Maggie's Breakfast (29 page)

She leaned back and looked directly at me. “I’d be better off sittin’ here, son,” she said again.

I placed my hand on top of her head to comfort her. “I’ll ask them to come over here.”

“You don’t mind, son?”

“No, Ma. Wait here.”

I walked across the street to the hotel.

Mrs. Axe and Maggie Sheridan were sitting in the tea lounge. Maggie stood up as if she was prompted by a moment in some tragic opera.

“Well, well, well,” she mumbled rapidly and theatrically. She took advantage of any and every moment to display her larger-than-life personality.

Sitting next to her Mrs. Axe broke into a laugh as if she was enjoying Maggie’s performance. Margaret Sheridan and Ruth Axe were naturally complementary. I’d never seen them not
smiling when they were in each other’s company. Maggie and I had a different kind of relationship. In my own pain, sadness and loneliness she felt some kind of kinship and redemption. My
silent pain might have been loud to her. At least it surfaced in my eyes and manner no matter how much I ignored or attempted to deny its existence. I didn’t acknowledge loneliness as
something strange or unnatural. It was as much a part of me as the colour of my eyes. Loneliness in the Walsh family seemed to be inherited. Maggie Sheridan knew and understood it. Her life forged
this kind of ability to express and share something that only pain and loneliness can allow and design. I lived in my own clouds and shadows and only somebody who had travelled that road more and
longer than I had could understand it.

As I stood in front of the two women I blurted out in as nervous a voice as I ever remembered having, “My mother won’t come in!”

“What’s the matter?” Mrs. Axe asked.

“I don’t know. She came to the front door but she wouldn’t come in. I think she’s afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“She’s just afraid. She’s not used to places like this. She feels bad or something.”

“Poor woman! I know exactly what she’s going through. Where is she now?” Maggie responded.

I quickly answered. “She’s across the street in Stephen’s Green.”

Mrs. Axe stood up and walked to the window. “I think we should go over there to her,” she said.

“I absolutely agree, Ruth. Why don’t we?” Miss Sheridan got up from her chair and started walking towards the lobby.

When we got to the park bench my mother was sitting as still as any of the statues in the park and was staring at the ducks swimming about in the pond. I looked down at her.

“Ma. We’re here. This is my ma,” I said to the ladies. “Ma, this is Miss Sheridan and Mrs. Axe.”

My mother turned her eyes away from the pond and made eye contact with the two women. For a moment or two it seemed like no one knew what to say.

Then Mrs. Axe broke the silence.

“Well, finally we meet,” she said with her usual warm smile. “I hope we didn’t keep you waiting too long.”

In full voice my mother answered, “Not at all, ma’am. I wasn’t feeling well. I‘m sorry I couldn’t step into the hotel to meet you, ma’am.”

“Ah, it’s a lot better out here in the fresh air,” Mrs. Axe responded with an encouraging tone in her voice. She and Maggie then sat down next to Molly.

“So you’re Gabriel’s mother?” Mrs. Axe reached out and held my mother’s hand as if to reassure her that everything was okay.

Miss Sheridan was carrying a small bouquet of flowers and a photo album. The flowers she handed to my mother. “For you, Mrs. Walsh.”

My mother looked the two elegantly dressed women over. “Are ya goin’ to take him to America?” she asked with a tinge of nervous laughter in her voice.

Mrs. Axe and Miss Sheridan joined her and encouraged the laughter. I sensed the ice melting and sat down on the garden railing next to the bench.

“You always wanted to go to America, son, didn’t ya?” my mother said as she looked towards me.

“I think it wouldn’t do him any harm if he got the chance to go to America,” Miss Sheridan responded. “Mrs. Axe will make sure that everything will be fine with
him.” She then showed a few photos of herself to my mother. “This is me. I don’t suppose you ever heard of me. Anyway, why should you? I’m from Mayo.”

“Me son’s been talkin’ about you from mornin’ till night, ma’am.”

“I hope he said nice things,” Mrs. Axe quickly said.

“Oh, he did! He’d only say nice things, ma’am!”

“I’m sorry we didn’t meet you sooner, Mrs. Walsh,” said Miss Sheridan. “It’s really my fault. You should have more time to consider everything. I’ve
been running back and forth and I hardly know where I am these days. I promise you Gabriel will not be disappointed if he decides to go to New York.”

My mother then looked at me with tears in her eyes. By the way she was biting her lower lip I knew she was holding back a lot of pain.

“D’ya want to go, son? Are ya sure about it now? Tell your mother the truth! You want to leave home?” She leaned over the bench as if to emphasise the importance of the
question, not just for herself but for me as well. She then stretched out her arm and placed her hand on mine. Her fingers and skin were all worn-out looking. Her fingernails had little black
specks of dirt under them.

I took her hand in mine. I realised then that I hadn’t been this close to my mother in years and the experience of holding her hand was something I wasn’t used to. My mother’s
hands had been her energy and her wings all her life. She depended on them like no other part of her body. What she wasn’t able to achieve with her mind or even with her prayers she could
accomplish with her hands. All her life she scrubbed, cleaned and washed everything in front of her with them. The front steps of Hume Street Hospital had been washed and scrubbed by my
mother’s hands when she was just a young girl. Her hands had held each other in prayer as she believed that she would find peace and complete happiness when they could no longer be joined and
held together in prayer. They were so over-used and depended on, they looked like they had never been cared for or held affectionately.

As I continued to hold onto my mother’s hand I became afraid to look at her. I felt I would back off and run away crying and even frightened. As I struggled to hold back my feelings, my
mother’s voice broke into my thoughts.

“You want to leave home, son? Tell me now.”

“Yes. I do.”

“You’re sure of that, son?”

“Yes, I am. I am.”

My mother turned to Maggie and Mrs. Axe. “What will he do there, ma’am?”

“He’ll work a bit and study also,” said Mrs. Axe. “He’s smart. I won’t let him be idle. I’ll make sure he’s happy. I’ll make him write to
you as well. You’ll write to your mother, won’t you, Gabriel?”

“I will,” I said.

“I’ll make sure he does,” Miss Sheridan added supportively, obviously wanting to reassure my mother. “America is not the end of the world any more. I’m back and
forth myself several times a year.”

About that exact moment everybody stopped talking. The silence was awkward and I sensed that nobody wanted to ask the next important question without some kind of encouragement. I began to think
they were all waiting for me to say something.

“Will you sign the papers, Ma?” I asked.

Mrs. Axe took the papers out of her briefcase and handed them to Molly. My mother looked them over but, because she wasn’t used to looking at any kind of documentation, she retreated
somewhat nervously. She really didn’t know what she was looking at or what to read. After what seemed like a forever pause, she turned back to Mrs. Axe.

“Where am I to sign, ma’am?” she asked.

Mrs. Axe pointed to a line on the form. My mother made a wide scribble and in a second her name was signed. She repeated the effort in another few places pointed out by Mrs. Axe. Mrs. Axe now
had the permission to be my legal guardian when I got to America.

Mrs. Axe gave my mother a hug.

Miss Sheridan leaned in and kissed my mother on the top of her head. She then sang out in an aria-like voice:
“Shouldn’t we all go get a cup of tea or something?”

“Good idea, Maggie. Let’s go to the Russell,” Mrs. Axe said and got up from the bench.

The four of us then walked across Stephen’s Green in the direction of Harcourt Street.

By the time we got to the front door of the Russell Hotel my mother had become more relaxed. When she sat down in the armchair in the tea lounge she was even smiling.

She turned to me. “Remember, Gabriel, son. You only learned your religion. I earned mine.”

For a moment or two there was a silence around the table. It was obvious that Maggie and Mrs. Axe heard what my mother had said to me. Yet somehow it appeared as if she was talking to them.
Perhaps telling them something about herself – or me for that matter. In seconds Miss Sheridan had taken a bundle of photographs out of her handbag and was pointing to photos of herself in
various operatic roles.

“Here I am. Aida. La Scala. Look here – here I am at Covent Garden – Madama Butterfly. I won’t tell you the wonderful things Puccini said about me because you’ve
probably never heard of him anyway.” She hummed a few bars of “
Un Bel Di
” and to humour my mother she showed her photo after photo of various parts she played in the many
operas she’d appeared in at an earlier time in her life. Some of them looked funny to my mother and she laughed out loud. Maggie and my mother seemed to connect to each other. I got the
feeling that Maggie knew my mother more and better than I did. She seemed to identify with her on some level. Maggie from Mayo and Molly from Carlow were not unlike sisters who had travelled
different roads early in their lives. Maggie had no children and Molly might have had too many. Maggie had seen the world and Molly hadn’t. Maggie had lived a good part of her life in the
fantasy world of opera and, at least in her recent past, her deepest reality was when she performed on the stage. Molly’s life seemed to be trapped in a never-ending opera in which she was
the tragic heroine, with no end or intermissions. Today both Maggie and Molly were enjoying themselves like I had never seen before.

My mother’s eyes lit up and she began to sing alongside Maggie. They were the oddest of duets. My mother was singing like a lark:
“Ah, why did he part and break the heart of his
girl from Donegal!”

Mrs. Axe said, “Don’t forget
Carmen
, Maggie!”

Maggie instantly broke into the famous aria from
Carmen
.

My mother was beside herself. “Ah God help us all!” she said and rested.

Maggie then took from her photo collection a more private and personal photograph. She showed it to my mother. It was a photograph of a very lonely and sad-looking teenage girl. Maggie looked no
more than fifteen years of age in the photo.

“Me. Maggie from Mayo. If it hadn’t been for a nun at the convent I’d still be in Castlebar. God, I think I was the loneliest person on earth in those days. Jesus, I shiver
when I think about it. I don’t know what it is about life or about any of us that live here under God’s watchful eye but if you get cursed and painted with the stripe of loneliness you
might as well jump off O’Connell’s Bridge.”

“Don’t forget to mention Marconi, Maggie,” Mrs. Axe quickly interjected.

“Marconi? Yes. Mr. Marconi. When he was married to that lovely Galway woman he sent me to Italy for voice training. He gave me the real push in life. God knows I couldn’t afford it.
Nobody in Ireland had any money in those days.”

My mother handed the photographs back to Miss Sheridan. “Lovely, ma’am, lovely pictures. To be truthful I have read a bit about you once or twice in the paper some years
ago.”

Miss Sheridan smiled. She was pleased. “You did?”

“Yes, ma’am. You’re a friend of Dev’s? Is that true?”

Maggie leaned back in her seat as if she was about to take centre stage and sing another aria. “Éamon de Valera? I know him well. Another lonely man, if you ask me. No father in his
life and only his poor mother to take care of him. She brought him up well, if you ask me. All the things he did for Ireland! Talking back to Churchill when this poor country was hardly more than a
stable for horses. Mr. Churchill wanted to drive us all into the sea because we broke the back of the Empire. He was a fine man in his own right but he didn’t really know the Irish character.
In my estimation he underestimated de Valera.” Maggie then turned towards my mother. “If you ever need a bit of assistance from Dev, let me know.”

“Yes, call up the President and tell him Maggie sent you,” Mrs. Axe said laughingly.

“I’m very serious, Ruth,” Miss Sheridan said quickly and defensively. “I know the man well and I’ve been in his corner most of my life.”

My mother then joined in. “If I’d known how nice you two ladies were I’d a worn a decent dress today.”

“I asked you to wear a different dress, Ma,” I quickly put in.

“Ah, I know you did. But if I’d a known sooner I’d a taken me dress out of the pawnshop and wore it.” Pleasure had taken hold of Molly and she was not shy in expressing
her feelings. She’d even changed the way her hat was on her head. She’d moved it and made it look more open and funlike.

“Gabriel will send you a dress from New York, won’t you, Gabriel?” Mrs. Axe said with a sense of instruction in her voice.

“I hope he does, I hope he does.”

“He’ll send you many things, Mrs. Walsh,” said Miss Sheridan. “I’ll make sure he keeps up with you and lets you know everything.”

My mother looked at me again. This time she stared at me longer than I had ever remembered her looking at me. I had to turn away from her eyes.

“Remember, Gabriel, you were always the first up for Mass. Not like the rest of the fellas on the street. He was so good at goin’ to Mass I used to call him the Little Archbishop.
The spittin’ image of his father. His father will never be dead as long as Gabriel’s alive. The spittin’ image of Paddy, missus!”

“Paddy?”

“Me husband’s name, ma’am.”

I was hoping my mother wouldn’t go on talking, but she did.

“Paddy hasn’t worked in a month of Sunda’s. He’s a changed man since I first married him. I can tell you that, missus.”