Born & Bred (29 page)

Gina nodded and wiped at her nose.

“See! That just proves that, deep down, you’re still in love with him.”

“I guess so. But I can’t help but worry what he’ll be like . . . after. I mean, what if he doesn’t want to get married now but doesn’t know how to tell me? What if he was just stringing me along?”

“They all do that, Gina. They only start telling you the truth when they know you’ve heard all their lies. But it’s not as bad as it sounds. We’re always thinking the worst of them anyway, so it all balances out. Don’t you see?”

Gina’s face was a mess so Jacinta changed course for the toilets, which just had to be on the other side of the shop and they had to walk past all the staring and nudging of the other women out seeking bargains and a bit of news for when they got together with their friends.

“Don’t worry about things like that. It never works out the way you think.” She steered her sister through the door and stood her in front of the mirror. “Now let’s clean up that pretty face of yours and don’t be worrying anymore; everything is going to work out the way it’s supposed to and if you stop trying to interfere, you’ll stop hurting yourself.”

“Ah, Jass! That’s so nice of you.”

They hugged and held on to each other until they were steady again.

“Jass? When did you get to be so smart about everything?”

“When I was locked up in the hospital. I used to think about everything until it drove me mad. Now I just deal with what’s in front of me, and while I’m still mad, I’m much happier about it. No one else can make you happy, Gina. You have to do that for yourself.”

“Jacinta?” Gina was almost smiling again. “Do you really think that Jerry could help with four bridesmaids?”

“Why? Who are you thinking of asking now?”

“You, silly.”

Jacinta was delighted even though she would never do it. “I’m too old to be a bridesmaid, but thanks for asking.”

Gina looked gorgeous in the fifth dress she tried on. It was a little more expensive but Jacinta insisted that they take it. She had a plan for paying for it, too. Nora had said that it was okay.

She had gotten Martin involved again. They had asked the solicitor for money to remodel the kitchen. They would get it done all right; Jerry could get one of the contractors from work to do it, cheap. They might even get it for free if Jerry could dangle a few little government contracts at them. They’d already had a bit of work done on the garden—a few stones laid out like a patio until the contractor had time to come back and finish.

“This is the one, Jass. Isn’t it?”

“You look like an angel in it.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Well, you would if you smiled more and meant it. You know, one of the other things I learned in the hospital is how little we know about life, no matter what all the experts try to tell us. I think it would be better if we spent our time learning to enjoy it instead of spending all of our time worrying about where we were going after we’re dead.”

She hadn’t really heard that in the hospital—Nora had told her. She hadn’t meant to say it aloud. It was something Nora had said when Jacinta asked her if she was in Heaven. She was very terse on the subject and Jacinta could only assume the worst. Not Hell, of course. Nora Boyle was probably in Purgatory—which was just as bad for an old woman who had been so generous in her dealings with the Church. It didn’t seem fair.

“Thanks for telling me all that, Jass, but do you know what I really want to do? I want you to help me pick out the right pair of shoes.”

“And what makes you think that I’d know?”

“Because I want to look as good as you did. Do you know that Ma used to look at your wedding photo every night? She always said that you were the prettiest bride of all time.”

CHAPTER 15

Bart Boyle had never really liked churches and only went there for Mass and funerals and the constant stream of weddings of children of minor dignitaries, all only wanting to be seen and photographed with the elder statesman he had become.

But now that he was there, he had to admit that it was peaceful, except for a few whisperings and the occasional fluttering of sputtering candles, and the sway of little crosses at the end of rosary beads coiled around old, white fingers.

It was where the aged could linger on either side of death. Empty and serene but for the mutterings of hope and despair from the shadowy sinners who toured the stations of the cross, kneeling to dwell on every moment of the suffering that was never really understood. He used to smile at that. “Everyone goes in a sinner and comes out a freshly minted saint,” he often confided to his closest friends when they were well-warmed with whiskey. When they put aside all caution and spoke openly and honestly to each other in insinuations and knowing nods and winks that the rest of the world would never understand.

Bart Boyle had never really been a believer, but, try as he might, he could never forget the chill of the water from the baptismal font. Wakening him from wherever he was before. He couldn’t remember it, but, when he was alive, he spent a lot of time, subconsciously of course, looking for it.

He had made his Holy Communion and his Confirmation, and for a while, considered the priesthood. There wasn’t much else to do back then. He could go to America or he could go to hell. His family’s farm had been divided so often that there was hardly enough land left to bury a man, let alone raise cattle or potatoes.

His mother prayed that he’d take the collar but when the fighting broke out, and the Black and Tans came by with their guns and their torches, what else was he supposed to do?

The Church blessed the cause in those days, but afterwards, he found little comfort in that and over time, stopped praying at all. How could he when every time he tried to close his eyes to pray, dead men’s faces loomed up out of the dark?

He had never been honest with Nora about that and told her what she wanted to hear—about him going to confession and getting absolution. He never had been able to forgive himself. Not the killing part—he had to do that—but he was never comfortable lying to Nora about it.

He had done his penance, though. Haunting the Garden of Remembrance as all of his old friends moved on while he had to stay. Listening to the voices outside of the wall talking about everything but what Bart and his ilk had done for them. He felt forgotten, except when Nora visited.

Now it was his turn to visit her. He had been released from the Garden and was supposed to move on, but he couldn’t just leave her alone again. Not at a time like this.

He had tried talking to her, but Nora was Nora and nothing could turn her once her mind was set. So he did what she wanted—he visited a few old friends and let them know that Danny needed help.

He had his own thoughts, but, as he had learned since he died, nobody was really supposed to judge anybody. Danny was the way he was and they’d all had a hand in that. They had all done things that were regrettable, things that spilled over from the lives of one generation into the lives of the next, filling them in turn, like a fountain. He could have been a better father to Jerry and that would have been better for Danny, too.

That’s why he had got involved. He still believed in Nora’s faith in their prodigal grandson, who wasn’t really all that different from him when he was a young man, though it took a dead man to see it.

“Well?” Nora bustled into the pew after genuflecting as much as her worn-out knees would let her. “It’s nice to see that you still remember how to kneel down and say a few prayers once in a while.”

“Ah, Nora. Are you well?” He turned around and nodded at her. He wanted to smile but he didn’t think it would be fitting, given they were in church, and all. “I was just saying a few prayers for the repose of those poor English souls.”

He pushed himself up from the handrail and eased back into the pew by her side. She had her arms folded over her handbag and looked like she did at her kitchen table when he came down to face the morning after a hard night.

“And well you should. Didn’t they all have mothers and grandmothers, too?” She pursed her lips to let him knew that she was about to change the subject. “Did you get around to doing what I asked?”

“I did, indeed. I just finished. They all assured me that they’re more than happy to do whatever they can.”

“It’s the least they could do after all that we have done for them.”

Bart smiled at her. She was as pretty as the day he first set eyes on her in Herbert’s Park one Sunday afternoon. He had heard that she walked there, with her family, and he had been waiting since morning.

“Well it’s done now, Nora.”

“It’s not done yet.” She clasped the handles of her purse and held them against her heart. She always meant it as a sign that she was about to become a bit defiant, and stubborn. Nothing ever got in Nora’s way when she was like that—not walls or laws and certainly not the unentitled second sons of poor farmers now elevated to bishops and priests. No man was above her and she had little patience for those who thought they were.

But life had fought her every step of the way, too, and left furrows across her brow.

He began to rise and reached out for her hand, to help her up. “It’s as good as done and we really should be getting on. We’re supposed to have left already.”

She pulled away from him and shifted her purse to the other side. “I’m not going anywhere until I see my grandson safe and sound.”

As she began to fade away, Bart knew better than to argue. He lowered himself back to his knees and raised his hands before his face and prayed for the deliverance of his grandson, Daniel Bartholomew Boyle, however that might be achieved.

*

“Are you ready for a nice cup of tea?” Jacinta asked and smiled when Danny finally dragged himself from his fitful bed and came down to join his parents in the kitchen. They were making such an effort to be nice and normal about everything. His father lowered his paper long enough to nod to him, muffling a burp as he did.

His mother even took her cigarette out before she tried to kiss him. He almost let her, but backed out and just hugged her so she wouldn’t get too close. She didn’t look so worried anymore and Danny felt bad about that. If he got caught it’d fuck everything up again.

Still, if he didn’t get caught—and he never had before—she’d never know about it and she could go on believing in whatever it was that she was using to get through these days.

“Thanks, Ma.” He smiled back. He had to keep it up, too, all the smiling and being polite all the time. He knew the whole neighborhood was just watching and waiting for the latest bit of news about the Boyles.

When his granny was alive, they wouldn’t have dared. She would have stared them down with a glance and given them a right earful, too. Almost sweetly at first, until it melted down to its bitter core of acrimony and accusations. Granny knew about them all and was quick to put them back in their place.

He worried about her sometimes. If there really was a Heaven, could she look down at him and see what he was up to? He always told her how sorry he was when she loomed up with the other faces that floated around in the darkness when he lay in bed, afraid to go back to sleep.

Other times it would be Anto and sometimes it was Scully.

Only they’d be looking down on him lying in the back of a car. His eyes would be wide open and his tongue would be hanging from the side of his mouth. He’d even have two holes in the top of his head, with dark streaks of red running from them.

He promised her, and all the saints she knew so well, that if he could just get through this, he never do anything wrong again. He even swore it and sometimes, it almost felt like she heard and she would tell him: “If you promise you are going to start being a lot nicer to your mother and father.”

It was just like he was a little boy again and he liked how that made him feel.

He wasn’t only doing it for her sake. He was also doing it because of Fr. Reilly and Miriam. He knew they talked with Deirdre and he wanted to make a good impression on them.

Being around Deirdre reminded him of how he used to feel—back when he believed in the Church, and all, and he wanted them all to be able to see some good in him so that Deirdre would see it, too. And besides, it looked so good when the cops came snooping around. Everybody would say what a change they had seen in him, even going to Mass again. He just had to keep it together until after the next run. He had to look and sound like he did when he was a kid—before all the shite started happening.

“I was thinking of going over to London to watch a football match one of these weekends.”

“That’s nice. Would you like your daddy to go with you?”

“I’m not going to Liverpool,” his father snorted from behind his paper, “ever again.”

He had been a Liverpool fan for years but the last time they were over, a few years back, he got upset when they wouldn’t let them into the club house bar. Danny’s hair was too long and they didn’t like the look of him, anyway. Even though he was only going to drink red lemonade.

The color didn’t matter to them and they pushed them roughly away. His father fumed about it all night as he drank whiskey in the ferry bar. “Well if my son isn’t good enough for them they can go fuck themselves. They’ll never see me there again.”

“Did you ever think that he mightn’t be asking you? Well I think it’s wonderful, pet.” His mother smiled as she passed him a plate of toast all covered with strawberry jam. Just the way Granny used to do it.

“I didn’t say anything about taking anybody.” But what if he did take his father along with him?

“I might only be able to get tickets for a West Ham game.” He’d have to clear it with Anto first—so he’d have time to change the pickup. He wouldn’t mind. He’d just be glad of the loyalty.

“Who are they playing?”

“I won’t know until I get the tickets.”

It would be brilliant. No one would ever suspect him like that. It would just be him and his dad, going to a game together. And his Dad would tell everybody what a great son he had—getting tickets and paying the fare, too.