His Father's Son: To save the son he loves, a desparate father must confront the ghosts of his past (18 page)

The hard neck served the whiskey and rolled his eyes, left to right. “Yes, I’m sure it would.”

“Would be mighty, would it not, to have the old superpowers?” Joey threw back the whiskey. “Same again, fella.”

The glass was taken and a refill brought back to the bar.

“What would you go for, if ye could have any of yeer man’s powers?” The hard neck narrowed his eyes and glowered. “Jaysus, I am only making conversation,” said Joey. Hadn’t this one the old laserbeam eyes on him already.

From the mirror in front Joey saw the hard neck go back to the bell with his duster. He could see him taking glances at his bandage from time to time. He’d almost forgotten it was there. It was dirty now, ragged bits of it fraying all over. It would have to come off. He had noticed people were staring more than ever but he thought nothing of it, sure wasn’t it the look of a waster they were after checking, that’s what he thought. It was how he felt, anyway.

“Hey there, laserbeams …” Joey felt a bit drunk. He was drinking doubles on an empty stomach. “Can I have another?” The hard neck said nothing, walked behind the bar and poured out another double whiskey.

Joey quaffed the drink and slammed it on the bar. “Another.” The glass was quickly filled and handed back to him. “Another.” It was becoming a rigmarole, but was repeated until the third request when the hard neck shook his head.

“What, yeer refusing me?” said Joey.

“You’ve had enough,” he said, and then he leant forward over the Superman picture and added, “I don’t want to see you flying like your friend there.”

“I have things to do anyway,” said Joey, and got up to leave. A route of narrow, winding corridors was followed to the ship’s infirmary. There were passengers along the way who stared at him and he tried to avoid their eyes. He felt the shame of what their thoughts might be. The world seemed different with the money gone and Joey thought his place in it was a fragile thing. How could he keep an eye out for Marti now when he was returning to the life of a knacker himself?

At the infirmary door he pressed the buzzer for the nurse and stepped back. He wanted to lower his head, point, say nothing – the shame of it all was too much – and then a face appeared, smiling wildly in the doorway. For a second he wondered was he seeing things? With the long black hair and the impatient look in her eyes she could have been Shauna’s double, but then she laughed and the vision was shattered.

“You look like you’ve been in the wars,” she said.

“Oh, tis my head.”

“Well I didn’t think it was your arse.” The nurse laughed again, putting up her hand to hide the giggles. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t tease you.”

“Ah go way, don’t they say laughter’s the best medicine.”

“Well we’ve plenty of that here. Come in.”

The nurse sat him down on a stool and walked away to the other end of the room. He watched her movements as she hunted for the proper scissors, cursing all the while. She had no cares in the world, thought Joey. She threw herself about the place, laughing and joking, every once in a while flicking her long black hair back and looking to see if her patient was watching.

“These will have to do,” she said, picking up a very long pair of scissors with a bend in the end of them.

“Say what you mean,” said Joey.

“I always do. The truth is a beautiful thing, that’s what my father told me – that there’s no point gilding the lily.”

“Sounds a grand fella, your father.”

“He was. He’s dead now … but don’t worry, I didn’t nurse him,” she laughed again when she spoke and then she placed a hand on his face. “I’m going to have to tilt you a bit, sir.”

“It’s Joey’s my name.” He pulled his face away from her. The cold touch of her hand made him fearful, nervous somehow, he couldn’t explain it. “Call me Joey,” he said.

“Okay, Joey. Pleased to meet you.” She stretched out her hand for him to shake and when he took it the fear was suddenly gone. It was like the threat of touching her was all he was scared of. “Is that drink I can smell on you?” she said.

It was still early in the day and he felt embarrassed. “Eh … it is, yeah. But, I’m Irish, I can be excused.”

“I hope I won’t be offered whiskey for breakfast when I get there.”

“Ah no, tis an acquired habit, whiskey at this hour … and ye don’t look the type to acquire it.”

The nurse smiled and let out a little laugh. There was something about the way she laughed reminded Joey of his youth. She didn’t laugh like Shauna. Her laugh was louder. It seemed more forced by comparison. But then hadn’t it been so long since he heard Shauna laugh, he might be wrong, he thought.

“So you’re headed for Ireland?”

“Aren’t we both … It’s where the ship goes.”

“Ha,” Joey laughed himself. “I mean, are ye going to stay there for a time, in Ireland?”

“My dad always said travel was important, real travel and travel of the mind. When he died I thought I should follow his advice.”

“He died recently, then?”

“Last year. He left me some money – he was never big on possessions. I thought it would be better to spend it on something he approved of.”

“Something ye would have forever.”

“Exactly.” She cut through the bandages and let them fall to the ground, then tried to ruffle Joey’s hair where it had been flattened beneath. “There, you’re done.”

“No stitches?”

“I’ve taken them out, silly!”

“God, ye were gentle. I never noticed.”

The nurse laughed and Joey stood up to leave. “Thanks a million, I think I owe ye.”

“It’s okay,” she said.

“Well, maybe I can buy ye a drink in Ireland – a whiskey for breakfast, perhaps.”

She lowered her eyes. “Eh, no thanks.”

“Oh Jaysus, what have I said … sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” Joey felt his face start to burn and when he backed out of the infirmary in a fluster he heard the nurse’s laughter again.

He carried his bag down the hall – he felt like an itinerant – wandering and wandering with nowhere to rest, then he found himself back at the Captain’s Bar. He peered through the glass in the door. The hard neck was still inside, the bell abandoned, his attention turned to a tabletop now. There were other bars on the ship but to get to them meant walking past the cabin. He didn’t want to bump into Paddy Tiernan again but he thought it was a risk he would have to take. On the way there he passed the cabin fine, and then he thought he saw Paddy heading towards him, and ducked into a gents toilet.

When he looked in the mirror Joey saw his hair was all over the place. He looked filthy, a thick growth of stubble adding to the look of a desperate bogger that there was about him. He soaked his hair in water and slicked it back with his fingers but the effect was minimal. His eyes were blood red, little vessels running into the corners. One was worse than the other, but they both had a yellow tinge to them. They looked like they’d been dipped in mustard, he thought. It was the drink, sure it was; he knew it. But now wasn’t the time to get off it. You don’t kick the crutches off a man with two broken legs.

He stuck his head out of the toilet to check the passage was clear and caught sight of Paddy ambling down the way. “Jaysus, he’d be a good messenger to send for death,” said Joey quietly to himself and closed the door, putting his weight on it until Paddy’s heavy footsteps were heard going past.

When he made it to the Flamingo Lounge there were one or two tables left in the lunchtime rush. He sat himself behind a large cocktail list and hoped Paddy would stay clear of the place. It didn’t look like his type of bar anyway. It was full of old ladies drinking from tall glasses with lumps of fruit and little umbrellas in them. He ordered up a pair of double whiskies and pretended he was waiting on company. He kept up the pretence until all the old ladies had left and the bar was just about empty. He was starting to slouch and he could feel something beginning to dig into the side of him. He touched it – it was Shauna’s diary. He figured he felt so bad about himself now that he couldn’t feel any worse, so he read on:

I hate feeling like this. I feel all alone. Dr Cohn said I should try talking to Joey again, huh, what does he know? I told him Joey doesn’t talk about things and the great doctor told me I was being defeatist. Defeatist! I’m not that, not me. Defeatist is running away to the other side of the world to avoid your problems. Defeatist is diving to the bottom of a whiskey bottle to avoid your problems. Defeatist is giving up on your own life and piling all your hopes onto your only child’s shoulders. Defeatist is watching your family fall apart and saying nothing. I’m not defeatist … Christ I’m the only one left fighting. So why do I feel so bad? Why am I the one in therapy? Why does none of this mean anything to Joey?

He put his head down on the tabletop. Holy Mother of God, who was it writing this stuff? Was it the same Shauna that lay curled up crying, day in, day out? It didn’t sound like her, sure this one sounded together, a damn sight more together than the description she was giving of himself, thought Joey. What was she on about? That wasn’t him. He wasn’t the bad guy she was making out. He just wanted the best for Marti, better than he had. What was wrong with that?

He jammed the diary back in his shirt and then he drained his glass, and slipped onto the floor. There was a loud crash when he landed and then a man in a red waistcoat and black bow tie ran over and tried to raise him. “Come on, sir. I’ll take you back to your cabin.”

“Feck off,” said Joey. “I have no cabin. Get yeer hands off me.”

He let him go and when Joey fell to the ground again the man raised his hands in the air and said, “Irish.”

The ground was spinning. Joey wondered was he on some manner of roundabout, being pushed faster and faster, and then he heard a woman’s voice. “He’s okay. You can leave him with me.” It was the nurse again. “Can you get up, do you think?” she said.

The nurse and the man in the red waistcoat lifted Joey to his feet and walked him to the door of the Flamingo Lounge. “I can manage from here, Phil. Thanks a lot,” she said.

“Where are we going?” said Joey. “I have no cabin … no money, no wife, no son – he was taken by her, you know.”

“Okay, I hear you. There’s a bed in the infirmary you can have. Do you think you can make it there?”

“No problem.”

Joey walked holding onto her, occasionally lolling from side to side, sometimes keeling right over entirely, always profuse with apologies and gratitude. When they made it to the infirmary he felt the brightness of the lights burning his eyes – the room smelled so clean it made him feel faint – then he crashed on the bed.

The nurse stretched a blanket over him, tucked it in around his sides and then she sat down, staring at his face. She put a hand on Joey’s forehead, then removed it as though it felt nothing special. She brushed his hair from his eyes, and then she said, “Why do you drink like that? Why would you do it to yourself?”

Mam didn’t work or have a job and would wear the baggy jamas with the very long sleeves over her hands all the time. Sometimes after school when Marti came home Mam would still be in the jamas and he would know she had had a day spent in bed or curled up on the sofa with the sadness Dad called the Black Dog.

Aunt Catrin said it was a trip up the hill was needed and wouldn’t that see an end to the days spent curled up with the sour puss. She said their brother Barry had left it too late to get himself up the hill. He was beyond the beyonds by the time they took him in, and look how he ended. Aunt Catrin said she wouldn’t suffer another indignity of the like and she would see the rest of her family laid to rest in consecrated ground for sure. It would be the Cabbage Farm for Mam soon enough if the Black Dog stayed, thought Marti.

Aunt Catrin brought him a slab of porridge out of the drawer for breakfast. It was cold and hard with no taste but when Marti pushed it aside Aunt Catrin said boys who brought guards to the door had no call to pick and choose. He took the slab of porridge back and when he was finished Aunt Catrin said it was time to be making tracks to the school or it’s late he would be and wouldn’t the brothers tan his hide a darker shade of red for every minute past the morning bell he was.

Marti put on his coat and scarf and then the shoes with the crack right across the sole that let in all the water. They were very damp and made him pull a face when he put them on.

“Why with the face?” said Aunt Catrin.

“No face.”

“You’ve a face on you as long as today and tomorra. Is it them shoes?”

“No, the shoes are fine,” said Marti, and he forced his feet into the dampness. One of the shoes seemed bigger and colder than usual and when he looked down there was a little puddle on the floor, along with an entire shoe sole.

“Oh Jaypers, ye have burst the shoe,” said Aunt Catrin. Marti looked at the shoe dangling over his foot and thought it was quite funny and started to laugh, but Aunt Catrin said it was no laughing matter. “What are ye going to wear now?”

“I could stay home,” said Marti, “till they’re mended.”

“That will be right. You’ll go to school barefoot before I’ll have them brothers knocking on my door like the guards.”

Marti didn’t want to go to school barefoot like the knackers who begged for chips at lunchtime and would follow you around if you had an apple saying, “
Please the core, mister. Please the core, mister
.” The barefoot boys were always being teased and bullied and nobody ever had a knacker for a friend, apart from Colm Casey who was soft in the head and would cry if the ball hit him on the leg or if he didn’t get to pee down the hole at the end of the toilet row in the boys’ jacks.