by David Park
‘I didn’t see you coming.’
‘You nearly jumped out of your pants. What were you doing in the shop? Looking for porno books?’
Of all the people he could possibly have met, he could think of no one worse than Chick Kierney, but he tried to be calm and bluff it out.
‘I was just looking around.’
‘Books are no good – you have to read for ages before you find a good bit. It’s not worth the effort. Mags are best. I can get you some if you’ve got the dough.’
‘Naw, I’m not interested, Chick. Anyway, who needs mags when you can have the real thing?’
Chick smiled and thumped him playfully on the shoulder.
‘Go on ye boy ye. Now you’re talking.’
The conversation could have gone on forever. He had to extract himself. Looking deliberately at his watch, he said he had to go.
‘Where’re you going? What’ve you got in your sports bag?’
He silently cursed his classmate’s insatiable curiosity, but forced himself into restraint.
‘I’m going swimming in the leisure centre. Do you want to come?’
‘In this weather? You must be joking. C’mon and we’ll go round the town, and pick up a couple of good things.’
‘Can’t, Chick, I’m meeting someone,’ he replied with a tone of finality, then turned and started to move off down the street.
‘You’re chicken, Ricky-dicky. Don’t pee in the pool or you’ll turn the water yellow!’
He clenched his fists at the insult, but kept on walking. He would settle that particular score at some later date. Crossing the street, he headed for the sports shop and mingled with the other young window-gazers. His eyes flitted over the expensive football boots and the kits of leading teams. He thought it was a con the way they changed them every year, so that no sooner had you bought your favourite team’s kit than it was out of date. It was a racket. If ever he was rich, he would buy everything in the window – it all looked so new and fresh, with that clean, crisp smell that made you want to touch.
He walked on down the street and into the arcade. The smell of a hot dog stand curdled the air and reminded him that he was cold and hungry. Counting the change in his pocket, he found enough to buy one and loaded it with sauce and mustard until it dripped like an ice-cream cornet. He looked at his watch again and saw with some relief that time had started to pass. But it was still too early. Eating the hot dog, he crossed the road and went into the pet shop. Outside on the pavement were aquariums, dog baskets and kennels, a tank full of goldfish and an assortment of cages and equipment for pets. Inside, the fetid smell of animals flowed over him but he was indifferent to it, inspecting the stacked cages of birds in the order he always followed. First the budgerigars, vibrant in blue, yellow and green, then the canaries, zebra finches and Java sparrows. There was a mynah bird he hadn’t seen before, and a new pair of lovebirds. White doves rustled and nestled together and he tapped the cage with his finger and cooed gently at them. Then, crouching down on his hunkers, he looked in at the rabbits, their doleful pink eyes staring impassively back at him. Further along were white mice, and breaking off a piece of bread, he fed them through the bars of the cage.
‘Don’t feed the animals son,’ boomed a voice from behind the counter. ‘They get fed enough and they don’t need any more.’
He stepped back from the cage and stared at the sawdust floor.
‘And by the look of that thing, you’ve probably given them and yourself a good dose of food poisoning.’
Embarrassed by the public chastisement, he sidled slowly up the shop and pretended to be studying a book on hamsters. After what he considered a suitable period of time, he casually ambled out the door and back on to the street. Looking at his watch, he calculated that if he walked slowly and went the long way round, it would be the right time to arrive at the gate. Suddenly a large hand clutched his shoulder.
‘Long time no see, Ricky.’
It was James Fallon, the youth club leader. He felt the broad hand drawing him aside, away from the middle of the pavement, the man’s height and size overshadowing him and trapping him in the doorway of a closed-down shop.
‘Where’ve you been, Ricky boy? It’s not like you to stay away for so long. What’s wrong? Did somebody do something to you?’
‘It’s nothing like that, Mr Fallon. I’ve been busy recently. I wanted to come, but I wasn’t able.’
‘And what makes a young buck like you so busy then?’
He had talked himself into a dead-end and his brain scrambled to find some escape.
‘Just things – you know how it is.’
‘You’re a real mystery man, Ricky. Father Logue’s been asking after you as well, and the team’s missing its centre-forward – we’ve had three replacements and they haven’t scored a goal between them.’
He glanced at the boy’s sports bag.
‘You’re not turning out for someone else, are you?’
‘No, I’m going swimming at the leisure centre. I’ll be coming back to the club all right. I’ll probably be up tomorrow night.’
‘That’s good, Ricky, that’s good. Have you heard from your brother yet?’
He wanted to look at his watch, but knew he could not. He fidgeted nervously from foot to foot, aware that time was moving on. Everything seemed to be going against him.
‘He’s not great at writing letters Mr Fallon, but we’re going up to see him next month.’
‘Well, tell him I was asking for him. Maybe I’ll get to see him when he’s feeling settled.’
‘I’ll do that. I have to go now because I’m meeting someone at the leisure centre.’
‘You’re a real busy lad, Ricky. I’ll not keep you any longer – I wouldn’t want you to be late.’
Smiling gently, he stepped aside, but before the boy could step out on to the pavement, he returned his hand firmly to his shoulder.
‘Come back to the club, son. Run the streets and you’ll end up in trouble. It’s not worth it, Ricky.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’m coming back. I’ll be up tomorrow night.’
They parted, and as they walked in different directions, he glanced over his shoulder several times to check he wasn’t being watched, and then, quickening his pace, he hurried towards the iron gate. Meeting two people he knew had been a piece of bad luck, but he had survived and it was now behind him. Proving himself reliable and trustworthy was all that mattered – he owed it to his brother. People walked past him, their faces pale and pinched with the cold, and he felt apart from them. As an old woman trundled a battered pram towards him, loaded with second-hand clothing, he crossed the road and, without looking right or left, walked through the gate that was a side entrance to the chapel. Once inside, he stepped off the path and stood with his back to the wall where he was unseen from the street. He was nervous now, and glanced repeatedly at his watch, knowing that the fifteen-minute waiting period had started. An old woman came through the gate heading towards the side door of the chapel, but she did not see him. Five minutes passed and no one else entered or left. He shuffled his feet and blew into his hands. Perhaps nothing would happen. Although he would not consciously admit it, part of him wished for the fifteen minutes to pass without his being needed.
His eyes flicked to the couple of stunted trees growing in the grounds of the chapel. They had shed most of their leaves and the few remaining fluttered lifelessly like tattered flags. Above, the sky was a strange blue-grey colour. Around his feet a spume of the previous day’s confetti fluttered up in the wind. He looked at his watch again. Suddenly a man appeared at the end of the path – he was early. He tensed in readiness, but there was something wrong – the man was walking unsteadily, swaying from side to side. Something had gone terribly wrong. He felt the press of panic and thought of taking to his heels, but something stronger forced him to wait. By now the man had zigzagged close enough to be seen clearly and the panic was replaced by relief. It was a drunk. He pulled him
self back into the shadow of the wall and dropped the sports bag to the ground, but his relief was shortlived. If the drunk had been walking at normal speed he probably would never have seen him, but as he drew close to the gate he stopped, and with flailing co-ordination attempted to light a cigarette.
‘Hey son, can you help me a wee minute?’
He swayed off the path and lurched over to him, the smell of booze oozing out of every pore.
‘Lend us a few bob, son. I want to light a candle for my wee boy. My wife died last year and now he’s having a big operation. The doctors don’t know if he’ll make it or not.’
At that moment he would have given all the money he had in the world to be rid of this unwanted and dangerous distraction, but he knew without looking that his pockets were hopelessly empty. He had spent the last of his money in the arcade.
‘My wee boy’s all I’ve left in the whole world. Just a few bob to light a candle for him.’
The begging had become more insistent, and a shaking hand wiped away imaginary tears. He knew that he had to do something quickly. As one hand searched deliberately in his pocket, the other grabbed his bag and he side-stepped the drunk as if evading a tackle on the soccer field. Hurrying down the path towards the chapel he heard only a slurred, broken curse pursue him. Then from a safe distance he turned and watched the man stagger out through the gate, rehearsing his lines for the next audience. When he was sure he had gone, he returned to his original position and waited silently. A glance at his watch told him there were only five minutes left. Perhaps no one would come. Perhaps he would not be needed. Four minutes left. He cupped his hands again and blew into them. Suddenly, he tensed and tightened his grip on the shoulder bag – a man was running along the path towards him. A little cloud of breath preceded him, and by the way the distance between them was closing rapidly, it was obvious that he was running hard. So this was it. With a hand that shook a little, he unzipped the bag and held it open. The man was level with him now but they did not speak or look into each other’s faces. He had stopped running but was still breathing heavily as he took it out of his pocket and dropped it into the boy’s bag. Then he was gone, out into the street and away, a blur in the dusk, another face in the crowd. It was smaller and heavier than he had imagined and it felt warm as he carefully wrapped it in the towel and zipped up the bag. Then he too was gone, newly articled and proud, stepping out with the pride a young man feels on the first day of his first job.
The Catch
The bed confined him like a strait-jacket, each sheet and blanket smothering him with its endless heaviness. He seemed unable to lie in one position for more than a few seconds before a nervous restlessness drove him to seek relief. It had been a mistake to go to bed so early, but he had taken his parents’ advice when they told him that a good night’s sleep would settle him. If only he could sleep. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to make his mind completely blank, but the more he tried, the more it seemed to flit feverishly from one idea to another.
The whole house was alive with sound. He heard the clink of glasses and his aunt’s high-pitched laughter. His mother was ironing his uniform and he hoped she would concentrate on getting his trouser creases really sharp. A pulse of panic suddenly shook him – what would happen if her attention wandered while she was chatting with her sister and burned a hole in them? He sat bolt upright. The whole bed creaked with the sudden movement. But no, he was being foolish, he knew his mother would do those trousers better than she had ever done them. He lay down again. It was a matter of personal pride that her son should be perfectly turned out on such an important occasion. He tried to sleep again, but his uncle’s voice droned persistently on. They had emigrated to Canada only five years previously, but now they spoke and acted as if they had lived there all their lives. He smiled when he thought of his uncle’s brightly checked trousers and white shoes. When they went down the pub he stood out like a sore thumb.
They were home for three weeks and were staying for each week with a different relation. He wished they could have visited at a different time, as somehow they seemed to distract his attention and put even more pressure on him than there was already. They would be there tomorrow of course. To see ‘The Glorious Twelfth’ again was one of the reasons they had chosen July. Then a feeling of guilt washed over his irritation. After all, his aunt and uncle had been really good to him when the family had visited them in Toronto the year before. They had travelled with the Maple Leaf Club and it was the most exciting thing he had ever done in his life. He remembered going to the top of the CN Tower and thinking he must be standing at the very top of the world. He had taken a photograph, but it hadn’t come out. Then he thought of the cine-camera his uncle had brought with him to film the procession. The thought of everything preserved on film for ever brought back the pulse of panic.
Six months earlier ‘The Glorious Twelfth’ had filled him with a thrill of expectancy, but as the weeks passed and it loomed nearer he felt increasingly nervous. Now that it was only a sleep away he felt sick with fear. Tomorrow the whole world would be watching as he led ‘The Sons of the East’ flute band, and with the eye of the universe fixed exclusively on him, he would throw the mace into the air and catch it as it fell. The burden of that knowledge weighed heavily on his shoulders and crushed his spirit, but there could be no escape from the terrible inevitability.
He could catch the mace blindfolded, he could catch it in his sleep. He had practised his routine incessantly during the last few months until his brain no longer needed to tell his fingers what to do. Everyone said he was as good as they had seen, and yet as the day drew nearer, his confidence began to slowly drain away. His mind snatched with mounting alarm at all the things that might go wrong. This was his first Twelfth as leader. He had walked the previous two years as a player. It was his lack of skill as a player that had helped him win the job in the first place. He could never really master the flute, apart from the two or three basic tunes that were the core of the repertoire. The band leader, Mr Morrison, could see that his heart wasn’t in it. Just when he had been seriously considering packing it all in, Mr Morrison had called at the house one evening and told him that the regular drum major had found a job in England and the band would need a replacement. He was offering it to him because often during the breaks at practice he had watched him playing around with the mace. Mr Morrison said he had a promising style, and because he knew his father, he was going to give him a trial run. He had jumped at the opportunity and his parents shared his pride when they heard the news.
So far everything had gone well. On their first outings in the marching season he had impressed everyone with his dexterity and style. He copied the basic technique from the more experienced leaders he had watched, and then added a few little frills and fancies of his own. Mr Morrison said that for a fifteen-year-old he showed great composure and had a good future ahead of him. It seemed to come so naturally. At school he was best at those subjects which involved his hands, and even when he played football he always went into goal. However, he never let himself become complacent and for some period of every day he would go into the yard, or the entry behind, and practise. Sometimes the younger kids would come and watch, and then he would really turn it on, trying out even more dramatic twirls and spins that he was not yet ready to perform in public. There was no movement or inch of the mace that he did not feel safe with, in the security of intimacy. But above all he practised the throw. He practised the throw, not only because it was the most difficult thing to do, but because it was the most important. All drum majors understood that. Technically it was very difficult. To throw a mace high into the air and catch it cleanly required precision of timing and reflex. There could be no second chance and no disguising failure. A player might play a wrong note and have it swallowed up by the sound of those around him, but the drum major stood out on his own. There were, too, so many things that could go wrong – strong sunlight, a gust of wind, reflexes dulled by fatigue – all could
conspire to produce disaster. And yet it was the very risk involved that made the throw so important. It was an assertion of confidence and a gesture of triumph for all the world to see. The crowd loved it. When the mace went spinning into the air it would pull a roar from their throats, and an even greater roar when it was safely caught.
A week earlier, with the arrogance of youth, he had secretly thought of himself as the best catcher in the city. Now, for reasons he did not understand, his confidence had been replaced by panic and dread. The thought of the throw terrified him. Perhaps it was the setting, perhaps the possibility of failure and disgrace in front of so many people. Whatever the cause, he felt its effects eating away at his heart. Now, tossing and turning in the bed, each thought whispered to him of disaster and each minute trapped him in its boundless horizons. An eternity later, he wore himself out, and into the wake of his weariness slipped a shallow ripple of sleep. As he drifted deeper, the last sounds he was aware of were the singing voices of a couple of drunks rolling up some distant street, and in his ears their discordant voices sounded vaguely sweet.
But sleep brought no relief because he dreamed of the great day, and in his sleep he could not catch the mace. Terrible things happened. He tossed it high into the air, high as the CN Tower, and it did not come down. The whole procession piled up behind him as he stood with his arms outstretched, staring up into space. The crowd grew impatient. He begged them to wait but though he narrowed his eyes and stared into the fierce blue sky, he could find no trace of the mace. It had disappeared. And another time, just as the crowd was at its deepest, he spun it up and watched it with the eye of a hawk, but when he held up his hands to catch it, they were heavy and useless. It was as if he was wearing boxing gloves. The mace clattered to the ground and everyone laughed and shouted. Then in his dream the procession moved on and he found himself suddenly embroiled in the very heart of the battle itself. Things were going badly for King William. His soldiers couldn’t get across the river and King James’s men were inflicting heavy casualties. It was the crisis point of the battle. Suddenly, King William turned to him and told him to go forward and throw his mace. They tried to protect him with armour but it was too heavy and he threw it aside. Both armies were lined up along opposite banks of the river. The Catholic forces jeered when they saw him coming forward and someone shouted that they should not send a boy to do a man’s job. He closed his ears to the tumult and thought only of catching the mace for his King. He threw it high, so high that every soldier in the battle could see it.