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

by Tony Black

  Joey felt a wince. He sensed the eyes on him already, but when he turned his head he saw it was only Jono watching him. The boy was crouched over; his face was in his hands again. Joey knew he was upset at the sight of his best friend’s home being roped and dragged away.

  “Howya, Jono,” he said.

  “Hello, Mr Driscol.”

  “That’s the house off then.”

  “I guess.” It was like something a kid in a movie would say, thought Joey.

  “We’ll both miss it, I think.”

  Jono looked up, but said nothing. Joey thought the boy was checking his expression for honesty or sarcasm, but he seemed to have passed the test.

  “Jono, I know you’re missing Marti,” he said. “Sure, we all are, but it does ye no good to be sad. You have to brighten up, have a play. There’s lots of boys your age about here.”

  Jono looked up again. Joey recognised it was the same expression on him. “I have something for you. Do you like the comics?” he said.

  “The super-hero comics?” said Jono.

  “Yes.”

  “Superman?”

  “Eh, no, Silver Surfer, I think.” Joey handed him the comic and the biggest choco bar he had found in the shops. “Here ye go. Let’s see a wee smile, eh?”

  Jono took the comic and the choco bar and gave Joey a smile. It was the weakest smile he thought he’d ever seen in his life. The trailer was well down the road now and could hardly be heard anymore, but they watched together until it had disappeared into the distance. Joey wondered where the house would end up next, who would live there and if they would be sadder than him when they had to pack it off. He knew there had been precious few good memories in the house of late. He could only think of the fights with Shauna and the times he got back to find the curtains closed and the air thick with the Black Dog’s presence. He ached inside. Was this how she felt? Was this what the Black Dog felt like? Was this what she wanted: to make him hurt too?

  “Bluey, mate. C’mon, the blokes have got a bit of a farewell planned for you down at The Bushman,” said Macca.

  “A bit of a do, eh?”

  “It’s not much.”

  “It sounds grand, Macca. Just grand.”

  The Bushman pub was packed with men from the transport section and men from the mines. There were even some of the girls from the wages office and every worker’s wife had brought in a tray full of pies or little sausages or sandwiches or cakes. Joey felt overwhelmed. He felt he deserved none of it, but wasn’t that just the mood of him, he thought. He knew he couldn’t feel as bad as Shauna – if he could work that out for himself – but realising it was no victory when she was the one with Marti.

  “I was sorry to hear about, you know,” said a woman with a floppy lilac bow in her hair. She was one of the miners’ wives.

  “Thank you,” said Joey. Jaysus, he thought, wasn’t everyone sorry. He didn’t want sympathy. He’d lavished enough of that on himself already.

  “It’s so, so sad, isn’t it?” she said.

  “Tis,” said Joey. She’d had a good drink, he thought, didn’t know what she was saying.

  “You must miss him … your boy.”

  “I do,” he said. For Chrissakes, woman, would you leave me be, he thought. She was talking like Marti was dead. He wanted to scream at her, he’s not dead, he’s not dead, this is temporary. A temporary affair and no more. Sure, wouldn’t he have the boy back in no time at all, wasn’t that the plan anyway.

  “I don’t know what I’d do if one of my children was snatched like that, but still, he’s with the mother, that’s not so bad, is it?” She poured out a large glass of cold beer for herself. Beer, now there was a thing not touched in a while, he thought. Could he possibly handle this pain in the arse and all the sympathy with a beer in him?

  “Will you pour a glass for myself?” he said.

  The woman tried to pour another glass of beer and the liquid frothed up and over the sides. “Oops,” she said with a giggle, and then her floppy lilac bow slipped over her eyes.

  Joey smiled and tried not to laugh. “Here, let me.”

  The first beer he took went down smooth and fast and he remembered how much he liked the taste. The second beer he poured went down even faster and then he remembered the effect was the thing he really enjoyed. Beer followed beer and Joey soon found he was forgetting about Marti and Shauna and the house vanishing off into the distance forever. It had been a long time between drinks, he thought, but wouldn’t he make up the time now. He could hardly remember a drink ever tasting better and wasn’t it a mighty hit he was getting. It never worked like that in the past.

  “Bluey, what are you doing?” said Macca.

  “I’m enjoying the wonderful hospitality of my good Aussie mates,” said Joey, “and Jaysus, is it not grand. Are these your wife’s pies? They’re grand pies, Macca, just grand.”

  “Good on you, Bluey, you deserve a few beers. Just don’t do yourself any harm, mate. You know we all want to look out for you.”

  “That I do, that I do, and sure my days of soaking it up are long by. I might fall back occasionally but – but – I am a far cry from the soak I once was.” Joey held onto Macca’s shoulder for support. “They knew me as a rare soak in the old country, Macca.”

  “Did they, mate?”

  “That they did. Now wouldn’t that be a thing, if I were to roll back there soaked the gills through. Christ, the tongues in Kilmora would have something to wag about then, would they not?”

  “Bluey, have you somewhere to go when you get there?”

  “No.”

  “Nowhere? What about family?”

  “No words have passed between us these last ten years now.”

  “Jeez, sounds like you’ve some fences to mend there, Bluey.”

  “Not a chance. Hell would have to freeze over first!”

  Macca shifted Joey’s arm to his other shoulder. “Look, Bluey, mate. The blokes had a bit of a whip-round. We’ve … well, here it is.” He handed over a little package. It was wrapped in tissue paper with a ribbon. The tag read: Good Luck, Bluey. Joey opened it up. Inside was a boomerang and a plane ticket. He read the flight details that told him he was leaving the next day, for Ireland.

  “You gotta take the boomerang with you, mate, to make sure you come back,” said Macca.

  “I don’t know what to say. This is too much.”

  “Thanks would be a start.”

  “Oh Jaysus, thanks, Macca.” Joey held up the boomerang for everyone to see. “Thanks, fellas. I don’t know how to thank you all.”

  “Try getting a bloody shout in,” said Pando the Greek, and the room laughed and cheered with Joey.

  Cold beer was shifted about in big pitchers and the bar and tabletops started to fill with glasses, empty and full. People moved in lurches and bounds to greet newcomers, fresh from the street and with no idea a farewell party was in full swing. There was dancing and singing and jokes and stories told, even some by Joey. Nobody seemed to give a thought to the time or how much the drink was flowing and soon even the people fresh from the street were dancing and singing.

  “Tis a grand hooley, Macca,” said Joey.

  “We know how to send off a mate, Bluey. Bloody oath, we do.”

  Joey slapped Macca on the back and said thanks again but he could tell Macca’s attention was drawn off to the bar. An Aboriginal family had come in, a tall black fella and a woman carrying pots and three young children. They were all barefoot. The family stood silently, their mouths closed. They were covered in dust and thirsty. They looked to all like they had just walked in from the bush.

  “They want their pots filled, Macca,” said Joey.

  “I know, I know.” Macca put down his beer and walked over to the family. The barman told them he wouldn’t fill the pots and there was a crowd of men poking and prodding at the black fella, telling him to go back out the door he came in.

  “Fair go, blokes,” said Macca. “Let him have his water. It’s
dry as dust out there.”

  Joey didn’t recognise any of the men in the crowd. They weren’t from the transport section for sure. They were all bush pigs. He didn’t like the way they were poking at the black fella and he didn’t like the way they were looking at Macca. The children were frightened. Wasn’t their father only trying to do his best for them. It was too much for Joey to bear. He drained his glass and strode to the scene at the bar with his shoulders back.

  “Here, mate, give me your pot.” He took the black fella’s pot and then he jumped over the bar to fill it from the tap. “See, simple as that,” he said. “Isn’t there more than enough to go around. Now another pot I think.”

  The black fella smiled, showing a row of great white teeth. He took the pot full of water from Joey and then he handed over another one.

  “That’s the way, Bluey,” said Macca.

  “The way it is,” said Joey, and he smiled at the crowd of men but there were no smiles back. “There, another one full for ye, mate,” said Joey when the second pot was passed over, and then one of the bush pigs grabbed it and tipped the water over Joey’s head.

  “You feckir,” shouted Joey. He went to jump back over the bar but the pot was already being swung at him and crashed across his ear. There was a loud crack came from the side of his head where the pot hit and then he fell back and landed behind the bar in a loud crash of breaking glass.

  10

  Aunt Catrin said there was room enough for Mam and Marti in the house now the lousy feck was gone and wouldn’t be back. Mam said she was terrible sorry for the way things had turned out, but Marti wasn’t sorry because he was glad to be out the caravan, which was very cold entirely.

  It was lovely and warm inside the house with the big fire going and there was bread for toasting on the fire if you couldn’t take it a bit hard, or there was porridge instead, said Aunt Catrin. Mam said she would take the porridge because there had been no porridge in Australia, only oatmeal, which wasn’t the same thing at all, and Marti said he would have the bread for toasting.

  “I don’t want you going overboard with the butter,” whispered Mam when Aunt Catrin went to get their breakfast. “Sure, doesn’t she put it on with a razor and take it off with a feather … and she can have a savage tongue in her when she thinks she’s seeing waste at her table, so you clear your plate too.”

  Marti wanted to know why Aunt Catrin would use a feather in the butter and Mam got really mad and said, “Don’t you be making a holy show of me. You’ll mind yourself, do you hear?”

  Marti nodded and then Aunt Catrin called out to him from the kitchen. She said she couldn’t get over the accent on him but she would bet a pound to a pail of shale he’d be talking like a regular once they got him down to the school.

  “What school?” said Marti. He didn’t care about the feather in the butter anymore when Aunt Catrin said about the school.

  “The school, Saint Joseph’s. You didn’t think your mam was going to keep you home every day, did you? There’ll be the school for you soon enough. Where would you be without the schooling? You need to learn about the maths and the life of Our Lord. Ah sure the brothers will do a grand job.”

  Marti started to get the lump in the throat when Aunt Catrin talked about the school because he could only think about his school in Australia and Jono, who was his best friend. He had tried not to think about Australia and Jono and Dad because Mam had said the second he stopped the thinking about them then the lump in the throat would go away. It was very hard not to think about them, especially Dad, who was forever coming into his head. Marti was always seeing pictures of Dad, telling him the funny stories and making the green flower thing dance, just for him.

  “Marti, would you ever make yourself useful,” said Aunt Catrin, “and get that porridge out the drawer there for your mam?”

  There was a dresser with four big drawers and the top drawer was just a little bit shorter than Marti. “Aunt Catrin, who’s the brothers?” he said. The drawer was very stiff to open and Marti pulled and tugged very hard and even tried to waggle the drawer about, but it wouldn’t open.

  “The brothers are the brothers. Here, lookit,” said Aunt Catrin, and put her hands under the drawer. There was a thick layer of hard, grey porridge in the drawer that was filled all the way up to the top. Aunt Catrin put in a knife and cut out a slice. “There now, wasn’t that just a perfect slice of porridge there? I think I’ll have a slice m’self. Will ye have a slice?”

  “No thanks,” said Marti, and started shaking his head. “Who’s the brothers, Aunt Catrin?”

  “The brothers teach at the school – don’t ye like porridge?”

  “Do you cook it in a drawer?”

  “Ah Jaypers, no ye don’t cook it in there. That’s where you put it to set. Sure a drawer is the best place for a slab of porridge. Keeps it lovely and cool, and wasn’t it there fine and handy for you in the morning.”

  “I don’t think I’d like it.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said, and pushed the drawer closed with the front of her legs and wiped the handles with her apron. “It’s the brothers are needed to educate the likes of ye, Marti Driscol, and you would have a puck in the gob for frowning at a good slice of porridge in front of them brothers, sure ye would.”

  “They could try, Catrin,” said Mam. She had brought in some letters from the postman and sat them on the table.

  “Are them bills?” said Aunt Catrin. “If them’s bills they can go to the lousy feck.”

  “Catrin, is the brothers still running the boys’ school?” said Mam.

  “They are so.”

  “Ah Jaysus.”

  “What’s the matter with the brothers there, Shauna? Sure the brothers will do a grand job of educating the young fella.”

  “They’ll do a grand job of filling his head full of bigotry and nonsense, you mean.”

  Aunt Catrin widened her mouth like the shape of an egg and told Mam to take that back, but Mam said she never would and then Aunt Catrin touched her head and made the signs that were the cross.

  “Lord forgive ye, Shauna Driscol,” said Aunt Catrin. “Them brothers are a fine and blessed manner of men.”

  “Bollix,” said Mam.

  “Oh Jaypers, Shauna, stop the cursing. You’ll have us knee deep in the filth of Hell.” Marti thought this was a very strange thing to say, but Mam said don’t be worrying your head about the likes, because no son of hers was being raised under the Catholic Faith which had done enough damage to her family already.

  “Shauna Driscol, I don’t believe what I’m hearing. How can ye deprive the boy his religion?” said Aunt Catrin.

  “The boy has no religion. He’s an agnostic, like his mam.”

  “Oh, Lord save us all,” said Aunt Catrin, and her eyes rolled up in her head towards the ceiling.

  Mam got all fidgety after the talk about school and the Catholic Faith and she pushed away her porridge without even taking a taste of it. Marti knew the porridge would be wasted and he wondered would Aunt Catrin be angry because hadn’t Mam said waste put the savage tongue in her, but nobody seemed to care.

  “Right,” said Mam, and the table was shaken when she stood up quickly, “we will settle this school business today. Come with me, Marti.”

  “Where … where are we going?”

  “The brothers. We have to see the brothers.”

  Saint Joseph’s All Boys Catholic School was a very big building, all painted white, with a big white cross on the front. The man who was in charge was Brother Michael, never Father Michael, because father was what you said to a priest and wasn’t his lot different entirely, said Brother Michael. There were lots of boys running around the school and they would all stop running when they saw Brother Michael and say, “Good morning, Brother,” but the brother would only frown.

  Brother Michael was very old and had to sit down a lot because the walking was a terrible, terrible strain on the old legs. Mam said there was no need to be giving them the gran
d tour because wouldn’t the boy find his way around fine, and if he gets lost then he’s a good Irish tongue in his head, which it would be no harm to use. Brother Michael said he would be happy enough showing Brother Aloysius’s classroom, where Marti would be placed, and then they could go back through the main hall where the boys take rosary.

  “Brother there is no need for that,” said Mam.

  “Ah, no, there’s plenty of puff left in these old gills yet,” said Brother Michael, and started the walking again. The corridors were very long and there was coloured glass on the windows with pictures of men and women and sometimes babies. Marti knew the pictures were from the Bible and the man on the cross was Jesus, but he didn’t know the names of the others. There were lots of pictures of a lady in a blue hood with a baby, sometimes with a heart, and sometimes with rays of sunlight all around her. Marti wondered who the lady was and why there were so many pictures of her, but he didn’t want to ask Brother Michael, because he was a teacher and might start talking for a long time about who the lady was.

  “Now, Mrs Driscol,” said Brother Michael, “this here is the main hall where we do the assembly every morning and the games – that’s Brother Declan’s boys now. Ah, and the rosary at the lunchtime like I say – sure aren’t its uses multifarious.”

  Brother Michael smoked cigarettes all the while and blew the smoke off into the air and said wasn’t he just a slave to the craving, so he was. Brother Michael said the cigarettes were a terrible, terrible bad habit but Our Good Lord surely turns a blind eye to the occasional vice, wasn’t that so?

  “Now, Marti, don’t we have all manner of details to be collected for your enrolment,” said Brother Michael, “but sure, I’ll set ye up with a spectator’s seat in there and ye can feast yeer eyes on the athletic largesse of Brother Declan’s boys.”