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

by Tony Black

  “Was he now?”

  “Look, I can tell yeer still with the grief. I only wanted to see ye, have a word … Will ye take a drink?” People were filing into Molloy’s pub across the way, but Joey knew it wasn’t a day for him to be drinking. “I’ll have the one.”

  “Grand so.”

  “I mean it, mind. Just one … tis my new limit.”

  People from the funeral had spread themselves out inside Molloy’s pub. Little groups huddled round tables, staring gloomily into their dark pints. When Paddy came back with the drinks, Joey thanked him. The mood was tense. “Sure ye won’t go far wrong with just the one,” said Paddy.

  “Tis just an idea,” said Joey. “Better than swearing off it, I reckon.” Swearing off the drink hadn’t worked, sure, but only one drink taken a day might remove the wonder, stop the build-up that always ended in a skite, and more trouble, thought Joey.

  Paddy wrinkled his forehead, then raised his glass. “Well, good luck to ye.”

  “Paddy … but why are ye here?”

  Paddy sat up straight, rummaged in his pockets, then held a hand out to Joey. “To give ye this.” He handed over a bundle of notes, rolled together in a rubber band. “I put some interest in there.”

  Joey looked at the bundle. Paddy had added more than a bit of interest. There was a time when Joey knew he would have raised the roof with his excitement at this, had the lot of it buried away for Marti’s education, but not now. “Paddy, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say nothing, sure tis all yours. I couldn’t cheat a decent Irishman who was only after doing the best for his boy.”

  Joey knew he had got Paddy wrong; he wasn’t the first he had got wrong either, and the thought grabbed at him. “I never thought, well, ye know.”

  “Ah well, I had a bit of a win on the horses, an accumulator … Sure doesn’t bad luck run out just like the good.”

  “Thanks,” said Joey. “Look, would you mind me dashing out on ye? It’s just … I have somewhere I need to be.”

  “Jaysus, man, I’ll be fine here m’self. Run yeer errand,” said Paddy.

  Joey tipped his one whiskey down his throat and left the pub alone.

  The sun was high outside as he headed to Catrin’s home, clamping the bundle of notes in his hand. Wasn’t it the least he could do now, give the money to Shauna. She could do what she liked with it – she would know what was best for Marti, and for her. She deserved the chance of a fresh start, so she did. A chance to get herself and the boy right again.

  He stood at the door of Catrin’s house. There was still a power of heat in the day’s sun and he was sweating as he loosened his tie and knocked on the door. Catrin took her time answering and let out a shriek when she saw him standing on her doorstep. He saw Marti run into the hall behind her, but when he called out to the boy Catrin spun herself round and held him back from his father.

  “Get inside. Get inside now.” Marti reached out for Joey, but Ardal appeared at the back of him, raising him up and carrying him away. The boy kicked and wailed, and Joey remembered Catrin’s words about him running wild, bringing guards and the like to the door. Sure wasn’t it a terrible effect Joey had had on him. It was the Devil Marti had in him now like Catrin said, and hadn’t his own father put it there.

  “I’m not here to cause any trouble,” said Joey.

  “Well I can tell ye I won’t be having any of it now – not at my door. I have Ardal there will sort the likes of ye with no messing.” Ardal appeared behind Catrin again, swinging the door wide open and pushing out his great stomach. Joey heard Marti calling out from upstairs, banging on the door, but he knew he was best kept from the boy.

  “I only came to see, Shauna. I have something to say to her, something for her,” said Joey.

  Catrin leaned into his face and there was little more than a nose between them when she spoke. “My sister is in the insane asylum, thanks to you.”

  He didn’t know what to say to her. He had thought he couldn’t feel any worse, but hadn’t he been wrong entirely. Catrin stepped forward and her finger wagged in front of him. “Ye come here stinking of drink, upsetting the boy and by what right. Have ye no shame coming to me? Me with a brother already buried outside the Church. Tis you I will be blaming if it’s a sister I have next.”

  Joey felt numb. He muttered, “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “No, your sort never do,” said Catrin. “Leave this place. I don’t want ye coming round here anymore.” Catrin pushed him back and followed into the street, prodding him in the chest, pushing at him. “The child is staying with us now. Aren’t we the only family he has capable of minding him …”

  Joey stumbled and fell in the street, throwing his head up to the sky where the sun hurt his eyes. As Catrin towered over him he caught a brief glimpse of Marti crying in the upstairs window, watching his father being shamed beneath. “Shauna’s to have him signed over – sure tis all legal. Now there ye have it. Go. Go. There is no place in the boy’s life now for a drunken father that’s driven his own wife into the asylum.”

  Joey raised himself on his feet and Ardal stepped forward, standing in front of his wife like some manner of minder. There was no need for it, no need entirely, thought Joey. Wasn’t the woman right. Marti was better off without him. He stared up at his son, crying in the window above, and waved to him. He knew both their hearts were breaking, but what could be done, wasn’t it the best thing for everyone. He had messed everything up for so long. It was beyond repair now.

  As he walked back to Molloy’s pub he felt like the world had ended, not instantly like in an explosion, but slowly, like it always had been dying on him, only he never knew it. Nothing was ever going to be the same now – wasn’t life as good as over. Not even Marti would be in his life now and Joey wished he could just be dead and buried, like his own father.

  He went back to Molloy’s pub where Paddy had a row of creamy pints of Guinness lined up on the bar for everyone. He placed a hand on Joey’s shoulder and said, “What can I get ye?”

  Paddy’s eyes were weary, the slow blink of the drunkard settling on him. Joey wanted no more than to take one of the creamy pints and pour it down him, join Paddy in oblivion, but he’d been there often enough to know there were no answers to be found. “I’ll have a lemonade, please,” he said. “Just a small one.”

  “One small lemonade it is,” said Paddy. He took the glasses back to the table and sat with Joey, talking and talking. There was no talker like Paddy Tiernan, thought Joey. Couldn’t he talk the leg off an iron pot. He’d been on his travels again and had some grand tales to tell but wasn’t he more interested in Joey’s story. He was like a priest wheedling a confession out of him and didn’t it all come out in between the dark pints Paddy swallowed.

  “It’s easy enough solved, sure it is,” he said.

  “Solved … There’s no solving it. None,” said Joey.

  “I think you love Shauna yet … and can’t you see she loves you.”

  “Bollix, man.”

  “It’s as simple as that, Joey. She’s brought you here because she loves you, nearly killed herself with the love she has for you.”

  What was he saying? Joey heard every one of Paddy’s words, sure hadn’t they chimed in his ears. He knew he’d got this fella wrong in the past, but none of this was right, surely. Had he really been so lost in his world as not to notice the obvious? Paddy had had too much to drink, a few more scoops and he’d be falling over.

  Joey said goodbye to Paddy and took himself back to the guesthouse where Mrs O’Shea greeted him with a smile and was kind enough not to be offended when she never received one in return. In the room he collapsed on the bed and felt his body shaking. His whole self shook, inside and out. Wasn’t this the limit? There was nowhere to go from here, surely. Paddy might be right about how he had felt for Shauna all along, but wouldn’t he have to be dead wrong about how Shauna felt for him. Even if she had led him back to face up to things, hadn’t he failed her ent
irely, and led her the way of her brother Barry.

  Joey felt sick in his stomach. The bed started to spin slowly and he took himself up from it. It was time to run. Anywhere would do, just away. Far, far away. He started to throw clothes in a bag and then, under a shirt pile, he uncovered Marti’s Superman picture, propped against the wall.

  Joey looked at the picture he had carried all the way from Australia. It was cracked clean down the middle. He pushed together the pieces of broken glass and wondered could it be mended yet? Couldn’t most things be mended with a bit of effort, he thought.

  30

  Marti prayed to God. He prayed as hard as he could because he knew it was a miracle he was asking for. But if God had brought Dad back to him once already, then couldn’t he do it again? And if he could bring Dad back to him then couldn’t he bring Mam back too and maybe then it could be like it was before? Marti wanted it to be just like it was for all the other boys and he wanted to have a mam and a dad again. He didn’t want to live with Aunt Catrin, who was a bockety-arsed old witch, and he didn’t want to live with Uncle Ardal, who was the real lousy feck.

  Marti told God there would be no more acting the giddy goat and there would be no more mitching if he could just be like all the other boys again. He promised to behave entirely and he told God if he would only fix things one more time, then wouldn’t he be the best boy in the whole world and he would even tell Pat Kelly to be a good boy too. Marti made the signs that were the cross like he had seen everyone do a million times over and then he went downstairs to watch out the front window to see if God would answer his prayers.

  Aunt Catrin was making a big old pot of porridge in the kitchen and she was shouting at Uncle Ardal, who wasn’t holding the drawer properly. Marti hated the porridge that went in the drawer to set and would be cut up every morning for him to eat before he went to school. He wanted Uncle Ardal to be shouted at because then mightn’t he panic and spill some like he was always doing. Aunt Catrin said Uncle Ardal was a clumsy article who was always making a mess of everything, and when there was finally porridge spilt on the floor she shouted at him some more and said, “That spill will go for yeer pigeons now, I suppose.”

  Marti went through to the kitchen to see Aunt Catrin at the shouting and to see how much of the porridge had been spilt. There wasn’t that much on the shiny kitchen floor, but Uncle Ardal had got it on his boots and had started to walk all through it, making the porridge footprints everywhere. “Off. Off with them boots,” said Aunt Catrin, “or is it through the whole house ye want to traipse it?” Uncle Ardal took off his boots and carried them out the back door, and Aunt Catrin told him he was a fool entirely. “Ye can get cleaning them up yeerself,” she said, “and ye can close the door behind ye. I’m not burning peat to heat the yard.”

  When Aunt Catrin saw Marti staring at her she was mad angry and started the roaring shouting again. “And what call have ye to be stood there idle … tis indolent ye are. Honestly, the head on ye, boy, and the price of turnips.” Marti was handed a wet rag and told to clean up the holy mess that had been made on the shiny floor by Uncle Ardal, and when he got on his knees there was a loud knock on the front door.

  Aunt Catrin told Marti not to concern himself with the loud knock because didn’t he have more than enough to be getting on with where he was. The big old drawer full of porridge was left on the kitchen table and Marti was told to mind he didn’t go tipping it over because hadn’t Aunt Catrin had enough of clumsy men this day already. The loud knock on the door came again and Aunt Catrin started to rush for it, saying, “Where’s the fire, where’s the fire?” She tried to take her apron off as she went for the door but then the loud knock came again and she left the apron half on and half off.

  When Aunt Catrin opened the door there was a mighty shriek from her giving out at somebody and then there was more shrieking and calling for Uncle Ardal to get in from the yard. When Marti turned to see what the shrieking was all about he saw Dad standing in the doorway, holding out his hand to him. Dad’s face was all red like he was just after running and when he tried to speak there was only a little splutter noise made. Marti went to grab his hand but then there was the sound of the back door swinging open and Uncle Ardal ran in, sliding about on the shiny floor in his stocking soles. He grabbed Marti by the collar and pulled him back with a hard yank, and when Marti started to wriggle Uncle Ardal was nearly falling all over the place.

  “Let him be, Ardal,” said Dad. His voice was very firm suddenly and there was a look on him that said he was in no mood to be waiting, but Uncle Ardal didn’t let Marti go. He only looked at Aunt Catrin with his mouth open wide.

  “The boy stays,” said Aunt Catrin, and she was pointing at Dad with her finger again. “Tis what his mother wants, his mother ye put in the asylum.”

  Dad shook his head and there was a big breath taken but nobody said a word at all, and then Dad very gently lowered Aunt Catrin’s finger. “Shauna will be staying in no asylum if I can help it.”

  “What … ye are full of it, are ye not, Joey Driscol. What have you in mind for her this time? Where will ye run to this time? That’s yeer game all over, is it not. Sure it was fine for ye both to swan off leaving the tongues wagging after the grand sin ye committed, was it not. But hadn’t some of us to stay behind and face the music for ye, picking up the pieces whilst the pair of you sunned yourselves. And it was no picnic for me when I had a sick brother in need of the love and comfort of his family.”

  “A sick brother ye packed off to the Cabbage Farm,” said Dad. “A sick brother who ye left there to rot till he took the only road out … I tell ye, I’m not letting the same happen to Shauna.”

  “No, it’s not true,” said Aunt Catrin. Her voice was a quiet tremble now, her eyes all misted over. “Tis your mistakes was the cause of it …”

  “God woman, would ye ever wake up to yourself? Do ye think I don’t know I made mistakes? I mightn’t have known at the time, but God do I ever know now.” Dad was shouting, but then Aunt Catrin started to raise her hands to her ears and he started to speak softly. “I’m going to try and put my mistakes right, Catrin … I hope to God it’s not too late for you to do the same.”

  Aunt Catrin’s face was as white as the porridge setting in the big old drawer. Her mouth was wide open like when Uncle Ardal fell asleep at the fire and Mam said it was the flies he was catching. Marti wondered if Aunt Catrin was going to scream or attack Dad with punches and scratches, but then she very slowly went to sit down by the table and said, “Let the boy be, Ardal.”

  Uncle Ardal made a noise like a grunt and Marti started to wriggle again but his collar was still held tight and he couldn’t get away. “But he’s staying, sure. Ye said he was to clean the floor. I heard ye say it, so I did.”

  “Clean yeer own mess!” screamed Aunt Catrin, and when she stood up the table was shook and the big old drawer landed on the floor, splashing porridge over the whole place. “Out. Get out all of ye,” said Aunt Catrin. She was screaming again, with porridge in her hair this time and hitting out at Uncle Ardal, who let go of Marti and ran into the yard in a hurry.

  Marti watched Uncle Ardal run into the yard with Aunt Catrin at the screaming and hitting behind him. He thought they looked mad entirely and wasn’t it this pair that should be taken to the Cabbage Farm. There were neighbours started to look over the fence and they were in flitters with the laughing when Uncle Ardal and Aunt Catrin fell over into the rabbit traps set to keep the cats from the pigeons. There were traps snapping all over them, catching at arms and legs and even one at Aunt Catrin’s apron strings.

  Marti thought it was all a gas, sure it was, and hadn’t he never seen a thing like it, but then Dad said they had more important things to do and they could leave the likes of them behind.

  Dad grabbed hold of Marti’s hand and started to run through the streets. Dad was a faster runner and he had bigger steps taken, but Marti tried to keep up with him because it was all very exciting. Marti wondered wher
e he was being taken, but sure didn’t none of it matter, really. Wherever Dad was taking him would be better than the house made of stones all piled up on top of each other right to the roof. They ran past the water fountain and Marti wondered had all his wishes came true and everything would be just like it was when he had a mam and a dad and he was just like all the other boys.

  “Dad, where are we going?” said Marti.

  “We’re going to get your mam.”

  “Where will we take her?”

  “Wherever she wants to go, son … Sure that will be up to your mam entirely.”

  Marti and Dad ran for a long time through the streets and then there was a big hill ahead of them and Dad stopped the running and said wasn’t the hill too much for him. Dad said the Cabbage Farm was at the top of the hill and when Marti looked up there was an old building made of dirty bricks and there were hundreds of high dark windows with little glass panes in them. Marti thought it looked like a very bad place entirely and he didn’t want Mam to be in there. When they got closer to the building Marti saw there were little white bars on all the windows and it looked like somewhere people who have done bad things go.

  “Dad, I don’t like this place.” He felt scared to be going inside, but then Dad lifted him up and carried him in and he wasn’t afraid anymore. There were ladies dressed in black with big white pointy hats on their heads inside the Cabbage Farm and when Marti said were they nurses Dad said, “No, son, they’re nuns, which ye call sister.”

  Dad spoke to a sister behind a big old desk and she said there were proper visiting hours to be observed, but Dad said hadn’t he only heard his wife had been taken in and he needed to see her desperately. The sister said it was irregular but what was her name, and then she pointed down a long corridor and said a number on a door for Dad to look out for.

  Mam’s room was very big and there were lots of beds in it and lots of people wandered around and looked like Colm Casey who was soft in the head. There were people walking around and making little waves to Marti with their hands and there were people who dribbled all over themselves and just stared. There were sisters sat with some of the people and Marti wondered what the sisters could ever say or do to make the people better when they looked so sick entirely.