The Misremembered Man

by Christina McKenna

  Traveling from the orphanage to the farmhouse that day, so long ago, had enabled him to experience and understand the true nature of happiness for the very first time. The memory of it still shone like a vein of precious metal in the solid darkness of his early life.

  He could recall every bend and incline of that wonder-filled journey.

  When Uncle Mick’s car rattled off through the orphanage gates, it had carried him away from the pain and the loneliness, and on to a real home and the future he’d so often dreamed of.

  There had been just one flaw in that momentous day, one wave of sadness that crashed against him for a moment and then was gone; it was the sight of the four boys he was leaving behind. As the car trundled off he saw their sad faces, hung like a row of pale moons, at the high window. He could only guess at what emotions choked and held them there, staring down forlornly on the departing vehicle.

  He’d knelt up on the back seat, watching and waving eagerly, but only Eighty-Four had raised a hand. Then the high walls of the orphanage had wiped them from view, like a duster across a blackboard; they and the prison that held them were consigned to history.

  He remembered sitting back down on the seat again and losing himself in the novelty of the car; that final vision of the faces of his comrades slowly fading in the feel of the vinyl upholstery, the moving, magical world waiting beyond the windshield, and the shiny, big steering wheel in the grip of his new father’s hands.

  Back in the orphanage he’d painted pictures in his head of the house he’d wanted to live in, the parents he longed to have and the farm he wished to be a part of. When Uncle Mick’s Ford Popular had finally drawn up in the yard that day, and he glimpsed the cottage and the animals, he knew that his dreams had indeed come true. He had become part of the picture. Even the black dog on the step was his, come to life.

  His new parents had given him everything, right down to his name: James Kevin Barry Michael McCloone. They had only given him “James” at first, but he begged for more. So Mick had added “Kevin Barry” and Alice “Michael,” after her husband and her father. He was no longer a number. No one would ever call him Eighty-Six again.

  He remembered repeating the syllables of his new names over and over, balancing each precious bead of newfound selfhood on his tongue, feeling the satisfying shape of his new identity. Until then, he had been a nobody. Mick and Alice had given him meaning, made him a real person at last.

  Memories of the first day with his new parents would never fade. He could not believe the wealth of the world he’d stepped into. He was given a bedroom all to himself: a blue and white room with bluebell drapes at the window and real sheets upon the bed. He could not get used to the silence at night; no whimpering or weeping roommates, and in the morning no clanging triangle, no punishing hands and belts, no nun inspecting if he’d wet the bed.

  Alice had given him a new set of clothes: pants and a sweater that fit, socks that came up to his knees and a pair of brand-new shoes. He thought he’d never get used to the sensation of walking in them; for so many years he’d known only the feel of grass, gravel, mud and unyielding stone beneath his bare feet.

  They had sat him down at a lace-covered table and during those extraordinary first days had fed him food he’d never known existed: meatballs in gravy, eggs, sausages, chicken and fresh vegetables.

  For ten long years he’d been hungry. All he’d known in the orphanage was lumpy breakfast gruel, stale bread and dripping, cabbage water and potatoes with the maggots taken out. And in autumn, the crab apples from the orchard the nuns would throw to the children, and which always made him sick.

  He remembered how Mick had taught him to use a knife and fork and how his untrained little fingers rebelled, the strange implements slipping from his grasp, his hands and mouth so used to the feel and fit of a spoon.

  But the highlight of that first day—and the one he’d try endlessly to recapture and recreate in his adult life—was that afforded him by the cream bun and chocolate cookie Alice had given him on a willow-patterned plate, after his dinner. He would never forget the taste of this heavenly fare, the chocolate melting in his mouth, the sensation of the sweet textures on his tongue.

  Oh, what joy! He was ten years old and his life had begun.

  Jamie shifted uneasily as he sat there in the tattered armchair, staring into the debris of his life. It was now eleven thirty in the morning, just seven and a half hours to go. He had the first tea of the day by his elbow, the first cigarette in his hand. The sun was in the window and the dog was in the yard. This was the beginning of a day that would end with his release. He was happy it would soon be over. He was tired of interrogating a deaf-blind God. Tired of his thoughts tearing on the things he could never have. Tired of the same endless mornings that broke on the same endless days. He knew now that life only worked for the fearless and the beautiful.

  He’d planned it thoroughly, had hidden a half-bottle of whiskey and a bag containing a chocolate square and a cream slice behind a bale in the hayshed. This fare, echoing as it did his first little joyful feast in the farmhouse, would be his last in the world. He wondered now where the willow-patterned plate might be—the one that dear Alice had given him with those heavenly treats all those years ago. She’d said the plate was precious; a family heirloom that had belonged to her grandmother. Wouldn’t it be fitting to use it again, Jamie thought, in honor of Alice and as part of his final farewell?

  He drained the tea mug and crossed to the glass case to have a look. He had not seen it in a long time, but then, he never had cause to look for it. He took out a stack of plates and went through them one by one, but the heirloom was not among them. He checked the cluttered sink in the scullery, but even as he piled the crockery on the drainer he knew it was useless. Those were dishes recently acquired. How could it be there? He stood for a while gazing out the window at a rusted trough sunk deep in the nettles, and in his mind an image stirred, then unfolded: the image of the suitcase under Mick’s bed which held his aunt’s belongings. It was bound to be there.

  He climbed the stairs, pushed into the bedroom and pulled out the case, eager to lay his hands on the trophy. The hasps sprang open freely, sending up small coughs of dust. Jamie was surprised to discover that there was very little inside.

  He took out a framed wedding picture, a match for the one that hung on the bedroom wall, a satin-covered jewelry box containing a glass rosary, strings of pearls, earrings and a gold wedding band. He closed the lid carefully and put the box back. One of the only remaining items in the case was her white purse—the one she’d carried that day in the orphanage and from which she’d extracted the shamrock handkerchief. Jamie could not bring himself to open it, but knelt upright holding the purse between his hands and said a little prayer, before returning it to the case.

  There was no sign of the willow-patterned plate. The last remaining item was an old newspaper, rolled up and secured with a blue ribbon.

  “An oul’ newspaper,” Jamie said to himself.

  He slid off the ribbon, wondering why Alice would have wanted to keep such an ancient, yellowed thing. He could barely make out the title and date: The Vindicator, Thursday, November 3, 1934. He knew then that the paper had followed him from the orphanage and had been kept for that reason. He resolved to burn it right away. He was about to throw it aside, when his eye lighted on what looked like handwriting in the top corner of the inside back page. He peered closely at the almost illegible script.

  Thir called Jamie an Lily

  I cant keep thim Im sorry

  Jamie ran his finger over what could only be his mother’s handwriting and sat back on his heels. So he’d been given a name. The nuns simply would not let him keep it. The baby sister he’d never known had also had a name. He replaced the ribbon on the newspaper and returned it to the case.

  “Lily!” he said the name aloud.

  And as he came slowly down the stairs, he realized that he did not have the plate, but, for the first time,
he did have his sister’s name.

  “Lily,” he said again. “This evening I’ll be with you, Lily, as sure as I’m standing here.”

  Lydia drove back from the Mount Carmel Retirement Home, torn between elation and sadness. She would go straight home first; she needed to get distance, needed time to think.

  The address Father Finian had given her was terribly familiar. The surname of the people who had adopted her brother was definitely the same. How could she forget a name like McCloone? All the way home, Madame Calinda’s words kept echoing in her head.

  But de two of you will be close, whether you like it or not.

  When she finally pulled the car into the driveway at Elmwood she was exhausted, and could hardly bring herself to open the front door and step inside.

  On the mat she noticed a small white envelope. “Lydia” was scrawled across it in a hurried hand. Another condolence card, she thought wearily, and ripped it open. It was not a card, however, but a short note.

  I was in the vicinity this afternoon and dropped by to see how you were coping.

  Perhaps we could have dinner one evening.

  I will give you a ring tomorrow around 5 P.M. David O’Connor

  The good doctor. Lydia smiled to herself. The ring is of the telephonic kind obviously, she mused. How interesting; not the cold fish I thought he was. And dinner? Even more interesting!

  She stowed the note carefully in her purse and brought her mind back to the present and that other man—the much more important man—who had written to her.

  The kettle could wait. She rushed upstairs to find his letters. She only needed to look at one to confirm what she’d already suspected. The addresses were the same: The Farmhouse, Duntybutt, Tailorstown.

  James McCloone was her very own brother. There could be no mistake.

  She thought she might cry, but instead she found herself laughing—laughing uproariously.

  She knew now why she’d felt a certain kinship with him, how when she had first seen him, ambling up the avenue of the Ocean Spray in those ludicrous yellow shoes, all those weeks before, she’d somehow wanted to protect him from the awful Gladys. Again on the promenade, she knew that he’d been weeping and had felt moved to console him. Then that fateful meeting in the Royal Neptune Hotel. The meeting she had regretted so much. How strange life is, she thought. In being absent from my mother’s deathbed I found my brother. It was as if some divine bargain had been struck behind the scenes. A divine bargain that her father, or rather, adoptive father would have fully approved of.

  She sat down on the bed and was amazed at how much she knew about James—her brother James—already. Even though she had only actually met him once. He had a dog called Shep. He played the accordion. He could drive a tractor, but not the car. He drank whiskey and smoked way too many cigarettes. He could bake rock buns without margarine, could spend two hours in the toilet, and had £3,129 and five pence in a post office savings account.

  James Kevin Barry Michael McCloone was her brother. She loved the notion, and felt certain she’d love him too. She was not alone in the world after all. Dazzled by all this proof, she danced down the stairs. It was five o’clock. She would have a cup of tea, change and go to see him that very day.

  The phone rang as she was filling the teapot.

  “It’s Rose McFadden here. Would that be Miss Lydeea Devine?”

  “Yes.” She did not recognize the woman’s voice, although the broad accent seemed familiar. “Sorry, but do I know you?”

  “Oh, thank heavens for that! I’d a feelin’ James dialed the wrong number. Yes, Miss Devine, we met in the Royal Neptune Hotel not more than three weeks ago. I’m James McCloone’s friend.”

  “Oh, Rose! How good to hear from you.”

  Lydia decided that it was best not to confess that her Aunt Gladys had rebuffed James. She also decided that the time was not right to allude to her mother’s death.

  “I’m ringin’ on behalf of James, Lydeea. He asked me to ring you, because d’you know he’s very disappointed. He rang you but he must a dialed the wrong number because some other woman answered and took the nose clean off him. And I knew, Lydeea, that a lady like yourself wouldn’t be at the like a that.”

  Rose halted her breathless discourse and Lydia seized her chance.

  “I’m very sorry to hear that, Rose. I was just about to visit James myself. I really need to see him. I’ve got some great news.”

  “My goodness, Lydeea, is that so? James’ll be so pleased. He could do with a bit a good news at the minute, so he could. But would you do me a favor, Lydeea, and come to my house first? We live very close to James, because y’know I don’t think James would be wantin’ you to be seein’ his house without notice of a day or two, so that he could tidy up a bit, if y’know what I mean, Lydeea.”

  Rose stopped, overcome by what sounded like a sneeze.

  “God bless you,” said Lydia.

  “Thank you, Lydeea. God bliss me indeed. Now where was I? Oh yes, men and the cleanin’ and the like. Y’know what these men are like when there isn’t a woman about, to be liftin’ after them. And them that doesn’t make their own bed can lie to dinner time and have breakfast in the bedroom and sleep in the kitchen, if truth be told.”

  Lydia thought it wiser to allow Rose’s talk to run its course.

  “I had an uncle once who could make his breakfast from the bed, would you believe, didn’t have to get up atall, atall. I came in on him one day, and there he had the gas stove and the pan and all, splutterin’ away like the divil at his elbow and him still half asleep at the fryin’ of it.”

  It occurred to Lydia that this gave a whole new meaning to the concept of “breakfast in bed.” She couldn’t quite follow the logic of Rose’s speech but got the impression that Mrs. McFadden disapproved of James’s domestic arrangements, and for this reason was inviting her to meet with him in her home.

  “But ye know, Lydeea—”

  “I understand completely,” Lydia said. “Just give me directions and I’ll be with you within the hour.”

  At half-past six the sun was sending amber flares across the sky. Jamie stood in the barn entrance, his face glowing in the golden light. This would be his last glimpse of a world that had been less than kind.

  He gazed about him, his eyes lighting on the commonplace, the simplicity of things, for a moment holding some kind of sacred reverence. A reverence that only could be appreciated through the certainty of his imminent death.

  His eyes moved over the green half-door, the garden gate, the pecking hens, his bicycle propped against the gable, the disused machinery in the yard—and never before had these mundane images held such meaning, and never before had he, Jamie, felt so “right.”

  A steady buzzing near his elbow caused him to glance down. A fat bumblebee was just settling down to feed on a bloom of pink wisteria that climbed and fell about the barn door. Jamie studied the bee closely as it supped on the flower, realizing that it would be his final glimpse of such a creature. He marveled at the furry throbbing back and little wings a-tremble. He had the urge to stretch out a finger and stroke its little striped jersey, but knew that such a move would scare the bee away. The sight of small, solitary creatures always moved him. He felt an affinity with them, a certain kinship.

  Suddenly the bee flew off and Jamie took it as a sign.

  Then, like a night worker whose immense exhaustion is pulling him toward sleep, he surrendered himself fully to the irresistible call of the afterlife.

  He turned and entered the barn.

  Once inside, he began to prepare the ground for his final act. There would be no slip-ups. He was going to join the only people who had loved him: Mick and Alice—and Lily of course. Yes, wee Lily. Since learning her name he’d thought of little else. The desire to see her was getting stronger as each hour passed. Would she be a baby still or would she have grown up? Did a baby grow up in heaven? He misremembered now. But no matter. He would soon find out.

  He
was happy, and set about each action with an unwavering zeal.

  The baler twine was coiled on a nail behind the door. With his penknife he expertly snapped off a six-foot length, tied a running knot at one end and fed the remaining tail rope through it. He climbed up on the bales and secured the rope to a rafter. Mick’s rafter—the last one he’d worked on. The barn roof creaked and cried under the pressure, and when he looked up through the gaps in the skeletal roof he saw a halo of wood pigeons circling in perfect accord. Jamie took it as a sign from heaven. The angels were calling him home.

  “I’ll be up there soon, so a will!” he declared to the sky.

  Just then he heard a low whimper below him and, as he clambered down off the bales, saw Shep standing forlornly, his tail drooping, his sad eyes looking from the noose to his master’s face. For an instant, Jamie’s resolve—up to that moment as taut as an archer’s bowstring—slackened, and he stooped down to comfort the animal.

  “Now now, wee Shep, you’ll be all right. Paddy’ll take care of you.” He ruffled the dog’s coat, went straight to the far corner of the shed, and found the bag of buns and the whiskey.

  He settled himself in a comfortable place amid the hay and, using a bale as a table, laid out his final feast. The bottle of whiskey first. He uncapped it and took a long swig before biting in his cream slice. The dog lay down beside him and rested his head in his lap.

  There was just one final duty he had to perform: his farewell note to Rose and Paddy. It would also serve as his last will and testament.