by Peter Murphy
“If they don’t kill themselves first.”
“That mightn’t be the worst thing, either.”
**
The Bishop dropped in and brought a few nuns, selected for their discretion, and quickly dispatched them to the kitchen to make the tea and serve sandwiches to the priests and the politicians.
Nora, as was fitting for someone of her station, had provided well for the day with hams and cold chickens, egg and potato salads, and an assortment of pickles and relish, all paid for in advance and delivered to the house. No detail was left to chance.
She even bought a few dozen Waterford tumblers and a case of beer glasses for those who liked a bottle of stout. “But they’re mostly whiskey drinkers and I want everything to be just right,” she had explained to Jerry and Jacinta, even as she labored for her last few breaths. She even arranged for Martin to come by and take Danny to the pictures and for burgers, afterwards. He was, she had decreed, still far too young for wakes.
When the gathering had partaken of the tea and sandwiches, the Bishop called for a toast—the cue to open the whiskey.
“To the dear, departed, Nora Boyle, the likes of which we will never see again.”
“To Nora Boyle,” they all agreed and drank freely from their glasses, except for Fr. Reilly who sipped his.
“She was a great friend to Ireland and to the Church, God rest her soul, and mother to Jeremiah and Jacinta, and grandmother to Danny. May she rest in Heaven tonight.”
“Amen,” the Boys, the priests, and the politicians agreed again in concert and raised their glasses again.
“And a good and faithful wife to our dear departed friend, Bart. May God rest his soul.”
“To Bart,” they concurred with their empty glasses and looked around for Fr. Reilly who was charged with serving drinks.
“That curate has a very delicate hand,” someone muttered.
“Just be thankful it’s him pouring and not the parish priest—he’d charge us money.”
But when their glasses were refreshed they were renewed and broke off into small groups and talked among themselves as they waited while Jerry mingled.
“You’re the spitting image of your father,” the politicians laughed and slapped his back. “Have you ever thought of taking his seat back?” They had lost it in the last election. “With your name, you’d be a shoo-in.”
“What would I know about politics?” Jerry laughed as he basked in their attention. He had always felt that they were disappointed in him—that his past failings were still a blemish on his father’s name.
“What’s to know?” they all laughed. “You just tell the people what they want to hear. Until you get elected, that is, then you tell them nothing. And, when things go wrong, you can always blame the rich—or the poor, depending on who you’re talking to.”
“That might be how things were done under Fianna Fáil,” the local TD interjected. He was from the Labour Party and everyone viewed him with disdain, but Granny had wanted him there, too, because: “it does no harm to know those in the know.”
“Come and join us and be a part of the future.” He reached out to shake Jerry’s hand.
“Do you really think,” Bart’s old friends bantered, “that the son of Bart Boyle would ever dream of changing coats?”
They all laughed as Fr. Reilly poured some more and Jerry took the chance to slip away.
“He’s not a patch on his father,” he heard one of them say before he was out of earshot.
“Can I pour you a little more?” Fr. Reilly asked, his eyes soft and his cheeks a little flushed. “I couldn’t help but hear what they said. Don’t pay them any mind. They’re a dying breed and the world will be better off when they’re all gone.”
Jerry was a little taken aback by the young priest’s conviction and also a little embarrassed that he’d heard. “Thanks, Father, and don’t give it a second thought. I gave up listening to the likes of them a long time ago. But tell me, have you seen Jacinta anywhere?”
“I think she went upstairs. Her kitchen is overrun by nuns and I think she needed a bit of peace.”
Jacinta was sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking and nibbling at her nails. It was all too much for her. Being around the nuns who fussed and treated her like she was incapable brought it all back—the feelings she thought she had left in the hospital.
“Oh Jerry, I’m sorry but I had to come up here to get away from them all. Do you mind?”
Jerry sat on the bed beside her and took one of her hands in his. “Not a bit. Sure I understand. It’s like having the circus come to visit but they’ll all be gone soon and then it will just be the three of us. We’ll have the place to ourselves. It’ll be a fresh start, for you and me, and Danny.”
“We will be able to manage, won’t we, Jerry?”
“Of course we will. We’ll have the house and whatever is left—if Ma hasn’t given it all to the Church, and the Boys. And I’ll get a job, too. Things will be grand from here on. You’ll see.”
Jacinta squeezed his hand and raised it to her mouth. She kissed it gently and forced herself to smile, chasing all of her wrinkles away. “You’d better get down there before they start pilfering the cutlery and the china. Go on now. I’ll be fine.”
**
As the Bishop and his entourage prepared to leave, the rest of the gathering waited to bid him goodnight and start their revelry in earnest. The remaining sandwiches were neatly packed away and the nuns had left the kitchen spick-and-span but there was plenty to drink: whiskey and a few dozen bottles of beer.
“Good night, Your Grace,” all sides of the political spectrum agreed and loosened their ties and edged toward the table in the corner where the drink was arranged in rows. Fr. Reilly had relinquished his role and fallen in line behind his uncle.
“Good night,” the Boys nodded as the Bishop eyed them coldly and departed, down the driveway where his car was waiting, just beyond the unmarked squad car with smoke billowing out the windows.
“Gentlemen,” the Bishop addressed the occupants. “Go around the back to the kitchen and you’ll find sandwiches in the fridge. You can keep a better eye on things from there.”
“That’s awful kind of you, Your Grace. We will do so, if you’re sure the family won’t mind.”
“They won’t mind a bit. Just tell them that I said it was all right. I’m sure Nora and Bart wouldn’t begrudge you a few sandwiches and a cup of tea.”
“Good night, Your Grace.” They almost kissed his ring as they piled out and went off to investigate the sandwiches.
**
“Will you look at what came in out of the cold,” the Boys jeered when the Special Branch emerged from the kitchen, fortified by sandwiches and in search of something stronger than tea.
“C’mon in and have a drink,” Jerry encouraged them. “Sure we’re all friends here. Isn’t that right gentlemen?”
“Come in lads,” the politicos agreed. “Come in and relax. We’re just getting started. We thought the Bishop was never going to leave.”
“Well he’s gone now so what about a song? Does anybody know Skibbereen? That was always Bart’s song, God rest his soul.”
“To Bart Boyle,” they all agreed and raised their glasses.
They took turns singing the evening away, singing the songs they had in common and careful not to step on the cracks that separated them; chasms of misunderstanding that had torn comrade from comrade.
A young Special Branch man sang The Croppy Boy with such a fine voice that he almost brought tears to their eyes. Not to be outdone, the Boys sang The Foggy Dew and the men from Fianna Fáil sang O’Donnell Abu. The man from the Labour Party sang James Connolly and when it fell to Jerry’s turn, he sang The Wild Rover as they all eyed him blearily.
By the time Martin dropped Danny home, they had shed their jackets and rolled up their sleeves, their faces blotched and red but they were comrades-in-arms once again.
“A Nation once again,
; “A Nation once again,
“And Ireland long a province be a Nation once again.”
“And who is this young man?” a befuddled Special Branch man asked as he looked up from nosing around the table in the corner but the last bottle was empty. Jacinta had secreted the rest away so that they would all go home before the night—and to have a drink around the house for when she was entertaining.
“That’s Bart’s grandson,” a ruddy-faced man piped up. “I’d know that face anywhere. Come here to me ‘til I tell you.” He put his arm around Danny shoulders, his armpits damp and reeky and his breath pungent. “Your grandfather and I fought the Black and Tans, so we did. We drove them out of this country.”
Danny smiled and tried to wriggle free but the man wasn’t finished. “Fought for Ireland, we did.”
“Would you leave the poor lad alone?” one of the politicians implored seeing the look in Danny’s eyes. “He’s just buried his grandmother.”
“You’re right,” the ruddy-faced man agreed as the realization of Danny’s plight had a sobering effect on them all. “C’mon then, we should be hitting the road and give these people a bit of peace.”
“Stay,” Jerry mumbled from the depths of Granny’s favorite chair. “Stay and have another drink.”
“Ah, now Jerry, it’s getting awful late.”
“Late me arse. Are you mice or are you men? Stay, for Christ’s sake, and have a drink.”
They all rose from where they sat and looked at him dubiously. “No, Jerry. It’s late and I’m sure your missus has had enough of us and besides, we drank all the whiskey.”
“The hell we did. Jacinta? Jacinta get us another bottle, will ya, pet?”
Jacinta stood in the doorway and pulled Danny toward her. “I think these gentlemen want to leave now, Jerry. It is getting late.”
“You’re right Missus,” the gentlemen agreed. “C’mon,” they encouraged each other. “Let’s go home to our wives and our warm beds.”
“Never mind that,” Jerry rose unsteadily and tried to embrace them all. “Stay and have another little drink—just a night cap. Jacinta, would you ever go and get us another bottle?” But his enthusiasm flagged and he crumbled back into his chair and began to sing: “We’re on the one road . . .”
“Goodnight now Missus and thanks very much.” The gentlemen filed past toward their cars, arguing about who should drive. And in the spirit of their recent détente, the Boys agreed with the Special Branch to make it a late morning—so they could all sleep it off.
“Do you see that?” asked the last of the politicians as he steadied himself to pass through the doorway. “Drink can be the unification of this country—or the ruination!
“Will he be all right?” he added nodding his head toward the living room where Jerry was slumped in the chair. “He won’t be a bother to you now, will he?”
Jacinta assured him that it would be fine; that she would get him up to bed and that he would sleep it off. She closed the door and smiled at Danny. “Thank Christ that’s over.”
**
After the funeral party had dispersed, Nora stood in her kitchen, wanting, but unable to touch all that was once her life. The house grew quiet but still reeked of cigarettes. She wanted to rearrange what the nuns had misplaced. Not that she blamed them, God love them, but they could hardly be expected to know how things were done in a normal house where normal people lived.
She had spent years of her life here, cooking and cleaning and sipping cups of tea but she didn’t want it to be the place where her family would come to remember her. She wanted somewhere more dignified. Bart had the Garden of Remembrance as the place he could be recalled. She would have to find her own.
“Nora? Shall we be off, then?” Bart had asked from the warm glow that beckoned.
“I’m not ready, Bart. I can’t go yet.”
“C’mon, a chroi, there’s nothing more for us here anymore.”
“I can’t, Bart. They’ll need me yet, for a while.”
When he smiled at her he looked so young—like when they first started to walk out together.
“They’ll have to find their own way from here on in.”
“I can’t. Don’t you see?”
His smile saddened as he faded into the gloom, leaving Nora alone in her darkened kitchen as the whole house slept.
***
I did the right thing, Danny repeated, over and over, as he hurried toward home. But he couldn’t really convince himself. He was falling further down the long slippery slope his granny used to go on about. He had been slipping since just after her funeral.
It wasn’t really anybody’s fault, he decided as he hurried past the cinema in Terenure, lightless as it lingered. Things just happened.
There never was any real reason—no divine plan—just the muddle of competing interests and haphazard events as people went about their lives.
They all had their reasons, too; they were just fighting for what they believed in—or just trying to protect what they already had.
He had also figured out that nobody liked to talk about any of that. They were too busy putting bread on the table—or drinks on the counter. “It’s all very well for you. You’re still young and have me and you mother to look after you,” his father used to argue whenever he tried to talk about it, something Fr. Reilly had advised him to do.
“It’s all very well for the priests to be talking the way they do. They don’t have to go out and work like the rest of us. They never have to worry about being laid off, or having their hours cut back. They are insulated from the reality the rest of us get to live our lives in.”
His mother always told him not to pay any attention to his father when he was like that, but she had no answers either. She used to say that that was the way of the world and he better just get used to it.
He did. He also figured out that everything that he had once found warm and comforting was buried with his granny.
He felt better when he looked at things that way and lit another joint. It all made sense when he was stoned. Then he could sit like a yogi, aloof and detached.
He’d been left to find his own way. Nothing he had been taught had any value anymore. It had all been lies; well-meant lies that children were told so that they wouldn‘t wander off.
As the smoke curled inside of him he relaxed. He had to stop letting it get to him. He just needed to stay cool and let it all blow over, just like he and Anto had agreed.
He had agreed to talk with Fr. Reilly again, too. It would look better for him if he looked like he was trying to change things, and, in time, when the cops had someone else to deal with, he could get out and start his life all over.
He’d do things differently this time. He’d be much smarter.
He took another hit and floated away to a much happier time, though it hadn’t started out that way.
CHAPTER 9
A few days after Granny’s funeral, as Jerry walked on Talbot Street, the city exploded.
The blast knocked him into a doorway, unhurt but dazed. He watched as shock and horror gave way to frenzy. Bombs had exploded all over the city, killing and maiming Dubliners on their way home from work.
As emergency crews rushed in to sort the casualties, one of them checked Jerry. He told him he was in shock and should wait for someone else to attend to him.
After they did, he went to a pub and drank whiskey to warm the chill in his guts and to blunt the shards of memory that were poking through: images of twisted and blackened bodies lying on a carpet of broken glass, and him sitting in a doorway, crying like a baby as braver men rushed forward to help. There was nothing any of them could do but at least they tried. He just sat there rocking and crying until someone found him and cleaned his face of dirt and tears.
He would never let anybody know about that, and, in time, even he would remember it differently: he had been one of those who rushed forward to save lives in the inferno of it all—with no thought for his own safety.
But for now, his thoughts grew darker as a small flame sputtered inside of him. The man on the news said that the UVF were blamed but everyone knew that they were just the puppets dancing on the end of British strings.
As the flickering flame grew, he could see his mother, rising from her cold damp grave, pointing her long white finger at him. Where his father had stepped forward, Jerry had cowered in a doorway.
He started to shake again until he couldn’t take it anymore. He finished his drink and stepped out into the night, still filled with wailing sirens punching holes in the fog of shock that muted the whole city. But he could sense growing anger, too. Soft at first, but liable to erupt into flames beneath a passing breeze.
It was time for him to start doing his part.
**
As the whole country mourned and beat its chest—mea culpas and tribal drumming’s—Jacinta kept herself busy packing away all traces of Nora Boyle.
She took some small pleasure from it, that it was she who was packing the old woman’s effects and not the other way around.
Yet she was becoming nervous and fidgety, too. The entire city was on edge. It was one thing for the fighting to happen in the North but now it had been brought home to them all. Some wanted to cower away, not wanting to revisit the bad old days when fighting had ravaged the whole country.
Others raged and spoke of bringing the fight to the British homeland; to give them a taste of their own medicine.
Even Jerry was affected. The death of his mother and the bombings seemed to meld inside of him and he never mentioned one without the other.
Jacinta noticed something else, too. He now spoke of his mother in reverent tones that Jacinta couldn’t agree with, though she kept her thoughts to herself.
Granny had overshadowed her life since she met Jerry. For years she had walked a narrow path through the greyness with only Granny’s clucks and tut-tut-tuts to guide her but now that the old woman was gone, she felt terribly lost. She was going to have to make it on her own. Jerry would be of little help. He would get lost inside of himself again, just like when Danny was born. She would have to be the strong one now—for Danny’s sake.