by Doyle, Paddy
After a few drinks the two men went to the toilet and I followed them. The stench of stale urine was choking, ammonia catching my breath. I was unsure of how to use the toilets so I waited for my uncle to start. As he undid his buttons, so did I. I copied his movements as he shuffled nearer the urinal and thought it unusual that he made no effort to prevent me from seeing his penis. I watched him hold it and withdraw the foreskin. At first I had difficulty in passing any water at all and it was only when I heard the sound next to me that I relaxed enough to be able to go to the toilet. When he was finished he shook his penis vigorously before replacing it in his trousers and buttoning his flies.
I watched as the two men poured black porter from brown bottles into sparkling clean glasses. A dirty-looking yellowish froth formed on top and when this reached the top of the glass they stopped pouring. They sat looking at their drinks like two priests about to offer wine up to God during Mass. My uncle nodded to me. I drank the lemonade slowly, its tingling sensation a new experience for me. He walked down from the counter and handed me a large bar of chocolate. I took it and thanked him. The two men lifted their glasses slowly, their mouths hugging the rims as they poured the porter down. They had four drinks and I finished the large bottle of Taylor Keith before we all went to the toilet and resumed our journey. By the time we reached Wexford town it was getting dark. Lights shone from houses where people had not yet drawn the curtains. The narrowness of the streets amazed me and I told my uncle so. ‘What time is it when two cars meet on the main street in Wexford?’ he asked, as the driver and himself laughed.
‘I don’t know,’ I answered.
‘Tin to tin.’
The car turned into a sleepy cul-de-sac and came to a halt outside a whitewashed, pebble-dashed, semi-detached house. There were brass fittings on the red hall door with the number six above the letter box. White lace curtains hung partially open on the windows. My uncle got out of the car, opened the little iron gate and walked up the narrow concrete path to the front door. I watched as he waited for an answer to his knock. An old woman opened the door and shook his hand. They chatted for a while before he came back to the car and let me out. I didn’t like the look of the woman, there was something about the entire situation that made me desperately want to be back in St Michael’s.
In the neat parlour, she offered my uncle a cup of tea which she poured from a decorative silver teapot. She gave me a glass of milk and a plain biscuit. They chatted to one another while I looked around the room at the various statues that sat in every available space. My aunt looked at me and remarked to my uncle that I didn’t have much to say. ‘He’s a quiet lad anyway and it’ll take him a few days to settle in,’ he replied.
My aunt had long grey hair which she kept tied up in a neat bun at the back of her head. I watched her fingers tremble as she lifted the cup to her thin lips. The purple veins in her hands showed through her wrinkled flesh. They were prominent and lumpy looking. Her knuckles where white and swollen. She had difficulty in pouring tea and in lifting her own cup to drink. On the finger of her left hand a shining gold wedding ring had embedded itself into her aging skin. Instead of shoes, she had pink slippers on her feet. She moved slowly as she gathered the cups and saucers to bring them to the kitchen. My uncle rose from his chair and told her that he would call some day and take me to the shops. Then he wished me good luck and left. She walked to the hall door with him and waved as he drove away from the front of the house.
‘Now,’ she said as she came back into the room, ‘I think it is time for bed, but before that we will say our night prayers. I’m sure you say yours every night in the School.’
‘I do,’ I answered. She opened the drawer of one of the cabinets and took out a black Rosary beads. She held the crucifix in her hand, looked at it and blessed herself, pressing it to her forehead, her breast and each of her shoulders. She moved a chair from under the table and used it for support as she knelt on the carpeted floor. Once I was kneeling she began the Rosary.
‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Thou, O Lord, will open my lips.’ She looked crossly at me when I didn’t answer.
‘Do you know the Rosary at all?’ she snapped.
‘I know the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory be to the Father,’ I replied.
‘And my tongue shall announce His praise,’ she answered herself before starting into the Five Joyful Mysteries – the Resurrection, the Ascension and so on. Ten Hail Marys for each, sandwiched between an Our Father and a Glory be to the Father. She said the first half of each prayer and I the second. At first I was nervous and my voice trembled but I became more confident as I went along.
After the Rosary she led me up the softly-carpeted stairs to the bedroom. It was spotlessly clean and sparsely furnished with just a single bed and a two-drawer wooden dresser. There was a silver-framed picture of the Blessed Virgin on the wall.
‘You better go to the bathroom,’ she said, pushing open one of the doors that led off the small landing.
‘Wash yourself and be sure to go to the toilet.’ When I came out she was waiting in my room. There was a man’s shirt on my bed which she told me to wear to bed. I began to undress by taking off my jumper and shirt. I was just going to drop my trousers when she said: ‘Wait! Put on this first.’ She held the shirt over my head and told me I must be modest always. I got into bed, immediately noticing the softness of the mattress and the freshness of the sheets and pillow cover. My aunt left the door open, and the landing light on. In the next room I heard her moving about, opening and shutting presses and drawers. When I heard her door open I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. She stood looking into my room before turning to go to the bathroom, leaving the door open after her. I could see her long grey hair brushed straight down almost to her waist. Her back was stooped and her pale skin contrasted sharply with the dark colour of her dressing gown. When she emerged from the bathroom she was carrying a glass of water with her false teeth in it. Her appearance frightened me, particularly her sunken cheeks, and I prayed that I could go back to the other boys. I slept fitfully that night, aware that the person I was staying with fitted my idea of a banshee. As I tried to sleep I had the very real feeling that I had been in the house before and that this woman had been a part of my earlier life.
Outside the rain beat against the window. I looked towards the curtains and watched them swell slightly in the breeze that pierced the gaps in the window. My aunt coughed, a feeble rattling cough. I turned around in my bed, then turned the pillow. Its coolness relaxed me and I drifted into sleep.
The morning sun shone into the room through a gap in the curtains. Birds whistled and chirped. I wanted to get up but I felt it would be the wrong thing to do. I was used to being told when to get up so I decided to stay in bed until I was called. Eventually she called my name from the bottom of the stairs. As I dressed, strange smells and sounds attracted my attention. Sizzling and a kind of spitting. It was only when I got down to the kitchen that I discovered what the smells were. My aunt’s hair was neatly pinned in a bun again as she cooked breakfast. I stood beside her for a moment and watched.
‘What are they?’ I asked. She looked at me.
‘Do you not know?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Rasher, sausage and egg,’ she said. ‘Now go over to the table and get yourself some cornflakes.’ From a box on the table I spilled some into a bowl and began to eat them.
‘Why didn’t you put some milk and sugar on them?’ she asked as she poured some from a white jug with a blue line around the neck of it.
‘I never had these before,’ I said. She took little notice of what I said. I had difficulty trying to eat the fry as I had never used a knife or fork before. Everything I had eaten up to now was taken off a spoon. My aunt offered me tea which I took out of curiosity, before deciding I didn’t like it. She gave me a glass of milk instead. As we walked to church she told me that every morning for twenty years, sinc
e her husband died, she had gone to Mass, no matter how bad the weather was. She didn’t always go to communion because she found the long fast beforehand ‘a bit much’. She was dressed in a heavy black coat and hat with a huge pin through it. She explained to people she met that I was an orphan staying with her for a fortnight’s holidays. They patted my head and remarked that I was a great boy all the same.
After Mass she did her shopping, calling to the butcher’s first and asking him for a ‘nice piece of bacon’. He wrapped it in brown paper, tied it with string, then handed it to me. I was glad to get out of the shop. I felt sick at the sight of carcasses of cows and pigs hanging from hooks on tubular steel bars, and the bloodstained aprons of the men serving behind the counter. Next we went to the greengrocers where she spent a long time talking to another woman about me. Every few seconds the women looked down and when my aunt realized I was listening, she reprimanded me. The woman asked her what my parents died from and she replied that my mother had died of a heart attack and my father the same way shortly afterwards.
This was the first time I heard how my parents died, and though it seemed to have great significance for the woman it made no impact on me.
In the newsagents my aunt was greeted by name. Without having to ask for anything, the girl behind the counter handed her a copy of the Wexford People with her name written in biro in the top right hand corner. A woman who noticed me looking through the comics asked me to pick one.
My aunt interrupted saying, ‘Pat doesn’t mind what he gets.’
The lady pressed me again to choose a comic.
‘The Eagle,’ I said.
‘Did he say thanks?’ my aunt asked.
‘Of course he did.’
There was a steep hill from the town up to my aunt’s house, and she had great difficulty in walking up. Every few minutes she stopped to catch her breath. I became worried at one point because she seemed to be a long time holding on to a railing and my anxiety must have registered with her because she said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s just that I’m not as young as I used to be.’ I was carrying all the messages but I didn’t mind. I would have done anything to ensure that nothing happened to her while I was there. When we got back to the cul-de-sac where she lived she told me to go and play with the rest of the children who lived on the street. I was reluctant and, pretending I didn’t hear her, opened the gate leading to the house and walked quickly up the narrow concrete path. I waited for her to open the hall door.
‘You go out and play,’ she said again. ‘I’m going in to have a rest and I’ll call you when dinner is ready.’
I watched the other children. A boy on a tricycle was racing a girl on a scooter. There was a lot of noise as the boys cheered for the boy and the girls for the girl. When the race was over and they had crossed the imaginary line they began to jeer at each other, disputing who had won.
A dark-haired, fresh-faced girl approached me. ‘Did you see the race?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Who won?’ she asked.
I pointed to the girl on the scooter and the girls cheered. The boys, annoyed at my judgement, began to jeer.
‘Look at the stupid clothes he has on him,’ they laughed.
The girl who had spoken to me in the first instance told them to ‘shut up’.
‘Look at his big farmer’s boots,’ they jeered again.
‘Shut up,’ the girl pleaded again.
‘He’s just a sissy,’ they taunted.
I was so different from them. I was dressed in a grey heavy suit which I was given in the Industrial School. It was dreary and drab-looking compared to their bright cotton colours. Many of them were in their bare feet or in leather sandals. Eventually they agreed to let me play with them. The boy who owned the tricycle asked me if I would like a go on it but I declined. I didn’t want to make a total fool of myself by demonstrating my inability to ride it. Then they wanted me to race with them but I refused even though I was a good runner and had won races in school. I often ran in heavy boots before but was not prepared to do so now in case they jeered again.
‘What’s your name?’ the dark-haired girl asked.
‘Pat,’ I said.
‘Does everyone call you Pat?’
‘Mostly.’
‘My daddy’s name is Patrick but everyone calls him Pat except my mammy. What’s your daddy’s name?’
‘He’s dead,’ I answered, and before she could ask any more questions told her that my mother was dead too and I was just on holidays with my aunt Mary for a fortnight.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘my real name is Maria but everyone calls me Ria.’
‘Where do you live?’ she asked.
‘In an orphanage. It’s a good bit away from here, my uncle said it was about ninety miles.’
‘Who minds you?’
‘Nuns do.’
‘I hate nuns, they’re always giving out,’ she said.
‘Sometimes they’re cross and sometimes they’re all right.’
My aunt called me for dinner and I left Ria, promising to be out again later. As soon as I got into the house I asked my aunt if I could go back out when I had my dinner eaten.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I want to bring you up to the convent to see your sister Ann.’
It was the first time in my life that anybody had ever told me I had a sister.
CHAPTER SIX
My sister was just over two years old when my mother died, aged forty-two, from cancer of the breast. She was taken into an orphanage in Wexford, run by the Sisters of Mercy, where she remained until her mid-teens. She would have been five the first evening I saw her.
Having washed up after dinner my aunt brought me to the bathroom where she cleaned my face and combed my hair. She told me to sit in a chair in the parlour and wait until she was ready. I watched her check in the mirror over the mantelpiece to see if her face was all right and her hat was on properly. As she was tidying loose strands of her hair she muttered about my uncle never being around when he was needed.
‘How far is it to the convent?’ I asked.
She sighed wearily. ‘A mile, or maybe a bit more.’ It was a hot sunny day and I knew that she did not like having to walk so far. I hoped she would decide not to go.
We walked along a country road, bounded by hedgerows and broken occasionally by a half-built house or an old-fashioned bungalow. My aunt hardly spoke at all. She allowed me to walk ahead of her and as I did I wondered again what my sister was like. Would she know me or I know her? What would I say to her? I didn’t even know then if she was younger or older than me.
The green bushes of the country road merged into a high granite wall. My aunt called me and brushed my suit down with the palms of her gloved hands. She took off one glove and spat gently onto her hand before pressing my hair down. She warned me to be on my best behaviour. I could hear the sounds of children playing, their screams breaking the silence of the countryside. My aunt held my hand firmly and walked through the wrought iron gates of Saint Mary’s Orphanage for Girls.
As we crossed the yard everything became quiet. The girls stared at us.
‘Who are you looking for, Miss?’ one of them asked.
‘The nun,’ my aunt answered.
The girl ran off and I felt embarrassed standing in the yard with so many girls watching me. I wondered if one of them was my sister. A nun in the familiar habit of the Sisters of Mercy rushed out of a single-storey building to one side of the yard and came towards us. As she walked I could hear her telling the girls to get on with whatever they were doing. She shook my aunt’s hand warmly and after some minutes of conversation between them, the nun told one of the girls to get Ann Doyle.
‘Come to see your sister, have you?’
‘Yes, Mother,’ I said.
As we walked towards the convent door two girls approached us. The nun indicated to one of them to go away. Then she smiled at me. ‘Well, this is your sister, have yo
u nothing to say to her?’
We stared at each other.
‘Are the pair of ye just going to stand there gaping at each other or have ye lost ye’re tongues?’ the nun said.
She suggested to my aunt that we be left together and both of them went into the convent.
In the school yard we tried to say something to one another but it was difficult. We did not know each other and were conscious of the girls watching us. My sister was very pretty. She had fair hair which had been put in ringlets. She wore a lovely daintily patterned dress and a white cardigan that was a few sizes too big for her. We didn’t speak but when someone suggested a game of chasing we both joined in. The girls yelled as I pursued them. I ran after my sister and, when I caught her, shouted: ‘You’re out.’ She looked disappointed and was on the verge of tears. A bigger girl suggested that she should have a second chance because she was my sister, and was smaller than me. I was pleased.
The nun and my aunt came out of the convent and the game stopped immediately. She called my sister and I to her and asked if we had found anything to talk about.
‘Not really, Mother,’ I said.
‘You don’t mean to tell me that you have nothing to say to your sister after all the years ye have been away from each other.’
My aunt tried to encourage me to say something but the words would not come. The years had created a great distance between us and we were being asked to bridge it in a short time. My sister’s pale, freckled face reddened shyly as she smiled revealing two prominent front teeth.
‘As sure as God,’ the nun said, ‘there’s no doubt but they are brother and sister.’
‘Oh without a doubt,’ my aunt agreed.
A sudden shower sent the girls scurrying for cover into the sheds on either side of the yard and instinctively I followed them. The nun and my aunt dashed back into the convent. In the rush to get out of the rain I sat on a bench beside my sister and, without realizing it, we began talking to each other.
