Father's Music

by Dermot Bolger

  The waiter teased me about being the silent one but I never spoke in his company, terrified he would phone the police if he heard my accent. I knew if I was caught I would be sent away. The others spoke of reformatories and orphanages, with tales of savage nuns and brothers with leather straps. That innocent girl, swinging on a tyre in Harrow, seemed a stranger now. On the third day I saw her photograph on a police notice in a shop doorway. The others crowded round. I realised most of them couldn’t read. A well-dressed shopper saw us examining the poster. She stared at me. Suddenly I wanted to be rescued, but her look just contained disgust and suspicion. She tightened the grip on her bag and pushed past as though I was invisible.

  That’s what I had become. My thoughts were narrowed to finding the next meal and somewhere to sleep or to deciding which lanes were safe to piss in while the girls kept watch. I had no nerves because I’d no identity. I robbed for them, my fingers more adroit than hands which had practised thieving for years. Once, a young brother of Martin’s followed us from a doorway where he had been put begging. Martin sent him back, saying he was too young to run away. Their parents would come from the pub soon to collect the money in his shoe box. Martin put enough coins into it to stop them grumbling and gave the child two chocolate bars to hide until their parents had gone back in, warning that he’d be beaten if they thought he had accepted food instead of money. The boy cried as Martin left him. The others had run ahead. Martin said nothing, but when we reached a narrow street by the Pro-Cathedral he kicked every parked car with an alarm until the whole street rang.

  Other gangs of children roamed the streets, but they were settled kids from the flats, smashing car windows at traffic lights to snatch bags or being used to courier drugs. They kept their distance, because, even in the underworld, we were still only knackers and tinker gits. They screamed abuse when they were sure of escape routes, singling me out as a pox-bottle braser. Martin had got me pregnant, they shouted, he’d wanked on my leg and let the flies do the rest. We would charge after them, oblivious to shoppers in the way. We wanted their blood, Martin more than most.

  On the fourth day Martin almost caught a boy lagging behind his pals. He was four years older, yet when he saw Martin’s face he raced straight out into the quayside traffic, dodging between cars until he ran into the path of a truck. Martin tried to pull me away but I wouldn’t budge. The boy’s skin was unblemished except for a cut above the eye where his head had hit the kerb. There was fluff on his chin but he hadn’t yet shaved. Now he never would. Martin tugged at my hair, the pain injecting energy into my legs. We ran past an army barracks and down streets of ruined houses and cheap furniture stores. I kept thinking how easy it was to die and yet how I hadn’t got the courage.

  We stopped running in Mary Street. The others were gathered there, being eyed from doorways by security men. I remember walking towards O’Connell Street. I stared at myself in some shiny tiles on a wall, but it wasn’t me that I saw. I looked more dirty than any child in the gang. I think Martin guessed what I was about to do, but he couldn’t stop me walking into the store. I saw the guard raise the walkie-talkie. There was an ambulance siren from the quays. The others suddenly disappeared. I kept walking, even when I heard Martin’s urgent hiss. The guard wouldn’t see me because I had ceased to exist. I remember lifting silk to my face and thinking how soft it felt, like something I could half-recall.

  I didn’t bother hiding what I robbed. I filled my pockets and then my arms with useless objects. The security guard walked behind me with the manageress. I saw Martin in the doorway, shaking his head, urging me to drop everything and run. I walked towards him, knowing exactly what I was doing and that he wouldn’t flee. He had saved my life in that lane. Without him I would be at peace now like the boy on the quayside. I couldn’t forgive him, because I was as dead inside as a stopped clock. I stepped between the security buzzers. The whole street was one alarm triggered off. Martin stood motionless as I piled the stolen goods into his hands. Then his face changed as he realised what I was deliberately doing. Strong arms caught me and I was lifted by the security guard. I knew his face beneath the cap, even though it was twenty years younger. He screamed at the impact of my nails.

  It was half-past-ten. I lay in bed in the hotel in Glasnevin, staring at the newspaper headline and the photograph of the latest murder victim. Police didn’t directly link his death to Christy’s, but were keeping an open mind. I wanted to sleep but I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure which revelation was disturbing me most – that Luke just saw me as a cheap tart or that some man who might be my father was still alive. The fiddler whom the driver had described, whose name I couldn’t even pronounce, bore no relation to the man who had abandoned us. Yet I couldn’t dispel my unease at the mention of him being seen with a young woman. I could recall the photographs of my mother in the album she had kept in her wardrobe. They were taken in our garden the summer she finished college. She was confident and laughing in them, with long hair and a straw hat, about to embark on her first solo holiday, hitchhiking around Ireland.

  There was some chance the driver might be mistaken. But Luke’s words were unequivocal. I couldn’t hide from their callous truth. My mother had returned in disgrace after that summer, made pregnant by an old man who latched on to her and later ran away. I hadn’t even been able to find a man of my own. I had made do with another woman’s left-overs and now I didn’t have a home left to run back to. Throughout my teens I’d tormented my mother by sitting in judgement, wrapped up in the superiority of my own pain. But I had made as great a mess of my life as she ever made of hers. Gran had expected more from her than that she would arrive home secretly married, but I realised that, by the time I had disappeared, Gran would have expected no better from me.

  I wanted to phone Grandad Pete, but it was madness to think that I could after sixteen months away. In my mind I saw how their house looked at that moment. I knew which Christmas decorations would be hung where and could even recall the writing on the cardboard box where the decorations were kept. Grandad Pete would have purchased the tree on Saturday, bringing the stand with him in the boot and ensuring the man chopped the base so that it stood straight. There would be two sets of lights, both ten years old. One flickered and one did not. I could see him taping the extension cord along the wall, while Gran sat over her list of cards. The box of assorted balls and angels would be on the floor beside him. Arranging them on the branches had been my task for as long as I remembered. There might be a card for me on the mantelpiece, with my name on the envelope and a blank space for the address. Shortly after their eleven o’clock coffee the post would drop into the hall. Grandad might discreetly check it before handing the cards to her, but they wouldn’t mention my name.

  I couldn’t stop this irrational hatred of Gran but I knew that Grandad Pete could forgive me anything. I remembered the police station in Dublin eleven years before and the screams of Martin in another cell being beaten with wet towels. I had squeezed my knees together with fright as my cell door clanged open. Grandad Pete had stood there smiling and beckoning me as he made the problems vanish. There were no charges pressed. The policewoman had been kind and given me chocolate on the way to the airport. Grandad held my hand on the plane, showing me cloud canyons out the window. He never asked a single question, but just said ‘You’re safe now, Tracey’, and squeezed my hand. My room was exactly as I had left it. My mother’s bed had been turned down, like it was always left when she was in hospital. Even the goldfish had flitted from their rock homes to mouth silent greetings. I was blamed for nothing because I had become a child again. I was secretly pleased to wake up, crying with my bed wet. I had lain between my grandparents in the big front bedroom, remembering the smell of Martin’s clothes and the way he would lie curled behind me, never moving although I could feel that stiff part of him touching my back. Months later I overheard them say that he was sent to an Industrial School – the first time I heard that Irish word for a borstal. Ireland itself was neve
r mentioned to me, even when my mother returned, sedated and guilty. They never asked and I never spoke. It had just festered inside me, waiting to seep out through a hundred cuts and wounds.

  Finally, at eleven o’clock, I picked up the phone in the hotel room and keyed in the code for London. I even let it ring three times in Harrow before putting it down. The problem was that I was no longer a child and there was no one left to blame. Even Grandad Pete couldn’t make this mess disappear and I wouldn’t ask him to because the only thing I still owned was my pride.

  Lunch-time came, then two o’clock and half past three. I couldn’t sleep or find the strength to rise from the bed. Luke had booked the hotel, but I wasn’t sure if he had paid in advance. I hadn’t enough money to pay the bill myself. My airline ticket was for seven the next morning. Luke had said he wasn’t sure if he could travel with me. Now I didn’t want to risk meeting him at the airport. I didn’t want to see him again. At least I’d never given him my address. I had thirty-nine pounds. If I did a runner from the hotel it might be enough to get me on a cheap coach to London, although with Christmas I didn’t know if there would be seats left.

  Nobody at reception could be listening but I was afraid to use the phone to inquire about coach tickets. Four o’clock came and then five. I drank from the cold water tap. I wasn’t hungry but my throat was raw. I ached for coffee but the shock of Luke’s words seemed to have drained the confidence from me to even leave the room. Daylight died beyond the window. There was a remote control beside the bed. I flicked through the channels for light and company. The Irish news came on. I couldn’t follow the main stories, so I turned the sound down. A report came on about Christy’s funeral. Luke was filmed with his arms around his daughter and his wife. Shane stood behind with Al looking stupid in a suit. Then a police photograph came up and it took me a moment to place the face. I grabbed the remote control to turn the sound up but only caught the end of the sentence: ‘… the second to die in twenty four hours, McGann’s body was found in a builder’s skip this afternoon.’ He had grown fat since the photograph but I still recognised the thug who had challenged Luke in Christy’s garden.

  The phone rang beside the bed. I shivered and flicked the television off so the room was in darkness. The phone kept ringing but I didn’t answer it. Then it stopped and I could hear my heart beating. I felt like a caged animal, a compliant English tart. I should have fled earlier when I had the chance. Footsteps approached down the corridor and there was a soft knock. I lay still, although such pretence was useless. Luke wasn’t the type to go away. The knocking came again, louder and more urgent.

  ‘Are you okay in there?’

  It took a moment to place the voice. I rose and pulled on a jumper and pair of jeans. I glanced in the mirror in the half light and saw what a mess I looked. I almost didn’t open the door, except that the knock came again and the voice was so concerned. It was bright in the corridor. The taxi driver stood there, slightly embarrassed. He had a brown paper bag in his hand.

  ‘I know you’re not sick,’ he said, ‘but I thought flowers might give the wrong impression. I’m not used to paying visits to young ladies’ rooms.’

  There were grapes inside the bag and a plastic tag saying Seedless. The man looked at my bowed head, not knowing if I was laughing or crying. Grapes were the very thing Grandad Pete would have thought of bringing. Even though it hadn’t been his voice, for a second as I opened the door I’d half expected to see my grandfather there.

  ‘I’ve always hated grapes,’ I said, looking up.

  ‘I can’t blame you, love,’ the man replied. ‘I was never gone on them myself.’

  I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my jumper. I was pleased he had called, or at least relieved it wasn’t Luke. But I was embarrassed and didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I didn’t mean to intrude,’ he explained. ‘I just wanted to check you were okay. I hated seeing you left like that this morning.’

  I felt I had to ask him in. He shook his head but I insisted. I turned on the light and saw how dishevelled the room was. I picked up old clothes and drew the curtains. The driver sat on the chair where Luke had watched me and I saw him eye the breakfast tray with the card of contraceptive pills still on it. I pocketed them and pushed the tray under the bed.

  ‘Have you eaten today, child?’ he said.

  ‘I’m not a child.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re not, but I’m old fashioned and you look like a child to me.’

  I sat at the mirror to comb my hair, tugging a brush harshly through the blonde tangles. Then I crossed to the hand basin to splash water over my face.

  ‘I know it’s not my business,’ he said. ‘I hope I haven’t offended you by calling?’

  I held the towel for a moment over my face. ‘I’m okay,’ I said. ‘I don’t need anyone’s help.’

  ‘Sure what help would I be?’ he replied. ‘I’m only an oul fellow with one foot in the grave. I’m old enough to be your grandfather.’ He paused as I lowered the towel and I saw him study my features. ‘All the same, I’m younger than your Daddy.’

  It was none of his business. I wanted him to step outside so I could get dressed properly. In fact I decided I didn’t want him here at all. My father had been dead in my mind for years. I wanted it kept that way. He glanced around the room.

  ‘Your gentleman friend hasn’t surfaced since.’

  ‘Luke was stressed out,’ I said, ‘late for a funeral. We were both tried. You know how it is with families.’

  ‘I do,’ he said, but he wasn’t fooled. I wanted to scream my fury at Luke, but found myself defending him. It seemed the only way to play down his insult. Our affair had always been private. Now the sympathy in the driver’s eyes was too humiliating.

  ‘He’s my future uncle-in-law,’ I said, ‘when he gets angry he makes out I’m not good for his nephew. I mean, who hasn’t had a row in a taxi?’

  I was amazed by how quickly the lies and justifications came. It could have been Luke himself prompting me.

  ‘I rarely pay any heed to what goes in the back of my car,’ the driver said. ‘Still I’d hate to think that if it was my daughter …’

  ‘I’m not your daughter.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’d just like to think that if you were and, well, if somebody who knew of me came across you, that they’d keep an eye out for you, for my sake if not your own.’

  It was the first time I’d ever been viewed as my father’s daughter. It felt strange having that abstract figure mentioned as flesh and blood.

  ‘I never heard of this Mac Suibhne guy,’ I said. ‘Even if he turns out to be my father, you’re showing more concern than he ever did. My father left when I was a few months old. I always presumed him dead and he can stay dead, because I want as much to do with him as he ever wanted to do with me.’

  ‘Sweeney is no tinker name,’ the driver said. ‘If you were Irish I’d think you were making this up. But you really haven’t a clue. He’s a very great musician, your father. I only heard him play twice, but you’d never forget him. I can still remember the first time, even though it’s fifty years ago, at the Oireachtas in Dublin. He brought the house down. He was a striking man, but painfully shy. He kept his back to the crowd for the first two tunes. The crowd wouldn’t let him off the stage until the committee finally dropped the curtain down.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how good he was,’ I said. ‘Nothing gives him the right to walk out on his wife. But weren’t you the same yourself, wandering off, leaving your wife to cope? You boasted about it this morning.’

  The man nodded. ‘I can’t deny it. They were different times. Oh, she lacked for nothing, I worked hard when I was here, but … a man looked foolish wheeling a pram then. They say it was a man’s world and they’re right, but we missed out on so much. My son said it to me one time he was home. All he remembered from childhood was sitting in dark pubs, sick from crisps and lemonade, listening to old men play music.’ He stood up, awkward no
w. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I don’t even know your Daddy. But he’s an old man. Whatever he did he may regret it now. Your mother …?’

  ‘She’s dead.

  ‘I’m sorry. Was it she told you he was a tinker?’

  ‘What you call him doesn’t change what he did.’

  ‘He’s old, that’s all I’ll say. He’s a solitary man who’s spent his life avoiding towns and walking across hills and bogs in the rain with a wooden box on his back. Needles and threads, hairpins and cheap brooches nobody in their right mind would buy. People bought them off him so that he’d have the odd shilling in his pocket. They’d go up to ask for things between sets, and, as often as not, throw them into a ditch on their way home. That was their way of keeping him afloat, you couldn’t just put money into his hand. He has a fierce pride. No more than myself, he should be in the grave years ago if the devil wasn’t busy elsewhere. But we’re not unkillable. If there’s any chance he’s your Daddy, then you should meet him just once, at least to tell him his wife is dead.’

  The driver took out a set of keys. It was hard to think of him ferrying people from discos and clubs out into dangerous suburbs. I knew he was a good man and even though he’d heard the names Luke called me I wasn’t ashamed any more. He had turned me from somebody’s tart into somebody’s daughter. I couldn’t reconcile the fiddler he spoke of with the childhood stories I’d heard, but it felt good to see respect in somebody’s eyes again.

  ‘Surely there were dozens of Frank Sweeneys,’ I said.

  ‘Few were fiddlers,’ the taxi man replied, ‘and fewer still mastered Last Night’s Joy. Don’t take my word for it. There’s a box player who knows Mac Suibhne well, by the name of Jimmy McMahon. Even though it’s twenty years ago I often heard Jimmy talk about the time he saw Mac Suibhne in Dublin, walking along Berkeley Road with a young English woman. All kind of rumours flew about back then. I never heard marriage mentioned nor a child, but McMahon will be playing at the session in Hughes pub down the markets tonight. You mightn’t want to go there. But whether you’re Mac Suibhne’s girl or not, please, don’t throw your life away on trash washed out from the slums of Dublin.’