I hoped nobody else heard my granny fart as we stood up in the church. She nudged me in the ear with her plump elbow and whispered: ‘Your Grandad wouldn’t have liked that.' There wasn’t much that Grandad did like. Not that it mattered now that he was in a wooden box beside us in the aisle. The smoky incense mixed with the smell of rain-damp coats as people trudged up to shake Gran’s hand. ‘Sorry for your troubles.’ ‘He was a grand man.’ I wished they’d take off the mournful masks of dreariness and become the people we knew them to be. As we shuffled down the aisle, Joe McDonagh caught my eye and winked at me. A friendly face among these sorrowful mysteries. He was standing at the end of the church twisting his good cap in his hands. I knew it was his good cap because he’d told me he only wore it to Mass, to Dublin, and when eating fish and chips with the Queen of England. ‘Gran, it’s Joe,’ I whispered. ‘Keep your eyes straight ahead,’ she hissed, and thumped me with her prayerbook. We hadn’t seen Joe for weeks. We used to go to town every other Thursday, Gran and me. That was the day my mother’s cheque would arrive from America. ‘Sin money,’ Grandad would growl and spit into the fire. ‘You’re a hard ould drip,’ Gran would mutter. ‘One mistake and you’ve branded her for life. Your own flesh and ...’ I’d never met my mother, but it was pretty decent of her to keep sending money and clothes. And I had a real American football, but nobody knew how to play it so it mostly stayed in its box. Gran had hoped she’d come to the funeral, but from what I could overhear on the phone, words like cold and bitter were used. I suppose flying can be like that - though you’d imagine they’d at least have heating on those big jumbo jets. Anyway she said she’d come in the summer, so I suppose that was something to look forward to. I’ve never met anyone who had a ship called after them before. But I wonder if Grandad was mistaken; no matter how closely I look at the picture of the Galway Hooker in the hall, I can never see my mother’s name. We met Joe McDonagh in the early summer. I remember it because it was around the time that Grandad moved into the downstairs bedroom. ‘Them stairs is getting too much for my old heart,’ he said. I still can’t understand why Gran threw frying pans and things. You’d imagine she’d be delighted since grandad snored like Mary Ellis’s pig and washed about as often. ‘Look at me,’ she hissed at him. ‘I’m fifty five and ALIVE!’ But Grandad just laughed and relit his pipe. ‘I’ll sleep with you, Gran,’ I put in. If that was all it took to save the kitchenware I wouldn’t mind. It’s not that I’m afraid of the dark. Grandad took his pipe from his mouth. ‘Only sissies sleep with their grannies,’ he said. Gran kicked the fridge and made some remark about people who don’t sleep with grannies, but by then I’d opted to skip from the battle zone. That Thursday Gran and me took our usual jaunt into town. We parked the old Toyota at the shopping centre and walked through the lane to the town. ‘I feel like a new dress,’ said Gran. ‘One that’ll make your old Grandad’s eyes pop.’ So we went to McDonagh’s for personal service. Gran had no time for those big department stores where you’d to root around for what you wanted and then walk miles looking for someone to pay. ‘Ah, it’s yourself, Cis,’ said old Mr McDonagh, which I think is a daft thing to say to anybody. ‘This is my nephew, Joe. Going to take over when I retire.’ Joe was very old for a nephew. His hair was combed from his left ear right across to his other ear, and he wore a suit with dandruff on the collar. He chatted with me while Gran went off with the woman assistant to try on some dresses. He did magic tricks with matches and never once asked me about school. I really liked him. Gran bought a blue dress that showed the line between her boobs. Grandad’s eyes didn’t pop. He just asked, ‘How much?’ and continued to watch the match on telly. ‘You’re as responsive as a dead mackerel,’ Gran grumbled. Grandad turned up the sound. On our next visits to town we always visited Joe’s drapery. We’d have tea with Joe and old Mr McDonagh in the kitchen behind the fitting room. I’d get fifty pence from Joe to buy comics and sweets in the town by myself. God, how I looked forward to those Thursdays. I was getting pretty rich at this stage because grandad used to give me five pence every day to make his bed because gran wouldn’t. ‘Make your own holy bed,’ she said. In August, Gran announced that she was taking me for a weekend to the seaside. I nearly died with excitement. ‘You won’t miss us,’ she said to grandad. He just laughed and gave me a pound. We got two trains - one to Dublin and another to Bray. Do you know what it’s like to see the sea for the first time? Your bones turn to jelly and you just want to run and run into the waves and float away. You want the smell to stay in your nose for the rest of your life. Gran had the name of a guesthouse written on the back of an envelope. You can imagine our amazement when we arrived and found Joe McDonagh coming down the stairs. ‘What a coincidence,’ smiled gran. ‘Indeed,’ laughed Joe. ‘Small world.’ ‘If only we’d known we could have come in your car, Joe,’ I said. Personally, I don’t know what they found funny in that. Well, what a weekend we had. We laughed and swam and played Bingo and ate chips from bags and had rides on the roundabouts. When I got sick on Joe’s trousers he didn’t mind at all and said wasn’t it lucky he was a draper with lots of clothes. Why is it that someone seems to make the days go faster when you’re having fun? On the Sunday night it was time for Joe to go back. ‘We’ll hang on here until Monday,’ Gran said. ‘I know,’ Joe winked and patted his sunburnt nose. He hugged me and then he hugged Gran. ‘I am a draper mad with love,’ he said, squeezing her till she gasped. ‘Go away, Joe McDonagh,’ she laughed, ‘and don’t be spouting Welsh poetry.’ On the train the next day, Gran caught my hand. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘we’ll tell Grandad that we ran into Joe here, but we needn’t say that he was in the same guesthouse. That’ll be our special secret.’ Now, I hate secrets. Especially when you can’t understand why something should be a secret. It builds up in your head like steam inside a kettle. You’ll die if you don’t let it out. For several days it churned in my brain until I could bear it no longer. Gran and her daft ideas! Grandad and I were out picking the early Bath Beauty windfalls for apple jelly. ‘Grandad, I said, ‘what do you do if you want to tell someone something and someone else has asked you not to?’ He straightened up and looked at me. ‘Well, why would you want to tell it?’ ‘Because it makes the person’s head feel tight, the one who is keeping the secret.’ He sighed and rubbed his chin. ‘Well, I suppose you should tell and not let on to the person who asked you not to tell.’ I went on picking apples off the ground while I worked that one out. Then I told him about Joe being with us all the time and about the fun we’d had. Now I wouldn’t have to look at him at mealtimes and worry about The Secret. Now I could sleep easy because Gran’s dire warnings wouldn’t haunt my dreams any more. Grandad didn’t say anything. He just kept gathering apples. he didn’t tell gran because she would have strangled me. Though even that would have been worth being able to look Grandad in the face again. Grandad continued to give me five pence each day, which was very weird because every morning when i went to make his bed it was already made. When I tried to tell him he just smiled. Who was I to pass up an easy five pence? Summer drew to an end and school loomed its ugly head. Funny, as my spirits went down, gran’s went up. She was back to her cheerful best in the house. She’d even kiss Grandad’s bald head in passing and he’d smile. I wondered was it because I was going back to school that they were in good humour. It was quite a windy night in September when grandad died. I thought it was the wind that woke me, but it was Gran screaming. She rushed past me on the landing. ‘Your Grandad!’ she cried. ‘I’ve to phone the doctor.’ She was pulling on a dressing gown and you could see the fading sin tan on her bare chest. Her nightie must have been in the wash. I ran to Grandad’s room. The bed was as neat as ever. ‘Get up here!’ gran was calling from upstairs. Grandad was sprawled face downwards across the bed. ‘Help me get him into a better position,’ Gran was saying. ‘Why is he here? What’s wrong with him?’ I began. ‘Don’t ask stupid questions and your Grandad in a bad way.’ She was crying and trying to turn him around. Between us we managed to turn him around. His face was grey and I was terrified. ‘Oh God, oh God,’ Gran kept saying, over and over. Soon the doctor arrived and Grandad was taken off in the ambulance. Gran got dressed to go too, but the doctor stopped her. ‘It’s too late, Cis,’ he said. ‘He’s gone.’ Poor Gran went to bits and I was glad the neighbours came and made tea. As they lifted Grandad’s coffin into the yawning hearse, I was glad I’d told him my secret. But I was also glad that I hadn’t told him that I’d shared the room with Gran in Bray. He’d have thought I was a right sissy.
© 2008 Mary Arrigan. Design: Kaelleon Design Ltd.