Solar Bones

by Mike McCormack

  he would drive into the field with the transport box and bring the stone around the back of the house where he’d work away on it during the dry months of the summer, tapping and dressing and pointing it, building it up layer by layer so that if everything ran in his favour he would have the whole thing done before the weather turned at the back end, the wall capped and pointed and a couple of grand saved into the bargain, the whole project so clear in my mind that

  even if I half admired the kind of opportunism which had brought him out into the rain to meet me I saw there was something mean in it also, that small mentality which enabled small minds to thrive on such opportunities or to spot them in the first place, something in the whole thing which made me resentful so that now

  I was pissed off with the whole fucking thing

  him and his extension and the granite and the whole fucking lot, this shite swilling through my head, as if there wasn’t enough there already and

  these were my thoughts

  driving home that evening, not bothering to turn the radio on, just listening to the road as it sped by under the wheels with the rain rolling away now and the evening opening out into bright sunshine for the hour of daylight that remained, so that coming round the bend at Belclare the road turned into the full glare of the sun going down over Clew Bay, a silver streak over the sea from the horizon, nearly blinding me behind the wheel so that I had to pull down the visor and coming around by the Deerpark the side of Croagh Patrick was so clearly present, so close, it appeared as if I could put my hand out to touch it, all the glad sights of a spring evening giving me the idea that Mairead and I might go for a walk together after we had something to eat, which

  we did, pulled on light jackets and set off as night was beginning to close in, starting off along the main road and then skirting the village by the sea path across the Black Hill, the breeze crisp on our faces and as we walked Mairead told me about a documentary she had watched recently, telling me

  there’s a nomadic tribe in Mongolia who cross the Gobi desert, herding their goats and sheep and horses, and pitching their yurts on the outskirts of towns and cities to trade with the settled communities, nothing odd in any of that but, what was really interesting, was that at the centre of the tribe there was a holy-woman or witch-doctor who had the usual tasks of healing and invoking the gods, all the shamanic and medicinal duties, a vocation that had come down to her through the family, the line of apostolic succession, which meant that she had this other function also of keeping the tribe’s world in balance and harmony by living her life backwards and

  how do you mean backwards

  I mean she walks backwards and talks backwards and rides her horse backwards, she gets up in the middle of the night to eat her dinner and she goes to bed when everyone around her is beginning their day and

  why would she do that

  this is fascinating – it’s their belief that if everyone is walking and talking and doing things in the same direction then there is real danger that the whole world will tip over, so one person is needed to work the opposite way to keep the world balanced and

  that makes sense, it’s basic engineering, any load bearing structure will topple over if it doesn’t have balancing counterweight, cranes will topple over if they are not properly weighted

  I don’t think they understood it as engineering

  probably not, but that’s what it is, some mechanisms have to be counter-geared to keep them tensioned

  all I could think of was that only a woman would get a job like that

  maybe only a woman could do a job like that, one weighty and contrary soul to keep the world in balance

  I thought of Darragh when I saw it, it’s just the sort of thing he’d be good on

  yes, he’d make hay with that all right, he might even see himself in that role already, the way he goes on

  you’re too hard on him

  he’s hard on me as well as

  we came in the Westport road under the street lighting, about five miles in all so that by the time we got home it was well dark and I was pleased there was no twinge in my heel, that pain coming and going with a mind of its own, so I took a mug of tea into the office where a quick check told me that Darragh was online so I dialled him and he came on after a moment, his bushy head filling the screen, telling me after saying hello, that

  I saw the photos

  what photos

  the photos from the exhibition, she had them up on her Face- book page

  whose Facebook page

  Agnes the Unhinged, the Abbess of the Abyss, Anagnorisis

  Darragh, that kind of name-calling is very wearing –

  he held up an apologetic hand

  no disrespect meant, Dad, just a bit of sibling sparring, all I’m saying is it seemed like a pretty exciting evening, Agnes standing there like a pale accuser decrying the whole world, it must have been strong stuff

  it was different, that’s for sure

  I’m not surprised you were upset

  how did you know I was upset

  Agnes emailed me a full account of the whole thing, it seemed like a real occasion

  yes it was, lots of people there and they seemed to be enthusiastic about her work

  which was a far cry from the usual oil-on-canvas

  yes

  a bit of a shock

  you could say that

  her account was very vivid, a great colour piece – if the visual arts thing doesn’t work out she has a bright future as a writer

  which was exactly the kind of threat Agnes held over Darragh, the likelihood that her dogged abilities would outshine his real but fragile talents and that one day he would find himself conclusively shamed by her willingness to apply herself and wring the most from her lesser gifts, because while his own sporadic commitment to his studies would always enable him to get by without ever fully achieving what he was well capable of, too often he shielded himself from Agnes’s threat behind an antic persona of sniggering and scoffing, so frequently lapsing into a language that went completely over my head that it was easy to get the impression he was speaking from a different realm of understanding altogether, a credible enough idea in the present circumstances since he was now talking from the opposite side of the world, his voice burred as if the words had travelled through some warping disturbance in the ether between us which was pushing them out of shape, not that it got in the way of those things we discussed, our conversation skimming through sport, politics and local gossip, those things we felt sure of – Hatton would not go the distance with Pacquiao, not at ten stone, and Mayo would find it hard to get out of Pearse Stadium with a win this summer – and those things we felt unsure of – would Kenny’s leadership of the opposition hold till the next general election, since it seemed likely he would have his work cut out defending no-confidence motions in the months ahead, twenty minutes talking as two men putting the world to rights before he asked

  are you still watching Battlestar Galactica

  yes, it’s halfway through the third season, are you keeping up with it

  no, getting to a telly is a bit haphazard here and I haven’t got around to streaming it – are you taping it

  I think so, it’s on the box somewhere if someone hasn’t deleted it

  great, I’ll look forward to watching that when I get back and how’s Mam, did she have a good time at the exhibition

  Mam’s fine and she had a great time, herself and Agnes, we would have stayed up the night but both of us had work the following morning so the three of us went for a meal after the opening and then drove home, it was after midnight when we got back – she’s lying down now, taking a rest after all the excitement and

  there’s nothing wrong with her

  no, she’s just a bit tired after the whole thing, it was quite stressful

  give her my love

  ok, will do, take care of yourself

  bye

  bye

  and I watched the screen cloud to
a fizzy interference as it shut down, leaving the room to dark silence and a burnt feeling behind my eyes as if the light from the monitor had scalded them to the core, the kind of feeling you imagine you would have just before the world goes up in flames, some refined corrosion eating away at the rods and cones, collapsing their internal structure before they slope out of their sockets and run down your cheekbones, leaving you standing hollow-eyed in the middle of some desolation with the wind whistling through your skull, just before the world collapses

  mountains, rivers and lakes

  acres, roods and perches

  into oblivion, drawn down into that fissure in creation where everything is consumed in the raging tides and swells of non-being, the physical world gone down in flames

  mountains, rivers and lakes

  and pulling with it also all those human rhythms that bind us together and draw the world into a community, those daily

  rites, rhythms and rituals

  upholding the world like solar bones, that rarefied amalgam of time and light whose extension through every minute of the day is visible from the moment I get up in the morning and stand at the kitchen window with a mug of tea in my hand, watching the first cars of the day passing on the road, every one of them known to me

  name, number-plate and destinations

  one after another, beginning at half seven with

  Frances Dugan in the green Mégane, off to her job as a receptionist in the Clew Bay Hotel – I went to school with her husband Philip who is about to start chemo – and

  Sarah Moran going in the opposite direction to begin her eight o’clock shift in Allergan and

  Mark Ruddy in an ’07 Pajero returning from the night shift in Baxter and

  the school bus going back to collect the kids from the furthest edge of the parish and

  Máirtín Dubh in the green post van, followed by

  Shamie Moran in the milk lorry, seven thousand litres of milk sloshing around in the tank behind his head with

  Jimmy Lyons behind him in his blue Passat – in half an hour he will throw open the gates of the builder’s yard on the Kilgeever road, so that

  five mornings a week I watch these early starters from the kitchen window with a mug of tea in my hand and when I see Jimmy’s Passat turn left onto the main road I know that it’s nearly half seven and that I had better get a move on if I’m going to make it to work on time, knowing also that Mairead has still got at least forty minutes in bed yet, a thought which always pleased me, as if those minutes were my gift to her each morning, a thought which often recalls me to

  the early years of our marriage when Darragh and Agnes were very young and I would wake and get ready for work while the three of them were still fast asleep in a house that had no sound but myself going about the first tasks of the day – washing, shaving, dressing, setting the table for their breakfast, mugs and bowls, pulling on my boots and jacket – the peace and quiet of early morning making it my favourite part of the day, Mairead and the children asleep, breathing in their separate rooms, a gentle flowing current which brought the house alive even in the darkest winter mornings when

  I was sometimes filled with a marvellous sense of how important and serious it was as a father and husband to be up and about so early, with work to go to and a family to provide for, to have such responsibilities, grabbing my keys and jacket and out the door with Mairead and the kids still asleep in their beds, off to work to make a future for them, a glorious undertaking which I took so seriously then, sometimes feeling that I, alone in the world, was tasked with such a job which in one sense was the truth as I alone had the job of caring for my particular family, but which of course was the most banal thing in the whole world as there were millions of men everywhere who, at precisely the same time, were doing the same thing, getting up and going out to work, these morning rhythms which start the day and hold all our smaller rituals in its embrace as when now, the children gone and Mairead and myself alone here in this house we

  come home from work and sit together at this table to eat while listening to the news on Midwest Radio, the local news followed by the death notices for the area, telling us that the death has occurred

  in the family home

  or after a long illness

  or after a short illness

  or suddenly

  or in England

  or peacefully at their home in

  all the innumerable ways and places in which anyone can die

  none less fatal than the other

  man, woman or child

  taking leave of this world how ever we do, one way of dying no less effective than the next, the names of the deceased rolling by with the announcer telling us that all donations should be sent to Our Lady’s Hospice Ballina and house private, which is Mairead’s cue to switch the radio off before an advert for some

  furniture sale in Swinford or

  night club in Crossmolina

  or Peter Duffy, Tool and Scaffolding Hire comes on and

  this is one of our rituals

  Mairead and I, sitting at the table and tuning into these death notices, joining that community of listeners who are doing the same thing, half the county sitting at their kitchen tables with mugs of tea in their hands and their ears bent to hear who has died or gone with the majority as my father used to say, wondering will the list of names throw up someone we know, a name to take us by surprise, a name which shocks us or a name to sadden us, someone young or someone old, someone who has died suddenly or someone who has finally succumbed after a long illness, someone we met only last week, someone we hadn’t met in a long time

  someone

  who’s crossed our lives in one of the innumerable ways in which we come together from time to time with never any suspicion that this may be the last time we meet or speak or do some favour for each other and

  it was surely something of this sort my father honoured whenever he would sit down to listen to these same death notices, a habit which for years filled me with impatience because there seemed no purpose to it when, at five o’clock, he would stop in the middle of whatever he was doing and turn up the volume on the radio to listen to the roll call of the dead, name after name in alphabetical order until the last one had sounded and the announcement tailed off with the assurance that

  Midwest Radio would like to extend their sympathies to the families and loved ones of the dead and

  only then would he resume whatever it was he had been doing, his duty done, honour and respect given to the last mention of lives gone forever and if initially I was impatient with what appeared to be a needless interruption and bristled to be rid of it, with the passing years and without ever knowing quite how it had happened, I too began to stop whatever I was doing to listen with the same attentiveness as my father and it was only after a while I realised it was not merely the dead I was honouring but that I had willingly taken my place among all those other people in the parish who were doing exactly the same thing, sitting in their kitchens and listening to that rolling litany of names tapering out to infinity since

  death and funerals was one of those topics my father and mother enjoyed sparring over in their later years, all the more so if they thought they could scandalise their grandchildren with a dose of irreverence and black humour, their life together now a complex two-hander, with a lot of give and take and

  one time my father was teasing Onnie about her death, telling her that if she was going to die before him he hoped it would be during the winter months because if it happened in any other season of the year he would have no time to bury her, he was a busy man – cattle and hay and turf and everything else – he wouldn’t have time to arrange a funeral for her, the best he could do would be to light a fire in the bottom of a tar-barrel, that would be the best he could do, stuff her into it at the gable of the house and Onnie listening to all this, smiling over at him, saying

  I don’t mind what you do with me, when I’m dead I’m dead and the dead don’t care so />
  you’d want to be checking your rosaries now and saying your prayers because time is

  I’m not afraid to die, she countered, I’ve made my peace with God so I have no fear of meeting him and

  Darragh’s face knitted into an expression of complex surprise, but he held off on any comment till we were driving home that evening, shaking his head to underline his bewilderment when he wondered aloud

  what sort of a life would you need to have lived in order to be able to say something like that without sounding foolish or arrogant

  I doubt Onnie ever gave much thought to the sort of life she lived, she just lived it, got on with it and now

  Darragh’s voice broke up with a dry laugh

  I can see her now, standing before God on the floor of heaven, saying, is that all you got bitch, is that your best shot

  you think she’d adopt that tone

  she can adopt any tone she likes, that’s the gist of what she is going to say, she is going to kick ass, laugh judge and jury out of his own court

  I hope their meeting won’t be that combative

  that’s what God hopes also but He won’t know what hit him, she’ll flatten Him and then moonwalk out of there with the keys of the kingdom in her blue housecoat

  that would be worth seeing, granny moonwalking with her stick

  no, come the resurrection Onnie will be restored to the full of her health, throwing away her stick will be part of the deal, she’ll probably be reborn as an action movie heroine, telling Him you can kiss my arse, her parting words and