His Father's Son: To save the son he loves, a desparate father must confront the ghosts of his past (10 page)

Joey knew all the blokes at the transport section had been too good to him, but wasn’t this going farther than far enough. Macca had told Joey that he was no use to anyone the state he was in. People were too used to seeing him grinning like a pork chop, the stories flowing out of him, but he was a changed man. He knew it himself, sure hadn’t he a face on him as long as today and tomorra since Marti was taken. But what these men were after doing was a heart gladdener.

Macca and the men from the transport section had the house tightly roped. When the winch was in place Macca gave the say-so and it was raised from its stumps. Joey heard the loud crack of it lifting up and felt the noise like a jab at him. He watched it raised higher, then he watched it lowered on the trailer and every sag and every creak was a blow to him.

Marti had loved the house. Joey had loved it too. It had been their home, but now that was all over. Marti was gone and the house was going too. When Macca nodded, the men started to throw more ropes over. They slid off the roof and were quickly snatched and tightened under the trailer, front and back. Joey thought his home looked like some manner of giant beast, snared and about to be slaughtered. He could hardly watch.

“Wait. Wait there,” he said.

He ran to the trailer and the men stopped to watch him climb onto the white rails and into the house through a window. Inside all was roped and tied, everything from the beds and chairs to the television and the fridge closed tight, the morning’s milk still in it. It was Macca’s idea to auction it all together in one lot. Joey walked into Marti’s room and took down the Superman picture. It had hung there since the day they picked out the house. There was no way he could leave it.

On the way out he had an urge to take one last look at the room he had shared with Shauna, to say goodbye to that life forever. It was as it always had been, the bed unmade, the curtains closed to keep out the light. He had crept in a million times to see if Shauna would raise herself, come out of her cocoon, but she never had. The scene set him back. Wasn’t it as it always had been, beyond change, like a trap that had caught the pair of them. He lashed out, kicked the bed, again and again, then there was a dull thud and when he looked down he saw a little book had landed open on the floor.

Joey picked it up. It was a little leather-bound diary, thick pages broken down into days and months. Shauna’s writing filled the pages, little blocks of words squeezed into tight paragraphs, a day apart. What was all this? She had never kept a diary, Joey knew it was the last thing she would do – sure she wasn’t able for it, for a start. He turned to the first page. “Hell no. I cannot read her diary,” he said, and closed it quickly. It would be snooping. He put it back on the bed then headed out the door. He got as far as the hall when he realised his wife’s diary might hold some clues for him, might be some use in finding Marti. He ran back, snatched the book off the bed, and tucked it inside his shirt.

When Joey climbed back out the window and onto the white rails, the men from the transport section were still watching him; he knew they were wondering what it was he was after rescuing from the house.

“Bluey, mate, what’s the go?” said Macca.

“I had to get this, the boy loves it.” He held up the Superman picture. “The rest can go. Not this, though. Marti will have it back one day.”

“Are you done now, mate?” said Macca.

Joey nodded and his friend waved the driver on.

“There she goes,” said Joey. “No going back now.”

“Not now, mate.”

“Tell me, Macca, once it’s sold, what do I bring Marti back to?”

“To you, mate. You bring him back to you.”

“It’s not going to be easy.”

“You’ll be right, wait and see.”

Joey watched the house move slowly down the road. It was his life being uprooted and taken from him. None of it made any sense, ’specially not what he would have to do now, what he would have to go back to. It would be a grand homecoming, would it not, he thought. Could he really face it? Could he feel those eyes on him again? He remembered when he was Marti’s age and his own father was the talk of the village and the entire country. Emmet Driscol had played in the All-Ireland Hurling Final, on the winning side. He was a hero.

Nobody had even heard of Kilmora before Emmet Driscol raised a hurley. If anyone knew about the worth of a man, it was Joey’s father. The day the mighty Emmet Driscol had returned to the village with the medal there was traffic stopped in the street. Joey stood watching the car with his father inside being surrounded by people. They swarmed to him, clapping and shouting, banging on the roof of the car and screaming for a look at the medal, a word from the man himself.

How could he compete with that? How could he have ever? His own father had been a mighty hard act to follow, impossible in Kilmora, sure. Joey remembered his own efforts on the hurling field as a boy. He was a worthless coward, his father had said so. He had cost his team the game. Joey didn’t care about the game. He hated hurling, he hated being watched by his father and he hated hearing people laughing and saying there goes the next Emmet Driscol. They would laugh long and hard after this day, he remembered. His father had said he would never forgive him for the shame of his actions.

It had all happened like a dream, the ball floating down from the heavens, landing at Joey’s feet. There was no one between him and the goalie. It was a clear run. He had only to cross the field, then hit the ball. There were cheers and roars when he took off with it, the rest of the players behind him could only watch. He ran for goal and when he ran he looked up and saw all that stood between him and mythic success was the scrawny frame of the goalie, Callum Madigan … and then he froze.

Something had stopped him. He raised the hurley above his shoulder but hesitation held it there. He could hear his father shouting for the whack of the stick to follow, but he couldn’t move. He looked at the ball, black and muddied below, but no matter how hard he stared Joey couldn’t summon the force to move it, and then the moment passed. The scrawny Callum Madigan appeared before him, running, a raised hurley already making its way to the ball, which he cleared back into the field of play.

Joey was never to play hurling again. He was too much of a worthless coward, too yellow to face a runt of a boy like little Callum Madigan, a streak of a lad without the strength even to hold up his own socks.

“My, he got the better of ye,” said his father. “It’s ashamed to show your face in Kilmora ye should be after this.”

Joey still recalled the scorn in his father’s voice then, and when he left for a new life in Australia it was still there in the last words he uttered before his son went to the other side of the world. Emmet scoffed and reminded him of the day he had faced the scrawny Callum Madigan on the hurling field. “He is in London now, a big job in the government so he has, the English working for him. And here’s ye, running away to nothing. Aren’t ye worthless yet.”

Joey felt a wince. He sensed the eyes on him already, but when he turned his head he saw it was only Jono watching him. The boy was crouched over; his face was in his hands again. Joey knew he was upset at the sight of his best friend’s home being roped and dragged away.

“Howya, Jono,” he said.

“Hello, Mr Driscol.”

“That’s the house off then.”

“I guess.” It was like something a kid in a movie would say, thought Joey.

“We’ll both miss it, I think.”

Jono looked up, but said nothing. Joey thought the boy was checking his expression for honesty or sarcasm, but he seemed to have passed the test.

“Jono, I know you’re missing Marti,” he said. “Sure, we all are, but it does ye no good to be sad. You have to brighten up, have a play. There’s lots of boys your age about here.”

Jono looked up again. Joey recognised it was the same expression on him. “I have something for you. Do you like the comics?” he said.

“The super-hero comics?” said Jono.

“Yes.”

“
Superman
?”

“Eh, no, Silver Surfer, I think.” Joey handed him the comic and the biggest choco bar he had found in the shops. “Here ye go. Let’s see a wee smile, eh?”

Jono took the comic and the choco bar and gave Joey a smile. It was the weakest smile he thought he’d ever seen in his life. The trailer was well down the road now and could hardly be heard anymore, but they watched together until it had disappeared into the distance. Joey wondered where the house would end up next, who would live there and if they would be sadder than him when they had to pack it off. He knew there had been precious few good memories in the house of late. He could only think of the fights with Shauna and the times he got back to find the curtains closed and the air thick with the Black Dog’s presence. He ached inside. Was this how she felt? Was this what the Black Dog felt like? Was this what she wanted: to make him hurt too?

“Bluey, mate. C’mon, the blokes have got a bit of a farewell planned for you down at The Bushman,” said Macca.

“A bit of a do, eh?”

“It’s not much.”

“It sounds grand, Macca. Just grand.”

The Bushman pub was packed with men from the transport section and men from the mines. There were even some of the girls from the wages office and every worker’s wife had brought in a tray full of pies or little sausages or sandwiches or cakes. Joey felt overwhelmed. He felt he deserved none of it, but wasn’t that just the mood of him, he thought. He knew he couldn’t feel as bad as Shauna – if he could work that out for himself – but realising it was no victory when she was the one with Marti.

“I was sorry to hear about, you know,” said a woman with a floppy lilac bow in her hair. She was one of the miners’ wives.

“Thank you,” said Joey. Jaysus, he thought, wasn’t everyone sorry. He didn’t want sympathy. He’d lavished enough of that on himself already.

“It’s so, so sad, isn’t it?” she said.

“Tis,” said Joey. She’d had a good drink, he thought, didn’t know what she was saying.

“You must miss him … your boy.”

“I do,” he said. For Chrissakes, woman, would you leave me be, he thought. She was talking like Marti was dead. He wanted to scream at her, he’s not dead, he’s not dead, this is temporary. A temporary affair and no more. Sure, wouldn’t he have the boy back in no time at all, wasn’t that the plan anyway.

“I don’t know what I’d do if one of my children was snatched like that, but still, he’s with the mother, that’s not so bad, is it?” She poured out a large glass of cold beer for herself. Beer, now there was a thing not touched in a while, he thought. Could he possibly handle this pain in the arse and all the sympathy with a beer in him?

“Will you pour a glass for myself?” he said.

The woman tried to pour another glass of beer and the liquid frothed up and over the sides. “Oops,” she said with a giggle, and then her floppy lilac bow slipped over her eyes.

Joey smiled and tried not to laugh. “Here, let me.”

The first beer he took went down smooth and fast and he remembered how much he liked the taste. The second beer he poured went down even faster and then he remembered the effect was the thing he really enjoyed. Beer followed beer and Joey soon found he was forgetting about Marti and Shauna and the house vanishing off into the distance forever. It had been a long time between drinks, he thought, but wouldn’t he make up the time now. He could hardly remember a drink ever tasting better and wasn’t it a mighty hit he was getting. It never worked like that in the past.

“Bluey, what are you doing?” said Macca.

“I’m enjoying the wonderful hospitality of my good Aussie mates,” said Joey, “and Jaysus, is it not grand. Are these your wife’s pies? They’re grand pies, Macca, just grand.”

“Good on you, Bluey, you deserve a few beers. Just don’t do yourself any harm, mate. You know we all want to look out for you.”

“That I do, that I do, and sure my days of soaking it up are long by. I might fall back occasionally but –
but
– I am a far cry from the soak I once was.” Joey held onto Macca’s shoulder for support. “They knew me as a rare soak in the old country, Macca.”

“Did they, mate?”

“That they did. Now wouldn’t that be a thing, if I were to roll back there soaked the gills through. Christ, the tongues in Kilmora would have something to wag about then, would they not?”

“Bluey, have you somewhere to go when you get there?”

“No.”

“Nowhere? What about family?”

“No words have passed between us these last ten years now.”

“Jeez, sounds like you’ve some fences to mend there, Bluey.”

“Not a chance. Hell would have to freeze over first!”

Macca shifted Joey’s arm to his other shoulder. “Look, Bluey, mate. The blokes had a bit of a whip-round. We’ve … well, here it is.” He handed over a little package. It was wrapped in tissue paper with a ribbon. The tag read:
Good Luck, Bluey
. Joey opened it up. Inside was a boomerang and a plane ticket. He read the flight details that told him he was leaving the next day, for Ireland.

“You gotta take the boomerang with you, mate, to make sure you come back,” said Macca.

“I don’t know what to say. This is too much.”