by Dermot Healy
I had enough.
The mother left me alone at the beginning. I still had ambition, you know. I’d go down into the kitchen in the middle of the night and eat something out of the fridge, take a bottle of 7-Up to the room and stroll on. After a while she used to come pounding at the door but I didn’t budge. I was off thrashing – paddling though sweat and hallucinations.
Come out of there, she called.
No.
Get out of that bed.
No.
Blast you!
She’d disappear for a while then shout from the bottom of the stairs, Oliver!
No.
There’s people here to see you!
Who?
People.
Mummies is it?
What are you saying?
I don’t want to see them.
She came flying up the stairs. Threw open the door.
Get out of the bed, Oliver!
No.
After a while she relented. One morning she brought me a tray and I supped anxiously. The nerves were shattered. After that she never gave off to me. Sometimes she’d sit a while going through small talk, talking of anything that came into her head, neighbours, chickens, politicians. How the days were lengthening. Blue lightning. Minks. The Rory Borry Yellows.
We’d go through silences together while our minds raced.
Eventually one afternoon I went downstairs. She was sitting by the fire, alone.
Are you back?
I am, I said.
Well, you’re welcome.
a sad case
A few weeks after they threw a party in memory of Marty and Redmond down in Gerties. The Not-So-Bads played. My father came over on the Holyhead boat for the occasion. Himself and my mother at a table to the side of the bandstand. He accepted everyone’s hand, stood and listened to their words of consolation, as he’d heard them weeks before at the funeral, then he handed the mourner on to my mother, who sat there, smiling oddly.
Marty’s parents went from table to table, then eventually sat alongside my folks.
The band thrashed out medley after medley like demons. Then Mr Gilmartin arrived with his wife and he joined the band to play Dixieland and Jewish rhapsodies. Gilmartin was in his element on the trombone. And often I saw his wife as she moved around stop every so often and look over at him as if she were trying to piece together the face of someone she’d once known.
Who’s that over there?
Who were we at all?
We were members of the Where-The-Fuck-Are-We Tribe listening to the Not-So-Bads.
Gilmartin liked old-fashioned jazz. He liked to sing “Because That’s My Home”, “It’s Raining in Georgia” and sometimes he’d slip into country with “Water, Cool Clear Water”. Behind him sat Freddy on drums who turned white when he was twenty. Mammy! He was doing lovely accurate slaps and strokes away by himself, finishing one rhythm and beginning another, just a hint of another, without telling, heading off into a tune that was not the right one at all, then shouting Mammy! into the mike. As he hit the base chords the banjo player jutted his lower teeth. The man on lead was smiling. Mister Gilmartin would turn round to him in mid-tune, then stage left, where tall Gerry the butcher was on base, a trifle pale in the face, his head down, thick fingers curling going round the fretboard.
I forgot where I was and found myself going to the music.
Then the father gives me a nod. I went over to his table.
What do you want? I asked.
He mumbled something but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.
What did you say? I said.
He stood.
He shook his head.
Here, get a drink for the band, he says and he handed me some sterling.
this long empty floor
The boys thought it up. La Loo was there and some of the lads who were at the Clapham party. No speeches, just music, drink and food prepared by both families.
After the handshaking, the locals stood sheltering each other at the bar, watching everything. The widows arranged against the walls did not move. It was supposed to be a celebration, but no one asked anyone out. At one stage, in a break between tunes, Johnny came across to the range, tipped a tincture from his glass of whiskey onto the tiles and said, A drop for the dead. He glanced at me, then made his way back out to the shop again.
The music continued. It was strange to listen to a band with no one dancing. In front of us was this long empty floor, this long empty wooden floor and windows that gave on to the Atlantic. The General made an appearance for a few minutes to dance with himself, he worked his fingers and dug his toes into the boards, but then he realized he was out there alone. He was at the wrong do. Shamefaced he made his way to the toilet.
Few people were talking. And soon no one talked at all. All stood or sat without moving while the band played on in another dimension. At last came “The Soldier’s Song”. We all stood to attention for the anthem. Come the drum roll. Then the place emptied. Some of us stayed on for a while in the dimly lit shop, then we made our way down the blue alt. La Loo and myself said our goodbyes and I wandered the road. I stood in the immense darkness and heard the sea rock in the distance. A lighthouse was pulsing towards Donegal. It was a noble night.
When I got to the house the father was asleep on the sofa with his case beside him packed for going on the morrow. On the ground was a small saucer with a single butt squashed out. For a while I had forgotten about his existence. Now here he was. I looked at him a while and went on to my room where he should have been sleeping.
I don’t forgive you, I heard him saying again.
I don’t forgive you.
I pulled the hood of my sweater over my head and sat on the bed waiting till the listening stopped
About the Author
Dermot Healy was a poet, novelist and dramatist. He lived in County Sligo and was the author of A Goat’s Song, Sudden Times, The Bend for Home and Long Time, No See. He won the Hennessy Award (twice), the Tom Gallon Award, the Encore Award and the AWB Vincent American Ireland Fund Literary Award. He died in 2014.
By the Same Author
fiction
BANISHED MISFORTUNE & OTHER STORIES
FIGHTING WITH SHADOWS
A GOAT’S SONG
LONG TIME, NO SEE
non-fiction
THE BEND FOR HOME
poetry
THE BALLYCONNELL COLOURS
WHAT THE HAMMER
Copyright
First published in the UK in 1999 by The Harvill Press
First published in this edition in 2015
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2015
All rights reserved
© Dermot Healy, 1999
The right of Dermot Healy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Cover design by Faber.
Cover photograph © Chris Harrison / Millennium
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–28187–9
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