by Robert Power
I don’t like to say this. To make this observation. But something was different. The taste of the room; the weight of the air. The way the dog settled into his basket and the flutter of the curtain. And more so, the way the dog pricked up his ears and howled, when, much later as the sun disappeared, I told him more of the ghost of the woman who lived in the house, who cried for her baby who was burnt in the fire.
THE SOUND OF BREAKING GLASS
It worried them all. The shattering of glass. A splintering of the silence. A surprise where surprises were few and far between. ‘The workman’s bill,’ said Mother. ‘And the nurse and the doctor,’ said Father, ‘and the queues at the hospital.’ ‘And you said we should leave him alone,’ said Great-Aunt, sucking on her teeth, watching the autumnal colours spread across the lawn. ‘You said we must leave him until winter, to console himself, to see it through himself, that’s what you said.’ Not turning to the room, still taking in the garden. As the glass fell like ice-drops, like sleet, like hail, from the window above.
‘Autumn and winter,’ said the boy from the sharpening frame of his bedroom. ‘Blood and bone, stars and crystal, and the sound, the lovely sound, of breaking glass.’
THE SHAWL
I am set. Wait while Mother gathers her coat and shawl.
It is cold where Uncle and Aunt are.
I was sad the day they spoke about returning to their roots.
My aunt had smiled and said she dreamed of being home forever and I thought we were not enough for them.
Now we are going north to visit.
Sitting in the back seat of the car I wonder how it will be.
Whether I will love her.
Time alone will tell.
Her words of farewell weigh heavy on me as Mother searches in the house for her shawl, her sister’s gift.
The front door is open and I can hear her in the passageway.
‘Where is it? Where is it? The blessed shawl!’
BOXING ON THE TELLY
There is a coldness in this empty room. The spirituality of silence. The rawness of time alone. On the television: two boxers in a ring. Uppercut, jab with the left, lead with the right. Swollen eyes, not from lost love, or sadness, but fierce and calculated blows. Combat. A battle in the open. The life of the fists, not of the mind. Plenty of heart. Blood flows from the eyes, not the palms. At the end they embrace and then go back to their corners to sit silently on a stool. To await the decision. The outcome.
SEEKING IT OUT
It had to be somewhere. He’d tried cupboards and boxes, and boxes inside boxes. Corners and pockets. He’d looked inside drawers and under chairs and even in the big old fridge in the garage that was full of pots of paint and nuts and bolts. He’d asked everyone in the house (even the dog) if they had it, or where they’d last seen it. All to no avail. And when all seemed lost there came a germ of a remembrance. Upstairs, in his mother’s bedroom, on her dresser. He sat on the stool and looked full on into the mirror as he opened the tiny door of the music box. The tune tinkled and there it was. A sense of guilt and relief. A secret not yet to be exposed. He slipped it into his trouser pocket and hurried back downstairs, before anyone would see him.
IN THE SHADOWS
It was never like that. He almost howled, but chose not to. She was there. Over there. Always! He pointed in the dark to emphasise. Over there, where there are shadows. I’ll scratch my face to prove it. I’ll show you the blood. She was always there, where the shadows are now. There, over there, waiting for me to come home.
DREAMS OF THE PARENTS
So you left school at fourteen, even though you’d won a scholarship to continue. The eldest boy. A worker to increase the family’s income, what with all those hungry brothers and sisters to feed. Not to be a carpenter like your own father, but a labourer at the Guinness factory. How painful to one so young, the dashing of hopes, as I was only to find out decades later, shortly before you died. That loss. The cutting off, way before it had even emerged as a potential. And she too: somewhere else, both on the same side of the Liffey, but in a far leafier suburb. Not the same story, but a family who through the curse of the drink would some days eat a meal of greens from the hedge. So a typist it would be, not a ballet dancer or a poet or a playwright. You met on a bus in Dublin town and you went to the Abbey Theatre to see Beckett and Synge and listened to opera and read and read and read. But something was always missing. You told me that. And why you turned your hands to weapons: out of anger, frustration, inadequacy, regret. And, of course there’s so much more to tell. But this is the telling of dreams that were never even dreamt, that could find no form, which could shape no substance.
BABES IN THE WOOD
The tigress, returning to the corner of the sal forest, in sound of the river, smelt the change, the stillness, the reverence of death. Before she saw the two small bodies, throats neatly exposed, she sensed the message. Last night, as she’d tracked the sambar deer, she’d heard the fracas, the royal battle for land and progeny. Her two small cubs, still and innocent in the soft grass, prescient, an emblem of the new master, the conqueror, who waited by the riverbank and would soon be a-calling.
AUNT AVRIL ON MY MUM’S SIDE
Collapsed. She collapsed. The teacup shattered on the stone floor of her cottage by the sea. Her cottage by the sea: the one she had waited for all her life. Barely been there a year. Hardly settled in, one might say. The other women of the village indeed did say as much. She, who was so polite yet removed. She, who smiled and nodded at the ladies in the high street. At the post office, collecting her ‘foreign parcels’, she would pass the time of day with the old gentleman behind the counter. But, as they said, she never gave much away. Where from? What? Children? Husband? Husbands? Never really joined in. Not seen at fetes. Coffee mornings at the church hall. No.
One or two of the ladies had invited her to afternoon tea. But the audacity, the refusals. So that soon stopped. In no uncertain terms.
Yet that morning, as she had awoken, she knew something momentous was in store. She just had a feeling, as she turned down the duvet and made her way downstairs. The sun streaming through the open window of the kitchen, But not quite this, she thought, as the blow took her breath away. Took every last breath from her body. Lying there on the cold, oh so cold, kitchen floor, watching the feet ascending the spiral staircase to the rooms above. Now they’ll all know, she remembered thinking. Something to set the tongues flapping. But a sadness at her exposure, nonetheless.
And they did. It was all over the village in a trice; as soon as the police and ambulance arrived. Not to mention the newspapers and the TV. The intrigue. The sensation. The life laid bare for all and sundry to pick through, dissect and analyse. Pass comment on. Develop an opinion, even. Nothing had occurred in the village quite like this, before or since.
Lying there, on the cold tiled floor, amid the mess of her morning cup of tea, she foresaw all this. It made her so deeply sad, and, before she died on that bright sunny day, she cried a tear for her very self, her very soul.
WALKING THE DOG
Some sounds stick. The cane on the railings. Some smells. Mown grass. Some sights. Bonfire on the roadside. Some tastes. Pomegranate juice. Some colours. Like the deep green waistcoat that Uncle Raymond wore so proudly on his last visit, on the day he walked the little black dog round the orchard, a thin rope tied loosely to his collar, weaving between the pear trees, the oranges shimmering like tiny suns against the washed backdrop of the early afternoon sky.
‘Hello, Uncle Raymond. Hello, little black dog. Stay awhile. Keep me company. Help me turn it all around once more.’
HUNG OUT
‘Come on!’ said my father. ‘Don’t you trust me?’
As if this would somehow be a proof beyond proofs. Neither of my brothers wanted to take up the challenge. We’d been woken from sleep as it was: after the ‘Epilogue’ and the dot that had disappeared on the tiny black-and-white TV. My father was drunk, but not dangerous. He smile
d at me as the other two boys disappeared back into the bedroom we shared and the safety of the three single beds we’d pushed together.
‘You trust me. Do you not?’
Of course I did. Of course I do. Of course I will. So he grabbed my two wrists in his huge boxer’s hand and, in one swift movement, hoisted me over the banisters, dangling me into the void of the stairwell. His grip was so strong, so reassuring. I looked down past my outstretched arms, my pyjama bottoms hanging from my hips, my feet pointing groundwards, swivelling like a ballet dancer in full flight. And there, in the shadows of the hallway, was my mother, looking up, unsurprised, in this house of unsurprises.
Of course I trust you, of course I do.
EMPTY
The table was all that was left in the room.
‘But since I was a child,’ she said.
‘Too big,’ said he, ‘too dark.’
‘But …’ she said.
He said: ‘We’ll get a new one, modern, light.’
So they left, taking everything else with them: beds and chairs, clothing, crockery, carpets, cats and all. All is quiet. All is empty in the old house. The table stands bereft of purpose. Where meals had been had, tears shed, words exchanged, writing written, drawings drawn, socks mended, wedding dress laid out in display. Now the table is denuded: an empty room in an emptier house. In the garden outside the swing hangs from the branch of the old silver birch. The ropes are threadbare, the wooden seat worn and splintered, long neglected; playful children many years departed. A gentle breeze picks up; the swing creaks into a motion of sorts. The leaves of the tree bristle in the wind and the swing rocks slowly to and fro. Inside all is still, save for the sound of the ancient oak wood of the table stretching and sighing.
PERFUME
I overheard the conversation. They must have thought I was in the garden with the dog. But no, I’d left the dog sleeping and was making a jam sandwich in the kitchen.
‘I can’t afford perfume for your birthday,’ he said, in a voice louder and more ominous than I liked to hear.
‘But you can afford whiskey and beer,’ she said defiantly.
There was a shuffling of chairs and scraping of heels, doors slamming and footsteps thumping up the stairs. That night I opened my money box and counted my savings. Seventeen shillings and nine pence. When Saturday morning came I told my mother I was going to the Boy Scouts as usual. In my pocket, along with the sixpence for subs, I had fifteen shillings and eleven pence. After scouts I went to the chemist shop on the High Street. I had seen the bottle of perfume in the window on my way home from school. ‘Intimacy’ it was called. I didn’t know what the word meant, but the bottle was a nice shape and the lettering was in flowing italics. I handed over the money to the pharmacist, blushing without quite knowing why. Walking back home, the secret kept to myself, I knew that now it would all turn out well, that there would be happiness. And, yes, there would be ‘Intimacy’.
STATION
When the house became madder than he could bear, this is what he would do, the young boy who grew to know that outside and alone was better than inside and amongst. If the kitchen was clear he would grab a chunk of bread from the loaf, an apple or a carrot, and head off out the back door. (If they were in the kitchen, he’d take no food and leave by the front door: better to be away and safe and hungry than inside and fed). Either way, he would turn left into the alleyway and walk to the station (chewing on the bread, or not, as the case might be). The madness in his house was mostly at night, so when he got to the station it was usually dark. He would stand at the entrance, lean against the brick wall and pretend he was waiting for someone. When a train arrived he’d look up, expectantly, quizzing the passing faces. They would hurry by, because, of course, none were expecting to meet him. But he kept up the charade. He would stare at his wrist as if looking at a watch (which he didn’t have). Cluck maybe, to intimate someone was late. He’d bite in to his apple (or not) or carrot (or not). And after the last train had come and gone he’d retrace his steps. Listen with ears, so alert, in the hope that the storm had subsided. He’d creep back indoors and up to his room at the top of his house, climb into his bed and burrow under the covers: to hide somewhere else, to chew on an apple core (or not).
BRIGHTON PAVILION
A white kite against the milky evening sky. A sky fringed by a darker strip of sea. A sharp horizon. The pier, a line of neon, stretching seaward. On the beach we found that big stone, sculpted by the waves. We buried it with pebbles, noting well its location, jotting down landmarks and bearings, like true smugglers of the lanes. Through the pavilion, the palace of serpents and dragons, the underwater tunnel with sharks and stingrays overhead, we went about our business of the day. To return, well after sunset, to reclaim our treasure in the dark. To dig it up, lift it from its hiding place and carry it home.
TREATMENT
When Father comes back from the hospital/sanatorium/mental institution/doctor after the detoxification/antidepressants/electric shock therapy/Antabuse he sits at the kitchen table in a fresh white shirt. Soon enough, my mother places a pot of tea and a plate of sandwiches on the table. We, the boys, look at him as if he is an exhibit at the zoo: some kind of wild animal that has been subdued, domesticated. I’m not sure what the others are thinking, but I am waiting for a sign, a look in his eye, an angry word. He drinks his tea (hot with a splash of milk) and eats a sandwich (cheddar cheese and raw onion). ‘Go play in the garden,’ says our mother. He says nothing, staring ahead, chewing, a vein bulging, flexing, at his temple. We kick a football around in the muddy, grassless yard. The ball is deflated (no one could find the pump last time we looked) so there’s no bounce, no enthusiasm. Then I hear the front door slam. There, standing in the bay window, is our mother. She is looking out, not at us, her children, but to someplace else, somewhere we boys know nothing of.
FIRST TRIP TO THE HEATH
How did he know I would love it so? That it would become a lifelong pleasure. That first time, that first walk on Hampstead Heath, with its century-old trees and meadows and hills, vales and ponds. I was awestruck as we wound our way along the pathways. We shared a bag of American Hard Gums. I gave one to a squirrel. He spotted a couple of men playing hurling and I watched as he joined in for a hit. As we walked he told me of how, when he was my age in Dublin, he’d played hurling and Gaelic football. But mostly he talked about being a boxer. I loved it when he told me (for the very first time then, as we strolled along together) the story of how he, as a nineteen-year-old, knocked out the British Army heavyweight champion on the troop ship to Palestine. I looked up at a sky wider than I’d ever seen before from our city street, listening to my hero speaking, the man I would love through all the events that were to follow, right up to the day when I would be asked to identify his bloodied corpse in a morgue in Goa, India.
We walked until dusk. On the drive home we stopped at a stall by the train station at Turnpike Lane. On this day of firsts I tasted a saveloy from that stall, a taste and texture that come back with the memory: meaty, salty, chewy, gritty. Decades later I take up swimming in the Men’s Pond on the Heath. Traversing its pathways and undulations I walk and talk with friends and lovers, turning over the vicissitudes of life. But it all leads back to that long-ago day when my father showed me somethings new, somethings special.
HOLDING HANDS
From his balcony, the big terracotta pots at his feet, looking into the inner courtyard. It seemed different today. Had something moved? Been taken away? The bench. The fountain, the plants. The statues and the long hardwood table. Candlesticks and vases; sofas and cushions, tapestries and paintings on the walls that flanked the arches and doorways. All in their place. All much as was. He caught sight of his hands as he gripped the wrought-iron railing. He held his hands close to his face, for a better inspection. There was the strangeness, his own hands: they were the strangers, the difference.
ALLEYWAY
The sound of lateness. A buzz. Much of the salt on the
tongue, and offshore a lantern lightens a way. You know. Through the alleys, the winding passages between inns and stone walls. A man hanging, when I peered out that time. And fear and hatred can be worn as a brooch. Worn out or in. You can’t tell me. By the wharf. Where they load the barges for elsewhere. Listen, will you. I am trying to tell you something of what I know, before the ink runs dry. Before the night gets to me. Holds me in its grip. I was so small, but I saw it when I peeked from under the covers. The man hanging by the rope. Swaying. Twisting. I saw it. I saw it, all so long ago. Then.
FRUIT
Pineapple. Apples. Plums. ‘Only fruit?’ the grocer. ‘Only fruit,’ the lady. Weigh on scales: the grocer. Lick her lips: the lady.
‘Fine bright day,’ the grocer.
Smile: the lady.
Pollen in the air.
Stifle a sneeze, she does.
Hand over mouth.
‘No need for a bag,’ the lady.
‘Brought your own?’ the grocer.
Smile again. Nod: the lady.
Fruit tipped in canvas bag: the grocer.
Hand over coins.
‘Thank you,’ the grocer.
‘Thank you,’ the lady.
Turn around: the lady.
Walk a step.
Still stifled.
One more step.
Shake.
Shiver.
Sneeze.
Fruits shift in bag.
Apples kiss plums.
Pineapple sheds a tear, missing out on intimacy, trapped, wrapped in paper.
Later, in the kitchen: the lady.
Knife.
Cut, slice: the pineapple.
Plums and apples free to frolic, to embrace, to touch.
Pineapple in pieces, shrouded, weeping and bleeding.