‘Hello… Daddy… yeah we’re OK… just watching telly… No, no noise… well maybe just a tiny bit… OK, bye Daddy.’
Ian put down the phone and went to turn down the volume. The funny programme was just ending: ‘He said was I sure we weren’t making any noise, because someone complained. He’ll be up in five more minutes. We’d better go to bed I suppose.’
Ian got into bed but Francis stood for a while in front of the telly, switching from one channel to another, trying to imagine what it would be like if they had this at home instead of just one channel. Every evening his mam switched on the telly at six o’clock and it stayed on until she or Dad switched it off before they went to bed. If they had all these channels it would be brilliant in one way but, definitely, the family would end up fighting about what to watch and his mam’s blood pressure would go through the roof.
He stopped switching when he saw young people who looked like the college students who marched for Civil Rights. But these young people were in a library, taking books from the shelves and sitting quietly at tables, reading. It was the programme with the hoity-toity Englishman talking, but this time Francis was surprised to hear him say that people in the past were not as well-read, bright-minded, curious and critical as young people are today. He said history is ourselves. There were more shots of students walking around the grounds of the university and sitting on steps talking. Francis thought it looked like a nice life. He turned to ask Ian did he ever think about going to university, but Ian was fast asleep.
Francis got back into bed and lay looking at his friend. He seemed to sleep so calmly. He was always calm. Francis wondered if that was the thing he liked about him more than anything else, more than that he was clever and funny and different? Ian was always at ease, bouncing around, happy in himself. It never bothered him what anyone else thought about him or what some boys said about him behind his back. Ian was just who he was. Francis wished he could be more like that.
Today had been a stupendous day. So much had happened. His mind was so full of things that sleep was impossible. He just lay here, looking at his friend sleeping. Ian’s face was turned towards him, his arm hanging out of the bed. It would be so easy to reach out and catch his hand if he wanted to.
The cry – a kind of a howl – sounded like it came from the other side of the wall near him, but he knew that couldn’t be, because that was Mr Barry’s room and there wasn’t anyone in there. Had it come from the telly? There was a picture on the screen of a huge sculpture. It looked like a naked man struggling to escape from a block of stone and the hoity-toity Englishman was saying that, above all, he believed in the God-given genius of certain individuals. Francis got out of bed, turned down the sound and listened. Was that someone laughing in Mr Barry’s room? It was so low it was hard to tell if he was imagining it. He got back into bed. The blue glow from the telly lit up Ian’s face. Where was Mr Barry? He phoned ages ago. Maybe he only said he was coming in five minutes to give them a fright and he was still down in the restaurant drinking with Gavin.
Right then, the room door opened and the light from the corridor came in. Straight away Francis closed his eyes and started breathing as if he was asleep, just like he did whenever his dad came to check if he was reading under the blanket with his flashlight. He heard quiet footsteps on the carpet. Even though he knew it had to be Mr Barry, he felt nervous for some reason. After a few seconds of silence he heard his voice.
‘Fast asleep.’
From further away someone else whispered. Francis knew it was Gavin.
‘Can I have a peek?’
‘Sure’
His footsteps hardly made a sound.
‘Ah, don’t they look sweet.’
‘Exhausted, I’d say.’
‘They’ve had quite a day.’
‘They sure have.’
‘You like being a dad, don’t you, Brendan?’
‘Well, I suppose I am one.’
‘Imagine if…’
The silence seemed very long before Mr Barry asked the question Francis was dying to ask.
‘Imagine if what?’
‘Oh – oh nothing. Just a mad notion. So ridiculous it’s not even worth saying out loud.’
Francis heard the click as the television was turned off and sensed the room get darker. The door closed and after a few seconds he dared open his eyes. He could see nothing.
Thirty-one: November 15th
Baz Malloy’s eyes were hanging from his head. What time was it? Just after five in the morning. That meant seventeen straight hours crouched at a Steenbeck with nothing but a flask of coffee and a few sandwiches, but he’d done it; viewed every single roll. Eighteen months’ work. Was there a story worth telling in there? There were several probably.
It could be a tale of protest. There was plenty of that from his six trips to the North and the footage he had shot of the march on the British embassy in Dublin and the student occupation in Earlsfort terrace. There was a political yarn of a different kind from the recent general election. Baz had captured some great unrehearsed moments with candidates on the campaign trail. There was a much bleaker story of rooted poverty and desperation – something that the much-vaunted economic recovery had failed to dislodge. It was drearily present in images, not just of homeless shelters and itinerant camps, but of life on small farms and council estates he had visited.
However, perhaps because this viewing was such a concentrated experience, the material revealed something else quite unexpected. It was a story harder to pin down but, as roll followed roll, its significance grew in Baz’s mind. It was less a narrative than an atmosphere, an experience, something that was still emerging, that hadn’t quite gestated yet. At its simplest, Baz saw it as a matter of contrasts. He had shot many faces. Some were downcast or bent in prayer and, viewing them now, it seemed like they were hiding from him. But then there were other faces that confidently looked his camera in the eye. There were people who, when he asked them a question, fell nervously silent as if wary of being caught out. These were people who seemed to prefer a more comforting world of wink and nod. But then there were others who were happy to say what they thought, put it on record.
There was another kind of contrast too, one that Baz found most exciting. From the beginning he had decided to use colour stock but, as he viewed hour after hour of the material, it seemed to him that many of his images might as well have been shot in monochrome. It wasn’t just that the light was dull and the backgrounds were grey, the people also seemed persistently and complacently drab. Did they feel some need to creep about the world unnoticed? At first, the look of it depressed the cinematographer in Baz, but then he began to realise how this dreariness might serve to highlight the contrast when something or, perhaps more significantly, someone different appeared: the shock of colour, wild hair or the miniest of mini-skirts. These images would then announce themselves even more brazenly from the screen.
It was all there, somewhere in these rolls of film, the story he wanted to tell – no, not tell. To reveal. As yet he had no idea how he might shape it and, at this hour of the morning, was in no state to start thinking about that. All Baz Malloy knew was that it wouldn’t be straightforward because the narrative was itself unfinished. Right now he was exhausted. He would have been happy to lie down and sleep until 1970.
*
For the entire cab journey from his little place in Brooklyn to midtown Manhattan, Gavin chattered so incessantly that he didn’t let the driver get a word in. He gabbed about how, even though he had visited New York several times over the years and loved it every time, it was sooo different living here, and oh man was he enjoying every minute of it: about how endlessly fascinating it was just ogling people on the street doing their thing; about how he was still being a bit of big girl’s blouse when it came to using the subways and were they really as dangerous as people said? Although of course a cab driver was hardly the right man to ask, was he, dearheart, it being in his interest that people never
ventured down below, so to speak, when they could could ride a yellow cab – which he loved by the way; about the nightlife which Gavin said was so much more fabulosa than even he had expected, and look, no sooner had they turned onto Broadway then the rain had cleared up. No need for his umbrella after all. Still, better safe than sorry, not kosher to arrive for his first day on the job looking like a wet rag.
A tiny part of his brain kept telling him to cool it, bring it down a notch, Gavin, take a breather now and then and let the other guy get a word in, but it never happened. Was it a kind of pleasurable hysteria at his new life or just first-night nerves that was making him more outrageously gabby than normal? Jesus, it was Ed Loebwitz after all, the first director to encourage Gavin’s talent and the man who had offered him this opportunity. What was there to be nervous about? And today was only a rehearsal day, so no pressure. Still, it was the beginning of a whole new thing, so it was hardly surprising that he might spin ever so slightly out of control.
When the cab pulled up outside the rehearsal rooms on West 47th Street, Gavin paid the driver and sprang out like a kid anxious to get inside the fairground. It was the loud aggression in the driver’s voice that shocked him, even more than the words.
‘Hey, fairy! You forgot your wand!’
For a moment Gavin didn’t even know what the guy was talking about. Then he understood, but his first instinct remained: ignore the voice and walk on. Forget the umbrella. Just. Get. Away. In Ireland he had never experienced this, never ever had that name shouted at him in the street. Fairy? Was this how it was here? It was horrible.
But then, whether through some sense of being reborn out of the noise and chaos of the people and traffic all round him in this towering city, or because of what he had heard about recent events in the Village, or whether it was that, no matter what the circumstances of place or time, when push came to shove, Gavin Bloom wasn’t the kind of man to be threatened – whatever it was, he changed his mind about what his reaction should be. After all, to be fair to the driver, at least he hadn’t muttered it under his breath, or made a face behind his back, or kept his sneering thoughts to himself. His was not the Irish way, but the New York way. He had spoken out loud and clear and so, surely, could be replied to in kind? Gavin turned and saw, from the smirk on the driver’s face, how delighted he was at his own wit, and with what pleasure he would later repeat the story to his colleagues: ‘So I says to him, I says, hey, fairy, you forgot your wand!’ Gavin suddenly understood that the remark was not so much intended to be threatening as jocose, although that was not a word the taxi driver would have employed. ‘Just breaking your balls’ – was that what he would say? Well, fair enough.
Gavin walked back without a word, opened the passenger door and picked up his umbrella. Then, with the aplomb of Mary Poppins, the fairy turned and tapped his wand on the smirking driver’s shoulder.
‘You. Turn to shite.’
As he sashayed off, Gavin was pleased to hear that the taxi driver’s laughter sounded genuinely appreciative.
*
The band was playing ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ and the dance-floor was crowded. Ann Strong was thrilled that everyone was enjoying themselves. She had made a decision to forget all her worries and fears on this special occasion and, sure enough, it had been a great day so far. After all, it was now her seventh month and nothing bad had happened yet. Surely it was God’s will that she and the baby would be healthy? Take her medication and avoid stress, Dr Greaney had said. Easier said than done, but so far so good. Dr Greaney said lots of women her age had babies. Ann had made her own outfit for today and tailored it very carefully so that she just looked fuller but there was no big awful bump.
This wedding was just the tonic she needed. The ceremony had been absolutely beautiful. Áine’s parish priest, Father Moriarty, was a lovely man and great fun. He had made everyone feel so relaxed and welcome. In the church, after the ceremony, he had come down to say hello to Ann and give her a special blessing. ‘He’s going to be a happy healthy baby,’ he said. She could see him now, up on the dance-floor with the rest of them, joining in the fun. Why couldn’t her parish priest, Father Mullaly, be like that? He had to be invited as well, of course, but he’d sat there with a puss on him the whole time and left straight after the meal. He barely said hello to Ann and Fonsie, although she heard him chatting away to Áine’s father, Cormac. Ann would never dream of saying it out loud, not even to Fonsie, but she really did not like the man and hardly ever went to her own parish church any more. It seemed to her he was looking down on the people. Not like the Redemptorists, who treated everyone respectfully.
Ritchie was dancing with Áine’s mother, Louise. Fonsie was up on the floor as well, having a laugh with Áine. Ann thought it was great the way the Strongs and the Kielys got on so well. She was going to miss Ritchie so much. He had never been a day’s trouble and, well, sign’s on, there he was, settled with a lovely girl, a beautiful new house, semi-detached, and permanent now in Krups. She just had to pray that things would work out so well for the rest of them. To her surprise Marian had invited some boy to the after-party. Tim. It was the first Ann had heard anything about Marian having a boyfriend. She looked at them on the dance-floor. The youngfellah hadn’t a clue how to dance, sure none of them did any more, but he seemed decent enough. Anyway, Marian was too sensible to let that kind of thing interfere with her studies. She knew well that getting her Leaving Cert meant that she’d never have to work in a factory or a shop. She could be a secretary in an office with nice people, which would do her grand until she got married.
Ann spotted Gussie holding up the bar with his two cousins. Could he not have a dance and enjoy himself like everyone else? Did it have to be drink all the time? And that car of his of course, all show. Trying to be the big fellow, throwing his money away. He needed to cop himself on fast. At least he behaved himself today with his best man’s speech. Ann was glad she got Fonsie to warn him about dirty jokes.
Everyone on the dance floor waved their hands in the air and shouted the chorus of ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’. Ann saw Mary Storan and Mikey trying to get Francis to jive properly with Áine’s little sister Gráinne, but of course he wouldn’t behave himself, jumping around, acting the eejit. If she lived another hundred years she’d never make that child out. Either he had his head stuck in a book and there wouldn’t be a word out of him for hours, or he’d be doing the giddy-gooley around the house, trying to be funny, starting arguments, giving smart answers, driving everyone mad. Mary and Mikey had minded him at their table for the meal. She came over to Ann afterwards to tell her the goings-on.
‘Well Ann, the laughing we had. That child’s appetite. He ate two portions of turkey and ham and four trifles.’
‘Four?’
‘Yes. His own first, then mine – ’cause you know I never bother with desserts – then Mikey asked this lovely old waitress if there was any more trifle, meaning for Francis, but didn’t she bring two, one for Mikey as well. Of course he didn’t want it, so Francis gobbled number four, no bother.’
Ann looked at her youngest jigging around the dance-floor like a mad thing and thought, well, if he gets sick now, he’ll only have himself to blame.
Where was Martin? She couldn’t see him on the dance-floor and, looking around, there wasn’t a sign of him anywhere in the function room. Ann immediately wondered had he sneaked off somewhere for a smoke? She had been trying to catch him out now for a while, ever since she got the smell of tobacco off his clothes a few months ago. Lately she didn’t know what he was getting up to when her back was turned. Mona had told her he was spotted a couple of weeks ago, strolling through the park, with his arm around some girl, brazen as you like. And him only barely fourteen? Brother Murray told her that no matter how often he was slapped, it didn’t do any good. He seemed determined not to pass his Inter Cert. What then? If he couldn’t get an apprenticeship what was he to do with his life? Ann told herself to calm down and not be getting upset, today
of all days.
‘Madam Strong, will you join me? Shall we take a twirl? Show these young ones how it’s done?’
Cormac Kiely was smiling down at her. Ann had been up for one waltz with Ritchie earlier but hadn’t done any fast dancing so far because she was worried that, in her present state, she’d only look ridiculous. But Cormac was such a nice man and such good fun. And really, when she thought about it, on a happy day like this so why not just let go and enjoy herself? Ann took Cormac’s hand and, shoulders swinging, they capered onto the packed dance-floor.
*
Áine’s brother Bill was driving the couple to Dublin Airport for their honeymoon flight, so they had to leave early. Everyone came out to the front entrance of the Shannon Arms Hotel to see them off. Gussie and a few others had hung cans and put a JUST MARRIED sign on the back of Bill’s car, like in the films. Looking at Ritchie and Áine in their going-away outfits, arm in arm, laughing and posing for the last few pictures, Francis tried to imagine himself in his big brother’s place. He often did this. Whenever he watched Ritchie play football, he could see himself making the same tackles and passing the ball even more cleverly. When he rode with Ritchie on the back of his motorbike it was easy to imagine himself zooming along a big empty road. But some things didn’t fit. A few weeks before, Ritchie brought Francis out to the new house he and Áine had bought. The big sign at the entrance said:
KERRY VIEW
GUINEY DEVELOPMENTS
Ritchie and Áine’s house was finished, but further along more were being built. Ritchie told Francis they had been very lucky. Their house cost three thousand seven hundred but the next ones would be four thousand two hundred for the exact same semi-detached house. Francis didn’t understand why. Ritchie said that was just the way it was, the luck of the draw. He helped his brother clear the mess in front of the house so they could start to dig and prepare what would become their lawn. As they worked, Francis noticed how cheerful Ritchie was. He tried to imagine himself like him, grown-up, happy, living on this road. But he couldn’t. Trying to work out why that was so, he remembered the thing Mr Barry’s friend Gavin said, and wondered was that it? Maybe Francis was a free agent? Maybe the world was his oyster too?
Unspoken Page 42
