Flood

by James Heneghan

  “Like what?”

  “Promise first.”

  Andy shrugged. “Okay.”

  “What if your dad doesn’t send for you? And you have to stay with Aunt Mona.”

  Andy didn’t want to think. “I don’t know, Una.”

  A few spots of rain. “That’s enough danger. Let’s go,” Una yelled, slipping off the swing and running, “before we get soaked.”

  When he got home, he found Gran asleep in front of the TV with the Oprah show on too loud and Aunt Mona rattling her broom about the kitchen. Brick followed him up the stairs to his room; he needed to be alone for a while to think about Una’s unsettling question. He lay on the bed, Brick prancing about beside him, and stared at the cracks on the ceiling, broken eggshell patterns he was coming to know so well.

  “What if your dad doesn’t…”

  He stared around the room. He used to hate it, but now… He hadn’t noticed until recently, but the wardrobe he’d thought ugly was actually very old, with fine carving around the edges of the set-in mirror, and was finished in a deep burnt-red polish… Some of his books and papers were stacked in the wardrobe; others were piled on the chest… The lemon wallpaper with the white butterflies, picked out by his aunt, made him think of spring when he woke every morning in the big bed… It was a good room… he liked it. And he’d made it his own, with schoolbooks and clothes and a few posters: pinup Mia Hamm of the U.S. women’s soccer team; Ronaldo of Brazil; Wayne Gretzky.

  What if your dad doesn’t…

  Brick had his own box for sleeping, right beside Andy’s bed, though more often than not he ended up sleeping on the bed with his master, which was one part of the training that wasn’t working too well. But he had put on weight and was livelier, too lively sometimes, and was learning fast.

  “What if your dad…”

  He rolled off the bed and went to the window, open at the top for fresh air. Brick stood alertly on the bed, watching to see where Andy would move next. The storm was gathering itself. Andy looked over the roofs of the houses at the black sky.

  Down in the neighboring backyards Mrs. Fahey and Mrs. O’Mahoney, neighbors he had come to know, were enjoying a shouted conversation as they raced the rain, snatching the washing off their lines and dropping clothespins and washing into plastic baskets as fast as they could. The rain started with a gust of cold air and a rush, and it pelted down hard. Andy grinned as Mrs. Fahey and Mrs. O’Mahoney, caught in the downpour, decided to save what they had and make a run for their back doors, screaming at the sky like gulls. Mrs. Fahey tripped and stumbled, tumbling her basket of clean clothes onto the slushy snow. Mrs. O’Mahoney’s trailing bedsheet caught on the handlebar of her husband’s rusty bicycle leaning against the wall dividing the two houses, and she stopped to disentangle it. Andy heard the sound of someone’s wind chimes as the two women recovered themselves, gathered their soiled wash, and disappeared into their houses.

  He stayed at the window for a while watching the rain, thinking about Vinny.

  He is sleepy but can’t sleep.

  The rain stopped several hours ago, and now a gibbous moon sails high behind webs of cloud.

  Thoughts and images keep up a slow drip in his head and he can’t turn them off.

  He thinks about his mother.

  He worries about Vinny climbing down the broken fire escape, worries about Fingers Agostino coming after Vinny with a long sharp knife, worries about the police throwing his father in prison.

  A tracery of cracks, the ones on the ceiling above the window, form a pair of faces in profile, joined together so that one looks out the window at the stars, and the other faces the opposite way at the blank wall. Like Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings. Andy remembers Janus because of January, the month that looks back at the old year and forward to the new. He has never noticed the ceiling faces in the daylight; they’re a trick of silver moonlight and black shadows.

  The next day he came home from school to find Aunt Mona washing vegetables at the kitchen sink and asked her if she needed a hand. She told him to go do his homework, as she usually did: schoolwork was more important than kitchen work, she always said.

  Brick jumped up on him, desperate for his attention.

  Andy didn’t ask his aunt if his father had called because he already knew the answer. He lingered, crouching to pet Brick. “Maybe on Saturday I’ll visit my father.”

  Aunt Mona said nothing, but lifted a shoulder in a tiny shrug.

  “He’ll call eventually, I’m sure, when he gets a job.”

  His aunt said nothing.

  “Don’t you think?”

  Her lips tightened. She turned off the running water.

  Andy said, “It was good of you and Uncle Hugh to have me here all this time — while we’re waiting, I mean.”

  Aunt Mona nodded her head without looking up from her task. “Judith was my sister. I’m not one to shirk my duty.”

  Duty. Andy felt his stomach lurch. “Isn’t a duty something you must do even if you don’t want to? Like… like washing dishes?”

  Aunt Mona dropped what she was doing, dried her hands hastily on a towel, and turned quickly to glare at him, hands on hips. “You’ve the quick tongue, Andy Flynn. You take me wrong. I’m thankful to God for such a duty. Haven’t we been praying to the Blessed Virgin every day for your peace of mind, praying you’ll settle happy here with us!” She turned back to the sink with busy hands.

  Silence.

  Then she said, “Hugh would miss you terrible if you left us.”

  “What about you, Aunt Mona? Would you miss me terrible, too?”

  She did not answer but became very still. Then she said to the tiny kitchen window in front of her, “After you ran off… in the bus station… I cried. Destroyed with the pain of it I was. Someone helped me to a seat. To this day I don’t remember who it was, man, woman, or child.” She tried to say more, but her voice failed her.

  Andy waited in silence.

  Then, quietly emphatic, Aunt Mona said, “Would I miss you? Of course I would miss you!”

  Andy stared at her stiff back, then saw her shoulders loosen.

  With a catch in her voice, she said again softly, “I would miss you, Andy. I’d be desperate, and that’s the truth.” She turned to him, her eyes wet with tears.

  Brick barked at Andy for attention.

  “You had better go up and do your homework,” whispered Aunt Mona.

  Andy grabbed Brick and carried him up the stairs to his room.

  22

  ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON he went to the hockey game with John and a bunch of the other kids. The Mooseheads were at home to the Moncton Wildcats. Andy and his friends high-fived the players as they came onto the ice. The Mooseheads won. It was a good game. “Do the hockey pucks always disappear like that, during a game, and they have to bring on new ones?” Andy asked his friends.

  Thinking of Vinny.

  Lying in his bed, Sunday morning early, listening to the sounds of the house, then Hugh’s quiet tread on the stair bringing Mona tea in bed, then Mona up and rattling about the kitchen. Lying in bed, Brick beside him but eager to go downstairs, staring at the cracks and thinking of Vinny. Vinny and Judith dancing the whole night through — I missed you something dreadful, Andy, it’s brilliant you’re here — astonished to see you — a new purpose now — a fine young man you are — not easy to raise a young boy, but don’t worry, leave it to me — take good care of you — promise — leave it to me — promise — leave it to me — to me —

  Vinny won’t change. Vinny with his stale cigarettes and whiskey, his songs and jokes, his gambling. Vinny with his moonlight and raisins and thorn trees. A lion in the wild, Vinny will never change. Andy is beginning to understand that now. Vinny is Vinny. Just as Mona is Mona and Hugh is Hugh. Vinny will never find a job, Andy now realizes. Or move from the Mayo Rooms. Or change his life. It isn’t possible to change Vinny, no matter how hard Andy tries. What did Vinny say when Andy warned him about smoking?
“I’m too old to give it up. Set in my ways I am.” No, only Vinny can change Vinny, nobody else. The thought strikes Andy with the force of a blow.

  He slides out of bed and looks out the window. Brick is already at the door, impatient to be let out. Sunshine. Lots to do today: go get John after mass and kick the ball around with the other kids, get a game going maybe. He can’t wait. He dresses quickly, skips downstairs, and lets Brick out the back door into the yard. He feels good. Better than good; he feels great. “Grand,” as Vinny would say.

  He feels free.

  Uncle Hugh is in the living room reading a Sunday paper. He looks up. “Good morning, Andy.” Grand smile.

  “It’s a grand day, Uncle.”

  His aunt is still in the kitchen, making porridge and mixing batter for pancakes. Andy has already changed his mind about porridge; his aunt’s tastes better than his mother’s. “Let me do that, Aunt Mona; I’m grand at stirring porridge.”

  “Grand is it? Very well.” She leaves the porridge for him to finish. “You sound chipper this morning. Must be the sunshine.” She mixes the batter.

  “Big soccer game today.”

  “Soccer is it? Then maybe you should be playing every day if that’s how happy you’d be.”

  Aunt Mona has a nice face when she smiles, Andy decides.

  Uncle Hugh appears at the kitchen door, newspaper trailing in his hand. Andy can tell by the grin on his face he has been listening. He and Aunt Mona exchange glances.

  “A grand morning,” Hugh says, his face stiff and serious.

  “Grand altogether,” Mona agrees, nodding, hiding a smile.

  Monday, after school. He gave the secret knock and waited. Then he tried the door; locked; Vinny out. Or not home yet, more like.

  He’d remembered to bring his key this time.

  The place looked exactly the same. He hadn’t realized just how poor and bare and cold it really was. A spoonful of raisins in the saucer. Vinny and his raisins. No changes except the Playboy centerfold back on the wall near the kitchen.

  The place smelled stale; he’d forgotten about the smell.

  Vinny would never change. Somehow that seemed okay now; Andy accepted the idea that people could change only themselves, not others. He lay on the sofa, stretching himself out in this new freedom of understanding. The flood had claimed his mother’s life, he accepted that now; someone you loved could die; his mother was dead. The flood had killed his mother and had tossed him, upside down, into the arms of a tree. But now he was back on his feet, no longer upside down, seeing the world the right way up, the way things really were, recognizing his father’s weakness and his aunt’s strength.

  By nine o’clock he was cold and restless. He wished he’d told Aunt Mona he was coming over. He should get back and save her worrying. He got up and opened the window and looked out. No rain and an almost full moon. The fire escape hadn’t been fixed. He looked in the fridge. The usual: milk and tea and raisins and an opened packet of potato chips. He stayed away from the bedroom, resisting an urge to look under the bed.

  At ten o’clock he walked over to Dan Noonan’s. Vinny wasn’t there.

  He tried Ryan’s and the Pink Elephant: no Vinny. He walked back to the Mayo and knocked in case his father had returned, then let himself in and lay on the sofa again, covering himself with a blanket.

  A moonbeam shone through the window, bathing the raisins on the table in a pale silver glow.

  He would wait for as long as it took, even if Vinny didn’t come home till morning.

  He fell asleep.

  The sound of the key rattling in the lock woke him up. He looked at his new watch. Past midnight.

  “Andy, is it you?” Vinny surprised.

  Andy sat up. He could see that his father had been drinking: slow, tired movements, strong smell of the pub. “Hi, Dad.”

  Vinny collapsed into the chair without taking off his old raincoat, its pockets empty. “What are you doing here? Did you run away from your aunt again?”

  “I didn’t run away.”

  “You came to see your poor old father.”

  “Yes. I worry about you, Dad, I worry that you’re all right. You promised to call, so when you don’t call I imagine the worst, that you’ve fallen off the fire escape again, or that Fingers Agostino and his sidekick have hurt you.”

  His father snorted. “Those two thicks! It’s nice you worry about me, Andy darlin’, but I’m used to looking after myself.”

  “Also, Dad, I need to ask you if it’s okay for me to stay with Aunt Mona and Uncle Hugh. And Gran. We get along, and I’m used to the school and everything, so I’d like to stay where I am. For now anyway. If that’s all right with you.”

  His father stared at him, surprised.

  Andy said, “You wouldn’t need to move from here if you didn’t want to. You could stay, and we’d still see each other, lots. But I just wanted you to know I’m okay where I am right now and you shouldn’t worry about me and you needn’t worry about moving, like I said.”

  His father grinned. He looked relieved. “Maybe that’s best, Andy, for a wee while anyway, till the job situation improves and I can find a place for us. Meantime, your aunt can do more for you than I can and that’s the truth. And Hughie’s a Galway man, so you can’t go wrong there. But I’ll come over and see you regular, leave it to me. I’ll keep an eye on you, don’t you fret about that.” He nodded his head several times. “Don’t you fret about that,” he said again. “Would you like a cup of tea to warm you?”

  “No thanks, I’ve got to get back. It’s late and there’s school tomorrow.”

  There was a soft knock on the door, uncoded.

  Vinny struggled up and opened the door a few inches, keeping a foot behind it.

  “Hello, Vincent.”

  Aunt Mona, stern and haughty as usual.

  Vinny opened the door wider. “It’s yourself. Come in, Mona, come in.”

  “I won’t come in. It’s late. I came for Andy.”

  Andy went to his aunt.

  Vinny said, “I’ll be here if you need me, Andy, don’t forget.”

  “No, Dad, I won’t forget. I’ll come to see you the Saturday after next, in the morning, late, have a cup of tea with you, make sure you’re okay. I’ll bring Brick — he’s my dog, a puppy — so you can meet him.”

  Vinny gave a tired smile and ruffled Andy’s hair affectionately. “That’ll be lovely.”

  Andy descended the stairs to the street with his aunt and they stood together at the bus stop. The street was flooded with moonlight, and the tops of the trees whispered together in the wind, sharing secrets.

  His aunt said, “It was so late. We were worried. You okay?”

  “I’m okay,” said Andy, and he was. He looked up at his aunt. “I told him I wanted to stay with you and Hugh and Gran.”

  Aunt Mona smiled and nodded.

  Andy said, “Do you think he’ll be all right? Without me, I mean?”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “Do you remember you told me that my father is wasting his life?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s wasted. He’s happy. He’s got lots of friends, people who love him. And he’s got me. I don’t think it’s wasted, Aunt Mona.”

  Mona thought for a few seconds. Then she said, “You’re a fine boy, Andy. Your father’s proud of you, anyone can see that.”

  They looked along the bright, empty street.

  “The last bus has gone,” said Mona.

  “Then we’ll walk,” said Andy, taking his aunt’s thin arm.

  They set off together, walking through the moonlit streets while what was left of the summer’s dry leaves rose up in tiny whirlwinds about their feet and the Sheehogue danced happily behind them all the way home.

  Air Canada, flight 185, Halifax to Vancouver.

  The Old One was exhausted. He slept almost the whole way home.

  The Young Ones celebrated their freedom in a harmless exuberance of
broken rules, causing tiny problems with teapots, coffee urns, and meal trays; flight attendants warned everyone to watch out for hockey pucks skating down the aisle; a washroom door had to be forced open to release an extremely large lady who was yelling to be let out; the dialogue of the American in-flight movie came through, without subtitles, in a strange language that one scholarly passenger swore was ancient Celtic. On arrival in Vancouver, the crew agreed that it had been an abnormal flight, not simply because of the strange incidents and unusually high number of minor accidents, but mainly because of the merry good spirits of their passengers.