A Son Called Gabriel

  A Son Called

  Gabriel

  DAMIAN McNICHOLL

  To Larry Caban,

  for all the encouragement, belief, and unwavering love.

  A SON CALLED GABRIEL

  PART ONE

  September 1964–August 1970

  One

  The choices were school or the big stick, and the decision seemed easy to make. My younger sister, Caroline, and any other boy in the whole of Ireland would choose school, but I knew I was right in refusing to go. I was six and had been going to school for almost a year. I was tired of being picked on, spat at, and just wanted to leave. I glanced down the road one more time and saw that my friend Fergal was now sandwiched between Jennifer and her twin brother, Noel. They stopped and looked back for a moment before disappearing over the brow of the hill.

  “I’m definitely not going,” I shouted at Mammy.

  The idea of staying at home with my sister and James, my four-year-old brother, seemed far more sensible. Mother stood at the front gate with an angry look on her round face, hands pressed against her hips.

  “Get to school this instant or I’ll fetch a sally rod and beat the living daylights out of you.”

  I stared at the birdshite on the tarmac for a few moments before starting toward the house. “It’s all right for you to say I must go, but you don’t have to deal with Henry Lynch every day. He makes the others gang up on me and you won’t listen.”

  “You must go to school, or you’ll just be a stupid Harkin.” She always said my father’s family was stupid when she got angry.

  “I don’t care.”

  “Last year, you wanted to go so much, I went and got permission for you to start school very young. I did that for you, Gabriel, and if you don’t go now, I’ll be a laughingstock.”

  That part was true. Fergal was more than a year older than me and, when he started school last year, I cried and demanded to go along with him. I cried so hard for two days that my mother took me to the primary school and spoke to Mrs. Bradley, the headmistress. She tested my thinking and speech and said I could start, because I was bright and way ahead of my years.

  “That was before I knew Henry Lynch would be in my class,” I said.

  “You must try harder to get him to like you. Talk to him instead of shying away . . . and don’t take his name-calling to heart. You must be a man, Gabriel. Nobody likes a boy who’s too sensitive.”

  That wasn’t the reason Henry hated me. He hated me because I wasn’t interested in playing football with him and the other boys. Where was the fun in chasing a ball around a mucky field? I wondered. I preferred playing stuck-in-the-muck with the senior girls. Even though they were eight, nine, and ten, I was every bit as fast as them. And stuck-in-the-muck wasn’t just a girl’s game like Henry kept saying. You had to be every bit as fast and skillful as footballers in order to avoid the person playing the jailer. Otherwise, she tagged you and sent you into the jail corner.

  “I’m still not going,” I said, as I walked toward my mother.

  She wagged her finger before she ran up to a nearby hedge, broke off a sally rod, and started charging at me.

  “I’m not putting up with this nonsense. Your sister’s starting after the summer holidays, and I’m not going to tolerate you showing her a bad example.”

  Mammy seized my arm and I watched the rod, with its baby green shoots just like kitten claws, rise until it became a thin, dark line against the sky. It fell and rose, fell and rose. Hot stings spread out over my bare legs. One thump hit the exact same spot as the first and I started to dance about the road. I tasted the salt of my tears as I tried to dig my heels into the tarmac, but she was much stronger and dragged me down the road.

  A car came from behind us as we reached the brow of the hill. The driver honked as it passed and stopped five yards ahead. It was old Mr. O’Kane. Quickly, I wiped my eyes and cleaned my nose on my pullover sleeve as we walked up to the window of the car.

  “Howdy, Eileen,” he said. “Do you want a lift?”

  “This one’s decided he doesn’t like school and is refusing to go this morning.” She laughed. “If I don’t teach him who’s boss, he’ll end up in Borstal.”

  Borstal was not a place I wanted to go. Declan Keefrey was in Borstal, had been sent there for stealing, but boys didn’t get sent there simply for refusing to go to school.

  “I was never one for school or the books myself.” Mr. O’Kane winked at me. “Son, you have to go to school to learn, because a body can’t get anywhere nowadays without an education behind him.” As he smiled, the gaps between the tiny purple veins that looked like spiderwebs on his cheeks stretched and widened. “I dare say if you’re anything like your uncle Brendan, you’ll be a smart fella.”

  Uncle Brendan was a priest in the foreign missions whom I’d never met. He didn’t ever come home for visits. My grandmother wanted him home, but he never came.

  “Hop in and I’ll take you to school,” he said.

  I knew I’d have to go now, as I couldn’t refuse in front of a neighbor, but Mr. O’Kane’s car was the joke of Knockburn. It was shaped like an egg at the back, was also the same color as an egg, and had tires as narrow as stroller wheels. All the boys laughed at it when it passed by on the road, and now Henry Lynch would see me getting out of it at school.

  “I’ll walk, thanks,” I said.

  “You’re now late,” said Mammy. Her lips stretched horribly thin again. “Get in the car at once.”

  Ancient and very small, the school had a slate roof and thick walls with three large windows on either side, each with sixteen small glass panes. It stood perched on a hill at the end of a long, winding lane and was surrounded by a dry moat ringed by beech trees with smooth-barked trunks. Coal-black crows nested in their silvery branches and ten of them rose into the air cawing as we drove along the driveway. Fergal and the others were climbing the hill, a shortcut everyone took to reach the school building, and I crouched down in the seat as we passed by so he wouldn’t see me. Luckily, Henry wasn’t by the main door as Mr. O’Kane pulled up, and I bounded out of the car and disappeared inside.

  At my desk, I thought about what my mother had said about trying harder with Henry. An idea jumped into my head just before lunch. Every day, we ate at our desks under the supervision of Miss Murray, our teacher, and I’d noticed Henry always had the same food to eat. It was always strawberry jam on bright yellow Indian meal scones. He never had ham or a chocolate bar like me, because his father was on the dole and couldn’t afford it.

  Henry shared the desk immediately behind me with Simple Brian, a much older boy who was a spastic and blew spittle bubbles through his rubbery lips that always dribbled down his chin. I turned around, forced a smile, and said, “Henry, would you like one of my ham sandwiches?”

  Henry had wiry hair that reminded me of the scrubbing pads Mammy used to clean saucepans, and his sneaky, bright eyes stared at me under his lashes. Mammy said he had bad hair, not good hair like mine, which was straight and glossy brown. She also said he wasn’t good-looking like me, because I had my father’s “black Irish” coloring and looked brown and healthy all year.

  “Why would you give me one of your sandwiches, Harkin?” he asked.

  I made sure to meet Henry’s stare and tried to control my shaking legs. “I thought you might like to try something different.”

  “Have you spit on it?”

  “I have not indeed.”

  His eyes darted to the sandwich in my damp hand. Simple Brian watched, slimy dribbles trailing from his mouth, and I knew I wouldn’t want to eat my chocolate bar now, either.

  “I’ll also give you my chocolate today.”

  “I’ll take the chocolate bar, but I w
on’t have the sandwich unless you eat a piece of my Indian scone.”

  Henry’s family lived in government housing and I was sure his house wasn’t clean like mine. I glanced at the horrible-looking yellow scone and saw where the red jam had seeped out and dried around its edges. It looked like blood.

  “I’m not so very hungry today.”

  “Is my scone not good enough for you to eat? Is that what this is about?”

  “I just thought you’d like some ham for a change, that’s all.”

  “Harkin, are you saying my ma can’t afford to buy ham?”

  Of course they couldn’t afford it. I laid my sandwich on the desk before him. “I’ll have a tiny, tiny piece, then.”

  He broke off a huge piece and watched as I took a bite. It was dry as straw and I saw a black hair on it as I raised it to my lips. I wanted to hurl it away. Henry took a bite of the ham sandwich and we watched each other chew.

  “How do you like my ma’s scone?”

  “Delicious.” My belly flipped.

  “In that case, you can have the rest and I’ll take another ham sandwich.”

  “You’re sharing each other’s lunches, boys,” Miss Murray said. “Look, girls and boys! Look at the example Henry and Gabriel are setting. They’re sharing. Sharing is so good to do. Now, who can raise their hand and tell me another person who shared a feast?”

  No one raised a hand.

  “I’ll give you a hint. His name begins with a ‘J.’”

  Still, no one raised a hand.

  “Jesus, boys and girls,” she said. “Remember . . . remember I told you Jesus gave his body to the apostles to eat?” The teacher looked at Henry. “Goodness! Henry, quick, quick. Clean Brian’s mouth this instant. He’s dribbling badly.”

  Henry hated sitting beside Simple Brian, because the teacher always made him wipe his mouth. The corn in the scone felt like cement powder in my mouth. I wanted to vomit.

  My plan worked. Henry stopped calling me a sissy and getting the others to gang up on me. So long as I gave him a sandwich and half of my chocolate bar every day, he didn’t bother me. Then, one afternoon after school a few weeks later, he came up to me, prodded my chest, and told me I had to hand over every chocolate bar or whatever other treat I had for lunch from the next day onward. Although it didn’t seem right, I did it—until I grew angry with myself. Every time I gave up the chocolate, I was reminded of how I was completely in his power.

  “I can’t give it to you anymore,” I said at the beginning of the second week. My voice shook. I could hardly hold his stare.

  “I’m going to make it very rough for you again, cunt,” he said.

  “What you’re doing is wrong, Henry.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do, you fucking sissy boy.” He poked my chest with his finger like a jackhammer. “I’ll give you a good thrashing if you don’t give me the stuff.”

  Still I refused, but he didn’t hit me. Instead, the name-calling and spitting returned, much worse than before.

  After the summer holidays, at least once a week, Henry and some other boys started to come around to where I played with the girls to cause me trouble. They’d trip me up as I ran about releasing girls from jail. They’d call me nasty names that cut my mind to ribbons. I tried to ignore them, but I could not block the words. They darted inside my head. They felt like my mother’s sharp carving knife slicing my brain to pieces. I’d try to go on with the stuck-in-the-muck game, but I felt so ashamed in front of the girls. They tried to stop Henry, often sending him away, but minutes later he and the others would return. Eventually, Jennifer and the others gave up.

  I also started getting it bad from Daddy. My friend Fergal and I had had an argument walking home from school one afternoon. My father was weeding in the garden and, as we drew up to the gate, he asked Fergal jokingly which one of us was the better footballer. Fergal told him I didn’t play because I preferred being with girls. I knew it was only Fergal’s anger talking, but it set my father off and he demanded I play with the boys. To please him, I decided to make an effort. All the boys had a favorite English football team, so I studied the teams and picked one, to make sure I had a name ready for the next time I was teased about not having a favorite.

  “Hey, Harkin, haven’t you picked a soccer team to support yet?” Henry said at lunch a few weeks later, after Miss Murray had disappeared behind the pink curtain. The curtain ran along the width of the room, dividing it into the senior and junior sections, and she always went into the senior section to drink black tea with the headmistress after we finished eating lunch.

  “I quite like Chelsea.”

  His eyes widened with surprise as the other boys crowded around.

  “Why?” Henry’s sneaky eyes moved slowly from face to face to make sure everyone was listening.

  “I like the color of their outfits . . . and Chelsea is a nicer part of England.”

  “The color of their kit doesn’t matter a fuck.” Henry stood and smacked the top of my head with his palm.

  This was the first time he’d smacked me and I needed to tell him to stop, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. He wasn’t fooled by my answer, either. I’d picked Chelsea because I liked the photographs of the players in their blue shorts, not because of their skills.

  “Seeing as you have a team now, I think you should play with us today,” Henry said, and he looked at the other boys real sneakily. “You can’t support a team properly until you understand the game.”

  “Yes, come on, Gabriel,” said another boy.

  The sun was shining when we got outside, and the girls had started their game. My sister, Caroline, was running about the yard in her purple-and-white pinafore, a matching ribbon in her long dark hair. The jailer wasn’t at all interested in her, though. She was only five years old, a small fry, too small to play with them. They allowed her to be there only because of me. They should’ve just put her in jail, like I was forever telling them, and she’d be happy.

  Caroline’s eyes locked on mine as she waved. The girls’ happy shrieks filled the playground and I wanted badly to join in. But Henry had a point. I should give football another try.

  “Gabriel, come and free me,” Jennifer said. She was Noel’s twin, but didn’t have yellow-green teeth like him. She brushed hers.

  “I’m going to give football another go.”

  “Ach, why, Gabriel? Don’t play with them. I must be released.”

  I turned to Henry. “I’ll come and play with you in a minute.” Running over to the jailer, I whispered, “Put our Caroline in jail.”

  “If you promise to release me before anyone else when I’m next in jail,” she said.

  “I promise.”

  “Before freckle-faced Jennifer?”

  “I’ll release you first.”

  She ran over and tagged my sister.

  “I’m catched, Gabriel. Look, she catched me,” Caroline said, and she ran joyfully into the shady, damp corner that was our jail.

  I ran to the other side of the school. Some boys and girls were lining up to slide down the hill to the bottom of the dry moat. Their trousers and skirts were streaked brown and gray from cinders and ashes dumped there from Mrs. Bradley’s fireplace. Henry was picking the football teams as I drew up.

  “You’re on the other team, because you’re useless,” he said.

  He was picking for both teams even though he had no right to do so, but the other boys were obeying him. A few minutes later, the game started. Every time the ball rolled in my direction, I prayed it would stop, or someone would reach it before it came to me. Boys swarmed around me, pulled at my sweater, cursed, kicked my shins. Twice, Henry came over and smacked my head in the middle of the tackling.

  “Stop hitting me, Henry,” I said, after he smacked me much harder a third time. “That’s not allowed in the rules.”

  “How the fuck would you know the rules?” He hit me again on the side of my face. “Come on, Harkin, fight me. Or are you a yellabelly?�
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  I just looked at him.

  “Let’s see you fight him,” another boy said.

  The game was forgotten as the boys huddled close. Tears welled in my eyes. I wanted to hit him, but I knew fighting was wrong. I turned away.

  “Le-le-leave him be, Hen-Henry,” said stuttering Anthony. “You-you-you asked him t-to play ball and-and-and he did.”

  “Shut up, Stuttery-mouth,” Henry said.

  Fergal watched, but said nothing. He was my friend, my best friend, but he also liked the other boys. When I met his eye, he quickly looked down at the ground. Henry was king.

  Suddenly, Henry lifted his foot and kicked my arse. He stuck up his fists like Cassius Clay and began to dance around me. It looked silly. The boys cheered. Fergal laughed with them. Seeing him laugh gave me a much sharper pain than the one in my arse.

  Henry’s fist hit my nose. I heard the crack inside my head. I put my hand up and felt my nose. When I brought it down, there was blood on my fingers. The boys saw my blood and cheered.

  “Hit him back, Harkin,” one of them cried. “Let’s see the color of his blood.”

  Older boys gathered around now; my blood excited them as well. They ordered me to floor Henry. My head was sore. I raised my hands and formed fists, but still I could not hit him.

  “Gabriel, kill him,” said Noel. “Don’t let us down. Don’t let a boy from the other side of Knockburn beat the shite out of you.”

  “I don’t want to fight.”

  “Coward! Coward!” the boys cawed.

  “Fighting’s for animals. They don’t know better.” I dropped my fists to my sides and started to leave. Henry pushed me hard in the back and shoved me out of the loosening ring of boys.

  “Gabriel is a coward! He’s a big sissy!” the older boys yelled. “Gabriel Harkin’s a sissy boy!”

  I ran back to the girls to get away from their teasing. Caroline was hunkered down in the jail corner, but I didn’t feel like releasing her. Standing near a pile of twigs and split logs alongside the school wall, I waited for Fergal to come to me. The coal-black crows shrieked. I waited. The boys’ yells mixed with the girls’ laughter and the crows’ shrieks. Still, he didn’t come. A fiery tear slid down my cheek.