A Slanting of the Sun

by Donal Ryan

  There’s many a family of this place and here around lost a son or a brother or a father but never could they raise a stone or a cross in their honour. Their memories were buried in silence and shame. The Colemans, being free to fight for England, could commission plinths and plaques from the best of masons and fix them firm to the earth. And why wouldn’t they? Why wouldn’t they do their damnedest to keep on to their dear Robert in some way, in cold stone and carved words.

  One of the Donnells of Gortnabracken came back, shell-shocked and nearly deaf. He made no bones about where he’d been and would stand aside for no man, regardless of rank or station. He’d set his face to hell and hadn’t flinched. But still and all he’d be silent for weeks and months at a time, hunched and white, then all of a sudden he’d be shouting and roaring around the pubs and streets, standing and kneeling at the wrong times in Mass and saying his prayers too loud and laughing, thinking the rest of the world was gone the same way as him. His brothers did their level best to quieten him, and his parents were warned by the Volunteers who by then had become the IRA to keep a rein on him; Father Fitzwilliam even beseeched from the pulpit on his behalf. The sacrifice he made, what he gave of himself; fighting in a just war blessed by God, and his right mind left behind him in Passchendaele.

  I heard that boy of the Donnells – what’s this his first name was? – say more than once how there was a good many men of his battalion shot for not wearing their hats opposite officers or not saluting them properly or for other such niggardly transgressions. The Irish lads were dirt to them, nothing, not even human. Men that left this parish and ones like it, imagine, decent poor men that took themselves away from these green fields and rolling hills, to fight against a Kaiser for a king, were shot by little jumped-up Johnny Englishmen for not having their uniforms on properly, or for falling asleep, or for not lepping quick enough over the tops of trenches into the teeth of death. He was sent off for a finish to live with an old uncle that was left a childless widower above in Templetuohy. I heard he began drilling young lads up there for the IRA and that he blew himself to smithereens trying to make a barrel-bomb to roll out onto the road in front of a truckload of Black and Tans.

  There wasn’t a coffin to be got here, you know, for a full year once that First World War ended. The Spanish flu was brought back by soldiers, and laid waste to all about. All the weak were taken: babies and old people and anyone already disposed to frailty or sickness. And many a strong man and woman that was never sick a day in their lives. No resistance, you see, it blew through them the very same as the wind through the girders of the railway bridge between Ballina and Killaloe. I clearly remember the day of my seventeenth birthday, going on the trap with my father to town, and seeing a line of coffins at the bottom of Queen Street, and another row started where that one ended, of poor souls shrouded in blankets and sheets, rosary beads draped across their breasts. And the Foleys in the sawmill yard working night and day to provide short planks for makeshift coffins, and the priests and the curates stepping along the ranks of dead, anointing them. The stench, I’ll never forget, of rotting things and incense. The hums and chants of prayers, the wailing cries.

  I heard a man say years upon years later on a television programme that that was all needed by humankind, all that death. It was Nature’s way of pruning back excess, of ensuring bounty. That was needed, says he. The world was short of orphans. The earth was short of human flesh and bones. Lord, but isn’t it a sight altogether the things people say, the things they think they know, the certainties they carry about for themselves. As full as ticks with satisfaction at their own smartness.

  I’ll die soon, I suppose. I’ll hardly get a look at this new millennium that all the hullabaloo is about. The world will go haywire by all accounts, the minute it turns 2000. Machines will all turn off, or go quare on people, or something. I’m as well off out of it if that’s the case. Robert Coleman is eighty years dead, imagine. That beautiful boy from the big house who walked many a summer day along the far bank of the stream that served as a border between my father’s tiny freehold and his father’s estate of two or three thousand acres. Who talked and laughed across the whispering water, and always waved back at me as he started up the hill towards home.

  The House of the Big Small Ones

  TRUE AS GOD. True as this pint before me. I told Busty McGrane go fuck herself. Straight into her face I told her. Years ago this was when all they had was the pub and the little shop counter at the front of it and only the bare bit of milk and bread and ham and newspapers being sold there that time and even only scarcely that. Before the big swanky Mace come along and the yard full of pumps under a canopy. Only the one lonesome pump that time and no diesel even. Farmers only used diesel them days anyway and all had their own tanks. I was only a puck, sixteen or seventeen. Says to myself Right, I’ll set out early on for this cow how things is going to be between us. Few hundred pound them days a man could be in Australia and all set up. Didn’t need no job at all off of that wan. Was me doing her the favour.

  So there we was on a Sunday evening fine and sunny and a thirst in my throat like sandpaper was rubbing the inside of it and it a bank holiday Monday next day and Mickey Briars and Alphonsus Reilly and all them lads that was all off the next day shouting over at me from inside in Ciss Brien’s that I was only a boy, a bare chap for that orange crowd, and wanting to know was I a fuckin gom altogether or what was I and Busty McGrane standing before me reading me from a height over the dust in the yard and it being rose good-oh by every passing car and truck and destroying her windows and all the stuff inside in the shop was covered entirely in grit. Hers was the only shop in the country them days opened Sundays. And there I stood and her two tits heaving up and down before me while she screeched, mesmerizing me. How am I meant to keep dust from rising, I asked her. Hose it down, says she, and the screech of her near split me in two. Piss on it for all I care! And she poked a long finger into my chest. Well, if she did! Says I to myself, I can die a man or live a child, and I turned around to her and lifted her out of it. Busty, says I – and that alone, calling her Busty and not Mrs McGrane fair vexed her – says I, Go on. Away. And fuck. Yourself. Real slow, like that, straight into her face. And I thrown down my sweeping brush and strolled fine and slow with no look back away from her across to Ciss’s, her main competition as things were then, and was landed up a pint straight the second I walked through the door in congratulations though I wasn’t even strictly of age, but then you’re only a man when you start to act like a man. True as God I done that. And she never once barked at me since. Not like all them young wans she’d have shitting themselves scared of her, doing their few hours for their bit of pocket money, handing out cones to children and standing idle at the tills looking out of their mouths. True as God. Ask Mickey Briars if you don’t believe me.

  Then a small while after, and I having the ticket as good as got to go over to Australia and work in demolition with the father’s cousin, didn’t one of the young Comerfords land down to our cottage saying how I was wanted inside in The House of the Big Small Ones. Philomena McGrane was after telephoning their house with the message on account of we had no phone of our own that time, and my father says to me More in your line now to go in as far as the village and make it up with the McGranes and get back your bit of a job and don’t mind your fooling about Australia or what have you. Imagine the cut of you, says he, you’d be sizzled like a rasher and swallowed whole by a crocodile for his breakfast on your first day off of the plane. And I kind of seen the sense in that then, that when a man is offered a good job in the place of his birth isn’t it as well take his luck where it comes besides travelling to ungodly places looking for what you’re only after leaving behind you. And so in I went and the auld husband inside in the bar and it dark as night inside in it as always and it still called The House of the Big Small Ones that time on account of the measures was always gave out massive all along the years before the McGranes blew down from the north and bo
ught it off of auld Mugsy Foley and he half dead that time and no son or daughter left to look after him and the auld wife long buried and he desperate stuck for the few pound to put himself up in the good home out beyond Lackanavea not to be ended up below in the county home that was always along the years known as The Poorhouse. And the auld husband had a puss on him and all he done was grunt at me and nod towards the door behind the bar in towards the kitchen where Busty sat keeping a watch out on shop counter and bar counter and petrol pump and husband.

  Look on, says she, in the auld nordie accent, and a big long fag in her hand and a halo of smoke about her head. Look what the cat’s dragged in. Kee-at, says she, like that, in place of cat. Them auld nordies do always make words longer and split them in two. Are you over your little strop, says she, like for all the world I was a bould schoolboy waiting to see would he be slapped or gave out to or both or neither. I said nothing back to her only stood my ground and done my damnedest not to be leaving my eyes settle of their own accord on the front of her tight pink jumper. She wanted to know had the same kee-at got my tongue and all I said was Lookit, you sent for me, I have my bag packed for Australia and all, I have things for doing now if you don’t mind. Woo-ee, says she, letting on to be all wide-eyed with surprise. Well, I’ll give you till the end of today to think on, and if you change your mind, come in to me in the morning. Think on, says she, like that. Quare nordie way of talking.

  I thought on anyway all that day and landed myself in at cockcrow the next day. And wasn’t the whole place locked up tight and no car or anything to be seen. But when I tried the side house door wasn’t it open and I pushed it before me and stood up looking in, half afraid. Out of the dark inside she arrived in her nightgown and it ending in a bit of a frill half the way down to her knee and she pulling the two sides of it tight around herself and I saw once the morning light had a chance to touch her that one side of her top lip was bloody and swollen, and there was white lines down along her face where tears had cut their marks into her. Her nose was red from snotting. There was a woeful smell of liquor about the place. Aye, says she, aye go on, fill your eyes and run away home to your mammy and daddy and tell them the blow-in got her comeuppance at last and with them words she left a pitiful cry out of her, like a keening moan really, and I’ll say now in all truth I had a half a horn on me just looking at her there in her silky frilly nightgown and her bare legs and her big chest heaving and even the glisten on her face of tears and snots didn’t put me off and I stepped in over the threshold and Lord strike me down now if I tell you a word of a lie but didn’t I put my hand out to her in comfort and she took it in hers and without even looking up at me she put it to her breast and sure wasn’t that a finish to me there and then and she knew what was after happening and she softly laughed. Go on, says she, in a whisper, hoarse and throaty kind of, and she holding out a set of keys. Open up. And off I toddled not even feeling my own discomfort and not a word came between us all that day again so shocked was I and so distracted was she by her own troubles.

  She put me on a day rate after that. I was gave a station in all elements of her business. Bar, shop, yard, solid fuel. Some days was long and more was short, but the same rate paid for all. And I’d say if all was wrote down in a sum of division or done on a calculator, the money paid over the hours worked, I’d say I was always a fair whack better off than the little part-timers that came and went like the rain with their hands forever out and their fighting over shifts and rosters and days of holidays and what have you and more time gave always to arguing about work than to working.

  The husband was never again seen. Maybe he telephoned or wrote to her over the years to see to know how was she getting on but as far as I know he never landed back in person. Whatever they fell out over it was a big falling-out. That it ended in his raising his hand to her was known only to me. She stayed in the back till the swelling went down and left me out to deal with people. They’d rather see your face than mine anyway, says she. You’re one of them. You don’t frighten them the way I do, says she. And I only barely able that time to manage the pulling of pints and the working of the till and the ham-slicer in the shop and it was all go go go for a good long while and people used be craning their necks to get a look in through the kitchen door to see where was she and what in the hell the story was and where was Himself and why in the name of Jaysus was the lad of the Farrells keeping shop here from one end of the day to the other. And I spilling whiskey into glasses like it was water, unused as I was to them auld optics and the way you must lay off the push as the bubble gets bigger and for a small while that bar once more was true to its name of The House of the Big Small Ones. And several times I wounded myself on that auld ham-slicer cleaning it and smeared the blade of it with the blood of my body. And always those evenings once all was locked up and put away and tightened up she’d put a bit of a plaster on my cut and rub my hand and stand blue-eyed barefoot before me in that short nightgown and what blood was left in me would rush to gather in the one place and my head would spin and she’d lead me by the bandaged hand to her room below down the long hall and we’d go at each other like two starved wolves going at a fat sheep.

  She never asked me to know what I thought of the closing of The House of the Big Small Ones and the knocking of it and of the house attached where I had stored such fond memories and of the building of the bungalow and the big new shop like a refrigerated warehouse lit bright like a Christmas tree and it being made into first a Londis and then a Mace and of the taking on of all the little young wans and she only ever asked me to know did I know their fathers and were they any bit respectable. And she never told where was she going the times she went off in Paddy Screwballs’s hackney all done up to the nines and Paddy’s auld beady eye all up and down her while he lifted her leather suitcase into his boot the very same as a real how-do-you-do gentleman and I wouldn’t ever give Paddy the satisfaction of asking him to know where did he drop her off but I suspect it was to the train station inside in the city for to travel north to attend family dos, weddings and what have you. And she never once asked me to know how was I after my mother passed away but I will say one thing, she gave a fair old squeeze of me at her funeral and whispered into my ear I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry, and I often wonder still was it for more than my loss of my mother she was sorry.

  And over all the days and months and years we kept our goings and comings at a fair steady old rhythm.

  And that hunger that came on us at times we sated with the flesh of one another.

  And even when that wore off of us there was always the nearness and the certainty of one another.

  And as sure as God and as sure as I’m sitting here I gave my life to her and never taught myself a thing outside or above what was needed to keep her business going and her books balanced for fear at all she’d someday up sticks and leave me.

  And even my own father when he was old and faced with his end said Gor, you know, I wonder would it have been as well had I left you off that time to work with my cousin in the demolition beyond abroad the way you’d have seen something or done something, maybe.

  And I took his hand and squeezed it the way I never once had when he was in his health and said No, Daddy, I was as happy here.

  But happy I’ll never again be, I’d say. She’s gone from me now and for a finish and for good and for glory and I won’t see her again. And the shop and the petrol pumps and the bungalow and the bit of money that was put away all along the years is belonging now to some nephew or other from above in the north that never in all his days set foot in this village and he wants to know will I stay on the way I can keep a good eye on things for him and I think I won’t, I won’t I’d say. I’ll finish up this pint and go home and take off this tie that has me choked all day and tomorrow or the day after maybe I’ll walk up to the Height where she asked to be buried, God alone knows why because there’s no one here only me that’ll ever lay a flower on her grave or pull a weed from it.

  A
nd I’ll stand and say a prayer and before I turn from her I’ll say Sorry, Busty, for the time I told you to go way and fuck yourself, the way I should have that time years ago when I stood unrepentant before her in her dark kitchen.

  Ragnarok

  THE UNIVERSE WAS once a dot, laden with the weight of everything that ever would be.

  A man in a nylon shirt and unforgivable shoes came here a few days ago. You can’t have four hundred students, he said. In a school with two classrooms? I uttered phrases and words strung with mumbles: short semesters, intensive modules, research courses, distance learning, assignments, assessments, awards. And on and on I went, punctuating my litany with hard sucks on my inhaler, coughs and wheezes and dissembling and obfuscation. I was fabulous. He poked his narrow nose into each room of this place. Suramon sat dutifully at his teacher’s desk, facing the ranks of his invisible class. Where are your students? the poorly heeled fellow asked him. They are not here, Suramon replied, gesturing grandly at emptiness before clasping his hands tightly together on his desk. Where are they? the fellow asked again. A pen had leaked in his shirt pocket. I do not know, Suramon replied, his brown eyes twinkling as they lighted on the inky haemorrhage. Perhaps you have frightened them away.

  He insisted I desisted. All scholarly activity was to cease. Pending the outcome of an investigation. I hadn’t realized, I told him, that an investigation had commenced. The students were put on notice. I had a letter issued immediately to each and every one of them, to the addresses they had supplied to us at enrolment. Agata huffed and whined and pursed her heartbreaking lips. There was shuffling and banging and shouting from downstairs yesterday, raised voices, screams even. I plugged my headphones into my record player, and reclined, and listened to Olaf Aaberg singing about Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods. Olaf the Giant. Beautiful Olaf. He choked on a fishbone in a restaurant in Oslo. Ten stout men bore his pall to the flames.