Brotherhood appears to be bringing out the best in our boy. On the way back to Ireland, our son offered to hold the hand of a two-year-old child who was blocking the escalator to the plane. She’d been spooked by the movement and was causing a gridlock on the motorised stairs that would have been quite tense, had his response to it not been so comically adorable.
He asked why she was crying and told her there was nothing to worry about, drawing admiring awwwws from our fellow passengers. As my son counselled her through the horror, the growing line of people behind us seemed not irritated but, and I can scarcely believe I’m telling you this, charmed by the whole event. As strange and delightful as that was, this event was made even more surreal by the fact the passengers directly behind us were the full lineup of American emo behemoths My Chemical Romance, en route to play two sold-out Dublin shows as part of their massive comeback tour. As they cooed over my good young boy and his caring ways, I found myself wishing I knew even one of their songs so I could end this article with a knowing reference to their work. Alas, my teenage music tastes ran mostly to abstruse electronica and I only knew them then as that band my friend Eoghan liked. Now, of course, I know them mostly as kind men, with great taste in sons, and maybe I prefer it that way. ‘Thanks, My Chemical Romance’ I thought, but did not say, since my wife would have killed me if I had.
Upon arrival at my in-laws, things take on that gorgeous, honeyed warmth of any homecoming: the railway humph-a-lump of luggage being lugged upstairs; my son making a beeline to the tidied-away stash of playthings he’s accrued over four years of visits here, which he calls simply his ‘Ireland toys’; the baby mewling as she’s passed and pressed through a line of successively more wrinkled hands.
Both she and the boy are complimented by Nana and Grandad for having grown so much. It is only a few short weeks since they saw us in London, but now they are measured against the stable reference points of this house which, though we haven’t visited in six months, might feel more like his family home than the one to which we’ve recently moved back in London. He’s too big now for some of his Ireland toys, and stands another 5in closer to the knife drawer than he did when he was last here. As always there is a vaguely bittersweet tinge to these observations – something gained, something lost – but tea washes away such thoughts before Aoife and Paddy arrive with their new baby, Charlie.
My son regards his first maternal cousin with delight, thrilled to introduce the babies to each other, like a host presenting debutantes at a debutante’s ball. He’s quietly hopeful they’ll interact in a more dynamic fashion but, in the end, they stare at each other and cry. My son holds their little hands and gives them counsel. He tells them to shhh and brings them toys he no longer likes. ‘If only My Chemical Romance were here,’ I remark wistfully, to my wife, ‘they’d have loved this.’
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? by Séamas O’Reilly is out now (Little, Brown, £16.99). Buy a copy from guardianbookshop at £14.78
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