56 pages • 1 hour read
Sebastian BarryOld God's Time
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 11-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary
Fleming visits Tom to ask about the investigation into Matthews’s murder in the mountains. They have had no luck re-examining the old evidence for DNA samples, but they have found two blood types—Matthews’s and one other. Tom remembers going swimming at a family beach with either Fleming or Billy; he can’t remember who. In the present, Fleming asks if they took blood samples from suspects. Tom feels ashamed that they didn’t; he implies that Billy did and they must have been lost since there no centralized, formalized system for storing evidence. Tom says Billy suspected Byrne of the murder.
Fleming reveals that Wilson and O’Casey went to interview Byrne, and Byrne wouldn’t speak about the molestation accusations without a solicitor present. However, they also asked him about Matthews’s murder. Byrne was near the scene and heard the murder take place. He claims he saw Tom nearby immediately afterward; they called the police, and Billy arrived. This clashes with Billy’s notes, which claim that he and Tom arrived together. Tom says Byrne is lying; otherwise, he would’ve reported this at the time. Fleming thinks he kept quiet to avoid further trouble for himself but is telling the truth now that he knows he’s going down.
Tom says he didn’t murder Matthews. He and Billy arrived on the scene together. They climbed down to the body over jagged rocks, so their blood might be on the surviving evidence. He says both Byrne and Matthews did awful things, and Byrne is just trying to distract Wilson and O’Casey. However, he says he will nevertheless come and give them a blood sample. Fleming leaves.
Tom thinks about the mountainside and the images of injured children. The memories do not feel like his. He remembers June’s ability to value their domestic life—making scones, the two of them taking Winnie to the hospital when she was sick. When June heard about Matthews, it destroyed her peace. She wanted to reconnoiter the house where Matthews lived with Byrne; Tom said they could go the following Saturday. June waited for the day like a child; Tom remembered waiting at the orphanage in case anyone came to visit him and still feeling he was waiting even when he knew no one would. On Saturday, Tom and June trailed the two priests in the car when they left their house. He felt panicked at mixing his work and home worlds. He reminded himself he was doing it for June.
Chapter 12 Summary
Tom goes into Dublin to give a blood sample. He thinks it’ll either be ambiguous or negative. Walking through the city, he thinks of his time in Malaya with the army. As a sniper, he guarded a Chinese enclave created by the British to ensure Malayan rebels couldn’t get food from them. When anyone who might have been a rebel approached, Tom shot them. He thinks that this experience gave him an Irish life that was separate from his childhood.
After giving the blood sample, Tom feels lighter—he has faced a fear he has had for 30 years. In the past, murder often meant the death sentence. He thinks of IRA members who were executed, and of the British in Malaya, who used the army to try to solve problems they themselves had created.
Wilson stops him in the street to talk. He is friendly with Tom and says Byrne is going down. He asks what Tom knows. Tom says he only knew of the other one, Matthews. He privately thinks he cannot betray June by explaining. Wilson apologizes that he is obliged to ask: He says that if he moves forward with investigating Byrne, Byrne’s accusations could make Tom’s life very difficult. Tom firmly encourages him to do so anyway. Tom thinks of a medal he won for bravery: He took a bullet a man fired at his wife in a period when he no longer cared for his own life.
After Wilson leaves, Tom feels like he’s waking from a reverie. He wonders about the boundaries between reality and imagination, and between himself and other things in the universe that are all made of atoms. He thinks of the violence in the city’s past that he’d heard of even in the orphanage, which the tourists don’t see. In the weak sunshine, he imagines an arrow’s flightpath peaking, about to fall.
Chapter 13 Summary
Tom thinks he would like to tell someone with no ears his story. Billy and June knew parts of it, but they are dead.
Tom’s neighbor, the cellist, is on his balcony with his cello and gun. He invites Tom up for a whiskey. He introduces himself as Ronnie. He is from a well-to-do background, but he is not English as Tom had thought. Ronnie says that the flat was his wife’s, who has now been compulsorily committed to a psychiatric hospital. The men bond over missing their wives and Tom’s correct identification of the gun. Ronnie asks if Tom would like to try the gun. Tom notices his music is titled “Kol Nidrei”; he recognizes the song as his regiment was nearly sent to Palestine. He knows that particular song was sung before the Feast of Atonement, and Tom longs for atonement.
They spot a child in the garden. Tom says it must be Miss McNulty’s son. Ronnie says it’s a girl; Tom is surprised that he can see her, too. Ronnie suggests it’s the ghost of an ancient child whose bones were found nearby. Tom looks at the cormorants through the scope of the gun, amazed by its power, but he does not shoot.
Ronnie plays the cello, getting lost in the music. Tom doesn’t reveal he knows what “Kol Nidrei” means. He recalls how wildly happy June was after Matthews’s death. She seemed to feel their children were safer now. He recalls arguing and reconciling with her and the jewelry he gifted her over the years, which she always said Winnie would give to her daughter. He remembers holidays on the Isle of Man: buckets and spades, Winnie’s first kiss, Joe’s love of mods. In the evenings, Tom and June would go dancing; he vividly recalls her physicality. He feels she is there with him; he doesn’t open his eyes, as she’d vanish, but he reaches out to her.
Chapters 11-13 Analysis
The novel portrays Systemic Violence in Institutions, specifically focusing on the brutality of colonialism and post-colonialism. As a soldier in the British Army, Tom was supposed to shoot any of the locals in Malaya who attempted to enter a British camp to find food. Tom also thinks of members of the IRA who were executed by the government. Tom’s thoughts jump between the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill” (177), state executions by hanging, and the 57 notches he had on his rifle, reflecting the people he shot as a sniper. These examples highlight the extreme and absurd lengths of institutional violence.
Developing the theme of Subjective Reality Versus Objective Reality, the novel intersperses the account of Tom and June’s actions in the build-up to Matthews’s murder with the police force’s present day attempts to work out what happened, in particular with their pursuit of a blood sample from Tom. By weaving the forensic storyline with Tom’s emotional memories, the novel juxtaposes the idea of detached scientific evidence with the complex human story it represents. While a piece of objective data can point toward truth, it also has its limitations: A blood sample can’t encapsulate the full picture.
Weaving together these narratives also represents an erosion of the Tom’s mental compartmentalizing. To feel safe, he has kept the past separate from the present, just like he kept his work separate from his family life. He feels panicked as he takes June to follow the priests because “he was not used to June being near his work. Always seven miles [separating them]” (172). Tom has struggled to hold competing truths—and his competing philosophies—at the same time, since his personal experience with trauma and violence and his work as a police officer are often in opposition. In this section, these truths collide and force Tom to begin confronting his past, and the connections between June, his trauma, and his work for the police.
Tom must acknowledge his true past—this is an important step in The Search for Healing. Tom has a desire to be witnessed in order to find meaning in his life, even if only by himself. He expresses this in language with connotations of Christianity, thinking “who will read the liturgy of the dead […] he felt he should believe—believe himself” (191). The cellist offers him a chance to do this. He is presented as a spiritual figure: He is mostly referred to as the cellist rather than by his name, giving him an otherworldly quality. When he sees the little girl, he identifies her as an ancient ghost, which speaks to his omniscience or spiritual powers. The music he plays, “Kol Nidrei,” is a Jewish expression of atonement. When he plays, Tom feels the cellist is “without ears”—the cellist is the non-judgmental person Tom can tell his story to. This is suggestive of the Catholic practice of Confession; however, given that Tom’s trauma relates to the Catholic Church, he carries out this symbolic practice outside of the structures of the church. This scene with the cellist creates a bridge into the closing section of the book: After this, Tom finally confronts the full truth of everything he has suppressed.
The cellist’s music also allows Tom to celebrate his love for June and their family. As Tom listens, he remembers June’s joy after Matthews’s death and her feeling that her children were now safe now; Tom also recalls their many years of happiness that followed. Tom’s recollections are written as one long, unbroken paragraph. In previous sections, this writing style indicated the overwhelming nature of June and Tom’s traumatic memories; but here, this technique points to the long expanse of good memories Tom suddenly sees. The backdrop of the music gives these memories a sacred quality, and through Tom’s phrasing of “the stations of parenthood” (204), it is reminiscent of the Stations of the Cross in a church. However, their “stations” are holidays and first days at school: Tom and June have replaced their childhood suffering with joyous rites of familial life. Tom remembers the jewelry he bought for June, which she wanted to pass on to Winnie; these tokens symbolize the wealth they find in their relationship. Tom thinks of “the poem that was his wife” (206), showing that his love for June has given his life meaning and beauty.
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By Sebastian Barry
