Born & Bred (25 page)

“I am thinking about it.”

“Good for you and I’m sure Deirdre is delighted to hear that.” She turned to Deirdre and waited for her to say something.

“Yes, you should quit . . .” Her voice trailed off as she thought about it. She wanted him to change, only she wanted him to do it without anybody having to ask him.

Miriam seemed to understand and quickly changed the subject. “So, what do you play?” she nodded across at the guitar while keeping her eyes on Danny.

“I just play a few songs, ya know, stuff that makes me feel better about things.”

“I’m sure you are very good. Perhaps Deirdre and I can come and hear you, sometime?”

“I don’t do many gigs. I usually just play on the streets, ya know?”

Danny seemed shy—the way he used to be. He wasn’t smirking anymore, though he did seem to squirm under Miriam’s attention. Deirdre was torn. She wanted Miriam to leave so she could talk with Danny and she wanted him to leave so she could talk with Miriam—about him.

“Well I think that’s great,” Miriam continued. “I knew some of the street musicians in Chicago. A lot of them had been in trouble, too, but music gave them a way out.”

Deirdre was shocked that Miriam had been so blunt but Danny didn’t seem to mind. He almost seemed relieved. “I’ve had a bit of trouble, myself,” he quickly glanced at both of them. “Only now I’m going to straighten everything out.”

“Good for you. That’s great. Isn’t it, Deirdre?”

Deirdre just nodded as she realized that Miriam was just trying to put them all at ease and that Danny’s troubled past should not be a barrier. Danny seemed to appreciate that and almost smiled the way he used to. Deirdre smiled back as Miriam sat and watched them over the rim of her cup.

Danny had to go. The market was closing and he had things to do, packing the stalls away.

Miriam told him how happy she was to finally meet him and promised to look out for him on Henry Street.

Deirdre was happy. More so when Danny turned to her and asked: “Would you like to go the pictures, sometime?”

She was surprised that he had asked in front of Miriam but she was delighted, too. She was getting a chance to show Miriam that her lessons on Love and Kindness had been taken to heart.

“Sure. When?” She wanted to sort it out now so he wouldn’t have to call around to the house. She wasn’t ready for that.

“Tuesday night? We could meet under the clock on D’Olier Street, around seven?”

“Sure. Looking forward to it.”

Danny seemed happy as he lifted his guitar and nodded again before melting away into the crowd.

“Are you sure about this?” Miriam asked when he was gone.

“I’m only going to go to the pictures with him.”

Deirdre lowered her head so Miriam couldn’t see her remembering the nights she and Danny had spent in the Classic, before it had closed down.

“I’m just not sure about that boy. He could go either way, yet.”

“You are beginning to sound like my parents.”

“Oh God, I must be getting old.”

CHAPTER 13

“So, Jerry Boyle?”

Jerry looked up from his pint into the jovial, ruddy face of a man who was feared on both sides of the border. He was the man everyone said could help. Nobody could just contact him directly but Jerry knew how these things worked. He had let the right people know that Bart Boyle’s grandson needed help. “That’s right. We met at my mother’s funeral. That was a good old night.”

“It was, indeed,” the man answered and sat on the stool beside him, nodding to the barman as he did. “Your father and I used to go way back.”

Jerry just nodded, too, afraid that anything he might say would betray his ambivalence toward his father.

The ruddy-faced man settled himself and looked at him through the mirror behind the bar.

“And that’s why,” he muttered softly from the side of his mouth, so that no one else could hear, though they all sat in silence, smoking and staring off at the television behind the bar, there to drown out the silence. “I have come to tell you directly.

“We found out that your son left his fingerprints on the gun that killed the other little fecker.”

He waited while the barman placed his pint before him, and thanked him, before continuing.

“But we also heard that it wasn’t him that pulled the trigger. That was done by one of our ‘guests’ from the North and that’s the problem. If we touch him, we’ll have Belfast and Derry on our case and the last thing we need right now is another split.”

He leaned forward for his pint as his mutterings drifted off and settled into the nooks and crannies.

He glanced around the reflected room as he took his first swig. He knew everyone there and they knew who he was. There were a few locals, unaffiliates, who only listened for a bit of gossip for when they met up with their old friends.

The Special Branch was there, too, huddled near the door, on the other side of a few journalists who could be trusted not to report on such minor matters. The ruddy-faced man nodded to them all in turn to let them know that he knew they were there, and they all nodded back to let him know that they would disregard what he and Jerry were talking about—that they knew it was a private matter.

“However,” he continued and lowered his mutterings to a burble. “We can, and will, have a few words with this little Flanagan bollocks. But first we need to know that your son is going to keep his nose clean. We can’t be seen to be favoring one of these fuckers just because his family has connections. So can you promise me that you can keep that little bollocks of yours out of trouble for a while?”

Jerry knew what he was asking. They wanted to know if they could trust Jerry, too. He had made a show of himself before—right after Talbot Street—the day he and Jacinta had gone to see the solicitor. He had come in drunk and mouthing off about going over to London to blow the place up.

That had attracted far too much attention and the Special Branch resumed their vigilance of the Boyle family until they were called away to deal with other matters. Banks and post offices were being robbed blind and orders had come down from the top. That was to become their number one priority. The country couldn’t afford such carry-on. The mood of the country had changed again and the righteous anger that followed Derry was forgotten, but the ruddy-faced man wasn’t the type to forget. That would be a big mistake in his line of work.

“I’ll do my best,” Jerry enthused and raised his glass. “And thanks very much. My father, God rest him, would be smiling down on us.”

They ruddy-faced man raised his glass toward the mirror and took another swig before he rose and put his hand on Jerry’s shoulder. “We’ll do what we can but you can’t expect your father’s name to keep getting you out of trouble. One of these days we might get tired of it. Remember that, Boyle.”

*

“I’m sure he is doing all he can,” Martin reassured Jacinta. She had been complaining about how unconcerned Jerry seemed about Danny.

“Well, it’ll be a first if he ever does right by his son.”

Martin wished she wouldn’t talk like that. It was like that with all of his sisters. They always had to be the wronged- party in all of their dealings with the world, including each other.

Since he’d gone to Canada they all turned to him for his impartial judgement—though they never listened to him unless he was agreeing with them. Normally, he didn’t mind too much but this was important—this was about Danny. “Don’t worry Jass; he’ll be able to come back with me, right after the wedding.”

He had followed up with Danny to make sure that he’d filled out all the forms and looked after everything on his end. He had to. He had promised Nora Boyle that he would. He had even taken her money and the solicitor was a witness to that. Martin had gone to see him before he left.

**

“Come in, Martin. Come in.” Davies had said as he settled back behind his desk and lit his pipe. “So? This is to be our last meeting. I’ll miss them.” He added through a billowing cloud. “Mrs. Boyle, God rest her, certainly knew who to pick for the job. I wasn’t certain,” Davies continued like he was just musing, “when she first spoke to me about the matter. But I can see now that she was shrewd until the end.”

Martin lowered his head. He didn’t want the solicitor to see his eyes. He wasn’t really there anymore. He was leaving for Canada and he was counting the days.

“Now, as to the matter of the money for home repairs, I don’t see any problem. The money will, of course, be entirely committed for the said work?”

Martin nodded again but kept his head down. It was all so pointless now. Jerry was working and Jacinta was so much better. They didn’t need anybody checking on them, anymore.

“Now there is another matter to attend to. Mrs. Boyle left monies that were to be given to you in the event you were going to leave the country.”

Martin looked up immediately.

“It has been invested and currently amounts to a little over seven thousand pounds. I have prepared a cheque which I will exchange for your signature on these papers.” He watched carefully as Martin leaned forward and signed each one. “Here,” he reached forward with the cheque and a sheet of his office stationary, “is your cheque and this is my son’s contact information in Toronto. I have written him about you and he will be delighted to greet you, once you arrive. He has some influence with local politics there and might be able to assist with employment, should the need arise. It never hurts to check in with our own when you are away. We are not such a bad lot when we are abroad.”

“Thanks,” was all that Martin could think to say. The last thing he intended to do when he got to Canada was to “check in” with anybody remotely associated with anything he had been part of back here.

“It’s the least we can do for our young emigrants,” Davies continued when he realized that Martin was not going to be more effusive. “Okay then. I won’t detain you any longer. I am sure you have much to attend to.” He rose and shook the young man’s hand and walked him to the door.

Outside, Martin looked at the cheque again. He knew exactly what he was going to do with it. He’d give his father half—things weren’t going so well for him. Since Jerry got his old job back, right after the election, he’d been able to send some work his father’s way but he hadn’t been able to put too much aside, yet.

He’d keep quiet about the rest, and, with a bit of luck, he would have money in his pocket when he got to Toronto. He folded the sheet of office stationary into this pocket, too, just in case.

***

Jacinta decided to let it go at that. She could tell he was trying to get her off the phone. They’d been talking for almost an hour—it must be costing him a fortune, phoning during the day, and all. “Well I’d better let you go then.”

“Okay, but promise me that you will call the minute you get any news?”

“I will, and thanks for everything, Martin.”

When she hung up, she checked the time and hurried to get ready. She had to pick up something for their tea, but first she’d go in and say a few prayers for Danny’ safe deliverance. She’d drop by the church and give thanks on her way to the shops. She’d miss him when he was gone. She’d be broken-hearted, again, but it was the only way to get him beyond harm’s reach.

Something was different when she knelt before the side altar.

The sun was out and sparkled through the stained-glass windows near the roof and colored light fell all around her. She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against them so she wouldn’t start crying and have everybody thinking she was going mad again.

She was. The whole thing with Danny had made her world a very dark place again but the refracted light glowed right through her like sparkles of colors and little stars.

Nora’s face was rising from the colors and for once, she was smiling.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to; Jacinta understood. Nora Boyle had finally come back to answer her prayers, mother-to-mother, the way things should be—the way the Virgin Mary would have wanted.

“Thank you,” Jacinta whispered through her fingers, sounding like a muffled prayer to the other prayers in the shadows. There were a few of them. Mostly older women interceding for their children, and their children’s children. The women of Ireland had a special place in the heart of Mary, and suffered in silence just like she had done when the world crucified her only son.

And as Jacinta prayed, she felt herself filling with a peace she had never known before.

*

Fr. Brennan sat alone in Gethsemane, the verdant little patch behind the rectory. He had wanted to grow vegetables there, but, in deference to the suburbs that surrounded the old church, Fr. Reilly had suggested that they grow flowers and shrubs, instead.

Not that either of them did the growing, nor the planting and weeding; that was the jealously guarded domain of Dinny O’Leary, a crusty old man who had outlived every other purpose in his life.

But his garden was a wondrous creation. It was a small space laid out like a maze, inviting those who ventured in to forget the world for a while, even though it could be heard bustling by on the road outside.

Fr. Brennan spent every fine afternoon there. The doctor, who knew things weren’t right but went along with Fr. Reilly’s assessment of stress, had told him it was that or they’d have the Bishop pack him off to a home—one of the places where they stored old priests until they died.

Fr. Brennan complained of course, but even the Bishop, who was trying to ignore the rumors he’d heard, said that he thought it was very good of Fr. Reilly to take the lion’s share of the work, doing all three masses on Sundays, and all of the confessions. “It’s the young buck’s world now, my old friend. Take this as a chance to enjoy some of the peace and quiet your years have earned you. I’d do it myself if I had someone like Fr. Reilly to depend on.”

It was pure nepotism; Fr. Brennan could see that clearly through the haze that surrounded him. Some days, life became so strange to him and on others, he knew who he was—just an old priest whose mind was beginning to slip, like a worn-out old reel.