The Chisellers (3 page)

This posed some problems for his younger brother Rory. As soon as he reached the working age of fourteen, Rory quit school, and was now one year into a hairdressing apprenticeship. Monday after Monday, Rory would see his working colleagues and friends bruised and scarred from the weekend attacks by skinhead gangs - to a skinhead, all male hairdressers were ‘queers’. Rory kept his mind on his work, which he loved, and trod home carefully each evening. Rory spoke little to Frankie and trusted him less.

Dermot Browne, on the other hand, was everybody’s friend - bursting with energy, full of laughter and always up to some mischief or other. His golden hair would glisten in the sunlight as he dashed about the football field displaying his talents. He was popular too with the girls. His fair skin and smiling blue eyes made him the heart throb of most of his sister Cathy’s friends.

Unfortunately, such was not the case with Dermot’s twin brother Simon. Although he stammered less as he got older, the cast in his left eye was still there and still obvious. This gained him the nickname ‘Giddy Eye’. Like Dermot, Simon was in his first year at St Declan’s Technical School. But unlike Dermot, who seemed to excel at everything he touched, Simon had yet to find his particular talent in life. It was not carpentry. He seemed to have an inability to draw a straight line, and on one occasion nearly sawed off his left arm. It was not metalwork. He was no longer allowed to use the welding torch in class after welding a piece of angle-iron to the vice. The one thing he was good at was religious knowledge. He loved praying, and felt secure in the silence of the church, where he would sit for hours alone. His religious knowledge teacher thought that he might even have a vocation. Another of his talents was finding things. Agnes would call Simon her little St Anthony, and whenever anything was lost or misplaced Agnes would simply say, ‘Wait till Simon comes home, he’ll find it.’ Right enough, within minutes of coming home Simon would find the errant object.

Cathy Browne, at thirteen years of age, was in sixth class, her final year, in the Mother of Divine Providence Girls’ School. Since her battle with Sister Mary Magdalen three years previously, Cathy was more or less left alone, and began to flourish in school, so much so that she now had thoughts of going on to secondary school, something never before achieved by any Browne.

Trevor, at six, was doing a second year at first class. He had also had two years of ‘high babies’. Trevor was called ‘a slow child’, a term Agnes didn’t really understand. Trevor’s teacher, Miss Thomas, once asked Agnes if there was any history of dyslexia in the family, and Agnes, thinking it was some kind of tropical disease, emphatically answered No - ‘Sure they’ve never been out of the country.’

Agnes herself looked really well. Things had got a lot better in the last couple of years, with both Mark and Rory now bringing in a wage. Every week Rory handed up £2 and Mark £9, which was all but £1/15/ — of his wages. The black-and-white television which Mark had rented back in 1967 had now been replaced by a colour set. The sitting-room and both bedrooms of the flat had carpets, and even though the kitchen still had linoleum, it was good flexible linoleum, not the kind that cracked when you bent it. And now that she could afford it, Agnes had her hair done once a month. She went to Wash & Blow, the salon where Rory was training, where she received a 20 percent discount thanks to Rory. It’s amazing what a hairdo can do to lift a woman’s spirits.

That’s just what Agnes was thinking as she ran the brush slowly through her raven-black hair. She smiled at herself in the mirror. She was thinking of Bunnie Morrissey and how funny it had been the night before seeing him lying on his back screaming ‘Check’. She giggled to herself. Outside in the hall she heard the letterbox clatter and the ‘pflap’ of the post as it landed on the doormat. She placed the hairbrush down on her dressing-table, went out to the hall and picked up the mail. She tucked it under her arm, went to the steaming kettle and made herself a mug of tea. She carried the mug to the kitchen table, lit up a cigarette and began to open the letters.

There were three letters in the post this morning. The light blue envelope edged in red and navy stripes and with the Canadian stamp on it was easily recognisable as a letter from Agnes’s sister Dolly. No, not Dolly now, now it’s Dolores, Mrs Dolores Gowland. Agnes smiled to herself. Dolly had emigrated to Toronto fifteen years previously in 1955, and for the first two or three years signed all her letters ‘Dolly’. In 1957 she began to go out with Larry Gowland, who worked ‘in a bank, no less’, and after a courtship of three years she had married the poor chap. So it was, from 1960 onwards, Dolly Redden signed all her letters Dolores Gowland.

Once Agnes had opened the envelope and unfolded the letter, the two crisp $20 bills that always accompanied one of Dolly’s letters fell to the table. ‘God bless yeh, Dolly,’ Agnes said aloud. The letter was full of the usual news about how Dolly’s two children, Jason and Melissa, were doing at school and the latest news of Larry’s upward climb in the bank. Agnes wondered what ailment Dolly had this month - Dolly was a hypochondriac. It came in the third paragraph: dermatitis. Agnes read the word and said it a couple of times to herself, ‘Dermatitis, der-ma-ti-tis.’ She looked up from the letter at Mark and Dermot who were sitting sideways on the couch facing each other.

‘Mark!’ she called.

‘Yes, Ma.’

‘What’s dermatitis?’

Instead it was Dermot who answered. ‘It’s a thing that foreigners do get ’cause they don’t wipe their arse proper.‘ Both Mark and Dermot howled with laughter.

Agnes said, ‘Don’t be so disgusting you, yeh brat,’ but she smiled too.

‘It is, I swear,’ said Dermot, who would swear to anything at the drop of a hat.

‘Is it, Mark?’ asked Agnes.

Mark shook his head, still chuckling. ‘Honestly, Ma, I don’t know.’

Agnes went back to her letter, a frown now creasing her forehead as she wondered what kind of filthy habits her sister had picked up since she had emigrated to Canada.

The reason Mark and Dermot were sitting on the couch facing each other was because of the ‘test’. The test was Mark’s final exam in technical college. Now seventeen, Mark had spent his last three years attending carpentry college on a part-time basis, while still doing his apprenticeship with Wise & Co., Furniture Manufacturers since 1940. Since joining Wise’s over two and a half years ago, Mark had worked hard and applied himself to the trade. He loved his job. He whistled on his way to work each morning, and devoted himself to each task Mr Wise set him. As he worked on bentwood backs for chairs or claw-and-ball legs, his enthusiasm was that of the dedicated artist to his piece. Indeed, some of the work he turned out, even with just two and a half years’ training, had Mr Wise glowing with pride in his young prodigy. Though Mark still had a year and a half of practical work to go through before he qualified, Mr Wise told Agnes on many occasions that Mark was as good as some of the fully trained men who were a long time in the business, and bigger and stronger than most. At only seventeen years of age, Mark was already a half-inch over six feet and as he started to fill out, he definitely had the potential of being a young bullock.

Young Dermot, on the other hand, had got his growth hormones from Agnes’s side of the family. Compared with other boys of fourteen years of age, Dermot was slight and short. When describing him to strangers, Agnes would say, ‘There wouldn’t be enough elastic in his underpants to make a pair of garters for a budgie.’ Having said that, she would also add that whatever he might lack in physical stature, he well made up for in sheer cunning, ingenuity and inventiveness. For Dermot Browne was so streetwise one would think he had invented the term.

For a moment Agnes stared at the two boys. There was a bond between them that ignored the thirty-one months’ age difference. She saw it in Dermot’s eyes - they sparkled in admiration as he listened to every word uttered by his older brother, as if each one were a never-to-be-forgotten gem of wisdom. She saw it in the beam of Mark’s smile each time Dermot entered the room, and she felt it in the shared laughter as they each recalled the day’s happenings, Mark in Wise’s and Dermot in St Declan’s Technical School for Boys. The tales were elongated and exaggerated, but that didn’t matter because the fun was in the telling and not in the truth.

Turning her attention back to the post, Agnes first folded the two $20 bills and tucked them carefully away in her purse. She would exchange them later that day in the post office for £32. The second letter Agnes opened was from Mr Cartwright, the principal of St Declan’s Technical School, where Frankie, Dermot and Simon were pupils. The letter was about Frankie and his attendance - or lack of it. Mr Cartwright indicated that he was now at the end of his tether with Frankie, and he suggested that Agnes pay him a visit as soon as possible to discuss the boy. Agnes rested her head on her hand and sighed deeply. She just couldn’t understand what was wrong with Frankie. Of all her six boys she was easiest on him. Yet he never seemed to be happy. Time and time again Agnes gave in to Frankie’s rebellious ways. Yet the easier she was on him it seemed, the worse he became. There was great friction between Mark and Frankie, although the boys, particularly Mark, went to great lengths to avoid any displays of open hostility in front of Agnes. Frankie came and went as he wished, and Mark rarely spoke to him or about him.

Mark looked up from his instruction manual and saw the jaded look on Agnes’s face. ‘What is it, Ma?’

‘Frankie’s been missin’ school again,’ she replied, her heart heavy.

‘Again?’

‘Yes, luv - again.’

Dermot got up and quietly left the room, mumbling that he was heading for the toilet. He had no urge nor need to go to the toilet, but had a sneaking feeling that if he remained in the room he would be called upon as a witness. Brownes don’t snitch.

Mark closed the book and slowly walked over to the kitchen table and sat facing his mother.

‘Ma, I don’t want to snitch, but you must know he spends his bleedin’ time hangin’ around with those scumbag friends of his, roamin’ around the streets all day in and out of bookie’s shops.’

‘Bookie’s! Sure where would he get the money?‘ asked Agnes.

Mark looked away from her. ‘You tell me, Ma.’

They both knew where he got the money. Most mornings Agnes’s purse would be a little bit lighter than the night before. With seven children, it was hard to accuse one - all children are a little light-fingered - but in her heart Agnes knew that the odd half-crown or two shillings that vanished each day was going into Frankie’s pocket. She didn’t dare accuse Frankie openly or even voice her suspicion, for she knew full well that Mark would set upon him and she recalled from her own childhood days that nothing was more vicious than family fights.

‘D’yeh want me to talk to him?‘ asked Mark, knowing the answer before Agnes’s reply.

‘No. God no. I’ll speak to him myself,’ she replied quickly — too quickly.

‘Well, yeh’d better, Ma, ’cause I’ve just about had enough of him! I don’t mind handin’ up me money, but it’s for the flat, and the younger ones, not for the bookie‘s, or cider.’

Mark rose as he said this and went back to the couch where he picked up his instruction manual and began to study again.

It was a direct accusation, but Agnes let it go. She really couldn’t defend Frankie. Agnes made a mental note to call up the next day to St Declan’s and speak to the principal. She folded the letter and put it into her apron pocket and turned her attention to the final letter that had arrived that morning.

This one had a crest on the envelope: the three castles of Dublin. She knew it came from the Corporation, though she was a little bit puzzled. The only time she received a letter from Dublin Corporation was when her rent was in arrears. But she was up-to-date now and had been for the last year. She ripped open the flap and extracted a very official-looking letter. It read:

Dear Tenant,

Dublin Corporation is pleased to announce the implementation of its Inner City Renewal Plan. The long-term plan is to eradicate the inner city tenement situation.

The plan will be implemented over the next five years and will be carried out on a zone-by-zone basis. (A map of the zones is available at the Dublin Corporation Housing Offices for viewing.)

The area encompassing Lower Gardiner Street, Sean McDermott Street West, St Jarlath’s Street, James Larkin Court and James Larkin Road is Zone One.

Demolition on this zone will begin July 1970. Residents will be re-housed in new ultra-modem suburban housing estates to be built in Cabra, Dublin 7; Finglas, Dublin 11; and Coolock, Dublin 5. Houses and areas have been drawn for families on a lottery basis and you have drawn:

43, Wolfe Tone Grove,
Finglas West,
Dublin 11.

All homes are two-storey dwellings with three bedrooms, one reception room, bathroom, toilet and kitchen, front and back gardens.

On behalf of the city manager and Dublin County Council, I wish you good fortune in your new home.

Yours sincerely,

James Jackson
Housing Officer
Dublin Corporation

‘Mother of Jesus!’ Agnes exclaimed.

‘What?’ Mark asked.

‘We’re bein’ turfed out.’

‘Turfed out? What d’yeh mean, turfed out?‘

Shocked, Agnes looked at Mark. ‘They’re knockin’ down the buildin’s - and they’re sendin’ us down the country!’

Chapter 2

WHEN THE ALARM CLOCK BLARED at 4am the next morning Agnes stretched her arm out, and felt around on her bedside locker before landing on the clock to switch it off. She couldn’t open her eyes, the lids felt like they were glued together. She had had just three hours’ sleep, having waited up for Frankie until one o‘clock to try and talk to him. He hadn’t arrived by then, so she went to bed.