The Butcher Boy (11 page)

Then the next time he starts this breathing into my ear. He said I smelt like St Teresa's roses and he'd give me as many Rolos as I wanted if I told him the worst bad thing I ever did. I told him things about the town but he kept saying no no worse than that and I could feel his hand trembling under me. No matter what I told him it still wasn't bad enough. No he says you must have something worse than that something you are afraid to tell anyone something you are so ashamed of you don't want anyone in the wide world to know about. I told him to stop I didn't want him to do it I didn't want him to say it anymore. But he wouldn't stop. I could barely hear him but he was still saying something you could never forgive yourself for a terrible thing Francis a terrible thing please tell me I said stop it! But he wouldn't then I heard ma again it wasn't your fault Francie I got a grip of him by the wrist I just grabbed on to it and sank my teeth in he went white and cried out No Francie!, I said
stop it don't ever say it again!

I didn't go near him after that. I never wanted to see him again him and his smells and his breathing and his terrible things. But the bite only made Tiddly more mad for me than ever. He took me out to a cafe in his car and he says I love you.

OK Tiddly, I said but no more questions ever again yes Francis he says anything you say.

Da arrived one day bumbling up the avenue in his greatcoat like Al Capone. I knew by him that the sight of the place put the fear of God in him it reminded him of the Belfast school for pigs. He had a half-bottle of Jameson in the pocket of his coat. I could see the neck of it sticking out. His eyes wouldn't settle in his head, they kept darting about. I knew it was the priests looking down at him. They were saying to him: Well Mr Pig, are
you
back again? I thought we got rid of you forty years ago!

That was what they were saying to him and why he lowered his eyes and reached in his pocket to get a grip of the whiskey bottle he pulled it out helplessly like a child's rattle. There was a smell of wax polish in the reception room, and a big oaken table with short fat legs like a wooden elephant. Bubble arrived in he hid the whiskey just in time. He stood beside me smiling with his soft hands crossed over his stomach and looked down at me with that stupid face he put on when parents or policemen or anyone came round. It was half-priest, half-cow. O he's coming along grand he said even though nobody asked him. All da was worried about was he'd be caught red handed with the whiskey and get kicked out into the laurel bushes and told never to come back. Up at seven every morning saying Mass, never gives back answers, O he's a credit Mr Brady. Then he dropped his voice and said you know Mr Brady I've seen them come and go and then he was away off again. I stood at the window and watched the bony arse brigade circling the walk. A crow squatted on top of the goalpost uprights worm-spotting in the churned turf of the playing field. A radio was playing thinly somewhere. See the pyramids along the Nile, the song drifted, watch the sun rise on a tropic isle. I was standing there on the sunlit sand looking up at the pyramids and thinking how small I was when I heard the door click shut softly the way it did the night Alo left and the room seemed to swell to three times its normal size. He was at the whiskey again. It didn't seem to even matter now if there was anyone else in the room or not. He was following the trail of his own words as if he had no idea where it would take him, pausing only every so often to swig the whiskey out of the bottle. There was a coach trip all those years ago, to the seaside town of Bundoran in County Donegal. The war was over and everybody was happy. Every time the bus went down a hill they cheered and clapped and sang. She had fallen against his shoulder by accident. Oh dear God!, they shouted, would you look at this!

A camera clicked. We're the talk of the place!, ma cried but what did da do only put his arm around her.

They held hands along the strand and they talked about the brass band he'd started in the town and a book he was reading, the life and times of Michael Collins the revolutionary hero. Oh now what would I know about the like of that, said ma. I don't know where you get all these brains, she laughed. There was no row that day no whiskey, nothing. Three times after that they met in the same town, strolling through the dappled bedlam of the carnival to a boarding house called Over The Waves where there was music in the evenings. He was asked to sing and was she proud when he closed his eyes and gave his rendition of
I dreamt that I dwelt
in Marble Halls. They all knew us there, he said. The woman of the house, every night: I wonder could we persuade Mr Brady to give us another rendition? That's what she used to say.
You're my special guests! The lovebirds! Benny and Annie Brady.
Below the bedroom window the hush of the sea and ma I could see her lying there on the bed with him but it was a different woman, it was the ghost of what could have been ma. I didn't know how I felt when he kept going on like that, part of me wanted to turn on him and say its no good now why didn't you say that all those nights when you were down on your knees in front of her with your speeches May the curse of Christ light on you this night you lazy good for nothing tramp that was all you had to say then! But anything I was going to say like that withered as soon as it reached my lips for whatever way it happened it seemed now as if the flabby flesh had somehow slowly melted from his bones, fallen invisibly off him as he spoke. He wasn't in the room, there were no craggy priests glaring down at him, all he could see was her standing at the water's edge as he called to her, his voice tumbling across the years and the salt breeze,
Annie Annie.
And afterwards on the esplanade he held her in his arms and said to her are you prepared to live on potatoes and salt for the rest of your days and what did ma do she tossed back her wavy hair and laughed is that all you can offer a good-looking girl like me Benny Brady?

Then they both got down on their knees and said the rosary together on the rocks and I wondered how it could ever have been, that moment, with its half-heard prayers carried away and the carnival swirling in the distance, the waves lapping on the shore and da fingering the beads and looking longingly into her eyes just as he did now. You could almost hear the whisper of the dead afternoon as we stood there in the empty, lost silence of that huge room.

Shut up
I said, shut up about it, something rose in me and I wanted it over. She was a good woman your mother he said, he was starting to slobber. It wasn't always like this you'll never know how much I loved that woman. I got it into my head that a couple of the bony arses were coming over to the window to gawp I told him again to shut up it was no good now, none of it. He said not to talk like that to him he had his dignity. I got down on my knees like he used to when he rolled home after a skite with his clenched fist up and one eye closed may the curse of Christ light on you this night you bitch the day I took you out of that hole of a shop in Derry was a bitter one for me. He said no son should say the like of that to his own father. Every time I thought of them standing there at the water's edge I said worse things to him and in the end he cried. I came here to see you, son, he said if you only knew. I said you have no son you put ma in a mental home. Maybe I'm better off then to have no son how could you call yourself a son after what you did. After what I did what did I do I had him by the lapel and I knew by his eyes he was afraid of me whatever way I was looking at him.
What did I do?
It was hard for him to say it, I could barely hear him I loved you like no father ever loved a son Francie that was what he said it would have been better if he drew out to hit me I just let go of his lapel and stood there with my back to him fuck off I said fuck off and I knew I'd been alone for a long time when I heard Bubble's soft lisp well Francis wasn't that a nice surprise?

Swish swish off we went across the quadrangle together. I didn't know your father was a musician said Bubble. Oh indeed he is Father, I said, it was him set up the brass band at home and there's no better man to play a trumpet. Really, said Bubble, isn't that wonderful! Yes, it wasn't long after they got married he set up the band. They got married in Bundoran you know. Is that so?, said Bubble all ears. Yes, I said, there was a boarding house there called Over the Waves, that was where they spent their honeymoon. They were always talking about going back there but they never got round to it. Everyone knew them there, all the guests. He used to sing for them in the evenings. Its a pity they never managed to go back. Perhaps they will yet Francis, he says, there's still plenty of time. Indeed there is, I said, its not often you see a singing skeleton she'll bring the house down.

Tiddly said wouldn't it be lovely if we could get married. I said it would be great. I could buy you flowers and chocolates and you could have dinner ready when I come home he says. Ha ha I laughed, like a girl, and did Tiddly like that! Little Miss Snowdrop, I said, Queen of All The Beautiful things in the world!, and that nearly drove him astray in the head altogether. The sweat hopped off him. Flip, in went the Rolos.

One day I was down in the boilerhouse watching the circus of sparks putting on a show inside the big stove. I was puffing away on a Park Drive Tiddly had given me. Then I heard the voice:
I know you're in there, you can't fool me!
You needn't think I'm afraid of you, Mr Head-The-Ball Brady. I'll take you! I'm the man will take you! Your trick-acting'll not annoy me! Come on! Come on out you snakey bastard!

I heard the keys rattling and when I looked up who was it only the gardener with a big graip pointed at me and his eyes mad in his head, I have you now my buck what'll the priests have to say about this!

I went white and I said well I suppose that's me fucked but then what does he do only start chuckling to himself and lock the doors, give me a light he says. Effing sky pilots, what do I care about them! What one of them was ever any good? They wouldn't give you the steam of their piss. He said they owed him five shillings since nineteen forty. All of a sudden the whole boilerhouse smelt of weeds and fertiliser. We stood there watching the sparks circus inside the little door of the stove. There was a touch of the bogman in that gardener too. Hate, he called it. There's great hate off that stove, he said. O, I says, powerful hate! Powerful hate altogether!

I'm afraid you appear to have missed this part of the grass verge, the sky pilot says to me. I had the shears in me hand! I had! He was a lucky man that day I can tell you. He was within that of getting it with the shears!,
he says, and showed me a bit of his thumb squeezed between two fingers.

He bit away at the butt of the cigarette. Me, he said, who fought for this country. O yes, he says, I was in the GPO in Easter Week. All I cared about in the GPO was Michael Collins and that was only because da was reading a book about him when they were in Bundoran.
Did you know
Michael Collins, I says to him. He nearly had a stroke.
Did I know
him? Didn't he stay in our house!

He stared at me with the eyes dancing, flicking away at the fag. I said da knew about him. O aye but not as much as me, oho I knew him all right he said and hunched down looking right at me. You don't believe me?, he said and gave me a thump on the arm it nearly knocked me into the fire. I do believe you I said.
You want to see the amount of rashers and black puddings that man'd eat,
he said,
small wonder he was a good soldier!

Then he leaned back and folded his arms with the butt stuck in the corner of his mouth. His foot was tapping away waiting for me to say something. I landed a big farmer spit in the middle of my hand. By Christ!, I said, there's not many men can say that! Stayed in your house! He looked at me proud as a dog with two cocks.

Now you said it he says and dragged happily on the butt.

And I'll tell you another thing he said -- I was one of the best lads with a rifle he ever seen.

Be the hokey Jasus!, I said with my mouth open.

There you have it, he said and closed one eye: But don't breathe a word. I wouldn't please the bastards.

It was nearly dark by the time he was finished blowing up Crossley Tenders and plugging Tans.

The red eye of the cigarette glowed as he pulled on it through the pink claw of his clay-caked fingers.

I'll meet you here tomorrow he says and I wondered was he another Tiddly. But I knew he wasn't. All he wanted was a Black and Tan to sit on his knee so he could shoot him in the head. Jasus he shouts there's the priest get down get down and the two of us hunkered down. When I looked at him he had his arms wrapped around his head like an octopus. All you could hear was mumble mumble oh yes indeed and the squeak of the leather shoes as they went past. O yes, I could hear them saying,
he certainly came into his own in the county final!
Its all right I said they're gone now. The bastards he said, peeping out through a crack in the door, if they catch me here its more than my job's worth!

So that was the way it went. Between being Tiddly's wife and keeping an eye out for the Black and Tans for the gardener I was doing all right in that old school for pigs only for Tiddly had to go and fucking spoil it didn't he.

Sit up here now, he says and took me on his knee. O he says you're a picture. Ha ha I says the way he liked it and he says you'll never guess what I got for you.