As the voices, sounds and distinct aroma of where I was standing avalanched over me I began to think I was in some kind of dream that was morphing into a nightmare.
Mr.Anderson stood in front of me and offered supportive reassurance. He put his hands on my shoulders and told me everything would be easy going. He’d had a sneak preview of my opponent and I had nothing to worry about. He continued to tell me that from what he observed most of the contestants were the types who wanted to be professional boxers but he reassured me that my scheduled opponent was not of that ilk and calibre.
A boxer of any description was the last thing I wanted to be.
I was in too much of a self-induced coma to discern exactly what was happening to me. As I sat on the bench and waited to be thrown to the lions I regretted that I had let him decide I was a featherweight. Mr.Anderson was under the impression if I fought at that weight I wouldn’t suffer much damage. My straight nose, however, might not have agreed with that assessment.
Rob Anderson tied the laces on the pair of boxing gloves that my hands were now shaking in. I was also wearing a new pair of boxing trunks as well as a pair of boxing boots that he had purchased in White Plains over the weekend. For safety and as the rules stipulated I was also wearing a metal cup to protect other parts of my anatomy. Everything happened so fast I seriously didn’t know where I was or what I was doing. I was on the verge of crying and praying at the same time. I wanted God to forgive me for anything and everything I had done previously in my eighteen years of life. With all the noise and shouting going on around me I didn’t think God would hear what I was trying to say. When word came in that I was the next entrant to enter the ring I prayed in as low a voice as I could mumble that my nose wouldn’t be broken and if I was knocked unconscious and didn’t wake up for someone to tell Mrs. Axe, Maggie and my mother what had happened to me. I also prayed that my opponent, someone of the same age and weight, would feel more scared than me and run away. Such hopes, wishes and prayers in this kind of arena were not likely to be answered and it didn’t look as if a miracle would occur and suck me up to Heaven before the bell for the first round rang.
As I walked down the aisle towards the boxing ring all I could think of was that it was a good thing that Mrs. Axe and Maggie were away in Dublin. Otherwise both of them might well and with good reason have thrown me into the Hudson River from the top of the castle.
With a little push from Mr.Anderson I stepped into the ring and sat on the stool in the corner I was assigned. In the far corner I could see my opponent who was looking in much better shape than me and was definitely taller and more inclined to want to make a living from breaking noses.
For me, waiting for the bell for the first round might have been akin to what souls felt when they were wandering around Limbo with an eternity tag hanging from their necks. There seemed to be no beginning and no end and worse still, no explanation of my pained state of mind. The only half-pleasing thought I had was that I was glad Muriel had stayed home and wasn’t here to witness my induction to martyrdom.
As I fell deeper into an abyss of nothing and nothingness I was awakened by the sound of the bell ringing to start the first round. It was a loud bell and my presence in the centre of the ring was helped by a slight push fromMr.Anderson who was in my corner.
The next thing I remember was another bell ringing forth at the end of the first round. I wasn’t sure if the rounds lasted two or three minutes but each second felt like eternity. In the heat and hustle of being hit and fighting back at the same time, for three short rounds I found myself in a different universe. I had obviously been punched incessantly for a number of minutes but I actually hadn’t felt one punch.
When the fight ended my opponent was awarded victory by a narrow decision by the judges and the referee. Mr.Anderson embraced me as if I was his long-lost and wished-for son. He showed the respect and appreciation for me that I had been hoping for. It was, after all, the main reason I had suffered a bruised lip and a bit of a headache.
* * *
Mrs. Axe had been gone for about two weeks and the length of her absence indicated to me that she had remained in Dublin because of health issues regarding Maggie. When I placed the breakfast tray in front of her the morning after she returned, and before I had a chance to ask how her trip went, she looked directly at me and said something I was not prepared for.
“She passed away peacefully. The nuns and the priest were with her. She had a funeral fit for an opera.”
Without having ever seriously contemplated what the meaning of the word ‘end’ meant, the news of Maggie’s demise was definitely the ‘end’ of an experience that existed in my mind since the day I stepped into her bedroom in the Shelbourne Hotel to serve her breakfast. After orchestrating my departure from Dublin she was also on hand to greet me when I first arrived in New York. When she had put her hand on my head that first day in the castle foyer almost two years earlier, I felt then and even more as I got to know her, that we had something in common. I came to the conclusion that she was deep down a shy person and in many ways like myself afraid to show emotion and tenderness. Maggie was great at reaching out but had trouble reaching in. Reaching in is, I suppose, more difficult because of the darkness of one’s past and the memories that live in it. After hearing that she had passed away I felt I had lost an anchor and a guiding compass that had been an ever-present part of my life. I had known for months that she was in and out of the hospital in Dublin and was battling in her diva-like manner to stay alert and alive. As the news of her death swamped my mind I momentarily felt lost and adrift.
Before I could rationalise and digest the implications of Maggie not being in my life, Mrs. Axe broke into my struggling and confused thoughts.
“She is in her final resting place in Glasnevin Cemetery.”
The punches I had endured during my few minutes in the boxing ring while Mrs. Axe was away were nothing compared to what hit me directly in the head this morning. Even though I hadn’t seen or even heard from Maggie in many months she was a constant presence in my life in Tarrytown. I had always secretly hoped for the day when she’d return and talk to me about her past and how I was preparing for my future. The anticipated joy and pleasure of talking about the future with Maggie had ceased to be and could no longer be even a wish. Although she had long since departed the castle I sensed her presence was always there. It certainly was in my sometimes insecure and wandering mind. Maggie wouldn’t chastise my behaviour or correct my grammar anymore.Her dissertations on opera and Ireland would now only be an echo of remembrance. Her near-obsession with her birthplace, County Mayo, would in and of itself be an opera of her legacy. During her absence from my life in Tarrytown she was a spectre and an angel that was constantly singing an aria of redemption in my ear while I went half-floundering about my life in Axe Castle. Maggie had brought me there, placed me there, and a part of me always sensed her instructive presence was always there. Her litany of social warnings permeated my brain on a daily basis and motivated me more than I knew or could measure. Almost every word and action out of me, in her presence or not, had to be vetted against her values and instruction. It is also possible that in the passing of time since she left New York I had acquired new friends and new values that might not have pleased her. My diminished devotion to Mass would not have satisfied her. Time spent away from the castle with Muriel and the hourson weekends I spent with Frank Dillon and his inebriated friends at the local pub would not have impressed her either. Maggie had an aversion to delusional people and for the most part considered them cowardly and even lazy. Sometimes the presence of Maggie in my mind was so dominant that I felt she had never left New York and returned to Dublin. This was particularly true when I was alone and rambling about the castle on deserted weekends and holidays.
My residence near the top of the castle was far away from everything and everyone. My nearest neighbours, since Maggie left, were the birds that flew by the window every so often. When I was in my room w
ondering what I was going to be doing that day, I would sometimes call out to the birds and ask them where they were going or what they would be doing for the rest of the day. Quite often the only sign of life was the feathered kind that waltzed about in the air outside. Since Maggie’s departure, if the Axes were away in separate and different directions and not in residence, I found myself wandering about the place like an orphan cloud that couldn’t make up its mind whether to cry or not.
Many times in my empty wanderings in and around the castle I wished I had been able to talk to Maggie about my confused reality. I would have told her about the awkwardness of living with two people who hardly lived with each other. I would have asked for advice on what to say and what to do when Mr.andMrs. Axe asked me to accompany them on their separate activities at the same time. Would I walk with him or drive with her? When they argued who would I sympathise with – even when I had no idea what they were arguing about? Would I invite myself to the dinner table when they appeared to be happy and content with each other? Should I have agreed to serve Mrs. Axe her morning breakfast before I went to school just like I had for Maggie? Would it have been improper and inconsiderate to complain about the encroaching isolation on weekends and holidays?
Would I have introduced Maggie to my dearest Muriel? Would I have told her how happy I was to be Muriel’s boyfriend and half-considered a member of her family? Would I have told her about my brief boxing career? I had wished countless times for the opportunity to explain myself and my life since our initial encounter in the Shelbourne Hotel and now I knew that would never be. Maggie had been suffering from cancer but for her own reasons she had never, neither in Dublin nor New York, mentioned it to me. And now she never would.
* * *
Mrs. Axe was noticeably hurt by Maggie’s passing. Periodically she’d interrupt the silence in the room by humming a piece from an opera Maggie had appeared in. She’d hum for a few seconds then she’d articulate the lyrics of the aria. It was as if she was communicating in her own way with Maggie. It was this mutual affinity for the arts that had brought Maggie Sheridan into her life. Maggie had given up or had lost her operatic career years earlier and was afloat in life, travelling between Rome and Dublin. After meeting the Axes one evening at a dinner and opera party in Rome, she and Ruth Axe bonded. Up until then Maggie had lived frugally off her recording royalties. The friendship of Maggie and Ruth, with Emerson slightly to the side, formed an entity that suited all three individuals. Maggie’s presence kept the Axes alive and sparkling after their work hours. And the Axes became Maggie’s dependable patrons. They took care of all her living expenses and almost nothing was denied her when it came to paying for any of her material needs. This included her bi-annual trips to Ireland and sometimes to Italy.
* * *
Even though I was trying to catch up and accumulate enough credits for graduation I wasn’t able to study and concentrate on school work in the castle no matter how I tried. Because of my age – I was two years older than the average student in my class – I was beginning to feel like the class idiot. I hadn’t had the luxury of being a freshman in high school and the consequence of not having accumulated enough academic credits put pressure on me to take several summer courses in my junior year. The prognosis in my present senior year was neither encouraging nor positive. Carrying the burden of extra courses than was normal impacted on my ability to excel in any one course that I was taking. Algebra and geometry were as elusive as second-year Latin and more than a few times I just gave up. The slowdown and an unimpressive report card from school did little to enhance my presence in the castle.
Mrs. Axe called the school once or twice to find out if I was really attending classes. When she discovered that I had not missed a day of school, she appeared even more disappointed but didn’t seem to know how to rectify the problem. There were times when she asked me about my comfort factor at school and suggested I make an extra effort to tell the school teacher that I was not used to being in a classroom where I wasn’t afraid of being physically punished. Mrs. Axe was of the mind that I was so used to withdrawing from authority that I closed my mind to what I was being taught at school in Tarrytown. When she made an effort to explain the dilemma to me I got even more perplexed and confused. Having any problem of mine explained to me was an experience that was more foreign to me than the actual problem itself. But whether I knew or could acknowledge my drawbacks, inefficiencies and failures, I was still missing out on what I should be learning, and if I was to graduate with Muriel and the rest of my senior classmates I would have to study more and comprehend faster.
Apart from his occasional casual tutoring in history, art and opera, Mr. Axe took almost no interest in my everyday existence: particularly if it involved anything social or personal. He had no interest in my accomplishments on the soccer field nor did he ever inquire about my friendship with Muriel. He might, I often thought, in the oddest way be interested in hearing Frank Dillon reciting Shakespeare but Frank Dillon could only recite passages from Hamlet when he was drunk. I didn’t tell him I had learned and memorised most of the famous monologues off by heart. My relationship with Mr. Axe seemed solely based on and dependent on his whims. Whenever he felt like talking to anyone or expressing himself on something that was taking place on the world stage he’d call me and we’d walk around the estate.
His persistent fixation on Churchill interested me the most. He claimed to have knowledge that Churchill faked his capture in South Africa during the Boer war and that he wrote dispatches to the London Daily Mail exaggerating his exploits and his internment when he was a correspondent there for the paper. He also went out of his way to tell me that one of Churchill’s most famous sayings: “I have nothing to give but blood, toil, tears and sweat,” was a quote from “The Age of Bronze”, a poem by Lord Byron. As far as Mr. Axe could determine, Churchill didn’t credit the poet with authorship of the famous line.
It might well have been Mr. Axe’s Scottish ancestry that motivated him to cast aspersions on Churchill. In warm weather he periodically wore a Scottish kilt. The sight of him walking up and down his driveway often brought a smile to my face and to that of his wife. When we’d finish our walks and talks he’d inform me that his conversations were the method and syllabus of instruction practised at Oxford and Harvard. He also reminded me – even though I had already heard it from a drunk on a Dublin bus one night – that listening was generally the best way to learn anything. I don’t recollect ever having the confidence or the impulse to question him and he would not question me to see if I had learned anything at all from him. To say he exhibited an air of presumption would be an understatement but with my present struggle in high school this arrangement suited me fine. I looked forward to walking with him often because I knew I would neither fail nor succeed with regard to whatever subject he waxed on about during the course of the daily walk. There were many days in school that I wished the teachers would ask questions on the subjects Mr. Axe frequently discussed with me. Only rarely was I obliged to raise my hand to answer a question that underlined the benefits of the attention I paid to Mr. Axe.
* * *
The exuberance and excitement of the pending graduation from high school permeated just about every moment and activity of the senior class. The looming commencement date was so looked forward to that the transformation of the high school seniors’ attitudes towards each other was palpable. In fact it would not be too far a stretch to say it took on a religious zeal. The concoction of youth, freedom and ambition generated an energy in the school corridors that wasn’t too far from being combustible. More than any other day in the life of a high-school senior, graduation heralded a liberation of both mind and body. But I was neither confident nor secure in the fact that I would be graduating with the rest of my classmates and the feeling I carried with me as my class got closer to graduation day was more sorrowful than celebratory.
My struggle to pack four years of high school into two was beginning to show strai
ns in my syllabus. I had not accumulated the required number of official scholastic credits and I was also falling behind in the subjects I did have. Two months before the appointed date of graduation I was informed by my high-school guidance counsellor that I needed another two credits to graduate and the only way I could get them was to go to summer school. I would have to complete two courses during the summer months to receive my diploma.
Thismeant that I wouldn’t graduate on the same day as my classmates and more importantly I wouldn’t share the stage with Muriel. It also meant that at the upcoming senior prom I’d likely be the only senior who wouldn’t be looking forward to the traditional graduation ceremony. Another depressing factor was that the presence of family and friends at graduation underlined the transition and I knew I’d have no family members in attendance even if I did graduate on the anointed day.
The first person I told about my disappointment was Muriel. She commiserated with me and invited me back to her house where she related my disappointment to her parents. Muriel’s father was as comforting as he could be and did his best to ameliorate my painful and sinking state of mind by telling me that I would only be missing a ceremony and that I would still receive my diploma when I finished summer school.Since I had first known him, apart from a few rare instances Muriel’s father had never really asked or inquired about my life and circumstances at the castle. Today, when he accepted that I was in an emotional quagmire, he questioned me on my present plight of living with the Axes and asked again about my past. I had assumed he had queried Muriel in detail about the young man she was dating but as it turned out Muriel hadn’t added anything much to the bits I had told him myself. For the past twelve months I had been under the assumption Mr.Anderson knew as much about me as I did about myself.
I Dream Alone Page 9
