The Scattering

by Jaki McCarrick

  Blood trickled onto Fred’s collar. He wiped it off with his hand and sat down. ‘Little bastard,’ he shouted after Tomas, and returned to the stain. He then rolled up his shirtsleeves, neatly, mechanically, and trudged towards the kitchen for a basin of hot water. Halfway there he stopped. What was he doing? Moreover, what was he doing with his bloody life? Such thoughts came to Fred Plunkett often in moments such as this. Moments when he caught himself doing mean, odious things like cleaning up cat’s piss. And why was he cleaning up cat’s piss in exchange for using his own aunt’s library from which he’d just been so subtly ejected? Who said he could do such things, make such deals? At thirty-one he’d been a student forever. He had no girlfriend; he slept in a room, in which, at night, he could hear his own mother breathe and sometimes gargle on her own phlegm. It was pitiful. To others, his mother, his lecturers, he was a dedicated student. But what of the real world? (He hated that phrase.) This was the last year of his thesis, and what was he to do when it ended? After Queens, the only road open to him was research, at any institution kind enough to hire him. Other than that, the thought of ‘employment’ terrified him. Cat-sitting was one of the few jobs he’d ever had, that and a brief stint as a bookie’s clerk. Neither of which he included on his CV.

  He checked the gash on his neck in the mirror above the fireplace, then sat down into his aunt’s swampy leather chair and opened a small gilded box on the coffee table. He took out an all-white Egyptian cigarette, and lit up. This was bad. Very bad. He inhaled, deep and slow. Why had he never listened to the voice? The voice that throbbed inside him at times like this. The voice that said: that black shiny gimp suit is for you, and this tweed garb is so over; the voice that said leave with the books and papers you need, and fuck cleaning the rug. No, he had never listened to that voice, and look where it had got him to date: he was lonely; he’d made a humiliating deal to mind an incontinent cat in order to use his own aunt’s library. But for Fred it was always in such low moments that things made most sense. He would be flooded with understanding, as if before he’d been unconscious. He had respect for him, this rebellious creature, and wished as he sucked pensively on the fat cigarette that he could meet him more often, knowing that to do so would be to spend more time in the bass-register moroseness that had revealed him. For this was the real Fred. The Fred without the constructs. Man of his blood-memory. In such moments, Fred Plunkett would encounter the full force of the manqué rubber-clad deviant buried within him.

  He threw the butt into the fire and lit up another cigarette. Hearing a floorboard creak, he turned to find Lara standing by the door, watching him, Tomas luxuriating in her arms. There was an intense look in her eyes. He had noted it earlier in the library. It was the look of someone who, over the years, had made themselves remote and icy, not so as to repel other people, but so as to be reached only by those as clear and direct and honest as they. He realised then that it was that, more than anything else, which he liked about her.

  She moved towards the fire, teetered slightly on her high, glassy heels, at which Tomas jumped from her arms onto the rug, and positioned his rump as if to relieve himself once again, whereupon Lara gently shooed him from the room. She laughed loudly. Beautiful teeth, he thought. He watched her walk slowly to the coffee table, coolly open the gilded case and slip her hand inside for a cigarette.

  ‘What were you thinking, Fred, when I came in?’

  ‘Oh. About the rug, about my thesis. In fact, my whole life flashed before me.’

  ‘Such a strange look. I barely recognised you.’

  ‘I was about to clean that mess, and, suddenly, now, I cannot. I don’t know why but I cannot. Perhaps you will apologise to Louise for me, tell her I will phone tomorrow? Would you do that?’ Fred said. Lara nodded, then stood back and examined the cloud-shaped stain.

  ‘Louise really should keep Tomas in the yard. She can hardly expect family to do something like that.’ He drew hard on his cigarette. Lara was assuring him, and he was enjoying it.

  ‘I was only supposed to cat-sit. You see, he’s incontinent, poor thing. Some kind of infection. Louise never asked me, you know, to clean the crap up. I just felt it wasn’t right the cat should soil the house on my watch. Now, well, I feel like a fool. I should never have assumed such responsibility.’

  ‘You’ve been asleep Fred, haven’t you, hmmm? Asleep to yourself.’ Yes, that was how it was. Exactly. He was so bound up in a sense of duty, of what was proper and right, that in recent years he had been asleep to his own needs. He watched her yank together the two blue velvet drapes.

  ‘Hope I didn’t intrude upon your studies today, Fred.’

  ‘No, no. Of course not.’

  ‘By the way, I forgot to ask. What’s your thesis on?’ Lara asked.

  ‘Oh, it’s a study of various kinds of leukemia,’ Fred replied.

  ‘You find the library useful for that?’

  ‘Of course. For the past twenty years we’ve had abnormally high levels of cancer and blood disorders in the Northeast. Sellafield being the main suspect. Louise has kept excellent local archives.’

  When Fred left the house it was raining. Clouds raced across the sky and he stopped to see an alternately blue and yellow haze veil the moon, which otherwise shone like a perfectly round silver button. He was cold. He considered turning back for one of Louise’s umbrellas, but the recalcitrant voice within him that had earlier risen up in a rage urged him to carry on into the full force of the silvery light, now turning the bay emerald. He found himself thrilling to the heavy droplets of rain sinking into his skin, and enjoyed this new sensation of defiance, of cutting loose.

  Turning right at the bend by the cemetery, Fred walked towards the house he shared with his mother at the edge of a hazel wood. (All around, the land here had long belonged to the Fosters, and though his mother was one of their number, she’d not flourished as her sister had done and had only the small house.) There was an unfamiliar bounce to Fred’s step, and his legs felt sinewy and strong as he strode up the narrow path. Before he entered the gates, he stopped. Something soft and thick was in his mouth, a strange taste, warm and bitter. It wasn’t rain but he recognised it. He put his forefinger across his bottom lip and felt the torn flesh, then placed his finger inside his mouth, made a circle of his teeth. He looked up towards the moon, now high over Greenore, and checked his finger in the moonlight. Fred Plunkett did not know what to do. Should he find a way to reverse the transformation? Retrace his steps, go back to the house, find put-upon, tweed-wearing Fred and continue his life as before? Or, now that he had evidently developed a pair of long, smooth fangs, together with a ravenous desire for blood, should he forget about that Fred (that husk) once and for all, and obey the latest bizarre instruction of his booming inner voice?

  The Visit

  It had been a day of weather: snow and wind, sunshine and rain. Water dripped from the overhanging hedges in the drive and the path was thick with pine needles. Brendan made a mental note to sweep them up once Pat had gone. He stopped before the gates and pulled his trousers up by their creases to check his shoes and thought that maybe he should’ve worn his boots. He walked on. Pat would make him forget. Pat could make you forget all kinds of silly woes. He glanced over at Coogan’s and noticed the stars and stripes flag, still and wet on the pole.

  After McCaughey’s he looked over at Joy Callan’s neat line of laundry crowning her raised side lawn: a small satin-rimmed blanket, black stockings, two blue ballroom gowns, a pair of orange nylon pillowcases. As he approached her house he saw her in the yard, bright and chic in pink slacks and a tight white jumper. She was raking up leaves. He watched her part the dresses then yank the wet leaves into a pile. It made him smile; she might have hung the gowns out after she’d raked, but Joy always seemed to do things differently from others. And anyway, he was glad, because she made the task so mesmerising. He recalled how after her husband had gone she had kept body and soul together by moonlighting, rather originally he thought, as
a mushroom picker in Clones. Otherwise, as a relief teacher she had taught both his children in the Friary, though she had not been popular. He waved and wondered would she be at the Square tomorrow. He made a mental note to call in one of these evenings with the picture of Sean’s wedding in the paper.

  Walking on, his thoughts returned to Pat. He looked forward to seeing him. There would be much talk of the ‘great adventures’ as Brendan called them, the London times, the days of the Black Lion where he had been manager for nearly a decade and where Pat had been its most notorious barfly. He was proud to think he’d organised some of London’s most celebrated lock-ins, booked musicians from Dublin and Doolin and Donegal, and had the likes of David Bailey and Donovan in attendance. Soon he and Pat would be reminiscing about those times, about the dog races at Hackney and White City, the times they’d played poker in Holland Park with Jack Doyle.

  He walked up the cobbled lane towards the station. He could see clearly on the cold day the sprawl of the town towards the hills. The trees by the church were draped in ropes of white lights, and a flurry of flags hung from Carroll’s Apartments. He was amazed to think that here, in this small dot on the face of the globe, he and Pat would stand together tomorrow evening and see the President of America.

  The big station clock said ten to three. He had a few minutes yet to gather his thoughts, stare over at the glass wall of the brewery. He sat outside on the iron seat. The gulls hovered above him, filling the air with their cries. The sweet wort’s more pungent today, he thought, as his gaze fixed on the huge copper kettle glistening through the glass. It had been his first job in the brewery to wash the kettle out once the sweet wort had been siphoned off. He would then prepare it for the following morning’s shipment of hops and grain. He had spent the best part of five years inside that copper drum, up to his ankles in the remnants of fresh hops, proteins and sticky clumps of caramelised sugar. It had given him time to think; to put into perspective all that had happened in ’74.

  There was a rumble on the tracks. He turned and saw the sleek green body of the Enterprise stack up like a metallic snake along platform two. He walked over and watched from the ticket office. The doors of the carriages swung open. Women with pull-up trolleys, young men in dishevelled suits, Mrs Little and her daughter, Edel. As the crowds dispersed he saw a ghost, the tall, hulking frame of Pat Coleman standing stock-still on the busy platform. The springy hair was all white, the once firm chest now visibly lax. Brendan watched his friend remove a cigarette from behind his ear, ask a girl for a light, then take three or four concentrated puffs before flicking the stub behind him onto the tracks. Pat’s short-sleeved shirt seemed frowsy and unironed; the thick brown arms with their blue tattoos recalled to Brendan Pat’s nickname on the sites: Popeye. Popeye Pat had had the strength of ten men, and once, in a drunken rage, Brendan had seen him flatten as many.

  He followed Pat’s gaze. Up to the pale, elusive sky of the North; out to the striking sweep of the white-capped hills, the green spire of the Protestant church peeping up against them. He began to feel unfamiliar pangs of pride for the town, as if through Pat’s languorous impression, he, too, was glimpsing it for the first time. The town was his wife’s town, and he had always found it hard to appreciate its people with their wariness, their industrious, practical approach to things. His wife had been right; he had put up a resistance. She had accused him often of hiding away in the brewery kettle like a genie. But the friendships he had formed here had been without the closeness of his London bonds. The men he knew from the town were nothing like that famous man on platform two.

  He watched Pat follow the crowds as they exited the platform via the wooden ramp. He’d forgotten about Pat’s hip. The two of them would seem a right pair with their battered bodies, their war wounds, struggling up the road to the house. They’d have to get a taxi.

  At first Pat walked right past him, then doubled back, grabbed his hand with a warm, heavy shake and twirled him round in the air, both feet dangling. The familiar horseplay made Brendan feel warm and young inside. He suggested they take a taxi but Pat said he wanted to walk.

  ‘What d’you think?’ Brendan said, turning onto the prosperous-looking road.

  ‘Looks good,’ Pat replied in his reedy voice, the rapid Limerick lilt fully intact.

  ‘You know you’re to stay as long as you like.’

  ‘Well, I’ll see. It’d be something to hear Clinton. After that, I’ve a whole load to see in Kilkenny and Limerick.’

  Pat’s sallow, tight face spoke of his abstinence. No beads of sweat across the brow or lip, no dank odour. Gone were the umber circles and the frantic eyes. If you don’t stop drinking you’ll die, Brendan had said quietly into Pat’s ear on his last visit to Guy’s. Pat had often said it was those words together with his friend’s insistence he could quit that had saved his life.

  Past the Texaco garage, Pat stopped to watch Nick O’Hare sort through a trailer of wicker goods. ‘That’s Nick,’ said Brendan. ‘Used to be a coach with the town’s football team, now runs a type of yoga place in that house.’ Pat seemed enthralled by Nick’s wares. There were fusions of weave and dried flowers, shopping baskets with long handles, knee-high linen boxes stained in a dark cinnabar, as well as a small Lloyd Loom-style chair. Bowls of felt sunflowers, papier-mâché apples and grapes littered the tarmac drive. Pat went up to the brass sign on the pillar and mouthed the words engraved on it: Vipassana Centre.

  ‘How are ya?’ Pat shouted over to Nick, who was down on his hunkers editing strands of grass from the baskets.

  ‘Well, Brendan,’ Nick replied, thinking it had been Brendan who had hollered. ‘I’m making these for the President. I’ll bring one up to you.’

  ‘Do,’ Brendan replied, waving, and carried on hurriedly, hoping Pat would take the hint and move on with him.

  ‘D’you ever go in there?’ Pat asked.

  ‘Jesus, no.’ Brendan replied.

  ‘I’d love one of those baskets for Fidelma.’

  ‘Haven’t I a dozen in the garage?’ Brendan said.

  Walking on, he tried to turn the conversation towards London and the Black Lion. He asked Pat if he’d heard anything from the old gang, from Mocky Joe in particular. Mocky Joe’s success at cards had enabled him to live in London for over a decade without working. One night, weeks before Brendan had left London, the flame-haired Mocky Joe had been picked up under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and held. Of all the men he and Pat had known that had been stopped under the Sus laws or questioned under the PTA Mocky Joe was the only one the police had ever charged. He’d served twelve years. At first Pat seemed to have no recollection of him, but eventually put a face to the nickname. ‘The poor fucker,’ Pat said, ‘I went to see him and he didn’t know me at all.’ Then Brendan thought of the time of his own arrest, the long night of questioning in Harrow Road police station, and of the lie he had told there.

  Pat stopped to look over the bridge. ‘The kids used to walk all the way along that one time, trying to catch frogs,’ Brendan said, realising he had never himself walked the banks of the narrow river. The sedge rustled below where they looked and an ochre-coloured frog leaped out, springing from one clump to the next along the shallow rim of the water. He saw that Pat was bewitched by the frog, its golden skin pulsating like a loud gold watch; it seemed alien, larger than the small green specimens the kids had once brought from the banks. They watched the bright interloper go on with the river, thinning out towards Toberona and Castletown. Though it seemed hard for him to get the memories out of Pat, Brendan looked forward to the chats they were yet to have about all the great adventures.

  Closer to home, Pat wanted to stop off at Cheever’s. Brendan reluctantly followed Pat into the store, which was festooned on the outside with green and white bunting. A flag with WELCOME BILL stencilled on it protruded from the wall.

  ‘That’s a bitter day, Brendan,’ Mrs Cheever said as she sorted through the newspapers. Brendan nodded then guided Pat towards th
e freezer at the back of the shop.

  ‘But you have it lovely and warm in here, missus,’ Pat shouted over to the stout woman. Brendan saw Mrs Cheever look up at them and move a fallen strand of hair away from her face, her fingers black with newsprint.

  ‘I’m with him. Over from London for the visit,’ Pat said.

  ‘Very pleased to meet you,’ Mrs Cheever replied, in her singsong voice. She walked over and put a copy of The Democrat under Brendan’s arm.

  ‘Here. The son’s wedding is in that. Have another for safe-keeping.’

  Pat picked out a pack of Galtee cheese, some rashers, a half-pound of lard, a sliced white batch-loaf, a copy of Ireland’s Own and Kimberly biscuits. In the basket they looked like something from a 1950s tourist brochure, the type of provisions Brendan himself had bought years ago in Mandy’s in Willesden when he was homesick.

  ‘Pat, you’re my guest. You’re to spend nothing.’

  ‘Always pay my way, you know that,’ Pat insisted.

  By Callan’s Brendan heard harp music and stopped. It sounded loud and sad. He saw Joy seated at the table, staring stiffly into a hand-mirror. He saw her catch sight of him, then Pat, who was examining her winter flowers. He wanted to call out but she dashed from the room. He sensed they had stumbled upon a private moment, a low. His pace quickened. When he stopped he heard Pat laughing behind him.

  ‘Now there’s a woman in need of cheering up.’

  ‘Can’t tell you the times I’ve wanted to call in to her but never do.’

  ‘You have to get yourself a reason, man.’

  ‘She likes dancing, I drag my left leg. All I can think of is bringing things, flowers maybe.’

  ‘All good, but it’s not a reason. Ask her to come to Clinton with us.’

  It had not even occurred to him to ask Joy Callan to go to the Square with them. One evening in Cheever’s he’d spoken to her about the President’s visit and had been impressed by her enthusiasm, by her belief that the visit would act as some kind of salve for what the town had been through in the last three decades.