Untitled Document

2nd "The Wait" by Dr. Liam Hodder and "Better Than a Holiday Camp" by Geraldine Brosnahan

You may not believe it, but I didn't always look like this. Have looked better have looked worse. Eyes coming back from the black hollows. Cheeks not so cadaverous. This room is returning from I don't know how many weeks of distraught living to something of what it was. This was a lovely room. Maybe it soon will be again. Now that we are breaking away from that evil. Maybe we will drag ourselves up out of the hole of violence that nearly tore us apart.
We had dreams you see. Don and I. Yes, we had dreams. We were the ones going up in the world. This living in a shoebox of a flat was not for us. Our future did not exist in a place this where we had to share a stink hole of a bathroom with the other tenants as well as the clients whose footsteps hit off the last step up to the rolfer's clinic at the top of the house. Hell-bent on saving, we denied ourselves with puritanical zeal for the joy of seeing our account grow fat. We went show housing every Sunday and came back and totted up the figures a hen's peck closer to our target.
Even before the earthmovers had finished digging, before cement lorries drove in, before waste ground became transformed by Tudor dwellings, we were there, checking out the view, the position of the sun, and the lie of the land. This one tricked us with its bright kitchen , the loo under the stairs and the slice of stained glass above the front door that washed the walls red with the evening sun.
Don's car never before experienced the mountain of belongings that were crammed into it the day we moved. Jaws swished back and fourth in his plastic home on my lap, looking as if he were going to be carsick. Don felt it was only just after all the times he spent retching over the side of the Holyhead ferry.
A single bed was all we had, brought from Don's home, and that first night he held me crushed against the wall in our new peach and green bedroom with its en-suite. We lay his hand holding my breast while we sipped from a single glass, the champagne that Jane gave us as a moving in gift. We sipped until the sun went searching for the far side of the world and we were both sleepy and randy. Then it started.
It was raised voices at first. Don's fingers stopped their wanderings. High pitched voices that carried on to a scream, then a crash against the wall, a thump, whether body or chair we could not tell. Crying, sobs that broke the night, and left sleep outside our domain and killed any hope of Don's fingers now bringing my shacking body to life.
Next morning I became a voyeur, squinting out a neighbour in a pinstriped suit off to work in his new Mazda 323 with a perfectly presented wife in the passenger seat.
Sometimes it was quiet for weeks, letting me believe that there was a home in this house of ours and drove me to plant hyacinths and muscari that Autumn, sharing in the promise of springtime sealed in to each bulb. Till the next shouting, and trail of abuse that dragged all over the house, pushing in against us like a wave against a quivering wall. A house where we dreamed of the perfect conception of our babies. Not this witness from the time sperm met egg and before.
In the daylight they were neighbours, he filling the bird feeder with seeds, talking over the fence about his new car, or his golf or the best way to train a clematis. She with her beautifully cut suits and government secretarial job, that duped me on occasions to believe that now as a stay at home mother I had lost out somewhere along the line. "Nice….day…," I would say with forked tongue, not having the gumption to ask about bruises hidden by silk and cool linen swathe. What should I have said? How are you after last night? How did you fare out after your clothes were flung out on the lawn? Must be cold in the coal shed these nights? Did you know Mr. Muscle is great for getting cups of tea off an eggshell finish? Instead I stood there like a coward I was and fed the lie with admiration for her colour co-ordinated line, her Ralph Lauren shirt. Christ, what in God's honest name were we trying to gloss over, accepting his gift of Remy Martin at Christmas, wishing a happy and holy season from our house to yours. The price of our tight lips.
Yes, it's the way it is isn't it. Neighbours know what's going on and pull a muffler over the sounds and the sobs. Mustn't interfere. A private affair, a domestic matter, even the police would say. Go, Don, knock on the door, tell them we cannot put up with it. No Miriam, steer clear.
We never could figure out what would set it off, sunny Sunday morning, a rainy winter's evening, there was never a pattern, one that we could see anyway. His voice high and shrill, spewing out obscenities, our children hearing like a mantra "you fucking" bitch: through living room walls. She would turn up the television then, in a futile attempt to screen the goings-on, but did you know all that did was add to the craziness, the something of Munch's Scream but in sound.
For years we tried to push away the vile that seeped in through those paper walls that divided house from house. " There but for the grace of God……" was our resolution when we didn't see eye to eye and we tiptoed round a squall for fear it erupted into a full-scale storm. Didn't we love one another. We kowtowed to the myth that we loved more because we never shouted at one another. Afraid that if we uncovered that side of ourselves we would in some way go tumbling down into the quagmire of next door.
"Duchess, you haven't seen her, Miriam, have you?"
"Sorry?"
"Duchess, my cat. She's missing." Standing there at my front door, she was very agitated. "No, I said, "but if you want to check the back garden." She was gone, through the kitchen out the back, calling "Duchess, pshh, wshh. But no tigers eyes shone from beneath a lavender, no marmalade body come and slink itself against her legs. "She's gone, if he did anything to her…" I led her into the kitchen, filled the kettle. "You don't mind if I…?" No, of course not.
She pulled out a packet of cigarettes and only when she could feel the effects of the nicotine did her shoulders relax.
"Don't know what I'd do without these things…. I'd be demented by now". And then she covered her face. "You've no idea of what's going on. Christ, what am I saying, you of anyone would. The bastard.
"You what, ?"
"I told her she should get out."
"Over an ole cat?" "Don't be so dense, Don, Do I have to spell it out for you?"
"Well, that's got nothing to do with us, Mir."
"There you're wrong, it's affecting us even if we don't realise it, not to say what it's doing to the children."
"But we don't know, maybe she deserv……."
" I don't believe this." " Well you know what they say, it takes two to tango."
I stopped telling him, when she called again and again, taking the pieces of paper from me with telephone numbers, pieces of information that I heard on the radio while I did the ironing in the afternoon and she was at work.
"She's been here again, that woman," he would say when he came home in the evening. "Giving her more of your expert advice. Let's see where that will get you." Where was this getting us, now that we had declared allegiances. The man recovered of the bite, the dog it was that died.
It's funny how that line has just come to me. This time it had gone on for three nights without reprieve, starting at four in the morning. His voice was so loud, I woke up thinking there were people in our bedroom, she pleading, he effin her out of it. All the next day it went on, the Austrian blinds never pulled, keeping out the lights and the eyes of passer-by who went in this quiet cul de sac. Neighbours whispered in cloaked voices. And then she was gone. Maybe it was the fact that she could take it herself but couldn't see it done to another way with her bags in the boot, while the effects of the gin were still keeping him comatose and his snores were lost in the closing of the hall door.
I sat on the couch for hours, waiting for him to get up. Sitting, listening for the sound of the bed to creak, the first foot on floor, a plug in the socket, the jostle of hangers in the wardrobe. Heard his footsteps on the stairs as if it were my own and then fade away as he went further to kitchen at the far end. Don used to say that newspapers tacked to wooden laths would have afforded us more privacy that these walls. This day, there might as well have been one. Seeping through them, seeping as if by osmosis was the silence of this man that was left. No one to stamp on, no one to belittle. My duster swished along the mantelpiece, louder now than the sound of nothing from beyond the other side. And here I was. Had she told him of how I helped her, about the information I had given her, the telephone numbers? If she had then I was trapped. Here in my own house I was a fly caught in a web. My bright curtain less windows exposed me, showed me up. Would he come to my door looking for her, force it out of me. The patio door now became a glass case where I flapped within a world of simmering. What could he be doing in there with his hands now idle, his tongue-tied. I peeled onions, let them sting, diced carrots, chopped celery. I turned on the radio in the vague hope that the familiar voice of the presenter would help me. The children wondered why I had drawn the curtains in the afternoon. I will not have to look up and see his eyes picking me out. I made tea, lifting the lid of the kettle again and again to see the bubbles rising from the element. I was scared, scared shitless.
He switched on his television, turned down low. My telephone rang. Don was working late. "She's gone", I whispered into the phone. "Well now we might get some shuteye," he said.
He sat watching; no lights on, the blue eerie light of the late night movie filling the room. He left the porch light on, sure that a Mazda would crawl into the empty driveway. The light stayed on all night. At dawn the milkman left bottles on an empty driveway.
All the next few days the lava-like silence flowed towards us searing, solidifying. He left the house in darkness, until six empty cans lay crushed at his feet. We would have given anything for the familiar, the crashing plates, the split screams, to protect us from his man silenced by departure.
We tried to talk, Don and me. I tried to tell him of this claw of fear at my shoulders so that I found myself turning, checking that there were no talons to strike. If it sunk in with him he didn't show me.
"You're the one, that told her to go remember, the one who gave her those numbers. Women's aid, crowd of lesbian men-bashers. His words were poison on arrow-tips driven right through. "You can't mean that, you can see what it's doing to me and you".
He turned from me then, "We'd be fine if only you would pull yourself together. Go to the doctor, ask him for something."
It transmogrifies you know, a claw one day, then lava, a poison seeping in through these walls. We didn't know then but I saw Don's slipping away of patience, his intolerance to what I felt. This thing, this chimera had been layering its skin onto us, cell by cell until it was turning us into one of its own. Now we have the job of climbing out of those days and the weeks that followed. Hard, very hard, because he had to slough off this skin and expose all that we had refused to look at until now.
I wasn't sleeping at all now you see. There was no way I could render livable this house, this man at my side who was not my man, of that man I had hoped him to be. I spent nights standing at my window in my peach and green room looking out at the street, wishing for a cardinal red Mazda to turn into the street. Let the porch light be switched off, the television light to die.
"Come back to bed, Mir."
"In a minute,I'll…."
"For Christ's sake Miriam, come back right now or else…"
Bringing his fist down on the bedside locker, dislodging bottles and creams that clattered and rolled along the floor.
My body just shut down. So this is what it's like.

Claire Keegan

I have come home to tell you. I have walked back into my past, my clothes too small for me. A story from a women's magazine. Oh, I've come back before, bought ferry crossings for engagement parties, my nephew's christening and Christmases. That's when I met you, at one of those do's. You chatted me up over the hors d'oeuvres, fed me pate on Melba toast as we stood between a be sequinned hostess and a man in black. I was your Christmas fling, a thing to break the boredom of the holidays, and you were mine. But now these suitcases have the weight of anchors touching this floor I learned to walk on. I'm back for good.
My female relatives huddle round me in the bedroom, have brought tea up in china cups and saucers excavated from the glass cabinet. They're tweedy, big-boned people who like to think they taught me right from wrong, manners and the merits of hard work. Flat-bellied, temperamental women who've given up and call it happiness. We women come from women who comfort men, men who never say no. Now they want to know about my future, asking what it is I do now, and 'What are you going to do now?', which isn't quiet the same thing.
' I'm going to write', I say. 'It's what I do'. A smutty novel, I want to add, something lecherous and bawdy, make Fanny Hill look like their Sunday missals.
This always brings a smirk. It's a smart answer but a queer occupation, especially at my age. They calculate my age mentally, trying to remember what happened around the time I was born, who died. They're not too sure but I'm no spring chicken anymore. I should be doing something else by now, latching myself on to some single man with a steady wage and a decent car.
'You and your books' they say, shaking their heads, squeezing the good out of the teabags.
They don't know the half of it. Don't know the disguises I've made for them, how I took twenty years off their hard-earned faces, washed the honey-blonde rinses out of their hair. How I put them in another country and changed their names. Turned them inside out like dirty old socks. The lies I've told.
I unpack my suitcases and the ritual begins. They lean in from the bed, the armchair, the window seat and make conversation, wondering what new clothes I have, if my shoes are patent, my dresses silk. Like American visitors from their childhood. They finger the fabric, see how deep the hems are, read the labels, ruminate:
'Nice bit of stuff in that, where'd ya come at it?'
'Be the flip, look at the mini!'
'But sure the minis are all in again, don't you know'.
'She has the legs'.
'Lovely linen in that but sure nobody could iron it'.
'Can't beat the drip dry, really, can you?'
'What size is that? Would that fit me? You've put on a bit of weight if you don't mind me saying so. But it suits you'.
I hang up practical cotton blouses, flared elasticated skirts, a black wool trouser suit, a cashmere dress. Practical shoes that belie my occupation. A pair of high-heeled red pumps to confuse them. They rummage through my things trying to find me out.
Eventually they retreat into the kitchen to prepare dinner. I hear a clunk of potatoes in the sink, the festive clatter of saucepan lids and soon the smell of boiled cabbage creeps up the stairs.
I had forgotten how these back rooms bruised yellow in the evening. I sit under the window and read with my face in the shade and my book in the sunlight and wonder if it's bad for my eyes. I read Jamaica Inn again, the first book that lured me into this deception and think Daphne would be a good name if it's a girl.
I have arranged to meet you in Dun Laoghaire. I step off the Dart and you're there, looking handsome and tall in your cowboy boots. You kiss my cheek in greeting but your lips are clod. And something I do not remember, a gold stud, peeps out of your left earlobe. You tell me the English air must suit me, that I'm blooming.
'You're looking well, whatever you're doing with yerself over there', you say with something that sounds like disapproval. Irish girls should dislike England, they should stay home and raise their sons up right and stuff the chicken of a Sunday, snip the parsley and tolerate the blare of the Sunday game.
'Vogue's on the phone all the time' I say.
'Well, your tongue's not changed'. You loop your arm through mine and walk me out along the coast, the granite dome of Joyce's Tower mushrooming into the cold afternoon sun behind us.
'He wrote all them famous books. Imagine', you say, 'and this is the fucking snot-green sea'. A ruffle of dirty sea splashes against the rocks.
We flap out your over-coat on the rocks and lie down in a spot over-looking Gentleman's Beach. I put my arm through your wool sleeve because of the wind off the snot-green sea would cut the arse off a girl. We don't say one word, our thoughts forking out separately. Then, out of nowhere, I remember the story of a girl someplace down West. They found her in a hut her father'd built, a one-roomed place in a wood, he'd kept her. I remember the photo of a stretcher with a body bag, another of her smiling in a school photograph, her head and shoulders circled.
A fishing boat passes, not so far out that we cannot hear the men's voices singing 'My! My! My! Deeelilah!' all the way out and past Dalkey Island. You think it's funny.
'Idiots', you say, smiling.
You always like other men's pleasure, taking a small share of it for yourself. I would have thought it was funny too not so long ago. I used to think I could never know too much. In college, I couldn't get enough. I stacked the books up on the bedside locker, read late into the night and traded them in for more as if learning was something I could reduce over time. But now I know too much, I must go slowly, must keep this to myself until I'm ready. Like holding a too full glass, not being able to move, afeared of spills.
I watch the rain coming down on the headland father up, see the gentle, grey sweep of it moving indiscriminately south. The gulls swoop down and shit on the rocks, staying ahead of the weather.
'Let's shag off to the pub' you say and I sense this is the last time we will ever be like this. Everything casual between us ends here, on these rocks under the shadow of Joyce's Martello tower.
We stop at Finnegan's, a fancy bar with brass rails around the counter. Three middle aged men sit on stools with their Evening Heralds, circling the hot fillies, taking a chance on the dogs. Brown, sepia photographs of hurling teams from the 50's hang on the walls, the men in the front rows genuflecting for the camera. You carry two pints to a table like a man carrying the first two bucketfuls of water to put on a blaze in his own stable. Hurried, ready to go again.
We sit in red armchairs by the fire and those nights come back to me, that week between Christmas and the new year, six days and nights spent at your mothers empty house, when I wore nothing but your clothes, your mandarin- collared shirts which came down to my knees, your thick, brown heeled football socks. We stayed in and ate take-outs: Chow Mein, fresh cod and chips, the strangest Christmas food. I remember the Japanese flag hanging in the corner of the bedroom, the centre dipped in red like a truce gone bloody. The way you took it down and snapped it out, let it fall down over my nakedness in your mother's king sized bed. Maybe I should have known then. We'd wake in the middle of those nights and make love and coffee and you didn't have much to say but that was fine. I stayed up and listened to the cars passing through the slush, the odd drunk bar of silent night from the merry stragglers going home. I remember how the drizzle on the glass blistered the view of the Georgian houses.
And now I wonder what it is you expect. Another six day fling? I suspect you think I'm a woman who doesn't have the tact to let go of a small thing like a week in your mother's bed.
'Has the cat got your tongue?' you ask.
And then all my preparations disappear. I pour the contents of that glass into yours. The words come out blunt and fast and irreversible. Your hand tightens round your glass. I wait for you to say something. I want you to say you love me, even though I don't love you. It might restore some balance. If I must carry the child, the least you can do is love me.
The green wood hisses in the grate, the resin oozing out from beneath the bark, loosening. Lines of connecting sparks, what my grandmother called soldiers, march across the soot but you say nothing. The moment for you to say the right thing passes. Whatever you say I'll manage. I will live out of a water barrel and check the skies. I will learn fifteen types of winds and know the weight of tomorrow's rain by the rustle in the sycamores. Make nettle soup and dandelion bread, ask for nothing. And I won't comfort you. I will not be the woman who shelters her man same as he's a boy. That part of my people ends with me.
You watch two fellas at the bar, young men in their late twenties with creaky leather jackets, blue jeans, free men. You could get up and walk over there in seven or eight cowboy strides. You drink your stout until the froth settles half-way down the glass. I watch your Adam's apple moving like a stone in your throat. 'Well, the damage is done now', you say.
I reach across the table and wipe the froth from your moustache, but touching brings the memory of touch , and you pull away.
'What do you think of the name Daphne?' I ask. And there it is, my decision named. No boat trip back, no roll of twenty pound notes, no bleachy white waiting room with women's dog-eared magazines.
You peer into your glass. 'It's a quare name for a boy' you say. You push those clod lips into an expression not unlike the look in the eyes of those hurlers in the front row, and I suspect pride. Because pride is something I know about. I won't keep you away from the boys and your smoky, snooker nights. I'll drink this parting glass but at the end of the night I'll shake your hand. Suddenly I wonder why I came.
'Drink up', you say, gesturing to my glass. 'A girl in your condition needs her dose of iron'.
And so I drink my pint of Irish stout, taking refuge in the fact that you've named the mineral hidden in the white stripe of its head.

4.30 p.m. Christmas Eve is left-it-till-late-again shopping-for-presents time "Oh, this is a good one, Dad," he says, his finger-tips floating over the tautened goat-skin, tapping out a quiet beat with practised rhythm. "This one has a fab sound, Dad."

I watch his fingers move outwards towards the rim, flowing over the smoothened surface like the caress of a soft wind, then searching along the band of curved wood at the periphery, stopping to rest and feel each stud that holds the stretched skin in place.
"Wow! See this one, Dad," he says, "It's super."
Tears well behind my eyes at the delicate beauty in the movement of his fingers, at the gentle grace in the little hands.
"There's a brill feel off this one, Dad; honest."
Admiring the ease and the symmetry of his exploring fingers, I remember the thought-up exercises we conjured for him when was…what? …five? …Yes, five I suppose… when he was five…his first year in school. Mixing dry rice and sawdust together, then getting him to pick out the rice. Selectivity and touch. Patience.
"This one is a beauty, Dad; it really is…really. What colour is it, Dad?"
"Brown," I lie, making her a silent shuush with my lips, before she can give the game away, as sisters three-years-older are wont to do. Shuuush, I tell her silently, putting a finger to my lips, before she can tell him it is black. He already has a black one at home. And a greyish one. Last Christmas Eve it must have been, same shop, same time, possibly the exact same minute, I bought him the black one.
And the grey one? Where did I buy him that? I can't remember. The Christmas before that, I suppose. Three presents bought; three Christmases bought. Three more Christmases chalked-up as time-makers of his survival.
"Can I have it, can I have it pleeeeease," he pleads. "You promised, you promised."
"Alright so."
"Thanks Dad, you're the best Daddy in the whole world."
"That's four he has now," she pouts sullenly.
Christ! Four? I must have missed one. She's probably right. Kids usually are when it comes to trivialities like these that are such a hugeness in their lives. At least four probably, at this stage.
Paying my £19.95 to the man behind the counter, I know I have been caught again. Pocketing my 5p change, I know he has ambushed me once more. There is nothing I can do about it. I can't bring myself to refuse him. Present after present, month after month, Christmas after Christmas. Storing up one more year with each bodhran I buy him, terrified he will run-out of skin…or flesh. Terrified he will run out of Christmases. And I had promised him. The promises and promises and promises I made him in Crumlin. A dog…a bodhran…a tractor with real steering…a horse. Promises…promises. A trip to Disneyland…a two-wheeler without stabilisers…a farm for the horse. Promises and more promises. Four years since the long black sleepless nights in the hospital telling him stories, making him promises. Two four eight. Gosh! Can he really have doubled his age since then. It seems like nothing; it seems…only yesterday. Promising…promising; promising sun, moon and stars. Promising anything but Heaven.
And promises, promisings, are dangerous game; four year olds, eight year olds, have long memories.
"Do you know who that was?" the girl in the paper-shop asked me.
"Who?"
"Him," she said, pointing sidesways out the door with her head. "Him that was just in."
"No," I said.
"It was him alright," she whispered. "No doubt about it. He has a house out Ahakista."
"Oh," I said.
"And he bought a newspaper off me."
"Oh," I said. "I see."
I had seen someone right enough. Seen him without looking at him. Looked at himself without noticing him.
"I see," I told her. "I see."
I searched my head to remember how he had looked. He looked…he looked…ordinary. No more…no less…ordinary. Assuming she was right and it was him. He looked…exceptionally ordinary. A cap I think; ordinary. Brown probably, definitely not bright or gaudy. And a coat, I think. Brownish also, probably; sombre. Dowdy even. Definitely not bright. Ordinary. And small…he looked small…small and slight. Smaller than you would expect. And no sweat…not a drop of sweat hopping-off him.
"Your change," she said, handing me my 15p.
"Thanks," I said. "I see."
And there he was, standing outside the shop when I came out, paper under his arm. Did he notice the paper under my arm, I wondered? Did he notice how much we had in common? It was him I had seen right enough, giving into the shop. I had no idea it was him, though, until she told me. He looked so…ordinary. Ordinary…and…what?…I racked my brains for what he looked like besides ordinary, but I couldn't put a label on it. Ordinary…and…ordinary… Ordinary and what? It bugged me.
I had no idea it was him. I had other things on my mind. Thinking; that's what I had been doing. I had been busy thinking. Thinking what I would say when I got home. He had caught me on the hop that morning. Trust a child to flummox you with a single question. So I was busy thinking. Not happily thinking, mind you. Just thinking what needed to be thought-out. Getting my paper after work; thinking what I'd say when I got home.
"I'll have to think about that one," I had told him that morning when he pulled the question on me. "I'll tell you after work."
"Goodie Daddy, I always love it when you are thinking."
Jesus! That makes one of us.
So with all my thinking and thinking, what answer had I for him? Well…I suppose…NO… What could be simpler? The answer is…NO… When you think about it, it was a simple question; a child's simple question. Why complicate it with adultness. A simple question…a simple answer….NO…
That's what I had been doing when your man passed me as he left the shop. I had been practising my "NO", taking a few deep breaths those very seconds our paths crossed. Steeling myself to face it. Pure and simple…NO… What question could be simpler that a child's?
"Will I play for Cork like Liam when I'm big, Daddy?"
Why couldn't I tell him there and then?…NO…The "NO" was on my mind and I didn't notice the passing brown coat that looked so ordinary, so ordinary and …so ordinary and…
Go on…go on…I told myself. Go on up to him and say hello. After all, it wasn't as if it was something I wanted for myself. Surely he'll be interested in an eight-year-old daft about bodhrans, famous and all though he is. Go on…go on up to him…
……….go on up to him and say
……….how're they all in Lisdoon to-day
……….sorry to impose on your privacy
……….but I've a lad at home that cannot see
……….since he got a blast of the big bad C
……….For a while during chemo his heart gave out
……….his legs as well so he couldn't move about
……….but he loves your music
……….and your down-to-earth words
……….and I suppose…I suppose…I suppose you'd never
……….give him a shout, he'd remember it forever.
……….How'ya…diddle dee…diddle diddle diddle diddle…diddle dee.
"Hello," I said quietly as I passed him. Hello was the best I could manage.
"You'll never guess who I met buying the paper while ago," I told them when I got home.
"Me first, me first," she said. "The Spice Girls."
"No."
"David Beckham?" was his guess.
"No. No-one like that. I met…I met…I met…himself. I met the man himself."
"Gosh, Dad. Did you really? Were you talking to him?"
"Oh yeah, I had a great chat with him."
"Really, Dad? What did you say to him?"
"'Oh, how's it going,' says I. 'How'ya Paddy,' says he, 'how's she cutting?'"
"Did he really know you, Dad?"
"Know me? Shur himself and myself are like that, letting him feel my two fingers sticking up into the air like a catapult with no elastic.
"Shouldn't be teaching him bad words," she said. "Two fingers is a bad word."
"Not at all," I told them. "Himself and I go back a long way. Wasn't it all of us gave him the start…going to that Donovan concert in the City Hall long go. Shur he wasn't heard head nor tail of before that…and wasn't it Jack and myself singing 'The Cliffs' back in Kruger's in Dun Caoin that made him famous…"
"Jack in the pub in Macroom?"
"Yeah, Jack. Shur no-one would have heard of your man only for us."
"What did he look like, Dad?"
"What's it to you anyway what he looked like," she said. "You're as blind as a bat."
I butted in quickly, trying to fill-in any silence before it could sink-in and grow.
"He looked…he looked sort of…sort of…small. Sort of small…and…and…"

The following Wednesday after work, picking up the last of the Irish Times from the shelf, I saw the headlines on the top of a stack of tabloids next to it. 'Mystery Illness strikes Your-Man. All engagements cancelled.'
Jesus! I should have kept my mouth shut to the kids. Why did I say anything? In some strange way I felt guilty at his falling ill, as if by using him without his permission to distract a child I had been part cause of his sickness. At bed-time that night, after our chapter of Watership Downs, I told him "Your man is sick."
He said nothing.

Four in the morning., I hear him crying. He breaks easily into my sleep now, probably because, awake or asleep, he is near-fulltime on my mind. Feeling my way along the walls to his room in the pitch dark, I think of him living his whole life in all-the-time darkness.
"Here, Dad," he says, taking my hand from where it had been patting-around lost on his quilt-cover, and guiding me in beside him to the space he had made for me.
"I knew it was you, Dad. Goodie, I knew it was you."
His sobbing always stops when I lie in beside him.
"Dad?"
"Yeah."
"Dad, why is it always dark?"
"I don't know."
Bad start to the conversation. I'll try Watership Down.
"Well, I wonder if Fiver and Hazel are asleep by now; or have they sneaked out for a bit of grass-nibbling?"
No answer. No luck tonight with changing the subject. Oh-oh, I realise; he is thinking.
"Dad?"
"Yeah."
"He is a hero, isn't he?"
I knew he didn't mean Fiver or Hazel.
"Yeah, I suppose he is really; I suppose he is."
"I mean, you're a great Daddy and all that, and you work hard all day filling teeth to pay for food for us and everything, but you're not really much of a hero, Dad, are you?"
"No, I'm not I suppose."
"He really is a hero, isn't he, Dad?"
"Yeah, he's a real hero."
Christ! What will he come out with next? I can almost hear him biting his lips with concentration, lying there in the dark. I swear I can almost hear him thinking.
"I mean…I mean…he makes people happy with his music…you know…Dad?…he makes me happy when I'm sad."
"Yeah."
"Dad, there's no darkness in music."
"No, son; there's no darkness in music. Go to sleep now. Think of something nice. Think of some nice music."
"And Dad?"
"Yeah."
"You didn't talk to him at all, did you?"
"No."
"I knew you didn't. I knew you didn't all along. Dad?"
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you? Why didn't you talk to him?"
"I suppose…I suppose I was too shy."
"Yeah, I suppose that's why you're not much of a hero, Dad; you're too shy."
"Guess so."
Hours later, it seems, I slide sideways out of the bed, thinking he is asleep.
"Dad?"
"Yeah."
"Dad, I don't think he is sick at all. I think he is only lonely."
"Ymmmm. Could be. I suppose we're all some bit lonely at times."
"Dad?"
"Yeah."
"I'm never lonely. Now when you're here to keep the dark away."
"Good man. Try to go to sleep now. We'll talk in the morning."
"Dad, I suppose you're a bit of a hero too, in a way, seeing as you keep the dark away."
And he burrows-in into a ball of warmth beside me and sleeps. No-way I can sleep, I know. So that was it. For days and days it had been nagging at my brain…that look on his face outside the shop. Ordinary and…ordinary and…ordinary and what? And that was it. Ordinary and lonely. All night long I lie awake thinking of ordinary and lonely. At six he turns on his side and snuggles in under my armpit, feeling my face with his soft fingers.
"Goodie, I knew you'd be here. Is it still dark, Daddy?"
"Yes, my little hero," I tell him. "It's still dark. Go off to sleep again, it's pitch dark. I'll wake you when it's light."
And I lie awake thinking ordinary and lonely. Ordinary and dark and lonely. For some heroes it is always dark and lonely.

Imagination, something I've always prided myself on, the cause of false imaginings, of procrastination, and choosing the wrong woman, in the past that was, now when I need to conjure up some magic it fails me. I suppose at the end of the day all we can really write about is ourselves, even if we thinly disguise ourselves in some far off land.
Well what do I need to tell you about myself? Not much at this stage, later you will get to know me. Physically I'm attractive even though I do say it myself, good looking, well handsome even if you must know, if I wear the right clothes, yet for some reason I never quite manage to carry it off. There's always some bit of me that manages to give the game away, a small gesture maybe, just something to show that I feel a fraud, that I don't really quite believe the illusion.
Another thing you might need to know is that I always seem to be slightly lost, always circling, if you know what I mean, endlessly circling, looking for the right place to land. Once I find it I'm fine, I'm home and dry but one of the most frustrating things about me is that I never really know what I want or what I need, which is why I probably found myself in the situation that I did.
My childhood was easy, too easy really, maybe because of that I've never had that hunger, that edge, that desire to get ahead, to "make something of myself", as my mother usually put it. What do you want to be when you grow up? In the vivid life of the imagination, anything was still possible. But then we're taught to lose the magic, to stop believing in Santa Claus and eventually God and all we're left with is ourselves. Maybe that's not so bad really.
I spent my early life feeling that there was so much more, that destiny had something special in store for me if only I just sat back and let it find me, little did I know until then that find me it would, and in retrospect, net even I could have imagined what it was.
I first met Sarah in France in the summer of 1990 I think it was, I've never been very good with dates, or time for that matter, all I know is that it passes and I'm still circling. We were both students at the time, I was studying joint French and European business. The business side I decided to leave until I was older, I wasn't quite ready for that yet. We were both there to paint the inside of old buildings in the hope that we would suddenly become fluent and in return for our gruelling schedule in the relentless heat of Southern France, we had the pleasure of food and board with a local farmer. Being male I was thought to be immune to hardship and was duly relegated to the barn, maybe he was also worried about the virtue of his only daughter.
He needn't have worried because I'd already compromised myself in that direction and when I enter into these things I don't take them lightly. She was twenty two, two years older than me and to me then, this made all the difference. She had passed that boundary into womanhood whereas I was still technically a lad, innocent at heart and all that. Hold on, I know what you're thinking and no I had done it before, a couple of times, nothing to write home about. The first time was at fifteen and at a friend's party, the usual story, it was over so quickly that I really can't remember much at all. I can't even remember her face very well, all I remember is that she was wearing some type of glitter, I spent the whole next day trying to brush it off my clothes. Anyway enough of all this, here I was twenty years old and ready for number three, only this time I wanted to fall in love, to see if I could, to see if it made any difference.
I still remember the way she looked back then, her hair long and tawny, yes tawny would be the best way to describe it, a strange mixture of brown and red and bits of blond at the front where the sun had done its work. She had a snub nose which made her look about six and long legs, not too long mind you, but just right. The long days enforced in one another's company gave me the perfect chance to get to know her. The way she played with her hair, endlessly twisting it between her fingers and her thumb when my questions got a bit too close for comfort, the way she bit her lip, the way she could forget herself in laughter, her mouth wide open, showing two rows of perfect little teath.
I remember the day it finally happened. It was one of those days when the heat shimmered in waves, and the sun was relentless, pricking my skin with a thousand poisoned darts, too strong to be in the least bit pleasurable. It was siesta time and what I remember most was the silence, the silence and the heat, we were the only two creatures mad enough to be out, us and the flies, their buzzing the only noise punctuating the stillness.
We were sitting on the grass under the comparative shade of a solitary tree, eating our usual lunch of dry bread and strong cheese, only in France could it taste so delicious. She was in one of her rare lighthearted moods, laughing at nothing and I was watching her mouth, the full lips and the perfect teeth and the breadcrumbs still dissolving on her tongue. It was one of those moments that only come along once in a while, in my case I think I've only ever had two, when you suddenly believe, in God, in life, in the sheer rightness of things, that everything is the way it should be and that at the same time nothing really matters, if I kissed her, if I didn't kiss her, it would still be the way it was supposed to be. So having nothing to lose, I stopped circling and kissed her. It was one of those kisses that you see on TV a real movie kiss, well one thing led to another and we were soon both naked, lost in the warmth.
One day we woke up and realized that summer was almost over, there was a chill in the air and we needed a jumper in the evening. One day I looked at her and she too had changed, when she opened her mouth and laughed I noticed that her little eyeteeth were slightly crooked, and I don't know why but it unsettled me. I got my first idea that maybe this wasn't everything that I wanted, I got that feeling that I was beginning to waver, beginning to circle.
I listened to her talk about us, how much she trusted me, how I was different, that I wasn't like all the others, only after one thing. Had I told her that I loved her? I had but suddenly that all seemed very far away.
One day I saw her sitting on the stone steps of the church, her head in her hands, her hands covered by her slightly matted tawny hair. She saw me and looked up, her face streaked with black tears where her mascara had run, a look of slow trust forming. My hair started to stand on end and I knew that it was something to do with me. To give her her dues she didn't beat about the bush as she dropped the bomb: "I think I'm pregnant," she said.
It was the usual story, I thought she was on the pill, and she thought it would be all right, that she wouldn't be that unlucky. I remember that documentary I'd seen on the TV about how difficult it was to get pregnant, all those childless couples who'd tried for ages with no luck, or the falling sperm count, due to increasing pollution. Suddenly it all seemed like useless bollocks really, that only happened if you wanted one. Here I was twenty years old and some girl, who I seemed to know less and less by the minute was telling me that I was going to be a father. "Oh, My God," I whispered and I could feel the pressure rising in my head, the ringing starting in my ears. All I could think about were the endless years stretching ahead of me, the prison of domestic life, and this girl.
As usual I gave myself away and she knew what I thought before I even opened my mouth. I'll never forget that look she gave me, of surprise, than slow realisation, then pure hatred "you bastard" and those two words summed up exactly how I felt, I couldn't help her even if I tried, I was so preoccupied with planning my own escape. I had destroyed her trust in half the human race, and I knew she would never laugh with such abandon, that full mouth would never open quite so wide again, those two rows of little teeth would be forever obscured.
She loved me and I had let her down.
"What are you going to do?, you could get rid of it, no one would ever know, get on with your life, your work," I said, trying to be helpful, why ruin it all for the sake of just one summer, where the heat took over?
I never saw her again after that summer, she left without saying goodbye. I asked her friends at university how she was but no one would tell me anything. I don't even know if they knew. Seven years later I met someone who knew her in the street and I asked them how she was.
"Oh Sarah, she's OK, she never really came to much, dropped out of college, strange really because she was always go good at French, always so good at everything. I think she's married now, husband a bit boring though, but she's got two gorgeous kids. I think she's going to go back again when they get a bit older, you know, to make something of her life.
I never forger her. She was the one that might have been, the one that could have been if only I'd been so much older, when I could have coped with something like that. So I don't know if I'll ever know, if she kept it, if it's mine, and I still feel guilty, for not being man enough. I still feel guilty when I think of Sarah and all the others like her, who trust too much in people like me, not a bad person, but just confused, too confused to look after anybody else.
So time has passed and I'm still circling, still lost, still looking for that elusive something, who knows, maybe I had it and let it go, the only thing is that I'm much more careful where I land.

At five to two on the dot, I scaled the stone steps that extended from the pavement to the large heavy oak door and walked into the airy vestibule of 'Bernstein & Rodgers, Solicitors and Specialists in Criminal Law, Civil Litigation, Wills & Probate.' My appointment was with Charles Rodgers, the junior partner, whose professional reputation I had gleaned from a former cellmate.
The premises were impressive (in keeping with the fees), and the secretarial areas busy and efficient. A prim receptionist acknowledged my presence, and led me downstairs to a dark ground-floor office, where Mr Rodgers was waiting for me, my case-file tucked under his left armpit. He stepped forward stiffly, proffering me a thin hand, which seemed to melt when I clasped it, and which he removed, almost at once, to wipe unconsciously down the side of his expensive, tailored suit. He waved me into a chair and settled himself into his leather, high-backed chair opposite, gripping the leather-upholstered arms tensely and forcing his back into an almost perpendicular straightness. He looked at me myopically through bifocal lenses, almost as if I were a moving target, and then began to summarise the salient details of my impending legal case with the aplomb and apparent disinterest of someone reading out a shopping list.
I had absolutely no interest in the embezzlement charges laid against me expressed in stilted, legalistic jargon. I was interested only in Mr Rodgers's reputation and skill as a lawyer to extricate me from them, so that I could recover my tarnished name and resume my active criminal life that kept me equally high on adrenaline and legal tender.
I was born into a family which achieved ancestral title and wealth through seizure rather than labour and, true to my gentleman's upbringing and expensive education, I feel duty-bound to continue the hereditary practice. Certainly my accent and the old-boy network have made my life of crime lucrative, effortless and, apart from one serious mistake, relatively painless. This mistake taught me that justice is his who can afford to hire the most expensive lawyer, which brings me back to Charles Rodgers.
Charles Rodgers (LL.B. Cantab) was perhaps in his mid-fifties, though it was clear that he had never been below forty. His whole being seemed fossilised and vaguely reptilian. His skin was blotchy, his eyes colourless and his hair sparse. He sported a short, grey, straggly beard which extended from above his ears, along his jaw line, over his top lip and under his chin, giving to his whole face, in silhouette, a goat-like appearance. He wore a dazzling white shirt and an old college tie under a classic dark navy woollen and worsted suit.
The cuffs of the lawyer's crisp shirt protruded impeccably just three quarters of an inch beyond his jacket sleeves, revealing heavy gold cuff-links, while a chunky Rolex watch gripped his left wrist like a gleaming handcuff.
Mr Rodgers, myopic as he was, was well aware of my scrutiny and seemed to revel in the attention. He removed a fountain pen with a flourish from his inner pocket and fumbled with it, so that my eyes could appreciate the solid gold nib and the platinum filigree of its ornate barrel; then he mesmerised me by toying with a diamond-studded cigarette lighter, an engraved, ivory- inlaid cigar box and a pure crystal cigar holder, all of which he produced surreptitiously from a sliding side-drawer of his desk and stacked methodically along the edge of his blotting-pad, like a tactician playing war-games.
While he talked, my mind started to wander. Despite the aura of opulence, middle class conservatism and respectability evoked by all the material images, there filtered through the airless atmosphere around his person a sour smell; an indefinable nauseating blend of stale body odour, urine and acrid cigar smoke redolent of back street alleys, gentlemen's urinals and public bars of sordid city pubs.
I was intrigued by the conviction that Mr Rodgers took more pride in designer labels and vulgar displays of wealth than basic personal hygiene and I wondered if his private life was as emotionally moribund and physically mildewed as his body. It amused me to imagine him as a self-despising, cross-dressing homosexual, a sadist with a cabinet of classified whips, or even a hen-pecked, impotent husband.
Suddenly, Mr Rodgers glanced at me and noticed my unseeing gaze settle on the shelf of books above his head. The books, enclosed within a glass case, were hefty tomes, all leather bound with gold lettering, standing in perfect vertical rows, in alphabetical order. He smiled fleetingly. I concentrated on the glass case and the shelf it rested upon.
"All first editions," Mr Rodgers said proudly, rolling his eyes.
"And how many of them have you actually read?" I asked naively.
"Oh!" he replied, with mock horror, "they're not for reading. They're my investments. They're here near me, where I can see them grow. They're my babies, lovingly nurtured to see me comfortably through ripe old age." He smiled broadly enough to expose the glint of several gold capped teeth, then, in deference to his over-riding philosophy that 'Time is Money', he pursed his thin lips and resumed his scholarly exposition of my case.
Twenty minutes later, with minimal input from me, the interview was over. I was confident that Mr Rodgers could earn his fees and do a good job defending me. Meanwhile, I had been doing the job I was best at.
Although I had given Mr Rodgers's collection of the first editions only a cursory glance and an impression of dismissive interest, I had noticed that the key to the glass case that housed them lay jutting off the edge of the shelf on
which the case rested. I was also able to see that the shelf and the key were coated in a long-standing powdery dust. (that might too have had antiquarian value), and which suggested to me the owner's unshakeable, almost childlike confidence in undisturbed rights of possession.
The key's proximity to the locked cabinet of valuables was the type of mindless oversight only an academic could make. Most criminologists have no hand-on experience of crime. They lack the nose for a whiff of opportunity and are devoid of sufficient imagination to believe in the obvious. In my experience, lawyers expect all answers to lie in books, statures and cases of precedence, whereas all the criminals I know (or at least the successful ones!) are ultra-perceptive prototypes, with fertile, resourceful minds and boundless flair for the outrageous and spontaneous.
I judged that the window would present no access problem, as it was partly louvered, (the room's only source of ventilation and currently ajar) and fixed on a visible lock, which could be forced with a crow-bar. I estimated, roughly, the square footage, volume and weight of the books. Purists and literary speculators like Mr Rodgers would have been horrified by my Philistinism, but I'm essentially a practical man. An old acquaintance, Ben Cull, another practical man, gaunt as a gibbet but with arms as long as crane pulleys, would be the perfect partner for the crime. He wouldn't waste time browsing over the literary collection. All he ever read were racing tips. Yes, Ben Cull and I would visit in the near future, when my case went cold and when Charles Rodgers had had a chance to reveal the family heirlooms to a few more of the criminal fraternity and thereby, as lawyers say, 'add to the list of suspects'. We could lift the whole library using a wheeled case each. A small haversack would suffice for the smoking trinkets.
The exit would be simple, as Mr Rodgers's office was on the ground floor facing the property's long backyard, which, as a quick glance confirmed, had no steps or fences, just a dry-stone wall with plenty of footholds. I could see that the room contained no alarm wiring or sensors, and that the glass case could be reached by merely standing on the desk over which Mr Rodgers now bent shuffling papers into order.
The neighbourhood at the rear of the property, too, lent itself perfectly to crime, consisting mostly of run-down, inner city, terraced houses converted into flats and rented by the University to undergraduates. Residents were used to comings and goings at all unearthly hours, particularly at weekends, with noisy, drunken students yelling and singing, car doors banging and engines stalling and revving up all night. Who would notice two men in white overalls loading up an old 'bread van'? Then it would be westwards, straight along the M4, to the Irish ferry and from there to the Mecca of Antiquity: some private collection in America.
"I think the case should be pretty straight forward," said Mr Rodgers, briskly bursting into my thoughts and endorsing my sentiments. "There for the taking. Leave everything to me. All you have to worry about are my fees." He smiled fulsomely, exhaling pure nicotine fumes into my face. "I'll see you in court." Then he added, as if to prove some sort of moral supremacy over me, "Please try to keep out of trouble until then. As a rule, the only people who benefit from crime are lawyers."
Doubtless he intended his remark to sound avuncular and the nearest to humour he dared approach, but his implied censure and patronising tone stung me.
"Well, we shall see if there's an exception to that rule," I thought silently to myself, while voicing aloud sincerely, "Thank you, Mr Rodgers. I've gained a great deal from this meeting."
Mr Rodgers stood, proffered me his bony hand, which he let slip from mine, hastily, as he rose from his chair. Again he rubbed his palms lightly down the side of his thighs to remove my touch and made an expansive gesture with his left hand for me to let myself our.
"Experientia docet stulto," he murmured audibly, almost as a benediction 'Experience teaches fools,' he translated smugly to himself.
At the door I turned round. Mr Rodgers had slumped in his chair seemingly exhausted, like an actor collapsed in the wings after the final curtain. He took off his heavy glasses and rubbed his eyes, head bent, then his fingers fumbled to open the catch of the engraved, ivory cigar-box in front of him. I saw that his wiry beard concealed a nervous skin condition that extended from his right cheek, around his earlobe and onto his scrawny neck, which appeared to be both supported and agitated by the sharply-starched shirt collar.
I reckoned that he must be working too hard, stupidly storing up for himself treasures on earth, 'where moth and rust (or is it dust?) doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal' (Matthew Chapter 6; Verse 19, according to her Majesty's Stationary Office, Dartmoor Prison Issue Bible). I closed the office door firmly behind me.
"Habent sua fata libelli: Books have their destinies," I quoted aloud. Latin is not the preserve of lawyers and I would take a bet on it, that my classical background is as sound as that of Charles Rodgers.
I passed through the imposing doorway of 'Bernstein & Rodgers' and descended the steps that placed me back firmly onto the city street. I could not resist giving a broad smile and improvising a few Chaplinesque side-kicks to spur me on my way. I even had it in my criminal heart to pity Mr Charles Rodgers, (LL.B. Cantab), for his future anguish: the loss of his 'babies', but just not enough to deflect me from my intended course.
After all, I'm not one for looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Clare knew immediately she saw the boy that he was for her. He came in with his patents and younger sister and sat in the corner by the window. This was not 'her table' but she decided to commandeer it and rushed to take the order.
"Four coffees, two date scones and two fruit please," the man said.
Clare wrote it down on her little pad, shyly eyeing the lad. He must be about seventeen, she thought, clear skin, not spotty like most boys of his age, but it was his shy expression and piercing blue eyes that had turned her on. He was looking at her, she was sure of that. She hovered for as long as she could, running her hand through her long silky brown hair, then went to place the order.
Clare had always felt backward about boys. At fifteen she had never seriously been kissed, just the hurried meeting of lips at parties. She never had the deep longing for boy contact the same way as her friend Susie had. At parties Susie could be seen wrapped around her partner, the boy appearing to eat her, funny noises coming from both of them. A bit disgusting, she thought. Clare wanted romance, a holding of hands companionship, a nice emotional affair, but not wet sloppy kisses.
Her mother had got her the all day Saturday waitress job. She'd had a word with her friend who owned the coffee shop.
"You don't want to be at a loose end," she had said to Clare. "Besides, you'll be earning your own money, that should give you a little bit of pride."
Clare could have done without the 'pride'. She was bored, standing by the corner window, twisting her hair into plaits, waiting for someone to serve. She couldn't see the boy from her position, so she moved round to the kitchen door where she could observe without being observed. He was talking to his mother now; she could hear his voice but not the words. It had that touch of Northern Ireland accent, enough to label him for what he was, but somehow also giving the impression of culture and education. Too good for me, she mused.
"Clare, what in God's name are you dreaming about? There's a customer here who says he's been waiting for five minutes and can't attract your attention."
Clare served the impatient customer. She had already decided that this was the last day at the café; it was boring. However, the family of four intrigued her. She asked another waitress if they were regulars.
"As regular as clockwork, ten thirty every Saturday morning after doing their shopping in Tesco, rain or shine."
That decided it, she'd stay working a bit longer; perhaps she'd have an opportunity later of speaking to the boy. She stood in her position again, behind the shelves of ornamental teapots and stared at the lad. So far she was satisfied with 'just looking'.
Clare became obsessed with the boy. How old was he? What even was his name? What did he, was he a student? He was on her mind all the time. She dreamt of him frequently. She dreamt that she'd fallen on the café floor and he had rushed to pick her up. He touched and stroked her. Who knows what this might have led to had not the alarm clock put an end to that fantasy.
On an idle moment in the café Clare chatted to another waitress.
"Know this family?" she asked.
"No, but the girl's called Jean and the boy's Andrew - bit of talent, isn't he?"
"You leave him alone, he's mine."
"How do you work that out?"
Indeed, thought Clare, she'd no claim on him; she hadn't even spoken to him; she couldn't get an opening and the rest of the family were always around. She'd have to do something…I know, follow him from here, find out where he lives, that would be a start. She worked out a plan.
Next Saturday at eleven o'clock she stumbled and sat, panting, on a chair.
"Is there something wrong?" her boss asked.
"I feel faint, a bit dizzy. I don't think I had better stay. Do you mind if I go home?"
"Well, if you must."
She got her coat, but still hesitated. Andrew's family were still settling the bill but were chatting and taking time over it. At a well-judged moment Clare flew out of the door, and tore up the street where she stumbled into a taxi at the rank.
"Well Miss, where to?"
"Just a moment…yes, do you see those people getting into a red car? Follow them."
"You mean it?"
"Yes, of course."
"Discreetly, you mean?"
"Any way you like - but go."
"This has made my day, been in taxis for twelve years, always dreamt of someone saying, 'follow that car' and now it's happening!"
"How far is two pounds going to get us?" asked Clare.
"To the outskirts of the town, probably."
"Hope they don't go further, two pounds is all I've got."
"Damn it, have this one on me. This is exciting, wait till I tell my wife."
Andrew's family lived a lot further that the town outskirts, in fact in a little village about three miles away. The house was at the end of a cul de sac, standing next to a telephone box. After the family had gone into the house the driver asked,
"Where to now, Miss?"
"Oh, you can take me home."

"Is that it then?"
"Yes."
"Feels like a bit of a let down," the driver muttered.
That night Clare experimented with a little make up her mother had given to her for Christmas and hadn't yet dared to use. She chose her clothes carefully. Her height suggested a mini skirt so she chose a bright red one; it would be noticed. She wore natural colour tights and a white blouse; she would get away with just that on a hot and dry sunny evening, so she discarded the idea of an anorak - she would risk it. When she glanced at the big mirror she had to admit that looked a real killer, able to attract any boy - but there was only one she wanted!
At seven o'clock the same evening she slid quietly out of the back door, making sure that her mum would not see her. She could imagine her asking why she was dressed like a tart.
"Bye mum," she called out and banged the door shut at the same time.
"Oh, where are you going?" her mum shouted, then added hopefully, "Don't be too late now."

It was a long walk, particularly in high heeled shoes, but Clare took it slowly. Well over an hour later she arrived at Andrew's cul de sac. Would he have gone out, she wondered, and how was it going to be natural for her to 'happen' to be there when he came out? He was bound to go out on a Saturday night, but perhaps he had gone out earlier? She looked at the upstairs windows, hoping to see some dressing up activity maybe; these days the vain boys took longer to get ready than the girls, so her girl friends had told her. Perhaps he wasn't going to go out and his parents were. Then he would notice her outside and invite her in - wouldn't that be perfect? Alas, she couldn't detect any activity at all.
The family car appeared outside, standing in the driveway with an 'R' plate. Perhaps Andrew had passed his test and was allowed to drive the car; getting through the driving test and behind the wheel of a car was all boys of seventeen could think of. Suddenly the front door opened and Andrew appeared. He had well pressed grey slacks and attractive floral shirt; he had combed his hair well forward, the way she liked it.
She could imagine being held by him; she would take that gorgeous quiff and run her hand softly through it. She came out from behind the telephone box, ready to accidentally bump into Andrew who was too occupied to notice her as he lept into the car, reversing at speed out of the driveway, crunched into first gear and sped up the road. At the last house he rammed on the brakes and rapidly screeched to a halt.
Clare's heart was beating fast, he must have noticed her.
"Has he, he has, he's seen me," she muttered to herself, and began to run towards the car, her hopes revived, Andrew tooted the horn and Clare ran faster but then stopped suddenly - the signal was obviously not for her - a young blond girl was running from the house at the end of the road and scrambled into the front seat of the car. Andrew appeared to be in a hurry or he was showing off; the wheels were spinning before the car door was shut.
So that was it, Andrew already had a girl friend and they were going out for the night. Why had she been so daft? She had been captivated by the boy and she had never seriously reckoned that he might already be 'spoken for'. She thought that she had been in love and yet had never spoken to Andrew…but however was she going to get a boyfriend without pushing herself forward? Well for the time being anyway she would put boys and in particular Andrew right out of her mind. It would be torture to go back to the café and see Andrew every week.
Dark clouds were coming from the West, perhaps there was a storm on the way, but it was too early to go home. Her mum would see her all dressed up and would cross-examine her - she could not put up with that. No, she would hang around for a while, planning her next step.
Searching for a glimmer of hope she asked herself was this a regular girl friend Andrew had picked up, or was he just giving a neighbour a lift into town? She didn't fancy a walk back so soon; her feet were already killing her, also it looked as there would be a heavy shower any moment; the sky was darkening and there were a few rumbles of thunder. Very soon the rain came down in buckets, so Clare moved quickly into the telephone box for shelter. She decided that she would reluctantly set off home whenever the rain stopped, after all her mother had asked her not to be late.
Unfortunately the rain did not stop. It was still raining two hours later and the telephone box was getting very uncomfortable; as well as her feet killing her so now was her back. It was a quiet neighbourhood and nobody came or went. Then she spotted Andrew's car come back. It again stopped at the girl's house. She could discern their heads meeting, for some considerable time. Well, that was really it, he did have a real girl friend, that was certain now; no need to pursue him any more; it had already become a silly adventure. The girl got out of the care. Andrew drove on to his house, tonking his horn in a flourish, presumably pleased with himself and his evening.
Clare stumbled out of the telephone box, noticing with interest what appeared to be a fairly large bump on the near side front wing. She was sure that it hadn't been there before. With tired feet in shoes that didn't fit and tired limbs she set off for home in the still pouring rain. After a mile her silly shoes were playing hell so she took them off, along with her sodden tights, and continued in her bare feet. It was midnight when she got home. All the lights were on. Her mum yanked the door open to witness a drenched barefoot daughter, certainly not dressed for the weather.
"Where the hell have you been? - and just look at you!" she screamed.

The café would never be the same again, thought Clare. She might take another job. The family still came. Clare served them, the table was 'her corner'.
She was quite snappy with them and on one occasion her boss reprimanded her.
One morning early the boy turned up, looking morose.
"Where's your family?" asked Clare.
"They've gone to a thing at my sister's school. I've been shopping so I decided to come for coffee on my own."
"Why are you looking so sad?" Clare dared to ask.
"Probably because I've bumped the car - only a small dent but I've been forbidden its use…there's something else as well."
Clare decided to plunge straight in.
"Is the other thing girl friend problems?"
"Haven't got one now," he replied, "we split. She's got another boy, with a car."
"You did have a girl friend about three weeks ago."
"How do you know?" Andrew gasped.
"I saw you take her out in the 'R' plate car - and back again - the night of the heavy rain. I was sheltering in the telephone box."
"Come again, you saw me go out and come back from the telephone box? That was one long call - you must have been there three hours!"
Clare laughed. "That's right, the rain was very persistent."
"What were you doing there?"
Clare thought, well I'm, well into this now, may as well come clean. In any case she found it surprisingly easy to talk to Andrew.
"I just wanted to catch a sight of you," she said.
Andrew blushed. "But why, have I done something wrong?"
"No, not you, just me." Clare blushed too but pressed on.
"I …I…fancy you, you see."
Andrew smiled and his face lit up. He giggled a bit at first and then said,
"Well that makes two of us."
"Go on!"
"Yes, honestly, I've noticed you, wouldn't do to notice you too much when I'm with my family."
By this time Clare had sat down in the seat next to Andrew, her large eyes gazing into his.
"Want to do something about it?" ventured Andrew.
"What do you think?"
"Come out with me tonight; sorry, won't be allowed the car - you won't mind, will you?"
"I don't want a date with a car but I do want a date with you."
"Snap."
"Clare, what do you think you're doing? There's a customer here wanting to give his order," her boss yelled.

Padraig arrives on the dot of ten o'clock. He is always punctual and I sometimes wonder when he arrives anywhere, does he stand and wait patiently outside until the exact second he had arranged to arrive. As I open the door I notice that this feels like any other evening when he comes to watch videos or drink tea or talk. He even has a bottle of wine in one hand which is already open. I feel no different. I expected to be nervous and thought I would want to call the whole thing off. Instead my mind is quiet, maybe for the first time in years. My body feels like it used to be, frozen and still and silent. I was a lovely, quiet child. Everyone said so.
I think Padraig feels the same although it's hard to tell. His eyes have their usual blank stare. That's why I like so much to make him laugh because it gives his eyes and face so much focus and expression. He nods to me and we both smile what I imagine is an almost embarrassed smile. He takes the bag from my hand and carries it down the stairs ahead of me. I glance back into the flat as if I'm saying goodbye. It's one of those times where everything seems ridiculously symbolic. I feel like the central character in a thriller or maybe one of those really psychological films where everything the people do is supposed to give away deep and hidden details about them. I can never figure them out but I don't think I've ever been able to figure people out and it's too late for me to learn now.
When we reach the car we get in quietly. He turns on the radio and almost as quickly switches it off. We glance at each other as he starts the engine.
It's a three-hour drive and we speak only in snatches. There's no point in commenting on the scenery which to visitors must appear beautiful. The heather is at it's most purple and there is a deep, flaming sunset. I can only remember looking out of car windows at other times at the same sky. I can't admire or dislike it because the scene is too vital somehow. It used to be my whole life and now it's every dream I have at night and every thought I have when things are quiet. I can only look at it wordlessly and I think Padraig understands because he leans over and touches my hand. Sympathy is not something that comes easily to him but maybe this is empathy because he feels it too.
It starts to get dark finally and all I can see through the windows are the slender outlines of trees in the fields. It's a cold night and as we pass villages I can see frost sparkle on the tops of parked cars outside the lighted pubs. We hear an occasional burst of music and this is so horribly familiar too, not from living in the city but from driving like this, hearing other people enjoying the music and wondering…I can't even think about what I wondered. How people could be so reckless…so sinful even…so happy? Padraig said once that we'd have been better off if no one had ever taken us anywhere else, if we'd never known until we left that there was any other kind of life. Maybe he's right but maybe neither of us would have lasted to find out if that was the case.
It's past 1 a.m. by the time we reach the drive. I can feel my breathing change into short, sharp little gasps as if I've been running miles. I open the window for air and the cold rain hits me in the face. The shock of that is slightly calming. Beside me Padraig slows the car and I see that his hands and indeed his whole body is shaking. He pulls up and stops and we smile at each other, a smile that turns into almost hysterical laughter. This is what has pulled us through so far.
"What are we like?" he says and it's that kind of silence where we'll either make a joke or one of us will begin to sob.
"Anyone would think we were drunk." It's a weak joke but it works. Without realising it we've both been gulping what's left of the wine over the last half hour which was stupid. If we'd been stopped…Padraig takes a breath and we sit silently for another moment. He stares ahead and his face is composed once again. From now on neither of us can afford any signs of emotion. We've come too far to let ourselves down or indeed anyone else. Each of us has everything we've been asked to say imprinted on our minds and I have a list in my pocket just in case. Each incident counts and I can't let anyone down, particularly the ones that aren't here any more to say it themselves.
"Let's walk from here," Padraig suggests this as a nice stroll in the moonlight and I nod happily pretending I can't see he probably won't be able to drive again tonight.
We hold hands and talk, not even stopping when the convent comes into view. It looms out of the darkness as it always did. This was always the point someone started crying. I can't remember that I ever did, or Padraig. Definitely not Padraig. His face never changed and it never will now. That's another point for my list. The trees are just beginning to change, not that I can see them in the darkness but I can feel leaves swirling around my head and feel them crunch under my feet. Horse chestnuts. No children ever played with these ones though. Somewhere in the distance I hear a pheasant and in another direction the sound of an axe. In my head there are other sounds and I can't begin to deal with that, cracks and thuds and sounds I won't even name for fear of spending any more time in a psychiatric ward than I already have.
That's what's bothering me. The darkness. I stop and look at the windows. There isn't a light on anywhere. No porch light for people driving in and out. No sitting room light, nothing down in the basement or the kitchens. I know there can't be very many nuns left here now and certainly no one else but there should be some signs of life. The ones we want should be here. The ones that are going to sit and be made to stay sitting until they hear every detail we want to share with them. It might not make any difference. They might forget it all as soon as we're gone but they're still going to hear it. No one's going to be hurt but they won't know that until we're good and ready. Padraig is certainly not someone anyone wants to meet on a dark night.
We get to the front door and I reach for the large cord when I notice Padraig walk across the step to read a note on the window.
"Mother and Toddlers Group, Tuesday evenings 6 p.m."
We gaze at it for a moment and I spot another on the nearest window.
"Step Dancing, commencing next Wednesday 9 p.m."
Inside the window there's an empty room. A couple of tables and chairs are piled in one corner with a tray of plastic mugs and a kettle. Padraig is at another window and he beckons me over.
"Martial Arts, Mondays 9.30 p.m."
"If I was anywhere else, that would make me laugh," he says, "we learned enough of those here anyway."
Suddenly we are looking at each other, bent and tired at the hopelessness of it all. The words that aren't going to be said locked in our heads. The people who told us not to bother…the people we are doing this to commemorate. Padraig starts to laugh.
"A town hall, they're using it as a frigging town hall! Waste not, want not, eh?"
Our laughter sounds eerie and horribly out of place in these grounds. I feel like covering my mouth with my hand and realise why I feel like this.
"Where do you think they went?" I ask.
"Posh nursing home, no doubt. They were born old, that lot." He's reaching in his bag and I jump backwards when I see what he's produced.
"Padraig…"
"I thought this might happen…I brought this, just in case. How else are we going to have any sort of a life?" Now his eyes are sparkling and bright as he sets the petrol on the ground. I snatch the matches from his hand and turn away from him until he calls me back. Something in his voice is different. It's as if he is really and truly asking for help for the first time in his life and I don't know how to refuse.
"These friggin people turned their backs on us all their lives, brought us back here when we ran away, paid money to the Orders to keep us here." His voice is cold and hard but there's tears behind every word. I finish for him.
"They're not getting a town hall from it now."
I try not to hear the breaking glass although I'm afraid someone will. We're miles away from the village however, and it's not a place anyone would think about having caretakers. Nothing happens here, no crimes are ever committed here. I remember hearing two of the nuns commenting on that fact years ago. When he comes back to me for the matches I walk over to do that bit myself. When the first flame flares, I reach into my pocket for the list and throw it on. All the words curl up and burn before our eyes. This is a time for being sentimental. I feel like saying a prayer or something but nothing ever felt more out of place here than religion.

When we've seen enough Padraic takes my hand and we return to the car. In the distance there is a flicker of orange daylight in the sky. Behind me the building is crumbling up and I know before too long a car will pass by and someone will see. We'll be miles away however. They'll dismiss it as childish vandalism. And maybe, maybe in one of those nursing homes, it'll reach the ears of the ones we missed tonight. Maybe they'll hear a rumour that petrol was found on the scene. And maybe they'll wonder…They can't have a day's peace, can they? Their colleagues all in jail…their own lives nearly over…rumours about them wherever they go. I hope they wonder long and hard about who it could have been. But probably not. They've done their duty. All they can do now is rest and wait for their eternal reward, whatever they imagine that to be.
"Lovely part of the country," Padraig interrupts my thoughts as we leave the village, "we really must return for a few days sometime."
"I don't think so, Padraig." I struggle to keep my face straight. "I really couldn't stay anywhere so isolated. I mean, they haven't even got a decent town hall."
The daylight is behind us as we head home but the road ahead is bright enough for now.

I hate that fucking phone.
My room is positioned at the back of the house, first floor up. It isn't much, but it's what some might generously term 'home'. Coming out of my single room, first left is the shower, shared by all - the curtain has never been dry since I've lived here. Then the kitchen (even those generous souls would struggle to term it more than a cubbyhole) which is shared by the other three on my floor. And lastly, the toilet (the generous have left, wrinkle-nosed).
Just around from the toilet, before the stairs drop you down to the ground
floor, stuck to the wall like week-old chewing gum, is the phone.
A yellow and brown pay phone.
Shit, do I hate that phone.
You see, what isn't on my tenant's agreement, what the landlady neglected to mention when I nodded that I'd take the room, is that when that phone rings, I'm expected to answer it. Nobody else does. Just me.
Let it ring, I think on alternate nights; and ring it does; and ring and ring.
And then I always pull on my boxers, angry at myself for my week resolve. I
mope out of my room, lift the handset from its baby-wailing cradle and say,
"Yes?"
"Can I speak to Trey in three...?"
Or - "Is Prentis in.?"
Or - "Room nine, please..."
Never ever for me. Why did I break my promise? Why did I crawl along the hall to an insolent child? Let it sob. All good mothers know it. Let it cry and eventually it will stop. But the baby doesn't stop, and sleep never comes, and always, always you give in. Give in and go to it. Give in and say, "Yes?"
"Is it too late to order a Pizza?
"Probably not," I reply wearily. "But it helps if you get the right fucking number."
It's a payphone, right? When you pick it up to answer there are five insistent beeps chewing on your ear. So mostly I can't hear who they ask for, and have to ask the caller to repeat what they said; it's a ritual, and it's a pain.
It isn't just the answering, I've then got to walk upstairs (or down) and knock on some deaf bastard's door. Wait and then have to knock again, louder. And maybe they come out, which is all well and good, but maybe they don't so I have to tramp back up (or down) and say they're not in, and get this, yeah? sometimes they ask me to take a message. Take a fucking message.
Yes, sir, and will you have any typing while I'm at it, my nails are almost dry.
JESUS!
So now I dread it ringing. Fear it. Loath it.
Fear and loathing in my own room. Diagnose that Doc.
Two guys rea1ly piss me off, regarding the phone.
First is Trey up in room nine, next floor up. I don't know him, I never
speak to him. The only time we even breathe the same air is when I knock on
his door to say somebody's on the phone. Same thing every time. Phone rings,
I knock on his door. He half opens his door, 1ooks at me and says "Yes?"
Always.
"Yes?" Like I ever speak to him for anything else.
"Phone," I say, and he goes,
"Okay, one moment."
One moment, my arse. What a prick. I can't explain it. Can't he make the connection? He opens the door, sees me and surely thinks "Ah, must be the phone." But, no, not Trey --
"Yes?"
One time his mum or somebody called, and when I came down after knocking (to no answer) she said, "Could knock a little louder, he may be sleeping."
The other guy that always gets to me is Prentis, the ginger haired brick wall on the same floor as me. Prentis is actually nearer to the phone than I am - but is that any reason to answer it? I think not.
It's not so much him (okay I wish he'd answer the phone, but other than it
he's a pleasant enough guy). It's this girl, Nadine. Who calls and calls and calls.
"Hello, canBLEEPI speBLEEPak toBLEEPtis inBLEEPm five, pleBLEEP."
"Who?" abrupt, it's late.
"Prentis in room five?"
"Yeah, right," I monotone, recognising her voice.
Knock knock. No answer. Back to phone.
"Sorry, he's not in, I'm afraid,"I can't help it, I'm polite on the phone. I wish I wasn't but I am, ninety-nine percent of the time.
"Oh, right." Deflated. "Could you tell him Nadine called, please?"
"Sure, no problem."
"Thanks. Bye."
"Bye." Click.
I pick up the orange felt-tip pen and write on the sheet for messages above the phone-room five, Sat 18-5 at 12.05 Nadine for Prentis.
It's the same, every time. I swear I transcribed the conversation verbatim.
The only thing that changes is the date.
Be must never call her back because I know he comes in, and then goes out, and then she calls a few hours later; same old same old. One weekend there were six 'Nadine called' on the page. Come Monday she was still phoning.

"Can I speak to Prentis." blah blah blah, you know the scene.
....."I'm afraid he's not in."
"Can you tell him Nadine called, please?"
An involuntary, guttural, snigger.
"What?"
"What?" I asked, taken surprise by the change in our predetermined conversation.
"What was that?"
"Huh?"
"That laugh?"
"Well," I said, as if I couldn't help it, "didn't you call yesterday, all day, and Saturday as well?"
"Don't," she said, with real hurt. I felt intensely sorry for her in that moment. I felt like I was a shit, too. She hung up.
This girl had called and called. I didn't know the score. Maybe Prentis hated her, maybe he played them mean and kept them keen like some seventies cliché. I don't know. But she was pained, I was ashamed and Prentis was to be blamed. I scrawled in big letters 'Call Nadine you Fuck.'
Thump! Thump! Thump!
My head? No. What then? Coming round, clear that water out of my eyes, dig fingers in, screw and open wide. Darkness. Rabbit droppings (or something like) in my mouth, yuck !
Thumpadithumperthump!
The door, the door. I know now. I'm coming. I wrap around my dressing gown, cover my nakedness and draw open the door. The light from the hall exploded into the room, faster than Einstein's wit. A freckled face beneath ginger hair eclipsed the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Darkness fell across my face.
"You leave that note?" gruff, impolite.
"Huh?" more gruff, more impolite.
"You call me a fuck? 'Call Nadine you fuck', you wrote that?"
It was Prentis. I could see now, my eyes night-adjusted. My head numb from the wine I'd supped.
"Yeah, sorry, but, you know? Well, you should, like, call her."
"You don't know, you don't...shit...she's, ah... All the time, man. Nadine called, Nadine called, call Nadine...I...I might want...but I...you don't see, I'm - awe man - I'm...And she shouldn't be...I am not a fuck. I am not!"
I never took my eyes from his, certain that very soon he would punch me.
There's a little madness behind everybody's eyes. Hidden beneath oceans of blue, forests of green and shit heaps of brown. On some that madness shrieks out at the moon, crazier than cheering Man Utd on in a Leeds pub. In others
it skulks, lurking, like a shy-boy at his last dance. I was surprised when the anger in his stare glazed over with a film of sad tears. I was overcome with the same guilt I'd felt when I'd sniggered at Nadine. I wish I could learn to stay out of things I knew nothing about. There was hurt and pain in this situation, on both sides, and I'd gone wading in with kicking boots -claiming him a fuck, and sniggering pitifully at her.
At that moment I wouldn't have minded him punching me.
Two days later, brrring brrring, trudging down the hall, resigned to my role as human answer phone.
"Hello?"
"Canbleepeak tobleeptis." I wait.
"Sorry, what?"
"Can I speak to Prentis in five, please."
It was Nadine.
"He's not in." I knew this because when I'd been to retrieve my mail off the table by the front door - a post card telling me Bjork was releasing her new single (I love getting letters and send to all these info places just to receive some) - Prentis passed me in the hall, mumbling a good morning, same as he always does, like nothing had happened between us. I chirped a hello back and he went out.
"Could you tell him Nadine called?"
I'm a shy person, by nature. I'm okay after I've been introduced to people, when I've got to know them a bit, I can make conversation, crack wise and lay back (especially when liquid comfort rides the rapids south through my
veins). But when sat next to a girl I don't know, I can never make polite conversation, never think of that first line, that opening. As a result, I don't go out with too many girls. Lately, the speed with which the years have begun racing away from me, I've begun to notice how long I've been on my own.
I must've considered myself introduced to Nadine, be it through my inadvertent snigger, or Prentis's late night confrontation, because I was surprised to hear myself say,
"You know, Nadine, I speak to you most everyday - "
"Don't," she cut me off, ready to hang up, thinking I was mocking her again.
"No, wait - It's just that I speak to you more than anybody else, and I don't know anything about you."
"What's to know?"
I decided not to stop speaking. If I kept going perhaps my shyness wouldn't notice what my mouth was doing.
"Or like, maybe, you might want to know my name?"
"Yeah, okay."
I told her.
"So what do you do?" she asked, and I fumbled over that one, quickly diverting the conversation to what she did. We chatted, we gossiped, we steadily got to know each other. It was sweet, and I even stopped blushing for a moment. Towards the end, and we both knew it was towards the end because my mouth was dry and the clock had eaten a chunk of her phone bill, she made the bold move of suggesting we meet up some time.
"Why don't you give me a call, when you're free?" I said.
"Yeah, I will."
"And if I'm not in, get them to leave a message."
She chuckled at that, knowing I wasn't mocking. She was amused at the thought of Prentis leaving a message for me to ring Nadine.
I was amused too, and when I said goodbye, I considered leaving him a note saying Nadine had rung (like she'd asked at the beginning of our chat) but I was suddenly jealous at the thought, I looked at the orange felt-tip
sleeping happily by the phone, and the unused blank sheet for messages. I left them that way.
You've blown it, Prentis, I thought.
Instead of drudging back to my room, in my usual tortoise way, I stepped lightly down the stairs and pulled open the front door. The sun smelled nice, and the whispering breeze through the daffodils seemed to be offering rhubarbs of encouragement. I didn't even mind the sound of the kids playing in the schoolyard opposite.
A smile spread slowly across my face like a leak on a kitchen floor, and a thought occurred to me; maybe I won't drink so much tonight.
It's amazing how a little hope can change your day.

The young woman giggled as she buried her husband; barely audible over the wind, it sounded more like an ecstatic whimper.
"Will you bury me?" I asked my fiancée. She glanced up from her book, not at me but at the young couple. She returned her eyes to the pages shaking her head.
"Will you marry me?" I had asked the night before; it had seemed a fitting question - I was deliriously drunk.
"Don't be ridiculous, you know I hate getting my hands dirty." If only she had said that last night. But now here we were, our future stretching away like the wind-swept beach, as certain as the sands, as predictable as the sea.
"So what are we doing here then?" I was still watching the other couple. The woman was beautiful. Her blonde hair trickled down her shoulders over her swaying breasts to her stomach which rippled gently as she dug and her legs moved like fine strands of tan kelp in a mild spring current.
My fiancée didn't reply; she continued to read.
I was annoyed, an unknown irritation building inside me. "Why didn't we rather go skiing or horse riding? Or golfing? Everyone does this."
She continued to read. "You booked it - anyway it's lovely."
"It's hot isn't it? Probably time for a drink soon." I watched as the other couple sniggered like children; I wondered what their sex was like. "Pass me a beer please, lover. I'm bored."
"Do you want me to bury you?" she said kindly.
I pictured the young girl's facial expressions as she climaxed; I could imagine her throat rising and receding on the waves of pleasure, her eyes rolling in paralysed surrender, her breasts rocking to the shudders of motion, her nipples bracing like dark, hard pearls; I could feel them against my chest. "No, it looks horrible - you're right, too sandy. Pass me a beer please, lover."
My fiancée put down her book with mock aggression and took a chilled beer from the cooler box; she passed it to me, smiling. I drank it happily and let out a small burp. She grimaced.
The beer felt nice. "What are you reading?" I asked.
"Kafka."
"Which one?"
"Metamorphosis."
I swallowed another gulp. The girl stood over her boyfriend, legs astride his ears.
"What page are you on?"

"Eighty-five."
"You read quickly. I wish I could read that quickly."
"You could start by reading."
I leant forward and spanked her naked thigh playfully. I lay back and stared at her body through the corner of my sunglasses. She had got into great shape a couple of years ago. She was letting herself go now.
A cloud came over. I peered back at the sea; it looked cold though it wasn't. The girl sat down on the man's buried chest, a slim leg nestled either side of him. I shivered.
"So this is it, hey? This is what it feels like to be engaged." I finished the beer. "It's nice. Pass me another there, lover."
She passed me another one; I drank it more slowly.
"It's pretty here." I couldn't stop fantasising about the girl.
Suddenly her husband burst out of the sand and lifted her like a feather on his broad chest. As he rose she fell into his arms and he ran towards the sea, she screaming and writhing and beating his sandy shoulders.
They splashed and frolicked then returned for their towels before heading to their chalet, arm-in-arm, fondling and poking each other with affection.
"Such a trite couple," I grumbled. "So glad we're not that twee."
She looked up from her book. "Who?"
"Didn't you see them?" I knew that with each passing moment they were getting closer to their bed; soon they would be in it, at it. "They probably only met a couple of weeks ago, hey lover?" I took a huge swig. "Probably don't even know each other properly. It's all romance now but give it a few months."
"What are you groaning on about, you weirdo?" She put down her book and slid over to me, kissing my cheek before laying her head on my chest. "I don't know why I love you. I'm so happy. I can't believe I'm yours."
I emptied my beer and stroked her hair. "I love you too." I didn't love her I suddenly realised; not enough, not that way. Her hair always smelt gloriously fruity so we lay that way for a few minutes; I enjoyed the drowsiness of beer, the warmth of her skin and the notes of fruit that drifted on the breeze.
"It's paradise, isn't it?" she murmured.
"Mmn," I mumbled.
"Maybe we should go and have a sleep," she said.
I had no desire to kiss her or take her back to the chalet. She was nothing more than a dear friend. I felt tight with panic.
"Your heart's beating so fast," she laughed. "It's deafening me."
I'll break up with her; I'll give it a few weeks and say it just isn't working. I was so stupid; just wasn't thinking; chasing romantic fantasy instead of listening to my heart, or my head, or even my penis. Stupid, but it's fine, we could call it off, she'd understand. I was calmer but I needed a drink.
"'Nother beer would be good actually."
"Another one?" She pushed herself up and crawled over to the cooler box, returning with a smile; she opened it and gave it to me.
"What about you? Aren't you drinking today?"
"No." She smiled mischievously.
"Join me for a beer, dammit."
"No," she blushed.
"Well why the hell not? We're on holiday. Why aren't you drinking?"
She leant forward and kissed me, tittering girlishly. She put her mouth to my ear and whispered her little secret.

“I suppose you’ll be doing your boring Bonfire Party this year as usual, will you, Tim?” asked Tansie.
“You bet your life I will, Tans. Don’t worry, you needn’t be present, if that’s
what you’re worried about.”
“I won’t be,” Tansie replied curtly.
“Already plotted your disappearance, have you?”
“I’ve booked myself a short break, yes.”
“What ghastly neck of the woods are you dragging yourself off to now? ‘Vile Nile?’ ‘Bored on the Fiord?’ Bridlington?”
“None of that’s very amusing, Timmy.”
“Why should it be? Why should the man always have to amuse?”
“Why should the woman always have to arouse?”

Tim had built his first Guy Fawkes bonfire thirty years ago, when he was still a student architect. It was the first structure he’d built to his own design and he was still proud of it. When it was lit, it had behaved exactly as he’d planned. Of course, it was burned down every year. So he just built the same thing again next year, with minor improvements, and it was burned down, again, rather like an 18th century playhouse.
Those were the days, of course, when anyone could host a Bonfire Night, as long as they had a bit of space. The Health and Safety Brigade hadn’t yet muscled in. You could set off your own fireworks too, in those days. Bangers banged, Vesuvius erupted in the flower-bed; rockets rocketed, or sputtered fitfully on the launching pad (usually a milk bottle jammed in the soil); Roman Candles exploded like multiple orgasms, (unknown then), shooting coloured stars into the sky in rapid succession, accompanied by strange shrieks; Tim’s own favourite had been the humble Jumping Jack - a concertina-shaped contraption, which jumped this way and that unpredictably under your feet, each grasshopper-like leap followed a little later by an ungrasshopper-like bang. Tansie hated Jumping Jacks; she preferred Golden Rain, which produced a feeble cascade of gold and silver droplets, dazzling at first, before tamely expiring in typical Tansie fashion.

It had been obvious from the start that Tim’s fires were several cuts above the mounds of rubbish other people carelessly piled up to set light to on November 5th. This wasn’t surprising: after all, other people weren’t promising young architects like Tim; in those distant days he’d thought he could be the new Frank Ghery. He’d wondered if Frank Ghery had ever built a bonfire; he knew many people would like to make a bonfire of what Frank Ghery had built.

He was also greatly helped by owning some basic scaffolding which the builders had left behind when his house had been done up. Not only had this enabled him to construct the best, if not the biggest bonfire in the neighbourhood, it had also meant that he could single-handedly hoist a really convincing, life-size Guy on to the top of the fire, almost as neatly as he fixed a fairy on top of the Christmas tree each year.
Originally, Tim had wanted the Guy dressed in Jacobean costume, but to burn this each year would have been prohibitively expensive. Unusually, it was Tansie who’d come up with a solution.
“Dress the Guy as yourself. I could get rid of some of your old clothes, and I’d like to see you burn anyway.”
So that’s what had happened, year after year.
Once or twice, Tim had been unwilling to surrender a particularly treasured old item, and he’d gone to Oxfam to relieve them of some of their more hideous donations to put in its place, but Tansie had objected - and she usually got her way - so his favourite old clothes ended up on the Guy, and he ended up wearing the latest Oxfam fashions.
In 2002, Tim had thought he might have his bonfire on September 11th, and substitute Osama bin Laden for Guy Fawkes, but a policeman friend he played darts with, told him he was lucky to get away with burning any effigy at all, “there were so many looney minorities around these days.”
Tansie also objected.
“If we dressed the Guy as Bin Laden,” she said, “all I’d get rid of would be an old towel and your only decent dressing-gown. So - not on, old chum. Think the thinkable, for once.”
It had taken Tim two days to build the fire he wanted. As usual, he’d constructed it in such a way that, once the Guy had started to burn, it would blaze for a while, then slump grotesquely forward, threatening to fall off the fire altogether before suddenly dropping downwards into the heart of the flames, apparently still half-alive. As it did so, everyone would cheer, and the children would scream, and then the fireworks and the food could begin, which was really what everyone liked most, although private fireworks parties were pretty tame affairs these days. Even so, the children enjoyed lighting their sparklers, and writing naughty words in the air.
Tim still had to get the Guy together, but he’d worked so hard on the fire, he thought he’d leave that job till morning.

That evening, he and Tansie had the worst blazing row they’d ever had. It had started when Tansie had shown him the pile of his old clothes she’d selected for the Guy to wear. It included a much-treasured “Blades” jacket from his years as a would-be dandy, a pair of trousers which he’d been wearing only last weekend, the fly of which was secured by buttons (one missing) rather than a zip, and, worst of all, his college tie, which was indeed a bit threadbare, but didn’t take up much space.

“This is V. & A. fodder, Tansie! They fork out for this sort of clobber these days for their costume museum. We haven’t got money to burn.”
The row got worse, as Tansie displayed the new suitcase she’d bought herself to go on her “short break”. It had an extending handle and tiny wheels.
“Your own personal wheely-bin,” he’d called it, “and I bet its full of rubbish!”
“Some men like the way I dress,” Tansie taunted him.
“Or undress!” Tim couldn’t help riposting.
Tim hadn’t seen Tansie undress for quite some time. She always took her clothes offin the bathroom, before coming to the big bed, on the rare occasions she allowed him to share it with her. So Tim usually slept in the spare room, which he considered well-named, as he often thought of himself as slightly superfluous to requirements.
Before the row had started, Tim had drunk several cans of strong cider, while labouring at building the fire. And he’d swigged, rather than sipped, his wine at supper, which had been heated-up leftovers. “Always much tastier second time round,” Tansie had smirked.
So the row got worse and worse.
Tim could take most insults in his stride; he didn’t mind being called charmless, witless, humourless, gutless, feckless, or plain useless, but when Tansie taunted him with being sexless, he could become really angry.
That night, Tim had been as angry and drunk as he’d ever been, so he wasn’t totally astonished to find himself in the big bed, still in his shirt and underpants, when he half-awoke at 2 a.m. His shoulder ached too; probably the result of heaving too much heavy wood onto the bonfire. He was conscious of having had a rather unpleasant dream, some of which had been so vivid he wasn’t sure it hadn’t been real. But he couldn’t remember the details and soon rolled over and went to sleep again, on his other shoulder. At four he woke again. Instinctively, his hand crept across the bed to touch his wife’s body. He remembered they’d had a row, but he also had an idea that people often made the most passionate love after the most violent quarrels. His hopes were disappointed though. Tansie’s body was just as inert as it usually was when he made one of his rare approaches to her. He wondered if she was pretending.
He needed a pee, though, no pretence about that! So, using the utmost consideration, he slid out of bed as quietly as he could, without pulling aside the sheets too much, so that Tansie would not be disturbed.
When he’d peed, Tim couldn’t see the point of returning to the marital bed and again risking waking Tansie, so he went to the spare room and switched on the World Service on his bedside radio, which he hoped would lull him into slumber for another hour or two. It did. At the first mention of storms imminent off Cape Wrath, he’d nodded off.

Eventually he woke at his usual time of 7.29.

Tim never suffered from hangovers. So he hadn’t forgotten that he still had to make the Guy. He was totally clear-headed about this. He usually made it in the shed, where the garden tools and similar paraphernalia were stored. It was near the bonfire site, too.
By 10 o’clock he’d already assembled everything he’d require for the Guy, including Tansie’s corpse.
He always had a supply of straw to hand, and plenty of newspaper to fill out the torso and stuff up the trouser legs and jacket sleeves, if needed, which it was, once he’d dressed her in his clothes, which were too big for her, of course. Her head was a problem, though. The problem was how to conceal it.
He saw the answer staring him in the face, rather as Tansie was doing.
It was the galvanized bucket into which he daily emptied the embers of the open fire, of which Tansie was so fond. He cleaned it, turned it upside down, and gently eased it over Tansie’s head. It sat so snugly, she could almost have been measured for it. Last of all, he taped a life-size photo-portrait of himself pulling a silly face, to the front of the bucket. (He’d always kept a supply of such photos for use on sundry suitable occasions.)
It took Tim an hour to manoeuvre the Guy into position on its pyre and remove the scaffolding in readiness for the party.
Eventually, all was ready, and although the weather was a bit cold and overcast, the whole occasion seemed to go with a swing.
Many guests said what a pity it was that Tansie hadn’t been there to enjoy it, and they missed her sausages on sticks, but the vicar said he was sure she was with them in spirit.
Next morning, Tim got up at 7.29 and went to inspect the dying embers of the still-glowing fire. Tansie’s skull was still stuck in the galvanized bucket. It was too hot to touch, but when he blew it a kiss, a red glow shone back at him through the eye sockets. Tim stared at it longingly, and reflected that Tansie had often expressed her preference for cremation over burial, when her time should come.

“She got what she asked for in the end,” thought Tim.

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