DECEMBER 1988
DUBLIN CITY
BECAUSE ST CHRISTOPHER’S NATIONAL SCHOOL was smack in the middle of the city centre the high railing that surrounded the play yard was essential. This kept the children from straying from the school and onto the busy city streets. Needless to say, the older boys, those of ten or twelve years of age, had found ways to scamper either over or through the railings and make their way to the local shops when the teachers weren’t looking. However, the railings kept the younger boys in. It was the morning break and children were screaming and running in all directions all over the school yard. The chatter of their voices was deafening. At one end of the yard was a long stone building with a long bench along the wall; the children referred to this as ‘the shelter’. They would sit on the bench and eat their sandwiches or drink their milk, or whatever they had.
Cormac Carter cupped his hands together and blew hard into them. For a fraction of a second they warmed and then went cold again. It was freezing. He repeated the action three or four times before pulling his hands apart and sliding them up the sleeves of his duffle coat. This is how his Aunt Margaret taught him to warm his hands. Cormac lived with his aunt in one of the new inner city houses built in The Jarro. Aunt Margaret had five other children, and they all got to call her ‘Mammy’. Cormac had to call her Aunt Margaret. Cormac did not have a Mammy. He once had had a Mammy, Aunt Margaret told him, but he could not remember her. Aunt Margaret said she had died. Cormac didn’t really understand ‘died’.
With his hands warm, he leaned against the end wall of the shelter and slowly inched his face out until just his eye was looking out from the school yard. The eye wandered for a little and then focused on its target. He was here again. Cormac quickly pulled his head back. He wondered who this person was, this man who had been hanging around the school every day at playtime for the last few weeks. He had told Aunt Margaret about him at tea one evening. She had quickly looked over at Uncle John who was reading his newspaper. Uncle John looked up from the paper to meet her gaze. He shrugged and went back to his paper. Aunt Margaret had simply said, ‘Don’t mind him.’
Cormac took another peep out at the man. I wonder who he is, thought the boy. He made a decision there and then. Puffing up his chest he stepped out of the shelter and began to walk across the yard towards the man. He was going to ask this man who he was. He did not get the chance. The man saw him coming and by the time Cormac had got halfway across the school yard the man had vanished. The little six-year-old stood with his hands on his hips wondering.
‘Jesus, that was close,’ Dermot said aloud. His words were punctuated by puffs of steam as his warm breath met the icy air. He would have to give this up now. He was six weeks out of prison and every weekday for the last four weeks he had come to the school. It had taken just one day and a couple of questions to some of the older children to find out which one was Cormac Carter. He had watched him every day since, as if hoping in some way that in a gesture or a movement Cormac would confirm to Dermot that he was indeed his son. He hadn’t seen anything. He knew Cormac was living with Margaret Carter – a bitch, but good with kids. She was Mary’s eldest sister. Dermot heard the bells of St Jarlath’s church ringing out the twelve o’clock Angelus, and again he spoke aloud to himself, ‘Christ, I have to get to work.’ He checked his plastic bag to make sure it hadn’t burst. Then he quickly headed off down the street.
Since his release from prison, Dermot had been staying in the Iveagh Hostel near Christchurch in Dublin. It was Father Gibney who found him the accommodation, although he tried first to talk Dermot into going back to live with his mother. Dermot wouldn’t hear of it. He knew he had changed a lot himself over his six and a half years in prison. But the bitter memory of that confrontation with his mother in the visiting room of Mountjoy Prison had not left him. His feelings about that hadn’t changed.
The Iveagh Hostel was a shelter for indigent men. It had originally been set up and donated to Dublin city by Lord and Lady Iveagh of the Guinness family, and was now run by volunteers. It was crowded at night, and noisy too. A lot of the men staying there had drink or psychiatric problems. There were no cooking facilities, though you got a cup of tea every morning before you left at 8am. Dermot didn’t have to worry about his meals during the day, for Father Gibney had also fixed him up with a job. The priest had explained to Dermot that the job didn’t pay too much but at least it was a start, and if he was wise and put a few pounds aside he could eventually move into a flat and get himself a better job. When Father Gibney told Dermot of the position he was being offered Dermot smiled wryly. Dermot was now a kitchen porter in the Gresham Hotel, just like his father had been twenty years previously. Maybe his mother was right, maybe he was just like his father. Anyway, although the money wasn’t great, thanks to the Iveagh Hostel Dermot was able to save a few pounds, and thanks to the Gresham Hotel – for Dermot had all his meals there – he had put on weight since leaving prison.
When he arrived at the Gresham Hotel that day he went to the locker room. He changed into his kitchen overalls and, carefully placing his plastic bag of books in the bottom of his locker, he closed and locked it. For the next eight hours Dermot would wash pots.