by Dermot Healy
No.
I dart a look out the window just in case. No one.
I look back at the bed and I’m afraid of that bed. I know that I have a long night’s thinking ahead of me. So I put on Queen low and climb beneath the sheets. Then it starts. The Irish are too fucking Irish, don’t you agree? says Scots Bob. Are you all right, mate? You look a bit pale. I switch the tape off. Someone passes below on the street. Their conversation reaches my room and in my mind it turns into another conversation altogether. This happens a few times, so that I’m thinking other people’s thoughts and making them my own without meaning to till I’ve gone far beyond the expectations I had when I lay down. Then the talk goes into the interior. The window of the cleaners steams up. The lorry pulls in and I know what I will find in the back.
I don’t want to look. I go searching for a sound outside myself.
Time to go! Time to go! Rain! Rain! Rain!
When I wake a few minutes later it sounds as if I’d left the radio on.
I’ve been singing Ry Cooder in my sleep. There’s a lot of static in the consciousness. Where was I? If I start to think I get the tenses mixed. It’s neither here nor there.
Just a clicking noise from the tank above.
I wait for it, but it doesn’t happen. So I tiptoe into Liz’s room. She is sleeping lovely.
the slow waltz
I’m nearly away again when this crowd come out of a nightclub up the street. Men’s shoes, women’s shoes, an argument that’s not yet finished.
The mother starts calling.
Come here, Natasha! she screeches.
No!
Come here, Natasha, she yells again, this very moment.
There is a sudden dash across the street. Heels strike the pavement.
If I catch you, I’ll strangle you! Come here!
No!
Natasha!
I’ll slow dance with Daddy if I want to! shouts Natasha.
NATASHA!
Natasha takes off. Mother takes off after her. Their footsteps race into the distance.
11
the morning shift
Step onto the street and close the door quietly. Eureka! The breezy town of Sligo below me is still sleeping. Cartons from the chipper fly crazily round the foot of the monument. The night staff let me in at seven. Not a soul but the butchers and the vegetable men. Vapour from the freezers drifts like incense behind the meat counter as the prawns are arranged in trays.
Lorries arrive from the east coast with tons of potatoes and cabbages that are tipped onto pallets. George, in his straw hat with the blue ribbon, and his white coat with the blue collar, is trimming chops and slicing ham. The pizza fillings are spread. The fish van from Donegal stalls in the car park. Bread from the midlands is wheeled by.
I’m stacking shelves at seven-thirty, sweeping down between the aisles and packing frozen foods. Then I unlock the trolleys by half-past eight. Plug in Postman Pat.
The tills start ringing. The crowds trundle in.
We’re off.
small talk
That’s what keeps me alive.
that crowd
I don’t mention any more to anyone about the crowd that are after me.
When I did, their eyes would go all hazy. You could tell they thought I was out of my tree.
I’m at the cereals
This is supposed to have happened, but since I did not witness it I can’t be sure. A bloke stopped up in one of the aisles and put the mobile phone to his ear.
I’m at the cereals, he said.
Fuck me.
out on the roof
It’s where we go for the break. I bought some luncheon meat at ten and stepped onto the flat roof with Frieda. Below us shoppers moved aimlessly like survivors heading home from the wars. Frieda lit up and told me she was O-negative and her man was O-positive.
Is that bad news?
Flip me, she said. If you’re pregnant it is.
I see.
And I’m pregnant.
So what do you do?
Nothing now, till the child is born. Then if I get pregnant again I have to get an injection. But if I had known at the beginning it would still make no difference. You don’t turn over to your man in the bed and say Hauld on Jimmy, put that thing away, put that thing back a minute, and tell me are you positive or negative?
No, you can’t.
Flip me.
We sat talking of sex pregnancy wages and sunshine while beneath us the shoppers milled by. As Frieda talks of Majorca my mind wanders. I have always had a soft spot for pregnant ladies. She has a soothing voice that opens a gap onto solace. I go over the rooftops. The twenty minutes are gone. I’m off. I pause for blue cheese from Kerry on a water biscuit.
A bottle crashes behind the wine counter.
Over the intercom comes my name.
Will Mr Ewing go to the car park, please?
Mrs Brady
I make my way back whistling. Gerry nods towards Mrs Brady who is standing by the trolleys.
Morning, Mrs Brady, I say cheerfully.
I push her provisions out to the car.
Things are something terrible, she says. You can’t trust anybody.
No.
It’s come to a sorry pass.
It has.
There’s hormones in the beef and tranquillizers in the bacon. There’s men with breasts and women with mickeys. All from eating meat.
Now.
I steer a path between a crowd of people while she keeps step alongside.
Can you believe it – they’re feeding the pigs Valium. If you boil a bit of bacon you have to lie down afterwards. Dear oh dear.
Yes, I nod.
The thought of food makes me ill.
The pigs are getting depressed in those sheds. If they get depressed they lose weight. So they tranquillize them. Where will it end?
I don’t know, Mrs Brady, I say. I begin filling the boot.
That’s why I started buying lamb. Then along came Chernobyl. Now you can’t even have lamb stew or you’ll light up at night! I swear. And when they’ve left you with nothing safe to eat, next thing they come along and tell you you can’t live in your own house.
I haven’t heard of that one, Mrs Brady.
Listen to me. She took my elbow. It could all happen that you’re in your own house and the next thing is there’s radiation bubbling under the floorboards.
What?
It comes out right at you through the foundations. Watch the yogurts. Did you hear of that?
No.
I saw it in the Champion. Did you not see it in the Champion?
I might have.
No wonder we’re not right.
I brought the lid of the boot down. She sits into the car very decorously and snaps her bag open on her lap. She winds down the window and gives me 50p for myself and £1 for the trolley.
panties
Thank you, Mrs Brady.
She switches the radio on, dons her dark glasses and feels round in her bag for her key.
Just then the both of us hear the lady talking to the announcer on Radio 2.
Say that word panties again, Gerry, please.
Panties, says Gerry and the word shoots across the car park.
Oh Gerry, I love how you say that word.
My God, says Mrs Brady, and she gave a giant rev.
Say it again, says the lady.
Panties, repeats Gerry.
Mrs Brady took off.
anybody
Patsy Boyle lights a cigarette and stands by the trolleys looking out at a summer shower sweeping over the car park. A crowd gather around us with lowered umbrellas.
He edges close to me.
It happens, he says.
It does.
We stare out at the rain. It smells like bottled Guinness. It pelts the roofs of cars like hail.
Who’s that fellow coming? he asks.
I don’t know.
I thought I knew him to see. Patsy consid
ered the man as he shuffled towards us, head down, in the rain. It’s very peculiar. Very peculiar. I suppose he could be anybody.
That’s exactly who he is, Patsy.
Just anybody.
That’s the one.
The man we’d been watching passed between us.
I could have sworn, says Patsy, and he shook his head.
a handy concept
The hands of the clock move on. The shower eases off. The crowd hoist their umbrellas and run across the car park.
Did you ever think you were here before? asks Patsy.
Sometimes.
It’s a handy concept. Whatever goes wrong is not your fault. It was the fellow in the other life is to blame. Yes. Well I suppose, he says, I better venture.
He turns up his collar under his ears and darts away.
who was that man?
Who was that man? asks a woman who is sitting on the bench with her head wrapped in a scarf, like an Arab.
That was Patsy Boyle, I say.
Was that him? she says as she stows her bags between her legs.
The same.
I thought so. He was with Telecom once, wasn’t he?
He was.
So was my fellow, Jimmy. My husband, she explains, giving the word husband a rarefied twang, then she nods. He should be here for me, but he’s not.
Two New Age travellers sit down by her and begin to eat a Mars bar each, taking small, polite, measured bites.
She brings the bags closer to her.
You see, she says, he had to go off to the station to collect Georgina. I’d made a list for the big shop, and with all the to-ing and fro-ing I lost the list. He usually keeps the list and walks round with me ticking things off. He’s good at certain items, you see. But when I looked I didn’t have it. I looked everywhere, she continued. Now I don’t know what I’ve bought.
She looks into her bags.
I could have bought anything.
She lies back and sighs.
Anything under the sun.
She closes her eyes a second.
As a matter of fact, I’ll bet you he still has the list in his pocket. It wouldn’t surprise me.
She takes a look at the travellers and moistens her lips, taps the scarf on her head and looks in one of the bags.
So at least I got steaks.
She pats her lap.
What time is it?
It’s twenty to one.
Where is he?
She throws her eyes to heaven.
And you know the Sligo train is very uncertain.
She looks round her.
And I’m left sitting here, mind ya.
the nerves
She points to where Patsy had been.
And that’s when I saw Patsy Brady. That’s Patsy Brady, I said to myself.
She pauses and her voice drops.
I think they let him go, didn’t they? she whispers and puts a hand to her mouth as if she has said something dreadful.
I couldn’t tell you.
The nerves, she intimated with staring eyes.
Oh.
The poor fellow.
Then she nods.
A nice man, she says, nodding again.
She looks into her bags.
What have I bought at all?
She unearths a marigold biscuit, she turns towards the car park, peers about her, then cracks the biscuit in half and slowly, with forefinger and thumb, she eases it into her mouth. Then she suddenly shrieks.
There’s Jimmy! she says and she jumps to her feet. Jimmy! she yells and she gathers her parcels.
I’ll love you and leave ya.
Good luck, I shout.
Jimmy, she waves. Here! Jimmy!
these are my days
These are my days. This is my life.
III
Blessed Be This Day
12
studying a hair
On Wine Street I stand in the chemist’s with the Daily Mirror tucked into my pocket waiting till a shower passed. Then Jimmy Quinlivan in his motorcycle helmet lands.
Am I barred? he asks.
What?
After the other night, he says loudly, am I barred?
No, I say.
Are you sure?
Yes, I’m sure.
I don’t want to be embarrassed.
You’re not barred.
You might be only telling me that.
I’m not.
I don’t want Gilmartin giving me a hard time.
You’ll be fine.
He picks something out of his mouth, a hair maybe, studies whatever it is and shakes it free of his fingers. Then he stands in beside me. I do not want him there. I’m thinking of bad things.
very touchy
We seem to be in there a long time. After a while he speaks.
What are you doing standing here? he asks.
I’m standing in out of the rain, Jimmy.
It’s stopped.
I know.
So?
So what?
He peers up the street.
You waiting on someone?
No. I’m keeping an eye out.
For what?
Just in case.
Japers. He feels his nose very carefully. How long have you been here?
Since yesterday.
I was only asking. He takes something else out of his mouth and throws it away. You’re very touchy, he says.
There’s this crowd, you see, I said. I’m keeping an eye out for them.
Very touchy indeed, he says.
Then I was in the bookies.
So you were in the bookies?
Yes.
How did you do?
Not so good.
He purses his lips.
I used to do the nags, he said raising his eyes, once upon a time.
Did you indeed?
I did. But I gave them up as a bad job.
Good for you, Jimmy.
And I’ve never looked back.
Great.
Gilmartin, he says, should not be let near that bar.
No.
He’s driving people away.
Is he?
He is, the bollacks. But you say I’m OK.
You’re OK.
I’m OK in the Rap?
Yes, Jimmy.
the old hippy
He steps onto the pavement and feels both his cheeks with his fingertips. He pats his dapper trousers. Then he looks at the sky and looks at me.
Are you going to stop there much longer?
I might.
Will you come across for one?
No.
Fair enough.
Thanks all the same.
Would you, he asks, by any chance, be a class of an old hippy?
I might.
I thought so.
He turns to go.
Oh, Jimmy.
Yes?
Happy birthday.
Thank you.
Be seeing you.
Good luck so, he says and he takes off his helmet and saunters wide-footed up Wine Street.
good luck, Jimmy
I went back to London.
A swathe of streets.
I catch a glimpse of a vague place I once was daily. The vagueness hurts. It has no name. I try the streets and the smells that lead there, but they taper off. It’s funny. I thought it was all stored someplace nice. I have a past that’s troubling me. I walk through Clapham station again across a platform with people going south. Then I lose it.
There’s another thing –
It goes.
I search for a familiar place, a place I’d be most days. I have to try very hard. No one’s there but ghosts, fast-receding ghosts. Voices recede, nothing really except for the briefest knowledge that I was once there, wherever that is. And then I realize that where I am now, in this chemist’s doorway, will in the distant future be forgotten. Like where I was yesterday. And the day before.
The ground is disappearing
under my feet. And I get a longing, a sickening nostalgia.
I try to put myself there as I once was.
In the Portakabin waiting on Marty.
the cable
I’ve been out late. I’m after leaving the Creek caff off Hammersmith. I’m wringing. I’m after hauling cable at low tide along a dark beach in a sort of wasteland. She was a long thick black electricity cable for a power station over there to the left.
The engineer had a trick.
I have a plan, he said, bracing himself against the east wind.
He got the idea that the tide would take the cable out. Instead of digging a drain and going round by the land he’d put her into the sea. Then when the tide took her she’d drift far out and lie underwater out of harm’s way. So we winched the cable along the sand for a couple of hours and sat in the lorry watching. We had to wait for the tide to turn. There must have been an airport near for every so often these aeroplanes flew low overhead. They looked warm and bright inside. Outside it was bitter cold. The sea slopped. The engineer must have got the time for high tide wrong because it was dark when the waters started charging back. In his plaid shirt and leather jacket, he comes up the line, walking heavily in the manner of a labourer.
Right, he says. You’re all on overtime.
Some men stood out in the sea hauling on ropes. She does not budge. Others stand knee-deep in the water trying to lever her forwards with poles into the tide.
She won’t go.
The ganger shouted Heave! Heave! The men pulled, we levered like fuck and the cable lurched between the rollers. Heave! The winch screamed. The cable inched forwards. The ganger and the engineer with water swirling round their boots are disappearing behind us in the last light.
One more time.
But the sea is moving too fast. Someone loses their footing in the currents. We give up.
She won’t go. Drenched, we climb into the back. The lorry skids home along the motorway. The escalator emerges from the underground. I skip off at the top step, but instead of going into the wide space of the many-peopled station I head for the Greek caff. My good friend is not there. There is a smell of shepherd’s pie. The place is lovely and warm. I could sleep there if I was let. But Marty does not show.