Wandering in Exile (10 page)

“I don’t think that is so.” Giovanni reached forward and touched the pocket of Patrick’s shirt, right above his heart. “You carry great weight here.”

Patrick sat back in his chair and raised his cup between them. Giovanni was a wise old man who could look into the soul of anyone he met. He might have blushed but Giovanni just laughed. “Do you think you are the first priest who has carried the burden of secret love in his heart?

“And now, Giovanni must have his rest.”

The old man rose and briefly placed his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “But remember one thing: everywhere you go in Rome, someone has walked before you.”

Patrick watched him leave, collecting cups and glasses as he went. Giovanni was a part of the city. His family had run the café for generations, serving priests and plunderers alike.

Patrick turned again to watch tourists filing in and out of the old temple, built to honor all of the gods of man’s creation. He liked that; it gave him hope that one day the human race might see all that they shared and worry less about the things that divided them.

Giovanni’s words stayed with him all the way home, along the Via Arenula, across the Ponte Garibaldi and in among the trees of Trastevere.

“Deirdre, Danny, are you well?”

Martin and David rose from their chairs as Danny and Deirdre approached. David kissed both of her cheeks but Martin declined. “I still haven’t shaken off the bug I picked up in Ireland,” he explained and waited for her to sit.

“I love your hair,” David remarked as he sat opposite her. “It’s like Lady Di meets Madonna.”

“That’s exactly what I was going for.” Deirdre laughed and raised her menu. She loved David’s attention but she was a little embarrassed too.”

“I mean it girl. You look so chic.”

“And don’t you like my hair?” Danny intruded.

Deirdre could never understand that. Danny was jealous of David and the way he was with her. “It’s bad enough,” he’d complain to her after every time they got together, “he’s with my uncle. Does he want to be with you too?” Deirdre might have chided him but she understood. Martin meant everything to him.

“That depends,” David played along, filling the awkward moments when Martin coughed from the depths of his lungs. Martin was pale and had lost weight—almost like he was beginning to waste away. “What look are you going for?”

“The I-don’t-give-a-shit look.”

“Oh, honey. You’ve nailed that.”

Deirdre knew that Danny was getting pissed. He always came out second-best in his banters with David, so she changed the subject. “You’re very quiet, Martin.”

“He’s sulking,” David interceded. “He won’t take my advice and get a second opinion.”

“I don’t need a second opinion. The doctor said it’s viral and that the antibiotics will take care of it.”

“Well, I think you should see someone else. It’s your health.”

“Maybe I will,” Martin answered, looking tired and grey.

“So,” David moved them all along like a guide. “How are the young love-birds? I hear that you are thinking of moving. I know of a wonderful, newly renovated place down on Winchester Street.”

“Does it have a balcony? I’m going to make Danny smoke out there.”

David put on his most shocked face. “Danny. Are you still smoking? Don’t you know how bad it is for you? You know,” he continued, talking to Deirdre before Danny could answer, “you should cut him off until he quits.”

Deirdre couldn’t help it and giggled. She wasn’t comfortable talking about sex, but with David, it all seemed so natural. “Maybe I will.”

“So,” David pronounced the subject decided and raised his menu. “What’s everybody going to eat? They do a wonderful quiche. You must try it.”

“I will then, if you insist.”

“I do. And for you?” He turned to Danny.

“Bacon and eggs.”

“How original. And Martin?”

“I don’t really feel like eating. I’ll just have a cappuccino.”

“You must eat something,” Deirdre and David both said, practically in unison.

“Try the Eggs Benedict.”

Martin nodded like he didn’t have the energy to argue.

“And can I get a Bloody Mary?” Danny asked after the waiter had taken their order. “Anybody else?”

“Danny. It’s a bit early.”

“Not really. It’s evening in Ireland.”

David looked askance at Danny for a moment before turning to commiserate with Deirdre with his eyes. He had made it obvious, so many times, that he thought she was far too good for him. She liked that and remembered it every time Danny complained about the little changes she was making to his wardrobe, and his hair, and his shoes. He complained that she was killing off the old him, bit by bit, and David was a willing accomplice.

Deirdre and David chatted throughout, giving Martin and Danny a chance to catch up on the news from home.

“Did he do it?”

“Yeah, your mother told me they have almost finished the work and should be able to put the house for sale in a few weeks.”

“Do you think they’ll do okay?”

“I’m sure they will. Whatever we might think about Donal, he does seem to have a nose for money.”

“Yeah, other people’s.”

Martin didn’t respond. He didn’t trust Donal; there was something about him. But he said nothing for Gina’s sake. She was enjoying the ride and he knew her well enough to know that she was more than capable of hitting the brakes. If the time ever came.

Even remembering his trip made him shiver a little. Everything back there was cold and damp and mean-spirited. Normally, he could handle it, but this trip had really brought him down.

“Danny? How the hell did we ever survive in such a cold damp bog of a place?”

“Don’t be such an emigrant; it wasn’t all that bad. Except for the cold. And the damp. And the smell of bog on everybody. And the rain.”

“Still miss it, then?”

“Like fuck! I don’t know how they put up with it. Even Ma was telling me that they’re all goin’ on holidays when the money comes. They’re goin’ to the Costa Del Sol.”

“You know you were flirting with him.”

“With who, David?”

“Of course, David. The two of you were like giggling girlfriends.”

Deirdre turned and faced him seriously. “What bothers you more, Danny, that he’s black or that he’s gay?”

“Both, if you must know. And I don’t see why you have to be all . . . with him.”

“All what Danny? Say it.”

He hated when she did that. She was so much better at explaining her feelings than he was. He was better off changing the subject. “I suppose we’re goin’ to have to look at the place he was tellin’ you about.”

“Don’t you want to? We need a bigger place. We have nowhere to put anybody if they come to visit.”

“But I’m happy where we are.”

He knew it was a lost cause. They would go and look at the place and, if it was right, move. His whole life was becoming a self-improvement project, constantly guided by the new ideas Deirdre brought back from the university or from David. He was getting tired of it but everyone told him he was just being an asshole. “You’re so fuckin’ well off, ya bollocks,” Frank often reminded him. “And just be thankful that she has whatever is wrong with her. Otherwise she wouldn’t want to have anything to do with you.” Even Jimmy agreed, “You’re one lucky bastard.”

Danny still resented all the changes but maybe she was right. She had started school and was taking courses in Celtic Studies. She had become so immersed in it all—sometimes not even coming home to make dinner for them.

“Trust me, Danny. It will be a lot better and, after I graduate, we can have family over to visit. By the way,” she deflected before he could comment, “they are planning a Celtic evening at school and I mentioned your band.”

“Us? Playing in front of all that crowd? It’s a bit big house, don’t ya think?”

“Oh, Danny, you must try to broaden your outlook.”

“I don’t know, but what I do know is that I cannot stay here. The past is too oppressive here—the tit-for-tat and the ongoing suffering of the women and children. Why can’t men just fight each other and not drag the rest of us into it?” Miriam was close to tears. She had been watching the news and the pictures of dead horses in Regent Park had really torn her up.

“They are often no more than disillusioned boys told they are fighting for freedom.” Karl held her hand as the evening sunshine began to fade.

She had been on edge for months, as the British took back the Falklands, and the Israelis pounded the Lebanese before letting loose the Phalangists to slaughter thousands in the refugee camps. Miriam had wanted to go and stand between the women and children and the righteousness of murderers and assassins.

Karl wouldn’t let her. He knew what happened when the world looked the other way. Miriam was bright with hope and optimism, refusing to believe that there were men in the world who would shoot her down without a thought, but he knew better. He had been in Vietnam when his troops had done things that would haunt him forever.

“We could still go to Rome?” He reached across and took her small hand in his. Touching her skin to remind her that she was not alone. “We can find something to study and pass our days somewhere warm.”

She knew he was trying to ease her mind but she tried to smile. “Yes, we could apply for the position as God’s Banker.”

“Oh I don’t think things are that desperate.” Karl touched her cheek. He loved her deeply for the peace she brought to his soul, even while she railed against all that was wrong with the world. He loved her for that. When he first came home from the war he had gotten lost inside of himself. He had no one to talk to about the terrible things he had seen. Young men shredded by mortars and bombs hidden in the fresh, green jungle. Young men, whose eyes once shone with innocence, began to look like old men. Growing more and more haggard as their tours dragged on.

No one at home could understand, least of all his parents. They tried, but he couldn’t burden them with it. They had changed too. They had once supported the war but, as it dragged on, rejected it and not just for their son’s sake. Karl’s war always made the six-o-clock news and even though the images were grainy, the horror of it all came home to roost. When they got to see it as it really was, war was never righteous—it was always total human failure. A failure that was always being perfected.

He did two tours. Not because he was a hero, or a fool. He was a good junior officer who had learned the ways of the jungle. The night before he was to ship back, he stood before the men who had followed him. Young, downy-faced boys who would never survive without him.

He phoned his father before he signed up again, and explained why he had to do it. His father assured him he understood but Karl could hear his mother crying in the background.

When he finally came home she held him and wouldn’t let him go. Even when he went for a walk around the old neighborhood, she followed him with her eyes and stood by the window until he returned.

He had tried to fit back in, but America wanted to forget and he couldn’t let them. Nor could he agree with the hippies who called him a baby-burner. None of them knew or understood either. His father did. He had fought in the Pacific and Karl followed his lead and never spoke about it again.

Going to Dublin was his father’s idea. When he came home from his war he studied there while he tried to write his book. He never did, but he always remembered Dublin with a smile on his face. “All their wars were happy and all their songs are sad,” he laughed when Karl’s mother was out of earshot. “Go there and find yourself again.” He found Miriam instead, resplendent in her shame.

“We could always go back to the States and fight for the Equal Rights Amendment?”

“I doubt they would let me in.”

“They wouldn’t have any choice if you were my wife.”

“Oh, be serious.”

He knelt before her, in the middle of Stephen’s Green, and asked for her hand.

“Of course I told him to get up before people started looking at us,” Miriam wrote to Joe. “I was shocked and delighted at the same time. He is a good man—you’d like him—but I am unsure. And it’s not just what my ‘ex’ might think. I am too old to be falling love—amn’t I?”

Joe would know what to say to her. He always did.

She wasn’t going to have a Church wedding. It wouldn’t feel right. Besides, Karl wasn’t Catholic and she didn’t want to deal with any of that. They weren’t going to have children—she was far too old for that type of thing.

She thought about writing to Patrick, too, but she couldn’t bring herself around to it even though it was for the better—for her and Karl and for Patrick too. She would tell him when enough time had passed and he had gotten over his crush on her. Poor Patrick. She hoped that Rome was being good to him.

Frank loaded the van while Jimmy and Danny lugged everything down from the third floor. Deirdre had packed the boxes and marked them. They were easy to move but Frank wanted the couch and the bed first.

“What’s it matter?” Danny asked when Frank chided him.

“Because you have to put the big stuff in first. Now fuck-off and get the couch. And the mattress and box spring.”

“Alright, alright, don’t get all fucking snarky.”

“I’m doing you a favor, ya bollocks. Do you think I like wasting a whole day on you? I could be out working and earning a few bucks.”

“I thought you said there was no work around.” Jimmy had been asking Frank for work—if any was going. Frank was a carpenter and Jimmy could carry wood and tools.

“Fuck-off the pair of you and do as you’re told. It’s my van and we’ll load it my way—the proper way.”

They ceded and fetched the bed. The mattress was awkward but at least it could be bent around the corners of the stairwell. The box spring required a rudimentary knowledge of geometry that was beyond Jimmy and Danny. They got stuck on the last turn until the super came out to help. But after a couple of hours or so, they got it all done and piled in to drive the few blocks over to Parliament and Winchester, in the heart of Cabbagetown, now almost half-renovated.

“You’re moving up in the world, Danny, I heard this is going to be the place to be.”

“He is like fuck. He’s just riding along on Deirdre’s skirts.”

“Leave him alone, Frank.”

They pulled up at the back of the renovated house that shared its parking space with the Beer Store, the government-run outlet where they slung the boxes of beer along the rollers like they were begrudged.

“You’ll be alright for beer anyway.”

The liquor store was just the other side of Winchester. There, all the bottles were kept hidden and customers had to write down their selection from the descriptions on the boards. Then hand them to a man who seemed unwilling to offer any assistance. ‘Toronto the Good’ suffered intemperance and the resulting tax contributions—but could not seem encouraging, for one reason or another.

Moving in was a lot easier. They just had to drag everything up to the second floor deck and shove it through the back door. The apartment was open with a large room with a working fireplace, a smaller room where they could eat and an even smaller but well equipped kitchen behind a bar-like counter. The bedrooms were small, too, and the washroom was little more than a closet but it was all tastefully finished.

“This place is alright,” Jimmy agreed as Deirdre showed him around.

“It is, isn’t it?”

“It used to be a roach-ridden flop house.”

“Thanks for sharing that, Frank.”

But Deirdre just laughed and directed the incoming boxes, depending on their markings.

When they were done, Danny brought them across the street for a few beers while Deirdre began to unpack.

The Winchester Hotel was typical of the older taverns in Toronto. “Watch yourself in here,” Frank said, nodding in a knowing way as he held the door and let Jimmy and Danny go before him.

“Why?”

“’Cos it’s Pogey Day.”

Frank smiled as the tray of draught arrived and each one of them was given two small glasses—the legally allowed allotment. But the waiter hovered by their elbows as they drained their glasses and quickly replaced them.

Built as a hotel, the Winchester once offered cheap rooms to travelling salesmen and others of the working class in transit. Never a place of beauty, it used to have a clean orderliness about it but salesmen now preferred the sameness offered by the low-end hotel chains and the Winchester’s rooms were rented on a monthly basis—welfare cheques exchanged for the surety of a bed and a place to wash and shave. It was the last fixed abode of those that life had passed by—East-Coasters and others who hadn’t risen on the tides of emigration. Old men now made older by years of grind, ending their days in musty little rooms, walking the streets until the end of the month when their cheques finally arrived.

After rent and board there was hardly enough left to be stretched until the next so they splashed it around like confetti in the men-only bar; another relic of when the city fathers frowned on such behavior—at least in public.

And when it was gone they would stand up and, acting on the prodding of some inner demon, flushed with alcohol, erupt against all the injustices cruel fate had visited upon them. Some sang lewd ditties and some called out all who tried to silence them. Some spoke of government plots, while the most succinct simply pulled their pants down and wagged at the world with their pale pinched arses.

They were ejected by the burliest waiters but it was better that way—leaving with a flourish before facing another long month asking for change and searching for butts along the street.

“So, Boyle, is this going to be your new local?”

“You never know. I kinda like it.”

“Are you fucking mad?” Jimmy gaped around in disbelief.

“We’ll all end up here sooner or later.” Frank laughed and lit a cigarette.

“Speak for yourself. This won’t be me.”

“Look around you. How many of them do you think said the same thing?”

“You’re so fucking morose.”

They drank their beer as the waiter stood over them, seeming to disapprove that they were drinking so slowly.

“We should do a gig here.”

“Only if they have chicken wire.”

“I forgot to tell you,” Danny interrupted them. “Deirdre got us a gig at the university.”

“Great. Can we do some Moving Hearts?”

“We can’t play stuff like that. We should do something intellectual.”

“Like what?”

“I’ve been working on some stuff of my own.”

“I don’t know,” Danny interrupted them, “Deirdre told them we were Celtic.”

“What’s that even mean?”

“It means we have to sing the ‘Black Velvet Band’ in Scottish accents.”

“Hey, I know someone who plays the bagpipes.”

“Why don’t we just kick you in the bollocks while you’re singing? It’ll sound the same.”

“He doesn’t want Danny to know. At least not yet—not until we know for sure.”

David was worried. His broad smile was gone and his eyes were haunted. Deirdre reached out and touched his hand but David pulled it away. She knew what hung over him. There had been talk of a ‘gay cancer’ for almost two years, of a plague passing among them. “God’s retribution,” the righteous scorned, and seemed to take delight in the tragedy.

“I won’t say anything, for now, but we will have to tell him.”

Danny hadn’t seen much of his uncle recently. He’d been busy, working all day, and the band was gigging four or five nights a week. The other nights, he’d sit on the couch watching the hockey game and drinking beer. Sometimes Deirdre got a bit frustrated with him but she didn’t complain. He was bringing home enough money for her to study in comfort. Some Saturdays he even insisted on taking her shopping and waited patiently while she tried everything on. Sometimes, she wished he wasn’t so busy so they could do more together, but for now she let it pass.

She saw Martin and David regularly and had often chided Martin for not taking better care of himself. Since he had come back from Ireland he seemed to be wasting away. It all made perfect sense now. Perfect in the most horrible way.

“And what about you? How are you doing?”

David almost seemed embarrassed. “I’m fine, girl.”

“David. You are the world’s worst liar.”

He looked cornered for a moment before he began to cry and Deirdre couldn’t help herself and took him in her arms, ignoring those sitting around them. They often met in The Senator. David worked nearby and Deirdre loved its nostalgia. Too much of Toronto was rushing into change.

“I’m scared, Deer-dree.” He always had difficulty with her name. “I’m scared for myself and for Martin. I’m also afraid that I might have given it to him.”

“But that’s ridiculous.”

“I really wish it was but I was Martin’s only.”

“But you’re showing no signs of anything wrong.”

“Maybe I’m a carrier. Not everybody gets infected.”

“But you have been with Martin for so long. How . . .” She stopped as he hung his head in shame.

“It was just once. Just a stupid little fling one night when Martin and I had a big fight. Only, after we got back together I lied and now . . . how can I tell him now?”

“Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty?” Frank sang and silenced the room full of men in tartan skirts, groomed beards, and sporrans dangling between their thighs, while their wives stood primly in lace-edged linens beneath their tartan sashes.

“How he fell with a roll and a rumble?”

Even the caterers paused their dashing between the tables and the younger professors nodded and smiled to each other.

“Curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple.”

Frank was on a roll and closed his eyes while clutching his whistle in his hand. They would do an instrumental verse if he hesitated on the words. It was all very well rehearsed. “At the butt of the Magazine Wall.”

“The Magazine Wall, hump, helmet and all.” Danny and Jimmy joined in on the chorus.

“They’re doing James Joyce,” the crowd acknowledged and edged a little closer. Earlie,r when the band first arrived, they had looked disappointed and somewhat alarmed that Danny and the lads looked more like a rock band or drug dealers.

Deirdre’s friends flocked around her and whispered. “They are great, Dee,” but Deirdre had to force herself to smile. She would have to tell Danny about Martin—when they got home.

“He was fa fa father of all schemes for to bother us,” Frank stammered as Ronnie Drew had done.

“And religious reform, hideous in form.” Danny and Jimmy were beginning to make it sound like a Gregorian chant.

By now the professors were joining on the chorus, puffing up like baritones while their wives checked to see how much they had drunk. They weren’t a bad lot. Most of them were only Celtic by ancestry but they would not be denied the opportunity to sing along with the real thing.

“He was joulting by Wellinton’s monument,” Frank sang on with one hand cupped to his ear, his accent becoming more pronounced until it almost sounded guttural.

Jimmy added a stifled strum on the bass for effect, sounding almost like a snare drum.

By now, the professors were mouthing the phrases to each other in total communion with the playful words of one of the greatest writers, the one they all offered courses on, explaining and deciphering all that Joyce had put there to keep them busy for years.

“Will ya look at them,” Frank whispered aside. “You’d think they were at a fucking rock concert.” And turning back to the mic, he hushed them before continuing.

He paused as Jimmy’s snare drumming rose to a crescendo and came to a sudden shocking halt.

Deirdre knew he would take it badly and debated waiting until the morning.

Danny was high as a kite all the way home, on adoration and some strong smelling dope. The band went on from high to high, even surviving the moments when Frank stopped in the middle of
The Irish Rover
to tell the audience how great they were. “You’se are the best crowd we’ve ever played to. Even the bars we normally play don’t get this wild. And you,” he had turned from the mic and whispered across to Jimmy, his whispering leaking out into the room. “Said that they’d be a pretentious bunch of stuck-up bastards. All liver-spotted—and their hatchety old wives.”

After a moment of hesitation, the crowd roared back to life, laughing and shaking their heads. Even some of the wives laughed too, at least the ones who had been drinking.

“Did you see the looks on their faces? They fucking loved us, man! They fucking loved us.”

“They did, Danny.”

“Is that all?”

“You guys were brilliant.”

“Brilliant?” He stepped across in front of her, his face right before hers. His eyes searching deep inside her. “We were far more than that. It’s like those old farts got to see the real thing for the first time. We were more than brilliant.”

He turned his head slightly to one side, casting a shadow across his face, making one side look so dark. And it made him look like he was sneering, the way he once did.

“Can’t you admit? All the times you complained about me going over to Frank’s. Admit it, you thought we were just getting wasted. Didn’t you?”

“Danny. Stop a minute. I got to tell you something. Something serious.”

“What! Just tell me that you were wrong.” He reached out and lifted her in his arms, up against him, hugging her with sheer delight.