It ain't easy to do when you're busy talking to people in your head, but it seems by doing sketches of faces of my characters I'm able to center myself. Somewhat.
This sketch is of Jake Blaine, the hero of The Vanishing of Owen Taylor. It captures him so well, I'm startled. I used a photo of the same model as on the cover...and makes me want to try even harder to get the book to selling well.
I haven't done one of Brendan, yet, because I haven't found the right look for him. I have an image of him bloodied and in shock, but that's not what I want. I'm seeking one that's strong yet sensitive and wary...not a tall order. I decided this when I wrote a section that makes me very uncomfortable...but is right for him.
This is after he's returned to Derry and been brutalized by an RUC interrogation. The only reason he hasn't been arrested by the British Army is due to the rioting caused by Bobby Sands' death. The armed forces are too busy trying to keep control to worry about a man who's back in the country illegally. He's rushing his mother to the hospital because she's finally succumbing to cancer and they're stopped and roughed up at a British checkpoint until a captain comes up to see what's going on.
-----------
He returned my passport to me. I hit over to the driver’s side and Jimmy made his way into the passenger side. A jeep pulled out in front of us and we followed it across the Craigavon Bridge to the Waterside and the massive Altnagelvin Hospital.
The Rover was easy to drive, even on the right side, and having the jeep ahead of us helped me keep in the correct lane. So as we drove, Jimmy leaned back and whispered to me, “He don’t believe you, the Captain.”
To be honest, I hadn’t given it a moment’s consideration till that moment, but deep within I knew he was right. So I nodded. “Will he check on my passport?”
“Is it stolen?”
“Borrowed.” Jimmy cast me an eye, just as we whipped onto the bridge. I realized the Callaher’s Cigarettes sign was gone, and the absence of it seemed to mock me as I murmured, “But with my photo slipped in.”
Jimmy sighed. “Then he’ll contact your state department for verification. Does this Landau fella look at all like you?”
“If I lost three stone and had the look of a hawk, maybe.”
“Shite. When we’re at hospital, call me wife.” He dipped his finger in his own blood and wrote the number on the back of my left hand. “Tell her all that’s happened.”
“I’m sorry for this, Jimmy.”
“Sorry for what? I thought you were who you claimed. I’d not seen this Jeremy lad, before.”
“Won’t matter.”
“Yes it will. I’ve relatives in Newcastle. Caera’s to call them if I’m snatched, and they’re to call their solicitor, and he’s brother to a member of Parliament. I won’t be much troubled.”
“You’ll beat the Brits at their own game, you will.”
“It’s nice to think so,” he sighed then added, “but you...”
I nodded and we said not another word till we rolled up to A&E.
Nurses and doctors swarmed out to meet us. Seems the Captain had rung ahead to inform them. They took Ma over and carted her to Urgent Care, Maeve giving them all the details of her health, while I called Jimmy’s wife then stayed with him to see he was tended to. He needed but three sutures to close the wound. An hour later, a man named Kelly appeared from out of nowhere to see Jimmy got home well enough.
He was hesitant to leave me and Maeve. “We can wait, Brendan.”
“No, Jimmy. Go. We’ll grab a taxi once Ma’s settled in.”
Kelly took him by the arm, nodded at me -- I don’t recall him saying word one in my direction -- led Jimmy away...and I was left alone. And I luxuriated in it.
I noticed it was fast approaching noon and I was feeling it, having had no breakfast. I strolled over to the café, had a fry-up and tea, then bought a cheese sandwich for Maeve with a lemonade drink and went looking for her.
After five different nurses sent me wrong (two of them deliberately, I’m sure), I found Ma and Maeve in a dormitory room, curtains rolled up to hide them. Ma was on oxygen and an IV, with monitors connected to keep track of her heart and other vital signs. I noticed the catheter had been re-established and what fluid was in the bag was a hideous brown. She looked asleep, her skin drawn even tighter across her face, her mouth open and all her teeth revealed, more dead than living, already. Maeve sat beside her in a hard wood chair.
I brushed her arm with the lemonade bottle and offered her both it and the sandwich. She shook her head, no, then thought better and accepted them. She opened the bottle and sipped some lemonade. I waited. She finally rose and led me outside the curtains.
As she opened up the sandwich, she said, “Time’s come.” I only nodded. It was hardly a surprise. “Doctors say she’s into renal failure. Soon she’ll be in coma...and then...”
Her eyes filled with tears and her voice whispered into silence. I held her close.
“Have you made arrangements?” I asked, suddenly realizing I’d never bothered to even wonder about it, before. As if doing so would mean Ma’s death would come sooner. Silly thing to think, but there it is.
Maeve nodded. “I’ll ring Rhurai to come. He can get hold of Father Jack -- ”
“Don’t. The Brits won’t let them over -- ”
“They’ll let them come for this. The British aren’t such horrible people, Bren -- ”
“You can say that, after what just happened?”
She pulled back and looked at me, as if I were a stranger. Pulled off a bite of the sandwich and nibbled on it. “I’ll be back directly. Thanks for the sammie and drink. And I’ll send up a priest.”
She wandered off, seeking a phone. I stood there, watching her go, and I noticed this curious absence of feeling within me. Maeve was fighting to keep herself in control as our mother lay dying. A woman who’d been one of the reasons so many years of our lives were hell. A woman who’d sliced anyone to bits if they disagreed with her in any way. A woman who’d brutalized not only me with her words, twice since I came here, but also Maeve and Rhuari. And who’d made sure I understood her hatred of Joanna, even before the bomb. A woman who’d been more than cruel in her existence. And Maeve was devastated that soon she’d be gone from our world. And I felt nothing about it, not one single solitary emotion.
It was odd, just standing there, unconcerned one way or the other how things went. And I knew when Ma finally did die, there’d be no change in my emotion. Oh, it wasn’t a conscious knowing; just the intellectual idea that death was coming and the person it called upon laid no claim to my heart or soul in any way, any longer. My love for the woman -- love that lasted even after she’d disowned me -- now it was as dead as my Da, and my sole feeling was for the pain Maeve, Mairead, Rhuari, Kieran and Eamonn would feel at her crossing the river into the unknowable world.
A groan cut into my reverie. I slipped back to Ma’s bed to find her awake and looking about. The oxygen mask kept her from being able to speak, so she whimpered and her hands clawed vaguely at the air. I took her right one, so cold and frail, and sat beside her.
“It’s all right, Ma. It’s Brendan. I’m right here.”
She didn’t look at me. Just said a word over and over and over. I couldn’t make it out so leaned closer. Lifted the mask a hair and heard, “Priest. Priest. Priest.”
I went cold. Death was here and she wanted a chance to make her last confession. I wondered if my sister would send the priest first or call Rhuari.
“Maeve’s gone for one,” I said, not knowing if Ma could hear me. “She’ll be back soon.”
She kept saying it. “Priest. Priest. Priest.” Over and over, her eyes dancing about the room, her free hand still clawing at the air is if trying to keep death away. She had the look of fear about her. Terror in the quiver of her voice. I think she knew -- no one would come to absolve her of her sins. Not before it was too late. Were I to bolt out and down to the chapel and find one of the holy fathers sitting in a pew waiting for me and drag him back at a full run, I’d not make it in time. The little light in her eyes was already fading. Her voice growing softer. Her hands shaking with fright.
So I removed my coat, rolled down my sleeves and buttoned them, buttoned my shirt up to just under the collar and pulled the neck of my white t-shirt up so it could be seen above it. Then I found Maeve’s rosary and took both Ma’s hands and kissed them and said in a lowered voice, “I’m here, Mrs. Kinsella.”
Her shaking stopped. Her eyes shifted to me, still unfocused but aimed at mine. She almost seemed to smile. “Father? Father? I’m dying, Father.” She drew me closer. Her voice a whisper. “Bless me...Father...for I have sinned. It’s been -- it’s been...so many years since...my last confession.”
After all those years at mass? Truly?
“God be with you, my child. What do you wish to tell me?”
“I need to...to be rid...hate in my heart, Father. There’s so...so much hate in my heart.”
“Release it, then,” I whispered. I’d no idea if I was doing this right. I hadn’t been to confession since I was twelve, and even then it had been a cold affair with Father Jack. “God will know you have -- have cast it aside.”
“So much hate, Father. My son...so much hate.”
I held my breath. Which of us was she referring to?
“Do you hate your own child?”
“Made him...prisoner...my hate. He’s dying.” Eamonn, preparing to starve himself to death. I was almost relieved. “Make him stop. Please, Father. Make him stop. Not right. But I...I put him there. Not right. Make him stop.”
“I will.”
“Make him stop. He’s the eldest -- the one...the most important...”
Right to the gut, as usual. “I’ll see to it.”
“Promise me, father.”
“I promise. Sleep well, my child.”
She seemed to relax. Took hold of the rosary -- no, gripped it and rubbed one of the beads with her thumb and whispered, “Hail Mary...full of grace...the Lord is with thee. Blessed art...art thou amongst women...and blessed is the fruit of...of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now...at the hour of our death.”
I’d never heard my mother repeat the rosary, before, and the feelings it brought me were terrifying. Anger. Hate. Pain. Betrayal. She was doing all she could to make her passage into the next world as easy as possible, and she had no right to do that. Not after the scars she left on me and other children she’d borne. Shrieks of fury filled my heart at her vicious hypocrisy, and I near leaned in to whisper, “You’ve killed all your sons, you bitch. Eamonn will die thanks to you, just as Brendan has already died and Rhuari and Kieran will, as well, all thanks to the hatred you filled us with. I’m ashamed to be of your blood.”
But I said nothing. Just watched her hands move slower and slower, and her lips whisper lighter and lighter, and let her ease into her sleep as if she were one with the angels. The rosary was tangled in her fingers when she finally ceased to move. I waited a moment, looking at her as if she were only napping, then I hit the call button for the floor nurse.
A stout woman came floating up to check Ma. “She’s into coma, now,” she said.
Maeve appeared behind her, disbelief on her face. I rose and took her into my arms and held her as the nurse went to call for a doctor. And my sister wet my shoulder with her tears.
The priest she’d called for never showed.
This is after he's returned to Derry and been brutalized by an RUC interrogation. The only reason he hasn't been arrested by the British Army is due to the rioting caused by Bobby Sands' death. The armed forces are too busy trying to keep control to worry about a man who's back in the country illegally. He's rushing his mother to the hospital because she's finally succumbing to cancer and they're stopped and roughed up at a British checkpoint until a captain comes up to see what's going on.
-----------
He returned my passport to me. I hit over to the driver’s side and Jimmy made his way into the passenger side. A jeep pulled out in front of us and we followed it across the Craigavon Bridge to the Waterside and the massive Altnagelvin Hospital.
The Rover was easy to drive, even on the right side, and having the jeep ahead of us helped me keep in the correct lane. So as we drove, Jimmy leaned back and whispered to me, “He don’t believe you, the Captain.”
To be honest, I hadn’t given it a moment’s consideration till that moment, but deep within I knew he was right. So I nodded. “Will he check on my passport?”
“Is it stolen?”
“Borrowed.” Jimmy cast me an eye, just as we whipped onto the bridge. I realized the Callaher’s Cigarettes sign was gone, and the absence of it seemed to mock me as I murmured, “But with my photo slipped in.”
Jimmy sighed. “Then he’ll contact your state department for verification. Does this Landau fella look at all like you?”
“If I lost three stone and had the look of a hawk, maybe.”
“Shite. When we’re at hospital, call me wife.” He dipped his finger in his own blood and wrote the number on the back of my left hand. “Tell her all that’s happened.”
“I’m sorry for this, Jimmy.”
“Sorry for what? I thought you were who you claimed. I’d not seen this Jeremy lad, before.”
“Won’t matter.”
“Yes it will. I’ve relatives in Newcastle. Caera’s to call them if I’m snatched, and they’re to call their solicitor, and he’s brother to a member of Parliament. I won’t be much troubled.”
“You’ll beat the Brits at their own game, you will.”
“It’s nice to think so,” he sighed then added, “but you...”
I nodded and we said not another word till we rolled up to A&E.
Nurses and doctors swarmed out to meet us. Seems the Captain had rung ahead to inform them. They took Ma over and carted her to Urgent Care, Maeve giving them all the details of her health, while I called Jimmy’s wife then stayed with him to see he was tended to. He needed but three sutures to close the wound. An hour later, a man named Kelly appeared from out of nowhere to see Jimmy got home well enough.
He was hesitant to leave me and Maeve. “We can wait, Brendan.”
“No, Jimmy. Go. We’ll grab a taxi once Ma’s settled in.”
Kelly took him by the arm, nodded at me -- I don’t recall him saying word one in my direction -- led Jimmy away...and I was left alone. And I luxuriated in it.
I noticed it was fast approaching noon and I was feeling it, having had no breakfast. I strolled over to the café, had a fry-up and tea, then bought a cheese sandwich for Maeve with a lemonade drink and went looking for her.
After five different nurses sent me wrong (two of them deliberately, I’m sure), I found Ma and Maeve in a dormitory room, curtains rolled up to hide them. Ma was on oxygen and an IV, with monitors connected to keep track of her heart and other vital signs. I noticed the catheter had been re-established and what fluid was in the bag was a hideous brown. She looked asleep, her skin drawn even tighter across her face, her mouth open and all her teeth revealed, more dead than living, already. Maeve sat beside her in a hard wood chair.
I brushed her arm with the lemonade bottle and offered her both it and the sandwich. She shook her head, no, then thought better and accepted them. She opened the bottle and sipped some lemonade. I waited. She finally rose and led me outside the curtains.
As she opened up the sandwich, she said, “Time’s come.” I only nodded. It was hardly a surprise. “Doctors say she’s into renal failure. Soon she’ll be in coma...and then...”
Her eyes filled with tears and her voice whispered into silence. I held her close.
“Have you made arrangements?” I asked, suddenly realizing I’d never bothered to even wonder about it, before. As if doing so would mean Ma’s death would come sooner. Silly thing to think, but there it is.
Maeve nodded. “I’ll ring Rhurai to come. He can get hold of Father Jack -- ”
“Don’t. The Brits won’t let them over -- ”
“They’ll let them come for this. The British aren’t such horrible people, Bren -- ”
“You can say that, after what just happened?”
She pulled back and looked at me, as if I were a stranger. Pulled off a bite of the sandwich and nibbled on it. “I’ll be back directly. Thanks for the sammie and drink. And I’ll send up a priest.”
She wandered off, seeking a phone. I stood there, watching her go, and I noticed this curious absence of feeling within me. Maeve was fighting to keep herself in control as our mother lay dying. A woman who’d been one of the reasons so many years of our lives were hell. A woman who’d sliced anyone to bits if they disagreed with her in any way. A woman who’d brutalized not only me with her words, twice since I came here, but also Maeve and Rhuari. And who’d made sure I understood her hatred of Joanna, even before the bomb. A woman who’d been more than cruel in her existence. And Maeve was devastated that soon she’d be gone from our world. And I felt nothing about it, not one single solitary emotion.
It was odd, just standing there, unconcerned one way or the other how things went. And I knew when Ma finally did die, there’d be no change in my emotion. Oh, it wasn’t a conscious knowing; just the intellectual idea that death was coming and the person it called upon laid no claim to my heart or soul in any way, any longer. My love for the woman -- love that lasted even after she’d disowned me -- now it was as dead as my Da, and my sole feeling was for the pain Maeve, Mairead, Rhuari, Kieran and Eamonn would feel at her crossing the river into the unknowable world.
A groan cut into my reverie. I slipped back to Ma’s bed to find her awake and looking about. The oxygen mask kept her from being able to speak, so she whimpered and her hands clawed vaguely at the air. I took her right one, so cold and frail, and sat beside her.
“It’s all right, Ma. It’s Brendan. I’m right here.”
She didn’t look at me. Just said a word over and over and over. I couldn’t make it out so leaned closer. Lifted the mask a hair and heard, “Priest. Priest. Priest.”
I went cold. Death was here and she wanted a chance to make her last confession. I wondered if my sister would send the priest first or call Rhuari.
“Maeve’s gone for one,” I said, not knowing if Ma could hear me. “She’ll be back soon.”
She kept saying it. “Priest. Priest. Priest.” Over and over, her eyes dancing about the room, her free hand still clawing at the air is if trying to keep death away. She had the look of fear about her. Terror in the quiver of her voice. I think she knew -- no one would come to absolve her of her sins. Not before it was too late. Were I to bolt out and down to the chapel and find one of the holy fathers sitting in a pew waiting for me and drag him back at a full run, I’d not make it in time. The little light in her eyes was already fading. Her voice growing softer. Her hands shaking with fright.
So I removed my coat, rolled down my sleeves and buttoned them, buttoned my shirt up to just under the collar and pulled the neck of my white t-shirt up so it could be seen above it. Then I found Maeve’s rosary and took both Ma’s hands and kissed them and said in a lowered voice, “I’m here, Mrs. Kinsella.”
Her shaking stopped. Her eyes shifted to me, still unfocused but aimed at mine. She almost seemed to smile. “Father? Father? I’m dying, Father.” She drew me closer. Her voice a whisper. “Bless me...Father...for I have sinned. It’s been -- it’s been...so many years since...my last confession.”
After all those years at mass? Truly?
“God be with you, my child. What do you wish to tell me?”
“I need to...to be rid...hate in my heart, Father. There’s so...so much hate in my heart.”
“Release it, then,” I whispered. I’d no idea if I was doing this right. I hadn’t been to confession since I was twelve, and even then it had been a cold affair with Father Jack. “God will know you have -- have cast it aside.”
“So much hate, Father. My son...so much hate.”
I held my breath. Which of us was she referring to?
“Do you hate your own child?”
“Made him...prisoner...my hate. He’s dying.” Eamonn, preparing to starve himself to death. I was almost relieved. “Make him stop. Please, Father. Make him stop. Not right. But I...I put him there. Not right. Make him stop.”
“I will.”
“Make him stop. He’s the eldest -- the one...the most important...”
Right to the gut, as usual. “I’ll see to it.”
“Promise me, father.”
“I promise. Sleep well, my child.”
She seemed to relax. Took hold of the rosary -- no, gripped it and rubbed one of the beads with her thumb and whispered, “Hail Mary...full of grace...the Lord is with thee. Blessed art...art thou amongst women...and blessed is the fruit of...of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now...at the hour of our death.”
I’d never heard my mother repeat the rosary, before, and the feelings it brought me were terrifying. Anger. Hate. Pain. Betrayal. She was doing all she could to make her passage into the next world as easy as possible, and she had no right to do that. Not after the scars she left on me and other children she’d borne. Shrieks of fury filled my heart at her vicious hypocrisy, and I near leaned in to whisper, “You’ve killed all your sons, you bitch. Eamonn will die thanks to you, just as Brendan has already died and Rhuari and Kieran will, as well, all thanks to the hatred you filled us with. I’m ashamed to be of your blood.”
But I said nothing. Just watched her hands move slower and slower, and her lips whisper lighter and lighter, and let her ease into her sleep as if she were one with the angels. The rosary was tangled in her fingers when she finally ceased to move. I waited a moment, looking at her as if she were only napping, then I hit the call button for the floor nurse.
A stout woman came floating up to check Ma. “She’s into coma, now,” she said.
Maeve appeared behind her, disbelief on her face. I rose and took her into my arms and held her as the nurse went to call for a doctor. And my sister wet my shoulder with her tears.
The priest she’d called for never showed.
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