Sudden Times

by Dermot Healy

  I couldn’t eat my dinner for breakfast, says Bolger.

  That so?

  It’s repellent, says Liz.

  They both watch as I dip a slice of bread in the sauce.

  I like my food, I say. Once you pass twenty you get less choosy. The problem is until then you’re spoiled. Then it begins to wear off.

  Oh yeah, she says.

  That’s the way it is.

  When I turn twenty, she said thoughtfully, I’d like my own space. A big barn with plenty of light.

  I see it, says Bolger.

  No clutter.

  Right.

  A bunk bed at the top of a ladder in a little recess. Do you know what I mean?

  I do, I say.

  Oh dear, she laughs. What I want is a big barn, huge, and she cups her face in her hands.

  OK, I say.

  I’m not saying you can’t live there too, Ollie, she says raising her face again. You can share the space with me if you want to.

  Thank you, Liz.

  Excuse me, she said, I need to go to the toilet.

  Work away.

  what about me?

  She fluttered in and sat back.

  Where was I?

  In the barn.

  With you, she said.

  That’s right.

  And what about me? asked Jim.

  We can all live there if you like, said Liz. But I’d have to think about that.

  She spooned thick yogurt onto her tongue.

  The truth is I don’t want to end up by myself. I have a dread of finding myself alone when I grow old. An old lady taking her dog to do his poo poo. I couldn’t stand that. You understand?

  I understand.

  Oh, by the way, she says.

  Yes?

  Never mind.

  She rose and stacked her dishes neatly in the sink. Her things went back into her section of the fridge. Jim’s went into his. Mine, mine. Everything went back to its proper place in the cupboard. I wiped the table she swept the floor Jim fed the puss and then we all washed our teeth. I counted the money that was left in my pocket.

  We stepped out the door together.

  I stopped a moment to view the bride that was not there.

  Postman Pat

  We went on down the hill. Liz was wearing a farmer’s fair-day cap low over her forehead. A single earing in her left ear glistened. Her lips were honey red. She was carrying canvases that were too big for her. Jim Bolger was wearing baggy corduroys stuffed into Dutch Army boots, a Palestinian scarf and a blue cardigan that reached his knees. He had a black dustbin bag over his shoulder in which he had all his needs. His walk was poncy and his body cast an errant shadow on the footpath ahead as if he in fact were someone else.

  I’d seen the same man once poring over a book in Hammersmith Library opposite the copshop.

  Yes.

  I myself was in my green shopcoat. I love it.

  This is what we looked like this particular morning as we stood by the Garavogue river feeding the swans with bread. The swans cruised out into midstream the pair headed to college and I went along the corridor of the supermarket switched on Postman Pat’s mail van and the rocking motorbike. The arcade filled. At eight-thirty I unlocked the first of the trolleys and stood looking over the car park at the glaze of heat rising from the bakery.

  Smarties

  Glad to be alive, I stepped out onto the flat roof of Doyle’s for tea at eleven. The girls sucked fags and bitched. From our perch we looked over the shoppers at the rooks screeching round the cathedral firs. A posse of Hari Krishnas shimmied in orange through the car park. A Ford backed into a Mazda. The world appeared a small place.

  You hear what happened today, Ollie? asks Julie.

  No, I say.

  Well this Dolly-Anne with a full trolley comes to the counter for rashers.

  Don’t tell him, says Mary, I’ll only wet myself.

  Go on, I say.

  Rashers, half-a-pound, she says all la-de-da, and I don’t want ones that sweat like milk on the pan.

  All right, I say.

  Give me Smarties, shouts her son.

  The mother pays him no heed.

  And five slices of ham, she adds.

  Smarties, he shouts.

  Make it six, your best, roasted.

  Smarties, he yells.

  Shut up you! she screeches. Then she turns to me. Do you call that your best ham?

  Yes.

  Well, it doesn’t look right to me.

  It’s our best, I say.

  OK, she says, if I have to.

  The young fellow swings out of her arm.

  And I’ll have a pizza with anchovies, she adds.

  Smarties, he roars.

  I like anchovies, she says, as if the child wasn’t there.

  If you don’t get me Smarties, he says loud enough for his voice to carry the length of the counter, I’ll tell everyone that you had Daddy’s mickey in your mouth this morning.

  Oh God, says Mary, giggling.

  Well, the place went silent.

  The shame of it, says Mary.

  So your one abandoned the trolley and everything in it and flew out the door with him in the air behind her.

  Jesus, I said.

  That took the wind out of the bitch.

  I wouldn’t like to be him when she got him home, I say.

  Me neither.

  Stop it, said Mary, it hurts.

  In her mouth, laughs Julie.

  Jesus!

  The cow, Julie added and she put her fag out with the toe of her shoe. Below us the sound of the beating cymbals and drums went off into the distance. We climbed down the fire escape in bits.

  the moon

  Just before closing time the man who goes with the moon comes in.

  How are you, Joe?

  I’m rushing, says Joe Green.

  I push a trolley behind him. He buys three pieces of boiling bacon, three cabbages, one turnip and a pound of butter. A six-pack of Smithwicks. A box of candles for the storms.

  Never let it be said, he says.

  He takes an oilcloth from his shirt pocket. He tips me £1, he tips the cashier £1, then he bids me good night and heads off to the Irish House. I chain his trolley to the others and turn the key in the lock. Over the rooftops behind me the full moon is hanging in the blue sky.

  Morocco

  A voice follows me everywhere telling me what to buy, then someone switches it off and it’s replaced by another voice that says the store is closing. The store is closing! London calling! The store is closing!

  Where’s Geoffrey? I asked Maisie.

  He’s in the office.

  I knock guiltily. He waves me in. The manager is in a light-blue suit. He’s brightly shaved. He’s on the phone ticking off things in a ledger with a coloured pen. His green cap on the table is festooned with salmon flies. A rod stands in the corner. Still talking and ticking away he points me to a chair.

  He cups the phone.

  Do you know what problems I have to deal with mostly, Mr Ewing?

  Staff? I offered cautiously.

  He shook his head.

  Buying in?

  Try again.

  Sales?

  No, he says. Complaints. It’s an industry in itself.

  And he lifts the phone to his ear again. An exchange ensues in which he is mostly silent. I drift off. Everything becomes very plain and simple. Tell them all I was asking for them. Then when he turned to me I had forgotten about his existence.

  Well, Mr Ewing?

  Yes?

  You wanted to speak to me?

  That’s right.

  Well?

  Oh. I bobbed in the chair. I’d like to take my holidays.

  What?

  I nodded.

  Now?

  As soon as possible.

  Are you on the list?

  I’m down for September.

  But it’s only July.

  I know.

  He lifts down the
staff book and flicks through it.

  Is there anything wrong?

  No.

  You left this very late.

  I’m sorry, Geoffrey.

  Can you do a couple of nights before you go?

  I can.

  Can you do tonight?

  Yes.

  Then there’s no problem, he says, and he scores a line through the month. I’m short tonight. If you can do tonight you can leave tomorrow.

  Thank you, Geoffrey. It’s good of you.

  No problem.

  I stand to leave.

  Are you going far?

  I hesitate.

  I might take a week in Morocco.

  Oh.

  the Kellogg’s freak

  Already the night staff have gathered to pack and unpack the shelves and I join them.

  Some nights nothing happens. For weeks everything remains more or less where it is. The ciders and honeys and cornflakes come to rest. The mango chutneys settle. The Worcester, Yorkshire and Chef sauces sit content. And just when we know where everything is, Geoffrey has a whim, he grows fretful, and the whole thing starts all over.

  This evening that’s what happens. He walks the aisles behind me brooding on variety. Whole commodities move house and turn up elsewhere. Creamed rice is upgraded, it moves from among the peas and beans to a shelf next door to the wines. In a few days, much diminished, it will return back to where it was. Or maybe head on somewhere else. All the tins of Roma tomatoes are on the move. They find themselves next the cheeses, then the cheese takes off, along with the yogurts, to a new refrigerator by the meats.

  Curry pastes are on the go.

  Toilet rolls take up a new position by the floor polish.

  Geoffrey goes up on his toes and views the displays from various perspectives, makes an adjustment here and there, lifts a can and studies it, replaces it, stands back and feels his bottom lip with the fingers of his right hand. He goes by colour. He looks through the eyes of the potential customer. He strides to and fro becoming a shopper from the Point, a wine bibber from Tubber, a Kellogg’s freak down off the mountain, an obsessive meat eater from anywhere, till at last he steps out into the summer evening with his rod.

  The rock music comes on. We attack the heights. Then someone sets off the alarm. Feeling sentimental, I stack jelly near where the biscuits have been, shift deodorants to the other side of the toiletries, and pack the previous day’s bread into boxes for the old folk’s home and the asylum. A lorry backs into the shed and one of the men sings in a tenor voice. A tenor voice is a blessing.

  half-two!

  Half-two! Half-two! The night passes. At last we step out into the car park with plastic bags of meat and chicken that have reached their sell-by date.

  The night staff stream in various directions home.

  I walk the town like a UFO.

  the buffs

  The streets were empty. The night sky olive. I found myself alone at the bottom of High Street. I stopped to read what new message they had underlined for me in the Bible in Veritas.

  Señor, a voice says from overhead.

  I stepped back.

  Is that you, Ray? I called up.

  That’s me. He was leaning out on the sill in his shirt sleeves.

  So what’s new?

  I’m going to be Santa Claus again this year.

  Are you?

  I am indeed. Are you in a hurry?

  No.

  Then stop there.

  A few minutes later he stepped out onto the street and pulled the gate of the shop behind him.

  I couldn’t sleep from thinking of the match.

  What match?

  What match? he repeated. What match? You’re out of touch, señor. We’re playing Shamrock Rovers tomorrow.

  We stood on the dark street watching crows pick rubbish by the monument. Ray looks sickly in the street light. His eyes are dark and huge, and his chin is unshaven. His large belly is tied laxly by a thick belt. His jeans ride low over his buttocks. He’s wearing spotless black shoes. I light up.

  It’s fifteen years since I smoked a cigarette, to the very day, he says.

  You remember the exact day?

  I do.

  You’re tough. I can’t remember what I was doing yesterday.

  Well, this is it. You’re mind is contaminated. Think of Job. You know your Job?

  I do.

  Well, everything was against him and look what he done. Right?

  Right.

  Job was the boy.

  He was.

  So which way are we going?

  We took off towards the Cathedral.

  We strolled cross the gravel path then tipped away into the dark moonless grounds.

  I was on the radio yesterday, says Ray.

  You’d have a nice radio voice.

  Do you say so? Well, I told the buck that there were no good people in politics. The people that put you in want their pound of flesh, I said, so what the politician does is pay his dues and stash a bit away. The town of Sligo should be a paradise, I said to him, but it’s not.

  It’s not, I said.

  Aye. But the buck laughed. He didn’t want to know. He thought he was talking to an idiot. But I said, Listen, listen to what Marx has to say, so I quoted him Marx. I gave him a dollop of that, and I followed up by knocking Darwin and evolution and then I mentioned Jesus. Jesus too had his struggles with the dealers and the conmen, I said. He put them out of the temple.

  He did.

  That was a rare man, señor.

  He was.

  He is!

  That’s right.

  We cut across through the car park.

  If Sligo Rovers win tonight you know what I’m going to do?

  What’s that?

  I’m going to refrain from sweet things for a week. If you don’t do your penance you’ll be visited. You have to watch out if you’re doing wrong. But you have to be twice as careful if things are going well. That’s when you’re in trouble.

  We passed over the bridge and stopped to look at the sky.

  What star are you? he asked me.

  Pisces.

  Don’t rush things, he says. That’d be your main bother.

  And you?

  He looked at me with haughtiness.

  I’m Aries, he says, the ram.

  You look like a ram.

  A saintly ram, he said. You see I’m on the cusp. The brother is Cancer. He’s highly strung. Up all night long.

  Like ourselves.

  That’s right. But since he found God he’s easy enough to live with.

  We headed along the Garavogue. With a sort of sadness, I saw one of my trolleys had been dumped and upended in the river.

  The late mother was born on the full moon in February, continued Ray. It was a terrible house to grow up in.

  Now.

  We studied the new apartments.

  See what the buffs built, he says. You get the buff in from the country and he’ll build fucking anything. He’d pave over the fucking river if you let him.

  We went up the alley and came out again at the monument.

  That’s better, says Ray. I’m the better of that.

  See you, Ray.

  Good night, señor, he says. And watch the auld personality problems, he added, closing the gate behind him. Then he climbed to the one-room flat he has over Veritas.

  the dance

  Liz was asleep on the sofa in the living room with a sheet thrown over her. I touched her shoulder.

  Where were you? she asked.

  Out and about.

  You know I can’t sleep if you’re not home.

  I’m sorry.

  She sat up.

  I was waiting on you, she said.

  I was working late.

  I thought you were on days.

  I was, but then I had to work nights, I said.

  But it’s half-past four in the morning.

  She pulled the sheet around her shoulders.


  And you won’t, she said, be able to get up in the morning.

  I don’t have to. I’m going on holidays.

  What? she said, offended.

  I’m going on holidays.

  You didn’t tell me that.

  I only decided this evening.

  She got up and waltzed across the floor. I watched her thinking of what she must not be thinking. She dropped the sheet and stepped through her upright arms. Took graceful aim with her nostrils. Hummed. With her hands made wheels. Waded with slow steps across the linoleum. Advanced, turned. Brought herself serenely serenely slowly slowly to a stop. With a humble obeisance. A closing of the eyes. A nod.

  Where? she asked, where are you going?

  Morocco, I said.

  the Sligo Champion

  Ollie, she said.

  Aye.

  Ollie, she said. Please stop looking into my room at night.

  OK, I said.

  I can feel you there when you do it.

  Can you?

  It’s very unnerving. She studied me. Will you take me with you?

  I will.

  Then I’ll bake a fruit cake for the train, she said. I spread the Sligo Champion across the kitchen table while Liz put the kettle on.

  The dreams I had, she said. I was rowing out to Inishmurray Island in a tea chest.

  Jesus, I said.

  And I ran into your room, but you weren’t there.

  She put her head under the kitchen tap and began to wash her hair over the dishes, tittering away, then she towelled her scalp vigorously and sat opposite me, a cup in her hand and her head done up in a turban.

  You looked in again at me last night, didn’t you?

  I did.

  I thought so.

  Only for a second.

  Tut-tut, she said. I can always tell when you are in the room.

  She stood and commenced a series of cat sounds as she looked into the cupboard, she leaned forwards with an ironic moan, lifted a jar of coffee and purred, sat, away in her own world, started a series of coos, half-bird, half-cat, and looked me in the eye.

  Tomorrow?

  The day after.

  She sprung to her feet.