Erin’s Child

by Erin's Child (retail) (epub)

  ‘Three years,’ murmured Sonny, playing with his fingers. ‘I wonder how you’d’ve felt if it had been twenty-five.’

  Her face showed she thought this a peculiar hypothesis. ‘I don’t think even our Dickie could’ve managed to hide himself for that long.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose he could… But can you imagine what it would be like to see him suddenly walk through that door? I mean, d’you think you’d recognise him?’

  ‘I’d know him at a hundred and three,’ vouched his mother. ‘Little devil.’ She looked at the clock and smacked the arm of her chair. ‘Away, isn’t it time we were moving, Fran? Sonny, d’you two want to come?’

  Josie grimaced at her husband and hissed, ‘John, for pity’s sake get it over and tell her!’

  Thomasin viewed her daughter-in-law with raised eyebrows. She had never known Josie so forceful. ‘Tell her what?’

  Sonny’s chest heaved, his grey eyes begged for mercy. ‘Before I tell you, will you promise to forgive me?’

  His mother looked perplexed, then, mulling over his previous odd comments about Dickie, said slowly, ‘This has something to do with your brother, doesn’t it?’ At his relieved nod she pulled herself out of the chair and took a step forward. ‘Well, come on – what have you found?’ As he was tardy in replying she tried to guess. ‘Are you saying you’ve discovered another of his illegitimate children somewhere? Is that why you asked if I’d recognise him – because the child looks so much like him?’

  ‘Not so much like him, Mam…’ replied Sonny. Then after a long hesitation, ‘Is him. He didn’t die in that fire. That was one of Peggy’s men-friends… Dickie’s been living in America for over twenty-five years.’ Thomasin staggered. Her lower jaw fell almost to her chest and she sought for assistance – but too late. She fainted. Francis and Sonny lifted her to the sofa and spread her on it. ‘Erin, get the sal volatile!’ cried Sonny, then saw that his sister was in no fit state to do this. ‘Oh, I knew I shouldn’t’ve told her! Josie, you – oh, thanks!’ His wife had found the smelling salts which were duly put under Thomasin’s nose. She came round, peering at them all blearily at first, then, remembering, she burst into tears, Erin too.

  Francis had poured out two brandies which he handed to the women. After they had sipped them and recovered a little Thomasin stared at her son. ‘I told him it’d do this to you!’ he exclaimed. ‘But he gave me no option, I’m sorry, Mam.’

  ‘You mean… you’ve been in touch with him?’ Her chest was rising and falling very noticeably. Her eyes were like marbles, searching his face. ‘I don’t believe… I must be… Oh, Christ!’ She took another mouthful of brandy, screwed up her face and started to cry into Erin’s shoulder again.

  Erin dashed a handkerchief to her face, then glared at her brother. ‘What did you have to tell her for after all this time?’

  Thomasin broke off sobbing to grab her daughter’s arm. ‘Did you know about this, too?’

  ‘No! Of course not – look at the state of me.’ She held up trembling fingers. ‘God, my heart…’

  ‘And were you in on this right from the start?’ Thomasin demanded wetly of her son.

  He told her he had only made the discovery fourteen years after the fire. ‘We thought it best to keep it to ourselves, not knowing how badly it would affect you or Dad.’

  ‘Your Dad!’ Thomasin grasped him. ‘Wait till he comes back and hears this… Sonny, I could strangle you! And you, Josie. We had a right to know! You’ve robbed us of twenty-five years of our son’s life!’ Another period of weeping followed. Her entire body seemed in the grip of some tingling palsy. She still found it totally incredible. ‘Oh God, this hanky is drenched, give me yours, Francis.’ After blowing her nose and wiping her swollen eyes she asked fearfully, ‘What’s he doing now, then? Where is he?’ Her heart was still thudding as if trying to break out of her chest.

  Sonny looked uneasy. ‘Well, at this moment… he’s probably three-quarters of the way across the Atlantic.’

  Both Thomasin and Erin gasped and clutched each other. ‘You mean he’s coming home?’

  ‘For a holiday. He set sail shortly after he’d written to say he was coming so I had no chance to stop him.’

  ‘The little…’ Thomasin set her mouth at a determined angle. ‘Does he really imagine he can come waltzing in here after twenty-five – no, it’s twenty bloody six years! Wait till I tell your father – he’ll kill him!’

  Francis rejoined the discussion. ‘Thomasin, why don’t you take a trip and break the news to him?’

  Thomasin was thoughtful for a minute, then wrinkled her nose. ‘No, he should be back before Dickie arrives.’ Erin sighed. ‘Let’s hope this doesn’t start him drinking again.’

  ‘Yes – and trust him to be away when something like this happens! Sonny, are you certain it is Dickie? I mean…’

  ‘Thomasin!’ Everybody looked at Francis who regarded each one with indignation and pity. ‘I’m sorry, but I really can’t sit here and allow you all to talk of Patrick in this fashion… I promised I wouldn’t tell, but I feel it most urgent that Patrick be told the news of his son right away.’

  ‘What are you talking about, wouldn’t tell?’ quizzed Thomasin.

  ‘Oh, Thomasin.’ Francis beheld her sorrowfully. ‘They say that those closest to a person are the last to know… Patrick hasn’t gone to Ireland for a holiday. He’s going home to die.’

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Nothing had changed. At this time last year he had been about to take an exciting step into the twentieth century, with telephones, electricity, motor cars; standing here he felt as though he had taken fifty steps backward, a hundred – two hundred even. There was nothing here to indicate progress. Everything was the same as he had left it over fifty years ago, apart from the pile of rubble on which he was now standing. This was once a home – his home – with a father and a mother and a little boy who would play among the lazybeds and make pratie men with chips of stone for eyes and twigs for limbs. Strangely, among that dereliction, the hearth was still intact, with the metal crane that had held the cooking pot reaching out to him like some famine-racked arm, beseeching. But there was no fire. ‘If the fire dies, the house dies’ was the old quotation. It was true. The house had died over fifty years ago when Pat had walked out of it to seek a new life – any life – on foreign soil.

  To the right of the hearth was where Richard Feeney would sit. Patrick saw him now – felt him so strongly – with the old harp between his knees and the briar pipe protruding from his grizzled face. The other side of the fireplace was unoccupied. Patrick’s mother had died when he was very young; he had no vision of her. But other memories came easily: himself on the rushes in front of the glowing peat fire; the animals that shared the one-roomed cottage and whose body-heat helped to keep him warm on howling winter nights; child Mary, his first wife who had only lasted two years in England…

  His memories terminated agonizingly in a spasm that caused him to clutch his hands to his stomach, eyes disappearing in wrinkles, robbed for the moment of breath. Then remembering where he was, he lifted his face to roar his agony aloud, confident in his solitude that no loved-ones would come running – ‘Grandfather, what is it?’ Here he didn’t have to hide it, bellowing outrage at the sky.

  The spasm passed and tentatively he straightened, blinking. What would they say when he did not return? That was bad of him, not to tell anyone. Francis had got the hint, he thought. Who else could he tell it to? Liam was dead, Tommy estranged and who in his right mind would say to his beloved grandchildren, ‘I’m dying’?

  A movement caught his eye and he focused upon it; an Irish slide car bumping its way across the springy heather and making up the slope towards him. When it eventually came alongside, its pony’s nostrils flaring red with the strain of uphill travel, its driver’s face questioned. Patrick simply stared back at him.

  ‘’Tis a grand class of a day.’ It was delivered in Irish. The young man made no move to dismount
, gazing from this vantage point at the fine view.

  ‘It is.’ Patrick slipped back easily into his native tongue, lifted his eyes to the clear sky; no sign here that it was Christmas.

  ‘I heard your cry, it carried on the wind. Can I be after helping ye?’

  ‘I didn’t mean for anyone to hear it,’ said the old man. ‘There’s no way ye can help – but thank ye all the same.’ There was something familiar about the cut of the young man’s jaw. ‘Would I be knowing you, young fella?’

  ‘The name’s Fin Brady. I live down there aways.’ A gesture was flung downhill.

  ‘Patrick Feeney.’ The old man held out his hand, but before the other could clasp it withdrew into another spasm.

  Fin jumped down solicitously but Patrick shoved away his efforts. ‘I’ll be… all right in a second… just give me room.’ When it passed he looked to the concerned face but did not speak, finding neither the breath nor the words.

  ‘You’re in need of a doctor,’ advised Fin unnecessarily.

  ‘Too late for doctors, son,’ grunted Patrick, still suffering discomfort.

  Fin looked away to the crumbling cottage. ‘I used to live there,’ Pat told him.

  ‘You’d be the Patrick Feeney that married Mary McCarthy an’ went to England?’

  Patrick was only slightly surprised. The young man would probably have heard of Pat’s great-grandfather, too. In a small community like this there was no need for history books. Before each child reached adulthood he could quote all the kings of Ireland, the victories, the defeats and even lesser accomplishments: the genealogy of each family was passed down by word of mouth, father to son, mother to daughter. ‘I would,’ he answered. ‘An’ you’d be the son of Sean or…?’

  ‘Paedar Brady,’ supplied Fin. ‘Sean’s son.’

  ‘Aye, ’twould be,’ nodded Pat. ‘Ye’ve a definite look of your grandad.’

  ‘Away, get on the cart,’ ordered Fin. ‘If ye stand here much longer the wind’ll chamfer your ears.’

  ‘Where we going?’ asked Pat as he perched his buttocks on the edge of the cart.

  ‘Home,’ replied Fin matter-of-factly. ‘They’ll want to welcome ye back.’

  Patrick smiled as the cart began to move. ‘Ye know I was never on too good terms with your grandad.’

  The youth shrugged. ‘He was a terrier for a scrap so I hear, but then he’ll hardly be picking up the cudgels today. He’s been under the sod for the last thirty years.’

  Patrick nodded sorrowfully. ‘He survived the Hunger then.’ Well, he would, came the private thought. He’d suck the bones o’ the dead would old Sean before he went under himself, the scoundrel.

  When they reached Fin’s home Patrick was given a rapturous greeting by the entire family, though he had never met any one of these generations. Out came the jug of poteen, plates of honey cakes and freshly-baked potato bread. The fire was replenished with peat, and flutes and fiddles produced. Fin was sent out to summon the rest of the village to celebrate Pat’s homecoming.

  The old man sat with a contented smile, tapping his foot to the whining fiddle, while the boys swung their girls off their feet, red petticoats swirled and the poteen helped to erode Pat’s liver just a wee bit more. Fin’s mother, Roisin, asked Patrick where he would be living now.

  ‘That’s a question I’ve asked meself,’ smiled Pat. Though more pertinently, how long would he be living?

  ‘Ah, sure stop worrying,’ said Roisin above the lowing of the cow as it rolled its eyes at the wild music. ‘Ye’ll stop with us.’

  ‘I’d not impose…’ he began, but was silenced.

  ‘A fine family we’d be to throw a ceilidh for your homecoming then sling y’out on your ear. Are y’enjoying yourself?’

  ‘Ah, great,’ he cocked his head. ‘Just like the old days.’

  ‘Then ye’ll stop?’ Though she eyed his clothes apprehensively and announced that it would not be what he was used to by the look of him. Patrick thanked her and said it would be more than fine. Having found himself a haven he was able to sit back and enjoy the party which carried on until the early hours. And if anyone noticed that the old man occasionally bent over and for the briefest instant his face clouded with pain, then they kept it to themselves.

  * * *

  Dawn broke to find the weary revellers staggering off to their homes while the Brady family prepared to stretch out on the floor for a few hours’ sleep. A straw-filled palliasse was placed in the warmest corner for Patrick while the Bradys collectively employed a thick bed of rushes and, covered by a communal blanket, were soon snoring.

  Despite his weariness, despite the fact that he had been dealt the choicest bed, the warmest corner, despite the poteen, he could not sleep. The pain was a contributor but not the only one. The other was that a half-revolution of his head showed him what he was leaving behind; the Brady family huddled in sour-breathed togetherness; father, mother, son, grandson… He wondered where Belle was now, imagined her trudging across the veldt, tending those stricken children. There was a lightning flash of Nick, holding his baby son out to be cuddled by a proud great-grandfather. Sonny, too, with his baby son and his troupe of girls. What lay in store for them? And what of Erin? She must be missing Belle, too. What about those children in his grand-daughter’s care? What future for them? More than these children huddled beneath the patched blanket. The young Bradys’ rise to adulthood would be a mirror-image of their parents’: you were born, baptised, if you were lucky schooled by the priest, got married, had sons of your own, dug your lazybeds, harvested your praties, year in year out… then you died. At least he had the certainty of knowing his own descendants would not live that rut.

  ‘Why have you come back if you feel that way?’ a voice – Thomasin’s – asked him. ‘Because I don’t belong there. I never belonged there. If I’d been here I’d’ve been quite content to live my life working praties and taking my fun like this family does. You never understood that; that I’m just a simple man. Oh, you made a play of it when we were first wed, saying all you wanted was me and my babies, but time brought out the real Thomasin. You’re happy with what your wealth has brought you – an’ I don’t blame ye, I don’t really. Sure, wouldn’t I rather be lying on my own featherbed than this lumpy old palliasse?

  The pain came again, so badly this time that a tempest boiled up in his brow, raging around the sockets of his eyes. It lasted longer, too. When it passed he flicked away the moisture and tried to recount where he had left off… Thomasin, ah yes, Tommy. She’d be there now, alone in that bed. Would she be sleeping, or were her memories keeping her awake, too?

  Grey light came seeping over the windowsill. It would be impossible to sleep now. Besides, the pain was becoming chronic. He needed to scream and he couldn’t do that here. Holding his breath he staggered to his feet and pulled on his warm topcoat. Briefly he gazed down on the sleeping Bradys, experiencing a pang at the child with its thumb in its mouth, the lock of black hair over pale brow.

  The cold hit him like a block of cold steel. Closing the door swiftly so as not to let in too much draught he pulled up his collar and rammed his hat further on, then set off towards the hill. He must again search out the pile of rubble that had been his home.

  Once there, he sat down, back against the hearth, and tried to light his pipe. The wind kept snatching at the match-flames, playing games with him. Huddling into the neck of his coat he finally managed to outwit it, smoke from the triumphant effort whisked away the moment he lifted his head. Before long a flask of whiskey had joined the tobacco as comforter. He shuddered at the burn it inflicted but punished his insides a deal further till the pain started to give in. Then he leaned back, simply looking.

  How long it took him to realise that this was no longer home he could not say, nor what had caused the revelation. Perhaps it was because the sky was not so blue today; in wintry hue it balanced heavily atop the mountain, hiding its summit. Unlit by sunshine, the granite landmark seemed not indigo but grey and
slightly menacing, footed by unattractive swathes of brown and crumbling heather. Everything seemed lifeless. The sharp December wind dug its claws into his hat, whisking it away, way up over the valley and down the other side. Not content with this it returned to tease the sparse slivers of hair from his brow, tweaked at his nose, his ears, infiltrated his warm coat and hectored his bones.

  He shuddered and rose. Revisited by pain he shrieked aloud. The wind roared down the hillside seizing his scream and forcing it back down his throat as if to say: I don’t want your pain! This country has pain enough; take it back, take it home! He made one last examination of the ruined cottage before returning to the village. The Bradys still slept. Only the cow greeted him, flicking her tail as he slipped into the warmth. Scorning the palliasse he sat beside the fire to relight his pipe and remained there for a time, staring into the radiant peat.

  Singly, the Bradys came to life, bickering and elbowing while they climbed into their clothes, the after-effects of the poteen souring their tempers.

  What the hell am I doing here? Patrick demanded of himself suddenly. Sitting here with a roomful of strangers, waiting to die. What eejit wouldn’t rather spend his last days with his loved ones? Or at least, where their memories are strongest. Why, for over fifty years, have I thought of this as home, pining my heart out for something that I already had?

  He waited till the buttermilk that Roisin had brought was settled on his tormented innards in a soothing blanket before telling them.

  They couldn’t understand, he could see that, though they made noises of absolution, saying he must go where he was most at home, despite thinking he was mad for wanting to be in England. He thanked them for their hospitality and gladly accepted the lift to the nearest town where he caught a connection to Dublin.