His Father's Son: To save the son he loves, a desparate father must confront the ghosts of his past

by Tony Black

  Macca stood back and watched the hat forced into place, then reached out to hide a few stray strands of white bandage that hung around Joey’s ears. “It’s a tight enough fit, but you might just get away with it.”

  Joey didn’t want to think of the alternatives. “I better had.”

  This time there was a handshake and smiles. When Joey turned for the entrance Macca raised a wave and gave a smile that looked altogether more convincing, thought Joey. He was lucky to have such good friends here in Australia, he knew it, and with any luck he’d be back to see them all again some time soon.

  Inside the terminal the air conditioning blasted cool bursts that chilled the skin on contact and shrill voices fired out departure times like squawking gulls. Joey felt his stomach churning as he searched the crowded lounge for the airline desks. The pain in his head had reached a new high and the drilling noise in his ear had been turned to full. Jaysus, he scolded himself, why didn’t ye take some pain relief from the hospital?

  The shrill voices came back again and Joey recognised the flight. This time it was his. It was the last call, they said, and his heart jumped inside him. He tried to run but failed, then he fell into a jog, and finally a fast walk. He felt unwell, like his head was filling up with gas, the light gas that makes balloons float, he thought. He was starting to stoop over with the bag and the picture; his one free hand that held the ticket was sweating, then his airline counter loomed ahead of him. Joey passed over the ticket – it was damp now – to the girl on the counter. She seemed nice, no scanger this one, sure hadn’t he had enough of them for one day. She checked the numbers on the ticket and tipped her head towards the counter like she was going through the motions of a job she’d done a million times.

  “That’s fine, Mr Driscol …” When she looked up, the girl on the counter seemed to take an awful interest in his head, her eyes widening up at the sight of the hat. “Do you have any baggage, sir?”

  “Just the one,” said Joey, “and the picture – tis hand luggage, really.”

  The girl on the counter took his bag and weighed it on a set of scales, smiling all the while but still staring at his head, then she attached a sticker to the handle and returned to Joey’s passport. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to take off the hat, Mr Driscol.”

  Joey’s heart stilled. “You what?”

  She held up the passport. “I have to check your likeness to the picture in here.”

  Joey felt a tremble pass over him. There was a hot flash like a firework had gone off behind his eyes, and then his heart started to pound. He reached a hand up to the hat and that’s when he felt the bandages falling about his ears. “Oh, God …” He felt more bandages falling as he removed the hat.

  “Ouch! That looks like a bad knock you’ve had.”

  He started to feel dizzy. “Tis nothing. A minor bump only.”

  She made an inverted smile. “Sir, we have strict rules about head injuries because of the cabin pressure on the plane.”

  “What?”

  “Do you have a safe-to-fly cert’ from your doctor?”

  “What?” Everything started to move wildly. Joey felt his eyes rolling.

  “Are you all right, sir?”

  “I am … yes … fine.”

  “Sir, are you sure? You look unwell.” The girl moved out from behind the counter as Joey felt his knees begin to buckle and then the lights went up. As he fell backwards he thought he heard the girl on the counter scream, but he wasn’t sure because everything went so quickly to utter blackness.

  12

  Being alone with Brother Michael in his office scared Marti. There was a big old desk and a cross on the wall and a picture of the lady in a blue hood. She was holding a baby and had the sun shining all around her. There were lots of shelves with books and silver cups and little wooden cups and little silver crosses. There was a very big picture of a man in olden times with lots of men around him and a devil with a big stick. The devil was poking the big stick in a man’s back and the man was screaming with the agony and the pain of it, and Marti thought it was a very scary picture to be hanging on your wall.

  “Tis the Last Judgement,” said Brother Michael, “the picture. Do ye like the picture?”

  “It’s scary,” said Marti.

  “Ah, now, the Last Judgement was never meant to be a day at the races, Marti. Lookit, that’s Christ in Glory and those are the resurrected souls around him, with the Devil himself there, on his right, with … is it a trident? Sure it looks just like a pitchfork. Anyway, himself’s ready to chase the damned souls into Hell. Do you know what Hell is, Marti?”

  “It’s a bad place.”

  “Oh, it’s that all right. It’s a very bad place,” said Brother Michael, “but that’s enough about Hell on your first day. Sure and haven’t I my orders from your mam to be keeping well away from the religion altogether. Now you be minding yeer mam, d’ye hear, Marti? She has the look of one not long for this world herself.”

  “I will.”

  “Good, and don’t be telling her I’m after talking about Hell the minute her back’s turned.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Good. I’d have my eye dyed for that, so I would. We’ll stick to the curriculum I think.”

  Brother Michael told Marti to sit down and then he took out one of his cigarettes. The room was full of the smell of cigarettes already and when Brother Michael blew out the smoke Marti thought he could taste the grey and white wisps that were everywhere.

  A knock sounded on the door and a boy was called in by Brother Michael. The boy had very straight black hair combed over his eyes all in a straight line like it was a black curtain he had on his head. “Ah, Pat, I have a job for ye,” said Brother Michael. “I want ye to take young Marti here under your wing. Mind him through the lunch and back to class.”

  “Yes, Brother,” said the boy, and then he raised his thumb and smiled at Marti.

  “Fine so, Pat. Ye can give Marti the grand tour and save my legs, which are a terrible, terrible affliction I have these latter years.”

  Outside Brother Michael’s office Pat said only the senior boys and the prefects could leave the school at the lunch if you didn’t have the pass. The brothers didn’t give the pass when all you were after was a bag of chips and a bit of craic up the town. The chips were great, amazing, all dripping in the vinegar and with the salt running down them. Marti wanted to get the chips and followed Pat through the gap in the railings where you could get out the school. Pat said the prefects would kick the shite out of ye if they caught you, but wasn’t it a torture to spend the whole lunch doddering about in the school.

  Pat wanted to know all about Australia and asked if Marti had ever shot a kangaroo or if there were any wars in Australia. Marti said he hadn’t shot a kangaroo and he didn’t think there were any wars, but Pat said it didn’t matter anyway because he wanted to go to Italy and get the scooter like they have on the films and ride around Rome giving the two fingers to the Pope. Pat said he was for leaving Ireland because everyone in Ireland had the name Pat Kelly and there were no great footballers called Pat Kelly and all the great footballers were from Italy with names like Giorgio.

  Pat said he wanted to go to Italy and see all the great footballers and get the scooter and didn’t he have the hair for it too because everyone in Italy had the black hair. Marti had the black hair too, just like Mam, and Pat said he could go to Italy too, and Marti thought it would be grand fun to get the scooter and ride around Rome.

  Pat said they had to go the long way over the cobbles and keep off the roads. The brothers take the roads with their cars and didn’t the prefects take the roads with their bikes and wouldn’t they both have their guts for garters if they caught them out on the roads just parading about without the pass. Pat said the guards were okay and didn’t they never mind you, because Billy Finneran’s father was a guard and he said they were too busy looking out for the criminal element to be minding young boys who were just needing a goo
d fong in the arse most of the time anyway.

  “There c’mon, Marti. That’s the chipper,” said Pat and started running and Marti had to run too. The chipper was very small and all painted green on the outside with a word Marti couldn’t read because it was in the Irish. All the green paint was peeling off and there were boys all in a queue outside waiting to buy the chips.

  “Arrah, Mick,” said Pat when they got inside the chipper, and a man with a sweaty brow said, “Howya, Pat, is it the chips?”

  “Tis,” said Pat, and then he said, “this is my new friend, Marti Driscol from Australia.”

  “Howya, Marti. Australia, is it? Well, I’ve no prawns for yeer barbie, but I could do ye a haddock,” said Mick, and started the laughing.

  “I’ll have chips,” said Marti.

  “All right so, the chips it is,” said Mick, and rolled up the two bags of chips in newspaper very quickly.

  Marti followed Pat out of the chipper and round to the back of the street and there were lots of boys from Saint Joseph’s All Boys Catholic School eating the chips and Pat said howya to some of them. The chips were lovely, all dripping in the vinegar and with the salt running down them, thought Marti, but he couldn’t cram them into his mouth as fast as Pat.

  “Aren’t the chips mighty, Marti?” said Pat.

  “They are,” said Marti, and when he spoke one of the boys from school said, “Ah look now, it’s Skippy,” and there was laughing from the other boys.

  Pat kept cramming the chips into his mouth and said, “Don’t mind them, Marti, aren’t they Brother Declan’s class. They’re all eejits.” The boys stopped laughing and when Pat was finished the chips he started to roll up the newspaper.

  “Please, please, the paper,” said a boy to Pat. He had a very dirty face and very dirty old clothes.

  “Feck off, knacker,” said Pat and the boy said, “Please, please,” again and Pat threw the newspaper away into the back of the yard behind the chipper. “Ye can’t be encouraging them, Marti,” said Pat. “The knackers would never leave us alone if ye gave them so much as the one chip, I swear it.”

  The knacker boy ran after the newspaper and there were big old brown rats at the newspaper before he could get to it. The rats were very quick running about until the knacker boy picked up the newspaper and started to unravel it, and then he flattened the newspaper out and started the licking of it to taste where the chips had been.

  “I’m for a lemonade. Will ye have one, Marti?” said Pat.

  “No, I’m not thirsty.”

  “All right so, I’ll go get one. Will ye wait for me?”

  “I will,” said Marti, and he tried to eat the chips but the hunger was gone and he threw them into the back of the yard. There were chips spilled out and then rats came out again and there were lots of them all over the place and coming from under stones and behind fences. The knacker boy had to shout and stamp at the rats to make them stay away from the chips. Some of the rats grabbed at the chips and ran off with them, but the knacker boy got most of the chips and started cramming them in his mouth very fast.

  “Hey, stop feeding the knackers,” shouted one of the boys from Brother Declan’s class, and Marti looked at the boy who was very big and fat and had lots of little marks on his face that were like freckles but were really little holes.

  “I didn’t. He just took them,” said Marti.

  “I didn’t. He just took them,” said the fat boy. He was trying to sound like Marti with the Australian accent and all the other boys started the laughing again. “Ye talk like Skippy,” said the fat boy.

  Marti felt his face get hot and he wanted to hit the fat boy right on the nose but he was very big and there were lots of other boys with him. “Skippy’s a kangaroo, he can’t talk,” said Marti.

  The fat boy grabbed him round the neck and said, “I’ll kill ye.”

  Marti felt his face go from hot to cold. Nobody had ever said they would kill him before. He started to shiver and then Pat came back with the lemonade and said, “Leave him, Dylan.”

  The fat boy let Marti go and started to look at Pat instead. “Are ye fighting his battles, Kelly, are ye? C’mon then?” The fat boy started to jump about with his fists up like he was going to fight Pat. “Ah, yeer chicken, Kelly.” Pat stood beside Marti and there were no words and all the boys from Brother Declan’s class waited to see if there would be a fight. “Give us yeer lemonade, Kelly?” Pat handed over his lemonade, and the fat boy took a big drink and started slugging it all down. Then he filled up his cheeks and spat all the lemonade out over Pat’s face.

  There was cheering and there was jostling and then the boys started shouting, “Fight. Fight. Fight.”

  There was lots of shouting and the noise made people look out windows round the back of the chipper and then Mick came running out, waving his hands and said, “What’s all this? Is it the guards I’ve to call?”

  “He’s after taking my lemonade off me, Mick,” said Pat.

  “Give him the lemonade back, Dylan,” said Mick.

  “I will not, sure he was messing with it, tormenting the knacker.”

  “Mick, he’s lying so he is. Lookit, he’s only after spitting a load of it over me,” said Pat.

  “All right now, Dylan, hand the lemonade over or it’s the guards for ye and the last time you set a foot in my shop,” said Mick.

  The lemonade was handed over to Pat. “Now, drink it up, Pat,” said Mick.

  “It’s my lemonade. I can drink it when I want.”

  “Drink it up, I say. We’ll have no retaliations this day.”

  Pat started to drink down the lemonade and the fat boy and the boys from Brother Declan’s class watched until he had finished and tipped the lemonade bottle upside down to show it was empty.

  “All right now, that’s grand,” said Mick. “Now shake and make up.” Pat and the fat boy stood looking at each other. Marti wondered if Pat was even breathing because he looked so mad. Then the hands went out and there was the shake and Mick smiled and said, “Grand so. Now about yeer business and we’ll have no more altercations, d’ye hear?”

  There was nodding and the fat boy said, “Yes, Mick.”

  “Pat, I say we’ll have no more altercations. What say ye?” said Mick.

  Pat didn’t answer, and when everyone looked at him to see if he would speak he puffed out his cheeks to show there was still a full mouth of lemonade inside and then he spat the lot of it all over the fat boy.

  “Run, Marti,” shouted Pat. “Run for yeer feckin life.”

  13

  It was five weeks in a floating prison he was facing, but hadn’t he no choice entirely, thought Joey Driscol. It was take the boat or wait, maybe even longer, until his head was healed fully. No one would believe the run of bad luck he was having, but wasn’t Marti the one who would suffer the most? The boy was over in Ireland, a strange country to him, with a mother who was unfit to mind him. Sure, Marti could be in any state now and wouldn’t he be cursing his father for allowing it. How did it happen? How did he get into this whole mess?

  Joey paced up and down the few steps that lay between the tiny cabin’s bunks. Five weeks. Jaysus, couldn’t anything happen in five weeks. Marti could be taken from Shauna, placed in care. She wasn’t well sure. Or couldn’t the boy run off, mightn’t he be desperate to get back to Australia. He pictured Marti on the run from home; he saw him in an orphanage, crying and hungry, and then he saw him taken by knackers and forced out into the cold to beg for a feed. It was too much. With five weeks of this, he would be mad entirely.

  He had no idea where Marti was. He knew Shauna had little family left. Her mother and father were dead long before their daughter’s own troubles started. There was a brother Barry who went in that terrible suicide business after they left, and a sister Catrin – Old Kiss the Statues, they called her. Was she still back in Kilmora? Joey remembered she had a diabolical mouth on her, so full of religious chatter that ye wanted to say Amen whenever she finished a sentence.
Hadn’t she plenty to say before they left for Australia. If Marti was living under her roof … Jaysus, it didn’t bear thinking about. He felt his stomach churning at the thought. He kicked out at the bunk in front of him and the flimsy article shot into the wall like a rabbit diving for its warren. “Ye dirty feck,” he said, and then the door swung open behind him.

  “Sure, that’s grand chat, me old segotia,” said a round man standing in the doorway. He was ruddy faced, burnt in the sun, and panting from the effort of lifting a great bag at the back of him.

  “Who are you?” said Joey.

  “Tiernan’s the name. I think we’re bunk buddies.”

  Joey took in the sight before him. There was little or no light from the hall breaking behind the man. How would they both fit in the cabin?

  “Paddy Tiernan,” he said, dropping his great bag and stretching out a sweaty palm, “from Dingle. Jaysus, I never thought I’d be travelling with a fella from the old country.”

  “Why not … sure there’s a lot of us about, ye know.”

  “Ah, yeer right there, the old diaspora. Sixty million Irish the world over. You’ve as much chance of meeting an old boyo strolling along the Amazon as the Liffey!”

  “I suppose yeer right,” said Joey, and took the hand he was offered. “Joey Driscol’s the name … from Kilmora.”

  “Driscol, ye say … from Kilmora. You’re no relation to Emmet Driscol, the hurling player, are ye?”

  Joey dropped his head. Was there no escaping the man. “Tis my father.”

  “Stop the lights! Aren’t I travelling with royalty.”

  “Ah, go way outta that.”

  “Emmet Driscol’s boy, eh? They’ll never believe this back home. I saw him play once. Christ, he was fierce.”

  “I know it, sure.”

  “Jaysus, I’m flabbergasted. Here, how is he these days?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “We don’t talk, haven’t for ten years past. You know … families.” Joey looked at Paddy. He had a droop on his lower lip, confused at the thought of a great Irishman like Emmet Driscol having led anything less than the perfect existence.