The Chisellers (13 page)

By the time Mark arrived at the hospital Rory had been shifted from Casualty to Intensive Care. Confused, Mark walked the corridors as quickly as he could trying to find Intensive Care, and luckily he bumped into Simon. Simon was pushing a trolley, wearing the green housecoat of a hospital porter.

‘Simon, what’s happening?’

‘Ja ... Ja ... Jesus, Ma ... Mark! He’s rea ... really bad.’

Mark was anguished. ‘Oh no! Where’s Intensive Care?’

‘Co ... co ... come on, I’ll show you.’

Just a couple of minutes later Mark was standing by the bedside of his younger brother Rory, along with his mother, Dermo, Cathy, Simon and little Trevor. Rory looked dreadful. Both his eyes were puffed up, and were black and closed.

Agnes told Mark the full extent of the damage. ‘His nose is broken, and his left arm. He has three fractured ribs.’ She sobbed heavily between sentences. ‘He has stitches under his left eye and over his right eye, as well as fourteen stitches in his back. They could have killed him.’ Agnes began to cry uncontrollably.

Mark took her in his arms and held her tightly. He spoke gently into her ear. ‘Mammy, he’s okay now, he’s safe. You’re just upsetting the kids.’

‘I know, I’m sorry, luv. I just can’t believe it!’

‘Shush! It’s okay, Ma, I’m here now. Look, you take Trevor home and start the dinner, and we’ll be along shortly after yeh. Go on! He’s okay now, he’s fine.’

Agnes didn’t reply, but held her handkerchief to her eyes and nodded her head. She went to Rory’s bedside and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek. Through swollen lips, Rory muttered, ‘Thanks, Ma.’

‘I’m going home to get the tea for the kids, I’ll be back later luv, okay?’

‘Okay, Ma.’

Agnes took Trevor and left the hospital. Mark sat on the edge of Rory’s bed and leaned down closer to him. Rory looked up into Mark’s face. Mark smiled and winked. Rory felt safe; he blinked and as he did two huge tears fell from his eyes.

‘So, was it skinheads?’ Mark asked.

Rory simply nodded.

‘How many of them?’

‘Eight or ten,’ Rory mumbled.

‘The bastards! In packs like wolves.’ Mark was struggling to control his anger. He placed his hand gently on Rory’s hand and held it firmly but not too tightly. ‘Did you recognise them, Rory?’

Rory looked into Mark’s eyes a little longer than he should have, then shook his head and mumbled, ‘No.’

Mark slowly nodded his head and then turned to Dermot. ‘Dermo, you bring Cathy with yeh and head for home. Tell Mammy I’ll be along in a few minutes, I just want to talk to Rory on me own, okay?’

Dermot didn’t want to go but acceded to his brother’s wishes. ‘Well, all right, but I know what youse two are goin’ to talk about, Mark, and if you’re goin’ after them I want in on it. He’s my brother as well, yeh know,’ Dermot said as he picked up Cathy’s coat.

Mark smiled and put his arm around Dermot’s neck. He pulled him close in a mock strangulation. ‘Okay, tough guy. Don’t you worry, you’ll be there.’

‘I mean it,’ Dermot insisted.

‘I know you do and so do I, Dermo, I promise. Now go on off with yeh. Get Cathy out of here.’

When the two children had disappeared out the ward door Mark turned his attention again to Rory. ‘You recognised them, didn’t yeh, Rory?’

Rory did not reply, nor did he nod or shake his head, and his eyes started to fill up.

‘Were they locals? From our area?’

Rory began to sob loudly, his body quivering as he gasped for breath.

Mark leaned down and hugged him. ‘Shush! Take your time, take it easy. I’m not trying to upset yeh, I just want to know, that’s all. Calm down.’

In a few moments Rory had calmed down and the crying had been reduced to sniffles. He gave a short cough to clear the phlegm that always accompanies sobbing. Mark leaned very close to him, took both his shoulders in his hands and spoke firmly but gently, all the time looking into Rory’s eyes.

‘Who was it
^?
’ Mark said it in a way that demanded an answer.

Rory’s lips began to quiver and the answer trickled out. ‘It was Frankie.’

Mark’s grip tightened automatically and he actually hurt Rory, who gave a little groan. Mark’s face, which had been pale, was now blue. He stood up quickly. ‘I’ll see yeh later, Rory.’ Mark spun on his heel and left St Patrick’s hospital, a dangerously angry young man.

Mark did not so much enter the flat as explode into it. He looked fit to kill. Cathy, Trevor and Simon were sitting on the sofa watching the television, and all three jumped simultaneously and sat gaping at the sight of this raving lunatic that resembled their brother. Mark moved swiftly to the kitchen area. Dermot had the frying pan on the cooker and was putting sausages onto it.

‘Where’s Frankie, Dermo?’

‘Frankie? He’s not here.’ There was a tremor in Dermot’s voice. Mark went to the bedroom. The first thing that caught his eye was the second drawer from the top in the chest of drawers, which was pulled out and empty. Mark yanked open the door of the wardrobe, and it too was empty - everything gone, including Mark’s new businessman’s outfit.

‘The bastard!’

Mark returned to the kitchen. Dermot stood aghast, with a half a pound of Haffner’s sausages hanging from his left hand like a giant pearl necklace. The other three children, equally shocked and not a little frightened, peered in from the TV room.

‘Where’s Mammy?’ Mark asked Dermot.

‘She’s ... she’s in her room ... her bedroom.’

Mark spun around and went to his mother’s bedroom door. He rapped lightly but quickly and opened the door. Agnes was sitting on the bed. Her shoulders were slumped and she slowly turned her head around to Mark. She had been crying. Mark stood in the doorway.

‘Are you all right, Mammy?’

Agnes didn’t answer her eldest son. Instead, she lifted up her left hand. She was holding a suede boot. Slowly she turned the boot upside-down. It was empty.

At that moment the B&I ferry
Hibernia
was just passing the Kish, the last lighthouse ship on the Irish coast. The ferry was heading for England. So was Frankie Browne.

Chapter 10

THE WEEKS FOLLOWING FRANKIE’S DEPARTURE were difficult for Agnes. The situation had left the younger children bewildered and her eldest boy Mark a very angry young man. She tried to cope with Mark’s anger while at the same time coming to terms with her own sadness at the loss of a son, black sheep or not. Naturally she was angry with Frankie, and yes she was bitterly disappointed that her Canada trip would now not take place. But her most overwhelming feeling was a kind of sadness that only a mother can know at the loss of a son. For that’s how she perceived it, that she had indeed lost one of her precious boys, and in tragic circumstances. No amount of comforting from her friends who told her she was better off without him could lessen the impact of her loss. Her heart was scarred.

Mark burned his anger off by working harder, and redoubled his efforts at Wise & Co., and within two months had the new store open and trading. Within an hour of Wise & Co. Bespoke Furniture opening its doors it took its very first order. Mrs Patricia Kearney, wife of the good doctor Matthew Kearney of Seafield Road in Clontarf, placed an order for a reproduction Edwardian dining-room suite. Sean McHugh and Mr Wise fussed over the good lady like doting professors, although when she had left the store they giggled and clapped like little schoolboys.

‘I thought I handled that very well, Sean, didn’t you think so?’ Mr Wise remarked, looking at himself in a dressing-table mirror and straightening the bright red bow-tie he now wore with his white shirt and navy blazer. He had decided that the shop owner should dress like a gentleman.

Sean was sitting at the bureau, writing Mrs Kearney’s order into the order book, including in it the dimensions, size, and style of the unit. ‘We should have done this years ago Mr Wise, we’re naturals, born salesmen!’

‘True, Sean, true. Do you know, Sean, I could sense what she wanted and it was just a case of steering her in the right direction.’

‘Yes, well, we -’ Sean began.

‘Do you know, Sean, I’ve always had a way with women. I mean that of course in the nicest possible way,’ Mr Wise interrupted Sean.

‘Yeh! Sure, you’re brilliant,’ Sean said flatly.

Mr Wise was much too excited to notice Sean’s annoyance at his constant use of the word ‘I’ instead of ’we‘, just then. But later, when Sean had gone up to the factory with the order slip to Mark, and as Mr Wise sat in the quiet shop alone, it dawned on him how in his excitement he had excluded his long-serving employee, and friend, from the celebrations of the sale. So he left the shop for fifteen minutes, and locked the door behind him, putting up a note saying ’back shortly‘. He slipped into a shop just a couple of doors down from Wise & Co. Bespoke Furniture.

When Sean arrived back from the factory Mr Wise was dealing with a rather posh lady customer. She held a photograph in her hand and was trying with some difficulty to explain to Mr Wise exactly what she required. As Sean entered the store, the tiny bell on the door clanged. Mr Wise spun around, and with a very grandiose gesture he said to the lady, ‘Ah now, Mrs Dolan, saved by the bell!’

The woman looked up at Sean over her half-moon glasses. Mr Wise walked her towards Sean.

‘This is Mr Sean McHugh, the store manager. If anyone can help you it’s Mr McHugh, isn’t that right, Sean?’

Sean removed his brown derby hat in deference to the lady, and holding it against his chest with his left hand he half-bowed to her. ‘What’s the problem, madam?’ Sean asked and immediately looked at Mr Wise, who smiled and winked at him.

The lady showed the photograph to Sean. He instantly recognised the piece of furniture in the black and white shot. ‘This is a Louis XIV tallboy,’ he pronounced.

‘Yes it is!’ the lady chirped, delighted that she was now speaking to an expert. ‘I’m looking for the thingie that goes underneath.’

Sean nodded and smiled. ‘Yes, indeed, that’s called the maid’s step, and that’s really what it was - a step the maid would use to stand on when reaching for items on the tallboy. We can run you up one of these to match your unit in no more than ten days.’

The woman’s face lit up. ‘I have walked Dublin,’ she said, ‘in search of anyone who could even understand what I was talking about.’ She was obviously thrilled.

Sean took her down to the order book where he did a little pencil sketch of the piece, gave her a rough estimate of the price and she departed, very happy, and having left a deposit with the two men. As soon as she had gone Mr Wise exclaimed, ‘Brilliant! You were absolutely brilliant, Sean. Boy, what a team we’re going to make!’

Sean beamed, and reddened a little. ‘Yes, I thought that went well, Mr Wise.’

‘Well? You were fantastic! You had her eating out of your hand! Lucky you’re married, Sean, or we should be facing serious female problems in this store!’

The two men laughed uproariously and Sean positively blushed this time. As the laughter faded, Sean sat down on his chair at the bureau and rested his elbow on a brown paper parcel. ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

‘Oh ... it’s, em, something for you, Sean,‘ Mr Wise replied, very off-hand.

Sean picked up the parcel and slowly opened it to find two gleaming white shirts and a new red dicky-bow tie still in its box. He looked up slowly at his old friend. The words of thanks wouldn’t come, but really they weren’t necessary.

Mr Wise tried to brush it off as a business thing. ‘Well, if you’re going to be the store manager you should look like the store manager, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Yes, Mr Wise, I do agree,’ Sean said softly to his new-found team mate. ‘But if I’m the store manager, what are you going to be?’

Mr Wise thought for just a moment, then replied, ‘I shall be the managing director!’

The two men beamed at each other, and Sean trotted off to put on the kettle.

Never before had such a small store had only two staff with such high-powered titles, Mark remarked that night, relating the story to Betty. For his part, Mark was enjoying his new role as factory manager. He had introduced a piece-work system in an effort to keep the output of the factory up. It worked well. Mark was also enjoying his newfound wealth, for his wage packet now contained £37 after deductions for tax and social welfare insurance payments. Of this he passed £10 on to Agnes, put £20 away in a savings account and easily managed on the £7 that was left. Life was going well for him and he would soon be making his first trip abroad to London to visit a potential new customer who had made some enquiries through Greg Smyth. He looked forward to this as it would be his first trip abroad - in fact, with the exception of his camping holiday in Blessington years ago, it would be his first trip outside Dublin! He now possessed two good suits, several white shirts and matching ties - all he needed now was a suitcase. Mark felt good.

The one tiny little cloud blocking his sunshine was how quiet and somewhat sad Agnes had been since Frankie’s departure. But Mark could do little about this, especially since he was glad that Frankie was gone. He decided to leave the issue with his mother and hope she would come out of it herself.

And over the next few months there was plenty to lift Agnes’s mind from thoughts of her second-eldest son overseas.

Firstly, in that February of 1971 Agnes had to cope with the change to decimalisation. Something that used to be two shillings now became ten pence. The sixpence was gone, so to was the thrupenny bit and the half-crown. In their place came the ½p, 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, and 50p coins. One pound was now the same as 100 new pennies, where before it had been two hundred and forty old pennies. The government guideline for the exchange rate was fairly simple: one new penny was worth two old pennies. Agnes thought this was fine, up to a point, but if one new penny equalled two old pennies and one hundred new pennies equalled one new pound, where previously it had been worth two hundred and forty pence, what happened to the missing forty pennies? Agnes suspected that the government kept them!

On top of trying to cope with decimalisation, Agnes was now trying to handle the upheaval of her new move. She’d been out a couple of times to the new house in Finglas. The journey took ages and the house seemed miles away. The bus took her past Glasnevin cemetery, even a dairy, through the tiny village of Finglas where the double-decker Number 40 bus had great difficulty in negotiating the narrow bridge that crossed the Fionnglas river from Finglas East to Finglas West where her new home was. Thankfully, once the bus reached its terminus on Barry Road, Agnes had just a one-minute walk to her new house on Wolfe Tone Grove.