When All Is Said Page 16

  ‘Anything else, Dad?’ you said, when you’d finished the lot.

  ‘No, you’re grand now. Come on, we’ll call it a night.’

  I walked across the yard behind you wondering when it was finally going to come: the big reveal.

  ‘Tea?’ I asked, when we reached the warmth of the kitchen and I began to fill the kettle. You gave me the warmest of smiles, like I’d just handed you a hundred pounds.

  ‘Sure, go on so. Mine’s a coffee,’ you said, slouching into the refuge of one of the kitchen chairs.

  ‘Since when did you start drinking that stuff?’

  ‘Carl Bernstein only drinks coffee.’

  I opened the press door and stood there looking at it like I was looking at a knitting pattern. I took down the Lyons then started to move the packets of soup and jars of jam and marmalade around, looking for the coffee.

  ‘Yeah, Bernstein, one of the greatest journalists alive. Nixon and all, Watergate?’ you said, raising your voice a little above the clatter. ‘Bernstein was one of the boys that broke the story.’ You were off your chair by now leaning on the counter right beside me. ‘That’s who I want to be. Well, when I say who I want to be, I mean—’

  ‘Got it,’ I said, pulling a blue Nescafé jar free. Looking at it, I rounded you to get at the kettle.

  ‘Did you know you can do a college course now to be a journalist?’

  ‘One spoon or two?’

  ‘Just the one. There’s a place in Dublin, Rathmines, where you can do a cert.’

  The kettle clicked off.

  ‘Milk?’

  ‘No, I take it black.’

  I brought the mugs to the table, with a handful of Fig Rolls, not bothering with a plate as I knew your mother was doing the ironing in front of the TV next door. Thursday was ironing day.

  ‘So, yeah, I was thinking I might look into it a bit more. See what points you need like.’

  I sat sideways to the table, staring at the back door, while you started to slurp at the dark liquid. I could feel your eyes on me the whole time. In the background the kettle emitted little mini clicks, like sighs after all its exertions, as it cooled down.

  ‘Is that right?’ I finally said, ‘And tell me this, do you get extra points for drinking your coffee black?’

  My son the journalist. I mean how the hell did that happen? I can just about manage to read the GAA results and the mart prices in the newspaper for Christ’s sake but write whole pages, give my opinion to the world – are you mad?

  ‘I hear himself wants to be a journalist?’ I said, to Sadie later, as we got ready for bed.

  ‘What?’ she said, looking in the mirror, concentrating on securing a wayward strand of hair into her curler.

  ‘Himself and the mucking out earlier? Turns out he wants to be a journalist.’

  ‘He’s told you so. I was wondering when he’d get around to it.’

  ‘How long has this been going on?’

  ‘Ah, Maurice, you know he’s always been into reading and writing.’

  ‘I know, but a career in it? Are there any jobs even?’

  ‘There’s no jobs in anything these days. Isn’t that what the teachers keep telling them? They’ll have to emigrate. Can you imagine, Maurice?’ she said, turning to me, looking horrified, as I sat in the bed. ‘Our little man leaving.’

  ‘Sure he’ll never make a penny at that game.’

  ‘Did you not hear me? It’s not about money, Maurice. We’re going to lose him. England or America.’

  She turned from me with one of her exasperated sighs.

  When you went off to college, the mourning went on for weeks. Even though you were only a few miles up the road in digs, where you were rung every evening and from which you came home every weekend with your backpack full of washing. But on a Saturday, I have to hand it to you, you still rose early to work alongside me.

  ‘Well?’ I’d say, ‘How are the books?’

  ‘Big,’ you said once, looking a bit hassled over the exams that were only a couple of weeks off.

  ‘Sure, didn’t I tell you this words business is a cod.’

  When the exams started, I worked alone. I missed you then. Never told you but it was never the same. And when you decided to move to America in eighty-nine, when you graduated, joining the thousands of others doing the same, well I thought Sadie’d never recover.

  ‘But Maurice,’ she said to me one night over the dinner before you went, you had your tickets booked at this stage, ‘you have to know someone up there in Dublin who could give him a job. You’re always going on about your connections.’

  ‘If it was herd of cattle he wanted, that’d be no problem, Sadie. But no, I don’t know anyone of those tycoons who run the papers in Dublin or London.’

  As it goes, I did enquire with those I knew had their fingers in many pies, just on the off chance that one of them might be a newspaper. But it was to no avail. But I never told your mother I’d tried. Never wanted to get her hopes up.

  You left us after your graduation, a matter of days. Your mother cried through the ceremony and every night until you left. The airport was something shocking. Do you remember how she held on to you? How you had to actually take her arms from around your neck as we stood at the security gates.

  ‘I’ll be back, Mam. This isn’t forever,’ you kept saying, patting her back. Fair play to you; I would have lied too.

  We watched you move inch by inch away from us in that line of young people, still teenagers some of them. Waving, until you disappeared behind the glass screen. But your mother wouldn’t leave straight away no matter how much I reminded her about the price of parking.

  ‘Just one more minute, Maurice,’ she said, ‘in case he’s forgotten something.’ So we waited, it must’ve been about fifteen minutes. In truth, I knew she was hoping you’d change your mind.

  You did stay for good. And so your mother decided if you weren’t coming home then she was going to you, as often as she possibly could. She took to the travel big time. Loved to get over to you if not every year then every two years. I only went the once. A year after the wedding. You had the house by then. The size of it. You’d swear you were planning to have ten children. Five bedrooms, not to mention a basement as big as our house. But sure that’s the way of it over there, isn’t it? Rooms the size of a semi-d in Dublin. I rather the comfort and security of small spaces. There’s a warmth to them, not to mention the convenience of having everything right beside you.

  ‘Did you ever think of knocking the kitchen into the sitting room, Dad?’ you asked, about ten years ago now when you were home. We were all sat around the kitchen table. Rosaleen was there too. Was Adam even born then?

  ‘And why would I want to do that?’

  ‘The space.’

  ‘Do you think, Kevin?’ Sadie replied on my behalf, looking around her, considering the partition wall.

  ‘It would be more airy and freeing, you know.’

  ‘D’ya know you’re right,’ I said, ‘it gets fierce cramped alright in the front room when your mother and me are both in there watching the telly at the same time. I can’t lift the remote without elbowing her. And when she brings in the tea, sure I have to stand in the hall.’ I suppose that was a bit harsh, son. But you took it gracefully, or so it seemed. But then again, you’re good at hiding your frustration with me.

  I liked your local post office over there. Every morning when we were with you, I’d walk to it. Six a.m. in the heat that felt like a summer’s day in Ireland, I went out for my stroll: down the driveway and left up along Mervin Avenue until I hit the church, the bank and the post office. And there I’d sit on the bench outside. The post office was white, wooden and spotless. I had to take a picture. I wanted to show Lavin when I got back what a real post office looked like, not the skit of the thing he has hidden at the back of his newsagents. Inside was tidy and clean, with a rail that shone and snaked its way to the counter. I was only actually in it the once, having volunteered to go get
the stamps for the postcards. Apparently there were at least twenty people back home who needed telling of our trips to the shopping outlets. I liked to sit on the bench watching this foreign world wake up on those early mornings. I never got to stay too long as I had to be back for whatever excursion was planned for that day. I trundled along after Sadie and Rosaleen or you, whichever of you had taken the day off. All I wanted was the nearest seat in the shade and a cup of tea, if, that was, I could stand the queues and endless questions about how I took it. Medium, regular, with the milk on the side – I got it soon enough. I liked to stroll around the alien streets, listening to the alien voices. Never knew I was that much of an ear-wigger. Could’ve hung around those street corners all afternoon, if I was let. It helped me realise we were no different from our American cousins – the same things matter the world over: saving face and money.

  And then there were the fancy restaurants. That one – Rolinsky’s up in New York. Rosaleen drove us and we met you there. You knew the owner. Same guy who owned the paper you worked for. Spick and span it was. Toilets as big as bedrooms, cloth towels for drying your hands. You couldn’t scratch yourself at the table but the waiters were over to check everything was OK. And as for the menu, that was huge too. I was exhausted before I even opened it. I laid it down not bothering to attempt.

  ‘Are you not going to have a look at the menu, Maurice?’ Rosaleen asked.

  ‘No. I know what I want.’

  ‘Would you not have a look. You should see the size of the steak. They do this surf and turf thing, it’s to—’

  ‘I’ll be having plain chicken breast with mash and gravy.’

  You reached a hand and laid it firmly on Rosaleen’s.

  I got my chicken.

  ‘Pan-fried chicken on a bed of mash covered with “maple jus”,’ the waiter said, when he put it down in front of me.

  For a while, I stared at the plate, as big as a hubcap as I recall. I knew you were all watching me watching it. After a moment I scraped off the brown liquid from the chicken and transplanted what was left of it to my side plate. Next, I scooped away the soaked outer layer of the mash with my fork and lifted out any whiteness I could find underneath, putting it alongside the chicken. The hubcap, I pushed into the centre of the table and proceeded to eat my dinner from my side plate, refusing to look at any of you.

  ‘Is everything to your satisfaction?’ the waiter asked, arriving back to us after a bit.

  ‘Dandy,’ I replied, on our behalf.

  ‘Excellent. I’ll just take this for you,’ he said, reaching for the forlorn plate in the middle of the table. Not a flinch out of him. Professional to the end.

  By the time dessert was finished, a very creamy affair as I recall, all I really wanted was to get out of there. I needed the air. But you wouldn’t hear of me having a stroll.

  ‘I thought this was one of the safest cities in the world?’

  ‘But let’s not take any chances tonight, OK, Dad? The coffee won’t take long.’

  I was all set to protest when Len or Lenny or was it Lev, the boss, arrived. He pulled up a chair beside me and seemed mighty interested in what I thought of the place.

  ‘It’s grand,’ I told him, throwing in a smile, knowing I was on show.

  On the other side of me, Sadie enthused enough for the both of us, so I sat back and let her at it while my fingers drummed on my napkin.

  ‘You’ve got yourselves a fine boy here,’ Lev said, pointing over at you, smiling, showing off his perfect white teeth. ‘He’s going to be big. You heard it here first folks, that boy is going places.’

  Sadie clapped her hands in delight. You beamed and laughed, and Rosaleen stretched her hand to yours. Me? I nodded to the tablecloth wondering how much longer. But I wish now I’d smiled over at you, given you a wink that said, ‘Sure, don’t I know.’

  And then you took me to meet Chuck Hampton. It had been Lev’s idea apparently. He suggested I might like to go meet his friend the farmer. We left early one morning, passed the bench outside the post office and it wasn’t even light yet. We must’ve been on the road about two or three hours, listening to flashy news stations that seemed more interested in selling us things rather than news coverage, before we pulled into his place. I wasn’t sure if we were even in New Jersey any more.

  ‘You’re mighty welcome, sir.’

  I was barely out of the car when that greeted me. I looked behind and a man of around sixty approached with an outstretched hand. I shook it. That hand said all I needed to know. The rough feel and the strong grip told me I’d found a piece of home. He spent the day with us, well me, anyway. You sat on the man’s porch with your laptop. I don’t remember at what stage it was, but you came running down to us in one of his red-painted barns saying you had to go for an hour or so to get better Internet coverage.

  ‘You need to go to Sully’s café. Three miles north, turn left at the tree stump.’

  You looked at Chuck with a quizzical smile.

  ‘You’ll know it when you see it. Just head on out that way.’

  ‘Don’t be worrying, son,’ I told you, as you ran off waving your hand with that laptop in your other. ‘You take your time. I’m in no rush.’ I turned back to Chuck and all he was telling me about the heifer standing in front of me.

  We drove his land. At times we got out to walk it. Picking up fistfuls of the soil and smelling it.

  ‘Lots of good Pike County sun and rain. No pesticides, just love and care.’

  I reached for some and rubbed it, not the same richness as my own, drier and less dense but I couldn’t deny the man its quality. We walked among corn stalks and wheat and grass to see his herds beyond. You could’ve left me in those fields for the rest of the trip and I would’ve been happy to sleep under the stars with a smile on my face. Listening to the foreign sounds of that world. Coyotes instead of foxes, crickets instead of owls. It was into the afternoon before we returned to the house where I met his wife and a most welcome bowl of soup with what they called ‘biscuits’ on the side. Turns out they were scones, I corrected them on that.

  You came back around four, all apologies.

  ‘I was just about to put this man to work,’ Chuck laughed, coming down off the porch to shake your hand.

  ‘I tried to call but I couldn’t get a signal.’ You held your phone up to the sky.

  ‘Yep, it’s a bit hit and miss out here. Come on in and have yourself a bite to eat.’

  We sat on the porch for another half hour or so, with me mithering that poor man over prices and co-ops and seeding.

  ‘The big boys have it sown up, Maurice, if you’ll excuse the pun. Can’t use our own seeds no more. They sue anyone who does. Have to buy theirs. Good friend of mine Kurt Lettgo, a seeder out Mission way, was put out of business. His family been doing that for four generations.’

  ‘So let me get this straight, Mr Hampton,’ you interrupted, taking out your pen and that notebook you always carried, ‘you are compelled to buy someone else’s seeds?’

  ‘God’s honest. Go look it up. It ain’t no secret. It’s the law.’

  Turned out it was that story ‘Seeds Unsown’ that won you that big award two years later. You sent us a framed picture of you being presented with it. Needless to say it got pride of place beside the telly. On the back you wrote:

  To Dad with thanks. I’d never have gotten this if it weren’t for you.

  It’s in the storage boxes, Kevin. Wrapped and packed safely.

  ‘Well, now this is some holiday,’ I said getting back in the car and waving to Chuck as we reversed. Chuck, who promised he’d take a trip to Ireland so I could return the hospitality. Never came, of course. But we exchange Christmas cards every year. His wife died a while back, a few years before Sadie. Still lives on the farm, although his nephew has taken it over. I wouldn’t mind a catch up to see how he’s fared. See if he’s handled the abandonment better than me.

  When our holiday was over, I shook your hand with everything I
had at the security gates in the airport. One of those ones where you hold the elbow as well. We stood there like that for a second until it got awkward.

  ‘Sure, we’ll see you back over beyond sometime,’ I said.

  ‘Absolutely. Christmas, hopefully. I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Do that,’ I patted your hand and released it, turning to put an arm around Sadie who sobbed her way through the security gates.

  Sadie lived for your newspaper articles. Whatever you wrote, or said for that matter, she’d be telling everyone. Gone off to the library to find out more to confirm just how clever you were. Forest fires in California, Hubble, the purchase of Alaska. Me? I never asked a thing.

  ‘Is that right?’ I’d say, when she produced whichever paper you worked for back then. I’d lay it in front of me above the dinner plate and read the first line. I can still feel the cold sweat of my forehead even now as I sat there wishing instead for the simplicity of the price of sucklings. See, I never admitted to either of you about me and the dyslexia. Oh yes, I found out I wasn’t thick after all about ten years ago. A young one on a helpline I called after hearing Pat Kenny talking about it on the radio. Ten per cent of the population, she said. Would you credit that? But, it’s not that I can’t read, I can after a fashion, at my own pace with no one standing over my shoulder. I always found a way ’round things. I was a great one for losing the glasses at the right moment or complaining about the small print.

  ‘Isn’t that great now,’ I’d say, pushing your article away after I’d given it an acceptable amount of time. That was another good one of mine – lying.

  ‘Where did he get the brains from at all?’ Sadie might gush, then.

  ‘That would be your side.’

  ‘Do you think?’ she’d say, giving me her best modest smile.

  You still bring me your articles when you come over. Putting them on the couch beside me or on my footstool. When I’m out of the room usually. But you never say a thing. Never ask if I’ve ever read them.

  Since your mother died, I’ve noticed your trips home have become more numerous. Two or three times a year now. Checking up on me, what? Mostly it’s just you but sometimes herself and Adam and Caitríona come as well. When you’re on your own it’s only for a weekend or so. I always put the heat on in your old room to make sure it’s aired the night before and I leave the immersion on so you have the hot water whenever you want it. That’s a thing I remember about being over in the States, hot water whenever you like. Of course, as soon as you’re down the driveway on your way back west, I switch it off.