Fortunes of the Heart

by Jenny Telfer Chaplin

  She smiled with gratitude and happiness.

  “That’s the ticket, Pearce. Just one thing ... let me comb your hair again, give your face a bit dab with a wet flannel and then I’ll look out a clean fresh cardigan for you. Must have you looking smart to greet your only son, eh?”

  By way of reply, Pearce’s face at once suffused with rage.

  “No need to put on the Lord Provost’s Show for that scum: Let the bastard see me as I am. Let my errant son see exactly what he has wrought with all his crazy shenanigans. So, just you keep your fussing, housewifely hands off me.”

  Pearce looked up in bewilderment and wonder at the handsome, strapping young man before him, amazingly, an exact replica of what he himself had been as a young blade. Kate, fervently taking in the scene, rather fancied that for a moment she caught a fleeting glimmer of pride in her husband’s eyes. He even went so far as to hold out a trembling right hand, which Daniel immediately grasped and shook firmly in man-to-man fashion.

  “Father, it’s me. I’ve come back to see you.”

  Whether or not it was real emotion, or simply a cruel side-effect of his illness, Pearce’s eyes filled with ready tears. It was a moment before he could speak and even then, all he could manage was: “Daniel. Daniel. My son, it’s been a long time.”

  With these words, Kate knew that for the moment at least, her son had been welcomed back, amazingly enough, into the bosom and to the hearth and home of his own family.

  Her face radiant with joy, she leant towards the two men and rubbed her hands as if in anticipation of some rare treat.

  “I know exactly what you two need right now. And that’s a wee cup of tea. But laced with a spot of Granny’s best medicinal Irish whisky.”

  The two men beamed and nodded their approval of this excellent suggestion.

  “I’ll just put the kettle on the hob. Then I’ll pop next door and give Granny the great news, and at the same time borrow a wee dram of her whisky. Good old Granny; always ready to help in an emergency.”

  Kate charged out the door and ran into Granny’s single-end. In the event, by the time she had related the exciting news to her old neighbour, the decrepit old woman was herself in need of a reviving measure of the health giving, golden water of life. That done, and with a quick hug and a kiss for Hannah, Kate then beat a hasty retreat, with the half-empty whisky bottle clutched in her trembling fingers.

  As she re-entered the kitchen of her own home, Kate grinned in delight and she felt her heart give a lurch of happiness at the scene which confronted her. Her normally morose husband and her son were already deep in conversation. As she bustled happily about, every inch the contented housewife and proud mother, Kate happily and quite shamelessly eavesdropped on their fascinating talk. True, it was her own Danny Boy who, totally unlike his former, shy self, was doing most of the speechifying, but even Pearce was taking an active interest in what was being said, and spurring his son on to even greater heights of rhetoric with the occasional nod or grunt of assent, amazement, or feigned disbelief. Right at that very moment, Danny Boy was deep in some tale about the volcanic Mount Cameroon which he had seen when his ship docked in the baking heat of Tiko wharf in West Africa.

  “And father. You should have seen the witch-doctors. All dressed up like a dish of fish. And the drums from the workers’ camp on a Saturday night. Enough to make your spine tingle and your hair stand on end. Yes, it’s true, father. That part of Africa – they’re deeply into witch-craft –what is it they call it, now? Voodoo, or some such name. No, I tell a lie. It’s juju magic. And they even make sacrifices to appease the mountain, keep it from erupting again. Honestly, what a place. I couldn’t begin to tell you of its fascination – the scenery, the people, the climate.”

  All the while her cocked ear was eavesdropping on this entertaining travelogue, Kate was deliberately taking her time in preparing the whisky-laced tea and in liberally spreading jam on some pieces of her soda-bread. She frowned momentarily, when suddenly remembering Danny Boy’s fondness for sliced ‘clootie’ dumpling, she berated herself for having used up the last of it only the previous evening.

  ‘Oh, if only I had known in advance of his visit, what a feast I would have prepared. It would have been a banquet to outdo any New Year celebration. Ph. well, can’t be helped now.’

  She smiled with delight as, bearing a loaded tray over to her two men-folk, she heard Pearce say in a voice tinged with awe, wonder, and incredulity: “Daniel. What a wonderful story. But surely it cannot be true? Do people really live like that in this day and age?”

  Danny Boy grinned from ear to ear then nodded, obviously more than happy with the effect he was creating. “True? Yes, father, every single word of it.”

  Pearce adopted a skittish attitude as, reaching over and giving a playful tweak to Daniel’s luxuriant, dark beard, he laughed.

  “Go on with you, Daniel. It’s havers, all nonsense, my lad. Begod, if ever anyone kissed the Blarney Stone, ’tis surely your good self, Daniel Robert Kinnon.”

  By now fully entering into the spirit of the thing, Daniel again grinned, a poignantly boyish grin, strangely at odds with his manly physique and bearded face.

  “No, Father. Blarney Stone be damned – if you’ll pardon my French, Dadda. ’Tis the God’s honest truth. Oh, many the story could I tell you. Like the time our Chief Steward got blind drunk in Capetown. Then got himself robbed in a back alley, didn’t he? And arrived back on board early next morning, wearing only a newspaper.”

  Pearce laughed wildly at this and slapped his knee in delight. As Kate handed round the tea and tasty bite, with her free hand she patted the side of her husband’s face, so delighted was she to hear him laugh again, after all these sad, lonely years.

  Daniel, his mouth full of soda-bread, took a gulp of his tea then, with twinkling eyes, he stared at both his parents with a speculative look in his eyes.

  “Yes, Dadda. Many a weird and funny tale could I tell, but most of them, I think I’d better keep for a man-to-man only discussion.”

  Here he cast a cheeky glance at his mother, who opened her mouth to protest. But Daniel was too quick for her.

  “Mammy. There is one story I know that you’d enjoy hearing.”

  Kate put the empty tray down on the table.

  “Oh, and what might that be?”

  “Well, I mentioned our Chief Steward. On one of our trips, that same fellow – we were outward bound from Liverpool to Southern Australia – you’ll never guess what he did.”

  Pearce, already agog, was hanging on every word, as he silently shook his head and waited with what patience he could muster for his son to go on. Daniel needed no further prompting.

  “Again, the damned fellow got roaring drunk, spent the crew’s food allocation money. No, not on drink for himself, although even that would not have surprised us in the least.”

  Pearce frowned and urged: “Then what? What did he do?”

  Daniel shook his head with the remembrance of it.

  “Instead of buying us a variety of foodstuffs with which to keep body and soul together until our next port of call, he spent all the money, yes, every last allocated farthing on a consignment of – of all things – cases of dried apricots.”

  Kate put a hand to her mouth to stifle her ready amusement.

  “Oh no, Daniel. You’re joking.”

  Again Daniel shook his head and then took another gulp of his whisky tea.

  “I wish I was joking, Mammy. For we had apricot pie, apricot pudding, apricot flan, apricot stew, apricot flambe. As if that hadn’t sickened us, we even had apricot cakes and bread. Not to mention Irish stew a la apricot. There now, what do you make of that?”

  Pearce and Kate both laughed. Pearce, with a look of pride on his face at what a fine, upright, and entertaining young men his estranged son had become, gently pushed at Daniel’s uniformed shoulder.

  “Get away with you, Daniel. Blarney Stone talk that is, if ever I heard it.”

  Dani
el laughed and crossed his heart in the way that small children do when they went grown-up people to believe their stories.

  “’Tis on my sacred word, Dadda. And believe me, if you’ve never tested Irish stovies made from apricots, apricots and even more of the damned things – then you can take it from me – you’ve missed absolutely nothing.”

  As Kate prepared a fresh brewing of tea, she gazed in fascination at the two men in her life, now together and possibly for the first time ever, not locked in either sullen silence, mutual dislike nor even angry and heated exchange.

  ’Tis a miracle. And long may this happy truce continue, God willing.

  Chapter 19

  With Mrs Delaney occupying the front room, Jenny had to join Hannah in the hurlie bed to let Daniel sleep on the sofa bed in the hall.

  “It won’t be for too long, Jenny,” Daniel said. “I’ve only got five days before I have to leave to get back to my ship in Liverpool.”

  In the following days, both Daniel, the sailor home from the high seas, and Pearce, his stay at home father, travelled the world together on a crest of euphoria, as they visited strange, faraway places. Many a good laugh they had together over Daniel’s remembered and re-enacted diverse exploits in places as far removed as Cardiff and Capetown. Right up until the very evening of the third day of Daniel’s visit, it seemed to Kate that not only had virtually every country under the sun got a mention, but also that Daniel and Pearce were getting on like a house on fire. The only country not so far mentioned was Kate and Pearce’s own dear homeland, the Emerald Isle. Although she herself had been well aware of this, she felt it only politic to keep silence on the subject.

  On the morning of the third day of Daniel’s visit, a Thursday, almost as if the past few days of concord and strife-free pleasant social intercourse had placed too great a strain on him, Pearce awoke in a foul temper. Right from the word ‘go’ that morning, whatever Kate did, said, did not do, or even suggested, was anathema to him. Strangely enough, it was left to Daniel himself to calm down his father’s ruffled feathers. He did this by sitting down opposite him when, with knees touching, they shared a pot of tea together. Then Daniel went on to a further chat about some of the more amusing of his sea-going adventures. At one point, the old man threw back his head, laughed, and slapped his knee in delight.

  “Daniel, I just don’t believe it. ’Tis a vivid imagination you have, to be sure, boyo.”

  Daniel grinned in delight at his enjoyment of the many far-fetched sea stories. Placing a hand on his father’s shoulders, he gave a reassuring squeeze.

  “’Tis the God’s honest truth, Dadda. Honestly. We cured the Chief Steward of his alcoholism that way.”

  Then turning round to include his Mammy in the audience, he smiled and gave her a wink.

  “Just you listen to this, Mammy. Then you could perhaps take your good self next door to Granny’s for a wee cup of tea?”

  Kate caught his meaning at once. With Pearce suitably entertained and already in a much more pleasant, amenable mood, Kate should seize the opportunity to make herself scarce, while the going was good. She smiled and nodded her understanding and acceptance of her son’s suggestion, then with arms akimbo and a look of mock ferocity in her eyes, she said: “You don’t really mean it, Daniel. You do have at least one story which is fit also for my ears? My, my, aren’t I the lucky one?”

  Danny Boy grinned back at her and smoothed down his wavy beard before commencing his story. He cleared his throat a couple of times then, confident that he had the full attention of his parents, he started.

  “Well now, let’s see. It was in South Australia, at a two-horse station called Woomeroo. One of the work-horses had just breathed its last on the wharf. The poor beast just dropped dead from over-work in hauling logs to the ship. Well, we couldn’t leave the poor animal just lying there, now could we?”

  Pearce and Kate both shook their heads, intrigued as to what could possibly be coming.

  “Right. So we were hoisting the dead horse with rope and tackle and it was swaying somewhere between dockside and shipboard. Just at that moment, Chiefie comes out on deck, doesn’t he? Half-cut, as usual. And in the half-light, sees the swaying lifeless horse high above us. Right?”

  Pearce nodded his eagerness to hear the punch-line of this weird tale and even Kate herself was hanging on every word. Danny pursed his lips, as though biting back an unbidden smile.

  “Well, I can still see it. Chiefie points up to the sky with a trembling Inger and says,`My God. There’s a horse. Flying through the sky’.”

  Pearce leant forward and placed his hand on Daniel’s knee.

  “And you and your shipmates? What did you say, Daniel?”

  Here Danny allowed himself the luxury of a broad grin.

  “Oh, nothing much. Just asked, And what particular horse would that be, Chiefie? For in this dim light, we don’t see so much as a mosquito flying through the air, never mind a bloody horse’.”

  Pearce gave a great belly laugh.

  “And do you mean to say, that really cured the poor man of his addiction to the demon drink? Is that what you’re after telling me?”

  Daniel looked reflectively at his father for a long moment, all the while stroking his beard. Finally, he grinned boyishly.

  “Well, now, let’s just say he never, to my knowledge at least, touched another single drop of the water of life all the way back across the Indian Ocean to Capetown and points north. And that is the God’s honest truth.”

  While Pearce was still laughing, Danny turned aside and with his thumb jerked an on your way’ silent message to Kate. She, for her part, needed no second bidding.

  Chapter 20

  No sooner had she stepped out from the close than the wind screamed at her in all its January fury. She shivered.

  Thank God I’m only going as far as Mr McGregor’s wee shop on a morning like this.

  So intent was she on battling against the elements that she almost cannoned into someone coming in the opposite direction and would, in fact, have done so had it not been for quick thinking on the part of the other person.

  “Oh, ’tis yourself, Mistress Kinnon. My and you’re in a fine old hurry this morning.”

  Kate blinked the sleet out of her eyes, then wiped the ice-cold moisture from her frozen cheeks. When her vision was again clear, she found herself looking into the kindly eyes of Willie Goddart, the local postie.

  “Hello, there, Postie. Some morning, eh?”

  Willie grinned and nodded.

  “Aye ’tis that. And I’m the one that knows all aboot it. Been oot tramping the streets, up and doon closes, in and oot yon stinking wynds since five o’clock this morning.” Here he gave an expressive shiver. “What a bloody life, eh, Mistress Kinnon?”

  Kate smiled and laid a hand on his uniformed sleeve. “Never mind, Willie, it’s a grand steady job you’ve got. And there’s not too many of them round about these parts.”

  Postie nodded reflectively.

  “You never spoke a truer word, Missus. Aye, you’re dead right.”

  Kate grinned.

  “Tell you something else, Postie. You’ll not be needin’ to climb the stairs to my top flat for a month or two yet. My Danny Boy’s home.”

  Postie smiled.

  “Isn’t that the grand news? Aye, you’ll be the happy woman.”

  “Happy, I am. Not only is Danny home, but he and his father are getting on just great; swapping stories, laughing together. And you want to see the beautiful fan he brought me from Spain.”

  Postie hoisted his bag higher on his shoulder and with his right thumb, jerked back his uniformed cap. Then he grinned.

  “A lace fan indeed. My, my, just the very thing you need in the Candleriggs on a January morn.”

  As they surveyed the grey streets in which daylight was having its usual battle to pierce the blackness of the high tenements, they laughed in unison. Kate pushed his arm away with a playful gesture.

  “Away with you,
Postie. The thought was there, don’t forget. And anyway, he gave me more money than I’ve ever had in my hand before.”

  The man grinned.

  “Well, Missus, it’s grand to hear of somebody in this God-forsaken dump getting’ a bit of good luck.”

  “I’m off to Mr McGregor’s wee shop. I want to get some sweeties for Hannah and Granny Gorbals. A great pair that; only happy when their jaws are working overtime. Anyway, I want to tell Mr McGregor the good news about Danny. He used to work there, you know.”

  With a cheery wave from Kate, and a forefinger to skipped bunnet from Postie, the two parted company as, all the while, the wind and sleet screamed around them and sent litter dancing along the road and the pavement under their feet.

  As Kate entered Mr McGregor’s wee shop and heard the bell ping behind her, she could hardly contain her impatience until such time as he had served and conversed at length with the customers already crowded into the cosy warmth.

  Chapter 21

  When Kate returned some half hour or so later to the warmth of her cosy kitchen, the first thing that met her at the door was the sound of male voices raised in anger

  Oh, no. I knew it was too good to last.

  The moment she entered the room, the two men, both red-faced with fury, stopped speaking, almost as if someone had turned a switch.

  In the ensuing, uncomfortable silence which could be felt, it was finally left to Kate herself to speak. With great finality, she put her purchases down on top off the table, and faced them.

  “Right. Now, what’s all this hullabaloo about?”

  Her men looked at one another, then as quickly glanced away again before finally letting their eyes fall to a minute examination of finger nails in the one case, and booted feet in the other.

  “Pearce. Are you going to tell me? Or do I have to drag it out of you?”

  Her husband frowned, not least at being thus addressed in front of his son. Then, like a petulant and naughty schoolboy, he inclined his head towards Daniel and mouthed the words.