by Paul Kelly
Gerard was stunned at the accuracy of Derek’s actions and the knowledge that he seemed to know about what he felt he had to do in order to help little Frankie, and he asked Derek if this was what was worrying him where he had stayed away from his house for so long after he had left school and after his job at the supermarket and Derek nodded in silence, but Gerard thought there were tears in his eyes as if he was about to cry.
“I had been helping little Frankie with his toilet for a few years now and he was able to go to the toilet and ‘aim straight’ as well as clean his bum, all for himself, but sadly, last week... Frankie passed away in his sleep and... I am so lonely now and I miss him so terribly. That is why I told you when I came here that I think I must be strange in some way as most boys or young men of my age would consider me to be off my head. I get so confused now and I don’t know what to do.
Gerard made a few notes in his diary on his desk and told Derek he would be in touch with him again when he had made some further enquiries of his own, but what Gerard was going to do was to get in touch with me or George Askew and tell us what he thought should be done.
Two weeks later Derek came again to see Gerard in his surgery and there was someone waiting to speak to him; another boy at his supermarket job who was a friend of Bob whose little brother Frankie had died so recently had asked him if he would help them at home as this boy also had a relative who had Downs Syndrome and Derek had difficulties with this one. He was happy to do anything he could to help the Downs Syndrome child, but this was child was not another boy like Frankie. It was a little girl called Debbie and Gerard asked Derek what he wanted to do as the problem would be the same, but Derek responded saying he could not attend to a little girl’s toilets as he could to those of a little boy, when a little girl did not pee like a little boy... and he was surprised that Gerard being a doctor couldn’t realize that, but Gerard had to smile.
“What will you do then?” he asked Derek, but an answer was not given until he was leaving the surgery and he turned to Gerard as he was leaving.
“I would like to be a doctor and then the problem would be resolved,” he called out as he was leaving the building and Gerard called after him.
“Leave it to me Derek and I will see what I can do to help you do that.”
Later that evening when Eric came on duty and Gerard told him of Derek’s experiences, he grinned and added that there was one born every minute, but Assim felt quite differently when Gerard told him about young Derek and he added.
“Our vocation is one that can never be fully understood and whether we are looking after a male or a female, it doesn’t matter. We are all children of the same God” and both Eric and Gerard were surprised at the way Assim explained the situation being a muslim... and they thought Assim believed in Allah.
This ‘theology’ impressed Gerard very much and left him with a deeper knowledge of his friend than he previously had.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Freddie came into our lounge to see if I was alright as I hadn’t been into the office for a few days, but I was fine. My balance was a little awkward but I could not really complain as I was able to walk about after a fashion and do one or two things around the house which helped Emily. Freddie told me that he had been to the funeral of one of his best plasterers, a man that I couldn’t recognise as he had been retired for about twenty years, He was 85 when he died and his son Martin was with us as a plasterer and I imagined he had been taught by his father, and I knew Martin Mulherron well.
Brian Mulherron had been in the army during the 1939/45 war and hated the time that he spent there which was about four years. He had been in the Royal Army Fusiliers and could tell you lots of weird and wonderful things about his time in the military but he had no time for wars. He hated them and he hated the men who instigated them as necessary and above everything else, he despised the men who sent other young men out to kill, so that in the end millions of young men died and for no apparent reason. Rays’ argument was that he didn’t know any Germans so how could he hate them. If you didn’t know someone, how could you decide to end his life simply because he did not think as you did?
He told his son Martin about one particular experienced that truly disgusted him and changed his whole life. It was on the occasion when he was in charge of a platoon of about forty men and he was ordered to take the platoon into a village in France where it was known that a certain house in the village was occupied by several German soldiers. They used the house as a brothel and fun room where several of the Germans were officers who would get drunk when they were not occupied in the front line. There were other German soldiers too who acted as waiters to the officers.
Ray said he ordered his men to attack the house and to shoot where possible.. even indiscriminately as he didn’t know any of the Germans by character or reputation. They were all the enemy and we had to shoot... but when Ray got into the house, he was met by a terrified German youth who wore no helmet were he might be recognised, and he pleaded with Ray not to kill him. Now Ray looked at the young man and he felt sure that he looked very much like his son Martin and for that reason he guided his soldiers to shoot everywhere but to leave this young German man alone. This was done and the young German fled across a field where Ray could see him no more, but as Ray came out from the house, another German had been standing by the door and pulled a gun on Ray, where he shot him in the face and consequently Ray lost the power of one eye
Martin told Freddie about this incident because when his father was discharged from the army, he thought he would never get a job as he could only see from his right eye and he was a professional plasterer, but Freddie took Ray on in good faith and he worked as an instructor for the apprentice plasterers for nearly twenty years until he retired because of his age.
Ray often spoke about his hatred for the armed forces, but not because they were an army, but because they were trained to kill other men and this was because the leaders of the countries involved commended that the men do this when a war was on, but neither they themselves or their immediate family were involved. It was easy, said Ray, to sit back on your arse and tell others what to do, but to do anything themselves that involved guns or bayonets was a definite NO... NO
Martin felt a great loss on the death of his father but Freddie gave him an immediate pension saying that Ray would not accept anything like that when he was working with Freddie. Ray was so grateful for getting the job when he could only see with one eye, but his work was even more admirable with just one eye than it could possibly have been with two.
I was sorry that I had missed the funeral, but then I hardly knew Ray Mulherron as he had retired before Freddie took me on as his working partner. Martin, his son apologized for the time he had taken from his work to bury his father and I told him that was the right thing to do and that I was very proud of him.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I came to see Gerard myself a little while later as I as having trouble breathing and I was losing balance easily as I walked and my fingers were beginning to shake when I tried to write I didn’t think anything could be done about it as I wasn’t really ill, and felt that at my age, I was lucky not to have something worse than what I had, but I felt uncomfortable and Gerard suggested I should have an X-ray at the local hospital as my problem was probably just a touch of vertigo and when I went to the hospital and had all the treatment they could give me, it turned out that Gerard’s diagnosis was correct. I had a form of vertigo, called ‘compulsive vertigo’ and regardless that I was falling about all over the place, I would have to live with it, I thought of the poor little boy who suffered from Downs Syndrome and I knew how lucky I was and of the tragic people I knew in my ‘gang’ days and I wondered what they were all doing now. I was just tottering, but I could still laugh and smile, even if people thought that I was drunk and had too much whiskey for my breakfast. That was just a laugh and we all enjoyed the joke
, even Emily and the children as they thought I was having them on as I had been such an alert person all of my miserable bloody life...
I didn’t make an issue of my ‘complaint’ but when Emily told the children, Alfie couldn’t stop laughing and Sylvie couldn’t stop crying.
I tried to do what I could in the house as I was unable to get into the office very easily by foot and trying to drive the car was impossible. I had to rely on Emily to get me around if we had to go anywhere shopping as I would have the car off the road and up a wall if I tried to drive myself. I could do the hoovering and a bit of dusting around the house and of course I was able to clean up the garden after Shindigger had done his ‘business’
It was sitting around all day in a bloody chair that got under my skin and made me angry and even watching television gave me a pain in the. .. back... and the only regret that I have ever had was that I knew I would never live long enough to see my lovely Sylvie and her darling husband to have a baby. They had been married for over seven years now and I would have been satisfied with a boy or a girl and I know that Emily would feel the same. I felt as though I had never lived... well not a life that most people would call ‘LIFE, with only my darling Emily to make a contradiction to that thought. She had found me and loved me and brought me to understand something of who and what I am... and that is totally... bugger-all.
Conclusion
My husband died peacefully in his sleep last night when he was sixty years of age... and I broke my heart.
Shindigger cried softly and crept on to my knee as he looked up into my face and started to lick my lips.
Emily Marr.
Also Available