Unravelling Oliver

by Liz Nugent

  In December 1982, I was pleased to receive an invitation to Oliver’s wedding to a girl called Alice who was illustrating a book he had written. I was happy that he had found both love and a publisher. My mother was ill in hospital at the time, and I couldn’t make it to the wedding. It was a shame. I would have liked to have celebrated his happy day with him.

  Just a few months later, I got an invite to the launch of Oliver’s first book. I was confused at first as the author’s name on the invite was Vincent Dax, but when I rang to query it, the publisher let me know that it was Oliver.

  There were only ten or twelve people there; one was Father Daniel from the school, two or three were his friends from college who I had come across once or twice, and of course his agent, publishing folk, and his new bride, Alice. She was lovely, very warm and gracious. I recall that even though she had illustrated the book, she insisted that it was Oliver’s night and Oliver’s success.

  Oliver was a nervous wreck and immediately I recognized why. He was waiting for his father. The fearful boy so desperate to impress that I recalled from schooldays hadn’t completely disappeared yet. All evening, as people congratulated him and he read passages from the book, Oliver’s eyes swivelled backwards and forwards to the door. I asked him eventually if his father was expected. He gave me a look that said it was none of my business and not up for discussion. Later we had a few drinks in Neary’s and he relaxed a bit. I asked him why he had used a pseudonym. He grew embarrassed, and I guessed that perhaps his father had insisted upon it.

  Since then, I have only seen Oliver a handful of times, but I noticed that when I met him, he seemed increasingly casual and breezy in conversation and almost dismissive of our shared childhood. Finally, he stopped returning my calls and didn’t respond to invitations.

  He popped up on TV sometimes on the review programme or as a pundit on the radio, but it is years since we really knew each other socially.

  When I grew up and met Sheila and we had our little boy Charlie, I often thought about what fatherhood should be. My own father had killed himself with work and was barely a presence in our lives; Sheila’s father was the local GP in Inistioge and by all accounts cared more for his community than his family. Other fathers may be violent alcoholics or too idle to provide for their own. None of us are perfect. I did my best with Charlie, and he is now a fine young man who makes me proud every day. Some men, though, they shouldn’t be fathers; they are not cut out for it.

  10. Oliver

  My earliest memories are confused. A dark room in a Gothic house. I was alone for most of the day, but sometimes an old lady gave me food and was kind. Her name, I think, was Fleur, or perhaps that is just a name I gave her. I remember being told that I must keep myself tidy because my father was coming up to see me, but I accidentally spilled some red juice on my shirt and I wasn’t allowed to see him as a result. Fleur was French, and I think I may have spoken French before I spoke English. She taught me to read a little in both languages. She hugged me sometimes, and called me her pauvre petit cœur. I recall my father came to my room one time and Fleur was nervous. He stared at me and then roughly pulled at me, examining my hair, my teeth. What was he looking for? I cried then, and he shouted at the woman and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

  Fleur told me that my father was getting married to a lady called Judith. I saw her once from the top of the stairs. She was beautiful and very fair. I remember wishing that I could be blond like her. She did not see me and I never spoke to her. I was not allowed to attend the wedding.

  My next memory is of Fleur packing a suitcase for me, and she was pretending to be happy but her eyes were wet. She told me that I was going on a great adventure and that I would have lots of playmates. I was excited, but at the gates of the boarding school I realized that she was not coming with me, and I grabbed her legs and begged her not to leave me there, but a gentle priest lifted me in his arms and distracted me with a toy truck, and when I turned to show it to Fleur, she was gone.

  I was one of the youngest boys in the school, but I settled in well. I was not used to much attention and was mesmerized by the constant bustle of activity. I was not so homesick as the other boys, because, as I now know, one is not sick for home, but for the people in it. I pined a little for Fleur, but not too much. I was not the most popular boy and I was not at the top of the class, but I tried my hardest. I heard from other boys about living with mothers and fathers and siblings, and I came to understand that fathers were often stern and that the only way to appease them was to get good report cards.

  But regardless of how hard I studied and how good my report card was, I failed to win my father’s approval.

  I was not permitted to go home during the holidays and rattled around with the priests for the summer months. Every other year, my father would visit and the priests and I would scrub up in preparation. They were as in awe of him as I was, because it was a diocesan school and my father was in control of the finances. The school depended upon his decisions for funding. I would sit on one side of the headmaster’s desk, and my father would stand behind me, refusing to sit or take tea. I would be as still as I could, but could not stop my hands from buttoning and unbuttoning my shirt cuffs. Father Daniel would tell him that I was doing well, even when I wasn’t. My father would ask to inspect my report cards and enquire about my general health and then he would leave, without touching me or looking in my direction. Father Daniel was embarrassed for me and would try to make a joke of my father’s distance.

  ‘Isn’t he a busy fella, your dad? Eh?’

  It was Father Daniel who told me that I had a younger brother, Philip, born a year after my father and Judith wed. He is blond like his mother. He joined the primary school as a day pupil when I was in the senior boarding school. I watched him grow up in a way, because I could see my father’s house from a window on the top corridor and I had an almost permanent loan of Stanley’s binoculars, with which I spied on my father’s new family. I watched my brother come and go from my father’s house; watched Judith pottering in the garden; watched them all out in the driveway, admiring my father’s new car together. I envied Judith and Philip.

  School sports days were a particular kind of torture. In the first few years, when I thought my father might actually turn up, I tried my hardest in the weeks leading up to the event, rising early and doing extra training. If my father would not acknowledge my academic achievement, I thought perhaps he might be impressed by my athletic prowess. In the early days I won medals and trophies every year, but my father never appeared.

  The other boys’ families would descend upon the school, the mothers dolled up and reeking of perfume so strong that it would make your eyes water, accompanied by the fathers in their highly polished cars. There would be sulking or boisterous siblings, and small babies swaddled in pastel shades and shrieking and tantrums. Significantly, there would be a great deal of hugging and affectionate ruffling of hair and manly handshakes. And after the sporting events, there would be a grand picnic on the lawns, where the families would sit together in huddled groups. Father Daniel did his best to distract me from my isolation on these days, employing me in tasks of ‘great importance’. Even when I did not win a medal, he would single me out for special mention.

  I never gave up hope that my father might one day remember me. In my fantasy, he suddenly realized that he was wrong about me and that I was not a bad boy. He would come to the school and take me home to live with him and tell me that I was a wonderful son.

  And then in my penultimate year at St Finian’s, I was overjoyed finally to see my father arrive in a black Mercedes with Judith by his side. They could have walked, but I think the car was a status symbol that needed to be displayed. They parked up in the lower car park and I ran down the lane towards the car, my heart pounding, barely hoping that my fantasy might become reality. My joy turned to bitter dismay when I saw Philip climb out of the car behind them and I remembered that my father was there for him, for
Philip. My pace slowed and I stopped in the middle of the lane and did not know whether to turn back or not, but it was too late. My father looked up and saw me. He nodded quickly at me and raised his hand, and I thought for a moment that he was summoning me, but in the same instant he looked over at Judith, who just looked startled, and what could have been a wave of acknowledgement revealed itself to be a gesture of dismissal and I knew I was not welcome in their company. For the rest of the day, I feigned illness and retired to the infirmary until the festivities were over.

  The following year, I did not enter any event, pleading exam pressure. I stayed in the study hall for the entire day, trying to block out the sound of the tannoy, the cheering and the laughter. Stanley came in later with a cake his mother had baked especially for me. A giddiness overtook me and I indulged in a food fight with him, tearing the cake apart and flinging fistfuls of jam and sponge at him, at the walls, at the light fittings and the portraits of former masters. We laughed until our sides were sore, but our glee was different. Mine was bordering on hysteria.

  Stanley was a friend, a real friend back then. I knew that I was different from the other children by the time I was in the senior school. They talked of holidays and cousins and fights with their sisters and Christmas presents and politics at the family dinner table. I had nothing to offer in these conversations. I was also marked out by my obvious lack of money. My uniforms came from the school’s lost-and-found office, and I had no money for the tuck shop. There was an unspoken agreement that Father Daniel would provide whatever I needed. I do not know if this was instigated by my father or if it was a simple act of kindness on Father Daniel’s part. I suspect the latter. But a teenage boy often has more wants than needs, and I could not ask Father Daniel for stink bombs or plastic catapults or gobstoppers or dirty magazines.

  Stanley Connolly shared all these things with me and, indeed, Stanley gave me my first glimpse of home life when I went to stay with his family on their farm in Kilkenny. I was surrounded by women for the first time. Stanley’s mother was a widow and he had three sisters. They terrified me. I had hit puberty and was barely in control of my hormones. I was tall and strong for my age and well able to do the farm work, but in the evenings when the family would gather for dinner, the noise and chattering of the girls unnerved me. I felt somewhat as if I had been mistakenly locked into a cage of exotic animals in the zoo.

  They were incredibly kind and generous to me, and I know now that the girls were openly flirting with me. I should have been delighted with the attention, but I felt that the devotion was unwarranted, that any minute they would discover that I was a fraud, that they would realize a boy who did not deserve a mother could not belong in a family, blessed among women. I imagined that, like some unfamiliar species, they might all turn on me. Kill me. Eat me. I do not like cats for the same reason.

  Stanley’s mother constantly fussed over me. She wanted to know what my favourite food was, and my uncultured palate betrayed me because I really only knew meals by the days of the week. Mondays: bacon and cabbage; Tuesdays: sausages and mashed potato; and so on. Eating real butter, home-baked bread and fresh meat and vegetables on unscheduled days made me uncomfortable. In school, we had fish on Fridays and that was my preference. ‘What kind of fish?’ she asked, and I could not tell her, but said that it was white, triangular-shaped and usually about four inches long. Mrs Connolly laughed, but I could see that she was sad for me, and from then on she set about awakening my taste buds, which, while sweet and generous, only made me uneasier. I knew my manners and ate everything that was served, but my stomach was so unused to such richness that sometimes, at night, cramps would keep me awake until the small hours. On one of those nights, I resolved that I would learn about food when I was properly grown up and that I would not be embarrassed again.

  I did not realize the extent of my institutionalization, but I was self-conscious about being the object of their pity, or admiration, or whatever it was, and when my father ordered me to leave, I was almost relieved to do so. Stanley was a witness to my poverty and my isolation, and I think he knew more about my circumstances than I told him. This embarrassed me, so I did not make much of an effort to keep in touch with him when I left that school, not until I got married and had my first success with a book and had the proof that I was not a failure, but by then years had passed and we had little in common beyond the memory of shared catapults.

  Many years ago, I went into town for a meeting with a publicist and I was early. It was a beautiful, warm summer’s day, and I decided to take a walk through St Stephen’s Green. As I passed the children’s playground, I saw Stanley pushing a little boy on a swing. The likeness was extraordinary, though the little boy was not cursed with the facial discolouration of his father. Stanley was older now and there were flecks of grey in his hair, which he still wore in a long fringe in a futile attempt to cover the mark.

  Stanley could not take his eyes off his son, as if he could not believe his luck. He and the boy were in their own world, oblivious to this strange man watching. The boy threw his head back and laughed a hearty cackle as he swung ever higher, and I wanted to be him more than anybody else in the world. Just for a moment, to exult in a father’s love and attention. Then the boy stopped the swing, scuffing his little sandals into the gravel to apply the brakes. He jumped off and ran to a red-haired lady sitting on a bench nearby. Her lipsticked mouth grinned at the boy and she scooped him up into her arms and he buried his face into the soft slope of her neck. I felt only envy.

  I heard a loud cough right behind me, and when I turned to see a park-keeper in a soiled uniform glaring at me, I realized how it must appear – an adult solo male mesmerized by the children’s playground. We both thought of each other as a sick bastard and, incensed, I left immediately, stopping for a swift Jameson in Peter’s Pub to steady my cuff-buttoning hands before my meeting.

  Perhaps I should have had children with Alice, but I knew that any child would only remind me of a small French boy so full of charm and mischief, and long dead. I might even have been a father figure to Alice’s brother Eugene, but something told me that if my father had so strongly disapproved of me, a strong and handsome and successful young man, then Eugene, an overweight mental defective, would have appalled him.

  11. Eugene

  St Catherine’s House

  PATIENT NO: 114

  ANNUAL REPORT: 17/12/1987

  NAME: Eugene O’Reilly

  DATE OF ADMISSION: 22/07/1987

  DOB: 17/05/59

  HEIGHT: 5 foot 8 inches

  WEIGHT: 16 stone 9 lbs

  HAIR: Brown

  EYES: Blue

  MENTAL CAPACITY: Eugene is of limited intellect with an estimated mental age of seven or eight years. He can’t read or write, although he likes to have books in his possession, and needs help dressing himself (buttons, laces). He can feed himself, although he must be watched at mealtimes as he will not stop eating until food is removed from him. Most of the time he can perform his toilet tasks without assistance. He has little interest in television but loves music, although his physical reaction to music can be upsetting to other residents. Eugene is unaware of his own strength and size.

  HISTORY: Eugene O’Reilly was admitted in July of this year by his brother-in-law Oliver Ryan (the author Vincent Dax). Eugene was in good general health, although Nurse Marion reported some bruising to the upper arms and body. These marks were explained by Mr Ryan, who said that Eugene had often to be restrained after episodes of aggression. Mr Ryan very much regretted the incidents that led to these bruises but suggested that he had little choice in the matter, as Eugene was not capable of controlling his temper. Mr Ryan reported that Eugene had become violent and difficult since the death of Eugene’s mother in 1986 and that he could no longer be cared for in the family home, particularly in the light of a recent arson attempt that Mr Ryan insists was malicious. It was notable that there seemed to be some difference of opinion on this issue between Mr Ryan and
his wife, the patient’s sister Alice Ryan. Mr Ryan maintains that his wife is unrealistic about Eugene’s abilities and propensity to violent outbursts.

  ASSESSMENT: In adults with the type of moderate to severe learning difficulties Eugene presents, violence and aggression are unusual, but clearly Mr Ryan was correct in his assessment of Eugene, as he has displayed extreme aggression in his objection to being left in our care, and unfortunately two of our porters were required to take Eugene to the lockdown unit after Mr Ryan left. Eugene has had great difficulty settling into St Catherine’s and has caused major disruption among other residents. In particular, he attempts to pick up other residents while they are seated, running the length of corridors, holding them high above his head within their chairs. While this may be a source of amusement to some residents, to others it is terrifying and we cannot allow the health and safety of any of our patients to be jeopardized. Eugene has been reprimanded for this activity on several occasions and has reacted belligerently when physically restrained. Although we are reluctant to medicate Eugene to subdue his boisterous nature, it has become our only option.

  Eugene is highly verbal at times, and at other times almost totally silent. Mr Ryan warned us that Eugene could not be depended upon for veracity, and indeed we have found that Eugene seems often to inhabit a world of fantasy in which he imagines that he is a prince of a magical kingdom. Through trial and error, we have learned that it is best to leave Eugene to his own devices.

  In his first two months here, Eugene’s sister visited him almost every day, but her visible upset at leaving Eugene communicated itself to him and I took the decision to write to Mr Ryan to ask him to confine his wife’s visits to just once a week. Mrs Ryan cannot be dissuaded from bringing with her home-baked cakes and confectionery, which I think best to confiscate for the good of Eugene’s health.