Sudden Times Read online

  For a time I wore gloves, long woollen gloves, but I didn’t feel right in gloves somehow. No chippie does. You might saw a finger off without knowing it. In truth I think gloves are weird. Especially in evening dress. I wouldn’t dream of attending the Oscars in gloves. You’d be surprised at the hang-ups you have that you don’t know of.

  Say nothing.

  Stall the breeze.

  groin bags

  The day they gave me the groin bag to keep loose change in I was shamed. It was worse than the gloves but then you can’t stash so many coins in your pockets.

  I was stuck with the groin bag.

  What the hang-up was there I don’t know. It reminded me of a Sumo wrestler’s belt. Or worse still those ball protectors the medievals wore. A type of jockstrap let’s say. More a class of overgrown genitalia that dodos wear on their travels. For the first few days I walked round with my hands across the bag out of humiliation. You’d look down and see these things hanging off you. I don’t mind work. I like clean work. I always liked working. Even when I was at my worst I got a lift when someone called round and woke me out of my sleep and said will you fix the chair the table the wardrobe. Seconds was my trade – second fittings. I might not want to go, but I did.

  I owe people a lot for making me do things when I didn’t want to. Like the Gilmartins who gave me the part-time job behind the bar in the Rap. Like Geoffrey who took me on in Doyle’s.

  I may not remember the people, but I owe them. Coming to the door when I wanted to see no one. They saved my life.

  Christians

  You’ll get that. There’s a fair few knocking about.

  Anyway, Doyle’s was my employer. I had to put up with the groin bag. And I liked my life there. I liked the buzz first thing in the morning. Customers brought out the Christian in me. They were all cheerful sinners like myself.

  Once they kept it that way.

  This morning a man stops as if he knows me which he does not.

  Hi Sham, he says, I come from Aitnioige. The place of the Little People. Do you know it?

  No.

  Well, it’s out your way.

  Oh.

  Do you take a drink? he asks.

  The odd time.

  I do not.

  No?

  If I take a drink, I take a blackout.

  Oh.

  But I smoke, I do.

  Fair enough.

  Yes.

  He ties his shoelace and goes on.

  my own space

  I don’t like hearing talk of governments. Politics makes me dizzy. They’re cat. If you’re paranoid about government then the psyche is unsettled. You’re not well. Next thing is you’re standing in Saint Columba’s in your pyjamas talking to some bollacks about the phallus and chewing something to bring you down. No sir. No way.

  What I’ve discovered is – once you’re moving you’re thinking, it’s when you’re not moving that things go awry. This numbness starts in the brain and what you see would sicken you. If you’re moving you can leg it through the whole alphabet. You can plan you’re life. You’re someone. So flying down the tiles with a mop is to me like a spell on the couch. I work out ley lines when I’m putting tins of Bachelor’s peas away. I get great satisfaction from placing the last can of sardines into place. Stand back. A job well done. I’m off to the jellies. I’m among the curry jars. The trick is to to be eternally on the go.

  They often say Hi! take it easy, Ollie, but I say Don’t be decadent! You don’t have to keep up with me.

  Keep moving.

  That’s the one.

  I get these very pleasant thoughts once I’m active.

  Once there’s something to do the job is Oxo.

  opulence

  It’s just that I like the word.

  The same as I like the Rory Borry Yellows. Them’s the lightning before the storms.

  courthouses and trials

  I don’t like them.

  They smell like out-door toilets or maybe confession boxes, not that I’ve been in either for a long time. There was a toilet out the back when I was young that used fill with frogspawn.

  But I once ended up in a courthouse for days.

  I was looking for work when I ran into a bit of bother. Then this cunt put me through it. It was Mr Ewing this, and Mr Ewing that, and Mr Ewing are you telling the court there are no other places in London where day-labouring can be obtained?

  There are.

  Why did you not go to them?

  It just happened like that.

  eating

  That has to be done too. At six-thirty I’d cut across the car park to the chipper. The Lamp. Maybe sometimes I’d go to the Italians, maybe the Chinese but mostly it was the chipper for me and straight to the same seat by the road. This is where myself and Marty would come for a bite before heading out on the town. I like an old-fashioned dinner. The whiting if it’s on, and if it’s not, the fresh cod. Beans too. A spring of scallion. Hold the sauce. The tea after not before. A read of the Champion. And I’ll have the apple crumble, thanks Dorothy. Not at all. Never. There now. Lovely. Light a fag and look out the window of the chipper on to the Garavogue river and the swans and the crowd from the Point waiting on the bus.

  Even when I was at my worst I could put away a bit of food.

  The truth is I like eating, full stop.

  3

  the London Fire Brigade

  They suddenly appeared out of nowhere one evening in May when I was having the tea.

  They made the Irish in the caff look not well. They all looked like not-wells. These men were bronze and brown-eyed, very European in fact. Not all cockneys appear healthy, but on this particular evening the Irish looked a tinge grey in comparison. And the divers looked like something fresh out of the sea. When they saw me they called out my name.

  Ollie, said Al.

  Al, I said.

  We thought you might be here.

  So they sat down around me.

  What’s this – fresh cod? asked Al. Is that what you’re having?

  The cod is good, I said.

  Each year they used come to me for the key of the cottage that stood on the alt. It was owned by my uncle the mountie in Canada and was empty most of the year. So they ordered fish and sat around the table talking of what had taken place between last year and this. Who got married died drowned disinherited. How things were working out for me now. And then the talk turned to London and all that had happened me there.

  But why did you not ring me that time? said Al.

  I meant to, I said.

  You should have contacted me.

  I know. I just didn’t get around to it.

  He shook his head.

  Will you come out with us? asked Fred.

  I might, I said.

  Don’t think about it, said Al.

  It was Saturday night and I wasn’t into climbing those bloomin’ stairs, so I said, Right I’m with you just give me a chance to get my bearings you can drop me off at the mother’s right. They had the same blue minivan with London Fire Brigade Diving Team stamped on the side and she was stacked full of gear – diving suits oxygen canisters webs tins of Heineken grub whiskey from the duty free. The lot. We drove up to High Street so I could change out of my gear and get the key.

  Liz in a pair of men’s dungarees came into my room.

  Who are the sleazebags? she asked.

  Friends, I said.

  She opened a window to look down at the fire brigade men. She turned and studied me.

  Are you going with them?

  I am.

  Then wear the blue shirt, she said.

  OK.

  It suits you better.

  She tucked down my collar and I thanked her.

  lust

  The lads studied the lady that waved goodbye to me. They had this lust that creeps up on the tired.

  They were just off the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin, sailing part of the night and driving all day, now this, the last few m
iles.

  On into the ocean.

  walking

  The wind was coming off the land. We lit a fire and threw open the doors of the cottage. I gathered the mousetraps and set the electric blankets then they drove me to my house and I was about to get out when Al said, Hey, how about a drink? I said I wasn’t into the drink these days.

  You say that every year, said Fred.

  OK, I said. Why not?

  Well, we went up to Gerties. Just like that. In this life, one minute you’re sitting in the Lamp thinking what to do and next thing you’ve landed on your feet in another dimension.

  It’s happening throughout the world.

  You’re in the Lamp sipping tea, wondering what’s round the corner, looking at the river, you’re planning the pictures, no, not the pictures, I don’t believe in the pictures any more, the TV maybe, but possibly a lap round the town or a walk to the Point and back. If there’s one thing I am that’s a walker. I did a lot of walking in London. Clapham to Hammersmith. Finsbury to the Angel. Liverpool Street to anywhere. Anywhere to nowhere. I don’t care if it’s a schizophrenic thing to do. Fuck it. I can air my head breathe see about me. That’s what I would have done if the London Fire Brigade Diving Team had not come.

  I would have legged it to the Point.

  Yes.

  Gerties

  The sun was setting beyond Ardbollan, a fellow from Denmark was sitting on a wall outside the pub, and in the dark shop a neighbour of mine was looking at the floor.

  Ollie, he says.

  Johnny, I say.

  Are they back?

  They are.

  They are, he said, as he stirred his toes. Ahem.

  And how are you? I asked him.

  He looked at me.

  I’m past it, he says.

  He cleared his lungs and reached for the drink that was set on a ledge over his head. With wide eyes he drank to the third. It was as if he was looking into a harsh beam of light. Then his eyes settled and he left down the glass on the counter, shook himself and took my hand.

  Stay in touch with your father, he says.

  I will, I said.

  He’s a good man, he said and nodded.

  A starling shot under the thatch. The air tightened. A girl came out the back door of the house across the way and kicked a ball out of sight. Then she went back in.

  Everything began to happen in slow motion. The divers took Johnny’s hand. One time he had two of their hands in his because of the divers’ panic at wanting to greet him.

  You’re welcome back, he said, to this part of the world.

  What are you having? asked Al.

  Johnny raised a hand, palm out, in front of his face.

  Nothing, he said, I’ll stay on my own, thank you.

  Just the one?

  No.

  Whatever you say.

  Yes, thank you.

  Next door in the lounge Schumacher was pulling out of a chicane and Gertie’s son could not be roused. I glanced in.

  Joey, I called.

  He pulled a face at being brought away from the TV. Siberry was sitting alone in the dark watching the race with his cap on his knee. In another corner Pa Waters sat before a Campari and stout with his back to the proceedings. The noise was something awful. We had whiskey pints Ballygowan in the shop. All like that. That sort of thing. Straight in. And they wouldn’t let me go. Another. Then another. And the dark settling outside till the lights appear on the Waterside and on the Rocks regular as clockwork. One two three, Caraways, Conways, Gurns. Out to sea the lighthouse beam spun.

  Then a flash of lightning broke the water. It was the Rory Borry Yellows. A wash of light ran through Gerties.

  will you bury me?

  Johnny threw his arm round my shoulders.

  Will you bury me? he whispered.

  I will.

  Good man. Good man.

  He tapped the wood of the counter and whistled.

  I knew you would, he said.

  I will.

  Say nothing.

  No.

  The thunder struck. The TV ran out. The lights went twice, then altogether. Joey lit candles. The talk dropped to whispers. It was like a stranger had entered. The divers settled in the middle room with the surfers and the locals gathered with them. There the talk was of the best diving places in the world – lagoons off Africa, cold waters in Dorset, the Black Sea, sea caves beyond Connemara – and then it turned to dredging up bodies out of the Thames after a dance boat went down.

  They were some men.

  And getting sentimental and lurid too in the shadows, nothing but bodies coming up out of their consciousness from old wrecks lying in the deep: men in tight pants who had just finished the tango with women in fine rig-outs were springing, springing from the sea. Eleven days in salt water. Seven days in fresh. The eyes gone. The fingers gone. As they talked of drownings the bar went silent. Then the locals talked of drownings. Soon we were all thrashing about a hundred feet down.

  Then a silence. I began to feel disturbed. In the dark a woman’s face lit up as she drew on a cigarette. Johnny appeared at the doorway of the middle room, his face huge in the light of the candles.

  He came and sat by me. He put his mouth to my ear.

  You swear you’ll bury me? he whispered.

  I will, I said.

  Good.

  He gripped my arm and shook it. Then he put a Doyle’s plastic bag of mussels collected from the shore at Lisadell into my hand. I headed off into the night. Perfect.

  the Ma

  The Ma was sitting by the fire with her eyes closed. She had been listening to the transistor and fallen asleep in the blackout. I sat down opposite her in my father’s chair. She mumbled something and her tongue appeared in the light of the flames for an instant. She must have been dusting because she had a scarf still on her head. She was pulling faces in her sleep, while the North-West Radio in another room talked in a resounding otherworld echo of lighthouses and eel-fishing.

  I sat for a quarter of an hour there in the half-light, wandering through her thoughts, without moving.

  Then I heeled some turf onto the embers. She woke with a start, put a hand to her heart and drew in her breath.

  Ma, I said.

  What?

  She grabbed the armrests. She was on the verge of a scream.

  What? she said again as her eyes focused.

  It’s Ollie.

  Her face lit up when she saw it was only me.

  Ollie?

  Yes.

  Dear God, I didn’t know who it was. I was dreaming. I was dreaming of your brother.

  I’m sorry.

  How long have you been sitting there?

  A while, I said.

  In the dark?

  That’s right.

  Watching me? Yes.

  God blast you, she said. You’re always doing that. Juking around.

  old times

  She offered her lips. We kissed. She took the scarf off her head and tried the light switch, but we were still in darkness.

  We’re back in old times, she said.

  We are, I said.

  What’s in that?

  Mussels Johnny Waters gave me.

  I simmered the shellfish in an inch of water on the gas till they opened and she filled them with bread crumbs. A squeeze of lemon and wild garlic and butter, then we sat them a minute in the pan on the flames. We ate by the fire. We felt our way through the house like sleepwalkers for a look outside at the sky. There was not a light to be seen on the earth. Then a comet flared behind a cloud. There was a smell of burning. A halo of sparks flew round a transformer on an ESB pole in a further field. Lightning knifed the sea towards Donegal. The Rory Borry Yellows lit up the horizon. The summer storm was moving on. The mother led me to my room with a candle.

  And the bed is stone cold, she said.

  She stood by the door of the room off the kitchen, reluctant to go.

  I heard from your father, she said cautiously
.

  Did you?

  Yes, he wrote, she said, and he said to say hallo to you.

  Did he?

  He did, and she unearthed a letter from her housecoat pocket. Read it out, she said. I steadied the candle by the bedside table. It was a short note in pencil, dated exactly, and timed, 3.45 p.m., 6 June, with 9 DURE STREET, COVENTRY, in large capitals.

  Dear Margaret,

  I hope you are well. Do you see Oliver? He’s in my thoughts alot. Say hallo to him for me and say we must meet soon. Things are not so good here. It’s nothing but unemployment and arthritis. My knee is at me. Imagine after all this time from a kick of a cow 30 years ago. I walk with a limp now. The day of the car in Coventry is gone. The Irish are walking the streets with nothing to do. The Japs have taken over. And if you work for them you have to stop a few times a day to say your prayers.

  Maybe I’ll get over this summer.

  Keep well, and buy yourself something nice with the enclosed.

  Eamon

  I handed her the letter back and again she stood at the door peering at me.

  Well? she said.

  Well what?

  Will you write to him?

  I might, I said.

  It’s time, she said, you made up.

  Leave it a while.

  Still she stood there on the threshold.

  Are you all right?

  Yes, I said.

  The Bradys see you, she said, sometimes.

  I see them, I said.

  Are you minding yourself?

  I am.

  Are you sure?

  Yes.

  Go on to bed, I said. The door closed. The radio sang from somewhere near midnight and I had my first good sleep in weeks. In my head, myself and the father were talking like old friends again.