by Laura Elliot
Under duress, I agreed to meet her parents. They lived in a modest bungalow but it was in a respectable location, she told me. Such things, I was beginning to discover, were of importance to her. I took a bus to Monkstown, feeling the snare tightening around my neck. Noel Devine’s shoulders are stooped now but then he was tall and straight as an exclamation mark. Greta was as plump as she is today and her hair was only beginning to grey. When I stood before them, expecting Noel to brandish a shotgun and march us to the altar, he showed concern for our situation, rather than a desire to load and fire. They agreed that we were too young to marry but if that was what we wanted they would be happy to accept me as their son-in-law. Jean watched my face, judged my expression to be less than enthusiastic and shook her head defiantly. Marriage was out of the question, she stated. We hardly knew each other. I agreed, perhaps too whole-heartedly, but promised to support her and our child in every other way.
We battled our way towards Killian’s birth. Despite Jean’s brave words, the term “single mother” terrified her, conjuring up a one-bedroom flat in the inner city with drug addicts needling their arms on the stairwells and money-lenders crashing through doorways. The question of marriage kept cropping up in conversation. My future was being shaped by her vision of the perfect life; an incremental salary and a secure pension plan. I, too, was equally limited in vision, imagining myself joining an army of grey suits marching with one step from grey office blocks towards the grey uniformity of suburbia. Our child was also without identity or colour; its presence visible only in the growing bump on Jean’s stomach which she disguised with loose dresses and a refusal to go anywhere people might recognise her. Since this effectively ruled out the pub, cinema, rugby club or disco, our dates mainly consisted of sedate walks in the Phoenix Park where, one evening, in a hollow of fallen leaves, we spotted a deer standing perfectly still for an instant before bounding silently away. I envied the ease with which it moved into the trees, leaving nothing, not even a trembling leaf, as evidence of its swift escape.
Perhaps that was the reason I also ran, deserting her at a time when she needed me most. We’d had a row before I left. A family gathering had been planned. I was to meet her relations. They waited in vain for my arrival.
I hadn’t realised I was running away from everything until I reached Harriet’s cottage. She was home from exploring the snow caps of Chile and offered me her usual absent-minded welcome. I didn’t tell her she was about to become a great-aunt, knowing her scorn would send me slinking back to face my responsibilities. I told myself I was doing the right thing. Far better to end it at the beginning. What kind of father would I make when I’d never known a father’s hand on my shoulder? A ship that passed in the night, said Harriet when I questioned her about this nameless man. As an answer it lacked a certain clarity and so I gave him a personality; a buccaneer on a pirate ship, the commander of a submarine, a Viking on a longboat pillaging the Liffey.
I awoke one morning and sensed it, a shifting in the air, a quickening in the breeze. My head was clear for the first time in months. I needed to be with Jean. Whatever our future held, I wanted a share in it. I left a note for Harriet and hitch-hiked back to Dublin. Six hours later I rang her doorbell. Greta closed the door in my face. Killian had been born the previous day. Jean and her family never wanted to see me again.
In time Greta relented but Jean’s forgiveness was more difficult to obtain. I phoned her every day, sent her flowers and letters, besieged her with phone calls until she agreed to meet me. Killian was three weeks old when I saw him for the first time. I held him in my arms and wondered how his frail bird-like neck would ever support his head. As he struggled to make sense of shape, smell and sound, I watched his gaze lock with bemused concentration into mine. Can anyone describe happiness? It is elation, walking on air, music of the mind. It is a fleeting thing.
At first it seemed possible to make amends. I was free to visit the bungalow as often as I wished. A tentative friendship grew between myself and Greta, who looked after her grandson when Jean returned to university. She had a sweet voice, Joni Mitchell came to mind when I heard her sing, and she sang often to Killian, lullabies and folk songs. “Hush little baby, don’t say a word. Mama’s gonna buy you a mocking bird.”
I remember the afternoon he walked for the first time. We sat in her kitchen and watched him release his grip on the edge of a chair. He swayed forward with the uncertainty of a drunk who sees the floor rising and falling. He took one tottering step then another, his body wavering between disbelief and determination. I will never forget his startled smile when we applauded. The wonder with which he collapsed and stared at his feet. This ever-changing relationship between father and son was beginning to unfold in ways I’d never anticipated. I wanted to spend my life exploring it with him.
I proposed marriage. Magnanimous Sir Galahad, determined to do the right thing. As always, my script was out of date. Jean Devine had met a rugby player with wavy hair, a truncated neck and ambitions to take over his father’s wine import company. As she waved me from her house that evening, Killian balanced securely on her right hip, I felt as if the lid of an unexplored treasure chest had been slammed across my fingers.
Terence O’Malley adored her. As soon as I saw them together I knew I’d lost. On Sunday afternoons she strapped our son into the back of his Jaguar and they drove to the mountains, to the beach. I imagined Killian’s stomach heaving as the car mounted bridges or turned corners too sharply and how, on the way home, he would drift asleep to the strains of Terence singing “The Bog Down in the Valley O” – or drawing from his interminable store of Knock Knock jokes.
Jean and I found it impossible to be in the same room without arguing. Greta refused to take sides and ordered us to sit down together and discuss our son’s future in a civilized manner. She was beginning to sound increasingly like a mother. At least, I assumed her scolding, exasperated tone was maternal. As far as I could remember, my mother had never raised her voice to me and Harriet had always treated me as a miniature adult disguised for a brief period in a boy’s body.
Our meeting took place in the Shelbourne Hotel. In six months’ time her father would escort her to the altar. An engagement ring gleamed on her tanned finger. A house had been purchased in the Dublin Mountains where Killian would begin his new life. Her son, she allowed the emphasis to settle between us, needed to acquire a strong sense of identity. If I persisted in believing I could come and go as I pleased she’d have to look at other options to protect him. My furious reminder that I had a natural right which could never be denied was met with indifference. That’s how I remember our conversation. No doubt Jean would take a different view.
“My son would have been an abortion statistic if you’d had your way,” she said. She’d checked out her rights and advised me to check out mine which, she added, almost as an afterthought, were non-existent. There was no father’s name on Killian’s birth certificate. How could there be when I’d abandoned her at a time when she had most need of my support? She closed her eyes, as if blanking out an indelible memory. Terence wanted them to be a family in the fullest sense. Total commitment.
The word “adoption” was cold and complete. It did not need an appendage or any further explanation. I veered between disbelief and outrage. What she was suggesting was inconceivable, obscene. Yet, she made it sound reasonable, even possible. Her hand was steady as she held a silver pot and poured coffee. She was deftly working my strings between her fingers and I had no option but to dance to her tune.
I met with a solicitor who warned of protracted court battles and partisan judges. I was a single father without any family structure, apart from an aunt whose life was an endless journey of discovery. The self-help group of lone fathers I joined reflected my own helplessness. Their stories of injustices terrified me. I contacted Eddie Wynn, a journalist who’d supplemented his income when he was studying by waiting tables in the Indian restaurant where I’d worked. Under the nom de plume
of Patrick I told my story which was published in the Dublin Echo with the bold headline “SINGLE FATHER DEPRIVED OF RIGHTS”. It sparked off quite a debate, made Killian famous in an anonymous way. Letters on the issues of single fatherhood were published. I was asked to do a radio interview, then another for television. My face was shaded from public view but my hunched, defeated shoulders told their own story.
Jean never admitted she guessed the identity of “Patrick” but in the months that followed she stopped insisting on adoption. I could have five hours every Saturday afternoon, providing I agreed to Killian’s surname becoming Devine-O’Malley. My solicitor negotiated a full Saturday and an overnight visit once a month. I accepted these terms, having heard too many in-camera horror scenarios from the men in the group. They were an angry gathering. Many of them had good reasons for their anger but my own reality was becoming submerged under their experiences. I left the group when I realised I was beginning to feed off their collective outrage.
Do I sound bitter, jealous? Jealousy I will accept as an abiding emotion but bitterness was impossible to maintain when it came to Terence O’Malley. When he was not stamping the imprint of his boot into the head of his opponent on the rugby pitch, he was an affable, easygoing man without opinions. His love for Jean was uncomplicated. Killian was three years old when they married. He would not create an uneasy triangle within their union but form the complete circle.
Terence sings from his belly … The Bog Down in the Valley O … sing Killian sing … and in that bog there is a tree … clap, Killian, clap! What a lovely day. Look at the trees, mountains, rivers. Say thank you to daddy. Say it! Thank you Daddy. Terence is daddy … daddy is Michael … Terence is daddy …
Cinema circus concerts McDonald’s playground bookshop museum … wasn’t it a great day, Killian … wasn’t it great to be together again … what did you do this week … tell me everything … stop with those stupid Knock Knock jokes … you’re doing my head in … sorry for being so cross, son … sorry for spoiling our day …
CHAPTER TWENTY
London
1982
Lorraine is adrift in a cacophony of sounds, spice smells, greasy-spoon cafes, dreadlocks, girls in saris with cockney accents, boot boys, ageing beatniks, Rastafarians and men in turbans who stare haughtily through her. Everyone hurries at a faster pace and snaps, “Excuse me, let me pass,” if she dallies too long on the Underground escalators. She enters a crowded pub where young men with tight white faces move in an uncontrollable fury to the music of Sulphuric Acid.
“It’s not quite O’Callaghan’s, but you’ll get used to it.” Virginia laughs at her expression and leads her into the seething mass of bodies. Two years have passed since the cousins met and Lorraine is spending her first summer abroad. Her dread of being introduced to a man called Razor Blade – who spits and hisses when making love – has not lessened with time. His appearance does little to ease her apprehension. On stage he writhes his skinny body and contorts his face. His songs, bitter vitriolic lyrics which he writes himself, electrify his fans. His restlessness, so similar to the nervous energy Virginia projects, dominates the stage. Lorraine will share a flat with them for the summer.
Uncle Des has married his red-heeled Sonya.
“No sense crying over sour milk, young lady,” said her aunt when Lorraine rang to sympathise. “Eyes to the front. Best foot forward.” She now belongs to a ten-pin bowling club where she bowls with such ferocity that she has became the club’s top scorer. She attributes her success to the belief that the ball she is rolling towards a strike is Des Cheevers’ deceitful, cheating head.
One night, listening painfully to Sulphuric Acid in a basement club with no ventilation to release the sweating angst of its occupants, Lorraine is pulled backwards and held firmly against a lean masculine body.
“Virginia told me you’d be here tonight.” A familiar voice growls in her ear.
“Oh my God!” She presses her hand across her mouth and turns into the laughing face of Adrian Strong. “I don’t believe it.”
He is dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, his arms muscular and tanned the same reddish bronze she remembers from Trabawn. He is different from the crowd, both in the way he dresses and the ease with which he listens to the music. She wonders if they will beat him up for standing apart from them, relaxed and amused, his very posture suggesting contempt for their collective fury.
“I’m working in London for the summer.” She has to lean closer to hear him. His Irish accent is music to her home-sick ears. His eyes rest on a Celtic cross glinting against her throat. She tilts her head back, allows her hair to sweep down her back. In college, an art student painted her neck and entitled his painting Swan-song. Ever since, she has been prone to showing off her neck and Adrian Strong seems to appreciate her efforts. He fingers the cross, drawing her closer with an almost imperceptible pull, then stops before they touch. He could swallow her in his gaze, shake her heart until it loses all sense of rhythm. She turns her back on him, pretending to stare towards the band. He needs punishing for never writing to her. She recalls the anguish of waiting for the postman, hoping to hear his voice every time the phone rang. The pain does not seem important any more. He tightens his hands on her hips, presses her more insistently against him then turns her around, his mouth hot against her lips. She had forgotten the desire he could arouse in her and cannot imagine how it will end, who will be the first to break away, not her, impossible.
“What say we escape from this harbour to hell and find somewhere quieter to talk?” he suggests.
“Don’t you like their music?” She teases him.
“It’s pure, unadulterated shite.” She can see him laughing but the sound is lost in the frenzied clash of drums. Music blasts around them as Sulphuric Acid vent their hate and Razor Blade jerks the microphone in a grotesque sexual parody. They leave the packed snarling fans, fists raised, heads banging, and Virginia, like a flame, jumping higher than any of them.
In a pub where pin-ball machines ping and music plays too loudly, they talk about home, discovering mutual acquaintances from college, and when she says, “Isn’t Ireland such a village,” they moan with the contented satisfaction of those who have escaped its homogenous clutches. They discuss music and books, art, themselves, the past and the future. He has completed his marketing degree and intends to travel. To earn money he is working on a building site, his second summer in London with the same construction crew. She pictures him standing high above the city, bare-chested, running along thin strips of scaffolding, striding confidently along ceiling joists, stepping onto window ledges without hesitation.
Later, the band party in the old Victorian house where Virginia and Razor live. She holds Adrian tightly as they circle the crowded room. His voice whispers in her hair. His hand slides between them, touching her intimately, secretly and the lurching pleasure she feels remains with her long after he leaves.
London is an oven of grey cement, the sun bouncing off high grey walls. Lorraine seeks the shade of trees and overhanging balconies, shop awnings and the dark side of the street, dreading the long hours in the hotel where she works as a chambermaid. She can tell much about the anonymous occupants of the bedrooms she cleans: the signs of sex in the tangle of sheets and discarded condoms thrown carelessly under the bed, empty pill bottles, books by Jean-Paul Sartre and Barbara Cartland, pornographic magazines, the bible with the crushed rose as a book mark, a mountain boot in the bath, a lacy bra wound around a curtain rail. But the tide of life that flows around her only has relevance when she is with Adrian Strong. Mind domination. Lover takes all. And he is taking all, not just the time they spend together but also time spent without him, which she flings aside as heedlessly as debris.
“He comes and goes,” says Virginia. “He’ll be back. Just don’t hold your breath.”
The titian dye is fading from her hair. Dark roots show between the spikes but even they are losing their aggression and have a wilted look. She is wo
rking in public relations and a more chic image is being cultivated.
“Punk is dying,” she informs Lorraine. “It’s time Razor moved on to something more meaningful.”
Lorraine does not want to move on anywhere unless Adrian Strong is beside her. His pattern of coming and going has no order and she is unable to organise her shifts around him. When he does turn up, always unexpectedly and days later than promised, he is as unapologetic as ever. The desire she experienced on the night they met has not been repeated. His kisses, although wonderful, are just ordinarily wonderful and, sometimes, in his arms she feels as if she has no identity. He talks about New York, San Francisco, California – he wants to experience the States and plans to leave London in September. All he has to do is beckon and she will go with him. She closes her eyes, imagines them sipping coffee in Greenwich Village and returning to their loft bedroom to lie entwined in each other’s arms.
Despite his obvious contempt for Sulphuric Acid, he attends many of their gigs. Occasionally, the four of them drink in the local pub, The Pewter Tankard. When they stay in for an evening they watch films on television, slumped comfortably together on the long sofa. Razor dons a butcher’s apron and cooks. Lorraine is surprised to discover that he is an excellent chef. He uses only fresh vegetables and introduces her to unknown seasonings and spices. Jamaican dishes are his speciality and even Marley, the Jamaican man from the flat next door, says his food has the authentic taste of home cooking. He also makes home-made beer. Bottles line the kitchen shelves and their corks pop with the velocity of gunfire.
Marley’s real name is Earl Bradley but he is a dedicated Bob Marley fan, playing the singer’s records constantly, even in the mornings before breakfast and late into the night. He calls to the flat one evening and presents a bottle of Jamaican rum to Virginia as an apology for keeping them awake.
