The House that Jack Built

by Catherine Barry

  ‘Hi. Thanks for the flowers, Alice,’ I sniffed, awkwardly shifting from one foot to the other.

  ‘C’mon in, love,’ she motioned kindly.

  Why was she being so kind to me? Why you, Alice? Why you of all people?

  My behaviour towards her had been the very worst. She had never judged me, not once. I soon realised why. When I thought about it, the answer was obvious. Alice had been judged all her life. She knew what it was like to be constantly criticised, scrutinised and made a fool of. She knew the pain of being ostracised. She knew all about class distinctions. She knew her place in this world. At least someone did! I was still trying to find mine.

  At this moment in time, Alice was all I had. She was the one I least expected to have anything to do with me. I felt guilty sitting in her kitchen, sipping her tea that she paid for by cleaning houses from 6am to 10am every single day. Her larger-than-life presence eased my racing mind. I could have sat there all day. It didn’t matter whether we had any conversation or not.

  Jimmy, the youngest of her children, wandered in. ‘Ma, can I have a biscuit?’ A clever boy, he knew his chances were increased when a visitor was about. She raised her hand to him and he legged it out the front.

  ‘That poxy child will be the death of me. Never plays with the other kids, can’t get them to play with him. A right fucking oddball altogether. We had to tie a bone around his neck so the dog would play with him.’

  I laughed. It was the first time I had laughed in two weeks.

  ‘Can’t get him to eat anything either. Biscuits and tea — that’s the fucking lot. Has to run around the shower to get wet.’ I was really laughing now.

  ‘When we took him swimming, had to throw him in the pool twice before he made a splash, fucking useless skinny bastard, takes after his oul fella,’ she added.

  Alice prattled on like only Alice could. I sat there drinking tea and chuckling, and for a whole hour I forgot. I forgot about Matt being gay. I forgot about Andrew Fenton and the court summons. I forgot about my guilt and confusion. I forgot about my anger towards Jill and Karen and Mick, but I still couldn’t forget about Joe. His face swam before me like a vision. His words of condemnation remained locked inside, piercing my heart every hour or so. I couldn’t bear to think about him. I never thought I’d see the day when he would reject me so cruelly. The first glimpses of my true feelings towards him had begun to surface. It was a frightening revelation, one I could do without. It seemed there would be plenty of time to grieve over his loss. I didn’t hope for a reconciliation.

  During all the years I had known him, he had never done anything like this. I respected the seriousness of it.

  I respected his decision to cut me off. It was a strange and wonderful feeling. I acknowledged for the first time ever that I had hurt someone. Even if it was only acknowledged within. I knew what was happening, I just refused to let it out. This was not the time. If I let my feelings become real, I might have to face the fact that I had lost him, which would be too much for me to bear.

  Contrary to my outward composure, I was dying inside. I was lonely and lost and hurt. I loved my friends and I loved David more than anything else in the world. I had begun to see, ever so slightly, that I had taken them for granted. Even so, I could not trust myself to change. My only glimmer of hope lay in the two course sessions that were left. Why they had become a matter of life or death for me, is uncertain. I should have been obsessed with the ever-increasing difficulties.

  I had been living my childhood for weeks now, and something was happening. It would have been wrong for me to stop going when I needed something ‘completed’ in my life. I had never completed anything before. I started many projects, dreamt many dreams, planned many plots and failed to get even some of them off the ground. The course was currently keeping me afloat. Even though it had been a painful experience, I wanted more than ever now to see it through. It was the only thing I was doing right. The only thing that seemed to be fruitful.

  Without hesitation, I asked Alice to listen to me. I asked her to help me with the course questions. She was delighted that I could trust her with such personal stuff. To me, nothing seemed private any more. My secrets were out.

  I picked up my last couple of pages of work and began to recap. Alice barred the kids from the kitchen, opened the fridge and took out some cheap cider. I had come as far as eleven years of age. Strangely enough, the next couple of years were vague, to say the least. I put this down to the fact that I had had my first drink when I was twelve.

  My accomplice in crime was none other than Joe himself. We had become buddies overnight when I found his missing Labrador wandering in the back lane. I advertised in the local supermarket and Joe appeared at my door to take the dog home. Her name was Sandy; she was a beautiful Golden Labrador with floppy ears and drooling tongue. Not much of a guard dog, I imagined, as she waddled home with me without any protest.

  I had liked Joe from the start. He made me laugh. Unlike other boys, he didn’t try to put his hand up my skirt and he was a year older. That counted for everything. He introduced me to his friends, who came from a different part of Clontarf. Unlike my ‘anti-menstruation’ estate friends, Joe’s mates were ordinary down-to-earth kids. They welcomed me into their little gang immediately.

  We gathered at the church grounds and often sheltered under the large pyramid roof, taking refuge from the insufferable rain. Smoking was already part of the gang philosophy. It wasn’t long before alcohol was introduced. My only experience of alcohol had been a sip of wine from my dad’s glass when he had his back turned. I thought it tasted like vinegar and I spat it out.

  Now I was sitting under the church walls as I lifted a bottle of Smithwicks beer to my lips for the first time. It was Hallowe’en night and Joe and I had met as soon as darkness had fallen. We walked together and talked together. He had a plastic bag with him. I was certain it was filled with popcorn, apples and monkey nuts, but he pulled out a six-pack. I looked at him disconcertedly. I was a little bit afraid. Then I gave myself a pep-talk. C’mon. You’re twelve now. Time to grow up. I watched Joe drink the Smithwicks. He slurped at the rim of it like a real man. I was impressed. Then it was my turn. It tasted disgusting but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him know.

  ‘What do virgins eat for breakfast?’ he asked me, draining the remains of his beer. I was still trying to get past the frothy bit.

  ‘I don’t know, what do virgins eat for breakfast?’ I hadn’t a clue. What was a virgin anyway?

  ‘Cornflakes!’ he laughed loudly. I laughed loudly. I hadn’t a bull’s notion what any of it meant but it didn’t matter. The small portion of alcohol I had managed to drink was taking effect.

  We began to knick-knack on people’s doors. I would camouflage myself in a bush and Joe would innocently ask, ‘Eh, would you like to help the Hallowe’en Party?’

  ‘Get your fucking cheeky little arse out of here before I call the guards!’ would come the reply, and on we would go to the next house and to the next. At the last house, a kindly old woman with white hair asked him to open the plastic bag. Then she threw a beautifully handmade toffee apple inside it.

  ‘There you go, son,’ she smiled at him and closed the door. We burst out laughing and ran down the road.

  Fireworks exploded in the black moonlit sky. Children clad in white sheets wobbled from house to house. Green-faced witches with brooms scurried along the footpath. There was a run on the old lady with the toffee apples when word got out. Sparklers crackled and bangers exploded noisily on doorsteps. Bonfires were under way. Children worked relentlessly, dragging anything flammable to the roaring infernos. Aerosol cans imploded with force and parents guarded the younger ones, who watched from a distance.

  I was reeling from excitement and the one and a half bottles of Smithwicks.

  Joe had kindly left me half of one. I drank it slowly now, savouring the warm glow in my bones and wishing there was more. We joined up with the r
est of the gang and sat around the bonfire, warm as toast. We exchanged ghost stories and Joe decided to paint my face black from the ashes. I had been told to come home at 9 pm. It was now about 11pm and I didn’t care. I felt so grown-up. I felt I could do anything. I felt I could take on the world.

  We danced around the fire, whooping and yahooing like Indians. Free, wild, innocent and pure. I could see Joe holding my hand tightly as we danced around and around until I lost my balance and fell over, laughing hysterically. I lay there staring up at the yellow moon, the stars twinkling in the clear night sky. I was so happy, as happy as I would ever be. I had found a way to live in the world. A way to cope, to fit in. A way to make the madness go away. I had found a way to be me.

  That night, I said a little prayer to my guardian angel. I thanked her for introducing me to this wonderful thing called alcohol. It had given me a new lease of life. It soared through my veins like an electric volt and filled me with confidence.

  My ever-churning stomach had stopped rotating the wrong way. I had a smile on my face. I was able to make conversation with the other boys. It was all so easy. I leaned over on my elbow. Joe was blowing smoke up into the air. He was making perfectly rounded circles. I mooched on over to him and laid my head on his chest. I cuddled into him. I was safe and happy. It would always be like this from now on. I never had to worry again. I had found my two best friends. Joe, and alcohol. As long as I had them, life was a cinch.

  I stopped reading and wiped the tears from my face. My loneliness consumed me. Alice was crying too. The clock was ticking quietly and the sound of a passing car faded in the distance. I was no longer twelve. Life was not a cinch any more. Joe had deserted me.

  ‘Alice, I’ve lost him, do you hear me? I’ve lost him.’

  She poured another drink, wiping her eyes on the back of her sleeve. I took a long swig out of my glass. It did nothing. I was stone cold sober. Even alcohol had given up on me. So now I had lost my two best friends.

  I didn’t know that I was about to step forward into a new awakening, a new life. Honesty, the murderer of souls, the spirit taker, had come to get me. Like a thief in the night it would steal my pride. It would free me of me. So I could learn to live again.

  Chapter 19

  Everybody gets their moment of truth. Some see it for what it is, a revelation. They grab at it eagerly, recognising its worth. Others ignore it, hoping their gut instinct was wrong, and patiently wait for the next one to come along. Only it doesn’t. It is true to say, some people do get two moments of truth, but it is a rare phenomenon. I only got one. And it hit me over the head like a mallet in a dingy classroom at a course called Discovering Your Family History.

  It was the eighth session. God only knows how or why I had decided to return. My personal life was like a black hole that I kept staring into, like the Dublin Corporation workmen stare into their prospective holes, breastfeeding their shovels. The course was the only thing that was going right for me, and while it didn’t seem like the most important issue that I should have been addressing, I was determined to see it through to the end.

  I was delighted to see everybody again. To my surprise they were equally delighted to see me. This was a first. Everybody else connected to me was running as fast as they could in the opposite direction, including me.

  Matt, too, greeted me with open arms. It was strange to be in them, the way I had always dreamed. Now they felt beautifully strong, with the strength of someone who really loved me, not the fickle ‘in love’ type. I had begun to discern the difference and had learned one great lesson. That I was not looking for romance at all. I was looking for love. The real thing. I looked around me and surmised that every single individual in the group was doing the exact same thing. I had confused sex with love and vice versa.

  ‘I suppose a ride is out of the question?’ I whispered in his ear. He burst out laughing.

  Frank and Connor and Bertie were exchanging family photographs. Periodically they roared with laughter as someone recognised the other. Diane was scribbling away on the back of a book.

  ‘What is it?’ I peered over her shoulder.

  ‘Jack, dear!’ She swung around and hugged me hard. ‘I didn’t think you were coming back. You missed it last week.’ She looked positively radiant.

  ‘You’ve changed your hair,’ I commented, touching the beautiful blonde-tinted strands.

  ‘What do you think?’ She patted the back of her head childishly.

  ‘You look beautiful no matter what colour your hair is.’ My eyes had begun to well up already.

  ‘Are you all right, dear? Did something happen last week?’

  Jesus. What an understatement. Have you got ten years? ‘I just can’t stop crying,’ I explained in a choked voice. ‘All the time. I walk down the street and I start crying. It’s really embarrassing. Actually, your hair reminded me of Mam.’ I decided to be honest.

  ‘Did your Mam pass away, dear? I’m so sorry. It’s hard to know. I don’t like asking,’ she said.

  ‘No! Mam is alive and well. I guess you can say there has been a death in the family, but not of a physical kind.’ I winked at her and she smiled back. I knew she thought I’d completely lost it. She was probably right.

  ‘I can see you two are getting along fine.’ She nodded at Matt. Nothing like the old change of subject. It works wonders.

  ‘Yes. We’re old friends. We grew up together.’

  ‘Any chance of, you know — you two getting together?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s spoken for,’ I answered, amused by my own irony. Then I went and took my seat and the session began.

  Brian was his usual self, welcoming everybody and answering questions. From the content of the conversation, I surmised that I had indeed missed a great deal. The group were discussing things much more freely. This evening’s topic of sexual memories had sparked off a vibrant and energetic debate. Everybody was complaining about the lack of sex education in their childhood and the consequent fumbling through teenage years. We had all shared a common bond. We were hopelessly sexually inadequate. After Matt’s confession I felt like I was a virgin again. I was relieved to discover that it had not been all my fault. Perhaps if I had had another suitor, the experience wouldn’t have been so traumatic.

  The real beauty of it was I could start all over again. At thirty years of age I could call myself a virgin and apply for a second licence. Mind you, this time I was going to be more careful about my choice of partner. I would also make sure that he was a homeowner. I wasn’t going down any lanes, or back seats of cars even if he drove a Mercedes. This lady was going to do things in style — and preferably with a heterosexual like myself.

  Bertie was enlightening us all with a tale of woe about having warts as a kid. Then he graduated to his piles. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for hearing about his arse but he seemed to think it was all connected sexually. That he had acquired these ‘physical’ symptoms as a result of his ‘inner’ sexual inadequacies. Now we had two Woody Allens in the group.

  ‘For the first two years of my marriage, I went to bed with my T-shirt on,’ Diane confided. I was too embarrassed to let my husband see me naked. I was always obsessed with my outer image. If I had been taking more of an interest in our relationship, I don’t think he would have run off with a younger woman.’

  Connor disagreed. ‘Don’t you think he was a bit of a bollox really? If he was that type he would have run off anyway. He should have been paying attention to you, not elsewhere as he was obviously doing. I can assure you, T-shirt or no T-shirt, I personally would find it difficult to take my eyes off you for a second. No offence meant, of course.’ Frank and Bertie nodded in agreement.

  Diane blushed. I was pleased.

  ‘Jack, you’re very quiet.’ Brian turned the group’s attention on me. ‘We missed you last week.’

  Everybody nodded.

  ‘Things have been very difficult. If you don’t mind I’ll just listen for t
he moment. Every time I try to talk lately, I start to cry. I’m quite embarrassed about it.’ I lowered my head, suddenly feeling very ashamed and stupid.

  ‘I think you’ll find the group understands. We had a few crying sessions here last week, didn’t we, people?’

  They all nodded.

  ‘On the subject of last week,’ he went on, ‘I found it interesting that three of you expressed almost identical stories. It would seem that alcoholism was a common factor and had a profound effect on all of you. I would like to extend that discussion a little bit more this week. I’ve taken the liberty of asking Matt to kindly share with us his story. I think you might find it of interest.’

  Brian went to sit on another chair. Matt, declining to take the chair himself, stood up and leaned against the table and folded his arms. My moment of truth was upon me.

  ‘Thanks, Brian. Right — I’ve been asked to share a little bit about my own family background. I hope I don’t bore you all. This is my third time doing this particular course. I initially participated because it was part of the curriculum of my psychology degree. I have since completed the course twice over because basically I have an interest in alcoholism and drug addiction.’

  This was news to me. He continued.

  ‘On all three courses, I discovered alcoholism coming up again and again as a recurring theme. It is a family disease, now recognised by the World Health Organisation. It’s not surprising, then, when I hear account after account of alcoholism doing its worst in families throughout Ireland. I am a recovering alcoholic and drug addict myself.

  ‘I went to a treatment centre four years ago after my wife threatened to take herself and the children as far away from me as possible. Like most alcoholics, I could not see that I was in trouble. I was a classic case of denial. It’s only when the shit hits the fan that an alcoholic might make a move, or perhaps when they are faced with an actual life or death sentence, such as a failed liver, or institutionalisation. Let me tell you about my parents. I come from Clontarf.’