Free Three Cheers For The Paraclete by Thomas Keneally Page A

orating about some of the paintings that gave yourself and Egan trouble.’
    ‘I’m sick of all this carping, James. You know, every one of these bloody artists, emotional creatures and all as they are, accept the decisions of the other judges as final, but annually the art community drops garbage on little Egan and me from a great height. Why? You’re a wild one, James – now, no blushing. You tell me why they can’t see that bad religion can’t be made into good religious art. Where’s Egan?’
    Egan was still speaking with his dark lady.
    ‘See that woman with Maurice?’ Costello asked. ‘Very statuesque. She’s an old client of ours in the marriage courts. I don’t suppose it’s a breach of ethics to tell you that. It’s good to see her looking well. A person gets to know these people very well despite the requisite aloofness. She was in a very poor state by the time her annulment came through.’
    ‘She seems friendly enough to Egan, even though he must have been the villain in court.’
    ‘Egan’s a very kind little chap though, very kind. If you didn’t know, you’d think a defensor vinculi would be the most hated of men. All the marriages he defends are putrefying on their feet by the time they get to us. But there they are, Egan and the Tully woman, polite to each other. Not that they shouldn’t be polite. It’s only good sense.’
    Maitland waited while Costello went to collect Egan. He saw the woman give Costello the curtest of greetings and stand back. As the two canon lawyers came back across the floor, Costello could be heard asking, ‘What’s the matter with her? A man only does his job.’
     
    In the House of Studies, Saturdays were normal working-days. Yet there was always a Saturday feel about the light, a feel of Saturday-morning big spending, of the Saturday bounty of gardens, of the drama ofblossoming premierships and enterprises on the totalizator, all of it subtly transmitted from the town below. So, as Maitland came down to breakfast, the grains of the ether seemed to indict him with being an alien.
    Within the refectory, the priests at table appeared to have complaints against him. Not just Nolan and Costello, who held their heads up and stared obliquely as judges; but Egan and three other priests, who had till then treated him with that quaint inadvertence that comes from being too long resident in closed community, watched him from beneath their eyelids. As he said a Grace and sat, Costello sopped his mouth with a napkin and rose.
    ‘What price solidarity?’ he hissed in Maitland’s ear and placed under Maitland’s nose that morning’s paper, tortured open at the magazine section and folded in two. It was a standard article about the Couraigne prize, salted with precious little headings such as ‘Sacrilegious?’, ‘Fascist?’ and, worse than any, ‘Earn Him Such Hate’. Here were manifestoes by artists who said they’d been misunderstood or worse by Egan and Costello, both of whom were then amply quoted on distasteful art. Finally, Maitland’s statement, spoken to the young man, was set down, and a pernicious sentence began, ‘This, coming from a colleague of Drs Costello and Egan, raises the question of responsibility for the estrangement between established Christianity and the arts. While churchmen squarely blame the arts and the arts squarely blame churchmen, Dr Maitland’s statement is properly self-questioning …’
    Costello murmured, ‘ You would have no idea how hard it is for Maurice and myself on that bloody committee. We’re not utter fools, you know.’ For some reason his hand went out over Maitland’s shoulder and placed a sugar-bowl with precise anger. ‘What I resentmost is the reference to you as a colleague. I will in future consider you as a colleague only when it cannot be avoided.’
    Then he began what was intended to be a march with intent, a march that would be a withdrawal of any brother-feeling from Maitland, and would be