The Street and other stories
Page 8
They were sitting together in the living room watching the football on television. It was the Saturday after the big row. In the two days since then barely a word had passed between them. Mary was out shopping. On her way out she had whispered to Jimmy as he stood in the hallway waiting to lock the front door after her, “Now’s the time for you and Sean to have a wee yarn.”
Jimmy knew she was right. He had always been able to talk to his children. He and Sean had actually enjoyed a special relationship, mostly, as Mary said, because he gave Sean the time he hadn’t been able to give the others. They had got on great until about nine months ago. Since then, Jimmy smiled wryly to himself, it had been a murder picture.
He glanced across at Sean. “H’y doing, son?”
“I’m all right.”
“Sean, son, it’s about time we had a wee yarn. I’ve been…”
“It’s a bit late to be thinking about a wee yarn now, Da, isn’t it?” Sean interrupted him gruffly.
“What do y’mean?” Jimmy was just as gruff.
They looked directly at one another.
“Look, Sean,” Jimmy said, “I only want us to talk. Now, if you don’t want to talk that’s fair enough. But we’ll have to talk sometime. We can’t go on not talking or bawling at one another all the time. So it’s up to you. I’m not going to coax you and I’m certainly not going to fight with you. This is my day off and I’ve better things to do. So what do you say?”
“Okay,” Sean conceded sullenly, “we’ll talk.”
“You’ll have to do better than that,” Jimmy smiled patiently. “Let’s start by making friends.” He reached his hand out to Sean, who hesitated only for an instant before grasping his father’s hand in a warm, firm handshake. They both smiled.
“That’s better,” Jimmy smiled. “Do you fancy a cup of tea?”
“Aye, Da, I don’t mind if I do. Like, you don’t have to go ´.”
“I’ll tell you what, Sean. Do you see, every boy…” Jimmy paused for a minute as he concentrated on squeezing the last drop of brown moisture from the teabags.
“There you are.” He pushed a cup over to Sean. They were standing in the kitchen. Sean was buttering toast. He put a few slices on a plate for his father and they adjourned again to the living room.
“Where was I?” Jimmy asked him through a mouthful of hot toast.
“You were about to give me one of your fatherly talks,” Sean said. “You’d do it with a bit more dignity if you hadn’t a big blob of butter dribbling down your chin. Will I get you a bib?” he laughed.
“Somebody swallowed a dictionary. Dignity? That’s a new word for you.”
Jimmy wiped his chin and waited until his son’s laughter ceased.
“What I was about to say was that every boy goes through certain phases with his father. Phase number one is when his father is a hero. He can do no wrong. No other boy’s father is half as good as yours. He can outrun, outthink and beat just everybody else at everything. You know what I mean?”
Jimmy smiled at Sean a little self-consciously.
“You know, like, up to the time when you start school and for a few years after that.”
Sean shifted in his seat.
“Well,” his father continued as he finished off the last of the toast, “as I said, that’s phase number one. Phase number two comes much later. That’s when every boy wonders how he could have been cursed with such an awful da. That happens to every boy also. You know what I mean. Your da picks on you all the time. He embarrasses you in front of your friends. He thinks he knows everything and that you know nothing. He treats you like a child. Well, that’s the second phase. Phase number three? Phase number three is the last phase. That’s when the boy becomes a man and realises that his da is just the same as him.”
Jimmy handed his empty cup to Sean.
“That’s the three phases, son,” he concluded. “And now that we’re muckers again, do you think you could get your oul’ lad a wee taste of tea and another round of that toast, seeing as you ate the most of it.”
Sean grinned as he took the cup.
“No problem, Da,” he said. “No problem.”
Mary knew that things would be back to normal again when she returned home. Her only worry was that Sean wouldn’t give Jimmy the chance to talk to him, but she thought that was unlikely. The way the two of them were behaving after two days of not talking, it was only a matter of someone breaking the ice, and she was sure Jimmy would do that. For all their annoyance at each other Mary knew none of them enjoyed the breakdown in their relationship.
Sean met her in the hall and took the trio of bulging plastic shopping bags from her.
“All right, Ma?” he said. “I hope you’ve something nice there for me; me da’s ate all the bread and I’m starving.”
“Is that right, son?” Despite her optimism, she conceded a wee sigh of relief.
She followed Sean into the kitchen where his father was busily washing the dishes.
“Ah, Mary,” he greeted her, “just in time to make us a big fry.”
“Bloody men!” she answered good-humouredly. “I suppose youse would’ve starved if I hadn’t come back. What would youse do if I ran away?”
Later, as all three of them bustled about the kitchen preparing the meal, she turned to Jimmy.
“I suppose you think you’re great now that you and your son are talking again,” she said quietly.
“Indeed I do,” he grinned.
“So do I,” she agreed.
That’s the way it was for about a fortnight. All peace and harmony. Then one Wednesday evening when Jimmy came in the door from work, Sean rushed past him in the hall and charged upstairs. When he came back down Jimmy was seated at the fire with his dinner on a tray on his knee.
“You’re like a herd of elephants going up the stairs,” he said.
“She left my jeans up there,” Sean replied sulkily, making his way past his father to the kitchen. He had his jeans in his hand.
“Who’s ‘she’?” Jimmy asked.
There was no reply. Sean had gone on into the kitchen and didn’t hear his father.
“Who’s ‘she’?” Jimmy asked again, louder and with an edge to his voice. Silence. He put his tray on the floor in front of him.
“Sean!” he yelled. Still no response. The kitchen door opened. Jimmy, halfway out of his chair, could hear Sean and his mother talking in the kitchen.
“Sean!” he yelled.
“What on earth’s the matter?” Mary’s tone was annoyed. That irritated Jimmy even more.
“I was talking to him and he walked right past me,” he snapped. “Sean.”
“What, Da?” Sean’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.
“Don’t ‘what-Da’me.” Jimmy was on his feet. “Who’s ‘she’?” he confronted Sean.
“What?”
“Don’t ‘what’ me, Sean. I’m not an eejit. Who’s ‘she’? Is that any way to talk to your mother?”
“I don’t know what you’re on about,” said Sean.
“Don’t mess with me, Sean,” Jimmy yelled at him.
Sean exploded.
“Don’t mess with you! You’re the one that’s doing all the messing. I’m sick of this.” He turned to his mother. “I’m sick of this, Ma! He’s never off my back.”
Jimmy was almost beside himself with rage now.
“Who’s ‘she’?” he roared. “You need to be taught a bit of respect.”
“I’m trying to go out, Da,” Sean roared back. “You…”
“You’ll go out when I tell you and not before,” his father interrupted.
“Is that right,” Sean shouted. “Well then, I’ll not go out at all! I’m away up the stairs, Ma.” He brushed past his father.
“Sean!” Jimmy commanded.
Sean ignored him and rushed from the room, slamming the door in his wake.
“Jesus, give me patience!” Jimmy cried.
He sat back heavily in his seat. His dinner, growin
g cold on the tray, lay ignored at his feet. He looked up at Mary.
“Take it easy, Jimmy,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t take much more of this. You want to watch your temper,” she concluded as she, too, left the room.
Upstairs she confronted Sean.
“Go you down the stairs this minute and apologise to your father.”
“Why should I apologise to him?” Sean was lying on his bed. She could see he had been crying. He looked at her indignantly as he spoke.
“Because I said so,” Mary heard herself say. The words were out of her before she realised it, words she had heard so often from her own parents, words she had promised herself she would never use to her own children. Now having said them she was committed. “Sean. I’m not going to let this go on a minute longer.”
“You always take his side.”
“Sean, I’m not putting up with any of your oul’ nonsense. Get up, wash your face and don’t take all night about it, and then go down and see your da.”
She paused for a minute. Sean sat up and edged to the side of the bed. She tousled his hair with her hand.
“Come on,” she coaxed him. “You and your da shouldn’t be fighting. Go and see him before things get worse, and then when you’ve made the peace, go on out like you planned. Okay?”
Sean started to protest.
“Sean, please,” she silenced him. “Do it for me. Please.”
Sean rolled his eyes and sighed resignedly. “Okay, Ma.”
“Good boy,” she said.
Downstairs she faced her husband. He looked at her sullenly.
“Jimmy, Sean’s sorry about losin’ his temper. He’s coming down now to talk to you. Try and be patient. He was rushing to go out. Let him make peace and go on out.”
“Mary, I’m only in after working hard all day. He can’t…” Jimmy started to protest.
“Jimmy, please,” she silenced him. “Do it for me. Please.”
Jimmy looked at her for a long, silent minute.
“Please,” she repeated.
“Okay, love.”
“Give’s your dinner,” she said. “I’ll heat it up for you. Here he comes now. Take it easy, won’t you?” She smiled anxiously at him.
“Okay.” Despite himself he smiled back at her. “Don’t worry.”
“Thanks, love.”
She took the tray from him and as she did she touched him lightly on the cheek. She headed for the kitchen as Sean’s footsteps were heard on the stairs. He walked hesitantly into the living room to his father.
“I’m sorry, Da,” he said.
Jimmy stared at him for an instant.
“I don’t know what gets into you, son.”
“I said I’m sorry, Da,” Sean repeated uncomfortably.
Jimmy got up slowly from his seat. He offered Sean his hand.
“Okay, son,” he said. “We’ll let it go for tonight.”
Sean took his father’s hand.
“I am sorry, Da,” he repeated.
“Dead on, Sean,” Jimmy forgave him. “Let it go. I was a bit under pressure myself.”
The tension between them was broken.
“We’ll have to stop fighting, son.”
“I know, Da. I’m going to go on out. Is that all right?”
“No problem. By the way, son,” Jimmy was teasing, “what was wrong with you? Is your love life not going right?”
Sean had turned to go. With his hand on the doorknob he paused and looked back at Jimmy.
“No, da. My love life’s dead on. I’m just going through phase two.”
Does He Take Sugar?
Tom MacAuley, youngest son of Martha and Joe MacAuley, was nineteen years old. Joe worked in the office of a Derry shirt factory and he, Martha and Tom lived not far from the Strand Road.
Tom, who had Down’s syndrome, had been born ten years after his four brothers and three sisters, and when they had all left home to get married or to seek work abroad, Tom had remained to become the centre of his parents’ lives. Already in her late forties when Tom had been born, Martha’s health was starting to fail by the time he had reached his teens. But when he wasn’t at school Tom rarely left his mother’s side.
“Poor Mrs MacAuley,” the neighbours would say when she and young Tom passed by. “She never gets a minute to herself. That young Tom is a handful, God look to him. Morning, noon and night he’s always with his mother. She never gets a break.”
Tom attended a special school, and when he was sixteen, the year his father retired from the shirt factory, he graduated to a special project at a day centre on Northland Road. A bus collected him each morning at the corner and brought him back each evening. His father escorted him to the bus and was there again in the evening faithfully awaiting his return.
Tom loved the day centre. He called it work and it was work of a sort; each week he was paid £3.52 for framing pictures. He also had many new friends and was constantly falling in and out of love with a number of girls who worked with him. Geraldine was his special favourite, but he was forced to admire her from afar; she never gave any indication that she was even aware of his existence. His relationships with the others never really flourished, but at least with them he wasn’t as invisible as he was with Geraldine. He could enjoy their company, and one of them, Margaret Begley, wasn’t a bit backward about letting him know that she had a crush on him. Tom gave her no encouragement: his heart was with Geraldine. Anyway, he was too shy for Margaret’s extrovert ways.
Tom’s parents knew nothing of all his feelings towards the girls, but they knew that the work was good for him. At times he would return home excited or annoyed by something which had occurred at the day centre, and when this happened Martha knew the instant she saw him. When he was excited, perhaps from having had a trip to the pictures or when his supervisor praised his work in front of everyone, he radiated happiness. When he was annoyed, he stammered furiously.
On these occasions he rarely volunteered information, and Martha and Joe soon learned that it was useless to question him. Under interrogation he would remain stubbornly noncommittal and if pressed he became resentful and agitated. Left to his own devices, though, he would reveal, in his own time, usually by his own series of questions, the source of his discontent. Tom’s questions followed a pattern.
“MMMM Ma,” he would say, “DDD Does Mick Mick Mickey BBBBradley know how how how to dddddrive a cacaacar?”
“No, son, Mickey wouldn’t be allowed to drive a car.”
“Hhhhehe says he cacacan.”
“He’s keeping you going, Tom.”
“If we had a cacacar could I drdrdrive it?”
“Of course,” Martha would smile. “Your daddy would teach you.”
“Right,” Tom would say, and that would be that.
Work gave Tom a small but important measure of independence,
and his experiences at work rarely impinged on his home life. Martha and Joe’s relationship with him remained largely as it had been before. They still never permitted him to go off alone, except in his own street. Tom didn’t seem to mind. He collected postcards. When he was at home he spent most of his time counting and recounting, sorting and resorting his collection in scrapbooks and old shoeboxes and writing down their serial numbers in jotters which his father bought him.
He also did small chores around the house. It was his job to keep the coal bucket filled and he always cleared the table after dinner. Occasionally he helped with the dishes and he fetched dusters and polish or things like that for his mother when she did her cleaning. Most mornings he also collected the paper in the corner shop while his mother prepared the breakfast. Seamus Hughes, the shopkeeper, always delighted him with his greeting.
“Ah, Tom, you’ll be wanting to catch up on the news. Here’s your paper.”
Tom would be especially happy if there was anyone else in the shop to hear Seamus’s remarks. He would beam with pleasure and mumble his red-faced and affirmative response.
At Christmas there was a pantomime at Tom’s work. Tom had a small part as Aladdin’s servant. All the parents and families along with various agencies and local dignitaries were invited to the centre for an open night. Samples of handicrafts were on display and photographs of their projects adorned the walls. On the night of the performance when the audience were milling around in the main corridor sipping tea and lemonade while they waited for the show to start in the main hall, one of Tom’s workmates, a young man from the Brandywell called Hughie, suddenly started yelling and bawling.
At first everyone just looked away and pretended that nothing was amiss, but as Hughie’s parents failed to pacify him the commotion increased. One of the supervisors intervened, but that only seemed to make Hughie worse. Apparently this was the first year that Hughie had not had a part in the pantomime. When rehearsals had begun earlier in the year he had insisted that he didn’t want a part. Now when he saw the gathering and the excitement of his friends as they prepared for the evening’s performance and when it was too late for him to do anything, he had changed his mind. He wanted to be in the pantomime and nothing would satisfy him except that.
His parents were distracted, and as Hughie continued his bad-tempered hysterics their consternation spread to the audience. Some of the pantomime players came from the big hall, where they were nervously finalising last-minute arrangements, to see what the racket was about. Tom was among them, dressed in an oriental-type outfit made by his mother from old curtains and an old dressing gown.