by Dermot Healy
She took my hand.
Never mind me, she says.
16
a small world
We stopped in front of a travel agency on Grafton Street and looked at the cheap flights to all parts of the world. We had to give up on Morocco. One minute we were for Tunisia, next Mexico. We looked at Greece. We looked at Turkey.
Then we sauntered through Stephen’s Green and sat down on a bench to look at the ducks.
What will we do now?
I don’t know.
We stepped through the park towards Baggot Street and on towards the canal. A man I knew from Sligo saluted us. It’s a small world, I said. From that moment on I knew we would not be journeying far. The bags felt lighter. We sat on a seat and looked into the canal where bottles and leaves and bags had come to a stop at the lock.
Do you think in words?
Wait till I see, said Liz.
Hurry up.
I can’t hurry.
You have to hurry or you’ll get the wrong answer.
You’re making me dizzy.
I waited a while.
Well?
I don’t know. I think I think in pictures.
Very good, I said.
ducks
Then we stopped talking because first a lone woman in a raincoat arrived and sat chewing chicken sandwiches very daintily. She was a pleasure to watch. Then a man in a suit lay out under a tree and bit into a bar of chocolate. A lad arrived with chips. A girl with salami. Soon we were surrounded by bank girls and insurance agents and people from offices sprawled on the grass. They drank orange drinks and yogurts and ate biscuits and salad sandwiches and coleslaw. Soon there were hundreds chatting away.
Like a pair of buffs we went quiet and studied them.
When the man who went deaf was asked what did he miss most – Music? Talking to someone? Intimacy? – No, he said, what he missed most was overhearing, overhearing on buses, in streets, cafés, All the time I had my hearing I was unconsciously overhearing the din in the background, he said, and that’s what I miss most. Confidences between strangers, sentences that don’t finish and bring back memories, absurdities, single words, directions, things you could never understand, non sequiturs, whispers, chat, names, the giving of and the words of affection, secrets, abominations, hearsay, suggestions, gossip, the canal water, the traffic, the trees, the hum of the city.
All that, and ducks.
Then we went across to the Mespil Hotel and booked in at a special rate. The manager there being from Sligo he charged you less per room if you hailed from home. We ordered cod in sauce to the room and a bottle of white wine in a bucket of ice. It was lovely. Night fell and across the road the prostitutes gathered in the dark by the canal. For a long time Liz watched their comings and goings from the window.
My mother is obsessed with prostitutes, she explained. Once we had to go up and down the canal in my older sister’s car so that the mother could see all that was happening.
And was she satisfied at that?
No, she never is.
the glass cupola
We woke next morning to the sound of ducks. I lay wondering what to do. Then I thought of the father. I saw him and me that day sitting in a dreadful silence at Luton airport waiting to come home. Above our heads, figures strolled in the glass cupola of the high watchtower.
What time is it? he asks me.
Four.
Another hour to go.
Yep.
Do you think is Redmond on board yet?
I don’t know.
I watched one of the men lift a pair of binoculars in the watchtower. He peered out towards the runway. He disappeared.
This is hopeless, the father says.
Leave it.
I just want to make sure of one thing.
What’s that?
When this is over, you and me are finished. OK?
If that’s what you want.
That’s what I want.
that’s what I want
That’s what he said.
the broken cup
Myself and Liz walked down Dure Street in Coventry the following afternoon. I knocked on the door of my father’s lodgings. The woman let us in. We climbed the stairs.
I tried the handle of his door and swung it open.
He was sitting in his vest by the table reading a newspaper. He looked at us in astonishment and let the cup he had in his hand fall. It was like the time I walked into Brady’s in Cloonagh and Mr Brady dropped his pills. The cup clattered in pieces across the floor and my father rose with a finger in the air as if to correct me.
Dad, I said.
He sat again and shook his head in disbelief.
This is Liz.
He stood and nervously pushed the chair back. Welcome, he said. They shook hands. He looked round him in dismay.
If only he had told me, I could have done something about the place, he said.
Never mind, said Liz.
He gave her his chair and he sat on a small bed. He felt the white stubble on his chin. He wrung his hands.
We’re booked in round the corner, I said.
Ah Jazus, he said.
He rose to sweep up the bits of the broken cup.
Dear God, Ollie, he said. I was thinking of you just the very minute before you walked in the door.
He shook his head in consternation. Awkwardly, as if he might any moment fall, he swept the bits of delph into a neat pile and lifted them onto a small shovel, then he stood in the middle of the room with the shovel in his hand wondering where to put them.
I’m moidered, he said.
I got a plastic bag and he shovelled them in.
Then he stood with the bag in the middle of the room.
Let me get on a shirt, he said.
He went off into the kitchen. It was then I saw the limp for the first time. We sat in the small room, two stories up. It faced on to the snarling traffic below. At the bottom of the unmade bed sat a portable TV on a chair and beside it was a pile of crosswords and a pair of moccasin shoes. My mother’s picture was on a chest of drawers. Redmond’s picture was on the wall. I was nowhere to be seen. I looked at what he was reading. It was an old copy of the Sligo Champion, open at the sports page.
You gave him a terrible shock, said Liz.
He came back a few moments later freshly shaved in a white shirt buttoned to the neck.
He pulled the sheet up on the bed. Then he started tying his white runners.
I’m only out of bed, he said, you caught me on the hop.
I should have knocked, I said
I was on nights. I get the odd night. Security at Watt’s. Watt’s warehouse.
Ah.
Did you hear what happened? He straightened up and looked at me. That other crowd let me go.
I heard.
They did. They let me go a while back. He lowered his head again and finished the last knot with a flourish. After all those years. He looked towards the window. And I’m not the only one. No, he said, I’m not the only one.
That was terrible, Mr Ewing, said Liz.
It was not right.
He went back and sat on the bed
When did you arrive?
This morning.
You’re an awful man, he said. You caught me on a bad day. I haven’t a thing in the house.
Never mind, said Liz.
And look at the cut of me.
We can leave and come back I said.
Not at all, he said, you’re not leaving without me.
He sprang into action, took an old blue raincoat off a hanger in the wardrobe and put it on. As he did so he whistled. Went back to the kitchen and did his hair. Then presented himself at the door in a blue baseball cap.
After you, he said. He stood aside. We trooped down the stairs and he came after us.
the tour
See that mosque over there?
Yes.
That used to be the Bam-ba, he laughed. An Irish dance house. So wha
t do you want to do?
Take a walk, I suppose.
Take a walk, he repeated. Take a walk?
He seemed confounded. Suddenly he strode off, then, just as suddenly, stopped and turned sharply into a supermarket. He headed straight for the vegetables.
Look, he said, what they have here these days. Look at them lads.
Aubergines, said Liz.
You know them?
I do.
And these.
Chinese cabbages, I said.
He looked at me with a glint of furious sadness.
There you go, he said.
I felt like apologizing to him. He went through the supermarket swing doors ahead of us. Although he was smaller, he felt taller than me on the High Street, as he nodded to ladies he knew. A man with a fox on a lead stood waiting at the traffic lights and the father leaned down and patted the animal.
How are you, George? he said.
I’m a bit short today, Eamon, said the owner. Maybe tomorrow.
What are you talking about? said my father.
Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry, he said seeing us.
My father blanched, glared at him, then pressed on as if he hadn’t heard. He led us proudly through all that was familiar to him. Halls of residence, Radiators Ltd, Day Centres for Asian Elders, Toupee specialists, Rehoboth Baptist Church, 1857 – I know that my Redeemer Liveth.
We strolled round the sky-blue hospitality suites and executive boxes of Coventry City football ground.
We walked through a playground that was guarded by a life-size golden tiger. Blue and red double-deckers shot by. He brought us to Coventry cathedral. The roofless nave that was bombed out in the Blitz was full of cooing pigeons. Stone bulldogs on their rumps sat on the walls. A bell rang. He pointed out the bookies and the restaurants.
Do you want to go in here?
Why not.
We walked through the Daimlers and Humbers and Hillmans at the car museum. Inside a re-enactment of the Blitz was taking place. A small model of Coventry was laid out. The light went off, planes began droning, a siren sounded, there was an explosion and a little puff of smoke rose.
It’s very good really, said the guide, isn’t it?
the Town Crier
Like a sea captain Da lurched into the Town Crier.
It had one long round bar divided by glass partitions into four lots. In ours a jukebox was belling.
He called out to cronies he knew over the noise. They shuffled towards us like men in a float on a Saint Paddy’s Day parade. Genially they saluted to the viewing stand, then passed by. Liz slipped off to the ladies.
A fine lady, he said.
She is.
I hope you are treating her well.
I hope so.
Don’t end up like me, he said bitterly. People are all right.
Same as that.
He ordered a drink and out of habit slipped some of the change into a slot machine. I stood behind him to watch the fruits spin. There it was again. I lost my place and began to panic. I saw us at Luton airport, the two of us, sitting in silence. The top of my spine hardened into a knot. I stepped back trying to get my breath. As he turned to face me I saw his mouth move but I could not take in the words. He went a dangerous colour. I tipped my forehead, said Just a mo, and as he watched me in bewilderment I stepped onto the street. I found it hard to get my breath. I put a hand against the post of a zebra crossing.
When the voices went, along came the signs.
The fox, the jukebox, the slot machine.
I don’t like these signs. I’ve seen them before. They were everywhere, on the boat across, the train, in slight changes of consciousness. The moment we decided on England it started, the broken cup that spilled pills, the quirks of light on the street, sudden shifts in perspective. The signs on the journey had accumulated as the voices receded. I could no longer overhear.
I was in a world of signs. I don’t know how long I stood there but eventually I went to an Indian shop and bought some cigarettes.
the fiver
I stood well back from view in the alcove of a cinema and lit up. Jesus. And then my father rounded the corner and saw me.
What are you doing there? he asked.
Having a draw.
Well I don’t know, he said.
I ran out of fags, I said.
Is it me?
What do you mean?
Is it me? Is it seeing me?
No, I said.
I don’t know, he repeated. Is it money?
No.
It’s seeing me, isn’t it?
Never mind.
How can I?
We stood there a while by a poster of an extraterrestrial. I offered him a Players Blue. As he took a light, he darted a shy look at me. We stayed there till I was ready. I followed him back to the bar. Liz had fallen into conversation with an ex-boxer from Belfast. His chin was silvered and wore old scars. He clapped me on the back.
I’m glad to meet you, he said, you’ve a good auld man.
Don’t listen to him, said my father. He talks rameish.
You’re one good fellow, said the boxer.
You say that to all the girls.
My father beamed. He grew raucous.
This is my gasun, he said to the barman.
The boxer spilled a bag of watches onto the bar and told me to take my pick for Liz. I chose a small wrist-watch with a leather strap and she slipped it onto her wrist, held it to her ear, tuned it. A crowd from Mayo joined us. The father went up on to his good leg and called a round. Liz sang “Ain’t Misbehavin’”. Then, despite my protests, he phoned work to say he would not be in. Next thing we were on the street. He was carrying a bottle of port.
We walked him home through crowds spilling onto the street from a disco. Girls in minidresses stood with cigarettes slanted at half-mast by their thighs. Laughter turned to screeching. A fellow took off his shirt in the middle of the street and called on the man he wanted to slaughter. His girlfriend began pulling him away. Liz linked my father’s arm. They strode ahead like old friends. We said good night at his door but nothing would do him but that he walk us home, so back again we went through the selfsame streets and the dancers arguing in small groups as police watched them. The father strolled through them as if they were not there, a woman on his arm, his eyes straight ahead, a man who knew how to avoid trouble, unlike me.
At our hotel we stood on the steps.
Do you know what? The last time I stood inside here was after a christening, he said.
The bar might be open, I said.
There’s a man from Leitrim behind that bar, he said. I know him. The Leitrim man is as decent as any.
He stepped into the foyer and patted the buttons of his raincoat. The night porter came out from behind his desk and looked down at the paper bag in my father’s hand.
Are you residents? he asked.
Myself and the lady are, I said.
And you?
Since November of 1968, said my father. I think I have earned my keep. Can we get a drink?
The barman is gone home, he said.
Louis. Is Louis still with you?
Louis who?
Louis Ging.
I’m sorry, I don’t know the name.
Oh dearie. Beads collected on his brow. But you’re still here. So?
I’m sorry.
Ah, now.
Residents can have a drink in their room.
Ah, surely you could spare us a drop down here? said my father.
The bar is closed, he said.
Leave it, I said.
Oh that would be it, said my father. He seemed on the verge of tears.
Look, I said, we’ll see you tomorrow.
Aye.
He hesitated on the threshold and eyed the porter. We said good night. The father left. We ordered two gin and tonics to be delivered to our room then climbed to Number 405. A few minutes later there was a tap on the door. There stood my father, grinning, with a
tray of drinks in his hands.
Good evening, sir, he said. Where would you like me to put these?
How did you manage that?
A fiver works wonders, he said proudly.
she’s tough
We perched on the two small beds and he sat in the only armchair.
He hoisted his port, we our gin, and touched glasses.
Good luck, Mr Ewing, Liz said.
Eamon, he said and went all coy.
And where are you from?
Westport, says Liz.
Ah, he said knowingly. I had an aunt there was condemned on the altar for marrying a Protestant.
No.
Yes.
You’ll get that.
You will.
Oh dearie, dearie me, he said, but you’re great gas.
He looked at me.
Ollie.
Yes?
Nothing. I was only saying your name. I was trying it out for sound. You see I hardly ever see him, he explained to Liz. He patted her knee and looked round the room. This place is grand.
It’s forty-five pounds a night for the room.
Very good.
It’s not so bad, I said.
You’re landed.
We are.
Now.
He tried the TV. A late-night chat show came on. He flicked through the stations and counted them, then turned the TV off. He inspected the bathroom and the extractor fan boomed. A nosy yoke that, he said. He tried the sash of the window, looked out on the city, came back and sat down.
You must have a few bob, he said and winked.
The mother told me you might be coming over this summer.
I might. He lowered his head. How is she?
She’s fine.
The poor wee thing, he said. She’s tough.
She is.
You see, he explained to Liz, patting her knee again, I wanted her to stop here but she wouldn’t have it. She was beside herself with grief in this town. He looked at me. No, she wouldn’t have it.
We were going to go to Morocco, said Liz gaily.
By Jingo, is that so?
He kept his eye on mine.
Well, I’m glad you landed in this neck of the woods. It’s time we had a few days together. He looked away. And after this, what will you do?
