Old God’s Time: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

Tom intends to go see Fleming that next day, but Winnie shows up unexpectedly. He’s delighted to see her, as she has always been a bright spot in his life with her yellow coat and cheery demeanor. He invites her in and makes her tea. As the water boils, Winnie sings the street cry of newspaper sellers who worked before she was born, which reminds Tom of being a police officer in Dublin who encountered—and sometimes harassed—all sorts of people. Winnie suggests they go out to the island this summer, and Tom suggests they bring June’s picnic basket before realizing he might not have it anymore; he threw out a number of her things when he moved. Tom then asks Winnie where she’s living, and she tells him that she lives in the cemetery in Deansgrange. That afternoon, she leaves.

Tom washes Winnie’s teacup and thinks about his love for her. Although he loves Joseph, he can’t imagine existence without Winnie. Winnie is fierce and independent. She is currently a novice lawyer, but she aspires to be a barrister who challenges the misogyny endemic in the legal system as well as Ireland’s constitution. She rejects the idea that women are made to do housework and refuses to be what she calls a “man-made fucking woman.” Tom thinks about how it’s impossible for her to still be in Deansgrange and decides that she was joking.

Tom’s thoughts then turn to Archbishop McQuaid, who caused some sort of “mess” for Tom and his partner Billy during their work together. Tom then thinks about Billy’s senseless death at the hands of two robbers, which Tom deeply regrets since Billy was a good person who actually performed his job as an officer morally. Tom then thinks again of McQuaid, whom he and Billy called about “the thing with the priests.” Tom then once again thinks of Billy’s death, lamenting how when he was young he thought he’d meet plenty of men like Billy, only to later realize that Billy was completely irreplaceable. Billy was Tom’s best man, which makes Tom reminisce about his wedding supper—which he realizes with a start was at a hotel owned by the Tomeltys. He resolves to tell them this later.

In the past, Tom and June travelled to Normandy for their honeymoon, where June finally told Tom about her past. She’d been raised in an orphanage, where she was largely neglected by the nuns. At one point, a Father Thaddeus joined the orphanage and spent time “spoiling” the young girls in private. June told Tom that the Father raped her from ages six to 12, even seriously injuring her at one point, but the nuns were either oblivious or complicit. Tom thought of his own experience being beaten by the Father at his orphanage for bedwetting, which had been a lucky fate compared to other boys who were raped. June then told Tom to love her “if [he could],” but Tom had no difficulty doing so; he understood exactly what she went through. In the present, Tom looks at Winnie’s dry teacup in his hands.