Sifting

by Mike Mac Domhnaill

  ‘Stand back will ye,’ Donny like a wasp. ‘Give him some air.’ Brother Timothy swinging in to the action and carrying off one of the biggest of them by the scruff of the neck. ‘One thing I asked ye to do, one thing!’ he was shouting demented at his charge as he turned back to the knot of people around O’Toole. ‘He’s all right … he’ll be all right?’ ‘Ah, don’t worry Brother,’ Paul came back at him. ‘A splash of the holy water will do the trick!’ A groggy O’Toole was lifted to his feet. No hope of him playing on. But the game resumed, subdued. They seemed to be letting us get the ball, watching the sideline where Brother Timothy, arms tightly folded, glowered in, but then towards the end they got going again and swept in two goals to seal their win. No great cheers.

  The bus chugged out from the grey building into the foggy evening. ‘An industrial school if you don’t mind! There’s one for ye!’ Donny was relaxed now that we were on the way home. Miney O’Toole not too bad, able to talk a bit. What happened? He remembers the ball going up the field, nothing after that. ‘Wouldn’t ye like to be sent in there, hah! Ye’d be out weedin’ parsnips instead of thrown there at home with yeer comics. Was there any sign of Timmo? I forgot to ask the Brother, with all the fuss.’

  ‘They’d be afraid he’d try to come home with us,’ said Paul. ‘The poor devil must be missing his mother.’ This was for Donny’s ears only.

  Why, why is Timmo in there? Can you hear us now, of course not, hear a child’s voice in all the noise?

  ‘He’s in there because he has to be, that’s the holy all of it. He’s better off in there.’ Donny was quite clear on that.

  ‘Look at my leg after ’em.’ A voice at the back of the bus, Coughlan.

  ‘Whatever kind of a dream I had,’ says Timmo, ‘it came back to me and I half awake but I was kind of swimmin’ standing up! Moving my hands like you’d be walkin’ only I was in this current being swept down around the bend.’

  ‘The power of whiskey!’ says J.D. ‘Amn’t I the lucky man to be off it. So go back to the story Timmo.’ J.D.’s eyes were watering with mirth as he got Timmo to recount the events of the night before. One more time. Timmo was still shivering every now and then as he sat huddled near the range of red coals, a rag of a blanket around him. The hat was over the fire. As always, he was able to laugh. ‘I was …’ J.D. and himself burst into another fit of laughing, ‘I was on my way home, don’t ask me what time it was, sure now being Christmas Eve it can’t have been too late with the crowd headin’ down to midnight Mass.’ ‘You should have been with ’em’, says J.D., ‘if it wasn’t for your bolloxin’, was it two years ago,’ looking across at me to remind, ‘when the bauld Timmo had to start up singing down the back of the church!’

  ‘I was only helpin’ out the choir. Sure I couldn’t resist “Silent Night”, that was my big piece below in the Estuary. Auld Brother Timser – maybe because we shared a name! – used to say he’d have to send me out with something. He knew my mother, God be good to her, was a good singer. Am I right there, J.D.?’

  ‘A right good singer. Go back to your story.’

  ‘Where was I? I don’t know what time I left the Foxhound but I had my few whiskeys …’

  ‘Listen to him. A few!’ J.D. and myself enjoyed that.

  ‘And anyway, I was fine till I was crossin’ the bridge and the rain pissin’ out of the heavens. I’d say ’twas goin’ all day. And the bloody timber of course was as slippy as, as that bar of soap there, and then the railing must have went because the next thing I knew sure I was sailing down with the flood!’

  ‘Down the Swanee!’

  ‘Easy for ye laugh but I’m here to tell the tale …’

  ‘He came out below at the turn where the bank slopes in …’

  ‘Out at the turn where the bank slopes in. The briars tearing at me and I soaked to the skin. I tell ye I wasn’t long soberin’ up!’ Pulling the blanket in around him, ‘Anyway, the whiskey must have saved me for I landed here at the door …’

  ‘I heard this rattling at the latch, and I fine and snug in my bed, when this figure appears at the door. “What in God’s name happened you?” says I.’

  ‘“Let me in,” says I. “I’m lucky to be alive.” And I made straight over here to the fire. Perished to the marra I was! What’s this you said, J.D.? “You’re like a drownded rat!”’

  ‘The shirt, tell him about the shirt! Wait for this!’

  ‘My waistcoat, I still had that on, but the shirt – my fine shirt was gone! Sitting there by the fire, says I to J.D., “My shirt, where’s my shirt? It’s gone.” Can you figure that out?’ A great scairt of a laugh. ‘Now there’s one for ye!’

  ‘And the hat!’

  ‘I still have the hat. Look at it there over the fire, my fine hat! It stuck to my head. “We’re together so long,” I s’pose it said. Drying out for another day. I don’t know, lads, how I’m alive, what! And then the dream as I slept on the chair, like I was walkin’ along in the flood, coming at my ease to this shore, just walkin’ along … What was all that I don’ know?’

  As I was slowly passing

  An orphans’ home one day

  Alone a boy was standing

  And this I heard him say:

  I’m nobody’s child …

  ‘Bad enough to be in an orphanage but to be blind on top of it! She’s off again. Is that the only song she knows …?’

  ‘A pity she wouldn’t learn a decent song instead of those auld come-all-yees.’

  ‘But a great worker, mind, scrubbing floors in this house and that house, all she learned above in the Home of course. Scrubbing.’

  ‘Having to give up the child must have been a bit of a wrench for her. A gas woman. But fond of the drop.’

  ‘Too fond, and was fond of you-know-what, I’d say, in her day!’ The leery eyes.

  The two at the chess take pause. Amid the talk and the singing they eyed up their pieces on the board, how to outwit old Bill. The Saturday afternoon game of chess under the high window and as that last corrosive comment filtered through he winked across. ‘Charity,’ says our normally taciturn Bill, our chess player supreme, ‘is in fearful short supply.’ He moved the queen.

  I hear there was great ructions down at Ted-the-Harness’s when poor auld Paul and Donny had to deliver Miney back. Livid, it seems. Any teeth gone? Looked into his eyes. Roll this way, now that way. Ted better than any doctor of course. He read ’em it seems. Poor Paul trying to explain that, look, it was his idea not Donny’s but it was into poor auld Donny he stuck. ‘You of all people should know not to be taking ’em into that bear pit. They’re half savage down there. The boat is all that crowd deserve, give ’em the boat.’ Out into the street it went. You know the Harness when he gets going. A mighty different Ted-the-Harness you have then. Oh, there’d be no more sliotars delivered up to the field, he wouldn’t be at their beck and call, ‘And you Donny Dooley, of all people you …’ Of course you know what that meant! And Paul trying to butt in with his, ‘Ah listen now, Ted, listen.’ Listen how are you … when Ted is on a rant.

  The young fella? Oh sure he’s fine. But he’ll be at home now listening to that, going on and on about Dooley and he not even to blame! And everyone will get it over the counter. You won’t want to be in a rush with your leather!

  Hinting all the time about that bit of a thing surrounding poor Dooley. About his mother, Mags, back the years and the various stories. They say poor Dooley never twigged – or is that the why that he never darkens the door of a bar, that he fears the loose talk, half hints. Sure the past is the past. But Ted will rake through it all again. And poor Dooley not even to blame. There’s the child’s voice again, do you hear? Listen. Nor do I. In this rattling.

  l’Intellectuel Irlandais

  He nudged himself out of the blankets, enough to cock an ear to the radio which purred by his bed, Sunday morning lie-in, then dozed back a little, in and out of slumber. The radio came and went and he later wondered which was real, which was dreamt.
If he got the chance he would use that playback thing, but the time – that was the catch. Who has time for playback?

  The presenter was crooning, perhaps swooning, depending on his changing state of consciousness.

  ‘Now this morning, listeners, we have two of our foremost artists-cum-thinkers with us on this, the Dual Personality Show. And I am delighted to welcome you both, Rod Fallow, poet and, what shall I say, a character of our times really? If we pitch Kavanagh as the character of Dublin’s ’50s, shall we say Rod is the defining lyricist of our generation? And with him – you two know each other of course, but we’ll get to all that – with him is the renowned Benjamin Regan, writer, thinker, I would almost go so far as to say agent provocateur! Or is that going a bit far, Ben? I mean in ideas terms of course, not violent action!

  ‘Eh, please Philomena!’ Benjamin’s upper lip is tight over his teeth, the radio tuner seems to mimic this deep-thought manifestation. ‘I just hope that I can offer a little, ahem, something to the body politic as it were. If my ideas are sometimes provocative then let that be as it may!’

  ‘And you Rod, have I sufficiently introduced you? Hmm?’

  ‘Indeed, Philomena, I am humble enough to allow myself be described in such terms!’

  ‘Well, listeners, we have taken ourselves out of our more staid setting in Studio Two and have decamped, as it were, here opposite St Patrick’s Cathedral, here on this little street where Rod has fetched up, in this wonderful, simply wonderful, old artisan dwelling.’

  ‘So, I’ll start with you Rod, if that’s okay. In reading your wonderful poetry I often ask myself, Where does he get these ideas? How can he possibly be so original? And what is this I’ve heard of late, ‘inverse thinking’? Can you give us an insight, Rod? Us non-poets that is!’

  There is a contemplative pause. The radio crackles impatiently.

  ‘You see those exposed rafters? Well, I insert my legs in there and hang upside down until the inspiration comes.’ This flows into the room in the languid yet sonorous voice which is a prerequisite in reciting poetry. ‘Sometimes it may be hours …’

  ‘You cannot be serious, Rod! Our listeners will have to just imagine this. As I said earlier – in case some listeners have just switched in – we are here in this wonderful little artisan house, in the shadow of St Patrick’s Cathedral – and at this hour of day the morning sun is blocked by the imposing steeple – and with me is the renowned poet and thinker Rod Fallow. And you were saying, Rod, I mean seriously, that you suspend yourself from those rafters and …’

  ‘Yes, when no inspiration is coming then I have no option really but to resort to the Inverse Method. This I learnt …’ Was that a weary yawn from the radio? ‘… from that great French poet Shagall when I spent penniless days on the Rue Buffon sipping coffee. You know, Philomena … in Paris one can be penniless but happy, just watching the sheer class of the Parisians as they carry themselves so gracefully, with that certain … that certain je ne sais quoi!’

  ‘Indeed, Rod. And moving on to the Bloody Sunday poem, Rod, was that written during your Parisian period? The one where you questioned the popular narrative and tried to give us the other side, the British side? Did that come from suspension or was it an immediate inspirational impulse? If I recall, it was printed on the front page of The Irish Mimes. And the reaction you got, Rod, did that hurt you? It must have …’

  ‘Oh, when you try to tell the truth, Philomena …’ A pause, and the radio sighs. ‘… show us Irish that we must really stop complaining and see the Ulsterman’s point of view, the true indomitable Ulstery – to paraphrase our old friend Yeats– these narrow-minded nationalists needed to see that they did not speak for me … that was my motive. It was shortly after that that I moved to Paris.’

  ‘Of course you immediately searched out the Latin Quarter and became well known for your free thinking, your questioning mind. I find that fascinating. And your love of French rugby, Rod. Though may I say this, I can’t imagine you as the sporty type!’

  There is a figurative pause. The radio crackles its irritation.

  ‘Perhaps it was Beckett’s ghost which guided me. You know how Sam loved the French rugby, their style, panache. I cannot be sure. But oh, that first match in the Stade de France! And as the crowd began, with that gusto, that great French gusto, “La Marseillaise”, the goose pimples stood on the back of my neck … Aux armes, citoyens, Formez vos bataillons, Marchons, marchons! Oh, what country, what country can compare …?’

  The radio positively floated about the room before settling again on the locker by the bed.

  ‘But Rod, I see exactly what you mean and who can hear those stirring words without wanting to, oh I don’t know, go out and … Oh! But then, the words, Rod! The words! Even with my school French! When you consider … is it not all about blood and honour and nationalism … all that stuff that you detest?’

  ‘Ah, Philomena …’ The dial on the radio assumes a pitying look. ‘Philomena … it is the French flair, the élan, the pride … The pride of a great nation.’

  ‘But Rod, if Ireland, let’s just say … if Ireland and, say, France were playing, would you not feel the same about … about our national anthem, Amhrán na bhFiann? Does that not stir you also?’

  ‘Oh. Philomena … Philomena, please!’

  ‘You see, this is how I do it …’

  ‘For our listeners! Rod is now standing on the kitchen table … Careful …’

  ‘Luckily the ceilings are low in these artisan houses so that I may, huff, puff, get my legs, one, huff, at a time up there, puff, between the joists, there now the other, and then you lower the head like so …’

  The radio rattles out a ratta-tat-tat on the bed-side locker.

  ‘Rod is now suspended, oh my God, from the rafters, I cannot believe this!

  ‘I’ve read somewhere that the old Gallic composers, puff, those in southern Gaul as it was, would do something like this, perhaps using the wine-press, huff. We cannot be sure, but I feel that I am with them, puff, in spirit. Yes, that great raconteur and fellow poet Shagall it was who taught me …’

  ‘For our listeners, Rod’s face is now quite red. Rod, do you really feel this helps your poetry?’

  ‘Then again you two are so different in many ways, one the poet-cum-dreamer and you, Benjamin, the incisive analyst. I’ll now turn to you, Benjamin, while Rod is engaged in the Inverse Method.

  ‘We cannot let this chat go without mentioning your latest book, Benjamin, Cruise Missals! What a wonderfully inventive and clever play with words. Only you could come up with a title like that!’

  ‘Well, Philomena, ahem, I suppose it was a little tongue in cheek, summoning up images of pious Irish Mass-goers as they thumbed through their missals. And of course old Cruiser was a bit of a missile in the body politic! What with firing Mary Holland that time from the Observer, which was, in retrospect, perhaps a little harsh, but he did what he believed in, that was the thing. In many ways he led us intellectuals into the battlefield of ideas, the necessary dichotomy …’

  ‘And you, Rod, have you had time to read Benjamin’s latest book or are you perhaps too engrossed …’

  ‘Indeed, I very much like the feel of this book, the very feel, and I must confess immediately to not having read it – Benjamin will understand perfectly – it is one of those books to be read on a special occasion. At a time, I would say, of mass vulgarity!

  ‘Speaking of which, my mind goes back to 1991 when some of those fellow-travelling Neanderthals (for want of a better word) wanted us to celebrate 1916, ‘the Spirit of 1916’ they called it, for heaven’s sake! I am glad to say I stood shoulder to shoulder with Conor on that one. The Cruiser chose the course pretty much of completely ignoring the sorry spectacle, and I am glad to say our main papers did likewise. Celebrate what? I said. Celebrate what? Murder and mayhem?’

  ‘I suppose the Holland Affair, as we might call it, could be construed as, shall we say, allowing nationalist propaganda, a republican age
nda, Benjamin, to be vented …’

  ‘Yes, and then again the very … how shall I put it, encumbrance … of history, the various narratives … at least Conor put his stamp on events, he was not afraid of being labelled “contrary”. Actually that is the excitement of the man, what led me ultimately to write this book. We may not be always at one with him, and yes, the Holland Affair drew some fire from the opposition, but he challenged us. I somehow feel he challenges us still …’

  ‘And moving on, Benjamin. Under your nom de plume, Bin U, in your earlier years, I see you wrote some interesting material on Yeats and his contribution to the English tradition, and somewhat controversially you state that he escaped the Irish language, that he was somehow lucky …’

  ‘Of course some of the diehards attacked me over that, somehow implying that I was against the Irish language, whereas … all I was saying really was that Yeats might have had a hankering to learn the old tongue, but isn’t the world so lucky that he, that he wrote in English? It is after all the vernacular … and so my use of the word escaped …’

  ‘And that bit where you almost thanked the English for invading! Benjamin! Bin U! How provocative was that!’

  ‘Well, again, in context, what I was saying there, Philomena, was not an insult to the Irish, or indeed the indigent, eh sorry, indigenous language …’ The radio seems to stifle a cackle. ‘… as some have taken it upon themselves to allege, but rather be glad that we have had English, that wonderfully inventive language bestowed on us as it were …’

  ‘Though I see one trenchant critic of yours quotes Heaney – an abiding genius in our midst, I think we will all agree – as saying to be without Irish is “to cut oneself off from ways of being at home”.’