My father was a difficult man. He only every spoke to me in proverbs. When Mum died I was still young enough to think that boycotting her funeral could bring her back. But my father came into my bedroom and pinned me up by the neck, his voice booming,
‘Son. You have to go to other people’s funerals; otherwise they won’t go to yours’.
When I was twelve, I came home from school and said that I hated my teacher. He let the newspaper slacken in his hands and his severe, red face came into view.
‘Boy. If you’ve got nothing nice to say about someone, say nothing at all.’ And then he disappeared behind his newspaper.
I was eighteen when he finally died. Rather than lie, I gave no eulogy at all.
Outside my bedroom window a storm had found the island. Every day the sea looked more ragged and chased us further into the Atlantic. Angry waves threw themselves onto the cliffs to frighten seagulls and fishermen. No skipper could make the crossing during the storm so food was rationed and no priest came from the mainland for over a week. Read More »
No more, please, no more. I am wrung dry of tears, as though I were a rag twisted in the hands of mighty Samson himself. They have spilled upon this cold stone floor all night, this floor that I pace my agony across this floor that was to be his inheritance. I look out of the window at the passers-by upon the muddy, straw-strewn street. I see their glares, their stolen glances and the turmoil within my head increases in intensity. Has God invented such things to try us men, to remind us of the abyss that lies between his justice and our own? If so, He is a cruel God, the God of the Old Testament who demands the ultimate sacrifice from the faithful.
I have sought recourse in the Good Book, but have found no consolation. It has not absolved me of this which I must do, but instead left me with the foul confirmation of this course I must navigate. I struck out at my wife, when she would not cease the horrible keening and wailing of which these ragged natives are so fond. I hear her still, sobbing in her quarters, and I feel the loops of guilt tighten themselves around my weak heart. Hasty to anger I have always been- I was famed for it in my youth, and my rage has come back to haunt me. Read More »
Bastards, the lot of them.’ Paul pelts the Wexford People down on the spilt beer and heads to the bar for more pints. His round face, topped by tight black curls, is usually jolly but now it wears a dark scowl. Vinnie sees the headlines. Unlike his pal he has a thin, pinched look. He feels his legs go weak, even though he’s sitting. His neck is hot; the palms of his hands are wet.
Paul had called for him at tea time, when Vinnie was sitting with his mother in the back room, not saying much. He’d been listening to the wind in the chimney and thought it funny that the wind sounded different in each ear. He hadn’t noticed that before. His mother was smoking and the deep lines in her face seemed to hold within them the hurts and disappointments of forty years of living. Read More »
