by Donal Ryan
Johnsey pictured himself grabbing that ride of a fella’s hand and twisting it around until his wrist snapped like a dry twig and he went off bawling like a child with a kicked arse for himself and his hand on backwards and he wouldn’t be so funny then, he wouldn’t be the big gas man then, over talking smart to girls and taking liberties and thinking he was God’s gift. Johnsey would put manners on him.
No he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t say a word to him. If he was ever in a pub or a disco or one of them places with Siobhán and some smartyhole came over all auld chat and was trying to get off with her, what would he do? Probably he’d stand up like an eejit and get redder and redder until someone asked him was he okay and the smartyhole would look at him and smirk and Siobhán would roll her eyes in crossness and the smartyhole fella would smirk back at her and she’d get thick with him for leaving her down opposite people and looking like a lunatic and what the hell was wrong with him, anyway, she was only talking for God’s sake. Maybe if Mumbly Dave was there as well with his teacher wan it’d be okay because Mumbly Dave would be able to say something smart to your man and make little of him and sure in all fairness if they were all out together they’d be like proper people on a night out and no one would be over schmoozing with Siobhán and being gas and making her laugh the way he wasn’t able to.
Siobhán wanted to go in to this restaurant in the city. They have a mural downstairs of Venice, and you can sit in this corner, surrounded by the mural, and it’s nearly like being in Venice! And they do the nicest carbonara you ever tasted. What the hell was carbonara? How would he order something that was wrote down in a foreign language? Probably he’d ask for something and he’d think he was saying it right but the waiter wouldn’t be able to make out what he was saying and he’d say Pardon me, sir, and Johnsey would have to say it again, and your man still wouldn’t hear him and he’d be kind of smiling at him and he’d lean his Italian ear right in to Johnsey’s mouth and he’d accidentally roar it out into his ear and your man would jump back and look frightened of him and people at other tables would stare over and your man would say That’s not a main course, sir, it’s a type of ice cream, and he’d snigger and Siobhán would laugh and people at other tables would laugh as well and shake their heads, and he’d wish he’d done away with his stupid self while he’d had the impetus that time.
THE BIG FIGHT happened on the second-last Friday before Christmas. Siobhán told him to text Mumbly Dave and ask him to know would he bring the teacher wan up to the house so they could have a look at her. She said she was in no rush home; she could even stay over if they had a drink. It was Friday night, for God’s sake. They were staring Christmas in the face! She couldn’t stay in one of those creepy rooms on her own, though; she’d have to sleep in with him. Aw, she said, am I after embarrassing you love? Don’t worry, I won’t jump on you! I hope you have fresh sheets on your bed! He hadn’t changed them in weeks and weeks. Christ. Balls. Then she said she was going to run down to the off-licence and would she bring back a Chinese and he said Grand, and she said What will you have, and he said Beef curry and chips, and she said Typical man and laughed but it was a nice laugh and thank Christ, now he’d be able to change the sheets and tighten up the room above and hide Dwyer’s magazine.
She was going to stay the night. In his bed. Oh, Lord. Would she be in her knickers or what? He horsed a shovel of coal and two logs into the fire. Imagine if the back boiler broke. She’d want about five blankets. Or she mightn’t stay at all in the cold. Oh, Mother of Christ. An actual girl, in his bed.
Will u call up 2 nite he sent Mumbly Dave.
Im goin to town u sir Mumbly Dave sent back straight away.
Bring ur 1 back here n stay over. He had that idea himself. How’s it he’d never thought before of asking Mumbly Dave did he want to stay? Himself and the teacher wan could easily sleep in the big double bed in the spare room. It had hardly been used since the Yanks stayed that time. He’d put fresh sheets on that bed too. He was starting to feel a bit excited. He was having a few people around. He was throwing a party. He was entertaining. He was in his hole. He was doing what he was told.
OK sound said Mumbly Dave. Still and all, though, it was going to be great craic. Mumbly Dave and Siobhán would have to call a halt to that auld sniping with your wan around. Mumbly Dave would be as high as a kite, trying to make two women laugh. All Johnsey’d have to do would be laugh. He could worry about the sleeping part after. There was no point thinking about it. That kind of thing all comes natural, anyway. That’s what Daddy said one time abroad in the yard when Mother told him he had to have a talk with the boy about the facts of life. He’d heard Mother telling him in the back kitchen: You have to, Jackie. He can’t be going around like a gom, not knowing what does what. But Daddy didn’t want to, he said Yerra them teachers tells them all that stuff these days. Mother said They do in their arses, now tell him what’s what and be done with it. Daddy said how no one had had to feckin tell him. Signs on, Mother said. For a finish, Daddy turned around to him at the milking-parlour door and said Don’t worry about all that auld craic with women and sex and what have you, that all comes natural. All right? Grand. Good man. Come on so till we get these cows milked.
SIOBHÁN ARRIVED and backed her car right up to the front door. She had the world of drink inside in the boot. They ate their Chinese fine and quick and she drank a glass of wine with hers and he drank a can of Harp with his. Then he threw the dishes into the sink and started to tighten up a bit. Siobhán said he was some fusspot; it was only Mumbly Dave and some slapper that was coming, not the pope and the queen. But before she could finish, Mumbly Dave drove in to the yard and she skipped over to the window and looked out and said Aw for fuck’s sake, where is she? Either she’s a dwarf or he hasn’t brought her. Ah shit, anyway! We have to listen to Mumbly Dave for the night for nothing!
And he came in with a bag of drink and told them how Evelyn couldn’t come on account she had to take the kids on a school tour early in the morning and she had to have an early night and Siobhán said Really, Dave? Is that really true? About Evelyn? And the way he went red gave the game away. You wouldn’t get much past her. Why would you make up a girlfriend, Dave? You weirdo?
Johnsey didn’t think Mumbly Dave was a weirdo. So what if he tried to embellish himself a bit? Plenty did it. He’d imagined himself being more than he was and having more than he had every day of his life. Mumbly Dave’s face was getting redder and redder and Siobhán should have let it go and left him make a laugh of himself and he’d have had a funny way surely of explaining why he invented a woman for himself inside in town and it’d seem like a gas thing he’d done and nothing out of the ordinary at all, only a bit of fooling around. But she kept staring at him and shaking her head and saying he was an awful weirdo and Mumbly Dave for a finish got pure thick and said he’d done it to have an excuse not to be knocking around up here while she was around the place, and Siobhán said Oh, so it’s my fault you’re a fucking freak? And Mumbly Dave said she was a poison bitch and a gold-digger and he was the one that was here all along helping Johnsey through all his trouble.
Siobhán said Really? What did you do to help? Besides slug cans of beer and talk bollocks to him about all the imaginary women you’ve had sex with?
And Mumbly Dave said I writ a letter to them newspapers.
And Siobhán, all sarcastic, said Wow! That was some letter I’d say! What did you say to them?
That they was only a shower of shitbags, all a them news-paper fellas, and they didn’t know notten about Johnsey Cunliffe and …
Dear Newspaper Fellas, You is only a shower of shitbags. Wow, Dave! I can’t believe you didn’t make the front page. It’s a wonder they haven’t been on to you to know would you be their new editor-in-chief.
I still done more than you, up here tormenting the poor boy with your tits inside in his face, making a pure fool out of him.
You’re a horrible jealous yoke. That’s all you are. You fairly latched on
to Johnsey because you had no one else and he’s too nice to get rid of you. You’re a big, fat, friendless loser, Dave. That’s all you are. Why don’t you go back down to your council hovel and ride your sister or whatever it is ye do for fun down there? You freak.
Mumbly Dave had no answer. Or if he did, he hadn’t the stomach for the saying of it. He looked at Johnsey and there was a big fat tear rolling slowly down his cheek and it flung itself on to the floor and Johnsey turned his face away from Mumbly Dave and stared at the little star-shaped puddle that the tear made and when he looked up again, his friend was gone.
IT WAS Minnie the Mouth who came to the door the next day to tell Johnsey the news. Sure, why wouldn’t it have been? She fattened on the telling of sorrowful tales, and everyone has to take their pleasure where they can. Minnie the Mouth said wasn’t he a pal of yours, that boy of the Cullenses? Her eyes were gleaming. Her cheeks were glowing red with excitement. She was trying to see past him to know who had he inside. Did you not hear the news? Well, I’m fierce sorry now to be the bearer of sorrow, but it looks like he was killed last night. Lord have mercy on him. Apparently he slid on black ice and hit that feckin auld dead elm at the bad bend over beyond near Pike’s Cross. In the small hours of this morning it was. Where the hell was he off to, I d’know? How well he had to hit the tree! By all accounts he was killed outright, at least there’s that, anyway. That boy always drove like the divil; I always maintained he was an accident waiting to happen. At least there was no one took with him! He was often up here with you, wasn’t he? Ye palled around a lot, didn’t ye? He thought the world of you, I’d say. I often heard him backing you up to the hilt and you getting read left, right and centre below in the village by them that knows notten. I seen ye knocking around together. That auld bad bend is a solid fright. Lord save us and guard us, isn’t it just a fright to God? They’ll surely straighten it now. Or drag out that auld tree out of it at least. The poor misfortune, how well he had to hit the tree.
THERE WAS only three or four lumps of coal in the bucket by the fire, and nare a log. How’s it he never thought to fill the log box to the top and bring in a couple of buckets of coal while he was at it? Daddy always had a plot of turf in the bog out towards Cloughjordan. Your back’d be broke turning and footing and bagging and piling it on the trailer and dragging back all the miles home with your wobbly load and then lugging the bags into the shed and emptying them and stacking the turf up nice, but it saved you burning too much coal when winter came. Coal goes in and gets red-hot real fast and burns itself out in no time. It’s brilliant while it lasts, but it never lasts long. Turf burns gentler and lasts longer. He’d ring your man in Clough in the spring and see about getting a plot again. How hard could it be? Surely be to God he could organize something as simple as that. He’d book the plot and your man would ring when the turf was cut and ready to be turned and he’d give it a few days and he’d foot it and Siobhán could give a hand if she wanted but she probably wouldn’t in fairness, young wans would hardly choose to give summer days to breaking their backs in the bog.
Siobhán kept saying Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.
Yerra shut your face, he felt like telling her. Just shut your face. If you hadn’t made little of him none of it would have happened. He’d never say that out, though. You’re as well off keep your powder dry when you’re that cross, for fear you’d say things you can’t take back. Anyway, it was he was responsible. Women can’t help rising rows. He was here like a prick looking out of his mouth at Siobhán and grinning at her like a fool while she danced around the kitchen to the radio and drank vodka with Coca-Cola in it and smoked fag after fag and told him he was very closed off, he was very mysterious, he was very deep, not like them dicks inside in town. And he lapping it up like an auld hungry dog getting fed scraps while his only pal drove around the countryside in pure-solid temper and finished up making bits of himself.
Did it take him long to die? Was he panicking and shaking and trying to draw air into his bursted lungs? People always say people in accidents were killed outright, but you knew half the time that was only as comfort for them that’s left behind. How did anyone ever know? Maybe Mumbly Dave sat strapped in to his yahoo car, still with all his senses while his insides bled, thinking about how Johnsey had let Siobhán say all them things and how his pal had turned his face away from him and never even tried to defend him or stop him from leaving.
He’d lain in his bed chancing the odd look over at Siobhán who snored like them auld fellas that used be in Daddy’s ward inside in the hospital. She never even went near his mickey. He’d seen her in her knickers, though, at least, as she hopped into the bed. They were light blue with white frilly bits at the edges. She’d kissed him once on the lips and said You’re lovely, forget about Dave, he’ll be grand, he has a hide like a rhino, and she smelt like fags and liquor and perfume and she turned away and fell asleep and she took all the duvet and most of the mattress and he lay there like a gom with his arse hanging out over the edge of the bed, trying to keep his horn from poking into her. And at some stage while he was doing that, imagine, Mumbly Dave met his lonely death.
NOT LONG AFTER Siobhán had left, Dermot McDermott had come to the door. Johnsey spotted him over the haggard wall from the room above, where he’d been smelling Siobhán off of a pillow and starting to get sorry about leaving her go like that, in a wicked temper with tears in her eyes. He’d told her he’d sooner be on his own and when she went to give him a hug he’d pulled back from her and she said Oh right, be that way, so. I’ll miss him too, you know. You will in your arse, he thought. Or did he say that out loud? It was hard to know. Whichever, she’d fecked off, in a right auld strop for herself.
Johnsey had the Winchester down from the attic before Dermot McDermott made it across the yard and up to the front door. It felt cool to touch and its heaviness was like an anchor. It fit lovely in to his shoulder, like it was made especially for him. He hadn’t picked it up since that February day long ago. When he got as far as the kitchen, Dermot McDermott was looking in the window with his hands cupped around his eyes. There was an envelope or something in one of his hands. Johnsey stayed by the door where he couldn’t be seen. Dermot McDermott walked back along the yard and looked up at the gap between the slatted house and the near shed out to the big yard. Then he started back towards the house. Johnsey drew the sight on him, so that his curly, cute hoor’s head sat bobbing on the bead, getting bigger and bigger as he progressed towards the window.
Johnsey felt the power of death over life, just like your man in that song about the fella that accidentally on purpose killed the lone rider. How a thing as small as a tightening in a muscle in your finger can do a thing so big! He’d never do it, though. But it was no harm to have a weapon close at hand in this day and age. It’s funny how he’d never thought of keeping it close before. Maybe a shock like he’d gotten brings clarity to the mind. If them boys that went at Paddy that time ever rolled into the yard, or if them ratty-faced lads from the newspapers ever came back around the place, or any of the Penroses, he’d lose valuable minutes running upstairs and foostering about with the attic door and putting in the cartridges. Best to keep it downstairs for good.
NOW THERE WAS a quare fella abroad at the gate and every now and again he’d lean in around so Johnsey was able to just about see him and he’d roar into a bullhorn. He sounded like the same lad who’d rang his mobile earlier. How had they his number? When it had rang, he’d thought it was Mumbly Dave. Imagine if it was! Well, youssir, bejaysus it’s grand up here, your father said to tell you stop acting the bollix and put away his gun before you hurt yourself. And your mother says You’re a dirty scut for letting that little strap sleep inside in your bed with you. Your mother says she’s an awful trollop, that lady! Not my words! Don’t worry, youssir, it wasn’t your fault. Once that wan got her claws in I was back to having notten, anyway. Hadn’t we some craic, though, for a while? Don’t worry, boy, no one blames you for notten. All
you are is a victim of circumstance.
But it was a lad he didn’t know and he had one of them quare accents and he was talking all friendly but the way his words were coming out put Johnsey in mind of a fella in one of them plays they put on sometimes inside in town in the Scouts’ hall, like the words was all wrote down by someone else and learnt off by heart but the sayer of the words was meant to convince the hearer of them that they were his own, and for a finish he must have gotten sick of getting back nothing only silence and he said I’m going to pass the phone now to someone who’s worried about you and just wants to see that you’re okay. Okay? Okay.
And it was Himself and he sounded slower and quieter than normal and he asked Johnsey how was he and Johnsey felt that old painful hardness in his throat the very same as if there was a stone in there, dry and unmoving, blocking the words from coming out, and Himself was still talking and he was telling Johnsey how it was a fright altogether the way they weren’t being left in to see him on account of there was police here to beat the band and you wouldn’t see a squad from one end of the year to the next besides Jim Gildea in his auld crock of a Renault van and where was this lot when poor Paddy Rourke was getting bate up? And you yourself nearly killed stone dead below in the middle of the village? And now it seemed they was all in the one place together and they all to a man had the same sort of an auld notion that he was up to devilment inside in the house with Jackie’s shotgun and did you ever hear the bate of it? Lord God. And Himself laughed and it was a hoarse and whispery thing and maybe not really a laugh at all.