His Father's Son: To save the son he loves, a desparate father must confront the ghosts of his past

by Tony Black

  In the Nurse’s Room Marti was told to lie still and wait until someone could be found to sit with him. He didn’t know why it was called the Nurse’s Room when there was no nurse. There never was a nurse, and then the man the teachers called Mr Spitz and the boys in class called Charlie came in and said he would wait with him awhile.

  Charlie always wore the same mustard-coloured coat, except when he was in the playground or on the roof, then he would wear a big hat and a vest with holes in it. Marti liked Charlie because he would always have a laugh and a joke with Jono and himself, and if he found tennis balls or cricket balls on the roof he would sometimes give them to the boys to keep.

  “So you’re a bit crook are you, sonny?” said Charlie.

  “I’ve got a sore tummy. I ate too much choco and sicked it back up.”

  “Choco, eh? You can have too much of a good thing, you know.” Charlie messed up Marti’s hair with his big hand and said, “Well, maybe you had to learn your lesson the hard way.” Marti didn’t want to learn any more lessons the hard way, and he wished he had never taken the blue ten dollar bill. He wondered if he would be in trouble for being sick all over his jotter and all over his desk and if Mam and Dad would find out. If they ever found out there would be trouble for sure, thought Marti, and he curled over in the bed and groaned.

  “Now, now,” said Charlie, “I’m sure it can’t be all that bad … and your dad’s on his way to collect you. Doesn’t that make you feel better? You can spend the rest of the day at home.”

  Marti didn’t feel better at all. He didn’t want to go home either because Mam might say there was a dear price to pay for Dad taking time off from working and earning their keep. Dad couldn’t be taking time off to collect him because wasn’t it the working and the working alone that kept the roof over their heads, like he said. Mam must be really bad with the sadness called the Black Dog, thought Marti. If she couldn’t even come to collect him from school then she might even still be curled up on the sofa.

  He didn’t know what he would say to make it better. He knew Dad wouldn’t give him a row, Dad never gave out the rows. It was always Mam who would shout and say, “That’s you for the hot arse.” Dad never gave out the rows, or the hot arse, and sometimes Mam and Dad would row because Dad wouldn’t give out the rows or the hot arse.

  Marti felt the guilt for taking the money now and he wondered, would he be the one to blame for another fight at home? One time when he had been really bad and caused a flood trying to sail a boat in the bath, Mam said he was a bold boy, which is what the Irish say when a boy is bad. He had gone beyond the beyonds and was in big trouble when his dad got home.

  When Dad got home he didn’t really get angry, though. He only said if he had done that when he was a boy his own father would have taken a belt to him. He said that money didn’t grow on trees and that everything had to be bought and paid for and he couldn’t afford to be flooding the place for a laugh and a joke. He said if he had so much as thought of causing a flood at home when he was a boy, his father would have made sure he couldn’t sit for a week. He said his father played in the All-Ireland Hurling Final and could heft a belt like no man before or since, and if he had a drink in him you never knew whether you were going to get the buckle across your legs as well.

  Marti felt sad to think of Dad getting the buckle across his legs when he was a boy and wished he had been good so Dad wouldn’t have to tell him the story again, or to take the time off from working and earning their keep. He could see Dad shaking his head sometime soon and saying, “Well, this is a fine state of affairs with your mam sick abroad in the house.”

  A great lump swelled in Marti’s throat, caused by the sadness he felt for being such a bold boy and adding to all the troubles they already had at home, because now he knew there would be more troubles to come.

  3

  The last straw, that’s what it was, thought Joey Driscol. The last straw entirely. Macca was a good man and a grand boss but to be going to him with the begging bowl for more time off was a terrible reddener. Joey knew there would be talk around the place about him not pulling his weight now, or worse yet, he might be called a bludger. They were a grand bunch of lads, or blokes like they said in Australia, but the ore wouldn’t move itself about and wasn’t working the job you were paid just a man’s duty.

  “Can ye plant the foot, mate?” he shouted out the car window. “Jaysus, isn’t green for go.” Two fingers were raised out the roof of the car in front and Joey started to shake his head. “Don’t be thinking that’s the way, Marti,” he said. “Sure, isn’t that just ignorance showing. The man cannot accept he’s in the wrong. It takes a big man to accept he’s in the wrong, sure it does, son.”

  Joey looked at Marti sitting next to him and started to smile. He was trying to copy his dad’s movements, his little arm out the window and his little fingers drumming on an imaginary steering wheel in front of him. Wasn’t the boy a dote, thought Joey, and then he felt the smile slipping from his face.

  Where was his mother? It should be the mother collecting him from school surely, not the father. Oh no, not the father, who was out doing his bit, working and earning their keep. That’s the way it was when he was a boy and sure didn’t every boy know that was the way of it; shouldn’t the mother be the one there for a child in time of sickness.

  He strained his eyes at the hot sky ahead and felt his thoughts shift back to his own childhood. His mother was always there, minding and tending, keeping her brood safe. He could see her now at the back door calling him away in when the light was failing, her cold breath hanging in the air around her like a pall. Joey had come along first, his own mother then added another five children to her lot. Wouldn’t she be ashamed entirely at the way Marti, an only child, was being minded? Wouldn’t it just break her heart, he thought, if he hadn’t already done that himself a long time ago?

  “Will you ever stop your fidgeting, Marti?” snapped Joey. Snapping now, is it? Taking your problems out on the boy now, is it, he thought. He looked for a reaction in Marti’s face, but the boy only sat very still and looked straight ahead like he was worried about what was coming next, or worse, he was too scared to move.

  “I’m sorry, son,” said Joey. “Sure you’re not in any trouble. Isn’t your old dad just a bit touchy this weather. The heat’s a grand thing, so it is, but isn’t it terrible for fraying the old temper.”

  “It’s okay,” said Marti. Joey smiled and roughed the boy’s hair with his hand. God, he was a grand lad. Maybe they weren’t doing such a bad job with him after all.

  “Dad?”

  “Yes, son.”

  “Will you and Mam fight today?”

  Holy Mother of God. Joey always heard a voice say Holy Mother of God at moments like this. It was the voice of no distinct person but a voice with a familiar burr of age and wisdom and it always made him think solemnly.

  “Marti, why would you say that to me?”

  “Mam has the Black Dog.”

  Holy Mother of God – there it was again – this boy’s too old for his eight years, he thought. Hasn’t he seen far too much, the Black Dog indeed! Was his wife’s problem as obvious to the boy now as it was to himself? Jaysus, it was a sad state of affairs entirely.

  They had tried the lot for Shauna over the years, tried it all to get rid of the problem. Doctors. Medicine. Therapists. And more doctors and more medicine and more therapists. Nothing ever worked for her. It was like she wanted the Black Dog. Hadn’t she once even stopped with all the treatments because she said she felt more like herself with the depression. Wasn’t it a desperate state of affairs, he thought.

  “So, it’s the Black Dog back?”

  “She was at the bubbling with the tears again – all night. Will you and Mam fight? You always fight when she has the Black Dog and aren’t you taking time off from working and earning our keep again?” Marti started to cry, and then he hid his face.

  “Whoa-whoa-whoa there, sonny boy, sure there’s no nee
d for the waterworks going on.” The boy’s tears were a saddener for sure. Joey could hardly watch. He thought there could be nothing worse in the entire world, nothing could ever be worse than watching his son in a state like this. And wasn’t it all for no good reason. He knew Marti shouldn’t be bothering himself with the likes of this.

  His own father, the grand Emmet Driscol, would have beat him as black as a mourning coach for starting with the tears, but Joey was determined to be a better father to his son. He could still see Emmet, could feel his presence. At moments like this he was a boy again himself. He remembered his father, at the height of his hurling days, always close to rage, and closer yet to the whiskey.

  Once his father had returned from Molloy’s pub in the middle of the night roaring the house down. The baby Clancy cried in his mother’s arms but the rest of the children stayed where they were, quiet in their beds. Joey could still remember the noise of his father’s roars that night when he called out his name and demanded he raise himself. There was the noise of furniture being moved about, knocked over, and the sound of his father’s heavy boots and curses chasing round the house. When Joey presented himself, his father was on the floor, his face scarlet, his hair wet to his brow. There was scarcely a stick of furniture or picture on the walls that wasn’t disturbed, and then Joey saw the cause of it flash before him like a ghost.

  His father had been given another gift by one of the men in Molloy’s. He was always being given things. It was a great advertisement to say the mighty Emmet Driscol was a fan of your tyres or your shoes or your bacon. This time the gift was a lively piglet that had come home with a rope round its neck but was none too happy to see it tightened.

  Joey was told to make a grab for the piglet but there was no need, for didn’t it jump into his arms the moment it saw him. The rope had been wrapped round its little snout and when Joey loosened it, there were great breaths taken after its exertions. Emmet got to his feet with a struggle, knocking a lampshade about face and said, “Grand, grand. Now follow me. We have a job of work to be done.”

  Joey followed his father into the kitchen, where he watched as Emmet steadied himself over the sink then reached for his razor strop. The sight of the strop being taken made Joey’s heart gallop but not for himself – he had felt its lashes too many times. He wondered what his father had planned now for the piglet. The little creature seemed to sense it too and squirmed in Joey’s arms.

  “Hold that bastard steady,” said his father.

  “What’ll ye do? What’ll ye do to it?”

  “I’ll cut its throat, what d’ye think?” He grabbed the piglet and hung it over the sink by its back legs. It struggled and squealed and his father had to use both hands to keep from losing it again. All the while the piglet looked at Joey with great black eyes, staring. He remembered them still.

  “Joey, get my razor. Ye will have to do it.”

  “No.”

  “What d’ye mean ‘no’? Ye will do it. The razor now. Cut this bastard’s throat before it has me on my back.”

  Joey looked at the piglet, upturned and struggling in his father’s great hands. The black eyes pleaded again when he took down the razor and then there was an almighty struggle as though the piglet knew it was on its own. The squeals were the sound of terror and Joey could feel them reaching into him.

  “Cut its throat, hear me. Cut it, cut it, now!”

  Joey stood with his father’s razor in his hand. He was motionless, he couldn’t move. He knew he was disobeying and he knew what that meant, but he couldn’t harm the animal, and then the razor slipped to the floor. There was a sharp pain in the front of Joey’s head when the razor fell and he realised he had been struck by his father. He lay on the floor beside the razor and when he saw his father reach for it he was filled with panic.

  As Joey got up he could feel the cold flap of skin where his father’s knuckle had struck the bone. There was blood running from his head, going into his eyes and into his mouth. He felt no pain as he watched his father run the open steel across the piglet’s throat. The squealing reached a higher pitch for a second and then blood choked its mouth and spilled over its flesh into the sink.

  Joey watched the blood pour from the dying animal. Its black eyes were still staring into the heart of him, and when he watched the blood flowing he felt it was his, like the blood he could taste in his mouth from the wound his father had made.

  “But I took the money. I took the money from Mam,” said Marti. He was still crying.

  “What money?”

  “Ten dollars. I took it out her purse. I had no lunchbox today and I took the money and spent it on choco.”

  “Is that what made ye crook, Marti? Did ye stuff yourself on chocolate?”

  He nodded. The boy was in a fine state now, thought Joey. Robbing money was a cry for help if ever there was one. Bloody Shauna and her Black Dog. It was time she pulled herself together before she was after wrecking the boy entirely. He felt a cool line of sweat run down his back and he shook his head. “You fended for yourself like a good boy, son. I think the ten dollars can be our little secret, what do you say?”

  Marti nodded. His eyes were drying now. Joey roughed up his hair again. He’d had a tough time of it. A telling off was only going to make matters worse. “Are ye okay now?” Marti nodded again, and Joey took a deep breath from the hot air that was all around them.

  “Dad, I wish there was no Black Dog and no fights.”

  “Ah now, wouldn’t that be grand,” said Joey. Wasn’t there no end to the ways this boy could make him smile.

  “Did Mam always have the Black Dog?”

  “No, Marti, there was a time when she had no Black Dog at all.”

  “When?” he said, and turned quickly to hear the answer.

  “A long time ago.”

  “A long time ago before I was born?”

  “That’s right.”

  “In Ireland?”

  “Yes, in Ireland.”

  Marti turned away again and Joey wondered what was going through the boy’s mind this time, but he was too scared to ask. It could be anything at all, he thought. Wasn’t the boy just full of surprises.

  When they arrived home the purse was still sitting on the counter in the kitchen. Marti looked at it for a long time, and then Joey put his hand in his pocket and took out a ten dollar bill. “Here, put that in there, Marti, and no one will be any the wiser.”

  The boy took the money and placed it gently in the purse, then stepped back from the counter. “Dad,” he said.

  “What is it, son?”

  “I think, I think I’m feeling a bit crook again.”

  “Well maybe bed’s the best place for you. Away and have a bit of a rest.”

  Marti went through the kitchen door and Joey watched his little frame trudge down the hall. Jaysus, am I all he has now? The poor boy, the bloody poor boy. Marti turned into his bedroom with his head bowed down and Joey felt his throat tighten. “It’s like the weight of the world he’s carrying on them shoulders,” he whispered.

  Joey felt the pain of failure. Marti was his son, the one pure and good thing in his life. He could forget about the rest, about Ireland and the past and the fights, but Marti was different. The boy had to be kept safe from harm. Wasn’t that a father’s duty?

  He lit a cigarette. He knew he was in no mind for Shauna now, hadn’t all this been her fault, and then she appeared in front of him, dressed in her nightclothes, her thick hair stuck to her face on one side where she had slept on it. She looked messed up. She was nothing like the girl who turned heads back in Kilmora.

  “Is he home, Joey?” she said, putting an ear to Marti’s bedroom door.

  He nodded and folded his arms and then he unfolded them quickly. “Will ye leave him be, sure the boy’s crook.”

  “Is he all right? Should I go in?”

  “No, will you get away from that door.”

  Shauna started to curl her lip, and then raised her hand over her eyes to sto
p the tears that were coming.

  “Go way outta that, will ye,” said Joey.

  “Is he okay?”

  “What do you care?” He grabbed Shauna’s arm and led her away from Marti’s room and into the kitchen, closing the door behind them. “It’s a sin that boy had to leave this house on an empty stomach this morning. Ye obviously expected him to beg in the street for a feed like some class of knacker.”

  Shauna’s eyes started to fill with tears. Joey shook his head. It was all a holy show. Wasn’t it a funny thing entirely, verging on the miraculous even, how she could produce herself at this hour, fresh as a daisy after half the day in bed and after leaving himself to collect a sick boy from the school.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Isn’t it a bit late in the day to be sorry? It’s that boy of yours you should be saying sorry to when every child from here to the black stump knows it’s a mother that should be there for them in time of illness,” he said. “It’s about time ye pulled yourself together … for the boy.”

  Shauna opened her mouth like she had just taken a shock and then she took a deep breath. She looked like she was about to make a charge. “Is that your considered opinion then?” She leaned forward, poking a finger in Joey’s chest. “Well, it might be easy for you to say. It doesn’t make it easy in the real world when you have the burden of all burdens to carry around on your own two shoulders.”

  “The real world, is it now?” He was having none of it. “I’ll tell you what the real world is, shall I? The real world is what goes on out there when you’re lying in your pit feeling sorry for yourself.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know, would I?”

  “No, probably not … sure wouldn’t that take eyes in your head and yours are shut most of the time.”

  “Well, that’s rich. At least my eyes are only shut when I’m asleep!”