Wandering in Exile (17 page)

“Dee-dree? Dee-dree Fallon, is that you?”

Eduardo had changed. He looked more like a man. He had grown into his moustache and his hair was combed back, almost blue-black in the evening light. His eyes were dark and his teeth were white, gleaming against his tanned, scented skin. He leaned forward and brushed each of her cheeks before standing back and looking at her. He had always looked at her that way—like he could instantly fall in love with her if she would just give him a reason.

She’d heard the Portuguese were like that. And that they could fall in love even while they were already in it. But he was always polite and well behaved and she liked that. He made her feel like a lady.

“Are you well, Eduardo?”

“I am. And you? Are you well? It is so nice to see you again. Do you have time for a coffee?”

She didn’t and she shouldn’t, but it was one of those days, in one of those weeks. Grainne was almost three and was becoming more and more demanding. She hardly got to spend any time with Martin anymore. She barely got to read a few pages to him before he fell asleep.

Each night he waited with his books as she scurried and cleared away after dinner. It would go much faster if Danny helped but they decided it was better for him to deal with Grainne. He did that and very little else. The band wasn’t too busy anymore but he was playing a few folk clubs. Quieter, pottier places where he could sing his own songs, but he usually came home brooding like he had woken some ghost inside of himself. When he did come home, he’d sit up late drinking and wrestling with it.

“I can’t. I really should get home. My husband has to go to work and I have to be there with the kids.”

“Twenty minutes? You can spare twenty minutes.”

“I can’t, Eduardo.”

“Ten minutes, then. We can have espressos.”

“Eduardo, I’m not sure I should be doing this. I am married and you are . . .?”

“I am married, too, with two kids also, and I need a little break before I go back to face them.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Then it is settled. Ten minutes?”

“Okay. But then I am gone.”

The weekend after Thanksgiving, Danny stood outside McDonald’s and smoked, even though it was a cold day. Bright and sunny, but cold. Most of the leaves were gone, shriveled up and piled for bagging—it wasn’t proper to burn them anymore. He had spent the morning in the garden, following orders and wrapping shrubs in burlap so the frost wouldn’t get to them. He told Martin they were putting on the winter underwear and they had a bit of a laugh about that for a while.

It was one of the few things that made it all worthwhile. His son was growing up not knowing the shadows that had haunted his own childhood. He and Deirdre had made a conscious decision to spare them the burden of religious indoctrination even though it meant sending them to the public school system. The Catholic system was more select, and had a better reputation for discipline, but they had talked about it and, in the end, the good was outweighed by the bad.

He watched his children through the window as he smoked, playing in the ball pit while Deirdre sat on the other side, looking over every once in a while. Martin played with the other kids but Grainne stayed on her own, insisting that her brother leave his new friends and play with her. Danny couldn’t hear them but he could read all that passed between them.

It’s hard to believe that a fuck like you could even have children.

Anto never missed his chance to catch Danny alone and to spoil his few moments of peace. He didn’t just haunt him when he was drunk or high anymore. Now he came to him regularly and always found a way to take the joy out of life.

Danny knew what he was up to. Anto was always a vengeful bastard. Danny wished that he could talk with somebody about it, but who? Who could he tell that he was being haunted by a guy that was whacked for trying to whack him? He didn’t want to get into all of that again. And he couldn’t mention it to Deirdre. She’d just say that it was because of his drinking—or toking. She was always on him about it. She seemed to think that now that they were parents, they shouldn’t do things like that. Danny disagreed: being a parent made him do it. It was the only way he could keep his shit together.

Besides, he wasn’t doing any harm to anyone.

He didn’t really resent her for being the way she was; she was only trying to get him to improve himself. She said he was too smart not to. Danny was shy about hearing stuff like that but she kept at him. She said she was only chiseling away some of the scales that he had grown against the world.

When she wanted him to change something big about himself, she’d wait until they were in bed. She’d stroke him and get him going and then she’d bring it up. Danny knew what was going on. He was like a dog and he didn’t mind admitting it. It was like he was some type of stray that she had taken in off the street. He had often thought far worse of himself.

But he was getting a little bit tired of it all—it never ended. Nothing they had done was ever good enough. They could always do better—it was like her mantra. She said she went to yoga to relax but she seemed like she was more controlling than before. “You should come with me. It would help you quit smoking. And you might not need to drink so much.”

He didn’t answer. There was nothing to say. If he wanted to keep having sex, he’d keep his mouth shut and go along with her. And afterwards, it was like they had shaken hands on the deal. It took him a few times to grasp that, but he got it now and told himself that it was all about making compromises to keep each other happy.

She wanted to move as soon as the work on the house was finished. Some of the people she worked with had moved to Leaside and she was determined to follow. She had agreed to wait until the spring but she already had the real estate agent lined up. She was reading the ‘Homes’ section as she watched the kids. He finished his cigarette and headed back inside.

“Excuse me; are you Martin Carroll’s nephew?”

She was black and shivered even though she was wearing a coat already. She had the sing-song of the islands in her voice and her eyes were soft and warm, like David’s. She told him she was his sister and that he had died a few months back. They had tried to let Danny know but they didn’t have his address or his number. She wanted him to know that they had spread David’s ashes near the cabana with Martin’s.

“Who was that?” Deirdre asked when he came back inside.

“Daddy! Martin won’t play with me.”

Deirdre glanced at him but he couldn’t help it; it was out of his mouth before he could stop it: “Martin, play with Grainne.”

“Ah, do I have to?”

“Yes you do, and try being a bit nicer, she’s your little sister.”

Deirdre didn’t comment when he sat opposite her. She pretended to be absorbed but he could tell that she had taken the whole thing in and she disapproved.

“Mommy! Grainne needs to go the washroom.”

“Do not.”

“C’mon, Grainne, Mommy needs to go too. We can go together.”

“Don’t want to.”

“Are you sure?” Danny walked over and joined them, standing closer to his daughter as Deirdre stood closer to her son.

“Are you sure, Grainne? Mommy doesn’t want you to have an accident.”

“Don’t want to.”

Deirdre glanced at Danny and back to Martin. “You go on and play, sweetie. Maybe that might be helpful.”

He shot away from them like a dolphin released.

“C’mon now, honey. You and Mammy will go to the ladies’ room.”

“Don’t want to.” Grainne swam off after her brother, slower, struggling, and leaving a wet trail behind her.

“I tried to warn you,” Martin ventured from the back seat after they had driven in silence for a while. Danny and Deirdre were both recoiling. They had snapped at each other in front of the kids. Danny thought she should have taken Grainne and saved her the embarrassment. Deirdre thought he shouldn’t have snapped at Martin when he complained that no one would play with him now because he had a ‘pissy’ little sister.

“I know you did, sweetie, and Mommy should have listened.”

She looked over at Danny like she wanted him to add something but he just ignored her. She knew he thought she was always mollycoddling the boy and that he’d never learn to stand on his own two feet.

“Does it shock you when I speak of him like this?”

Benedetta spoke in cultured English with just enough of an accent to sound truly distinguished. She had a cold steely intellect and often seemed to look all the way inside of Patrick. He didn’t mind anymore.

At first it was so disquieting, but over time she had peeled away all the formality and spoke to him like a confidante. She said he reminded her so much of his uncle when he was young. She had gracefully escorted Patrick past any sense of inappropriateness, assuring him that it was nothing more than unrequited love; “the bitter pill that was to be hers in life.” She said it as she said everything, without rancor. Benedetta was a grand dame of a person and, over time, Patrick realized that nothing was beyond her gaze. He had fumbled around her for a while, in the midst of the bustling that was Giovanni’s family. She often seemed dismissive of them and always wanted to sit near ‘Patricio.’

“Not anymore, Signora.” She insisted that he call her by name but he wasn’t ready for that. “It used to.”

She reached out and patted the back of his hand, a soft gentle touch that came straight from her heart. “You will grow to be very wise.”

She had told him so much about his uncle, and in doing so, much about himself. Things that he had always felt but could never say. And certainly not to his uncle—one didn’t go around bothering bishops.

She was very open about her feelings. She said that she never stopped loving him. She just moved herself out of his life, but no one ever took his place.

“He knew things that others didn’t. He could sense things that others couldn’t. He understood, too, but was wise enough to keep that to himself. They,” she smiled and nodded the side of her head in the general direction of the Vatican, “didn’t like free-thinkers.”

Patrick was tempted to add that nothing had changed, but he didn’t have to. It was implied.

The sun was setting but the night stayed warm. Tourists still crossed the piazza below, their voices drifting up like the burble of a river. Giovanni’s roof had a fine view of the city and almost across the river. Patrick came by most Sundays for dinner. He was part of the family now. He liked that. He was introduced as ‘
Cugino Patricio
’ and no one ever questioned it—they all knew and treated him like he was Benedetta’s son.

“I often wondered about that,” Patrick confided as he sipped his limoncello, an indulgence the old woman had helped him cultivate. He even kept a bottle in his room and poured himself a glass those nights he sat by the window reading. “By the time I really got to know him, he had changed. They made him a monsignor after he got back and then he had to be on show all that time.”

“He saw honor in duty.”

“Yes, he certainly did.”

“One day, you will go back to Ireland as a bishop, and young priests will fear you too. None of them will ever suspect that once you spent your evenings like this.”

She waved her hand along the burnished skyline, like she owned the place. And in some ways, he often decided when he was home alone again, she did. Sometimes, when he let fancy run away with him, he thought she was like the spirit of the place, like one of the ancient goddesses whose physical form was being devoured by wind and time, but whose spirit still shone into the eyes of those that could see.

Sometimes, after they had dinner, and they had sat for a few hours on the roof, drinking limoncello until Benedetta grew tired, he would walk all the way back across the river, to Trastevere, where the winds of old ghosts whispered in the trees. And in the shadows of dark little lanes, and the fenced off ruins, statues watched the days come and go.

“I will never leave Rome,” Patrick answered with a touch of boyish defiance.

“Perhaps, but first you must do what you were brought here to do.”

“Teach?”

“Oh, Patricio. Have you learned nothing from your time among us?”

He didn’t feel like she was making fun of him. He felt more like she was encouraging him to see what was right there in front of him.

“It’s the oddest feeling,” he wrote to Joe a few days later. He had told him all about Benedetta, knowing he could be trusted, “but after I talk with her, I feel like I have always belonged here and that everything before was just a separation.”

“It’s because you’re a wanker.”

Danny was shocked. He would have expected Frank to say something like that, not Jimmy. They were doing a St. Patrick’s gig in Ajax, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was the first time they had been together since New Year’s. The Friday had been wild but Saturday was more forced—like the crowd was only drinking out of a sense of obligation. “Well you can go and fuck yourself.”

“What’s he done now?” Frank asked as he returned from the bar. He had gone for three pints and someone at the bar insisted on buying the band a round of Jameson too. Large ones.

“Deirdre wants Danny to go to Marriage Encounter.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s where they cut off your balls so your wife can wear them as earrings.” Danny carefully placed his pint on the table and reached for the whiskey. “Who bought these?”

“Y’er man at the bar. I wanted to thank him but I couldn’t remember his name.”

“She’s only trying to help your relationship.” Jimmy took his pint but declined the whiskey—he was driving.

“What the fuck do you know about my relationship or any relationship for that matter?”

Jimmy didn’t answer. He just shrugged and walked off to talk with a few women by the bar. He had just broken up with his girlfriend.

“What the fuck are you picking on him for? He’s not the one trying to castrate you.”

“I didn’t like the way he was talking about me and Deirdre. I think he fancies her.”

“We all fuckin’ fancy Deirdre. Only, she just wants you, but you are too fuckin’ stupid to see that.”

“Would you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Go to Marriage Encounter?”

“No, but I don’t need to.”

“How come?”

“’Cos I don’t fuck up my relationships.”

“Go an’ fuck yourself.”

“I’m only tryin’ to do you a favor, Boyle. You don’t know how good you have it.”

“What the fuck do you know?”

“I know that most of the guys in here would cut off their own balls for a chance of being with Deirdre. And I know that you are a morose bollocks that has no idea how good he has it.”

“You know nothing.”

“Maybe not, but I know that if I had a wife and kids I wouldn’t be getting drunk and stoned all the time.”

“You know fuck-all about it.”

“Boyle! You’re an arsehole. I’ve known you for over ten years and you’re still the same little self-obsessed gob-shite. You’d be fuck-all without Deirdre. She’s the one who got you into your first house and now she’s managed to move you up to Leaside. Do you think that happens to every fuckin’ eejit that gets off a plane? Your fuckin’ problem is that you have no idea how good you have it. See this,” he held up one of the whiskey glasses. “This is half full to me.”

“See this,” Danny raised his and drained it. “This is empty.”

“See this,” Frank raised Jimmy’s glass.

“What about it?”

“This is your problem, right here.”

“Not you, too? Why is everyone so fuckin’ concerned with how much I drink?”

“Not everyone, just those who care about you.” Frank raised the glass and drained it. “And I’m not one of those anymore. You wanna be a bollocks and destroy your life? Go ahead. Just don’t come moaning to me afterwards.”

He got up and nodded toward Jimmy and walked back on stage. “We’d like to dedicate the next song to the gentleman at the bar who was kind enough to provide the band with strong drink. And if any of you are offering hash or coke, we’ll sing a song for you too.” He began to strum like he was thinking about something else. Jimmy doodled on the bass while Danny sulked behind his mandolin. Then Frank began to smile and sing:

They stopped for pizza on their way home from Marriage Encounter while a neighborhood girl babysat. Deirdre wanted them to have some time, just for themselves. To practice acting like a couple again while the example was still fresh in their minds and before it was lost among the trials and tribulations of parenthood. She wanted them to have some time alone to talk about those parts of themselves that didn’t revolve around the children. She wanted them to be able to hold hands and honestly tell each other what they were thinking.

She could tell that Danny was cautious, and a little taciturn, but she didn’t mind. He had agreed to go and she believed in beginnings. But they struggled to find things to talk about, other than the children.

“Well. I think the move went relatively smoothly.” She had hired a moving company even though Danny insisted that he, and Frank and Jimmy, could have managed it.

He nodded along with her, reminding her of a dog wagging its tail. He probably couldn’t wait to get home and have a few beers. Then he’d probably start pawing at her, but at least she had his attention for now. “It is a bigger house though. We’ll need to start adding new furniture.”

“What’s wrong with the stuff we have?”

“It’s old and it’s worn. I want something more in keeping with the house—for when we have people over.”

“Are you thinkin’ of entertaining a lot then?”

“We will have neighbors over and we want to make a good impression.”

“Couldn’t we just say we’re Irish and that’s how we do things? After all, we’re supposed to be in a multicultural paradise.”

She didn’t respond. What could she say? Danny always played the ‘Wild Irishman’ when he was feeling insecure. He had missed out on a promotion again. He said they told him that they had to pick a more ethnic candidate. It took a few months to get him to stop making racially insensitive comments around the kids. He wasn’t really racist; he was just mad at himself.

Someone else told him it was because of his drinking and that only added to his umbrage, half-jokingly complaining that he was being racially profiled as an Irish drunk. That it was enough to drive a man to drink.

She had reacted to that. She told him that was propagating stereotypes, but what she really wanted to tell him was that he had to grow up and take his job more seriously. She had seen him at his work parties, acting like a caricature, only falling just short of saying ‘faith and begorrah’ at the end of every sentence.

But she said nothing about that. It would only seem like she was rubbing his face in it. She had been promoted again, twice in the last year, and was now making far more than him. He said it didn’t bother him but she knew it did. She tried joking and said it was the payoff for the first few years—when they were in purgatory. He had seemed to stiffen at that. Since the night she overheard his rant against god—the night he heard that Martin was ill, she had been careful to avoid saying anything that might evoke that ghost. She had been worried about him for a while until she put it all in place. They had both rejected their Irish-Catholic upbringings but while she dealt with it intellectually, Danny was much more emotive about things like that. He had reason to be, given all that had happened with his grandmother, but he was also very self-indulgent when it suited him.

Regardless, their time in purgatory had taken its toll, especially on the way they were together. She had tried telling him that things would only get better. He wouldn’t have to play the bars anymore—he could just play the folk clubs, but he misunderstood and thought she was taking a dig at him about the amount of time he was spending over at Frank’s. And, after they had finished arguing in hissed voices so as not to wake the kids, she cried alone on her bed while he smoked on the back deck.

By the morning she had decided that, if she was going to make things better, she would have to do it for him, too, and the only way that was going to happen was if he freed himself from all the negativity he wallowed in. She understood, but she also said that he had to step out of it now and the best way to do that was through Encounter. The kids were growing up and it would take both of them to see them through until university. Both of them working together as active, engaged parents.

“Danny, we’re a good team together and we will get all of this sorted too.” She raised her wine glass to clink against his. They were sharing a half carafe of red, to help set the mood.

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

He was reluctant and that was partially her fault. She was always so busy trying to improve things that she sometimes forgot to give him credit for all the changes he had already made.

“Like with Grainne. I never seem to be able to get things right with her but you always seem to know exactly how to deal with her. I would be lost without you. I mean it.” She reached with her other hand and stroked the back of his, the way she did to encourage him.

“Really? Because I always get the feeling that you think that I’m too easy on her, and that I’m too hard on Martin.”

“See. This is the stuff we need to talk about. Being a parent has changed and neither of us had good role models when we were growing up.” She didn’t really think that about her mother but she didn’t want to sound like she was just being critical of his parents. “Sometimes I get scared. Do you?”

“Me? No.”

“Really?”

“No, I got you to rely on.”

“That’s so sweet of you.” She tried to squeeze his hand in hers. “Danny, do you ever feel like I’m pushing you into things?” She knew he did but she wanted them to talk about it.

“Sometimes, only I’m sure that if you didn’t, nothing would ever get done.”

“Thanks for saying that. You know I love you and I only want what is best for us?”

“I do, yeah.”

“And you don’t resent me for doing that?” She knew he did but she wanted that out in the open too.

“Not at all,” he assured her but avoided her eyes.

“You would tell me if you did?” She knew he hated talking about his feelings.

“I would, ya, only I don’t see the point in going on about stuff like that.”

“And that is where Marriage Encounter will help. We can learn how to open up about our real feelings and that way, in time, we’ll be able to talk about anything. This is what we all deserve, Danny, the freedom to finally share what’s going on inside.”

He looked a little dubious so she sipped from her glass, carefully making sure some wine glistened on her lips. “So how do you feel about what we heard tonight?”

“I’m fine with it.” He pulled his hand away to take another slice of pizza. It really bothered him when they did that in public, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes. It always looked like she was talking to him like he was an idiot.

“Danny, what are you really feeling?”

He really felt like having a few beers and a few tokes and having a quickie in the car on the way home, but that wasn’t the kind of stuff they were supposed to talk about. “I don’t know, Deirdre. I’m just tired.”

“What did you think of what Shirley and Mike shared?”

Danny thought Shirley and Mike were a pair of total assholes, the type that had to be better than everybody else. She had guilt issues and he made a point of assuring her in front of everybody. He was probably gay but couldn’t admit it, and she would benefit from a good fuck every now and again—to loosen her up a bit.

“I don’t really relate to those kinds of people.” He knew he’d get brownie points for saying it that way, maybe enough to get her to drop the subject.

“I think he is a bit controlling and she is not able to find herself in their relationship. I think she has lost her way but is afraid to say it.”

Danny couldn’t help but feel that she was really talking about them, in some type of code, but didn’t let on. He was thinking about what it would be like with Shirley. She was a bit plump but she had great tits, bigger than Deirdre’s, and still firm.

“A couple of times,” Deirdre continued when it was obvious that he wasn’t going to say anything, “I heard things that reminded me of you and me. Did you?”

“Not when Shirley and Mike were talking. I mean, who gives a fuck if he bought her the wrong color car? I think they only came along to try to make the rest of us feel bad?”

“Do you feel bad about us?”

He’d walked right into that trap. Every time he opened his mouth to bitch, she was waiting. “No, I don’t. I just feel bad that the little free time we have to spend alone might be getting wasted, that’s all.”