Heaps of Trouble (8 page)

My seventh birthday came and went and we were galloping towards another Christmas in the shop. This Christmas Eve saw the usual bunch of misfits, with Boy-o-Boy a bit drunker that normal (if that was possible); but I was allowed to help with the parcel wrapping. During the day there was the normal flurry of shoppers, until around five in the evening one incident persuaded the father that we were entering a new era of toy buying. A fight had broken out between two men over a doll, which frightened Klepto Joe (in his usual place in the middle of the shop floor) so much that he bolted across to the Workman's Club for a ‘quick stiffener'. Boy-o-Boy retreated to the drink cupboard, leaving the father to step in and break up the fracas.

Up until that particular year our stock of toys hadn't changed or varied greatly from year to year. However this Christmas, on one of our last-minute buying trips, the father had succumbed to a dozen of the new Barbie dolls stocked by Hector Grey's – rather reluctantly, since he thought that Hector was trying his usual stunt of offloading stock that he couldn't sell easily.

‘Ron, these dolls have just arrived and will be the hottest item of the year. Look, as you are one of my most valued customers, I'm giving you first pick of the litter as every little girl in Christendom will be looking for one of these from Santa this year.' The father just stood looking at him, with his arms folded and eyebrows raised, while Hector continued getting more excited by the minute.

‘Christ, man, where have you been for the past week, have you not heard all the advertisements for them? My shipment only arrived this afternoon. Christ, man, I'm giving you gold.' Once the father heard the words ‘most valued customer' and ‘I'm giving you gold', he was even more convinced that Hector was trying to offload useless stock on him.

Nothing Hector could say could convince him otherwise, but he agreed to purchase a dozen anyway. When we arrived home and placed one of the Barbie dolls on display in the window, the stock of dolls barely lasted fifteen minutes and was the cause of the row between the two men who were arguing over who had seen the last doll first.

Never one for leaving an opportunity pass him by, the father instructed the mother to place a large sign in the front window announcing that we would have Barbie dolls for sale again later on that evening. He grabbed me and, before I knew it, the pair of us were in the old Popular racing back to Liffey Street, the car shuddering and vibrating violently as if we were driving on the tyre rims only. All the while he was driving, he was talking to himself in an attempt to come up with a plausible excuse as to why we had reappeared in Hector's shop after only a few short hours. How was he going to get his hands on Hector's stock of dolls without having to pay through the nose for them?

Skidding to a halt outside the wholesalers, the father was out of the car and in the door before the engine had stopped, relief washing over him because the place was still open. He composed himself and wandered over to the drink table, where Hector was telling a story to a group of buyers in no hurry home. Spotting the father, he cut short what he was saying and roared out to him, ‘I told you I was giving you gold and there was you thinking that this Jew boy was trying to sell you a pig in a poke. When has old Hector ever let you down?' And he poured the father a whiskey, while winking to the others.

‘Dolls? What dolls?' said the father in mock surprise. ‘Oh the Barbies, Christ I haven't even unloaded them from the car yet, they're still in the boot. No Hector, I came back for a gross of caps for the toy guns…eerr, son, will you grab, from one of the lads, a gross of the red caps and load them into the car? Speaking of dolls, Hector, just out of curiosity, do you have any left?'

‘Dolls, dolls,' Hector reflected, as his hands swept in an arc towards the general direction of his shelves. ‘I've got millions of dolls. I've got Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese, little ones and big ones, I've even got a doll that you could take to bed with you.' Which caused the gang around the table to howl with laughter.

The father, realising that he was beaten and time was ticking away, capitulated: ‘All right Hector, you were right about the bloody Barbie dolls, they went like hot cakes, how many do you have left?'

‘About nine dozen, give or take a few, and, as it's Christmas, they're still at the old price.'

‘I'll take the lot,' says the father, ‘Right boys, quickly, load them up, I have to get back before the punters break up the shop.' He explained about the row breaking out over the last doll in the shop, while Hector's minions loaded the car.

No matter how hard he tried we couldn't get them all into the car and, as two trips were out of the question, it ended with the father driving me and two large cardboard boxes of dolls over to Dame Street. He deposited the dolls and me on a 21 bus, and then returned to Hector's to collect the remainder in the car. The bus conductor, none too kindly, was helping me off with my two large boxes at the Emmett Road stop when the father arrived, just in time to receive the full force of the conductor's displeasure.

‘Jesus, Mister, do these boxes and kid belong to you?'

‘And a Happy Christmas to you, my good man.'

‘I'm bleeding well not your “good man” and what the feck do you think CIE is anyway, a bleeding freight company? Next time I'll bleeding well throw them off.'

‘And a Happy Christmas to all of your family.' The father completely ignored the irate bus conductor and said to me, ‘Now quick, Son. Let's get them in the car, we'll have to bring them in through the hall door, the shop is mobbed.'

I couldn't believe the masses surrounding the front of the shop. Apparently they had come from miles around when news had travelled that we still had Barbie dolls for sale; it was bedlam. The father unloaded the first batch into our hallway, leaving Boy-o-Boy in charge of moving the stock from the hall into the back of the shop, where eager customers were waiting with money in hand to grab their prize. Boy-o-Boy decided to take a look for himself at what all the excitement was about. Swaying slightly, with boxes scattered around his feet, he had just removed a doll from its box and was peering under its dress when he caught sight of the father. Holding a glass of whiskey in one hand and waving the doll above his head like a baton in the other, he cried, ‘Boy, oh boy, look Ron, she's even got a little pair of knickers on, what will they think of next, miniature bras no doubt?'

Looking in through the open shop doors, all I could see was a press of people shoving and pushing each other in an attempt to get close to the counter, while those already there and had been served were trying to squeeze their way back out. All of a sudden, like a cork popping out of a bottle, Klepto Jim came catapulting out through the double doors, with arms flapping wildly and his clothing all in disarray. Steadying himself on the pavement, he spied the father with the car boot wide open and turned to the multitude in the shop, roaring at the top of his voice, ‘Barbie dolls here. Come, get your Barbie doll from the man with the car.' Whereupon he turned on his heels and, for the second time that evening, fled across the road to the Workman's Club.

Whatever Jim's intention had been in informing the masses, it certainly relieved the pressure inside the shop. All the father had to do was to flog the dolls, unwrapped, from the back of the old Popular. Hector would have been proud of us. We resembled two hawkers on Moore Street, with the father taking the money and pointing out the person to whom I should hand over the doll. He also raised the price to round it off to a nice three quid, so that he didn't have to give any change.

All in all, that particular Christmas turned out to be a very profitable one, especially with the extra money he made from the Barbie dolls. In the early hours of Christmas morning, after I had tallied the take in their bedroom, I briefly joined in the hooley that was in full swing in the kitchen. Most of them in there were giving Klepto Jim abuse for deserting his post. Jim, of course, kept blaming Boy-o-Boy for not supplying him with any drink, while Boy-o-Boy blamed the father for having placed him briefly on Barbie doll detail.

‘Boy, oh boy, Ron, I wouldn't have believed it unless I had seen it with my own eyes. Boy, oh boy, grown men chasing around Dublin after a little doll, Boy, oh boy, we'll never see the like of those antics in this shop again.'

One evening I arrived home from school to find the mother rocking to and fro in her chair, holding Catherine in her arms and crying her eyes out. After telling me repeatedly that I was too young to understand, she finally owned up that the father had admitted he was an alcoholic. And that he had signed himself into St Patrick's Hospital, just off Thomas Street on a side road that led to Kingsbridge Station.

Although not fully understanding the implications of the father being called an alcoholic, I was still completely overwhelmed by the mother's distress and sorrow. Equally, we kids couldn't really comprehend how serious it was that he had drunk all of the shop's Christmas takings, but soon all three of us were bawling our eyes out and reassuring each other that everything would turn out just fine. That night Catherine was moved into my room and, before the pair of us fell asleep, we pushed our beds closer together for comfort. At some time during the night Catherine crept into my bed and the two of us snuggled up together; that was to become a nightly ritual.

Every evening Catherine stood by the hall door awaiting my arrival home from school, and as soon as she spotted me walking down the street she would shout, ‘Nn, Nn's home.' Then she would rush up and throw her arms around my waist. One particular evening, after receiving a good walloping from the headmaster at school, I stomped in and pushed her out of my way, taking great delight in informing her that it would be her turn next to go to school. At this she stopped short, looked up at me, and stated firmly, ‘I will never go to school.'

Later that week, after school, the three of us caught the 21A bus, got off at the top of Thomas Street and walked the short distance to St Patrick's to visit the father. We were directed to his private room where we all just stood around watching each other without saying a word, while the father sat on his bed wearing his suit and slippers, staring at the floor. My mother broke the silence by saying that she had met the head psychiatrist that morning.

‘Ron, for the children's sake, will you admit that you are an alcoholic and give up the drink?'

‘I am not an alcoholic and I don't have a drink problem.'

‘Then why did the doctor tell me this morning that you
were
and that they have you on anti-booze pills?'

‘I only told him that so I could get into this place for a rest.'

‘Then why did you tell him that you had a drink problem?'

It was as if the mother had pushed an imaginary button. The father jumped up from his bed and, his face contorted with rage, roared at the mother, ‘So that I could fucking well get away from you, you bitch; nag, nag, nag, that's all you ever do, even your fucking children are sick of you, just ask them, you bitch.'

With that, he pushed past her and, nearly ripping the door off its hinges, stomped his way down the corridor, shouting, ‘She's at me again, she's at me again.'

Catherine and I had backed away into the corner of the room, holding each other. As his shouts echoed away down the wide hallway, the mother, crying, gathered us up and we headed out to catch the bus back home. Over the weekend the mother decided that I should call into him on the way home from school and try to convince him that he should give up the drink. So every evening, instead of taking the usual bus home, I would cross St Stephens Green and walk down Grafton Street into Dame Street, where I would catch the 21 or 21A bus.

The first time I visited the father he had returned to his old self as if the other evening's abuse had never happened. Once he had taken his time explaining to me that he did not have a drink problem, and that it was the only way that he could get some peace and rest from the mother, he brought me on a tour of the place. There was a full-sized snooker table that I could play any time I wanted and a games room, complete with a stage, where the inmates played whist of an evening. They were an odd mixture from all walks of life and included several priests and nuns.

He gave a comic account of the shock therapy he had been given. With a motion of cupping his hands around his head to simulate the band that had been attached to it, he explained how had they had plugged him into a wall socket and shot electric volts through his head that had made his face twitch. And how, every morning, he palmed his pills and pretended that he was taking the anti-booze tablets. If they were watching him really closely, he could pop the pills into his mouth, hide them under his tongue, swallow the water, and, after the nurse had left the room, spit them back out again. So by the time he had finished, the father was once again the best person in the world as far as I was concerned, and my mother the biggest anti-Christ of all time.

Over the following weeks I became the peace envoy between the pair of them, passing messages back and forth, until we had all convinced ourselves that he was not really an alcoholic after all, and that all he was suffering from was overwork. We also convinced ourselves that the doctors were nothing but a bunch of shysters and, since he was a private patient, that all they were trying to do was extract as much money as they could from the health insurance company who were footing the bill.

But there was one situation I never told the mother about, since the father had sworn me to secrecy. Every evening on arrival at the hospital, instead of entering through the front doors, I crept around the side of the building. After I had tapped on a window that the father had shown me, it would be opened and I would be gazing into a room filled with people. Handing in my school bag to the father, I would be given slips of paper wrapped with money and I would dash off up the street to the corner pub. On my return, clutching in both arms large brown bags full of bottles, I would pass the lot through the window, then walk back in through the main entrance where the uniformed porter would check my school bag to see if I was carrying anything. I was always met by a hero's welcome as I strode back into the games room to accept my delivery fee. Feeling like a king and slapped on the back by all present, I was then taken off to join the inmates in a game of snooker or whist.

After a couple of weeks of this routine the father discharged himself from hospital. When I arrived home, the father and mother were laughing and joking together in the kitchen, all animosity between them gone, or at least well hidden. To celebrate his homecoming the pair of them went to the Workman's Club after Catherine and I had been put to bed. There, from the upstairs bar, they could have a drink and watch our bedroom window across the street.

The father also took that opportunity to announce to the mother that he had been elected by the local Fianna Fáil Cumann to stand as their TD candidate in the next general election. The ensuing row lasted a week, with the mother claiming that they were only making a fool of him by their nomination. That all they wanted from him was the five-hundred-pound registration fee, which would be used to ensure that one of the other two Fianna Fáil nominees got in.

He argued that he was the Home Assistance Officer for the area, and consequently well known (especially with us having the shop), and so he would get a large percentage of the local vote. As he only needed 2,200 first preference votes to get elected, he should easily walk into the position. So it continued, arguing back and forth late into the night. The performance had Catherine and I cowering up in our beds, listening to the shouting, and hoping that neither of them would come into our room to enlist our support for their argument. I still remember the hurt on my father's face when, one evening, the mother stood me in the middle of the kitchen floor between them. She asked me to choose between her and the father, the question being reinforced with nods and smiles from her. When I ran into the mother's arms, I watched the father get up and resignedly walk out of the room.

My eighth birthday fell at the end of this period of silence and Shady Steven, along with his girlfriend, brought me out for the day. When they dropped me back at the house, I was delighted to find that the parents were once again talking. The mother announced that the father had decided not to run in the local election after all.

Looking back, I can't pass judgement on who was right or wrong. Perhaps the mother was correct in her assessment of the nomination, or maybe the father was accurate in his own appraisal that he could have ‘walked' the election. What I do know is that when I saw the father standing by the sink that evening, it appeared as if a light had gone out in him. Instead of a tall, straight-backed man, oozing confidence, a sad, dejected person, who appeared to have given up, had replaced him. That Christmas Eve, with the usual hustle and bustle going on in the shop, the father spent the entire evening upstairs, dressed in his pyjamas, walking from room to room with a hot-water bottle strapped to his leg, complaining of cramp.

The following day's Christmas dinner was eaten in complete silence. Straight after Christmas, the mother began taking Catherine and I for evening walks, regardless of the weather, and this is when I developed my love for being out on stormy nights, with the rain pelting off a waterproof jacket and the wind howling all around us, cocooned in warm clothes. We would walk past Golden Bridge Convent, up by the Grand Canal, cross at Bluebell, walk along the Drimnagh side, and then cross back again at the lock gates opposite Sperrin Road. All the while the mother was discussing the possibility of leaving the father, saying that she would take Catherine and I, or, if I wanted, I could stay with him. On returning home she fed us hot soup before sending us to bed, where Catherine and I lay awake discussing the implications of the mother's threat to leave the father. We agreed with each other that it was all only talk and that I would look after her and take care of her, especially when she reached the age of having to go to school, then we would slip into a troubled sleep.

Somewhere along the way we bought a brand new caravan and the father parked it up on the footpath for a week before we took it on our holidays to Tramore, our first family holiday together. We set off one Sunday morning, with the old Popular car straining under the pressure of having to tow this new acquisition, and headed off into the country. We got as far as the Naas Road before the car overheated and the radiator had to be topped up with water from bottles stored in the caravan. The whole trip took nearly ten hours and Catherine and I spent most of the journey either sleeping or peering out of the caravan's large back window at the long lines of traffic that built up behind us. Owing to the twists and turns of the narrow country roads, the vehicles behind us were unable to pass unless we pulled in at a town along the way for our compulsory ‘engine-cooling stops'.

On our arrival at Tramore, the father discovered a section of road that had been turned into a cul-de-sac by the construction of a new road and, driving down to the end, he unhitched the caravan and jacked it into its permanent resting place. For there was no way that the car would survive another journey with it in tow.

The day before we packed up to return to Dublin, the father collected the grandmother from Carrick-on-Suir, along with her assorted possessions, and transported her back to our caravan, informing her on arrival, ‘Mother, see what we have bought you, this is going to be your new home.' I have no idea what she thought of her ‘new home', but she just shuffled in and began to re-arrange the interior. This radical change of plan was provoked by the situation back on the farm. Instead of life improving for the three sisters, it had deteriorated to a point where Bridie had locked herself into her room and refused to come out until ‘that sister of mine dies or leaves. And it had better be quick, as I'm not feeling too well myself.'

After installing the grandmother in her caravan to face the coming winter on her own, we took off for Dublin with the grandmother waving her hanky after us. Ahead of me was a new school term, in new class, with a different teacher.

*

Snobbery was something I realised very early on was built into my new school's foundations, and it divided the pupils into two very separate categories: the children of parents who could afford to send their kids to the school and the kids whose parents couldn't afford to, but did anyway. I fitted into the latter minority group and, along with my companions, was constantly reminded of this fact. However, instead of making us feel inferior it instilled us with a sense of pride, which I would voice when the occasion arose with comments such as, ‘Well, at least our parents are working for their money and not ripping off the population like yours, pretending they are doctors or barristers.' Needless to say, this would sometimes result in the matter being settled in a lane on the way home from school. But mostly, since the other kids already believed that we came from ‘bad neighbourhoods', they tended to avoid too much physical confrontation.

I was beginning to develop a hatred for school and an instinctive fear of the teachers, especially some of the priests. If asked why, I could not respond with any definite reason, except to say that I just did. I had started third class and had been elevated up another flight of stairs. My new classroom faced into the recreation yard and, on day one, I grabbed the end desk at the back of the class over by the window. My intention was to keep a very low profile, with my head kept down, for I hoped to get through the year without drawing too much attention to my person. In this school we were taught by a priest and his main brief was to pound the English language into us at any cost.

Twice a day, at around eleven in the morning and three in the afternoon, the school principal visited each class to take the roll call and administer punishment to offenders. Any boy that the teachers thought deserved a ‘good hiding' would be expelled from his classroom to wait in the hallway outside for the principal's arrival. And every class could judge the principal's progress down the corridor by the ferocious whacking noises as hands were belted with the short leather strap that he carried in one of the pockets of his long, black gown. The worst part of this punishment was not the physical belting, which was bad enough (after six of the best your hands would sting and burn for the rest of the day), it was the anticipation. Especially if you had got slung out late in the afternoon after the principal, nicknamed ‘the Black Death', had departed. You had that entire evening and next morning to contemplate your impending punishment, so by the time ‘the Black Death' did arrive, it was a kind of mental release from the images that the mind had conjured up.