The Spinning Heart

by Donal Ryan

  Poor Daddy. He comes up here nearly every day. He walks up and down the rutted avenues. River Walk. Arra View. Ashdown Mews. He tuts and shakes his head at the boy racers’ tyre tracks. He tries to pick up every fag butt and beer bottle. He looks in the gaping, empty windows; he scowls at the houses’ spooky stone faces. He hums and whistles, and curses now and again. He slashes at weeds with his feet. He kicks at the devouring jungle. He’s like an old, grumpy, lovely Cúchulainn, trying to fight back the tide. The only men in my life are my father and Dylan. It’s not fair on them or me.

  It was a few months before we copped on to what was after happening. The builder was gone bust. My house and the old lady’s were the only ones he could finish, because we were the only ones who’d paid. We heard he’d put all his money into some stupid thing to do with a fake island or something out in Dubai. Now he’s made a run for it. He’s lucky, Daddy says, because if I ever get my hands on him I’ll kick the living shit out of him. Daddy never talks like that. He must be really, really mad. Imagine if anything happened to him; I’d never get over it. Gaga, Dylan calls him. He stands at the sitting room window every morning, shouting Gaga, Gaga, Gaga. When he sees Daddy’s car, he goes mad. He’s a scream.

  Daddy cuts the grass outside every house on this block. I watch him, sweating and steadfast, burning in the sun. He stops every now and again and stands behind his lawnmower with his head bowed. I wonder is he praying, or thinking about Mammy. Maybe he’s crying. God, I hope he isn’t. He says he does it to be doing something; he hates retirement. I know well he’d way prefer to be off playing golf. Or playing bridge with Bridget. He does it to make my life seem more normal, to see can he make the place look like a proper estate. He mows and strims and trims and puts all the cuttings into a trailer. Then he drives over to Cairnsfort Lodge, where the builder’s parents live, and dumps the grass and stuff at the side of their garden. The builder’s father says nothing. He wouldn’t want to, Daddy says.

  A camera crew came here a few weeks ago. They were making a documentary about ghost estates. They set up all their gear and knocked on my door and Daddy answered and he got really cross. There’s no Dublin Four arsehole going using ye to make a name for himself, he said, when I went mad at him for not letting them interview me. I just wanted Dylan to be on telly, really, so everyone could see how gorgeous he is. Daddy wants us to go home and live with him and Bridget. I can’t, though. Seanie would love that, for one thing; I can just imagine him in the pub with his stinky friends, saying she’s gone back to her daddy, fwaah ha, with his big stupid donkey laugh. And I can’t stand the way Bridget moves apologetically around the house, letting on she’s not trying to replace Mammy. She’s probably a nice person, but she can fuck off, to be perfectly honest. She wears that horrible, watery, flowery old-lady perfume. It smells like somebody took a bottle of okay perfume and poured out half the bottle and filled it up again with pee and then sprayed it all over her. She tries to talk to me about Daddy. I feel like screaming like a child at her to mind her own business, to leave me alone, to leave Daddy alone. When I don’t engage she starts on about cards. Bridge. Forty-five. Whist. Jesus.

  SEANIE CALLED UP last week. Hello Tom, he said to Daddy. Daddy only nodded at him, but he stopped mowing and followed him with his eyes up to the door. He came in with a bag of crappy plastic shit for Dylan. I let him stay for five minutes. Dylan smiled at him, the little turncoat. Daddy thinks Seanie is great, underneath it all. Would ye not try to make it up, love, he says. It kills Daddy not to be able to talk to him about hurling and cars and machinery and whatever men do be fascinated by when they’re not ruining women’s lives. Make it up? Make it up? We didn’t have a row; I scream at poor Daddy, he’s just useless, useless, useless. All he’s good for is drinking and shagging floozies. Daddy starts looking at the ceiling and humming and scratching his chin. He tries to block my shrill, crazy voice from his poor old ears. He tries to keep my horrible words out. They settle around his heart and weigh it down. His blood quickens. His cheeks turn a livid purple.

  Little star, my name means. Some star I am. I’m not sure if Seanie is even Dylan’s father. Imagine if Daddy knew that! I had sex with my boss, George, just once. The horny old bastard brought us all out to celebrate his firm’s thirtieth year. He said he was having a special do, just for us. Really, he was having a special do for himself, hoping and praying that if one of us girls got pissed enough, we’d start to think he was more debonair than wrinkled, more witty than embarrassing. I shouldn’t ever drink. The old biddies all went home early; the apprentices took it easy of course, the cute arses – and I drank sticky-sweet fake champagne and laughed at every inane thing the creepy old pervert said. Two days later when I finally got over the nausea Hillary said that it was so obvious we were going to shag when he offered to share a taxi home with me. He got all business like afterwards, and wouldn’t meet my eye. His willy was tiny, his balls were wrinkled and uneven. When I told Hillary that, she nearly choked on her rice cake. Dylan looks like nobody except my father. Thank God, thank God; he’s the absolute image of Daddy.

  George charged a flat rate of four grand for conveyancing all through the maddest part of the property boom. If you added up the hours of work for the average house purchase, and multiplied by our hourly rate, he could have made a good profit if he charged seven hundred. He never looked at those files, we did everything. George wasn’t even the most expensive. A guy rang one day in a panic; the builders of some crappy estate had put his house back on the market. For some reason, George had his file in his office. The contracts hadn’t been sent back in time, the builders were backing out of the original deal and wanted another ten thousand to go ahead. He sounded young. His voice was cracking and shaking. George was in court. The guy had to get the promise of ten grand off the Credit Union in the end. Those builders were chancing their arm, but I couldn’t say that. I know now what I should have told him: tell the builders to piss off, stay in your flat with your girlfriend, wait two or three years and buy the same house for half the price. Hopefully he at least has other humans in his estate.

  MY HEAD was all over the place. That’s one phrase that I detest. It’s a miserable excuse for doing miserable things. What does it even mean? I hear the scumbags saying it all the time in work, through George’s door: Aw, my head was all over the place, I didn’t mean to hit him with the iron bar, I would of never done it, only my brother was after been stabbed the night before and I knew in my heart and soul your man was fuckin goin round skittin over it …

  The awful thing is, whenever I think of the way I was the time I was meeting Seanie and accidentally had sex with George, that’s the phrase that comes to my mind. My head really was all over the place. Mammy wasn’t long dead, and I’d never really grieved properly. I was so worried about Daddy, I just decided to block it out and focus on him. Then I realized I wasn’t the only one focusing on Daddy; Bridget the bloodsucker was mooning about the edges of our lives, with her big sorry-for-you eyes and her weirdly perky old boobs. If I’m to be objective, I can’t blame Daddy, though. Mammy was gone for years before she went. Next thing now my special paid career break will be over and I’ll be back in work, listening to scumbags again and looking at George trying to not look at me, wishing I’d just go away again. What will I do with Dylan then? My mortgage is half my wages.

  FOUR FELLAS came here in a van this morning. I thought they were Travellers first, coming looking for stuff to steal. They looked around for a while, hands in pockets, kicking stones like four lads trying to look innocent. They made me nervous; Daddy wasn’t due for another hour or so. One of them was really good-looking, tall and fair-haired and weather-beaten in a lovely way. He caught me staring out at him; I made it worse by jumping back from the window. He came over to my door. The sensible-bitch side of me whispered the words rape and murder in my head, but I had to open the door before he rang the bell – Dylan was only halfway through his nap. Howaya, he said, ammmm … I shushed him; he looked embarrass
ed. I came out and closed the door behind me, as if to hide my lonely life. I was trying not to smile at him. Why am I such a fool for manly men? I pointed back with my thumb. Nap time, I told him. Oh, Jaysus sorry. No problem, I said, and let the smile have its way. He brightened a bit then. He said he used to work for the builder who built the estate. They were up checking if the C2 boys had been back to finish off. What the fuck is a C2 boy? He looked a bit shocked at my language. God, he must be a right delicate petal. Self-employed workers, he explained, sub-contractors, foreign workers who were only taken on by builders if they registered as self-employed. That way the builder hadn’t to pay the proper rates; stamps, tax, pensions or what have you.

  His friends, a fat one, a foreign-looking one and a simple-looking one, were standing leaning against their van, trying to look like they weren’t gawking over at us. I suddenly listed the things that were unfinished in my house, the loose skirting boards, the unpainted banister, the badly hung door, the wobbly kitchen tile, the lumpy garden, the missing fence panel. He wanted to know had I not gotten a snag-list done. A what? Another thing I should have known about. He sighed, then said he’d do all those jobs, them jobs, he said, but he’d have to charge, he didn’t work for the builder any more. Forget it so, I said, I have zero money. Daddy had tried to do all of those jobs loads of times, but I’d never let him; I was foolishly insisting on waiting for the builder to come back. He looked over his shoulder at his friends and then back to me and said in a soft voice that he’d come back on Monday himself and do all the jobs. He’d charge fifty for labour and he’d probably be able to get any bits he needed from the other houses.

  So now I have a whole weekend ahead of me of looking forward to Bobby the out-of-work builder coming to trudge around my house, dragging in muck around the place, putting Daddy’s nose out of joint and probably frightening the life out of Dylan. I’ll have to try and get into town tomorrow to buy a new top. How sad am I?

  Timmy

  I WALKED UP Fernley’s Hill yesterday evening after I had my supper ate. It was melting close so it was. I seen Bobby, but he looked like he was right busy. He had a jeep and a trailer full of blocks. He must’ve cut down a tree. I thought I heard chainsaws a few nights ago all right. Rory Slattery was giving him a hand. I seen his big fat head and it wedged up Bobby’s arse. Seanie Shaper always says if Bobby opened his mouth wide enough you’d be able to see Rory Slattery looking out at you! I heard Rory is going away to England soon to see about getting work in the buildings for the Olympics. I’d say Bobby got a lend of the jeep and trailer off of the Burkes. I wonder did he just go up and take it or did he ask Pokey’s father. I walked real slow all up along the road past Bobby’s house. His young fella seen me all right. He pointed over at me and went Ti, Ti, Ti. I only waved at him. He knows my name on account of I used always walk up there in the mornings to get a lift off of Bobby if we were on a site I couldn’t walk or cycle as far as. He was standing in the garden, half the way between the fence and the front of the shed where Bobby and Rory were. They never seen me I don’t think. I didn’t go in to give a hand stacking the blocks. I kept walking up the hill and back down the far side and down the lake road and I thrown stones in the lake for a while and I skimmed one right good so I did. It bounced five times. That stuff always happens when there’s no one to see it happening only yourself. Then you’re not believed when you tell it.

  A power of fellas is going foreign. I’m not. I might be asked to be a sacristan when Padjoe Ryan is dead I think. Father Cotter showed me the tabernacle one time and the press where the collection baskets do be. I’m fierce devoted to Our Lady so I am. Padjoe had a triple bypass a few years ago. There’s so much copper pipes in him it’s a plumber they’ll have to get the next time he has a turn. That’s what Nana said about him. Nana never got no copper pipes in her heart. She never went to a doctor once in her life either. Doctor me hole, she used to say. What the feck do they know about anything? All they do is pull and drag out of you and then send you in as far as the hospital to die. The hospital does be full of them auld black doctors. How’s it them boys do be so worried about Irish people that they has to come over here to be doctors? Would they not look after all them starving babbies in their own places? And all them that’s falling away dead of the Aids? That’s what Nana used to say anyway. I don’t know anything about it. Nana’s heart just burst one night.

  Nana used to be always saying how she lived her whole life only over the road a small bit from the house she was born in. She’d say aren’t I as lucky as can be? There’s not too many can say it, and a lot of them that can aren’t happy over it. As if to say they’ve missed out on something in life by making their life in the place of their birth. I’d always agree away with her. Nana said this place has the best of all worlds. If you need something handy you can go in as far as the village on your bicycle, or you could walk it easily, or if you need something that can’t be got in the village, there’s three buses a day into town and they’ll stop for you right at the gate. Nana often wondered to know why in the hell people get into years and years of debt for motorcars. Wouldn’t one even do between two or three houses? Everyone does be going the same way anyway. That way the expense could be divided up and shared.

  BOBBY WAS ALWAYS fair sound to me. He’s the only one never slagged me. The first day I got the job off of Pokey, Mickey Briars who lamped me last year sent me in as far as Chadwicks for a packet of straight springs, a skirting ladder and a box of rubber nails. Your man in Chadwicks only laughed and shook his head and said I’d say your mates are pulling your leg. When I got back Mickey Briars was raging. He said years ago a fella starting off would’ve been sent all over the town from shop to shop for the joke messages the way everyone could have a go at laughing at him, and wouldn’t you think the smart prick inside in Chadwicks woulda kept it up?

  I’m glad he didn’t all the same. I don’t like the sound of getting made little of from pillar to post. Bobby laughed at that kind of a thing but he never really joined in with it. One time Seanie Shaper kept showing me pictures in a magazine of naked women and I didn’t know what I was meant to do or say so I only smiled down at them naked paper women and all the rest thought it was a howl altogether and were asking to know had I a horn, and would they send me over as far as Lily the Bike and even the Polish and the Russian boys were roaring laughing at me and for a finish Bobby just walked over and grabbed the magazine off of Seanie and threw it into the fire in the tar barrel and said now, leave the boy alone to fuck. You yahoo. Seanie said nothing to Bobby. He was afraid of him when he was in a temper.

  I got a woeful hop the day Mickey Briars went at me with the shovel. Bobby and them were hiding all in the yard while Mickey went tearing around, roaring and shouting out of him about how he was going killing Pokey and where was his fuckin money and all. I thought first it was all a mess because everyone that was hiding was roaring laughing and I didn’t duck down behind a load of blocks like Seanie and Rory or climb up into the cab of a digger, only stood looking at auld Mickey as he ran at me. Bobby and them caught a hold of him and thrown him in the back of Seanie Shaper’s van and Bobby gave me a hand to get up off of the ground and asked to know was I all right and I done my level best not to be crying like a baby but that’s the sort of a battle I near always lose. I lid down that night after going home from the pub and the ceiling above me was spinning and spinning and I ran into the back toilet and got sick for ages. My stomach was burning and all. I’d say I was poisoned from the drink. I was quare lonesome that night, more even than all the other nights.

  WE WAS ALL sent off different places when we were small. There was six of us in it. My father went stone mad on the drink when my mother died so he did. She died having me. I often do see him outside Ciss Brien’s in the village or the Half Barrel inside in town, smoking a fag. He never says nothing to me. I do hate walking past him. My uncle took us all to the beach one time in a big van with windows. He drove to all the different houses we lived in to
collect us: Nana’s, Auntie Mary’s, Uncle JJ’s, his own house to get Noreen, my big sister. Nana told me I was to bring her back a bag of seashells. I gave the whole day to finding shells for Nana. I went up and down the long beach a rake of times. Uncle Noely had to come and find me when it was time to go home. He was vexed over having to look for me. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me up along the steps from the beach. My big bag of shells fell all over the path at the top. Noely wouldn’t leave me pick them up. My bag was bursted anyway. I looked at them as we drove away from the beach. Seagulls were swooping down for a look to know were they something to eat that was after getting dropped. Then they’d fly off again, raging. Uncle Noely wanted to know why in the fuck was I crying over a few auld shells. I didn’t know what to say to answer him. My brother Peadar laughed at me and gave me a puck. Nana gave out stink to Uncle Noely at home because I was burnt to a crisp. He never put no lotion on me.

  Noreen had a baby who died after a few days. The doctor told her the baby wouldn’t live after it was born. Noreen didn’t believe it. She said the baby was beautiful, the baby was perfect, there was nothing wrong with the baby. The baby was brought home and all. All the nurses cried inside in the hospital as they left. They all knew well the little baby hadn’t a hope in the world. Noreen wouldn’t believe it, though. Sure look at him, Nana, look at him, he’s perfect so he is, he’s perfect. He was too, I seen him. There was something wrong with his heart; it wouldn’t stay beating. I stayed close to Noreen’s house the whole time after they brought him home so I did. I didn’t like to be going in, tormenting them and they busy worrying and hoping and praying. I stayed outside in the shade of the big weeping willow that hung out over their wall. I let on to be standing guard against death. He got in, though, in spite of me. I heard Noreen from outside, roaring crying. PJ came out as far as the garden wall and called me in. Noreen had the little baby in her arms. She pulled me in to her arms as well. I couldn’t hardly breathe with the flood of tears and the heat off of her and the little baby squashed into me. I knew you were outside the whole time, my love. I’m sorry, love, I’m sorry. I never minded you properly, love, and now aren’t I paying for it? I’m sorry my little love, my little love, my little love. I didn’t know for a finish was she talking about the baby or me. I think a lot about what Noreen said that day. I think she thinks it was my fault her baby died, like it was my fault Mammy died. I don’t know in the hell.