Chapter 2
SENGA SOFR FURNISHINGS LIMITED and its new Managing Director, Mark Browne, had been very good to each other. In the years following former owner Mr Wise’s demise, Mark had not just reorganised, but had completely refurbished the factory. Gone were the old belt-driven bandsaws and chain-driven drills. The factory now boasted a complete range of high-tech, compact, fast and accurate machines. The new machinery was essential, as the factory now turned out furniture in numbers greater than even Mark had anticipated. The client list for Senga Furnishings now read like a who’s who in the department store directory of Ireland and the United Kingdom. Mark’s flair for design and his hard work were handsomely rewarded with a new semi-detached home in Baldoyle, just a mile or so from Dublin’s beautiful golden coastline. Strangely enough, Mark remained the only Browne to work at Senga Furnishings. Each of the boys and Cathy decided to go their own way in life, to strike out and do their own thing, an independent streak they had all inherited from their mother.
Seven days after the birth of his child, Mark arrived at the Rotunda Hospital in the company Ford Cortina to take Betty, babe-in-arms, home to what was usually a peaceful house. Not today, however! The entire Browne clan, along with Mrs Collins, were waiting at Mark’s house. The pink-faced little child with the big brown eyes was greeted with a barrage of Oohs and Aahs as ten pairs of eyes ogled him.
What began as a family reception for the new child soon turned into a celebration, and by early evening had turned into a noisy party. So much so that Betty and Mrs Collins decided to slip away with the baby, and the new child spent his first night out of hospital in his Nanna Collins’s flat while the Browne clan partied on into the early hours.
In the week since the birth there was not a conversation in the Browne household that did not eventually turn to what the first Browne grandchild should be named. Agnes was plugging for Gerard, a name she had wanted for Mark when he was bom, but had lost the battle to her husband Redser. Dermot fancied James, after the soul singer James Brown. Between the rest of the family names like Jason, Peter, William, and Rory’s choice of Gabriel, received various peaks of popularity. Of course, the final choice would be down to Mark and Betty. This is why the morning following the child’s homecoming Agnes stared across the breakfast table at Dermot with a shocked expression.
‘Arrow? They can’t be fuckin’ serious.’
Agnes was stunned by Dermot’s revelation. She filled the kettle, repeating the name, her head still woozy from the cider the night before. She had come down twice during the night to take huge mouthfuls from the pint of cool water she kept in the fridge. Each time she opened the door the light from the fridge seemed like a prison search light, and her head rattled. She had been feeling a little better until Dermot brought up the subject of the child’s name.
‘That’s what Mark told me,’ he confirmed.
‘Yeh can’t call a baby Arrow — he’s not a fuckin’ Apache, for God’s sake.’ Agnes was incredulous.
The two sat in silence. The element in the kettle began to heat and the water surrounding it began to complain. Agnes spoke her thoughts aloud again.
‘Arrow Browne. In school he’ll be registered as: Browne, Arrow! Good God, it sounds like somethin’ a cowboy might find up his arse!’
Dermot laughed but Agnes glared at him; she hadn’t meant to be funny. So he returned to silent contemplation, and this is how Rory found them when he came down.
‘What’s up?’ he asked.
It was Dermot who answered. ‘Mark and Betty are callin’ the baby Arrow.’
‘Ha! That’s great. If he grows up and marries Bo Derek we’ll have a Bow and Arrow in the family,’ Rory joked.
The two young men burst into laughter.
‘It’s not funny.’ Agnes brought the laughter to a halt. ‘Arrow Browne! What’ll people think? Can you imagine the christening - the priest pourin’ the water and sayin’: I christen this child Arrow. I’ll be mortified.’
The christening day was a great affair. After the church service everybody headed down to the city centre to Foley’s pub, the venue for virtually every Browne family celebration for twenty-seven years. Mr Foley had prepared cocktail sausages and little squares of cheese on cocktail sticks. Everybody was dressed in their Sunday best and after the preliminary niceties the evening broke into a singsong. Agnes sang ‘The Wonder of You’, and accused the band of being three beats behind her. The whole old Jarro neighbourhood, where the Brownes had spent their childhood, was having a great time. Mark moved from table to table, thanking everyone for coming and for the lovely christening gifts. He spied his mother at the bar buying a drink for herself and her boyfriend Pierre, and made his way over to her.
There yeh are, Ma.’
Agnes spun around on hearing her eldest son’s voice. ‘Ah Mark, love.’ She gave him a huge hug.
‘Enjoying yourself, Mammy?’ He asked, chuckling.
‘What’s the giggle for?’ Agnes asked with one eyebrow raised.
‘You and the baby’s name.’ Mark began to laugh.
Agnes reddened a little. ‘Oh yes, well, how d’yeh pronounce it again?’
‘Aaron! It’s from the Bible.’
‘Aaron from the Bible - I love it!’
Agnes was thrilled. Anything was better than Arrow. In the background a glass was being banged off a table and Agnes and Mark turned to see Pierre standing and holding his hand in the air for silence.
‘Here we go again, another fuckin’ speech,’ Agnes moaned.
Mark just laughed. ‘Ah leave him to it, Ma, he enjoys them.’
Silence fell over the room.
‘I would like to make a speech,’ Pierre began, although it came out like, ‘Ah wood lik to mik a spitch,’ as his French accent was still very thick.
There was a great cheer from the crowd. When the room fell into silence again Pierre went on.
‘All of today you have congratulated Betty, the new mother, Mark, the new father, and of course Aaron, the newest child of the Browne family.’
This was met with a huge cheer. Pierre again held his hand in the air. ‘But now I would like to propose a toast.’
Buster Brady turned to Dermot and asked, ‘What’s a fuckin’ tist?’
‘Toast, he means a toast - shut up, Buster.’
Buster shut up, Pierre went on. ‘To the beautiful Agnes Browne.’ All the glasses were raised and Agnes beamed a smile, but Pierre wasn’t finished. ‘Welcome, Granny!’
There was a loud cheer. Agnes held her smile, but through her teeth she said, ‘Sit the fuck down, Pierre.’
Pierre did and as he did he took Agnes’s arm and pushed her up to acknowledge the toast. She raised her glass and looked around the room. There they all were, Agnes’s little orphans, all adults now. Her entire brood, except for poor Frankie - but at this moment Agnes wouldn’t let herself think about her one stray son who had come to a no-good end. Mark settled and married to Betty and with a beautiful young son; Rory with his friend Dino, both now top hair stylists at Wash & Blow; Trevor, one year to go in art college, and soon to be a qualified graphic artist; Simon, now head porter in St Patrick’s Hospital; Cathy there with her fiance Mick O‘Leary; and Dermot there with ...? Suddenly Agnes’s expression changed. The crowd roared in unison, ‘Congratulations, Granny! and everyone tossed their drink back. The roar and the action of the drinking served to hide Agnes’s change of expression.
What had caused Agnes to look worried was that Dermot was there with Mary Carter. Agnes knew the Carter family well - Jack Carter, Mary’s father, had left their home in Townsend Street one morning ten years ago and was never seen again; Helen Carter proceeded to drink herself into oblivion and the children reared themselves on the streets of Dublin. Agnes felt sorry for the family, particularly the children, but her pity didn’t extend to accepting Mary Carter, now a known junkie, and, Agnes suspected, a drug pusher, into the Browne family. She had warned Dermot weeks ago, but he had said it was just a casual affair and
it would come to nothing at all.
Dermot had noticed his mother’s change of expression and when at last he caught her eye he gave her a smile and a wink, indicating that she should not worry, everything was okay. Agnes’s tension eased and she returned his smile.
It was Dino Doyle, Rory’s friend, who noticed how sombre Trevor had been all evening. When he said it to Rory, Rory sought out Trevor in an effort to find out what was bothering him. He found him standing beneath the switched-off television, resting his elbow on the cigarette machine, alone.
‘Hi, Trevor, great isn’t it?’ Rory beamed a smile at Trevor.
‘Yeh, great.’
‘Are you all right, Trevor? You seem a bit down.’
Trevor brightened slightly. ‘No, I’m grand, Rory, just a little tired - yeh know, exams comin’ up and all that.’
‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘No, you’re all right, Rory, you go on back to Dino. You don’t want to leave him roamin’ around here on his own — he might find somebody else!’
‘If he does they’ll be holdin’ a white stick.’ Both the brothers burst out laughing and Rory kissed Trevor on the cheek and went back to Dino. Trevor took another sip from his drink and his thoughts once again turned to Maria Nicholson.
Trevor was by far the quietest and shyest of the Brownes. Although as an artist his work was tremendously expressive, when it came to communicating verbally, especially on a one-to-one basis, his mind went blank, his mouth went dry and he would always beat a retreat as quickly as possible. In the past it had not been a real problem for Trevor as he was quite happy with his own company, but lately it had become the source of great pain. The cause of the pain was Maria Nicholson.
Maria had joined the College of Art and Design, where Trevor attended, just one year ago. She had transferred there from Vancouver in Canada. Although she was Irish-born, from Limerick city in fact, her father was a design engineer specialising in bridges, and his work took him all over the world. Wherever Daddy had travelled, the family had travelled. Maria was thrilled to be back in Ireland, and although a late student when entering fourth year, she was readily accepted by all. She attended only two classes with Trevor - Art History and Graphic Design. But from the very first moment Trevor Browne had laid eyes on her he knew he was in love. Trevor made several attempts to speak to Maria but each time not a single word would come out from his mouth. She would tilt her head sideways, tap him on the shoulder and say, ‘Look, I’ll talk to you later, okay?’ and be gone.
So Trevor had made a decision. He would communicate with her through his art. One day during a free class, Trevor took a length of artist’s canvas and cut it into fourteen squares, each square two and a half inches by two and a half inches. At home in his bedroom he set the first tiny canvas on an easel and began to paint with oils. His plan was to paint a miniature copy of works of great artists, signing each miniature with the first letter of the artist’s name. Each letter would correspond to a letter in Maria Nicholson’s name. Each miniature took two weeks to complete, and as each one was completed he made a little frame for it, parcelled it and left it somewhere that Maria would find it. Tied to the tiny parcel was a tiny card reading, ‘For you, Maria.’
By the day of the christening Trevor had already completed miniatures of paintings by Monet, Albers, Rembrandt, Ingres, Allston, Neel, Israels, Constable, Hockney, O‘Keeffe and Lancret. He had just three to go - actually two and a half, for he was already halfway through ‘Mares and Foals’ by the English eighteenth-century painter George Stokes. Trevor had hoped that Maria would recognise his work and seek him out. The truth was she had been searching, going from student to student during classes in an effort to recognise the artist’s hand, but never once did she look over Trevor’s shoulder.
Trevor was brought out of his day-dreaming by a large slap on the back from a very drunk Dermot.
‘There yeh are, Trevor, great crack isn’t it?’ Dermot was dribbling at this stage. By Dermot’s side, as if stitched to his hip, stood Buster Brady - he too was three sheets to the wind. Dermot opened his arms wide to hug Trevor - always when Dermot had a few drinks he liked to hug everybody, especially his brothers.
From across the room Agnes watched her two sons hug, and she smiled. Pierre also saw the boys and glanced at Agnes’s happy face.
‘You are happy, Agnes, yes?’ he asked.
‘Sure, why wouldn’t I be, with all me family here together in one room?’ She took a mouthful from her glass of cider, and smiled again.
Little did Agnes Browne know that this night would be the last time she would see her entire family together. For fate and tragic coincidence were about to take a hand and scatter her brood to the four winds.
Chapter 3
WHEN AGNES BROWNE AND HER SIX CHILDREN had moved in next door to the Brady family on Wolfe Tone Grove, Dermot, then fourteen, had befriended the only boy of the Brady family - Buster, also fourteen. The friendship was immediate and rock solid. They had little in common, certainly not in looks. Dermot was lean, blond and handsome. Buster was short, stubby, overweight, with a red face that seemed to smile all the time. But what they did have in common was a love of practical jokes, pranks, and petty crimes.
The suburb of Finglas was divided into two halves, west and east. The dividing line was a river, a tributary of the Tolka river, known locally only as ‘The River’. The two youngsters spent their early days together roaming the fields and exploring the banks of the river.
It was Buster who noticed it first. Dermot was lying beneath a giant chestnut tree set in about twenty feet from the river bank, and Buster was standing down on the edge of the bank skimming stones along the river when he called out.
Dermo! Look!’
‘What is it?’ Dermot answered, half asleep.
‘A hole,’ Buster exclaimed.
‘It’s probably a fox’s hole.’
‘How would yeh know?’
‘Well, has it got a fox’s tail over it?’
It took just a little time before Buster burst into hysterical laughter as he did every time Dermot made a funny comment. Then Buster searched along the river bank for a large stick and began to dig out the hole in the bank. From where Dermot sat all he could see was Buster’s head bobbing up and down and clay flying in all directions. Suddenly all activity stopped.
Dermot sat up. ‘Are yeh all right, Buster?’ he called.
There was no reply. Dermot got up and went to the edge of the river bank. Buster had vanished.
‘Buster! Hey, Buster!’ Dermot was concerned now.
Then Buster’s red face appeared below him, sticking out of the bank like a big-game hunter’s trophy.
‘It’s huge, Dermo,’ he announced, beaming.
Within seconds Dermot had scrambled down the bank, climbed through Buster’s now excavated hole and found himself in a cavern. It was huge. It was very nearly square. What Dermot found weird was that it looked man-made. The four walls were made of rough-hewn rocks carefully placed upon each other and the roof was heavy timber beams butted together. The entrance Buster had dug out was in fact a doorway. The two boys sat in wonderment - this was indeed a magical discovery for two fourteen-year-olds. Their imaginations ran wild.
Dermot suggested it might be a hermit’s home. Buster asked, ‘Like Herman’s Hermits?’ Dermot didn’t reply, he just gave Buster one of ‘those’ looks.
Buster then suggested that as it was so close to the Casino cinema maybe it was where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid used to hide.
Dermot’s look didn’t change. Buster shut up.
‘This is great!’ Dermot half-whispered as he looked around. ‘Yeh, this is really great. This’ll be our headquarters, Buster, the headquarters of the Boot Hill Gang.’
The idea of the Boot Hill Gang had been to recruit as many ne’er-do-wells as possible to serve under Dermot and start a real crime ring. Recruitment wasn’t going well, and after ten days the Boot Hill Gang still sported only two members.
Over the next few days the boys moved bits of furniture into the cavern and stored twelve dozen wax candles there, courtesy of the local hardware shop, although the local hardware shop owners were unaware that they had made such a donation. They even had a primus stove, which they used to cook tins of beans. The very first tin of beans they heated up on this primus stove exploded just as Buster was asking, ‘How will we open the tin, Dermo?’
They kept the place a secret from everyone - everyone, that is, except Dermot’s mother Agnes Browne. She insisted on knowing where Dermot and Buster were going day after day. So, reluctantly, Dermot took her down to see their new-found den, fully expecting that she would make them close it up and never play there again. Instead, Agnes was charmed by the whole thing and indeed complimented the boys on how good a job they had done in furnishing the place. She was afraid to ask where the candles had come from.
To Buster it was just a great place to play, but to Dermot it seemed more than that. There was something about the place; he wasn’t sure what it was. At night from his bedroom window he would look across the field and see the chestnut tree silhouetted against the dark blue sky and his heart would lift. There was a special kind of magic about the place. That summer of 1970, Buster and Dermot filled the place with the booty of their shoplifting forays.
On some nights Agnes would let Dermot stay over and he would spend those nights making up stories to tell Buster about knights in shining armour, and about ancient heroes like Brian Boru and Cúchulainn. Buster would sit with his chin resting on his knees, marvelling at each word that came out of Dermot’s mouth. They christened the place ‘Chestnut Hole’.
In truth, Dermot and Buster were probably the two most unsuccessful criminals in Ireland. They ran all of their operations strictly in accordance with Murphy’s Law - anything that could go wrong usually did.
The Granny Page 2
