The Gamal

  —Now look what you’ve done, joked James.

  —Sorry Sinéad, Henry said.

  —No, it’s just so beautiful, said Sinéad, sniffling away her tears. I’m such a dork it’s unbelievable.

  —You’re just nice, Henry said.

  —Hey back off now, said James and they all laughed.

  They were talking about Detective Crowley’s little boy who was killed on the road long ago cos the poem reminded them of it. No one could really remember him in school. Just that his name was Shane and he had dark brown hair.

  —Imagine, he could be here with us right now if he lived, James said.

  —Maybe he is, said Sinéad quietly and her eyes welling up on her again, and she looking out to sea at the moon’s reflection.

  Lull then for a bit. Just the waves and the sky and the shadows from the moon and crackling fire. Some of them were praying maybe. Then Sinéad said,

  —I’m going to sing again now, if that’s OK.

  We all went quiet. Ready for Sinéad to blow our minds and our hearts. She soaked up the attention for a moment, went all serious and then started singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.’ We laughed and Sinéad did too but kept singing so we all joined in.

  Then everyone sang some song one of the women teachers taught us. It was some Lionel Richie song and all the girls loved it. ‘Love, Oh Love’. Except we learned it in Irish. Grá is the Irish for Love. Ó is the Irish for Oh. Just in case you want to write it out. But it’s not essential. It wasn’t a major part of their minds, this song, in any language, but it was really nice then and they all singing it together and they all huddled up together and the blankets and the fire and a hint of a tint of the sun and it about to rise up out of the sea on the horizon yonder.

  We watched the sunrise together before going back. Dazzling isn’t it? In Ireland when people think of life they don’t ever think of sunrise. People don’t see much sunrises. I wonder did anyone ever say it had to be like that.

  The Library

  We lived in the library of Kent Castle that year. Especially in the summer holidays. This is a drawing of the candle stand that was in the library.

  I could spend for ever trying to explain the look of it and you still wouldn’t have it. I’m handy enough at drawing. Spent my whole life drawing at the back of the class sure. Anyhow some things I think you need to know the look of. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know myself. Anyhow the writers who describe things get pages and pages out of it so why shouldn’t I get a few pages out of my drawings?

  Sinéad would ask me to light the candles every time we went into the library. She’d say,

  —Let out the dark there Charlie. It has no place here with us.

  That meant light the candles. I’d say real quiet,

  —Get out dark.

  One time then she said,

  —Get thee hence to endless night.

  She had other candles over the fireplace and on the bookshelf and on the floor. Fat ones that stood by themselves and other little hour-lights – the ones the believers and the hopeful light in the churches for the souls of the dead and the bodies of the dying. I didn’t bother drawing the candles. Or the flame. Can’t draw fire anyway. No one can. Only a fool would try. Especially a fire that can burn no more. You can use your imagination for the flame. You can imagine the flame can’t you? The fire? I hope you can.

  When I’d the right half of the candle stand drawn I folded the page and pressed it over on to the left side, leaving an outline of it for me to trace. Mirror image. Be hard to get it right otherwise. Anyhow I think the candle stand is a credit to whoever made it a hundred or two hundred or three hundred years ago. The drawing left an imprint on the page behind it.

  Some people leave things after them after they’re gone isn’t it?

  The carpet and the curtains were the same kind of red that drying blood is.

  The ceiling was fairly high so the light that hung from it doesn’t really matter. James would be your man for a description of the ceiling, he spent half his time lying on the ground looking up at it.

  The piano was a grand piano.

  Grand pianos are hard to draw.

  This was the doorbell of the castle. Still is. But it doesn’t work any more. I tried it.

  There were two big long windows in the library. I liked them. I used to stand at the window looking down at the village and the football pitch and the river and the woods while Sinéad and James were at the piano or guitar and making their music. It was nice. There’s not much nice any more. This is one of the windows. I wanted to draw a bit of the roof and the castle walls too to give you an idea of where the windows were. I made the grey bits around the bricks by spitting on my finger and rubbing it. This was the last drawing I did. My biro ran out colouring in the roof.

  This is the other window.

  I used to be sitting in with Sinéad and James when they used to be making songs together. In the library room in the castle Sinéad would be sitting on the couch with her guitar. James would usually be lying on the floor. He’d jump up sometimes suddenly and go to the piano when he had an idea for notes to play in that part of the song. Other times they’d sing parts of the songs they worked on. James didn’t sing much, just sometimes, but he was only singing in the way a grown-up would sing along with a toddler. To encourage them along isn’t it? Sinéad needed encouragement after being told she wasn’t worth a fuck by all belonging to her, all her life. I still know the songs they had. Some of the words were a bit babyish maybe. Sinéad singing about saving all God’s children from hunger and shit like that. We can change the world with love, yeah yeah yeah kind of stuff. That was one of Sinéad’s. James’ efforts were a small bit more grown-up but they were only learning isn’t it? They were still copying a lot of the shit that they heard on the radio. And a lot of that stuff is only shit.

  But sometimes. Might be for a verse. Maybe even a whole song. But more often just for a few seconds in a song, the sound they would make. The sound that Sinéad’s voice would make. With James on the piano. The sound they would make sometimes was something that rose above. The very very very rarest beauty it was. In sound form. Sometimes. I believe they’d definitely have become famous. I don’t know that for sure of course. That’s why I said I believe. I believe that anyone who heard Sinéad’s voice would have wanted to hear more. Just like anyone who ever seen her wanted to see her again. And again. And blah. Sinéad was more-ish. In the same way, people find me less-ish.

  There was this one song that they didn’t sing, but spoke. They just spoke the lines with James playing a slow soft eerie tune on the piano. Sinéad had come up with the tune. Simple and magic cos it played tricks with your heart, the tune of it did. She’d hummed it to James, and James found it on the piano. The song was a conversation between two lovers who were dead. It was called ‘Love Song from Beyond the Grave’.

  It’s weird, all along I’ve been avoiding thinking about James and Sinéad’s singing and their songs all because of my headaches and in case an dubh would floor me again. But I’ve no headache now. I’m not crying either. Maybe I’m getting better. Maybe I’m getting worse. Maybe I’m not remembering them as good as I used to. I dunno if that’s a good thing or not. Like the brain isn’t bad at remembering but it’s shit hot altogether at forgetting. Fuck it. Only thing worse than remembering is forgetting isn’t it? Sadder. Seems very fucking unjust isn’t it?

  Just

  Adj. 1. fair and impartial; acting with fairness and impartiality 2. morally correct; done, pursued, or given in accordance with what is morally right 3. reasonable; valid or reasonable [14thC. Via French juste from Latin justus, from jus ‘law, right’.]

  It’s a pity you can’t hear Sinéad’s tune for the piano that played softly behind their voices. Soft but resilient. Put up a good fight for life, her tune did, but faded away and died in the end, just like the couple in the song. This is the start of it. The first line was James, then Sinéad,

  —So you’re dead n
ow too

  —No shit Einstein

  —Ha! . . . There were lies told

  —Damaging cruel lies babe

  —Do you miss your kids?

  —All the time. Do you?

  The voices talked about happier times and how wrong their whole lives felt cos they weren’t together. But Sinéad and James’ voices were too young for it. It needed old people’s voices. But it was the over and back that would get you. Same as life and music. The communication isn’t it? The effort. To really hear and to really be heard. And it impossible really and the way of things and the stupid daft heads up on us all. But the tune would leave you kind of stunned. This was the end of the song anyhow.

  —Think that’s the deal now

  —We evaporate

  —Goodbye

  —I loved you

  —I loved you too

  Sinéad’s tune evaporated too at the end, the way it faded. Fuck it anyhow. I just ran in to the jacks and vomited and I’ve this fucking headache. I’m going away getting tablets and some fresh air maybe. And something to get rid of the taste of vomit.

  Shane McGowan

  Shane McGowan said he only likes talking to bums and drunks. Cos they’re the only people who take the time to stop and think about anything. Most people go through their whole lives without ever having a chance to stop and think about anything. Let alone everything. I’m like an alco that doesn’t drink. When you’re thinking about something, you’re not thinking about something else isn’t it? Most people always have to be thinking about something so they never have time to be thinking about the something elses. I spend loads of time just thinking. About the something elses. Like what has money got to do with thinking? Or what has sex got to do with pride? Or what has food got to do with friendship?

  I’d say I could get along with Shane McGowan if I could understand a word the bollicks says. Slurring a lot nowadays, he is. Do you even know who he is? Imagine not knowing who Shane McGowan is. Well if you don’t, he’s a famous drunk and singer and songwriter. That’s who. Wise up.

  He’d a band called Póg Mo Thóin but when they started to become famous they had to change their name cos Póg mo Thóin means Kiss My Ass and the BBC wouldn’t play any song on the telly or on radio by a band called Kiss My Ass cos the queen would get offended cos she has no ass. So they changed the name to The Pogues so they could make money in England cos everyone knows that’s where the money is. Money is money isn’t it?

  Anyhow Sinéad and James liked The Pogues’ song ‘Fairytale of New York’. Might have kinda given them the idea for ‘Love Song from Beyond the Grave’. Two lovers talking. Talking away their regrets isn’t it? You can write in ‘Fairytale of New York’ here.

  I can hear the mother and father arguing below. She’ll put on music and he’ll storm off. Always the way. They’re arguing about me. The father wants to act the hard man and tell me to stop feeling sorry for myself and my mother wants him to let me be.

  My father never really likes the sight of the old records. They upset him. Some American fella my mother knew in America long ago got her into all the music. She lived in the Bronx in New York. Fella in the same apartment building was into music. My father said to me one time you never know what a woman is thinking. I said to him,

  —Sure mam doesn’t know what you do be thinking either.

  —Sure I don’t be thinking anything, my father goes.

  My mother would dig out all her old records and listen to them if they were after having a falling out over something. Drive him daft, it would, thinking of this American fella long ago.

  James had a music teacher for the piano. Sinéad kept it on as a subject through secondary school. But really everything they learned they learned it from each other. And sometimes from me. I swear. Especially early on when I played for them all my mother’s old records. Elvis in Sun Studios. Bob Dylan’s Bootleg series. Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks. Nina Simone. Louis Armstrong. Seán O Riada. Marlene Dietrich. Aretha Franklin. David Bowie. Edith Piaf. Emmylou Harris. The Beatles. John Lee Hooker. Leonard Cohen. Lou Reed. Maria Callas. The Jackson Five. Miles Davis. John McCormack. Simon and Garfunkel. Queen. U2. Neil Young. Willie Nelson. Odetta. Sam Cooke. Kate Bush. Frederic Chopin. Joni Mitchell. Tim Buckley. Roy Orbison. The Rolling Stones. Arvo Pärt. Cindy Lauper. Luke Kelly. Makem and Clancy. Claude Debussy. Not one person alive who had to go to school like we did listened to more music than the three of us. Mainly that was what school was. Time not listening to music. In our young lives we’d already listened to many many many lifetimes of music. Hours and hours and hours and hours that all added up would be years and months and weeks and days and more hours still probably. These words and any words are only a fucking paleness next to the sounds that we travelled in together. All the books in the world aren’t worth a fuck. It’s all languages to all people every place, same as the smile on your face isn’t it? The music. I used to like Vaughan Williams, the English composer. They asked him if he believed in God. He said no. The one who asked him couldn’t believe it and she asked what he thinks will happen when he dies. Said he’ll just become music, that his spirit will dart all around the place in the notes and enter the souls of people everywhere. Sinéad really liked it. That idea. We all listened to Fantasia on a Theme up in the library. Got lost in it we did. She said after she could feel Vaughan Williams all over her and James and me laughed and she said shut up ye pervs. I just listened to them talking like I used to always then.

  —What happens like? Sinéad said.

  —What? said James cos he didn’t know what she was talking about.

  —In music. What exactly happens? Like . . . what’s going on like? Where were we just now like? Where did we go? Felt like sailing or something.

  There were tears in Sinéad’s eyes.

  —Or gliding.

  —Yeah . . . like . . . what . . . like what’s going on like? You kind of know the feeling being expressed. The like . . . ideas maybe . . . no not ideas . . . more vague than that . . .

  —Sentiment . . .

  —What does that mean?

  —Not sure really.

  —Like there’s something being expressed and no words can describe it. Like it can’t be translated into words.

  James smiled at her like he kind of understood what she meant and he thought she was the most amazing person he ever dreamed could be.

  —Yeah, he said.

  —And like . . . the movement like . . . it’s like I was in a thousand different rooms or landscapes or something like. Just floating.

  —Yeah I know what you mean, he said. Like not a visual world.

  —Exactly like but definitely like. A world with dimensions you know?

  —Yeah.

  —Like being a bat maybe. Negotiating terrain with sound. Some unseen magical terrain.

  —Yeah.

  —It’s like there’s the music of exploring and the music of coming home.

  —Yeah like. And both are cool.

  —Yeah. And need each other like. Like the bitter and the sweet.

  She turned to me then.

  —What do you think Charlie?

  —I dunno.

  —You do.

  —No, I said.

  —It’s so unbelievable isn’t it? It makes me feel so happy cos it’s like this thing that God has given us to let us know he’s there. That’s what I think. All the scientists and all who say there’s nothing like . . . they can’t explain what happened with us just now listening to that. Like listening to that like . . . it communicated what language can only . . . language is just lost for words you know? You just know that at the end of the day, we’re OK. We’re not alone. Definitely we’re not alone.

  —Yeah, said James.

  —Yeah, I said too.

  She said,

  —Remember the old woman from the documentary in school that said if Hitler could have stopped and listened to Moonlight Sonata how he might not have been so full of hate.

  It was an old
woman who was in the camps long ago and they lived on music. The Nazi guards let them have a choir and a piano cos it was so nice for the guards to listen to. When the old woman said that about Hitler and Moonlight Sonata, and then the camera pulled back and you could see she was sitting at a piano and she played it. She looked as old as the world.

  —Will you play it there James, Sinéad said.

  He played it nice and I seen Sinéad wipe tears from her eyes.

  The mother has a Van Morrison song on below now. And it’s after making me upset. I can think about music sometimes but hearing it is the worst. Sometimes I’d be doing fine and the mother would put on some tune and I’d go down hill fairly fast. It’s best if I stay away from music. Makes me weak and I get the shakes sometimes. The terrors. All the fuss over music long ago seems a bit stupid really. Fine thing to be content with plain life same as everyone else.

  Had to lie down that time and I ended up falling asleep. I don’t know what time it is now but it’s the middle of the night and it’s fierce quiet thank God. No fucking music. Song the mother had on that upset me is called ‘High Summer’. Sinéad used to say that that song says the most in the chorus. There’s no words in the chorus. Just Van Morrison playing a sound over and over and over on the harmonica. The very same CD the mother had on cos I borrowed it long ago for Sinéad. Heard it a million times up in the library of the castle. Was the summer before James went to Dublin.

  I always had a love of words. A fascination for them. The beauty of language delighted me always. The mystery of words. That’s the way the writing nerds I met once went on. Dr Quinn had it all set up so that he could bring me to one of their sessions after my appointment. All these people reading bits of what they wrote about themselves and their problems. Making a shit story out of their shit lives. And telling each other how great their stories were then.