Sweet Home

by Wendy Erskine

  She had thrown herself into her studies and moved to Belfast where the training college was nearly all girls. Most were religious and some had fiancés that they wouldn’t let touch them until they were married. Olga cut her hair short. Three brisk strokes of the brush and that was it done. Olga, the vestal virgin who they thought was saving herself for the right man although, they joked, he might be hard to find with hair like that.

  Olga wonders, as she passes some majestic chrysanthemums, where exactly the politician met the man and if had they known each other before their meeting. He would have been well advised to choose somewhere down by the old entrance where the trees are thicker, where at some points it edges into total darkness. The park closes at nine o’clock but Olga has seen people climbing over the pronged railings, with shouts and laughter.

  Cormac always has some joke or other. Well boss, he said to Olga, what club are you going to be hitting Saturday night? The pupils loved it. Miss McClure like. Going to a club. Don’t be so daft, Cormac, honestly, she said. But one week when Olga was in the city centre she looked at what was fly-posted on walls. There was someone or other called Jackmaster plus Jasper James @Sixty6 at the weekend. So when Cormac asked her again the next week, well boss what club are you going to be hitting Saturday night? Olga said, Sixty6. I’m going to listen to Jackmaster and Jasper James.

  What? he said.

  Jackmaster at the club Sixty6.

  Right, he said. Okay. I’m not too sure I know where that is now.

  It was only a joke, Olga said. I was just joking.

  That’s funny, Cormac said. Good joke.

  She had helped him put the footballs into the net bags when the bell rang for break.

  There was a morning earlier in the year when one of the girls had said, You know who I seen the other night, Miss? I seen you coming into the shop and you bought a paper and a packet of biscuits.

  A paper and a packet of biscuits? Olga said. Well now, that could indeed have been me.

  One of the boys said, Know what, I saw Cormac the other night and he was doing the stuff that he does with us only there was a man telling him to do the stuff he does with us.

  And where might that have been? Olga asked.

  That park up near Ravenhill. That place away up there.

  That evening, when she had everything done, Olga went to the park. She had to consult the graffitied map covered in burnt plastic to work out a route. It took several circuits past the bandstand before she realised that there were playing fields right at the top. Once there Olga took only swift and surreptitious glances in the direction of the people who were running about. She feigned an interest in the rose bushes near the car park.

  A man said to her, Is it the Intermediates you’re after?

  She hadn’t known what to say.

  Sorry, he said, I thought you were somebody else. I thought you were somebody’s ma.

  It took several visits before Olga had the idea about the dog. There was an ad in the local shop for one that needed a home and Olga, as soon as she went into the woman’s house and saw it, said, That’ll do. That’ll do fine. The woman had wanted to give her a cup of tea and tell the whole life story of this dog that used to belong to one of her neighbours. Olga politely said she couldn’t stay.

  There are only a few teams training this evening. It’s getting chillier and the people watching hop from foot to foot to keep warm. There’s a van selling burgers and chips, the smell of fried onions in the air, but nobody is buying any. The man in the van is playing country music and it’s a song Olga’s heard many times over the years without knowing its name or who sings it, a plaintive tale of bad luck and regret. The man in the van looks maudlin as he looks at the burger baps, piled on a tray.

  So many sounds, Olga thinks. She can tell within a second if a pupil’s cry is genuine or attention-seeking. Anyone can tell it’s country from the van within a couple of seconds without being able to say what country really is. No need to be a musical expert. Glass smashes and you know if it’s a bottle or a window. You don’t need to see. That day she was crossing the big field when she heard the noise, a sound assertive and dull at the same time. Had someone dropped pallets from a height? Little red weals were coming up on her legs from things that had bitten her, and she knew those freckles on her face would be out. Rub them with lemon juice all you want like it says in the magazines, but it wouldn’t make them fade. She fixed her dress around the neck so it sat nice, then smoothed down her hair, pressed her lips together. They wrote the songs about this feeling.

  She couldn’t see him at first. She called his name but sure hadn’t he done this before: she’d go around searching for him, and then he’d creep up and catch her hard around the waist. Got you! She nearly wet herself that one time.

  Olga shouted but there was no answer.

  This was the place and this was the time, where he said and when he said. She wouldn’t have made a mistake.

  Eddie! she shouted. Eddie! And then another time, even though she felt foolish.

  Although he had never been late before, there was always a first time. Couldn’t he get held up somewhere, or find it difficult to get away? Stuck in the town, buying another pair of shoes. The shop assistant chatting away as she puts them in the bag and hands him his change.

  But over there, by a heap of breeze blocks she saw his legs.

  What in the name of goodness are you doing? Olga said. Get up, Eddie! What are you doing?

  And then she saw it, the obscenity of an exploded head. A mass of red matter.

  Olga began to run, she hardly knew in what direction, and although there was no one to hear she was saying over and over, oh my God oh my God oh my dear God please help me. The quickest way to get back was across the river and not that long way right around. She just jumped in, didn’t even feel the water cold. Just ten, twelve strokes across but the water was heavy, muscled, pulling at her legs even though she was kicking hard. She, frantic, and the current pushing her downstream slowly, casually, with no great fuss of noise or foam.

  Cormac’s a giant in the assembly hall but here at the pitches he always seems slight. Even Olga can see that most of the others are more proficient at handling that ball. A couple of children standing beside her stop to pet the dog. It likes the attention and tangles the lead with twirling. What sort of wee dog is she? the girl asks. I really don’t know, Olga says.

  These people around her are respectable people, solicitors and doctors most likely. She could go into the club house there, the St Columba’s clubhouse and she would probably get a nice cup of tea. The cars in the carpark aren’t old jalopies either. She had tried to imagine the man who killed Eddie, man or men. They never got anybody for it. Three weeks later in a town five miles away a boy who worked in the shirt factory was shot dead in retaliation and it was viewed with a sense of inevitability in Olga’s house. All sympathy was with the part-time RUC Reservist’s wife. Olga’s mother sent a stew up to her and a couple of boxes of shortbread, the sombre biscuit. He’d been found by two men who’d been working down the road. It was the day when Olga had taken the head-staggers and fallen into the river, a girl of her age falling into the river, would you believe it? She had turned up dripping at the Alexanders’ place, jabbering like a loon about a shooting. Somebody she met on the way must have told her. The Alexanders heard the shot too. Everyone heard the shot.

  She’s glad she switched on the heat before she left. The coal fire’s gone, replaced with the feature heater and its facsimile of glowing embers. The dog sits at her feet. You don’t realise how cold it is outside until you come in. Olga wonders where Cormac goes after training. Does he just go home? One of the boys in the class said once, hey Cormac do you have a girlfriend? Olga said, That’s none of your business, Jonathan, none of your business whatsoever. But Cormac said, No I don’t, Jonathan, but I’m on the lookout. You know anybody decent? When they’d got back to the classroom she’d said to the boy, Don’t be asking anything like that again because
I’m sure Cormac does not appreciate it.

  But he didn’t have a girlfriend.

  Everyone looks forward to Friday. The bell sounds melodic on a Friday. Olga comes in early in the morning to cut with the guillotine the thirty-two small squares of paper in three different colours that are needed for a maths exercise. She writes a paragraph on the whiteboard, ready for the children to correct its punctuation. They will look at leaves today, horse chestnut, oak and cypress. Some of the children wear trainers on a Friday and they leave their ties at home.

  Please don’t run, Olga says, when she lets them out to the assembly hall for the session with Cormac. She follows behind them, never appearing eager. He’ll be with the class for a whole forty minutes, and then there will be the further five when she helps him tidy up at the start of lunch. She sees the blue and green tracksuit which says St Columba’s on the back and the children have gathered around, waiting for orders about what to do next. But then—

  Sorry, what’s going on? Olga asks.

  The young man shakes her hand. Tommy, he says.

  But I was expecting Cormac! The children were expecting Cormac.

  Well you won’t be seeing him for a while.

  What do you mean?

  That’s him away off now, Tommy says.

  Where’s he away off to? What do you mean?

  Now I’m not the best person to be asking, says Tommy. Cos I never pay attention to all the details. He did tell me now. Is it Germany? Or maybe it’s Holland. Got one of them engineering jobs.

  Are you sure?

  Pretty sure it’s Germany. If not it’s definitely Holland.

  Two of the boys are starting to climb up the ropes that hang from the wooden apparatus.

  But he was there last night, says Olga. At the training last night.

  Yeah we all went out after, says Tommy. Hey, are you a St Columba’s woman yourself?

  I need to speak to someone about this, says Olga. I actually think this is… this is outrageous.

  She walks down the corridor to Ms Druggan’s office. There is a Meeting in Progress, Do Not Disturb sign on the door but she knocks anyway. And then knocks again.

  What is it, Olga? says Ms Druggan when she opens the door. She steps into the corridor to whisper, Can’t you see? I’ve got people from the board here!

  Cormac, you know, the Gaelic fellow, he’s been coming for a long time and now, suddenly, completely out of the blue he’s gone and there’s some other person down in the hall. It’s completely unacceptable. Absolutely and totally.

  Ms Druggan stares at her.

  It’s outrageous. The children have got used to him and then that’s it, without any notice, he’s not there. Did you know he was leaving?

  Look, says Ms Druggan, Olga, the young people who come in, they’re just volunteers. They’re not being paid and isn’t it good they’re prepared to come at all, for whatever length of time? I have to go, she says, pointing at the sign on her door.

  It’s atrocious.

  That project’s coming to an end anyway. Three more weeks and then it’s street dance. The people from the board, Ms Druggan says. They’re waiting for me in there. I really do need to get back to the people from the board.

  The children have fallen into the same groups they formed when they were with Cormac and they don’t notice her coming in. When the session ends, Tommy says that he’ll see everyone next week. As the children file out, he phones somebody. Over in the corner Olga watches him. She hears him speaking to somebody, yeah, yeah, no way, ha, yeah, no probs. The children are happy because Friday is chips.

  In the afternoon the rain pelts against the classroom window. The children are squirming in the seats, bored by the slow crawl of another Friday afternoon. The room is too hot and the condensation steams up the windows. One of the children has drawn a face in it. A girl asks, Can we watch a DVD this afternoon because the other people get to watch DVDs, but Olga says no, of course not. No DVDs. She can feel the veins throbbing under the thin skin of her temples. The girl says no more, resigning herself to the photocopied arithmetic problems, numbered 1 to 24. With only three quarters of an hour to go, Olga takes the class to the computer room to do the test Ms Druggan had talked of. She doesn’t even need to know a password because the pupils can access the application without her input. The children silently feed the monsters different flavours of ice cream in various combinations and occasionally there is a peal of bleeps when someone unlocks a new level. In the computer room the blinds are always drawn. Then they go back to the classroom for their coats and bags and to wait for the bell. Put up your chairs, Olga shouts. Put up your chairs before you go. Although weary, she sharpens the pencils again, sorts the jotters alphabetically so that when she marks them later they’ll be in order. She wipes off the window the face drawn by the child.

  When Olga puts her key in the door, she hears the dog, its excited, impatient barks. Her jacket is wet so she hangs it over the radiator. She’ll need to bring out the winter coat soon. Olga takes off her shoes, rubs her feet. You don’t realise they’re even sore until the shoes are off. In her bedroom she puts her blouse and skirt on the hanger, closes the wardrobe. Her dressing gown hangs on the hook on the back of the bedroom door.

  The dog is hungry so she pours out the dry feed and sits at the table with a cup of tea, watching it finish its bowl, tail wagging. Street dance anyway, in another few weeks’ time. She could go upstairs and run a bath, both taps on full, the water stilling and thickening as it edges higher. She imagines the dog, its panic, its frantic heart as it fights against the water, and the impotent movement of its paws.

  77 Pop Facts You Didn’t Know About Gil Courtney

  Gillespie Stanley John Courtney was born in Belfast on July 26th 1950. Also born on July 26th were Aldous Huxley, Jason Robards and Kevin Spacey.

  Gil Courtney’s mother, Elsie, registered him with her maiden name—Gillespie—as his Christian name. She initially said that this was done in error but in later years admitted that it was intentional.

  Gil Courtney grew up at 166 Tildarg Street, Cregagh, Belfast. Some of the lyrics to the song ‘Partial Aperture’ on the first The Palomar album, Golden Dusk, are often said to have been inspired by the view from the back bedroom of this house. Visible beyond the rooftops are the Castlereagh Hills.

  Palomar were known as The Palomar until 1975. Thereafter, they were known as Palomar.

  The phrase ‘taking drugs to make music to take drugs to’, later used as the title of a Spacemen 3 album, was reputedly first coined by Gil Courtney during the recording of Golden Dusk.

  The front room of the house at 166 Tildarg Street had a silver disc above the mantelpiece. (Although Golden Dusk only reached 21 in the UK charts, European sales ensured its silver status.) Gil recalled on a trip home one time taking it off the wall and playing it. ‘And what do you think it was,’ he said when interviewed in 1972, ‘but an Alma Cogan record dipped in silver paint. The paint just flaked off on my hands.’

  It is likely that Gil Courtney’s father was not Alec Courtney, husband of Elsie, and clerk at James Mackie and Sons, Belfast. Elsie was five months pregnant when they married. She was of the opinion that the father was most probably a merchant seaman, possibly Spanish, whom she met in Dubarry’s Bar (now McHughs).

  166 Tildarg Street was on the market in 2012. The estate agent’s description pointed out that it was in need of some modernisation. Photos showed empty rooms, bare walls and floorboards. Elsie Courtney’s furniture and carpets had been removed to a skip some weeks earlier.

  Gil Courtney’s first instrument was the xylophone. At primary school a new teacher who introduced a musical half-hour on a Friday afternoon was surprised to see one of her pupils playing two xylophones at once. The young Gil Courtney said he was able to remember the tune of something he’d heard on the radio.

  Miss Kathleen Hughes, a P7 teacher and church organist, gave Gil Courtney piano lessons in the school assembly hall. She later said that she had never
encountered a child with such exceptional ability and whose sight-reading was so extraordinary. When Kathleen Hughes was unable to attend a funeral service owing to illness the eleven-year-old Gil took her place at the organ.

  Gil Courtney’s girlfriend, Simone Lindstrom, went on to have brief relationships with Neil Young and Terry Melcher, son of Doris Day. Dicky Griffin of Palomar described Simone as a ‘high-maintenance kind of chick’, while Elsie Courtney said she was ‘Simone with the little turnip tits in the polo necks you could spit through.’

  When Gil Courtney was fifteen he began playing with many of the showbands popular in Northern Ireland at the time. He played in groups including The Buccaneers, The Dakotas, The College Boys and The Emperors. Two or three gigs a week would have been common. Ronnie O’Hanlon, drummer in The Dakotas, recalled how they would travel across the province in the back of a van with the equipment: ‘A lot of the roads were bad and you were thrown all over the place. A lot of these places were in the middle of nowhere. The driver’d be thinking where in the name of God are we going down this dirt track and then all of a sudden, out of the dark there would be a dancehall, all lit up.’

  Gil Courtney’s music lessons with Miss Hughes always began with the removal of the boxes of sports equipment stacked on top of the piano.

  The fourth song from Gil Courtney’s solo album, Volonte Blue, was played by Stuart Maconie on his programme The Freak Zone on 6 Music on Sunday 16th October 2011.

  In the Oh Yeah Music Centre in Belfast there is a small exhibition of Northern Irish pop memorabilia. There is a photograph of Gil Courtney and other members of The Palomar taken outside Gideon Hall’s flat in London. They are dressed in the fashions of the time. To the left there is a photo of David McWilliams and to the right a snap of 60s Belfast psychedelic-blues group Eire Apparent.

  Gil Courtney was educated at Harding Memorial Primary School and Park Parade Secondary School.