Table of Contents
Praise for The Young Wan
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE - Blessed Heart Girls National School The Jarro, February 1940
CHAPTER TWO - Dublin February 23, 1921
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR - Dublin, 1932
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Praise for The Young Wan
“The Young Wan is a page-turner . . . because the reader comes to know and care about the fates of the richly drawn characters that populate Dublin’s teeming Jarro . . . A satisfying mix of vice and virtues, seasoned with wit and warmth and human kindness, Wan is a hearty Irish stew that entertains as it nourishes. Read it.”
—Richmond Times-Dispatch
“Brendan O’Carroll’s latest installment of the Agnes Browne series is sure to bring a smile to your Irish eyes ... O’Carroll is a comedian, and his perfect sense of timing makes this novel as much fun as the others in the series.”—BookPage
Praise for Brendan O’Carroll
“Irreverently comical ... It’s refreshing to enter O’Carroll’s fun-loving working-class Dublin world.”—Entertainment Weekly
“An almost surefire winner . . . one of those books that demand to be read in one sitting.”—The Irish Voice
“How to lose weight: Read The Mammy. You will laugh your arse off and your tears will do away with your water-retention problem. It is an uproariously funny account of growing up in inner-city Dublin—a laugh-out-loud book with a Dickensian twist to it.”
—Malachy McCourt, author of A Monk Swimming
Brendan O’Carroll is an acclaimed Irish playwright and stand-up comedian. He has appeared in the films The Van and Angela’s Ashes. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.
ALSO BY BRENDAN O’CARROLL
The Mammy
The Chisellers
The Granny
PLUME
Published by the Penguin Group
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Published by Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Previously published in a Dutton edition.
First Plume Printing, February 2004
Copyright © Brendan O’Carroll, 2003
All rights reserved
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
The Library of Congess has catalogued the Dutton edition as follows:
O’Carroll, Brendan, date.
The young wan : an Agnes Browne novel / Brendan O’Carroll.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-440-61877-2
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It is with all the love in my heart
and my belief in their future
that I dedicate this book
to
my son
Eric O’Carroll
and
my goddaughter
Julia Grace Nolan
Acknowledgments
I WOULD LIKE TO SAY THANK YOU and some words to the people who have prepared me for takeoff and continue to make me fly.
Billy Flood, for his belief. You were more than a teacher, you are an inspiration.
Fiona O’Carroll, my daughter. When I took you in my arms for the first time, you were the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. Nothing in the last twenty-one years has changed my mind. Daddy loves you, Princess.
Danny O’Carroll, my eldest son. If I had a wish to grant those people I love, it would be that they have a son like you.
Eric O’Carroll, my youngest son. You make me laugh, and you fill my life with the wonders of your fantastic imagination. I love you so much I could burst.
Jenny Gibney, my life and love partner. The vault within which my fragile heart is safe.
Rory Cowan, to whom I dedicated my last book. I’m sorry I hurt you. Thank you for forgiving me.
Fiona Gowland, my sister. You have no idea how proud I am to point you out and tell those in my company that is my sister.
Mike Nolan, my friend, my ally, my brother.
Martin Delany, my friend. Life really is like a box of chocolates, Martin. Don’t go on a diet!
Paddy Houlihan. All right, horse? If God had granted me the grace of another child, I would wish it were you.
Annette Dolan, my friend. My life would have been so much the poorer over the last ten years had God not sent you to me.
Clyde Carroll, my friend. Your future is in your hands. I delight in being the vehicle if you are a careful driver.
Conor Brett, my friend. You have a unique talent, to come through every time you’re asked. Thank you.
Fiona Gibney, my friend. Who lost Saturdays, Sundays, and sleep to help me over the line.
&nb
sp; John Bond, who straightened out my life and taught me two plus two is four.
Evelyn Conway. To this day I still do not know. But I shall never forget the contribution your being in my life has meant to my success. Never.
Rosemary Ahern, my friend. I regret you could not finish what you started, but you left me in good hands. Really good.
Clare Ferraro. The boss. You, just you alone, you package of positive energy, epitomize everything that is great about New York. Its strength, its open-arm welcome for anyone and everyone, your belief in tomorrow, and in me.
And finally . . .
Karen Murphy. Without doubt the finest editor I have ever had. You massaged this book out of me, convinced me I had a voice, and gently kicked me over every obstacle. I hope I have not let you down.
God bless you all.
Brendan
Introduction
WHEN I WAS A CHILD my mother, Maureen, would dress me for school and then stand back to check me over. There wasn’t a lot to check. The L-shaped rip in my shoulder she had mended with her famous “invisible stitching,” which was about as invisible as the job done on Frankenstein’s monster’s forehead. The holes that had been in the elbows of my woolen jumper she had “darned,” a dying if not dead skill. She was a beautiful darner and used a basket-weave stitch. This was obvious, for the navy-blue darning wool stood out on the elbows of my green jumper, as it did on my gray socks. These socks were protected from the holes in the soles of my shoes by the piece of linoleum she had inserted. The soles may have been worn through, but the brogues shone from the polishing she had given them. So there I stood, my clothes held together by my mother’s skill, but spotlessly clean. My shoes sealed by a piece of somebody’s old flooring, but shining, and me smelling of the Sunlight carbolic soap with which she had earlier washed me from head to toe. The raggle-taggle schoolboy. Taking all of this into account, her last words to me each morning were all the more astounding. She would smile, pinch my cheek, and, looking me straight in the eyes, say, “Brendan you can be anything you want to be; you, my son, can do anything.”
I left schooling at twelve years of age. My mother left me one morning when I was twenty-eight. She took my son Danny, then just ten months old, for a mid-morning nap. He fell asleep, and so did she. I cannot tell you in just this one page of how wonderful a woman she was, but I promise that one day I will. The only one of my three children that really knew her was my daughter, Fiona, who adored her, and in Fiona I see so much of my mother that it warms me.
My mother is not nor was not Agnes Browne. Yet they shared something in common that I believe to be a trait unique to women. And it is this—that even while their world is falling apart around their ears they truly can still believe that their dreams will come true.
One morning I questioned my mother’s promise to me. She said her usual “You can be anything you want to be . . .” line, and I asked her, “Mammy, can I fly?” She smiled and said, “Sure you can. Just put your arms out, work hard, and wait, and I promise you, someday you will fly.” When she died I was a waiter. Since her death I have written five novels, four stage plays, two screenplays, hosted my own television series, acted in eight movies, and performed live comedy to over one million people on three continents. She never got to see any of this. At the end of each live show, when the audience stand, cheer, and applaud, it is a wonderful feeling, and I love it. The audience smile and cheer and they cannot hear me say quietly to the uplifting air, “Look, Mammy, I’m flying.”
Brendan O’Carroll Dublin, 2002
PROLOGUE
The Jarro, Dublin, Ireland
The parish of St. Jarlath occupies a northeastern portion of Dublin City Centre. Stretching from the banks of the river Liffey north to Summerhill, and from Fairview Park, on the east coast, westward to Gardiner Street, just short of the city’s premier thoroughfare, O’Connell Street. The main focus of the parish, however, is the eight square blocks of tenement buildings that surround St. Jarlath’s Church itself. This small area within the parish is known to all who live there as the Jarro.
If there were any single thing one could point to that would unite the memories of all of the thousands of people who had been born, reared, and starved in the Jarro, it would be the noise. The only change over the years has been the types and the sources, but the level has stayed the same.
The noise of the Jarro is built of three layers. The background noise is a symphony of transport. Once it had been only the clip-clop and rattle of horses’ carriages along with the low rumble of handcarts of every shape and size as they crisscrossed the cobbled streets. The middle-ground noise has always been children. Screaming, crying, playing, kicking, and laughing children. Within the Jarro children outnumber adults by four to one. The sound of children covers the area like a blanket. And yet, still, like a colony of sea lions, a Dublin mother could hear “one of her own” from two blocks away. It is this talent that gives us the foreground noise, the Dublin woman’s voice. It can pierce a steel door at twenty paces. Women of the Jarro would exchange the most intimate details of their lives, or better still someone else’s, in conversations across the street, from window to window, at a piercing level, and with no effort at all. These conversations or gossip would probably make no sense to an outsider listening in, but to these hardworking, tough women, they did, and that’s all that mattered. Over the noise of the streets and screaming kids, they can be heard.
“See that young wan O’Brien got the brush-off from her boyfriend,” one would call to another.
“I heard that all right, what happened there?” comes the reply.
“’E said he wouldn’t marry a girl what’s not a virgin,” is explained. A short silence follows this piece of news.
“And is she a virgin?” the question would come at a scream.
“No, not yet,” is delivered with authority. Amazingly, considering that this conversation is taking place at screaming level, across a street, should a third voice join in she would be told to mind her own business.
So these, then, are the sounds of the Jarro, a tenement area on Dublin’s Northside crammed with working-class and unemployed people and their large families. The four-story red brick buildings, once regal and grand, were now old and unkempt, damp and dreary. The streets dirty and dark, shrouded in a pall of smoke from the thousands of coal or peat fires burning in the buildings. And yet there is so much more to the Jarro than its streets and its buildings. For through the smoke there is music and song. Within these buildings there is genuine community. Sharing, caring community. Every day on these streets young boys dream of becoming millionaires and young girls dream of marrying handsome princes (not from the Jarro). Within this cramped, smoky, damp Jarro live the dreams of five thousand people. And laughter. At every chance there is laughter. There is magic here. It may not be the pixie-dust, float-on-a-cloud, fairies-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden kind, but take my word, in the Jarro there is magic.
The Jarro, Dublin July 17, 1954
This morning, at 5:15 a.m., the blood-red sun began to peek over the copper dome of the Customs House building. Its beautiful July rising sent a streak of amber light through the window of Agnes Reddin’s bedroom. Morning. The day had arrived. Not just any day, but the day. This day, at 4 p.m., Agnes Reddin would make the short journey to St. Jarlath’s Church. She would enter the church a nineteen-year-old “young wan” and the next time she stood on its steps, which would hopefully be about thirty minutes later, she would be a woman. To be known to all from this day hence as
Mrs. Agnes Browne.
Slowly the sunlight crept along Agnes’ bed until it found her beautiful young, smiling face. Agnes had been awake for some time. She was sitting upright in the bed. Thinking, as you do on such auspicious days. Beside her this morning lay her best friend and maid of honor, Marion Monks, sleeping. Marion was neither a maid nor had she displayed any honor for the last hour or so. For Agnes’ thinking had been punctuated by a regular cycle of snoring, grunting, and fartin
g from her sleeping friend. Agnes smiled at the crumpled, tiny figure of her friend, at the same time tucking the blankets, tightly sealing herself from the deadly thrummmp of the fart that Agnes knew was due any moment. It arrived. Marion smiled, rubbed her nose roughly, and with a grunt returned to a steady snore.
Agnes and Marion were as different as chalk and cheese. Agnes was blessed with her father’s dark looks and raven hair, and, along with the slim figure of her mother, she was a stunning-looking girl. Marion, on the other hand, was just four feet eight inches tall and shaped like a barrel. She had a round face, tiny gray dots for eyes, and on her chin sported three brown moles. Each of the three moles had a tuft of hair growing from it, and when Marion smiled, which she did often, the moles would merge to make a little goatee beard. The two girls had been friends since childhood. Their lives entwined like a fisherman’s rope and the bond between them just as strong.
Agnes slowly slid from the bed, trying not to waken Marion, for whom a sleep beyond 5 a.m. was a luxury. Most mornings at this time the two young women would be already up. They would be at the fruit-and-vegetable wholesale markets on Green Street, ordering their stock for the day. Not today. Agnes quietly left the room.