A camera clicked. We're the talk of the place!, ma cried but what did da do only put his arm around her.
They held hands along the strand and they talked about the brass band he'd started in the town and a book he was reading, the life and times of Michael Collins the revolutionary hero. Oh now what would I know about the like of that, said ma. I don't know where you get all these brains, she laughed. There was no row that day no whiskey, nothing. Three times after that they met in the same town, strolling through the dappled bedlam of the carnival to a boarding house called Over The Waves where there was music in the evenings. He was asked to sing and was she proud when he closed his eyes and gave his rendition of I dreamt that I dwelt in Marble Halls. They all knew us there, he said. The woman of the house, every night: I wonder could we persuade Mr Brady to give us another rendition? That's what she used to say. You're my special guests! The lovebirds! Benny and Annie Brady. Below the bedroom window the hush of the sea and ma I could see her lying there on the bed with him but it was a different woman, it was the ghost of what could have been ma. I didn't know how I felt when he kept going on like that, part of me wanted to turn on him and say its no good now why didn't you say that all those nights when you were down on your knees in front of her with your speeches May the curse of Christ light on you this night you lazy good for nothing tramp that was all you had to say then! But anything I was going to say like that withered as soon as it reached my lips for whatever way it happened it seemed now as if the flabby flesh had somehow slowly melted from his bones, fallen invisibly off him as he spoke. He wasn't in the room, there were no craggy priests glaring down at him, all he could see was her standing at the water's edge as he called to her, his voice tumbling across the years and the salt breeze, Annie Annie. And afterwards on the esplanade he held her in his arms and said to her are you prepared to live on potatoes and salt for the rest of your days and what did ma do she tossed back her wavy hair and laughed is that all you can offer a good-looking girl like me Benny Brady?
Then they both got down on their knees and said the rosary together on the rocks and I wondered how it could ever have been, that moment, with its half-heard prayers carried away and the carnival swirling in the distance, the waves lapping on the shore and da fingering the beads and looking longingly into her eyes just as he did now. You could almost hear the whisper of the dead afternoon as we stood there in the empty, lost silence of that huge room.
Shut up I said, shut up about it, something rose in me and I wanted it over. She was a good woman your mother he said, he was starting to slobber. It wasn't always like this you'll never know how much I loved that woman. I got it into my head that a couple of the bony arses were coming over to the window to gawp I told him again to shut up it was no good now, none of it. He said not to talk like that to him he had his dignity. I got down on my knees like he used to when he rolled home after a skite with his clenched fist up and one eye closed may the curse of Christ light on you this night you bitch the day I took you out of that hole of a shop in Derry was a bitter one for me. He said no son should say the like of that to his own father. Every time I thought of them standing there at the water's edge I said worse things to him and in the end he cried. I came here to see you, son, he said if you only knew. I said you have no son you put ma in a mental home. Maybe I'm better off then to have no son how could you call yourself a son after what you did. After what I did what did I do I had him by the lapel and I knew by his eyes he was afraid of me whatever way I was looking at him. What did I do? It was hard for him to say it, I could barely hear him I loved you like no father ever loved a son Francie that was what he said it would have been better if he drew out to hit me I just let go of his lapel and stood there with my back to him fuck off I said fuck off and I knew I'd been alone for a long time when I heard Bubble's soft lisp well Francis wasn't that a nice surprise?
Swish swish off we went across the quadrangle together. I didn't know your father was a musician said Bubble. Oh indeed he is Father, I said, it was him set up the brass band at home and there's no better man to play a trumpet. Really, said Bubble, isn't that wonderful! Yes, it wasn't long after they got married he set up the band. They got married in Bundoran you know. Is that so?, said Bubble all ears. Yes, I said, there was a boarding house there called Over the Waves, that was where they spent their honeymoon. They were always talking about going back there but they never got round to it. Everyone knew them there, all the guests. He used to sing for them in the evenings. Its a pity they never managed to go back. Perhaps they will yet Francis, he says, there's still plenty of time. Indeed there is, I said, its not often you see a singing skeleton she'll bring the house down.
Tiddly said wouldn't it be lovely if we could get married. I said it would be great. I could buy you flowers and chocolates and you could have dinner ready when I come home he says. Ha ha I laughed, like a girl, and did Tiddly like that! Little Miss Snowdrop, I said, Queen of All The Beautiful things in the world!, and that nearly drove him astray in the head altogether. The sweat hopped off him. Flip, in went the Rolos.
One day I was down in the boilerhouse watching the circus of sparks putting on a show inside the big stove. I was puffing away on a Park Drive Tiddly had given me. Then I heard the voice: I know you're in there, you can't fool me! You needn't think I'm afraid of you, Mr Head-The-Ball Brady. I'll take you! I'm the man will take you! Your trick-acting'll not annoy me! Come on! Come on out you snakey bastard!
I heard the keys rattling and when I looked up who was it only the gardener with a big graip pointed at me and his eyes mad in his head, I have you now my buck what'll the priests have to say about this!
I went white and I said well I suppose that's me fucked but then what does he do only start chuckling to himself and lock the doors, give me a light he says. Effing sky pilots, what do I care about them! What one of them was ever any good? They wouldn't give you the steam of their piss. He said they owed him five shillings since nineteen forty. All of a sudden the whole boilerhouse smelt of weeds and fertiliser. We stood there watching the sparks circus inside the little door of the stove. There was a touch of the bogman in that gardener too. Hate, he called it. There's great hate off that stove, he said. O, I says, powerful hate! Powerful hate altogether!