Maggie's Breakfast (33 page)

A moment of silence followed. Somebody in the back of the line called out: “California, here I come!” There was loud laughter.

Just as suddenly the line to the cabins began to move a bit faster. Everybody seemed to be in a forced happy mood. Maybe there was no other way to be. Strangers talked to each other, knowing
that they all had the impending journey in common. I made my way to the cabin I was assigned. When I entered a big man was sitting on the bed next to the porthole. I said hello and I began to
unpack my suitcase. I wasn’t bringing much: a second-hand pair of shoes, two of my brother’s shirts and a pullover that had been repaired by my mother six months earlier. I wondered why
I’d taken so much time to pack so little.

“I’m from Skibbereen,” the man sitting on the bed said as he looked at me. The sound of his voice saved me. The man had a head of silver hair. “This is a sad day for me.
I’ve just been back home for the last time. All me relatives are dead and I just sold the family farm.”

He asked me if I’d ever been to West Cork.

“I’m from Dublin,” I told him.

He fell silent and I noticed he had tears in his eyes.

“Are you alright?” I asked him.

He turned to me with tears streaming down his face. “I’m just tired and sad and what I think and say to meself doesn’t make any sense to anybody any more. If I told anybody
what I was thinking they’d want me to go see a doctor.” He then managed to smile. “Who y’with?”

“I’m on my own.”

“By yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Where you goin’?”

“New York.”

“Where you from agin?”

“Inchicore.”

“Where’s that?”

“Dublin.”

“Dublin? A Dublin jackeen, are ya?” He laughed and stood up. “A good night’s sleep will change everything.” He then walked out of the cabin.

After putting my suitcase away I followed him onto the deck. It was a cold wet December day. Outside the big Corkman was staring out towards the sea. He seemed to be even sadder than before.
When he noticed me standing next to him he slowly turned and walked back towards the cabin.

“I’m goin’ in to lie down,” the man from West Cork said to me as he went.

I remained standing and looking at the vast spread of ocean in front of me. Some lights went dark and the sounds and noises of the ship began to recede into a seemingly satisfied stillness.
Standing alone on the deck I tried to convince myself that all was great in my life. I had broken away from my home and family and for the first time in a long time I sensed I was in a different
place where I could only reach my past by closing my eyes. With very little knowledge of where I was going I got caught up in a flood of thoughts and began to feel like I was drowning in the
baptism of suspense where images replaced words and thoughts had no beginnings or ends.

* * *

Eight days later and after what seemed like a lifetime of seasickness, the ship passed the Statue of Liberty. The cold December air didn’t prevent most of the travellers
from gawking at the huge statue. I stood among many of my fellow passengers and thought that I was in a dream of some kind. My fantasy image of America was now as real as the fierce wind that blew
across my face. In many ways I didn’t know where I was or even how I got there. It had something to do with what some of the waiters at the hotel called a crazy opera singer and my serving
her breakfast under her bed. Maybe it had to do with the relationship of my parents and the big old bed they slept in. I sensed now that I’d never hear my father snore again or see him roll
his cigarettes or hear him sing his soldier songs from World War I. And I knew for sure that the voice of my mother berating him for being a common labourer would not be ringing in my ears any
more. The faces in my mind of screaming priests at Mass and the Communion wafers that slid down my throat began to fade as the big ship sailed further into New York Harbour. The need to seek a
different future was slowly being answered by this awkward moment on the ship’s deck.

An hour or so later we pulled into the harbour on the Upper West Side. I stood and observed the speeding back and forth of yellow taxis and about a million motor cars. Loudspeakers were again
blaring and directing passengers to form queues for disembarkation. I stood in line with my old suitcase and walked slowly along the deck.

A few minutes later I saw two men in white carrying the man from West Cork on a stretcher. He didn’t get up early like the rest of us who travelled with him across the Atlantic. I
didn’t know if he was alive or dead. He had made it across the ocean and I wondered if he had any way of telling his people, if he had any, that he had returned to America. Before I could
think about it too much I was pushed along and directed towards customs.

I was sitting in the back of a chauffeured black limousine with Maggie Sheridan. Mrs. Axe was seated in the passenger seat next to the driver. I was in a car for the first time
in my life. The car appeared to be as big as my bedroom in Inchicore. It sped along the Saw Mill River parkway towards Tarrytown which was about twenty miles north of Manhattan. Maggie kept asking
me how my mother was and if she cried when I left. I was so distracted by the scenery outside of the car I didn’t really want to talk about Ireland, Dublin or my family. Images I had of
America kept floating across my mind. Most of them of course were from the films I had seen in Dublin. Maggie, in her usual chastising way told me to turn my head and pay attention to what she was
saying. When I finally did turn to talk to her she corrected my English and told me to mind my manners.

Mrs. Axe looked back at both of us and laughed.

As the car continued its journey the chauffeur commented that the Tappan Zee Bridge spanning the Hudson River had opened just recently and the event was broadcast on television. Shortly
thereafter the driver pulled off the parkway and in seconds drove through two open gates and almost instantly stopped in front of a huge mansion.

Mrs. Axe’s home, as Maggie had reminded me in Dublin, was definitely a castle and looked like it was out of another century. As I stared in wonderment, a man approached and opened the car
doors. Maggie and Mrs. Axe got out first. Because of the sight and size of the place I was looking at, I hesitated for a moment before putting my feet on the ground of what was to be my new
abode.

Maggie turned back. “Get a move on!” she said to me.

I stepped out of the car and obediently followed her. A few seconds later the main door of the castle opened and Mr. Axe, a man small in stature, came out and shook my hand.

“So you’re Gabriel,” he said.

I inwardly struggled to be self-assured and answered, “Yes.”

Maggie, Mrs. Axe and I then entered the mansion. Mr. Axe closed the huge door behind me. I walked across the massive foyer and for the first time in my life I knew that I would challenge and
fight the memories that sometimes made me feel I was the loneliest person on earth.