His Father's Son: To save the son he loves, a desparate father must confront the ghosts of his past (7 page)

Joey’s father grabbed for him on the floor, clasping his great hand round his ankle and jerking him into the air. Joey was rigid as a branch in his father’s hand as he was stripped of the new jamas, torn from his back, returned to rags on the floor below. He could see his brothers and sisters watching, Megan crying into her sleeve. It was a fairy tale being taken apart before her eyes. His mother was silent, slipping her arms quickly round the children and leading them away. When the jamas were in tatters Joey was dropped on the floor beside them, then he ran to his room in his pelt, all bar one cuff of green velvet, and cried into his pillow.

“Up. Up. Get up, Bluey,” said Macca. He grabbed Joey’s shirt front with one hand and the belt round his waist with the other.

“Get off, man,” shouted Joey.

“I’ll get off when your boy’s back in that bed,” said Macca, and he lifted him up onto his feet in one swift move. “Now, come with me. There’s only so many places the pair of them can be. We’ll find them, Bluey. We will.”

There was something the matter with Mam, thought Marti. It was the way she kept looking about the train, going all in a panic, and smoking the cigarettes called Majors all the while. He wondered was it because Dad was going to be late, but she said Dad wasn’t going to be late and sure didn’t it make no difference at all because he could catch them up at any time. Marti said would Dad be on the train and Mam said it depends, but when he asked what depends she got mad and said she’d had her fill of silly questions and not to be bothering her.

Marti wanted a comic from the front of the train where they sold the newspapers and the coffees in the paper cups like they have at parties sometimes, but he thought that he would be bothering Mam with a silly question. She had already said he wasn’t too big to be getting his pants pulled down and have everyone on the train shown him getting the hot arse.

He wondered how Dad would catch up with the train and if he’d drive really fast and then jump out the ute and get on the train, but he thought this would wreck the ute and there were no roads in the bush anyway, just the track for the train.

Everything was red and dusty out the window, because it was the outback where Dad said you could fry an egg on a rock. Marti wondered if you really could fry an egg on a rock or if it was just one of the things grown-ups said that wasn’t really true. He didn’t think he would like to eat an egg that you could fry on a rock anyway, because it would be all dusty from the bush. It would be like the time he dropped a lolly in the street and it had all bits on it when he picked it up and Mam said to throw it away because a dog might have done its business there.

It was really hot on the train but he wasn’t allowed to say it was hot because Mam said she knew it was hot and didn’t need a reminder of the fact every five minutes of the day. If this was the start of the bellyaching then it had better stop now or it’s a sorry boy he’d be. Marti didn’t want to be a sorry boy because that was what Mam usually said before she said is it the hot arse you’re after?

If Dad was on the train he would give Marti the money to buy a comic and say to Mam not to bate the boy, or is it a broken man you’re trying to raise, for wasn’t there enough of them in the world already thanks to mothers like you. Mam and Dad were always talking like that. They said all the same words over and over, and sometimes if they didn’t think to say the words then Marti would say them.

If it was Dad’s words he said then Dad would laugh and say, “Sure, hasn’t the boy got the cut of your jib.”

But then Mam might hit Marti on the head and say, “Is it a hot arse you’re after?” If it was Mam’s words he said then she would say, “I don’t need a parrot,” and Dad would shake his head.

“Well, is it a picture you want?” said Mam. She was flapping the collar of her shirt for a bit of a breeze to cool down and she had the woman’s look for making the milk sour.

“No,” said Marti. “Are you very hot, Mam?”

“Well, what do you think? No, Marti, I’m not. I’m froze to this seat, this bloody great uncomfortable …” Mam started to slap the back of the seat and a big cloud of dust came out and made her cough. “That’s it, that’s it,” she said. “I’ve had enough, enough do you hear me?” Mam’s face went all red, even her eyes started to go all red, and then she started to cry into her hand. Marti wondered what was so bad about asking her if she was hot to make her start to cry into her hand. He felt bad, like he was in bad trouble, but he didn’t think he had done anything really very bad.

“I can’t take another minute of it, I swear I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” said Mam. She was roaring shouting and Marti was worried about the noise she was making and if the guard man in the blue jacket with the gold buttons who took the tickets would tell them off, or maybe even say leave the train.

Marti looked about to the other people in the train to see if anyone was going to tell the guard man. Everyone was looking at Marti and Mam, but some of them looked away or out the window when he looked at them. There was an old lady with a fur coat and a big bag who smiled at Marti and then she tugged a man’s sleeve and whispered something and they both walked over.

“I bet you’d like to come with me to find a nice comic, sonny,” said the man.

Marti walked down to the front of the train with the man and picked a comic that he hadn’t seen before, but he liked it because it had a free soldier with it and the soldier had a parachute you could throw in the air. The comic looked like it cost a lot of money, and he wondered if the man would really buy it for him because Mam would have said she wasn’t paying extra for a bit of tat because didn’t they just stick that type of thing on the front to put the price up.

The man had a big red face and Marti wondered if he was very hot or if his collar with the tie on it was very tight. The man looked very hot but Marti thought maybe he wasn’t really because he had a big green coat with checks on and if he were hot wouldn’t he take the coat off and open the collar and tie?

“Are you happy with your choice now, sonny?” said the man.

“Yes,” said Marti.

The man was called Larry Lally and he was a funny big man, thought Marti.

“And what might your name be?”

“Marti Driscol.”

“Ah, Driscol, a good Irish name. Sure Briney wasn’t wrong when she said she was after hearing a brogue on your mam there.” Marti wondered what a brogue was, but he didn’t want to interrupt the man who was happy because he had a good Irish name like Driscol.

“My, you’re a serious looking fella, Marti Driscol. Is it the weight of the world you’re carrying on them shoulders?” Marti didn’t know what to say so he stayed quiet, and then Larry Lally said, “Sit yourself down. We’ll get back to your mam in a while. Sure Briney will be having a grand time with her chatting away and talking about the movies and Elvis Presley and the like.”

“My mam likes Elvis,” said Marti, and the man nodded and looked happy to hear it, “but not just before he died last year because it was a crying shame the way he let himself go towards the end.” Larry Lally laughed and his face started to go the bright red colour again and Marti wondered if it might pop like a big red balloon.

“Sure aren’t ye a ticket,” he said. “It’s a ticket ye are. My, aren’t we blessed with the gift of laughter?”

“I suppose,” said Marti, and Larry Lally started the laughing again.

“God, it’s a comedian we have here I think.”

When it was time to go back and see Mam and Briney, Marti thought it was hard to walk on the train but not as hard as it looked for Larry Lally. He was too big for the little gaps in the seats and had to turn sideways to get through. Sometimes when he turned sideways to get through he had to go up on his tippy-toes and hold his breath, which made him have a big sigh afterwards. One time when Larry Lally went up on his tippy-toes he flicked out the tails on his jacket and said, “It’s a ballerina you have to be for this job,” and Marti laughed.

Mam had stopped crying and smiled at Marti when he got back to his seat. She looked like she did at birthdays when the cake was brought in with all the candles lit up on it. “Marti, son, where would you most like to go in the whole world for a visit?” she said.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Wouldn’t you like to go to Ireland, where your mam’s from?”

“I wouldn’t like to go to Ireland.”

“Marti,” said Mam, and then her face changed. She started talking very quietly. She was trying not to get mad, he thought. “Wouldn’t you like to go and visit Ireland, way on the other side of the world, because sure wouldn’t that be exciting?”

Marti remembered when Dad had said there was no sun at all in Ireland, and he had thought it must be a terrible place with everybody walking about the streets in the hats like miners wear with the light on the front. “I wouldn’t like to go to Ireland.”

“But why not, Marti?”

“Dad says it’s always wet and dark in Ireland and Australia’s our home.”

“Oh, so that’s the reason.
Your father says
, is it?” said Mam, and she had the anger on her. Marti thought he was in trouble again and Mam was going to say he wasn’t too big to be getting his pants pulled down and have everyone on the train shown him getting the hot arse again.

He didn’t want to go to Ireland because Dad would never go back. He had told Marti Australia was God’s country and he would never leave for the days soaked through and feeling grateful for a bit of digging in a ditch, because wasn’t that the only work you could ever find in Ireland. Marti knew Dad loved Australia and the sunshine and driving the trailer because there was no sunshine and no work entirely in Ireland. Dad said Ireland had gave us the Guinness, and wasn’t the soda bread something to be grateful for too. But if you could tow the entire country to anchor off Sydney then he would still have to seriously consider setting foot on it, and even then it would be a temporary affair.

Mam grabbed Marti by the shoulders and led him away. She walked very fast and didn’t look at any of the people who were staring at them as they went.

“Mam,” said Marti.

“Shut up.”

“But, Mam,” said Marti. She was walking him really fast by the shoulders, and when Mam walked him really fast by the shoulders it meant the hot arse. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t.”

“Marti, be quiet.”

“But, Mam.” She stopped walking and turned to look down at him.

Marti was sure he was going to start crying and when the tears came Mam looked around and then she sat down and took out a little blue handkerchief.

“Marti, now listen to me. You need to be a big brave boy for me. Do you promise to be a big brave boy for me?” Mam started to wipe tears from Marti’s cheeks with the little blue handkerchief.

“I do.”

“Good, that’s good, son,” she said, and stroked his hair. “Ireland’s to be our new home, do you hear me? Our new home, Marti.” He didn’t understand because earlier Mam had said it was just for a holiday and he started to cry harder. It made him all sad, and he wondered why Dad never came and if he was ever really coming, but he didn’t want to ask Mam because he didn’t want her to say he was a bold boy and Dad didn’t come to get him because he was a bold boy.

Marti wanted to see Dad and to have the laugh and a joke that he always had with him and to hear him tell the funny stories and show him the green flower thing on his arm that he could make dance in the wind. He wondered if he had never taken the blue ten dollar bill from Mam’s purse and never eaten all the choco bars and never been sick in class if Dad would have come. He kept wondering and wondering why Dad never came and if he might come yet, before they left for Ireland, but Mam never said another thing, just kept stroking and stroking his hair.

Joey Driscol did something he hadn’t done in a very long time. He knew entering into a church was what people did every day of the week but the fact didn’t make it any easier. He had promised himself he was through with churches, he was finished with them the day in Kilmora when the priest asked Shauna and himself to rise and depart from the Lord’s House for offending the congregation with their very presence.

“And how would we manage that?” Joey had said to Father Eugene, who was stooped and nervous before them, his top lip twitching and sparkling with the sweat on it.

“Now, Joey Driscol, we need have no trouble from the likes of ye in front of these good people,” he said.

“Good people?
Good people
, is it? There’s not one I would call good among them, haven’t they had the knives out for us.”

Shauna touched Joey’s arm but said nothing. She was usually the fiery one, the first to start wagging the finger and shouting, but wasn’t she done with the lot of them too. Wasn’t she more done than she deserved to be. She still looked beautiful to Joey, the black hair flowing out behind her, but her face had hardened. She was no longer a carefree young girl. She was a woman, searching for courage. “Come on, Joey,” she said. “Let’s just go.”

“I will not. Haven’t I every right to be here?”

Father Eugene straightened his back and raised his voice. “Ye cannot seek forgiveness here, not now, not ever. Go.”

They rose to leave and there was a flutter of tongues about the place, then Joey glanced back and saw his mother and father sat at the front of the church. His mother flinched uncomfortably where she sat and turned towards him, but his father laid a hand on her shoulder, jerked her round, eyes front, away from the son who wasn’t fit to look at.