‘That is where a distant relative of yours fell into the river. Do you know how it happened?’
I shook my head.
‘He was drunk and he got up and sat there and he thought he was riding the winner in the Grand National. And you know what happened then?’
‘No, I don’t,’ I said.
‘He fell off into the river. That’s what drink does to us.’
We laughed together.
I had my first drink on the way home from the creamery. Willie Purtill sat beside me on the cart, the reins of the donkey wrapped loosely around his hands, and behind us the empty milk churns rattled as we plodded home towards the Purtill farm. I was a city child and entranced by that world of haystacks, milking parlours, trips to the creamery and all the pungent scents of the countryside.
On this day, coming back from the crossroads, we stopped at a thatched pub. Willie pulled on the reins and brought the donkey to a stop. He went in and emerged a short while later with some lemonade and ‘porter’, a dark brew in a tin mug. (Porter was made by Arthur Guinness & Son.)
I wanted to try the black beer. Given what alcohol was doing to my childhood it might seem a strange request. But the impulse had nothing to do with logic. I was only aware of this intense curiosity and of a strange excitement. Give me a try of it, Willie. Go on. Give me one try of it.
Willie Purtill was my third cousin. He was a big, good-hearted farmer’s son. After a lot of pestering he relented. I drank the dark liquid slowly. It tasted bitter and I grimaced. Willie took the drink back and laughed. I didn’t like the taste, but I would later grow to love the feel of pubs and the smell of them – the peat from the fire, the tobacco, the faintly sweet aroma from the beer that had been spilled on the counter and floor and which had worked its way into the permanent odour of these places.
Next door to my grandmother’s house on Church Street in Listowel was Alla Sheehy’s pub. Alla was bald and plump and kind, a laughing man who gave me free lemonade and exchanged tips for the horses with my grandmother. I loved being in that pub with its rows and rows of beer and spirit bottles, and the farmers on fair day bunched up together at the counter, their voices filled with argument and laughter. There were beers like Time, Phoenix, Double Diamond, all now extinct, and the ubiquitous Guinness. Above the bar was a stuffed fox about to devour a stuffed pheasant, the two of them suspended forever in the moment of surprise.
I had my next drink when I was about eight years old. It was Halloween and my mother had cooked a turkey. There was a big flagon of cider on the table. I think my mother may have reckoned that cider would be less damaging to my father than beer or whiskey. On this Halloween night my mother lit a fire. The shadow of flames flickered and danced on the walls. And reflected against the fire the liquid in the cider bottle took on a deep golden colour. My parents were in the kitchen talking. I poured a small measure from the flagon. I sipped at first. It tasted sweet, delicious. I swallowed. The liquid hit my stomach and I felt warm. The warmth spread out from my stomach, along my arms and legs, up my neck and into my heàd.
I took the flagon by the neck. It was heavy and I struggled to raise it to my lips. One swallow. More of that lovely warmth. My feet left the ground. I walked on air. I felt so good, a feeling like laughter that went on and on. I never forgot the power of that first draught of cider. It felt as if a warm rainbow had exploded in my head. It took me away from the present, and that was the best feeling in the world. I didn’t drink again for years after that night with the cider. But my body had registered the magic of booze. In time I would return to alcohol and nothing I saw as a child would be powerful enough to pull me away from it.
Another memory.
My father drinks too much that night. And he keeps drinking. Through days of remorse and promises, and nights, so many nights, of that voice filled with rage and pain. My father is being pulled further away from us. My twitching has got much worse. It begins with my eyes blinking quickly. I can’t stop them. Then it becomes a tightening of the neck muscles. They tighten and loosen, tighten and loosen. I feel like a freak.
I have only one photograph of those days. It was taken on the day of my Holy Communion. I am standing in the garden of our house in Dublin and blinking into the sunlight. I am a small dark-haired boy in a navy blazer and white shorts. In my mind’s eye I see him still, that strange little boy. He is always on the edge of crowds in the schoolyard, always thinking, always somewhere else, a dreamer like his grandfather and his father. In front of strangers he is quiet. He says ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ too often. ‘Stop saying “thank you” all the time,’ a woman tells him. ‘It’s very irritating” Silly old cow. What does she know of his world? People who know the family remark to his mother on how well behaved he is. But it isn’t good behaviour. He simply does not know how to behave as an ordinary child.
So if he is angry he does not show it. And if he is sad, if something happens that reduces him to tears, he goes upstairs and hides away to weep. The boy lives inside his head because it is by far the safest place he knows.
From there he makes all kinds of journeys; he reads the Ladybird Book of David Livingstone and sees himself crossing the African plains. Africa will become the place of escape. The pictures show a genial old white man surrounded by smiling natives. The colours are so vivid! Outside on the grey slate roofs of Terenure rain is falling and the clouds brush the chimney pots. But in Africa the sun is shining and the sky spreads forever. He puts his hands over his eyes and imagines he is with Livingston.. The old man is kind to him. He tells the natives to carry the boy because his legs are tired. They cross mountains and rivers, and they reach the Great Falls together. Moise e Tsunye. He tries to say it but his mouth swallows the words. Then Livingstone vanishes into the spray and the boy is back in Dublin, promising himself that one day he will go there.
He goes to the library in the school where his mother teaches and finds anything he can on Africa. There is a book of world history: Man’s March through Time, though it doesn’t say much about the Africans, only the white explorers. He reads about Hannibal, the most famous African general, who crossed the Alps and challenged Rome.
In another book Stanley is in the Congo and the natives are blacker than in any of the other books. There is also a book with a picture of Cecil Rhodes on a horse and the ground around him covered with diamonds. The boy in the Communion photograph dreams of being a hero. He wants to save people from fires, rescue them from drowning. He sees himself back in the days of the Irish revolution.
Danger is everywhere, but he always survives. Patrick Pearse becomes his hero. And Michael Collins too. They teach him in school that dying for Ireland was a glorious thing. He wants to die for Ireland. Gloriously like Cuchullain strapped to the stump of a tree, the hero light flashing above his head and he fighting back the armies of Queen Maeve. A man called Leo Maguire teaches the class singing. He has his own show on the radio where he says: ‘If you must sing a song, sing an Irish song.’ Mr Maguire has a deep, hoarse voice. The boy sings the ‘Bold Fenian Men’ and ‘Roddy McCorley’ and his favourite ‘The Foggy Dew’: ‘T was down the glen came marching men…
In all of these worlds he enters – the Africa of exploration, the Ireland of revolution – he is brave. There is no hint of weakness about him. There is nothing to be ashamed about. Nobody can mock him in these worlds.
Years later he reads a story by Frank O’Connor called ‘The Ugly Duckling’ and he is taken back to the world of childhood:
Because of some inadequacy in themselves – poverty and physical weakness in men, poverty or ugliness in women – those with the gift for creation built for themselves a rich interior world; and when the inadequacy disappeared and the real world was spread before them with all its wealth and beauty, they could not give their whole heart to it.
Uncertain of their choice, they wavered between goals; were lonely in crowds, dissatisfied amid noise and laughter, unhappy even with those they