His Father's Son: To save the son he loves, a desparate father must confront the ghosts of his past (26 page)

“I can see this problem is further gone than I thought, boys,” she said.

“How do you mean?” said Pat.

“There is severe remedial attention required here, boys, and I will see to it that you get it.” There was laughter when she said remedial, which was where Colm Casey who was soft in the head went for extra lessons, and when Pat looked at Marti there was a worried look on his face and Marti wondered what was coming. “Yes, ye will both report to me for detention tonight … I will start ye on the tin whistle and when ye can hold a tune ye can go.”

“But, Miss,” said Pat.

“No buts. Ye can thank me later tonight … when I have ye whistling away like a pair of sweet larks.”

At lunchtime Pat said it was sick to the back teeth he was with school and music especially, for didn’t Miss Glynn have it in for the pair of them because of the old sexual frustration. It was two fine figures of men they were, said Pat, and wasn’t the detention for that reason only, sure wasn’t she just getting her own back entirely. She could take her tin whistle and she knew what she could do with it, and if she could make a tune whilst she was at it, then it’s a stage she should be on and not minding the likes of them at Saint Joseph’s. Pat said he was for mitching. He didn’t care about the detention, and it didn’t matter anyway, because he was going to Italy one day where he would get the scooter like they have on the films and ride around Rome giving the two fingers to the Pope.

“Are ye coming, Marti?” said Pat.

“To Italy?”

“No, Jaysus, on the mitch with me.”

Marti knew he had been in a lot of trouble lately. He’d already had the guards at the door and the brothers, and hadn’t Aunt Catrin said it was time to stop acting the giddy goat when it was a sick mother he had in need of the love and comfort of her only son. Marti knew if he went on the mitch with Pat and missed the detention then there would be more trouble, from Miss Glynn this time, but he didn’t care anymore. He hated living with Aunt Catrin, who was always making him and Mam cry, and he didn’t care if he made her angry anymore.

“Okay, I’ll mitch … but can I say where we go?” said Marti.

“Sure ye can,” said Pat, and there was a
yee-ha
noise from him when the two boys ran off to squeeze through the gap in the railings where they could get out of the school without the pass.

Marti didn’t really know where he wanted to go but he knew he wanted to find his dad. He told Pat about his dad coming all the way from Australia and about Aunt Catrin dragging him away. Pat said Aunt Catrin was a bockety-arsed old witch, sure she was, and shouldn’t she be minding her own business. Pat said Aunt Catrin wasn’t Marti’s mam and he didn’t need to do what she said anyway. Marti thought it would be terrible to have a mam like Aunt Catrin because it was bad enough the way things were. He hoped Mam would get better soon, because if she needed to go to the Cabbage Farm then he would be left all alone with Aunt Catrin and that would be like she was his mam, and then he would have to do everything she said.

“So where is your old fella, Marti?” Pat wanted to meet Marti’s dad because Marti had said he always had lots of funny stories and wasn’t the type to be giving out like other grown-ups. Pat wondered if Marti’s dad might even have brought some presents from Australia, because weren’t people always bringing presents when they came from far away places.

“I don’t know where he is … We would have to look for him,” said Marti.

“No bother at all. Sure isn’t Kilmora only small and he would have to be in one of the places people stay.”

“Like a hotel?”

“Or a guesthouse.” Marti had never heard of a guesthouse, but Pat said he had stayed in one in Cork with his mam and dad when he went to kiss the Blarney Stone. He said it was like a hotel, but smaller, and there was more of them in Kilmora than anywhere else in the whole world.

“Really?” said Marti.

“Well, I think so, sure my dad’s forever saying the place is turned into the world capital for guesthouses now.”

Marti didn’t like the look of their chances if there were so many guesthouses about the place, but when they got to the water fountain and Pat pointed to the little signs on the houses he could only count twelve of them. There didn’t seem to be too many places that Dad could be staying, and then Marti followed Pat when he started running in and saying, “Howya. Have ye an Aussie staying here?”

Marti told Pat his dad wasn’t an Aussie and didn’t speak like him, and Pat looked very confused when Marti told him Dad was Irish and had to change what he said to the people in the guesthouses.

“Howya. Have ye an Irish fella from Australia staying with ye?” said Pat. They went down the whole street with Pat asking the question and then they crossed over to the other side and started to walk back the way they had come. In the next place they tried, a very old lady with hair the colour of snowflakes started laughing at Pat when he asked the question, and Marti wondered what was so funny.

“Oh ye will be talking about my new fancy man, Joey,” said the lady. “Tis a lovely man, a gentleman entirely.” She smiled when she spoke and sometimes let out a little giggle, and Marti thought she must be a very nice old lady and he liked her more because she liked his dad.

“Can we see him?” said Marti.

“Ah, well ye could, son, surely, but isn’t he away out. He’s looking for work, ye know. Not one to sit about waiting for it to come to him, my Joey.”

Marti and Pat walked away from the old lady and when they said thanks she said it was no problem at all, at all and gave them both a butterscotch for showing such lovely manners. Marti and Pat decided they would wait by the water fountain until Marti’s dad came back, but when the hours started to pass Pat said he would have to go home. Mitching school was one thing but missing his tea was another entirely, and he didn’t want his arse blemmed by his own old fella, who was as fat as a bishop and put his weight into every lash.

“Are ye coming, Marti?” said Pat.

It was starting to rain again and it was very cold, but Marti didn’t want to leave without seeing his dad. “No, I think I’ll wait for him.”

“What about Old Kiss the Statues? Won’t she be sour at ye?”

“She always is anyway,” said Marti. “I’m staying for my dad.”

Marti stared down into the water fountain and remembered when he had dropped in the coin and made a wish for his dad to come to Ireland for him. He wanted another coin to make another wish and ask for his dad to make Mam happy and chase away the Black Dog so she wouldn’t have to go to the Cabbage Farm, but Marti had no coin and he knew there could be no more wishes made.

So there it was, he was back at Gleesons Bakery, after leaving the place a disgrace entirely. The little man in the brown suit shook Joey’s hand and said he could start Monday week on the early shift. Joey remembered the morning starts at Gleesons were a mighty awakener. Frankie Fogarty, who used to mind the ovens, had told him once, “Sure, ye get used to them, and don’t the early starts mean the early finishes.” But he knew the early finishes were no good to anyone because didn’t the entire working day spent yawning only make you ready for bed at the end of it.

He walked through Gleesons and there was the smell of bread baking and the sound of the tin trays being tapped into the ovens with long wooden poles. The place seemed familiar enough but hadn’t it changed entirely. There were no windows being opened for the men to spit out the white flour below and there was no swearing and cursing heard like there was in the old days when the men burnt themselves on the ovens and started calling for a spanner to take them apart.

When he got outside Joey loosened his tie and lit a cigarette. It felt good taking a smoke and being away from the place, but wasn’t Monday week very close altogether. He stared at the big building and remembered the faces that would flood out covered in flour on a Friday night, blue mouldy for a pint, and screaming to get down the dancing for a chase of the old skirt. Joey never went down the dancing because he always had Shauna waiting for him on the Friday night and there would be whoops and whistles from the men when they saw her. When he remembered her waiting to meet him, his heart kicked inside his chest. There was no way she would be waiting to meet him now, wasn’t that a certainty. Hadn’t she taken it into her head to blame him for all the ills of the world.

It was a saddener to think about the things Shauna had said. He knew she wasn’t happy – she hadn’t been happy for a long time – but wasn’t that the trouble? If Shauna could get over the abortion, stop blaming herself for what they had both done together, then surely she could be happy. She had been happy once since, when Marti was born. With a babe to mind she was steady, she knew she had to keep it together, for didn’t a child need its mother there every second of the day. But Marti had grown now, he didn’t need his mother as much as he once had and the space he left was soon taken by the Black Dog.

Joey didn’t want to think about any of these things. He didn’t want to think about Shauna and the Black Dog that had followed them around since they had got rid of a life, a life they had created together, but he couldn’t stop. It was like the abortion had been locked away in a box and now Shauna had forced in the key and opened it all back up.

He had thought it would be best to run away from it all, to start again in Australia, where nobody knew either of them, or what they had done. They had started again and Joey had never mentioned a word to anyone about the abortion, not even Shauna, and now here she was saying he had been wrong to do it. She had carried all the shame, that’s what she had said, but worst yet wasn’t he a bad father. That’s what she had said, more or less, that he was playing out his own father’s mistakes on Marti.

Joey drew hard on his cigarette, took the smoke deep into his lungs. If there had been poison gas to hand he would have done the same. To say he had been a bad father was like a knife going in him. Hadn’t he only ever tried to give Marti his best, always. The thought that he had been a bad father to the boy was harder to think about than any of the rest because he didn’t know why.

He reached inside his pocket for Shauna’s diary. He still felt a twinge of guilt for reading her private thoughts, but he had to know what she meant. If there was a chance he could find a clue to what he had done, he was going to read.

So, Dr Cohn, what do you know about children? As much as me? I bet you don’t. I live with three children. One is a spirit that I take with me everywhere, she is a little girl, she looks like me sometimes, but other times she shows up in the faces of all little girls. She’s forever smiling, forever happy, forever my little girl. I call her Alannah, my darling angel. I know I will never see her properly, never touch her, or hold her, put her hair into bunches, or even talk with her about dolls and dresses or other little girls’ things. But she doesn’t seem to mind. She seems to know I love her and that’s enough for me.

Joey put down the diary. His throat was dry and stiff. He had to suck on his bottom lip to stop it quivering. He had sometimes thought about the child, but he had always forced himself to stop. Shauna hadn’t. She had thought about the child every day of her life and she had never told him once. No wonder she was hurting, he thought. Why did he never see it? Why did he never open his eyes? He picked up the diary again.

The other two are not so easy for me to write about. My son, Marti, is only eight, but he knows something is wrong at home. He can be such a happy boy, playing like all boys do, but he can turn to sadness, so quickly. He doesn’t know why things aren’t right between Joey and me, and sometimes he blames himself, thinks he’s the problem. He can’t feel like this, I can’t have him growing up feeling like this. I know he cries in bed at night when Joey and me fight and it breaks my heart. Joey tries so hard to show his love for Marti, but I think he might be better without it. We’re tearing the boy apart.

What did she mean? How could Marti be better without his father’s love, thought Joey. There had been fights, for sure there had, but never around Marti. He knew Marti sensed his parents’ troubles, but he was only a lad and Joey loved him. He never tired of showing him – surely that was enough. When he read the next entry, he froze.

My third child, Dr Cohn, is Joey. Joey is hurting, I know it, but he won’t admit it to anyone, not even himself. I have tried to reach him but he pushes me away. For more than ten years I have tried and failed. I don’t think anyone but Joey can help himself now. Somewhere inside him he is still a child, running scared from his father, from the lashings and the harsh words, from the shame of never measuring up to the high and mighty Emmet Driscol and the shame of the sin that hurt us all. But he cannot see any of it, he is blinded with a kind of rage. A rage at his father, a rage at the world and a rage at himself. Joey may have failed in his father’s eyes, but never in mine. He gave up on himself but I never did, I just can’t do anything for him, my love for him isn’t enough and Marti is hurting as well.

The writing in Shauna’s diary was suddenly changed, fat spots of rain were falling on the pages, making the words blur and ink smears run down the page. Joey tucked the diary back in his shirt and looked down at his shoes. Black dots were welling on the leather. He started to walk into the downpour. There was only one place left to go now, one place which might hold some answers.

The road to his father’s home was winding and potholed. Branches of trees hung over the way, creating a dark arbour, and the wind picked up, whistling shards of rain into him like tiny darts. When he saw the house in the distance, it had changed entirely. Where every other house in Kilmora had been spruced up, painted and turned into a tourist attraction, Emmet Driscol’s home had gone to ruin. Slates were missing on the roof and long grass and weeds sprouted around the timber staves of the fence. There was grey paint peeling from the door, showing the black beneath, and the lion’s head door knock was covered with a slimy-looking verdigris.