London Calling by Edward Bloor Read Free Book Online Page A

do that. They don’t get shrines made to them. Do they?”
    “No.”
    He pointed to the photo of Grandfather Mehan with Joseph P. Kennedy. “Your grandmother was a very nice lady. A little loopy sometimes, but nice. She always dreamed about going to London herself. She had a chance to go with a friend of hers, Mrs. Mercier. This lady needed a traveling companion. It was all expenses paid, but old Martin wouldn’t let her go.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because she had to be here to wait on him, to serve him his supper.”
    “God. When was this?”
    “When your mom was in high school and your aunt was studying to become Sister Elizabeth. It wasn’t like there were two little babies at home to take care of. He just didn’t want his wife going to London. End of story.”
    Dad reached over, pulled out the bottle, and held it up. “Napoleon brandy. A very genteel drink. Your grandmother used to drink this stuff all the time. Sometimes I’d join her. Martin Mehan never drank anything, not even wine at church. He was a total teetotaler. Anyway, whenever Nana got near the bottom, she’d replace the bottle. The old boy never knew. He was clueless about her drinking. He was clueless about a lot of things.”
    Dad opened the bottle, sniffed its contents, and took a small sip.
    I pointed out, “Aunt Elizabeth said he remained mentally sharp until the end.”
    “Martin Mehan? No way. He wasn’t even mentally sharp in the beginning. He didn’t have much to lose. He was clueless at forty, and he was clueless at eighty.”
    “Then how did he become this famous guy who knew the Kennedys and all?”
    “He got assigned to work for Ambassador Kennedy. Pure luck, I guess. How bright could he have been? He didn’t even know his wife was an alcoholic.”
    “An alcoholic? Did she drink that much?”
    “She drank every day. You’d have never known it, though. She’d handle herself at family gatherings, except when she’d start to tell that crazy angel story.”
    I answered knowingly. “About the nine First Fridays.”
    “Yeah. That’s the one. Old Martin would cut her off as soon as he could.” Dad took an openmouthed swig from the bottle. He exhaled loudly, then said, “But he got just as crazy at the end—hearing voices, talking out loud to people who weren’t there.”
    This was all news to me. I asked, “How do you know about these things?”
    “Your mother,” he answered, as if that was obvious. “She used to tell me all about him, back when we first got together. She was trying to get away from all of this . . . family history stuff.”
    Dad looked at the wall of portraits, and his lip curled up in anger. “This wonderful family line would be over now if it wasn’t for me—your mother and me, obviously. That’s what it’s all about to them. The family line.” He turned away from the wall, pulled out his wallet, and showed me an old photo. It was of a young man in a uniform. “Well, guess what? I’ve got a family line, too.”
    I stared hard at the photo. “Grandfather Conway?”
    “Right.”
    “What kind of uniform is that?”
    “United States Marine Corps.”
    “I’ve never seen that photo before.”
    “I’m not surprised. It’s not hanging on the wall at home, is it?”
    Dad seemed to get increasingly embittered after that. He soon stopped talking, but he kept drinking. By eleven o’clock, he had passed out and was snoring loudly. I thought about talking a nap, too, but I was afraid of having another real-place dream, another encounter with a clueless eighty-year-old man armed with a silver letter opener.

    At four-thirty, we all drove in Aunt Elizabeth’s Maxima to the funeral home. When I got inside, I walked right up to Nana’s open casket, knelt down, and prayed. I had done the exact same thing at my grandfather’s wake four years before, but this time I felt a physical presence around me. This time I felt that Nana was not lying in the casket; she was hovering around me somehow, in the