A Son Called Gabriel

by Damian McNicholl

  “He’ll have to stay in America after he’s finished his schooling if he wants to make a living at it,” said Uncle John. He slapped his tummy twice. “Only the Yanks would pay good money for a stranger’s advice.”

  Uncle Brendan and I were standing in the meadow beneath a solitary beech tree near the grave of Granda’s old carthorse. He’d asked me to join him for a walk because he was leaving soon for America to speak to university contacts and other people about courses and places to live.

  “I hope you’re not disappointed in me, Gabriel.” It was the first time he’d spoken to me directly about his leaving the priesthood.

  “It’s your life.”

  “You’re fine with my decision, then?”

  “I think Auntie Celia was out of order when she said Granda would be spinning in his grave.”

  “If you’re thinking even slightly about the religious life, I trust I haven’t put you off.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “A long time ago?” He laughed softly. “Next, you’ll be telling me you’re very old. I remember you telling Father McAtamney once you were going to be a hairdresser and a priest. It seems like it was only yesterday.” He fell silent. “Of course, you wouldn’t remember that.”

  “I remember. I’ve always had a good memory. Sometimes, I wish I didn’t.” I placed my foot on the mound of fieldstones I’d erected years ago as a marker for the old horse’s grave. “Many things have happened since then to change my mind about the religious life.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Girls, for a start.”

  That sounded false. It was false. A heavy pressure built inside my head and a tear popped from the corner of my right eye and began to trickle. I could feel it trace down my cheek and wheeled around quickly to look in the direction of a cluster of old farm buildings in the distance.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  I focused on the sagging roof of the barn as I willed myself into control. “Nothing . . . nothing’s the—”

  “Are you thinking about your granda?”

  “I want so much to be involved with a girl and get married and have children someday.” I turned back to Uncle Brendan. “I want that so much.”

  He appeared surprised. “There isn’t anything to prevent you.”

  “Don’t you want to marry and be a father one day, now that you’ve left the priesthood?”

  Uncle stared at the grave for a long moment. His Adam’s apple rose and fell as he swallowed. “I’m sure it must be wonderful to bring up a child.” His voice wavered. “I’m sure there’s nothing more wonderful than to watch part of your flesh and blood grow up to become successes.”

  He walked up to the stone wall behind the tree, laid his hands on its top, and stared beyond to a twenty-foot-wide band of tall firs marching like soldiers up the side of the hill. “I was about eight years old when the forestry commission planted those trees yonder. They were so small and delicate, and your father and I used to jump over them. Now, they’re almost full-grown. I never got to see their in-between stages.” He peered at me. “Were they beautiful in their in-between stage, Gabriel?”

  “All the times I’ve come here, I’ve never given those trees a second thought. They’ve just always been.” I walked up to him and observed them, too.

  “It’s true,” he said. “We take everything for granted. We don’t notice changes in things because we see them every day.” Uncle laughed, then looked sidelong at me. “I bet it’s the same with your school things, too. You probably haven’t even noticed how much you’ve learned since you first started Saint Malachy’s, because you’ve been doing it incrementally every day.”

  “Uncle Brendan, may I . . . ? I’d like to ask you something.”

  “Sure.”

  “Did Father Cornelius teach you when you were at Saint Malachy’s?”

  “Isn’t he the vice-head?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he one of the strict priests?” Uncle chuckled.

  “He taught me English for a while.” My mouth quivered. The pressure in my head returned. I let out a long gasp and then became a mass of heaves and sobs.

  “Son, what’s wrong?”

  He draped his arms around my shoulders and drew me to him. My forehead touched his solid chest and it felt wonderful. He stroked my crown until the hacked sobs softened and died. His heart beat fast. Another burst of sobs threatened and I steeled myself into a semblance of control and withdrew from him. His gaze remained fixed on me as I hung my head and sniffed myself back to composure.

  “It’s better to get a problem off your chest. Believe me, I know all about things like that.”

  “If I tell, will you promise not to say a word to anyone?”

  He remained silent as he considered the request. “It depends on what it is.”

  “I must have your word, or I can’t tell.”

  “You can trust me to do the right thing, Gabriel.” He patted the top of the wall. “Tell me.”

  I hoisted myself on the wall, feeling the corky dryness of the lichen underneath my moist palms. The stones were warm from the afternoon sun. Heat radiated into the seat of my jeans as I told him about Father Cornelius and how I was too sensitive and how the priest had detected this and somehow knew he could do wicked things to me. Throughout, he made no attempt to interrupt me. I suppose years of teaching taught him not to do that, but his face was pale by the time I reached the end.

  “Don’t you believe me?” I said. My one overwhelming concern was that he wouldn’t, because this was a priest and a teacher I’d just told him about.

  “Of course, I believe you,” Uncle Brendan said. “I’m amazed you haven’t told your parents. They could have done something.”

  “Mammy believes priests can’t do any wrong. She can’t even watch a man and woman kissing on TV. She changes the channels. And Daddy would never understand a man doing things to another man, much less a priest.” I shook my head. “When I was younger, he couldn’t understand why I allowed boys to bully me. So how could he deal with this?”

  “They would understand because this is a serious matter. I know Knockburn’s a small place and people live very sheltered lives here, but what happened to you is abuse, Gabriel. Your parents would understand that.”

  “What if . . . if I’m homosexual?”

  Uncle fell into a reverie as he looked away to the marching firs. Finally, he looked back at me. “What makes you think so?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about Connor. That was real. That had happened.

  “I . . . I think about men a lot.”

  He didn’t speak for a long moment. “Do you think about girls, too?”

  “A bit. Not much.”

  A bird trilled in the silence. A cold sweat broke out over my body. Sweat dripped from my underarms.

  “I’m frightened, Uncle Brendan.”

  He laid his arm on my shoulders and gently squeezed the back of my neck. “You might be homosexual, or it might be a phase you’re going through.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Sure.”

  “Which?”

  Uncle cleared his throat. “There are many types of people in the world, Gabriel. Some people are smart. Some not. Some people are handsome. Some not. Some people are naturally fat. Some not. Some people are heterosexual. Some are homosexual.” He shrugged. “Regardless of how we are, we’re all God’s children and He loves us.”

  I bit the inside of my lower lip hard. “Have you ever felt this way?”

  His eyes narrowed for a moment. “God will still love you even if you are.”

  “I can still be a good Catholic?”

  He laughed softly. “I consider myself a good Catholic and I left the priesthood.”

  “It’s a phase, Uncle Brendan. Let’s forget we talked about this.”

  “We have to tell your parents.”

  I leaped off the wall. “I don’t want them knowing about this. No way. They�
��d—”

  “I mean about Father Cornelius.”

  “I don’t want them told about that, either.”

  Uncle Brendan came to me. “He abused you sexually.”

  “No . . . no. I know my father better than you know him. And you promised me.”

  “I promised to do the right thing and telling them is the right thing.”

  “Then treat me like an adult,” I said. “Treat me the same way you did when you told me you’d left the priesthood.”

  Uncle’s head jerked back slightly. “This involves great wrongdoing on Father Cornelius’s part.”

  “I need it to go no farther. I didn’t even plan to tell you. It just came out. But now it’s out, I’m feeling better. There’s no need to do anything more.”

  “I know this is painful for you, but he must be stopped.”

  “I expect you to understand how I feel because you know about pain.”

  His head jerked back again like I’d punched him in the face.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to say it like that.”

  He sighed as he placed his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll agree, on one condition. You must consent to my speaking to Father Cornelius.”

  “No, Uncle. No, please.”

  “You have to trust me. I’ll respect your wishes, but you must agree to this. You can be sure he’s abusing other boys and it needs to stop. Father Cornelius is very sick and needs treatment.”

  I was in the biology laboratory when the school secretary came in and informed my teacher that I had to report to Father Cornelius’s room. The door was open when I got there and the priest was seated at his desk, white-faced and white-knuckled. Uncle Brendan stood over him.

  “Gabriel, Father Cornelius has something important to say to you.”

  He waited until I drew up beside them before nodding gravely at the priest. My furiously beating heart echoed in my ears.

  “Please accept my apologies for what I have done,” Father Cornelius said. “I’ve acted disgracefully. I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused. May God forgive me for this terrible act.” Lowering his head, he stared at the top of his desk. “Will you accept my apology and forgive me for my weakness?”

  “You’re sick, Father Cornelius,” Uncle Brendan said. “We’ve discussed this and you’ve recognized you are ill. Doing this to young boys is an illness and must be acknowledged.”

  “I’m ill.”

  “Do you accept this man’s apology, Gabriel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Father Cornelius has agreed to resign his position here at the end of the year. He’ll then travel to England, where he’ll seek treatment for his illness. I don’t believe they’d understand the nature of this condition in Ireland, so it’s for the best he travels across the water and remains there for a while. Not another word shall pass our lips about what transpired here today. Not a soul shall be any the wiser and Father’s otherwise exemplary teaching record will not be tarnished.”

  Father Cornelius raised his head slightly.

  “When his treatment is over,” Uncle Brendan continued, “he’ll come back to Ireland, if he so desires, and that’ll be the end of the affair.”

  “Thank you, Brendan.”

  “It’s Gabriel, you thank.”

  Now that I’d told someone about what had happened and there’d been a resolution, I felt much better. I discovered that I’d also lost the hate I had for Father Cornelius.

  A few weeks later, Uncle Brendan left for America and I began studying in earnest. The number of things to review was endless: novels had to be reread, quotes learned from poems and plays, German and French vocabulary expanded (Latin and Irish I gave up on, figuring they were dead languages, anyway), and the Books of Genesis and Luke reviewed for religious education. Subjects like mathematics and the sciences couldn’t be crammed, so I left those to luck and my mother’s novenas. A pass in math was mandatory. It was one of four core subjects that had to be passed, failure in any one translating to automatic rejection by all universities and relegation to the inferior polytechnics.

  A warm, sunny third day of June heralded examination month. Throughout the three weeks and two days of examinations, I surprised myself, raising my hand often to request extra writing paper in a number of subjects. I felt extremely confident after it was all over. Only in Latin, Irish, one part of a physics paper (calculation of velocities), and two chemistry questions (inorganic and one reaction equation) had I had nothing to contribute.

  Twenty-Six

  Dressed in a faded T-shirt and old jeans with a gaping hole in the right knee, I joined Father’s workforce at six-thirty one morning. I sat in the back of his transport van, its musty stench of oil reminding me of his lorry cab on the trip to the Larne harbor many years ago. On the way into Duncarlow to fetch Martin, we stopped to pick up Father’s workers. When we arrived in the town, my cousin was already waiting outside Auntie Celia’s shop, a bright orange lunchbox tucked under his arm.

  “Does gentleman Jim think he’ll be working in the site manager’s office?” Father asked.

  Martin was dressed in a pair of gorgeous, immaculately pressed parallels with one-inch cuffs, a matching college sweater with narrow, twin maroon bands on each arm, and wedge-heeled shoes just like the Bay City Rollers wore on “Top of the Pops.”

  “Aye, that’ll be management, Harry,” said Dessie, one of Father’s longest-serving excavator drivers.

  The other men sniggered. As there wasn’t much room in the van, Martin had to squeeze beside two hefty, dozing laborers. One of them grunted irritably when Martin trod on his foot.

  “Didn’t Gabriel tell you to wear your old clothes?” Father asked, stretching his head back to hear Martin’s response as we sped along the main road.

  “These are my old clothes, Uncle Harry.”

  “Dessie, it must be great to live in a town,” said Father. “You never have clothes with holes because you never get a chance to wear them out.”

  “One half of the world doesn’t know what the other’s up to,” said Dessie.

  Martin and I exchanged confirmatory glances that these men were beneath us and of no consequence.

  When we arrived at the factory site, as Father had previously pointed out, we were given no special treatment. Our duties consisted of raking and gathering fieldstone in the long expanses of raw earth that they were transforming into lawns running along the factory building. Father sent Martin to work with a crew at one end of the factory, me to the other.

  A sour stink wafted up from the soil and grew increasingly unbearable as the sun grew warmer. Flies buzzed about my face and sweat trickled into the corners of my eyes and stung. My lower back ached. I kept checking my watch, but its hands never seemed to advance. After what seemed like an entire day of work, the first break—a mere fifteen minutes—came around, and I left my position to locate Martin. I found him cranky, but managed to get him in a better mood before the break ended. But at lunchtime, his arms and short legs barreled down the site toward me.

  “You said this would be an easy job,” he said. “Your father’s working me to death.” His face and neck were redder than Vesuvius in eruption.

  “It is a bit tough, isn’t it?”

  He ranted as we walked down the road toward the only tree providing any shade in the entire site. Martin didn’t even lower his voice when other workers passed by. My blood heated up. We sat underneath the tree, where Martin whipped the lid off his lunchbox and tossed it on the grass. He took out a sandwich, cut daintily into a triangle and with its crust removed, as if he were on a picnic. After a bite, he put the sandwich down and savagely thrust his curled fingers in front of my face.

  “Look at my nails,” he said. “They’re black. My hands are blistered. Look at my sandwich. It’s black! And I’m sunburned.”

  “The sun is strong. Pity you didn’t bring some lemon juice for your hair.”

  That shut him up for a long moment.

  “This is jus
t plain ridiculous,” he said. “My body’s not designed to endure this torture. It’s not worth twenty-five pounds a week. It’s not even worth a hundred.”

  In all honesty, I was seething at Father, too, and Martin’s words only made me angrier. “It’s not my fault. I just didn’t understand how lawns get made. I didn’t realize stones and rocks had to be gathered, or that the damned soil is leveled by hand.”

  “Why hasn’t he got machines to do it? If Uncle Harry’s making so much money, why hasn’t he got machines to perform the slave work?” Martin shook his head. “I can’t be expected to do this the entire summer. It’s not on. You must tell him I want to do something else.”

  “You’re acting like an old woman. It’s only for six weeks and we’ll have lots of money for the holiday.”

  “There won’t be a holiday if this slavery continues, because I’ll be in the hospital.”

  We fell into a broody silence, during which I ate and watched three shirtless men erect guttering on the factory roof. I tried to avoid looking at them, even turned my head away a few times. It didn’t work. No matter how hard I tried, I kept taking furtive peeks. I was pleased when they finally left—but disappointed, too.

  “I didn’t mean that, Martin,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be.”

  Another flash of temper charged from my brain, demanding articulation, but I managed to keep my tongue in check. Martin could be just as sharp as his mother on occasions and, also like her, didn’t mean it. He dusted his trousers and scraped acrid clumps of reddish-brown soil off his shoes with a twig, which I found hilariously idiotic. He was going back to do more filthy work.

  “I really am, Martin.”

  “Accepted.” He wiped his sweaty bangs and swatted at a fly, but missed. “I am, as well. I realize it’s not your fault.”

  All too soon, the lunch break was over. I went back to my area and didn’t see him again for the rest of the afternoon. Later, in the van on the way home, Father asked my cousin how he’d enjoyed his first day doing real work as he winked conspiratorially at Dessie.