Sudden Times

by Dermot Healy

  I better pack, she said.

  I read the paper from cover to cover and climbed the stairs in the dark. The door to her room was open, She was lying fully dressed on the bed with one arm thrown over her head. A duffel bag sat gorged on the floor. I pulled her door quietly to, then went to bed to bed to bed and beyond.

  the Long Squares

  The mother was bathing her corns on a chair outside in the sunshine. The radio on the sill was playing dance music.

  I’m glad to see you, says she. If I don’t see you I begin to think you don’t exist.

  A car goes by, twinkling on the Ox Mountains. A calf flies by like a car on the new road. I go inside and feed her dog with scraps from Doyle’s.

  There was a robbery in Grange this morning, she shouted.

  No, I says.

  Yes. The bucks are out. Do you know what I was thinking before you came along, she continued. I was thinking to myself Why are there so many love songs?

  We spend a lot of time, I suppose, in procreation.

  So we do. But that is no excuse. If they didn’t have so many childer there would not be such a pull in the boat. Do you hear me?

  I do.

  And if you weren’t in the humour for love it would be hard to listen to the radio.

  I put my head out the door.

  Gilmartin said he could never hug anyone.

  The Gilmartins were not known for affection.

  I went in again. She was silent a while.

  What are you doing in there? she called.

  I’m ironing.

  Ironing, is it?

  A shirt or two.

  Are you going someplace?

  I’m going on my holidays.

  Bless us. With who? she called.

  Liz.

  That lady that lives below ya?

  Yes.

  She came indoors in her bare feet and towelled them. The sun went behind a cloud. A shadow suddenly passed the kitchen window. I made tea and served it up with fresh scones I’d brought. She got into her carpet slippers and we moved to the garden. Along the hedge the mallows were in bloom. The hay shifters were charging up the hill spilling grass. The square balers and the round balers were shooting down the Long Squares.

  In twenty weeks it’ll be Christmas, she says.

  And I know who Santa Claus is, I said.

  So they told you at last, says my mother. Now that you know it, you should write it down.

  I will.

  She unearthed a comb from her pocket and did her hair.

  And how is all in the friggin’ town?

  Not so bad.

  Plenty of courting?

  Plenty of ladies.

  You can turn off that too, she says.

  She faced me.

  Your father is on my mind.

  Is he?

  I wonder is there something wrong?

  I took the mother’s bag and headed off. It had an old Aer Lingus sticker still attached to the handle from her travels in years gone by. I thought that sticker might bring me luck. The shifters passed, dropping clumps of grass along the middle of the road. Tractors with gangs of young fellows in the trailers tore to and fro like aeroplanes.

  The air on the hill was filled with the salty smell of sea manure.

  14

  let that be Barney

  After I finished in the Rap I took various routes home just in case that crowd were out then I let myself into the house in High Street. I was feeling great about going away.

  Liz had her duffel bag and case ready in the hallway.

  I went to her room and looked in. She was fast asleep. I went to the kitchen to eat a tin of anchovies and found another one open on the table. Liz had been feasting. Soon so would I. She differs from me only in her handwriting. On the table stood the fruit cake sitting face down on a baking sheet. I read the crossword in the paper and lost my place. Why is it I can remember only the bad things?

  The bad things they said of me.

  Hah! Why, Ollie?

  I went back to the crossword. Then some word made me step down off a train in France. One word and I’m away. For a long period I walked the docks listening to the sailors. There were fine boats in port. After a long trip through fields of wheat, I bed down for the night in Montmartre. Under my window a man seated in the square makes bird sounds.

  Then I said Let that be to Barney McKeown. Let that be, Barney. But he wouldn’t. He was a lad I’d been to school with. He’d come back to reprimand me over something I’d long forgotten. Something to do with something left behind.

  the lorry

  I’ll try to explain. I approached the lorry in which were the charred remains. My feet were burning in whatever the acid was. The cops were everywhere. I told them all I knew, but I could tell they were not believing me, no, they didn’t believe Ollie, Ollie knew that, so I crossed the park in a swish of summer light. The whole country lay before me. I knew who I had to find. So I confronted a man that I should not confront. I ask him about my friend. He says one thing, then he says another. Within seconds he has broken his word.

  This is not what you said a moment ago, I say.

  He is trying to get on with the business at hand. Again I say this is wrong. This is not what you said a moment ago. And now I approach him.

  The others behind me go quiet. I’m overdoing it.

  You’re out of your depth, he says.

  Never mind that, I say.

  He smiles at me.

  Someone take this fucker away, he says, before I kill him!

  I go closer, wondering at my own audacity and knowing too with a sudden start what blows feel like.

  Brady’s

  Next I walked into Brady’s in Cloonagh. The whitewash was gleaming. I pushed the door in. Mr Brady was sitting at the table in front of his tablets. He suffers with his blood. He was about to take the tablets when I walked in, shattering his privacy. He let the pill box fall. The pills scattered over the floor. He looked at me in consternation.

  Then I found that the people I was with, maybe they were the Fire Brigade, maybe not, had gone ahead of me down the long ladder at the pier. It must have been forty foot down. They stood looking up at me as I climbed over the top. The first rungs were very high. I had to swing myself out over the edge to get my first foothold. Then I started down. I could see the folk in the distance below, standing in a rocking boat.

  It was a long climb. Sometimes I was hanging on for dear life. The distance between the rungs became greater and greater, or sometimes they were so close that I lost my footing.

  I was filled with dread and the sense that this was a dangerous climb that I need not have undertaken. Then sometime before I reached the bottom I fell to the floor at the céilidh. I should not have gone out to dance at all because I was drunk. I was shamed. The moon rose. The pup galloped. I went into Liz’s room and her head had turned into that of an old face in a grave. She had aged. She had shining luminous grey hair. I was near tears.

  Come back Liz, I said, come back.

  We arrive to the grave with our shovels. Mr Brady bends down to gather his pills. I find myself back at the Simplex Crossword in the small kitchen at the bottom of the house.

  I’m terrified.

  working back

  The night ticks away beyond the window. Mir the spaceship is passing somewhere overhead. The Fire Brigade are on the Irish sea. Where was I? I begin working back through all the regrets. The grave. Yes. Liz. Yes. Mr Brady. Yes. The rungs at the pier.

  Yes.

  I dance and fall and meet again the man I was foolish enough to confront. The smile is still there. He pities me does Silver John.

  That’s not what you said a moment ago, I say and I’m terrified. Then suddenly there before me stands Barney McKeown in the happy act of reprimanding me.

  Let that be, Barney.

  the train from France

  He ushers in the train from France.

  Here we are again, thankfully, with the man in Montmartre makin
g bird sounds on the seat below.

  IV

  Old Grudges

  15

  the Sligo train

  Where are we?

  Cooloney.

  Oh God, is that all?

  Liz searches in her pockets and puts her glasses on the table.

  I’d like, she says, to be able to transport myself ahead to wherever I’m going without having to bother with the tedious bits in between.

  She gets up and takes her bag down from overhead. She puts her novel on the folded newspaper, her glasses on the novel and watches my reflection in the window.

  There’s something wrong with you.

  Not a thing, I say.

  How can you sit there in that seat? she asks.

  What?

  It’s facing the wrong way.

  Oh, I see.

  I don’t know how anyone can sit facing back the way we’ve come.

  It doesn’t bother me.

  I could never do that. She made a sour face. I have to be facing the way I’m going.

  We rocked along towards Boyle.

  We drove straight into a herd of cattle once, she says. There was blood everywhere. They came from nowhere.

  That’s where they always come from.

  Who?

  That crowd.

  From nowhere?

  Yes.

  She starts the crossword and mouths the clue to herself. C something something something, I don’t know why I bother, she says. She tosses the paper aside. I can never read on a train. And I can’t read in a car. Can you?

  Yes.

  She looks into the far distance.

  Never mind my mind. My mind is beyond redemption. Like yours.

  Then she took down the fruit cake, and cut two slices.

  Nice, I say.

  ears

  Near Drumod she says: I have a phobia about my ears.

  That’s strange, I say.

  Yes, my ears, she says, nodding. And I only mentioned it in passing. It’s not something I’m inclined to talk of.

  I suppose not.

  It’s personal.

  OK.

  She lifts the plastic cup and shakes it, hoists it high and drinks. She looks out the train window.

  And that’s why I’m afraid to sleep.

  Because of your ears?

  Stop laughing at me.

  I can’t help it.

  Well it’s not funny.

  I’m sorry.

  You’re not sorry. If I was you and you were me I’d be laughing too.

  You are laughing.

  That’s because I can’t help it.

  Oh.

  I’m having an identity crisis.

  I see.

  It’s private. Tell no one.

  I won’t.

  You swear?

  I do.

  Good. You see – her eyes open alarmingly wide – I get afraid that something might crawl into my ears.

  While you’re asleep.

  Yes.

  You mean bed bugs?

  I mean slugs. Slugs, she repeats with relish.

  By God.

  Oh yes.

  they’re always hanging about in there

  I had a feather got into my ear once, I says. It came out of a pillow and reached my brain.

  It did not, she gasps.

  It did.

  Was it painful?

  Very.

  Jesus. She looked at me anew. How did you get it out?

  I woke screaming and the lady I was with pulled it out.

  She shook her head, sat back and joined her hands. Was it a long feather? she whispered.

  It wasn’t short.

  If that happened to me I’d die. But I suppose the good thing is a feather is inanimate. A living thing will head on in and then its good night! Her eyes turned glassy and she looked away. And who, pray, was the lady that was so nippy with the feather?

  An old girlfriend.

  There is no such thing, says Liz adamantly. They’re always hanging about in there somewhere, and she tapped her skull.

  faces

  She lifts her bag onto her lap to get a magazine and a middle-aged woman from Drumod promptly sits down beside her.

  Excuse me, she says, are yous well?

  We’re grand, I say. We were talking about ears. Liz here has a phobia about ears.

  We all have our fads, the lady says. I’m like that about looking into people’s faces.

  No.

  Oh yes. Girls are always eyeing other women. I can’t speak about fellows, but I’d say they spend a while looking at the girls as well. Well I can’t. Not me. I’d look anywhere but at a woman. I can never look into a woman’s face. For instance right now – am I looking at you?

  You might be, says Liz

  Well, I’m not.

  That’s weird, says Liz.

  And I have a way of looking at men as well. She peers in my direction. Now am I looking at you?

  I think so, I say

  I’m not, not really. What happens is I pick a spot and I speak to it. You see men have more spots than women. Oh the women might be more beautiful but somehow I can’t look at them. Can you look at a woman? she asks me.

  Sometimes.

  The whole face?

  Maybe.

  Look at a woman – no thank you! She shook her head in distaste. It gives me the willies. And she shivered. She narrowed her eyes and peered sideways at Liz. And you, she says, can you look at faces?

  I suppose I can, says Liz. Did you know you can tell a woman’s figure from her ears.

  No! And the woman laughed heartily. From her lugs? Never.

  There’s something very naked about an ear, says Liz blissfully.

  Now that I come to think about it, you’re right.

  Yes. It’s a very very sensitive organ.

  Sensitive organ is nice, I say.

  the Al man

  Then Liz whispers, Watch out!

  Ah?

  Behind you – if he joins us I’m off.

  Who?

  Don’t look.

  I won’t look.

  Tell him the seat is taken if he asks, and Liz looks purposefully out the window.

  The man, swinging his plastic bag, stops momentarily. Myself and the lady pretend idiocy. Sligo soccer fans press by him. He passes on.

  Christ, says Liz. That was close.

  Do you know him? asked the woman.

  Not at all.

  Then the man she’d been trying to avoid turns, comes back and throws his bag overhead.

  How are yous doing? he says.

  Not so bad, I answer him.

  Liz looks skywards. He sits by me, unearths a sandwich from a bag and chews politely onto a napkin that holds a tomato.

  Are ye from Sligo?

  We are, I say, pointing to Liz and myself.

  It’s a county I know best from the air. Lovely place Strandhill. Not the friendliest of places, Sligo, they say.

  I’m Drumod, says the woman.

  I’m Longford myself. But I’m getting off at Mullingar, I have a woman there, we’re doing a line this two years.

  You’re the lucky fellow, says the woman.

  She’s Cavan. And he roared laughing. Her father throws me the odd glance. You’d swear I was the Al man coming.

  Al? asks Liz.

  It stands for artificial insemination, the woman tells Liz.

  Dear God! Is that what you do?

  It’s what I used to do.

  She stares at him.

  They were not appreciated in the old days either, he continued. The Al man you see was not appreciated because of the job. The women didn’t like to think what you were after handling.

  Lovely, says Liz.

  If you were fool enough to tell a woman back then what you were at she’d leave you standing in the middle of the hall. She would. And yet if you were a vet she’d never leave your side.

  You’re right, says Drumod and she nods severely.

  But do you want
to know the truth? he asks in a whisper.

  Certainly, says the women.

  He calls her in with his finger and draws her head towards his.

  There was no more hygienic job than what the Al man did, he says very slowly, then he slumps back into his seat.

  Now, agreed the woman.

  We were clean as a whistle. If we weren’t, you wouldn’t be in the job.

  the Cavan woman

  Are you working? he asks me.

  I’m in a supermarket.

  Good luck to you.

  Are you not working? asked the Drumod lady.

  I am not, not since the day they closed down the abattoir. And damned if I hadn’t started flying lessons above in Strandhill a few months before I got the chop. That put a stop to my aerobatics.

  That’s sad, says Liz.

  It is. But the Cavan woman stood by me. My only regret is that I never got her up in the air.

  I like the sound of her, says Liz.

  Why wouldn’t you. The Cavan woman is very loyal.

  I flew once, said the Drumod lady, with his nibs to Glasgow but my ears were destroyed.

  Oh, says Liz.

  You’ll get that, explained the Longford man. What you’re talking about there is pressure on the inner.

  Oh dear, says Liz.

  You see you have three parts to the ear. You have the drum, then the inner and the outer. Then the pressure builds.

  Stop.

  And when you get to the inner you’re up against the brain.

  Excuse me, please, said Liz.

  The woman from Drumod stood to let Liz out and she headed off to the bar.

  the canal started

  I trundled from side to side and joined Liz. She was cradling a plastic cup of gin and tonic.

  Jesus, she said. I knew it the minute I laid eyes on him.

  I ordered another two and we stood on the somersaulting floor between the toilets. She sneezed.

  Bless you, I said.

  We watched the towns and countryside fly past. The canal started. Horses in fields appeared.