There Are Little Kingdoms

by Kevin Barry

  ‘Atlantic City. Feel The Force!’

  ‘Ah for the love and honour of God,’ said James, who had been lining up the black to continue his evening-long winning streak. He crossed the floor to the pinball, considered the new hi-score, patted his young usurper on the head and said:

  ‘Knacky. Knacky alright. As a matter of fact, you’ve put it beyond my reach. Let it be known that from this moment forward, the young fella here is the king of the pinball. Give the boy a banana.’

  Walking back to the pool table, James suddenly stopped, gasped, and collapsed onto his knees. He clutched at his chest. His face was frozen in a terrible grin, and it became a grimace, and he gasped out the last words…

  ‘I… leave… every… thing… to… to… to Jamesie!’

  The arcade throbbed with laughter. This was one of the most famed routines. It was James’s impression of the heart attack that had killed his father on the kitchen floor.

  Though the girls had become shyer, shyness can fold in on itself and be transformed on a summer night: when there is possibility in the air, shyness can say what the hell and trade itself for a brazenness. They fed coins to the jukebox and summoned a couple of slow numbers.

  James saw to the black, and allowed his next opponent to step forward and rack for a new game, and he moved his great rolling flesh to the jukebox, and he said:

  ‘Ladies? Ye’ll have me red in the face now for the want of it. Do ye hear what I’m saying? Is there no such as thing as a bit of mercy? Ye know full well what I’m like when I hear that one. I hear Bonnie Tyler and I go to pieces.’

  The younger of the habituees began to drift off, in ones and twos, and those who left early would be furious the next morning, when they learned that they’d missed the great drama of the night. A little before eleven, the squad car rolled into the forecourt of Moloney’s, and Garda Ryan got out, with a face on him like turned milk. He stood on the forecourt and regarded the arcade, and everybody crowded to the door, and he addressed them.

  ‘There was a windscreen of a car put in below in the square last night,’ he said. ‘Is that news for ye?’

  James moved to the front of the habituees, crossed his arms sombrely, and stroked his chin with his forefinger.

  ‘At what time precisely, Garda Ryan,’ he said, ‘was the mechanically propelled vehicle interfered with?’

  ‘Watch yourself.’

  ‘Have you no note made of it, guard?’

  ‘I won’t warn you again. Believe me! I don’t care who your family is. There was a windscreen put in. That’s a hundred pound damage. There’s been other incidents. There’s been nothing but trouble since this place was let open late. I’m marking yere cards for ye now, all of ye. I’ve eyes in my head and they are wide open. I’m not going to let this messing go on a night longer. Not a single night, d’ye hear it? I’m watching ye.’

  Garda Ryan, in shirt sleeves, stepped back into the squad car, and with a flinty gaze he looked over the small group from his rolled-down window, and the more nervous of the habituees stepped back into the gloom, but it could not be left at this, and it wouldn’t be, and one of them stepped out onto the forecourt, and everybody held their breath, because it was James. He planted his feet wide, gunslinger style, and mimicked a pair of pistols with his fingers and thumbs, and he drew and aimed at the guard, and he said:

  ‘Atlantic City. Feel The Force!’

  There were still tears and peals of laughter when Moloney came back to lock up, and Moloney had a few drinks on him, and he was convinced that he himself was the cause of the merriment, and he became narky.

  ‘Feck off home out of it!’ he cried. ‘I’m seriously thinking of closing this place altogether! I’m seriously thinking of calling a halt to the whole bastarin’ operation!’

  And they set off about the town. The last of the younger ones straggled home with regret, because July nights like this don’t come around too often. The older ones caused what trouble they could, even though in a small town it was hard to work out constant variations on trouble, but they tried anyway. The summer night was warm and sweet about them, and repeated assaults were made upon the reputations of the girls. The summer would move on, and fade, there is always the terrible momentum of the year’s turning. Exam results would come in. The older of the habituees would begin to make their moves. For one that would move to the city, another would stay in the town, some would take up the older trades, others would try out new paths, and one on a low September evening would swim out too far and drown, and it would be James. Laments and regrets were no use—these were just the quotas and insistences of Broad Street.

  To The Hills

  The way it is in this country, he said, someone sees you out walking a hill and you’re a fucking eejit. Just because you’re not in the pub or in front of the television watching crap. I will tell you one thing, Teresa, I would rather be walking the hills than listening to some of the fuckers around this place.

  Teresa nodded, sighed, mewed.

  It was a good old hike today, he said. You kept up well, the two of you. You found the North Faces did the job? Yes, well, what did I tell you? The North Face is an excellent boot. A good boot is something it’s worth your while you spend a few quid on. There is no point codding yourself with cheap boots, Teresa. The Goretex is an outstanding material, we know that, anybody can tell you that. Reliable, I wouldn’t be caught dead with anything else. You found the dried fruit a help? Good. It beats a Mars Bar, you know? With the dried fruit and the nuts, you see, it’s a slow release of energy that you get, just what you need at the tail end of a grade five.

  He had furious eyebrows perched up top of a dismal nose. He wore a helmet of sandy, wiry hair. He was the guts of six foot.

  Well, Teresa, he said, this is Wicklow, this is March, what were you expecting exactly? This isn’t the Canaries we’re talking about. Anyway, you don’t feel it with the fleece on you. From the way you were going on, the two of you, I thought you were well used to the hills. Hah? This is what I was led to believe, Teresa.

  They had met at the hillwalking club in Dublin that winter. The club put leaflets in outdoorsy shops and sometimes a small ad in the paper. It met Tuesdays, year-round, at a well-lit suburban lounge bar: all welcome. It was mostly country people that showed up, and most of them were past the first flush. There would be two hours of shy talk over stretched drinks. Truth be told, Teresa and her friend, Marie, didn’t have that much of an interest in hills but they had an interest in healthy men and Brian seemed steady, he had a good job in the labs on the campus, he didn’t drink much, he was tall and slim. He wouldn’t have figured himself for a catch but there you go.

  I suppose you could say that I’m not great with people, Teresa, he said. I’ll be straight with you now, women have always been difficult for me. It’s a long time since I’ve been in a relationship of any kind. Which is a word I hate, by the way. The people at work we’re having a drink or at lunchtime, what have you, it’s my relationship this, my relationship that, blah blah blah. Another one is partner. Jesus! I hate that word. My partner this, my partner that, you can bring your partner, do you have a partner. Fuck off. Do you know what I’m saying to you? Fuck off! Partner, I don’t know, it makes it sound like a badminton team.

  They were naked together in bed, having not had sex.

  I’ll be perfectly straight with you, Teresa, why shouldn’t I be? I haven’t been with a woman for fourteen years. Drought isn’t the word, Teresa. You’ll be getting worried now, of course. You’ll be thinking, what’s with your man? But no, don’t, listen, please. This is an absolutely amazing thing for me. It’s like I don’t know what’s going on. Just to be lying here with you is unbelievable to me.

  The plan had been: park in Wicklow town, walk the grade five to Tobar Pass, a bite to eat, a few drinks, stay the night at a B&B, walk back the next morning. They had booked three rooms. This had been complicated. Brian, obviously, was going to have a room to himself, but what were the girls going to d
o? If they shared a room, it meant they were marking each other for the night and what if something happened? They booked a room each. We might as well get a room each, they said, it’s cheap. This was an unspoken declaration of combat. Two channels had thus opened up for Brian, though he was not at all sure that this was the case.

  The B&B was run by a tiny woman who conversed in the small hours of the night—every night—with an aunt dead twenty years. In the afternoon, when they got in, she put on her glasses and with a show of great ritual opened her bookings ledger. The bookings ledger gave her a tingling pleasure. It made her feel giddy and playful. When she opened that ledger she was like a cat with a ball of twine. She asked Marie and Teresa were they sure they didn’t want to share a room, she had a fine double out back, it would be cheaper. The girls glared at her, they said no, thank you, no, we’ll take the two. Brian flushed.

  More money than sense! he said.

  Crazy, said the tiny woman.

  They went to their rooms, and each was glad of a short reprieve from company. These were single people, in their forties, each of them had lived alone for many years, and such a long morning of company was a trial. The rooms were pretty much identical. Each had a narrow bed with a lumpy mattress. Each had a wardrobe, a dresser, a tumbler, a cup and saucer, a kettle and teabags, sachets of Bewley’s coffee that had lain there since the previous millennium. Each room had an en-suite bathroom that had been haphazardly plastered by the tiny woman’s middle-aged nephew, a man who had savage dependency on drink, an addiction to cough bottles and a sullen, thyroidal glare. Marie’s view was of a galvanised tin roof on a shed at the back of the house. She sat on the bed and stared at the green wallpaper. The wallpaper showed a jungle scene. It was green for calm. She could hear the shower running in Teresa’s room next door.

  Watch that bitch like a hawk, she said to herself.

  If you were to ask me what it all goes back to, Teresa, said Brian, if you were to put me on the couch and say, well now, where does it all go back to? Tell me about your childhood, all that crap? Okay, fine, it’s obviously all rooted down there.

  Is that right? said Teresa

  My father died suddenly, he said, when I was eight years of age. Yeah, I know, boo-hoo. But the way of it was the worst thing. It was shockingly sudden. A brain haemorrhage. We were on our holidays. We were at the beach! Yeah. One minute he’s lying there in his togs, the next he’s lying there dead. My brother and myself were playing in the dunes. Were you ever in Lahinch, Teresa? Unbelievable dunes and there we are, rolling around in the sand, pretending to be Buck Rogers on the moon, or what have you, and after a while we said we’ll go back to Mam and Dad for the coke and crisps, you know, and when we go back, she’s kneeling in the sand, bawling. She’s going, John! Oh John! John! And my father is lying there on the towel with blood all over his neck. An amount of blood you would not believe.

  Did you know that, he said, did you know, Teresa, that blood actually comes out the ears?

  Go ’way? said Teresa.

  Actually my most vivid memory isn’t the beach but going back to Sligo the next day. My brother and myself, we were in shock I suppose but innocent—all we could talk about when they were putting him in the hearse in Lahinch is how long is a hearse going to take to get to Sligo? We worked it out. If a hearse goes five miles an hour and Sligo is a hundred miles away, that’s twenty hours! It never dawned on us that the hearse would go at a normal speed until we got him home. We thought it was funeral pace all the way up through Clare and Galway. And this is the bit I remember vividly, isn’t that strange? We’re in the car, behind the hearse, with my mother up to the gills on tablets, she’s cruising, and my uncle is driving and your man is driving the hearse in front of us through Clare and he must be doing seventy. And all I can remember is the coffin bouncing around in the back of the hearse and thinking, ah Jesus, that can’t be right, like.

  A few days later, myself and the brother are kicking a ball again, Teresa, we’re children, we’re Buck Rogers, and you get on with being a child, you do. But are you going to come out of it right?

  After the morning’s long walk, after they reached Tobar Pass, they went to a pub for lunch. Soup, toasties, cups of coffee. The pub was rich on hillwalkers and had lately been refitted. A brand new coffee machine gurgled like an excited aunt. The lunchtime rush was just about done, and the slow hours of the afternoon yawned and presented themselves with a certain belligerence. Those who go mad go mad first in the afternoons. There was the usual fall-out of daytime drinkers, glassy-eyed, with their hearty talk and guilty-seeming cheer. A silence had fallen in on the three hillwalkers, it had a knuckly and mannish grip.

  Well, said Brian at last, I don’t know about yourselves but I’m going to go out there and get the last of that daylight into me.

  Don’t tell me you’re walking again? said Marie, who was out of puff still from the morning’s exertion. She was a pretty but dour woman, with eyes full of dread and rain.

  Why wouldn’t I? he said. Aren’t we dead long enough?

  Oh Jesus, said Marie, the legs are hanging off me. Are ye watching the calves? I have a pair of calves on me like an Olympic sprinter.

  Ah now!

  They’re having a great day in the graveyard! said Teresa.

  Exactly so, said Brian. You might as well take it while it’s going. We can just circle back and around as far as Drumeenaghadra, then back down into the village. Come on, Marie, for God’s sake! It’ll do you good.

  Oh look, I don’t know, she said. I might go back and rest up for a bit first. I don’t know. Ye’re putting me to shame!

  Marie, come on! said Brian.

  We’ll see you later on so, said Teresa.

  Okay, so not only did the two of them go and walk for another three hours, but then they spent another hour in the pub, drinking Smithwicks, and Marie sat in her room looking at the jungle wallpaper. She went to pee in the en-suite and as she sat there a cloud of plaster dreamily descended and settled on her head. It was eight o’clock—eight!—when they arrived back to the B&B. She tried to make light of it, she honestly tried.

  I thought the two of ye were dead in a bog someplace! I thought we were going to have to get the mountain rescue out.

  Oh stop, said Brian, flushed.

  It was hard to make light of it. There was something not far from hatred in her eyes. The three of them went for steaks in the restaurant at the back of the pub. Marie was thinking, am I after letting myself get beat very easily here? Teresa was thinking, she’s much prettier than I am, she always has been, am I only fooling myself? Brian was thinking, all they go on about in the women’s magazines these days is sexual performance.

  I’d nearly take the whole cow onto the plate, said Brian.

  I wouldn’t put it past you, said Marie, who had looked after half a bottle of decent Rioja in seven minutes flat.

  It’s great to see an appetite, said Teresa.

  Very quiet and smirky in herself, thought Marie. What went on on that walk?

  What had gone on on the walk was that Brian had talked sense to himself. Marie, he decided, was just too good-looking for him: he wouldn’t have a hope in hell. Teresa, on the other hand, was at the back of the line when chins were being handed out and she had the eyes of a crow. Surely this might play to his advantage? Brian was versed in the cruel wiles of natural selection, he knew that the better-looking animal was the obvious choice, but natural selection is quick ignored when you’ve passed forty and you’re masturbating into a sock the grey mornings in a one-bedroom apartment, lounge-diner-cum-kitchen.

  And so it was that Brian and Teresa managed a semblance of flirtatiousness on the way back down to the village.

  God, Brian, we’re after getting some bit of fresh air into us today, said Teresa.

  You’d nearly be driven wild with it, said Brian.

  This, by his normal standard, by the normal old go of him, was richly provocative stuff. And suddenly she seemed to be walking very close. Her ar
m was touching off of his, and just the slight rubbery slap of Goretex on Goretex was enough to make him excited. Is that all it takes, he thought, the one ruby comment?

  Some steak, said Brian.

  It’s great, said Teresa, it’s done just right.

  You can’t top well-hung meat, said Marie, who was making shapes on her plate with fried onions. Waitress! Another bottle of that please.

  Partying tonight, Mar! said Teresa.

  Why the fuck not? said Marie. Has anyone change for the fag machine?

  I didn’t know you smoked, Marie, said Brian.

  Many hidden talents, she said.

  He sneaked a glance at Teresa then, who made a certain face which said: kid gloves here, pet, we’ll leave her down easy. Brian was already becoming literate in Teresa’s crow-like glances.

  After the steaks, there was another painful hour in the pub. It was slow beer for Teresa and Brian, it was fast vodka for Marie. Teresa and Brian prepped each other carefully for the long opulent night that lay ahead.

  Back at the St Ignatius of Loyola B&B, they said goodnight so, see you in the morning, bright and early! Brian went left for number nine, Marie and Teresa went right for six and seven.

  Drink a glass of water when you go in, Mar, said Teresa.

  Fuck off and rot, said Marie.

  Half an hour later, Marie heard Teresa leave her room. She did not hear her come back again. She sat there with the light on, she felt headachey. She stood up on the bed and took the battery out of the smoke detector and lay down again and smoked fags.

  First bus! She said it aloud.

  She looked at the jungle scene on the wallpaper. Probably someplace like Mozambique, she thought. A nonsense jingle from an advert went through her head. Um Bongo. Um Bongo. They drink it in the Congo.