Room Little Darker

by June Caldwell

  You’re an egg-throwing mop of blonde. A fire toting Wild Indian of six burning fire spitting fire room to room. No one can stop you. A mother tries a sister tries two brothers try. Run screaming from room to room across the imprint of lino squares, kitchen press twine in your hair, hand smacking your mouth to make the screams even louder, bursting out in bags of air, breaking small toys under wildcatting feet, hands spinning knocking anything over in your fireball of go sending newspapers weather balloon upwards, stories of guerrilla warfare in other countries far away in mid 1970. Out to the front garden to the piercing light to the horny dogs barking to the sandy-coloured Labrador dogs that tear back in through the gloss silver gates after you and run in circles kicking up muck so excited around the carefully planted line of rose bushes. Roses of yellow with tea fragrance and delicious fruity undertones, red roses that smell of bagatelle nothing but make great hammocks for fat whirring bees. Spinning circles of children and happy animals, of thrown down tennis rackets and abandoned footballs rolling with the wind into the centre where the grass is thickest and flattened by rusty bicycles and doll prams. All the other children on the street are screaming Wild Indian too. Scorching surging citron rays of summer. Brown tights on small faces pulled from underwear drawers when someone big and bulky in a pinafore is at work out the back pushing wet clothes through a hand-operated roller, pungent smells of vegetable patch manure on tall rhubarb. They hear you screaming and join in, belting in from other gardens, hands grabbing hands falling rolling legs in blue shorts, rolling right up to the grey bumpy nodules of half walls bashing each other, bruised knees with patches of green. Aulones with croissant-curls shove their heads out white iron windows to say ‘whissst’ and ‘stop that’ and ‘there’ll be wigs on the green if you keep this up!’ You gather your posse and tear through the house out into the back garden up onto the coal shed over onto the garage jumping down onto the wall in the front garden and back in circles to do it all over again. ‘Stop this!’ our mother roars. ‘Jesus Christ, I’m gone half mad.’ She snatches you by the scruff and closes the front door on the other kids without explanation. ‘Get in there and calm the hell down, I didn’t ask for a bluebottle for a son.’ I am splayed on the couch in a cloth nappy, my legs flailing. ‘You are a slug,’ you tell me and I laugh. My big wide eyes follow you left/right/left/right as you run around the couch screaming ‘peekaboo peekaboo’, falling to your knees if front of me so I can just see your head. ‘When you little missy came along I poured Ma’s perfume down the sink and flushed her wedding ring down the jacks.’ I gurgle and swing my arms at you but they can’t reach. My knees are cold, milky spit dribbles from my mouth. ‘I was going to throw you down the stairs to break your neck. Then I started to like you even if you smell.’ You jump up and run around the couch in the opposite direction screaming ‘peekaboo peekaboo’ until you run out of wind. ‘You might not know this yet because you’re so stupid and small, but I was here before you and I’ll always be Ma’s favourite.’ I laugh uncontrollably as you are just unbelievably great. ‘I am your very big handsome brother,’ you say. ‘I’m taller than you and better than you and cleverer than you and more special than you, but I am still your big brother.’ You start to twist on the ground, gripping your knees tight as you go, spinning like a tomato, howling out the words I will always be so happy to hear: ‘I am your brother, I am your brother, I am your brother.’

  Acknowledgements

  Key influencers: Sinéad Gleeson who poked me up the ass (to write) for years and wears gorgeous dresses; Sean O’Reilly of The Stinging Fly fame, unsurpassed as a fiction tutor and a bit of a genius; Mike McCormack, my favourite literary cowboy; Kevin Barry for how he writes and smiles; Lia Mills, Belinda McKeon, Nuala O’Connor, Mia Gallagher, Emer Martin, Catherine Dunne, Anakana Schofield, Justine Delaney-Wilson, Danielle McLaughlin: firebrand writerly women, caring, supportive and bloody decent; Lisa Coen & Sarah Davis Goff (I have my eye on you, I do!); Dan Bolger, editor extraordinaire; Rebecca O’Connor and Will Govan, first to publish me in The Moth; Colin Barrett, Alan McMonagle, Jack Harte, Anthony Glavin, Ian Sansom, Henry McDonald (♥), Colm Keegan, Dave Lordan, Rob Doyle, Donal Minihane, Kevin Curran, a right bunch of bad boys; The Irish Writers Centre, Dublin and Circle of Misse, France.

  Eyes on the stories: Lauren Foley, Ciara Flynn, Joanne Hayden, David Butler, Lisa Harding, Ger Moane, Elizabeth McSkeane, Julie Cruickshank, Sonya Mulligan, Louise Browne, Brendan Neil Casey, Ozgecan Kesici-Ayoubi, Miriam Hurley, Elizabeth Brennan, Helena Comiskey, Patrick Gleeson, Kevin Testa, Hannah Shorten, Manus Boyle Tobin, Micheline Egan.

  People I like drinking free wine with at literary events: Jack Gilligan, Karl Parkinson, Frankie Gaffney, Kevin Higgins & Susan Millar Du Mars, Lisa Frank & John Walsh, Aoife Ní Dhonnchadha, Elaine Feeney, Sarah Clancy, Clodagh Moynan, Mari Maxwell, Sarah Maria Griffin, Polina Reprintseva, Susan Tomaselli, Sheila Armstrong, Dimitra Xidous, Nessa O’Mahony, Barbara Smith, Angela T Carr, Declan Meade, BeRnzy Mac, Helena Mulkerns, Jen Matthews, Catherine O’Donoghue, Elizabeth Rose O’Callaghan, Yvonne Nolan, Theo Dorgan, Oisín Ó Fágáin, Hazel Katherine Larkin, Fiona Diffley, Lara Áine Ní Fhearghail, Pauline Clooney, Dave O’Sullivan, Ferdia MacAnna, Liam Carson.

  Significant others: Philomena Caldwell, Stephen Caldwell, Susan Caldwell, John Kenny, Rosita Boland, Sir Gary, Glenn Walsh, Cloudy Caldwell, The Wet Witch, Mosina Susiwala, Kulwant Lall, Roisin Carabine, Fiona Ness Kelly, the hairdressers in Turning Heads, Glasnevin, Sam Phillips, Nuala Forde, Caroline McNicholas, Geraldine McNicholas, Sharon Lee, Mandy O’Neill, Kim Haughton, Kieran Byrne, Autobahn Cabs, John Hewitt Summer School, The Cobblestone, Tigh Neachtain, The Hut, Nimmos, Frigiliana.

  Stories, publications and competitions: ‘The Implant’ was a finalist in the 2016 Calvino Prize. ‘SOMAT’ was first published in The Long Gaze Back (ed. Sinéad Gleeson). An earlier draft of ‘Upcycle: an account of some strange happenings on Botanic Road’ was a prizewinner in the Moth Short Story Prize, 2014. ‘Cadaverus’ was first published in part (the first section) as a flash fiction piece in The Stinging Fly, Issue 27/Volume 2, Spring 2014. A first draft of ‘Dubstopia’ was published in online literary journal Literary Orphans in 2014. An earlier draft of ‘The Man Who Lived In A Tree’ was a runner-up in the 2012 RTÉ Guide/Penguin Ireland Short Story competition.