The Misremembered Man

by Christina McKenna

  He sat in a shaft of light from the broken roof, pen in hand like a scribe in the Old Testament, and opened his pad of Basildon Bond. He would write his last letter on the pad he’d used for Lydia.

  The Hay Shed

  Duntybutt Farmhouse

  Sept 1974

  Dear Rose and Paddy,

  I’m going away now and I’ll not be comeing back. maybe its a sin what I’m doing but I do not think it is because I am content about it and I’m looking forward to bean with Mick and Alice again and my wee sister too.

  I want to thank yous for all the help you give me over the years, espessly after Mick died, because it was hard for me. But you know in the past three weeks it got harder and I think maybe I can’t fine a womin because I’m not so good at all that.

  And anyway I niver wanted a wife, just maybe a womin friend, because I had a lot of bother when I was a wee one with the things they did to me but that’s the way it was and I cant forget it no matter what I do. It was a silly thing for me to think that any womin would bother with me to start with anyway.

  Anyway I don’t want yous to be worring about me because I’m going to a better place alright.

  So many doors in Jamie’s mind kept opening and closing as he tried to write. The past and present were showing him so many different versions of himself, but all he knew for certain then was the feel of the pen upon the page and the presence of the noose above his head that would end his plight. He took another bun from the bag, the crumbs dusting the page as he labored on.

  I want yous both to have the house and farm and to look after wee Shep it isn’t much but its all I have. Theres £3079 and fippence in my post office saveings book that’ll put over me funerill and maybe a wee do after at Slopes afterword because I want everbody that knows me to have a wee drink and a dinner on me. With the money left over you could do up the house because its in bad shape and maybe yous would be wanton to sell it.

  I want my accordjin to be give to Declan Colt and the silver Bullits as a keepsake because Declan always liked to here me playing and like yourselves he give me a chance. And there wasn’t too many in this life that stopped to take notice of me.

  I think this is all for now Rose and Paddy bye, bye I’ll see yous sometime.

  Your good freind

  James Kevin Barry Michael McCloone.

  P.S. My saveings book is behind the middle plate with the green rim round it at the back of the glesscase.

  Jamie took another swig of the whiskey and slowly read over the letter. He hoped he hadn’t made any mistakes, because it was hard enough to write and he didn’t want to be doing it all again. He laid his hand on the dog’s head as he read.

  But presently Shep sat up with ears cocked. Jamie stared at him. He knew that a dog could hear thunder from a great distance, and wondered what might have alerted him. He patted Shep’s head. There was no time left to ponder such things.

  He was pleased with the letter and folded it in two as the dog bounded out of the barn. He placed it carefully in an envelope and sealed it. Shep was barking now and he thought it good that the dog had gone. All he wanted to do was shut the door and get on with it.

  He snapped the letter beneath the string of a high bale and went to shut the door.

  Rose proudly ushered Lydia into her only-frequented-on-special-occasions parlor.

  “Sit yourself down there, Lydeea.”

  Lydia settled herself in a plump armchair, which, like its twin on the opposite side of a fake-coal fire and the matching sofa before it, was swollen with scatter cushions and crocheted throws, the armrests fattened with embroidered covers.

  The room was small and intensely crowded, with examples of Rose’s handiwork serving as a backdrop for a mob of cherished but often ill-considered impulse buys.

  Many of the objects that populated the mantelshelf, the china cabinet, and the sideboard had been purchased in a hurry at various seaside resorts throughout Ireland; purchased, wrapped and paid for, more often than not whilst the exasperated bus driver sat revving his engine, blasting his horn and threatening to roar off if his excursion ladies didn’t get “a bloody move on!” Mrs. Paddy McFadden was usually the last to board the bus, red-faced and breathless, “God-blisses-an-save-us,” clutching that must-have souvenir.

  Lydia’s eyes took in a troupe of plaster fairies dancing in a plaster field, a luminous holy-water font fashioned roughly after a cast of Dürer’s praying hands, an image of a glossy Virgin Mary being assumed into heaven on a plastic cloud, a line of somersaulting dwarfs pursuing a fleeing Snow White down a wooden path.

  She could not have guessed, however, that the pair of hearth-bound frogs (wearing knitted tricolor scarves and matching bootees) who sat staring up at her from big ceramic eyes, had very nearly resulted in Rose being left stranded in a shop on the west coast of Mutton Head Horn Bay one August evening of the previous year, as the heavens opened and darkness fell.

  “What a beautiful room!” Lydia enthused.

  “Thank you very much, Lydeea, but you know me and my Paddy don’t use this room very often, because you know a woman needs to keep one room in her house kinda nice and proper for guests and the like.”

  “I completely agree, Rose.”

  “God-blisses-an-save-us, Lydeea, but James will be very happy to see you.” Rose stood in front of the simulated fire on the cabbage-green Berber rug. She had swapped the sheep-flocked apron for a housecoat of buttercup yellow. As a point of gaudy interest, over the left breast pocket, she’d appliquéd a velvet sun of crimson above a patch of corduroy clouds.

  “Y’know,” she continued, “as I sez on the phone to you, he was very disappointed, so he was. Because y’know, Lydeea, he’s a kinda soft creatur is James, if you unnerstand me. Now me mother, God rest her soul, was the same. Couldn’t look at the crucified Christ in the chapel without startin’ to blubber.” Rose crossed herself quickly at the thought of her weeping mother and Lydia seized on the precious pause.

  “Gosh, Rose, what I have to tell James will make him very happy. I’m certain of it.”

  Rose beamed, bursting with curiosity. In her head she was already stitching a satin wedding outfit and positioning a lace-rimmed collar, was already beating together the ingredients for a three-tiered wedding cake.

  “I unnerstand you completely, Lydeea,” she said, “James’s ears are the first ears that should hear great news like that.” Rose clasped her hands together, hardly able to contain her joy. “Now, Lydeea, a wee drop o’ tea an’ a bun while we’re waitin’? My Paddy’s just away there, so him and James should be arrivin’ any minute.”

  At three minutes to seven Paddy’s Morris Minor shuddered to a halt by Jamie’s front gate. He sounded the horn as usual, but it could not be heard above the racket Shep was making as he circled the car, yelping frantically.

  Across the yard, behind the closed door of the barn, Jamie was draining the last of his Black Bush whiskey, mopping up the last of the cake crumbs with a moist finger from the torn paper bag.

  Paddy heaved himself out of the car seat. “Now now, wee Shep,” he said, bending down to stroke the dog. “God, you’re terrible excited this evening, and so will Jamie be when he hears who’s waitin’ for him at our house.”

  He secured the door of the Minor with the length of baler twine, as was his custom. He slowly wound it around the trunk handle. On this occasion, however, he exerted more pressure than was necessary.

  The twine broke.

  In the barn, Jamie smiled and climbed up onto a high bale.

  An annoyed Paddy opened the trunk. He had another hank somewhere—but where now, that was the thing?

  “Wait tae we see now,” he muttered to himself, then began rummaging through the disorder of the cluttered trunk.

  A helpless Shep bounded toward the barn door, barking and moaning. He raced back to Paddy, jumping up and whimpering, but Paddy shooed him away and continued with his search.

  In the McFadden farmhouse, Lydia accepted from Rose what
was to be the first of many cups of tea. In the trunk of the car, Paddy finally found what he’d been looking for. And behind the timbered door of the barn, James Kevin Barry Michael McCloone placed a noose about his neck.

  Having finally succeeded in securing the car, Paddy knocked on the cottage door and shuffled inside. In the McFadden parlor, Lydia selected a coconut monkey from Rose’s proffered plate. And in the Duntybutt barn, a rafter cracked with loud abandon.

  Paddy, having discovered that the cottage was deserted, stood in the yard deciding where Jamie might be. He heard what sounded like a thunderclap. “Ah Jezsis!” a muffled voice was heard to cry. He rushed to the barn door and pulled it open. He was astonished to find his friend sitting in a heap on the floor, nursing a broken rafter attached to a length of twine.

  “Christ, Jamie, what happened?”

  Jamie, still stunned from the fall, stared at Paddy, wondering if indeed he’d arrived in paradise and, if he had, then what was Paddy McFadden doing in paradise, too?

  Reality soon dawned when an excited Shep bounded through the barn door and leapt onto his master.

  “Christ, Jamie, what happened?” Paddy tried again.

  “There, there, wee Shep.” Jamie finally found his voice and hugged the dog.

  “I was up…tryin’,” Jamie began, “tryin’ to fix that bit of a rafter when the damned thing fell on me.” He focused on Shep as he spoke, too embarrassed to meet his friend’s eye.

  Paddy surveyed the scene and tried to make sense of it. He saw the empty whiskey bottle and torn bun bag on a bale. Why, he asked himself, was Jamie having a picnic by himself in the dark shed while tryin’ to fix a bit of a rafter?

  “God, Jamie, you could a got yourself kilt!”

  Jamie made no reply. Then Paddy noticed the letter on the high bale and the length of twine about Jamie’s neck—the length of twine that Jamie was now vainly trying to conceal inside the collar of his shirt.

  Paddy averted his eyes from his friend, to spare his blushes. He considered the condition of the roof.

  “Aye, them oul’ rafters is fulla woodworm. Dangerous boys, so they are.”

  Jamie released Shep and the excited collie bounded over to Paddy. He took him by the collar.

  “I’ll take the wee dog out, Jamie, and then I’ll help ye up.”

  He led Shep out, thus affording his friend the opportunity of preserving his dignity by discarding in secret the evidence of his attempted suicide.

  He returned a few minutes later, and was glad to see Jamie on his feet and the letter gone from the high bale.

  “God, Jamie, you’ll never believe who’s waitin’ for you at our house.”

  “Who?” was all Jamie could manage to say, as he accompanied his friend outside.

  “Lydeea, Jamie, Lydeea Devine!”

  “Lydeea?”

  “Aye, Lydeea…and she sez she’s got some great news for you…and she sez she’d like to hear ye playin’ so you’d better bring the wee accordjin with you because we’re gonna have a party!” Paddy was breathless with excitement.

  Jamie stood staring at him, not knowing what to think. Just a few minutes earlier he had had his hand on heaven’s doorknob, but for whatever reason, God had seen fit to slap the hand away. A period of readjustment to the earthly plane was necessary.

  “Lydeea’s waiting for me? With Rose? At your house?” Jamie heard himself ask the questions that seemed just too incredible for words.

  “Aye, that’s right. So you’d better run in and put your new suit on.”

  Jamie looked back at the barn, at the necklace of wheeling wood-pigeons that were still circling in the sky above its roof. All at once he was no longer in the drab yard of his homestead. He was in the place he’d yearned toward for so long: “the sunlit clearing.” Suddenly all the black thoughts, the ones that had battered and buffeted him all his life, fell away and were replaced by a gleaming glade of joy. At last he understood.

  “Heaven’s…heaven’s not up there,” he said at last, pointing toward the pigeons.

  “Well, maybe not…I don’t know,” said Paddy, confused. “But y’know, Rose would always say it was…because she would always say that whenever you see the Blessed Virgin bein’ assumpted into heaven, it always shows her standing on a wee cloud when she’s goin’ up…in the prayer books and the like.”

  Jamie continued to gaze up at the sky. He seemed not to be listening. Paddy shook his arm.

  “Jamie, ye better go in and get your suit on. We don’t want Lydeea—I mean Lily—to be waitin’ too much longer.”

  “Who?”

  “Aye. She said her pet name was Lily. She was called that when she was a wee one, so she was.”

  Jamie stared at Paddy in amazement. He tried to say something but the words simply would not come. He was remembering what he had told himself just a few hours earlier.

  This evening I’ll be with you Lily, as sure as I’m standing here.

  Nothing was making sense today—and everything was making sense.

  “I’ll turn the car,” Paddy said. “Don’t forget the accordjin.”

  Jamie hurried inside and Shep followed him. In the bedroom, he donned the shirt that Rose claimed was not so much “sunshine” but closer to a “custard” yellow. And the suit, that in her considered opinion was not peat, but “more of a gravy brown.”

  Shep, lying on the bed, watched his master closely as he adjusted his tie, before slipping on his shiny shoes. He reached for his accordion, then straightened to admire himself in the mirror. No, heaven’s not up there in the sky, he said to himself. It’s now, begod; it’s here. I’m part of it. I’m living it. It’s mine. Shep stood to attention on the bed and emitted a full-throated bark. He sensed a change in his master’s routine—and it met with his full canine approval.

  Jamie strode proudly from the house into the gilding sunlight, smiling broadly as he went. And as the dog went frantic and Paddy stood amazed, Jamie finally knew what happiness was. The best kind of happiness; that which through years of searching struggle is finally found and realized.

  The ten-year-old boy from the orphanage had become a happy man. He belonged. He had leaped across that gorge of emotions and scaled an awesome height.

  He sat in the passenger seat, Paddy at the wheel, Shep at his shoulder, and the accordjin on his lap. As the Minor pulled away from the farmhouse, Jamie was scarcely aware that the car was moving. When Paddy chose the wrong gear and the Minor spluttered and lurched as it began its slow labor up the hill, Jamie did not even register the jolting. He was dreaming, seeing only the beauty of the world through the grimy windshield, hearing only the sound of his accordjin music spilling out across the quiet fields.

  “God, Jamie, there’s another thing I forgot to tell you,” Paddy said, careering down the hill and narrowly missing a milk churn. “I was in the post office the other day and Doris Crink told me…well, what she told me to tell you was that…was that she’d like you to call in for a drop o’ tea this Sunday.”

  “Lordy me, is that so?” said Jamie, beaming broadly.

  “Aye, she maybe wants to talk to you about your savings account…I don’t know what else it could be about…. Maybe she’s a wee bit of interest…a wee bit a interest to add on or maybe…”

  Paddy continued in his fanciful conjectures, his voice fading away, merging with the rattling of the Minor. Jamie scarcely heard him. He was giving himself fully to the moment, his mind a flurry of memory and speculation. Lydeea…Lily my wee sister! How can that be? She died as a baby. The nuns said so. But then the nuns said I’d never been given a name. The nuns said lots of things that weren’t true. I know that now.

  Then he recalled a remark Rose had made.

  “Paddy, didn’t Rose say when she saw us in the Royal Neptune Hotel that Lydeea and me had the same noses?”

  “She did indeed! She said ye could a been brother and sister, the pair a yous were that alike.”

  As the Minor rattled into the McFadden yard and Lydeea hu
rried to greet him, Jamie said goodbye forever to that frightened, ill-favored little boy, to the child who’d answered to the number Eighty-Six, and in whose tortured dreams this sunlit future gleamed.

  And he knew at last, as he ran to meet his sister, that life’s whole arduous journey had been in preparation for this moment. This perfect moment, free of pain and loneliness, and the memories of cruel people in darkened rooms that had haunted him for so very long.

  For, in the tear-stained, heart-stopping warmth of Lily’s embrace, James Kevin Barry Michael McCloone understood with the utmost joy that he’d survived it all, and wanted to live.

  He wanted to live and sing and dance and play for each and every one of his glorious,

  his precious,

  his God-given,

  love-driven,

  Lily-rescued days.

  Special Note

  Even though this is a work of fiction, the regimes depicted in those sections set in the orphanage are based on real situations. The activities engaged in by the children, and their deprivation and punishments, are faithful to a great number of accounts related by those who survived such places.

  Those institutions—the so-called “industrial schools,” orphanages and “Magdalene” laundries—were run by certain religious orders in Ireland for the better part of a century, and were little more than places of slave labor, from which the Roman Catholic Church profited substantially at the expense of orphaned children, or children forcibly removed from single mothers.

  The cruelty and inhumanity of such regimes only came to light in the early 1990s. The last such institution was closed in 1996.