The Bitumen brothers and empty branches

WordSmith

Gerard Smith

We’re well into January – have you remained resolute, or have your good intentions already fallen by the wayside?

Regardless, let’s park resolutions for the moment; because I want to talk about brothers.

My brother and I are chalk and cheese. He’s practical; when things break he fixes them. I walk away from broken things, assuming they’re forever broken. One Sunday afternoon in London, I put the oven on to cook a chicken. An hour later I went to check on the chicken’s progress, still cold – broken oven. Thereafter, I cooked all meals on the hob.

Three years later my brother was visiting, I mentioned the broken oven. He flicked a switch, “No it’s not our kid, it’s switched off from the mains,” he said, bringing the dormant oven back to life. I didn’t even have the insight to fix an unbroken thing.

I always envied my brother’s fixability talents; he also earns his living from fixing things.

Now, the bro always endeavours to spend Christmas in Cavan with his partner, who’s a woman (he told me to clarify that). On the day before their arrival this year, wind blew the felt off the shed’s roof. I rescued the felt and stowed it away, resolving to tap it back on once they’d returned. But, when the bro saw it, he knew it was a job that required more than a few tacks and taps. He and partner returned from Woodies with: Roof-felt, bitumen, and nails. And to my surprise, I found myself upon a roof fixing something. The bro and I bonded over bitumen; and I added a new word to my lexicon – I’d never heard of ‘bitumen’ before.

As I slathered on the black stuff and my brother hammered in nails, I thought of how we would never have ‘brothered’ like this as younger men. I suppose ourselves and our opposing interests kept us apart, that happens with brothers.

But, there was one thing my brother and I had in common, and it’s something I secretly coveted. It was a thing I felt made him my equal, call it our common denominator – the fact we were both childless.

Our Chinese brother-in-law once told me that men in his culture fear being childless, “empty branches” is what he called men without children. In his eyes, the bro and I were on the same page.

Until the page turned, it always does. Like most page turning news, it came via phone. One sunny afternoon the bro called to tell me of the arrival of his son. I was delighted to have a new nephew. The bro flew to Cavan to tell Dad the news in person; his reaction was the same delight as mine.

Dad met a neighbour, “I have a new grandson,” he proudly announced. She smiled wide, “Congratulations, how old is he?” Dad returned the smile, “Twenty-nine.” The neighbour nodded, “Ahh, 29 months, that’s a lovely age.”

Dad head swivelled, “No, twenty-nine years,” he clarified.

The bro and his son’s story are not mine to tell. But what happened next belongs to me; here goes.

My nephew visited Cavan on St Stephen’s Day. The bro and I went to pick him up at the bus office. On seeing each other my nephew and I shook hands warmly. Then my nephew hugged my brother and said, “Hiya Dad.”

And to my utter surprise, I was smacked by the green-eyed-monster. On hearing my brother being called, “Dad,” a jolt of jealousy jagged me. I was shocked, as envy is not an emotion that troubles me – yet in that moment I felt its sting.

Slightly unsettled, I set off to do a few post-Christmas laps of the Cavan-Triangle to make sense of, and salve that monster’s slap. But, I was stopped in my tracks by what I call the Chestnut-Brothers, the two magnificent trees that stand outside Cavan Library. I looked up at the respirational tangle of their empty branches, and inhaled deeply.

As I exhaled I recalled my 12-year-old self telling my mother, “I’m not having children.” She laughed and said, “You’ll change your mind when you’re grown.” I never did.

I took off for the triangle, smiled and said to myself, “I may be an empty branch; but I’m more resolute than I realised.”