by Adam Cloake
He didn't even consider Kevin the Cat as any sort of performer at all. Kevin had proven to be the most inarticulate mover of them all, lumbering around the rubber floor, breathing heavily through his open mouth. His costume, despite being lighter and thinner than the others, still seemed awkward on him. He was the very opposite of feline litheness. Peadar stifled a snigger at the prospect of seeing him dance.
The Hunters were just the Thompson sisters wearing large, droopy moustaches, plaid coats, and hats with floppy ears. Their principal action was simply to stalk across the stage, their four knees bent in stealth, sweeping the area with their wooden rifles, as the kettle and bass drums rumbled around them.
“So, here they all are!” Peadar mused. “These are my colleagues, my fellow entertainers!” He couldn't help but roll his eyes at the lot of them. At least he was here, to provide his audience with an evening of greatness, unhindered by the gaudiness around him.
The penultimate act of the evening – the 11-year-olds doing a shortened rendition of The Wizard of Oz – reached its end. The applause was rapturous, a mixture of parental pride and neighbourly politeness. As the young cast came crashing backstage, the curtain hissed closed, the audience temporarily banished to the other side. The children of the senior class were placed on stand-by, as Tony, the school janitor, and his sister, Babs, swapped around the sets and props on the stage. With just minutes to go until his entrance, Peadar realised that the excitement of this moment was more exhilarating – and more frightening – than he had ever expected.
“Best of luck, Peadar. Have a good one.”
It was Kevin the Cat who had spoken, interrupting his thoughts. The small boy’s heavy breathing was already threatening to drain him of the energy he would need. Peadar chose to ignore him, not even bothering to inform him that he should have said “Break a leg!” rather than “Best of luck!”
“All right, children,” cried Mrs. Altman. “Take your positions!”
Their teacher, her months-long chore almost complete, shepherded the eight principals to their opening places around the centre of the semi-dark stage. The remainder of the class, an assortment of arbitrary villagers and farmers, were placed on either side. Peadar stood in deep thought beside the garden gate of Grandfather's house.
The noise from beyond the curtain was deafening. Hundreds of voices mingled with the clump-clump of feet traipsing around the maple floor. Soon, thought Peadar, they would all be stunned into silence.
Peadar glanced across at Jenny. Her face was painted yellow and green, as if Mrs. Altman had chosen a budgie for Peter's avian companion, even though it was supposed to be living in the wild. He was surprised to see that Jenny was looking straight at him. She smiled. And was that a glimmer of affection in her eye? He had never seen it there before. He dismissed the thought, assuming the look had been meant for the other Peter, the made-up one, rather than the made-up him.
“Break a leg, Peadar!” she said to him, her voice just audible in the midst of so many competing noises. He was in his starting pose, his frame of mind set, so he obviously chose not to respond to her. She shouldn't have distracted him like that anyway. Had she done so to interrupt his preparation? He felt sudden anger at Jenny, mixed up with the anxiety he was already feeling.
And then, it was time!
The lights in the main hall were slowly doused. The chatter died away, and a hush filled the room. As the children took their final deep breaths, the curtain rolled back.
Mrs. Altman's recorded voice filled the hall with a scripted introduction of the characters and the instrument representing each one. Because this was a school concert, with limited resources, the recording was a mix of her own voice and the music from an old CD. Each time her voice handed over to a section of her imaginary orchestra, a faint whump could be heard on the soundtrack, caused by the constant starting and stopping of her recording device.
“Never heard of digital, Mrs. Altman?” Peadar thought.
As each character was introduced, an individual spotlight isolated that child on the stage, beginning with the Bird, followed by the Duck, then the Cat, etc.
This meant that Jenny was the first to step forward, balancing perfectly on her stockinged toes. Hers was the fastest and most demanding dance of all and, as Peadar had feared, she was breath-taking. The sound of the flute darted up and down, over and back, but Jenny followed it with confidence and skill. Peadar cheered himself up with the knowledge that, although her dance was technically complex, the twittery flute lacked the sweep and majesty of Peter's strings.
After Jenny, Peadar could delight in watching the other children struggle, waddle, and wheeze their way through their opening segments.
Bronagh had finally been granted one of her wishes. Mrs. Altman had decided to allow her to perform in her own socks, rather than in the giant feet of the Old Duck. Even so, and to Peadar's great amusement, Brenda's dancing was just as ungainly as it had been in the foamy webbed feet.
He was disappointed to note that the Cat was quite popular with the audience, but he put this down to the possibility that Kevin may have brought a large family with him.
Some had less to do than others. Douglas, the Grandfather, shuffled forward while the bassoon groaned from the speakers. He was already sweating into a spiky, grey wig and a bird's-nest beard, his back stooped, his knees spread apart. That was all he had to do for the opening, before turning around and limping back to his first position.
Sally and Suzie Thompson were introduced, and chose – unrehearsed – to point their guns threateningly at individual members of the audience. It caused great hilarity in the Hall, but Peadar was disgusted, seeing it as a mere stunt.
He had to pull himself together quickly, however. He was up next.
As the spot lit up his position in the centre of the stage, the hall became filled with the beautiful, heart-breaking sound of violins, violas, and violoncellos. Peadar stepped forward and – as he had expected – he soared. It was as if the music had been written for him, and for no-one else. No! Even better! It was as if the string section existed so that, one day, he would be chosen to perform this piece.
One – two – onetwothreefour – onetwothreefour – &five-&six-&se’en – &eeeeight – &ni – ine.
It was sublime!
He was sublime!
He finished, spinning delicately back to the garden gate, ready for his next moment. The audience was holding its appreciation in reserve for the end of the show but, in Peadar’s head, he could hear the rapturous applause of an auditorium filled with tens of thousands.
Following the introductory pieces, the children moved onto the main section of the story. The Cat chased the Bird around the meadow. The Wolf chased the Duck around the lake. The Wolf ate the Duck. Peter saved the rest of his friends by hoisting the Wolf up a tree at the end of a rope. By the time of the Hunters’ arrival, he had taken complete charge of the situation.
The show ended with the Wolf paraded in a circus, and all the folk cheering Peter's heroism and resourcefulness. Even the Duck got involved, quacking inside the Wolf, although really into a microphone backstage.
Following this climax, the assembled school, those who were still in the Hall, took to the stage for a final acknowledgment. The applause felt wonderful – adults jumping to their feet, showing their appreciation for the children they had just watched, and for the children they had once been themselves. Peadar looked to left and right from his moderately central position. On the faces of his co-players was a mixture of arrogant pleasure, embarrassed relief, and residual fear. Even though he was surrounded by most of the children in the school, he still felt like the king of the evening – Peter The Great, the shooting Tsar of the show.
His mother, his father, and his two brothers had been seated near the front. They had been joined for the evening by three middle-aged aunts, and by his grandfather, George, one of the oldest people he had ever seen. Like everyone else, they were all standing up, applauding. With the hall light in
his eyes, Peadar couldn’t tell if his mother was wearing that strained expression he had seen so often. He wondered if she had sat comfortably during his piece. Or had she kept her hands stuffed under her thighs on the hard chair?
His father was not looking at the stage. He seemed transfixed by the study of his own mechanically applauding hands.
Having completed his bow, Peadar rushed backstage to remove his costume, his red cheeks, and the blackness from his eyes. He seldom smiled, but he was leaping internally with the ecstasy of the evening.
Suddenly, an idea struck him! A brilliant idea! He would deliver his own encore to his family and fans – his final flourish of the evening.
He quickly removed costume and make-up, threw on his own clothes, and ran back to the stage. Along the way, he chose to ignore Jenny, who was wittering something about him being really good tonight.
The curtain was open, and the stage lights were on. There were still plenty of people chattering in the hall. Peadar tiptoed around behind the flats, hoping he wouldn’t be seen. Now he was hidden behind the curtain’s edge, on the extreme right of the stage. His family was down on the maple floor, just a few feet below him.
Knowing they were not expecting it, Peadar flung the edge of the curtain aside and, in the same motion, leaped off the stage. With his knees raised to his chest, he sailed through the air, holding his breath in rapture. Two seconds after take-off, he landed heavily on the floor below. The thud of his heels on the hard maple was monstrous, like an explosion. A unity of short shrieks from all assembled confirmed that Peadar had achieved his goal – his own special encore.
He stood bolt upright, arms spread to either side, his chest jutting, delighted with himself. Suddenly, it dawned on him that something had gone badly wrong. His Grandpa George was waddling backwards, taking short, uncertain steps. His mouth was open, his eyes rolling backwards, as if they were being pulled up into his skull. The skin of his narrow face was becoming white. Even his lips looked empty of blood. When he reached the front row of plastic chairs, the old man tipped backwards. Then he flopped down into a half-sitting position on one of the seats. His head lolled onto his shoulder, and a gurgle could be heard escaping from his throat.
The assembled group, recovering itself after the shock, rushed toward the old man. It took only a few seconds for Peadar to realise that his own grand entrance had occasioned his grandfather's grim exit.
Peadar turned back to the stage. From where he stood, he could see that he had gathered an inverse audience, staring down at him. Mrs. Altman stood, surrounded by a group of semi-costumed children who had come out to meet their own families. Jenny was there, her yellow-green face smudged with cold cream. She wore a look of genuine concern. Beside her were Bronagh and Kevin, both having enthusiastically discarded their costumes. At the back, the Thompson twins were giggling.
Peadar turned back to look at his Mum. She took her eyes off her dying father, and stared at him, wide-eyed. The left corner of her mouth curved downwards, pulling on her features, dragging with it some fraction of her maternal love for him.
The panic which had been building within Peadar suddenly exploded. Because of the near-silence, his shouting voice came out even louder than the earlier shots of the Hunters.
“I didn’t mean it!” he yelled. “I didn’t mean to do anything wrong!”
He pointed at Nigel, the Wolf, still fur-bodied, but now without his snouted head. “You're the bad guy!” he yelled. “You’re the villain, not me! You're the one who tried to kill the old man! You tried to eat him!”
Little Nigel spun around, his lower lip quivering, seeking out the reassurance of Mrs. Altman. Turning his face upwards, Nigel howled at the round, yellow stage light which still glowed above him.
Pointing at Jenny, Peadar continued his tirade, his voice now a little lower. “And you! You think you're better than me. Well, you're not! You’re not! You don't even look like a real bird.” The concern on Jenny's face was immediately replaced, first by disappointment, then by scorn. She turned away from him and flitted angrily back to the dressing room.
Peadar was still shouting. “None of you has any talent! I'm the talent here! I'm the shining star!”
He felt his mother place her hand softly on his shoulder. “Your father will take you home now, baby,” she whispered, her honeyed voice sticky with suppressed grief. “I'll be there as soon as I can.”
Peadar dropped his head, and allowed himself to be led away from his mother’s grief, towards the Hall’s front door. His father seemed unable to keep the embarrassment out of his voice as he uttered reassurances that it wasn't “really” his fault. His brothers, on either side of him, could barely suppress their titters.
As they stepped out into the darkness of the car park, Peadar thought about Prokofiev, about the man’s music, and about all the performers who had played Peter before him.
He had let them all down.
“How could this have happened?” he thought, surrounded by the chill of the night. “I was Peter! I was the hero! How could I have become the villain?”
Creatures
The barking was like a cross-cut saw biting rhythmically into his skull.
“Someday soon,” he promised himself, “I am going to rip the tongue from that fucking dog’s mouth!”
Terry’s sleep had been shallow and unpleasant. The cool seductiveness of last night’s beer had worked in concert with the manly abrasiveness of the Wild Turkey to torment him into this state of oblivion, like a kind of wicked magic.
As he struggled his way up to consciousness, the incessant sound coming from Rusty added new layers to the sickness in his head. The Jack Russell was tied to a copper pipe in the kitchen, but it could be heard clearly through the door, and down the hall, as far as the living room. It might as well have been sitting on Terry’s head. It occurred to him that he had forgotten to feed the dog the previous morning, before going out. Come to think of it, he had also forgotten when he returned home. The barking was obviously the result of a full day’s hunger. Terry was marginally aware, however, that there seemed to be a more frantic undercurrent to the sound, a distress that was beyond hunger. Something else was bothering the dog.
He chose to push this thought aside, however. There were more important things on his mind right now.
He had awoken to find himself splayed on the sofa, his brain the texture of a stained nicotine filter, his face resting awkwardly on the worn cushion where he normally placed his feet. He moved his head slightly, seeking out the coolness of the cushion’s tarry patch, caused by years of ingested sock-sweat. Even these small head movements were making him feel worse.
But it was the dog that was making the morning truly intolerable.
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Terry shouted at the empty hallway, surprised by how croaky his voice sounded. This exertion launched him on a fit of coughing, bringing him uncomfortably close to the edge of nausea. He craved a cigarette, but knew he wouldn’t be physically able to smoke one for a while yet.
It was 9.00 in the morning, and he had been asleep for just five hours. He barely remembered the end of last night’s argument with Helen, but he had no doubt that a significant amount of damage had been done. He had only the vaguest memory of the taxi journey home, but was certain he had managed to upset the driver in some way. He frequently had drunken late-night arguments with taxi drivers. The fact that many of the foreign ones didn’t touch alcohol made it all the more satisfying for him. Having stepped out of the taxi, he remembered stumbling around in the dark to let himself in by the back door. Despite the fullness of the moon, he had almost tripped over the hose he had left lying in the grass months earlier. Because of this curse-inducing distraction, he had also failed to notice one other thing – the small grey animal which huddled shivering in the shadow of the house. It was the animal which Terry hated and feared more than any other, ever since that day when he was twelve years old. Had he noticed it – had he looked into its tiny black eyes – he
might have seen the depth of hunger growing within the old rat.
Terry’s current suffering was physical, but it was amplified by the memory of last night’s emotional mauling. Helen’s voice had been like cold glass throughout most of the evening, but Terry was more struck by the distance in her eyes. She had seldom looked at him as they sat across from each other but, when she did, he saw only sadness and loss.
Their volatile relationship had come to an end just eight days earlier, when Helen had finally decided it was time to leave Marian Villa, the suburban house in Clondalkin which Terry’s grand-uncle had left to him four years earlier. They had lived together for fifteen months in this house, but now it was all over. Terry had watched the resolution in Helen’s stride as she had walked down the street towards the bus stop. He had spent most of the following week waiting for her to cool down and make her way back to him. He tried to quell his excitement on the two occasions when she had visited the house during that week, even though she’d made each trip merely to see her little Rusty. Helen had moved temporarily into her sister’s house in Drumcondra, unwillingly hiding from the world in a small back room. Terry could guess at the discomfort she must have been feeling at this arrangement. He imagined her pining after their own double bed upstairs. During her two Rusty-centred visits, he had waited for her to reveal how wrong she had been to leave him, and how willing she was to give it another go. She had given no such indication, however, and had instead lavished all her attention on the dog. Finally, Terry was forced to push his pride away. Much as he had hated doing it, he had called her up the previous morning, and invited her out for a drink. Although there had been clear reluctance in her voice, she had surprised him by accepting.
This meant that Terry’s evening had started with a small sliver of hope. Perhaps a reconciliation was really possible. Despite being already slightly drunk when he arrived at the Cat & Cage, he was confident that he could charm her into seeing him the way she had two years earlier, on their first meeting. In the pub, he had spent the evening doing what he could to cover her in nostalgia. He managed to get her to relive some of their shared good times. She even laughed at the sillier memories, like the impulse they had once taken to go to the circus together, or the “Bad Taste” party they had attended that time in Galway, each clothed in clashing colours and wearing layers of her most garish make-up.
