LEONARD AND HUNGRY PAUL

by Ronan Hession

  Naturally, he was a little disappointed. He had put everything into that book, but he had also got a lot out of it. Although, if he was completely honest, once he had decided to write the book for Patrick, it no longer mattered to him if anyone else ever read it. Sometimes that happens, he thought, the motive only revealing itself after the fact.

  A slow morning had finally crawled to lunchtime. Leonard grabbed his jacket and went to meet Shelley. She had picked the Natural History Museum as the venue for their lunch date, and Leonard liked to think there was a subtle note of compromise in her choice. She had even promised to treat him to a vegetarian lunch, although it struck him that it was a somewhat futile gesture given that they would be eating in what was effectively a room full of hunting trophies.

  When he arrived there was a train of primary school kids filing out of the museum all wearing hi-vis bibs, a young teacher counting heads as they passed. Leonard climbed some old wooden stairs that creaked like a boat with each step, towards the mammal section where they had arranged to meet. He passed by the first few rows of glass cases, which housed stuffed wildlife royalty like lions, tigers, polar bears and chimps. In the middle clearing, under a humpback whale skeleton that had faced the wrong way for a hundred years, he saw Shelley sitting with a sketch pad in front of the bull hippo, and beside her, instantly recognisable from her description, sat Patrick.

  ‘Hello folks!’ said Leonard. ‘Hope I’m not interrupting.’

  ‘Hey, just in time. We’re just finishing our pictures. Patrick, say hi to Leonard. Remember I told you we’d be meeting him today. He wanted to hear what you thought about the Roman book.’

  Patrick looked up.

  ‘Hi Leonard,’ he said. ‘I’m just finishing this, so just let me do this bit, around here, a little line here, just a few of these, there! Finito!’

  He showed it to Leonard.

  ‘Oh, I like this,’ said Leonard, crouching down to cancel the height difference.

  ‘It’s like a regular hippo, only with lots of improvements,’ said Patrick. ‘Those are turbo boosters, so he can get away from predators. That’s a crying lion saying “Oh, why am I so slow I can’t even catch a slow clumsy hippo” and those things on the hippo’s feet are wheels, which are hidden inside his feet but which come out whenever he’s near train tracks, and then train tracks shoot out of his tusks to lay tracks wherever he goes, so he can still use his train wheels on dusty paths and regular roads.’

  ‘And what’s that spot there?’ asked Leonard.

  ‘Oh, that’s the bullet hole where he was shot by the French.’

  ‘Why the French?’

  ‘Oh, they owned Africa a long time ago and there were lots of wars, but when I’m in charge of the world, there’s going to be none of that. Any country that fights—zzzhhhttt!—off with their heads!’ said Patrick, slicing his pencil across his throat.

  ‘And how did they shoot the animals without breaking the glass display cases?’

  Patrick flipped his head back and groaned.

  ‘They didn’t shoot them in here. They shot them in Africa and countries like that, and then put them in the cases. You should know that if you write books.’

  ‘Here’s your sandwich by the way,’ said Shelly, smiling and pulling out a slightly squashed lump of bread wrapped in cling film and handing it to Leonard.

  ‘Oh, thanks. Do you mind me asking what’s in it?’

  ‘Egg.’

  ‘Egg?’

  ‘Yes, egg,’ said Shelley. ‘I don’t want you to run low on protein. Got to look after yourself.’

  ‘Indeed. It’s just that egg makes me gassy and, well, we can’t open the windows in our office.’

  ‘You’ll figure something out. Patrick! Come here for a sambo.’

  ‘Eh, I’m okay for sandwiches. Any treats? Or if I can’t have a treat, can I get something in the gift shop, pleeeeeeeze?’

  Patrick was swinging from Shelley’s sleeve.

  ‘We’ll see,’ she said, and then, looking at Leonard, ‘We’ll see.’

  Chapter 28: Quiet Club

  At the National Mime Association Hungry Paul and Lambert had arranged the room beautifully for the first Quiet Club. The seats were in a circle and there were Christmas lights across the foot of the stage, a nice idea suggested by Lambert, who was quite visual as it turned out. The living statues took their positions at intervals around the room: Marley’s ghost at the door where people came in, a Windswept Man beside the reception desk, and various chimney sweeps and Mozarts mixed in with the seats. Hungry Paul had John Cage’s 4’33 playing in the background, just to relax everybody.

  Naturally Helen and Peter were there. Helen in particular was keen to see what the bedsit was like, though Hungry Paul explained that they had not yet fixed a date for Arno’s girlfriend to move out, which he felt was a matter of some delicacy that would resolve itself in time.

  Though Grace was on honeymoon, she said that she would still like to be involved; after all, she said, with its temples and shrines, Kyoto was perhaps the capital of silence. At the appointed time, she and Andrew would arrange to sit quietly in a nearby Zen temple, so that they could share the moment, though thousands of miles away.

  Leonard was of course in attendance and had been happy to help out. It had been his idea to have tea and biscuits afterwards, taking it a step further by asking in the shop for the quietest biscuits they had, which were Jaffa Cakes obviously.

  Shelley couldn’t come, unfortunately. The Sunday night slot clashed with the orientation lecture she was attending for the part-time BA in Fine Arts that she had signed up for, having been inspired by Leonard and encouraged by her father. Shelley’s sister did her bit by writing out a reusable babysitting voucher for whenever she needed a bit of help. Patrick had also made his own voucher, entitling him to a later bedtime and a sugary cereal whenever he was being babysat. Shelley said she would love to come to next month’s Quiet Club.

  Helen had also mentioned it to Barbara, who had left hospital and was looking to try new things. Though she confessed that she’d never been quiet for a full hour in her life before, she thought it sounded healthy and peaceful, and that it could be a nice way to meet new people. She came early and brought her own diabetic biscuits.

  Hungry Paul had been in to see Mrs Hawthorn earlier that week. She had been asleep for several days and was not getting better. He had stayed with her for over an hour, holding her hand and enjoying the silence for both of them.

  At judo during the week, where Hungry Paul was still stiff from the wedding day Lindy Hop, he mentioned it to his sensei and to Lazlo. Not being chatty by nature, they were both taken with the idea and came along before their night shift as security guards at a warehouse. Hungry Paul was touched to see them on non-judo time, and felt that they were beginning to warm to him.

  Lambert had asked at the supermarket whether he could put a poster on their noticeboard and got chatting to the same duty manager who had opened Hungry Paul’s tin of Roses. He had no problem with them using the noticeboard and even said that if they ever needed help fundraising he could provide them with a Saturday afternoon bag-packing slot. Lambert thanked him sincerely and invited him along, but it wasn’t his thing: he was like a shark, he said, had to keep moving.

  There were even a few new faces who showed up: a woman in exercise gear holding a rolled-up yoga mat, two Italian students, and a man in dungarees who would only say that he was an old friend of Arno’s, touching the side of his nose as he said this.

  When the time came, Hungry Paul placed a potted sunflower on a stool in the middle of the circle. A hush, had it been needed, would surely have fallen on the assembled group.

  ‘Okay everybody,’ he began, ‘Thank you for coming to the first Sunday Night Quiet Club. When I take my seat, we will begin sitting for an hour. There are no special instructions, except that we should do our best t
o be as quiet as this flower.’

  Each of the participants had their own experience during that hour, which goes to show the infinite variety in life: even when doing nothing, people do it differently. Sensei and Lazlo sat stock still and concentrated on the silence, their mental discipline from the martial arts being too deeply rooted to do otherwise. By contrast, Barbara was utterly distracted, looking around the room for someone to share eye contact with, hoping to convey her sense of novelty about the whole situation. Lambert, who had done so much to arrange the evening, sat and marvelled at the intimacy of sharing silence so deliberately with others. The living statues excelled themselves; having to share a small indoor space brought out their competitive side, as they tried to match each other’s imperturbability. Arno’s friend adopted an ostentatious meditation pose, intended to signal an affinity with the attractive yoga lady, while the Italian students sat quietly, wondering whether they were in the right place at all.

  It didn’t take long for Peter to start dozing off, while Helen used the time to take stock of the changes in her family and the new life that was slowly opening up before her. Across the other side of the world, Grace sat cross-legged at a Zen temple, Andrew struggling in the early morning heat beside her. Leonard, for whom silence was as comfortable as bed, sat and enjoyed the time, his universe once again expanding.

  In the middle of it all sat Hungry Paul, with who-knows-what going through his mind.

  To think that so much has been written and said about flowers over the centuries, and yet it took someone as special as Hungry Paul to notice how quiet they are.

  Acknowledgements

  I owe everything to my wife Sinéad. This book would never have been written without your love and support.

  Thanks to my two wonderful sons, Thomas and Jacob. This book was written at a table surrounded by your encyclopaedias and board games, and with your enthusiasm all around me.

  I will be forever grateful to Kevin and Hetha Duffy and everyone at Bluemoose Books for the life-changing decision to publish Leonard and Hungry Paul, and for all your hard work, creativity and passion.

  Special thanks to my editor Lin Webb for all the care, attention and insight you brought to the editing of this book. I am a better reader and a better writer as a result.

  Thank you to Fiachra McCarthy for the beautiful cover design.

  Thanks to Michael Stevens for inspiring me to try writing a book, and for encouraging me while I was doing it.

  Thank you to Anna Carey for your generous advice.

  Thanks to Conor and Gillian Rapple for being early and supportive readers.

  Thank you to all the staff at Baldoyle library in Dublin for being so helpful and for providing me with a lifetime’s supply of interesting books.

  My sincere thanks to all those who listened to me talk about writing and who said nice things when I needed it: you know who you are and I am forever grateful.

  To all my family, friends, and colleagues: you are all amazing, but you don’t feature in the book, so relax.

  Thanks to Honest Ulsterman, The Bohemyth, Brilliant Flash Fiction and Flash Fiction Magazine for publishing my early stories, and to all those who read them.