An Extract - Novel In Progress

 
Chapter One

Just a couple of strides away from the main entrance to The Irish Times - the sight of which made her gut tighten - Myra Dillon turned to see that her man had stopped and splayed himself up against a large metal lamppost. His face shone as crimson as the beetroot that she’d earlier diced up for lunch and then wept over. She would’ve gone to him to make him lean forward, so he could find his breath again and stop his wheezing, but she was too distracted by the fierce hope that his discomfort might make him change his mind about his two o’clock appointment.

‘Could you not be slowing yourself down?’ he growled at her, ‘rushing away in front of me like a thievin’ gypsy.’ He coughed like it were a murderous yell, spitting a mix of beer and bile onto the pavement. ‘You’ll be the bleedin’ death of me, Myra.’ He cut the air with his turnip fingers.

She kept her face still, just so, gently reaching up to check that her scarf – bought for €1.99 the day before – hadn’t twisted itself around. She fastened the top button on her cardigan of baby-blue, and then caught sight of herself in a pub window. She decided she wouldn’t answer him. She would seek refuge there in her reflection, imagining that she had her knotted hair done, and the cardigan could at last be given to the Sisters of Mercy.

She leant down to scratch the back of her leg through her stocking, the whole time watching how her movement looked in the window. Sadly, she saw there was no going back on the dropping of the shoulders and her mouth had a sour twist to it. A nice cold glass of scotch came out through the window and poured itself down into her panting chest.

‘For the sake of heaven,’ he blurted. ‘Myra!’

She looked back towards him and smiled. ‘We’ll be late, Selwyn, and then you’ll go blaming me. Pick yourself up now.’ She nodded slightly between the smiles, a simple but effective way to reassure him, to ensure he didn’t kick a real wobbly. ‘We’re almost there now.’

He managed the rest of the distance awkwardly, the weight of his stomach pulling him forward, almost making him jog, his feet hitting the pavement at hilarious angles.

Dublin was doing its best to hold on to its miserly ration of September warmth, but a bitterness was reaching across the tin-foil sky, trying to rally a wind or a bucketing rain. Everyone knew it, even the birds. Dash about and get everything done while things are still clear and dry. The cheerful colour of the passing buses – vanilla yellow and two shades of lolly blue - just weren’t working.

Myra said, ‘There Selwyn. We’re there now.’

‘You’ll be the bloody death of me.’

He put a shaking hand on her shoulder, which unsettled a sleeping memory: the gesture used to be something affectionate, but now it was just to make sure he didn’t tip himself over in public. He looked at the people bustling past, racing for their buses at the other end of D’Olier Street. His dark, frightened eyes grew wider, as though he saw a street full of noisy convoys of invading troops. She could tell he was trying to make out if anyone was staring at him, chuckling at his laughable state. ‘No one’s interested in you, Selwyn. Let’s get you onto a seat inside.’

A springy, chatty man, who introduced himself as Tiny Sung Sue - or so it sounded -, came out to meet Myra and Selwyn at the reception desk. He kept sticking out his chin and raising it up like a bucking horse, apparently trying to free his irritated neck from the noose-like grip of his collar and tie. Between mouthfuls of his collapsing tuna and mayonnaise Sandwich (Myra could smell the ingredients) he laughed awkwardly, shared hard-to-understand anecdotes, looked at his watch.

'I was in Hong Kong before I came here,' he tweeted, looking disappointed that Selwyn had taken more interest in the fancy water cooler by the door. 'I really love this city. Something's really going off here.'

Myra worried that Selwyn might not answer. 'They say Dublin’s multi-culture now,' she said gingerly. 'Good for the young ones, I suppose.' She didn't quite know why she joined up those two thoughts, but it certainly did the trick in making Selwyn snap back into focus.

'I just want to know why I wasn’t given a bleedin interview, let alone a letter or call,' he snapped. 'That's all. A man deserves a bloody explanation.'

'I see,' said Sung Sue. 'Best we all go through to where we can talk.' He took them down a long corridor, past chaotic rooms where trendy young people hugged phones under their chins or peered into computer screens, looking bewildered or bored. Myra wondered if she might see someone famous, perhaps even the nice young fellow who wrote the gardening column.

Sung Sue said, 'I think there's been a misunderstanding, but we're happy to put things straight.' He biffed the crust of his sandwich into a bin and picked up a large tray of bulky mail left on a crowded desk.

Myra was resentful that Selwyn had kept his hand on her shoulder, pushing her forward as though she were the leader of the delegation. She knew very well what the nice Tiny Sung Sue was going to say; she'd been able to figure it out right from the start. She felt an overwhelming desire to take a risk and turn on Selwyn there and then, tell him that he was a fool and once again he was going to cause a scene at which people could snigger. This latest spectacle, to make things worse, was going to be performed in the fine corridors of a fine newspaper, and the young people there on the phone might even be forced to write something about it. The whole of Dublin would belly-laugh collectively at the latest shinnanigans of Selwyn Dillon. She dropped her shoulder so his hand fell away from her, but that only made him dig her in the middle of the back with his other hand.

Once they were sitting on the posh leather sofa in a room that had Assistant Editor on the door, Sung Sue said, 'What did you think we meant by the term “crime correspondent” when you saw it in the paper, Mr Dillon?' He played with his watch.

Myra offered Sung Sue a knowing smirk, very discreetly, in the hope that he wouldn't think she was a halfwit as well. She took in his perfect dimples, his pearl-coated teeth, his appealing long fringe and green eyes. She normally didn’t find Asian men appealing, yet there were the odd exceptions. She pulled on a small curl of hair that loitered down in front of her face. She crossed her legs and then bounced her suspended foot up and down, marking the seconds during which Selwyn was saying a big fat nothing. She folded her arms and then tried to communicate to Sung Sue with her eyebrows: she was on his side, not Selwyn’s. If she hadn't agreed to come along and sit there with her husband, she wanted to tell Sung Sue, then there would’ve been a scene - and it wouldn't have been pleasant.

'Are you having me on?' blurted Selwyn, standing up. His arms rose at the sides, like he might take off for an aerial attack. 'I'm not a bloody idiot.'

He was doing his best to stop making idiot sound like eejit, having read somewhere that foreign language students were struggling to understand the locals. He still hoped he may be able to cash in on the idea of giving conversation lessons to Asian students, just as his friend Tom was doing for a kidney-warming nine euros an hour.

Myra squeezed her arms tighter into her chest and looked down at the carpet. 'Don't get angry now, Selwyn.'

'He's making out I'm a bloody eejit - idiot!'

'Don’t be daft. He is not.'

'He bloody is. Him and his bloody yobs. It's just a rag, this is. Nothing bloody special about this outfit.'

'I tried to tell you.' Myra kept looking down at the carpet.

'What did you say?'

'I tried to tell you what it was. That's all.'

Selwyn was silent for a moment and then said, 'Crime correspondent? Course I know what that bloody well means.'

Sung Sue carefully slipped in behind his desk, creating more space between himself and Selwyn. 'You needed to have a journalism background. We wanted a journalist ... to write articles.'

'I knew that,' said Selwyn, suddenly looking vacant.

Myra wanted to yell out that he was lying. He hadn’t known that at all.

'You don't have a journalism background,' said Sung Sue, quietly, finally looking at Myra for backup.

She could see that Sung Sue was looking upon her with pity. He was looking at her gloomy-coloured scarf; the thick, plain dress that looked like carpet underlay; her shoes made famous by Catholic nuns; the cardigan and its tiny balls of overuse, which were now too numerous to be successfully culled.

The last time Selwyn had given her money for an item of clothing he'd insisted on choosing it himself, from the op shop at the end of their street. She'd pleaded with him to let her go to Arnotts, but he'd told her he wouldn't let his money be used to ‘prop up the big conglomerates’ (that was one of the many things he’d heard on talkback, and he repeated it to whoever would listen). She hated the way she looked. She dreamed of the day she could pay for some colour through her hair, or wear an outfit that hadn't been cleaned out of a dead widow's closet.

She decided to take a risk, to win back some of her dignity in front of this nice young man from Hong Kong, who might just be thinking they were both losers. 'Selwyn thought you wanted someone who grasses on crims,’ she said with conviction, but then wondered whether it might’ve been too informal to use the words grasses and crims. ‘He thought you were advertising for someone who gets paid for tips and things.'

'I thought no such thing,' Selwyn protested, his eyes bulging to bursting point. 'You can shut it, right?'

She whispered. 'A correspondent’s not the same as a rat, Selwyn. I tried to tell you. Papers don't go advertising that as a job.'

'No, we don't,' said Sung Sue.

She went all warm on hearing that, confirmation that he hadn’t jumbled her up with her husband. Selwyn was standing out on the stage on his own, his costume coming unstuck, everything revealed. The warm feeling lasted only a matter of seconds though; Selwyn's hand came down on the back of her chair, causing her to jolt forward. It wasn't a hard slap. It never was. It was the usual warning that boundaries had been stepped over.

Sung Sue didn't say anything. He stayed behind his desk and kept his hands together, clearly at a loss to know what to do. Myra didn't want a scene. Already she'd seen a few faces popping up in the small glass window in the door, eagerly curious about the raised voices. She decided she would do her best to get Selwyn to leave. The point about the advert had been made - albeit repeated. Selwyn wouldn't want to be humiliated with further questions and explanations. The charade had gone on long enough. Like with all of these situations - when Selwyn embarrassed her and made her despise him because of his behaviour - it wasn’t long before she was overcome with an enormous feeling of compassion for him.

As they hobbled towards the reception in silence, she wanted to tell him she loved him and that he shouldn’t let himself get upset. She genuinely felt sorry for him as she watched him stumble into the walls. He muttered to himself as he tried to right himself.

Out in the street, as they both looked up to see how the sky had now completely closed over with purple clouds, Selwyn said he wanted to get a taxi home instead of getting a bus. She knew he was seriously dejected; he rarely suggested getting a cab.

‘I just want to be at home,’ he mumbled.

Myra went into automatic mode, wanting to make things easier for him and jolly him out of the black mood he was falling into. Out of the corner of her eye though, just as she was saying something light and irrelevent, she spotted a sign on a window over the road. Letting Selwyn move off down the street a bit, she read the words to herself several times, to make sure she’d understood the meaning of it. The more she read the words, the stronger her feeling that the sign was speaking to her. She took in the whole window and the building, making a mental note of the street number. She turned to see that Selwyn had already flagged down a taxi. As she hurried to catch him up, she couldn’t help but let the words repeat themselves in her head. They seemed to dance at the front of her mind, everything else in there forced to shut up, sit down and let the exciting new performance continue without interruption.

* * *

In the customs hall at Dublin Airport, Father Xavier Duval reset his watch, in exact synchronisation with the large electronic clock on the wall. He felt ropy after his easyJet flight from France, but prepared himself for another big effort, pumping up his chest with the soggy, conditioned air that he wasn’t used to. He headed for the baggage carousel, all of a sudden nervous about what he was doing and why he was doing it.

He was also anxious to avoid a very loud girl from Galway, named Pinky, who’d sat next to him on the plane. She’d talked non-stop in frightening decibels about her summer escapade with a ‘beefy’ Frenchman on the shore of the big lake at Annecy. Father Xavier regretted that he’d taken off his white collar, black shirt and pants at the airport in Lyon. He figured that if she’d known she was talking to a priest she might’ve tamed herself; then he wondered if that might’ve just made her worse. Her nose studs and exposed beer belly had troubled him, to say the least.

‘Hope you have a grand time in Dublin,’ she yelled out from behind her backpack. ‘Be sure to climb the Guiness Storehouse, over there on the wall.’ She pointed to a large tourist photo.

‘Thank you very much,’ he said. He knew his spoken English was too forced, too controlled. He hadn’t spoken it for such along time, and he worried the words wouldn’t come out in the right order. ‘Good bye. Enchanted to meet you.’

She offered him a warrior’s roar, as her rugged Celtic ancestors had probably done in many a battle, and made exaggerated OK signs with both of her chubby hands. He saw then that a g-string rose up above the back of her baggy trousers. He worried about where Pinky had come from and where she was headed.

After flashing his passport under the nose of a disinterested customs officer, he was out in front of the airport trying to find a cab. He was advised by a man with a black cap to take what sounded like ‘an irreparable carrier’, and make his way to the official taxi rank. It was only after a few minutes, standing in a breeze full of dust and fumes from passing buses, that he realised he’d misheard the word ‘reputable’.

Father Xavier put his bag onto the back seat of a large London-style cab and said, ‘Would it please be possible to be taken to the centre of the city.’ He knew he sounded uptight.

‘I’ll take ya whereever ya fuckin well like.’

In the awkward silence that followed, Father Xavier thought about the madness of the past few days, the ducking and diving to avoid members of his parish at Fregny, near Saint Etienne, and the attempt to pretend that everything had been as it should be. His housekeeper would arrive at the presbytery the following day and discover his absence. She would know something was amiss; he’d always informed her of his small trips to visit family in Paris, or down to the coast for short stays at the church retreat at Cassis.

He sighed heavily, a colossal feeling of tiredness pushing down on his shoulders and a sharp headache pressing into the back of his eyes. He thought about the massive number of trips he’d been forced to make to neighbouring villages and towns over the previous months, becoming the sole priest in a forever expanding diocese of sinners and needy people. Paris kept saying that new recruits were on the way; no one would swear to it on the bible though. Priests were being taken out of small towns to go elsewhere, with parishes in a constant state of merging, and those who’d become used to small flocks that could be easily managed were suddenly the leaders of thousands of people who were hostile to the loss of intimacy. He thought it no wonder that the pews were starting to ring with increasing silence. No cook in kitchen, no restaurant.

The cab driver came to life, his grey eyes searching in the rear vision mirror, a suspicious and mean look about him.‘Are ya one a these bleedin foreigners comin in ta take Irish jobs?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘We got loads a you lot coming in an pushing up the prices.’

Father Xavier saw that the man’s neck was purple and his voice shaky. ‘I’m just visiting,’ he said, hoping to end the conversation there and then.

‘Loads a them eastern Europeans here now.’ He turned off the radio that had been playing pleasantly in the background. ‘Romanians, Poles, Turks, Hungarians. You name it, we got em. We’ll be speaking their fuckin lingo before ya know it.’

‘I’m sorry. I don’t know too much about that.’

The driver grunted and then looked dreamily at the way ahead. Father Xavier imagined the driver thinking back to his happier times on those streets, when he used to laugh and kick cans with his friends, and perhaps make a few bob selling broken eggs in a wooden cart. He probably never imagined he would be driving so many foreigners around the streets of his beloved city.

About 20 minutes later the driver swung his cab over to theside of the road and said, ’Can’t get more fuckin central than this.’

Father Xavier walked around for a while with his duffle bag over his shoulder and tried to get his bearings. The last time he’d walked the streets of Dublin had been in 1990, just before he’d gone into the seminary. Instead of looking for all the likely changes though, he decided he would find a hotel for the night, sleep himself into a state of fitness, and then set his mind to finding his dear friend Soloman. That thought made him nervous. It’d been such a long time, and there’d been no correspondence between them for years. Would he still be there? Would he accept his explanation for why he was just turning up, and once again lend the sympathetic ear that he’d offered all of those years earlier?

After looking up to admire the tall, needle-like Monument of Light in O’Connell Street, which looked sinister against the backdrop of the brooding sky, he made his way towards O’Connell bridge, struggling to avoid the mighty rush of Friday shoppers and people keen to get home. Things weren’t made easier by the renovation work being carried out on the sidewalks, with everything fenced off in a chaotic manner, mud and dust spread everywhere. A couple of times, to avoid the pushing and shoving, he took a risk and walked on the road.

He eventually stood in front of the main entrance to Trinity College, wondering which part of town would be best for finding a cheap hotel. He doubled back slightly and headed down College Street, in the direction of Pearse Station, with the distant memory of there being a couple of cheap and friendly hotels in that area. He knew there was no use walking up Grafton Street or towards Temple Bar; he’d read in Le Monde how those areas had boomed in recent years and a tourist had to have a good wad of euros to even get a look in.

He walked fast, anxious about the build up of clotted cream-looking clouds. He wondered if he’d ever seen Ireland under brilliant sunshine, in those student days when he used to enjoy travelling there on a night bus from London. He’d once had romantic visions of actually living there, perhaps not in Dublin itself, but in a stony cottage in some little fishing village in the west, where even just the lilt of the language would be enough to sustain him. Life had always taken him elsewhere though, throwing up safe and more illuminated paths.

He turned into a road with a name that looked surprisingly French – D’Olier Street – and it wasn’t long before he found a small hotel that looked cosy and inviting. It was called The Barker and Conrad, a slim and chic-looking establishment, stuck in between what looked like a cheap place for backpackers and a traditional pub on the corner that offered “divinity” steaks.

There were three stars above the hotel entrance, and a board that advertised rooms at €75 a night. He felt attracted to the warm orange of the walls he could see inside (it reminded him of the colour of his own room back at his parents’ old house in Mulhouse) and he thought the reception area looked tidy enough. As he pushed open the door he read another more prominant sign on one of the windows:

CLEANER/COOK WANTED. FULL BOARD AND GOOD WAGE.
MUST BE NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKER. APPLY WITHIN.

In another wave of pessimism, which he was trying hard to keep his head above, he wondered if the advertisement meant that breakfast would be lousy and the shower would remain uncleaned until the vacancy was filled. He also wondered if local Irish people would hesitate about applying for the job, given that they were calling for native English speakers. Did the Irish consider themselves to be native English speakers? Would they be happy with such a title?

He stepped inside and was instantly calmed by the musical, log-fire welcome of the receptionist. He was a bald man the size of a wafer, but his voice seemed to make the wooden walls vibrate. ‘A very good evening to you, sir. You’re very welcome here at The Barker and Conrad.’


Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney.

A Short Story - The Coffin On The Back Of The Tractor

 
 

1.

All eyes were down as meaningless words resounded around the scruffy walls of the chapel.

He protected his children.
He loved his wife.
He lived life to the full.

The words made no sense, falling like lost feathers, settling in any old order. Someone added their own quiet thought: everyday he drowned himself with 16 pints between the Silver Lounge and the Memorial Hall.

The cheap wooden coffin was pushed up against the altar. Some children giggled, but no one tried to stop them.

There was a nervous silence as the priest, who’d been called at the very last minute, struggled to find his place in the tatty bible that shook like something alive in his hands. His cheeks boasted some dashes of rose and a very obvious shine of whisky.

‘Just as man comes into this world with nothing, he leaves with nothing. He is part of a wider plan. Indeed, he is part of a wider cycle. There was a purpose in his life, just as there is a purpose in his death.’

A car horn blasted outside, an excuse for one or two to cough out loud. People swayed and struggled to keep themselves upright and steady. Yes, it seems, one or two had already indulged themselves.

Two small children crawled between the disorderly feet.

‘That skinny man’s got whiskers coming out of his ears.’

The children curled under a bench and looked out sideways at the grey faces; the dark, commodious clothes; the huddled formations.

‘There’s hair growing on his nose as well.’

The priest frowned and flipped his book shut in one easy move, making a signal that needed no eye contact. Annoyance jiggled about on his eyelashes. It was clear to those who knew about such things that he’d decided to forget about the wordy passages he would normally be obliged to read.

Gangly men in black, one wearing orange trainers, shuffled to their positions.

‘He looks like a werewolf,’ said the little girl beneath the bench, pulling at her little friend’s shirt.

‘You’ll be like that when you grow up.’

‘No, dummy, that only happens to boys.’

‘It’s true! Girls grow moustaches when they grow up. You’re going to have to use a shaving machine.’

An old woman - who looked to the children very much like the Queen - covered her eyes with a handkerchief.

The men in black each took a corner of the casket, which was attached to a frame on wheels, and tried to move it as gracefully as possible. Someone was reminded of a shopping trolley. The wheels screeched as it was pushed down the aisle.

‘Who’s going to shave him when he’s in there?’

‘He’s going to grow a big beard, and his hair will get really long.’

‘I thought he was going to be burnt.’

‘Yeah he is, but his body goes up into the sky first.’

‘But how can he go up into the sky and be burnt as well?’

‘I don’t know.’

The organ screamed and made everyone jump. There was a false start, inhaling and farting, and then a horrible sound as too many notes were hit at the same time. The timing was out and only a few people knew the words.

‘She’s got arthritis,’ whispered an old woman to her husband. ‘Apparently they couldn’t get anyone else who didn’t charge.’

A jolly man tried to improve the sound of the droning voices.

The little girl asked, ‘What would happen if he was only asleep?’

‘He’d be snoring if he was asleep.’

‘Maybe he’s snoring really gently and we can’t hear him.’

‘The doctors would’ve hit him really hard to see if he felt it.’

‘Do you think he’ll be able to feel it when they burn him?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Is he naked when he goes into the sky?’

‘No, angels come and give him some new clothes.’

The priest signalled to everyone to get up and follow the coffin outside. The Queen stayed on her knees though, her eyes squeezed shut, her hands wrapped around her nose as if trying to avoid the smell of something horrid. The skinny man hovered beside her, not sure whether to console her, or follow everyone else and watch the coffin as it left the chapel.

Later, outside, the two children proudly sat on the fat wheels of the tractor. No longer timorous, the little girl grinned, as if she were about to take the hot seat on a fantastic ride at a theme park. She was immune to the reproach of some of the mourners: discreet glances at the trainers on her feet, the tractor, the mud on the tyres. The coffin was pushed onto the trailer and covered with a flag from the local rugby club.

There had already been muttering from some that the use of a tractor was in bad taste. The man from the funeral company had agreed that he would drive it, although he insisted there wouldn’t be a big difference in the overall cost of the service and burial. He’d made it clear to the family that he thought it was inappropriate, but he would respect their wishes. Someone clapped when the headlights were flicked on and the gruff engine was brought to life.


2.

Tom Coughlin sat in painful silence on the forty minute trip to the hospital. The sun had just started to come up, drying up the remains of overnight drizzle still visible on the quiet streets. Everyone was in their beds, oblivious to the fact that someone else’s life was taking a dramatic turn. There were no cameo roles, no audience, no dramatics. Just massive, ordinary life.

He lifted his head towards the old Victorian style hospital as they pulled into the entrance. Only a few rooms in the five storey block were lit up, and he tried to picture what his father looked like lying in one of them. He wondered what he was going to say when he saw him. Would he be conscious? He was disrupted. The taxi driver suddenly became excruciatingly painful, raving about plans to extend the hospital, the lack of parking, how his sister had a terrible stay there once. Tom was finally glad to be standing in the reception on his own. He nervously smiled at the nurse who appeared.

‘Mr Coughlin’s son?’ She seemed to focus on his collar. ‘I can take you through to see your father straight away if you like.’

Another nurse, with a bloated and earnest look, pointed him towards a door. She stood back and intimated that he should go in on his own. As he turned the handle, he could smell burning chicken, coming from the other end of the ward.

He’d expected to walk into a room full of machines, tubes and drips; instead, there was darkness and the eerie shape of his father lying flat on his back, on a bed near the window. He must be asleep, Tom said to himself. He frowned, thinking everything looked too simple. He switched on the dim light and then shuffled towards the bed. An image came into his head, of a criminal slinking into the inner sanctuary of someone lying sleeping and vulnerable. Now, close to the bed, he could see his father’s face. Pale. Leathery. Motionless. The white sheet, perfectly ironed, wasn’t moving. He was stiff as a board, his arms unnaturally placed by his side.

Tom put his hands over his mouth as he suddenly realised what he was looking at. He let out a stifled scream, more like a caterwaul. Then, staring at the floor, he half laughed and half cried, opening his eyes in total inexplicable shock. No one said he was dead. He was supposed to be alive. Maybe he was still alive. He looked dead, but maybe he was just resting. But then, where were all the tubes and monitors, and all the gadgets you would normally see around a hospital bed? Tom now screamed out loud. He’s dead! He’s dead! He’s dead! He choked as he said the words. He could not stop, saying it over and over, letting his screams burst through his shaking hands as he repeated it over and over again. Another confused nurse appeared at the door. More nurses. A doctor. Tom could hardly stand. He heard a nurse saying that she thought he had been told. My God, the poor child didn’t know. He had unexpectedly come face to face with the horrible reality. He squeezed his eyes shut. All he could see was his father, covered in glue and chicken feathers.

‘Is there anyone we can call?’ asked one of the nurses.

He didn’t hear the question. It was not what he wanted to hear. He wanted someone else to step in and take control. The nurses seemed
impatient. No time for a confused young man.

‘What about a cup of sweet tea?’ asked the nurse.

He was ushered towards a small side-room. The nurse whispered, with a childlike frown, that he had to think of someone they could phone. He had to gather his thoughts and help them. She said they had called for the hospital chaplain, who might be of assistance.

A cup of tea without milk was put in front of him. It was now half past seven. There were no tears. There were no thoughts.

Then he heard a feeble voice.

‘How long are you going to be in here? We’re going to need this room for someone else.’ A nurse’s ashen face stuck out from behind the door. He didn’t realise at first what he was hearing. He was speechless. Then, like a wave pulling back into itself before crashing, he remembered. The words suddenly gushed.

‘Stuff you! My father’s just died! Can’t I have just ten minutes!’

The face disappeared. The door was gently shut. He stood in the middle of the room and tried to focus. The walls began to spin. He felt faint and tired and hungry. He tried to work out what he was going to do with the body. Who did he have to ring? Maybe he could use the car to come and pick up his father’s body. What did he have to do then? Who would organise the funeral? Who would pay for all of this? The most important thing was what to do with the body. He pictured himself struggling to carry his father down the stairs in a body-bag.

He remembered his father talking about his wedding. Rained all day. Bride and Groom argued in the bathroom after the ceremony, and the young kid who played the out-of-tune piano hadn’t brought along any wedding music. He played some ghastly, sombre experimental-type music and everyone was on edge. A man with a camera started yelling after the service; apparently he hadn’t loaded the film. John and Serena Coughlin, I pronounce you man and wife. Not a flash to record the moment. Tom had been eager to ask his father more about Serena, unable to picture her getting married to him. He couldn’t imagine her and her life before she gave birth to her children, before she must have become so miserable. Before she decided to get away from them.


3.

It had been raining heavier than anyone could remember, and somebody from the cemetery rang to say the digging of the hole had been delayed because it kept filling up with water. Three sharp would have to be six sharp, cars were not allowed inside, and only plastic flowers could be left on the stone.

The chapel at the mill had not been used for a long time. The workers stopped turning up for weekly services years earlier, and the church couldn’t afford to keep the place open. Tom remembered when he threw a stone and smashed one of the stained glass windows, which was never replaced. The priest had said it wouldn’t need much work to get the church cleaned up for a funeral. Some of the pews were dragged up from the basement and given a good dusting down. A lot of old junk from other parishes was being stored there, and this had been quickly moved down into the basement.

Old Mrs Holden had offered to organise some flowers and lead the congregation with a few hymns. She said her arthritis may be too bad for her to attempt to play the small organ tucked away under the stairs at the back, but she would see what she could do. She’d also offered to put on a cup of tea and scones at the end of the service. Tom had been uptight, wondering how many people were actually going to come.

A solemn faced man from the mill arrived at the house to give Tom a bag full of money, donated from his father’s colleagues. There was a card inside which simply said ‘thinking of you at this difficult time’. Tom wondered how that could be when he’d never met any of the workers from the mill. He found it hard to stop wondering how much money was in the bag.

Apparently there’d been a few long distance telephone calls. Someone was on their way from Denmark to attend the service. He’d heard about the death through the grapevine and felt he had to make an appearance. John had been his son’s best friend and had always been a pleasure to have around. That had been thirty years before, but apparently it was still worth something. A cousin was coming, as well as an old fishing mate. The big arrival, however, was Dame Jessica. That was the nick name Serena used for John’s sister. ‘Jessica, the interfering cow,’ was another way that Serena described her. It was not that she hadn’t wanted to keep in touch with the family. It was out of her control. She would’ve maintained contact, if she’d been allowed to. For some reason, it seemed important that Tom understand that.

There was another phone call, which Tom agreed to take, from the grumpy old man at the store. There was an outstanding bill of 283 euros and 16 cents, which needed to be paid. There were no condolences from the huge black bird circling around the rotting carcass of John Coughlin. Between a few gross coughs, there were just the important digits. Would the family still need the daily order of a loaf of white bread and the evening paper? Tom didn’t say anything. He didn’t breathe a word. Hello? Son? Hello? Click.



4.

A slow procession of about fifteen cars followed the tractor to the Lexington Cemetery. It was a small, fenced in piece of land, close to the mill entrance. There were no flowers or attractive plants, just an old dead tree in one corner and a wooden shed that was falling apart in the other. Some of the thirty or so headstones were damaged and any remote sign of grass was lost to tracks of mud caused by flooding. Although the plots were free to employees and their families, the last burial had been four years earlier. People were opting to pay for burials in bigger cemeteries; apparently there was a stigma attached to being offered a plot free of charge. Many people were also not keen on the idea of resting eternally in a place that was probably responsible for their deaths.

Two women stood aloof, back away from the crowd. They preferred to watch the ceremony from a distance, huddled together under an umbrella, even though the rain had eased to a light drizzle. They watched as the coffin was lowered into the ground and people started lining up to throw dirt and flowers into the hole.

‘Didn’t know the old bastard had a kid,’ said one of the women.

‘Hardly say he’s the fatherly type,’ replied the other. ‘I’ll tell you who lived next door to them for a while though - Liz and Bruce. Bloody little brat by all accounts.’

‘Not bad looking though.’

‘Didn’t get his good looks from the father then.’

‘Must be the mother, whoever she is.’

‘Strange one that. Shot the nest when the kid was young. Can you imagine?’

‘Poor little sod.’

‘Didn’t know there’d be such a big turnout for the old bugger. Didn’t know he had so many friends.’

‘He doesn’t. Good excuse to get some time off work.’

‘Can’t say anyone seems too devastated. That fat woman with all the bad makeup seems to have blubbered the most.’

‘Sister, isn’t it? Thought I heard someone say that.’

‘Get a look at her husband. He looks like a bloody flagpole.’

‘He’s got Wednesday legs.’

‘What?’

‘He’s got Wednesday legs!’

‘What the hell are you on about.’

‘When-is-day gonna break!’

‘You’re sick, making jokes at a funeral!’

‘Someone’s got to smile. Just look at that lot.’

One of the pair took out a packet of cigarettes and lit up, her eyes homing in on Tom as he stood above the grave. She watched his face as he moved forward and shovelled a bit of mud into the hole with his foot.

‘He’s a strange one all right. He looks like he’s happy to watch that box get covered up.’

Tom’s eyes followed the small carvings around the top of the coffin, knowing that people were trying to read his face. He closed his eyes, put his right hand up to his chest, tilted his head back. He could sense the prying of those around him, burning gazes through his eyelids. Keen to see how he’ll react. Was he cut up?

The sides of his mouth slowly lifted. He did nothing to stop the smirk that someone seemed to carefully draw on his face. It could’ve ended up looking like exasperation, but there was no mistake that the shape was that of a smile. There was silence around him. He stayed there like that for at least thirty seconds, keeping his eyes shut, letting the smile consume his face. It reached up and tickled his hair, ran down the back of his head. He could feel it rubbing his chest and brushing his nipples. This was a smile that really came from within, one that he’d never really breathed before.

He let his head fall down towards his chest. The smile disappeared and he was thinking of Serena, going home after her own mother’s funeral and having to wash the vomit out of her young boy’s hair. He wished he could see her beside the grave, watching the old man hit the earth. He wondered how she would react. Maybe she would have smiled as well. He always said that she would go first.

At that moment a strange thought screamed and punched the inside of his tired head. Maybe she’s here! Come along to the funeral! She could be watching at this very minute. She may have read the death notice in the paper and decided to come to watch. Who would not want to watch their former husband be buried.

He peered around frantically, moving fast, brushing past people. There were many women. Black hair. Short. Ugly. Beautiful. Glasses. Did she ever wear glasses? Has she dyed her hair? What would she look like now? Would she look the same? He trembled at the thought that his mother might be close by. He caught a glimpse of the priest, who had probably noticed the disturbed look and the frantic searching. He ignored the sweat running down his face and moved to the back of the crowd, scrutinising every woman he could see. That could be her! She could be her. The woman there with the hat and the glasses.

He stopped and looked down at his feet, telling himself to stop. It was pointless to search. He had no idea what she looked like. He lifted his head and caught sight of a woman standing just nearby. She was standing alone. He walked up close and tried to see behind the eyes. He tried to trace something familiar on her face. There were wrinkles and powder and the smell of daffodils. He pressed his eyes up against her skin and tried to read if there was anything at all that could reveal who she really was. His eyes came back into focus. There was nothing. He tried to fight the thought, but then he realised there was nothing.

No, hang on. There. Over there. An umbrella. Cigarette smoke. Two women are standing alone. They are strangers. They’re not taking part in the farewell. They’re observing. One looks like she could have his red hair.

Tom couldn’t feel his legs move. He was being dragged in a sweaty frenzy to the other side of the cemetery. Then he was there, standing in front of two middle-aged women. They nudged each other, confused. One of them put her cigarette behind her back. He stuttered as he tried to mouth the word.

‘S … S … Serena!” he said, trying to get up close.

‘Sorry?’

‘Serena!’ He said again.

‘Sorry love,’ said the other woman. ‘I know we shouldn’t really be here. There’s no harm in watching though is there?’

‘Watching?’

‘Yeah, Jody and I thought we’d come and see off your old man, I mean say goodbye to your father. That’s all right isn’t it?’

‘I’m looking for Serena.’

‘What does she look like love?’

‘She’s my mother.’

‘I don’t know love. Was she at the service?’

‘She is everywhere.’

‘Sorry?’

‘She is everywhere.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘She is my mother. I have to find her.’

‘Ah. Not here love. This is Jody and I’m Birdy. We worked at the mill with your father.’

‘Serena?’

‘Never met her love.’

Tom turned and made heavy tracks back to the grave. His head hurt and he sweated like never before. He couldn’t remember the faces of the women he’d spoken to, and he couldn’t remember what he’d said to them.

Jody and Birdy awkwardly walked off towards the road.

‘Let’s get the hell out of here! I told you they were bloody screwed up! Jesus, I thought he was going to belt us one! He had serious psycho written on his face!’

Tom let his arms fall lazily to his side after taking up an awkward position near the grave. People streamed past, throwing flowers into the hole. He gave each of them an empty grin as they passed. No connection. These were people he’d never met before. They meant nothing to him, and he’d probably never see them again. He let his eyes wander off over the heads. Tall trees in the distance danced in the wind. Just slightly, ever so slightly, there was a humming sound. He closed his eyes to hear it. It was in the wind. Gentle, reassuring humming. It wasn't someone beside him, but seemed to come down from the trees. The rise and fall of a well known nursery rhyme. He tried to hum it, but his throat refused to move, staying still and dry.


Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney.

A Short Story - Paolo And The Snakes

 



He remembers the day he finally surrendered, lying down on the back lawn, realising with relief that he could do nothing but allow the thousands of little snakes find their way to the surface. They had won! Plasters covered what the doctors called ‘crisis points’, where his skin was purple and smarting, in some places crusting over in an unpleasant way. His beautiful, smooth vessel, which his aunties had described as being like soft porcelain, had been betrayed from beneath, by the cruelness of his own inner world.

It started when Paolo was 14, with a shadow across his upper lip, as though it were the work of a pencil - if it had first appeared somewhere else, such as down below, he says he would’ve remembered. He reckons he was the only one in his year who sprouted such a huge amount of curly body hair, his system functioning with cheerful abandon. If only the parents had been more alert to the goings-on of their only child: his need to spend long periods locked up in the bathroom, the pinching of his father’s razor blades, the bizarre desire to place his flighty hands over exposed skin. The cuts, the rashes, the slicing open of under age flesh? No one got the chance to forcefully point out the madness of it.

The unwitting comments of some of Paolo’s friends had driven him to start the shaving, a painful and daily chore which involved sweeps up both legs and arms, his stomach and chest. He hates to bring back the memory of those unkind words: monkey man, tarantula, the fuzz. They seem so harmless now, yet back then, for a boy who wasn’t able to appreciate the miracle of a body’s transformation, it was a terrifying and lonely struggle. Paolo’s body hair, the eternal growth he hadn’t chosen, had to be eradicated, like a noxious weed that crowds out everything else. It became medicinal to hack away the feeling of intrusion, the feeling of having something unseemly on his skin. Of course, people started to notice the plasters. The razor blades, often at the end of their lives from trying to keep the years off his father’s face, had to be pushed harder against the skin, scraped along as though soil were being ploughed. Teenage spots on his face were always sliced open, never given the chance to heal over, denying him a handsome launch into the future.

Paolo was still a child. The hair hadn’t understood the innocence of its target and had no right to take up residence in what was still such a juvenile sanctuary. The new man was still among the boys, still in a land of milky complexions and angelic pureness. Today the hair has begun to change colour but it continues to rise up from beneath. Paolo and the snakes have never totally reconciled their differences – and sometimes he fantasizes about uncovering once again his smooth, pearl-coloured skin.


© Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney.

A Short Story - The Broken Bubbles

 



The absence of the bubbles hadn't been on that day’s list of priorities, so when the doorbell shook the house and a man with an accent yelled out - not even giving her a chance to respond to the bell - Elizabeth Carraway was more than a little annoyed.

‘Mrs Carway? Sorry I late. Wife have baby.’ He had a grin that refused to let its style be cramped by bad teeth.

‘What?’ She buttoned up her apricot-coloured cardigan, which her husband said should never be worn outside the house. ‘It’s Carraway.’

He came up two more steps, seemingly keen to bring himself to her level. ‘The spa. I come to fix.’ He flipped over a small badge that hung from his jumper, revealing the name Heavenly Hot Tubs.

‘Oh, yes, yes. Well, you’ll need to be quick. Through there ... under the glass patio.'

‘I’m late because baby born,’ he gushed, shaking his head as if he found the words too incredible to believe. ‘My wife have baby boy.’

‘Yes, yes. Never mind.’

She walked briskly through to the patio after sensing in a flash that he wouldn't be able to find it quickly enough on his own. With her mind on the iron upstairs and the new sesame bread about to burn in the oven, she waved her hand at the tub that hadn't been producing bubbles for months. Her husband, Alistair, had vaguely mentioned an appointment when he was last home but she'd forgotten to make a note.

With a less cheerful face than before he said, ‘First baby in England. We very happy.’

‘Oh? Very nice.’ She looked at her watch. ‘The bubbles stopped over Christmas and so we drained it. Do you have the right tools? Do you know these kinds of tubs?’

She didn't like the look of him, his clothes too baggy and scruffy, a long scar on his bony cheek. There were also patches of pink skin amongst his stubble, which she found particularly troubling; she wondered if he might be harbouring some kind of contagious disease from his wretched homeland. She warned herself not to get too close. She could also smell the bread.

‘My wife names him after my dead papa. My family killed in war.’ He put his duffle bag down on the tiles, taking in a quick breath, as though to stifle a hidden pain.

‘Splendid. What? Oh.’ She wondered if the bag was greasy and whether her tiles might need cleaning afterwards. She leaned on the edge of the spa and looked down at the bottom, noticing with alarm that Alistair hadn't yet cleaned out the leaves from the old indoor tree that had died from a lack of water. ‘I'm sorry ... I mean ... that's nice. Well, sorry for your father but nice for the baby.’

‘All my family killed.’ He put his hands over his eyes and stood still.

‘Oh.’ She cupped her hands into the praying position, a spontaneous gesture that she hadn't decided on. ‘Goodness. Are you alright?’

He didn't answer. He lowered his head and brought his feet together, like a prisoner waiting for a sentence to be pronounced.

She looked back into the spa. ‘It may just be the leaves stopping the bubbles. It may be something quite silly. What do you think?’

‘Baby is new hope, Mrs Carway. New life in family.’

‘Oh dear. Are you crying?’ It was a silly question because she could see he was crying, his tears streaming down between his fingers, like he’d just splashed his face with water.

‘We come for peace. Too many die.’

She reached down into the spa and picked up one or two of the dried leaves that lay there, gently crushing them in her fingers. The little pieces scattered over the tiles. The iron was getting hotter. The bread needed to be taken out. Alistair’s suits needed collecting. She had to ring the boys to see if they were still coming home from university for the Easter break - she'd heard from their meddling grandmother that they had voiced a preference for a trip to France with their friends.

The man dried his eyes with the sleeves of his jumper and then bent down to pick up his bag. ‘I'm sorry, Mrs Carway.’ He slowly started to inspect the spa, but it was clear his mind was elsewhere.

‘I'll leave you to it.’ She pulled on her knuckles, making them crack. ‘Will you be long?’

He nodded and smiled forlornly, reaching down to clear out some of the leaves.

She went back upstairs to the dressing room but felt bothered about something she couldn't grasp. With the iron held loosely in her hand she found herself staring out into the backyard, unable to blink. It seemed only a few years before that the boys had played on the swings and chased the dog across the lawn. She only got one sleeve of her husband's shirt done before she headed down the stairs into the kitchen, where the burnt smell had already built up.

She flicked off the oven but didn't bother opening the door. She slouched and looked at her watch: four o'clock and nothing accomplished. The back lawn suddenly struck her as being as bleak as a graveyard. The man's words came to her then: happy, hope, family. She folded her arms and closed her eyes, allowing a chill to spread through her body. She felt weak and sick. Utterly sick. Sitting down at the table, she gently placed her head on an outstretched arm.

The sound of rushing water startled her some time later. She went to the doorway that led to the patio and saw the man carefully replacing a panel on the side of the tub, wiping away a streak of grease he'd left. The water rose quickly, swirling and frothing like the wild whirlpools they'd seen in Scotland the year before. ‘It’s funny but I’ve never actually been in that tub. Four years it’s been there and I’ve never hopped in … only Alistair and the boys.’ She wasn’t sure if he’d heard her.

She suddenly had visions of the man’s family, bundled into an old lorry by armed thugs, blindfolded, taken away in the dead of night, never to be seen again. She leaned up against the door frame and tried to imagine how it must be for him to visit homes like hers, people who'd never suffered such atrocities, whose only worries were about the functioning of their daily comforts.

‘I didn't even ask your name,’ she said quietly. ‘I didn't even ask your new baby's name.’

‘Oh, I nearly finish, Mrs Carway. Bubbles good now.’

‘My name’s Elizabeth. I feel awful about before, when you were talking about your family. I was in a world of my own. It must have seemed very selfish.’

‘No, I'm sorry. My baby not make you happy news. I am just man for repair.’

She leaned forward and swallowed, desperate not to let the moment pass. ‘I really do want to hear about your baby, about your family, about your thoughts on us and ...’

He frowned, tilting his head to the side. ‘You have good bubbles now. No more broken bubbles. Pump not good. Not leaves. Just bad pumping.’

‘Oh, yes. But I don’t care about the bubbles now. They seem so very low now in the wider scheme of things. Would you like a cup of tea? You could even test the tub if you wanted. Have you ever been in one? You could even bring your wife and new baby over for a spa.’ She felt herself stiffen, standing up straighter. Her face felt flushed but her body seemed cold.

‘Thank you, Mrs Carway, but I meet wife in hospital park. Six o’clock.’

‘Oh. Yes. Of course.’ She pictured the man laughing and walking with his wife and baby through a gorgeous park, determined to put their past horror behind them.

She felt hopeless watching him leave, with an acute sense of bereavement at not having heard his story, about the country he’d come from, about the family he’d lost. She turned and looked down her long, vast hallway, listening to the rush of bubbles from the patio. She sobbed uncontrollably, putting her hands up over her eyes.



© Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney.

A Short Story - Something Quite Brazen

 

The wretched sound began on a Monday morning just before dawn. I'd been sitting up in bed, trying to decide whether I’d done the right thing by unplugging the phone the night before. It began as a scraping noise, as though someone were slowly making their way through the plaster on the other side of the wall. Every now and then I heard faint but distinctive taps. A couple of times it was more like a loud thud, which I could only imagine was an attempt by the person doing the scraping to remove a build-up of dust and debris. It wasn’t until I’d shuffled over to the window to take in the moodiness of the orange sky that the noise struck me as troubling. It suddenly came to me that the flat on the other side of my wall was supposed to be empty, the last family having moved out months before.

I immediately turned my thoughts to something rational. Maybe there were workers in there, getting an early start. Maybe the flat had been let without me knowing, and I’d missed the noise of the new tenants moving in. I checked the clock on top of the fridge to make sure it was indeed well before six o’clock on a Monday morning. I was now absolutely ready to deal with this terrible intrusion.

I took a glass and put it up against the wall, just above the photo of my dear Caroline, whose death nine years before still seems like just a month ago. I listened for voices, but there were none. Just that persistent noise. I took a deep breath and then rapped my knuckles on the spot where I thought the sound was coming from. I knocked lightly at first and then more confidently, but the scratching continued, accompanied by the little taps. I knocked on the wall again, louder this time, almost to the point where my knuckles hurt. It seemed absolutely incredible that the scratching continued and my knocking was being ignored.

It didn’t take long for me to start feeling upset and out of breath, so much so that I had to use my inhaler and take a couple of tablets. If I hadn’t been wearing my dressing gown, and forgotten where I’d put my slippers, then I may have just found the nerve to walk out the front door and down the hall. I may very well have picked up the courage to ring the bell on the door of the flat next door.

Of course, I didn’t. I sat there on a stool in the kitchen, resenting the fact that someone could be so inconsiderate. I also hated myself for the state of things, the realisation that I had no strength to even consider making a cup of tea. I stared at the phone again. I’d decided the night before that I no longer wanted Sally, my daughter, to get through to me. It was no longer possible to go on feeling like a burden. She had her own problems, her own life. Everyone did. I could no longer stand the fuss everyone made. I’d decided that if she came ringing the buzzer downstairs I would just refuse to answer, just like I’d been refusing visits from one or two others who felt the need to check in on me. How long had it been since my last visit? Five weeks? Six? I simply told people that I preferred to be left alone.

After two hours, with no let up in the scraping and the tapping, I finally decided to plug the phone back into the socket and fish around amongst my papers for Mrs Lubic’s number.

‘Mrs Lubic? Can you hear me?’

‘Hello, Mister Raymond, Sir.’

‘I keep telling you there’s no need for the sir.’

‘Sorry, Mister Raymond. Are you going for nice walk today? Very good morning with birds ... and good shiny sun.’

Her way of speaking almost brought a smile to my face – she’d moved to London from the former Yugoslavia in the 1970s but still had a sweet, child-like grasp of English. Then I remembered why I was calling.

‘There’s a terrible noise. Someone is scraping and knocking on the wall next door. Would you mind coming up here to tell them to stop?’

‘There is nobody, Mister Raymond. There is no one on your floor now. Just you Mister Raymond.’

I sat down on the chair by the phone, my hand shaking as I struggled to keep the receiver up to my ear.

‘Well, that’s very strange indeed,’ I said, as politely as I could, ‘because someone is in there next door doing some kind of work, scraping into the wall, as though they’re slowly making their way into my apartment.’

‘Ha! I don’t think so Mister Raymond. I have all the keys. There is no one. You are safe.’

‘Then who is making that noise, Mrs Lubic?’

I stood up, careful not to raise my voice.

‘I will come and see Mister Raymond. Don’t panic.’

I unplugged the phone, annoyed that I’d had to use it. Ten minutes later I heard her walking past my door, causing the floorboards in the hallway to moan, and then I could hear her struggling with her keys as she opened the neighbouring flat. After just a few minutes she walked back down towards my front door.

‘There is no one, Mister Raymond, Sir.’ She spoke right up close to my door, but I didn’t want to open it and let her see me.

‘Are you sure,’ I said. While I didn’t want to be rude, I couldn’t believe that she’d found nothing. ‘Someone must be there ... if there is all that scraping and thumping.’

‘It is very very empty,’ she said. ‘Maybe it’s a thing in the wall. Mouses maybe?’

‘We say mice ... mice, Mrs Lubic!’ It seemed strange to be yelling through the door, yet I really didn’t feel that I could open it. ‘No mouse would make that kind of tapping sound ... that kind of thud that I’m hearing.’

‘Is it in the roof, Mister Raymond?’

‘I may be old, Mrs Jubic, but I think I can tell the difference between a sound in the roof and a sound that’s coming through the wall.’

‘It also may be the water pipes are chattering,’ she said, obviously moving off now towards the stairs.

I figured she must have picked up that expression from the friendly plumber everyone used to talk about, the Irishman who brought her daffodils and invited her to go on holiday with him. I smiled as I repeated what she said, trying to imitate her accent. ‘Yes, the water pipes are chattering.’

‘I will bring your new groceries on Wednesday, Mister Raymond, Sir. This week you leave me just 20 pounds under the door.’

I stayed where I was for a good few minutes after she left, holding on to the latch, wanting to cry out for her to come back. Had she really checked properly, through all the rooms? I couldn’t think of doing anything else but stay there attached to the door. My feet hurt on the rough lino and I could feel the cold air in the hallway coming in under the door.

No sooner had I made my way back to the bedroom, pulling the curtains together to block out the brightness of the morning, than the scraping started up again, this time louder and faster. I took a small ruler that I’d been using for my latest calculations and hit it hard against the wall, again and again. I think I must have done this for a good 10 minutes, but still the noise continued, and I had visions then of someone standing there covered in dust, hell-bent on getting through into my flat. I think at some point I might have taken a small pot and banged that against the wall as well, hitting and hitting to try to stop the scraping. But, incredibly, nothing seemed to work.

I remember lying on the bed, my inhaler close to my mouth, perspiration turning my pillow into a small marsh. Whenever I felt I had the strength I hit the ruler and the pot up against the wall, expecting any minute to see someone tumbling through on top of me. I must have slept for long periods, waking up every now and then to hear that the noise had become unbearably louder, and then to hear it later as something quite distant.

The next thing I remember was a mighty cloud of white dust in front of me, as if someone had thrown a big basin of flour into the air. It settled over my body and through my hair, turning to mush on my lips. The low rumble of the falling plaster seemed to go on and on, echoing around me.

I stretched out my arms and moved towards what I could just make out to be a huge collapsed hole in my bedroom wall. A sudden sense of fear made me stop though; I could do nothing but wait to see who might emerge through the veil of dust. I was overwhelmed with emotion, petrified that I was about to be attacked by the person who’d been scraping and bashing his way through my wall. My dressing gown had swung open and I could feel pieces of sharp debris beneath my feet. I closed my eyes when I heard the sound of someone scrambling over the plaster and bricks.

‘Hello?’

I instantly recognised her voice. Sally’s head came through the opening in the wall, her hand up over her mouth, apparently in shock, her eyes darting all over the place.

‘I can’t believe you’ve done something like this!’ I said, taking a few steps forward, relieved deep down to see it was a familiar face. ‘Have you completely lost your mind, my child? What would push you to do something like this?’

Sally didn’t say anything. She just came forward and put her arms around me. I could hear her sobbing, which I thought was pretty weird for a woman who’d just smashed her way into her father’s flat. As I tried to get my dressing gown closed and shake the dust from my hair, I caught sight of Mrs Lubic’s round, concerned face through the hole.

Later that night, after being checked over by a doctor whom Sally had called, and then sleeping for a good number of hours, I was given some astonishing information. I’d insisted that Sally tell me what was troubling her and what all this craziness had been about, even though she said I needed to get some more rest.

She told me, in a low, steady voice, that Mrs Lubic hadn’t received my call earlier that morning as I’d explained. My phone call, which had prompted Mrs Lubic to inspect the flat next door, had actually been three days earlier. She’d left the groceries on the landing on the Wednesday, as arranged, but hadn’t been up since. It was now Thursday. A whole three days had passed since that call? I’d been putting up with that terrible scraping and bashing for all that time? I didn’t have any answer for Sally.

When she eventually took me over to the opening in the wall, giving me a seat to sit down on, I hoped that she would finally tell me why she’d found it necessary to go to such drastic measures to see her father. I told her that I understood how she might’ve been upset at not being able to ring me or see me for all those weeks.

‘Dad, take a look over here.’

She crouched down beside the hole, pointing to various bits of debris.

‘Have you not noticed which way the plaster and bricks have fallen?' she asked. 'Have you not noticed the direction of this broken plaster up here around the edge of the hole? It’s pointing outwards, not inwards. The hole was started in here and you’ve busted your way through to the next flat. It was Mrs Lubic who rang me to say you were breaking your way through the wall. You’ve taken three days, apparently using that hammer and spanner over there. I don’t know how you’ve done it, but it’s bloody amazing, considering the condition you’re in.’

It seemed absolutely silly what she was saying. I wanted to laugh. I wanted her to tell me that the whole thing was some mighty joke. Mrs Lubic came in at that point, through the front door, followed by her two teenage sons. The Irish plumber appeared next and then Sally’s husband and children made an entrance. I felt even more embarrassed when two of my old chums from The Mathematicians’ Guild appeared as well, all trying very politely to ignore the gaping hole in my bedroom wall. The boys quickly got to work sweeping up the dust and plaster and stacking the bricks into a pile.

I waited until the shock from what Sally had told me eased before I spoke. I got up and stood by the hole, and then looked everyone in the eye, one after the other, causing some of them to look down into their laps.

‘I don’t think it was me,’ I said. ‘I don’t know who it was and I can’t explain the fact there was only me in here, but I can only say to you here and now that it wasn’t me. How could I do this? Why would I do this?’

Then, before anyone had a chance to respond, my eyes settled on the portrait of Caroline, and it almost seemed as though a slight twitch was visible in her upper lip, as if she were about to break out in a smile. I went and sat down again in the chair, remembering how Caroline used to enjoy it so much when she invited people around for afternoon tea.

‘Actually, I think I need to put the kettle on,’ I said. ‘What would Caroline say if she saw me now, eh? This awful state I’m in, all cooped up here, blocking all of you out. I think she would’ve been quite shocked. I think she would’ve been capable of actually resorting to something quite brazen.’

I didn’t stop to see the looks on their faces; I had tea and biscuits in the kitchen to sort out.



© Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney.

A Short Story - Her Time Alone

 
It was mother’s time. Every morning between five and seven. No one was allowed to spoil it. Terence, Keith and I had no choice but to obey. We knew that to do anything else would’ve been too painful. She never had to hit us to make us stay in bed; she simply had to cry. Her power had always been in her tears. She would weep with sharp little intakes of breath, just like she did that night the phone rang and all colour seemed to disappear, when people streamed through the house with wide, strained eyes, repeating lots of exaggerated things about my father.

Mysteries for children, though, are unbearable. One summer morning, way before the alarm sounded, I decided that I had to see for myself how mother spent those few hours alone. It had never occurred to me that all I had to do was sneak along the edge of the landing and in behind the statue that my father had brought back from Moscow. Between the smooth legs of some handsome Russian oligarch, I had a splendid view of the living and dining rooms.

At first I didn’t spot her, probably because I had expected to see some kind of obvious activity such as letter writing or the altering of one of her dresses. When I finally spotted her shape by the window, way off to my left, I was surprised at how elegant and relaxed she looked in her dressing gown. My mother was standing before me and nothing looked familiar. I had never seen her chest area so uncovered. I had never seen her with a hand on her hip, actually looking rather sexy. I had to fight the urge to go and wake up Terence and Keith.

I remained in the same position for a good ten minutes, with my knees scrunched up to my chin. I just watched her. It didn’t feel wrong. It didn’t feel like anything. After a while I tried to imagine what her eyes might be fixed on. She hardly moved, except to raise her mug to her lips a few times. I kept looking. She kept looking. I imagined that our breathing shared the same measured, relaxed pace.

Then, without any warning, she put a hand up and started waving. There was something unreal and disturbing about the wave though; the movement was slow and deliberate, as if she weren’t sure if the other person could see her. I immediately understood.

When mother turned around to place her mug on the table, I could tell that she’d been crying: the tears had made her chest all shiny and the skin beneath her eyes was swollen. I desperately wanted to race down the stairs and comfort her, to tell her that things would get easier with time, just as she’d told the three of us. But I didn’t. I dared not move, afraid of how she might react. This was her time alone.


© Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney.

A Short Story - Miss Ping

 

Has anyone actually talked to him? It’s bloody crazy! Anyone called the unions? We must jolly well get a lawyer! Did you see her? Miss Who? Did someone say Chinese black magic? Where are the directors and shareholders? We should bloody well refuse to go! It’s absolutely barking!

* * *

The staff slowly gathered in the conference room, the hush among them most unusual, no one in a state to decide where to sit. Close to the front? Would that prove eagerness and teamwork? Would it be too obvious to stay near the back, ducking direct questions? Some clearly decided to sit along the back wall in protest, maintaining some sensible distance from the madness of the previous 24 hours. Men straightened their ties. Women pushed the hair off their faces. Nervous frowns met.

Mr Gilbert bounced in with the blind Miss Ping on his arm. ‘For goodness sake,’ he said, pausing to take in the faces. ‘There’s no need to worry. I sense panic and hurt, but I want you to know you’re all very talented. We just need to know that your kind of talent is right for us.’

Susan, the staff representative, stood up. ‘We just think it’s very peculiar. It’s … unprecedented.’

Miss Ping, who looked about 70, straightened her hunch and smiled.

‘It’s unprecedented here,’ said Gilbert. ‘But it’s all the rage in places like China … and if we want to expand into those markets, we need to learn from them!’

Susan stared at the floor and said, ‘The unions need more time to …’

Gilbert pointed angrily at her chair, the whites of his eyes becoming more evident. ‘Miss Ping is a very busy woman … not to mention expensive.’

* * *

All 27 workers found themselves stretched out on the floor, no more than three minutes after the meeting began, their arms on their chests, their legs spread apart. Miss Ping, whose grey hair was tied back with what looked like seaweed, edged her way between them, like a cat making its way through unknown grass. She hovered above each person, placing a cold hand on their heads, their hands, their feet. Susan and one or two of the others tried to speak but were cut off mid-sentence with a loud clap from Gilbert - he lay among them, looking around and grinning, obviously pleased that things might just work. Miss Ping hummed a mesmerising lullaby or hymn.

* * *

‘As you all know,’ said Gilbert, flushed and panting with the excitement of what they’d all just witnessed, ‘Miss Ping is going to pick some of you out. I know it sounds crazy, but she really does have the exceptional ability to receive visions, to know who has the right energy to align this planet … our company … with the right people.’

Miss Ping crept forward and closed her eyes. ‘Mr Gilbert. Sorry. Everyone here good. But not you. I see better company without you.’



© Copyright, 2007. Shameless Words.

A Short Story - Sam Maliko's Extra Good Times

 
 
Sam Maliko's Extra Good Times
 
 
He wondered what he would say to the nursing staff if they asked about the cumbersome package he’d left the day before. They’d almost certainly be talking about it; it would probably be on their list of the strangest things ever brought in for someone in oncology. Had the old man explained it? Would he even remember what they were? The phone crackled through to the ward.

‘Whole lot better today, Mr. Maliko. Bit of a bumpy old night but sleeping like a baby now.’

He accepted the nurse’s familiar tone with the family now. They all had to. Her low, pastoral voice was now more important than any other in their lives. In just a few weeks she’d become a crucial branch in their wilting family tree, gently bringing them closer to the truth that autumn that year would be impossible to escape.

‘Has he opened the package I left for him yesterday?’

‘Oh, let me see.’ She shuffled down the corridor with the cordless phone, pulling the odd curtain back along the way, saying ‘how ya doin’ my lovely?’ to some of those desperate for her comfort. She never apologised for taking her time. ‘People ought to go forth in life with the conviction of someone who has all the time in the world,’ she’d once told the family.

As he waited, blowing out perfect circles of blue smoke, he wondered if he should ask for the latest results.

She came back on the line and chuckled. ‘Not even opened it yet, honey. Still all wrapped up in that dull grey paper you brought it in. You want me to rip it open?’

‘No, no … leave it like it is. He’ll open it when he wakes.’

* * *

They stayed up until just before midnight creating the labels, trying to see if they could match the style of those on real soda bottles. The father and son could be noisy and rash when mother was out of town, spreading their mess out into several rooms. They could even sit on the floor of the parlour in paper hats, singing Indian songs at the top of their voices, their shirts not tucked in, free of their shoes and socks.

Young Sam had his favourite colour poised. ‘What are we going to call it?’

‘Whatever you want. These are your very own bottles.’

‘OK then … Sam Maliko’s Soda!’ he roared, standing up straight to inspect the dozen brown bottles that surrounded him.

His father laughed, quickly grabbing hold of his pipe as it fell from between his teeth. ‘But these aren’t for soda, my boy. These are special, for filling up with extra good times. We need to make sure you’ve got some spare for later in life when you might need them.’

‘But what about the soda?’

‘Don’t you worry, there’ll be plenty of soda.’ He flicked a match and then sucked in as he relit his pipe. He then spat out several times, trying to dislodge a small piece of tobacco stuck on his lip. ‘But good times? Now that’s something very easy to run out of. Once we’ve got these filled up we can store them in the garage, so they’re always there if you need them.’

Young Sam stood there in deep thought, eyeing the labels, as his father put down his pipe and measured out some shiny silver paper.

‘It needs to be catchy, son. Something you’ll remember.’

After a minute or two of silence Sam burst out, ‘I’ve got it! Sam Maliko’s Extra Good Times!’

‘Perfect,’ said his father, winking as he nodded. ‘You just never know when you might need them.’



© Copyright, 2007. Shameless Words.

A Short Story - Montmartre

 


I was glad when I found that old photograph amongst his things; it was a reminder of one of the few projects he’d never accomplished.

My dear, impossible Arthur, who would wake up in the morning holding his beloved chisel and hammer. The kids used to say they were scared that one day they would come home from school and find a pile of rubble because of all his tinkering. He just couldn’t leave things alone, always having to go on mending, changing and improving. I suspect he’ll be doing the same thing in heaven, interfering with those golden gates no doubt, trying to convince his lordship that they should swing in and not out.

You can have a giant mural or a bay window, he’d said to me with a monkey’s grin. He argued it was high time we got rid of that damn awful void, those wires hanging down like poison ivy, blood leaking through the stone. I rattled with laughter, until I realised he was absolutely serious; he’d already been down to the library to find a glossy picture of Paris and had already got a quote on ten different tubs of acrylic. A window, he explained, would bring the morning sun directly into our bed, perhaps even do something for our love life.

This week, in memory of my wonderful Arthur, I decided to have both: a bay window in a classy, colourful Montmartre building. The kids are out there now, directing the workers.

© Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney.

A Short Story - Visiting Angela

 
She hadn’t planned on going over that familiar wooden bridge, where searching, sweeping willows still hung over the road at the other end, as if trying to whip people back, to scare them into retreat. She hadn’t even worked out how she was going to explain the unscheduled stop to her two children, collapsed in the back seat in bitter silence, their tempers sharp from having been denied extended time with their father. The detour just happened. A flash. There was no obvious reason for going there, but now there was also no reason why not; besides, she had already navigated across the noughts and crosses of dangerous suburbs.

‘I used to know someone who lived here,’ she said quietly, her chin almost on the dashboard, struggling to make out the layout of the place. The old buildings had been married up with newer structures, with neon signs and colour where there just used to be ancient austerity.

‘This is boring,’ said Cara. ‘You’re also a liar. There’s no pizza place around here.’

Her brother agreed with a grunt, crossing his arms high up on his chest. ‘She’s just being a dick.’

‘That’s not how I want you to talk to me.’ She wanted to cry again, remembering how the children used to be, before it became just the three of them, before their lives changed so dramatically. ‘Say sorry, Adam. I know you didn’t mean that.’

Another grunt was dragged out for more effect. ‘You are such a stupid dick.’

She let the car idle, squeezing her hands together, annoyed that their breathing was fogging up the windows. She searched again through a patch she’d recently wiped, stretching her neck right around, wondering why she couldn’t recognise anything.

‘You’re just doing this to piss us off,’ said Cara. ‘You don’t want us to have any kind of a life.’

Adam started tapping the back of his mother’s seat with increasing ferocity, saying ‘dick’ with every thump.

‘That’s not nice. It’s not how I want you to behave.’ She was going to try to get upset with them, firmly scold them for their rudeness, but she’d spotted something. High above, she could make out the tall, thin cross that had been shipped there from Italy in the 1920s. It rested up against the full moon, as if it had just casually sliced it in two. The building holding up the cross, however, was now obscured by a kitchen appliances store and what seemed like a shop that sold costumes and party material.

* * * *

She left the children in the car, hidden behind the moist barrier being created by their agitated breaths. She walked around the back of the new shops to find the crumbling cement building standing before her like a tired old man, not as grand and striking as she remembered. The walls exuded sadness, from having mourned the passing of so many years, from having been pushed into the background by such ugly, cheap façades.

The door was unlocked, which she found surprising, and an orange light came on when she flicked a switch. There used to be a sign above the entrance – The Convent of the Sisters Of Compassion - the letters of which had been burnt into a piece of varnished wood. Standing in the middle of the foyer, where it now looked like musicians advertised for partners and heart groups met for pep sessions, she trembled as she thought of the lonely girl who convinced herself that she had been saved, pacing empty corridors and kneeling in cold rooms.

Sister Angela De Brett. It never sounded quite right, and so she always avoided saying it. Sister Angela was just fine. Sister would do. The youngest in the convent, the one that needed to be the focus of more prayers than anyone else. The rosary beads around her neck, as if she needed a constant reminder. This one would be better staying away from the TV room.

It was a difficult vocation she had chosen. I have chosen a spiritual vocation, she had said to her best friend. No, not a spiritual vacation, not a trip to Lourdes or Bethlehem, I am marrying Jesus! I am giving my life to the church. No one ever wrote to her after she left.

Her parents used to call every now and then, but ended up complaining that she wasn’t being open with them, telling them what things were really like. She did tell them (in a rare moment of sharing) that her habit had been badly made, but she didn’t think she had the right to complain about the thick stitching that cut into her head. She finished the conversation by telling them that it was nothing compared to the suffering that Jesus endured for all of his children. Her mother cried and asked what she had ever done to deserve such punishment from her only daughter.

Sister Angela De Brett tried to keep it to herself when she started to have dreams of being hugged by someone, of having someone simply rub her arms and brush back her hair.

* * * *

‘Come with me,’ she said, waking up the children with gentle nudges, their cramped positions looking painful. ‘I want you to meet someone.’ She had to pull them from the car, but it was much easier than she expected because of their sleepiness. ‘This woman meant so much to me. I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for her.’

Adam and Cara seemed baffled, which is probably why they didn’t protest. They frowned and looked annoyed at being woken up, but they did follow the heavy footsteps of their mother, grasping and rubbing their shoulders to fend off the cold.

‘What time is it?’ demanded Adam, hesitant about entering the building.

Cara’s head was slumped to the side, her body limp. ‘It’s bloody well after midnight. She’s finally flipped. Fantastic!’

‘This won’t take long. I promise.’

Inside, they walked up the stairs to a small room on the first floor. It was being used now to store pamphlets and books.

She signalled for the children to go in. ‘This is where Sister Angela spent 10 months, praying on that floor every morning for two hours, really believing that she had found the perfect path for her life, where she would find love and purity.’

‘You’re a dick,’ said Adam. ‘And what the hell do we care about this stupid bloody Sister Angela?’

Cara stopped her brother, putting her hand up in front of his face. ‘Oh my God. Mum?’

She was crying, staring at the spot where a small wooden bed had once stood. ‘She couldn’t stay here. This wasn’t the kind of spiritual peace she was after. She thought it was, but she was young. She’d made a big mistake. She ended up realising that she couldn’t marry Jesus. She was too desperate for something else.’

‘What?’ asked Adam, searching his sister’s face for any clues as to what was going on.

Cara relaxed, and reached out for her mother’s hand.

She dared not look at her children. She looked down at the ground. ‘She wanted the family she never had, and she thought she would find it here.’

Cara looked over towards her brother. ‘Did she end up finding another family?’

Adam turned to his mother and stared.

‘She did. She married a lovely man, and together they had a little boy and a little girl. It was the family she wanted. It was her new path towards love and purity. In the end she lost the lovely man, but she still has two beautiful children.’

The three of them returned to the car in silence. They sat there for a long time without saying anything, covering themselves with some old blankets they used to take on family picnics when they were younger. Adam and Cara didn’t complain about the cold, nor about the uncomfortable positions they were in. At one point, not long before the sun came up, Cara asked her mother if she’d found it difficult changing her name. It was their first real conversation in months.

© Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney.