Whitethorn Woods (27 page)

   "You look as good as any of the youngsters, Mom, really you do."

   "You're a good girl, June, you have a lot of your father's Italian optimism in you, I will say that."

   "And what about the O'Leary side of the family? Do I have any of that?" I asked. It was like walking on eggshells but if I couldn't mention them in their own hometown, where and when could I bring their unspoken name up?

   "Mercifully, no," she said. "They forget everything but the grudges."

   "Is that why we won't see them?" I was as brave as a lion.

   "They are strange people, those O'Learys. We all came originally from this one-horse town called Rossmore and settled in Dublin. Then I'm afraid
words w
ere said in a house on the North Circular Road." My mom's voice was clipped. "But let's get back to Joyce."

   She had arranged that we see the doorway of 7 Eccles Street, which she said was the most famous address in English literature, and we could go to Davy Byrne's; on the way there we could familiarize ourselves with some Joycean culture and be prepared before the great tour on Bloomsday itself.

   "You do know what it's all
about, J
une?" Mom fretted.

   I did.

   One Thursday in June 1904 a whole lot of Dubliners went

walking around and kept meeting one another and crisscrossing and somehow, even though it was only a fictional story, it sort of drove everyone mad, and now they all dressed up and did it again every year. I'd have preferred to do a tour of Dublin looking for my cousins the real-life O'Learys myself. But that wasn't a choice.

   On Bloomsday, my birthday, the city was in fancy dress. They were all dressed like Edwardians in boater hats and tottering on fancy old-fashioned cycles—it was half silly and half fun. I tried to be like my father and see the good side of it all. I tried to be like my friend Suzi, who sees every gathering as a source of magnificent and yet undiscovered boyfriends. I tried to take my embarrassed gaze away from my mom, who was being deeply foolish, showing off her very limited Joycean knowledge to all the others on the tour. We went from place to place and everywhere there were press people taking pictures of it all and camera teams. Eventually a girl with a microphone who was doing interviews for a radio program came over to me and asked me some questions.

   I told her it was my sixteenth birthday, that I was named June Arpino, half Italian, half Irish, and yes, I did know a little about James Joyce and I was fairly interested in the tour but that actually I'd prefer to find my cousins the O'Learys.

   The reporter was a nice girl with big dark eyes and a friendly manner and seemed interested in my story. Why did I not know where my cousins were?

   I told her that they came to Dublin originally from a place called Rossmore, miles away in the country. Words had been said, I explained, at a wedding thirty-three years ago in a house on the North Circular Road. My mom had gone to America with her parents shortly after that. Maybe even because of that.

   This interviewer was really so fascinated about everything I said, so I told her that I was fairly interested in what had happened to Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom and Molly a hundred years ago, but I told her that truthfully I was really much more interested in what had happened to the O'Learys thirty-three years ago and if any of them remembered my mom, and whether there was any chance that the words that had been said that day could possibly be forgotten by now.

   She seemed very pleased with this conversation and asked me afterwards for the address of the bargain hotel. She told me that it had been a pleasure talking to me and that she wished me good luck, she said sixteen was a great age to be and who knew what could happen before the day was over. I didn't expect all that much to happen actually, just more of the tour, but Mom was having a good time and told everyone that it was my sixteenth birthday.

   But it was an okay day. They were nice people on the tour— Swedes and Germans and fellow Americans. They bought me ice cream, they got photos taken with me. My mom smiled all day long. When we paused at the Joyce Centre and bought postcards, I sent two to my half brothers, Marco and Carlo. It wouldn't hurt anyone, not a bit, but it would make them and Papa and Gina happy.

   Then it was over and we went back to the bargain hotel. Mom's feet were very tired, she said she would soak them in cologne before we went out somewhere for my birthday pizza. When we went in the door, everyone at the desk was very excited.

   They had been getting phone calls and messages all day. Never had this bargain hotel had such attention. Dozens of people called O'Leary, saying that they were originally from Rossmore and more recently from the North Circular Road, had been looking for us for hours now, and there were a dozen numbers for us to call. Some of them were in the bar already having a reunion and they wanted to give June Arpino a sixteenth birthday she would never forget.

   I looked at my mom in terror. I had done the unforgivable. I had got in touch with people who had Said Words.

   I had also, by saying she had left Ireland thirty-three years ago, admitted on Irish radio how old she was. This was as bad as it could get.

Amazingly, though, there do seem to be magical days.

   "I've been thinking about words all day," Mom said. "Joyce was all about words when you come to think of it. Some words are worth remembering for a hundred years, some are worth forgetting much sooner. Come on, June, let's go meet your cousins," she said and led me to the bar.

Well, I
know
it's a ludicrous name, but tell me how to get rid of it. I mean, you can't ring a bell and say from now on I am to be known as Clare or Anna or Shelley or something you'd like to be called. But no. It's always been Lucky, and it will always be Lucky O'Leary. That's my curse.

   My parents called me Lucretia after an old aunt who had money. She didn't leave them any so it was useless, but Dad always called me his little Lucky because he thought Lucretia was too much to saddle a child with, no matter how great the inheritance might be.

   You should have heard the way they used to tease me at school about it.

   If I got a bad mark for an essay, if I didn't know the answer when the maths teacher pounced on me, or if I missed a pass in hockey, someone always said, "Not so lucky, Lucky, now," as if it was the first time I had ever heard it in my life.

   Anyway, I was far from lucky in my hopes of going to work for the summer in a diner in New York. You'd think they'd have been pleased. I didn't want to go and get smashed and have sex with everyone out in a Mediterranean resort like half my class at school wanted to do when we finished our exams. I didn't want a big expensive university career that would bankrupt them. I wasn't asking for my fare out to a place that they would consider wild and dangerous.

   All I wanted to do was to wear white socks and support shoes and a pink gingham dress in Manhattan. I wanted to serve pancakes and maple syrup; I wanted to put eggs "over easy" framed with hash browns in front of the customers. And for them to say, "Hi, Lucky."

   Or maybe I might even change my name out there and call myself a normal Irish name like Deirdre or Orla.

   It wasn't such a mad dream, was it? Earning my own living, doing something respectable, worthy even, like getting people their breakfast. It wasn't as if I wanted to dance naked on tables. But you'd think I wanted to fly solo to the moon. How could I even consider living in a dangerous place like New York City? The matter would not even be discussed. I couldn't understand why we had no relations in America—some marvelous family of cousins where I could go at weekends and have barbecues and clambakes and go to ball games and all the things I loved about America from the movies.

   But no. Alone in Ireland the O'Learys seemed to be without any emigrant wing of the family. No parcels of amazing American clothes ever came our way. No uncles and aunts with funny accents and permanent-press cream-colored raincoats. And my mum and dad didn't even begin to realize what a treasure they had in me. They wanted me to come to this place called Rossmore.

   They should have been on their knees thanking God that I was seventeen, a virgin, a nonsmoker, only a very occasional drinker. And that all this was fairly rare in my crowd. I would pass my exams, I wouldn't have screaming matches at home. I was even reasonably pleasant to my poisonous sister, Catriona, even when she prized open my dressing-table drawer with a knife to get at my makeup. And to my very annoying little brother, Justin, who used to bring potato crisps into my room and stink the place out because he thought he had less chance of getting caught there.

   So what did they really want as an eldest daughter? Mother Teresa of Calcutta?

   Anyway things were pretty glum in the O'Leary household this particular June because of everything. I said very politely, no thank you, I did
not
want to join everyone on a lovely family holiday in Rossmore. I said even more politely that I did
not
think this was throwing their generosity back in their faces, just that I did not fancy walking along a riverbank or going through thorny woods or ensuring that Catriona and Justin didn't break their necks at the amusement park. And no, I didn't think that I would make lovely friends of my own during two weeks there. And if they just said yes I'd be right out of their hair and into a lovely New York diner up to my elbows in pancakes and bagels.

   And they asked me please not to mention any of this again since it simply wouldn't happen.

   So I went up to my room, locked the door against Catriona and Justin and looked at my face in the mirror. I wasn't bad-looking, not gross or hairy or full of spots or anything. I wasn't goodlooking either but I had a friendly face—one that would have pleased all the clientele in the diner, specially because I had a good memory and I'd remember people and know instantly if they wanted a cappuccino to go or extra jelly on their toast.

   I don't normally listen to the radio, I play CDs to myself. I'd really love a cheap television set in my bedroom but Dad said we're not made of money and not to be ridiculous. But anyway I turned on this radio program and there was some ancient one solving problems. You know, the way they pretend to be young and hip and with it and get all the words wrong. So some crazy girl had written in saying that her mother was a mad, suspicious old bat and she couldn't go anywhere or do anything. So I yawned to myself and said, "Tell me about it," but I did wonder why she thought the old one on the radio would have anything to say that would be remotely useful.

   The old one said yes, it was desperate that old and young people didn't understand each other but there
was
a solution. Oh yes, I thought, of course there's a solution. Give in, give up, lose the argument, lose hope.

   I waited for her to come out with this but instead she said: "Your mother is lonely, dear, lonely and confused, confide in her, make her your ally."

   Sure, really great idea. I start making my mum my ally and in two minutes she'll say, "You're not getting round me, do you hear?"

   "Tell your mother about your concerns and your worries about the world, ask her about hers. She may not respond immediately but, my dear, she will respond in time. Mothers of teenage girls may look confident but in fact they are often anxious and beached creatures. Be interested, pretend an interest at first and a real interest will follow. You are on the eve of making your mother your great, great friend. Act at friendship first and then as time goes by it will become real . . ."

   What kind of a world do these old ones
live
in? Imagine—she's paid serious money to go on the radio and talk all this nonsense. I mean, give us a break here.

   Then the old one went on to talk about two best friends who had a fight and she told the one who had written in to make the first gesture to hold out her hand and say, Look, I don't want to fight . . . Which was of course the right advice but she'd probably read it somewhere. Mothers lonely and beached. Huh.

   They had had a row, Mum and Dad, we all knew that, it showed itself by over-politeness at supper. I didn't know what it was about and I didn't really care.

   "Take your elbows off the table, Catriona, and show some respect for the great meal your mother has made for all of us . . ."

   "Don't all talk at once, children. Your father has had a long and
very
tiring day . . ."

   I didn't know what it was about—honestly, I didn't care. They sometimes had these coldnesses. But it would pass. I pretended to take no notice. Catriona and Justin, of course, who have the brains of a flea between them, did notice and commented on it.

   "Are you having a fight with Daddy?" Catriona asked.

   "No, darling, of course not," Mum said in an awful tinny voice.

   "Are you going to get divorced, Daddy?" Justin wondered.

   "No, Justin, eat your supper," Dad said.

   "Which of you will I go with?" Justin asked, looking from one to the other anxiously.

   "Nonsense, Justin, how could a couple with such a wonderful son as you
possibly
get divorced?" I said. I was being sarcastic but Justin doesn't get irony.

   "Oh all right then," he said happily and attacked the rest of his supper.

   I helped Mum stack the dishwasher.

   "That was good of you, Lucky," she said.

   "Oh you know. Men!" I sighed.

   She looked at me suddenly and I thought I saw tears in her eyes. But I didn't want to get soft in the head and make her my great, great friend like the old one on the radio said.

   Next morning Dad said I was a terrific daughter, and since he had been saying I was a scourge from on high for the past few weeks I got worried and thought maybe they
were
going to split up.