A Son Called Gabriel Read online

  “Shoo, you naughty boy,” the woman said, in the same kind of voice Auntie Bernie had used when I’d seen her privates.

  I pulled my head away fast.

  “You shouldn’t do such naughty things.”

  My face felt hotter than the sand beneath my fingertips. Caroline and James watched, still as shop window dummies. The man looked down at me and laughed.

  “I’m very sorry I looked at you while you changed, mister.” I lowered my gaze to his legs.

  “That’s quite all right, young fella.”

  “Go to your mother at once,” the woman said.

  The three of us raced like frightened dogs over the sand. Caroline told Mammy what I’d done and she scolded me.

  That night, my sister sneaked in to hear a bedtime story. I pretended to be angry with her and ordered her to leave. But my anger was fake, an excuse. I didn’t want to tell a story. I wanted to fall asleep remembering the beautiful man’s face. I wanted to relive the water droplets glittering like diamonds on his brown back and legs.

  Auntie Celia placed a large bundle of notes beside the canvas bag full of coins and put on the kettle. Martin and I followed her into the living room, where she settled into an armchair. She’d invited my parents to tea and closed her shop half an hour early without counting the day’s takings or writing out her banking slips.

  “You know my feelings about Brendan,” she said. “I just don’t know how I’ll react until I see him in the flesh. But since he’s coming, we’ll have to decorate and clean up Mother’s house. People will want to visit and we can’t have the neighbors seeing how shabby it looks in daylight.” Her lips pursed. “She’s no longer fit to keep the place tidy . . . and that stinky dog of John’s will have to stay outside—where it belongs, anyway.”

  Auntie turned to Mammy. “I’m sure I can count on you to help with the decorating. And it goes without saying that we’ll all chip in to buy wallpaper and anything else.”

  “Chip in,” Mammy repeated. “John will be getting the house when she dies. He should pay for the bits and bobs that’s needed.” Her mouth snapped firmly shut.

  “Oh, I don’t know if our John will be getting the house and contents,” said Auntie Celia. “What do you say, Harry?” She leaned forward in her chair. “Sure she hasn’t made a will yet. Or has she, and I’m not privy . . . just like some other things I haven’t been made privy to these last few years?”

  “What are you talking about?” my mother asked.

  “Well, I didn’t want to raise this indelicacy but . . . well, seeing as you’ve touched on things, there’s the giving of a lamb, for starters.”

  “Jasus, don’t you know John will get everything?” said Daddy. “He’s the eldest and none of us are interested in farming.”

  “The lamb-giving has nothing to do with us,” added Mammy. “Besides, I don’t like to go up to your mother’s to clean and paper and do things a daughter’s supposed to do.” There was a short silence, then she said, “She treats me enough as an outsider as things stand.”

  “Hmm.” Auntie Celia’s tongue flicked up and rested on her upper lip.

  My mother said, “Children, clear the room. The adults need to talk about your uncle Brendan’s arrival.”

  “Well, I certainly can’t be expected to do everything, given my sentiments about Brendan,” Auntie Celia said. “Harry, is there or is there not a will?”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked. “Your sentiments, my bloody arse. If anybody’s entitled to sentiments, it’s me and Eileen, and we don’t have any.”

  Auntie Celia took a handkerchief from her cardigan sleeve and sniffed as she dabbed each nostril. “Aye, I suppose it’s sentiments that explains the lamb-giving, too.”

  “Wanes,” said Mammy, “leave this room.”

  “Does Granny have a will, Mammy?” said Martin.

  “Get out, you nosy thing,” said Auntie Celia.

  After we went upstairs, Martin said to Caroline and me, “Would you like to see the doll? I found it the other day.”

  “Yes,” said Caroline.

  The attic was crammed with schoolbooks, old chairs, and a huge TV set. It was almost as dusty as Noel’s nest in the pigsty. In one corner stood a large wooden horse that Martin and I had played with years ago. He went into the opposite corner, cast off an old towel covering a cardboard box about twice the size of a shoebox, and brought it over to us. Inside was a doll in a gown like a foaming sea of frills. After taking it out of the box, Martin nursed the thing like it was a baby.

  “Let me hold it,” Caroline said.

  He made no move to pass it to her. Caroline watched him rock it for a few moments before giving me a look that said I must tell him to hand it over immediately. In truth, it wasn’t right he wouldn’t give it to her, but I also couldn’t scold him. Martin was just like me: the town boys hated him as Henry hated me. They called him a pansy because he was forever readjusting his heavy bangs. The difference between us was Martin didn’t care what the boys called him. They were dirt in his eyes—although he did warn Connor often that he wasn’t to tell them he owned a doll.

  My sister’s look turned sour, but still I said nothing. I picked up a bundle of old photographs lying on the seat of a dusty chair. The top ones were brown and white and contained people I didn’t know. There were black and white photos at the bottom of the pile.

  “I asked nicely if I could hold the doll, Martin, and you must give her to me because I’m the girl.”

  “This photo’s got Auntie Celia in it,” I said. She wore a wedding dress and stood with a large crowd of people on the steps of a church. “And here’s one of her beside our uncles and aunts. Daddy mustn’t have known Mammy when Auntie Celia and Uncle Frank got married. She’s not there.”

  “Let me see that,” said Caroline, forgetting the doll. “Uncle Brendan’s not in priest’s clothes, either.”

  I studied my father’s and Uncle Brendan’s faces and saw they were alike, except Uncle’s hair was wavier.

  “Mammy doesn’t even keep photographs of Uncle Brendan on the walls,” said Martin, as he put the doll back in its box quickly. “Not even the ones of his ordination that he sent her. Those are stuck in her chest of drawers.”

  “Why?” I said.

  “She won’t tell me.”

  Carnival week in Knockburn brought the football season to a close. Football teams from surrounding areas competed during the week to reach the final, which was played early on Sunday evening, and a silver cup was presented to the winners following a guest tea and concert that night. Everyone in Knockburn came to the carnival. It was the highlight of the year, a chance for neighbors to chat in a place other than the churchyard after Mass on Sundays.

  James went to the carnival because of the football, and Caroline because she could walk around the perimeter of the field eating ice cream with her friends. I went for the amusements. There was hoopla, an air gun target practice area, and a set of five swing boats that looked like real rowing boats, painted in bright pinks and apple greens with gold trim. The boats hung inside a wooden frame, like a huge swing, and you made them arc through the air by pulling on a rope attached to the crossbar above.

  Jennifer was best to take up in a boat. Though eleven and bossy, she screamed louder than the other girls when she was frightened.

  We climbed inside. After the boat swung pretty high, Jennifer let go of the rope and gripped the metal bars. When she closed her eyes and screamed, I tugged the rope with all my power, pulling until I felt my arse rise off the bench and my body grew weightless as the boat arced and almost passed over the crossbar in a complete circle.

  “That’s enough, you scamp,” the owner shouted. “You’re scaring the life out of your girlfriend. Stop pulling on the rope.”

  I closed my eyes to enjoy the last arcs.

  “I’ve got one more shilling,” I said to Jennifer, when the boat came to a stop. “Do you want to go again?”

  She climbed out. “Let’s go
meet the others at the fire on the other side of the field.”

  It was the hour when day was under attack by millions of tiny spots of the night’s darkness, and its silvery light was squeezed to blackness. Here and there, around the edge of the field, people had lit fires to make smoke and stop the gnats from feasting on their blood.

  “Over here, Jennifer,” said her friend Kathleen as we drew near.

  Ten girls and five boys were there, some of whom I didn’t know because they weren’t from Knockburn. Kathleen broke away from a boy she’d been standing beside and ran up to us.

  “Jennifer, that tall boy I was standing beside comes from Craigban. He says he’s twelve and fancies you something rotten. He asked me to ask you if you’d like to go on the swing boats.”

  The sweetish smell of burning grass was very strong as the fire was getting started. As Jennifer looked the boy over, her nose crinkled like she’d smelled something dead. “He’s very skinny. I’ll think about it.”

  The boy kept grinning and Jennifer pretended to ignore him as we stood holding our hands out to the flameless fire. As the players ran up and down the field, their shouts to pass the ball mingled with insults from some of the adult spectators. The boy edged closer and closer until he was at Jennifer’s side. Soon, their quick glances became smiles, then low talking and giggles.

  A few minutes later, she turned to Kathleen and me. “I’m taking a quick spin on the boat with Mickey. Don’t go away; I’ll definitely be back.”

  While they ran off toward the swing boats, I saw four figures step from the sideline of the field and walk toward the fire. As they neared, the smoldering grass burst into flames. A band of nose-to-stumpy-tail dogs ran across the chest of one boy’s crimson sweater. I knew the sweater. I didn’t need to see his face. I wanted to run.

  “Where have you been hiding all week?” asked Henry.

  “I’ve been about.” I scratched behind my ear to kill a gnat and felt a great surge of warmth in my armpits.

  “Gnats eating at you, are they?”

  “Hey, Henry, we sure whipped you in the under-twelve game yesterday,” said one of the boys I didn’t know, as he heaped grass on the fire. The others laughed. “We beat you solidly . . . and on your home ground, too.”

  “You were lucky, that’s all,” said Henry. He turned his sneaky eyes away from me and took a step toward the boy.

  “Luck had nothing to do with it. We won fair and square.”

  I started to back away, slowly, but Henry spotted me.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.

  I looked away.

  “Let’s ask sissy boy here what he thinks. Were they lucky or not?”

  Everything fell quiet. All eyes raked my face.

  “Well?”

  My mouth was dry as fluffy cotton. “I didn’t see the game.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  He didn’t give my tongue time to free itself from the roof of my mouth.

  “Because you’re a pansy, that’s why. A pansy who’d rather sit in a swing boat.”

  The others laughed.

  Henry took the step toward me. “Am I right?”

  I stared at the nose-to-tail dogs and didn’t answer. There were eight dogs, all the same size, all with the same heads and tails.

  He jabbed my chest with his finger. “Are you a sissy or a pansy?”

  It was a beautiful sweater. I couldn’t decide if the dogs were Labradors; they had the right outline, but Labradors were honey-colored, not black. And they didn’t have stumpy tails, or did they?

  “Speak up, Harkin.”

  I met Henry’s eyes. I looked into his dark pupils, now grown large because the flames had gone out again. They held no pity. My gaze fell to the Labradors again. I wished I could say I was a sissy, let him have his laugh. Then it would all be over. But my tongue refused to form the words.

  Henry grabbed my shirt and I heard a tear. A button popped and spun to the ground.

  “You only have to look at his fucking jeans,” he said. “Hey, everybody, look at Harkin’s jeans. They’re purple, for fuck’s sake.”

  It was true. They were purple with white stitching on the seams, so different from any jeans I’d ever seen before. I’d begged my mother to let me have them. Now, I wished she’d put down her foot and bought me blue ones, just like the other boys wore.

  “Henry, I want to go. I haven’t done anything to you.”

  “Admit you’re a sissy as loud as you can so everyone can hear. Then I’ll let you go.”

  I prayed Jennifer was on her way back. “You know I can’t say that.”

  He threw me on the ground and fell upon me. “Help me take off Harkin’s jeans,” he said to the other boys.

  His friends pinned me down. No one tried to stop them. I struggled and jerked to push them off, even tried to scratch their faces like a girl. I didn’t care. They seized my arms and pulled down my trousers. Henry gripped the elastic band of my underpants on both sides of my waist and with a sharp tug made me naked from the waist down.

  I felt everyone’s eyes on my thing. A girl’s high-pitched giggle arced across the smoke. The boys held me fast.

  “Admit you’re a sissy and I’ll give back your pants.” Henry rose and stood over me, my bunched jeans in his hands. “Come on, Harkin. It’s very easy. Just say, ‘I’m a sissy.’”

  Strangers knew every inch of my body. I didn’t want them staring at my thing anymore. “Please give me back my jeans because . . . because—”

  “What’s going on?”

  Henry’s friends let go of my arms and rose as Jennifer marched up. I pulled up my underpants.

  “Why aren’t you and Mickey on the swing boats?” Kathleen asked Jennifer.

  “There’s was a long line . . . and you, Henry Lynch, give Gabriel back his trousers or I’ll order the girls to take yours off. Then we’ll see how big you act when everybody has a gawk at your smelly wee thing.” She nodded at Kathleen and the other girls. “Get his knickers off.”

  Henry dropped my jeans and fled. Some of the girls gave chase into the darkness.

  “Thanks, Jennifer,” I said, after I’d put on my pants.

  She’d also seen everything. I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eye.

  “You don’t have to hang your head like that. I’ve seen Noel’s many times and yours is no different.”

  Six

  We sat cross-legged on the rug in front of the fire at Granny Neeson’s house. James and Nuala were outside teasing her hens, and Caroline and I had come inside after growing tired of climbing the neat turf stack. We had pretty much wrecked it, anyway. My family, including my father, which was very rare, was visiting Granny to invite her and Aunt Peggy to a station Mass to be celebrated by Father Brendan at our house in two weeks’ time.

  “Pull off Sinead’s head and give it to me,” I said to Caroline.

  Sinead was her doll and she didn’t like boys touching it, but my sister also knew I created fantastic hairstyles for it when I was in the mood.

  “What will you do this time?” she asked, as she popped off its head and handed it to me.

  “Plaits, I think.”

  Her doll had long, shiny hair that felt real between my fingers. I undid the bun my sister had tried to make, laid out pieces of green and purple wool that I’d brought with me, and set to work. Aunt Peggy’s eyes bore into me as I plaited. She was Mammy’s older sister and still wore her hair in a beehive, even though my mother kept telling her that she was too old for the style. A lazy eyelid made her left eye look as if it was almost closed and she insisted we call her “Aunt” because she didn’t like “Auntie.”

  “He’s good at doing hair, isn’t he, Peggy?” said my mother.

  Aunt Peggy’s eyes met mine. “Eileen, should he really be playing with a doll, do you think?”

  “For Pete’s sake, he’s not playing with the thing. He’s artistic. And besides, Caroline likes him to work on its hair.”

  �
��All the same, it’s not good to encourage him to play with it,” said Aunt Peggy, not having listened to a word Mammy said.

  “I’m not playing with the damned doll,” I said. “I don’t play with dolls. Can’t you tell it’s only the head, for Pete’s sake?” I held it up by a plait and shook it at Aunt Peggy. “I’m doing its hair, just like I do Granny Harkin’s hair.”

  “Don’t dare raise your voice to your auntie Peggy.” My mother couldn’t get used to the fact she preferred to be called “aunt,” either. “You mustn’t talk back to your elders.”

  “If it’s not playing, what would you call it then, Gabriel?” Aunt Peggy asked.

  “I’m teaching myself to be a hairdresser. That’s what I’m going to be when I grow up.”

  “If that’s the case, what’s your mother sending you to school for? Hairdressers don’t need to know how to write . . . and hairdressing’s a woman’s job, anyway.”

  “It’s not. I saw men clipping women’s hair on TV.”

  “Those aren’t men.”

  I turned to my mother. “What does she mean?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Those people are effeminate.” Aunt Peggy glanced at Mammy before bending toward me. “I’ll wager those people played with dolls when they were young. Oh yes, you can be mighty sure those sort of men played with dolls.”

  I didn’t understand the word “effeminate,” but it was clearly something terrible. Daddy looked up from his paper and ordered me to give the doll back to Caroline.

  “Look, Peggy, our Gabriel’s very artistic and this is a part of that,” Mammy said. “Go on, Gabriel, finish the hairdo . . . but make it quick, okay? And another thing, Peggy, remind me to show you the artwork he brings home from school when you come to the Mass. His teacher says he’s a great drawer. And he can sing The Black Velvet Band totally in tune. Come on, Gabriel, sing for your auntie.” My mother slid forward in her chair. “Sing it for her.”