A Son Called Gabriel

by Damian McNicholl

  “Brendan played with machinery when he was younger,” Father interrupted. “He was always riding our neighbor’s tractor. I don’t think that explains why you and I like different things.”

  I said nothing.

  “Fathers and sons don’t always like the same things.” He cleared his throat. “Let’s get one thing straight, Gabriel. You’ve brought this up before, but I’ve never preferred James over you . . . or any of the rest of them, for that matter.”

  “When I was younger, you always picked on me. You always made me do all the work about the house.”

  He laughed. “Aye, because you’re the eldest. It’s how I was reared. That’s how your granda treated me. I just did the same as a father.”

  “I tried to do well in my studies to make up for it, but it was never enough. You never viewed my successes as being equal to James’s.”

  “I’m not educated.” Father regarded his hands again. “What do I know about books? I know about football and tinkering with machines because I’ve always been around them. I was never one for studying. You know that, son.”

  He paused and lifted his eyes. Mine wanted to flee.

  “I’ve always been proud of you,” he said. “You were the scholar in the family. You’re like Brendan that way. I was very proud of you, just as I’m very proud of James when he does well at his activities. Luksee, it was a great day for me when you made it into Saint Malachy’s.”

  I remembered his pride, and how he’d boasted to our neighbors. I’d overlooked that.

  “I made no difference between any of you,” he said. “If I did, I wasn’t aware of it.”

  “I’ve always felt a failure in your eyes. And now I know I am because I’m . . .” My tongue froze. It was still hard to say the word “homosexual” to a man who’d never thought of such a thing. I back-pedaled fast to try and put him on the defensive again. “I resented you. I didn’t even want to travel alone in the car with you. I didn’t want to talk to you.”

  “There were times when I knew you were acting strange. I chalked it down to you being more sensitive, or puberty, or something.” He was silent for a moment. “Maybe I should have given all of you more attention, but it wasn’t in my nature. I was never one to hug or say nice things. I was reared that it was womanly, that men don’t go in for that.” His eyes swept from my face to focus on a nearby cupboard latch. “Don’t think I’m disappointed in you because of this homosexual business.”

  My heart leaped.

  “Your mother says you’re made that way and you can’t change it. I’ve thought about it tonight and I can accept it. I won’t lie and say I understand it. But there are lots of things I don’t understand in the world. And yes, you’re adopted. That can’t be changed either, but you’re mine as much as James and the rest of them.”

  My head pained with the thrust and retreat of thoughts: I was adopted and I was gay and he accepted me. He wasn’t my natural father, no pieces of his blood were in mine, and I loved him completely.

  Thirty-One

  My cousin Martin telephoned from England to say several of his friends at the Fashion Institute were gay and he supported me fully. That really helped. Uncle Brendan also called, wanting to talk about my birth and adoption, but I wouldn’t be drawn, and told him bluntly I didn’t want to discuss it. He’d once been a priest and, as such, charged with a duty to be truthful at all times. I felt betrayed. I’d exposed my soul to him at the horse’s grave in the meadow and he’d had the opportunity to expose his that day, too. He’d also had the opportunity when he’d asked me if I wanted to talk about Father Cornelius and I’d asked him to tell me about the girlfriend he’d had before he went off to the priesthood. Now everything was in the open, he wanted the whole thing aired and put to bed.

  He offered to come over from America, but I wouldn’t hear of that, either. He tried to insist, and I reminded him in a steely voice that he hadn’t wanted to see his family for years after he’d fled to the missions and, more specifically, during his nervous breakdown. Why should it be any different now? I knew it was a slap in the face, but I also knew his soul-exposing could wait until I was ready, just like he’d made me wait.

  A raw fear that I wouldn’t get the required examination grades and the London School of Economics would reject me ensured that I settled down to my studies. Five weeks after the revelation, Richie went on leave to London for a month. We didn’t even see each before he flew out, as my father needed the car unexpectedly on the night we’d scheduled to meet. He telephoned to say goodbye, faking his accent when my mother picked up the phone and pretending he was a school friend ringing to ask about a homework problem.

  The month Richie was away dragged like a year. I forced myself to concentrate on my school work, telling myself repeatedly as I learned Shakespeare quotes and macro- and microeconomic theory that my doing brilliantly in the A level examinations was the only way I’d get to join him in London, where he would live after his tour ended in September and he quit the army. But inside I felt empty, as if a part of me as vital as an arm or leg was missing, knowing he was across the water. I daydreamed in class and at my desk in the bedroom at night, wondering what he was doing as I outlined an essay, whether he was meeting friends for dinner or going to a pop concert in Hammersmith.

  He’d also told me there were gay bars and a nightclub in a part of West London called Earl’s Court where he wanted to take me when I moved there. As I lay in bed, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, I’d break out in a cold sweat thinking he was at the disco and might meet another man better looking than me. Though only eighteen months older, Richie knew much more about the world than I did. London was full of beautiful men and I was just an eighteen-year-old who’d never been out of Ireland.

  When we met up at his friend’s caravan two weeks after his return, I felt I’d throw up as I scoured his eyes for the smallest tell that he’d met someone else. He didn’t avert his gaze, grabbed me fiercely, and forced his tongue deep inside my mouth. We tossed our clothes every which way on our path to the tiny bedroom, really just a double bed surrounded by four walls. I was on fire. His beautiful, familiar smell dissipated the remains of my anxiety.

  “You don’t know how much I missed you,” he said, as we lay tightly together despite our body heat. “One night, I said ‘fuck it’ and almost flew back to Ulster early.” He raised his right arm high in the air, formed a plane with his hand and I watched it cross the ceiling. “But I couldn’t have gone back to the barracks without raising questions.”

  He fetched his rucksack from the living room and took out a brown paper bag, which he gave to me. “Sorry it’s not wrapped.”

  Inside was a long scarf with black, purple, and yellow stripes and embroidered with the words “London School of Economics.”

  I squealed.

  “You’ve got to get the grades now,” he said. “It cost a fortune.”

  No Christmas present from my parents had been as beautiful, not even the beloved farmyard set I’d begged Santa Claus to bring me when I was ten that still sat, fully intact, in the attic. Every hope I had for Richie and I was woven into the tight weave of that scarf.

  I kept thinking about my birth mother and one day informed Mammy that I was going to visit her grave in the churchyard thirty miles from my home. Mammy offered to come and help me search for it. We located the grave in the shadow of an ostentatious granite monument whose inscription declared that interred inside was the body of a man who’d emigrated to New Orleans in 1814. We knelt on the black granite coping at right angles to each other, the sharp edge digging uncomfortably into the space below my kneecaps. Directly beneath my birth mother’s name, etched in tarnished gold, were the names and birth and death dates of two older people who’d died in their seventies, within six months of each other. The man’s name had been Gabriel.

  I looked at my mother who was whispering prayers. She nodded twice, her eyes shiny with tears. After blessing herself, she rose. The edge of the coping had left
deep impressions in her tender flesh.

  “I’ll leave you for a while,” she said. “I’ll wait back in the car.”

  I watched her recede, saw her pause and look back after she reached the entrance gates. It felt so peculiar, being alone, looking down at the white marble-chipped grave of a woman who’d taken her last breath giving me my first. After a minute, I rose and placed a bunch of bright pink roses I’d brought in the middle of her snowy marble bed. I approached the headstone, where I was compelled to trace the first letter of her name. The coldness of the polished granite stirred something within me and made me incredibly sad. It wasn’t the sadness of losing a loved one, rather the sadness of never knowing if she’d have come back to claim me had she lived.

  “I’m sorry I never knew you,” I murmured. I lingered a few moments longer, regarding the pristine bed of chips and the pink roses, then turned away.

  On the drive home, Mammy was unusually quiet.

  “I’m not feeling strange or anything,” I said, after five minutes. “Like you said, time heals wounds, Mammy.”

  She squeezed my forearm.

  Thirty-Two

  Squealing brakes, shouts, and loud banging awakened me abruptly.

  “Open the door,” a man yelled, in an English accent. “Open up, now.”

  I glanced at the clock. It was three-fifteen in the morning.

  “Open, or we’re breaking the door down!”

  “Who is it?” Mammy called back.

  “British Army.”

  She emitted a clipped shriek. “What do yous want at this time of the night?”

  “Open the fucking door.”

  I ran into the hall as Mammy opened it. Soldiers with faces painted green and black and brandishing rifles swept inside. Two went into my father’s bedroom.

  “You’ve got one minute to get dressed,” a soldier said.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Father said.

  A sergeant pointed his gun at me. “Hands up.”

  He prodded me in the back with the barrel and ordered me to follow a policeman into the living room, where James was already lined up against a wall.

  “Face the wall with your hands up,” he said.

  “Leave my children alone,” Mammy said. “They’re only schoolboys.”

  She was struggling to stay calm, but her voice trembled. Her cheeks were bloodless. Two soldiers pushed my father into the room and told him to stand facing the wall. Nuala ran from her bedroom in her pajamas, followed by Caroline, who clutched her dressing gown tightly at the throat.

  “There’s a soldier searching under our beds,” Nuala said. She started crying.

  “There’s nothing of interest to you in this house,” Father said.

  Pots crashed on the kitchen floor.

  “Rip the place apart,” the sergeant called out. “We’ll find the guns.”

  “Yous damage anything in this house and we’ll set the law on yous,” my mother said, her voice much firmer now. Blood surged back to her face and neck. “Where’s your warrant?”

  “We don’t need one.” The policeman laughed coarsely. “Your husband have a warrant to tip gravel over the Londonderry to Belfast road a while back?” He guffawed.

  “What are you talking about?” Father asked.

  “You think we didn’t know you helped out the IRA?” the policeman said. “Are you in the IRA?”

  A soldier came in from the hallway. Despite his painted face, when we locked eyes, the room started turning like I’d a fever. I crumpled on the floor.

  “Get the fuck up,” the sergeant barked. “Get him on his feet.”

  Richie’s hand grabbed my shoulders. I didn’t feel his touch. He dragged me up and swept my feet apart with his foot.

  “Face the fucking wall,” he said. “Now.”

  “Frisk him,” the sergeant ordered.

  His hands ran along the insides of my legs and up my sides. In the background, glass shattered. The sound seemed miles away. Dust rained down in a corner of the ceiling as heavy feet trod across the attic. The bones of the house shook. Seconds later, floorboards splinted above my head.

  “Nothing in the rooms, Sarge,” a soldier said, as he came into the living room. “Found fuck-all.”

  “That’s because there’s fucking nothing to find,” James said.

  “Quiet, James,” my mother said, then turned to the soldier. “Tell your men to stop cursing in front of my children, Sergeant.”

  “Nothing in the attic,” someone yelled.

  “Get him into the wagon,” the sergeant said.

  “Let go of me,” Father roared. “You’re hurting my fucking arms.”

  I turned my face to look. Richie didn’t stop me. Putting their hands under his arms, the soldiers hoisted Father above the floor. He struggled and swore as they moved toward the front door. He clawed at the doorjamb, but the soldiers had momentum on their side and whisked him outside. It was astonishing to see my father, a man always in charge, who never asked for advice, carried in such an undignified manner.

  “Those two as well,” the sergeant said, indicating my brother and me.

  “You’re not taking my children,” Mammy said. “Over my dead body.”

  Richie’s eyes met mine. I turned back to the wall.

  “She said they’re in school, Sarge,” Richie said. He prodded me gently on the small of my back with his knuckles. “Where do you go to school?”

  I didn’t answer. Even if I’d wanted to, the lump in my throat wouldn’t allow me. My eyes stung something fierce.

  “I asked where you go to school, mate,” Richie asked.

  “They go to Saint Malachy’s,” Mammy said. “You can call the headmaster. He’ll verify it.”

  “It’s true,” the policeman said. “Our intelligence confirms they’ve four kids at school.”

  “Where are yous taking my husband?” Mammy asked.

  “Ballykelly barracks.”

  “What for?”

  “For questioning, missus,” said the sergeant.

  “If there’s as much as a scratch on him when he comes home, yous’ll have me to answer to,” she said.

  My mother had come from nervousness to ferocious defiance in the space of mere minutes. But it was all show. She knew as well as I did her threats had no bite. The Ulster government consistently covered the army’s blunders when it came to harassing Catholic families like mine.

  “Let’s get out of here,” the sergeant said, and he walked toward the door.

  Richie gripped my right shoulder and squeezed. I stiffened. He patted me twice and left.

  The next twenty-four hours were an accumulation of foggy occurrences. The phone rang nonstop as visiting relatives and neighbors offered long faces and sighs. Mammy’s moods swung like a wrecker’s ball, laughter and jokes one moment, frets and wails the next. I was also worried for Father, especially after some of our visitors’ narrated secondhand stories—in detail—about the torture of prisoners at army barracks throughout the province. And this time I was the one holding a huge secret.

  Twice, Richie rang, pretending to be a friend wanting to talk to me about an economics problem, but I told Mammy I didn’t want to talk to anyone from school. Next afternoon, I drove to Duncarlow to fetch an apple tart and cake Auntie Celia had baked for Mammy. I’d just put them in the back of the car and was about to get into the driver’s seat when Richie pulled up alongside me in a dark blue car.

  “You planning to arrest me now?”

  “Please, Gabriel.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Connor came out of Auntie’s shop and stooped slightly, trying to see whom I’d yelled at. I jumped into the car and drove away in a cloud of smoke and pebbles. All the way home, I checked in my rearview mirror to see if Richie was following.

  He reappeared in a different car the next evening as I was walking home from Granny Harkin’s.

  “Get in the car a minute.”

  “I don’t want to see you again.”

  I co
ntinued walking and he drove alongside me.

  “I’d no choice,” he said.

  I walked faster. He swung his car onto the verge and opened the door. Leaping across the narrow ditch, I climbed over a rusty barbed wire fence and sprinted across the field. He gave chase. A circle of sheep scattered as I ran. I charged into a copse of sloe-bushes and pines, crashing through the underbrush and zigzagging as I made my way down the slope toward the river, burbling in the background.

  Richie grabbed me as I ran into a clearing ringed with blazing gorse. I spun around and rammed my fist in his nose. Blood spurted from his nostrils. His eyes opened wide, but he didn’t let go. I suppose years of military training prepared him for attacks like this. As he dragged me to the ground, I lashed out again and struck him on the jaw. He climbed on top of me, pinned my arms with his knees and held down my shoulders.

  “Bastard, get off me,” I said. “I fucking hate you.”

  “I told you, I’m the cannon fodder.” His grip was hard as steel. “I follow orders. That’s how the army works.”

  I struggled a little more and then let my body go slack. We didn’t look at one another or speak. A bird trilled in a nearby holly tree. The river murmured. In the distance, a cow lowed three times.

  He took his knees off my arms but stayed on top of me, his butt bearing down on my chest and his thighs tight against my sides. He raised his hands in faux surrender.

  “I had to act like you were the enemy,” he said.

  “Act?”

  “The sarge would have been suspicious if I’d treated you soft.” He wiped blood from his upper lip with his hand. “You know that’s true.”

  “I want to sit up.”

  Our eyes met for a long moment and then he rolled off me. I sat up and wiped dirt off my shirt.

  “I’d no idea we were lifting your old man ’til it was too late.” He crossed his heart. “What would you have done in my position?”

  “I wouldn’t be in the fucking British Army. Full stop. End of story.” I rose and adjusted the waist of my jeans. Folding my arms, I stared at the holly tree and asked, “When will they release him?”