Chestnut Street (32 page)

Bucket looked at his son, hoping for some sign, any sign that the boy was disassociating himself with Nest. He saw no sign. He knew that what he said now was important in some way.

“I suppose poor Ruby didn’t know it was all a joke,” he said eventually. He looked from one boy to the other, trying to read what he saw. Bucket thought he saw scorn and pity.

That night Helena telephoned him. “Are you all right?” she asked sharply.

“Yes, I think so. Why do you ask?” He could sense her shrug.

“Don’t know. Something Eddie said. I think he felt you were going potty or something.”

He paused. He could tell her now what their son and his friend had been up to or he could let it pass. He let it pass, and he knew that somehow things with Eddie would never be the same again.

Two years later Eddie was expelled from school. Nest had been expelled too. But there was another place that took them on, a much tougher kind of school.

Helena said she was disappointed but then life was disappointing anyway, wasn’t it.

Bucket didn’t know; sometimes it was, but mainly it was fine.

“You
would
say that,” Helena said.

“Will he still come and see me when he’s in the new place?” Bucket asked.

“Well ask him yourself—you see enough of him,” Helena snapped.

Bucket paused. He hadn’t seen Eddie for more than three months.

“When do I see him, does he say?”

“Every Saturday for the last six weeks, or are you so dopey that you don’t even notice your own son in your own house?”

“He doesn’t come here, Helena,” he said in a beaten voice.

“Shit,” said Helena.

“Far?”

“Is that you, Eddie?”

“Unless you’ve a lot of other children we don’t know about.” Eddie came in the back door of Number 11.

Ruby left the chair she was sleeping in, quite urgently, and scampered upstairs.

“Only you, Eddie.”

“That wasn’t much to show for a life’s work,” Eddie said.

“It was enough for me. I wish things had been different so that I could have seen you all the time but I’m always happy to see you. I wish I was a better person to advise you.”

“You’re okay, Far—you’re better than
he
is.”

Bucket knew that
he
meant Helena’s second husband. “I thought he was meant to be very nice?”

“Oh, yes, when things go well. When they don’t go well he acts as if he has a smell up his nose,” Eddie said.

“Well, people are different.”

“Why weren’t you tougher, Far, stronger, you know?”

“I don’t know, Eddie. It wasn’t my way.”

“It’s the only way to get on—we only have one crack at life.”

“I know that now. I didn’t know it earlier.”

“Would you have been different, do you think?”

“No, probably not. No, I think I’d have been just the same. I’m a great one for the easy life, not ruffling people. I didn’t want to upset your mother when she had her heart set on bettering herself.”

“But she must have seen
something
in you to marry you.”

“She must have, but I think it was just that I was safe, had my own trade, my own house. In those days having a business was a great thing.”

“But it’s not a business, Far—it’s only yourself, a bicycle, a ladder and a bucket,” Eddie said.

“And a reputation and a list of satisfied customers as long as my two arms,” Bucket said proudly.

“I don’t like my new school, Far.”

“You’ve only been there five minutes, son.”

“No, six months. Nest likes it and Harry and Foxy and all my friends, but I don’t.”

“So what do we do, Eddie?” Bucket was genuinely perplexed. He had no idea how to advise the boy.

“You couldn’t let me live with you and go to the place up the road?” He looked so trusting.

“Ah, Eddie son, they wouldn’t take you. That’s a place for the sons of gentlemen. Your new father might be able to get you in there but not me. And anyway, Eddie, it costs a fortune in fees.”

“I’d pay it back, Far, when I did well.”

“No, lad, it just isn’t possible. I have only the house, and whatever savings I have go into a policy for you when you get to be twenty and for your grandmother’s nursing home bills.”

“I don’t want money when
I’m
old, like twenty—I want it now, Far!”

“If I could do it I’d give it to you this minute with my own two big hands, but I can’t.” Bucket nearly wept not to be able to deliver when he was being asked.

“I might have known.” The boy slumped in the chair.

Bucket decided to give him all the wisdom he had in his possession. “Maybe if you pretended you liked this school, Eddie. I often do that when I get a big job with very high windows, but lots of them. I tell myself this is just the job I wanted. I don’t think of the fall from the fourth floor to the ground, I think of the money at the end of the day. And I tell myself that this is a beautiful home, a gentleman’s residence, in fact, and, you know, I start to feel better almost at once. If you were to try it in this new school it might work. Really, you know, it might.”

“It’s too late, Far. They’ve thrown me out. Today.”

“But
why
, Eddie, why? You’ve only been there for just over six months.…”

“It was a mistake, Far. To do with drugs.”

“But you didn’t have anything to do with drugs, Eddie? I mean, you’re only fifteen.”

“Of course I didn’t. Can I come to live with you?”

“We’ll have to ask your mother.”

“She’ll say yes, Far.”

And Helena did say yes. Very quickly. Bucket told everyone in Chestnut Street. Circumstances had changed; his son had come to live with him full-time.

“He’d better watch that cat of his,” old Mr. O’Brien from Number 28 said.

“We’d all better watch everything,” said Kevin Walsh from Number 2, who knew a lot about life, what with driving a taxi.

School was over. Finished. Eddie explained. It was the “give a dog a bad name” thing being played everywhere, all over again.

“But there are so many careers you could have, Eddie, so many opportunities.”

“They’re not going to
take
me at any school, Far. Hasn’t that gone into your skull?”

“But how will you earn your living?”

“
You
left school at fifteen and you earned your living,” Eddie said.

Bucket looked at him. “Yes, but it was never what you’d describe as a high calling,” he began. “I mean, that’s why your mother took you away to
him
, to an accountant, someone who would have respect.”

“He hasn’t any respect for me now, Far.”

“It’s all down to that fellow Nest—you’re not a friend of his still, are you, Eddie?”

“No, I am not, not Nest, nor Foxy nor Harry.”

“So you can have a clean start.”

“That’s what I need, Far, a clean start, a few quid, a respectable job, a base here with you.”

Bucket had dreamed for years of hearing these words. He could hardly believe it was happening. “You’re sure, Eddie?”

“Oh, I am. I didn’t realize all these years this is what I wanted to do, to be.”

“I’ll get a new bicycle tomorrow,” Bucket said, his eyes shining. “And we’ll get the names painted,
MAGUIRE AND SON QUALITY WINDOW CLEANING
. We’ll make a killing, my boy—that’s what we’ll do!”

Eddie looked at him, amazed. “No, I mean I’m not going into window cleaning,” he said. “I just asked if I could live here and you said yes, that’s all.”

Bucket knew that this somehow was another moment, something that could change everything.

“That’s fine, lad. I thought you wanted a hand up, that’s all.”

“It wouldn’t be a hand up, Far, honestly,” Eddie said.

“Okay, Eddie.”

“We’ll get on fine, Far, if you don’t fuss,” Eddie said.

“I’m sure we will,” said Bucket.

Bucket Maguire was aware that his neighbors were not overjoyed to see Eddie back in the area, but he never knew how much the residents of Chestnut Street pitied him and hated his son. There was no point in their trying to tell him anything. He always had an excuse for Eddie: the boy was unfortunate, people had a down on him, they gave him a bad name just because he once had bad friends.

Bucket went to great trouble to point out that Eddie had risen above these people. But nobody seemed to believe him entirely. They asked vague questions like what did Eddie do all day? And
how exactly did he get his wages? And what time did he get home at night? And suppose he didn’t come home? Where did a boy of fifteen and a half, sixteen, spend the night?

But Bucket knew you didn’t ask those questions if you wanted to have your son around. Things were a lot different now from when he was a boy.

Bucket worked on and on. He longed for an assistant, a young man who wasn’t afraid of heights. But there was no way he could bring anyone else into the business. The day would come when Eddie would want to work with him. Bucket could see him on a new bicycle, cycling beside him. It was just a matter of waiting until the time was right.

Then suddenly Eddie left Number 11.

No explanation, just a note: “Gone on my travels, and if anyone’s looking for me, you’ve no idea where I am. It’s for the best, Eddie.”

Weeks went by and Bucket worried. He couldn’t bear to tell anyone that he had no idea where his eighteen-year-old son was.

One evening, out of the blue, Nest arrived at the door. Two young men were standing behind him.

Bucket did not invite him in. Ruby snaked out to see who it was, and as if she could remember only too well, she went back again very quickly.

“God Almighty, is that the same cat there was all the fuss about? She must be a monstrous age,” Nest said.

“Ruby is six. Can I help you?” Bucket was brief.

“Well, yes, you can. It’s about your son or grandson—I never worked out which it was.” Nest smiled an innocent and crooked smile.

“Son. But he’s not here and I’m afraid I don’t know where he is.” Even to this lout Bucket was courteous.

“Oh, I know he’s not here—he won’t dare show his face in Dublin for a while, a long while.”

Nest looked knowing and menacing. Bucket felt uneasy. Best to try and patch things up, he thought. “I know you and he had your falling-out back at school, but isn’t it best that you put all this behind you?”

Nest smiled again. “No, Mr. Bucket, nothing is being put behind us. There’s still a lot of ongoing business and so if I could ask you to give him an important message …”

“I tell you truthfully, I don’t know where he is, nor indeed when he’s coming back.”

“I’m sure that’s true, Mr. Bucket, but one day he will get in touch, and if you could tell him that he knows where to find us. Just that. We’re in the same place; he’s the one who has gone walkabout.”

He looked very threatening indeed, as if he were going to do Eddie an injury.

Bucket spoke quickly and nervously. “If he gets in touch with me I’ll tell him, Nest. Certainly I’ll tell him. But I didn’t want you to think that he was in and out of here regularly or anything …”

“It’s
Mr
. Nest to you. I have always had the courtesy to call you
Mr
. Bucket. I’d like the same courtesy in return.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Nest,” said Bucket, with his head down.

The other boys tittered. They walked away like cowboys across the grass in the middle of Chestnut Street.

It felt very cold suddenly.

Bucket didn’t sleep well after that. When he did sleep he woke with the smiling face of Nest only inches from his own and it took him ages to realize that it was a dream or Ruby lying on his bed at night purring heavily and guarding him. He began to make his own plans at that time.

One night Helena called very late.

“Is something wrong?” Bucket asked in a panic.

“
Wrong?
Why on earth would anything be wrong?” She sounded slurred.

“It’s just that it’s midnight, Helena.”

“Is it? And does it matter?”

“No, not if you’re all right.”

“I’m fine.”

“And your husband … Hugh, the accountant?”

“He’s fine too, wherever he is.”

“He’s not at home tonight?” Bucket asked.

“Hardly any night. Bucket, have the papers been on to you?”

“About what?”

“About Eddie, you fool, what else?”

“The papers, the newspapers want to know about Eddie?”

“The whole country is looking for him—they don’t know where he’s hiding. Bucket, don’t let him in if he comes.”

“But I have to let him in—he’s my son. And why are they looking for him?”

“Oh, Jesus, Bucket, you’re a worse clown than I thought—it’s all there every day in black and white.”

“But he didn’t
do
anything. Did he?”

“Don’t open the door to him, Bucket. Phone the Guards; otherwise they’ll kill you too. And for what, tell me, for what?”

“Who would kill Eddie and me, Helena? Be reasonable.”

“The people he stole from. Nest, Harry and Foxy and all their pals. Our eejit of a son had to make friends with the greatest drug dealers in Dublin and then tried to double-cross them. They can’t let him live. They’re looking for him to kill him and the Guards are trying to get to him first. The best we can do for him is to turn him in.”

“It would be a long time in gaol. Ah, we can do better than that for him surely, Helena?”

“We could arm-wrestle with these guys, who have guns, Bucket, sawn-off shotguns. Yeah, we could get ourselves killed. Terrific.”

“We could help him get away,” Bucket said.

“Goodnight, Bucket,” Helena said and hung up the phone.

Ruby stiffened in the chair beside him, her hair up in great spikes. There was someone in the house. Bucket’s hand flew to his throat. Was Mr. Nest back with a gang to wait for Eddie’s return? Then a figure stepped out of the shadows. It was Eddie.

“Did you mean it, Far? That you’d help to get me away?”

“Of course I meant it. Sit down. I’ll make us a cup of tea in case they’re watching the house. We don’t want them to see any unexpected activity at this time of night.”

“It’s too late for tea, Father. They are watching the house.”

Bucket noticed with pleasure that this was the first time his son had called him “Father” rather than the silly send-up name of Far.