Chapter Eighteen
Cold November winds were
blowing down from the north and mom and dad didn’t get out much these days.
They appreciated company in the house so, most of the time, it suited to have
someone staying with them and I got the feeling mom wasn’t looking forward to
the day I shifted all my gear into the new house being built just a couple of
miles down the road. Things were generally working out well, until mom started
fussing.
Three
months had passed since I returned home from Europe. Three months in which I
had finally changed my life from one hampered by anger to one generally at ease
with the world. Radio and television news broadcasts constantly told us about
the progress of the fragile cease-fire in Northern Ireland but, privately, I
had my doubts about the chances of peace taking a firm footing over there. Not just
yet. There didn’t seem to be the will to do what was needed to achieve the sort
of real peace that lasts. Maybe time would improve the chances. Or more
suffering, as Mother Theresa had suggested. On a wider scale, however, it no
longer really mattered to me, no longer bothered me as it had done such a short
while before.
I was
flying regularly now and I was enjoying it. The airline was expanding its
network of air routes and I had just returned from a staged series of flights
through South East Asia. I’d had a lay-over in Vietnam and I spent two days in
Ho Chi Minh City waiting to bring a return 747 flight back to the States. I was
too young to have been in that war so it had been a fascinating experience to
see the country that fought against us and won. It struck home to me that a country
brought to its knees by that devastating war was now fast bringing itself back
to life again through its own efforts. Poverty and deprivation was still
widespread but the will to rise back out of the ashes was strong amongst the
Vietnamese people. It took me very little time to warm to them and to see that
there was a strong will amongst the people to help themselves; a determination
to avoid crying too long into their own empty soup bowls and, instead, to
succeed by virtue of their own efforts. I flew out of Vietnam with a fervent
wish that, one day, the people of countries like Bosnia and Ireland will do the
same, make that same effort to put the past behind them and live in the
present.
I felt
a hankering to get out of the house one cold morning, early in my three-day
rest period after that Asian trip. A mist hung over most of the city and
outlying areas, the product of mixing chill northerly winds with damp sea air.
No weather to be out of doors too long. The new house wasn’t yet ready and mom
and dad were doing their best to make life as comfortable as possible but mom
fussed a lot, as most moms do, and I needed to get away without causing any offence.
On a sudden whim I went down town to see Chief Hanson. It seemed like a good
excuse to get me away from the house for a few hours.
I
hadn’t seen him face to face since I started the job with American Interstate
because he’d been over in New England for some months, taking care of his own
aged father who was invalid and refused to move west. Anyhow, I knew that he
was back at his desk now, so I just wandered in off the street and threw my wet
coat over a convenient chair.
Hanson
was enjoying his mid-morning coffee and scanning a copy of Playboy. When he saw
me he jumped to his feet, grinning at me like one big cuddly bear who’d found
his porridge just to his liking.
“How
you doin’, Chief?”
“All
the better for seein’ you again, Henry.” He grasped my hand warmly. “Jeez, but
you’re lookin’ well. You got my wedding present, did you? Sorry I couldn’t be
there in person but you know how it is.”
“Sure,
Chief. I know. How’s your pa?”
“Cantankerous
as ever. Say, I must get over to your parents place one o’ these days son. See
your own mom and pa… and meet the little lady.”
“Sooner
the better, Chief.”
“So,
what you been up to?”
I took
one of his more comfortable seats and stretched out my legs. He flopped down
behind his untidy desk while I went on, “Nothing exciting. Been flying
aeroplanes again. Generally getting on with life. And…”
“Enjoying
being married?”
“Yeah.”
“Great.”
He lowered his eyes slightly, a sure give-away that there was something awkward
to come. “Heard all about what happened in Ireland. You ready to forget it all
now?”
“Forget
it? No, I’ll never forget it, Chief.” I scratched my chin thoughtfully. “But I
sleep easier at nights these days knowing what it was all about. I feel less
twisted up in my mind now, and that’s one big bonus, I suppose. Of course, I
wouldn’t have figured it out at all without you putting your big footprints all
over things.”
He
feigned surprise. “What did I do?”
I
leaned towards him. “You know damned well what you did. You set me up, Chief.
That job application. You set me up for it.”
He
didn’t flinch. “Maybe I did. I heard about the new house you’re buying, by the
way. Looks like it’s a good job you’ve got yourself if you can afford a new
house like that.”
“Sure
it is. But that’s not why you set me up, is it? The truth is, you knew I’d
start digging with Terri McDolan. And you knew she would lead me to the priest.
I figure you had it planned out all along. Why did you do it, Chief?”
Hanson
breathed out long and slow. “Not much else I could do, Henry. Not if I wanted
to help you and keep my own job at the same time. I made enquiries but I hit
some sore spots. Someone high up the government ladder warned me off digging
any deeper. Told me to back off or start calculating how much pension I got
coming. I figured it had to be up to you after that. Hell, I felt a mite guilty
about the whole thing and I tried to find out about that Irish American place,
remember?”
“It
was a ticklish business all round.”
“Sure.
All I could do was to point you in the right direction. Did I do that?”
I
loosened up. “Yeah. You sure did that.”
“And
you did well, Henry. You sure did well when the chips were down.”
“Yeah.
Not bad for an Air Force drop-out. Eh?”
“You’re
no drop-out, son.” He was looking at me intently now. “Whatever I said about
you, I was wrong. You got what it takes.”
“Thanks.
I love you too, Chief.”
We
changed the subject after that, went on to talk more about the new future I’d
got set up. I told him about how things were at home and he sure sounded
pleased.
About
an hour later I headed back to mom and dad’s house. It was still raining when I
pulled into the driveway and looked towards the lounge window. Penny was there,
just as I expected her to be. Just as she always was every time I got home. And
she was waving to me. I grinned and waved back and then she patted her stomach
to let me know that the baby had been kicking again from the inside. A scan had
shown that he hadn’t suffered none from the beating Penny had taken. It gave me
this nice warm feeling to know we were going to have a family of our own.
One
day, in the years to come, he’d be kicking a ball about our own back yard and
I’d take him down to LA airport and show him the airplanes. And then he’d go to
school with all the other kids in our district. And he’d play with all of the
kids on the block, whatever their background.
He’d
learn to grow up in peace.
Penny
came out to meet me on the porch and I kissed her long enough to tell her, yet
again, that nothing was going to change between us now that we were married.
She needed that reassurance and it pleased me to give it. Made me feel
comfortable because I was adopting the role of protector.
“There’s
a letter for you,” she said, pointing to the hall table as we went inside.
It was
from Michigan and I knew straight away what it was. I’d hired an investigator
up there to look into the Bodine family history and he’d managed to trace other
descendants of Pierre Boudine.
“What’s
it about, Henry?”
I tore
open the envelope and read through the opening paragraph. “It’s about a woman
called Mary O’Callaghan.” I scanned on through the letter. “Well, well fancy
that.”
“Don’t
keep me guessing. What about her?”
“Mary
O’Callaghan emigrated to America in the last century. She came from a small
village near Killarney. She grew up in that area around the lakes.” I looked at
Penny and saw the puzzlement in her face. “I went there to see a man called
Whiteman.”
“Is
that important?”
“I’ll tell
you all about it. One day.
End
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