On autopilot he phoned Dr Thornton who hurried over and, using his stethoscope to listen, shook his head. “I’m sorry, Gavin, he’s gone,” Dr Thornton lowered his head.
Even though they hardly had anything remotely resembling a father and son relationship, Gavin was acutely aware that, apart from Jean and Paul, his father was all he had left in the world. They had long since lost touch with his relatives on his mother’s side and his father had been an only child like himself. The loss brought back all the old feelings of when his mother had died when he was only seven years old, old enough to understand what had happened but young enough still to need her desperately. The anger and grief he felt overwhelmed him.
He got through the next few days and the funeral in a blur. Jean was by his side throughout and she even stayed over in the house with him so that he wouldn’t be alone. She held him as he cried at night and they had a togetherness again that had gone missing years ago.
He went back to work the week after the funeral; he needed the distraction. For every pint he drank behind the bar, he would sneak a quick short as well. Pint, short, pint, short. Alcohol was the only thing that allowed him to forget. If anyone noticed, no one said anything to him because they knew he was grieving. But, before long, he couldn’t get out of bed in the mornings without taking a quick swig of whiskey to knock the edge off the pain and get him through the day. He told himself that it was only temporary to help numb the pain of his father’s death. An image of his dead father sitting in rigor mortis in his armchair with an empty whiskey bottle beside him would flash into his head and he would push it out again. He wasn’t like him, he told himself, and he could control it. He would stop soon.
Jean began to worry about how he was coping. Some days he seemed to be dealing with it quite well and other days he would go to pieces. So that he wouldn’t be alone, she decided to move in with him with Paul. He was delighted at first but once Jean was in the house it became harder to hide his drinking from her. At least in work he could drink all he wanted – it was a pub for God’s sake, he was supposed to drink – it wasn’t his fault that his job involved so much drinking. Of course he did try to stop, especially for Paul’s sake – he didn’t want Paul growing up the same way as he had – but he couldn’t help it, he needed it to get him through the day.
* * *
One day after he had collected Paul from school, he went up to the bedroom and gulped back an entire naggin of vodka in one go. Instantly feeling warmer, he came back down to his son who wanted to go outside to play. Outside, the fresh air hit him and as he swung Paul around he started to feel dizzy.
“Faster, Daddy, faster, Daddy!” his son roared.
“You want to go faster? Okay then, you asked for it, matey!”
He spun and spun in rapid circles, the trees whizzing past his eyes and the sound of his son’s infectious giggles filling the air until he found himself careering headlong into a spin that he couldn’t stop, until eventually himself and Paul both came crashing down against the garden fence. He managed to protect Paul from the fall, taking the brunt of it himself, but Paul had got a fright and began to cry. When Jean had come in from work, Paul relayed the story to her as she cuddled him in her arms. Gavin told her they had just tripped up over a rock in the grass but it was a wake-up call for him. He swore he was never going to touch a drop again. For Paul’s sake.
He took the bottles from his hiding-place in the wardrobe and poured them down the sink. He resisted temptations all around him in O’Casey’s and was the only person sober in the place.
* * *
Paul was six years old when Jean sat Gavin down and announced that she was pregnant again. He was dumbfounded. For a start he could count on one hand the number of times that they had slept together in the last year. He normally came in so late that he automatically slept in the spare room so as not to wake her. He had asked her how she had let that happen and she had got really upset with him and stormed back to her parents with Paul in tow. He had reached for a bottle of whiskey again and, as he gulped it back, with every sip he wondered what the hell he was going to do now? It was hard enough providing for Paul but now, if there was a second baby on the way, how were they meant to afford it?
He knew his reaction was out of line so the next day he had swallowed humble pie and called over to the McParlands to apologise to Jean. He told her that of course he wanted this baby and that they would figure it out. They made up and Jean came back home. He made a promise there and then to himself to stop drinking. With a second baby on the way, they couldn’t afford it for a start. But within three days he had succumbed to the pressure of the lads as they stayed back after hours in O’Casey’s.
* * *
As the weeks of her pregnancy progressed, Jean was beginning to put pressure on him to get a more agreeable job with regular hours so that he would be at home more in the evenings to help out with Paul and the new baby that was on the way. She would give him the newspaper every day with jobs already circled and then she would ask him what ones he had applied for. He could feel the pressure mounting on him. He tried fobbing her off, saying that what he had was the best for everyone because he would mind the children when she was in work and be with them all day and that if anyone should change their job it should be her. She got upset with him, asking him why he was being so difficult, but he just couldn’t contemplate leaving O’Casey’s. It was the only thing that kept him going. It was the one place he could drink freely, no one noticed if he took an extra shot of whiskey or had a double vodka on the go. It was acceptable to drink there. If O’Casey’s was gone, then he would be too.
* * *
At Jean’s first scan the ultra-sonographer had probed around her belly for longer than normal.
“Is everything okay?” Jean had asked worriedly.
“Mmmmh . . .” The ultra-sonographer stared intently at the screen.
“What is it?” Gavin asked, scared.
“Don’t worry, everything is fine, guys, but . . . well . . .”
“What?” Gavin demanded.
“Well, you’re actually having twins!”
Gavin felt the blood drain from his head.
“Oh my God! Did you hear that, Gav – twins! That is unbelievable!”
He looked up at Jean and the ultrasound technician who were smiling wildly at one another as if this was the best news in the world.
“Is there a history on either side?” she asked.
“Not that I know of!” Jean replied, laughing.
He began to sweat; a mixture of water and vodka came out through his pores until he could smell the salt on his skin. What the fuck? Twins! Jesus, things were bad enough as it was – he was barely getting used to the idea of another baby being on the way but twins! They didn’t even fucking run in the family!
He felt as though the walls were closing in around him. The pressure was unbearable. He looked at the two of them grinning at him like a pair of Cheshire cats. He looked at the door, which had a porthole window and, although he didn’t know why, he suddenly found himself bolting out of the room. As he ran through the hospital corridors, trying to avoid bumps large and small, he could hear Jean’s voice calling behind him but he had to get away.
33
A letter arrived on the doormat a few weeks later, with a postmark from Spain. It was from Gavin, explaining why he had left and that he was sorry but that they would all be better off without him. There was no return address. Jean ripped the paper into shreds and threw it onto the fire and watched it until the paper had singed and eventually dissolved in the heat of the flame.
Initially she was shocked at how Gavin had just walked out on her like that. How can you think you know someone only to discover that you never really knew them at all? But as the shock began to subside, she became angry. She never in a million years would have thought he would do that to her. Never. Her parents had been right about Gavin all along. She knew that if he ever so much as showed his face back in Ballydubh again, s
he would run him out of the village herself.
She moved back home with her parents once again. They stepped in as best they could but Jean knew they were bitterly disappointed in her. They had got over the fact that she had fallen pregnant with Paul, these things happened, people made mistakes, but to do it again, a second time – well, they had no understanding of how she could let it happen again and to be carrying twins was a whole other ball game. They knew the town gossips were having a field day but at the end of the day she was their daughter and they would do the best they could to support her.
It broke her heart how Paul, who was old enough to understand that his father wasn’t around, asked where he was constantly. He was only six years old and he couldn’t understand why his dad wasn’t waiting for him outside the school gate like he used to. She tried to keep it together for his sake and for the sake of the two little babies growing inside her who were now starting to make their presence felt with small kicks and wriggles inside her rapidly growing tummy.
A few months later, Jean gave birth to a boy and girl. She named them Chloe and Kyle.
The first few years were tough. Jean had her hands full with a seven-year-old boy and newborn twins. Her parents tried their best to help out but the house wasn’t big enough for all of them. Jean returned to her job in the solicitor’s office in an effort to pay their way while her parents minded her three children. They brought Paul to school in the mornings and she collected him on her way home from work in the evenings. But Úna and Paul found themselves resenting the fact that although this was the period of their life when, having reared their own kids, they should be winding down and starting to live their lives again, instead they were back in the baby stage. Jean could sense that they were growing tired of having the house overrun by three small children so it was a relief for all concerned when Jean managed to get a council house in a village nearby. They would still be close enough to help out but they would have their house back to themselves again.
The house that Jean was given was basic and in many ways the leaking windows and lack of proper central heating reminded her of the bedsit in Cork, but it was a roof over their heads and it was a relief to be out of her parents’ hair. At least now if the twins cried during the night, she didn’t feel under pressure to keep them quiet, or when Paul was tearing about the place pretending to play cops and robbers she didn’t have to keep on telling him to be quiet.
She set about putting her own touches to her new home. Paul chose a cornflower blue for his room and she put a sunny yellow in the twins’ room. Her dad helped her to paint the walls. He pulled up the ancient carpet and put down some semi-solid wood flooring, he sealed the leaking windows and hung pictures and photo-frames around the place. They gave her their old sofa and she decorated it with throws and cushions. For the first time in her life she felt as though she was finally taking control of her own life. For years she had been doing what her parents told her to do, then she had let Gavin take charge. Now it felt good to have her own independence, to do the things she wanted, to be a mother in the way she wanted without her own mother looking over her shoulder. In fact, she found it was quite liberating.
34
As the months after Gavin had left went by, Paul began to mention his daddy less and less. Jean was relieved that he didn’t seem to be as upset as he first was. He loved his new school and was doing well. His teachers were happy with his progress. He still asked for his dad occasionally, usually after he heard other boys in his class talking about the things that they did with their dads. Her heart would break for him. It was different for Chloe and Kyle. They had no memory of Gavin so in some ways that was just the way things were for them, they didn’t know any different. But Paul had memories of his father, he knew what it was like to have a dad and to have him taken away. She didn’t know if it was because they had been together for seven years on their own or for what reason but she had a special bond with Paul, different to the bond she had with the twins. They had been through a lot together and she knew she treated him differently to the other two because of that. She relied on him. He would keep an eye on the twins if they were outside playing and he helped her do little jobs around the house. She called him her ‘big strong boy’ and when she said that to him, his face would burst with pride. She would let him stay up after the twins had gone to bed at the weekends and they would snuggle up together and watch a film with bowls of popcorn and goodies. It was their special time of the week together and they both looked forward to it.
Every year on Paul’s birthday, Gavin would send him a card with money in it. But there was never anything for the twins. She assumed it was because he didn’t know their birthday. She had heard through people in the town that he was running an Irish bar somewhere in the Costa Del Sol and she had remarked that it was very apt with more than a hint of bitterness.
But as the years went on Jean couldn’t help but notice that the absence his father was having a huge impact on Paul. When the boys in his class realised that he came from a broken home, they had started bullying him. Jean had tried talking to his teachers but they didn’t take it seriously and told her that that was just “what boys did” – they were just “playing”. But she knew it wasn’t right for a ten-year-old to come home from school with a black eye or ripped uniform; that wasn’t “playing”. She had tried to teach him how to stand up for himself but he was embarrassed and would tell her to leave him alone. She asked her father to have a chat with him but Paul had pretended that everything was fine. She had wished his father was still around to help him. Chloe and Kyle had each other but she couldn’t help thinking that poor Paul was on his own.
The bullying had marked a change in Paul. No longer was he her sweet innocent son. He had grown up, almost too soon, and was tougher now and less inclined to let his feelings show. Whereas, before, he would walk up to her openly and put his arms around her, now he put on a brave front and he wouldn’t show her any affection. Then he made new friends in the estate, friends that were a little older and from similar backgrounds as himself so he wasn’t laughed at by them for not having his father around. His new friends were in the classes above him and as soon as the bullies saw who their victim was now hanging around with, they left him alone. The new friends became a shield around him.
Jean didn’t like these boys. She knew their faces from where they hung around the estate every day, messing and smoking, but there was no doubt that Paul had seemed happier since he had made friends with them. For the first time in two years, he was sure of himself – a new-found confidence that Jean didn’t want to take away from him, so she knew she had to tread carefully. She tried her best to distract him from his new friends but he wasn’t having any of it.
Things began to go downhill. At eleven years of age she had smelt cigarettes on him, at twelve he had stumbled in drunk. It became a daily battle to get him to go to school and keep him in there. Whereas once he had excelled, now in secondary school Paul was one of the troublemakers. She was forever being called in to discuss his behaviour and Jean had to beg for second chances from disgruntled teachers. She knew he was doing drugs at fourteen; he would come home with his eyes rolling in his head and his tongue bulging in his mouth. He brought girls up to his room and no matter how Jean tried to stop him, he wouldn’t listen to her. He would lash out in temper, kicking holes in the door or the wall or throwing her belongings on the floor. One time he had flushed her phone down the toilet because she wouldn’t give him money. He was finally expelled at the age of fifteen. Jean didn’t blame the school, she knew there was nothing they could do for him any more, but it now meant that he was at home all day with time on his hands and his temper seemed to grow. She began to fear his outbursts. She was afraid to be in her own house and it was her own fault for giving in to him over the years. It was as if he blamed her first for his dad leaving and second for being bullied at school, and her guilt meant that she made excuses for him. But he was out of control. She knew she had no one to blame but
herself because when his behaviour had first started getting out of hand, she hadn’t stood up to him. She hadn’t challenged him on it and now she was paying the price.
35
November, 2009
When Paul came home from his night in the Garda cell, Jean was shocked at how calm he was. She had expected him to storm straight into the house and go ballistic but yet again her son surprised her by acting completely the opposite to what she had feared. While he didn’t talk to her, he did stay out of her way up in his room. There was no music blaring and no shouting at Chloe and Kyle. Jean was dumbfounded by his behaviour but maybe the stint in Garda custody was the wake-up call that he had finally needed. When he was hungry that evening he didn’t come in like he usually would and demand that she cook something for him, he just went and made it himself. Even the twins were gobsmacked and they all looked at one another with surprised faces.
When Louise called over to check how she was doing, she told her sister about the complete change in his personality. They both hoped it was a lesson learnt for Paul. He went out quietly that evening and Jean prayed he wouldn’t come home in a state. She knew he could be fine when he was sober but under the influence of drugs and alcohol there was no telling what he would do.
She didn’t even hear him come home that night. Usually he would come in slamming doors and turn up the stereo but she hadn’t heard a sound last night. As she was getting breakfast ready for the twins the next morning, Paul stuck his head around the kitchen door and asked if she wanted anything in the shop. She was stunned by the gesture; it had been years since he had done anything remotely like helping her. She longed to walk up to him and draw him close into a hug and tell him that she loved him, but she knew that would be pushing it so instead she replied that she was okay for everything but thanks for the offer. When he left she let out a long sigh of relief. My son is back.
In a Moment Page 17