Long Time, No See

by Dermot Healy

  Further out on the horizon there was this great darkness gathering.

  The plastic window of the box rattled.

  It’s not finished yet, he said. He hit the ignition and swung back towards the stones.

  So, he shouted, he wants me to say I’m sorry.

  A flock of gulls rose. The talking stopped. I took the wheel, and then he took the wheel. Till near dark we were there going to and fro, swivelling along the cluttered beach. The sea wall grew. The tracks of the machine dug deep into the sand. Sometimes when he’d give me a go, I’d watch his eye; but now when he took over, he went on by himself, working as if I wasn’t there, foot in, foot out, pulling on the handle, lowering, then at last he’d stop a moment to see what we had built, look back to see what there was left to do, then he’d turn a complete circle on the spot swinging the bucket high as if to say we’re done and we went back along the beach, leaving a deep trail behind us, up onto the dunes, onto the road, he lowered the bucket, and cut the engine.

  A sore day, he said.

  The box shook, the digger settled down.

  The sea won’t come in there again for a while, he said. We sat there a while watching the next storm come racing in with threads of rain. Soon the shower was pelting the box.

  Then he said Light drizzles expected. Sunshine at intervals. Showers turning to rain. Yes. We got into the car and sat there for maybe an hour being lashed by the rain and the wind. He never stirred. The tide was going out. A calm descended. All of a sudden the Blackbird appeared out of nowhere on his bike carrying a bucket. He set off down the beach to pick winkles followed by his dog. Da got out and followed him, and out the rocks they faced each other, and shook hands in the drizzle, then the Bird bent down and began to pick.

  The dog sat in front of him watching his every move.

  I took the mother a cup of tea in bed. She was sitting bolt upright looking into the distance.

  Ma.

  Who is that?

  It’s me.

  Yes?

  Tay.

  Oh.

  She took the cup and turned to me.

  Where were you? I asked.

  On the other side.

  And how are things there?

  I’m sad to say things there are the same as here. Just the fecking same. She laughed. Thank you.

  No problem.

  She looked round the ceiling.

  I loved beauty board – the old panelling on the walls – but they’ve done away with the beauty board. The risk of fire, mind ya. If you had beauty board you could find strangers looking down at you from the whorls of wood. All classes. People you hadn’t seen in years.

  See ya.

  Yes. I’ve been thinking. I’ve been thinking of holding a party for your Joejoe. In fact I’ve contacted the priest. I think a bit of religion might settle his mind. So we’re going to have the Stations below in his house.

  When?

  Soon.

  He’ll like that, I said, and I headed out to the unfinished wall.

  That night both houses feasted on lobsters. I went up to the pub for the bottle of Malibu and a bag of cheese and onion crisps. Only Frosty was at the bar. Alongside him were all the stools and chairs without a soul sitting there. Liverpool was playing Chelsea on the box. Mister John’s daughter Sara was listening to Johnny Cash. I put the fifty-cent in the slot machine and lost.

  That’s the way, said Frosty.

  I walked down to Ballintra where the two men were seated by the fire and told Joejoe that Ma was throwing a party for him.

  Of late there’s being a lot of talk in this house about fairies, said Joejoe. The fairies are like old relations.

  She means it.

  But then I suppose we all spend a lot of time talking about folk we never met. It’s like when you read out the newspapers to me. The car crash, the court case, the get-together.

  Except Joejoe you might run into someone you know in the newspaper, said the Blackbird.

  True.

  And not only the living.

  Explain.

  That’s where you might find the dead.

  Oh aye. The obituaries.

  In living memory of.

  The same.

  He passed away on the first of May.

  Got you. Thank you. That’s enough for now, Mister Blackbird. The head can only take so much, amn’t I right Psyche.

  You are.

  He poured out two dots of Malibu.

  Ma said she is going to hold the Stations, I said.

  The Stations! said the Blackbird. Where?

  Here.

  Here in this house?

  Yes.

  Who’s coming?

  Well for a start – the priest.

  Who else? asked Joejoe.

  The whole crew.

  Meaning?

  Everyone.

  The Blackbird came to his feet.

  Well that man there will be my main guest, and Joejoe pointed at the Bird who suddenly bowed out through the front door with a lit fag in his mouth like a man on a journey.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Photographer

  The day before the Stations I headed down to The Ostrich.

  Anna was singing with her earphones on It’s murder on the dance floor, but you’d better not kill the groove.

  Hallo, I shouted.

  Ah!

  Are you coming over to Joejoe’s tomorrow.

  I will of course.

  Great.

  By the way, she asked, did you notice anything strange on your way down.

  No.

  Nothing?

  Nothing at all.

  Well when I arrived there was a funny crowd down the beach, all dressed up like. I thought I was losing it.

  I didn’t see anyone.

  One of them had a straw hat on. And a mask.

  And?

  The others were like balloons. She paused and tucked back the side of her hair with her fingertips. Hallo! I hollered, Hallo! I thought I was seeing things, but they never even looked in my direction.

  We went up on deck.

  She gawked about her.

  Then we climbed up the ladder and went down the beach.

  He was standing just there where you are now, said Anna.

  Well he’s gone now.

  You don’t believe me.

  I do.

  He’s somewhere.

  What are you on Anna?

  I saw him.

  We stood there a while. Myself, Anna. In the slanted light. A red lorry of gravel pitching forward on the graveyard road. On the low wall the long shaft of a magpie.

  Hallo! Anna hollered.

  No one appeared.

  Hallo, she shouted again. We went back to The Ostrich and stood on deck looking down the shore.

  It’s funny the things you remember even as you make them up again, she said, Mister Jeremiah.

  We went into the cabin. A few minutes later, we heard these footsteps and there was a knock on the cabin door. Anna opened it, and there stood a cameraman, and he says do you mind if I film from your boat?

  Go ahead Anna said.

  We followed him out on deck.

  He waved.

  And a second later round Shell corner came a man in white hat and white face and each side of him two people dressed as animals, and next came the folk in balloons with the sea-spray shooting up behind them and to the side stood the sound man with his long mike held aloft.

  Now, said Anna, there they are. I’m glad they reappeared. I was beginning to get worried.

  Sorry about the intrusion, said the cameraman as he looked into the lens.

  Not at all. I thought I was having hallucinations.

  We went in and sat in the cabin.

  Now Philip, she lifted one of her tomes, ran through the pages, stopped and said: Now answer me this what bird does not kill?

  Hold it – let me think.

  Anything?

  I don’t know.

  Read that.


  I took the book and she pointed with the tip of a feather –There!

  Only the vulture does not kill, I read out loud.

  Now for you. But it doesn’t stop them eating.

  No.

  You see the thing has to be dead first before you can eat it, therefore someone has to kill it.

  True.

  Unless you’re considering eating it alive.

  Stop.

  Anna took back the book and looked at her feet.

  That’s the story, she said.

  Then that evening back at home the phone rang. Ma was just in the door from shopping and she took the call out in the hall then came in and sat down.

  Who was that?

  Your Uncle Joe.

  She shook her head.

  He’s away with the fairies, she said.

  What’s wrong?

  He’s suffering from delusions. He said that he had seen lights. Fireworks, said Ma, and other things.

  Oh Christ.

  That he had imagined that there was a cleaning force due to tidy the shop – meaning the house – but he could not see them. I said the troops would be round on the morrow.

  It’s the film crew Ma.

  What film crew?

  I started to explain but then a few minutes later the phone rang again but by the time I got to it, he’d rung off.

  I rang back on my mobile but he didn’t answer.

  Ma was going on night duty to the hospital. She brought a saucepan of soup with her, and bread rolls. She placed a few items in the boot. I took a lift with her down to Joejoe’s and as I stepped in the gate with the hoover I met the Bird coming up from the house with a tall sack, wrapped round something, over his back.

  What are you carrying?

  You don’t want to know, he said.

  He climbed onto the bike and headed off with the sack over his shoulder. I watched him go wondering and stepped in, with Ma following me with the soup and bread rolls.

  Was the Bird doing a bit of tidying for you? she asked.

  He was, he said, yeh, that’s right – he cleaned out the whole shop.

  He looked at me sharply.

  You’re not going to start that yoke tonight, he asked, pointing at the vacuum cleaner.

  No, I said.

  Thanks beta God.

  Then Ma brought him in a blue airman’s shirt, with two breast pockets, his Christmas jacket, a tin of snuff and a copy of the daily newspaper, and took off to her night shift.

  He stood by the fire ironing his tweeds and a white lace handkerchief.

  Well? You have the bad look in your eye, he said to me.

  No, I haven’t.

  Yes you have, what is it?

  Nothing.

  What are you saying?

  Nothing. You saw fireworks?

  I did.

  I missed them.

  We’ll not talk about it.

  OK. I could explain, Grandda.

  I don’t want to know…Are you all right Mister Psyche?

  I’m just tired.

  Settle, he said, you’re making me nervous. He ironed on. Will you do me a favour? I didn’t answer. Give us a reading from the Gospels, he said.

  Now?

  Aye, if you don’t mind.

  No bother. Which one?

  You pick.

  Psalm 102.

  The very thing.

  Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee. Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily. For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as a hearth. My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread. By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin. I am a pelican of the wilderness; I am like an owl of the desert.

  Say that again.

  I am like an owl of the desert.

  Yes.

  I watch, and am as a sparrow upon the house top. Mine enemies reproach me all the day; and they that are mad against me are sworn against me. For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping, because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down. My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass.

  Like grass, he said.

  Aye.

  Like grass Psyche.

  Yes.

  I closed the Bible and sat opposite him.

  He laid out the flat handkerchief very carefully on his knee. There would be no trees for him to land on, out there, would there, on the sands, the poor owl, he said. I never saw one in my life. He carefully folded in the four corners of the handkerchief, and patted it, and went back with a hum to his ironing as if his spirits had lifted. I went walking the sour path. I saw that the rifle had been taken off the wall. I read him of a bank robbery, the discovery of a golden torc – an ancient Celtic necklace – in a wardrobe, and how a male librarian delivered a baby for a woman who gave birth in a back room filled with antique books written in Latin.

  We climbed Croagh Patrick on a television programme, then headed down a side road in Baghdad behind a line of soldiers. As we watched the news Timmy crouched between Joejoe’s knees and he petted the dog, over and over, leaning down sometimes to whisper in his ear, then when I turned off the telly the animal went back up into his chair.

  I took all the newspapers and turf and timber and put them in a heap out in the shed, leaving only what was needed for the fire on the morrow. I sat looking into the embers till near one in the morning, and he brought me tea, and, then, suddenly a fire-rocket shot up into the sky past the window. We opened the door. Another shoot of rockets went off down the beach, and stars were spilling into sea, and Timmy was shaking.

  What’s going on?

  They are shooting a film on the beach, I said.

  Where are you going?

  I’m just going outside, I said, for a minute.

  Watch yourself.

  I stood by the pier of the gate watching the stars. My mobile rang: Did you see that? asked Anna. I did, I said. I’m glad, she replied. More sky rockets took off and the Audi again suddenly careered off the road again in my head. I took a deep breath. Down the road from the beach came a man dressed in white, with a torch. He had on a stiff white mask, and a stiff black beard and wide black boots laced up the ankle. Would you have the loan of a euro? I asked him. He shook his head and stared straight ahead. He did not speak to white trash like me. After him, out of the dark, came a Leopard with a lantern walking very coquettish on its back legs. Good evening, I said, are ye training for Halloween? He bowed. The very thing, said the Leopard. And lastly along came a young girl all in black, with a tiny snip of light pointed at her feet, carrying the fireworks. Then the cameraman and the soundman called out goodnight as they passed by.

  It’s busy, tonight, I said to Joejoe as I sat down.

  In here as well, he said, and he tapped his head.

  I feel fierce low, I said, and he gave me a shot of whiskey in honey for the road.

  Was it the lights?

  Maybe.

  The lights did it, I think Mister Psyche.

  They did.

  Say a prayer, he said.

  I thank the sea, I said.

  You do.

  And I thank the Bird.

  Good man.

  And the dog.

  When he heard the sound of the name of his species Timmy got up and nodded. Then he and me stepped out the door together. I looked towards Templeboy. Good night, Mickey, I called up the road in a whisper in my head. The dog started shaking. The moon was in its third.

  I got into bed and sailed off in the boat-house. The road snapped and the house came free and we went out onto the waves.

  Then the oars overhead began moving. And the roof came in and out like an accordion. We fell to one side then the other. The wind was deafening, the house groaned and soon there were huge fish swimming by the windows. I saw a big yellow shipwreck rusting at the end of the g
arden. There were all these fish snapping at bright blue flowers that grew out of its walls. An octopus clung to the window and he looked in at me.

  He moved his arms in slow motion like a bush in wind.

  Who are you? he was saying over and over.

  But I could not say my name. It would not come to my lips. He got closer and blacked off the window so that you could see nothing. The room went black as ink. I held my breath. I could hear him tapping gently on the window. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. Who are you? Let me in, he was saying. I could hear him breathing. It was a long slow breath. A heaving. Then we seemed to take off in a hurry and somersaulted and there we were on the top of the boiling water again. There was no land only water.

  The rain fell harder and harder.

  Down the chimney it came.

  Then we struck something and came to a standstill. I looked out the window to see we were on an island, with the flood waters flowing. The cow was strolling with her calf in a further high field. The grey Connemara pony was standing looking at the grey crow. I read the cuttings from the newspapers. How the wind had shot down and taken a baby out of her cot into the sky.

  That’s her, that’d be it.

  Eventually we hit the calm waters.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Stations

  How is the Nurse? Joejoe asked me next morning.

  She’s fine.

  Good. I was told we were having a hooley, next thing I hear it’s the blooming Stations.

  I put the plug in the socket.

  Don’t, he roared.

  I have to.

  Don’t!

  I turned the vacuum on. As the volume rose he held up the palm of his hand. He roared something I couldn’t hear. I switched it off.

  I hate that yoke, he said.

  I turned it on again.

  He came across, and placed his hand on mine to force the handle down, then shouted into my ear I’m going! He tiptoed off in his stocking feet and long johns to the scullery. I pushed the vacuum cleaner into his bedroom and started at the foot of his two-poster. Some tobacco and a few grey hairs and one clot of toffee. Outside Timmy was barking like mad. Against the skirting boards I sucked up a few shivers of plaster that had fallen from below the weeping stone on the wall. Otherwise the room was clean. He’d placed a stiff wooden-armed chair that usually sat out in the woodshed to the side of the window for the priest to sit into, with a cushion on the ground to the left for kneeling purposes when confession started. I brought down spiders’ webs from overhead. And from under the bed I cleared an old spill of sawdust, and crumbs. Then, below his pillow, fallen onto the bedsprings, I found a St Anthony’s medallion on a black string and I put it back for luck on his mantelpiece. I came into the kitchen and plugged in. Ash from the fire, and plaited hair from Timmy flew into the bag with a growl. I cleaned round the grate, below the dresser, along the walls, and reached the back window when suddenly I heard the sound of something hard shooting up the pipe.