A Son Called Gabriel

by Damian McNicholl

  “You’ve got no swimming trunks. Just put on some sun cream and tan,” said Mammy. She didn’t want us going near the water, as she feared we’d drown. My lack of swimming trunks was her handy excuse.

  A band of men and women walked slowly up the beach. The men wore navy blue pants with stripes almost the same color as my father’s swimming trunks and their jackets had small cloth pieces of the same color on their shoulders. A few carried horns and trumpets. Rays of sunshine caught on their instruments and they flashed like cameras. As they drew nearer, an old woman with seagull-white hair gathered in a bun stopped, raised her hand to shield her eyes, and then pointed to an empty spot about twenty feet away from us.

  “Who are those people, Mammy?” I asked.

  She peered at them for a moment. “It’s the Salvation Army.”

  “What do they do?” asked James.

  “They’re the other sort,” Mammy said, in a low voice. She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “The nerve, coming to try and convert us on the beach. I don’t know why they can’t just leave people alone.” She said all of this out of the side of her mouth, as she didn’t want anyone sitting nearby to overhear her.

  Caroline nudged me in the arm to show me that the old woman was stepping up on a wooden fruit box. After she’d climbed up, she waved a thin rod slowly and the band began to play. The other band members started singing “The Lord Is My Shepherd,” the same hymn we sang at Benediction.

  “Why are the Protestants playing our hymn?” Caroline said.

  “Shush. It’s a hymn for all religious denominations.”

  “I see . . . very good.”

  “But they change the words a bit, of course,” Mammy said.

  “Do they change the words of all our hymns when they sing them?” I asked.

  “I think so, but not the ones about the Blessed Virgin. They never sing hymns about Our Lady, because they don’t believe in Her.”

  Her quiet voice was dead silly because I didn’t think anybody was listening. A woman lying nearby was reading, her husband was asleep, and their children were building sandcastles.

  “Why do they change our hymns?” Caroline said.

  “Because they think their words are better.”

  The woman glanced over as she turned a page.

  “I see . . . very good,” said Caroline.

  Protestants are really damned, I thought.

  “But they’re not, of course,” Mammy concluded.

  The singing stopped and the old woman started preaching. “Better not to have been born than to sin and close your hearts to Jesus. Yes, I say, better not to have been born than not to be saved.” Her voice grew louder and she thrashed her arms about every which way. “Sinners among you, sunning and cavorting on this golden beach, hear my words. Listen to my words and repent. Accept Jesus and be saved. Accept and be saved, because only God’s kingdom is golden and sunny.” The woman went on and on for what seemed like hours, talking about repenting and getting saved. When she finally stopped, she looked about the beach as she wiped her brow with a hanky.

  “Can we be saved even though we’re Catholics, Mammy?” I asked.

  “Stop listening to that gibberish, Gabriel.” Mammy looked about quickly as if she’d just remembered we were on the beach. “Those words are not for our ears,” she said more gently. “We have a better system for saving the soul.”

  “She’s talking about Our Lord, too, so why is their system different?”

  “It’s about how they adore Jesus.”

  “So their Jesus is a different man?”

  Mammy smiled widely at the woman who’d been reading, as she was now watching us closely. After she hurriedly returned to her book, my mother bared her teeth at me.

  “James and Caroline, when your father comes back, I just might ask him to take you for ice cream,” she said. “I might do that, if you’re all very quiet.”

  “But Mammy, is their Jesus a—”

  “Shut up, Gabriel,” said Caroline.

  It was the last week of school and I was in big trouble with Mrs. Bradley, the headmistress. It had nothing to do with Protestants or hymns, and nothing to do with me, either. It was Henry Lynch’s fault. I’d known it as soon as he’d told the lie.

  I’d heard Mrs. Bradley’s shrieks from the other side of the pink curtain that ran across the middle of the room and separated the junior and senior classes. A rumpus then broke out as the senior girls began screaming. At first, the headmistress blamed the older boys for putting the mice in her drawer. I heard her shouting at them, but then she ordered Noel and another boy to lower the separating curtain a few minutes later. As soon as it was lowered, she asked the juniors to stand and asked us one by one if we’d done the deed. The idea of her hand touching a mouse was very funny until she came to Henry. He blamed me.

  “Are you sure it was him?” she said.

  “Yes, miss. I saw him go into the senior room with his hands in his pockets this morning. He definitely went in there and I knew he had no business being in your part of the schoolroom.”

  Three more of Henry’s friends swore they’d seen me go behind the curtain, too. Henry’s older brother, sitting in front of Mrs. Bradley’s table, raised his hand and said he also remembered seeing me near her desk.

  “Gabriel Harkin, come and see me this very minute.” Mrs. Bradley looked at Noel and nodded. “Raise the curtain again . . . but do it so it doesn’t sag in the middle so much.”

  I had no choice but to obey.

  “I can’t believe you put mice in my drawer,” the teacher said. “Gabriel Harkin, you of all people.” She leaned toward me until her clear blue eyes were level with mine. “Confess, and I may not punish you as hard as I intend to.”

  Mrs. Bradley’s mouth was small and tight, her face purplish, and little lines were gathered just above her upper lip. She didn’t blink.

  “I didn’t do it, miss. I don’t know why they’re blaming me.”

  “The words I want to hear are, ‘I’m sorry.’” She sighed. “Well, they say still waters run deep and now I know they most certainly do.” Her mouth turned down. “You’ll be trying to tell me the mice chewed their way inside of their own accord.”

  The senior girls and boys laughed. I lifted my head a little and peeked under my eyebrows, until I came to Jennifer’s freckled face. She was laughing.

  Mrs. Bradley looked at the other students before she rose and fetched a stick propped against the fireplace. “Hold out one hand and then the other.”

  She gave me two slaps on each hand, then said, “Now, say you’re sorry and the matter will be closed.”

  My eyes and hands stung.

  “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Bradley.”

  “You’ll never scare a teacher again?”

  “No.”

  She slapped me on each hand another time before dismissing me. Everyone stared as I lifted up the curtain and walked in. Miss Murray looked sad.

  I wanted to point and shout at Henry. Instead, I sat at my desk and tried to go on as if nothing had happened, but I couldn’t concentrate. I turned back to Henry and saw his evil smile. A tear ran down my cheek. I turned away and wiped it off. Another tear followed. I wiped it off, too. Miss Murray didn’t ask me a single question, not even the multiplication ones the others didn’t know. She asked Henry the hard ones and I put up my hand when he got them wrong. Still, she ignored me. I was dead to her.

  “Did it hurt?” Fergal said at lunchtime.

  I’d just finished my sandwiches and found him waiting outside the school door when I came out. I was surprised to see him. He always played with Henry and the others.

  “Of course, it hurt.”

  “That Henry’s a bad article. He shouldn’t have done that. I feel bad you got punished for something you didn’t do.”

  “Why didn’t you stand up and say I didn’t do it?”

  He looked into my eyes before allowing his gaze to drop to the ground, the way he always did when he knew he
was in the wrong.

  “Thanks for asking,” I said. “You’d better go before the football teams are picked and Henry starts wondering where you are.”

  Five

  Granny finished reading the blue airmail envelope, which the postman had asked me to give her when he saw me turning into her lane. Her eyes shone misty.

  “You’re going to meet your uncle Brendan,” she said. “He’s coming to visit.”

  I looked at the sky-blue page Granny laid on the table. I’d seen the backward writing when I held the envelope up to the sun as I’d walked up the lane, but hadn’t understood how the pages of a letter could be inside because it was so thin and light. Granny had known, though, because she hadn’t ripped it open like she normally did envelopes, instead pulling back its gummy flap carefully and unfolding it into a one-page letter.

  A family get-together took place at her house the following evening. As soon as Auntie Bernie arrived, the stink from Uncle John’s dog surrendered to her nasty perfume. Uncle John sat in my grandfather’s old chair, dressed in a Sunday suit that was far too tight, his belly bulging over the narrow trouser belt.

  “Children, the grown-ups wish to discuss Uncle Brendan’s visit, and you must go outside and play,” said Auntie Celia.

  She signaled Uncle Frank, her Scottish husband who sometimes wore his kilt to Mass on Sundays, to give up his armchair to her with a number of small, quick waves of her hand. Auntie Celia disliked small chairs on account of her very wide hips. As he rose, Uncle Frank glared at her with the same sunken, black eyes as Connor’s, the only difference between them being my uncle looked into your eyes when he spoke to you.

  “Don’t come back for an hour, if you know what’s good for you,” Auntie Celia said as we filed out.

  Outside, before we started our game of piggy-in-the-middle, Martin said, “Mammy doesn’t really want Uncle Brendan to come home.”

  “Why not?” asked Caroline. She pushed a rope of hair behind her ear.

  “Because he disgraced the family. Mammy says he shouldn’t stir the pot and should just stay out among his Africans at the missions. That’s all I could get. When I asked some more, she slapped my ear and said I shouldn’t be listening to other people’s conversations . . . and you know she always beats Connor, never me.”

  After a while, Martin and I got bored with the game and decided to sneak inside, but Uncle John’s smelly dog came out from under the table wagging its tail. Auntie Celia looked over her shoulder and stopped talking. She called Martin over and made him sit at her feet. My grandmother, Auntie Celia, and Mammy had puffy eyes. As I sat on the sofa beside my mother, Uncle John and Granny watched me.

  “Tell everyone what you won in the big GAA raffle last week, Martin,” Auntie Celia said, running her fingers through his wavy, dark blond hair, which she lightened in summer with lemon juice. She peered down at Martin, her mouth slightly open, ready to move her lips in time to his words, something she always did when she asked him to tell his good news.

  Martin had flat feet, was only an inch taller than me, and had skin the color of white china that turned red when he was in the sun, even when the sun was as weak as the tea Auntie Bernie liked to drink. He was also very careful about his teeth and brushed after every meal, although I didn’t think they looked any whiter than mine. Behind his back, Connor said his brother was touched in the head, because he’d once caught him brushing after eating an apple. “Anyone with an ounce of sense knows apples are good for you,” he’d told me, but I stopped him saying anything bad. Martin was the same as God to me.

  “I won a two-foot doll in a scarlet flamenco dress and her eyes open and close when she sleeps,” said Martin. “She’s very, very expensive.”

  Auntie’s cracked lips stilled at the same time Martin stopped talking. She leaned toward my mother slightly. “My Martin’s lucky in the raffles, Eileen, eh?”

  “It appears so.”

  I was a little hurt Martin hadn’t mentioned the doll to me. I thought we told each other everything.

  “What does he want wey a damned doll at his age, Celia?” Uncle Frank said. “Give it tey Harry and Eileen’s wee lass.”

  Martin’s lips changed to a thin line as he regarded his father.

  “What good is a prize like that tey a boy?” said Uncle Frank. “You know I’m right. They should have given him its value in money instead.”

  “Seeing as the Scots are tight as a duck’s behind, it’s expected you’d make a remark like that, Frank,” said Auntie Celia.

  Uncle John and Daddy laughed.

  Auntie Celia passed one hand over her long fingers as she explained that Martin had asked her to keep it safe for him so he could give it to his future wife one day. “I’ve stored it away in the attic, where it’ll remain.” Without stopping for a breath, she told Uncle John he needed to lose weight fast, because his stomach was a disgrace, and a new argument began.

  “Big Sunday,” the official closing of the summer season, was very hot for a September day. We arrived at the beach earlier than usual, because my father said there would be more people in attendance. He changed quickly into his swimming trunks and went to the water. His snow-white arms flashed and cut into the water as he swam against glassy waves that lifted him up and then set him down like a floating cork. The water looked so pretty, so inviting, and I was determined to get into it, even if my need caused a hissed argument between my parents in public. I waited ’til Daddy came out but, before he could dry himself, I asked nicely if he’d teach me to swim.

  “It’s my last chance this summer,” I added.

  “You’ve no swimming trunks, so that’s that,” said Mammy, her words coming out faster than a gobbling turkey. “Next year, maybe.”

  “A boy of eight should know how to swim,” said my father. “He can wear his underpants.”

  “He will not, Harry.” She looked about her. “No swimming trunks means no swimming, simple as that.”

  Daddy seized my hand and we marched to the man in the green hut who rented out the deckchairs to see if he sold swimming trunks. The old man wore a grubby white handkerchief tied in a knot at each end on his bald head and had a tattoo of an anchor with some rope on his leathery upper arm. He eyed me up and down a few times, then shook his head.

  “I don’t sell them, but I’ve a pair I found the other week on the beach that you’re welcome to. I don’t think they’ll fit, though.”

  Even before I saw the mustard-colored trunks, I decided they’d fit.

  After my mother learned they were secondhand, she snatched them from me. Her eyes and nose crinkled in strict examination. “They need to be washed. You don’t know who was last in them. That all adds up to no swimming today.”

  “Nonsense,” said my father, “the saltwater will sanitize them.”

  Mammy seemed to agree. I slipped into them hurriedly, for fear she’d change her mind.

  “They’re a little big, but they were free, so they’ll do,” she said. “You make sure Gabriel doesn’t go under, Harry.”

  “I’ll keep them safe, Eileen,” Daddy said.

  Caroline said she wanted to swim as well and started to huff. As she always did, Mammy gave in and allowed my sister to wear her stripy pink knickers. James arrived bare-arsed just as we reached the point where the raggedy edge of the foamy water disappears into the sand, before it returns to the sea.

  My father held me and tried to show me how to float. In all honesty, when he held me in his arms, that was more magical than learning to swim. He put his hands under my tummy—I was dead surprised it didn’t tickle, but supposed that was because of the cold water—and told me to paddle like a dog. The sight of my paddling made him laugh, just like Uncle Tommy laughed when I used to act drunk after he’d swung me around in the garden. I’d never heard Daddy laugh so loudly about anything I’d ever done. Suddenly, everything was beautiful: the sparkling water, the laughing people, Caroline pushing back her glistening hair, James scooping handfuls of water and hurling it a
t us. Each time my father took away his arms, I’d sink and swallow mouthfuls of the salty water. But he’d just pick me up and tell me to try again. I kept trying, trying, trying.

  “Well done, Gabriel,” he said, after I swam five feet. I had to stop when my arms and legs got heavy. “I knew you could do it, son.”

  Even the cold waves gently brushing my sides as they moved toward the shore felt warm as I stood licking the salty water dribbling over my upper lip. Everything inside me glowed hotter than the sun’s rays cutting through the water to the golden floor beneath.

  “Next year, you’ll be able to swim better than me,” he said. The four of us began horsing about and hurling water at one another.

  After we came out, Daddy left to go and change. We played at the water’s edge until I got bored and said we should walk up to the curving concrete seawall. The wall was ten feet high and shaped like a cresting wave. Its uppermost part cast a band of black shadow on the sand where we sat and dug our feet into the coolness. Farther along the beach, the Protestant Salvation Army band played hymns.

  A man in jet-black swimming trunks walked toward us. He stopped beside a woman sitting a few feet in front of me and talked to her as he picked up a towel, rubbed his wet hair a little, and then flipped it over his head to dry his back. His body was a healthy brown and water droplets glittered like tiny diamonds over his legs and chest.

  I could not stop looking at him; I took in every inch. His ice-blue eyes looked over the woman’s head and caught me watching. He smiled.

  My heart skipped a beat and I looked away quickly. I pretended to play around with a handful of sand and stole another peek when I thought it might be safe. As my gaze reached his face and our eyes touched again, my heart skipped another beat. I couldn’t understand what was happening.

  Taking a pair of underpants and red shorts from a bag, he placed them on the sand, turned his back on me and put the wet towel loosely around his waist. I crawled closer and watched as he wriggled out of his swimming trunks. He kicked them toward the girl and began drying his private parts. After he’d finished, he picked up his underpants, stood on one foot, and put the other through its leg hole. I crawled over, stuck my head beneath the towel, and looked up. I needed to see him there.