A Son Called Gabriel

by Damian McNicholl

  The woman was referring to an attack on Pearse’s father’s bar, an event that was also big news in Knockburn. My mother and I were in the canned fruit and vegetable aisle and the shelving prevented Mammy from discovering the identity of the customer. Examining a can of pineapple chunks, she narrowed her eyes even more and shook her head.

  “I quite agree,” the other woman said. “Did you also say you wanted a pound of streaky bacon?”

  “Provided it’s lean.” A brief pause ensued. “Ruth, my poor Trevor’s scared witless. I’m frightened to death for him. They’re so scared, they’re erecting a higher fence around the police station and festooning it with sharp wire, just to make sure those IRA savages don’t lob bombs over it.” She tut-tutted. “What’s this place coming to, I ask you? It’s not right in a civilized society. We’re living amid savages who know no bounds . . . oh, Ruth, that bacon doesn’t look too fresh. It’s more tan than pink.”

  “The bacon underneath came in this morning and I’ll give you that instead.” Another silence arose, fractured intermittently by the sound of metal clinking against metal. “Every last one of those IRA scum should be shot on sight. Yes, sir, shot on sight. Then there’d be no need to intern them.”

  My mother, who’d moved across the aisle to baked beans, dropped a can on the floor. I picked it up and handed it to her.

  “Jesus, listen to that bitch’s badness,” she said and put the can, a very expensive brand, into her basket. “These are wicked women. Listen, pretend to be searching for something in case somebody comes into the aisle while we listen to the rest of her badness.”

  “I’ll tell you something else for free,” said the clerk. “A prison officer friend of my Sammy says they’re learning Irish in prison. Aye, Irish, if you don’t mind. They gabble to one another in it, just so the guards won’t understand what murderous plots their other IRA scum friends on the outside are planning. And you know what else Sammy says?” She laughed shrilly. “He says the British government told some of the prison officers to learn it. Imagine that? He also says the sounds that come out of the mouths of those IRA thugs when they’re speaking Irish are nothing short of primitive. Aye, my Sammy told his boss in no uncertain terms that the flames of hell will be mighty cool before he’ll agree to learn that excuse for a language.”

  My mother accidentally felled part of a stack of spinach cans.

  “Let’s leave now,” I said.

  “That bitch is evil personified,” my mother replied.

  “I’m a slice or two over the weight,” the clerk said. “Do you want me to take it off?”

  “No, that’s grand.”

  “How can we be expected to share power with Catholics? It’s not right. The British government’s out of its mind if they think they can foist this new initiative on us. Sammy says there should be an Ulster-wide protest strike. ‘Close down the roads and power stations and remind the British who’s in control,’ he says. My Sammy’s dead right, you know?”

  “Oh, Ruth, wouldn’t it be a grand lesson for those Knockburn people if they couldn’t get down here to shop,” said the customer. “That would teach them a lesson, wouldn’t it?”

  The clerk laughed. “It would be worth it just to see the look on their faces.”

  Ballynure was a Protestant town and Hamilton’s was its only supermarket. It employed one Catholic, their coal deliveryman, out of a staff of twenty.

  Relations between Protestants and Catholics had been strained in the province for a while. We were incensed because internment without trial had been introduced in 1971, and the only people imprisoned had been Catholics. A year later, the British army had shot thirteen innocent people dead at an internment protest rally in Derry, a rally that my parents had attended. The government in London had since been condemned internationally for their poor handling of Ulster’s affairs. In reaction, the British imposed an initiative to share power with moderate Catholics. This, in turn, incensed the Protestants. The hard-liners, secure in their privileged Protestant birthright to rule, didn’t want Catholics to have any say in the province’s affairs. Their anger, which had previously been confined to the cities, was spreading to smaller towns and villages and, judging by the broken pub windows, Ballynure would not be an exception.

  “Oh my, but it would be great fun to be at the roadblocks to see their faces when they’re turned away and can’t get down here for their milk and eggs,” the clerk said.

  Mammy’s face was as purple as the label on the can of kidney beans she was examining. She never bought such beans.

  “Many of those Knockburn men are in the IRA and those that are too old are offering shelter to them that’s on the run,” said the customer. “I can tell you exactly how their faces would look. My Trevor says if looks could kill, he’d be a goner ten times over. He sets up the police roadblocks to search their cars for guns and he says they’d shoot bullets through their eyes if they could when they’re stopped.” Her voice lowered. “Between you and me, though it doesn’t do to say, Trevor would love to give some of them a damned good hiding. But he can’t, of course. I mean he wears the Queen’s uniform, doesn’t he?”

  “Since when has wearing a uniform ever stopped police brutality against us?” Mammy said, and she laid down the can of kidney beans. “I’ve listened to quite enough of this.”

  She emerged from the aisle like a battleship at full throttle.

  “Hello there, Mrs. Harkin,” the clerk said. She’d emphasized the surname so the other customer, a too bony woman who looked like she had cancer, would know at once we were Catholics. “It’s such a gloomy day. Do you think this rain will ever stop?”

  “It is so very gloomy out, isn’t it?” the bony customer said.

  “It’s not rain makes this day gloomy,” Mammy said, as the clerk handed the customer her package of bacon. “I’ll have four rashers of streaky bacon and a soup bone with plenty of meat on it.”

  “I’ll see you soon, Ruth,” said the customer, and she walked quickly away.

  The clerk picked up the first slice of bacon with her tongs.

  “No, no. I don’t want from the top,” said Mammy. “I want the fresh bacon. Good, pink rashers like you gave your previous customer.”

  The clerk became so flustered she gave her five rashers instead of four.

  “I asked for four,” Mammy said, after the bacon was nicely wrapped and laid upon the counter.

  “That’s all right, Mrs. Harkin. My mistake. I’ll only charge for four.” She took the money, whisked the change out of the till, and handed it to Mammy. “Have a lovely day, now?” she said, and walked into the back room.

  After Mammy told my father what we’d overheard at the supermarket, he said, “I can smell the Protestants’ fear. They’re scared because they know this is only the beginning.” He slapped the arm of his chair. “The British will force them to share power, and then they’ll withdraw from the place in two or three years. Sure, Ulster’s no good to England anymore. She’s made her money off the paddies. She doesn’t need us now she’s in the European Common Market.”

  “I think we’re better off under Britain than we’d be under that useless bunch in Dublin,” said Mammy. “Those people can’t run a country. Everybody’s out of work down there.”

  “Aye, we’ll show these Ballynure people a thing or two. We’ll push them and all the Protestants into a united Ireland . . . and those that don’t want to live in a free Ireland can pack up and clear off to England.”

  “Though you’ve got to admit that not all the Protestants are like those women, Harry. We’d have to be fair to the good ones if we do get a united Ireland.”

  “I’m in a suck about what’s fair or not fair for them. Have the Protestants worried about what’s fair for us since 1690?”

  “If we respected our differences, then Ulster would be a far better place,” I said.

  “Gabriel, shut up,” said Mammy. “You’re too young to be politicking.”

  “Politics, my arse,” said D
addy. “It’s the IRA who’ll solve our problems. Mark my words, it’ll take more IRA bombs and less words before the Protestants see the error of their ways.”

  Sixteen

  The hardships we’d been warned to expect after my father started his business had not been exaggerated. He’d been working for farmers for over a year and there wasn’t much cash to show for his efforts. We didn’t have better meat on the table and I needed a new school blazer because I was now five-foot-eight. More than a handful of farmers pleaded poverty and settled their bills in dribs and drabs while the craftier ones didn’t pay at all, figuring my father would be too embarrassed about having to constantly ask them for money and just write it off. Among the latter were several farmers from Knockburn who were always first in line for Communion at Sunday Mass.

  Of course, my father was also partly to blame. He was slow to learn what Mammy had been forever telling him, namely not to perform work for farmer friends because friends and business didn’t mix well. He drained their bogs, ordered quarry stone by the ton at his own expense, dug manually when the soil was too soft and the digger couldn’t be used, and then accepted their excuses—or nothing—when it was time for them to pay. Daddy was a social person, loved talking and laughing with people, but useless at ferreting out money. Not even Mammy’s sharpest rebukes could change him. He preferred resending bills with Now 90 days overdue, please remit or Now 110 days overdue, please remit immediately written on them in red ink. He’d even ordered a rubber stamp with the “please remit” shite on it.

  Unfortunately, red-inked stamps, empty promises, and dishonest excuses didn’t help pay the bills. Mammy told him repeatedly that the business wasn’t breaking even, after expenses and the monthly payment to the bank was deducted. One month, there wasn’t even money to cover the loan and my father, either because he was too proud or too scared, wouldn’t go speak to the bank manager. Mammy went, after scraping together six pounds to show good faith.

  “I can’t believe how decent some Protestants can be,” she said after she returned. “He was as refreshing as an ice cream on a scorching day. It’s a pity there aren’t more Protestants like him in this country. He understands farmers are slow payers. He also said the bank’s taking a long-term view of your business . . . which, of course, is more than I am.”

  “It’s a pity the bank doesn’t have a Catholic bank manager,” Daddy said. “It’s easier dealing with your own kind than having to deal with Protestants.”

  “You don’t want to talk to anybody, neither Catholic nor Protestant,” said Mammy. “And let me tell you, there are many of our own kind who’d sink us faster than some of the Protestants. If we had more Protestants like your bank manager working in the government, there’d be no need for the bombings and killings taking place in Belfast. That man can see we’re facing discrimination. He wants to give Catholics a fair shake. He’s caught up in the spirit of this new power-sharing initiative the British started.”

  “He’s covering his arse. Behind our backs, he wants it to fail, just like all the Protestants want it to fail. They’re all the same as Paisley at the end of the day. They know it’s the first installment in a united Ireland scheme.”

  “You and your united Ireland. We need money, not a united Ireland. It would fit you better to press those useless farmers to pay up. And don’t expect me to be going to the bank manager again. If you can’t speak to the bank about your debts, then it’s high time you went back to driving a lorry.”

  Mammy was thrifty, but she still couldn’t make ends meet on his earnings some months. Behind my father’s back, because she knew he’d be livid about it, she approached Granny Harkin for small loans to buy essentials. She swore me to secrecy when I caught her in the act of asking and I promised, provided she told me what was really going on.

  Borrowing pained her something fierce. And then came the month when she had to miss a repayment to Granny Harkin. She couldn’t bring herself to ask for more money, so her next approaches were to tight-fisted Granny Neeson and Aunt Peggy. She always got a few pounds, but not before much sermonizing about how she shouldn’t have allowed my father to give up his real job. Every time Aunt Peggy said “real job,” I could smell Mammy smoldering as she blithely regarded Aunt’s starchy beehive.

  The strain cast great shadows over the table at mealtimes and I resented my father as a consequence. I resented his inability to badger the farmers for his dues and his ability to find a pound or two to go out for a drink with some of them on Saturday nights, even if he did drink only sodas.

  “I can’t take this anymore,” Mammy said, after I refused to eat the sloppy yellow eggs she’d prepared to go with the mashed potatoes one evening.

  I had to eat eggs every Friday because Catholics weren’t allowed to eat meat and I hated the bony smoked fish she served. Now I was expected to eat eggs on Saturday nights, too. I pushed my plate aside, turning up my nose exaggeratedly.

  What had precipitated this particular outburst was that Caroline had followed my example. In addition, Mammy was annoyed with my sister because she wasn’t doing well in her eleven-plus mock exams. My sister’s breasts had also grown large almost overnight, which necessitated the purchase of bras. Money had to be found for her new school uniform, too, though the jury was still out on whether that would be a convent or intermediate school. On top of all that, Nuala was now six, tall for her age, and in need of new shoes.

  “Why can’t you get off your backside and go collect what’s due you?” she said to Daddy.

  His eyes ignited, but he continued eating.

  “I’m harried trying to scrape money together to clothe every one of you,” she added. “I don’t dare buy a new stitch for myself.”

  I retrieved my plate and pretended to eat the putrid slop. Caroline took my cue and did the same. Nuala bounded off her chair.

  “This useless man of a father of yours,” Mammy said. “All he does on a Saturday evening is preen to go out when he should be staying home.”

  Still, my father continued eating.

  “What do you need to be going out to a pub for? I don’t get out to enjoy myself, so why the hell should you? If it’s out you want to go, then pay a visit to those bloody farmers.”

  “Why the fuck don’t you ask them? That’s all you fucking well do is complain. That’s why I want out of the fucking house of a Saturday night. To give my head a bit of peace and get away from you.” He slammed his fists into the table and it shook with the force.

  Caroline’s chair scraped loudly as she vacated the table in a mass of swaying ringlets. Even though I was now older, these angry moments still upset me greatly because they instantly transported me back to childhood. I felt defenseless and weak, and all my school accomplishments seemed insignificant. My stomach churned with tension, when all I desired was cozy security.

  The more I watched my parents argue, the more I swore I’d never marry. It was beyond comprehension how they’d fallen in love, married, and had children, only to spend their lives insulting and threatening one another. Though I was always on my mother’s side, as I watched her pace prior to her inevitable stampede to the bedroom, I swore to myself that no woman would ever possess me. I would have no millstones like women and marriage, so I wouldn’t have to deal with constant arguments.

  “You’re not looking after your children, Harry,” Mammy yelled. “They’re not being properly fed. Your responsibility is to us, not to go out spending.”

  My father leaped up, chin, lips, and temples twitching, hands clenched into fists. He snatched his dinner plate up and hurled it onto the floor.

  “Why don’t you go out and get a job like other Knockburn women? You gave up your bookkeeping job because you wanted children, but there are plenty of women who had as many as you and they’re still working in the shirt factory.” A twisted smile formed fleetingly on his face. “Oh, that’s right, I forgot. You’re too stinking with pride for things like that . . . just like the rest of the fucking Neesons.”


  Caroline and I scuttled into a corner where we formed a feeble barrier between our parents and James and Nuala. I wanted to run, but Nuala was watching me, her tiny, crisscrossed front teeth exacerbating her vulnerability. I pulled her toward me.

  “Count the number of geese and goslings on the wallpaper pattern and tune everything else out,” I said.

  She gripped my forearms. Her cupid lips moved quickly as she counted. My parents didn’t usually notice us when they were this angry and we, as if driven by animal instinct or habit, didn’t dare move a muscle. I scarcely permitted myself to breathe, waiting, waiting for the moment when one of them might decide to use my siblings or I to score a low point.

  “I’m bookkeeper enough to know you’re making no money,” Mammy said. “And I’m bookkeeper enough to know we’ll be listed in the Gazette if you don’t do something about it fast.”

  To have your name listed in that paper meant you were a failure. You were a bankrupt, an unmentionable disgrace. All the neighbors would read about your debts.

  “And for your information, I’d have a job if you had books worth keeping . . . and don’t you dare bring the Neesons into this, either. You owe the Neesons more than you think, if you want to know.” Mother paused to let her truthful words sink in. “If your mother had reared you right, you’d stay at home with your children. But she didn’t raise you right. You’re that useless, you can’t even wash a dish or make a cup of tea.”

  Nuala abandoned her count. “Mammy! Daddy! Be friends.”

  My father glanced at her for a split second before focusing on my arm draped around her. “Him. You’ve turned him into one useless chap. He’s just another Brendan. He can’t even use a fucking shovel.”

  “Shut your trap,” Mammy said.

  “He can’t even come out on a Saturday afternoon when I ask for help. He used to help me, but now he does nothing. Every time I ask him, he runs to you and you come to me saying he’s only a boy and he has his books to study. Books, my arse. He’s fucking useless. He’s for nothing, if you want to know. He can’t even mix with the other Knockburn lads. All he wants to do is run about with that fancy boy Martin and learn his affected ways.”