The Gamal (9 page)
James was the first Protestant that most of us had come across. His father and mother were Mr and Mrs Kent. They had moved home from Dublin to restore the ruin of Kent Castle which had been handed down to them through the generations.
There’s a big wood around Kent Castle and ’twas there we all spent many a summer killing Indians and other baddies and making bows and arrows. There was Sinéad, James, me, Dinky and Racey and sometimes Gregory, Master Coughlan’s son who was only let out sometimes cos he was the whole time learning violin and Irish dancing and sailing and elocution lessons and every kind of thing you ever heard of and anyhow he was the whole time falling and cutting his knees and crying. It got even better then when the Kents started doing up the castle. The castle was theirs which meant it was ours for exploring and killing baddies. Mostly the girls were Indian maidens or white girls captured by the Indians that needed to be rescued. Mostly I was just a prisoner. Or a dead body. Or an Indian they captured who couldn’t speak English. Or other times I just climbed up on the scaffolding or up on a tree and watched them all play and fight and play again. Then when the tennis court was made we played that too. And there was a basketball net on one end of it. Sinéad loved the tennis best cos she was quick on her feet. She was as good as Dinky but not as good as James. Racey was not sporty. She wouldn’t ask the score, she’d ask how long more. In doubles matches it was Sinéad and Dinky against James and Racey but James always won and he’d be winking at Sinéad when Dinky would have tears in his eyes and fling his racket at the wire at the end of a match. James wasn’t being mean, it was just to calm Sinéad down cos Dinky’s temper used to frighten her. Dinky used to get so mad at himself you never saw anything like it. You’d see the marks on his leg when he hit himself with the racket sometimes. Sometimes Sinéad would go over and hold the racket to try and stop him.
—Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, he’d say and he belting himself with the racket every time.
James’ mother was a Catholic from Dublin and her brother had played football for Dublin but she lost her religion and became a pagan so she married a Protestant. You’d see her in the shop sometimes or out walking with James’ father and she like a hobo with paint all over her. That’s what she did. She painted. Morning noon and blah. She wore baggy trousers that were more like curtains. And she was plump.
There was a farmer once bought a horse off a tinker and when the farmer got the horse home and let it out of the trailor the horse took off and ran full speed straight into a wall and dropped dead. The farmer went back and found the tinker and goes,
—You rotten scoundrel, you sold me a blind horse.
—That horse wasn’t blind at all, says the tinker, it just didn’t give a fuck.
If there was anyone else in Ballyronan bar myself who didn’t give a fuck it might have been James’ mother. Only other thing about her was that she loved hugging people. She used to always hug me and Sinéad when we’d call up and she was hugging James’ father the whole time and he’d say,
—Watch the paint dear.
—Yera whisht boy and give me an old squeeze, she’d say. We’ll be dead long enough.
She had an exhibition sale one time in the hall. I helped James and his father bringing the paintings down. Thirty-six of them. And I helped them bring them back too afterwards. Still thirty-six of them. The paintings just baffled most people as to how anyone would have the cheek to ask someone to pay money for them. And they were called things like, Afterwards and Few and she had a one called Missing too. She got cross with James’ father for not knowing which way was the right way up when we were hanging them.
She adored Sinéad. Sinéad was good at art but that wasn’t why she adored her. She just adored her. And Sinéad loved her too.
One time there was this nun came to the school and she collecting money for some art gallery she was trying to set up in Africa. But she seen Sinéad’s paintings and wanted to buy some but Sinéad was very embarrassed and went all red and said she couldn’t cos they were going to be album covers. The nun was nice and said that was fantastic and asked if Sinéad would do one for her like the one that was her favourite. She said, it would be a commission. Fifteen euro. Sinéad couldn’t believe it. There was tears in her eyes with joy. Or disbelief. Or belief. Dawning, isn’t it? The painting was of the human brain. Prawny pink-looking slugs and it faded away into darkness and there was some kind of a living thing up at the top right corner kind of like a seahorse and a bird at the same time and there was a bit of some planet showing in the bottom left corner all bluey and pinky and the rest of it then was all blackness. It was like the other stuff she’d be looking at the whole time in the book she had of paintings by a fella called Joan Miró. All I knew about painting and paintings ever was that it made Sinéad happy and that was a trillion times more than enough for me. I remember looking at it when the nun unwrapped her commission. She kept looking at it, the nun did, for ages just saying,
—Wonderful. Just wonderful.
I couldn’t see what she was seeing cos my brain was in the way. To me it was just blaggarding same as Joan Miró and James’ mother used to be at, but the nun was moved. Sinéad gave the fifteen euro back to the nun for her art gallery but the nun would only take a fiver back. Sinéad bought me and James a choc-ice with the tenner after school. She got a tape of Billie Holiday and a record of Edith Piaf in the second-hand bookshop in Cork Saturday. It was called The Second-Hand Bookshop but mostly it was young people were in there, up the top floor where the second-hand music was. Sineád kept her album covers and the rest of her art in James’ mother’s studio for safe-keeping in case her mother and father threw them out. They thought the painting was just a waste of time and just James’ bad influence. They used to say the Kents have fierce high and mighty notions of themselves.
James had flowing locks when all the rest of the boys had tight haircuts. He played rugby, the posh boys’ game. James spoke in a strange accent. He was quiet in himself for the first few weeks. He was the cause of them all having a great laugh the first time he played Gaelic football. That’s an Irish sport played in a field. Fifteen against fifteen and you can catch and kick the ball or hand-pass it with the fist. Anyway, the first time he played in the school at lunchtime he threw it to a fellow. What a laugh. Then, next time he got it he took off running about thirty yards to score a try at the endline and sure you can’t do that. You have to score goals or points. What laughing. Any other lad would have been embarrassed I suppose but James just laughed away at himself. The other lads didn’t know what to make of this new fella.
Once he got out of the habit of throwing the ball he turned into a fine footballer and before the year was out Master Coughlan had handed over the free-taking duties from Dinky to himself. Dinky wasn’t too pleased about it. I seen the tears in his eyes and he walking into class after lunchtime. He’d be all pally pally with James after school though. But I seen the tears in his eyes. He was not a happy boy. Everything would have been fine if James had never come to Ballyronan. That’s what Dinky’s eyes said and he looking over at James that time.
I remember seeing the same expression on Dinky’s face one time years later in the pub after he’d been telling James some big long important load of shit and asked him what he thought then at the end of it. ‘Sorry I wasn’t listening,’ James said. ‘I’ve that new Pearl Jam song in my head.’ ‘You’re fucking unbelievable, you know that?’ Dinky said, and the tears welling in his drunken eyes and he looking up at the ceiling and licking his top lip trying to keep things under control, and he twenty years of age. All because James wasn’t listening to him going on and on and on with the greatest shit you ever heard.
‘Fuck are you looking at Gamal?’ Dinky snarled at me for staring at him and he trying to hold back the tears that time. That was another thing about acting the gamal. That’s a phrase. In Ireland if you’re making an eejit out of yourself people will tell you to stop acting the gamal or acting the gam. But no one thought I was acting. Anyhow you could stare at people away when they thought you were a bit simple. When you’re not a bit simple you can’t be staring at people. Usually people don’t mind cos they know you’re special. Except Dinky when he’s trying to hold back a tear or two in peace.
So anyhow James he was a mighty fielder too – that’s when a player jumps high into the air and plucks the ball out of the sky with both hands. ’Tis few players have the gift for it but ’tis a sight to behold. James was fast too. When he got away they didn’t even bother to run after him, some of them. Some of them would fall and hold their ankle like they’d sprained it or something.
The new boy. The quiet boy. The Protestant. The fella who didn’t know how to play football. Soon he was seen as those things no more. By fifth class he had got big – bigger than he was supposed to get and I don’t mean the size of him I mean the way of him. He wasn’t the usual new boy. Grateful for acceptance. He never felt the need to hold back, new boy or not.
Master Coughlan couldn’t really control him because he was too clever and funny. Coughlan didn’t mind lads being funny as long as no one was funnier than him. As long as he had the last laugh. But he never did with James. I suppose Dinky was used to being the lad that got the most laughs but that all changed when James arrived. Dinky knew not to piss Coughlan off too much. Dinky knew where the line was. James knew where ’twas too but didn’t care. It was only school.
Headaches starting again. I’m going for a lie down now.
Work
So I’m not working these days on account of me being unwell. When I do work I can do anything. Wash cars in Dennehy’s garage in the village. Draw blocks and mix mortar for the bricklayers up at the new housing estate. My favourite was being a helper to the gardeners up at UCC. University College Cork if you don’t mind. Other times local farmers call if they need a helping hand. Stacking bales of hay or shovelling shit or helping to build a new shed or picking spuds or weeding fields of cabbage. Other times people might call if they’re doing up their house. Like one time I sanded a whole wooden floor and stairs. Or stripping wallpaper. I’ve done that tonnes of times. I can do anything. People know I’m a gamal so they feel good about giving me the work. But I’ve done fuck all work now really for the bones of a few years.
That 1 up there is a chapter symbol. Chapter 1. I’ve decided to use chapters. Came across a book in a bookshop in Cork today. Fifty-three chapters it had. And only three hundred and seventeen pages. Reckon he got ten pages out of it isn’t it? Between having an excuse to go on to a new page without having the last one finished and the fancy chapter numbers taking up half the next page he got at least ten pages out of it. Maybe fifteen or twenty, I don’t know. Anyhow I’m definitely doing it. It has to be done. Hope you like chapters. You’ll have a new chapter every six or seven pages from here on.
Not The Same
It’s not the same as before now. We borrowed each other all three of us for a while. But then we had to give each other back isn’t it?
My Boy
Funniest was James’ father long ago though. James’ father didn’t get it right at the football matches at all. You can only be praising fellas that’s not your own son at the matches but James’ father didn’t understand. If it’s your own son you’re shouting at you’re only supposed to shout things like,
—Will ya wake up for fuck sake.
—Contest the ball man for the love of Christ.
—Will ya tackle man for the love of God.
—Ah mark up for Jesus’ sake.
And they have to criticise him to others saying stuff like,
—My fella’s away with the fairies today.
—I dunno will I bother feeding him any more, ’tis only a waste.
—I dunno is there any chance he’ll take his head out of his hole in the second half?
—He’s playing fucking thick anyhow.
James’ father was different,
—Brilliant James.
—That’s the style James, outstanding kick.
—That was a beautiful catch James, majestic.
Then he’d turn to the other men,
—My boy is having a super game.
—James is right on the money today isn’t he? Right on song.
—Wasn’t that a spectacular catch by James though. My God, the way he got up for it.
I think it really gave the other men a pain in their holes. You’d imagine their insides twisting and turning in discomfort. Their necks getting hot with annoyance. Them blinking hard when they’d really like instead to lie down and writhe on the ground and scream or else hit James’ father a box in the back of the head but instead they had to make do with a good hard blink. They’d look at each other sometimes to acknowledge their shared suffering but James’ father never noticed this. One time old Jack Ballyhale says,
—Fucking yeoman,
and all the other men around him skitting laughing and rubbing their eyes and shaking their heads. James’ father was not a noticer of things like that. It would just never have occurred to him isn’t it? But he wasn’t boasting. He was only stating the facts. Rejoicing isn’t it? The Prods do be rejoicing. Even in the chapel you’d hear them across the road belting out their happy tunes.
Anyhow, soon a few of the fellas started calling James My Boy. Not to his face or in front of his father but when they were talking about him among themselves. You’d hear them in the pub saying things like,
