His Father's Son: To save the son he loves, a desparate father must confront the ghosts of his past (9 page)

“Why not?”

“I just can’t. I’m finished with Ireland. She knows that. That’s why she’s gone there. Marti knows it too. Jaysus, he must be terrible worried, desperate he’ll be at the thought of going there. He’ll know I’d never go.”

“Bluey, mate, you have to prove them wrong.”

“I can’t. There’s things you know nothing about, Macca, things we came over here to get away from, to escape from. I could never do it, I just couldn’t … sure, I’d be disgraced entirely if I even tried.”

“
Bluey, Bluey, mate
.” Macca placed a hand on Joey’s arm. “If you want to see your son again, you’re going to have to go back there.” He leaned into Joey’s face, shook him at the shoulder. “There’s nothing else you can do. You have to go, for Marti’s sake.”

Ireland was not like anywhere Marti had ever seen. It had started off with the rain coming down in little specks and then there was the sun, but the sky was still a grey colour and looked very low and close to people’s heads. He remembered the sky in Australia always looked very blue and very far away and not at all like it did in Ireland. Everyone walked very fast around the streets and Marti had to stay close to Mam’s back or be knocked down. Sometimes there were buildings with colours painted on them and sometimes there were buildings that were only grey and he wondered why they didn’t have the colours. When there was rain coming down Marti wanted to go into one of the buildings with the colours, but Mam said if they stopped every time there was a bit of rain they’d be lucky to get a yard.

He wondered was Mam happy to be in Ireland, but he didn’t think she looked very happy the way she kept lifting the big bag from her shoulder, staring at people and saying, “Ignorant bogtrotters, the lot of them.”

It had been a long flight from Australia and not as much fun as Marti thought it would be at all. It had been difficult to sleep on the hard seats that were very straight and he was always being told off for fidgeting. Mam had dragged him straight from the airport into the rain and when they arrived at the train station Marti thought they were both very wet but Mam said it was only damp. There was steam coming off their clothes and going into the air and he wondered if this was what Mam said was only damp. Then a man with a pointy black umbrella came and shook all the rain off and said, “Is it a drowned rat ye have there, missus?”

Mam smiled and said, “Ignorant bogtrotter,” but nobody heard her when she said it like a whisper.

The train was long and empty and Marti and Mam had to queue behind a man in a vest with a whistle and wait for him to blow the whistle and let them go on. When the queue moved everybody made the chatter noise and went to have their tickets ready. A man was singing really loudly, and when Marti turned round to look at him he saw the man was leaning on a wall and had a big messy beard and messy grey hair. He was singing really loudly, but Marti couldn’t understand the words and wondered why anyone would be singing really loudly waiting to go on the train.

“Why’s he singing, Mam?” said Marti.

“That’s Arthur Guinness singing, son,” said Mam. The man behind them in the queue laughed and said, “Tis. Tis.”

“Do you know him, Mam?”

“Jaysus,” said the man in the queue, “that’s a card ye have there, missus.”

Mam smiled and shook her head and said, “No.”

When the train left the station, the outside looked very different to when Marti was on the train in Australia. The ground was green instead of red and the sky was grey instead of blue and it made him think of Dad back at home with the red ground and the blue sky. He missed Dad and Australia and driving about in the ute and even going to school with Jono. Ireland seemed a very strange place compared to Australia, which was always warm and bright and felt like home. Marti felt the sadness growing inside him when he thought about the home he had left and he wondered what was going to happen to him and Mam in Ireland with no Dad there to look out for them.

“Mam,” said Marti.

“Yes, son.”

“Do you think Dad will be sad all by himself in Australia?”

Mam said nothing, only looked out the window, and Marti saw she had the cross face. Marti didn’t want to be asked if it was the hot arse he was after again so he stayed quiet, but he didn’t stop thinking about Dad. He was very sad when he thought about Dad and he wished he could see him again. He wished Dad was with him, but wouldn’t that only make Dad more sad because he didn’t like Ireland, he liked Australia, which was God’s country. Marti decided he wouldn’t like Ireland either because he wanted to like what Dad liked and because he thought that would make Dad happy. More than anything in the world Marti wanted to make Dad and Mam happy, but he couldn’t see how anybody could be happy so far away from the place they called home.

When the train stopped Mam said this was the country now and they could be thankful they were well away from the city that was called the Smoke, for the fresh air was everywhere in the country just waiting for you to take a big gulp for yourself. Marti took a big gulp of the fresh air that was everywhere and then Mam said, “Would ye ever stop acting the maggot.”

The town they were headed for was called Kilmora, said Mam, but it wasn’t a proper town. It was just a village, really. Marti didn’t know what she meant until she said it was like a town, only smaller, and in the country. He wondered if it was far away and Mam said no, because the distances between places were less in Ireland than in Australia, and weren’t Australians great for suffering the old tyranny of distance malarkey and there would be none of that here.

Mam said Aunt Catrin and Uncle Ardal mightn’t be home, but if they were then surely there would be a bed for the night and maybe even longer.

Aunt Catrin and Uncle Ardal’s house was very small and grey and made of stones all piled up on top of each other right to the roof. There was a little wooden shed that made a
coo-coo
noise and when Marti asked what was that, Mam said it was Uncle Ardal’s pigeons. There were rabbit traps hanging on the shed that Mam said were to keep the cats away from the pigeons, and Marti felt sorry for any cat that might get caught in one of the traps.

When Mam knocked on the door there was the sound of footsteps and then the door was opened and a woman in a long grey coat with a scarf on her head appeared and said, “Saints preserve us, tis yourself.”

Aunt Catrin was older than Mam and had the big staring eyes when she looked at them with the surprise. When she sat down she didn’t sit back on the chair, which had a little white patch for your head to rest on. Aunt Catrin had a very straight back when she sat down and when she took off her scarf she touched her mouth with it. “I don’t know what to say. Would you ever look at yourself, sitting there in my own home,” she said. “And this’ll be the boy, is it?”

“Tis, Catrin. This is Marti. Say hello to your Aunt Catrin.”

“Hello,” he said.

“Would you listen to him, sure he’s an Aussie.” Aunt Catrin sounded as though she didn’t like him, thought Marti, and he wondered if she hated only him or all children and was that why she hadn’t any herself. “And the father, where’s he?” said Aunt Catrin.

“Will I wet some tea, Catrin?” said Mam.

“Tea, yes, tea. It will help me gather my thoughts, sure won’t the whole town be in shock at the sight of ye.”

When she had her tea Aunt Catrin said it was hardly cause for a sing-song but there was a caravan sitting empty outside. It was just a bit of tin and paint, she said, but then beggars couldn’t be choosers, especially the type that turn up on yeer doorstep unannounced after a lengthy absence.

When it was bedtime Aunt Catrin said if yees were cold then there were some good thick coats just hanging there doing no good to no one. There was a heater that ran off the gas but wouldn’t you pay through the nose for it because wasn’t the price of gas a crime. Mam said the coats would be fine and it was good enough of Aunt Catrin to give up the caravan.

“Quite,” said Aunt Catrin. “I’ll get them coats … and will yees take a hot bottle?”

“That would be grand,” said Mam.

Marti had never had a hot bottle before and he wondered what to do with it when Aunt Catrin gave him the old lemonade bottle in a brown sock. There was boiling water in the bottle and the sock was tied at the bottom. At the top of the bottle the cap poked out through a hole. Mam got a bottle too but her sock was grey and there was no hole. The bottle was lovely and warm, thought Marti, but he didn’t like the sock and wondered whose it had been.

“Marti, what are you doing?” said Mam.

“I’m smelling the sock.”

“Marti, will you stop making a show of me. Now say thank you to Aunt Catrin.”

“Thank you for the sock, Aunt Catrin,” said Marti. “It doesn’t smell.”

Aunt Catrin shook her head and said she knew the sock didn’t smell, for sure hadn’t she washed it herself, and then she said, “Don’t be messing with the bottle because there’s hot water in there and it could do you an injury to get it on your skin.” She walked away very fast, and Marti thought Mam would say it was a hot arse he had earned, but there was only a sigh from her.

In the caravan Mam said it was only proper knackers that lived the like, there was no respect in it at all, she said, and then the bubbling with the tears was started and Marti was called for a hug.

When they settled down to sleep there was no noise beyond the caravan and Marti wondered why there was no noise when in Australia there was always the mozzies and the crickets and sometimes even the maggies to be heard, moving about on the roof, looking for spiders. Marti found it easy to fall asleep when there was no noise but he wasn’t sleeping a very long time when Mam woke him.

“Did you hear that?” she said. Marti had heard nothing, but Mam said there was definitely a noise. “There, did you hear it?” she said. There was a little noise like footsteps and Marti thought he heard a laugh or maybe a whisper and Mam said, “Oh God, it’ll be the knackers. They come for the washing off the lines.”

Marti knew the knackers were the tinkers or gypsies or sometimes the itinerants. Mam said you were never to go near the knackers because they carry all manner of diseases, and fleas especially. He wondered, if the knackers were nearby, would he get diseases and fleas and should he maybe hide under the coats. Mam said she could hear them coming and Marti was very frightened and could hear his heart beating when he hid under the coats. He wanted to run out of the caravan and into the house, but Mam said to be quiet and don’t move a muscle. He was too scared to even breathe and he heard the footsteps that might be the knackers right outside. Somebody was leaning on the caravan and making it move, and Marti wondered if they were maybe going to take the caravan away with them inside it. His heart started to beat even faster and then the door swung open and Mam sat up in the bed and screamed out, all in a loud panic, “What do ye want?”

A strange woman came in the caravan and she started the screaming too when she saw Mam in the bed. When the screaming noise was made, a light went on in the house and Marti saw the strange woman was wearing a long coat with no clothes on underneath, only big white panties. He thought she must be very cold standing there with the coat all flapping open and her hands up on her head with the shock and then a man came in behind her.

“Janey Mackers, it’s yourself, Shauna,” he said.

“Jaysus, Ardal,” said Mam, and then the strange woman stopped the screaming and became mad angry.

“Who the feck is this?” she said.

“Ahh, now,” said the man, who Marti thought must be Uncle Ardal.

“Ah, now …” said the strange woman, and then she started to hit Uncle Ardal on the head. Uncle Ardal tried to grab her and stop the hitting but his great big black pants with buttons on all the way up over his big round belly fell right down onto his boots. The woman was very mad, thought Marti, and she was wailing and hitting out at Uncle Ardal and trying to scratch him with her nails, and when she scratched him on the face, he called her a mighty hoor’s melt and gave her a slap. She fell on the floor with the slap and Uncle Ardal bent over and pulled up his pants.

Aunt Catrin was behind him when he bent over and when he fastened his buttons Aunt Catrin spoke at him in a very slow voice. “When your slut’s put her diddies away the pair of ye can go.”

Uncle Ardal said nothing, and when he walked away the strange woman tried to stand up but fell over, then she tried again and got up and followed after him.

Aunt Catrin had a look Marti had never seen on anyone before. Her lips were held together like a tight little knot, then she closed the caravan door and Marti heard her go back inside the house.

“Mam, will anyone else come in tonight?” said Marti.

“No, Marti, there’ll be no one else.”

“But how do you know, Mam?”

“Marti, I know. Did you see your Aunt Catrin? She could stop a clock with that look. There’ll be no one coming within a mile of this caravan for a long time. Now get to sleep.”

Marti wondered how Aunt Catrin could stop a clock with a look and then he thought it was just one of the things grown-ups said that wasn’t really true.

“Mam, I’m cold. My bottle’s gone cold,” he said.

“I said get to sleep.”

“But, I’m cold …”

Mam sat up in bed, her voice was raised. “Marti Driscol, cold is the very least of our worries. I’d say your Aunt Catrin will scrap this caravan tomorrow and we will both be a damn sight colder then, I can assure ye of that. Now get to sleep, whilst we’re lucky enough to have any manner of roof over our heads.”