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It is his mother’s fault. And mine for letting her give him that stupid fucking name – Lucius. I still don’t know where she even heard it, maybe it’s made up. Ever wonder he’s getting the tripe kicked out of him daily.
I probably should let him get a dose again so he can learn but his big sister, Siobhan isn’t having it. She’s just like her mum. Stubborn.
She’s got a plank of wood with a nail in it and there’s blood dripping off it already.
I wonder who she’s clocked?
She’s roaring her pretty little head off, standing between the four boys and her baby brother.
‘You leave him alone you motherfuckers, or I swear to God, I’ll bust your balls and take your eyes!’
There’s laughter from the teenagers, but it isn’t terribly convincing. She is scary. I kick an empty bottle as I approach to make my presence known. Now I’m quite a small man by traveller standards. However I’ve got my eldest girl here with me, livid as hell and I’m also carrying a flick knife, which I’m flashing about Christopher Walken style. It could end up anywhere really. I go to crazy town real easy.
Eeny meanie miny mo…
‘Think you lads had better get home,’ I say, jovially. They know I’ll gut them in a minute if they push it – I’ve done it before. You don’t have to be big to make a knife count.
They do as I expect, shrugging, making excuses.
‘Ack, we didn’t mean him no harm Ferg.’
One even holds out his hand to help my youngest son up out of the muck. Lucius’s eyes dart to me, unsure. He gets up and goes back to our van with Siobhan.
‘You EVER touch him again, I’ll kill you’s,’ she says shakily, before following him.
‘Women,’ I laugh, throwing up my hands. They don’t look too sure. They’re right. I tolerate my son, weird as he is. It’s embarrassing to see him struggling to hold his own. So I run this gauntlet of tough luv.
Inside the van the women and girls are fussing, dabbing at cuts, applying lotions. As soon as I walk through the door they’re yapping.
‘I want you to speak to them, the men, their Da’s,’ my Mrs says. Lucius as ever is quiet. He rarely talks. Another one of his oddities.
‘There’s no need for that. Just patch him up. Tis no more than a scratch or two anyway.’
I might as well have thrown petrol on a bonfire. I’ve never seen her more angry. She’s a tiny little thing. Dark hair, dark eyes, slender as a twig despite me giving her six kids. She’s no time to get fat.
She takes two steps towards me and I think I sense some echo of the old Celtic mother goddesses. Her words waft over me like something on fire, a blast from a cauldron, a furnace. Her hands don’t touch me, but it’s like I’ve received a beating with a burning willow branch.
‘You let this happen again Fergus John Sean McMullan, I’ll make sure you’re left with nothing. I’ll be taking these weans, and giving Lucius the proper chance he deserves, away from here!’
Her words knock the air out of me. She’s never once threatened to leave me before in twenty two years of marriage. Even when I messed about with her cousin and that spicy woman from Limerick.
I can’t handle the atmosphere. My van, my home is never too small but it is now.
‘See to him Mary and mind your mouth!’ I bark, slamming the door on my way out.
It’s cold out. The stars are appearing. Light is suffusing from our little van village of ten. As I approach Dermots place his dog shifts on the end of its chain.
‘Hush pup.’
I pet its spotted head.
If anyone knows what has possessed Mary, Dermot will.
‘I had a notion you might turn up,’ he says, hands blithely counting out a wad of money when I enter. His van is the nicest I know. Lavish…or cheap as townsfolk might say. You can never have enough china, velvet and bling.
I accept a beer from my brother-in-law and flop in repose on the couch.
‘Mary’s pissed,’ I confess.
He laughs. ‘Colleen isn’t too pleased with you either. Are you, hun?’
‘No!’
I’m bewildered.
‘Why? What the fuck have I done?’
Right at this point, my sister Colleen flicks some laundry she’s folding, so hard, it sounds like a gunshot.
‘Did you not see that child’s hands?’ she snaps. Her eyes are like tar pits. ‘Well did you?’
‘He got a bit messed up. Boys will be boys. It will toughen him up.’
She throws the sheet she’s folding at me and yells,’ ‘I’m away to see Mary! Ya useless prick!’
I can’t quite believe this.
Dermot takes a long swig from his bottle and stares at me hard.
‘He’s not going to be able to play if they fuck up his hands Ferg.’
What the hell is he on about? ‘They aren’t going to mess up his hands and him trying to play piano isn’t that important anyway. Nother couple of years, he’ll be done with school. Travellers don’t have much use for schooling past twelve and you know it.’
Dermot sets his bottle down and lifts his phone. ‘You’ve never heard him play, have ya?’
I shrug. Why would I? He’s only at it for five or six months – I think. Maybe not even that. Least that’s what Mary told me when I bothered to listen.
I brace myself for torture as my brother-in-law opens a video file on his phone.
‘Listen,’ he says firmly.
Now I know my family are nuts…
He presses play.
Oh.
Jeezus.
Something splinters in me, hot and painful. Shame. Pride. Shock. There he is, Lucius, my son, his light flowing into everything and everyone in the audience, driving his sister, his mother, my sister, my brother-in-law, to transport him to be what he could actually be. He’s tiny like his mum sitting there at the piano stool, fingers flying over the blocks of white and slivers of ebony. But he is sure. He’s where he is meant to be, no question.
How is he doing this? Travellers don’t do stuff like this. Ordinary people don’t really. The ones that do end up on telly.
That’s why she gave him that name. He’s not even ordinary ordinary.
She knew.
‘How long have you known about this Derm?’
He shrugs. ‘A while. Everyone knows. I guess that’s why the other boys hate him.’
I can’t shake off these feelings. Every new bit of information has me feeling like a blind man who has just been touched by Christ. ‘Show me again.’
Derm replays the clip. When it’s over he clinks my bottle with his.
‘He’s a prodigy, they say Ferg.’
I nod. No clue what he means.
‘So, what’s that then?’
‘Well maybe don’t let the other boys break his fingers and you’ll see when he does his wee audition tomorrow night? We’re going. Colleen is getting her hair and all done, special.’
‘Right you are.’
I stroke my flick knife in my pocket and wonder if the trials I have allowed did not push him to this. A little pressure never hurt anyone did it?
A hard life can create diamonds.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61117469
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