Sides

by Denis Vaughan

ask all the right questions and really put me on the spot!”

  Crystal smiled, “But Mam, you always know the answer.”

  She looked at Crystal as she tried to figure out what to say. Even though she was nervous, she decided to ask.

  “What do you think Heaven is like?”

  “Well,” Crystal thought, “It’s like you said, everything I ever wanted. The park, the beach, the sun, the time that Lucy went mad at the party house and everyone laughed, and also when Granddad fell over the ball cause he was too slow to ‘dribble’ and wouldn’t admit it,” she nodded and smiled, “and Dad burst the balloons as he was trying to blow them up and kept getting angry !!! That’d be fun, that’d be Heaven.”

  She found herself smiling as she watched the excitement in Crystal’s eyes.

  “You can do anything there then!” Crystal continued.

  “Yes I suppose so. But there’s no need to be worrying about that!”

  “I’m not worried Mum, sounds fun, sounds like wow!!!”

  She pulled Crystal closer and almost felt like she was squeezing the life from her and then relaxed.

  “Are you happy?” she asked.

  “It’s brilliant Mum, everything’s great, are you? It’s all just as you said.”

  She thought a while as she held Crystal. All her life she had longed to hold a daughter or son of her own, and it made her so happy. When it seemed that they might not have a child, they had both become so low and sad, Crystal had made their lives, made their marriage.

  “Mam,” Crystal suddenly pushed herself up.

  “Daddy’s very sad these days.”

  She struggled to hold the tears back as she didn’t want Crystal to see.

  “Don’t worry love, he’ll be fine, everything will be fine.”

  Crystal smiled and leaned back down across her moving so she had her lips close to her ear. She whispered while she caressed her mother’s face gently and tears gradually formed across her mother’s face. Then Crystal lifted herself up again and gently kissed her mother on the lips.

  “I love you Mammy,” she said.

  “I love you too Crystal,” she replied.

  She stared at that beautiful smile she had seen so many times before and thought to herself how blessed she was. The tugging at her side became more regular now and she found herself being forced to turn over.

  He was looking straight at her as she opened her eyes, and he had his usual look of worry. She smiled.

  “Did you dream of her again?” he asked nervously.

  “Yes,” she replied, “she’s in Heaven and she’s very happy.”

  He looked at her for a while and then sighed, lying back in the bed.

  “Please, you have to let this go,” he said.

  “No,” she said, “She asked me to say something to you.”

  He froze in the bed and waited.

  “She told me to say to you ‘tell Daddy he can cry now’”

  She watched him lying on his back and saw the tears well in his eyes.

  “She’s happy, let her go!” She said.

  The tears rolled down both side of his face and she wrapped her arms around him.

  “She’s gone, but I know she’s happy, I know,” she said as he shook and whimpered in her arms.

  One Last Christmas Job

  “Jayzuz, Johnnie, pull in quick!”

  “What?”

  “Come-on, quick pull in!”

  Johnnie pulled the car over to the side of the road.

  “Mick, we’re gonna be late for the flight.”

  “Johnnie, we’re goin home, how much have you got?”

  “Look we’ve been through this, we agreed it wasn’t worth bringing, that’s why my bleeding head is running a kango with no brakes.”

  “Ye exactly, and you and I both know that when the women find out there’ll be murder.”

  Johnnie looked at Mick and put his hands out as if he was raising a desperate prayer to heaven.

  “Work is scarce, we’ve tried everything.”

  “Save it for yer one, what if we were to bring a few hundred home?”

  “And how’s that gonna happen? There’s six days to Christmas, there’s no job gonna happen now and anyway I’m in the season mood.”

  “You get off that plane in Dublin with a fiver in your pocket after six months and I’ll tell you what that mood will be like.”

  Johnnie looked at the steering wheel, he knew it didn’t just go straight and he felt like turning around.

  “I have a solution.”

  Johnnie slowly looked back at Mick.

  “You, You have a solution?”

  “Look, we’ve made a good bit of money out of the painting jobs right?”

  “Ye, with the builders gone, the jobs still have to be finished but they’re all done now.”

  Mick smiled and pointed out the window.

  “What’d ye think?”

  Johnnie followed his finger.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Ye, exactly. A big old grey building, needs a good lift ye?”

  “Look at the size of it, who’s gonna give us a job to paint that just before Christmas? The government probably own it anyway.”

  “No-way, that’s one of those old wrecks of a building, the government don’t bother with that stuff anymore. They’re only into big flashy glass buildings. It’s probably some local group looking after it sure it’s in bits!”

  “And how are we to find out who that is?”

  Mick put his head in his hands.

  “Johnnie, you have to think outside the box!”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You don’t have to find who’s looking after it, they’ll find you!”

  ”Mick, there’s twenty pints of Guinness and half a bottle of vodka doing an impression of Niagara falls against my forehead, I don’t have the energy to work out you’re stupid schemes.”

  “We’ve a load of that stuff from the last job in the back, what’s the best way to get work, show how good you are!”

  Johnnie looked to the back of the van, inside there was a stack of paint tubs.

  “You want to paint the grey building?”

  “Don’t be stupid, without getting paid? Look, that’s a fierce dead looking place, the way to do it is to paint a bit, show them how good it will look and the job is ours!! We can get it done before the big day!”

  Johnnie looked at the grey building.

  “There’s six pillars and it’s big.”

  “Relax, look, with your skills with the auld abseiling, we can get two pillars done tonight, that’ll get the message across and then once we get the job, we can do the front and the side wall for a good price and finish it in the new year”

  Johnnie sat thinking for a few minutes.

  “It looks like some sort of palace.”

  “No, it’s not a palace, it just looks like, I d’know, it’s just a big block, anyway there’s no flags.”

  “Well, if we did two pillars, then what?”

  “They’ll see it and give us the gig. We’ll agree the price, cash up front, and we’ll be hero’s when we get home! Delay the flight ‘till Christmas eve, the brother will get us on the flight!”

  Johnnie was nodding his head.

  “Might work, and we’d get the finish job work in January! We might get more work when people see it!”

  “Come-on man, let’s go !!!”

  Johnnie hit Mick in the arm.

  “Ow, dead arm man.”

  “I told you it was a palace.”

  “It’s not a bleedin palace, some eejit build a pyramid in Leeds.”

  “She didn’t say it was a pyramid, she said it was a Temple!”

  “Well whatever, she said some Egyptians built it.”

  “Are you stupid or what? She said it was like an Egyptian Temple, not that Egyptians built it. Why do I ever listen to you?”

  “Right lads, are you comfortable in there,” said the officer.


  Johnnie looked out the window and saw the caretaker in tears pointing at the two blue pillars.

  “What’s the big deal, why is she so upset, I did a good job on those pillars.”

  Mick looked at the lady in tears being consoled by the lady police officer.

  “You did a great job Johnnie, sometimes people just don’t appreciate a good job. It’s art, you’re an artist did you know?”

  “I think we’ll move on when we come back after Christmas. What about Newcastle? I like Newcastle.”

  “Newcastle? They got demoted last year, why do you want to go there?”

  “I’ve twenty on them getting back up – I think I’m gonna win that one. Anyway, there’s lots of grey buildings, I’m just thinking about that now and I know there’s work there.”

  “Fair enough. Yer man with the funny hat says they’ll let us out tomorrow so we should still be able to get a flight home.”

  “Ye, what about the fine?”

  “We won’t say anything about that at home, the usual story, slow pay money due, ye know!”

  “We could have said that yesterday!”

  “Over a hundred and sixty years !!!” the woman shouted at them as the car pulled away.

  “You were right then Mick, over a hundred and sixty years and no-one had even finished the job. Maybe summer time would have been better. We should keep it in mind.”

  Cuddles

  Peter was standing very still. He was starting to get cold now. The water was lovely and warm when he first got in but since he hadn’t moved in nearly ten minutes, a slight shiver had started to kick in.

  He was watching the Doberman chew on his swimming shorts about five feet away on the grass verge. Every now & then the dog would stop, look at him as if to say “don’t even think about it,” and then continue to chew.

  Peter was still puzzled how skilfully the dog had scooped out his shorts following the frantic sprint and dive that had made them available in the first place. His instincts, when the silence had been shattered by the deep