"…it was amazing how it worked: the tiniest bit of truth made credible the greatest lies."
- "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides
This final road trip was a bizarre one. Here I was, all packed and ready to depart my 'fantasy' and return home to the 'real world', wherever that was? Apparently, it was far from where I'd been, a place with 'real' people and most important of all, 'real' jobs. So hence the idea of entering such a place was a tad daunting. Was I doing the right thing? Two months into the trip and I was saying I wanted to live here forever and now I was leaving? Sneaking off like a booed entertainer.
The thing is I wasn't too sure if this was the right decision. But like I told my mother and my flatmate, a decision was made. I had come here to get my act together; I wanted to be able to live freely and not to be dictated by my past. I felt the time I spent here was used wisely, I had learned a lot about myself and felt it was time to use what I had discovered in this actual reality everyone was talking about.
While living in Dublin I felt that I was constantly living out of a particular relationship in my life, something that dragged me down. An interaction that affected every other relationship I had since. I might be sneaking away from here, but seven months ago I was escaping from…that one.
Like I said the choice to come home was made and then the long process of arranging my flights, telling my flatmate and then packing away the designer handbags and other memorabilia that wasn't actually allowed to leave the country began. That seemed like years ago as I exited the third ring road, covered in snow that had fallen now, non stop, for the past six days, heading towards the airport. It wasn't just the over weight luggage I was hoping to sneak on-board without paying any extra charges, I was carrying something that couldn't be detected by X-ray machines or a brisk feel by a Chinese customs officer - I was harbouring the blue print of a new me.
When we finally arrived at Beijing International Airport I was greeted, yet again, by the onslaught of the horny roadrageless taxi drivers. Mark unpacked his four by four while I dashed for a trolley. I was feeling quite emotional but this was been over ridden by the possibility that I might have to pay the extra baggage fee. The farewell with Mark was the usual manly kind of bear hug, slap on the back with the nervous smile and retreating penguin walk with hands firmly tucked into the pockets. Mind you, I don't know how he did that because Mark was German and bless their cotton socks but their dress sense is up their hole. Today he was sporting the tight jeans that were tapered at the bottom and boots that just led you to believe that, yes, he was also wearing white socks and briefs with the ugliest designs on them that no erection would get planning permission. Nonetheless, it was sweet of him to have taken the day off work to drive me, even though it was more for Donna's sake that he did that. When they started seeing each other I didn't approve of him at all. He was sussing out the situation between Donna and I and didn't know what to make of us two, while everyone else did, with many interesting conclusions. So that left him metaphorically urinating around his territory, my flatmate.
Donna came in to the bustling airport terminal with me. We walked silently and swiftly through the crowds of jet setters to the counter where you had to pay to get out of the country - only China, bless. The moment that haunted Donna's dreams since that day in the taxi when I told her that I was going home had come. My time here would not have been as funny without her and we bonded in a way I thought was never possible given the history in which we found each other. Yet, the farewell was brief, not overly vocal and little under dramatic, a farewell nonetheless.
Through customs with a nervous smile, while behind my teeth chanting 'please don't open my bag, PLEASE don't open my bag'. It worked - so at least my Chinese calligraphy scroll was safe. Then the checking in of the bags. There was quite a queue, seasoned travellers escaping the bitter cold Peking winter to spend Christmas in the warmth of Thailand. As I drew near to the counter I saw a sign on each of the check-in desks which informed me that the plane was delayed. Suddenly the weight of the bags didn't seem such a problem. What was I to do? I had a connecting flight which would take me to Frankfurt and then from there to Dublin. It was the day before Christmas Eve and this didn't help matters. I arrived at the desk and immediately asked was I going to make it. Eventually, after a huddle, a phone call, a conversation on a walkie talkie and then another huddle they said that I would make it. Relief was epigrammatic as I realised that my luggage wasn't checked-in yet.
I put my rucksack up first, '16.1' flashed on the screen. Then the new suitcase with all the presents, 17.6 - the limit was 30...
"What about the guitar? Is there a special check-in for delicate items?"
That's it Paul, keep them talking and confuse them.
"Yes Sir, just over there, it will be taken care of."
It worked, they didn't notice that I was over the limit and the relief was tangible. I checked in the guitar and proceeded to the Immigration Exit hall. There I had to fill out where I'd been what I'd been doing and had to present the Airport tax receipt and my visa to be cancelled. This went without a hitch, just like the metal detector and security check. Which meant a longer wait for my plane, something that I felt was somehow needed and planned by some unknown force.
As this was my last meal in China and probably the last time I would speak Mandarin I decided to order some fried rice and some bottled water - both I knew in the local tongue. The mysterious thing about Beijing Airport is it's vastness and though always busy, there never seems to be many people there. I got a window seat and enjoyed the view while eating my last supper in the cultural capital of China. The snowy runway seemed years away from the hot sweltering heat that greeted us when we arrived at the end of May and so much has happened. But to arrive at this point, indeed to arrive at any point, there were many 'journeys' on the way.
The phone call that I dreaded had to be made today. I got up early, as usual and walked down Belvedere Place, Dorset Street and Drumcondra road and like clockwork, pass Bertie Ahern's car with his 'henchmen' waiting for him his office, on my way to college. It was a sunny spring day, unusual for this time of year. I had a brief meeting with Brendan, my supervisor for my thesis and then camped out in the college computer room. Being in a college like All Hallows meant that the services weren't as plentiful as other larger institutions such as DCU or UCD, so you had to find a computer and mark your territory. But here was home and that's why the past four years were bliss - a learning home from home.
As I was putting the finishing touches to my labour of love, blood, sweat and tears, I felt that I couldn't procrastinate any longer. I grabbed my mobile and walked down the long stone corridor which was covered with pictures of all the past students, seminarians no less, who had graduated from here and left their homes to go to the four corners of the earth. That was the motto of the place - 'Go and teach all nations'. I came outside and was greeted by a warm sun. I dialled my home number and after a few rings and deep breaths my mother answered. It was always great talking to her. Even though I hadn't officially left home I hadn't lived there for the past four years. Dublin was my new home, my life. Monaghan didn't hold anything of worth, apart from my family. There were no friends - 'real' friends, at least. Just badly clothed, gossiping, narrow minded, wanting to know where you shit last, kind of people.
Mam gave me the low down on the rest of the gang, how Eileen was getting on with her final months in Templemore, how Brian was doing in the bank, Rachel in the nursing college, Tanya and her man mania and Sophie and her jazz, horse riding, friends birthday partying. I always made sure when calling home to ask how Mam was. She was in good form, she slept well last night and that is a rare occurrence.
Now I found myself in a déjà vu situation. Yet again I was rehashing out the infamous phrase that nearly two years previous caused me a year of worry and psychosomatic tonsillitis -
"Mam? I have something to tell ya."
Being a mother automatically signs you up for a lifetime of worry, even when there is nothing to worry about. And if worrying were a sport my mother was the champ.
"Ah, Jesus son, what is it?"
"I am going to go to Beijing, I've decided to go."
There was a slight pause…
"I'll have no one to talk to - I'm not going to stop ya! Go and do it son"
We talked about the practicalities of it, money, visas, the apartment, and ended the converstaion talking about how the 'hunk' next door was engaged. Which was great, because I was tired of talking about it because I knew that I had to tell Fiona next and that was worrying me more. Even with that I hung up feeling content that I it had gone so well. I thought it wouldn't - but it was ok, I suppose just like how things went 23 years ago…
The year was 1978, my mother, alcoholic father and older brother lived in Belgium Square flats. This was a building which stood out on its own amidst the clutter and unplanned snake-like row of smaller council houses in the area. It over looked Belgium Park Football Field. In saying that, it was literally a field with posts either end of an un-maintained, mucky grass area, that people played football on, soccer, to be more precise. It was a far cry from Croke Park or any other sporting venue in its day and remains much the same even now.
Living on the 'boarder' meant that God only knows what the next door neighbour was doing. You'd hear people say;
"Sure he's with the RA! You'd wanna watch that fella!"
And sure enough, our flat block housed quite a few of those 'fellas'. This caused some tension as my Dad was part of the 'real' Irish Army. In my younger days I never understood the difference until my Mam explained that my father didn't wear a black hat over his face and she didn't help make semtex bombs while baking a flan on a Sunday. My father was barely holding onto his job because his drinking sprees were sporadic and often coincided with inspections or important training exercises that he found too difficult to complete.
It was a dingy flat. I know it was the late seventies and that browns and greens were in but the biggest mistake in interior decorating - wallpaper, was in full swing. And it wasn't just the whole idea of wallpaper per sa, it was more the patterns that somehow made their debut in this format and the way we were recruited to help when it had to be changed. We had a large sitting room and a tiny kitchenette with a sink and a three ringed cooker. It had one huge bedroom with a shower and a toilet. It was home, nonetheless, for my family.
August saw a visit from 'Granny' - Mam's Mam. Even though Dad's Mum was still alive, we only had one Granny. She was down because Mam was nearly due or so she told Mam, but she figured out that she had a row with Granddad because she stayed for nearly a month, sleeping on the fold out bed that Mam had bought for her. Granny loved Monaghan - a thing that still baffles me, but I feel she just loved to get away. Her husband was a typically difficult old Irish man. Herself and Mam would go down the town twice a day and have tea and look around Gran's favourite shop, McKenna's in the Diamond.
She couldn't have arrived at a worst time. The neighbours next door were having a party. As Granny climbed the stairs in her good shoes, she was greeted by two of them. They were carrying bags of drink and food. Knowing who she was they were extra nice to her and chatted about Brian and how cute he was and asked about Mam, all the right types of questions. Granny came into the flat singing their praises, saying that they were 'shockin' nice girls'. They were a group of young, loud, horny nurses and I think the only record they had in their possession was 'You're The One That I Want' from 'Greece'. Mind you, they didn't need a party as an excuse to play it over and over and over again, as it was their get up and get ready song, their making the dinner song and their getting ready to go out song. So, as you could imagine Granny didn't sleep well on her first night in Monaghan.
The next day at breakfast Granny gave out stink about 'them little gypsies' next door while feeding Brian his boiled egg, as Mam listened from the tiniest bathroom in the history of construction. Even without the burden of another human being in her stomach, one still had to reverse into it. Dad was on duty which was a welcome relief to Mam and Granny. She never stopped giving out, she was acting weird and Brian was looking at her as if she had two heads. She soon calmed down, after she rooted around in her giant handbag, took out a plastic container, unscrewed the cap, and downed one of its contents with a glass a water. Mam looked at her, while she was doing this and shock her head and went back to bed.
The day, for Mam, was spent in reverse gear as she kept visiting the tiny toilet. Granny looked after Brian, which wasn't hard, as he was a quiet child. But then 'he' appeared on the tele, the one thing that turned the placid black haired toddler into an extra from 'The Thing That Came From Somewhere,' Pat Inglseby. 'Pat's Chat' was a children's programme presented by, the one and only Pat, who was the softest speaking man ever born, but he had one feature that just got the imagination of my older brother going - the green phone hat he wore on his head. The green apparatus was a joy to millions of other children across the nation, especially the lucky ones that actually got to talk to him through the phone hat. Eventually Granny worked out what was making him run behind the tattered brown sofa and turned the TV off with the turning of the huge dial.
There was a silence and Granny shouted at Mam to see if she was alright. Mam shouted back that she was ok. Granny noticed that the reply came from the toilet, yet again and after bearing twelve children herself, put two and two together and realised that Mam was in labour. She sprung up and got to the door and told Mam to get her things together. Granny grabbed Brian's bottle and dry cloth nappies and banged repeatedly on gypsy nurses door which was eventually answered, after a rolling of drinks glass and bottles on the floor as one of the just awoken nurses kicked them while staggering to get to the bottom of what was causing the incessant banging. Granny gave the orders and the nurse listened - well, she appeared to give the impression that she understood. The door closed and she found herself with a hangover, a flat that looked like a bomb had just hit it and an eighteen month old toddler who had just metaphorically shat himself and eventually, to her disgust, literally.
The ambulance arrived and Granny and her daughter got in. This was about 2pm on August 17th. An hour and a half later I was born. Mam would always say that she nearly had me in the toilet, there was no pain and that I never caused her another days worry or pain.
Granny rang the barracks in Monaghan. Dad was apparently AWOL. Which Granny thought was some kind of code word for busy, she left a message anyway. Little did we know then that Dad had just being signed up to go to the Lebanon for six months and was out celebrating, like he needed an excuse to do that. This left the next biggest stage, after actually being born, up to my Gran and Mam. Of course, this should be decided on months in advance, as this could affect and does affect millions of children for the rest of their lives - choosing a name.
'Laurence' was on the cards, after Granddad. Thankfully the Catholic Church had a similar celebration. It wasn't a birth as such but they had elected a new Pope. So like any small, good Catholic towns like Monaghan, there were plenty of John Paul's. Mammy didn't like double barrel names so she decided to call me Paul Laurence. So here I was now - born to this family, in this town, with this colour of hair, eyes, temperament and other surprises that the district nurse couldn't see. Like most complicated gifts nowadays we are all too familiar with the most under read piece of material the accompanies it - the manual. Unfortunately I, nor anyone else born through this lottery system, didn't come with a one, nor did the family I was born into. Which meant figuring things out as we went along. Some things took longer and more painful processes to work out but that's for later on.
"OUCH!" I yelled, when I wasn't screaming.
"For God sake, Bernie will ya stop pinching him, your making him worse!" said my uncle.
"He's a little skitter, if I'd me wooden spoon now?!" said my Mam looking at me more closely as she uttered the name of the apparatus from hell, emphasising it's terror.
There was a brief pause in my tantrum once I heard it mentioned, but then I remembered the pain that was inflicted by my mother while we waited at the McKee barracks in Dublin and I returned to my paroxysm.
Dad was flying back from the Lebanon, after his six months 'tour of duty', I could imagine what kind of tour he was doing. I fear my Dad's idea of peace keeping involved large quantities of alcohol and writing the new treaty on a beer mat. Uncle John , Brian and Eileen were also present. I was nearly three at the time and had developed, or was born with, a terrible temper, hence Mam was taking lumps out of me trying to stop me from continuing my performance. At this point I must add that I was no expert in child psychology at the age of three (here's where the manual would've come in handy), but I didn't think that nipping your child with long, sharp finger nails was the most beneficial method of making them stop crying.
Things were actually great when Dad arrived home. It seemed the 'Arabs' calmed him and his drinking down somewhat. The unfortunate part of his arrival home was the presents he arrived home with. Now, I'm sure they looked great on little middle-eastern children as they dodged bombs, guns and bullets, in and out of sand dunes and the rubble filled streets of Tel-Aviv, but here in Monaghan (the land of…well nothing exotic) ponchos, and third world, thick stitched, refugee looking jumpers, weren't exactly the height of fashion. You see, even at a young age I was worried about what I was wearing - unfortunately when your budget is limited, i.e. your mother buys your clothes, remember I was only a toddler, you wear whatever is put on you. So every Sunday was an embarrassment as we were made wear these garments. The people in St. Joseph's stared at us and would come and say;
"don't they look cute" in the most patronizing way possible.
It might seem to you that at an early stage I was quite adept with what was hot and what certainly was not. This would lead you to believe that I was a fast learner, an early developer, but unfortunately and embarrassingly, at the age of five I was still a bed wetter. I still wasn't potty trained. This led to me being left behind on fishing trips with my Dad and brother when we went to visit Granny and Granddad in Baileboro, Co. Cavan. I was left because I was liable to go anywhere and with no shame neither. As we went to Baileboro, or 'Curkish' as we called it, nearly every weekend, I was inevitably left behind. This however strengthened and indeed, cemented the relationship with my Grandfather. He took pity on me and he use to take me to town to get a ninety nine. On Saturday evenings we would walk to mass. He always sat at the back left of the Church and on the way home I'd always get an ice-cream.
One weekend I was about to go to bed and after the communal bath with my brother my Mam had put me into a t-shirt, that acted as a nightdress. I was wearing that to
"Let air at it!" Mam told Granny.
Since I was constantly wetting myself, my balls, for want of a better word, were raw. There was a huge roar of laughter when one morning I ran down the stairs with just a pyjama top on me and declared in horror to the entire household'
"I'm raw! I'm raw!"
Even back then you had to have a thick skin. A statement like that or a mispronunciation of a word would haunt you for the rest of your days in our family and was always brought up at every Christmas or when new girlfriends or boyfriends were brought to the house. Granddad couldn't get over this, his grandson dressed like a girl;
"That's not right, havin' the gassin' in a dress." He said to my mother.
She was given money and a blue pair of pyjamas were purchased for the 'golden haired boy' as I was dubbed by my uncles and aunts. I loved the new pj's for two reasons. One was that my Granddad who I knew loved me dearly bought them but the other reason, and it seems a tad swallow, was that I didn't have to hear the hideous paisley pyjamas that Mam had bought for us. Mam went a little mad with the money he gave her and got a me a real expensive pair. It was official, I was his favourite, even if it was by default i.e. laziness in the sphincter muscle and a bowel that just didn't receive any orders from its owner
Going to Curkish was such a break from the tiny confined flat we lived in. At that stage we all slept in the one room. Every night was a room wide performance of the 'Duelling Nostrils' featuring my mother and father. However, when we went to Curkish it was our uncles cover version, but they were not as enthusiastic in trying to out snore each other. It was a small, two storey house, with a huge field that contained for some time, a yearly crop of spuds and for longer than that, a swing on the tree beside the shed. It was great to be able to run around the field. It was our own little world. Nearer the house there were huge trees that could be climbed with the greatest of ease. Even back then I searched for solitude; I would climb them and stay there until I was called for my tea. Like the birds that nested higher in the branches, I too could recognise the pitch and tone of my mothers call.
Meal times in Curkish were always busy when we were there. Apart from my two uncles, my aunt, Granny and Granddad, we added another five onto the dining list. The 'wee' table was taken from the eternally cold front hall that we sat around. We were Granny's favourite grandchildren for two reasons. We were well behaved and we ate anything. Other cousins drove her around the bend, whining;
"I don't like that!" or "Mammy doesn't cook it that way!"
Granny would walk out of the sitting room and into the kitchen, throwing her eyes up to heaven and then counting to ten after rooting around in her bag for her little box of tablets. She would return with a glazed looked and not even the pickiest diner could phase her then. Even though we ate in the sitting room there was a huge range cooker there. There was always a kettle being boiled for the religiously timed cups of tea or for the visitor who, even if they were allergic to it, got a cup of tea in their hand nearly before they got a chance to sit down.
It was Wednesday and everyone at the table looked drained. We were all too aware that it was our last few weeks in college, how could we forget, you'd get the odd annoying mature student from a year below us asking how the thesis was coming along, or asking you, for the millionenth time this year, what the subject matter was. One particular, conservatively churched lady was really curious about my topic in the same way that Ian Paisley would be interested in the doctrine on transubstantiation. The fact that these kind of people are in most third level institutes in the country is a weird phenomenon. They can, on one hand think they know more than you and treat you like you've the IQ of a lamppost, yet half admire you on the simple fact that you were a year ahead of them.
As a group, our class bonded well. We were the life and soul of All Hallows and here we were after three and a half years at the final stages. There was Joan, married, 2 children, Mary, 4 children and separated,. These people should just be given degrees because they are super individuals. I had just to haul my sorry ass out of bed and get myself into college everyday. These women, got them and their kids ready for school and then drove through rush hour traffic to get to lectures. Not to mention the essays and seminars that must be done while correcting their children's spelling, improving their reading while making sure that the spuds weren't over boiled and that the pork chops wasn't coated in carbon.
Helen who, between meals had the edge of a tea towel rubbing against her nose, looked amazing today. She was still making a packet out of the supervision and started shopping in Brown Tomas. Somehow the dirty tea towel didn't go with the Karen Millen top and trousers. Rita was there with an intense look on her face. Interacting with her is dangerous due to the unchangeable fact that I'm male. Rita is a feminist feminist. Don't get me wrong I agree with the plight for women's rights, but that kind of statement would have her raising her right eyebrow at me and wondering was I trying to get into her knickers. There was a phrase used to describe such women - "Burn your bra" feminists. But Rita took this further - She met a guy about two weeks ago at a library and they, miraculously, hooked up. We thought this was the breaking point for her that she would somehow, mellow out. When questioned where they were going on their first date she said;
"I'm takin' em to see the Vagina Monologues in d'lympia"
The Vagina Monologues was running all week in the Olympia and was attended, predominately by women. Needless to say that was the last time she saw him.
That left Fiona and me. Fiona was my one true love - she made life more funnier and more beautiful than anyone could ever have made it. We had been friends from first year, when I set her up with a psycho, emotionally draining leech, who she dated for nearly three years, but eventually saw the light and got the strength to get out. She hadn't been doing as much work as I had and today I could see that she was stressed, but I had to tell her. I went back to the serving area and grabbed us two more glasses of water each, put them on a tray and walked back to the table. The sun was blinding in the great big dining hall which was bustling with people.
"There ya go chuck!" I said.
"Thanks," was her reply.
"Fiona, there is something I have to tell you, I know this isn't the best time to and it is very difficult for me to even say this…
"What is it, what's wrong? She said with worry.
The only way to describe her is a walking heart. Calling her a saint wouldn't even cover it. She cared for everyone and everyone wanted a piece of her. She made you feel like a million dollars and that too came with a price, to her detriment, but she was mine and I was hers. Yet I felt that this wasn't going to go well at all,
"I've decided to go to Beijing with them, I'm leaving a week after the exams."
Before she could put down her knife and fork I was crying, she followed, I held her hand and squeezed tightly. She squeezed back. The tears were falling now from both our faces. This seemed to be happening in our own little world, the rest of the people were oblivious to this momentous event in our history, like most of our antics, we were just made for each other. That moment, it was decided to never mention it, to even utter that there would be a departure soon. We drank our water and ate in silence.
That was something that didn't last long. As a baby I was a great little gabbler. Even though the vocabulary hadn't developed, I still mumbled, gooed and gaaed. After the customary 'Dada' and 'Mama' came what every parent dreads; their child's first bad word. For some it was 'shut up', others it was 'shit'. Mine was the ever functional 'Fuck off.' The parents were mortified. If I'd progressed with my speech I would've said;
"Sure I didn't lick it off a stone!"
That would've been giving back cheek and would merited the dreaded wooden spoon. When Eileen, Brian and myself would be playing inside and we cheated, lied or just hit someone, there would be;
"MAMMY! Paul's after hitting me!"
Three things would happen in the same chronological order. The utilities drawer would open and close with a bang, there would be a battle cry of sorts, ranging from;
"Don't make me go inta ya's" - "For Christ's Sake" - "Holy God's watchin'"
And finally the 'scud on the arse'. It wasn't that sore and everyone in the area practised the same child management technique. The area I'm speaking of is of course our new home.
Moving home always seems like an adventure. Visiting a new place, meeting new people. Our move was not quite like that. We moved from the IRA and horny nurse block of flats to across the road, the main Monaghan to Armagh road, to 12 Saint Patrick's Tce. We had a great view of our old domicile from the front window of our new one. This was an estate of twenty four houses than winded its way along and up a steep hill. We had to move, even though my parents could barely afford it. We had been sleeping in the same room and we were expanding, Eileen being the latest edition. The residents of the estate were typical Monaghan folk. To explain that concept all you would have to do is to mention a persons name to them. They would then tell you that persons mother, father, brothers and sisters, their occupation and the occupation of their siblings. They would list who was on the dole, the sick or on someone else's husband or wife. Who was ill, what was wrong with them, how they got it and how long they'd left to live. Who was an alcoholic, valum user, wife abuser. There just wasn't enough hours in the day for these people to get all the information they needed to profile the town.
Getting back to the wooden spoon usage. When studying Theology in college, you hear so many angelic and Godly stories about peoples first memory of God. Mine was none of the sort. My first memory of Church or God was pain. After budding an unsuitable word list I felt I had to impart it with people. My mother was very religious and mass was a must every Sunday. During the priest's homily I would stand up on to the ledge that the posh people rested their bibles on and waited for a breather in the priests speech. When I got one I shouted out load;
"FUCK OFF!"
As the priest went on, blushing and trying not to let the toddler heckler get the better of him, my mother would pinch my legs, again with her long, sharp finger nails, trying to get me to sit down and shut up while not making it obvious that she was doing so. My mother was mortified and didn't know what to do. All week she was thinking of a solution to this predicament. Sunday came around again and we were all dressed up in our Sunday best. I was summonsed into the kitchen by my mother. She told me to observe. I watched as she held a plastic bag and opening the utilities drawer she took out the wooden spoon and put it into the bag, wrapping it up tightly. She then but it into the pram where Eileen would be wheeled down Park St. to St. Joseph's Church. Not phased and not quite sure what the purpose of that little performance was I sat and waited for the homily. It arrived and I took up my position on the ledge. The church was full. I stood and waited for a pause. Suddenly Brian tapped me on the ass. I looked around and he was pointing to Mam at the end of the pew. She starred at me something fierce and motioned with her eyes for me to look at what she was doing. I looked and saw that she was rattling the plastic bag which was now at the kneeler in front of her. I stood there in dismay and was struck dumb and never uttered an expletive at church ever again.
Eating, we were great eaters in our family. As I mentioned before, we ate everything put in front of us and Fiona would say that she loved watching me eat. I somehow ate systematically, some meat, then all the veg and then the rest of the meat. I still couldn't figure out what the attraction of my eating habits were. But things weren't always like that. To be honest with you there are three things that I cannot eat. Their what I call, the three P's. Parsnips, Rice Pudding and the worst of all, porridge - sometimes dubbed 'stur about.' I hated it; the look of it, the smell of it not to mention the taste. One morning my father was in foul humour and Mam was there getting us ready for school. This feat was more akin to sheepdog manoeuvring, certain cries, pitches and tones, helped by a few taps of the handle of the brush on the ceiling below our room and that got us all herded to be fed and watered. It was mid winter and Mam stopped buying Corn Flakes and gave us stur about to "put hairs on our chest" and to keep us warm. I was sick of it, it made me retch. Dad was running late and saw that I wasn't making any of the porridge disappear.
"Get it inta ya." He said in low but commanding voice.
"I cant, I don't like it," I replied in a babyish manner.
"I said…get it inta ya," as if I didn't hear it the first time.
I played with it for a while, but couldn't eat it. My Mam was the best cook in the world, but not even Delia Smith could make porridge poeticising enough for me to even sample it.
"We're not leaving til ya ate every bit of it, I'll fucking make ya eat it!"
"Ger? Go on without them, they'll walk, go on, you'll be late," Mam said diplomatically.
"He's goin' to ate it, if it's the last thing I do," he shouted as he stood up and marched right beside be raising his hand as a pre-warning that he was going to strike.
Mam went to the sink, she couldn't look. I wasn't the favourite, we were all her favourite. I could see her reflection in the kitchen window as she opened it to throw some bread crumbs out on the sill. Even the birds were too frightened to perch and dine, they heard the roars of my Dad, and they knew he meant business. Mam couldn't watch. I took the spoon in my hand and for her sake, put some of the porridge into my mouth.
"More, get more of it," Dad said impatiently.
I did, and I tried to hold it, but I couldn't. After two spoonfuls I just pucked my ring up, throwing the spoon down and running to the toilet avoiding any strikes. Brain and Eileen were silent and were eating their breakfast with no complaints as usual. Brian retched from the sight and smell of my vomiting spree, but Dad gave him a quick look and Brian swallowed.
As you can guess from the previous chapter, I had started school. Like my potty training days I was a late developer there too. I was born in August and Mam was a little over protective of me and felt I was too small (not to mention the fact I still wore nappies) to be going to school at the normal age of four. Mam kept me at home until I had turned five and she then enrolled me into the local school. This was after about two years of playschool where I can remember very little except the fact that I played in the sand a lot and was doted on by all the lovely ladies that worked there.
So it was 'the big school' for me. My first uniform, school bag, lunch box and pencil case. The uniform was typical of most of the uniforms in the town - grey trousers and a blue, V-neck jumper. Little did I know at the time that in the villages of Tydavnet, Glaslough and Threemilehouse they didn't have to wear any sort of school livery at all. That was ok, ignorance is bliss, but our uniform was then covered going to and from school by the infamous duffel coat with sabre tooth tiger teeth buttons, that were a bluey grey. They were all the rage back then, but looking back now it makes me cringe to think that I actually wore it. The one thing about the coats was the fact that they made my skin itch. Brian had a similar coat. I suppose we were the talk of all the new mothers as they waited for their own offspring every afternoon - two young boys, brothers, with similar coats - ahhhhh! I wasn't prepared for the winter accessories that accompanied the duffel coat. The temperatures do drop in winter and so too did the standards of parents fashion cop-on. For fear that we would lose these wintry weather additions, they were tied together on a length of white elastic material so older kids could pull and pull and then let them smack you right in the face. I am talking about the notion that befell Irish mothers that attaching a pair of warm woolly gloves on an elasticised string and threading it through the arms of the jacket was a good idea.
My first day was no great mystery to me. I had been asking my older brother what school was like so I was prepared. Unfortunately for some of my class mates that were only children or the oldest, they weren't quite prepared. The thought that they were going to spend part of their day with another women, in a room with other children just freaked them out and they would just ball for the first few hours of school. Friends that I made at the playschool would come up to me and say;
"Look at that cry baby, what's he like?"
Acting all tough, I'd agree. Of course they stopped crying, it wasn't going to last all day and especially when you have the teacher everyone wanted for their child - Miss O'Gorman. She had her first class last year and she was the talk of the town. She was young, pretty and loved to teach. Her secret weapon for the cessation of crying children was what we all called the 'milséan.' It was an amazing thing the milséan, it stopped the cry babies who missed their Mammy's and we ran home to tell our own that we got one for being good in school or that we got one word correct. Sure it was just a sweet in Irish.
It was in baby infants that I got my first kiss. Actually, it was a barrage of kisses from three different girls. To this day I wonder did it actually happen, because it seems so fictitious, but it did. Play time was a thirty minute burning up of built up energy. I wasn't interested in football, which at the time never occurred to be weird. Break time was spent running around like a mad thing; the top buttons of our coats fastened and our arms not in the sleeves so it looked like a cape. We wanted to be Superman, Batman any man that didn't have to go back to class. Killian, Tom and I were in a line doing our usual superheroes sprint through the play yard when we heard our names been called by the girls. We stopped in sync, looked around and wondered what the hell these girls wanted. At that time girls were in the same league as snakes and slugs, they made you go 'yuck!' Like seductive sirens of old they called us over, so we went in file, in superhero mode again. They were under the stairs that lead into the prefab where we had class. They were standing their acting all coy. We hadn't a clue about the birds or the bees. Being found under a cabbage leave was still the popular belief around the playground. We had stopped our pretend flying and starred and wondered what was going to happen. If you could fast forward about fifteen years later, there would be clothes been ripped of and other feats of yoga going on, but here in St. Louis's Infant school there was nothing of the sort. Suddenly, Jane grabbed me and pressed her lips to mine, I could still taste the chicken and ham roll of her breath, she tried then to lick the inside of my mouth with her lickerish coated tongue, then the next girl did the same, Helen, as the other boys were passed along like a conveyer belt - Jane, Helen and finally the dashingly beautiful Amy, with her flowing blonde hair, soft voice and beautiful, blue eyes. After we were all done they ran off like the little school girls they were, giggling and laughing. Us superheroes, if we were fifteen years older, would have felt more like super studs, but we didn't' we just rubbed our mouths with our sleeves and took up formation and patrolled the universe that was our playground from the wicked forces of big bullies.
Baby infants came and went, their was nothing terribly exciting that I need you to know. The day came that we were to be transferred to the primary school; the new 'big school'. It was St. Mary's Boys Natinoal School and it was located across the road from my current school, strategically looking down at us from a huge hill. The day was upon us and naively I was expecting them to come down to collect us in long black caps and those hats, but alas, they weren't. I got Master Coyle who was, yet again, new on the teaching scene. A very striking young man with dark hair and a developing mullet. He was tanned and with such a complexion, could get away with wearing pink and yellow shirts - which he did.
Now parent teacher meetings from baby infants until my Leaving Cert. were all the same;
"Paul is a very pleasant child/well mannered"
and other variations. But it was always followed by the perpetual
"He could do much better, he is a little lazy."
I wasn't always teachers pet by no means. As Granny would say about my other unruly cousins;
"Look at that little faggot, sitting there as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, unless there was a hot coal held to his arse!"
Once I got a months detention for a crime, I did commit. Those days we were given a really floppy white ruler to rule our pages. One day when we were reading Irish I got this urge to put the biggest spit I could churn out, on the edge of the ruler. I bent the ruler back and let it loose. The seconds that preceded the flight of my fluids, looking back now, I felt I was possessed by a demon and I had to do this act of 'divilment'. Unfortunately, as if by magic, this particular spit was a sound seeker and hit the boy who was struggling with his reading in our native tongue. He stopped and in an instance Master Coyle looked at the reader and then looked straight at me. And why wouldn't he, I had the guiltiest face in the class and the end of my ruler was all wet.
I arrived back at our 'apartment'- I hated when John and Sheila called it a flat, soaking from the twenty minute walk, in the rain, from All Hallows to Mountjoy Square - this was home. It was really spacious, with a kitchen/dining area, huge sitting room, a piano, keyboard, three guitars and a snazzy CD system with numerous extra speakers. My bedroom had a double bed, built in wardrobes and a fabulous Georgian window. I loved it and the thoughts of packing all our stuff away and heading to China was challenging. I was late, not like me, for our rehearsal. But, as usual, they hadn't started, they were sitting around smoking and drinking tea and I busted my balls to get there on time. I said a quick hello to them and Donna who was setting up the keyboard. I went into my room and changed into track bottoms and got out of my shoes. Back out and made a few suggestions saying we had a lot to do. They were all very excited because the letter from the Irish bar in Beijing arrived confirming our contracts for the six months there. Sheila had been scouring the internet, while at work , looking for apartments over there and had printed out some very nice places.
We got stuck into the job at hand and rehearsed from six through to half eleven. I was starting to get more solos and Sheila wasn't to happy with that. Her voice was…ok, but she just looked like all her family had been shot the day before when she sang and I knew that wasn't going to go down well over there- actually anywhere (well if we had a gig in a concentration camp during their hayday, maybe then). We, and that included her boyfriend John, couldn't say anything. Sheila was the most paranoid android ever created. Everyone else had a problem and every converstaion with her was a feat of sheer excellence in extracting psychological information about you and your family from you, in the most secretive manner. John, Donna and myself all thought this but we couldn't say a thing. Even if there was a bum note, or the timing was wrong it was a half an hour process of dancing around the subject, hinting that something 'might' be wrong, it 'could' be the musicians. She would finally cop on and see that it was her and get into a huff, run into the bedroom where John had to follow and spend two hours listening to her vomit their whole past, why he started seeing her when he was already going out with someone and then left her to go back with the initial person - nothing to do with the fact that she isn't a great singer.
Why didn't I say something? Well, I knew what she was like and I knew that I wouldn't be getting this opportunity to get to China to play music if I did say she was shite. That left me and Donna to talk, I'd make more tea and she would talk. This interaction was always strange. The whole reason I got to live here, how I met the psychotic couple from co-dependant hell - all the bizarre happenings that had to occur for me to be feeling like this will all become apparent later.
Fourth class was upon us and the word was out that the two teachers were Mrs. Connolly and Master Watters. Mam got wind of this on the extensive and highly developed Monaghan grapevine. She knew Mrs. Connolly was strict and was sure to do something with my hideous penmanship. Master Watters was near retiring age and wasn't the best, to say the least. He was a lovely man and was sure to the children's choice, but that wasn't good enough for my Mum. So she made an appointment to see the principal of the school to air her grievances.
The last day of third class arrived and around eleven o'clock Mr. Higgins, the principal who must have been six foot something, with a strong, formidable build and tips on his shoes so you heard him coming asked to see me outside. He asked me where did I want to go? I thought this was a trick question, so I hesitated. My class had gotten Mr. Watters and I heard he was a good laugh. I told my principal that I'd go with my classmates. I was delighted. However on arrival home I had to pretend that there just wasn't room for me in that class (chuckling to myself).
I was the class pet and I never had a school experience so 'handy'. Mr. Watters wife had passed away recently and his children had grown up and left. Every lunch break I would take a little red note book with the very same words printed in Brush Scrpit MT -"Note Book", down Park St. and hand it into one of the girls in Londis. This was his shopping list. He would collect it after school and I got twenty pence for my troubles. This would buy me two packets of Onion Rings or four Refresher Bars. As the school year progressed I did other errands during school hours. Banking transactions, tax inquiries even buying him great, big, giant Y-fronts in Heaton's. When I was on class time I had to be careful not to be seen my the principal and worse still the Parish Priest. I would go down the disused school steps, that were over grown and had fallen branches strewn across the cracked concrete. When I descended to the bottom I had to climb over the green fencing which was directly across from the entrance of the Priests House.
One day, however I was coming back up the ruined steps. I can remember it well, it was a really hot sunny day and I had just finished a Sparkler which was ten pence, half of my earnings for that particular chore. As I arrived to the top I could see the fiery red hair of the PP. I stopped - actually I froze, I didn't know what to do. Like the incident with the ruler, the PP just looked straight at me as he closed the boot of his sports car. After about five seconds I walked as casual as I could, which wasn't very casual at all, more of a hop, skip and jump, as if someone was firing a gun at me with my vision fixated on the man of the cloth. I got back to the classroom and they were just breaking for lunch. I told my master that I had been spotted. When school was over that day he told me that the principal had said that the PP had seen me. I felt dismal, this was the end of errand running days. Now I had no excuse for not knowing any of the answers to the Irish passages or maths problems. I was wrong; my teacher just gave me a loving clip around the ear and said;
"Your gonna have to be more careful from now on!" as he smiled and walked out of the school with his paper under his arm.
This year was the most fun I had since I entered the educational system, but my learning was not advancing, my mathematical abilities were stunted and writing still looked like a modern art masterpiece entitled "Drunk Spider Walks Through Ink". Brian had stayed back last year because he was in hospital for something that my parents wouldn't tell me. I know that he lost a lot of blood and the operation, that was apparently a standard procedure, took three attempts. That didn't surprise me and I dubbed our local Hospital, 'Monaghan Abattoir'. Yet again my mother met with the principal and my future was discussed. Thankfully my career as the messenger boy was not. It was decided that I too was to stay back. This hit me very hard. I was going to leave my class. The thoughts of this were horrifying. People would think I was stupid, I'd be in class with younger brothers of my current friends. Worst of all, it was Mr. Treanor - and he scared me. He wasn't near as tall as Mr. Higgins but he was just as loud and sometimes we heard him going hell for leather on his students for our classroom which was five doors away.