Liz Nugent - Unraveling Oliver

My career picked up too, after a while. I was selected to be a team leader on a TV game show and I picked up a lot of voice-over work for commercials and radio dramas.

I know I said earlier that I was supposed to be a friend of Alice’s. The truth is that I couldn’t stand her. Not because of anything she did to me, but because she was in my way. I just wished she would disappear.

And now, in a sense, she has. I’m not proud of the way I felt toward her.

I don’t think I have betrayed Alice. I would have in the past if Oliver had agreed to leave her. I would have betrayed her and not given it a thought.

She was useful though. I don’t mind admitting that she was extremely helpful with my two children. When I was working long days in the studio or in theater rehearsals and Con was stuck in the clinic, Alice would often come over to be there when they got home from school. She said that Oliver needed absolute concentration to write his wonderful books; there was no question of the kids going over there—children were too much of a distraction. Alice was like an unofficial nanny for Gerry and Kate, actually. Sometimes when I got home she’d have a three-course meal prepared. It seems she got very interested in food after she was first married. Oliver told me that she grew up with a retarded brother who could only eat rice pudding and potatoes, and apparently she hardly knew what food was supposed to taste like until Oliver packed her off to a cooking school the week after they married. I confess that this stimulated my own interest in cooking. I can hardly believe that I felt forced to compete with bloody Alice. On the rare occasions when Con was away and I could entertain Oliver at home, I liked to be able to feed him in the manner to which he was accustomed.

You would think that Alice and I might have had more in common. After all, we were both in love with the same man. We were thrown together in all sorts of ways. I initiated the “friendship,” actually; it seemed the easiest way to get close to Oliver. But, my God, she drove me mad with her slow, dreamy ways and her nonsensical conversation. I dreaded the occasional afternoons that I would have to spend in her company. I always tried to come up with an activity that would keep her busy, would negate the need for much conversation: cinema, shopping, theater.

Of course, I feel bad about it all now. The last time I saw Alice was in Bordeaux Airport last November, just a few days before Oliver lost it with her. She was really upset. At the time, I thought she was upset about Javier and me. No doubt we’ll find out the whole truth during the trial.

Maybe I should have been nicer to Alice and maybe I shouldn’t have slept with her husband for nearly twenty years, but a small part of me wishes that the fight was about me. I wonder if he ever truly cared about me. Or her.

When I was young, very young, before that summer in France, I tried hard to be a good person. I spent most of my life trying to impress a man who more or less refused to acknowledge my existence. My birth certificate names my mother as “Mary Murphy (maiden surname),” probably one of the most ubiquitous names for a Dublin female at the time. It states that my parents were unmarried. Over the years, private research has yielded absolutely nothing about her, and I could only speculate that this was not her real name. My father is listed as “Francis Ryan.” Under “Rank or Profession of Father,” it says “priest.” I realize that it must have been a scandal in 1953, or would have been, if it hadn’t been hushed up in some way.

My place of birth on the certificate is “Dublin,” although I do not appear in any register of births for maternity hospitals or nursing homes in the city, and because of that I can’t be sure that my date of birth is accurate. Two Mary Murphys gave birth on that date in the city. I have gone to great lengths to find them and their offspring and rule out any possible relationship to me.

I wonder how there could be no trace of her. I know it was a different time, but how could this document have been approved? The church’s stranglehold on the state was certainly strong in those days, but this was deliberate obfuscation. I once had the courage to ask my father about my mother and the circumstances of my birth. “She was a whore,” he wrote, in reply to my letter, as if that was all the explanation that was needed. It wasn’t too long before I got to hear a most bizarre version of the circumstances of my birth, but my father had to die before that tale could be spun.

One day, in March 2001, I was casually reading Saturday’s Irish Times and came across my father’s death notice in the paper.

“…deeply regretted by his loving wife, Judith, and son, Philip…”

I wasn’t sure how to feel about this news. I wasn’t sad, certainly; maybe a little relieved. I had long ago accepted that he didn’t want me in his life, but the slimmest hope was always there that he might one day find it in his heart to forgive me for whatever he thought I had done, that he might take pride in my success and claim me as his own. Now that the hope was gone, perhaps I could relax.

The wording of the notice hurt me unexpectedly though. I was also his son, but didn’t merit a mention.

The funeral mass was the following Monday morning. My curiosity got the better of me. I told Alice that I had a meeting in town and went to the Haddington Road church. I lurked at the back, avoiding the glances of parishioners who might recognize me. Now was not the time for autograph hunters. There was a substantial turnout, a flurry of priests, a bench of bishops, and a cardinal. Judith was elegant and dignified, but gray, and Philip was aging badly, unlike his mother, but wore a priest’s collar, to my surprise. Ironically, I remember thinking that the family line would die with him.

When the time came, I shuffled forward with the herd to convey my condolences to the bereaved. Judith took my proffered hand wetly.

“Oliver!” she said, reddening and turning to Philip. “Don’t you remember Oliver… from school?”

Philip looked up, and I saw that his eyes were filled with tears and misery, and I wondered how he could feel that way. I could tell that he was confused by my attendance.

“Of course, yes, thank you for coming. I heard you are an author now?”

“A writer, yes,” I said. “Children’s books.”

“Yes.”

The line of mourners was building behind me and I knew that I must move on.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I managed to say.

Father Daniel from St. Finian’s was smoking a pipe outside the church. He greeted me warmly and thanked me for the annual donation I made to the school.

“I’d say that was hard for you… ,” he said.

“Judith and Philip… do they even know that I am his son?” I tried to keep the tremor from my voice.

“I think Judith knows.” He shook his head. “The death notice… that was your father’s wish. I’m sorry. He didn’t want any reference to you.”

Father Daniel offered his condolences to me, and it was kind of him, but I didn’t need them.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d be here. I was going to call you. Come and see me next week. There’s something I need to explain to you. About your father.”

Iwish I had never discovered that Oliver was my brother. Half brother. I can’t conceive of how he could attack a woman like that, let alone his own wife. I am appalled. I have looked into my heart and have prayed about it. I know I should try to make contact with him again, but I am just not ready. Not yet. Fortunately, so far, nobody knows of our relationship and I think it best that it stays that way. Perhaps if we had grown up together, his life could have turned out very differently.