His Father's Son: To save the son he loves, a desparate father must confront the ghosts of his past
Page 23
Mam didn’t look like any of the others at all, thought Marti when he saw her sitting on top of a big white bed, looking out the window, staring and staring like she was expecting a visitor to come along at any moment. Mam was one of the only ones in the room wearing proper clothes, not nightclothes. Marti wondered did she like the Cabbage Farm better than Aunt Catrin’s house where she would always be sitting about in the baggy jamas with the very long sleeves over her hands. Marti heard Dad gulp when he saw Mam sitting on the bed and then he put Marti down on the ground and said, “On ye go, son. Go to your mam.” Marti ran over to Mam and stood by her bed and when she turned round she didn’t look like she had seen him at all, only stared and stared and stared, and then she jumped off the bed in a hurry and hugged Marti tight, so tight he could hardly breathe.
“Marti, Marti, you’re here. How, how did ye get here, son?” she said.
“Dad took me,” he said, and when he turned to point to Dad he was already there beside him.
“Hello, Shauna,” said Dad.
“Joey … why?” said Mam. She let Marti go and then she sat back on the bed.
Mam looked like she didn’t recognise Dad at all, thought Marti. He wanted to say something and try to explain about the fight with Aunt Catrin, but then Dad started talking and Mam started to look like she recognised him again. They talked and talked for a long time and Dad said he had lost his father but found himself, and Marti wondered how anybody could find their own self or how it could be lost even.
“Shauna, I want you to come away with me … with us,” said Dad, and he lifted Marti onto his knee.
“Why?” said Mam. “Why would you want that?”
“Shauna, I know why you brought me here. I know what you wanted me to see … I see it now. I’ve faced it, Shauna. Things would be different for us now.”
“Joey, you know I had to do it. I had to. You were in hiding in Australia. I couldn’t live like that anymore, I thought …”
Dad reached forward and touched Mam’s lips very gently with one finger. “It’s okay, Shauna. I know now, I see it, you don’t need to explain.”
“No, Joey, I do. I needed to make you see this is what you were running from. I wanted to make you see you had nothing to fear from the past. I thought if you could face it, get over it and just move on … I thought we might have a chance.”
“We do, Shauna. We have another chance, now we do. It can’t ever be too late to change, to say you’re sorry.”
“Are you sure, Joey?” Mam leaned forward and tried to look in Dad’s eyes. It was the truth she was looking for, Marti knew it because wasn’t Mam always checking himself for the truth.
“I am sure,” said Dad.
“Are you really, though? I mean, you need to live too, Joey, and not just through Marti.”
“Shauna, I think we can all be happy, we can move on, can’t we? We can put the past behind us, tis the future that’s important, I see that now.”
Mam leaned forward and hugged Dad and Marti together and there was clapping heard from around the room. Mam started to cry, but they weren’t sad tears, thought Marti, sure didn’t everyone look happier than ever. He felt the happiness inside him and it was a lovely warm feeling.
“Dad,” said Marti, “can you show us the green flower, the shamrock dancing?” There was laughter from Dad and there was more of the little happy tears rolled down the side of Mam’s face.
“Are ye serious?” said Dad.
“I am. I want to see it.”
Dad smiled at Mam and then he started to roll up his sleeve, over the shoulder. “Once there was a lucky little shamrock that stood in a field.”
Marti started to smile too when he saw the shamrock and he felt like he was a very special boy again.
“A lucky little shamrock, in a lucky little field,” said Dad, “and all through the day he’d stand in his field, thinking what a lucky little shamrock am I, am I, what a lucky little shamrock am I.” Dad’s voice started to creak and break and there were more tears rolled down the side of Mam’s face, and then a big breath was taken by Dad. “To stand in a field and grow strong, said he, to stand in a field and grow strong.” Dad turned up his arm and the shamrock’s stem straightened.
“He’s starting,” said Marti.
“And when the night turns to day, I go wild, he said. When the night turns to day I go wild, wild for song and the dance of a song and I dance in a field all night long.” Dad turned his arm back and forth making the shamrock dance. It rolled and reeled on his shoulder and Marti watched, smiling, as Dad kept the shamrock rolling and reeling.
“I love the shamrock,” said Marti when Dad was finished.
“And the shamrock loves you, son.”
Epilogue
Writing people wasn’t something Joey was very used to, but sure wouldn’t he have to start. There had been no letters sent home to Ireland when he was in Australia, but wasn’t that when he had no one to write to. Now they had decided to settle in Kilmora there was Macca to write to – hadn’t he to be told to stop holding the job open, for starters; they would be making a go of it where they were. And there was his own mam to write to since she had moved in with Megan over in England. Wasn’t it for the best when the old house was too much for her, sure she was right to sell it, and the new owners were right to pull it down and put up a guesthouse. But wasn’t Peggy asking too much expecting a letter every month from Kilmora. There had been a power of news from the Driscols just lately, but it couldn’t keep up, surely.
They were all having a grand laugh at Marti’s new brogue. He was becoming a proper little Irishman, so he was. Playing the hurling even, a power better than his old man ever did, and speaking the Irish better than him too. The boy had had a tough time of it, but wasn’t he brighter than ever now. Joey knew Marti would find his way in the end, just like he had. And wouldn’t he be there to support him, whatever his way was. The boy had learnt some harsh lessons at an early age, but it would show him life was no grand stroll. Things would be better for him in the future. Marti had no call to run away from anything.
Joey knew he would be a better father now too. He was happier than he ever had been, for a start. He was still only carting the flour in and the bread out at Gleesons, but there was bags of time after the early finishes to read the books. And wasn’t there more time yet and more energy entirely with only one drink a day taken. Mightn’t he even give the studies another go some day – nobody ever said learning was just for youngsters.
Shauna was happier too. There were some real tough times when they would talk into the night about the child they had never given a chance to. There were some tears shed when they thought about what she might have been like, how she might have turned out, who she would have taken after. But weren’t they lucky to be talking at all after everything that had happened, thought Joey. They would always talk about things now, he knew it. Shauna’s new doctor had said Joey could talk for Ireland, sure she had never met anyone so full of stories, weren’t most people quiet as mice when they started the joint therapy sessions. But no one had surprised the doctors more than Shauna.
The letters back from Peggy were more accomplished than Joey’s ever were. Her writing was full of a wisdom he had missed, but he would have plenty of time to catch up on it now. He knew things had changed for everyone; it was hard sometimes to keep up with it all. Peggy had said it was down to Joey himself, for sure didn’t the Bible say, “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whoever hath not from him shall be taken away even that he hath.”
His mother was full of lines like that from the Bible, but Joey wasn’t too sure about any of them. One thing he did know was that the Lord definitely moved in mysterious ways, for wasn’t Shauna carrying again. The doctors in Australia had said it could never happen, but there it was. Joey knew now that no one could be certain of anything in this world, except perhaps that he was definitely one of the luckiest in the whole of it.
Marti was so excited to have a new member of the family on the way – wasn’t he just bursting out of himself with the idea of it. And Shauna, she had never looked more beautiful in all her days, there was a composure about her since the news came. Blooming, she was, didn’t everyone say it. The baby inside her was beautiful as well, just a beautiful thing entirely. It was a beautiful baby girl; they knew it. This one was special, sure. She was all their hopes for a new start, for their future together, and they were going to treasure all the many blessed days they had ahead.
Copyright
First published 2013
by Black & White Publishing Ltd
29 Ocean Drive, Edinburgh EH6 6JL
www.blackandwhitepublishing.com
This electronic edition published in 2013
ISBN: 978 1 84502 727 8 in EPub format
ISBN: 978 1 84502 636 3 in paperback format
Copyright © Tony Black 2013
The right of Tony Black to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Ebook compilation by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay