by Otto Penzler
“Oh, and while you’re at it, it would be grand if you cut out five Cheviot ewe lambs and donated them, too. The Redmonds have had a couple of bad years and need a bit of sun to shine their way. You’ll never even notice, but it’ll make a world of difference to them.”
Whatever had happened downstairs, the Hannigan twins went mute. Not a word of protest was spoken, as Myles heard their hobnailed boots scrape the concrete kitchen floor.
“Right so, I see you boys understand me. Much better than calling the Garda, wouldn’t ya say? I’ll see you at eight sharp tomorrow. Oh, if for any reason you don’t make it, I’ll be up by noon for a little conference with himself. Yer father and I go back a long ways, as you know.”
Billy Hannigan was back the next morning at eight sharp, just as Kitty had ordained. He did not come in, but after a quiet conversation at the kitchen door, he walked slowly out of the farmyard. Myles watched him from the upstairs window, red curls flowing over his collar, as he closed the iron gate and walked slowly up the laneway. Even now, Myles remembered his mother’s last words, in that menacing “Miss Breen” voice:
“Don’t thank me. Always knew the Hannigans would rise to the occasion. Say hello to your parents for me and tell them there are no hard feelings here. I’m sure the Redmonds won’t be pressing charges. That’s the kind of thing that can ruin a young man’s life. None of us would want that to happen, especially to a Hannigan. Safe home, now, Billy.”
Myles recalled his visceral relief at what he saw as a reprieve for the Hannigans. He’d feared the worst for them, like Miss Breen. But they were men, of course. It was different. He couldn’t imagine what they’d done to Molly Redmond to make his mother so mad—maybe pulled her hair or tried to kiss her—but he was glad it was over and done with. It still rankled him that this whole village seemed to know something about his mother that he did not. One thing was sure—it struck the fear of God in them. That part was a comfort to Myles; some people deserved to be afraid. Fear was the only thing they understood, like some of the brutal mountain boys at school. But it also scared him, for reasons he could not explain. And he was sick of being called “Young Hogan of Rathdargan.” He longed for an identity that he, Myles, could call his own.
He was also weary of hearing the depressing details of his father’s neglect of his family dredged up and embellished, year after year. It was a story the whole community seemed to delight in telling and retelling, with each recitation a little less credible, a little more vicious.
How Jack missed his birth—as he did for all but one of his eight children born in their two-room farmhouse—and came home just in time to find his only son a cadaverous cluster of skin and bones, slumped in a coma. This rare visit had come in October 1943, as the winter winds were returning to their ghostly antics, herding leaves from the giant oaks into every corner and crevice of the desolate farmyard.
A robust infant, Myles had lost half his body weight to a twin epidemic of whooping cough and German measles that had ravaged thousands of children across Europe. Myles’s blond three-year-old sister, Sheila, had suffocated in Kitty’s arms. The local doctor—an alcoholic who practiced without a license—had prescribed baking soda.
Kitty just had to pray and wait “for God to take her,” as she told Myles one chilly afternoon years later by the turf fire, where Kitty often surprised him with her reflections. Father Cavanagh, the parish priest in Enniskerry, was two days late coming to offer last rites and condolences. Uncle Patrick, Kitty’s alcoholic brother, had been charged with the job of fetching the priest, but went to Dalton’s Pub and forgot.
People never seemed to tire of telling how his penny-pinching Uncle Mike—Kitty’s grand-uncle—had insisted that the undertaker delay closing Sheila’s tiny white coffin until Myles should expire and join her in it. (After three days, when Myles seemed to be hanging on, they went ahead with the burial.) True to form, Uncle Mike was calculating the cost of another coffin and Jack missed Sheila’s funeral.
But he arrived in time to save Myles’s life. Or so the legend went. He’d heard of Kitty’s predicament through the grapevine in Birmingham, where he worked on the line at Austin Motor Works. There was talk of a special type of paraffin lamp that worked magic in bringing relief to children stricken by the epidemic. Jack claimed he’d bought one for the family as soon as he got word. It was too late for Sheila, but for Myles, it worked; he got immediate relief and came out of his coma within hours of his father’s homecoming.
As far as Myles was concerned, he never believed the heroic rescue story. It just didn’t fit the man he’d come to believe his father to be. It seemed just another example of Jack Hogan getting off the hook. If it had been true, why did he leave them the next morning, without a word of goodbye, without leaving Kitty a single penny, or even a boarding-house address? He simply walked out and left her to cope with her grief, to face the bleak winter with a house full of children and an empty cupboard.
Myles knew the real story, much less noble; he’d pieced it together from snippets of gossip he wasn’t supposed to hear. Jack had lost his shirt gambling on “the nags” and had abandoned his family when Jim Dalton and Pete Coady, the local publicans, began to deny him credit for his belligerent binges, tolerated as long as he sang and paid for every round.
Jack’s comings and goings were never quite clear to Myles. As far as he could tell, Jack first abandoned Kitty and their six daughters in February 1937, five years before Myles was born. That time he stayed away for two years and then came home only to dodge the WWII draft. He stayed for three years, then vanished again in February 1942, two months before Myles was born.
After that fleeting visit for Sheila’s funeral in the fall of 1943, Jack went missing again, this time for keeps, it seemed. Other fathers who had to work in England came home every Christmas, Easter, and for the summer holidays. But not Jack Hogan. While his friends proudly displayed their visiting da at midnight mass, Myles meekly followed his mother as she marched to the front of Enniskerry Chapel with her brood of six to claim the family pew. No husband. No word. No hope.
Until now.
As word of Jack’s heralded homecoming spread, the story of his departure gained new life. The neighbors warmed to the gossip, trumping Kitty’s romantic renditions of Jack’s adventures with details of their own.
“Now, when was it that Jack left again . . . ?”
“Did he sell the bay mare to Father O’Meara—or was that the black stallion he’d won with at Gowran?”
They recited and embellished every painful detail of the deception. How he’d lied about taking the mare to Foley’s blacksmith’s shop. Joe Foley told Kitty the shoes had never been fitted. They relived the story of how he’d sold the last brood mare, Dolly, before jumping the ferry to Holyhead, then on to Birmingham.
That Jack Hogan. What a character! Never a dull moment when he was around. It hasn’t been the same since . . .
Myles heard from others how his mother had first got news of Jack—over a year later—and then only because he was accidentally spotted by a cousin singing at a concert in Shrewsbury, England, on a Saturday night.
“Ah, what a wonderful tenor voice he had . . . Myles, sure some a dat talent musta rubbed off from yer father. Can you sing ‘Slievenamon’? It was one of his favorites . . .”
There were times when Myles really hated him, with a burning, vengeful, damn-you-to-hell hatred. He was baffled by his mother’s loyalty to her elusive husband. He hated how the locals kept reminding him of what a great hero his father was in the IRA as captain of the fabled “flying columns” and their daring assaults on the British occupation forces. Myles particularly resented the constant, invidious comparisons—whether in sports, singing, dancing, or work. “Sure yer all right, but you’ll never be as good as yer father. He was a great man for the football. Do you play . . . ?”
More complicated was Myles’s constant awareness of missing, not the flesh-and-blood man who was Jack Hogan, but the idea of a father and wha
t he saw his friends enjoying with their das—hurling, boxing, football, prideful glances, tender touches to soothe the bumps and bruises. At such times, Myles longed for his da to be around, but it was a fleeting emotion, like dreams of winning the Irish Sweepstakes or owning his own team of Arabian horses.
After twelve years without so much as a single visit—Jack was a mere ferry ride away—Myles had given up, hardening his heart to the notion. The only sign of life he saw from his father over the years was the annual abusive letter pressuring Kitty to sell the farm. No money, not even a pound note; just a rant about how she’d always held him back with her lack of trust. Sneaking a peek at those missives, Myles could scarcely believe his eyes.
She’d once confided, in one of her fireside reflections, that the letters began in the aftermath of Jack’s concerted efforts, against Irish law, to sell Rathdargan farm “out from under her”—without her permission, which he knew she would never give.
After getting one of these letters, Kitty cried for days, trying to hide her heartbreak behind red, swollen eyes. “I have such a problem with the pollen this year,” she’d offer, fooling no one.
For all of that, there were still times when Myles tried to will the father of his dreams into existence. One specific incident stood out in his memory. He was about nine at the time. It was fox-hunting season. The local hunters found him indispensable for one reason: the Hogans had a terrific little fox terrier, named Nell, a white-and-tan spark plug with classic markings.
Nell was famous for her ferocity and skill at flushing foxes from their dens—or dragging them out, if they were so foolish as to take her on. During the hunting season, there was a hunt every Sunday, and Nell was Myles’s front-row ticket to the action. He was proud to be able to tag along, though it was dangerous—loaded shotguns in every hand. He was not even allowed to hold, let alone shoot, the old single-barreled shotgun that hung from its rack at the head of the stairs.
Myles knew it was Nell the hunters wanted; he was along as baggage, resented by some of the hunters for slowing them down. On this particular Sunday afternoon the hunting party was in hot pursuit when they encountered a fast-running brook, three feet deep and four wide. The fox and dogs cleared the brook with no effort. Impatient fathers boosted their own sons over the stream but in their haste forgot about Myles.
He remembered standing on the bank, crying, praying to Saint Anthony, patron saint of lost things, for his father to appear. When he didn’t, Myles cursed Saint Anthony for letting him down. “The curse a God on you, Saint Anthony. Ya never come through when I need ya. An I’m never going to ask you for another favor as long as I live. Ya can go to hell.” He recalled his other grievances against Saint Anthony when the stakes were high, like the time he’d lost his only hurling ball in the thick brambles behind the barn.
Eventually Myles found a low spot downstream and waded across. But by the time he caught up with the hunt, he was soaked, bleeding from thornbushes, and sobbing. No one even noticed that he’d been missing. Nell had the fox cornered and her distinctive growls were punctuated by sharp yelps, meaning she was in trouble. It was only when Myles called her off that the hunters paid attention.
Saving Nell from the likely carnage of a cornered vixen meant spoiling their fun. “Sure we were getting along fine until ya came along and ruined it. Maybe next time we’ll just bring the dog . . .”
Jack Hogan came home to Rathdargan on May Day 1958. It was a perfect spring day, rare in the moody western Atlantic. It dawned sunny and cloudless, and for once never broke. May, Ireland’s greenest month, had once again delivered its bounty.
The upper fields, next to Carrigoona Commons, were ablaze with daisies, their tiny white-and-yellow flowers forming the magic carpet dreamed of all winter. Daffodils, lilies, and forget-me-nots danced in the gentle breeze, blending their fragrance with the massive lilac hedge that formed a purple canopy over the handcrafted iron gateway to the farmhouse.
Birdsong echoed across the valley. The swallows were back—a welcome sign of spring—to reclaim their nests in the eaves of the cowshed. It was an idyllic setting to celebrate a family reunion.
Myles was like a jack-in-the-box at school that day, and was chastised repeatedly by Miss Breen, who found his conduct out of character. Having skipped two grades, he was one of her favorites, and she expressed her disappointment in no uncertain terms. Others, for the same transgression, would have been dealt six lashes of the dreaded “rod”—a mountain ash plant about two feet long. A standard teaching tool, used more than the atlas or textbook.
In Myles’s case, Miss Breen had her reasons to show restraint. Besides, she genuinely liked and approved of Myles; just not today. “I must say that I find your conduct most unbecoming. Whatever has gotten into you, Myles Hogan? Very disappointing. I’m going to think twice about further privileges for you to go fetch you-know-what.” This was her reference to Myles’s perk of fetching her cache of jelly-filled doughnuts from Coady’s grocery. She gave Myles one for his labor; it was their secret. But everyone knew of Miss Breen’s weakness for doughnuts; it was hard to hide with her sixteen-stone waddle. And Myles’s pals at school razzed him mercilessly for being “teacher’s piggy pet.”
Myles bolted from school at the clang of the bell, taking the shortcut across Carrigoona Commons. Normally he dawdled, taking at least two hours to cover the two miles. Pickup hurling games, a fistfight to kill the boredom, skinny-dipping at Powerscourt Waterfalls, all offered distractions on the journey. This day he was home in no time, determined to finish weeding his patch of the vegetable garden. He wanted to leave no room for Jack’s famous fault-finding, which Kitty inadvertently taught him to dread. “Wait till your father comes home. He won’t put up with that . . .”
The mere thought of these encounters infuriated Myles. Who the hell is he to tell me about my duties? Hasn’t he neglected his for twelve years running? And haven’t I done fine without him all these years? And what about Mammie? Sure she’ll just become sad again, as she always has whenever his name is mentioned? And he’ll just leave us again, anyway? Maybe I can just wait him out.
In the midst of elaborate preparations, Kitty had been on the lookout all afternoon. As Myles did when his sisters came home from nursing school, he watched for Ned Delaney’s Vauxhall—the only taxi in Enniskerry—to appear on the Carrigoona Road, which he could see for miles from his perch on the Rathdargan ridge.
Kitty wore a bright yellow dress with a brown belt—an outfit Myles had never seen before—and her dark, curly hair blew in the breeze. He’d never seen her look so beautiful, or so happy, smiling and laughing at things that weren’t even funny. He guessed she was practicing her new routine.
Five-eight in her bare feet and a strong, athletic figure, Kitty knew how to make the most of her elegant good looks. This day she wore nylons and high heels that invited disaster on the farmyard cobblestones. The four surviving girls were away at nursing school, so the welcoming party was down to Myles and his mother.
Hour after hour he watched the Dundrum Road. Most of the cars just kept going, not making that right-hand turn at the crossroads for Rathdargan. Finally, after hours of lookout duty, he spotted Delaney’s Vauxhall. It turned right. Knowing it had to be Jack, he sounded the alarm: “Here he comes! They just turned at Doyle’s Cross.”
With the alert, Kitty went charging toward the lilac canopy, running the full 200 yards of winding sycamore laneway, uphill in her high heels. In that moment of euphoria, of hope against hope, all was forgiven: the abandonment; the drunken abuse; the deceptions and neglect. Once again Jack Hogan was being given a hero’s welcome; Kitty’s faithful heart greeted him as any loving husband coming home from a normal, essential breadwinning trip.
Myles couldn’t stand it; he refused to join the parade. He expected to be coaxed, as usual, but Kitty hadn’t even noticed his absence. He sat on the front steps, brooding, while Kitty and the border collies rushed to greet the prodigal father. By the time they emerged jubilant
ly through the gateway next to the farmhouse, 30 yards away, Myles had arrived at a plan of action.
His parents strode forward as in a wedding parade. Kitty had both of her arms locked around Jack’s trim waist. Myles saw his matter-of-fact mother clinging to this stranger with a distant, dreamy look he’d never seen before. It was as if Jack had never left, as if the cover story had been true all along, and this loyal provider had just gone to the forge to have the mare shod.
Jack’s white cotton shirt billowed in the wind and he carried a battered tan suitcase. He was tall and handsome, just as people had been telling Myles all his life. What if he’d been wrong? What if the stories were all true? Jack was laughing, full of life and basking in the glow of Kitty’s adoration. They looked like a couple right out of Failte magazine, out for a stroll in the lush Wicklow countryside.
Kitty was cheerfully explaining why Myles hadn’t been with the welcoming party at the road gate. Apparently he was shy. Finally, with a sharp change of tone, she turned toward Myles and issued one of her sharp commands: “Myles, come meet your father, right now!”
Myles stood up and walked slowly toward the stranger, working hard not to betray the terror he felt at what he was about to do. He felt his big, bold plan dissolve with each step, like a slow leak in his bike tire. They met about halfway to the farmhouse, just above the open spring well. The trickling of the running spout in the yard suddenly grew noisy. Myles had to stifle an urge to turn and run.
