Our Little Cruelties

by Liz Nugent

  People in groups were singing hymns with guitars and recorders and any instrument they could carry. It was not yet eight a.m. As we got closer, the crowd branched into different snakes as they queued up at their various entrances. Dad had wanted us all to bring jackets and rainwear in case of a change in the weather, but that morning I had squeezed into the white shorts I’d worn for my first holy communion a year earlier – they had been William and Brian’s previously and they were uncomfortably tight – but Dad insisted I had to wear trousers: ‘The Pope isn’t here for a fashion show, Luke.’ I had my communion rosette pinned to my chest and my rosary beads in my pocket.

  The entrance we were guided through after our tickets were checked was an executive one and Dad recognized ministers and judges and other VIPs. William and Brian were complaining about the long walk as we were led into a big tent. They wanted to have the picnic now, but we weren’t supposed to eat until after the Mass. I was pretty sure we shouldn’t have had breakfast but a priest on the television had said people should eat breakfast that morning because the Mass wasn’t happening till eleven thirty and some people had been up since two a.m. to get there, so there was a special dispensation for people to eat breakfast before communion. I didn’t like it when they changed the rules, so although I did eat, I’d only had dry bread and milk and ignored the smell of the bacon and sausages that my brothers savaged with delight.

  Dad said they could have sandwiches, but I managed just to have some tea from the flask. It would only be a few hours more. It wasn’t anything like Jesus carrying a cross for miles. We stood around among the dignitaries until we were told to take our seats outside. Some people told us the Pope had landed at Dublin airport where he’d made a speech and met our President. He was now to be helicoptered into the Phoenix Park. I was in such a grip of excitement about spotting the helicopter that I forgot about Mum singing. Soon, a million of us were standing up, cheering and clapping as the helicopter circled the park overhead, and I could tell that even Brian and William were enraptured. I sat up on Dad’s shoulders and all I could see was joy for miles around me. I was perfectly sure this was a day when miracles could happen.

  Aunt Judy and Uncle Dan couldn’t come to the Pope’s Mass because they were with Paul in the hospital. It was my responsibility on the 29th September 1979 to use all the holiness inside me and to spread love everywhere in order to make sure Paul went to heaven.

  As the Mass started, we all got on to our knees. I ignored the pangs of hunger and kept my eyes on the tiny white dot in the distance that was Pope John Paul II. I tried to communicate with him through my mind. Twice, he looked over in my direction and I was sure he was looking for me, at me. I was sure he knew. Then my mum walked to the side of the stage, genuflected in the direction of the cross and then again at the Pope. I felt like I would explode with pride. She never sang more beautifully than she did that day, and if it’s not blasphemous to say it, she looked and behaved like a goddess, beautiful and powerful, yet ladylike. I looked over at Dad and my brothers and we were all four proud of how astonishingly dignified she was. At the end of the song, she bowed theatrically and then stood uncertainly, and I almost died of mortification, because I knew she expected applause, even though this was a Mass and nobody applauded at Masses. I waited breathlessly to see if the Pope was going to come over to her and bless her. He didn’t. A priest had to come and lead her away from the microphone. Dad gripped my shoulder to reassure me. ‘Wasn’t your mam just beautiful?’ he whispered. And she was. I was overwhelmed by the emotions running through me. I lost concentration and somehow stopped focusing on the Pope.

  I woke up to the sounds of cheering and clapping. I was slumped over my father’s shoulder. I had slept through the Mass. The Pope was now driving through the crowd in his Popemobile. I was consumed by fear and shock. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ I screamed at my father and pummelled his head. I scrambled down to the ground and ran then, ran towards where the crowd was the noisiest, knowing that the Pope would be at the centre of the cheering. I ran as though Paul’s soul depended on it, and it did. I ran through crowds and barriers and climbed over deckchairs and under wire fences. I had to apologize to the Pope for falling asleep. I had to beg him not to take it out on Paul. Security men grabbed me and I screamed and kicked and bit them, until one of them sat on my legs. I could hear the cheers dying down and then I heard the sound of the helicopter and I knew the Pope was leaving, and I knew Paul would die and might be stuck in purgatory for ever. I sobbed uncontrollably. I was carried to a lost children’s tent and it was there Dad found me an hour later. By that stage, I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t tell anyone what my deal with God had been. It was between me and Him.

  On the bus home, Dad said that Mum might have met the Pope backstage, and although I knew it was unlikely, I felt a glimmer of hope that maybe the bottle of holy water in her bag had been blessed. Mum wouldn’t arrive home until much later because she was invited to a reception for all the contributors at the Mass. I was frustrated that there was no way we could phone her to find out.

  When we got in the front door, our phone was ringing. Dad answered it. I was about to go into the kitchen, when I heard him say, ‘Oh no, Dan, I’m so sorry,’ and Dad’s voice cracked, and I knew that Paul was dead. William and Brian were stunned. Brian started to cry and then he threw up on the living-room floor. ‘I could have saved him!’ I screamed at my dad. ‘Why did you let me sleep through the Mass? I could have saved his soul.’ William punched me in the stomach and went outside. I was winded. I watched him through the window, gripping on to the fence with white knuckles, trying not to cry. Dad was struggling to maintain order, scooping up handfuls of Brian’s sick with rubber gloves and a basin, but both he and Brian were crying, Brian convulsively, heaving and shuddering. Dad later said that Brian was in shock.

  It was no shock to me. I had known how sick Paul was. I had known he was going to die. Mum came home, again expecting applause, to be greeted by a house in mourning. She was quietly devastated too, I think.

  ‘Did you even try to get him to bless the holy water, Mum?’

  ‘I did, Luke,’ she told me. ‘But Paul was going to die, no matter what. You couldn’t have saved him.’

  None of them understood. I knew I couldn’t save Paul’s life. I was trying to save his soul.

  The next day, there was a photo of Mum standing beside the Pope on the front page of the Irish Press. I drank the blessed bottle of holy water, but afterwards I realized how selfish it was: I should have saved it for the sick and dying.

  24

  2010

  I was doing okay in 2010 up until that funeral. I had been taking my meds and going to my psych appointments. I still partied a bit and drank too much, but it was a bottle of wine a night instead of a bottle of vodka. My life was not settled, but it was less chaotic. I’m not sure how I spent my days. I slept a lot. I would go through phases of manic musical interest, and other phases of complete apathy for any life or activity.

  Brian rang me regularly enough to remind me of things like Mum’s birthday, Daisy’s Junior Cert exams, any gig offers, etc. A documentary maker wanted me to take part in a ‘where are they now?’ TV special about people who had once been famous but had since disappeared into obscurity. I didn’t want to do it, but Brian insisted he could get a good offer out of them. I knew they only wanted to make a fool of me and that all the tabloid stuff would be dragged up again. I argued with him a bit, but he wasn’t listening and said he’d try and negotiate a higher fee. Before he rang off, he casually mentioned that he was going to a funeral the next morning, for his friend Cillian Gogan’s dad.

  My blood ran cold at the mention of his name. ‘Does Mum know he’s dead?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I was about to ring her.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll call around. I’ll tell her.’

  ‘Yeah? Be subtle, will you? I think her and Dad used to be really close to the Gogans back when Dad was alive. Don’t get pisse
d.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Tell her I’ll pick her up at nine thirty for the funeral.’

  ‘It’s okay, I’ll take her.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I’ll take her to the funeral. I’m not a total imbecile, Brian, I can drive my mother to a church.’

  ‘But why do you want to go?’

  ‘I need to be there for Mum.’

  I sensed the hesitation. He was going to argue but decided not to. ‘Okay, then. See you in the morning. Sober, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  After I hung up, I had a glass of wine and got dressed in my usual hoodie, jeans and baseball cap. My beard and hair were long, and I knew Mum didn’t approve of this look, but it wouldn’t matter today. Because today I was going to tell her that her rapist was dead and she would be happy.

  I rarely saw Mum on my own. I knew she was uncomfortable around me. She didn’t trust my outbursts, my unpredictable mood swings. I knew I was a huge disappointment to her. She had been right about me all along. But I knew her secrets. She hadn’t told anyone else about that rape, and I knew it must still affect her. I knew I had to be the one to tell her about Jack’s death. I was the only one who could comfort her. We didn’t like each other much but, because of the circumstances, I felt sorry for her, and maybe this could help her soften towards me. She was sixty-four years old, she had been widowed for twenty-five years, and it struck me now that losing my father just a year after her assault must have been difficult. A woman I’d been seeing the year before had worked at the Rape Crisis Centre. She had told me harrowing stories of the abuse men and women had been put through; the church scandals of the previous two decades had opened the floodgates in terms of people coming forward and talking about their experiences. I had never told that girl about my mother, or why my mother had chosen to tell me, a thirteen-year-old boy at the time.

  When I was dressed, I had another glass of wine, just to steady myself for what might be a difficult conversation.

  ‘Luke, hello, what are you doing here?’ said Mum, peering behind me on her doorstep.

  ‘Oh, you know, just visiting. It’s been a while.’

  ‘Of course, it’s dinnertime and you’re hungry.’

  ‘Is it?’ I didn’t wear a watch or carry a phone. Mum said it was ‘an affectation’ of mine.

  ‘Come in. I’ve just eaten but I can make you a sandwich, if you like.’ The offer was begrudging.

  ‘It’s okay, I’ve eaten,’ I lied.

  The television was on. I’d interrupted EastEnders. ‘Can you just shush until this is over? Put the kettle on, will you?’ she said.

  I saw there was an open bottle of wine on the table beside her with a half-filled glass. I looked at it, looked at her.

  ‘Fine then, get yourself a glass from the kitchen.’ When I returned, the television was turned up louder. I stared at the drab and forlorn characters with their cockney vowels and garish lipstick. Inevitably, a fight broke out in the pub towards the end of the episode, and the camera focused on a young girl, a troubled look on her face, who slipped out of the door during the melee before the credits rolled. I filled Mum’s glass and mine to the brim.

  Mum lifted the remote control and lowered the volume.

  ‘So. What news?’

  I told her about the documentary offer Brian was keen for me to accept. I was relieved that she sided with me. ‘You’ll do no such thing. They’ll only drag me into it as if I’m some has-been. I’ll tell Brian,’ she declared. Her career had recently been resurrected thanks to some stage show she’d been in, and she didn’t want me ruining anything for her.

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  ‘Are you ever going to get that hair cut? Or shave?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Or get a job? Your Auntie Peggy is always asking me and, frankly, it’s embarrassing to have to tell her that you’re doing nothing day in, day out.’

  ‘I’m okay, Mum.’

  ‘Well, it’s a waste of a life –’

  I interrupted her. ‘Jack Gogan’s dead.’

  She sat very still.

  ‘Mum? Did you hear me?’

  ‘Of course I heard you. I read it in this morning’s paper.’

  ‘I was just wondering how you were feeling about it, that’s all.’

  She started to flick through a magazine on the table in front of her. ‘Oh well, you know, I haven’t seen him in years, since before your father died. I’m sorry for Ursula and the boys. I’m sure they’re sad.’

  ‘Mum. I know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘Don’t you remember? You told me. What Jack Gogan did to you.’

  She stood up quickly, went to the drinks cabinet and took out another bottle of red, much to my relief. This was harder than I had thought it was going to be. She dug the corkscrew into the top of the bottle with surprising ferocity.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘He raped you. You told me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Mum –’

  ‘You imagine things. You always have. I don’t know where you got that idea. You can’t just say things like that –’

  ‘Mum, I remember everything you told me. It happened when you all went to Slane to see Bob Dylan.’

  ‘How would you know what happened at Slane? You weren’t even there!’

  ‘Because you told me. I know you didn’t make it up.’

  ‘Stop! Stop it.’ My mother stood up, agitated. ‘You made it up. I think you should leave.’

  ‘Mum! I’m not attacking you, I just thought his death would bring up some bad memories for you. I wanted to tell you that it’s not too late to get counselling. I know a woman who could help. You don’t have to go to the funeral tomorrow –’

  ‘What? I’m not going to the funeral!’

  ‘Brian expected that you would want to go, because you and Dad used to be such good friends with Jack and Ursula, and Brian is friends with Cillian.’

  She clutched at her neck. ‘I can’t go to the funeral!’

  ‘I know, Mum, I understand. Brian was going to collect you.’

  ‘I’m not going.’ She sat down again and put her head in her hands.

  ‘You don’t have to.’ I poured myself another glass of wine and topped her up. She grabbed the glass out of my hand, spilling Merlot over her perfectly beige carpet.

  ‘Shut up! You don’t know anything. Get out! Get out of this house, you … you waster.’

  She pushed me away and when I didn’t move fast enough, she slapped at my head.

  ‘Mum, please, I only wanted –’

  ‘You only wanted to come and upset me and drink my wine. You are not welcome in my house. Do you understand? Take your dirty lies and leave right now.’

  I drove to a pub and got absolutely smashed. It finally dawned on me that I might be the product of a rape. Why else would Mum hate me so much? Who was my father? She would never tell me. I had no way of finding out, but it all made sense in my head. Why else would she have told a thirteen-year-old boy about what had happened? The baby was running up and down my arms, awakened and exhilarated by the argument and the aggression. It danced across the table in front of me, sat on the lip of my glass. It told me that I was right all along. It told me that Jack Gogan had raped my mother and that maybe Slane hadn’t been the first time it had happened to her. I couldn’t rationalize why, but it was all my fault. I drank faster to try and shut it up.

  At closing time, I bought some carry-out booze. I abandoned the car and walked home. From there, I called an old acquaintance who turned up within ten minutes. He stayed for a while, saw there was nothing worth stealing from me and left after charging me double the market value for the pills he supplied. The baby hovered in my peripheral vision, punching the air and playing a golden bugle, a malevolent cartoon character, terrifyingly real to me although I knew, had been told, understood that this wasn’t possible. After the second pill, the baby disappeared, but by then I was raving. I took
my clothes off and danced, getting bored halfway through one song until I remembered another, trying to play counter melodies on the iPod and the record player at the same time, crashing into furniture, pulling down shelves.

  I came to on the bathroom floor. I rubbed my eyes and looked down at my hands. There was blood on them. It seemed to be in my hair too. The clock said it was 9.15 a.m. The baby, sitting on the side of the bath, said I had to go to Jack Gogan’s funeral to make sure the bastard was in the ground. I took the last pill.

  I found my clothes on the floor and pulled them on, oblivious to the odour. I walked out on to the street. I couldn’t find my car, presumed it was stolen again and wished the thieves luck with a ten-year-old Fiat Panda. I walked the two miles to the church, running some of the distance, but then stopped, trying to identify the feeling in my stomach. It was hunger. Walking through St Stephen’s Green, I swiped bread out of the hands of children who were feeding ducks. Their parents came and led them away, afraid to confront me. I felt powerful and hyper-alert now as I strode to the church, bent on revenge.

  Mourners had gathered outside and I shuffled among them, angling towards the church door, when I was pulled back by the shoulder. It was Brian.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Luke, what happened to you? You have blood on your face! And where’s Mum? Did you hurt her?’

  The irony of his words sucker-punched my funny bone and I laughed. Was there ever anything as hilarious as the thought that I would hurt my mother, standing at the church where her rapist was about to be celebrated?

  ‘He raped her!’ I roared it at the top of my voice. ‘Jack Gogan raped my mother!’ Brian grabbed me by the throat, but I shook him off and pushed through the crowd into the church, forcing mostly elderly people out of my way. Brian chased me, but he wasn’t as ruthless with the old people as I was. The coffin was in situ at the top of the church and the priest was tapping the microphone. I rushed to the altar and elbowed the priest aside. ‘You’re all going to talk about how great he was, but he wasn’t. He was a vile, disgusting man who needs to be exposed before he rots in hell.’ I could see Brian running up the aisle. He lurched towards me and headbutted me in the side, and I fell. I could hear people shouting, wails and screams, and I was dragged by several men out of the church. I think some of them were pall-bearers and this struck me as funny too. Pall-bearers carrying me out of the church. Were they going to bury me now too?