Maggie's Breakfast (30 page)

The two elegant women were then treated to a run-down on Paddy Walsh.

A few minutes later, my mother stood up. “Well, ma’am, have I done all you want of me?”

Mrs. Axe stood and, reaching over to my mother, hugged her tightly. “Yes. You have. You’ve been wonderful. I am delighted we met, be it late, short or whatever. And don’t worry
about Gabriel. He’ll be fine, just fine. Won’t you, Gabriel?”

I shook my head and held my mother’s hand. I knew she wasn’t feeling as strong as she was pretending. When I looked at her I could only see sadness in her eyes. Was her whole life
meant to be such a struggle, I wondered to myself. Was there ever a time when she felt happy or content? She seemed unsure, even lost, and I felt sorry for both of us. I felt like I was choking on
some mysterious feeling that had finally awakened between my mother and me. When I looked over at her I couldn’t talk. I was afraid I’d say something that would make me want to stay.
Molly looked at me with the same kind of confusion in her eyes. I wanted to tell her I loved and cared for her.

She eventually put her hand on my face. “I’m goin’ to say a few prayers, Gabriel.”

Miss Sheridan stood up and gave my mother a big hug. “God bless you,” she said.

Molly turned from the table and walked out of the hotel. I stood pained, confused and even frightened. All of a sudden I felt I had now abandoned my mother and I wanted to grab hold of her and
hug her and not let her go. For a few moments I wanted to confess to her that I was only teasing and testing her. I even wanted to admit that I was only playing a game and it was not a real
situation I was in. Part of me wished the whole thing would go away. I wanted to erase the idea of leaving home from my mind. For as long as I could remember I’d wanted to leave home but as
the impending reality became apparent my nerves began to shake my whole body. Whatever confidence I thought I had was leaking from all parts of me and, as my mother walked further away from me, I
wanted to scream and tell her to come back and hold my hand and not to leave me standing alone with Miss Sheridan and Mrs. Axe.

As my mother walked further and further away from me, I felt deprived of breath and even had thoughts that I had finally hurt her in the worse way that I could, for what I thought she had done
to me. I had felt abandoned and ignored by her since childhood and now I was exercising the opportunity to get some kind of revenge.

For years and years my mother used to humiliate me and everyone else in the family with her clothes and talk. We all wanted to run away from her when we met her on the street. She was always an
embarrassment. But the struggle of surviving with so many children and with so little money was monumental. Her only means of remaining halfway sane was her religion. It encouraged her to accept
the life of a martyr of some description. The deeper she fell into the struggle the more sacred she felt she was. Yet today she had found it in herself to put her love for me above everything else.
Probably the hardest thing she had ever done in her life.

On the day that made it official that I was to be gone from her, I accepted the fact that she loved me. It was an unfamiliar feeling and I wasn’t sure or confident enough to know that I
could remain standing on my own two feet as Molly walked further and further away from me. I felt as if I was going to break down into little pieces of myself. For most of my years on earth I had
wished and wanted to escape from where I lived and who I lived with. Since I lost my brother Nicholas I felt I had lost all connection to every other member of my family. There was a void and a
division between us and it seemed to grow wider as we all grew older. What was now inside my head was a new uncertainty. A part of me was beginning to resist what I wished and dreamed for and
somewhere in my mind I was trying to hold back from travelling into a future that was unknown and vague. The past was now reaching out to me as if to keep me from drowning altogether. A feeling ran
through my blood and veins and it seemed out of control.

All of a sudden I wanted everybody I ever knew to pray for me. I was even wishing I could go to Mass and receive Communion and attend the Boys’ Sodality and have the priest hear my
Confession. I would promise not to sin again and I knew I would be pure and honest if I could still be a part of what I was planning on leaving behind. As I shivered with insecurity I began to wish
that I could be with my old schoolmaster and the priest who slapped me when I was very young. The memory and familiarity of Confession and Communion would embrace and protect me from the
uncertainty of my future.

I had not felt or sensed the bond that I was always seeking with my mother until the moment she agreed to part with me. As she walked into the distance she stopped, turned and looked back at me.
I then began to cry and cry and thought of running away from the confused thoughts that were streaming through my head. The familiarity of loneliness was dominant. It was the strongest power I
knew. Because of it I would embrace the pain that was always present in my family and in my home, as if it too was a close family member. Agony was not far away or out of my reach and at this hour
it was becoming my closest companion. I was beginning to think that I didn’t know what I really wanted and felt entangled in a web of guilt. Today my past was rendering me more isolated than
ever before.

Mrs. Axe departed for America and Maggie remained alone at the hotel. I went there to say goodbye to a few friends I had worked with and was told by a workmate that Maggie was
having dinner in the restaurant. I knew she was scheduled to depart for New York very soon, so I went to the dining room to let her know of my progress regarding my own eventual departure and to
say goodbye to her.

It was early evening and the dining room was practically empty. Two waiters, in their formal serving outfits of black-tailed suits and white bow ties, stood at each end of the room like two lost
penguins on a floating iceberg. As soon as I stepped into the room, Maggie, apparently at the end of her meal, saw me and beckoned to me with a curled finger. Because she was alone, the booth she
was sitting in seemed to wrap around her like a big pair of brown leather wings. She was wearing one of her wide-brimmed hats that resembled an upside-down bird’s nest. Part of her long
blonde hair was hanging above one of her ears and she looked like she had got dressed up without inspecting herself in a mirror. This might have been because she had no place to go and nobody to
meet. I had never, whenever I entered her room and served her breakfast, observed her inspecting her reflection in a mirror. She might not have wanted to see herself as she was in the present. In
the past she was hailed as a prima donna and adored by thousands of people, particularly in Italy and Ireland. The Pope at one time even wanted to bestow her with the title of
‘Countess’ which she refused because of her affection for Irish history and all things Irish. Aristocracy of any kind didn’t fit into Maggie’s way of thinking. She always
seemed to be attached to some kind of rebellion, be it her determination to carry on with her career since childhood or resistance against her vocal teachers in the past who advised her to slow
down and relearn the intricacies of how to use her voice. County Mayo and Ireland in general were a constant in her life. Her years in Italy had formed her into a woman of the world with
international and famous acquaintances. She was however known to be always carrying Ireland around with her as if it was part of her physical body or the definition of what she considered to be her
soul. When Maggie spoke English it was with an Italian flair but an emotional sentiment that was uniquely Irish. If she felt she wasn’t being listened to or understood she’d wave her
hands in a demanding manner as though she was acting and singing in a Puccini or Verdi opera. Her speech and words were essentially half arias. With the exception of walking about Stephen’s
Green with her past and photo album under her arm, she rarely ventured outside the hotel. Several times since I’d known her she would be visited by a priest or an elderly nun she had known
earlier in life. The few visitors she had more often than not came to praise her past and honour her for her achievements.

This early evening, sitting alone in the restaurant booth, she looked like a single passenger in a waiting room about to be transported to an unknown destination. Where she wanted to go, she
might not have known herself. Maggie looked surprised when she saw me and smiled as I approached her.

With a tinge of self-consciousness I sat at the edge of the booth. I didn’t know whether to say hello or goodbye and feared somewhat that she might chastise me for remaining silent. The
two waiters noticed me as I sat down and wagged their heads with a sense that they approved of me being there but, knowing Maggie as they did, they did not dare approach the table. By now just
about everybody I had worked with had heard I was soon to leave for America. In a precise and almost perfect gesture Maggie lifted the white linen napkin to her mouth and dabbed her lips with it.
For a moment I thought she was showing me or telling me how to use a napkin. Always upon meeting her she was inclined to correct my speech or instruct me on how to behave, but never for a moment
did I believe she meant to do anything other than be positive and helpful.

“You’re here to say goodbye to everybody?” she said without looking directly at me.

“I am, but I didn’t know you were having dinner,” I responded, hoping I’d said the right thing.

She began to laugh. “Life’s not always about having breakfast,” she said.

I laughed as well. I knew what she was saying and I definitely related to it.

“I’m away from here on Thursday. It took me two days to pack that trunk of mine. Everything I own on this earth is packed into it.”

I didn’t know what to say. I knew what she meant about the huge trunk that occupied the centre of her room. The thing was so big one could easily have slept it in. The labels pasted on it
reflected Maggie’s travelling lifestyle. The name of every country in Europe as well as the United States was a map of her uprooted and nomadic life. When the image of the large trunk left my
mind it dawned on me to tell her how much my mother had enjoyed meeting her and Mrs. Axe. I had only got out about five words when she waved her hand at me.

“Don’t! Don’t! Your poor unfortunate mother! God bless her! She’s had a tough life. She’s the backbone of Ireland if you ask me.”

I didn’t know how to express agreement with her so I kept quiet.

“You are in many ways very fortunate, Gabriel. I, on the other hand, got so caught up with this damn animal called art I found I could never satisfy it or be satisfied by it. No matter
what I said or did or sang. No matter how much I trained and practised. I was always reaching out and up and stretching my guts and heart out, trying to appease some little echo that said I could
have a better tone or a more perfect way of caressing a note when I opened my mouth to sing. Of course I don’t sing any more. Sometimes I imagine I do, but I don’t. I really
can’t, but don’t tell anyone that. The truth is half the time I just wanted to puke it all out of me and drop it on the floor like a cow scuttering in a field after eating too much
grass.” She reached for the glass of water on the table and refreshed her throat. She looked directly at me and asked me a question I didn’t know how to answer. “What do you say
to that?”

I was shy about being put on the spot. As I listened to Maggie I felt myself floating about the room in an odd kind of Limbo. I thought I was in some kind of dream or something. I looked about
the restaurant and observed the familiarity of it. Numerous times I had carried dishes and walked in and out of the place. I could still hear the voices of some of the waiters I worked with. I had
met all kinds of people who sat and ate here every day. Sitting in a booth with Maggie Sheridan at the beginning of dinner hour made me feel insecure and it was not a place I had ever imagined
myself being in.

Maggie sensed I was feeling awkward and had retreated into myself. As if to wake me up she began to talk again. “Anyway that’s how I feel sometimes! I’m not telling you a lie.
My problem is everything is stuck and living in my veins and throat and I can’t puke it out when I want to be alone with myself. I’m never able to be by myself. I was always glued to
this wish of wanting to make my voice the best part of my existence and that is a fatal flaw if I ever had one or heard of one.” She paused, looked in her purse that was on the table in front
of her and took out her room key. She held it tightly in her right hand, and then continued. “I suppose that’s what being an artist is.” After a moment she stood up, wiped her
lips again with the linen napkin and dropped it on the table. “Gabriel, be good now and mind yourself. I’m going upstairs to finish packing and I hate it.”

She slowly walked out of the restaurant. When she passed from view I noticed the red lipstick marks on the napkin and wondered how the hotel laundry would react to it when it was delivered for
cleaning.

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