“Clear off to America and let him feed you, if that’s how you feel,” he called after me.
I hung about the yard muttering curses as I kicked stones and invented ways to make him pay. After I’d calmed down, I sat on the trunk of the curved climbing tree. It was now dying. Diesel oil from his machinery had seeped into the soil and poisoned its roots.
Half an hour later, Caroline came out. “He’s calmed down, but the things you said in there were a bit strong. He makes no difference between James and you.”
“How’d you know?”
“Oh, stop.”
“To hell with him.”
“Mammy told him you’re anxious because the exam results will soon be out.” She paused. “That’s it, isn’t it?” She laid her hand fleetingly on my shoulder.
“I don’t know what it is, Caroline. I’m just so angry at him all the time.”
“Don’t. He says you’re to come in.”
When I went in, Father said I wasn’t fired and the matter was over, as far as he was concerned. He didn’t speak to me for the remainder of the evening, though, which meant he was still disappointed in what I’d done. Mammy kept biting her lower lip and sighing every so often, stuff she did when she was excessively tense. I caught her looking under her eyes at me a few times, too.
Next morning, I got up, but never felt less like going to work. At the breakfast table, Father was back to his old self. He told me the jobs I had to do on the site that day, even joked I should stay away from the horses. It was as if nothing had happened. I still harbored a grudge, but I had to admit his attitude was a quality I admired. Father never allowed anything to fester; he forgot unpleasant incidents quickly and always forgave readily.
That evening, Mammy maneuvered until she got me alone after supper and grilled me about what I’d meant when I’d said Uncle Brendan once helped me. I was fully prepared. I concocted the excuse that I’d wanted to hurt Father at the time and had made the whole thing up.
“Well, you hurt your father very much when you said it. His skin’s not as thick as you think. Granted, he doesn’t show his feelings much, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any. And, son, if you hurt him, you hurt me, too. You’d do well to remember that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You promised me a long time ago you’d never turn on your father or me.” She paused. “Do you remember? It was in the car one evening. We discussed how pigheaded your granda had been about Uncle Brendan?”
“You mean the night you lied and told me you’d never met his girlfriend?”
She ignored the provocation. “You won’t do this again, will you?”
I clenched my teeth as I nodded and she said the whole affair should be forgotten, the quicker the better. However, she didn’t mean it. When I got my paycheck on Friday, I discovered an entire afternoon’s pay had been docked. When I asked about it, she said I shouldn’t be gallivanting about on horses belonging to Protestant girls on my father’s time and the deduction was to teach me about responsibility.
Twenty-Seven
As soon as I laid down the receiver after talking to the headmaster’s secretary, I felt Father had a point when he’d said I was useless. I passed down the hall to my mother’s bedroom where she waited, Nuala perched on the edge of the bed beside her.
“I passed four subjects.”
“This isn’t the time for jokes,” Mammy said. “What did you really get?”
“An A in religious education and Cs in English, chemistry, and German. The rest were Es and Us.”
“How many unclassifieds?” Nuala asked.
“Five.”
All those days I’d raised my hand in the examination hall to request extra writing sheets flashed before me. The essay booklets provided by the Examination Board hadn’t been enough. I’d needed more paper, and for what? A bunch of unclassified grades.
“This is an absolute catastrophe,” said Mammy. “What am I going to tell your father?” Mother’s face twisted into the shape of a Notre Dame gargoyle. “By Christ, if that Fergal or Connor passes, he’ll have some choice words for you.”
The stirrings of acidic criticism, right on cue. She was so predictable. I said nothing, continued to regard her snarling face as I tried to decide whether to repeat the year or die. Dying seemed preferable. She was still ranting five minutes later when the phone rang. Caroline called out that Auntie Celia was on the line. My mother started from the room, though not before taking a second shot.
“She’s phoning to boast about how well your cousins have done, I’ve no doubt.”
Martin passed, but Connor didn’t. I felt relieved, though not completely, because there was still Fergal to go. Poor Martin hadn’t passed math this time either, which meant the universities would not accept him and he was doomed to attend an inferior institute of higher education, no matter how well he did in his final exams two years from now.
However, the news mitigated my catastrophe in Mammy’s eyes and she decided to call Fergal’s mother. Caroline, Nuala, and I listened, scarcely a breath exhaled between us, until my mother’s voice rose from dejected to animated. It transpired that Fergal had done worse: only three passes, though no unclassified grades. In comparing mediocrity to atrociousness, she’d found solace, though she continued to fret about what our neighbors would say.
Her incessant fear of telling the neighbors about my failure was ridiculous. It infuriated me. I felt no sympathy for her self-inflicted predicament and had to leave. I walked to the twin-arched bridge, where I hopped up on its wall and dangled my legs over it. Halfway down its stone façade, a sturdy sycamore protruded from a fissure, its roots clinging with silent tenaciousness to the caked limestone binding, defying both gravity and oblivion in its need to survive. It seemed at once admirable and pathetic.
I left the bridge and strolled along the riverbank before returning to the house. Father was already home when I got there and reacted surprisingly civilly. There were no banged fists on tables or I saw it comings. He simply looked me squarely in the eyes as he gave me a backhanded compliment, saying I’d have to do better next time because I had the brains.
Uncle Tommy, Auntie Bernie, and their two children, Philip and Anna, were already at their summer bungalow on the north side of Bundoran town in County Donegal when Martin and I arrived for our visit. After supper, Martin and I changed to go out for the night. Auntie Bernie summoned us into the living room when we returned downstairs and laid down the house rules, chief of which were that we were not to eat in cafés that looked suspect or use public lavatories. Philip caught practically every illness going around and my aunt, already neurotic about her own health, was terrified of infection. Satisfied with our promises to obey the rules, she skimmed her gaze over Martin’s clothes.
“Those will get filthy,” she said.
We planned to go to the amusement arcade. Martin wore white jeans and a matching balloon-sleeved shirt, open to his sternum to show off his tan. His body was in reality boiled-lobster red, except for his orangey-brown face, the result of countless applications of fake suntan lotion. Martin’s skin didn’t tan like mine; it was too fair. But he refused to accept defeat. He swallowed great quantities of pills meant to kick-start melanin production, but which succeeded only in making his insides loud as a baby’s rattle when he walked.
“Don’t talk to those bold hussies I see hanging around the arcades,” Auntie Bernie said, as we edged toward the front door.
“Bernie, they’re fellas wanting a bit of fun, for Christ’s sake,” said Uncle Tommy, winking at me.
“Boys, I’m all for you having fun,” she said, “but fun doesn’t entail experimentation of any kind. Not on my watch. You hear that, Martin? No experimentation and no alcohol, either. You’re seventeen and have another year before you can drink beer.”
We discovered the larger amusement arcade situated on the north end of the town was the most fun. It had a dizzyingly high helter-skelter, a decent ghost train ride, and dodgems. Martin an
d I got into a dodgem and were soon pursued by two girls. The driver, an olive-skinned girl with a long neck swathed in love beads, teased my cousin good-naturedly every time she crashed headlong into us and then outmaneuvered him deftly when he tried to retaliate. After the second ride, as we were exiting the car, she and her friend approached.
“Hope I didn’t cause too many bruises,” she said. “If I did, I’m a nurse and I’ll be delighted to help bandage you up.”
“You can help by driving me to the local hospital,” Martin said.
“I’m Sheila, and this is my friend Bridget.”
The girl was stocky and had a purplish-red blister on her chin that she’d tried to conceal with makeup. Her prominent front teeth sank into the fleshy inner lining of her jutting bottom lip.
“Are you lads game for a go on the helter-skelter?” asked Sheila.
I declined, and Bridget wasn’t keen. She and I opted to take a ride on the electric swing boats, but that was a mistake. The cars crisscrossed at increasingly ferocious speed and seemed to miss one another by a hair’s breadth, judging by the rush of air in my face at the swing’s extremity. During the initially sedate part of the ride, I learned the girls were nursing auxiliaries who intended to become nurses one day and this was the last evening of their vacation. Bridget had a soft-spoken Donegal accent and asked lots of questions while touching my arm.
Martin and Sheila were already waiting when the ride ended. They’d decided in our absence we’d eat fish and chips at a nearby café and then go to the dance at the Astoria ballroom afterward. As it had been a long time since I’d been with a girl, I found it enjoyable dancing and smooching on the dance floor. The only unease occurred when I found myself looking at attractive men. One in particular, a tall football player type with proud, square shoulders, caught my eye and I kept sneaking peeks. If he was dancing, I watched to see if the girl would stay with him, hoped she wouldn’t, and felt genuine relief when she walked away at the end of the set. It was ridiculous to wish like this, I knew, but I just couldn’t stop myself.
“As it’s my last night here, why don’t you come back to my B&B for a while?” Bridget asked at the end of the dance. “Our landlady’s a witch, but she’ll be in bed by now.”
“I think . . . ahm, let me see what Martin wants to do.”
Sheila had already asked Martin and I could see he was also hesitant. However, the girls insisted it’d be fun.
The terraced house lay two streets from the seafront and the heavy salt air eclipsed the fragrance of crimson and white roses growing in rusty metal urns by the front door. No sooner had we passed inside the dim hallway than the girls took charge. Placing a skinny finger on her lips, Sheila removed her shoes, signaled to Martin to take off his as well, and then led him up the creaking stairs. Bridget guided me into a damp-smelling living room. She switched on a lamp perched on a small doily-covered table next to a bay window. A matted sheepskin rug lay before the hearth and two armchairs and a crushed-velvet maroon sofa were pushed against walls awash in photographs and a Sacred Heart picture with its de rigueur flickering lamp.
After settling me on the sofa, Bridget went upstairs. On her return, I saw she’d retouched the makeup around her blister and opened her blouse one more button. She sidled close to me.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “The old dragon won’t hear us now.”
“She doesn’t allow male visitors?”
Her mouth puckered and she glanced at the Sacred Heart picture. “If we hadn’t already paid the old bitch, we’d have left after the first night.”
Bridget drew her face close for a kiss, but its application proved difficult because my tongue kept curling around her jutting teeth. It became quickly apparent nursing auxiliaries on their last night’s vacation could be very randy. Growing impatient with my reticence to explore, she took my hand and guided it inside her blouse as we negotiated kisses. Her skin was warm and interestingly firm. Curiosity competed with my reluctance. She swung up her legs and eased back on the sofa. I eased on top of her, cupped my hands around her breasts, and squeezed. They felt mouthwateringly ripe, like soft oranges. The alternating soft pliability of her breast and rough hardness of the nipple were the most exciting things my hands had ever touched. I explored the textures with my fingertips. I’d never known a woman’s body could have such manly roughness amid its feminine softness.
She sighed and my body was suddenly ablaze. I sped my lips voraciously from one rough nipple to the other, back and forth, back and forth, spurred on by her groans of pleasure. I grew stiffer and stiffer as each touch and moan merged to become unfathomable ecstasy. But she wasn’t yet done with her womanly tricks. Emitting another charged sigh, she thrust her pelvis hard against my pulsating cock.
The front door opened. Someone stumbled into the hallway, softly singing. Bridget ceased raking my hair and her neck and shoulders stiffened. The drunken stranger passed by our door and started up the stairs. We kissed again, more passionately as my incited fingers reached underneath her skirt, dipping inside her knickers and plunging into unfamiliar liquid warmth. Never had I felt such a thing. I kissed, feasted, probed.
The singing recommenced, aggressively intrusive now, piercing our fragile intimacy. The melody transformed to hoarse yells when the fellow couldn’t get his key into the door lock. A woman shouted at him to stop the racket, followed by a deathly silence, during which Bridget shoved me to the floor.
“That’s the second night in a row, you drunken cur,” the woman said. “Get out of my house. You’re waking the household with your cat screeching. Get out or I’ll summon the Gardai to haul you to jail.”
Footsteps thumped down the stairs. The front door flung open. Bridget and I adjusted our clothing at a ferocious speed.
“Jesus, I can’t get my blouse buttoned properly,” she said.
The door slammed shut.
“Who’s got the light on in there at this hour of the morning?” the woman said.
Neither of us spoke. We focused on the door, which was slightly ajar. It opened wider. A severe-featured woman entered clad in an electric-blue satin nightgown, her hair tucked into a hairnet.
“You, again. I might have known.”
Rapid footsteps started down the stairs. The landlady spun ’round and peered out into the hallway. “Halt! You, in the white. Halt, I said.” She tore out of the room.
“I’m just leaving,” Martin said.
The sound of male laughter rushed in from the street as the door opened. I scooped up my shoes and dashed out of the room.
“Donegal trollops bringing Derry tramps in here,” the woman shouted from the threshold. “Next time I catch curs like—” I swept by at enormous speed and almost sent her careening into the street, “Ah, Jesus, what the—”
I found Martin pacing back and forth at the end of the street.
“I dropped my fucking shoe on the stairs,” he said. “What’ll I do?” He ran his fingers rapidly through his hair. “Go back and fetch my shoe.”
“No bloody way.”
“You must.”
As I tied my laces, he paced and cursed. We walked back to the B&B in hopes the woman might have thrown it out into the street. The upstairs lights burned and Sheila, Bridget, and the woman screamed at one another.
“It’s gone, Martin. She called us ‘Derry tramps.’ You won’t get it back now.”
My cousin raised his hand to the bell, but couldn’t bring himself to ring it.
Despite such a precipitous ending to my first true sexual adventure with a woman, I knew exactly what people in love meant when they compared it to walking on cotton clouds. The next six days in Bundoran were beautiful. I’d touched a girl’s private parts and my body had responded as it was supposed to. I was the same as other boys. I wasn’t a homosexual. Every afternoon, I sunbathed on the beach, fantasizing about touching Bridget’s hard nipples, and I’d grow excited and have to roll over on my belly in case Auntie Bernie noticed.
On the final nigh
t, the cotton clouds dispersed when I spied the attractive football player type with the great shoulders at the dance hall again. I couldn’t take my eyes off him as before and I didn’t have Bridget to distract me from myself. I spent the entire evening watching him from a discreet distance. Later in bed, after Martin was sound asleep, I self-abused myself near witless thinking about him. The last-minute substitution of Bridget’s soft breasts and rough nipples didn’t alleviate the guilt this time. Homosexuality stalked me still. It would not be denied. I could never let down my guard.
A letter from Uncle Brendan awaited me on my return home. He was beginning studies at the University of California, Berkeley, in September. After expressing commiseration about my poor academic showing, he said it was understandable on account of my ordeal concerning “sick Father Cornelius.” Fearing my mother might come across the letter as she cleaned my room, I took it outside and burned it, watching the edges of its feathery, gray-white ashes glow scarlet as they ascended to die in the breeze.
Twenty-Eight
Humbled by my examination debacle and extremely grateful to Father Rafferty for permitting me to return to Saint Malachy’s, I set about working diligently at the college from the first day of the new school year. Pani and Martin had moved on to the sixth form and I was lonely in my classes now, although we continued to meet up at lunchtime.
Early in the new term, my bruised ego took an additional knock when the issue of my fat arse reemerged. As is usually the case when someone joins a new class, a bully must be reckoned with, and Roland set about making my life a misery. A skinny youth with body odor and badly cut hair, he taunted me unmercifully about my arse.
We were three months into the year and I was at my desk, rechecking math homework during the first short break, when Roland said, “Hey, poof, come here, I need to speak to you right now.”
A Son Called Gabriel Page 27