Wandering in Exile (3 page)

“You’re right there,” one of the Scots agreed, burping beerily.

“It’s really more Scottish when you think about it,” the other insisted, smiling as he said it.

“Yeah,” the Brit agreed with both of them. “But the main thing, Paddy, is that we all stick together over here.”

“My name is Danny, not Paddy.”

“Danny, Paddy, Jock or Tommy. We’re all the same over here and we have to stick together.”

He left them after eleven and found his way home by twelve, sloshing around inside of himself all the way. David had gone to bed but Martin had waited up for him—to make sure he got in okay.

“Thanks,” Danny slurred as he staggered through the doorway. He barely managed to relieve himself before going to bed, collapsing onto it as he struggled to take off his jeans. The room spun for a few moments before he passed out.

So? Are you getting all settled in?

Danny answered without waking up. “It’s okay.”

It’s well for some. I’m stuck here waiting for some bollocks to decide what to do with me. It’s worse than before.

“Before what?”

Before you had me whacked, ya bollocks. Ya didn’t think I was going to let you get away with that.

Danny finally recognized the voice. “Ah, for fucks sake. Not you?”

Yes Danny fuckin’ Boyle, ya back-stabbing little rat’s twat.

“Anto. How the fuck did you find me?”

I followed you.

“You can do that?”

I can do anything I want. I’m a fuckin’ ghost, ya dopey little fuck.

The room grew colder and colder as Anto Flanagan flickered in the shadows.

He was wearing a dark suit and his dark-glasses, darker against the whiteness of his skin. Except around the hole in his forehead. It was still red and crusted. But there was something else that was different. He didn’t seem as menacing as he had been in life. He almost seemed like he was lost and unsure. “And what the fuck do you want with me?”

We have unfinished business, Boyle. You and I are going to be bound to each other for a while yet.

“Great, and I thought I was getting away from all of that.” Danny rolled over, pretending he was not afraid.

Not by a long shot, Boyle. Not by a long shot.

After a few weeks, Danny got a temporary job with the government. Martin knew a guy who knew a guy who could offer Danny a few weeks here and there without him having to commit to a steady job. It was only to keep him going until he got a few gigs.

He hadn’t actually gotten around to asking at any of the bars yet; he was working up to it. The Gloucester didn’t have live music but he ended up there most nights. He usually stayed until closing time and Martin didn’t stay up for him anymore.

So Danny came in as quietly as he could and struggled out of his new parka and his heavy lined boots. He had taken Martin’s advice and bought winter underwear too. He made his way to his room and peeled off the rest of his clothes and threw them on the floor.

He lay on his back and began to fondle himself. It was how he got to sleep every night, masturbating to his mental image of the barmaid at the Duke. Slimmer than in real life, but still with huge breasts and bigger, poutier lips. And at night in his room she wanted him, tearing her shirt open and flicking back her hair before leaning forward and taking him in her mouth.

He always felt guilty afterwards and it wasn’t just all the stuff that he had been brought up with. He felt guilty about Deirdre but he couldn’t imagine thinking about her when he was doing it.

The barmaid knew.

He told her all about Deirdre. He told her that he phoned Deirdre every week to ask her to come over. The barmaid told him that was cute and patted his head but she still came to him, when he was alone at night, with only one thing on her mind—to bring him pleasure. She almost had him there when he heard noises from the other room. Martin and David’s bed squeaked amid the sounds of muffled love.

The barmaid vanished as he realized what was going on. He sat up quickly and his jeans slid off the bed, his heavy buckle making a sound that silenced all others but for whispers and stifled laughing.

He lay for a while and wondered what to do next. It was all very well joking around so that Martin wouldn’t think that he was against it, or anything, but it really freaked him out. He couldn’t help but imagine what they were doing. He’d never be able to look Martin in the face again. He’d have to pretend that he hadn’t heard a thing—that he had kicked his jeans to the floor while he slept, deeply, where nothing could bother him. He covered his head with the pillow and tried to remember Deirdre that day in the Dandelion when she gave him another chance.

She had worn a summer dress that made her seem so tall and cool. Not aloof, but she stood out from the crowd that had gathered. And when he finished his song and looked over she gave him the same smile she used to give him, back in Bushy Park, before everything got fucked up.

He wanted to keep thinking about her but he couldn’t and finally dozed off again and slept fitfully until he heard sounds outside.

Martin was sitting on the couch, looking a little flustered but trying to remain calm. He wore a thick, heavy robe, though the room was warm. He wore slippers, too, and his hair was all flattened against his head, like he had slept on the couch.

“David’s just getting up. We were going to go over to that new place for brunch, if you’re interested.”

Danny wasn’t; he just wanted to be alone for a while. “I’m just going to go to McDonald’s and then I might go downtown and have a look at the apartment you were telling me about.” He put on his parka and his boots without making eye contact and rose to leave.

Martin looked up at him like there was no other choice.

After he had gone, David came out and sat with Martin.

“You don’t think he heard us?”

“Martin, he knows.”

“I know he knows, but I still don’t want to be doing it while he is here. We’ll have to be more careful until he moves out.”

“I can’t wait.” David put his arm around his shoulders and kissed his cheek. “Not that I mind having him here.”

Martin turned and kissed his lips. “Thanks. It won’t be long now.”

The super was gay, too, and was friendly—but not like ‘friendly.’

It was more like he was letting Danny know that he knew Martin and friends looked out for each other. And the apartment was great. He’d have his own bedroom with his own kitchen on one side and his own shower on the other. The kitchen was more like a closet but there was a little booth where he could have his breakfast. The front room was huge and looked out over Jarvis and Isabella.

“Where it all happens,” the super nodded at him. “And you can start moving your stuff in anytime.”

“Stuff? I don’t have any stuff yet. I’m just over.”

The super’s eyes softened. “Listen. We have a room full of furniture that tenants leave behind. You’re welcome to look through it. Some of it is not bad. I found some chairs, a kitchen set and a radio from the 60s. It might give the place a more . . . you’re not really into decorating, are you?”

Danny was getting a little uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure if there was more going on. He was never sure around gays; not that he was an expert or anything like that, but he was learning a lot.

He’d been putting a lot of strain on Martin and he didn’t mean to. It was just the way his face would change before he could stop it. Or sometimes, he’d say something that he shouldn’t. He couldn’t help it. It was the way he was brought up and even though he was trying to change all that, it was all still a bit new to him.

“Listen, Danny. The apartment is yours if you want it. And, if you ever need my help, you know where to find me.”

He had gone and done it now. The guy had picked it up from him. Homophobia must have a smell that only gay guys could get, like the way men sense desperation in women. The guy was doing him a favor, getting him a place so fast, and keeping the rent the way it was.

“No, I do want it.”

He had plenty of money for the first and last month’s rent. His parents had given him nearly two thousand before he left. It must have been the last of Granny’s fortune and they wanted him to have it. Even the old family solicitor, Davies—the one who got the cops to leave Danny alone—agreed, but he was so old that he might have been nodding at anything.

Still, everybody was happy with the way things had turned out and he’d been able to emigrate with some money in his pocket. He’d be able to buy his own TV and a nice stereo. And he’d get a couple of lamps around the place, like the way Martin had done up his place. Martin said that David did it all, that he was very artistic and creative.

He’d get a bed too. A big one for when Deirdre came over. He’d get some nice drawers, too, for her to be able to put her things in.

“Hey, Jerry, what’s the difference between inhuman and degrading treatment and torture?”

Pat Magee was sitting at the bar, over the dregs of a pint. He’d been a fixture since Jerry was at university. He and the lads always stood Magee a few pints—to show support for the cause. “I don’t know, Pat.”

“The European Court of Human Rights!”

“I know! Can you believe it? The Brits must’ve paid them all off.”

“They didn’t have to. These fuckers are all the same when it comes down to it. They all look out for each other and to hell with the people. Amn’t I right?”

“When you’re right, you’re right.” Jerry patted the old man on the back and nodded to the barman for two pints.

Magee puffed up in his attention and softly murmured into song, low enough so the barman wouldn’t object:

“Fair play to you, you still have it in you,” Jerry acknowledged.

He’d just have one and get out before Magee had him there all night. He wasn’t the worst of them but if he got hold of you, you’d have to listen to his whole life story, again.

“Good man, Jerry,” Magee acknowledged as the pints were placed before them. “It’s good to see that not everyone has turned their back on the Brotherhood.”

He’d been nursing his drink for an hour and now drained it and pulled the fresh pint toward him. He only spent the wet afternoons in the pub and he couldn’t even afford that on his pension. A free pint was straight from providence and let him avoid his damp, empty room for a while yet.

On a fine day he’d sit in the Green; there was no place else for the likes of him to go. He liked it there among the flowers and the men that died for freedom. And when it was time to go, he always took his leave of them, statue by statue. There’d never be a statue to him or any of the others. Their war was not something the people wanted to remember—when they lined up behind their priests and let the fascists overrun the world.

“Did I ever tell that I was out in Spain with Frank Ryan?”

He asked the same question every time they met. Jerry glanced at his watch before answering. “You must’ve been awful young.”

“I was just a gossoon of nineteen. Can you believe that? Can you picture any of these young fecks today going off to fight for the rights of the working man?”

“You said a mouthful there, Pat.”

The old man looked delighted with himself and raised his fresh pint. “Here’s to the lads: Charlie Donnelly and Eamon McGrotty, Bill Henry and Liam Tumilson, Bill Beattie and Frank. We were all at Jarama, you know? That’s where the lads were all killed and Frank got wounded.”

“And yourself?” Jerry asked for the umpteenth time.

“Do you see that?” The old man raised his trouser leg, exposing a long white scar from his knee to his ankle. “That’s what I got up near Suicide Hill. They had to carry me out of there and that’s what saved my life.”

“Well, here’s to you and all of them.” Jerry raised his pint and took a long swig. It was his first today. He didn’t go at it so much anymore. He wasn’t able for it. Besides, he and Jacinta liked to sit out, when the weather was fine, and enjoy a few glasses of wine in the glassed-in room where his mother used to grow her tomatoes. They’d all died, but Jacinta had planted flowers and things.

She seemed to have gotten over Danny’s leaving fairly well. She still said she missed him all the time but she was putting on the brave face. He knew she was trying so he took every chance to just sit and talk with her. The worst was over and now it was time for the two of them to sit back and enjoy a bit of life. There was no point in worrying about all of the terrible things that went on in the world. They couldn’t do anything about them, anyway, but they could share a little peace and quiet between them. They deserved that after all they had been through.

Magee was getting lost in his memories so Jerry left him alone. He didn’t really care about all of that anymore. It had never gotten him anywhere. He was doing all right for himself now. His pay wasn’t great but the benefits made up for it—stuffed envelopes from grateful contractors and the likes.

At first he had qualms, but if he didn’t take them somebody else would.

His manager wasn’t a great one for work, preferring to leave it to his assistants. As long as Jerry looked after his cronies, he had a free hand in how the more minor public contracts were doled out. It was all small stuff so nobody ever came nosing around. There were far bigger deals going down, further up.

“We used to stand up for each other back then,” Magee commented to no one in particular. “Didn’t matter what race or creed either. If you were a working man, that was good enough. And we were fighting to protect a democratically elected government too. And just for the principle of the thing. We don’t do stuff like that anymore—not unless they have oil or something.”

Jerry nodded in agreement. Every time he stuffed an envelope into his pocket he agreed. The working man had to get a bit of his own back every chance he got. All the big shots were doing it and pocketing a lot more than the hundred or two that Jerry got. And God knows he needed it; there was always something.

“Have you any news?” Magee nudged him to let him know he was almost finished.

“Did you hear about Johnny Giles?” Jerry asked as he ordered one more round and then he’d be gone.

“Who?”

“The manager of the football team. He just quit.”

“We used to play football in Spain too. We used to play against the English and the Scots. We played against the Spanish too. They were a bunch of cheating bastards, but we still fought for them, you know?”

Danny phoned his mother’s house most Saturday mornings and Deirdre got to talk with him there. They didn’t risk him calling her parent’s house—not yet. Her mother knew about the calls but said nothing to her father.

Danny always said he was fine but Deirdre could tell he sounded lonesome and homesick. Though he might have been drinking, he did phone late at night, his time. He told her how much he missed her and he couldn’t wait until she came over for the summer.

She still hadn’t agreed to it, not for the whole summer anyway. She might go over for a few weeks, just to see what it was like. Her mother wouldn’t mind a few weeks. Her father wouldn’t be too happy about it but Deirdre was sure that her mother was probably chiseling away at him. She would remind him of how proud he was of her and how well she was doing at university. Her mother would tell him that she was quite grown up, almost enough to make her own choices in life and to find her own happiness.

Her studies were going well but the shadow of the future was looming. The world was changing again and having a fine arts degree was of little value.

Ireland was changing, too, looking more and more to the Continent. Everyone told her that, after she had gotten her degree, she should get away somewhere else and find a good job. They were, she was told, crying out for people who could speak French. She could move to Brussels and get plenty of work translating. She heard the money was good but she couldn’t see herself being very happy doing that. She wasn’t really sure what she’d be happy doing and she hoped that a few years in Canada would help her see things differently. She wasn’t even sure if she loved Danny, but she missed him. She could go over and spend a few weeks with him and find out, one way or the other. It wasn’t like she was going to spend the rest of her life with him.