“We’ll never argue like that.”
“Promise me anyway.”
“Mammy, watch out, the ditch.”
The wheels of the car caught on the grass verge and veered toward the hedge. Mammy shrieked as she turned the steering wheel sharply. The wheels slid and we jackknifed, before the tires caught the road surface again and the vehicle righted itself. We traveled in silence for half a mile.
“Promise me,” she repeated.
Her persistence shocked me, especially since I’d assumed she’d been thinking about our narrow escape.
“So long as you don’t push me the way Granda pushed Uncle Brendan.” I smiled mischievously. “Otherwise, I might have to run away, too.”
“May God forgive you for thinking I’m pushing you, Gabriel.”
“I was just kidding.” I rubbed my chin. “Though I find it difficult to agree with the Church’s views on certain subjects.”
“We all do,” Mammy said, and she laughed, which meant she was relaxed again. “That’s normal. I’ve even had the odd difficulty.” She laughed once more and put on the indicator to turn right. A sheep’s eyes glittered ghostlike from behind a fence as we swung onto the side road. “What subjects do you not agree with the church on?”
“Minor stuff.”
“Like?”
“Take contraception, for example. It’s ridiculous to me that the Church won’t consider its use.”
“Jesus, that’s not minor stuff. That’s major. Using contraceptives is a mortal sin. How can you question that?”
I stared straight ahead. I was taught to question things at school. I was taught to look at all kinds of problems with the honed mind of a Saint Malachy’s student. Yet, when I had once dared to question the Church’s position on this matter in religious education class, it was taboo—for the priests and for my mother.
“Practicing artificial contraception is a mortal, mortal sin,” Mammy insisted.
A mortal, mortal sin. One mortal more than an everyday “mortal sin.” What Connor and I were doing was also a mortal, mortal sin. Icy chills wracked my body.
“It’s killing babies, Gabriel. And very, very selfish.”
“What about the poor people in Africa? I don’t think God means for those people to have large families and live in poverty, do you?”
“The missionaries teach them about the rhythm method.”
“You mean to say Uncle Brendan goes around teaching about the rhythm method as part of his work?”
“Africans have to be taught that the pope forbids contraception, too.”
“How would he know anything sensible about contraception?”
She didn’t respond immediately. At length, she said, “You must always accept what the pope says. You must accept without question. He’s God’s representative on earth. He understands the divine plan. He knows everything.”
She was like a bloody machine gun. Everything spewed out, it was so ingrained.
“Gabriel, never let your Uncle Brendan hear you talk this way. I certainly hope you haven’t been putting crazy views like this in the letters you send him.”
“What if I have?”
“Craziness like that is enough to give him another nervous breakdown.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Here I was thinking I was rearing you the right way, that I was rearing you to be a good Catholic. Now I learn I’m rearing a heathen.”
She became a repository of sniffles and tears. My mother did this when she wasn’t getting her way.
“Please don’t cry anymore.”
“Jesus, how can I not cry? My heart’s broken.”
“I’m sure the Church is probably right.”
“The Church is infallible. Don’t forget it.”
Twenty-One
The IRA man arrived to stay for ten days while arrangements were made to spirit him off to America. Seamus was in his late twenties and stocky with a boyish face and tight auburn curls. He didn’t fit my image of a vicious IRA volunteer, though admittedly, I didn’t have much information as to what they were supposed to look like. The world within which the IRA operated was shadowy, populated with faceless men who did their deeds in secrecy, and no one dared openly admit they knew any volunteers.
My feelings toward Seamus and the IRA were ambivalent. I did not agree with their violent methods, but I was outraged by the deaths of innocent Catholics in Belfast at the hands of Protestant paramilitaries. Murder is a mortal sin and I would have preferred that none of these organizations existed, but my history books demonstrated that peace and justice sometimes don’t come about until brutal acts have been committed. The old Knockburn men said things like this, but they also said that the Protestants were stubborn and indifferent to injustice, and maybe the IRA was needed to make them see sense.
Seamus had a hearty laugh, and big hands with spotless nails topped by perfect white crescents because he manicured them regularly. His nails were so at odds with the worrisome life of a man on the run. Although not formally educated, his mind was sharp as a flicked whip. He could help James with his mathematics homework, something I couldn’t do, on account of I was so dreadful at it. I had determined to act coolly toward him, but his enthusiasm to join in our games of checkers and talk about books warmed me to him. The man was just so good-humored, you couldn’t dislike him.
He read voraciously. He read Protestant, Catholic, and any British newspapers he could lay his hands on. He read my Shakespeare and O’Casey plays, Caroline’s poetry books, and Hardy, Austen, and Joyce novels. He sent me to the Ballynure library, two small rooms over a hardware shop, with a list of Russian and American authors that made the old librarian scratch her head.
“You must read Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath when you find the time,” he said to me. “That’s what I call a book.”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s about the working man and subjugation. The people in that book were treated the same as the Irish are now. They were forced to leave their land by the enemy—though, granted, it wasn’t the Ulster Unionists forcing them to leave.” He laughed at his joke. “But their enemies pushed them out of their homes for the same reasons. They pushed them out for greed and power. That’s why the Protestants and English are pushing us about, Gabriel. We’re disenfranchised, just so the rich Protestant farmers and corporations can make money.” He looked at James and me gravely. “Be sure to read that book and tell your friends at school to read it, too.”
“Are you on the run because you killed soldiers?” James asked.
Seamus’s lips quivered. “It would fit you better if you asked your math teacher questions instead of me.”
“Did you kill some, Seamus?” James asked.
Father peered over his newspaper, and I could see he was astounded at my brother’s insolence.
“It’s bad manners to ask people questions they don’t want to answer,” Mammy said.
Seamus said, “Let’s just say I’ve done a few wee things I don’t crow about. We’ll leave it at that.”
A murderer was sheltering under our roof. Yet he was so intelligent, so good-natured, and had such beautiful hands, you couldn’t help but like him.
My fifth year at Saint Malachy’s got even better after Pani bought a car. It was ancient, and he hung two furry yellow dice from the windshield mirror and set a tiger with a scarlet tongue and nodding head on the ledge of the backseat. He parked it in the narrow driveway leading up to the school, near a public housing estate that had been built by the Unionist government in a scurrilous attempt to stop Saint Malachy’s from expanding, and we’d sit inside it at lunchtime, listening to pop music on Radio 1.
Martin, Pani, and I also sat together in every class we had in common. We sniggered, whispered, and didn’t listen to a word the teachers said. I don’t know why, exactly, but I was becoming dead unruly. My troubles on the bus were over, but I was now anxious about not feeling much for girls when I thought about them. I’d also got the stupi
d idea in my head that I was far smarter than everyone else in my class.
Now that Pani had a car, Martin also convinced him to take us to other dance halls and discos farther afield. My mother didn’t object because Caroline and I were spending long hours in my bedroom, supposedly studying, but actually discussing a raft of teenage problems: acne, my fat arse, her crushes, ABBA, and my fat arse again.
With regard to ABBA, I devoured every magazine article I found about them and fantasized regularly about being invited to join the group. Blonde Agnetha with her straw yellow hair and throaty voice became an obsession. I daydreamed about conversing with her, and she was always captivated by my amazing intelligence. At other times, I’d strut about my bedroom, a pair of rolled-up socks serving as a microphone, singing the words to their song “Waterloo” as it belted from the record player.
Acting became another passion of mine at this time. I got a part in our school drama department’s production of Twelfth Night. I’d tried out for the part of Malvolio, but got Viola.
I’d acted in small plays we’d written in second-year English class with Miss Brown and enjoyed it. But acting in front of class peers is one thing; their parents, quite another. I was shy, but Mr. Casey, the head of drama, believed I had talent and said I’d be very successful in the role.
Father was skeptical of boys donning ladies’ clothes for a school play. My mother’s theory that the play would look grand on my future university application forms did not persuade him.
“Why did he have to cast you as the woman?” he asked one evening. The entire family and Seamus were gathered in the living room and I was standing on top of a parlor chair in my costume, a polka-dot dress because the production was a contemporary one. Mammy adjusted the dress’s length with pins. “Why couldn’t he give you a man’s part?”
“Because I’m good at the role.”
Nuala handed Mammy another pin.
“What will anybody from Knockburn who sees it think?” he asked.
“It’s just a play, Harry,” said the IRA man, setting down his newspaper.
I sighed exaggeratedly at Father’s dank ignorance of Shakespeare. Even Seamus, now in his final two days with us, didn’t say a word about the part. I could see he understood, even though he’d had no formal education.
The phone rang in the hallway and Mammy went out to answer it.
“I’m not the only person playing a female role,” I said to Father. “I’ve told you twice that Martin’s playing Olivia and he has to wear women’s clothing throughout the entire play.”
Though nothing was said, Father’s look spoke volumes.
Mammy returned a few minutes later. “That was Brendan on the phone. He didn’t sound like himself. I hope to God he’s not relapsing.”
“What do you mean?” asked Father.
Seamus was reading his newspaper again, his face was hidden behind it.
“He was vague and rambling,” she said. “I asked how the missions were doing and he said, ‘Only so-so.’ When I asked how he was he said, ‘A bit depressed.’” She glanced at Seamus’s paper. “He did sound very down.”
“Poor Uncle Brendan,” said Caroline. She closed her textbook. “I hate to think of him sad.”
“Any word of him coming home?” Father said. “Sure, he’s long overdue. A gallop home would soon put that depression nonsense out of his head.”
“He’s coming in May. He didn’t say for how long. And then, without as much as pausing for a breath, he asked how your mother’s health is. He said he’d been thinking about her a lot.” She fell silent for a moment. “Do you think he’s had some sort of premonition about her?”
Mammy was very superstitious. It was so bad that she wouldn’t allow a pigeon to rest on the roof of our home, just in case it might be a dove, as doves resting on roofs always meant a death in the family. She chased them away with stones. She’d even broken one of the front windows once because she was such a lousy shot.
“Don’t be stupid,” said Father.
“I didn’t want to tell yous, but I woke up in the middle of the night very recently and I heard something wailing,” Mammy said. She was, of course, also terrified of hearing the banshee. “I didn’t want to say anything to scare yous but now Brendan’s asking about your mother’s health.”
“Don’t be crazy,” I said.
“I’m telling yous that wailing came from nothing alive on this earth,” she said. “May God strike me dead if I’m lying. It was at the corner of the house one second and far away the next. I’m telling yous that’s exactly what the banshee does.”
Father laughed and Mammy glared at him.
“Brendan also said he has something to share with us, but I couldn’t wheedle out of him what was to be shared,” she said.
“I hope he’s not ill,” Nuala said.
“That crossed my mind,” Mammy said. “Cancer runs on the Harkin side, Harry. Didn’t one of your uncles die of cancer when he was about Brendan’s age?” She shivered involuntary, as people do when they’re discussing something uncomfortable. Then she answered her own question before Father could reply. “But there’s such a paucity of priests for the foreign missions, I’m sure God wouldn’t take Brendan in his prime.” She regarded me intently, probably to remind me of our conversation about having a priest in the house.
“He said something else very strange,” she added. “He told me that he loves us all and asked me to throw in an extra wee prayer for him when we’re saying our nightly rosary.”
“What’s so strange about that?” said Father. “If anybody’s got God’s ears, it’s got to be you. You’re hardly ever off your knees.”
Seamus chuckled, and immediately crinkled his newspaper noisily to disguise it.
“That’s an odd statement for Uncle Brendan to make,” Caroline said. “As if we’d dare not love a priest.”
“All the same, it was a bit peculiar, Harry. And he finished his call very odd, too. Brendan always finishes with a ‘May you find peace in Christ’s love,’ but he just said ‘Bye’ this time. Bye. That was it, honest to God. No, something’s up. He never fails to say the ‘May you find peace’ bit.”
Because rehearsals took place after school hours, Auntie Celia and Mammy made arrangements to pick Martin and me up after school. They rotated duties so that every other week I stayed overnight at my aunt’s house, which was great because sex was now an important part of my life. I thought about it nearly all the time, just like Fergal, whom I’d criticized for the very same thing just a few years earlier. In addition to doing stuff with Connor, I masturbated two or three times a day, and at least once nightly, too.
“What part of sex do you think about most when you’re wanking alone at night?” I said to Connor in bed one night.
“Riding.” He reached over and seized my thing. “What do you think about?”
This was my cue to fondle him.
“The same thing.”
That was a lie. The truth was I could not get a hard-on when I thought about a girl, not even if I gave her huge breasts. No matter how much I concentrated, my thing wouldn’t respond. I couldn’t get it beyond a soft firmness and had to think about a man to get it stiff. Once it was up, however, everything worked fine. It was just that the means employed to get it to that point felt false. More and more, this preyed on my mind.
“I’ve often wondered how a woman feels when it’s being done to her,” Connor said.
“You have?”
“You know the way teachers tell us that if you do something rather than just read about it, how it helps you understand the thing even better? Let’s take you and tennis, for example. Because you play it, you understand what’s going on at Wimbledon far better than if you just read the rules. Isn’t that right?”
“What does this have to do with riding?”
“Think about it. If a man does it once, don’t you think he’d know better how the woman feels? Don’t you think he’d be able to satisfy her better? He’d know exac
tly what she’s feeling and be able to please her brilliantly as a result.”
“Aye, I see what you’re getting at.”
“How about you try doing it to me?” he said. “Only this one time, mind.”
“Ride you? I don’t know. I think it would . . . I’m not sure.”
“If it makes us better at riding girls, why not?”
Connor rolled over on his tummy and stretched out his legs like a toad in mid-leap, and I climbed on top of him. Seconds later, I yelped and leaped out of bed.
“My thing’s hurt.” I pulled back the curtain and examined it in the dusky orange glow of the street lamp.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Jesus, switch on the light, quick.” I saw blood. “I’ll bleed to death. What’ll I do? What the fuck will I do?”
“Shush, shush. You’ll wake everybody.”
“It’s full of blood vessels down there and we won’t be able to tell Auntie Celia what happened.” I looked at my thing again. “Connor, what’ll I do? What the fuck will I do?”
He seized his school pants off the floor, pulled out a tissue and wiped my thing. A car with a broken exhaust passed noisily down the street and my roiling imagination conjured up images of wailing ambulances, peering doctors, and hot-faced explanations.
“It’s almost stopped bleeding,” said Connor.
The bleeding had slowed, but my foreskin was torn. “That’s the last of this sort of carry-on,” I said. “We shouldn’t have tried to do that in the first place. It’s not fucking right.”
“It’s time we stopped the whole caper,” he said. “I’ve been thinking it for a while now.”
“Never do anything again?”
“I’m sixteen. We should be concentrating on girls full-time. If we don’t, we might turn ourselves into queers.”
I felt queasy. “You said it didn’t matter, provided we thought about girls.”
“I’m older than you and it could begin to take over if I’m not careful.”
“Do you think so?”
“Definitely.”
“Connor, I want to ask you something. Have . . . have you ever thought about boys when you’re wanking? You know . . . just for a wee change . . . when you’re tired of thinking about girls, maybe?”
A Son Called Gabriel Page 21