Heaps of Trouble (15 page)

The father and his two brothers turned up that same afternoon. This was one of the better visits of my stay in hospital, making me feel that perhaps dying wasn't the cleverest idea after all. They stood around my bed, the father on my left, Stan at the bed's end, and Tom over on my right, continually cracking jokes.

‘What do you think, Stan; he's like you now, bald as a coot?'

‘Well at least he'll catch the ladies' attention.'

‘I don't know,' said Tom, ‘I think that the alterations to his face have made him more handsome.'

‘Well,' said the father, getting into the rhythm of things, ‘look at all the money he'll save on razors for a while.'

On and on the banter went for at least an hour, and every word I uttered in a feeble attempt to match the teasing made them fall about laughing, as if it was the funniest thing they had ever heard. As they were leaving, with my spirits the highest they had been since the explosion, Stan turned, walked back to me and, patting me ever so gently on the head, said, ‘You'll never have to worry about going to hell, lad, you've just come from there.'

After my relapse the parents called in to see me every evening on their way home from visiting Catherine, with whom they spent most of each day. And, while they tried to keep up a happy and jovial appearance, I could tell that things were not going well at St Vincent's, because the strain on the mother's face told a different story. This made their visits uncomfortable, since her body may have been in my ward, but her mind definitely was not.

Pride was one of my biggest problems. This was in spite of the fact that the father had pounded into my head, not so much by speech as by action, the idea that no matter how bad you felt, or if you were in a situation you didn't like, you never showed it outwardly. For me the worst thing about hospital was the indignity of the bedpan. I hated it; I felt that it sucked away any tiny shred of dignity that remained after being poked, prodded and inspected (as if I was some live ‘specimen') by anybody in authority who was passing. And they especially watched you like a hawk to see if you did anything in the toilet department, because if you didn't they galloped up to you and poured some vile liquid down your throat. Which, when it kicked in, would tie up the bedpan for hours.

Now I had a small arse and, since the bedpans must have been modelled around someone whose rear had a 20-inch circumference, mine tended to fall into them. So I had hover over it, using the muscles in my back and upper legs to hold me up. There were some people who didn't care one iota and just sat there making all sorts of noises as they completed their task. At times they made so much noise that it sounded as if they were trying to start up an old tractor: all they needed to do was give themselves just a little more ‘choke' and up they would start and run out of the room.

Not me. After a few days of what I considered gross humiliation, I requested that they permanently park a wheelchair alongside my bed. I could then drag myself into it and paddle my way to the bathrooms, which also gave me my first taste of freedom for some time, because I could zoom up and down the corridors and check out the rest of the wards.

According to the doctors my upper body was mending itself nicely and, while I would carry the scars to my grave, I was told that they should (if I minded them for the next few years) present no future problems. It was my feet, and particularly my ankles, which had them a little perturbed, since it seemed that the tendons had been burned. So, not only could I not feel anything below the ankle bone, but every time they stood me up I just fell over. And believe me (what with my eagerness to get away from the bedpan), I, more than anybody else, wanted to be able to walk again.

It was on the morning of the 7 October 1966, just seventeen days after the accident, that I first hauled myself into the wheelchair, backed into the toilet cubicle and, on finishing, stood up and walked back into the ward pushing the wheelchair in front of me. I could walk again, although not for long, as the pain from the blood rushing down my legs into my feet was nearly worse than the burns – but I could walk. This was also the day when I heard about Catherine. For the rest of the morning I sat on the edge of the bed watching the door and, at precisely ten minutes to noon, the parents arrived. They walked over to me and my mother said, ‘You are all that we have left now, your sister died this morning.'

There three of us were, crying at one end of the public ward, while the other patients (conspicuously silent) tried to allow us what privacy they could. The mother produced a small plastic box with a transparent cover, containing a lock of hair that she had cut off just after Catherine had slipped away. They had been with her throughout the night and, just before Catherine finally gave up the fight to live, she had opened her eyes and smiled at them. Then raised up her arms and, with an almost inaudible sigh as if it was a welcome release from the pain that she must have suffered, Catherine died as she had lived – causing no trouble. She left a void within the parents that would never be filled and would irrevocably change their lives forever.

As for me, when the parents left to make arrangements for her funeral, I didn't feel the same loss as they did. I knew that she would never leave me. If she had lived she would have spent the rest of her days in a wheelchair, with arms and hands that would never function properly. She would have lived, disfigured, in a society that would struggle to accept the bonny face belonging to a body that no man could find attractive. Catherine – a proud child, overflowing with so much with life and laughter, whose spirit brought peace to all those with whom she came into contact – would not have wished for that existence. So, for me, she never died; for the rest of my life she would be with me as that four-year-old, mischievous sister, young forever.

Perhaps if my parents had not let their grief overwhelm them totally and had accepted Catherine's passing from this existence into a different and greater dimension, a place without pain and disfigurement, her death might eventually have brought them peace, both in themselves and with each other. And an understanding that tragedies are part of life. But it was not to be. However, as life goes on in spite of tragedy, so must this story…

I was told that almost everyone in Inchicore turned out for Catherine's funeral. Her small, white coffin was taken from St Vincent's hospital to St Michael's church. They packed the aisles and the pews; they lined the streets on both sides from our shop to the church, and every business on Emmett Road closed that day as a mark of respect. It was said that her's was one of the saddest funerals ever to be held at St Michael's. Her little coffin was carried from the church to the hearse by the father and his brother Stan, to the slow rhythm of the bells beating out their mournful tattoo. The day was drizzling rain, which (it was suggested afterwards) was not rain, but the angels crying; all that could be heard in the street was the subdued weeping of the people waiting to wish her a final farewell.

As the cortège wound its way through the streets of Dublin they blocked roads and halted traffic. They transported Catherine's remains to her final resting-place in Deans Grange cemetery, where she was placed in a new plot over by the eastern wall of the graveyard. By the time I was shown her grave a statue of a kneeling angel had been erected, with her photograph inserted into its base. Engraved on a small and simple marble slab were the words ‘Catherine, aged 4, tragically taken from her parents and brother, returned to the angels, 7
^th
October 1966.'

My mother was present at her birth, my parents were there for her death and burial; I had missed it all, I had been saved pain and grief that probably only a mother could put into words. I have no idea how long I was in hospital after the funeral – a day, a week, a month – all I know is that one morning the specialist examined me and, turning to the sister who was hovering at his elbow, said, ‘Sister, he can go home now, why is he still here?'

He repeated his words to me as if it was my fault that I was still occupying a bed, until I reminded him of my feet, which he had forgotten to examine. On checking them, he decided that perhaps I should stay on in the hospital for a bit longer. Getting my legs readjusted to walking again turned out to be a bigger problem than I had anticipated. I spent as long as I could bear banging up and down the corridor with the aid of what they called a ‘walker', which I thought was a strange name for a gadget that you had to hump up and down in front of you. The pain that attacked me as soon I stood up was almost unbearable, pain caused by the rush of blood pumping down through unused and damaged leg muscle. Especially when the blood came to the ankles and rounded the corner towards the toes, setting the skin on fire, as if I had just stepped into a tub of boiling water. I had to stop every few paces and hold up first one leg, then the other, until the throbbing receded, before walking on another few steps. Repeating the process again and again, all the while dodging Molly, Mary, and all the other traffic pelting up and down the long corridor.

A few weeks later the same consultant and nursing sister finally announced that I could go home at last, then proceeded to give me a long list of what not to do. I was never again to go out in the sun uncovered, otherwise the scars would open up once more. I was to make sure I didn't scratch or cut them in any way, otherwise they might be re-infected and I would be back in hospital as their guest again. I had to spray my ankles with an poly???antiseptic spray every night until my supply of four tins ran out. Little did he know that they would never run out, as I was sure that the dispensary had a fine stock of them.

I asked the nurse if she would please contact the dispensary where my father worked and somebody there would make sure my parents got the message. At around one o'clock that afternoon the district nurse from the dispensary arrived to collect me. Prior to the accident I could have been classed as thin, even very thin, as I was tall for my age. But now I was fat, very fat in fact. I had probably put on about four stone in weight. I was like a young Buddha and the only item of clothing that would fit me was a new pair of elasticised pyjamas that the nurse had brought with her, together with a pair of slippers and an overcoat.

It was only a short drive home: we came out by Rialto gate, down the South Circular, into Bulfin Road, and finally up Emmett Road. As we pulled up in front of the shop, which had not reopened yet, I was just in time to witness the father physically chucking the parish priest out of our hall door on to the pavement. Whatever small bit of religion the father had possessed prior to the accident he had lost completely when he carried Catherine's coffin to the grave. He now roared at the top of his voice to the retreating figure of the priest, ‘What kind of fucking God do you represent when He can allow my daughter to be taken the way she was? Fuck off, and never come back to this house again.'

Quickly bundling me out of the car, the nurse took me straight upstairs to my old room, since the father had not noticed us and had retreated back inside without looking left or right. She put me into the bed that Catherine and I had shared, and I lay there, listening to the hullabaloo going on downstairs in our kitchen. It sounded as if there was a great drinking session in progress. I remember at that moment feeling nothing: no pain, no emotions for Catherine's death, and especially no feelings in any way towards the parents. It was as if they had become complete strangers who were now acting as my official guardians. A light must have gone out inside my head, because the next few months became a blank. I simply have no recollection of my existence. When I look at a calendar, I can see that somewhere during this time, my eleventh birthday came and went, followed by Christmas and New Year's day. What I
did
know was that in our household there was never again going to be any singing or black-haired coal-bearer to celebrate the passing of the Old Year into the New. Drink was the only God now being worshipped, for every evening the parents took themselves across to the Workman's Club and drank themselves into a fighting state. Lying awake in my room, I could hear them leave the Club (along with the rest of the neighbourhood), already arguing with each other as they made the short journey across the street to our door. The slamming of the hall door had the same effect as the ringing of the bell in a boxing ring, announcing to the two combatants that they should ‘come out fighting'. It was always the same alcohol-induced argument about who was responsible for Catherine's death – and it carried on into the small hours of the morning.

Sometime in January, my awareness reactivated, I woke up to a new word that was now taking over every conversation and being bantered around as if it were the new religion. The word was ‘compensation'. It was to be our saviour, our new beginning; it would give us wealth beyond our imagination. It would allow us to start a new life without Catherine, in another place, where the memories of her life could finally fade into the background instead of reminding us daily of where she had sat, ate, played and slept.

The parents didn't set out with the ‘compo' mentality; it was introduced to them one evening by Boy-o-Boy, who ranted on for over an hour about the recompense they were entitled to from the gas company who had gone and blown us up.

‘Boy, oh boy, Ron, those bastards have ruined your life. Boy, oh boy, make them pay, pay dearly. Sue their arses to the wall. Boy, oh boy, Ron, get a good solicitor and get him on the case.'

And that is exactly what they did. Back then, for the parents and probably the majority of people in the country, suing somebody was a momentous undertaking. Also, although the father was street-wise, the mother was from country stock, and had been brought up to believe that people were, in the main, honest, and that suing somebody was deceitful and unfair. As a matter of fact, she believed that suing was ‘only for the poor', adding ‘…and what would the neighbours think of us, Ron?'

Within a week all the neighbours had their say in the matter, culminating in a good old drinking session in our kitchen, with Boy-o-Boy leading the proceedings from the kitchen sink where he was within easy reach of water for his whiskey.

‘Boy, oh boy, Ron, I've being telling you for weeks that the capitalists in the gas company need taking down a peg or two.'

‘He's right there, sure wasn't there another case, a week before your explosion, when a Calor gas bottle blew the roof off a house down the country?' This from old Coleman, sitting on a straight-backed chair in the centre of the room alongside the mother, whose head was swinging from side to side as if she was watching a tennis match as she followed the conversation around the room.

‘There was nobody hurt in that blast, but I bet they got a pretty penny to fix up their house again,' said Jim the kleptomaniac. He had taken up position by the empty fireplace and was eyeing the mantelpiece, presumably wondering if he could fit the large glass ashtray, which the father had ‘borrowed' from the Workman's Club, into his pocket.

The father, as yet, had not said anything throughout the evening as he stood with his back to the gas stove. He was a master at directing this type of discussion and, as long as he agreed with the direction in which the conversation was going, he would keep quiet. Then, when he thought the moment was right, he'd interject at the perfect time to reinforce his argument. He knew that a slip at the wrong moment could sway the mother against suing, which would have been detrimental to the father's plans. Waiting for a lull in the conversation he began.

‘You'll never guess who I bumped into yesterday? Err, Jim, you probably know the fellow. It was that old shyster of a barrister who gets all of those criminals off in the Four Courts, Barrister Murphy, isn't it?'

Knowing the father, this was no chance meeting; but he had laid the seed and now all he needed was for Klepto Jim to take the bait: which he did.

‘Christ Ron, I haven't seen that old bugger for years, I'm surprised he's still alive, especially with the amount of drink he consumes.' Jim held out his glass for a top-up, then continued reminiscing about Murphy, which was just what the father wanted him to do: tell a funny story, get everybody amused and slightly off the subject at hand. Before you knew it, we would be off suing the gas company with the mother's full consent.

*

You would have thought that we were going to meet the President of Ireland, what with the hullabaloo the mother made about our impending visit to the solicitors. She dressed me up in my finery, and the father had to wear his ‘burial suit'. On arrival at the blue Georgian door of their offices, we were ushered into a waiting-room that had a polished oak table in the centre, with a bunch of mismatched chairs surrounding it like old buttresses supporting the walls of a castle. The walls were lined with bookshelves that ran to the ceiling, and on the mantelpiece an old clock ticked away showing a time that must have been relevant to some other country in the world, as it had no bearing on Irish time.

In a short while I became bored and moved over to study the lines of books, accompanied by the mother's sharp, ‘Now don't go and touch anything, do you hear?' While I was preoccupied, the mother and father conversed in whispers as if they were in church. After what must have been a good thirty minutes, the door crashed open and three solicitors stamped in. The eyes nearly jumped out of my head, as they were the spitting images of Curly, Larry and Mo from the Three Stooges, except they were dressed in identical dark suits as if they had gone out and bought a job lot together. When the father had made the appointment he must have also dropped off some details about what we were after. For no sooner had the mother settled herself into her seat and opened her mouth with the intention of speaking first, than the one who looked like Larry opened the file in front of him and cut her short. At which point the mother eyed the father, as if he should give out to the fellow for not allowing her the right to start off the proceedings.

‘Well,' began Larry, ‘we have reviewed the information that you gave us', which had Curly and Mo nodding their heads in agreement, ‘and we all concur', more nodding from Curly and Mo, ‘that you have a valid case against the gas company.'

The mother wiggled her rear end on the seat with excitement, the father smiled and nodded and I took the opportunity to replace the book that I had been hiding behind my back. The mother couldn't restrain herself any longer and blurted out the question, ‘How much will we get?' Which caused the father to look at her disapprovingly. ‘Difficult question, difficult question,' said Larry, glancing left and right trying to catch either Curly or Mo's eyes. But they were now both showing great interest in the ceiling.

‘Er, without consulting with my two associates here,' Mo now began scratching himself somewhere on his person, under the table, ‘I would be only guessing mind, but a case like this, well, let me see, somewhere in the region of forty to fifty.' Both Curly and Mo nodded their heads in agreement.

‘Forty to fifty what?' asked the father in a very measured voice.

‘Pounds I should say, not guineas, but', he turned to Mo, ‘didn't that judge last year award in guineas?' Mo screwed up his eyes as if trying to remember.

‘Forty or fifty pounds compensation?' said the mother in a high squeaky voice.

‘Ha, ha, ha, good lord, madam, no,' and he leant forward beaming at us. ‘Thousands is what we mean, forty to fifty thousand pounds madam.'

There was a stunned silence from our end of the table and, for the first time in her life, even the mother was caught for words, as Larry continued, ‘However, we have a lot of work to do; a case like this could take years before it reaches the court, so if we can now begin?…right Mr Heaps, once again, tell us exactly what happened, from the beginning.'

At that time this amount of money was a small fortune. So, in spite of the fact that we might be waiting years for the verdict, to celebrate our impending elevation in monetary status (and with the bank's assistance), the father promptly went off and retired the old Popular. He returned home with a brand new Ford Zephyr, which, in 1967, was the car of all cars. We were the envy of the street. The motor was the biggest I had ever seen: silver in colour, with the bonnet as big as a snooker table and front and back bench-seats large enough to hold a party on.