“What in the name of Christ is goin’ on? Can’t ya close your bloody traps for once? Can’t ya?”
I was taken aback to hear him complain out loud. I hadn’t heard him raise his voice in years.
My mother turned towards him. “You come down here and talk to your son! Come down now and do what any decent father would do! Tell him we won’t sign no papers!”
My father walked down the stairs and stood next to the fireplace and stared into the burning coal as if he was contemplating jumping into the fire.
Paddy Walsh carried with him an air of futility and he appeared to be living more on instinct than on any kind of promise. A quietness of movement and an almost constant silence accompanied him throughout the course of his day. Like a mouse living under a floorboard or under the staircase he cherished bits and pieces of small comforts that came his way, such as his walks into the city and his time in Stephen’s Green where he would sit on a bench, stretch out his legs, light up a self-rolled cigarette and stare at the ducks swimming around in the pond.
As he stared into the fireplace I imagined he was thinking he was sitting on his favourite bench in Stephen’s Green, away from all family matters. To my surprise he turned to me with the warmest and tenderest look on his face. For a second or two I thought he had vanished into his own childhood.
“What papers are ya talkin’ about, son?” he asked me.
“To go to America. Maggie Sheridan is arranging it.”
He then stood up and walked closer to me. I could see he hadn’t shaved in at least a few days. His detached shirt collar was half-attached to his striped shirt. He stood in his stocking feet. He then to my great surprise began to sing in a calm low voice:
“It’s a long way to Tipperary; it’s a long way to go!
It’s a long way to Tipperary to the sweetest girl I know!”
He appeared to be celebrating. I hadn’t seen him look so happy in years. As he looked at me I sensed he was happy for me. I was doing something he was happy about. He then stepped past my mother and went into the kitchen with a smile on his face and poured himself a cup of tea. He came back into the living room and sat down at the fireplace.
My mother watched him like a hawk. It was as if she was seeing him all over again. Her expression had changed and she not only appeared more relaxed she actually looked, at least in my eyes, younger. With the exception of when she was praying or at Mass, I had never seen her look so peaceful and calm. It was a place she had not inhabited for a very long time. It was as if night had come early and she had changed back to the world of silence and darkness where she could feel the touch of his back against hers. She observed my father as if he was somebody she knew a long time ago. Maybe when he was younger he broke out in song when things were bad. Maybe this is what attracted her to him in the first place.
While he sipped on his tea, he sang in a whispering voice. He didn’t at all appear to be bothered by anything. It seemed he was happy for me, even if it was only for a moment. Maybe he had broken down and come out of himself this evening when he sensed that I was going to break away from the cage or the prison he felt himself and his family to be in. He sang and mumbled song after song as if he was meeting a challenge in a soldierly way.
My mother was taken off guard. Something about her looked happy and excited as well. Did something happen that made her look forward to being back in bed with him again this very night? Did she forget all about her journey and sacrifices that were to take her to Heaven? Did the thought of lying down again with my father erase any of her day-time thinking? Her eyes were no longer glancing with despair. Was it because the circle of our lives had been broken? Had my plans to leave home and country changed the sense of futility that we had all lived in for so long?
My father sat down in front of the fireplace and sang away.
“Ah when the war was on we’d rashers in the pan,
Now that’s it all over we’ve only bread and jam!
Oh right you are, right you are!
Right you are, me jolly good soldier, right you are!”
He then faced me with a fresh look of confidence. “Gabriel, remember, I was all over the bloody globe. We taught the Jerries a few things, let me tell ya! Bombs, bullets, bayonets every damn thing they threw at us – mustard gas, the bloody lot. Ah, the poor bastards. All of them! All of us!” He snapped his suspenders and added, “What time do you want me to meet them on Thursday?”
My mother called out, “You’re lettin’ him go? Is that it?”
“He wants to.” He looked at me again. “Don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I’ll meet them tomorrow or whenever ya want me to,” he said. “I’ll sign the papers and you can go whenever you want.”
I felt my blood boiling over and I didn’t know what to do with my own feelings so I walked upstairs to the bedroom.
As I readied myself for bed I heard my mother downstairs in the living room talking again. “You needn’t go, Paddy. I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I’ll wear somethin’ decent and I’ll go with him.”
A few seconds later I heard the old gramophone playing the only other record in the house. It was a bit hard to separate the words from the scratching on the record but it played nevertheless.
“I love you like I’ve never loved before,
Since first I saw you on the village green . . .”
The record stopped. There was a silence downstairs. It was unusual, strange, but it was beautiful. I fell asleep.
* * *
After looking in every cupboard and behind every holy picture in the house my mother remembered that she had long ago deposited her corset under the mattress on her bed. In a flurry of enthusiasm she lifted up the mattress and between it and the half-rotten bedsprings she pulled out what she said was her long-lost corset. The corset was a strange-looking garment that might have been pink in colour years earlier but now looked like a slice of bread a week old. Following a brief inspection of the silky and faded garment my mother sat down on the bed and held it close to her chest. The look on her face said she had found some long-lost part of herself. She kissed the faded material and mumbled a few inaudible words. I couldn’t tell if the words were prayers or some kind of greeting but whatever they were it was clear that my mother was happier than I had seen her in a long time.
As I was about to ask why she was smiling, she called out, “Too many children!”
I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or to the old corset. She stood up from the bed and raised her voice. “That’s what caused me belly to stick out like this – too many children!”
Without saying another word she walked out of the bedroom and made her way down the small flight of stairs. I followed her.
In no more than a second or two my mother was out of her working apron and standing in front of a mirror with the corset in hand. It had been quite some time since I had seen her out of her working apron. I might have been seven years old at the time. When I looked at her now standing in front of the mirror with the old corset I was embarrassed and frightened. Added to the image of my mother losing her mind was the old brownish silky slip she was wearing. It could only be described as a crucifixion cloth. Following a very short inspection in the mirror, my mother began the task of wrapping the corset around her body, or as far as I could tell, imprisoning her body in it. The corset was something like a horse-halter with straps, buckles and laces hanging from it. Her stockings which she had tied above her knees with twine had holes in them. Her shoes had broken laces as well.
After a prolonged struggle with the corset, she struggled into a black dress.
She finally turned towards me with a contented look on her face. By now she looked like a loose sack of coal.
“I’ll go to Mass in Clarendon Street. It’s near Saint Stephen’s Green,” she said.
“Can you wear something different?” I asked as she tightened the piece of twine that held up one of her stockings.
“Are ya ashame
d of your poor old mother? Is that it? Is that it? You’re ashamed of your own mother and the way I dress. Isn’t that so?”
“I was hoping you’d wear something different, that’s all I’m asking. And you don’t have to be wearing them stockings with the twine holding them up either.”
“I’ll wear what I like. If you don’t want me to go with ya, I won’t.”
“Don’t you have another dress?” I asked in as warm and encouraging a voice as I could muster.
“I do have another dress and you know where it is? D’ya know?”
“No.”
“It’s in the pawnshop. I had to pawn it to put a bit of coal in the fireplace last time you were all freezin’ here. You don’t remember that, do you?”
“No.”
“Well, me dress is in the pawnshop and I’ve no money to get it out. If your father had a bit of employment it would be a different matter. And why in the name of God isn’t he here with you right now? He’s the one who should be goin’ to this meeting. Ya can talk all ya want and be ashamed all ya want but I’m still your mother and that’s the way God made it. You mingle with all them toffs at the hotel but you’re still me son and don’t you forget it.”
“I’m only asking you to take a look at yourself in the mirror and see that the dress doesn’t fit you. That’s all I’m asking. You look like you can’t breathe.”
My mother was silent again. She continued to twist her body of many shapes into the old dress. “This used to fit me. I wore it at your brother’s funeral, God rest his soul.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“The dress?”
“Yes.”
“It belonged to Mrs. Burn’s sister who went off to become a nun in Africa. After spreading the Holy Word of God she died over there without ever coming back. God rest her soul as well.” My mother quickly made the Sign of the Cross and pressed her gums together. I then noticed that she didn’t have her false teeth in her mouth. A billow of panic came over me. The sight of my mother without her false teeth made me forget about how peculiar she looked in the black dress. I gaped around the room at all the holy pictures. Saint Francis of Assisi. Saint Joseph. Saint Bridget. Saint Patrick with his big shepherd’s stick. The Blessed Virgin standing on a globe of the world in her bare feet and a nice long blue dress. The Sacred Heart of Jesus with his open wounds and bleeding heart. A picture of the Pope was looking on as well. They were all looking down at my mother and me. For a second or two I wondered if they knew where my mother’s false teeth were. I was tempted to kneel down and pray to all of them at once and ask them if they’d seen the teeth. Sometimes my mother left her teeth in front of the holy pictures when she knelt on the floor to say the rosary. Other times she wrapped her rosary beads around the teeth and left them under the picture of the Sacred Heart. They weren’t in her mouth lately because we hadn’t had meat to eat in more than two weeks. Where are they? I silently cried to myself. I was going to pray to Saint Francis of Assisi but I didn’t know what prayer to offer up to him. He was beatified and canonised and famous for helping feed birds and rabbits and was the saint of Poverty. He wouldn’t help me find them because he wasn’t in favour of anybody being too comfortable. He might have been happy to know that my mother lost her false teeth. He gave up his own privileged life to lead a life of poverty. He’d tell me to go out and find a bird with a broken wing or something. Saint Patrick would have told me not to worry because we were all Christians anyway and we’d be allowed into Heaven with or without teeth. My house was filled with pictures of saints but none of them from Dublin and I didn’t think they’d know or care much about what went on here. The picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus would be the only one who could help me find the teeth.
I became so terrified of my mother leaving the house without her teeth I began to mutter, “Jesus, help me find the teeth! Please help me, God! Tell me where my mother’s false teeth are and I’ll pray for two months without stopping. I’ll go to Mass and Communion for the next six years!” I was shaking and mumbling at the same time.
My mother noticed me walking about the room. “What are ya lookin’ for?”
I was afraid to tell her. I didn’t want her to know that I was worried about her not having her false teeth as well as wearing the old dress she was still struggling with. I walked out into the small kitchen, thinking she might have taken her teeth out there when she was toiling over the stove. I looked everywhere. I looked in the sink. I looked in the oven.
“What’s the matter with you, Gabriel?” she called.
“Do you have your things?”
“What things?” she answered back with a conquering grin on her face after finally managing to become one with the dress. “Me teeth?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t have any teeth,” she said, surprising me with her lack of concern.
“I mean your false teeth.”
She went over to the fireplace, took the top off the black kettle, put her hand into it and retrieved her false teeth.
“What were you doin’? Cookin’ them?” I asked.
“I was cleanin’ them. You never know when we’ll get a bit of steak or roast beef and I’ll need them.” Then she added mockingly, “That’ll be the day. Won’t it, son?”
“What were you trying to do? Boil the teeth?”
“The black kettle is the best place for them when they’re not in me mouth.”
She then walked over to the mirror next to the statue of the Sacred Heart, mumbled a few words and placed the teeth in her mouth. I then noticed that the zipper at the back of her dress was broken. My mother reached back to get a grip on it but as she pulled the thing tore away from the dress.
“Ah lovin’ Jesus! Will ya look what’s happened to me now?” she yelled.
I watched in silent horror and wondered what she was going to do about the broken zipper. The saints were still looking down at us but there was no sign of help. After a second or two my mother walked to the mantelpiece and found a safety pin.
“Will ya pin me dress at the back?” she asked me.
She handed me the safety pin and I wanted to stick it in my head. I stood behind her, attempting to pin the back of her dress as she adjusted the false teeth in her mouth.
“Ma?”
“What is it, son?”
“I don’t think the dress fits you.”
“Never mind if it fits me or not. I don’t care. It’s all I’ve got. If you don’t want me to wear it, I won’t go. Go out and find your father. See what he has to wear. The arse is fallin’ out of his trousers and he hasn’t a decent shoe to put on his foot. Go on now and find him if you want.” She walked away from me before I had a chance to close the pin that was now sticking out at the back of her neck and dress. She stood in the middle of the room, looking like an old lost goose. As she contemplated her reflection in the nearby mirror, she climbed out of the dress and began to untie the laces on the corset that was under it. As she untied, her belly began to appear more and more. It got bigger and bigger each time she loosened one of the laces on the corset.
I felt my life was about to end. I walked up to her as she continued to uncase herself. “Please, Mother, do you have to wear that thing?”
She yelled back at me, “I wore this before you were born. It fitted me when I was a young girl. Long before I met your father.” She now stood half-wrapped in the corset. String and straps were hanging in every direction.
I impulsively grabbed one of the strings that was hanging down at the back of the corset and yelled, “Wear somethin’ else! I can’t stand it! I can’t stand lookin’ at you dressed up in that thing!”
My mother turned to me with one hand holding in her protruding belly and the other holding onto the corset. “I’ll wear what I like. Don’t you want them people to see where you come from? I’m your poor mother and this is me. I won’t go anywhere if you carry on.”
I stepped away from her and sat down on the old armchair and closed my eyes. I tried to l
ook back at the sixteen years of my life with her to see or even imagine her to be any different than she was this day, standing in front of me in her old and tattered clothes. I was tired and exhausted from arguing and began to accept that I had almost no influence over my mother. She would say what she wanted and do what she wanted and she’d wear what she wanted. Wanting her to look and behave like someone different was not going to happen. I now had to accept fully that this was my mother, in all her rags, twines and false teeth. The old dress and the worn-out shoes and the stockings with holes in them was my mother. This had always been my mother even if I never wanted to believe or accept it. She was from another time and she would neither change nor let go of her past. While I sat back in the armchair searching for some kind of warm emotional connection, the sound of my mother’s voice brought me back to the present reality.
“Will ya stop actin’ like Paddy Walsh and put the kettle on for a cup of tea!”
The mention of my father meant that my mother was losing her patience with me and perhaps herself as well. Why she always resorted to using my father’s full name was a bit of a mystery to me. I think in some ways it kept her distanced from him.
I went into the tiny kitchen, filled the pot with water and placed it on the gas stove. I then got two cups and saucers from the wooden cupboard and put them on the table my mother was sitting at in the front room. As I put the cup and saucer in front of her she looked up at me but didn’t say a word. Having run out of anything else to say I started to walk about the room.
“What are ya lookin’ for now?” my mother calmly asked.
“I left my coat here last night and it’s gone.”
She smiled. “I took it upstairs. It was cold last night in case you don’t remember.”
I ran up the stairs in a hurry and found my coat spread across the bed I slept in.
* * *
In less than half an hour my mother and I got off the bus and headed up Grafton Street. Grafton Street, a five-minute walk from the Shelbourne Hotel. It was also just around the corner from the Mansion House, the home of Dublin’s Lord Mayor. My mother seemed to be off in her own world as she slowly walked alongside me along the glamorous street with its shop windows full of luxurious displays, its uniformed doormen, its well-heeled clientele. I didn’t want to disturb her or complain but I felt I had to.
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