by Peter Murphy
Grainne nodded and tried to smile but it was so strained. Deirdre remembered what that felt like; smiling because you didn’t want anyone to know how totally drained you really were.
It was another one of the really stupid things women had done to themselves. These days you were expected to give birth one day, hit the gym the next, and be back to looking fabulous in weeks. Celeb-mums had thrown down the gauntlet and too many women were foolish enough to pick it up. They could blame men all they liked but women really were their own worst enemies.
“Grainne?”
She looked up from her phone and tried to put it away. “I’m sorry, Mom, it’s just so weird to be away from him.”
“Then try being in the moment and enjoy it.”
“Is that even a thing anymore?”
“I would have thought that by now you would have developed a greater appreciation for the more important things in life—like actually getting a full night’s sleep again,” she added, so she wouldn’t sound like such a mother.
“People still do that?” Grainne almost took the bait and for a moment looked like a brash teenager again, but she checked herself. “He wakes every two hours still. And Doug is talking about sleeping on the couch. He’s beat before he even gets to the office. But”—she seemed to correct herself—“he’s such an angel. I just want to hold him all the time.”
“Of course you do, sweetie,” Deirdre encouraged and Grainne grew more animated and proceeded to repeat the litany of all of Douglas Jr.’s recent milestones, almost becoming frenetic as she swelled a little more with pride.
Deirdre remembered what it was like. Once her babies had been her entire universe. Danny’s, too, for a while. And even as she remembered that, she remembered what it was like the first time Jerry and Jacinta visited. At the time she had resented everything about them, intruding and smoking everywhere; but then she remembered what she was like.
Baby blues was such an old-wives’ way of describing something that was one of the lowest points in her life, even rivaling some of the things Danny had done. It had all been so straightforward with Martin, but when Grainne came along everything she thought she knew about motherhood went out the window. With Martin, every little first was pure validation. That and the fact that he looked so adorable from the moment he emerged.
Grainne had fussed and resisted her every step of the way, and every regression was a ringing condemnation. She had felt like a total failure and probably would never have gotten out of it if she hadn’t gone back to work. Miriam had been the catalyst. “It’s all very well basking in the aura of motherhood for a while,” she’d said, “but it’s not really something to hang your hat on. Birds do it, bees do it. Even educated fleas do it.”
Grainne was still talking and still talking about the baby. Deirdre loved the little tyke. It was easy; it was just an emotional investment without all the work. But her first loyalty was to her daughter. That would probably change, but right now her daughter needed her.
“Grainne, we need to talk about you for a while. It’s been almost six months and I think it’s time you started to get back into life.”
Grainne reacted as if she had been slapped and, for a moment, looked as though she might cry.
“You think I’m being obsessive. Don’t you?”
“It’s not that. It’s just time to start doing things for yourself again. It won’t be long before DJ will be off doing his own thing.”
“Mom! He can’t even stand up by himself. He needs me for everything.” And even as she said it, her eyes grew wider. “He’s just a baby still—my baby.”
Deirdre didn’t answer. She didn’t want to force the issue.
“Besides”—Grainne sat back and pouted a little—“I’m not ready.”
“I know, but you must start getting back into the swing of things.”
“Really, Mom, what else am I supposed to be doing?”
Deirdre reached out and touched the back of her hand. “I’m not criticizing you. I’m just trying to help.”
“And you think I need help?”
“We all need help from time to time.”
Grainne checked her phone again and sipped her decaf latte. She looked the way she did when she was young and frightened. “You don’t think I can do this?”
“Of course you can, sweetie. You will be a perfect mother.”
“As long as?”
“There’s no ‘as long as.’”
“Mom, there’s always an ‘as long as’ with you.”
“Now, Grainne, let’s not start criticizing my maternal skills.” Deirdre raised one eyebrow to let her daughter know she was joking. “You can only do the best with what you’re given. Now, let’s finish and get you back before Rachael’s good deed turns bad on her.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Grainne finally smiled as Deirdre unlocked the car. “You were right, I really needed that.”
“We all do, sweetie, from time to time.”
*
By Christmas, Grainne was almost back to her old self. She had slimmed down enough and had weaned Douglas Jr., but she still fussed over him. Doug and Martin had teased her about that until Rachael announced that she was expecting. Deirdre had known, but hadn’t told them and just sat back while they dug themselves in too deeply. She enjoyed watching Martin skillfully extract himself while Doug blundered on as the two girls turned on him.
Deirdre sat back and smiled. She would wait until they had blown it all off; all the little niggling things that were better casually discarded before they grew into the types of things that could tear them apart. She loved them all, even Doug. He was doing his best and that was all that anybody could ask.
They all were, even as the rest of the world was shrouded in doom and gloom. Except Canada, floating along in a bubble. Serenaded by songs of self-promotion crafted by spin masters and paid for by tax dollars. The Canadian banks were, for the most part, unaffected—something the smug took credit for despite the fact that the real credit was due to a man that voters had soundly rejected. But for Deirdre, things were solid. She had paid off the mortgage and house prices in Toronto were still rising. She would sell the house and find a nice condo closer to Yonge and have plenty left over to help her children set up their own homes. She would have to make an allowance for Danny, too, but it might be better to dole it out rather than risk him with a lump sum. That would be tempting fate. She still cared about what happened to him—that would never change—even if everything they once shared had turned on them. But they had created a family too. His mother was still after Deirdre to get Danny to go to Rome and she had talked with him about it.
“And why on earth would I want any part of all of that?” he had asked and smirked. They had gone for coffee after she helped him pick out a few gifts for his new grandson. She didn’t mind doing it. She had moved past all her harder feelings and was comfortable just seeing him, as long as it was about their family. “Next she’ll want me to go back to Confession—and start going for Communion again. I wouldn’t mind, only she doesn’t even believe in any of that stuff.”
“Maybe she just wants to have a vacation together,” Deirdre lied. Jacinta had told her all about Fr. Reilly and the Jesuit, and all that they had done for Mrs. Flanagan. She was convinced that they would be able to help Danny.
Deirdre had talked with Miriam about it, too. She’d told her that poor old John Melchor was struggling to cling to whatever was left of his sanity. But she also said that she didn’t think there would be any harm in Danny visiting. She thought Fr. Reilly might appreciate it. She said that, even though he never mentioned it to her, she always had the feeling that Danny Boyle was a piece of unresolved business for Patrick.
As far as Deirdre was concerned, Danny had enough unresolved issues around Catholicism and the way he had been brought up. “Besides”—she smiled at him and kept her thoughts to herself—
“it might do you some good to take a trip somewhere. Grainne and I really enjoyed ourselves when we were there.”
“Yeah. I’d love to go on a trip like that with her, only that’s not going to happen anymore.”
Deirdre was tempted to say something reassuring but she knew better. She didn’t want to become involved any more than she had to. “Well I think you should consider it. It would mean the world to your mother.”
She drained her coffee as he thought about that. She’d done as Jacinta had asked but she was getting uncomfortable. It was all very well meeting him, but she didn’t want any more involvement in his life. There was no point. It had always been a downward spiral and she would have more than enough to do helping Grainne, and Martin, with their unresolved issues when it finally came to its sad and sorry end.
“Thanks,” he said and tried to smile as she rose to leave. Only his smile was tired and forced. “Thanks for coming out and doing this with me.”
The kids were now bickering over music. They were all tired of Ricky Martin and Grainne wanted to listen to Michael Jackson. Since his death it was all she listened to, but Rachael and Doug wanted something more traditional, so Martin dug out the Bing Crosby CDs and soon they all sang along to “White Christmas.” And as she sat there, surrounded by family, Deirdre couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for Danny Boyle. He’d cut himself off from everything he loved to wallow in his pools of self-pity.
Yes, life was full of ups and downs, but together, as a family, they would muddle through. They would deal with everything life threw at them and get up and go on to the good times that always followed. That was the biggest difference between them—Danny just sat in his misery decrying the world around him.
It wouldn’t have mattered but for one thing; even in absentia, Danny was still a part of their family. They all were.
Chapter 14 – 2010
Sure you’d hardly recognize the country anymore,” Jacinta told them all as she placed fresh flowers on their graves. Bart, Nora and Jerry, all lying peacefully on the hillside across from Glenasmole on a fine spring afternoon. The sun was warm but there was still a chilly breeze running through the long grasses.
She hadn’t been to see them since last autumn. It was getting harder and harder for her to manage the trek and she couldn’t ask Dermot. He was so bad it wasn’t safe for him to drive anymore. Deirdre had her hide the car keys from him. He still insisted that she help him look for them every time she called in, but he was getting so forgetful that he was easily deflected by a cup of tea. By the second cup he would have forgotten all about them and begun another rant about the sorry state of the country.
“It’s all a bit down now,” she told the dead. “The poor old Celtic Tiger has been and gone but it’s still a great difference from the way things used to be. Only the young are leaving again—not that they aren’t well up for it. They all have university degrees these days and they’ve been going on holidays to places like Thailand and all, so they’ll be well used to it. Jaze, isn’t it well for them all the same. In our day the Isle of Man was far enough—if you could even get that far. Most of us had to make do with Butlins.
“Not that I haven’t done my own bit of traveling too.” She pulled at the new crop of weeds that were poking up around the graying, lichen-stained stone. Her own parents, and Anne Fallon, all had nice, clean, polished granite stones, but Bart’s was an old stone. They had put Nora beside him when her turn came. And Jerry too. He’d asked her to.
“They’re better off getting out of here and going somewhere they might have a chance at having a life for themselves. This country is nothing but a bloody disgrace. We raised them up to expect the world and then when the Germans wagged their finger, packed them all off into exile. We should be ashamed of ourselves.”
They should. They had let themselves be led back to the way things used to be under the old landlords. “Fiscal Connaught,” Dermot used to growl every time she brought him the newspapers. And this time it was their own that did it—no matter how much everybody went on about Mrs. Merkel. It was their own flesh and blood that had sold them out this time.
“Nobody is going to church anymore and who could blame them? Every day there’s news of another bishop who didn’t do the right thing. I suppose they think they were just protecting the good name of the Church when what they should have been thinking about was the poor little innocents who had been brought up to trust them.
“I suppose,” she conceded as she lowered her head, as her own share of their collective guilt rose up inside her, “we’re all to blame really. We all knew, only we wouldn’t let on and now we’re all wandering around like we’re lost in the fog. And,” she added with a nod to Bart’s name on the stone, “there’s nobody left to give us a good kick in the arse and drag us out of it. We’ve gotten awful lazy, and even the idea of rising up and changing things has us worn out. We’ve had a taste of the good life and we’ll never be happy going back to the way things used to be.”
She paused for a few moments but none of them answered her. They didn’t have to; she knew what they would have said. Bart would have fumed and snorted like a bull. Nora would have clucked and sniffed as if she wasn’t surprised. And Jerry? He would have had a good laugh about it all. “What did the people expect?” he’d ask. “Sure didn’t Karl Marx warn them years ago that this would happen?”
That would’ve set them all at each other’s throats again—or at least it would have when they’d been alive. None of them had ever been shy about their views. Still, Jacinta missed them more and more with each passing year as she grew older and more alone.
“I suppose Danny and Deirdre were better off getting away when they did,” she said to lighten the mood again. “But I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mixed bag over there too. He’s getting worse every time I see him. It’s like he’s just waiting around for the end now.
“It’s such a pity, too,” she added as she struggled with her composure. “His children are a credit to us all. And they’re hardly children anymore and are off starting families of their own. That must make you all proud? Being a part of something that goes on long after you.”
She took solace from her own words as she pulled a tissue from her purse and cleaned the dust and dirt that was gathering in the grooves of the inscriptions. “And you’d all be so proud of young Martin. And Grainne, too, but Martin is a bit like you, Bart. He’s not afraid of doing what has to be done. And he’s a real gentleman too.
“He’s shrewd too. Sometimes, when I see him thinking, he reminds me of you, Nora. But when he laughs it still sounds the same way it did when you made him laugh, Jerry. He still remembers you and often tells me that he misses you.”
She knew that would make them all happy, but even as a cold breeze rustled past her, her news of Danny lingered over the place.
“I’m still trying to get him to come to Rome with me this year—if we ever get to fly again after all the ash. It would do him the world of good to see Fr. Reilly again.
“And he could meet the Jesuit. You’d like him, Nora. He’s nobody’s fool and you can tell, just by looking, that he knows what’s really going on. Fr. Reilly tries, God bless him, but it always feels like he is just telling you something that he’s read in a book.
“Not that he isn’t the heart and soul of good, but the Jesuit has the eyes of a man who can see what nobody else can.
“I’m sure that sounds like I’m going a bit daft again but that’s how he made me feel. He was able to get the soul of Mrs. Flanagan’s brat out of purgatory. I’m sure he’ll be able to do something for our Danny yet.
“Please God he’ll come with me this year.”
She got ready to rise as the new curate approached. He’d been off saying his few prayers at some of the newer graves. He was a decent enough young fella—taking time out to drive her and all—but God he was so young. “How is one so young and innocent ever go
ing to survive,” she’d confided in Nora before he got too close. “But still, he’s a huge improvement on Fr. Dolan—or Bishop Dolan as his eminence now likes to be called. He’d drive me all right but he’d have kept the meter running.”
“It’s so nice to see you smiling, Mrs. Boyle,” the young curate whispered after he had made the sign of the cross and kissed the rosary beads that trickled from his fingers. He was very old school like that—a bit like old Fr. Brennan, God love him.
“You’d be smiling, too, if you knew them.” Jacinta laughed for his sake as she took his outstretched hand and hauled herself up. “They were the best of characters. We’ll never see the likes of them again.
“Bart, my father-in-law, fought for Ireland back in the Troubles. And my mother-in-law, Nora, she’d have put the skids under them all, from the bishops all the way to the Vatican, if she’d known what was going on. And she’d have put those bankers in their place, too.”
But it was Bart and Nora’s fault too. They’d known and had known for years. The Republic that Bart had fought for was nothing more than what Jerry always said: “A rotten little fiefdom of liars and thieves and buggerers.”
“And what made you take the collar?” she asked the young curate.
“Well, Mrs. Boyle, with all that happened I thought someone should be reminding the people of what Jesus really stood for.”
“And do you think you know that?” It was unfair of her to say that, and the poor curate looked like a rabbit that was trying to decide which way to run.
“Never mind me,” she soothed him as she linked her arm in his for steadying. “Tell me, did you ever hear tell of Fr. Patrick Reilly. He was the curate here years ago, only he’s off in Rome now. I’ll give you his address—if you’re ever going over. He was like the Sacred Heart, he was.”
She wondered what Patrick was making of it all—and the German pope. Jacinta didn’t really care for him. He had a face like a man who had squeezed all joy out of his own life and was more than happy to squeeze it out of the people too. Every time she heard him speak she couldn’t help but remember what Jerry used to say, back when he was Cardinal Ratzinger—the Polish pope’s Rottweiler: “Ve must follow orders.” And, he’d been a bit of a Nazi too. Only he was just a young fellow then and everyone did foolish things when they were young.