Turbulent Priests.

Colin Bateman.

About the Book.

Is she the new Messiah, or just a very naughty girl?

Journalist Dan Starkey arrives on Wrathlin Island a meteorogically wet but alcoholically dry a to investigate the residents' belief that the Messiah is alive, female, and about to start school there. It's not a commission that turns up every day. With wife Patricia and her baby Little Stevie in tow, he soon finds that Wrathlin is big on religious fervour but small on hospitality. With vigilantes on the prowl and illicit drinking the order of the day, Dan is in danger of falling into the most treacherous refuge of all a the arms of the Messiah's mother.

Bateman was a journalist in Ireland before becoming a full-time writer. His first novel, Divorcing Jack won the Betty Trask Prize, and all his novels have been critically acclaimed. He wrote the screenplays for the feature films Divorcing Jack and Wild About Harry and the popular BBC TV series Murphy's Law starring James Nesbitt. Bateman lives in Ireland with his family.

For Andrea and Matthew.

Prologue.

It started with Cliff Richard, as things often do.

Moira had always been a fan. She was only in her early thirties, so she hardly remembered him as the teen idol rockin' with The Shadows, but she used to watch the movies on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon when she was a kid a Summer Holiday in particular a and then he was on Top of the Pops doing *Power to All Our Friends' with his silly little dance and she loved it. All her friends were into trendier, younger groups, but Cliff was for her. He'd always been a Christian, and she became one too, and that set her at odds with the rest of the island a they were all resolutely Roman Catholic a Christians as well, she supposed, but the G.o.d Cliff worshipped seemed so different, warmer.

Then, one Christmas, Cliff came to play in Belfast, at the King's Hall. The tickets had gone on sale nearly a year in advance and she'd managed to get one. There was n.o.body else she wanted to take, it was between her and Cliff. The ticket sat on her mantelpiece all through those traumatic months when she found she was pregnant, tearing herself apart trying to decide what to do, refusing to name the father, fighting with her family, then nearly losing it, but hanging on in there, always with Cliff as that light at the end of the tunnel.

Come the day of the gig, Moira was eight months pregnant, and heavy with it. She took her ticket, packed a small holdall, and caught the ferry across from Wrathlin to Ballycastle, then took the bus to Coleraine and finally boarded the train to Belfast. She arrived in late afternoon, it was snowing, lovely and Christma.s.sy, but cold too and not really the time for walking the streets looking for a hotel. She hadn't booked one in advance a silly, in retrospect, as she tramped from lobby to lobby a but she'd made the trip on spec many times before, shopping, and never had a problem getting a bed for the night. But this time everywhere was booked up a between those die-hard fans travelling to see Cliff, the hordes of Christmas shoppers up from the South taking advantage of the weak pound, and the thousands attending the World Toy Convention at the Waterfront Hall, there wasn't a bed to be had.

Still, she was sure it would all work out. She got herself a nice tea, then took a taxi to the King's Hall. She would see Cliff. Everything would be okay. Her seat was in the second row.

He was magnificent. They all held lighters aloft and sang *Christmas time, mistletoe and wine . . .' except Moira dropped hers and her shape didn't allow her to bend quickly to retrieve it. Then somebody kicked it away. No matter. It was only a lighter. When he sang excerpts from his musical, Heathcliff, he reached down from the stage to shake hands and even though it hurt like h.e.l.l, stretching her stomach across, she managed to grasp his hand and was astonished to feel the warmth of the man course through her.

She was so happy.

She skipped through the streets later, or skipped as much as an eight-months-pregnant woman can, back down into the centre and started looking for a hotel again. It was late, the trains were long stopped, but there were lots of new hotels in Belfast now, since the ceasefire, and there were always cancellations, she knew that.

But everywhere she went, no room. They did their best to help, they phoned other hotels, but everywhere, no room.

She was getting very tired then; the elation hadn't gone, but it was well hidden. It was snowing harder. It was freezing. She needed to put her feet up, her ankles were up like baps. She came, eventually, to a restaurant-disco-hotel called The Stables. There was a Christmas party throbbing away, there were three big bouncers on the door who made cracks about her going for a boogie in her condition, but in reception the story was the same. No room. Sorry, love, no room.

At that point she broke down. She couldn't go any further. She rested her head on the counter and cried. The manager looked at the a.s.sistant manager. The manager said, *There, there.' The three bouncers looked in and said, *Are you okay, love? Will we get you a taxi?'

*To Wrathlin?' she wailed.

They all looked at each other.

One of the bouncers whispered to the a.s.sistant manager. The a.s.sistant manager whispered to the manager. The manager shook his head. The bouncer said, *It's Christmas.' The manager shook his head. The bouncer said, *I think you should reconsider,' with enough menace for the manager, who paid a lot in protection money every month, to reconsider.

After several moments, just long enough for it to look like it might actually be his decision, he put his hand on Moira's shoulder and said, *If you're really stuck, we do have a storeroom. It's full of c.r.a.p at the minute, but we could clear a bit of a s.p.a.ce, haul a spare mattress down . . . if you're stuck?'

Moira looked up, smiled through her tears, then kissed all of them.

An hour later, with the last of the stragglers going home from the disco, with the road outside under three inches of snow, Moira snuggled down on her crisp white mattress, her fluffy pillow, looked up at the great piles of cereal boxes and catering-size tins of baked beans which filled the storeroom, and thought about how lucky she was and how wonderful people were.

Then her waters broke.

And the contractions came like very fast contractions.

The bouncers heard the screams first, and came running, then the a.s.sistant manager, then the manager, and they all stood squeezed in the doorway, not knowing what to do.

*We have to get her to a hospital!' the manager wailed.

*No!' Moira yelled. *It's coming!' Then screamed again.

*It can't be coming! You've only just start . . .'

*It's f.u.c.king coming!' Moira yelled.

They panicked. They ran about getting clean towels and hot water. The manager called for an ambulance anyway, but the hospital was already snowed in. He called for the police but there had been a riot at an ec.u.menical midnight carol service and they were all tied up.

*It can't be coming yet!' the a.s.sistant manager yelled, taking his cue from the manager.

One of the bouncers looked a little closer at Moira, who, in agony and beyond modesty, had removed her maternity dress and pants. The bouncer's eyes widened. *I think I see someone waving at me,' he said, and they all started to giggle, even Moira, between screams.

And then the baby came, quick as a flash, no trouble at all, and the bouncers delivered it, three ex-paramilitaries with tattoos on their tattoos, they delivered it, and were as pleased as punch.

An hour later, babe in arms, Moira sat up in her bed. There was a doctor on the way, finally, and the three bouncers cooed around her. They were all drinking champagne.

The manager and the a.s.sistant manager stood in the doorway, grinning. Everybody felt good.

*You know,' the manager said quietly to his a.s.sistant, *this is just like the baby Jesus, born in a stable.'

*Born in The Stables,' the a.s.sistant manager grinned.

*Born to a single mum too . . .'

*Mary . . . wasn't a single mum.'

*No, but she was a virgin.'

*I don't think Moira claims to be a . . .'

*No, I mean, metaphorically speaking . . . there's no husband, no father present, so it's like a virgin birth . . .'

The a.s.sistant manager nodded, because he was an a.s.sistant manager.

*So we have The Stables, the virgin birth . . . now look at our three bouncers.'

The a.s.sistant manager looked at Lenny, Jugs and Ripley Bogle.

*They're all hoods, right.'

The a.s.sistant manager nodded.

*And what're hoods called in Mafia flicks?'

*Mafia flicks? Ugh . . .'

*Wise guys, right?'

*Ugh . . . right.'

*And where are they from?'

*Italy . . . New York . . .'

*Not the Mafia a Lenny, Jugs . . .'

*Oh. Just round here. Jugs is Newtownards Road, Lenny's . . .'

*East Belfast. All from East Belfast.'

*Okay. Right.'

*So the three wise men from the east.' The manager smiled widely.

*I think you might be stretching . . .'

*Hold on, I'm not finished. What was the first thing she wanted after she gave birth?'

The a.s.sistant manager thought for a moment, then it came to him. *A cigarette.'

The manager nodded. *And what did she light it with . . .?'

*She couldn't find her lighter, so Lennie gave her his, told her to keep it, a present . . .'

*It was a gold lighter.'

*Gold-ish.'

*Stick with me. A gold lighter. So after that, what did she want?'

This time the a.s.sistant manager's brow furrowed, he couldn't think what had been next.

*After all that screaming and shouting . . .?'

*I don't . . .'

*She wanted to fix her face. So she asked for . . .'

*A mirror!' He said it a little too loudly and the bouncers scowled round, then returned to their cooing. *But . . .'

*Don't you see?' The manager tutted. *Look, the virgin Moira, comes to the city, finds no room at the inn and has to sleep in The Stables, she gives birth and the three wise men from the east bring her gifts of gold, frankincense and mirror.'

*Frankincense?'

*Well, I didn't say it fitted perfectly, but near as d.a.m.n it. If you ask me, what we have on our hands here is the Second Coming. Mark my words.'

The a.s.sistant manager shook his head. It was late and he was tired and his boss was a raving lunatic.

He took a deep breath. He smiled across at Moira, babe in arms, and said, *What're you going to call him, love?'

*Him?' Moira said.

1.

Cardinal Tomas Daley, Primate of All Ireland and the hot favourite to be the first English-speaking pope since Robbie Coltrane, glanced up from his desk. *You look like you've been celebrating,' he said.

I nodded. It hurt. I had one of those headaches that begins in your feet. Up top the Four Hors.e.m.e.n of the Apocalypse had tethered their restless mounts to the back of my eyeb.a.l.l.s. The thousand curious little green woodp.e.c.k.e.rs cunningly masquerading as summer raindrops thumping at the window didn't help.

*My wife had a baby last night,' I said.

*Really?'

I nodded. It hurt some more.

*Congratulations.'

He gave me the warm-hearted smile of a nice man with a problem and turned perplexed eyes to the file lying open on the desk before him. He made a note. I have never felt entirely easy with people who maintain files on me. Particularly religious people.

*Thank you.'