His Father's Son: To save the son he loves, a desparate father must confront the ghosts of his past (30 page)

When Aunt Catrin opened the door there was a mighty shriek from her giving out at somebody and then there was more shrieking and calling for Uncle Ardal to get in from the yard. When Marti turned to see what the shrieking was all about he saw Dad standing in the doorway, holding out his hand to him. Dad’s face was all red like he was just after running and when he tried to speak there was only a little splutter noise made. Marti went to grab his hand but then there was the sound of the back door swinging open and Uncle Ardal ran in, sliding about on the shiny floor in his stocking soles. He grabbed Marti by the collar and pulled him back with a hard yank, and when Marti started to wriggle Uncle Ardal was nearly falling all over the place.

“Let him be, Ardal,” said Dad. His voice was very firm suddenly and there was a look on him that said he was in no mood to be waiting, but Uncle Ardal didn’t let Marti go. He only looked at Aunt Catrin with his mouth open wide.

“The boy stays,” said Aunt Catrin, and she was pointing at Dad with her finger again. “Tis what his mother wants, his mother ye put in the asylum.”

Dad shook his head and there was a big breath taken but nobody said a word at all, and then Dad very gently lowered Aunt Catrin’s finger. “Shauna will be staying in no asylum if I can help it.”

“What … ye are full of it, are ye not, Joey Driscol. What have you in mind for her this time? Where will ye run to this time? That’s yeer game all over, is it not. Sure it was fine for ye both to swan off leaving the tongues wagging after the grand sin ye committed, was it not. But hadn’t some of us to stay behind and face the music for ye, picking up the pieces whilst the pair of you sunned yourselves. And it was no picnic for me when I had a sick brother in need of the love and comfort of his family.”

“A sick brother ye packed off to the Cabbage Farm,” said Dad. “A sick brother who ye left there to rot till he took the only road out … I tell ye, I’m not letting the same happen to Shauna.”

“No, it’s not true,” said Aunt Catrin. Her voice was a quiet tremble now, her eyes all misted over. “Tis your mistakes was the cause of it …”

“God woman, would ye ever wake up to yourself? Do ye think I don’t know I made mistakes? I mightn’t have known at the time, but God do I ever know now.” Dad was shouting, but then Aunt Catrin started to raise her hands to her ears and he started to speak softly. “I’m going to try and put my mistakes right, Catrin … I hope to God it’s not too late for you to do the same.”

Aunt Catrin’s face was as white as the porridge setting in the big old drawer. Her mouth was wide open like when Uncle Ardal fell asleep at the fire and Mam said it was the flies he was catching. Marti wondered if Aunt Catrin was going to scream or attack Dad with punches and scratches, but then she very slowly went to sit down by the table and said, “Let the boy be, Ardal.”

Uncle Ardal made a noise like a grunt and Marti started to wriggle again but his collar was still held tight and he couldn’t get away. “But he’s staying, sure. Ye said he was to clean the floor. I heard ye say it, so I did.”

“Clean yeer own mess!” screamed Aunt Catrin, and when she stood up the table was shook and the big old drawer landed on the floor, splashing porridge over the whole place. “Out. Get out all of ye,” said Aunt Catrin. She was screaming again, with porridge in her hair this time and hitting out at Uncle Ardal, who let go of Marti and ran into the yard in a hurry.

Marti watched Uncle Ardal run into the yard with Aunt Catrin at the screaming and hitting behind him. He thought they looked mad entirely and wasn’t it this pair that should be taken to the Cabbage Farm. There were neighbours started to look over the fence and they were in flitters with the laughing when Uncle Ardal and Aunt Catrin fell over into the rabbit traps set to keep the cats from the pigeons. There were traps snapping all over them, catching at arms and legs and even one at Aunt Catrin’s apron strings.

Marti thought it was all a gas, sure it was, and hadn’t he never seen a thing like it, but then Dad said they had more important things to do and they could leave the likes of them behind.

Dad grabbed hold of Marti’s hand and started to run through the streets. Dad was a faster runner and he had bigger steps taken, but Marti tried to keep up with him because it was all very exciting. Marti wondered where he was being taken, but sure didn’t none of it matter, really. Wherever Dad was taking him would be better than the house made of stones all piled up on top of each other right to the roof. They ran past the water fountain and Marti wondered had all his wishes came true and everything would be just like it was when he had a mam and a dad and he was just like all the other boys.

“Dad, where are we going?” said Marti.

“We’re going to get your mam.”

“Where will we take her?”

“Wherever she wants to go, son … Sure that will be up to your mam entirely.”

Marti and Dad ran for a long time through the streets and then there was a big hill ahead of them and Dad stopped the running and said wasn’t the hill too much for him. Dad said the Cabbage Farm was at the top of the hill and when Marti looked up there was an old building made of dirty bricks and there were hundreds of high dark windows with little glass panes in them. Marti thought it looked like a very bad place entirely and he didn’t want Mam to be in there. When they got closer to the building Marti saw there were little white bars on all the windows and it looked like somewhere people who have done bad things go.

“Dad, I don’t like this place.” He felt scared to be going inside, but then Dad lifted him up and carried him in and he wasn’t afraid anymore. There were ladies dressed in black with big white pointy hats on their heads inside the Cabbage Farm and when Marti said were they nurses Dad said, “No, son, they’re nuns, which ye call sister.”

Dad spoke to a sister behind a big old desk and she said there were proper visiting hours to be observed, but Dad said hadn’t he only heard his wife had been taken in and he needed to see her desperately. The sister said it was irregular but what was her name, and then she pointed down a long corridor and said a number on a door for Dad to look out for.

Mam’s room was very big and there were lots of beds in it and lots of people wandered around and looked like Colm Casey who was soft in the head. There were people walking around and making little waves to Marti with their hands and there were people who dribbled all over themselves and just stared. There were sisters sat with some of the people and Marti wondered what the sisters could ever say or do to make the people better when they looked so sick entirely.

Mam didn’t look like any of the others at all, thought Marti when he saw her sitting on top of a big white bed, looking out the window, staring and staring like she was expecting a visitor to come along at any moment. Mam was one of the only ones in the room wearing proper clothes, not nightclothes. Marti wondered did she like the Cabbage Farm better than Aunt Catrin’s house where she would always be sitting about in the baggy jamas with the very long sleeves over her hands. Marti heard Dad gulp when he saw Mam sitting on the bed and then he put Marti down on the ground and said, “On ye go, son. Go to your mam.” Marti ran over to Mam and stood by her bed and when she turned round she didn’t look like she had seen him at all, only stared and stared and stared, and then she jumped off the bed in a hurry and hugged Marti tight, so tight he could hardly breathe.

“Marti, Marti, you’re here. How, how did ye get here, son?” she said.

“Dad took me,” he said, and when he turned to point to Dad he was already there beside him.

“Hello, Shauna,” said Dad.

“Joey … why?” said Mam. She let Marti go and then she sat back on the bed.

Mam looked like she didn’t recognise Dad at all, thought Marti. He wanted to say something and try to explain about the fight with Aunt Catrin, but then Dad started talking and Mam started to look like she recognised him again. They talked and talked for a long time and Dad said he had lost his father but found himself, and Marti wondered how anybody could find their own self or how it could be lost even.

“Shauna, I want you to come away with me … with us,” said Dad, and he lifted Marti onto his knee.

“Why?” said Mam. “Why would you want that?”

“Shauna, I know why you brought me here. I know what you wanted me to see … I see it now. I’ve faced it, Shauna. Things would be different for us now.”

“Joey, you know I had to do it. I had to. You were in hiding in Australia. I couldn’t live like that anymore, I thought …”

Dad reached forward and touched Mam’s lips very gently with one finger. “It’s okay, Shauna. I know now, I see it, you don’t need to explain.”

“No, Joey, I do. I needed to make you see this is what you were running from. I wanted to make you see you had nothing to fear from the past. I thought if you could face it, get over it and just move on … I thought we might have a chance.”

“We do, Shauna. We have another chance, now we do. It can’t ever be too late to change, to say you’re sorry.”

“Are you sure, Joey?” Mam leaned forward and tried to look in Dad’s eyes. It was the truth she was looking for, Marti knew it because wasn’t Mam always checking himself for the truth.

“I am sure,” said Dad.

“Are you really, though? I mean, you need to live too, Joey, and not just through Marti.”

“Shauna, I think we can all be happy, we can move on, can’t we? We can put the past behind us, tis the future that’s important, I see that now.”

Mam leaned forward and hugged Dad and Marti together and there was clapping heard from around the room. Mam started to cry, but they weren’t sad tears, thought Marti, sure didn’t everyone look happier than ever. He felt the happiness inside him and it was a lovely warm feeling.

“Dad,” said Marti, “can you show us the green flower, the shamrock dancing?” There was laughter from Dad and there was more of the little happy tears rolled down the side of Mam’s face.

“Are ye serious?” said Dad.

“I am. I want to see it.”

Dad smiled at Mam and then he started to roll up his sleeve, over the shoulder. “Once there was a lucky little shamrock that stood in a field.”

Marti started to smile too when he saw the shamrock and he felt like he was a very special boy again.

“A lucky little shamrock, in a lucky little field,” said Dad, “and all through the day he’d stand in his field, thinking what a lucky little shamrock am I, am I, what a lucky little shamrock am I.” Dad’s voice started to creak and break and there were more tears rolled down the side of Mam’s face, and then a big breath was taken by Dad. “To stand in a field and grow strong, said he, to stand in a field and grow strong.” Dad turned up his arm and the shamrock’s stem straightened.

“He’s starting,” said Marti.

“And when the night turns to day, I go wild, he said. When the night turns to day I go wild, wild for song and the dance of a song and I dance in a field all night long.” Dad turned his arm back and forth making the shamrock dance. It rolled and reeled on his shoulder and Marti watched, smiling, as Dad kept the shamrock rolling and reeling.

“I love the shamrock,” said Marti when Dad was finished.

“And the shamrock loves you, son.”

Writing people wasn’t something Joey was very used to, but sure wouldn’t he have to start. There had been no letters sent home to Ireland when he was in Australia, but wasn’t that when he had no one to write to. Now they had decided to settle in Kilmora there was Macca to write to – hadn’t he to be told to stop holding the job open, for starters; they would be making a go of it where they were. And there was his own mam to write to since she had moved in with Megan over in England. Wasn’t it for the best when the old house was too much for her, sure she was right to sell it, and the new owners were right to pull it down and put up a guesthouse. But wasn’t Peggy asking too much expecting a letter every month from Kilmora. There had been a power of news from the Driscols just lately, but it couldn’t keep up, surely.

They were all having a grand laugh at Marti’s new brogue. He was becoming a proper little Irishman, so he was. Playing the hurling even, a power better than his old man ever did, and speaking the Irish better than him too. The boy had had a tough time of it, but wasn’t he brighter than ever now. Joey knew Marti would find his way in the end, just like he had. And wouldn’t he be there to support him, whatever his way was. The boy had learnt some harsh lessons at an early age, but it would show him life was no grand stroll. Things would be better for him in the future. Marti had no call to run away from anything.

Joey knew he would be a better father now too. He was happier than he ever had been, for a start. He was still only carting the flour in and the bread out at Gleesons, but there was bags of time after the early finishes to read the books. And wasn’t there more time yet and more energy entirely with only one drink a day taken. Mightn’t he even give the studies another go some day – nobody ever said learning was just for youngsters.

Shauna was happier too. There were some real tough times when they would talk into the night about the child they had never given a chance to. There were some tears shed when they thought about what she might have been like, how she might have turned out, who she would have taken after. But weren’t they lucky to be talking at all after everything that had happened, thought Joey. They would always talk about things now, he knew it. Shauna’s new doctor had said Joey could talk for Ireland, sure she had never met anyone so full of stories, weren’t most people quiet as mice when they started the joint therapy sessions. But no one had surprised the doctors more than Shauna.