Born & Bred (35 page)

“What I don’t understand,” Jacinta continued through the hanky she had wiped her eyes with, “is how someone could be so mean and spiteful to Danny. Especially now that he is trying so hard to change. And Jerry, too, who never did a bit of harm to anybody.”

Deirdre’s mother reached out to console her and glanced at her daughter who rose and poured more tea to create a diversion. When they all settled down again she took Jacinta’s hands in hers.

“We just want you to know that not everyone thinks badly about Danny. Isn’t that right, Deirdre?”

Deirdre didn’t look Jacinta in the face. She’d probably heard what Jacinta had said about her being “the one that had first led her poor Danny astray.” Nothing that salacious could remain secret in their neighborhood. Instead, she just nodded. “That’s right, Mrs. Boyle. Especially now that Danny is . . . trying.”

“Well that’s very nice of you to say,” Jacinta reached over and gave Deirdre’s hand a squeeze. Jacinta wasn’t sure if she had forgiven her for what happened in the church. She just hoped that she wasn’t going to make a big thing of it with Danny. She still hadn’t decided how she really felt about her.

“I’ll be sure and tell Danny that you said that. It’ll do him good—after all the poor lad has been through.

“Well,” she cradled her cup in her hand and smiled into the fire. “Because you’ve both been so nice, why don’t you, and your mother and father, come to my sister’s wedding? She won’t mind, and we are having the reception in the Yellow House. They do a nice spread there and we can have a whole room to ourselves. Will you come? Danny would be delighted if you did.”

*

“How are you going to explain this to Father?” Deirdre giggled as they recrossed the street and headed back toward their house, on a bit of a hill, between the trees.

“He will be the one explaining, when I get home.” Her mother had her jaw stuck out like a steam engine and huffed and puffed all the way. “When we get home he can sit down before me and explain what was going through his head to pile all that misery on that poor woman? She has enough to deal with, God love her.”

They both knew of Jacinta’s past but they never discussed it even though everyone else did. Her mother took pride from that. So did Deirdre.

Her father, too, was usually above it all. But lately he had become preoccupied with the “goings on.” He was spending a lot of time down in the pub and came home with stories that he could have left there. He said it was important for him, being the leader of the neighborhood watch and all, but her mother wasn’t having any of that. She always got outraged when she saw someone suffering. She’d even forget herself, and her propriety.

He was sitting on the couch when they got in and tried to make a joke about checking their purses—since they had been over to the Boyles and all—but her mother froze him with a stare.

“Have you any idea what you have done to that poor unfortunate woman? She’s beside herself with tears over there. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Deirdre excused herself and went to her room but she could still hear from there. It was better than having to watch her father having all the air let out of him. She wouldn’t add to his humiliation.

She wouldn’t take from it either and would go along with whatever her mother decided.

They usually ignored him, like he wasn’t there. Or if they did talk to him, they’d be very stinting.

But this time it was going to be different. This time her mother was going to demand her pound of flesh.

“I was only doing what I thought was the right thing . . . for our daughter.”

“I see. And did it ever occur to you to discuss it with me before you went around lying about the neighbors.”

“I wasn’t lying. There was something happening. I’m sure of it.”

“There was. A bitter old man was taking out his spite on a poor, unfortunate young lad who, God love him, has had more than enough trouble in his life.”

“Oh? Like Danny Boyle is some sweet little angel who would never put a foot wrong? Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember what he did to our Deirdre?”

Deirdre held her breath. She had no idea what her mother would say to that. They really should tell him the truth—but not tonight.

“He did nothing to Deirdre that he didn’t do to himself. Can’t you see that? They both made a mistake and while Deirdre got a second chance—what happened to Danny Boyle? Who was looking out for him?”

“He’s not my concern. Let his own father worry about him. I’ve got enough to worry about with my daughters growing up with no morals.”

Her mother paused. She was probably trying to maintain some composure but she couldn’t.

“May God forgive you for saying such a thing. A decent man would be proud to have my two girls as daughters.”

She stomped out of the room and Deirdre could hear her sob as she came up the stairs.

“I’m sorry,” her father called up after her mother. “I don’t know why I said that.”

“You said it because you believe it,” her mother turned at the top of the stairs and looked down on her husband. “You always believe the worst of people and that’s all you ever get to see. You should be happy that you have a daughter that would cross the road to bring a bit of comfort to someone.”

“I am. I am. Only why does it have to be Danny Boyle’s mother?”

“Because she is the one who needs it. We don’t get to pick who we are supposed to be nice to. There’d be no point in that.”

“Okay. But what about the other one?”

“The other one? Do you mean our daughter, Grainne, who is about to have your grandson? Is that the one you want to vent your spleen on?”

“When did this all happen?”

“While you were out minding everybody else’s business.”

Her father sat down on the stairs and called them both to him. “Tell me they got married at least. Tell me that my grandson is not going to be a bastard.”

“How dare you say that about your own flesh and blood. And, for your information, they were married in Morocco.”

“What? Did they have one of those Muslim wailers do it?”

Deirdre couldn’t bite her tongue in time and rushed to join in. “They are called Imams. And when they get back they are going to have a service here, too. And mother and I are going.”

It was her mother’s one condition—that they have a church service when they got back. Other than that, she couldn’t wait to see them and to hold her grandson in her arms. She had told Deirdre that she would bring her father around. She just had to wait for the right moment to break the news to him.

He would come around, just like her mother said, after he had time to contemplate having to battle against all three of them—five if Johnny and his grandson took sides.

“A grandson?” And even the very mention of it softened him a little. “Can I hold him while they are getting married, properly?”

“You can stay at home with him if you like. Only you’ll go over to the church on Saturday and go to confession. Then we can see about going on with things.”

Deirdre smiled as she imagined it. “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I bore false witness against my neighbor.” She couldn’t wait to tell Miriam all about it.

“And you’ll put on your good suit and go to the Boyle wedding, too.”

“Why on earth would I want to do that?”

“So your grandson doesn’t hear about what a terrible neighbor you were.”

*

You’ve gone and done it again. You’re your own worst enemy,
Danny chided himself in the small little room they held him in. He was trying to act like he wasn’t bothered—except about being innocently locked up—but it was starting to get to him. They had let his father out hours ago and he was still waiting.

After he had been searched, the two detectives had come back for another “little chat” and sat down opposite him like they were Siamese twins, joined at the hip. They just nodded to him and flipped through their notebooks, pausing once in a while to nod to each other. Danny could tell: they had nothing on him. Handing over the bag was a lucky break.

Still, he wished he hadn’t done any of it, now. He’d gone and told everyone that he was trying to turn his life around and now no one would ever believe him again.

The detectives didn’t look like they did. They made that quite clear. They told him that they knew he was at Scully’s execution and that there were some who had even suggested that he might have been the one that pulled the trigger!

They were probably just trying to scare him.

But what if Anto decided to get even and gave them the gun?

It had to have been Anto—the fucker.

The silent one just eyed him coldly while the younger one went on to tell him that they didn’t believe it. He said they believed that Danny was there all right, and that he could name the killer. That made him an accessory unless he turned witness.

They told him it would be the wise course of action for him to take. They told him that they wouldn’t have to charge him—that they might be able to see their way to getting him out on probation if he did the wise thing.

*

What they didn’t tell him was that they had been told by their sergeant, who was told by the chief superintendent, who was asked by a government minister, who had heard from a bishop, that they were to go easy on Danny Boyle. They could squeeze him a bit but, unless they were positive, they couldn’t charge him with anything. They could hold him overnight, too, but nothing was to happen to him—nothing!

*

Instead, they suggested that he sleep on it—that they’d be back in the morning and he could give them his statement then. They wished him a good night and left, locking the door behind them.

They turned the light off, too, so Danny sat with the light from the little window above the solid locked door as his only comfort. It was a dull yellow light that left shadows everywhere. And every time he stirred the floor boards creaked and groaned in the empty room. There was just the table and three chairs, a pack of cigarettes, and a box of matches.

That was enough to get him through the night and he had plenty to think about.

But that kind of thing could get to you after a while. He wouldn’t let it. No, he was going to use his time to try to figure it all out. The Guards had nothing on him. They were just giving him the old scare-them-straight.

They kept you in an interview room and left you alone for a few hours while you listened to what was going on in the other rooms. Most of the time it was just a drone of conversation. The same old questions. If it was your first time, they didn’t push too hard. They just guided you to the path toward reformation. They could get you there, but you were on your own after that.

By the second or third time the questions got much harder. They’d raise their voices, too.

Then it would go quiet. That was when the younger one would sit back and the silent one would take over and start talking in a soft voice. That’s when they really got to you. When they took off their civil masks and really bared their teeth.

Everyone knew about it but nobody ever said anything; it was just the way things were done. Even though sometimes it got out of hand—like when the fella jumped off the roof of Pearse Street Station while he was still tied to a chair.

Everyone said it was an unfortunate event but that these things happened. And it only happened to those they didn’t know and only read about in the paper, or heard on the news. It didn’t happen to them, or theirs. But now it had and the whole neighborhood would be buzzing again about the infamous Danny Boyle, “God love him. Wasn’t it his mother that was away in St. Pats for a while?”

“And his father, God bless the mark, had a fondness for drink. And him from such a good family, too. Bart and Nora must be rolling in their graves.”

He’d gone and done it again. He was his own worst enemy.

But they had nothing on him. He’d be out in the morning. His mother would contact the old solicitor. The fucking Guards wouldn’t be very happy to see him. He was one of the old crowd who could still reach out and have one of them transferred to minding sheep at some crossroad in the middle of a bog in the west.

Danny could sit back and relax and try to figure out what was really going on.

The part that kept eluding him was—how did they know he was bringing stuff in? Anto wouldn’t have told them about that, and neither would the Driller. They both had too much to lose.

And why was he intercepted?

He shivered when it dawned on him that all three of them had been shafted, and, as desperation swirled about him he knelt down and prayed to God to save his soul—and his body. And for the first time in years, he wished his granny was near.

“Our Father

“Who art in Heaven . . .”

*

By morning he was a convert. If they would just give him one more chance, he wouldn’t mess it up. If he could just get out from under this, he would never put a foot wrong again.

He believed in himself this time. He had found comfort during the night—the same feeling that he used to get when he was a kid and knelt by his bed to say his prayers. It was like someone up there was looking out for him.

He even knelt again and looked up and smiled at the smoke-yellowed ceiling in the tiny room where the only light came from the small window above the solid door. Its frame made a cross on the table before him.

He got up when he heard footsteps approach.

A key rattled in the lock and the bolts were pulled back.

“Boyle,” the desk-sergeant barked. “There is someone here to see you. C’mon now.”

Danny hesitated, like it might be a trap, despite the assurances of the night.

“C’mon, Boyle. Your solicitor is here.”

Danny followed him down the narrow corridor, lined by solid doors, locked and bolted, getting brighter as he went.

After he had been led into another room, a brighter, bigger room, Davies greeted him with stilted concern and asked if he had been mishandled in anyway.

Danny shook his head but didn’t raise his eyes.

“I have arranged for your release.”

Davies waited like he was expecting Danny to just thank him but Danny forgot himself and hugged the prim old man instead.