His Father's Son: To save the son he loves, a desparate father must confront the ghosts of his past (14 page)

“No, I’m not thirsty.”

“All right so, I’ll go get one. Will ye wait for me?”

“I will,” said Marti, and he tried to eat the chips but the hunger was gone and he threw them into the back of the yard. There were chips spilled out and then rats came out again and there were lots of them all over the place and coming from under stones and behind fences. The knacker boy had to shout and stamp at the rats to make them stay away from the chips. Some of the rats grabbed at the chips and ran off with them, but the knacker boy got most of the chips and started cramming them in his mouth very fast.

“Hey, stop feeding the knackers,” shouted one of the boys from Brother Declan’s class, and Marti looked at the boy who was very big and fat and had lots of little marks on his face that were like freckles but were really little holes.

“I didn’t. He just took them,” said Marti.

“
I didn’t. He just took them
,” said the fat boy. He was trying to sound like Marti with the Australian accent and all the other boys started the laughing again. “Ye talk like Skippy,” said the fat boy.

Marti felt his face get hot and he wanted to hit the fat boy right on the nose but he was very big and there were lots of other boys with him. “Skippy’s a kangaroo, he can’t talk,” said Marti.

The fat boy grabbed him round the neck and said, “I’ll kill ye.”

Marti felt his face go from hot to cold. Nobody had ever said they would kill him before. He started to shiver and then Pat came back with the lemonade and said, “Leave him, Dylan.”

The fat boy let Marti go and started to look at Pat instead. “Are ye fighting his battles, Kelly, are ye? C’mon then?” The fat boy started to jump about with his fists up like he was going to fight Pat. “Ah, yeer chicken, Kelly.” Pat stood beside Marti and there were no words and all the boys from Brother Declan’s class waited to see if there would be a fight. “Give us yeer lemonade, Kelly?” Pat handed over his lemonade, and the fat boy took a big drink and started slugging it all down. Then he filled up his cheeks and spat all the lemonade out over Pat’s face.

There was cheering and there was jostling and then the boys started shouting,
“Fight. Fight. Fight.”

There was lots of shouting and the noise made people look out windows round the back of the chipper and then Mick came running out, waving his hands and said, “What’s all this? Is it the guards I’ve to call?”

“He’s after taking my lemonade off me, Mick,” said Pat.

“Give him the lemonade back, Dylan,” said Mick.

“I will not, sure he was messing with it, tormenting the knacker.”

“Mick, he’s lying so he is. Lookit, he’s only after spitting a load of it over me,” said Pat.

“All right now, Dylan, hand the lemonade over or it’s the guards for ye and the last time you set a foot in my shop,” said Mick.

The lemonade was handed over to Pat. “Now, drink it up, Pat,” said Mick.

“It’s my lemonade. I can drink it when I want.”

“Drink it up, I say. We’ll have no retaliations this day.”

Pat started to drink down the lemonade and the fat boy and the boys from Brother Declan’s class watched until he had finished and tipped the lemonade bottle upside down to show it was empty.

“All right now, that’s grand,” said Mick. “Now shake and make up.” Pat and the fat boy stood looking at each other. Marti wondered if Pat was even breathing because he looked so mad. Then the hands went out and there was the shake and Mick smiled and said, “Grand so. Now about yeer business and we’ll have no more altercations, d’ye hear?”

There was nodding and the fat boy said, “Yes, Mick.”

“Pat, I say we’ll have no more altercations. What say ye?” said Mick.

Pat didn’t answer, and when everyone looked at him to see if he would speak he puffed out his cheeks to show there was still a full mouth of lemonade inside and then he spat the lot of it all over the fat boy.

“Run, Marti,” shouted Pat. “Run for yeer feckin life.”

It was five weeks in a floating prison he was facing, but hadn’t he no choice entirely, thought Joey Driscol. It was take the boat or wait, maybe even longer, until his head was healed fully. No one would believe the run of bad luck he was having, but wasn’t Marti the one who would suffer the most? The boy was over in Ireland, a strange country to him, with a mother who was unfit to mind him. Sure, Marti could be in any state now and wouldn’t he be cursing his father for allowing it. How did it happen? How did he get into this whole mess?

Joey paced up and down the few steps that lay between the tiny cabin’s bunks. Five weeks. Jaysus, couldn’t anything happen in five weeks. Marti could be taken from Shauna, placed in care. She wasn’t well sure. Or couldn’t the boy run off, mightn’t he be desperate to get back to Australia. He pictured Marti on the run from home; he saw him in an orphanage, crying and hungry, and then he saw him taken by knackers and forced out into the cold to beg for a feed. It was too much. With five weeks of this, he would be mad entirely.

He had no idea where Marti was. He knew Shauna had little family left. Her mother and father were dead long before their daughter’s own troubles started. There was a brother Barry who went in that terrible suicide business after they left, and a sister Catrin – Old Kiss the Statues, they called her. Was she still back in Kilmora? Joey remembered she had a diabolical mouth on her, so full of religious chatter that ye wanted to say
Amen
whenever she finished a sentence. Hadn’t she plenty to say before they left for Australia. If Marti was living under her roof … Jaysus, it didn’t bear thinking about. He felt his stomach churning at the thought. He kicked out at the bunk in front of him and the flimsy article shot into the wall like a rabbit diving for its warren. “Ye dirty feck,” he said, and then the door swung open behind him.

“Sure, that’s grand chat, me old segotia,” said a round man standing in the doorway. He was ruddy faced, burnt in the sun, and panting from the effort of lifting a great bag at the back of him.

“Who are you?” said Joey.

“Tiernan’s the name. I think we’re bunk buddies.”

Joey took in the sight before him. There was little or no light from the hall breaking behind the man. How would they both fit in the cabin?

“Paddy Tiernan,” he said, dropping his great bag and stretching out a sweaty palm, “from Dingle. Jaysus, I never thought I’d be travelling with a fella from the old country.”

“Why not … sure there’s a lot of us about, ye know.”

“Ah, yeer right there, the old diaspora. Sixty million Irish the world over. You’ve as much chance of meeting an old boyo strolling along the Amazon as the Liffey!”

“I suppose yeer right,” said Joey, and took the hand he was offered. “Joey Driscol’s the name … from Kilmora.”

“Driscol, ye say … from Kilmora. You’re no relation to Emmet Driscol, the hurling player, are ye?”

Joey dropped his head. Was there no escaping the man. “Tis my father.”

“Stop the lights! Aren’t I travelling with royalty.”

“Ah, go way outta that.”

“Emmet Driscol’s boy, eh? They’ll never believe this back home. I saw him play once. Christ, he was fierce.”

“I know it, sure.”

“Jaysus, I’m flabbergasted. Here, how is he these days?”

“I don’t know.”

“
What?
”

“We don’t talk, haven’t for ten years past. You know …
families
.” Joey looked at Paddy. He had a droop on his lower lip, confused at the thought of a great Irishman like Emmet Driscol having led anything less than the perfect existence.

“Oh,” said Paddy, and his tone was changed. “Well, Joey, my man. I’m glad to make your acquaintance, and to show how glad I am …” Paddy unzipped his bag and pulled out a bottle of Jameson whiskey, the seal already cracked, a good drop taken. “I’ll drink yeer health.”

“Ah, no.”

“Come on, now a little drop never did a man any harm.” Paddy leaned over to the shelf above the little sink and stuck two fat fingers in as many cups. “There,” he said when the whiskey was poured. “
Sláinte
!”

“
Sláinte
,” said Joey, taking the cup. There was no harm in one, sure enough, and wasn’t this Paddy fella all right. He could have teamed up with worse, so he could, and hadn’t Paddy ignored the bandage on his head, or at least resisted the mention of it so far, and that was something to be grateful for.

The two men talked away, though Joey was mostly forced to listen to Paddy’s tales. It was a relief to be entertained instead of doing the entertaining, he thought, especially the way he felt, though there was more than a touch of the Blarney in Paddy’s talk. Sure if bullshit was music he would make a grand brass band altogether. He was what they called a redneck back in Ireland, the type of country fella that gets a slap on the neck and told go and find some work in the city. He was rough and ready, sure, but there wasn’t a flitter of badness in him. Paddy had toured the world, always by boat for fear of flying, but had rarely saw more than the latest site of some grand new building, usually carrying a hod full of bricks over his shoulder.

“Ye know there’s some grand craic to be had on a boat, Joey Driscol,” said Paddy.

“Is that so?”

“Tis … you get some characters travelling by boat, so ye do. Tis the romance of the sea.”

“Ah go away, it’s not
Love Boat
now.”

“Ha-ha, ye haven’t seen the nurse will be looking after the bandage there, and don’t they say there’s only two sure things in life – one is death, the other a nurse.”

“Cop onto yeerself.” Joey felt the reddener flushing over his face and picked up the whiskey bottle.

“Don’t worry, I won’t be asking how ye managed it,” said Paddy.

“I look a sight, don’t I?”

“Not at all … sure yeer like some manner of Sikh gentleman.”

Joey laughed. There was no craic like the Irish – wasn’t Paddy a gas entirely. Even though Joey’s thoughts were full of Marti he was almost enjoying himself. “Right … shall we go and find a bit of this romance yeer on about, then?”

Paddy said it was a powerful idea, the travelling by sea. Didn’t you have the relaxation that came with it into the bargain. He said all the great explorers and adventurers travelled by the sea, and though there were some mighty aviators in time of war, and so on and such forth, wasn’t the sea the thing for a fella with a bit of pluck about him? If he had his time again, Paddy said he would love to be setting out on a life at sea and maybe even becoming a salt into the bargain. Your average salt had a constitution blacker than a rat’s guts, said Paddy, and a mind at least twice as dark. A good salt always knew where to find the craic on a ship like this and they only need keep their eyes peeled for the right one.

The ship was busy and there were lots of people walking about when Paddy suddenly pointed to a salt and said, “Now, Joey, there’s a fella who’s seen a bit of the world. Hang on, I’ll have a word.”

Paddy and the salt stood talking together for a while and then there were a lot of gestures from the salt, like he was giving directions. When the salt stopped with the gestures, he nodded at Paddy and then the two men shook hands and Paddy flicked back his head to beckon Joey to him.

“Right, me old segotia, have I a night planned for you.”

“What is it?” said Joey.

“What is it? Only the grandest of craic known to man.”

“
What?
”

“Five card brag.”

“Poker?” said Joey.

“Shhh … Jaysus, don’t be broadcasting it.”

“Oh come on, tis only a game of cards.”

“Tis not matchsticks we’re playing with here, Joey now, tis bigger than that.”

“Lollypop sticks?”

“Stop now. It’s big money. We can clean up, sure. Come on, game’s starting in ten minutes. What do you say?”

“No way.”

“Ah, now. Don’t be dismissing the idea, sure I know a thing or two about the old five card.”

“Forget it.” Joey turned round and walked away from Paddy and his idea of a bit of craic. Funds were tight. Since Shauna emptied the bank of Marti’s college funds Joey had worried about building them back up. He had never known money, what he had – which wasn’t much after the usual parasites took their bite out of the house sale – he had worked for and now he had no work. Every penny would be needed to find Marti, make him safe and keep him that way.

“Joey,” said Paddy, walking after him.

“See ya.”

In the cabin Joey pulled out the bunk and flattened his pillow. The bunk was hard, rock solid. He wondered how he would manage five weeks of it, and then the door was opened again.

“Look, haven’t I a system,” said Paddy. “Tis a sure-fire system and all I need is a bit of the folding stuff. See I’m what ye might call embarrassed financially.”

“Forget it. Anyway, what makes ye think I have a bean?”

“Well, ye would be flying if ye were counting pennies.”

“I have hardly a pot to piss in … and anyway, all I have is accounted for. I have a boy needs looking after.”

Paddy leaned over and placed a sunburned hand on Joey’s shoulder. “What I am about to tell you now I have told no other man, tis my secret but I’m desperate, sure. I’m broke.”