Unspoken

by Gerard Stembridge

  ‘I’ve been coming back t’Annascaul all these years, since 1948, on account of my mother. She’s still going strong, thank God, but there’s little else would have brought me home, to be straight with you, until lately. I began to notice something in the air round about. We all know the Irishman has always craved his little house. There’s been verses wrote about it, good and bad, which was of little consequence, seeing as no one could afford the purchase. Not in my growing-up years, anyway. But the last few of times I’ve come home, I heard some of the unlikeliest characters talking about owning their own house as if t’was a serious proposition.’

  ‘That’s no surprise to me at all. Things are changing here. And very fast.’

  Guiney pointed.

  ‘Over beyond there’s fifty hectares of farmland, just at the city limits as they are presently constituted. I’ve looked it over carefully from every aspect. I know of no parcel of land better fit for the purpose hereabouts, or in Cork or Waterford or Galway, for that matter. Oh, I’ve looked. I can do houses, semi-detached, three bedrooms, garden front and rear, with every modern convenience you can think of, ten to an acre. Twelve hundred new homes at no more than three thousand and four hundred pounds each. All in. A young couple looking to get married or a young family would only need six hundred pound for a deposit and a twenty-year mortgage. They’d have a fine home with all the facilities of a modern city on one side of them and one of the most beautiful counties in Ireland on the other. The airport is only a stone’s throw away if it’s foreign holidays they’re seeking or they want to greet a relative arriving from the States.’

  It seemed like a much-practised speech. To Dom’s experienced ear it had the rhythm of something written down and learned off by heart. Then Guiney made an observation that chimed with Dom’s acute political radar.

  ‘And of course, all the people working out beyond in Shannon would probably prefer to live here in the city, if they can get there and back easily. I believe there’s already a scheme for a dual carriageway.’

  Dom thought about twelve hundred brand new semi-ds, housing two thousand or more voters of the most satisfactory kind; happy prosperous ones with jobs and sprouting families. The Kerry hoor might be on the money after all. Give an Irishman a chance to own his own place, he’ll jump at it. Three thousand and four? Not a bad price. If the man could do it. They’d sell all right. And more. In a few years there could be four or five thousand families with their own new house and garden in the city. Six hundred was a sum within the reach of a lot more people now as long as they felt secure in their jobs and were no longer afraid they might have to take the boat. Dom saw himself as a man who could give people that confidence. Before long they’d be returning to Ireland in droves, depending on how well Shannon developed. More jobs, more services. More income from rates and taxes.

  He put a halt to his mind’s mad gallop and looked at the Kerry hoor, who was silent again. Transmission over, apparently. Was he paid by the word or what? Dom presumed he was waiting for a response. The cute Kerry hoor had carefully prepared his little speech because he knew that, for a scheme as big as this, no other local politician was worth a bag of shite. Dom was the only man to talk to, the coming man, destined to be a government minister sooner rather than later. Without his say-so, there would be no re-zoning, no planning permission, no political support worth squat, no matter how good the idea was; not in this constituency anyway. The proposal needed careful thinking about.

  ‘Well, you’ve certainly given me food for thought, Mr Guiney. Have you plans I can examine?’

  ‘Of course I have. Detailed ones.’

  The talking was done. As they walked back to the hotel parking area Dom now found the silence agreeable. This charmless man’s big notion was growing on him. And, after all, he was one of their own. As good as. They shook hands without words, just a dignified manly nod, and parted. When Dom got back into his car he could see the question in Michael Liston’s eyes and was tempted to tease him with a Guiney-like silence but he couldn’t manage it.

  ‘Well, Michael, I certainly wouldn’t want him out knocking on doors canvassing for votes on my behalf but I think we should take a closer look at his plans.’

  ‘I’ll sort that out with him so.’

  Michael Liston waddled over. He stayed talking longer than Dom expected. Suddenly Guiney seemed to be all chat. Then he pulled a bag from the back seat of his car and handed it over. When Michael came back to the car Dom noticed an ugly smirk on his face as he opened the bag to show what was inside. It was a bottle of duty free Black Bush.

  ‘He thought you might like this. Bad timing on his part, ha? Although he wasn’t to know about your recent little incident.’

  Dom wouldn’t have minded a capful all the same. Instead he just smirked back at Michael Liston as if drink was the last thing on his mind.

  ‘Beware of cute Kerry hoors bearing gifts.’

  ‘Indeed. A token, he says to me. You’re right there, says I. Just a token.’

  They both offered a non-committal salute in the direction of the Wolseley as it drove off. It occurred to Dom that if Guiney Developments was doing so well, the company might like to show its support for the Party in a more substantial way. When he said this to Michael. It was clear from his reply that he’d had the same thought.

  ‘I think that’s a definite possibility. And a fine idea.’

  *

  Francis wondered why his godmother, Auntie Mary, had collected him from school today. She wouldn’t tell him. ‘No reason,’ she kept saying but her smile told him there was a reason. As soon as he turned the corner on his road and saw someone way up on the roof of his house he knew what was happening. That was his dad and they were putting the aerial up for the television. He pulled on Auntie Mary’s hand but she wouldn’t let go until they had crossed the road at the grotto. Then, laughing and coughing, with the cigarette still in her mouth, Mary watched him hare off like a mad thing. If he fell over now there’d be tears.

  Francis could see his mam outside at the gate and hear her shouting up at his dad to make sure that the aerial was secure and wouldn’t fall down on their heads if it got windy. Ritchie and Gussie were there too, holding the ladder steady. Why weren’t they at school? Francis looked along the roofs at the line of aerials from his house to the next and the next. Now there was one on every roof in their row. Ever since Mrs Tuite at Number 69 had put one up ages ago, their house had been the only one without an aerial. It looked much better now. Even though none of the aerials was exactly the same, he liked the way there was a proper line of them with no gaps. The Bensons, one. The Reidys, two. His house, three. The McMahons, four. The Hacketts, five and the Tuites, six. The whole row.

  ‘Mam, look at all the aerials in a row.’

  ‘Shut up Francis. Ritchie, Gussie, are you holding that ladder steady for your father?’

  ‘Yes, Mam.’

  ‘There’s a great view from up here, Ann. I can see the spire of the Redemptorists.’

  Auntie Mary arrived, still laughing.

  ‘Well, the questions started as soon as he saw me waiting for him and then the pulling and dragging for me to let go of him once he spotted Fonsie.’

  ‘Oh, you were privileged. Sure he won’t take my hand at all these days. He’s gone too independent, that fellah. Did you behave yourself in school today? Fonsie! Will you come down, I’m nervous looking up at you.’

  ‘No, Mam, he has to check the picture first to see if he’s done it right.’

  ‘Shut up Gussie. Fonsie! Do you have to do something with the television set?’

  ‘Yes, but I can’t be up here and down there at the same time.’

  ‘Well, I’m not touching it.’

  ‘Gussie, you know how to tune it in, don’t you?’

  Gussie knew everything about television. His mam asked could she trust him not to break it and his dad said again he couldn’t be in two places at the one time, so unless someone else was going to climb up on the roof�
� Gussie was already gone inside. Francis followed him. Was he really going to see television on in his own house? Auntie Mary had a television but it was never turned on when he was there. She always said it was too early. His granny had no television. The only place he had ever seen television on was in the window of a shop called RTV Rentals, but his mam always dragged him past it, saying they were only robbers, charging five and six a week for the rest of their lives. Bernard McMahon from next door, who was four months older than Francis, said television was brilliant. There were American cowboy films with gunfights and funny cartoons, but he couldn’t bring him in to show him ’cause his mam wouldn’t let him ’cause it was only on at night. Television was something that got everyone all excited. Francis had never seen his family so excited. Ever since his mam told them all that she had saved up and bought a television, Ritchie and Gussie and Marian and Martin talked about nothing else. Especially Gussie. Television, television, television! He was like a mad lunatic about it. When it arrived yesterday in a big box, his mam warned them all not to touch it. Only she and Dad were allowed to go near it. If anything happened to that television they were not getting another one. His mam told them again that she had saved up sixty-two pounds and ten shillings to buy it because they wouldn’t throw money away on rent like others were doing. Francis knew she meant the Reidys and the McMahons, who were renting. He knew as well, from the way she was talking, that sixty-two pounds and ten shillings was an awful lot of money. A bar of Cadbury’s was 3d. So four bars was a shilling and there was twenty shillings in a pound… Francis stopped thinking about that because it was getting hard to add up in his head and anyway Gussie had turned on the television and he wanted to see what would happen next.

  When his dad took it out of its box last night, it looked like a much bigger television than the ones he had seen in the shop. It was so heavy Ritchie had to help his dad lift it. His mam had cleared everything off the chest of drawers against the wall and they put the television on top. It was cream coloured and on the side there were knobs and buttons and near the bottom in a circle. Francis spelled, P-Y-E, with a big Y like a tree.

  He heard Gussie say Pie, like a steak and kidney pie. That’s how you said it, but what did it mean? Now Gussie was twisting the big round knob. The television made a noise and Francis saw jumpy lines. Gussie ran outside. Francis stayed looking at the television. In the glass part he could sort of see his own face looking back at him like a ghost. He could hear Gussie shouting.

  ‘There’s lines and it’s hissing. What will I do now?’

  Hissing. That’s what the noise was called. Then Francis saw something change on the television. Now there was no hissing and the lines were different kinds of lines. Gussie ran in, looked, and ran out again, roaring.

  ‘Nearly, it’s nearly there.’

  The television changed again and now there were no lines. There was a kind of a picture like a photo but it was just all shapes in grey and white and black with writing in the middle: ‘T-E-I-L-I-F-Í-S É-I-R-E-A-N-N’. Francis knew the words because he had heard people say it over and over again. He could say it, ‘Telefeesh A-ran’. Gussie ran in, shouted, ‘Yes!!’ and ran back out shouting, ‘It’s there, it’s there.’ Now his Mam and Ritchie and his Auntie Mary ran in too. His mam said, ‘Don’t touch it, leave it alone until your father sees it.’

  ‘Well, Ann, at long last. You won’t know yourself now with the telly. Listen, I’ll leave you to it.’

  Francis heard his godmother shout, ‘Good luck Fonsie, well wear,’ to his dad as he climbed down the ladder. He came in and looked at the television.

  ‘Well. That seems to be fine.’

  ‘Are you sure, Fonsie?’

  ‘Well… that’s the test card. I suppose we won’t know for sure until the programmes start.’

  ‘So what’ll we do in the meantime? Turn it off or leave it on?’

  His dad thought about this. Francis thought please, please leave it on.

  ‘Well, if we leave it on it’s using up electricity, but at the same time, we’ll know it’s working.’

  ‘But I can’t be keeping an eye on it all the time.’

  ‘It’ll be all right. No one will touch it, sure you won’t? Gussie?’

  ‘No, I won’t. What would I want to touch it for?’

  Mam seemed to be satisfied with that and just said, ‘You’d better not,’ as she went out to the scullery. Everyone else stayed staring at the television. Then Dad said he’d better get back to work. He told Ritchie to bring the ladder back to Mr Benson. When they were gone, Gussie sat on the couch. Francis sat next to him.

  ‘What time does it start?’

  ‘Six o’clock.’

  They stared at the television. Francis had a lot of questions in his head. He was just going to ask what pYe meant when Gussie said, ‘Do you know why that’s called a test card?’

  That was another question Francis wanted to ask.

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘It’s a special card they made so you know your television is working. If you can’t see the test card then there’s something wrong and you have to get it fixed.’

  ‘Where does television come from?’

  ‘Donnybrook, Dublin 4.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Dublin, I said.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Oh shut up.’

  Francis was sorry Gussie had told him to shut up. He liked it when his brother told him things. Gussie knew lots of funny things. He was the only one of his brothers who told him things. Francis stayed quiet, hoping Gussie would get in a better mood and start talking again. After a while he did.

  ‘We have only one channel but in England and America they have loads of channels.’

  Francis wanted to ask what a channel was but he was afraid that Gussie would get moody again so he just listened.

  ‘And in America television is on all day. It’s ridiculous, only starting at six o’clock.’

  Francis knew that word. His mam often said ‘don’t be ridiculous’. He decided not to ask Gussie why television only started at six o’clock but it sounded ridiculous all right. He had to go to bed at eight o’clock, so that meant he’d only see it for two hours. They stared silently at the test card. Francis hoped his brother would speak again and tell him something else he didn’t know.

  *

  ‘The task I am about to ask you to consider undertaking will, if you take it on, allow you a direct role in some of the most extraordinary changes taking place in our Church.’

  Fr Mullaly was pleased with the impact of his opening salvo. He certainly had the full attention of his listener, a man who should be very much au fait with Church affairs and understand how the death of the former beloved Pope and the election and coronation of Paul VI had changed matters. While the new Pontiff had publicly signalled a continuation of the path envisioned by the gentle John XXIII, Fr Mullaly perceived in Paul VI a different kind of intelligence at work. Instead of the fulsome and generously innocent spirit of his predecessor, there was now a practical, subtle, administrative mind at the helm; a strategic mind. In Father Mullaly’s view, this was exactly what was needed to enact with precision and clarity John’s beautiful but somewhat unfocused vision. It was as if the Almighty, in His wisdom, had arranged it so. First, He offered his faithful a beatific breeze that blew away the cobwebs and dead wood of the nineteenth-century Church, then, at precisely the correct moment, He replaced that refreshing, invigorating but unsettling wind with calm; clear-eyed and efficient calm. If Father Mullaly had been pleased with how earlier events had helped change his fortunes, he was now convinced more than ever that the latest development was the harbinger of some further significant personal advance. Humility did not allow him to name, even to himself, what this might be, but he strongly sensed that God had placed him in this parish at this time for a reason. The first step, it seemed to Father Mullaly, was for him to be a practical advocate of the new dispensation, indeed to lead the way in enacting
change. Though he had loved and revered John, he felt more of an intellectual bond with Paul and looked forward, with enthusiasm, to enabling and personally administering the important changes he knew were about to be decreed.

  This was why he had requested a meeting with Mr Cormac Kiely, a man highly regarded by the devout laity of the diocese; a father of seven children with impeccable qualifications in his field. He seemed the ideal man to help Father Mullaly carry out his great plan. As the parish priest sat in a pew awaiting his visitor he surveyed the church interior, noting, not for the first time, how little there was to recommend it; drab and cheaply constructed to a dull formula, its fixtures and fittings were uniformly tasteless. For the last four years Father Mullaly had yearned to alter this and that, but another wiser instinct had warned him that piecemeal improvements were pointless and the achievement was always more impressive when the raw material was unpromising. So he had waited patiently, watching the great drama in Rome unfold. Now, he felt, was the moment to act.

  Mr Cormac Kiely arrived precisely on time. Fr Mullaly noticed other immediately positive signs. Though the architect was older than the parish priest, his voice and handshake were diffident and respectful. He did not sit until invited to so do. By the time Father Mullaly began his prepared opening statement he was already confident that this was his man for the task. Sure enough, Mr Kiely’s first response was not just supportive but perceptive.

  ‘Of course any call to be of help to the Church is an honour. From what you have just said, would I be right in guessing that this task might be, in some way, connected with the work of Vatican II?’

  Father Mullaly was impressed. That Mr Kiely had moved so quickly to the heart of what this meeting was about was inspiring. Clearly he did not resemble the general run of parishioners here at Our Lady of Consolation. This man’s deference did not come from bovine docility but, rather, a deep appreciation of Church traditions and the inescapable logic of its hierarchical structures. Mr Cormac Kiely had clearly been following, in as much detail as an intelligent layman could, the profound work of Vatican II. He might even have heard mention of the document Father Mullaly now decided to name.