The glorious heresies, p.12
The Glorious Heresies, page 12
“I can start,” said Fiona.
“Oh. Yeah. Yup. Sure.”
The charade took each of them in turns. Fiona spoke about losing her connection with her twin, conveniently leaving out her globetrotting and how her resulting affectations made her as popular as a Guinness fart in a pub snug. His mother said something about the shame of having birthed a professional noodeenaw. Tony watched his children. Kelly feigned boredom, but she was all ears under that leonine mop. Cian kept patting his pockets. Ryan hunched over, staring at his shoes. Black rubber dollies with the thick white sole; there was a name for them, but Tony couldn’t remember it. The lad was never out of them. God knows where he got them, because they weren’t a brand Tony had the money for.
It could have been Tara Duane. The bitch had always maintained she didn’t have a bob to her name but with only one kid and a frame that suggested she only ate on Thursdays, it was obvious she was hawking the poor mouth. She could have been spending her money on fancy footwear for his son; he wouldn’t have guessed. How would he have guessed? The concept was too fucked up to take a decent run at. He cast back to see if he could hit on a time when Ryan had had anything but those fucking plimsolls on his feet but nothing came. He’d been a runt of a thing till he was fourteen. Maybe then. Tony’s fingers hooked under his seat. His nails scraped off plastic.
Cian looked mortified but managed something about homework and bedtimes and proper breakfasts.
But sure what could you do about it? Fucking nothing. If you called the guards what were they going to do? Arrest her? They would in their shit. They’d have come stomping in all over him, as if he had been the one offering cause to the child to run to that bitch’s flapping teabag bosom.
Kelly launched into a gleeful speech about how she had to do everything around the house, and got a dig in too at her older brother for having left her there up to her elbows in the ware and the washing, and Ryan ignored her and Tony ignored her too until it came down to it, when the counsellor turned in his chair to face the boy.
“Ryan?”
He didn’t look up. “I don’t have anything to say.”
“Nothing at all?”
“No.”
“Your father’s drinking didn’t affect you at all?”
“I can’t think of anything.”
“Oh my God,” said Kelly. “Like, seriously, Ryan? Fucking seriously?”
Her grandmother said, “Kelly! Watch your language.”
“Are you for real, boy? Oh, it didn’t affect you at all, is it? Just the rest of us and we’re all making a fuss. You’re such an enabler!”
“Well,” said the counsellor, “that may well be an avenue worth exploring when we talk tactics, but right now it’s an unhelpful label.”
The girl was on a roll. “I bet I’m not supposed to know that word, like. Enabler. Yeah, I couldn’t possibly be able to look this shit up on the Internet before I get here. Fine, I can spill the beans on his behalf. My dad’s drinking has affected my brother in the following ways: he doesn’t rat him out and he doesn’t hit him back and he sure as shit doesn’t take responsibility when he drives my dad so crazy he smashes our neighbour’s windows. Do you know…” She made a great show of lowering her voice. “…why my brother can’t live—”
“How my dad’s drinking affects me,” Ryan said, and he stretched back in his seat, instantly claiming his due space in the room as if by a magician’s trick. “I can’t remember a time my dad wasn’t drinking so I can’t tell you.”
“Oh my God, such bullshit,” sang Kelly.
“So if my dad’s always drinking, how am I supposed to tell you how it affects me? How would I know?”
The counsellor shrugged to concede the point, but Kelly snorted, and the cretin let her wade back in.
“He’s just changing the subject,” she said, “because he knows it’s his fault Dad’s here.”
Her brother snapped, “Will you ever mind your own business?”
“This is my business, Ryan. This couldn’t be more my business.”
“I don’t make my dad drink.”
“You make him break Tara Duane’s windows.”
“We could frame this a lot more constructively,” tried the counsellor.
Tony’s mother folded her arms. “What’s all this about?”
“Ask your grandson,” Tony said.
“That’s right, Dad. It’s all my fault. It’s always my fucking fault.”
Tony’s mother made to say something but Fiona gripped her arm, and by no small miracle the damn woman shut her trap again.
“Ne’er a truer word,” Tony said. “I’m not in here because the guards found too many empties in my bins, am I? I’m in here because I smashed Tara Duane’s window. I’m in here on the tack because that’s a hell of a lot easier for the State to deal with than your gallivanting.”
“I didn’t ask you to put her fucking windows in, Dad!”
“I wasn’t going to wait for you to fucking ask me. Don’t think I don’t know what went on.”
“Nothing went on.”
“Didn’t you tell me yourself?”
“I told you nothing.”
“Just to interject here,” said the counsellor. “Tony, you’re not here at Solidarity House on criminal charges, only as a condition of your parole, because the judge felt that alcohol was a considerable factor in…”
It was drink. Oh, look, no denying that. ’Course it was drink, but it was drink because circumstances required saturation, and again, this bullshit chatter was only blaming the medicine instead of rooting out the tumour.
Ryan looked at his father now with an off-kilter malice Tony wasn’t used to seeing from him.
“You told me half a story,” Tony said. “Why won’t you tell me the rest of it?”
“Coz you’re dangerous enough with half a story, aren’t you?”
“And you think telling me lies is the answer?”
“I’m not lying.” Even in the lie he offered the truth. He shook his head, then bowed it, and started on his nails.
Tony heard his mother hiss What in the name of God? at Fiona, who shushed her yet again as the counsellor cleared his throat and Cian folded in on himself like a paper fan.
“You’re lying to me because you’re a fucking liar, Ryan. Brought up in two fucking languages; of course you are. So what were you up to with her, then? Teaching her Italian? Or selling her smoke? Ah, that’s it and part of it,” off his son’s set jaw, “dealing drugs at your age. You should be in here, not me. Eh? D’you want to tell your grandmother that?”
“I knew this was going to happen,” Kelly chanted at the counsellor.
“I knew it too,” Ryan said, and up he sprang, making his sister jump. “I knew nothing would have changed and still I let them talk me into it. Like drying you out would make a blind bit of difference.”
He went for the door, and Tony would have gotten up and knocked his head clean off his shoulders if it wasn’t for the fact his mother was there, and the counsellor, a right old man’s arse in a skinny shirt and a nose only just long enough to look down.
“That’s your answer when I say you’re no angel, is it? Walk away?”
Ryan turned back. “You didn’t even ask me where I was, boy. Where’re you staying, Ryan? Who are you with? What’re you up to? Nawthin’. Is it that you couldn’t give two shits or you’re afraid I’ll start talking about what drove me there?”
“You think I don’t give two shits? I’m in here for you, you little bollocks.”
“You’re in here and you’re supposed to be getting better when you’re still damn sure there’s fuck all wrong with you.” His eyes were shining; the chin was starting to go. “And d’you know what? I never told no one. About you. And if I had done, where would you be? Not in here complaining coz you’re sober; you’d be behind the fucking high walls.”
The door rattled on its hinges as he slammed it.
“Does anyone want to go after him?” asked the counsellor.
“Oh, trust me,” said Kelly, “he won’t be part of the recovery.”
—
Back out into the car park, one foot after another and blinking desperately, as if every drop squeezed was poison. Ryan had just cleared his vision when he reached Joseph and the car, but he was still sniffing salt and slime back down his throat as if his life depended on their sustenance. Oh fuck, that was no good at all. Not when the very act of leaving home was meant to cure him of that childish weakness that only his father could twist out of him. He could build a customer base whose appetite for smoke, coke and yokes was matched only by their inability to keep their wallets shut; he could live on his own and trick sales assistants into giving him naggins of whiskey; he could strip his girlfriend gently and fuck her hard but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out how to move his triggers so his father wouldn’t know how to yank them.
“Jesus Christ,” Joseph said, as he got back into the car.
Ryan took the spliff out of the glove compartment and stuck it in his gob.
“He’ll never change,” he choked. “He’ll never fucking change.”
Joseph is on Paul Street, busking. That lad has balls, like. He just toddles down there with his guitar and lays the case on the ground in front of him and off he goes, belting out anything from rebel songs to shit that’s in the charts. I don’t know how he does it. I’d be mortified just singing in the shower.
It’s Saturday lunchtime and town is thronged. I go in with Karine and we get milkshakes in Maccy D’s and then slink round the corner to watch him. He’s doing a cover of “Gold Digger.” He’s got a daycent voice and there are a couple of girls shaking their arses and giving the air the old sexy one-two. The sun’s out. One of the girls removes her jacket and whoops, provoking the evil eye in an ould fella shuffling past. If I was being a prick I’d tell her that Joseph’s ould doll has just had a baby girl and that there’s no point waving her tits at him coz he’s too fucking tired to notice.
Leigh, they called the baby. The christening’s next month. I’m gonna be the godfather. Joseph swears he didn’t just ask me because I’m half Italian.
Karine stands in front of me and backs her arse right up against me so I take my hands out of my pockets and join them round her waist.
“He gets better every time I hear him,” she says.
There’s a bunch of people sitting outside the pubs and outside Tesco. Some of them are singing along. There’ll be a few bob made today.
“Did y’ever think of coming down with him?” Karine says, and she twists in my arms to stare at me.
“Me?”
“No, the fella behind you. Yeah you!”
“With Joseph? Busking? G’way outta that. All I play is piano and I don’t think they’d let me drag one of them out into the square.”
“You could sing. You’re way better than he is.”
“I am in me shit.”
“You’re really good. You’re a proper musician, like. I don’t know what you’re doing selling dope. You could go for X Factor.”
“You’re shaming me now,” I tell her.
“Hasn’t he asked you?” she says. I slide my hands up along her arms and down again and press up against her arse in a fit of gall; I’m wearing trackies, though, so it’s probably not a good idea to think too hard about her arse.
“He’s said it a couple of times, like.”
“And what did you say?”
“What d’you think I said? I said what I’m saying to you now.”
“You were really good at music at school, is all.”
“Can you imagine me?” I tell her. “Caterwauling away and lads I do business with rubbing their eyes and wondering who put what in their weed? Imagine what Dan Kane’d say to that?”
The joke flatlines. “I like to think there’s more to you than Dan Kane.”
“There is,” I tell her. “Loads more.”
“Oh, you reckon so too, do you? For a while there I was thinking it was only me.”
“Well it’s not, all right? I’m just…” But I can’t think of what to say. Joseph finishes the song. People cheer. He catches my eye and I give him the thumbs up and then quietly I go, “There’s no choice, like. I either do a bit for Dan or I go home, and I can’t go home.”
“Jesus, Ryan, d’you really think you need to explain that to me? I know that, like! That’s not what I’m saying.”
“You’re saying I don’t fucking sing enough?”
“I’m saying I didn’t start going out with you because you could get yokes.”
There’s frost now. It’s like I’ve said the wrong thing and it’s like she’s said the wrong thing and we’re just a bit out of whack, just enough to notice but not enough to fight over. She folds her arms. I move my hands back down to her belly but I don’t let go; there’ll be a real fight now if I let go.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been decades since my last confession.”
“Decades?”
“Oh, aeons. Can you imagine what a burden it’s been, Father? Carrying all that sin around, like saddlebags on the back of an ass?”
“Well…You’re here now. It’s the contrition itself that’s important, after all.”
“Yes, and there’s sins here I’m only dying to be rid of. Ready?”
“Go ahead.”
“I killed a man.”
“…Are you joking?”
“Do I sound like I’m joking? What do I sound like? A sixty-year-old woman, if your ears are sound, forgive the pun. Do you think that’s how the bingo brigade get their kicks? Confessing crimes to priests?”
“When did this happen? How did this happen?”
“It was a long time ago. Didn’t I tell you I hadn’t been in decades?”
“But it’s playing on your mind now.”
“I live on my own and one day a man broke into my flat. I crept up behind him and hit him in the head with a religious ornament. So first I suppose God would have to forgive me for killing one of his creatures and then he’d have to forgive me for defiling one of his keepsakes.”
“And did you involve the Gardaí?”
“Indeed I did not. You’ll have to add another Hail Mary on for that. I didn’t involve the Gardaí at all; instead I called up my son and he cleaned up the mess on my behalf.”
“He contacted the Gardaí?”
“No. He has his own ways of dealing with things, I’ve discovered. And that would be his sin on the face of it but unfortunately it looks like we can attribute that to me too. Another Hail Mary! Will I tell you all about it, from a mother to a Father?”
“If you are truly repentant, God is always here to hear you.”
“God is great that way. He has massive ears and a mouth sewn shut.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound in the least bit contrite.”
“I’ve always had an attitude, Father; you’ll have to forgive me for that yourself. It was my attitude that brought me all the way up to your lovely old-fashioned confessional here today. You see, I had a son. But I had him illegitimately because I had an attitude and therefore no respect for myself. He was reared by my mother and father who were very much in cahoots with the Man Above so between my bad attitude and my parents’ piety the poor lad was spent, and so now he has no morals at all and he’s turned to a life of crime. And you might say that’s his own sin, Father, but surely his circumstances had something to do with it?”
“Well…Well I suppose we never act entirely alone. Our actions are informed by everything around us. And there is much temptation in the modern world.”
“Temptation that leads young girls into sin, you could say.”
“Times change. There are unique challenges for God’s children in every age.”
“Oh indeed there are. And I suppose God was challenging me to deny my son’s father his hole. But the Trickster was having none of it, so off my drawers came.”
“This is entirely the wrong tone for the confessional! You must be respectful…this is a Sacrament!”
“Is the Sacrament as revered in God’s house as the miracle of birth?”
“Well, one is divine, and the other very much an earthly thing…”
“So do you think God could accept my contrition when all I’ve done is put to ground one of his earthly things? I killed a man, Father. Now surely that’s a story fit to stretch the Seal of Confession?”
“Nothing can break the Seal of Confession. All I can do is encourage you to approach the authorities; it is the moral thing to do. Not doing so would only add another sin and call into question your remorse for the first.”
“So you won’t absolve me unless I go to the guards.”
“I cannot put stipulations on God’s grace. You will know yourself what should be done.”
“It’s a funny thing that the ritual is more powerful than the killing. What’s tied to the earth is less important than what’s tied to the heavens. You’re crosser about my language in the confessional than you are about the fact that I killed a man. An unpleasant man, a waster man at best. A man maybe as born in sin as my son was and therefore an expendable man. Who knows?”
“I sense you’re struggling with guilt, and again I must tell you that while God will absolve all who repent with an honest heart, perhaps the only way for you to find peace is to tell your story to the Gardaí.”
“Ah, Jaysus, they must have you on commission or something. No, I’m not going to go to the guards. Not a condition of my telling God how sorry I am.”
“You don’t sound very sorry.”
“Well look, Father. There are a lot of things I’m sorry for. Indeed, when I think about it, it feels like I’ve been sorry all my life. First I was supposed to be sorry for having a child out of wedlock—and if it weren’t for the Magdalene Laundry being on its last, bleached-boiled legs I would have been up there scrubbing sheets for the county. Instead I was exiled. I went away to have the baby and then I gave him up as my penance and was sent away again. Your kind had my mother and father’s ears; I didn’t stand a chance. So if many, many years later my son has found me and brought me home, only he’s turned into a thug and my hands are so shaky I accidentally kill fellas, don’t the amends I’ve already made mean anything to the Man Above?”
