’

‘I don’t think so, Jamie. Fathers and sons have been trying to work each other out since the beginning of time. It’s just something they do…’

Docherty shook his head. ‘You know, every time I come back here I feel like I’m returning to the scene of the crime.’

‘There’s no crime. Only family.’

Docherty could not help laughing. ‘Nice one, Liam.’

‘Do you talk to him like you talk to me?’ the priest asked.

‘I try to. He even agrees with me, but nothing changes.’

‘Maybe this time.’

‘Maybe. There won’t be many others.’

They walked in silence for a while. The dusk was settling over the park, reminding Docherty of all those evenings playing football as a kid, with the ball getting harder and harder to see in the gloom. ‘Sometimes, these days, I feel like an old man,’ he said. ‘Not in body, but in soul.’

‘Think yourself lucky it’s only your soul, then,’ Liam observed. ‘It only needs one dark cloud coming in from the West, and every joint in me starts aching.’

‘I’m serious,’ Docherty insisted.

‘So am I. But I know what you mean. You live too much in the past, Jamie…’

‘I know. I can’t seem to shake it, though. You know’ – he stopped underneath a budding tree – ‘there are two scenes which often come into my head when I’m not thinking – like they’re always there, but most of the time they’re overlaid by something more immediate. One is our parlour when I was a small kid. I must have been about six, because Rosie is still crawling around and Sylvia is helping Mum with the cooking, and Dad’s sitting there at the table with a pile of work talking to one of the shop stewards, and I’m doing a jigsaw of the Coronation Scot. Remember, that blue streamliner? Nothing ever happens in this scene; it’s just the way things are. It feels really peaceful. There’s a kind of contentment which oozes out of it.’

‘I remember that room,’ the priest replied.

‘The other scene is a style on a path up near Morar, for Christ’s sake. I’m just reaching up to help Chrissie down, and she looks down at me with such a look of love I can hardly keep the tears in. Just that one moment. It’s almost like a photograph, except for the changing expression on her face. It was only a couple of weeks later that she was killed.’

Liam said nothing – just put his hand on Docherty’s arm.

‘It’s weird,’ Docherty went on. ‘I’ve seen some terrible things as a soldier. Oman was bad enough, but believe me, you won’t find a crueller place than Belfast. I got used to it, I suppose. You have to if you’re going to function. But sometimes I don’t think I’ll ever get over that room or that woman.’ He turned to face the priest, smiling wryly. ‘I couldn’t tell this sort of thing to anyone but you,’ he said.

‘Most people couldn’t tell it to anyone at all,’ Liam said. ‘You underestimate yourself. You always have. But I don’t think you should put these two scenes of yours together. I think you will get over Chrissie, even if it takes another ten years. But that room of yours – it sounds almost too good to be true, you know what I mean? Like a picture of the world the way we want it to be, everyone in their proper place, living in perfect harmony…’

‘Yeah. And what’s even crazier: I know it wasn’t really like that most of the time.’

‘That doesn’t matter. It can still be a good picture for someone to hold in their head. Particularly a soldier.’

‘How did you get to be so wise?’ Docherty asked him with a smile.

‘Constant practice. And I still feel more ignorant every day.’