‘I’m sick of that woman interfering in our lives,’ I said and left her there. If she wanted him in a single bed, she could fix it up herself, I was thinking. Pure childish, I know. But how could I even begin to say what was really on my mind?
Before Dad came home, I’d spent a lot of time googling Acquired Brain Injury. ABI for short. It almost sounds like something you have a choice in. Oh, yeah, and I’ll have two euro worth of that ABI over there? I don’t google it any more. Not after I chanced upon the statistics for marriage break-ups in these situations. I was shocked, horrified. Forty per cent of marriages broke up, according to one survey. Anything up to fifty-four per cent, another concluded. One site even suggested that seven out of nine couples split up in the longer term. I couldn’t get my head around it. I still can’t. How could you abandon someone when they needed you most?
So much for love. Here today, gone tomorrow. Better never to fall in love as far as I can see. Better maybe never to love anyone at all. Not even your mother and father. That way you have nothing to lose if they disappear or leave or go all weird on you. Maybe Dad was lucky to have had no memories of his parents. He was a happy man after all, wasn’t he?
8
The sun changes everything and today is a scorcher. I was awake at eight and even though I’d only slept for three or four hours, I knew it would be the best of days. And I wasn’t wrong.
We watched four episodes of Father Ted back to back. Dad was on a high and it’s like his excitement set off fireworks in his brain. At first, he imitated the characters like he used to in the past. Father Ted, Father Jack and Dougal and Mrs Doyle. Then the fireworks started off in my own brain. He began to predict lines of dialogue before they were spoken. I called Mam from the kitchen. Tom was doing his pet monkey thing as usual, hanging from her neck. As she watched Dad, I know she was thinking the same thing as me. This is the closest we’ve come to finding the man we knew.
Soon Sean appeared, his green tracksuit soaked in sweat. He’d been out running. Not a trace of a hangover on him. It was beginning to feel like a proper Welcome Home party. And like every good party, the surprises kept coming.
When I saw Tom climbing down from Mam’s lap with his green tractor in tow, I didn’t give it a second thought. I was too busy planning ahead. Thinking, We should try the music next. The Undertones. ‘Jimmy, Jimmy’. ‘Teenage Kicks’. Then the books he wrote. Terry the Tank. Frosty the Fireman. The Flutterbyes and all the others. All the while, I was glancing over at Dad. He sat on the edge of his seat. Sunlight streamed through the tall bay windows of the sitting room and most of it seemed to fall on him.
Then I saw that Tom had moved his green tractor within a few feet of Dad. He gazed up at him. Remembering? Dad never took his eyes off the TV. Tom went closer. A few more minutes passed. Mam and me swapped disbelieving looks. Tom’s hand touched Dad’s and rested there. Dad didn’t turn from the TV, but he began to stroke the tiny hand absent-mindedly.
Tom didn’t stay long there with Dad. It was like he knew in his own way not to rush things. He wandered over to me and it was more like me hanging out of him than him hanging out of me, I was so grateful. The last episode of Father Ted on the first series DVD was coming to an end.
Tom went back over to Mam. He was getting hungry and bored. Dad wasn’t chuckling so much now. He still watched the screen, but I could tell that his attention was drifting. The big watch on his wrist that he’d begun to fiddle with, seemed to be counting down the seconds on this happy morning. Then with perfect timing, Brian came to the rescue. He’d let himself in by the open front door and hadn’t bothered to ring the bell. Which annoyed me, but not for long. He stood in the doorway, posing in his red Che Guevara T-shirt, a white plastic football under his arm. He seemed to look at everyone but me.
‘Howzit goin’?’ he said.
Dad was on his feet straight away.
‘Awright, Brian? Are we playing football today?’ he asked and I was thinking, Don’t let this perfect day go wrong.
‘A kick-around is all, Mam,’ Sean said. ‘No rough stuff, I promise.’
‘Yeah,’ Dad chipped in. ‘No rough stuff.’
I could see Mam didn’t want to be the party-pooper. Or not the only one. She caught my eye and I knew she was asking me to be her ally. I pretended not to understand.
‘No tackling,’ I said. ‘And no pushing and shoving.’
‘No sweat,’ Dad said, surprising us again with an old phrase of his.
‘Be very careful then,’ Mam said. ‘I mean extra careful, right?’
So, for the first time since the accident, Dad stepped out on to the Bernabéu. That’s what we used to call the back garden. The Bernabéu, Real Madrid’s home ground. And today, we could actually be in Spain, it’s so warm. ‘Other people have flower gardens,’ Mam used to complain sometimes. ‘We have a football pitch.’ But she wasn’t really into gardens and never had much time to spend out there anyway.
I’m taking a rest from the kick-about, sitting in the shade of the high wall at the end of the garden. I haven’t felt so good in such a long time. Hot but not bothered, the warm breeze stroking my closed eyelids. I hear the creak of the garden door opening. I open my eyes and the first thing I see is Brian watching me from the other side of the garden. He looks away and calls for a pass from Sean and touches the football nice and handy towards Dad. A pram appears at the garden door, followed by a gushing Jill. She’s making baby noises and gazing rapturously into the pram. Jill is forever asking me to call over to the house to see Win’s baby, but I haven’t done yet. I don’t know why.
‘Well, Jill,’ I say like I’m glad to see her. ‘You brought Richard.’
She looks up. She hasn’t spotted Brian and Sean until now. She reverses the pram back out the door and I follow. To be honest, I’m relieved she’s not coming in. Outside in the lane-way, she waits for me.
‘You should’ve warned me Brian was here,’ Jill says.
‘I didn’t know you were coming over.’
‘I texted. Why do you never answer?’
‘My battery’s dead is all,’ I say.
I know I should be admiring the baby, but I can’t even make myself look at him. Jill hasn’t noticed yet. She’s forgotten about Brian already and is billing and cooing at little Richard again.
‘Isn’t he only gorgeous?’ she says. ‘Aren’t you only gorgeous, Richard?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, but still I don’t look.
‘Do you want to hold him?’ Jill asks.
‘No.’ I don’t mean to be so abrupt. Jill stares at me. I look at the baby so as to avoid her eyes.
My cold heart melts. My knees go all wobbly. Worse again, my eyes fill up with tears and I’m thinking, What’s this about? Why does the sight of this lovely little fellow make me want to wail? He’s so tiny, so perfect, his little fingers moving excitedly, the lashes above his wide eyes so long and beautiful. I’m too choked up to say anything. It seems unbelievable to me that Jill’s parents will have nothing to do with the baby.
‘I’ll miss him so much when Win takes him back to Dublin,’ Jill says. She reaches in and tickles his nose, and his mouth chases her finger. ‘It’ll be so hard for her going to college and trying to mind him at the same time.’
‘Maybe Win should’ve thought of that before she –’
‘Eala?’ she says, but I can see she’s spotted my stupidly watery eyes. ‘What’s wrong?’
I stop myself from telling her what a dumb question that is. Instead I say, ‘Nothing. Nothing.’ And before I can shut myself up, ‘Everything.’
She moves towards me and I back off. She gets the message.
‘Things’ll get better, Eala. They really will,’ she says. ‘I thought Mum and Dad would never come around to accepting Richard, but I can see them changing. Mum actually held him for the first time yesterday and I swear she’s been smiling ever since. Win says this little fellow is going t
o bring us closer together than we ever were.’
She’s annoying me now. Maybe she should see Miss Understanding, I’m thinking, and get real about her expectations. That’s one of the psycho’s favourite words. Usually preceded by unrealistic or unreasonable. The baby gurgles sweetly, sings a happy cry and his legs kick under the blanket.
The garden door behind me swings open. It’s Dad. He’s pure fascinated by the pram.
‘Is that your baby?’ he asks Jill and she reddens up.
‘My sister’s baby. My sister Win, remember?’ she says, all flustered. ‘His name is Richard.’
Dad comes round to the side of the pram. He reaches and tickles the baby’s chin. I catch a glimpse of Jill. It occurs to me that this is the first time she’s seen Dad since he came home. Pity and panic mark her expression and I’m thinking, This is how everyone looks at him now. I’m furious but, to be honest, I’m wary of what Dad might say or do next. I’m trying to think of some way to get him back inside the Bernabéu when suddenly he swoops in and picks up the baby in his arms.
‘Mr Summerton, please …’ Jill murmurs.
‘Call me Jimmy.’ He’s mesmerized by the baby’s busy hands and feet. ‘He’s a lively little fellow, in’ he?’
Jill is on the verge of tears. She catches my arm and I want to shake her off, but little Richard begins to cry and Dad places him carefully back in the pram. He’s disappointed with himself.
‘I didn’t mean to upset him,’ he says.
‘Oh, he’s just tired, Jimmy,’ Jill says, skittery with relief as she inches the pram back from beside us. ‘He wants to be on the move all the time.’
But Dad’s not convinced and he retreats by the door to the Bernabéu without a word of goodbye to Jill.
‘I’m taking him for a walk up to the town park,’ she says. ‘Do you want to come?’
‘No,’ I say. I don’t really feel like giving her an excuse, but I do anyway. ‘I’ve to help Mam tidy up inside.’
‘Tomorrow, maybe?’
‘Yeah, tomorrow. Maybe.’
I slip back inside the door to the garden. Dad, Sean and Brian are passing the ball from one to the other. He’s cheered up again. He glances over at me when he kicks the ball like he wants to see if I’m impressed and I give him the thumbs up. Sean kicks the ball back to him and he tries a step-over trick with it, but gets his feet in a tangle. My heart skips. Luckily, Brian is close enough to steady him before he falls. I change my mind about joining the kick-about again. Next door, Argos launches into another howl. There’s something empty about that howl like he knows no one cares much about his predicament.
Inside the house is quiet. Not silent because I can hear the thud and bounce of the football from the Bernabéu, cars bumping over the speed ramps on the street out front, the clothes dryer speeding up and then winding down. I think of Angie. I imagine I’m Angie’s ghost. Not some lost, uneasy spirit, but one that feels no pain, feels nothing any more, not even pity. I could stand here forever.
I hear Mam. She’s on the phone in the kitchen. The hush in her voice is too deliberate. Hiding something. I get as close as I can to the half-open door without being seen.
‘This is too much,’ she’s saying. ‘I can’t take it in. You’re telling me what? That Jimmy …?’
It’s the hospital, I’m thinking. It’s not good news. I sneak a look inside. Mam’s holding a letter in front of her. It’s shaking. I can’t see her face. Her voice goes dead flat.
‘So he lied to me?’
The wall holds me up. I’m seeing stars.
‘Look, Martin,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to talk about this right now. I can’t. I’ll call you later.’
She ends the call and I scoot up along the stairs as noiselessly as possible. I go by Dad’s workroom. It’s still locked in case he overcomes his fear of coming upstairs and finds his way in there. Too much of his past to deal with all at once. Wreck his head it might. Like mine’s wrecked now.
I close my bedroom door. I go to the wardrobe and take out the curly red wig and put it on. I sit on the floor in front of the full-length mirror that’s inside the wardrobe door. I’m not singing. Look at the nutter, I’m thinking. A text message comes in on the mobile. Probably Jill, but I check it anyway for something to do besides call myself names. I’m right. But there’s an earlier message that makes me climb to my knees. I don’t know the number. I open it.
CAN WE TALK? SOON? BRIAN
There’s a carpet on the stairs so you don’t hear footsteps. What you hear is the tired groan of sagging timbers. I hear it now. I know it’s Mam. Everyone’s climb has a different rhythm to it. I wonder if she’s seen or heard me sneaking up here. I hope she doesn’t come into my room because I don’t want to know what the phone call was about. She doesn’t.
From the floor below comes the click of a turning key. She’s in Dad’s workroom. She moves about. Drawers slide in and out. Dull thuds like books falling. Or being thrown. I lie back on my bed, afraid almost to breathe. What is she looking for?
9
Our History teacher, Mrs Moore, is talking about the Irish Civil War. Families torn apart by conflicting loyalties, the killing of Michael Collins, the mutual savagery of men who’d fought side by side for independence only a few short months before. She tells us how her own grandfathers took opposite sides and, though they lived in the same town, never spoke to one another for the rest of their lives, even after one’s son married the other’s daughter. I like history. ‘Fantasy for grown-ups’, Dad used to call it. But today I have to pretend an interest. I haven’t really switched on since I came back to school. Going through the motions is all I’m doing.
Weird how when you act normal for long enough, you actually do begin to feel normal again. Normal enough to get by anyway. It’s like you put on the green school uniform and you’re one of the crowd again and you can half believe your life is more or less like everyone else’s.
At first, Dad took it badly when we went back to school after the summer break. In his eyes this was yet another sign that we were deserting him. Neither myself nor Sean were sleeping in his room by then. Mam hadn’t taken her turn, which bothers me, though, in fairness, Tom wouldn’t have let her even if she’d wanted to. He’s on better terms with Dad, but still clings to Mam, night, noon and morning.
Maybe I really was deserting Dad. Maybe he sensed a new coldness in me. I couldn’t get the phone call out of my head. What had he lied about? I don’t know why, but all I could think of was that there’d been another woman in his life. Maybe I’ve watched too many soaps. It’s not like he ever went out very much, except to go for a drink with Martin once in a while.
Besides, this isn’t exactly some big anonymous city we live in and news spreads fast, especially news of affairs and such carry-on. But the Angie in me insists that he often went around the country doing readings or meeting people he was working on cartoon shorts with, and staying overnight, and sometimes flew over to London to meet his publishers or some ad agency people he did work for.
If I was bothered and bewildered, Dad was even more so. Back in his weird no-man’s-land again. The night before school started up, he was dead quiet for hours. Then he said to Mam,
‘Sean and Eala go to school. You take care of Tom and fix up the house and make the dinners. What do I do?’
‘I’ve plenty of jobs for you, Jimmy, don’t you worry,’ Mam said.
‘I should have a real job. Fixing things or making things or something.’
None of us had an answer. Mam got us through the awkward moment, but I could tell it took a huge effort. I can’t remember what she said. It was like one of those black holes everything disappears into. You’re there, you’re listening, but at the same time, the words are being sucked into some part of your brain that doesn’t think, that only hides things.
All through that first week of school, Dad refused to speak to any of us. When Brian cam
e over he got the same frosty reception. Dad wouldn’t play football, run on the treadmill, watch TV. Not even Father Ted. Mam had trouble getting him out of bed in the mornings. I tried a few times. He’d tell me to ‘Feck off’, which was funny first time around, but soon got fair annoying. Sean said we should leave him alone, which really got my back up. We argued every morning for one reason or another and I’d head off as early as I could, glad to be out of there for a few hours.
Then things began to change. We still got the cold shoulder from him, but he talked to Mam more and more. On the Friday of the second week back at school we were playing at happy families again and Dad led the way.
It was one of those grey days that couldn’t decide if it was morning or evening. I dragged myself downstairs thinking, Thank God it’s Friday. I was wrecked. I don’t get much sleep these nights. So wrecked that the surprise staring me in the face at the kitchen table didn’t register in my brain at first.
When I was five years old, I asked Santa Claus to bring me a tricycle. Dad often talked about that long-ago Christmas morning. I don’t remember any of it, but apparently I woke them at six o’clock. I was tearful. I’d checked under the Christmas tree in the sitting room and – no tricycle. So Dad brought me back down. ‘But look, there it is, love,’ he says. I’m looking straight at it, but I’m in such a state of shock and pure tiredness I can’t see the bright crimson tricycle. Only when Dad puts me sitting on it do I realize that Santa has delivered after all.
That’s how it was when I sat down for breakfast that morning. Pure spaced-out from lack of sleep until Mam brought the teapot to the table and sat beside me.
‘Look at that little scamp,’ she said. ‘He won’t eat a thing for me and Jimmy’s got him to finish the bowl.’
I looked up from my muesli and there they were. Tom on Dad’s lap and both of them grinning at me. Sean arrived at the table and his usual sleepy-sour daze went all wide-eyed. And then wider-eyed.
My Dad Is Ten Years Old Page 5