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Garryowen, Chapter 1This story may contain adult content. |
| Written by mick beville | |
| Tuesday, 01 July 2008 | |
Garryowen 37 by Michael P. Beville
ONE WAY TICKET
37 Garryowen, the address on my birth certificate, there was no Avenue, Road or Street, just 37 Garryowen. It was day one or two; I'm not sure. There were three or four women standing in the living room sipping on cups of tea and staring straight at me. "Isn't he the best looking fella you ever laid eyes on," said the one with the hairy mole above her lip. "He is for sure," remarked another, reaching across the egg sandwiches in a wasted journey to the ashtray. "Oh Mother of God. Will you look at the size of him Mary; he's fekin enormous." "Don't you think I know it" mam replied. Then without hint of a boast and while adjusting both our substantial weights in search of small comfort on the old settee, she spoke again. "Doctor Hennessey said he was over twelve pounds." "Oh Mary, you poor woman... God forgive me but how did you ever feking manage him?" "I managed him like I manage everything around here, on my shagging own." Reaching over the arm of the settee for the matches' mam almost strangled me. Then as the match exploded only inches from my face, I smelt sulphur, followed by Woodbine, the cheapest tobacco blend on the planet.
37 Garryowen was an old damp inner city terrace that housed our family of five - six if you include Granddad Mulcahy. It was the twenty-eighth of March 1949 and as the mundane miracle of life was once more being celebrated to the sound of driving rain beating Ireland's eternal anthem on the windowpanes; the smell of burning turf and carbolic soap, mixed with a blend of tea, bread, and cabbage water filled my senses. I being the central character in this particular celebration of life, instinctively turned and honed in on a new and more powerful smell; mother's milk. In anticipation of my powerful needs, mam had unbuttoned her thick navy blue homemade woollen cardigan and was producing to the eyes of the entire room, her near exploding- blue veined double D breast. Everything else went from my mind and my mouth instinctively locked on to her throbbing wanton nipple. In ravenous ecstasy I gulped and gulped, and gulped some more. I gulped like it was on some crazy special. As much as you can drink in five minutes for free. Then amidst the warm heaven of what I considered to be the meaning of life, I drifted onto yet another plain. I could hear my mother's heart beat. In her heart- beat I could feel her despair; despair and the weight of yet another chain. There was no joy, no maternal comfort in her heartbeat. None of that, I've just taken part in a miracle kind of feeling. There was only pain and despair. The pain of being alone and suffocating and somehow I was part of her pain. Dad - Mathew - had long since realised his destiny and was thriving, as only alcoholics and religious maniacs do in a rain soaked and utterly god fearing Ireland. I guessed the alcohol was to help him endure the fear of God and his intimidating cronies as they lurched from every corner, with their ever-present reminder of ones constant failure. Failure to achieve the saintly unachievable, in a land where the weak get plastered and the tough eventually leave. Mam would never touch alcohol. I guessed she wasn't so frightened of god. But for her the ‘going' was certainly getting tougher. Tonight, oblivious to Mams pain, Dad would be the happiest man in the whole of Ireland and he would be generous with it; sharing his joy with anyone within an arm's reach of a pint of porter. Eleanor my big sister, later to become Saint El for her work and devotion to our pickled father; was at age six mother's little helper. She would tell me later that there were only two kinds of people in this world, ‘victims and carers.' Alec my big brother - the kids on the street called him bullet head - was three years old and keeping everyone on their toes with his constant demands. Then there was me -Michael- the latest and greatest reason for the stretch marks, the sleepless nights and the need to produce two gallons of milk a day. Like an insatiable leach I would latch onto the supply at least once every hour. Mam would have to peel potatoes, boil cabbage, make endless pots of tea, wash, iron, clean, and all with a twelve pound and growing, suction pump hanging from her breast.
My first memory of Granddad Mulcahy, I was in the passenger seat of the Austin van he was driving. The van was used to take churns of milk from the farms around Limerick and deliver them into town. It was also used to deliver greyhounds to Shannon airport for their flight to the dog tracks of England. I loved riding around with Granddad. Everything was so green warm and optimistic along Irelands country lanes. I particularly loved nature's shitty smells. Horseshit, pig ****, cow ****, duck ****, and that special smell at the farmhouse gate when they would all blend. There was plenty of room for **** in the Limerick countryside. I guess looking back, the Austin was a company van, but at the time I thought Granddad owned it. Driving along he would curse the rain, the potholes, the brakes, the wipers and the cows. All the time his knuckles would be pushing through his skin, his pink tongue hanging from the side of his grey whiskery mouth and his eyes fixed in desperate concentration to the windscreen. It's probably just as well that our genetic idiosyncrasies are only revealed to us slowly and over many years. That fateful day I also discovered the down side of Granddads otherwise benign habit with his tongue. You guessed it: A dog ran in front of us, the tyres screamed out in agony, the milk churns tried to join us at the front of the van and I heard my first naughty words from Granddad's lips. I say his lips because his tongue was almost in two pieces.
Granddad Mulcahy was a medium-sized man and his whiskers were always a day or two behind a shave. From my earliest memory he wore the same grey short back and side's haircut. His shirt was usually off-white cotton with a faint pin stripe. On Sundays he would attach a clean collar with a brass stud that was inlayed with mother of pearl. Like his haircut, his shirt was always fresh and smart. He wore a waistcoat unfastened in-doors, fastened out-doors and every morning without fail he would polished his black boots. He was so much more, but my most tangible memory of Granddad was the smell of boot polish, starched cotton, and carbolic soap. He had a scar on his top lip. I asked mam one day what caused it. "Hey Mam, what's wrong with Granddads lip?" "Shush now... he doesn't like to talk about it?" "Mam did Granddad have an accident?" "Yes he had an accident when he was a little boy, but don't mention it to him." Copyright 2008 mick beville |
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