Wandering in Exile (9 page)

“You and Dermot Fallon?”

“He’s not the worst, only we don’t really agree on things. He’s all for having the parents grass on their kids.”

“And you agree with that?”

“No. And I told him, too, only he says to me: ‘we don’t all have IRA hit squads to call on.’ I don’t pay him too much mind though. He’s just doing it because he’s going to run for the council. I think he wants to become the Lord Mayor or something.”

“The more things change . . . eh?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

Jerry looked at him like he was trying to see if he was okay. “Do you know what I wanted to ask you? I was wondering if you could do me a favor. I need you to ask Danny to sign the house over to his mother and me.”

“Why?” Martin didn’t mean to sound so leery.

“Well, it’s just that I’m going into business with Donal and I need to raise some cash. I even have the papers all drawn up. You just need to take them over and have Danny sign them. We need to do it quickly too. Donal has found a place that we just have to snap up before some other fuckers get their hands on it.”

“Are you sure you can trust Donal?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Isn’t he married to your own sister? C’mon,” he held the bar door open. “We can have a drink and discuss it.”

“Holy mother of God,” Jacinta laughed as she saw them enter. “The Canadian has come home to us.”

She rose and hugged him tight, warm and quivering and sobbing. “Ah Martin, it’s so good to see you. Do you know,” she asked as she released him, “Mrs. Flanagan?”

Martin greeted her as he sat.

“Hello, Martin. Welcome home.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Flanagan and I’m very sorry for your troubles.”

“That’s nice of you to say.”

“Well,” Jerry shuffled from foot to foot, “what’s everybody having.”

“I’ll be heading off home,” Mrs. Flanagan decided as she finished her drink, “so you can have a proper home coming. It’s nice to meet you, Martin, and please ask Danny to remember my Anthony in his prayers.”

“You’ll have to excuse her,” Jacinta said after Mrs. Flanagan had left. “She’s still grieving. Did Jerry get a chance to ask you?”

“He did. He just told me on the way over.”

“You’ll get Danny to do it?”

“Are you both sure about this?”

“We are,” Jerry insisted when he returned with their drinks. “We have talked it through.”

Martin waited until Jacinta nodded in agreement. “I’ll ask him but I’m not sure.”

“Not sure about what? It’s a sure thing. Donal has found a house on the other side of Terenure on Ashdale Road. We can get it at a good price and fix it up. All the yuppies are dying to live there.”

Martin was tired; he had jet lag on top of the flu and was in little mood to argue. “How much is Donal putting in?”

Neither of them answered so Martin asked again.

“Well,” Jerry hesitated, “he is the one who finds the houses. He has all the connections, ya know?”

Martin sipped his beer. He was in no mood to discuss it further and shivered a little in the damp.

Deirdre had come back from her vacation in Canada with a sparkle in her eye. But she was careful to keep it hidden from her father. Her mother had convinced him that it was all above board; that Deirdre and Danny had been carefully chaperoned by his uncle—all of the time. She politely inquired if Deirdre had enjoyed her visit but avoided making eye contact.

She had. Danny’s time in Canada had changed him. It almost seemed like he had grown up. He dressed much better, too, and took more care with his appearance. It was like being with someone new and someone familiar at the same time. He had a day job with the government and was getting steady gigs with the band. Deirdre had gone to hear them a few times and enjoyed the show, and stopping for Harvey’s on the way home where he slept alone on the couch.

He brought her to the museum, and the art gallery, and of course, the CN Tower. He was proud of his new life and he made it very obvious that he wanted her to become a part of it. He even said it: “You should think about moving over, after you get your degree of course.”

“I might,” was all that she could bring herself to say, at least until she thought about it some more. They could be good together, in a brand new city with hot lazy days and warm evenings when he would touch her bare arms as he guided her from place to place. After the first week it was obvious; in Toronto she could become the type of person she wanted to become.

They went to Niagara Falls on her last weekend and spent the night in the King Edward, in Niagara-by-the-Lake. He took her to a charming little restaurant and behaved like a gentleman all night. It was all very, very romantic, strolling back to the hotel on a warm night, scented with flowers hung in baskets along the way.

She kissed him again as they got to their room, large, Victorian, but with one enormous bed.

“We don’t have to, you know? If you don’t want to, I could sleep on the floor.”

She did want to. She was ready. She wasn’t giving herself to him; she was stepping out of everything she had been and joining him in the new world. She was ready to fall in love with him again, only she didn’t say any of that. She just smiled and went to the bathroom to change into the long dark satin slip she had brought—just in case.

It felt so right, she encouraged her reflection, as she touched up her lips and teased out her hair. And she wanted it to be special. Danny seemed to want that too. He had lowered the lights and opened a bottle of wine. He smiled at her without a trace of his leer—the one he used to wear to hide his real feelings. When she emerged from the bathroom, she walked slowly toward him, silhouetted in the light she had left on. She had seen it in a film and decided, then and there, that’s how she wanted to look.

He rose and took her in his arms, gently kissing her as his fingers thrilled along her skin. He tasted like wine, warm and soft to her lips, sending little tremors through her. His hands were cool, gliding along her skin, up her arms and across her shoulders, freeing them from her straps as they passed. He touched her throat and ran his fingers through her hair, brushing it back from her ears. His lips fluttered along her cheek and she began to shiver.

They shivered together underneath the sheets even though the night was warm. His eyes were soft and deep and his lips were bigger than she had ever seen them before. And they were soft. They stroked and petted each other, twisting and writhing. Getting closer and closer until he was inside of her, filling her and straining her but in time, delighting her until it all became too much, for both of them, and they crumpled together. He rolled on his back and eased her head on to his chest where she could hear his heart pound.

“His past will always be there, hanging over you,” Miriam had said before she went.

Deirdre respected most things that Miriam said to her but on this issue she was wrong. Deirdre understood why. Miriam was struggling with her own feelings. Her relationship with Karl was in a bind. He was ready to have sex with her but she was still a nun when it came to that. Deirdre wished she could talk with her about it. She had so much to say on it now.

“And what about love, Miriam?” Deirdre asked as they settled in for coffee and a chat. “People fall in love and become better people . . .”

“Love?” Miriam answered like she was thinking aloud. “I am beginning to realize how very little I know about love after all. It is ironic, isn’t it?”

Deirdre wished she could take her in her arms and whisper to her that it would be all right. That if she could just open herself, like she had done with Danny, everything would be fine. It took a lot of trust to believe that you were giving yourself to the right person. But she couldn’t so she just reached over and touched the back of Miriam’s hand.

Miriam was in the same position as her—only she couldn’t see it. Karl had a past too.

He seemed very normal and talked about himself in a very assured way but Miriam had told her that there was more to it than that. She admitted that she once peeped at his diary. It was full of strange drawings of the things he had brought back from Vietnam. Things that he never spoke about. There were pages and pages of dark shadowy things that were alien but familiar to her. “I know I shouldn’t have looked but what am I supposed to do now?”

The question had hung in the air, unanswered since before Deirdre went away.

“Then you just have to trust in your feelings,” was all that Deirdre could offer.

Patrick Reilly woke with the bells as Rome started to bustle in the early morning. It was when all that was ancient woke from its memories and smiled down on the never-ending comings and goings.

At first it had all seemed frenetic but he had become attuned to the Romans and the way they lived in the shadows of faded glory. He found hope in the way that life could continue after the pomp of pride was gone.

He could learn from that and give up any notion of being the force that would set the world to right. He was but a common priest in the city of cardinals and he was happy to shed the burdens he once carried. He would find himself and his new purpose in the place where it had all happened.

He had so much more time on his hands with no parish duties to attend to. He did his teaching and had hours alone in the libraries. At first he had felt guilty and wrote to his uncle, who assured him that it would do him the world of good. ‘
It’ll give you a chance to savor the place. Get out and enjoy it. You’ve earned every bit of it.’
But Patrick couldn’t help but feel that he had been carefully and diplomatically placed on the sidelines.

He had found lodgings in Trastevere, just off the Piazza Santa Maria, the ancient place where Christians gathered before taking the city from the pagans. It was a monastic type of place and that suited him fine. His books had arrived and were placed around his room within reach. He had added the reproductions of Giuseppe Vasi’s ten books of etchings showing the monuments of Rome. He handled them with the greatest care and made notes for the tours he began to take, visiting each one of Augustus’s fourteen Rioni. He spent a few days in each to absorb all they had to offer. He visited the churches and the ruins but all the time he kept an eye out for the better places to eat, for when Joe came over, and Miriam.

He had managed to put it all in perspective.

He hadn’t really been doing anything wrong with her. She was his friend and all that stood between him and loneliness. He understood how it might have looked to others, especially his uncle, but there was no shadow of sin in his intentions.

He gave her up for all their sakes. She had enough to get over and he knew that a priest couldn’t afford to indulge in the luxuries that other people enjoyed. He had chosen the life, the lonely walk in Christ’s footsteps. He had chosen it freely and would see it out to the end. But he did think about her. Every time he stopped to marvel at something, he wished he had someone there to share it with and he usually wished it was Miriam.

He kept up with the happenings from home, too, reading the Irish papers as the hunger strikers died, one by one, the ancient symbolism of their sacrifice lost in the righteous rhetoric of the wrong. He felt a little guilty about that as he sipped his café lattes in the Piazza, as others downed espressos and rushed off into the day.

He still shivered a bit at the taste of coffee but, as he had so often heard, ‘When in Rome . . .’ He never thought the words would one day apply to him.

He wrote to Miriam often, on the back of a postcard, and was careful to sound casual, like a friend. He told her how wonderful it was and that he hoped all was well with her.

“Did ya get it sorted?”

“I did, ya.”

Danny had signed the papers and sent them back. Jerry had taken out a mortgage and would have the money in a few days. He talked it over with Jacinta again and she had assured him she was fine with it. She and Gina were already planning how they were going to live when they were rich.

“So, do you have the money?”

“I do, but it’ll just take a few more days.”

“A few more days, Jerry? I’m not sure we can wait a few more days.”

“I told you,” Jerry repeated carefully so as not to give any offense. “I’ll have it for you in a few days.”

Donal shook his head slowly. “That’s not good enough, Jerry.”

“It’s the best I can do.”

“Well, maybe your best won’t be enough. Ya know I got people lining up to get in on this deal?

“Maybe,” he said as he eyed Jerry over the rim of his glass, suspended before his face for effect, “you’re not cut out for this kind of thing. I’m doing you a favor, ya know, because we’re brothers-in-law but I’m beginning to wonder. I don’t need a partner who’s not sure.”

“But we’re not really partners if you’re not putting any money in. I’m more of an investor.”

“That’s right, Jerry. You’re investing in my savvy. I know all about buying and selling property. All you’re doing is throwing in the seed money and there are lots of places where I can get that.”

“Ya, but how many investors can supply the men and material too?”

Donal looked at him for a moment and smiled. “Right enough, Jerry. Maybe we’re both getting a bit edgy. Bring the money when you get it and we’ll say no more about it.”

Frank sang and the whole bar clapped along. He played guitar, too, laying down big fat chords while Jimmy slapped and tickled along on the bass. Danny went around the melody, plucking the banjo and trilling where the beats allowed.

Jimmy and Danny joined in on the chorus, filling the whole bar like a choir.

They had played this song a thousand times and even though it was threadbare, they played it with perfected polish, even making mistakes look impromptu.

The crowd joined in on the chorus, singing along and beating their tables like bongos.

“They love this shite,” Frank loudly whispered over his shoulder, his voice carrying across the room but nobody cared. The crowds loved Frank, with his Luke Kelly hair and his accent that never faded.

“Banjo solo,” Jimmy shouted, catching Danny off guard, but he had been practicing, listening to hours of Barney McKenna. He didn’t really like the banjo but the crowds loved it and its penetrating twang. He played off the melody, doubling and trebling as he could, and bringing it around again for Frank to take. But Frank was lighting a cigarette and missed. “Bass solo,” he announced and grinned at Jimmy.

“Ya bollocks,” Jimmy laughed and changed rhythm, doing the next verse as Thin Lizzy had done, with Danny taking the guitar licks on the banjo.

Jimmy and Danny stopped and started, playing a musical game of hide-and-seek before handing it back to Frank who sang on without missing a beat.

“Now we’re going to take a break for a few minutes,” Frank announced when the crowd settled down again, “so we can get a few beers into us.”

“And maybe some of that funny tobacco,” Jimmy added leaning across to share the same mic.

“Don’t be talking like that in front of the people,” Frank reacted in fake shock. “Y’er not in one of your rock bands now. Irish musicians get drunk—not like the rest of them. It’s lucky for you that they banned corporal punishment in the schools.”

“Where?”

“In Ireland, ya dope.”

The crowd loved the banter but Danny needed to relieve himself. “Fuck the pair of you’se; I’m goin’ for a piss.”

“Well there you go, folks. The bass player is goin’ to get stoned, the wanker on the banjo is goin’ for a piss and we’ll all be back so don’t go anywhere.”

When Danny came out of the washroom, Billie was standing by the bar and acted like she was surprised to see him. He was unsure for a moment but walked over and stood beside her and ordered a beer.

“Enjoying the show?”

“I just walked in. I didn’t know you guys were here tonight.”

“Do you come here often?”

“Oh, Danny, that’s so corny, even for you.”

“No, I meant it’s all the way out past High Park and you live in the east end.”

“I moved. I’m not living with my parents anymore.”

“That’s nice. And are you finished with school?” He wasn’t sure what else to say.

He wasn’t even sure if he should be talking to her. Since Deirdre had moved over he often wondered about that. Frank and Jimmy were still pulling birds but not him; he and Deirdre were living together—almost married—and he had to behave himself.

“Yeah, I got a job at the museum.”

“That’s great.”

“And you, how have you been?”

“Are sure ya know yourself. Not much ever changes in my life.”

“I heard your girlfriend moved over.”

“She did, ya.”

“And that’s not news?”

“I just didn’t think it was the type of news you’d want to hear.”

“You do think highly of yourself.”

Danny might have blushed but there was something in the corner of Billie’s eye, something that contradicted her tone.

“C’mon ya bollocks,” Frank nudged him as he headed back to the stage.

“I gotta go . . . but it was nice seeing you again.”

“Yes, Danny boy. It was.”

“We’re goin’ to start with a slow song,” Frank said as he quieted the crowd down again. “For all the poor Newfies that died on the Ocean Ranger. It’s a song called
The Springhill Mining Disaster
.”

“Springhill is in Nova Scotia,” a drunk heckled from the back.

“It doesn’t matter. They all died trying to earn a living, ya feckin’ eejit. Now shut up and listen to the song.”

Jimmy began on the bass, sonorously, as Danny picked through the chords on the guitar and Frank added the whistle, high and ethereal, fluttering like the candles in the darkness of the caved-in mines. They played the song beautifully, even calming the drunken heckler and causing a few eyes to well up with tears. Even Billie was moved.

“And now,” Frank roused them again when it was over, “we’re goin’ to play a song for the bollocks at the back because he had the decency to shut up.”

Danny went back on banjo as Frank put on his guitar and found the chords, leading them into
Farewell to Nova Scotia
. They played it with wild abandon until everyone was up and clapping again.

“It’s like they’re his puppets,” Jimmy muttered to Danny as Frank went on charming the asses off everyone all night.

“So how was the gig?” Deirdre had let him sleep late and had gone for the Saturday papers and coffee. She seemed to have settled in very quickly and liked the neighborhood because it was so central. She had managed to find a job in St. Mike’s, on the other side of Bay Street, and often walked to and from work. She had come over at the end of the winter and had no idea how bad it could get.

“It was all right. Frank and Jimmy said to say hello.”

“That’s nice.” She smiled at him and picked up the paper and sorted it in the piles that she would read first and a pile she would leave on the coffee table to read during the week. She had made friends at the university and they liked to talk about books and stuff like that. She even went to the art gallery with a few of them. She had invited Danny but he couldn’t—the band was rehearsing that night.

They would sit in Frank’s basement with a two-four and have a few hits. Then they would try to learn new stuff but, too often, they just got far too wasted. “We should do something by Moving Hearts,” Jimmy often enthused but they never got around to it. They were doing a bit of Planxty but it took Frank forever to learn the whistle parts. “It’s because it takes skill and precision,” Frank would explain. “It’s not like slapping on the bass and hoping that some fuckin’ sound comes out. And what the fuck are you laughin’ at?” he’d ask Danny. “Your banjo sounds like a hyena fartin’.”

“Listen,” Deirdre leaned toward him and put her hands on the table. “How would you feel about me going back to school over here?”

Because he felt guilty about talking to Billie, Danny agreed without thinking, even though it meant he wouldn’t be able to quit his day job and go on tour with the band. They didn’t really have definite plans but it was something they were going to do, one of these days, when they got their shit together.

“Are you sure? It would mean living on one income for a while.”

“Two.” Danny corrected her.

“Yes.” She stroked the back of his hand without looking into his eyes and went back to sorting the paper as Danny tried to read the headlines upside down.

“What’s happening with the Falklands? Has the Ice-Queen had her pound of flesh yet?”

Danny wanted to be topical with her. Lately she spent a lot of time talking about the conversations she had with the people around the university and he wanted to show her that she could have those talks with him. “I heard the Brits lost the Sheffield and twenty people were killed. And the Argies lost one, too, and lost over three hundred!”

She didn’t mean to, but sometimes she got a little impatient with him. It wasn’t his fault. She didn’t like being away from Dublin. Toronto was nice but it was so different. Danny had shown her all the Irish places but they were always filled with the type of people she found hard to talk to. Miriam always told her that she was a bit of an intellectual snob.

And he was different too. He was becoming more Irish. Not the natural type of Irish, like he was at home. He was becoming more . . . stage Irish.

Her friends at the university liked him when they came to see the band play, but Canadians were like that. They seemed to enjoy everything that was different from them and embraced it all, even the ethnic villages tucked into their downtown neighborhoods, and made a point of experiencing them. They often had lunch on Spadina, eating Chinese food that she didn’t recognize but was determined to try.

“It’s not a football game, Danny. Those are real lives that are being lost.”

“I know what ya mean. In football, England never wins.”

She gave him a look but he ignored her and lit a cigarette.

She would have to find a new apartment—one with a balcony. She really couldn’t stand the smell of smoke. It wasn’t all his fault; it was just that living together was a lot harder than she imagined. Harder, too, because she could never go home again. At least not until her mother had time to work on her father, but that might take an age. But she would get through it.

Her friends told her it was normal and that all she had to do was to change things until she was happy with them. “But what if Danny doesn’t like the changes?” she had asked. “Then you change him for someone else.”

She had laughed along, but later, when she was sitting on the couch with him, she felt a little guilty.

“Here,” she said as she handed him the front section. “Someone tried to stab the pope.”

“Where?”

“In Fatima.”

“Then there’s no problem. He can get cured without having to move.”

She smiled briefly and found something to read about a new disease called AIDS.

“Have you seen Martin recently?” she asked when she was finished.

“I saw him a few weeks ago.”

“We should go and have brunch with them tomorrow. They always know the nicest places.”

“Sure,” Danny answered and went back behind the sports section.

“Good. I’ll call them.”

“Them?”

“Why? Don’t you like David?”

She rose before he could answer and lifted the phone. She liked spending time with Martin and David. She told her friends about them. It was so ‘Toronto’ of her—having gay friends.

“Just don’t make it too early. We get paid tonight and we always go for something to eat afterwards.”

“You are very much like your uncle. He used to sit here for hours too.”

Giovanni had come out from behind the counter to sit with Patrick. It had become a part of his ritualwalks around the city—stopping at Giovanni’s for coffee and watching the crowds come and go across the cobblestones of the Piazza Della Rotunda. He liked the Pantheon, with its roof open to the heavens.

“What was he like, back then?”

“He was like you—young. And his head and his heart were full of all the good he was going to do in the world.”

“Did you think he was foolish?”

“Of course, of course. Only the fool can lead us away from the—how do you say—the edge of the cliff. I was a young fool too.”

Patrick studied the old man’s face, broad and affable and prone to smiling. Giovanni liked to make people laugh. Even during the morning rush, as Romans jostled for their coffee, Giovanni would tend to them with a broad smile.

“So what changed you?”

Giovanni liked to shrug, too, and did before answering. “I am still a fool at heart. I still believe that, like all of this,” he waved his arm across the piazza, “the whole world will live long enough to know that the only thing that really matters is how we treat each other. Nothing else is important. We are remembered for how we treat the people.”

It was Giovanni’s turn to study Patrick’s face, something he did openly. “And you. Why are you so burdened with all that is wrong with the world?”

“It comes with the collar,” Patrick reached for his neck but he hadn’t worn his collar for weeks. There was no point here where priests were as common as beggars.