Born & Bred (6 page)

She wanted to talk with him about what they should do with Danny. She didn’t want to make the same mistakes she had made with Jeremiah. After she’d banished him to England he seemed more and more shrivelled each time he came back for weekends, in his long tweedy coat, reeking of resignation and cigarettes, his teeth and nails turning browner and browner.

But what else could she have done? He had picked his own path and all she could hope for was that one day, like the Bible’s prodigal, he would return. So when he was home, she insisted that he spend time with his son. She had him take the boy to Milltown, to watch the Rovers. Or, if it was raining, she’d send them off to the Grafton Cinema. Danny loved his cartoons and always came home with wonderful stories about Bugs Bunny, Tweetie Pie and Sylvester, and Danny’s favorite, Daffy Duck.

Or if the weather was finer, she’d send them to the zoo though, as she found out later, they only ever walked around the outer fence.

**

“It is better this way,” Jerry always insisted. “It’s like we’re on a real safari. Inside it’s just like all the animals are in prison but from here, with the bushes and all, you can hardly see the cages. It’s like the animals are pacing back and forth like they know we’re hunting them.”

“Can’t we just go in the next time?”

“Don’t be asking me for stuff like that Danny. I don’t have money for that kind of thing. People like us just get to stand outside and look in. That’s the bit they don’t tell you about in school. But don’t worry, the priests say that the poor get to Heaven easier, especially if they become poor giving all their money to the Church.” He stopped as Danny’s eyes welled up. “I’m sorry but I’m just trying to warn you, Danny boy, so you’ll know what to expect.”

They always stopped in Ryan’s on the way home, a warren of old wooden snugs for every type of drinking. Danny always wanted to go into the little rooms with the window that opened over the bar. They reminded him of confessionals.

“That was great all the same, wasn’t it Danny?”

Danny looked over the four empty lemonade bottles, knee-deep in the torn wrappers of four potato chip bags. His father was glassy and ruddy and pleading desperately with his eyes.

“It was brilliant, Da, but couldn’t we just go inside one of these days?”

“I told you. I’m not made of money, son.”

“Uncle Martin took me inside last summer.”

“Well you’ve seen it then so we can stop coming.”

While Danny struggled to control his tears his father peered through the cloud of smoke between them. “Ah, not you too, Danny? You’re looking at me the same way your mother did.” He shriveled a little more into the wood panel behind him, another sad and beaten man.

**

Nora had had to find someone else for him to look up to, so, when Martin had asked if he could take Danny to the pictures—for his Confirmation, she didn’t hesitate, even when he asked if she’d mind if they went for something to eat afterwards.

She approved of Martin; there was something different about him—not like the rest of his family. She’d never heard a bad word spoken about him though he did like to keep to himself, but that, she assumed, was a personal choice and one that she admired. Danny liked him a lot and that was good enough for Nora, though she did ask him to tell her all about it.

Danny said it was much better with Martin—that he’d brought him for burgers and chips. His father just used to take him to the pub and buy him lemonade and crisps. Wimpy’s was much better.

**

Danny’s smile had broken into a huge grin when his stacked plate was placed on the table in front of him.

“It’s all right,” Martin had agreed. “But in America they have these huge burgers. I’m going to go there, to New York, as soon as I finish school and all. And you can come and visit,” he added when Danny’s face clouded.

“I don’t know if I will have the time. I’m going to be busy when I grow up.”

“Oh really?”

“Ya. I’m going to become the president first, and make the British give back the North. Then I’m going to play football for Ireland.”

Martin smiled and watched Danny chew on another big mouthful that pressed against the inside of his soft downy cheek.

“How’re things going at school? Have you had any more trouble with the Nutgrove crowd?”

They had been picking on Danny for months, waylaying him on his way home from school, or from the shops. When his granny heard about it she confronted them on the street, warning them that she would have the Guards on them if they didn’t stop. “I’ll have the lot of you in the Borstal. Let that be fair warning. Go on now and never bother my grandson again. If one of you as much as touches a hair on his head . . .”

They scattered and left him alone for a while but Martin knew that someday Danny would have to fight his own battles. Perhaps, Martin considered, he would get Danny some boxing gloves and teach him how to use them. That’s how he survived. He never went looking for trouble but when it found him he could send it home with a black eye and a bloody nose. He had gained a bit of a reputation as a hard man. Maybe it was enough to protect Danny, too, at least until he got a bit older. Maybe he should drop by and pick him up after school a few times so that everybody could see them together.

“Uncle Martin?” Danny asked after a few moments of silence. “Do you think that God doesn’t like my ma?”

Martin never really thought about stuff like that anymore and paused before he answered, to find the right words. “Danny, I don’t know, but everybody says that God’s supposed to love us all.”

“Why do you think that my ma is always sick?”

She had always been sickly, as long as Martin could remember. His mother always referred to her as “that poor little creature” and Jacinta was never expected to help out around the house. His other sisters always complained about that. “How come she never gets asked?”

“Because she gets nervous and drops things,” their mother would answer impatiently.

“She only does that to get out of doing anything,” Brenda would reply.

“And to get attention,” Linda would chime in.

Martin was the youngest so his opinions hadn’t really mattered. He had always known that Jacinta was nervous but he’d never believed there was something really wrong with her until she got put in the hospital. Then he wondered if he shouldn’t have been a little nicer to her, all along. He felt bad about that but he was young and couldn’t do much about anything. He’d make it up to her when he was older.

“I don’t know, Danny, I think she is getting better.”

“My granny says she’s a lost cause.”

“C’mon now and finish your chips. It’s getting late and your granny will be getting worried.”

He waited until Danny turned back to his plate; he didn’t want to show his concern. He knew how hard it was to grow up with parents but it must be awful to grow up without them. He wanted to tell Danny the truth—about everything, but what could he say? Instead, as they rode on the upper deck of the bus, all the way out to Rathfarnham, they talked about the cartoons and all the crazy things they had seen.

“Do you remember when Daffy Duck tried to shoot Bugs with the gun and Bugs stuck his carrot in the barrel? That was so funny.”

**

As Martin walked back toward Terenure, he kicked his trepidations along in front of him but he couldn’t do it: he couldn’t shatter Danny’s innocence. Life would do that, and probably brutally, but he couldn’t.

His own was shredded but he was okay with that. He was different. He had always known it but only in the last few years had he gained the ability to articulate it, even if only to himself.

He had gone to a priest, too, when his questions were bigger than his answers. And he was given the same old advice: Faith, Hope, Love and lots and lots of Prayer but it all lost its lustre as he grew into the world. It was a hard place where those who were different were singled out for special torment.

That’s why he took up boxing. He hated fighting, but growing up in Dublin demanded it. Boxing made him feel confident but most of all, it made sure they left him alone.

Danny was easy prey, wide eyed and trusting and coddled by his grandmother, and the street scuts were like piranha. He’d need to defend himself, and, in time, he’d need to grow a hard shell against the world and that was the greatest sadness of all—that it was the actions of other children that often shattered the innocence of childhood.

“It’s about time you got here,” his sisters greeted him when he got home. “The Lamb of God keeps phoning for you.”

“Don’t call him that. He’s your nephew, for Christ’s sake.”

“He would be, if that old bitch would let us near him.”

Martin answered when the phone burred again. Danny was calling to thank him for the evening out.

“Thanks Uncle Martin, I had a great time and the cartoons were so funny. I was telling Granny about them and she says that I’m the luckiest boy in the world to have an uncle like you.”

His manners were polished, probably at Granny’s insistence, and Martin admired that.

“You’re more than welcome, Danny, and do you know what I was just thinking? We should do this every week, you know? We can go to the pictures and then go for burgers. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? And then we can talk about things like mates.”

“I’d like that.” Danny’s voice was echoic, like he was holding his hand around the phone so no one else could hear their conversation. “But we can’t go on Fridays anymore.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because we had meat on a Friday and Granny would kill me if she found out.”

“Well, we’ll just have to keep that our secret.” Martin hadn’t even thought about it. He’d have to be more careful. “Maybe we’ll do it on Saturdays instead, in the afternoons. They have lots of Westerns on in the afternoon.”

“In the Grafton?”

“No, but it’s good to see different kinds of films.”

“Well okay, but I’d prefer the cartoons. Do you think that my granny will say yes?”

“Don’t worry about Granny. I’ll have a word with her and I’m sure she’ll agree. Anyway, go on to bed now and I’ll talk with you next week.”

Martin was sure that Granny wouldn’t be a problem. He’d heard that she was unwell. His sisters went as far as saying that she was dying—and not before time—but Jacinta didn’t want Danny to know, not until he had to. Until then, Granny would need his help with Danny. Granny had always liked him, saying he was “a cut above the rest” and Martin liked her for that.

“Good night, Uncle Martin.”

“Good night, Danny. And don’t forget to brush your teeth.”

He couldn’t let his sisters know that he was helping her. “She was the one that broke them apart with all of her meddling,” they always said when the old woman was mentioned. “And she drove poor Jacinta into the asylum, even if it is only for treatment. It’s not like she’s really mad or anything.”

“Ah, but maybe she is better off in there—her being so delicate and all.”

“Of course she’s better off in there. Not like the rest of us trying to find husbands and the pickings of men getting slimmer each year.”

The years were taking their toll on his sisters, but Martin had little pity for them. They had all been in a hurry to leave school assured that their youth was all they needed—and that it would last. They were, as they often boasted, not the learning type. Martin was ashamed of them and the reputations they cultivated. “I hear your sisters are all rides,” cruel voices would jibe as he passed on the street but they never dared to say it to his face. He’d burst them if they did.

He couldn’t wait to get away from them all and their narrow little minds. He’d show them all though—after he had made it big in New York. He’d come back and rub their smug little faces in their own shitty little lives.

But he’d look after Danny until then—at least until he was able to look out for himself.

**

Nora still remembered how happy she was the day that he dropped by.

It was a Sunday and she had been listening to the radio and the news just made her angry. The government was caving in to the British again and rounding up the men who had tried to get guns into the hands of those who’d defend the poor people of the North.

It had split “the Cause” and the country. The Republic that Bart had fought for was being taken over by Gombeens and Quislings, again. He said that it might. “We can only lead the people to the water,” he used to say, “but we can’t make them drink.” It was his favorite saying when he was out canvassing in the pubs, buying drinks for feckless voters.

“Now Nora,” he would remind her when she chided him. “The people want politicians now and have no time for statesmen. But we can rest knowing that we did our part, however it might turn out.”

She missed him more and more as his like became fewer and fewer.

“Are you sure that I’m not putting you to any bother?” Martin had hesitated when she insisted that he come in for a cup of tea and have a little chat while Danny was out playing football. “I could help you make it, if you like.”

She always thought he was such a fine young man. It was hard to believe that he was from the same parish as the rest of them—let alone the same family. “We can have chocolate biscuits, too, as long as we leave a few for Danny. He does love his chocolate biscuits.”

“Okay, so?” Martin agreed, and followed her into the kitchen and helped as much as she let him. He handled the Belleek with care and that brought a smile to her face. “They’ve been in the family for years. I don’t get much cause for using them anymore. Danny’s not ready and would probably chip them.”

“They are very fine,” Martin agreed as he placed the delicate cups on the thin saucers on either side of a platter of biscuits and carried the whole tray into the parlor. “Can I pour for you?”

“Well now,” she beamed as she settled into her musty old Queen Anne. “This is a treat—a fine young gentleman over for tea. I haven’t had the likes since . . .”

“Ah now, Mrs. Boyle, it’s me that should be thanking you for all you have done for Danny. He always has a good word for you.”