by Dermot Healy
So how did it go?
I couldn’t do it, said May.
Aw.
I couldn’t do it. She shook her head furiously. I looked out and I thought, I can’t.
Hah, said Gilmartin, and he tapped a fag with his little finger. What did I tell you?
I looked down at the fields and the little roads, said May, then the inspector said go.
The instructor, said Fintan.
Whatever you call him.
Go on, said Marise.
But I couldn’t.
No.
So they circled again and there was these ones here behind me, Fintan and Sheila and Do, and they were to go after me, but I couldn’t.
And that made it worse, said Fintan.
Right, said Do.
So the plane came round a second time and my head felt light, no, not this time, then they came round a third and I wanted to do it, I swear, didn’t I?
You did, said Do.
Just to step right out.
That’s it, said Fintan.
I saw myself doing it, said May, but I couldn’t, so he put Fintan first and Fintan went.
I did.
Then Sheila.
I didn’t look, I just went, she said.
And round again one more time and Do was in front of me and I’m saying to myself the next time, the next time I will, but Do went and I was alone and I didn’t and it was terrible.
Ah well.
To have gone all that way for nothing, for nothing, said May sadly.
There’ll be another time, said Marise.
Never, said May, shaking her head, never.
And she sat down.
the instructor
I was polishing a glass by the till.
Does anything ever go wrong? I asked Fintan.
What sort of thing? asks Gilmartin.
Well, explained Do, the man most at risk is the inspector.
The instructor, said Fintan, correcting her.
Whoever he is, said Do, he’s the man in danger.
Do you tell me so? asked Gilmartin, and he swung round on his stool. How the fuck is that?
Tell him to listen to Do, will you? said Marise.
Listen to Do, I said.
I am listening.
Well, stay quiet, said Marise.
What I want to know is how the bloody instructor can be at risk when these folk are only novices?
Because he’s up there with you, announced Do. And you’ve all jumped out and he thinks I might as well go as well. He thinks to himself I’ll be quicker going down with this lot than going back by plane.
What’s wrong with that?
Well, you see, he has no parachute on.
Fuck me, said Gilmartin and his eyes bulged. What the fuck did he jump for?
He forgot.
He forgot?
He forgot he had no parachute on.
Fuck me, said Gilmartin and he whistled.
9
could you hug someone?
In the Rap that night they talked parachuting flying coasting planes jets the speed of light paradiving the force of gravity Dunnes Stores black holes ley lines mental telepathy sonic booms suicide, then the Lotto winner Annie Levi and her husband came in.
They’d picked up two hundred and fifty grand maybe a month previously and had not been seen since. The town was rife with rumours. They had gone back to his native Italy, they were in New York. They’d sold up. They were going to court to fight each other over the cash. Now here they were, dressed as usual, being congratulated on all sides. Each trip I made to their table I came back with a fair tip.
Gilmartin knew this. He was watching through the mirror all that was going on behind his back.
I see you chatting the rich, he said.
Don’t be a silly fellow, I said.
Do you notice, he sneered, how they are smiling a little too often?
Wouldn’t you?
And touching each other.
It’s normal.
Do you see that?
See what?
They’re at it.
Well, don’t look.
I can’t help looking. Jesus, they’ve just done it again.
Done what.
Touching! You’d swear they had only just met.
You’re jealous.
Come here.
What?
Come here to me.
I’m here.
Could you hug someone? he hissed.
What brought this on?
Never mind. I asked you Could you hug someone?
You’re joking.
I’m serious.
Man or woman?
Makes no difference.
A’ course I could.
I could never hug anyone. Anyone, he repeated, and he went back to the mirror.
Jimmy Quinlivan
Watch out, said Marise, there’s Jimmy.
Jimmy Quinlivan was a dapper, middle-aged customer who chatted incessantly. He was going through his second childhood. In a cap and wide red tie, white runners and brightly brilliantined grey hair he moved among the students, having a glass of Guinness with the Claremorris lesbians, a whiskey with the sculptors from Westport. Jimmy likes slumming among the students. It gives him a kick.
He’s something in the kitchen in the hospital and rides round town on a Honda in a long black coat.
He looks in most nights.
If the shop is quiet he heads off elsewhere. Other nights, like now, he goes from group to group talking like someone stoned. Sometimes the students bring him home to their parties. He’d even slept on the couch in High Street and wandered the house till all hours fretting over some slight.
Jimmy, I said, what can I get you?
A Powers, he said. Have you any change for Scotch dollars?
Ah balls, Jimmy.
He suddenly saw the Lottery couple. He studied them from afar, took his whiskey and, before I could stop him, he lit across the room and landed as if by chance at the table next to them.
He smiled, they smiled.
Keep an eye on him, said Marise, he’s high.
I came over.
Are you all right, Jimmy?
Why wouldn’t I be? I’m just chatting Annie here. I knew your mother, he said.
You did? asked Annie.
Why wouldn’t I? he said and leaned in and tipped his glass off theirs.
Two hundred and fifty thou’, he shook his head. That’s a fair lump of lolly. He gave an erratic laugh and was consumed by a long drawn-out cough.
They looked at me.
Jimmy, I said.
It’s my birthday tomorrow, he said.
Happy birthday, I said.
Yes, said Jimmy, I’m all of sixty-two.
The couple began emptying their glasses.
I said, I’m sixty-two.
I heard you, said Annie.
Hold on there and let me get you a drink.
No thank you, she said.
Sure, aren’t we all the one?
Excuse me, said her husband.
Excuse me, my arse. A few weeks ago you were slinging hash just like myself.
That’ll do, I told Jimmy.
Are you speaking to me?
Yes, I am.
He’s speaking to me, he said to Annie, and me minding my own business.
Fine, I said.
Sure we’re only having a bit of fun, said Jimmy. Isn’t that right?
That’s right, said Annie.
that’s right
That’s right, said a student in marketing who’d just come out of the toilet pocketing the remains of a joint. He sat down at the wrong table, with the solicitors, helped himself to a cigarette and looked round for a light.
Do you mind? he asked.
No.
He met the eye of the man that held the flaming match.
Do I know you?
Just to see.
Yous have changed.
Over the years, laughed the solicitor.
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Larry took the light and looked round at the others.
I don’t know. Yous are not the people I was with, he said.
No, said the solicitor.
I thought so. What did you do with them?
We hijacked them.
Good for you, said Larry. Still and all they were nice people.
If you say so.
Seriously though.
Yes?
Where are they?
Who?
My crowd.
Larry, I said, your crowd are over there.
Did they move or what?
No you did.
Jazus. How did that happen?
He got up and shook hands with everyone.
That was very nice, he said. Yous are very nice people.
He took my elbow.
Are you all right now? I asked as I steered him towards his table.
Never better.
He studied Do.
Is that you, Do? he asked.
That’s me, she said.
Good. He sits and calls me with a fluttering hand. He brings his mouth to my ear. Who were those suits I was with?
The law, I said.
Hit me, he says.
All airs and graces, shouts Jimmy.
Hit me, says Larry.
You’ll not look down on me, roars Jimmy, and he’s on his feet. He spat on the floor and toed it into the carpet.
Hit me with your rhythm stick, shouts Larry.
I should have jumped, says May.
do you wanna wake up with a crowd aroun’ ya?
The Italian who won the Lotto rises. He prods a finger into Jimmy’s face, says nothing and sits again. Annie puts her hands on her husband’s shoulder, leans over and looks long and hard at Jimmy.
Mister, she says, do you wanna wake up with a crowd aroun’ ya?
What’s that?
You heard me.
Did you hear what she said to me? shouts Jimmy.
C’mon, I say.
She threatened me! She threatened Jimmy Quinlivan, an auld man.
Jimmy, I say.
But I did nothing wrong.
C’mon.
He drains his drink and says, But it’s my birthday tomorrow.
Happy birthday, I say.
He walks ahead of me. At the door he stops and considers shouting back one more time.
Don’t, Jimmy.
You can’t do this to me.
You’re annoying the customers.
They’re not customers. They’re tramps.
Come back tomorrow.
Never! I’ll never set foot in this kip again.
Suit yourself.
He takes a gander over my shoulder.
Go on, Jimmy.
You can’t do this, he says, I’m a republican.
Go on home.
And I’m a chef as well.
Good night, Jimmy.
You’ll be hearing from me, he says.
It’s all go, Jimmy.
I know about you, boy, he whispered. The boys across the water did for you.
The door closes behind him.
10
he’s growing old
We pull the blinds. I start on the jacks and work backwards to the tables ending up by the door. Marise clears the till. The boss stacks the glasses and bottles and mops the floor. He heads into the back quarters and returns in his carpet slippers with the Alsatian leaping behind him.
Go down, Judo!
The dog runs to me. I avoid making eye contact with the animal. Gilmartin sits in his place changing stations. The dog snuggles by his feet. I throw a last few darts at the dartboard then douse the main lights and sit by the window that looks into the yard. Marise brings us ham and tomato sandwiches. The boss scoffs his with tendons straining. The dog has crisps. He picks them carefully out of the bag one at a time. Marise brings me my first pint of the night. I light a Major. She sits at the far end of the room sipping a gin and water. No ice. No lemon. Just plain Gordons.
She opens the evening newspaper to the racing pages. She ponders a while.
Would you enquire of the lady how her gambling is going these days?
I look her way.
Tell him it’s going fine.
I look back at him.
I’m glad to hear it, he says. It’s nice to know that the joint will be here when I get home.
Anything else? I ask.
If she happens upon a good thing, tell her I’d be obliged if she’d let you know.
He puts a hand in under his armpit and smelt his fingers then he bounced backwards and forwards on his seat.
What’s wrong with ya? I ask.
I’m stiff.
He’s growing old, says Marise.
Tell her that has to happen too.
I hear ya.
Yes, he says, contentedly, that has to happen too.
This wonderful sense of randomness sets in. The light on the till glows. The bar grows comfortable and strange. I should have jumped. Flip me, but you’re an innocent type of a man. What are you saying? Do ya wanna wake up with a crowd around’ ya? The ice machine clatters. Nothing much happens. Then it starts again. Is Scots Bob out yet? Has he done his time, and if he has, will they come looking?
the Cavan bus
The best time to be in a bar is when it’s closed, says Gilmartin.
You’re right, I said. I have a touch of vertigo tonight.
Well, don’t look over the edge.
I won’t.
We sit in our separate silences while transvestites talk on Channel 4 of out-of-body experiences. I take a second pint and grow benign, meaning it goes straight to me head.
He switches to a black-and-white thirties comedy on TNT.
Did you know, I said, that Sligo is on the same ley line as Paris and Rome and Egypt and the pyramids?
Is that what’s wrong? he says.
Is he trying to be funny? she says.
What’s the difference between being cross and being paranoid? I ask the boss.
There’s a slim line between the two, he replies.
I dare say.
I wouldn’t dwell on it, he says.
I get a fit of laughter.
Marise comes across to my table with another drink. She turns her wedding ring round.
Jimmy was high, she says.
He was, I say.
Gilmartin snorts. He’s straight in off the Cavan bus, he says.
Don’t be making fun of poor Jimmy, says Marise. He’s all right.
He flicks off the TV and comes over and sits at our table. With a loud sigh Judo gets up and follows him. We sit in silence a while, doodling mentally, travelling away from where we are, making cross sections of what has happened, and what will.
The poor banished children of Eve, he says.
Ah balls.
The three of us there like old faithfuls. He lifts his pint in the half-light and I lift mine, hold it back just in time. The mirror image has started again. As he drinks, I catch a glimpse of my own reflection.
a woman’s heels
As I pass the £1 shop a figure steps out from under the awnings.
She watches me pass. A woman’s heels clicking smartly behind me.
She steps by me, holding her skirt down.
The top of one black boot bounces as she walks.
The woman from Veritas.
The truth folk are following me about the town.
the cast
The light was on in the kitchen though it was well gone one, and Liz was there.
Do you mind if I take a cast of your face? she asks me.
I don’t mind.
You see, I have to have a project in by tomorrow.
What do you want me to do?
I want you to lie on the floor.
Oh. I lay down. Like this?
That’s perfect.
She knelt down with the basin beside her and began to pat the plaster gently into place round my cheeks and chin.
I
t’s like being at a ladies’ beauty parlour, I say.
Don’t talk any more.
OK.
Are you comfortable?
Hm!
It’s nice and wet, isn’t it?
Hm!
We have to watch, she said, that we don’t catch your eyelashes.
She patted two eye patches into place. The room went black. Her hands hurried.
And you’ll have to breathe through your nose.
Hm!
Don’t move.
Her hands cupped my face.
OK?
She undid my shirt.
We don’t want to get it dirty, do we? she said. Are we panicking in there?
Ah!
Don’t talk.
It’s all right, she said, it’ll only take a few minutes.
She put the flat of her hand on my chest.
It’s grand, she said, it’s coming along nicely.
Ah!
Sh! You’ll crack the mould
I hear the kettle boiling. Her steps, water pouring, a chair righted, my own breathing.
Now, she says, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll put on some nice music.
I listened to Brahms as the plaster hardened. She ran her fingers round my neck.
Not too long now, she said.
An itch began on my right cheek. It beat like a trapped fly.
Is the plaster very cold?
She tapped it. The sound echoed through my head.
We’re nearly there, she said.
She combs my hair back.
Right, she said.
She lifted the cast off and took the linen from my eyes. I lay there shirtless.
You were very good, she said.
Thank you, I said, sitting up.
Look, she said.
She showed me the cast.
That’s you in there.
There I was, from inside out. Smiling.
the bed
Because she’s with me I can climb the stairs in peace. I wish Lizzie good night at her door. I undress according to my system, but get the order wrong as regards the boots after the shirt because the shirt is already off. Anyway according to the system it’s best to have the shirt just before the socks. I sit a while on the edge of the bed looking at my feet. I think I hear someone moving.