The Granny

by Brendan O'Carroll

  There seemed to be little affection between father and son in the O‘Leary family. Agnes noticed that Mr O’Leary always spoke to Mick in a military fashion. She had remarked on this to Winnie the Mackerel one day, standing in the Moore Street sunshine, after her first visit to the O‘Learys in Cork. ‘He offered me a cup of tea,’ she told Winnie, ‘and I felt like fuckin’ saluting him.’

  On the other hand, Agnes had hit it off really well with Florie O’Leary. In looks, she reminded Agnes of her late friend Marion Monks.

  The ceremony went really well. Cathy arrived at the church accompanied by Pierre, her surrogate father, who proudly marched her down the aisle. Agnes was in tears. Mrs Browne’s boys stood with their chests puffed out, immensely proud of this vision of beauty that was their sister. The wedding reception was held in Barry’s Hotel, on Gardiner Row in Dublin’s city centre. The food was piping hot and there was plenty of it, and the music was provided by Billy Hughes, who lashed out the Tom Jones numbers one after the other. It was a wonderful evening and all of the guests without exception had a fabulous time. Cathy would always remember one small incident from the entire day. At the appropriate time during the reception party she and her new husband left to change into their going-away clothes. When they returned to the reception room to be greeted by both families, there were hugs and kisses all round. As Florie O‘Leary put her arms around Cathy to say farewell, she whispered in her ear, ‘Remember this, dear, don’t lie down, whatever you do don’t lie down.’Cathy hadn’t a clue what Florie O’Leary had meant, but she would soon learn.

  The ‘happy couple’ were still on honeymoon when two more of the Browne boys announced their intention of leaving the nest. Dino Doyle, Rory’s friend, had found an apartment, it seemed, that was very comfortable, central, but a little too expensive for him to manage alone. Rory had decided to move in with him so they could share the cost. That was the story anyway. Agnes took it at face value and didn’t question Rory. Pierre often laughed to himself when he recalled one evening that he and Agnes were sitting in to watch a good movie on TV. Rory came into the room to say goodnight before heading out for the evening. He was wearing red suede shoes, red skin-tight denims, a white blouse with cravat, a studded earring in his right ear and mascara. When Rory had left the room Agnes leaned towards Pierre and whispered, ‘It wouldn’t surprise me a bit, Pierre, if that fella one day came out of the wardrobe — I think he’s gay and doesn’t know it yet!’ She had completely forgotten that only two years before he had indeed ‘come out of the wardrobe‘, but at that time Agnes didn’t even understand the word ‘gay’.

  Agnes never voiced her suspicions to Rory or indeed ever again to Pierre. So when Rory announced his intention of moving in with Dino, Agnes feigned indifference and wished them luck. In her heart of hearts she knew what was going on, but honestly she thought it was sick, so she pretended she didn’t want to know. She would never treat Dino as anything other than a stranger in her home.

  More shocking even than the possibility of Rory’s homosexuality was Simon’s announcement. Simon had been dating Fiona Rock for some time now and Agnes always expected that they would one day marry and set up home. But she expected it to happen in that order. Instead, Simon surprised everyone by announcing that he and Fiona were to set up home before getting married. Simon explained that he and Fiona knew that they loved each other enough to want to live together. They would then see if they loved each other enough to want to marry. Mark commented that he thought it was very adult of them. Agnes on the other hand thought it was disgraceful and wasn’t sure that it wasn’t even illegal. Despite her reservations, Agnes had to admit two months later, after she had visited Simon and Fiona in the apartment they had taken on Rathmines Road, that they made a lovely couple and indeed their home was warm and welcoming. She and Pierre had gone over for tea and spent the evening sipping beer, or in Agnes’s case cider, and chatting. Agnes remarked to Pierre on the way home that it felt like sitting in the company of friends rather than in the company of one of her sons.

  On top of this, Trevor graduated from art college that September of 1980 with straight ‘A’s. He was immediately offered four positions from different companies in the advertising industry. Advertising was beginning to boom and good illustrators were at a premium. He eventually chose Hutchinson & Bailey as he felt they offered the biggest challenge to his talent. They were involved in the international market, which would give Trevor a chance to show his work overseas, and on top of that they offered the most money. Agnes was delighted that Trevor had been so sought after and she was full of pride in her youngest boy. She was sad, though, that he had chosen this particular company, for their head office was in Bond Street in London and it meant she was to lose yet another son — and London was a great source of pain for Agnes since Frankie had met his sad end there.

  Mark drove Trevor and Agnes to the airport. Trevor sat in the front seat beside Mark and they chatted away, Mark full of compliments for his younger brother, and Trevor’s voice full of excitement in anticipation of the adventure ahead of him. Agnes sat in the back seat, listening to these two men who called her Mammy, more than a little proud that they had come this far. She made the journey from Finglas to the airport in silence. She thought about Frankie and wished that she had had the chance to see him off at least.

  The entrance to the departure gates at Dublin airport is fondly known to Dubliners as ‘Tears and Snots’. That night was to be no exception as Agnes said goodbye to her emigrant son. When she returned to her home in Finglas Agnes stripped the linen off Trevor’s bed in the boys’ room, which now had four bare mattresses. She went downstairs, threw the linen into the laundry basket, went to the kitchen and took out two mugs, one for herself and one for the only other resident of 43 Wolfe Tone Grove, her son Dermot. Dermot did not return that night, so Agnes washed her mug and, for the first time that she could remember, went to bed without a late-night family chat.

  Chapter 7

  DURING HIS FIRST MONTH IN ENGLAND Trevor wrote a letter home every single week. The following month Agnes received just two letters, then it was down to one a month and by the time her forty-eighth birthday came, on the seventh of July 1981, Agnes would expect a letter from Trevor when she saw one. But she received a birthday card from him on that day, as she did from all of her other children and from her grandson Aaron. Aaron was soon to be joined by two more grandchildren, for Fiona had discovered just days before that she was pregnant, and Cathy was due her first child in five weeks.

  There was no party for the birthday. Instead Mark and Betty had taken Agnes and Pierre out to dinner to a fancy restaurant called the Pot Pourri in Parliament Street. All of the waiters spoke French, so Pierre felt right at home. They had a lovely evening and when she returned to Wolfe Tone Grove Agnes invited Pierre to stay the night. He readily accepted and was delighted at the thought of rattling off a couple of ‘organisms’. They had a quick cup of tea and then Pierre headed up the stairs to the master bedroom. Before going up to join him, Agnes read her birthday cards again. The cards were lovely, she thought, but it’s not the same as having your children around you. She spent a moment thinking about Frankie, then she climbed the stairs with a heavy heart, but brightened when she saw Pierre standing in the bedroom wearing only a pair of g-string underpants, which made him look a little like an under-nourished sumo wrestler. They made love for three and a half hours, and Agnes Browne entered her forty-ninth year a satisfied woman.

  With just five weeks left to the due date of her first birth, Cathy was excited. She was so looking forward to being a mother. She also hoped the baby would improve things and bring her and Mick closer together. She was trying so hard to please him - she would do anything to make him happy. The trouble was, she couldn’t be sure what it was that made him happy. He would tell her to dress up nicely when they were going out with his friends and their wives. He would check her over before they left, telling her to take this off and put that on. Without argument, she woul
d always comply with his wishes, and when he was happy with how she looked they would leave for the evening. But then after a few drinks Mick would completely change and tell her she looked like a slut. Later, he would accuse her of making eyes at his friends or even at strangers in the pub. When they returned home from these evenings Mick would explode into a furious temper. The more she denied his accusations and declared her love for him and him alone, the worse he would get. She learned to stay quiet. She learned that regardless of whether she denied his accusations, or apologised, the beatings would still come. Then there would be periods when he wouldn’t beat her. Instead he would call her a fool or snap at her to shut up if she began to try and make conversation.

  What had happened to the man she had fallen in love with and married? Cathy became very quiet and left the house only if she had to. She liked the house, it was better than the mobile home, which had become very cold in the winter. It was a rented house in Arklow town. But it was a start, she told herself, and she kept the place spick and span. She didn’t have many friends - no, the truth was she didn’t have any friends. Mick didn’t like her to have friends. He told her the townspeople weren’t to be trusted and he didn’t want his business to be discussed with them.

  But the baby would change everything, she knew that. There would be walks on sunny days with the pram and her tiny child gurgling up at her. She prayed it would be a boy as she knew this would make Mick happy. A son to make his father proud; and she as the bearer of that son would share the glow of that pride, she hoped — no, not hoped, she was sure! Since she had become pregnant Mick had treated her with kid gloves; in fact, by his standards she was being positively spoiled, and he seemed in much better humour now, even when he was drunk. There had been a couple of drawbacks to being pregnant. For instance, Mick had decided Cathy wasn’t to smoke any more, although she supposed this was a good thing. Unfortunately he had also decided that she wasn’t to drink. She missed going to the pub with him and meeting other people. Still, each night he returned from the pub he brought fish and chips smothered in vinegar; she loved vinegar since she became pregnant. Yes, she was sure the baby would change everything!

  Trevor settled in very well at Hutchinson & Bailey. Besides Trevor, there were three other artists in the creative department. They were a close-knit unit, but they welcomed Trevor in with genuine warmth. The three were Tony Vescoli, Sue White, and Bert Chadwick. It was very obvious to Trevor that Tony and Sue were ‘an item’. Tony Vescoli’s family came from Liverpool. They were of Italian Catholic origin and Tony had been educated in St Thomas’s School for Catholic Boys in Speke before taking his art degree at Manchester University. Like Trevor, Tony had been head-hunted straight from college by Hutchinson & Bailey, albeit five years previously. Tony was a kind, likeable and even-tempered man, and he and Trevor struck up an immediate friendship.

  Sue White began every day in the office like a freshly uncorked bottle of champagne. She had a smile for everybody and always seemed to see the bright side of things. Along with this ebullience, she had a motherly instinct and was the office agony aunt. She completely bowled Trevor over on his first day when she welcomed him with a huge hug, a kiss and a cup of coffee, followed by a hundred questions. She was easy to talk to and within one hour of meeting him Sue White knew more about Trevor Browne than anybody else on this planet. Sue was a natural artist and a real go-getter. She had not been head-hunted, rather she had targeted Hutchinson & Bailey in her final year at college as the company she wanted to work for. However, her interview three years previously failed to get her a position in the Bond Street office. Instead she had gone to the company’s Glasgow office, with a promise of a transfer as soon as an opening came up. She jumped at the chance and was in Glasgow, where incidentally she was a huge hit, for only two years before she was brought to the head office in London. Sue was born and spent her childhood in a beautiful Tudor-style home in Camberley in Surrey not far from Ascot race-course.

  Bert Chadwick was from London’s east end. A chubby man, in his mid-thirties, his only passion was soccer - to be precise, Tottenham Hotspur. His handshake, although sweaty, was firm and warm. Trevor liked him. The highlight of Bert’s day was the mid-morning coffee break, where he would devour the sports pages of The Sun along with a half-dozen doughnuts.

  Sue was deeply in love with Tony. But the problem with Sue was that she couldn’t understand why everybody didn’t have a love affair akin to hers and Tony‘s, particularly somebody as young, attractive and available as Trevor. So it became a personal challenge to her as soon as Trevor arrived in the office to match him up with a girl who would steal his heart away. This was not a first for Sue, she had done it before, in Glasgow. In the Glasgow office the target of her ‘Cupid’s bow and arrow’ was her best friend and fellow artist Nicky. Nicky was a fabulous-looking girl with a great personality, and yet Sue had failed to find her a suitable boyfriend. Instead, the two girls became best friends, and although Nicky still lived in Glasgow, they remained best friends. There would be hours of telephone conversations between Hutchinson & Bailey’s Glasgow office and its London office without any business actually taking place. Sue kept Nicky up to date on her efforts with Trevor. She even suggested that Nicky should come down to London for a weekend and meet Trevor, whom she was sure Nicky would like. Nicky had heard that one before.

  Sue unfortunately was having as little success with Trevor as she had had with Nicky in Glasgow. Weekend after weekend she would organise yet another foursome with herself and Tony, and time and time again none of the girls, although some of them were very beautiful, managed to tickle Trevor’s fancy.

  So it was that Trevor’s first couple of months in the office in Bond Street were happy ones. However, outside the office things were not so great. Trevor had got himself accommodation, which was all it could be called, in Sussex Gardens. It was literally just a room with a shower and a television. There were no cooking facilities, no table big enough to open a sketch pad on, not even an armchair to relax in. Although his room was on the fifth floor, the only view he had from his window was of an adjacent building which seemed close enough to touch. Trevor called the place his ‘cell’. He hated it, and began to feel very, very lonely for home. In an effort to alleviate this loneliness Trevor began to visit the Irish pubs, where he would take a few glasses with people from Ireland. They would sing rebel songs and tell exaggerated stories from home. But when the pub closed he would go back to his cell and to a landlord who didn’t even speak English, and the loneliness would return. In his first couple of weeks he wrote home to his mother virtually every day. When the loneliness took a grip, this was the first thing that suffered. Fearful that his loneliness would come through in his writing, he began to write less frequently. He didn’t want his mother to know that everything about life away wasn’t perfect; no emigrant wants their mother to know that.

  Chapter 8

  IT WAS 3AM. DERMOT AND BUSTER were crouched behind the wall in the darkness. They rose slowly together, and peered over the wall. The house was in darkness, as Buster said it would be, and it looked deserted. Slowly they sank back down into their crouched positions. Burglary was not their forte, in fact it was hard to find a crime that was their forte.

  ‘You’re sure they’re on holiday, Buster?’ Dermot whispered.

  ‘Yeh, Dermo, they’re a circus family and they tour all summer. Then they take the winter months off. They’re gone away for a month.’

  ‘And there’s no security? No alarm?’ Dermot felt uncomfortable. This was all too easy, he thought.

  Buster just shook his head and answered with a simple ‘Nope.’

  ‘Right then, let’s go,’ Dermot announced.

  The two men vaulted the wall and the Boot Hill Gang went into action.

  The Garibaldi home was a large, six-bedroomed house. It had taken the Garibaldis many years of working on the road with their circus to be able to afford such a home. They were indeed away for a month’s holiday in Italy, leaving
their home in the charge of two workmen who came every morning, checked over the house, mucked out the stables and fed the animals.

  Dermot and Buster made their way slowly along a line of fir trees which led up to the outer buildings of the residence. When they came to the end of the trees they made a ten-yard dash on tiptoe to the comer of the larger building. It looked like a store-room of some kind.

  ‘I wonder what’s in here?’ Dermot said softly to Buster, tilting his head towards the door of the building behind which they were hiding.

  ‘I don’t know. It must be valuable though,’ Buster answered.

  ‘Why?’

  “Cause there’s a lock on the door. Why would you lock a door if there was nothing valuable inside?’ Buster declared with a thief’s logic.

  ‘You’re right, Buster.’

  The two men made their way slowly to the door. Gently, Dermot lifted the lock and examined it. He chuckled.

  ‘It’s an ordinary bleedin’ barrel lock. I’ll pick this quicker than pickin’ me nose,’ Dermot said as he took a tiny sliver of metal from his breast pocket and began to work. Within seconds the lock clicked open.

  ‘You’re a genius, Dermo,’ Buster said, full of admiration.

  ‘I know,’ Dermot simply smiled.

  The interior of the building was pitch dark, but warm. The two men felt around inside the doorway and could find no light switch. They began to search the building by touch.