The Story of Danny Dunn Read Free Page B

year in primary school. Five years after their wedding, they’d taken over the Commercial Hotel from Fred’s parents, and their son, Michael Donovon, was born in January 1900, the year before Federation, ten years after the marriage, when they’d just about given up hope of having a child.
    Fred was a big man by most standards and as strong as an ox. Dulcie was long limbed and taller than most of her generation, so it was no surprise when she gave birth to a large child. Michael was the apple of his mother’s eye and spoilt rotten from the very beginning. She would hear no ill spoken of him or his ballooning weight, until at eighteen, she had to face the truth. The army refused to recruit him to fight on account of his obesity . They’d never heard the term before and consulted Dr Light, the family physician, who told them the word basically meant grossly overweight. Dulcie was finally forced to agree with her husband that her precious son was a bone-idle slob and dangerously close to becoming an alcoholic. Fortunately, armistice was declared before the real reason for their son’s rejection was revealed. Mick’s only assets – dubious in a country boy and in particular a publican’s son – were that he was mild mannered (in fact a coward) and could talk the hind leg off a donkey.
    Mick and Brenda were married at the newly consecrated St Michael’s Catholic Cathedral on a scorching January Saturday. Brenda’s twin sisters, Bridgit and Erin, were the bridesmaids and Brenda’s father, Patrick O’Shane, gave her away, despite the 104 degree heat, in the same heavy Irish tweed suit, good woollen shirt with starched detachable collar and side-buttoned boots he’d worn when he married her mother Rose in 1895 in the town of Galway on the shores of the River Corrib in County Galway.
    However, all the hasty ‘bun in the oven’ wedding arrangements turned out to be unnecessary; at four months Brenda miscarried a baby girl. Young Dr Light, after performing a curettage, advised Brenda to try to delay a year before the next pregnancy. ‘ You’re very small and all the Dunns are big men,’ he warned. ‘You’ll need to be in excellent health.’
    Danny Corrib Dunn, nine pounds four ounces at birth, was born on the 4th of July 1920. The long and painful labour was no surprise to Dr Light, nor was the damage to Brenda’s plumbing; he warned her never to attempt to have another child.
    Dulcie and Fred were delighted with Danny, apart from the initial shock when the nursing sister unwrapped the swaddling blanket and they observed their grandson’s dark hair, tiny brown fists and olive complexion.
    Although Mick’s incompetence couldn’t have had anything to do with the miscarriage, they had nevertheless been secretly worried and then vastly relieved when the second pregnancy turned out well. The marriage had proved fruitful in two ways: a grandson, but also a highly competent daughter-in-law.
    By the time he was christened, the baby weighed eleven pounds two ounces and his abnormally large feet protruded from the end of his christening gown. It was impossible to ignore his jet-black hair and olive skin, surprising when both parents were so fair skinned and freckled. Brenda’s hair was commonly referred to as titian and Mick’s was the colour of a red house brick. At the christening party held at the pub afterwards, when the baby had been produced for inspection, Fred had heard one of the inebriated guests snigger, then ask in a loud whisper, ‘Any Abos seen hanging around outside the pub this time last year?’ The publican had grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and sent him out the back door nose first into the dirt.
    Brenda, flat as a pancake in front, had no means of satisfying Danny’s voracious appetite, so he was bottle-fed from an early age. Nor was she allowed much time to enjoy her baby. Fred and