His Father's Son: To save the son he loves, a desparate father must confront the ghosts of his past (21 page)

Finneran and O’Leary ran to the front of the main hall and shouted out names very quickly one after the other, and the boys whose names were shouted out ran behind and started to point at other boys who they wanted to be picked for their team. The teams started to get big with rows of boys lined up and then the names started to be called out very slowly.

Marti and Pat still weren’t picked and nobody wanted the knackers or the fat boy who was called Beany on their team either. Brother Declan said, “C’mon, c’mon,” and started to clap his hands and then some of the knackers were picked and had big smiles on their faces when they ran to their teams and knew they weren’t going to be the last one left. Pat was picked next and then there was only Marti and the fat boy who was called Beany. The two teams behind Finneran and O’Leary looked at them with scrunched up faces and didn’t want either of them.

“Whose go is it?” said Brother Declan.

“Tis mine, Brother,” said O’Leary.

“Well take yeer pick or I’ll take it for ye,” said Brother Declan, and there was some pointing at Marti from the team behind O’Leary and then there was some pointing at Beany and it looked like no one could decide until O’Leary said, “Beany.”

When Marti walked over to Finneran’s team none of the boys looked at him, and when he tried to get into the big group of boys he was pushed and told, “Feck off, knacker.” Marti had never been called a knacker before and he wanted to say I’m not a knacker. He had never been picked last either and he hated being the one who was picked last, because it meant he was the worst boy in the whole class to have on your team, even worse than the fat boy who was called Beany.

There was lots of jostling and shouting about who would get the best hurling sticks and then Brother Declan said, “Stop that, ye shower of savages, or there will be no games played this day at all.” There were too few helmets to go around and Brother Declan said if you have a soft head put up your hand now and there were no hands put up. Then he said he would use
the method
, which was hitting boys on the head with his knuckles to see if they had a soft head.

The first few boys in the line had good hard heads, said Brother Declan, and Marti heard the brother’s knuckles on their good hard heads and then the boys started the rubbing where Brother Declan had hit them. When another boy was hit on the head he said, “Ahh, it hurts,” and the brother said, “Ah, tis very soft indeed. Here, have a bonnet,” and there was laughter from the class of boys.

“Can I give ye one?” said Brother Declan to one of the knackers with bare feet. “I won’t risk touching yeer scabby head, though I’m sure it’s very soft, I have no doubt about that.”

A very tall boy with powdery blue eyes and big long lashes shouted out, “But it will get the fleas on it, Brother.”

“It will, it will,” said Brother Declan. “I thank you for your foresight, Collins. It must be a mighty brain ye have tucked away in that skull of yours. Here, have a bonnet to protect it.” There was laughter when Brother Declan handed over the helmet, and then the method was started again and the laughter stopped.

“Get in yeer teams,” said the brother. “We have half an hour before the Mass.” Marti had wondered why he had said about the Mass. There would be no Mass for him surely because Mam had said he wasn’t to go to the Mass. “And remember the rules of the game: play fair,” said Brother Declan. “The rabble ye are will have enough to confess after the Mass as it is.”

Marti knew there would be no Mass or confession for him, because Brother Michael had said tis an agnostic ye are, Driscol, and the Church is no place for the likes of ye. Mam had said the Church wasn’t for them. It was for the likes of Aunt Catrin, who would gladly spend a day wearing her knees out for a sideways glance from some queer hawk in the next pew or, hope upon hopes, a gunner-eyed approval from the priest. Mam would have the women’s look for making the milk sour whenever she spoke about the Church and Marti knew she would get mad angry if he ever even said a single word to her about the Church.

When Brother Declan spoke about the Mass again, Marti got very confused. “The Mass will have two special little sinners attending this day already sure. Kelly and Driscol will have plenty to confess after it, isn’t that so?”

Pat nodded and said, “Yes, Brother Declan.”

Marti looked at Pat and didn’t know what to say and then the brother said, “Is it mocking me ye are, Driscol?” Brother Declan had the whistle to his mouth before Marti could speak, and when he blew it in his ear the ringing started again and the entire class of boys stopped where they were and froze like a lot of statues. “I’ll have a response from ye, boy, or is it a wrap in the snot locker like yeer friend you are after?”

“No,” said Marti.

“No, what?”

“No,
Brother
,” said Marti and when he looked away, Pat was shaking his head, with the wide eyes. “I mean yes, Brother. I have plenty to confess, after the Mass.”

It was an awful morning, cold and damp, wet and windy. Joey looked out at Dublin’s grey streets and thought there would be people all over Ireland staring at the sky, saying it’s a terrible, terrible morning – sure it looks like it’s been up all night. It was just like the Irish to make a joke of their weather. The seasons ranged from bad to worse – if you could call them seasons; didn’t it just get wetter and wetter only. The same could be said of the place Joey had come from just five weeks ago, though half a world away it was the other way round. A gale took the breath from his lungs and the coldness of the day reached a part of him that hadn’t felt a chill like it in a very long time.

The second his feet touched Irish soil, Joey knew he was in a very different place. The peculiar Irish lilt was everywhere and sounded familiar enough, but it was somehow strange to his ears after all this time. A drunk did a jig in the street whilst an old tug’s horn sounded on its way round the dock. Joey was one of the first off the ship. He knew why he was there, in the one place he had said he would never be back, but even the thought of seeing Marti again for the first time in weeks wasn’t enough to stop his mind nipping with the task ahead of him.

He shuffled his way along the wet streets, tipping his bag from shoulder to shoulder, making sure he had always a tight grip of the Superman picture. It would be a long trek to Kilmora, down on the coast. He had no money for the train, no job to go to, and no digs to go to either. He dug his hand in his pocket and looked at the few crumpled notes he had left after changing currencies. There was enough for a few days in a guesthouse at the most. Maybe a week or so in some cheap hostel or other. He would have to hitch in the rain. He would have to be bloody lucky too, to catch a ride the whole way. Nobody in their right mind would go to Kilmora if they didn’t have to, he thought.

He slumped through the streets, the rain making his bag heavier as he lugged it from side to side, shoulder to shoulder. He tried to keep moving through it but then he felt himself taken off balance for a second and his feet slid beneath him. His arms were thrown out to break his fall and the bag was hurled onto the wet road; there was a loud clatter in front of him and Joey saw the Superman picture skiffing along the road.

“Bugger it,” he said. A little rain and mud was spattered on the picture’s glass, which had cracked clean down the middle. “Ah no way. I take ye all the way from Australia and the first day in Ireland ye smash.” His heart sank when he thought of Marti’s broken picture – wasn’t it just a terrible thing to do to the boy, bring him it broken. He couldn’t bear to look at the damaged picture and shoved it beneath his arm.

When he picked himself up and went to the wet streets again there was no attention paid to the thumb he held out. He felt sure he would have a better chance of a lift once he made it out a bit further. One of the busier roads or some well-used lay-by was needed for the ride, he thought as he lifted his feet, heavy as boulders, one after the other.

The further he got from the city the more the landscape changed on him. The greenness of the fields was as he remembered it, so bright it burned into your eyes if you stared at it, but the mist-swathed hills were more alive than he could ever recall. There were hares seen running in the bracken browns and soft violets, and Joey felt the tingling of a homecoming inside him. The dry, dusty reds of Australia seemed a million miles away.

Ireland was home and he knew it, but sure wasn’t the place he was raised no place for Marti. The deeper he got into the country, the saturations of rain, the fields of potatoes and the rusted heaps of farm machinery all reminded him of his own godridden childhood. He felt the pain of Marti being so close to his own miserable memories. The boy would have no notion of the things he had seen, how could he cope with the likes?

Joey remembered the nightmares he’d had after starting school and finding out there really was a place called Hell. His mam had said it often enough but wasn’t it only a word, the way she said it. The brothers had used more words to describe the place and by the time he got to bed at night he would hear the words over and over. “
Hell’s tongues of blooded flame lashing spinning balls of fire into your belly; the filth of a thousand putrefying souls filling your nostrils; the disease-ridden flesh and entrails of sinners flooding your very own lungs and the Devil himself, poking and stabbing your eyes with the tips of his burning hot trident again and again and again for the sheer pleasure he found in it
.”

The first time the nightmares came he woke frozen to the bed, drenched in his own sweat. He was too scared to scream even, for fear that the very ground beneath would open up and swallow him whole to Hell. He lay in panic for minutes and then he ran as fast as he could for his mother and father’s room. He had glimpsed the very depths of Hell, had he not; surely they would understand.

A young Joey poured out the details of his nightmare, and his mother watched his distress with a look of worry, glancing sideways to her husband and back to her tearful son. The room fell silent and suddenly Joey’s father shot out of bed like a cannon had fired him towards the boy. His face was red and his eyes were two dark holes ringed in white rage.

“Before God himself, ye better pray the Devil has a place in Hell for ye,” he said. His father lifted him by the hair and dragged him back to bed; his mother followed, begging him to let the boy go, but he had the fury of all the ages in him.

“Come crying to me in the night, would ye,” he said, and Joey was thrown onto his bed, his father’s great hand lifted high above him. “I’ll beat the fear out of ye … the Devil himself will look a fine prospect before ye come crying to me again.”

Joey saw his father’s hand fly down on him and when he felt it on him his whole body was shaken. The hand came down sharp and fast. Even when his mother tried to come between the hand and her son, it didn’t stop. Joey could still remember his father’s huge hand striking him, his mother’s cries when she got in the way and was struck herself, and the red print of the hand on him as he lay in bed crying softly, too sore and too scared to sleep, more terrified than ever he was of Hell or the Devil himself.

An old cattle mover skidded to a halt on the road in front of Joey and the horn was sounded. The truck was empty, but had obviously been full of beasts recently, the smell of their confinement lingering above the diesel fumes spilling from the back. A bogman with mud caked on his face and a dirty tweed cap pushed back on his head roared out, “Where ye going?”

“South.”

“Get in … get in,” called out the bogman.

“One second. Let me get my things.”

He got into the truck’s cab and tried to appear friendly. He was grateful for the lift and to be out of the rain. “Howya, the name’s Driscol. Joey Driscol.”

“Hello so,” said the bogman. He made no attempt to reveal his name, but Joey didn’t mind. When it came to pleasantries, bogmen were known to be as tight as a cod’s arse at forty fathoms. “Jaysus, yeer as wet as a field. Have ye no coat?”

“Ah, no,” said Joey.

The bogman crunched the gears of the cattle truck and pulled into the road. He was still looking at Joey, shaking his head and giving no thought to his driving or others who might be on the road. “Jaysus, without the coat ye must be froze,” he said.

“I’m too soon arrived from Australia. I think it’s the Vitamin D I have in me or something. I don’t feel it cold at all.”

The bogman looked like he hadn’t understood a single word. “I couldn’t stand going about with no coat. I’d be froze. I would. Ye need a coat. Ye do.”

“Ah well, sure maybe I’ll get one when my luck changes … Are ye going far?”

“Yeer not going to put chat on me, are ye?” Two crossed lines appeared on the bogman’s forehead.

“Ah, no,” said Joey. “I can see yeer a man of few words. Will ye go through Kilmora, though?”

“I will.”

“Grand so, that’ll do me.”

The bogman squinted at Joey from beneath his dirty tweed cap and Joey smiled back. You could grow potatoes on this fella, he thought, in fact roses probably – wasn’t he covered in manure. He opened the window and tried to get a bit of air into the cab.

“Ah now … I don’t like the windows played with. Close it up,” said the bogman. “Close it up.”

“Oh, sorry.” The stench was powerful stuff. Joey wondered would he be seeing a repeat of breakfast, and then he remembered he hadn’t eaten. On the ship he had thought missing breakfast was a mistake when he had little money in his pocket but now it seemed like a blessing entirely. He tried to breathe through his mouth and covered his nose with his finger, and the bogman looked far from offended – in fact, he looked none the wiser at all. They travelled in silence, only the occasional rustle of the newspaper Joey had taken from the dashboard with the bogman’s say so.