Falling Glass

by Adrian McKinty

  “Why does that not surprise me?”

  Killian leaned back in the sofa and shook his head happily. “I don’t know,” he said, getting a little buzzed.

  “What happened to your clothes?” Katie asked.

  “I went for a wee swim in Lough Erne this morning,” Killian said.

  “I’ll bet there’s a woman at the back of this,” Katie tutted.

  “That’s a bet you’d win, as usual,” Killian said.

  Katie pulled the hair from her face and clipped it back. She got up from her seat and sat next to him on the sofa. She took his hand in hers.

  “How long has it been, Aidh?”

  Killian shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “You haven’t changed much.”

  She laughed again. It was the same lilting, girlish laugh that he’d loved when he’d only been a snapper.

  She squeezed his hand a bit harder.

  “Are you still in America?” she asked.

  “No, no, I’ve been back a few years now. England for a while, but back here for good I think.”

  “And you’re in trouble?” she asked, with concern in those hazel eyes.

  With her forehead knitting like that, she looked older. Old.

  “A wee bit of bother, nothing for you to concern yourself with.”

  “Ha!” she said and pinched him. “I stopped worrying about you, last century. The nerve of ya!”

  Killian’s grin broadened.

  There was a bang outside and he flinched, but when he looked out the window he saw that it was only fireworks they were letting off after the conclusion of the fair.

  “Where do you live?” she asked. “Are you on the road?”

  “No, I’ve got a wee place down in Carrick. I actually have some flats up in Belfast too. Can’t get rid of them. You know what the property market’s like.”

  “Is that the bother you’re in?”

  “No. It’s a different kind of bother.”

  She nodded, drank her glass and dragged the bottle across the coffee table with her foot. She filled two more glasses.

  “How’s Karen?” he asked after a deep breath.

  She beamed. A big easy smile with no recrimination in it.

  “She’s doing well. You know how hard it is for the first year.”

  “First year of what?”

  “She has twins.”

  Killian’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Twins?”

  “You hadn’t heard? No, how would ya?”

  She stood. “Hold on a wee minute. I’ve got a picture. Hold on there sunshine.” She went to the back room of the caravan and came back a moment later with a small picture of two baby girls in pink nightgowns. They were about six months old in the photograph and both had a shock of red hair.

  “Oh my God,” Killian said, delighted.

  His hand was shaking and he could feel the tears.

  “You can keep that if you want,” Katie said, moved. “They look like a couple of wee trolls don’t they?”

  Killian shook his head. “No. They look beautiful. I can really keep this?”

  Katie leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “Of course you can, love,” she said.

  It was the waterworks now and Killian sniffed and dabbed his face with his sleeve.

  Rachel and her weans. And now these two little gangsters.

  He turned his head from her.

  It was almost too much.

  He took his sodden wallet out of his back pocket and carefully put the photograph under the clear plastic where his driving licence should be.

  The wallet gave him an idea.

  He looked between the notes and found a slightly damp cheque.

  “Have you got a pen?” he asked.

  Katie looked at the cheque and shook her head. “Don’t be doing that now,” she muttered.

  “I want to,” he insisted. “It’s okay. My problems aren’t financial. It’s the right thing to do and I want to.”

  “She’s doing great. She’s with this guy. Regular guy. Civilian. Not in The Life. English.”

  “She’s married?”

  “Not as such. But, you know, it’s a steady thing. He’s called Trevor. Works for the Civil Service. He has a goatee.”

  Killian laughed. “That’s the clincher is it?”

  “You can mock. I’ve met him. He’s good. You’d like him.”

  “I like him already. Gimme a pen, woman.”

  After a wee bit more poking she found a biro and he wrote a cheque for ten thousand pounds and gave it to her. He knew he could trust Katie to give Karen the bulk of it.

  “This is too much,” she said.

  “Take it.”

  Katie took the cheque and of course by now she was crying too.

  “Have you seen Donal?” she asked by way of changing the subject.

  Killian nodded. “Aye, he’s fixing me a place. His place in fact.”

  “He’s a good ’un too.”

  Killian sighed and got to his feet. “Well, I suppose I better…”

  They stood there and looked at one another. The years and the mistakes and everything else seemed to evaporate and there they were two weans again, sort of, but not really, in love.

  “How are the rest of your kids?” Killian said, remembering his manners.

  “Everyone’s fine,” Katie said. “Now, look, the fireworks are reaching their climax which means that everything’s gonna be over and my old man will be along in a wee minute.”

  Killian nodded and went to the door.

  Katie hid the cheque under a coffee jar. “I won’t cash this until you’re free of your present difficulties,” she said.

  “No, no, cash it now, please, it’ll make me feel better knowing that you’re sending something to her. And really I’m fine for money.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  He put his hand on the door handle, but before he could leave she gave him a hug and a kiss and then pushed him outside into the dusk.

  She waved to him from the living-room window and then pulled over the curtains.

  He hoped she really would cash it.

  He coughed and wiped the tears from his face and touched the wallet with the picture in it.

  He couldn’t resist another look.

  Two wee gangsters indeed.

  Donal saw him from the other side of the campsite and waved. Killian put the photograph away.

  “You’re all set, mate,” Donal said. “It’s a fairly big caravan as you can see, you and your lady friend will have a twin and the girls can share the double, unless you want it the other way around?”

  “No, that sounds fine,” Killian said. He’d probably sleep on the sofa anyway.

  He shook Donal’s hand. “You’re a real lifesaver, mate,” he said.

  Donal shrugged. “Don’t even mention it. Remember there’s stew if you want it.”

  “I forgot about that, I’ll ask the girls.”

  They shook hands again and Killian walked down to the beach.

  Word had gotten round about him already and a skinny character, almost as tall as he was, intercepted him in the car park.

  He was gangly and bearded with a sleekit wee player grin.

  “I’m Tommy Trainer,” Tommy said.

  “Aye, I thought so,” Killian said.

  “Just to let you know, Katie’s with me,” he said.

  “How old are you, son?” Killian asked.

  “Twenty-two,” Tommy said.

  Killian nodded. “You take care of her, okay? She’s a good woman and I wouldn’t want to hear anything bad about ya.”

  Tommy blinked. “Why what would you do about it, pal?” he said.

  Killian stroked his chin and thought about it. “I think with you I’d geld you like a horse, with hot wire, so there’d be no significant blood loss. Aye, I think that’s what I’d do.”

  Killian grinned and held Tommy’s stare until Tommy grinned and then both of them laughed. “You’re a case, so you are, ol
d man,” Tommy said.

  “Aye, that’s right, I’m a case,” Killian replied and walked down to the beach.

  There was a still a small crowd watching the last of the rockets shoot into the air and burst in a display of green and golden sparkles.

  The smell was cordite and seaweed and home-made ice cream and beer.

  He found Rachel and the girls sitting on a tree trunk.

  Rachel was smoking a cigarette and there were four other butts beside her. It had been a hell of a day.

  He sat next to her. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” she replied and passed him the ciggie.

  He shook his head.

  “How are we doing, girls?” he asked.

  “We got ice cream and we rode a donkey and we patted the horses and we even went to the water and a man gave us a necklace that he’d made and then there was fireworks!” Sue said breathlessly.

  Their eyes were wide and excited and sleepy.

  Killian smiled. “There’s food if you want it, some sort of stew,” he said.

  Rachel shook her head. “I think we’ll just put the girls to bed, it’s been an emotional twenty-four hours.”

  “That it has,” he agreed.

  They sat there and watched the very last rockets and as it began to grow cold Killian took Claire in his arms and Rachel led Sue by the hand up to Donal’s caravan.

  They walked a little apart now as the beach narrowed. She went ahead and his footsteps splayed into her smaller footsteps, distorting them and turning them into his own. He did it on purpose, noticing as he did her unusual gait: the tiny spaces between the steps and the wide leg stance. She’d ridden horses as a kid. Their worlds weren’t so distant…

  They laid the girls together in the double bed.

  Donal had changed the sheets so that they were pink with flowers on them and he had put a stuffed Tigger and Pooh on the pillows.

  “I’ll take the Pooh,” Claire said sleepily.

  Donal had also got a bunch of children’s books – picture books and Roald Dahls – which was a nice touch from someone who probably couldn’t read himself, Killian thought.

  Claire was excited by the books and immediately grabbed Danny the Champion of the World.

  Killian left Rachel to get the girls undressed and went into the living room.

  There was a note on the small foldaway table.

  It was a picture of a bowl of stew and a picture of a fridge. Another picture showed a roll-up in the ashtray.

  He sniffed the roll-up and it smelled pretty good. He opened the fridge door and saw a Tupperware bowl full of stew.

  “Well, I’m hungry even if no one else is,” Killian said.

  He dished some of the stew into a pot and heated it up.

  “What are you cooking?” Rachel asked coming into the kitchen area.

  Killian put some on a wooden spoon and offered it to her.

  She took a bite. She hadn’t tasted anything so fresh and delicious in a while. The lamb was succulent and melted on your tongue and the vegetables were young, tender, perfect.

  “My God, that’s awesome. I’ll go tell the girls.”

  She came back a minute later.

  “They’re out for the count,” Rachel said. “The poor wee lasses. Probably be in psychotherapy for the rest of their lives after today.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Killian said. He had seen plenty of horrifying things by the time he was Claire’s age: a man kicked to a death by a horse, a man burned in a paraffin heater explosion, a woman stabbed in the belly…“Kids are resilient,” he added. “Let’s eat.”

  They sat at the fold-out table by the window. The horse fair was over and the Islandmagee locals were gone, leaving only the travellers and their animals. It was quiet. The sky was filled with stars.

  They ate the lamb stew and had a couple of cans of Harp from the fridge.

  They cleared the table and turned on the portable TV but the only thing they could was get was The Flintstones from BBC Scotland’s Gaelic service. Killian discovered that he could understand almost all of it.

  “What’s happening?” Rachel asked.

  “Wilma thinks Fred treats her badly and she’s leaving him,” Killian said.

  “It’s Betty I feel sorry for. Barney’s no catch,” Rachel said.

  Killian laughed and when the episode ended they wrapped themselves in blankets and went outside and sat on a couple of ratty deckchairs.

  The bonfire on the beach was a mass of embers being dispersed by the surf breaking on the shore. They sat for a while looking at the fire on the water.

  “Let me check on the girls,” Rachel said.

  Killian lit a cigarette and Rachel rejoined him two minutes later.

  “The girls are asleep,” she said. “What time is it?”

  Killian shrugged. “I don’t have a watch and my phone’s dead.”

  “I’m shattered,” she said.

  “Go to bed,” Killian said.

  Rachel nodded. “I will.”

  “I’ll sleep on the sofa,” Killian added.

  “There are two beds in that room.”

  “I know. I’m restless though and you need your sleep.”

  “Have you got any smokes?”

  Killian lit her a ciggie.

  “The sea’s nice,” she said.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “It’s mild for March.”

  Killian nodded.

  They sat and smoked and Killian counted the lighthouses. Eight of them, the one furthest north maybe fifty miles from here.

  “So these are your people, eh? Gypsies.”

  “Not gypsies. Pavee.”

  “That’s a new word on me.”

  “Not to us. You can call us tinkers or travellers if you like.”

  “No, Pavee is good. But, if it’s not a stupid question, what is the difference between Pavee and gypsies?”

  “Gypsies are Roma people. Originally, I think, from India. They speak an Indo-European language, which I’ve been told is quite similar to Sanskrit.”

  “And Pavee?”

  “No one’s really sure where we came from. I’ve heard and read about dozens of theories over the years.”

  “What are the theories?”

  “Oh, that we were the original inhabitants of Ireland before the Celts came, or that we were the survivors of Cromwell’s land clearances, some even say that we didn’t come from Ireland at all, but an Atlantis-like island that used to exist between Ireland and Scotland.”

  “What do you believe?”

  “I like the we were here first theory.”

  “Are there many of you?”

  “Not many. A few thousand in Ireland, couple of thousand in England and America.”

  “Never really gave you lot much thought before, you know? In Northern Ireland, you don’t. It’s all about Prods and Catholics.”

  “Most people don’t.”

  “You speak what, Irish?”

  “It’s kind of an Irish dialect, we don’t like to talk about it with outsiders, it’s an argot.”

  “How come you never learnt to read until your twenties?”

  Killian shrugged. “Just never got around to it. We were so busy learning other things.”

  “What things?”

  “Fixing motors, chopping cars, picking locks, learning to care for horses, that kind of stuff.”

  She nodded, looked at the water.

  “What’s going to happen to us? Me and the girls?”

  “You’ll be safe here, for a while at least. I’ll get a phone and make some calls. Losing the laptop changes things. It changes the whole game. If I can’t get through to Richard I’ll get through to Tom.”

  “It’s going to be okay?”

  “It is. I promise.”

  She smiled at him. “So is this what you do for a living? All this madness.”

  “I used to. I’ve retired. Semi-retired. I’m doing architecture at the University of Ulster. BA. Mature student kin
d of deal.”

  “Architecture? That stuff interests you?”

  “Very much. Not you?”

  “Not really. One building’s pretty much like another isn’t it?”

  Killian put the ciggie on a breeze block between the two chairs. “You see for me, houses are mysterious and fascinating places. You have to understand I lived in a caravan until I was seventeen. And then hotel rooms for the next ten years. I didn’t actually live in a house until my late twenties. They still seem weird and exotic. I’ve got a whole theory about it.”

  “Aye?”

  “Aye,” he said with a smile.

  Rachel considered him. You wouldn’t exactly call him handsome, he was too tall and ungainly for that. But you could see how certain women could fall for him. His eyes in particular had an odd grey glint to them that she liked.

  “Go on then,” she said. “You know you’re itching to.”

  “Well, architecture is the art and science of permanent structures, but I think humans aren’t supposed to live in permanent structures. It’s not natural. So that’s why the whole thing is weird.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Homo sapiens came from Africa. For a million years we and our ancestors lived in the savannah of the Great Rift Valley following the herds. Our life for the last fifty thousand generations has been about motion. There were no buildings because there were no settlements. We followed the grazing animals, hunting them, gathering fruit and wild grasses. This whole idea of living in cities is completely alien to the human species. It’s a blip in our history. We’ve only been doing it for the last few hundred generations. Wanderlust is programmed in, you see? It’s in our DNA, we’re supposed to move. We’re supposed to see new vistas with each new dawn. Man was not meant for a sedentary lifestyle and that’s why most of feel unhappy and anxious living in these boxes in towns and cities. Architecture, good architecture, tries its best to alleviate some of these problems, but it’s a losing battle. The problem isn’t with the buildings. It’s with us.”

  Rachel nodded in the darkness and watched a little night-fishing boat chug out of Larne Harbor. “So you, the tinkers, uh, I mean…what did you just call them?”

  “Pavee.”

  “Sorry. So you think Pavee are happier than the rest of us?”

  “I don’t know. I had a happy childhood. Even though my da died, it was happy, you know? And go out there among those men and their horses at the fair and I don’t think you’ll find much angst.”