Flood

by James Heneghan

  The mass droned on; Andy listened to very little of the sermon. But he liked the color pictures in the missal his uncle had given him, and he liked its weight. And he liked the crowd of people, their murmured responses, and the chance to stretch in the standings and kneelings, and the hymns, and the smell of the incense, and the high stained-glass windows with the red, blue, green light pouring through the images of the saints. The smiling Jesus carrying a white lamb in His arms reminded Andy of how much he had always longed for a dog. If Aunt Mona would let him have a dog, then he could take it with him when he moved back with his father. He leaned sideways and whispered urgently, “Uncle Hugh?”

  His uncle bent his head.

  “Do you think I could have a pup?”

  Uncle Hugh frowned. “Huh?”

  “A dog?”

  “I could ask Mona,” he whispered.

  “Would you? Please?”

  “Shush!” said Aunt Mona.

  The guests arrived before noon. Dinner was at one. Uncle Hugh’s sister, Jill, had Andy in a bear hug before she’d taken off her coat. For a small woman, she had a strong hugging apparatus. She had lively gray eyes and curly hair held up with combs. “Call me Jill,” she told him. Aunt Mona and Uncle Hugh stood back quietly, Aunt Mona stern and haughty as usual, Uncle Hugh with his shy smile.

  “And this is Joe,” Jill said, introducing her husband.

  “Hello, Andy,” said Joe, shaking his hand, smiling. “Welcome to Halifax.” Joe, short and slim, had thinning brown hair and brown eyes, and a gap between his two top teeth.

  “And this is Una,” said Jill.

  Una was pretty, with her mother’s gray eyes, and brown hair chopped cleanly at the jawline. She just waved a hand. “Hi,” she said casually.

  “Why don’t you take Una over to the playground,” Aunt Mona suggested to Andy. “Dinner won’t be for an hour yet.”

  They strolled over to the playground, acting cool, saying very little, and sat on a pair of swings, dangling together, burying the toes of their shoes in the wet sand, still saying very little. The girls Andy had known in Vancouver giggled a lot and chattered together like birds in a tree. Una seemed quiet and sensible.

  “I’m reading your book,” Andy said, just to get things started. “It’s pretty good.”

  “Which one’s that?”

  “Watership Down.”

  “Isn’t it great? I love animal stories. I’m reading a new book called White as the Waves, all about whales. One of them is Moby Dick; he’s the one who’s white. It is so great. I’ll let you have it when I’m finished if you like.”

  “Thanks.”

  Una wanted to know if there were grizzly bears in British Columbia. And what about cougars? “I plan to be a veterinarian,” she confided. “What are you going to be?”

  “Famous soccer player,” Andy said. “And if I can’t be that, then I want to work in the circus or the movies as an animal trainer. Animal trainers are well paid, and, of course, you get to work with all kinds of animals. But that’s only if I don’t play pro soccer.”

  “Fate,” said Una. “I knew we’d have lots in common. But wouldn’t it be awfully dangerous training circus animals, like lions and tigers?”

  Andy shrugged. “Looking them in the eye is really important, and letting them see who’s boss.”

  Una said, “Lions are interesting. Did you know that the life span of a lion in the wild is only about twelve years, but a lion in captivity lives to be thirty?”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I read it in my lion book.” She stopped swinging and looked into Andy’s eyes. “If you were a lion and had a choice of living in the wild for twelve years or living in captivity for thirty, which do you think you’d choose?”

  Andy thought for a second. “I’d choose the wild.”

  “So would I,” said Una, her serious face easing into a luminous smile.

  They hooked elbows around the cold chains and swung together in contented silence for a while.

  “What’s your school like?” Andy asked.

  “St. Gregory’s? It’s okay.” Una pulled a face. “If you can stand the boredom. Being in school is a bit like being a lion in captivity, don’t you think? If it were not for my friends I’d probably go barking mad. Will you be starting tomorrow?”

  “Aunt Mona hasn’t said anything, but I’d like to go. It’ll only be temporary, of course, till my father finds a new place and comes for me, and then I’ll probably go someplace else, to St. Dominic’s maybe, and get a place on the soccer team.”

  “Oh.” Una looked disappointed. “I was hoping we might be friends. Why aren’t you living with your father?”

  “You don’t know?”

  Una shook her head. She didn’t look to Andy like the kind of girl who told lies. She was easy to talk to. He liked her.

  A breeze sprang up and the third swing, empty beside them, began swinging. Soon it was spinning and bouncing, its chains clinking and rattling. Andy and Una watched in surprise.

  “Halifax winds are sure crazy,” said Andy.

  They watched until the swing stopped its twisted leaping and became still.

  “I thought I heard wind chimes,” said Una.

  Andy grinned. “It’s probably the Little People.” He told her about Vinny and his stories. “In Ireland they’re called the Sheehogue. Vinny used to tell me stories about them when I was little. The Little People interfere in people’s lives sometimes, making mischief mostly. Vinny says they do good to the good and evil to the evil.”

  “Tell me a Little People story.”

  So he did. He told her first of all about Tir Na n’Og, the place of eternal youth, and then he told how Lord Fitzgerald fell in love with an orphan girl. When he was finished, Una sighed. “Do you believe people can love one another forever and beyond, Andy?”

  Andy had to admit he didn’t really know.

  “I don’t see why not,” said Una. “It’s terribly romantic!” Her brow wrinkled in thought. “Eternal love is lovely. And Tir Na n’Og sounds like a beautiful place.” She thought for a few more seconds. “But I’m not sure if I’d want to live forever and ever, Andy, would you? I’d probably go barking mad.”

  With seven people in it, the small dining room was crowded.

  Confused, and trying to follow the noisy babble, Granny interrupted conversations often to ask, “What was that you said?” or “Could you please speak up a little? I can’t hear you.” Whenever she did manage to hear something, she exclaimed, “Well, I never!” or “Fancy that!”

  Uncle Hugh tapped his glass with a spoon. Everyone was quiet while he said grace. When he was finished, they said “Amen” and reached for their knives and forks, but Uncle Hugh stopped them with “And let us, while we’re at it, offer up a prayer for Judith, sorely missed.”

  “May she rest in peace,” came the response.

  “And Andy’s stepfather,” Mona reminded Hugh, “even though we didn’t know the poor man.”

  “Rest in peace.”

  “And finally,” said Uncle Hugh, smiling shyly over at Andy, “let us say a prayer of thanks for bringing us Andy.”

  “Welcome,” and “Thanks be to God,” they murmured as they crossed themselves, and looked at Andy, and smiled.

  The noisy babble started up again. Andy tried to follow what people were saying. The guests were interested in him, Jill overwhelming him with questions about school in Vancouver, his stay in the hospital, his hobbies, what he thought about his courageous Aunt Mona flying all that way over the country, east to west and back again, five miles up in the sky, she who had never set foot in an airplane in her whole life, who had a mortal dread of heights, who had trembled with fear through every minute of the flight, the poor, brave woman.

  Just as Andy was digesting this last piece of information, Joe asked him from across the table, “How do you like living in Halifax, Andy?”

  “Fine,” Andy answered, though he was still thinking about Aunt Mona.

/>   Trembled? Fear? Aunt Mona trembling with fear?

  Nobody mentioned Vinny.

  “I haven’t got my glasses,” Granny said to Joe beside her. “What’s this on my plate?”

  Joe took her hand and guided her fork on a tour around the plate. “This is a roast potato,” he explained patiently, “chopped into pieces. This is roast lamb, cut up. Here on the side is some mashed turnip and parsnip, and this is broccoli, just a bit. You have no mint sauce; shall I pour some on your lamb?”

  “Thank you, Joseph.”

  Andy sat opposite Una, who glanced at him frequently and smiled, as though they shared an important secret.

  19

  “YOU’RE WELL ENOUGH to start school tomorrow,” said Aunt Mona later that evening, after the guests had gone.

  “I don’t want to go to school here. I’ll wait till Vin — till I’m with my father.”

  “St. Gregory’s is strict, mind, but a bit of discipline never harmed anyone, in my view.”

  “I don’t want to go to St. Gregory’s.” He knew he was being contrary. He didn’t mention that, starved of friendship, he was looking forward to seeing Una again.

  “You will go to school and that’s the end of it,” said Aunt Mona in her no-nonsense voice. “There will be no argument. If you like, I will come with you on your first day.”

  “I can go on my own.”

  “As you wish.”

  When he got home from school after his first day, Aunt Mona asked, “Well? How did you like it?”

  Andy shrugged. “It was okay.” He didn’t tell her it was actually pretty good; it was great to be with kids his own age again instead of walking idly around the downtown, bored out of his mind. And there had been talk of a soccer team.

  “I left a bit of pocket money on your dresser.”

  “Thanks, but I won’t need it. My father will be taking care of things like that.”

  “Your father!” Aunt Mona’s dark eyes flashed.

  “Yes, my father. You don’t need to say it so nasty.”

  “I wasn’t being nasty. But if you’re waiting for your father to come for you, then you might be waiting till the snakes return to Ireland.”

  “He said he’d find us a place and he will. I trust him even if you don’t!”

  “No, Andy, I don’t trust him. He’s a storyteller and a liar. He’d break your heart, that man. I don’t like to see you pinning your hopes on him. He’ll only hurt you, child.”

  “I won’t listen to you! You’ve always hated him.”

  “I hate no man.”

  Andy flung himself away from her.

  Old cow.

  “Before you start any homework,” she called after him, “I would like you to fix your room. You left your bed unmade this morning. And there’s soiled clothing on the floor. That’ll not do. I noticed, too, that the sheets need washing. Please put them in the laundry basket on the landing and take a clean set from the airing cupboard. Cleanliness is next to godliness.”

  Old witch! Andy thought to himself as he started up the stairs.

  “Andy!” Aunt Mona calling him back.

  She could read his mind; how could he have forgotten?

  “Andy, sit down for a minute.” She pulled a chair out from the kitchen table for him to sit. “I want to tell you something about your father.”

  “I don’t believe anything you say!”

  “Listen to me for just a minute.”

  He perched himself on the edge of the chair, ready to get up and run if she said one mean thing.

  “I do not hate your father.” She pierced him with her black eyes. “You’ve got to know that. I’ve called him some terrible things, like a thief and liar, but he wasn’t always like that. When your father was a young man, when he was courting your mother, we all loved him. We loved him. And why not? Vincent Flynn was the sweetest young man in all of Halifax, for he never spoke ill of anyone, not even of William Fahey, the monster who lived next door and beat his wife and children when he had the drink in him. Vincent Flynn saw only goodness in the world and he was always cheerful and good-natured, always full of fun, telling the wildest stories, just as he does now, and not a bit of harm in him; he’d give you the last penny in his pocket if you asked for it. Judith loved him. We all did; we thought the world of him, even if he did spend too much time sitting and reading.”

  Reading? Andy thought to himself. Vinny? The same Vinny who failed kindergarten?

  “It was Vincent’s only fault. He sat and he sat and he read and he read. He never stopped reading — everything he could lay his hands on, books as thick as his own arm, many of them — when he could’ve been out sailing with his brother in the fresh air or playing soccer for the brewery team.”

  “He’s got a brother?”

  “The pair of them came out from Ireland and got jobs at the brewery. Tim was two years older, a fine boy — they were both fine boys. Tim soon had a wee sailboat — he was mad about sailing. Vincent idolized his brother. Then he met your mother and they couldn’t wait to get married. The wedding was in St. Gregory’s; the whole neighborhood turned out for it. Tim was the best man. Judith was lovely, the picture of happiness. They hadn’t much money, so they drove down the peninsula to Peggy’s Gove for their honeymoon. They started their married life in a wee house not far from here, renting and saving so that one day they’d have a house of their own. You were born in that house; I’ll show you where it is sometime if you like.

  “Tim worked the hoist at the brewery, unloading the trucks that came to the warehouse. He didn’t wear his safety belt one day and fell from the sixth-floor loading door to the ground beneath and died in a minute. Vincent was never the same after that; he took to drink and soon lost his job. Then he and Judith went out to Vancouver to try their luck. The rest you know. Your father became his own worst enemy. I’m only telling you this so you’ll know how much we loved him, but it was like he, too, died that day when Tim fell and broke his neck. There was no helping your father after that.”

  Andy started to think over what his aunt had said. But there was too much to grasp.

  Aunt Mona cut into his thoughts; she said quietly, “So you see, I do not hate your father. But I lost respect a long time ago for the man he became. Without honor and pride, Vincent Flynn has wasted his life. After Tim died, it was like he gave up on everything. There; that’s all I have to say.”

  Andy wanted to defend his father, but didn’t know how. Tears of frustration stung his eyes. He turned his back on his aunt and hurried up the stairs to his room. He needed to be alone; he needed to think.

  The next morning, after Aunt Mona had checked Andy’s room, she said, “You made a good job of it. I like things nice and clean and tidy.” She was making porridge.

  “I hate porridge!” he said.

  “Then we shall have to get you something else,” said Aunt Mona calmly, “something you like, so long as it’s not sugar puffs and so long as I approve of it. You can’t go to school without a proper breakfast.”

  “Anything but porridge.”

  “Leave the porridge aside. I’ll do you a brown egg. My neighbor Molly Brannigan has a cousin with a farm and she gets them for me fresh each week.”

  “I’ll be going to Una’s on the way home from school.”

  “Very well, but stay no more than the half hour. Then come home and do your homework; you can always go over again later if there’s time, or have her come here.”

  The rain stopped and the weather got colder. There was frost on Andy’s bedroom window. Aunt Mona gave him a hot-water bottle to take up and put in his bed an hour before bedtime every night. He also took down an extra wool blanket off the shelf in the closet and threw it on his bed, a comforting weight.

  Uncle Hugh had said nothing about the dog; Andy reckoned he must have forgotten. Or hadn’t understood. Or Aunt Mona had said no, more like.

  Interfering old busybody.

  Old cow.

  Another week had gone by without a word fr
om Vinny.

  “Are you sure he didn’t call?” Andy asked Aunt Mona when he got back one evening after kicking a ball around in the park with a bunch of the kids from school.

  “He didn’t call.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, Andy, I’m sure.”

  “Maybe Uncle Hugh took a message and forgot — “

  “Hugh took no message.”

  Andy went up to his room and lay on the bed in the half darkness, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling.

  “I sent word to your father to come for dinner,” said Aunt Mona. “Edna Rooney at the Mayo Rooms passed on my message.”

  Andy said nothing. He hadn’t heard from Vinny in three weeks. They were sitting in the living room, talking about Christmas. It was getting late, and Andy’s eyes felt heavy; he had already put the hot-water bottle in his bed and he would soon have to climb the stairs. Uncle Hugh was doing the daily crossword, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose; Aunt Mona was darning Uncle Hugh’s socks; Granny had fallen asleep watching the news.

  “That’ll be lovely,” said Uncle Hugh. He looked up and smiled at Andy.

  “Off to bed with you, then,” Aunt Mona said to Andy. “I’ll come up in a few minutes to say good night.”

  20

  AUNT MONA HELD CHRISTMAS DINNER BACK for over an hour, waiting for him to come, but when he hadn’t shown by two o’clock, they went ahead without him. Aunt Mona shrugged her shoulders. “If I didn’t know him as well as I do, I’d be as mad as a bag of cats,” was all she said.

  The table was set for five, the empty place like a gap in a hedge.

  “We’ll save him a plate in the oven,” said Uncle Hugh.

  “He might come yet.”

  He wouldn’t come; Andy knew Vinny wouldn’t come; he’d be too busy, or he’d forget, or he’d be unconscious in bed from a long night out with his friends. He sneaked a glance at his new digital watch, from Mona and Hugh.

  “Who is coming?” Gran wanted to know for the second time in ten minutes.