Born & Bred (13 page)

But that night, even Deirdre’s father started to speak to him again. He was still angry about what had happened but he had stopped blaming Jerry for that. And, as the pints were lowered, he said it wasn’t even Danny’s fault anymore—he’d been high on drugs. The drug dealers were the real problem and it was time the ordinary man stood up and took back the neighborhood. They were all united in that.

But nothing good came of it. A few of them were attacked a few nights later, on their way home, and left beaten and bloodied on the street; not having even seen their assailants. No one had seen or heard anything. And if they ever changed their minds, Anto would send messages home with their kids.

That was when Deirdre’s father organized the Neighborhood Residents Watch Committee—or “Watchers,” as they preferred to be called. It was supposed to be shadowy but everyone knew about it. They had a few late-night run-ins with local lads acting-the-tool and one of those got a bit violent. The Guards were involved but no one had seen or heard anything.

After that, Deirdre’s father insisted that they get properly organized. He thought that they should wear berets, and maybe sunglasses, too, and of course, they would have to be sober when on duty.

When the rest of them made it obvious that they might not be able to get into the fighting spirit unless they had a few beforehand—Dutch Courage, and all—he laid out the trump card that established him as their leader.

The Guards had already warned him that they couldn’t have drunken mobs keeping the peace, but they could see their way to supplying walkie-talkies to a few organized, responsible citizens who would report problems and not get directly involved. It was better for everyone so they all agreed.

They all felt better about it, too; even Anto, who was always privy to the Watchers schedules and simply organized his business around them.

Jerry had served his time with the Watchers until the third time he turned up drunk.

Now he was going to have to cross paths with Anto for real and calmed himself with the reassurance the forces he could call on would create more than enough problems for Anto. Enough that he would leave Danny alone for the sake of peace. They could all be reasonable about it and sort it out without any more shootings, beatings, or anything like that.

He hadn’t spoken to Jacinta about any of that yet. He had let Danny, and Jacinta, down so many times before. This time he’d get everything sorted before he told her. It wasn’t like he was going to confront Anto personally—he was no knight-in-shining-armor. Instead he would plead and cajole with everyone he needed.

He even thought about going to the church a few times—to have a private word with God.

He didn’t have to; Fr. Reilly phoned him and explained that the Bishop had agreed to get involved. He assured Jerry that he had every reason to believe that everything would be done to portray Danny in the best light.

Jerry thanked him for that. There was no harm in having the clergy in their corner—they needed all the help the Boyle name could still afford them, and then some.

He’d still have to go and have a talk with the people his mother had given so much of her money to—the shadowy men who were still romantically referred to as the Boys, fallen as they were from the mantels of Ireland’s firesides.

Rumor had it that some of them, seeking a more lucrative and reliable source of income, were dabbling in the business. The older ones refuted that and still claimed they were trying to stamp it out—that the drugs business was abhorrent to all that held the Republic dearly. Drug-dealing was another foreign influence and would be dealt with when the opportunity arose.

Now Jerry was going to give them their chance.

*

“Are you going to sit on your arse all day or are you going to do something about Danny?” Jacinta looked at him the way she always did when their problems were becoming too much for her.

Jerry drained his tea cup and stood up as straight as he could. “I’m going down to have a chat with a few people who might be able to help, if you must know. In the meantime, why don’t you go out with your sisters and not spend the whole day cooped up in here? Danny will be fine. You’ll see.”

After he had gone, Jacinta phoned her sisters. They knew all about it and immediately agreed to meet for a bite to eat, and maybe a few drinks, too, just to help Jacinta get over it. She loved her sisters. She could count on their love and support as long as she was buying the drinks.

After that they could say what they liked about her, and Jerry, and Danny. It never lasted long before they moved on to something stupid that one of them did. But they were family and she took what little strength she could from that. Jerry was an only child.

After she made up her face, and brushed out her hair, Jacinta stopped in to the church. It was on the way to the bus stop.

“Nora,” she whispered through her fingers. “Promise me that you won’t let anything happen to Danny?”

A breeze fluttered through the door as someone entered, genuflected, and shuffled off to the first station-of-the-cross. Jacinta watched through her fingers and found some comfort in that. Her own Jesus had been condemned and had gone down to have his cross laid on him. But at least he had Fr. Reilly there, like Simon.

She stayed a little while longer but Nora Boyle had nothing to say.

“Very well, Nora. Work in your mysterious ways.” She blessed herself again and stole a quick glance at Mary before rising and stepping outside where it was warm and full of the sounds of the world.

She would call Martin, later, when it was cheaper. By then, Danny would be back from the station. There was no point in worrying her brother before then. He’d always been there for Danny, even after she got out of the hospital. She used to be a bit jealous of him for that; Danny was closer to him than anybody else in the world.

*

When she got home, Jacinta settled by the phone. Her sisters had all agreed; Martin would know what to do. He’d always been close to Danny and if anyone could help him, it was Martin. She politely asked if he was well and how things were in his new life. She envied him, now free from shadows and rebuke. Her sister said that he had run-away-for-the-dollars, but Jacinta knew it was far more than that. Martin had a sensitivity about him and that made him different.

“And where are things at now?” he asked and she could feel his concern from three thousand miles away.

“Well I met Fr. Reilly coming up the road and he had just got back from the Garda station. He thinks they might believe Danny but that they might have a few more questions in the future.”

“I’m sure they will. They will want to squeeze whatever they can out of him.”

“Fr. Reilly said that the Guards told him that they had been talking to somebody called Flanagan and he said that he had heard that Danny owed Scully money and that Scully had said that he was going to kill Danny if he didn’t pay up.”

“Flanagan? Anto Flanagan?”

“I think so? Do you know of him?”

“I do. He’s a right piece of work, that one. What was Danny doing getting mixed up with guttersnipes like him?”

“I wish I had the answer, Martin. All I know is that the Guards also told Fr. Reilly that they believed that Flanagan would say or do anything to get himself in the clear.”

“Well that’s good.”

“It is, but they also said that Danny has to start thinking about how he is going to look out for himself.”

“He’s going to have to grass.”

“I know, but it’s what’s going to happen after that that has me worried.”

“Do you want me to come home, Jass?”

“I couldn’t ask you . . .” She paused long enough for him to realize what she was really hoping for.

“Do you think that Danny would fancy coming over here for a while—until everything cools down?”

“I’d hate for him to be so far away but it might be what’s best—after he clears things up with the Guards.”

“Ok,” Martin decided. “I’ll get started on his application and get them to send everything to you. You just have to make sure that Danny fills it out properly.”

“It’s not going to cost money, is it?”

“Don’t worry, Jass. I’ll look after things.”

“You were always like a guardian angel to Danny. God bless you for that.”

CHAPTER 7

Granny had always told Danny that guardian angels would be there for him when he needed them most, even when he couldn’t see them. “Sometimes,” she’d say with a touch of mystery in her voice, “they will act through others.”

That was what had disappointed Danny the most. He would have loved to have a glowing angel, with resplendent wings and a fiery sword, appear by his side when the other kids turned on him.

Instead, he just learned to blend in and avoid the worst of them, and, as time passed, and it became obvious, he began to wonder if there was any truth to anything he’d been told. Nobody really tried to be good anymore, and, by the time he got to secondary school, he was beginning to wonder if any of the stuff about God was true.

**

Brother Arnold was reading aloud from
Les Scrupules de Maigret
in his very best French—the way he imagined St. Jean-Baptiste might have done. Now that Ireland was in the Common Market they would all be talking French in no time—unless the “Coalition” messed it up again.

But the boys weren’t listening. It was a warm spring afternoon and most of them had their faces down pretending to follow. They were really looking forward to a day off. Schools all over the city would be closed tomorrow, to mark the death of the archbishop. It was the end of an era—and the beginning of a new one, too. Brother Arnold had joined the Order to dispense pearls of wisdom to shining-faced young pupils who could never get enough. But since “Free Education” so many of his pupils were just not suited and would have been better off out working and learning trades.

“When they get it for free—they see no value in it,” was the consensus in the staff room. The De La Salle Brothers had a fine tradition, but the times were changing. “They’ve no time for it anymore, with their rock-and-roll, and their protesting, and their ‘Rights!’”

“They want to change the world so they don’t have to get off their arses and do a bit of work.”

“And we can’t do a damn thing—if you lay a hand on them . . .”

“They should be off in the technical schools, the lot of them, so we can get back to teaching the boys that are here to learn.”

“I blame the parents. None of them want to take a shred of responsibility. You hear it at the parent-teacher meetings: ‘My Johnny is not getting the type of education that he deserves . . .’ God preserve us from Bedlam.”

Br. Arnold paused his reading to take a quick look around. Maguire and Collins were passing something back and forth, snickering softly to themselves. Br. Arnold rose from behind his desk with his book in his hand and continued his reading as he walked to the window. The mountains were closer today and he wished he was walking among them. That’s where he had found contentment as a young man, walking through God’s creation—just a tiny piece looking for his place in it all.

He turned casually so he could walk along the side of the desks and across the back of the room. Maguire and Collins noticed and raised their books to their faces but their snickering continued. They were poking at the boy in front of them: Danny Boyle.

Boyle had first come to the school as a polite young man, so well turned out in his new blazer and crisp white shirt, his grey pants neatly pressed and his shoes shining. He was a shy, hesitant lad who struggled in his dealings with the other boys but worked hard to improve his marks. Br. Arnold took a special interest in him, knowing his circumstances and his family’s connections with the Bishop. His grandmother was a benefactor, donating generously to any appeal the school made.

But over the last two years, things had changed. With his grandmother ailing—some said she was dying—Danny’s appearance deteriorated. His shirts wrinkled and yellowed, and he had outgrown his pants that now fluttered a few inches above his scuffed and tattered shoes. And where he had once excelled in his studies, he now struggled to keep up.

The staff room had been advised that there were problems at home and to give the boy some latitude. There were rumors, too, that his grandmother had given all of her savings to the Provos and times were getting tough. “The mother is not long out of St. Pat’s and the father, who has a bit of a fondness for drink, lost his job when the government changed,” those in the know confided.

Others said he had been caught drinking on the job. Either way it didn’t matter—things weren’t good at home. There’d been talk of holding Danny back for a year to let him catch up. But the fear of stigmatizing the boy lead them all to agree: “Let him sit his exams and if he doesn’t do well he can repeat them next year.”

Br. Arnold spent as much time with him as he could, helping Danny without drawing the other boys’ attention. Children could be such a vicious lot and he didn’t want the burden of teacher’s pet to be piled on the boy’s flagging shoulders.

When he got behind Maguire and Collins, he could see what all the snickering was about. They had been sneaking glances at a folded-out picture of a young woman, naked, with her breasts on show for the whole world to see, and her other parts, concealed only by the fold of her thighs.

Br. Arnold pounced and extracted the smut from under Maguire’s book and crumpled it up like a wick.

“Get up, the two of you, and stand at the front of the class until I decide what to do with the pair of you—bringing the likes of that into school with you. You should both be ashamed of yourselves.”

“It’s not ours, Brother. We were only just looking at it. Boyle gave it to us,” Maguire pleaded, his eyes wide and his face red.

“That’s right, Brother,” Collins chimed in. He was a sneaky little runt of a thing that was never far from trouble. “We didn’t know what it was.”

“Is any of this true, Boyle?”

“No!” Danny protested with indignation. “I never saw that before in my life.”