by Donal Ryan
And Johnsey pressed the red button on the phone and it said call ended and he could breathe again.
He sat on the easy chair on the far side of the fireplace from the yard window with Daddy’s Winchester cradled in his lap like a man might cradle a small child and his left hand lay on top of his right hand on top of the butt and the barrels rested in the crook of his left arm and it was a kind of a comforting thing to be sitting there with that cold weight on him and it was fine and dark at that end of the room where the weak winter light never reached and he wondered what would it be like to pull the soft darkness around him like a blanket and disappear into it.
IT HAD BEEN only a bare few minutes after Dermot McDermott had copped on that there was a gun pointing at his forehead and nearly fell backwards onto his arse with the fright and run off across towards the haggard wall that the lad with the bullhorn had showed up, and lights were flickering, blue and white and orange, and he felt a kind of a pride that he had known to keep himself towards the back of the kitchen where no one would really be able to see him if he kept still enough, but in such a way that he’d be able to squint out now and again to see could he see the Unthanks or the Penroses or Aunty Theresa, who’d no doubt be shaking her head in disbelief at the show he was making of them all, or poor Nonie who’d be clinging on to Frank in fear and confusion, or any face he might know, but there was nothing and nobody to be seen now when he lifted his head but still and all he could feel the weight of them outside the gate and behind the wall, and the mass of them and the density of them, like all things in the universe had, according to that auld science teacher, except the thoughts inside in your head, but that was dead wrong, anyway, because all the minds of them people outside the gate and behind the wall were trained on him now and he could feel the heaviness of their thoughts on him and it was pounding on his head, the pain of the weight of it all.
He imagined Dermot McDermott rubbing his grabbing hands together across the haggard and beyond the trees and over the far side of the river field and laughing with his people about the mad lunatic over beyond and he playing inside in the kitchen with his father’s gun, and then going off licking to Jim Gildea below, delighted to be blackening the bad yoke who wouldn’t hand over his land. But Johnsey knew he’d shited himself when he’d seen the two black eyes staring at him, with nothing but death inside in them, and that was all that mattered.
THE HEEDLESS CLOCK tick-tocked away for itself, minding nothing only its own maddening business. He sat up a bit in the chair, slowly, slowly, and raised his head and squinted his eyes again and he knew there was still more out there, the lad with the bullhorn was there the whole time and he pouring the odd few grinding, buzzing words into it for himself, and fellas in dark-blue helmets with little stubby guns like toys were chancing the odd dart across the gateway, holding big huge screens like shields beside themselves while they scuttled. Shields, imagine! Did they think he was going to start firing arrows at them? He’d have to go out and clear them to hell. They had the wrong end of the stick got altogether. He was some show! As if he wasn’t enough of a show already, in all fairness.
The mobile phone screamed again. He jumped and the gunbutt bucked in his lap and the barrels went from the crook of his arm to the bend of his shoulder blade almost of their own accord, as if they had taken fright and were looking to him for comfort.
When his heart had settled a bit he reached across to the edge of the table for the blasted phone and it was all he could do to press the little green button with his auld awkward thumb and it was Himself again, and he was all talk now, the very same way he’d be on a rainy lunchtime inside in the bakery, and he was asking Johnsey to know how was he now and would he put away that auld gun before he did himself an injury and come away out in the name of God and go easy now, go easy, and they’d see about a bit of lamb for the dinner and Herself was there alongside him still and she was up to ninety worrying about him and she’d gave the whole morning making tarts with the last of the apples they’d collected only a few weeks ago, remember? And he had the finest of cream whipped and all and left in a bowl inside in the fridge, all ready to go for the afters.
Johnsey listened away and he closed his eyes so that he could picture Himself more clearly and when the flow of words softened and slowed he asked to know what had happened to Mumbly Dave.
Dave? Oh Lord, Dave is the solid finest so he is, thanks be to God, that Minnie Wiley ran with a half a story as usual! Don’t you know the way the mouths around here work? He slid on that auld bad bend above and he got trapped inside in his car and the brigade had to take the roof off of it to get him out and sure I think half the time they do be only doing that for show, as much as to say Hey lookit, everyone, aren’t we the fine boys with our big expensive cutting machine and our jaws of life, and if it was years ago when common sense trumped all, that car would have been righted by three or four strong men and dragged out by a tractor and drove away the finest and the driver gave a bandage and a brandy. But now the minute an ambulance is seen or a siren even heard the worst is presumed and the likes of that Minnie the Mouth do be off with tall tales made taller with each telling. Dave will come round and be up out of that hospital bed in no time and the two of ye will be palling around again and this auld craic will all blow over and be forgot, wait till you see. Like the winds of last winter, Johnsey, love.
Love.
And Johnsey heard a quaver in Himself’s voice and saw in spite of himself a picture in his head of a man like one of them men Daddy used talk about that would lie about a beast’s provenance beyond at the mart and put wrong numbers on tags and try to sell disease on to another man’s herd and the man in the picture had a forked tongue like a snake’s because that’s the way Daddy would describe a man like that and wasn’t it a fright to God how things was gone to be such a way that Johnsey could even imagine Jimmy Unthank to be one of them men?
All talk is lies in a way. Only the doing of a thing can make it true. All words are lies unless the thing spoke about can be set before a person and seen and touched. Things said on mobile telephones and wrote down in ink on paper to be read by all and sundry can’t be given any credence any more, nor could they ever. Was it only he could see that? What hope had the world if that was true?
And then Himself was talking again and his voice was lower and the words were coming at a pace that put him in mind of a tear making its slow way down a person’s face the way he’d seen the one on Himself’s face do as he stood holding on to the edge of Daddy’s coffin that day long ago or the one last night on Mumbly Dave’s face, and someone was whispering behind him or beside him and Himself was saying No matter what anyone said or says ever in the future, myself and Herself only ever wanted what was the best for you, for we love you the very same as if you were our own child.
And Johnsey lowered his head and his hand let go of that auld mobile phone and went down to the heavy wood of the butt of Daddy’s gun and he chanced a look up from his seat on the easy chair and he saw no one in the gateway but he felt them all there, building up and up, waiting to explode in on top of him, like the water behind that mighty dam the young Dutch boy tried to hold back with his finger, and he wondered was it a true thing that a heart could feel heavy or was that another of them auld sayings where the words don’t mean what you might at first think.
The mobile buzzed again from the floor and his breath rushed from him and he picked it up and flung it towards the hearth and it bounced into the grate where it hopped around like a thing propelled by magic and finally came apart and lay in bits in there among the cold ashes.
And that was the end of auld talk on telephones, for good and glory.
WHEN JOHNSEY GOT to the front door and opened it, he heard a roaring wind. But there was no stir out of the trees beyond the haggard. It was the sound of his blood, rushing around his body. He’d want to go handy or his heart would burst. He still couldn’t make out what your man was saying. Something about using force and then crackle, roar,
crackle, roar, crackle. He was badly stuck for a new bullhorn, that fella.
PADDY SAID duck shot never killed nobody, it’d only blister lads. No harm now to give these boys a fright and they’d know then to go on away and leave him alone to hell. The bullhorn lad was gone quare now altogether around the corner of the wall, roaring and screaming out of him, but none of them words made any sense. He was an awful yahoo, that lad. He tucked the butt into his shoulder again. Lord, it fit lovely all the same. They’d get a fright now and they’d all feck off with the help of God. He took one step forward and aimed at the cold blue sky and
THAT’S THE thing about December: it goes by you in a flash. If you just close your eyes, it’s gone. And it’s like you were never there.
Acknowledgments
THANKS: To Antony Farrell, Sarah Davis-Goff, Daniel Caffrey, Fiona Dunne, Kitty Lyddon and everyone at The Lilliput Press; to Eoin McHugh, Brian Langan, Larry Finlay, Kate Green and everyone at Doubleday Ireland and Transworld UK; to Chip Fleischer, Roland Pease, Helga Schmidt, Devin Wilkie and everyone at Steerforth Press; to Peter Holm and Graciela Galup; to Marianne Gunn O’Connor; to Helen Gleed O’Connor, Declan Heeney, Simon Hess and the team at Gill Hess; to Jennifer Johnston, John Boyne and all the writers I’ve met who have shown such kindness and generosity; to my wonderful parents, Anne and Donie Ryan, for everything; to my sister Mary, who believed in me long before I did; to John, Lindsey, Christopher, Daniel and all my family, for their constant love and support; to Thomas and Lucy, the lights of my life; and to Anne Marie, my beautiful wife, without whom I wouldn’t have written a single word.