Born & Bred (4 page)

“He took the pledge too,” Granny interjected as she reached out to extract Danny.

“Look what I have for you. Come here and see.” His mother pulled him closer again and reached under her cushion for her beaded purse, one of the items she had made during arts and crafts.

She had made one for Granny too, though she never used it. She also made covers for bottles—to turn them into lamps. Danny had one in his room, a wicker of colored plastics with a soft heart-shaped cushion edged with white lace.

She drew a clean, fresh pound note from her purse and held it up. “This is for you, pet, to celebrate the day. And,” she was enjoying herself and her smile almost chased the furrows from her brow. “Your Uncle Martin sent you this.” She reached back into her purse again and pulled out a bright ten-shilling note. “He wanted to see you today but he couldn’t wait. He was here for over an hour,” she paused for emphasis. “But he said to tell you that you’re to phone him and he’ll take you to the Grafton. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

His granny reached from behind him and took the money just as Danny’s fingers reached it. “I’ll put it with the other money I’m keeping safe for you. Don’t forget to thank your mother.”

His mother watched and a twinge of annoyance flashed across her face before she swallowed and pushed it back down inside of her. “I wanted to go and see you at the church but they wouldn’t let me. They said I wasn’t up for it.”

Her eyes filled with tears as the flickers of old regrets rose and she struggled like she was trying to avoid sliding back into the darkness inside of herself.

“There’s no need to be upsetting yourself,” Granny soothed. “I was there with him and we’re both here now.”

For a moment, his granny softened and reached out to touch his mother’s hand. “So! Are you feeling any better? I think you’re looking better but you’re very thin. Are they not feeding you at least?”

“Better?” Danny’s mother answered without taking her eyes from his face. “All they do is give me pills and tell me to pray to God.”

“Prayer is the best medicine,” his granny soothed, even as she stiffened.

“Could you not have a word with them?” his mother pleaded. “At least to get them to let me out once in a while? For Danny’s sake.”

“And why would they listen to me; I’m just an old woman. And besides, Danny’s well looked after, now.”

Danny rose and walked to the window like he wasn’t listening and watched their reflections and the breeze running free on the grass outside. It was a nice view when the sun was shining but it could get very damp and grey when it rained and sadness hung in the air.

“Would you mind if we came in?” asked the nurses who had gathered in the doorway. “We just want to say congratulations to Danny on his big day.”

They squeezed into the room crinkling their starched white linens, followed by two nuns draped in flowing black whispers. The nurses took turns squeezing him and slipping coins into his hand but the nuns just patted his cheek and handed him little medals—St. Christopher and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

“God bless you, Danny!” they all agreed and told him he looked like a saint–or an angel.

“I’m afraid it’s getting late and we should be leaving,” Granny announced when the fuss died down, and while the presence of the nuns would discourage Jacinta from protesting. “I have to get Danny home in time for his tea.”

“But we only just got here,” Danny said, forgetting his manners and his vague understanding of the situation.

“Now Danny,” the nuns admonished.

“But I’ve hardly had a chance to see him.” Jacinta rose to take him in her arms.

“You mustn’t get excited,” the nuns reminded her. “What would the doctor say if he knew?”

The nuns pried them apart, faces stoic beneath their veils, and ushered the nurses out.

Danny’s mother smiled wearily as if there was nothing she could do. Even Danny could see that. He wanted her to say something so he could spend a few minutes with her alone but she had begun to shrivel again.

“Can I just say goodbye to Ma before we go?” He knew if he pleaded just right that he would get his way and Granny and the nuns would withdraw to the hallway outside.

But they left the door open.

“It’s so good to see you, Danny boy. I can’t believe how big you’re getting. Did your daddy call you?”

“He did, last weekend, and he says he’ll be home soon and that he is going to give me a fiver.”

“Ah, that’ll be grand.”

“But I really want him to buy me a pair of football boots, you know, like the ones Johnny Giles wears.”

“We’ll ask him, then. I’m sure he’ll know the right ones.” But she didn’t sound convincing. Her face was sad, almost without hope.

Danny searched for something to change that: “And when he comes I’m going to ask Granny if he and I can come and see you on our own.” It was all he had to offer.

“Ah, that would be lovely. That gives me something to look forward to.” She reached out to take him back into her arms.

“Danny,” his granny called from the doorway. “We have to leave now.”

Danny hesitated but his mother just nodded. “Go on now, Danny boy, and don’t be keeping your granny waiting. There’s a good boy.”

He turned again from the doorway but his mother had her head down, like she might be falling asleep, except her shoulders were shuddering a little. “Bye Ma,” he called as the nuns closed like a curtain between them, muffling any answer she might have made.

**

“When I grow up,” Danny announced when they were back home, as he dipped his chips into the broken yolks of his fried eggs, “after I’m finished being the president and playing football, I’m going to become a doctor. But not the type that just give people pills and lock them up. I’m going to be the type of doctor that actually makes people better.”

“I think you should be a priest, instead,” Granny answered without turning around from her sink of soapy dishes. She said she wanted to tidy up before they had the cake she bought—just for the day that it was. It was yellow and spongy with a soft cream layer in the middle. It had hard, sweet icing with lemon jelly wedges coated in sugar. Granny would even let Danny pick them off her slice. “A priest can do far more good than a doctor.”

“Father Reilly said that only the doctors can help Ma. I asked him at Confession.”

“I’m sure he meant something else. Only God can help your mother and not before she lets Him.”

“Why doesn’t God just mend her now?”

“Ah, Danny, you don’t understand. God works in mysterious ways.”

“Does He not love Ma?”

“Of course He does. Why would you even think such a thing? He loves us all.”

“I pray all the time, for Ma to get better, but sometimes I don’t think He is listening.”

Granny stopped what she was doing and swatted the stray strands that had wisped around her face.

“God is always listening, Danny, and He is always watching us. That’s why we have to be good all the time. But sometimes,” she paused and waited for his frown to lift, “he lets us try to find our own way back to Him. He wants us to have free will so that we come to Him of our own accord.”

“But what about Ma? She doesn’t have free will anymore. She isn’t even allowed to leave the hospital anymore.”

“Ah, Danny, sure you don’t understand yet. When you’re bigger you will but for now you’ll just have to believe me that God knows what is best for all of us, even your mother—God love her.”

The kettle began to whistle and Granny fussed with the teapot. “Come on now and let’s have some cake.”

Danny was easily deflected and devoured his cake with enthusiasm. When he had finished his second slice she ushered him off to brush his teeth and say his prayers. “I’ll be up to tuck you in, in a minute.”

**

But when she got to his room he was fast asleep. He looked like an angel with his fists rolled up beneath his chin, the little medals the nuns had given him peeping out from between his fingers. She gently stroked his hair and fought to keep her heart from bursting.

You will look out for him after I am gone?
she whispered into the unanswering dark.

God, who knew what was best for them all, and kept His thoughts to Himself, had given her a great many challenges in life. But He had given her Danny, too, to lighten the burden no matter how dark the days became. He was that small candle that burned when her heart and mind grew dark with sorrow.

And fear and doubt. She’d had conversations with Davies, the solicitor and long-time friend of her dear, departed, Bart. There was nothing else to be done. She’d have to let Danny’s father back into his life. She could make conditions, but she would have to allow it.

And you’ll make sure that no harm will ever come to him?

She didn’t hesitate to make bargains with God, assured as she was in her faith. When she needed something she asked because when He needed her to step in and take care of His little angel, she didn’t hesitate.

Naturally she had confidence in Him, but sometimes she wondered if He wasn’t distracted by the multitude of conflicting prayers and personal requests. Things were allowed to happen that were obviously going to come to a bad end—like Jeremiah and Jacinta, who should never have been brought together. Her son had a weakness for drink and Jacinta had a feeble mind.

But they did, and they gave into temptation and had to be married before she began to show. That, Granny decided, was her role in life—to help to iron out the wrinkles in the Great Plan.

She sat for a while gently stroking Danny’s hair. He had come into the world just after Christmas, a few weeks before he was expected. Jeremiah and Jacinta had been arguing all night. Jacinta had a visit from her sisters. They were on their way home from the dance and brought her fish and chips.

**

“We saw Jerry down in the pub.” They masked their delight in sharing bad news with a veneer of seeming concern. Jacinta had married above her station, showing them all up, even if she had hitched herself to Jerry’s falling star. “He spent the whole evening going around flirting with all of the women there.”

“And him with an expecting wife at home.”

“Not a shred of shame in him either.”

“What was he up to?”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be telling you all of this but it’s better that you know now.”

By the time Jerry got home she had worked herself into a right state.

***

Danny also knew that he had literally fallen into the world, expelled by his mother in a fit of rage.

He had heard the story often, whispered by grown-ups who overlooked his small presence, like he was too young to understand.

The story went that his mother had lifted a heavy skillet to rap his father across the head and the strain of it was too much and she expelled Danny, just seven and a half months after the wedding.

They said he didn’t seem to mind and for the first few months he slept for most of the day.

His granny said it was because he never enjoyed a moment of peace inside of his mother as she was the type of woman that could never be at ease. Even when she was sleeping she fretted and twitched over every little slight, real or imagined. Even carrying Danny, while other women had a glow about them, Jacinta had a scowl.

Danny had also overheard that it wasn’t a planned pregnancy, that it was more of an unfortunate accident in a lane behind the dance hall. He had heard whisperings that his mother had been drunk and eager and his father had been drunk and thoughtless. He had no idea what any of it meant but apparently, “they had been eyeing each other for a few weeks.” He heard that his father thought she was a fine-looking thing and his mother knew that he came from a few “bob”—Danny’s grandfather was a minister in the government at the time, and a veteran of the War of Independence.

His granny said it was what was to be expected. She often said that she knew that Jeremiah was lost the day he came home drunk, at eighteen, with his Confirmation Pledge in tatters around him.

That he should fall prey to Lust was inevitable, and when the news reached her, she chided him for a while and then arranged for a nice, respectable wedding while her future daughter-in-law could still be squeezed into a white dress.

**

“I have had a quiet word with Father Brennan,” she had announced as cordially as she could manage.

She had brought Jerry and Jacinta together over tea at Bewley’s, in a booth where they could keep their business to themselves. “He can fit you in on the third Saturday in May.”

Jerry stirred his tea without looking up while Jacinta devoured sticky buns. Neither of them even offered a word of thanks but Granny Boyle didn’t care. The holy mother of God would grant her all the thanks she needed. “And then you can have a nice weekend on the Isle of Man.”

Jerry lit another Woodbine as Jacinta stared at the empty plate. “Are there any more of those sticky buns?”

Granny Boyle forced a smile as she beckoned a waitress. This was going to take all of her patience so she turned her gaze on her son. “Your father is going to have a word with someone in the Public Works Department, too.”

Jerry looked at her for a moment and shrugged. “I was going to reapply,” he protested softly.

“There’s no time for that anymore,” Granny cut him off. It was still an open sore between them. He had failed in his first year at UCD much to the consternation of his father, causing the poor man to turn purple. “He’s a thundering disgrace to us all,” he had bellowed when he heard about Jerry and Jacinta. “First he drinks himself out of college and now he takes up with the daughter of some common laborer from God-knows-where. We should send the pair of them off to England and be rid of them.”

“Now Bart,” Granny had soothed. “He’s made his bed and we’re not going to turn him out over that.” She folded her arms to let him know the matter was decided and he better just get used to it.

“Very well but don’t expect me to pay for the wedding.”

“You won’t have to,” she reminded him. She had her own means. Her father had left her money when he sold up the old place. She had always kept it separate and apart.