by John Boyne
“Then you must try harder,” she said. “Make sure to keep him in your life, that’s what’s important. Don’t ever lose sight of him.”
The doors opened and a group of TDs came in, their voices loud and arrogant, and she stood up with a sigh.
“Well,” she said. “I better get back to it. I’m sure I’ll see you in here regularly now that you’re back with us.”
“You will,” I said, watching her as she walked away, and for some reason our conversation lingered in my mind now as I arrived at the gates of Mountjoy Prison. I showed my passport and my visiting order to the officer on duty, and he read it carefully before telling me to take off my jacket and shoes and walk through a metal detector, but all the time I was thinking of Mrs. Goggin and the way she had looked at me, and I felt a strange urge to continue the conversation with her at another time.
The ’Joy
As it turns out, a prison waiting room can be a great leveler of people, with relatives and friends of inmates from every social class gathered together in varying degrees of outrage, shame and bravado. I took a seat toward the rear on a white plastic chair nailed to the floor and tried to ignore the smell of antiseptic in the air. A carving on the right arm of my seat informed me that “Deano” was “a dead man” while the left added that the same Deano “sux cock.” On the wall facing me, a poster displayed an image of a cheerful police officer, a jovial young man and an almost hysterical older woman standing next to each other under the slogan We Can All Get Through This Together! in what I could only assume was an ironic statement on the prison experience.
Glancing around, I noticed a young woman in a shell suit struggling with a small child whose hair was cut into a Mohawk with green frosting at the tips to complement the series of avocado-colored hoops that pierced his left earlobe. Unable to control him, she turned her attentions to a baby who was mewling like a possessed cat in the pram next to her.
“You have your hands full there,” I remarked, giving her a sympathetic look as the older boy ran over the empty seats and stopped before various people, turning himself into a human rifle and letting rip at his unsuspecting victims, a trick he had presumably learned from his incarcerated father.
“Fuck off, ya ol’ pedo,” said the woman casually.
I took the hint that she and I were not going to bond and moved to a different part of the room, next to a lady around my own age who looked absolutely terrified to be in such an awful place. She held her handbag tightly in her lap and her eyes scanned the room back and forth as if she had never seen such awful specimens of humanity in her life.
“Your first time here?” I asked, and she nodded.
“Of course,” she said. “I’m from Blackrock.” She looked at me meaningfully. “There’s been a terrible misunderstanding, you see,” she continued after a few moments. “A miscarriage of justice. I shouldn’t be here at all and nor should my Anthony.”
“None of us want to be here,” I said.
“No, I said I shouldn’t be here. They have my son locked up but he didn’t do anything at all. He’s always been a very decent young man.”
“Do you mind if I ask what he’s been charged with?”
“Murder.”
“Murder?”
“Yes, but he didn’t do it, so don’t look so shocked.”
“Who is he supposed to have murdered?”
“His wife. But there was no real evidence, other than fingerprints, DNA and an eyewitness. Also, for what it’s worth, my daughter-in-law was a horrible girl and had it coming to her, if you ask me. I’m not a bit sorry she’s gone. She wasn’t from Blackrock and I told Anthony that he should marry locally.”
“Right,” I said, wondering whether I should move again. “Is he on remand then?”
“No, he’s serving life. The trial was a few months ago. I’m going to speak to my TD about it and see what can be done. I’m sure if I just explain things they’ll realize their error and let him out. What about you? What brings you here?”
“My adoptive father is in for tax evasion,” I told her.
“That’s a disgrace,” she said, sitting up straight and sounding positively appalled. She clutched her handbag closer as if there was a risk that I was going to steal it. “Sure we all have to pay our taxes, do you not know that? You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Why?” I protested. “It’s got nothing to do with me. I pay mine.”
“And what do you want, a medal? If you ask me, prison is too good for tax evaders. They should be strung up.”
“And what about murderers?” I asked. “What should happen to them?”
She shook her head in annoyance and turned away from me, and I was relieved when a handsome young prison guard came into the room carrying a clipboard and called our names one by one, directing us along a corridor toward an open-plan room where we all took our seats behind small white tables with numbers inscribed across the top. A few minutes later, a door opened at the front of the room and a group of men in woolen jumpers and gray slacks trotted in, their eyes scanning the room for people they knew. I was a little surprised to see Charles waving at me with unbound enthusiasm and when he approached me and I stood up to shake his hand I was even more shocked to find him pulling me into his arms in a tight hug.
“Sit down, Avery,” said an older officer, marching toward us and bringing an unappealing stench of four-day-old sweat with him. “No physical contact allowed.”
“But this man is my son!” cried Charles, appalled. “What kind of country has this become if a man cannot embrace his only child in public? Was it for this that Robert Emmet died? And James Connolly? And Pádhraic Pearse?”
“Take a seat or go back to your cell,” said the officer, who was clearly in no mood for a debate. “It’s your choice.”
“Fine, I’ll sit,” grumbled Charles, giving in as I took my place opposite him. “Honestly, Cyril, I’m treated like some sort of criminal in here. It’s beyond the beyonds.”
He’d grown old since I’d last seen him—he was well into his mid seventies by now—but he wore the years well. He’d always been a handsome man, of course, and his good looks had stayed with him into old age, as they so often do with undeserving men. The only surprise was the gray stubble that lined his cheeks and chin. As long as I had known him, he’d been scrupulous about shaving, condemning men with beards or mustaches as socialists, hippies or reporters, and I was a little surprised to find that he was not sticking to his morning routines in prison. Also, he smelled a little and his teeth looked more yellow than I remembered them.
“How are you anyway?” he asked, smiling at me. “It’s good to see you at last.”
“I’m fine, Charles,” I said. “I would have come before if you’d invited me.”
“No need to apologize,” he said. “I don’t get too many visiting orders and when I do I tend to send them to old friends and young women. But they all seem to be dying off now. The old friends, that is; the young women just don’t show up. And then one day your name popped into my head and I thought, Why not?”
“I’m touched,” I said. I’d only seen him a couple of times since my return to Dublin three years earlier, so we weren’t exactly close. Once was when I’d run into him in Brown Thomas on Grafton Street and when I went over to say hello he mistook me for a shop assistant and asked me did I know where the handkerchiefs were kept. I pointed him in the right direction and he went on his way. The second time was at his trial, when he asked me to bring some shoe polish and a Cornetto in to him in his remand cell the next morning.
“So how’s prison life?” I asked. “Everything going all right in here?”
“Well, I haven’t been raped by a gang of multi-ethnic bank robbers, if that’s what you mean.”
“It wasn’t what I meant at all,” I said.
“I suppose it’s not too bad, all things considered,” he said. “It’s not like I haven’t been in here before, and things have improved a lot since the last time. I have my
own television set, which is wonderful, as I’ve grown quite addicted to Australian soap operas and wouldn’t want to fall behind.”
“I’m glad to hear that you’re spending your time usefully,” I said.
“Actually, I think I might go to Melbourne when I get out of here. It looks like a nice place. Full of drama, beautiful beaches and pretty girls. Do you watch Neighbors, Cyril?”
“Well, I’ve seen it,” I admitted. “Although I wouldn’t go so far as to say I watch it.”
“You should. It’s magnificent. Shakespearean in its characterization.”
“Anyway, I’m not sure if Australia allows convicted criminals in,” I told him.
“If I have to, I can always give the immigration people a little backhander,” he said with a wink. “Everyone has a price. I’m sick of this country. Time to start again somewhere fresh.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “So it looks as if you didn’t learn anything from the first time you were in here,” I said. “And you’re learning nothing this time either.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked. “What should I have learned?”
“That we have a little thing called income tax in this country. And that you have to pay it. Or they lock you up.”
“Well, as it happens,” he said dismissively, “I know all about the tax laws and on this occasion I don’t believe that I did anything wrong. Last time around I admit they had every right to put me behind bars. I was earning a lot of money in the forties and fifties and squirreling most of it away without paying a single penny to the government. Bloody fascists, all of them anyway, feathering their own fascist nests. Although if you ask me, a case could be made that Max Woodbead was the real culprit back then. He was the one who thought of all the angles and gave me such bad advice. How is old Max anyway, I wonder. Do you ever hear from him? I sent him a visiting order a few weeks ago but I’ve heard nothing back yet. Do you think he still holds a grudge against me for all that business with Elizabeth?”
“I doubt it,” I said. “Max has been dead for almost ten years now, so I imagine he’s past caring. Didn’t you know that?”
He scratched his head and looked a little confused. I wondered whether his mind was starting to play tricks on him. “Oh, yes,” he said finally. “Now that you mention it, I think I did hear something about him dying. Poor Max. He wasn’t a bad sort, really. He married up, which every intelligent man should do. I married up several times. And then across once or twice. And then beneath me. I never quite found the right level somehow. Perhaps I should have married diagonally or in a slightly curved direction. But Elizabeth was a great beauty, that’s for sure. She had it all: class, money, breeding and a fine pair of legs.”
“I remember,” I said, for it was certainly from his mother’s side of the family that Julian had got his looks. “You had an affair with her.”
“We didn’t have an affair,” he said, the word emerging like something crude on his tongue. “We just had sex a few times, that’s all. An affair implies that there are emotions at play and there were none. Not on my part anyway. I can’t speak for her. I suppose she’s dead too, is she?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Everyone’s dead,” he said with a sigh, before sitting back in his seat and staring up at the ceiling. “Poor Max,” he repeated. “It’s a shame that he died before he got a chance to apologize to me. I’m sure he would have liked to.”
“For what?”
“For landing me in here first time around. And for punching me in the face when I was in the middle of bribing a jury. That really didn’t help my case. If I remember right, his son was one of your lot, wasn’t he?”
“My lot?” I asked, frowning. “What lot are my lot?”
“A gay.”
“Julian?” I said, almost laughing at the absurdity of the idea. “No, he wasn’t at all. He was one hundred percent straight.”
“That’s not what I heard. Didn’t he get…you know…” He leaned forward and whispered. “The AIDS.”
“It’s just called AIDS,” I said. “Not the AIDS. And you don’t have to say a gay either.”
“Well, whatever it’s called, that’s what he died of, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“So I was right,” he said, sitting back and smiling. “He was a gay.”
“He wasn’t,” I insisted, thinking how furious Julian would be if he could overhear this conversation. “Anyone can get AIDS, regardless of their sexual persuasion. Not that it matters anymore anyway. He’s gone too.”
“There are two chaps in here with the HIV,” said Charles, looking around as he lowered his voice again. “They’re kept away in solitary confinement, of course, although once in a while they’re allowed out for a game of table tennis with each other while the rest of us are in lockdown. The guards wash down the bats with disinfectant afterward. Say nothing to no one.”
“I won’t breathe a word,” I said. “But we were talking about tax, remember? And your inability to pay it.”
“I do think it’s very unfair what they’ve done to me,” he said, frowning. “After all, this time it was an honest mistake.”
“I heard it was two million honest mistakes,” I said.
“Yes, something around that number. But correct me if I’m wrong, there’s a little thing called the Artists’ Exemption in this country. Writers are not required to pay tax on their earnings. Thank you, Mr. Haughey, you generous patron of the arts.”
“That’s true,” I said, for it was a law that had been of great benefit to Ignac since his novels had become successful. “But here’s the thing, Charles. You’re not actually a writer.”
“No, but most of my income comes from artistic earnings. Do you know how many books Maude has sold around the world now?”
“Last time I heard it was around twenty million.”
“Twenty-two million,” he said triumphantly. “No, don’t congratulate me! And she’s still shifting around a million every year, God bless her.”
“But just because her estate was left to you doesn’t mean that you can claim the tax exemption for yourself. That was explained to you at the trial, although I would have thought that it would have been obvious in the first place.”
“But that’s grossly unfair, don’t you think? The Man from the Revenue has always resented my success.”
“But it wasn’t your success,” I insisted. “It was Maude’s. And to be fair, you had an excellent income as it was without having to cheat the system.”
He shrugged. “Oh well,” he said. “It doesn’t matter too much, I suppose. I paid back what I owed and I still have a fortune in the bank and it just keeps flooding in. Maybe I’ll pay a little next year. I’ll see how I feel. Thank God for universities, am I right? Every single one of them seems to teach her books. Except the Canadians. What’s that about, do you think? Why don’t the Canadians like Maude’s work?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” I said.
“Funny people. Try to find out, would you? You still work at the Department of Education, don’t you? There must be some sort of cross-cultural group or…or…” He trailed off, apparently uncertain how to finish the sentence.
“Charles, I haven’t worked in the civil service in nearly thirty years,” I said, growing a little concerned for him now.
“Haven’t you? That’s a very good job, you know. Pensionable. I’m sure if you went back they’d give you a second chance. What did you do wrong anyway? Hand in the cookie jar? A little slap-and-tickle with your secretary when the office door was closed?”
I sighed and glanced out the window into the courtyard, where a group of men were playing football together while others stood around the perimeter, smoking and making small talk. I watched, expecting a fight to break out as it always did in films, but nothing untoward happened. Instead, everyone seemed to be just enjoying the good weather. Very disappointing.
“How long more have you got?” I asked eventually, turning back to him.
“Only six months,” he said. “It’s not so bad in here really, you know. The food is actually pretty good. And my cellmate, Denzel, is a decent fellow. Held up three different post offices around the country but you should hear some of his stories!” He laughed as he recalled them. “You could put them in one of your books only he’d probably sue you for stealing his intellectual property. You know what these cons are like. All taking law degrees in their spare time.”
“I don’t write books, Charles,” I said. “I work in the Dáil library.”
“Of course you write books. You write those children’s books about the time-traveling Croatian boy, don’t you?”
“He’s a Slovenian boy,” I said. “And no, that’s not me. That’s Ignac.”
“Who’s Ignac?”
“He’s…well, he’s sort of a son to me. Sort of.”
“I thought your son’s name was Colm?”
“No, that’s Liam.”
“And he writes the books?”
“No,” I said, sighing. “Ignac writes books, Liam’s a student.”
“Did he write that one about the woman who hated her husband so much that she visited his grave every day and pissed on the headstone?”
“No, that was Maude,” I said, recalling one of the more melodramatic scenes from Like to the Lark.
“Oh, yes, Maude.” He thought about this. “Good old Maude. She would have hated to see how popular she’s grown.”
“She would,” I said. “But she’s been gone a long time now. She never had to suffer the indignity.”
“What was it she called it?” he asked. “The vulgarity of popularity?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s a blessing then that she’s gone,” he said. “Although I still rather miss her sometimes. We never got along very well but, still, she wasn’t a bad sort. Smoked like a chimney, of course, and I never much cared for that in a woman. She wasn’t your real mother, you know. Oh wait, did you know that? Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything.”