A Mad and Wonderful Thing (12 page)

I don't say anything. Whatever he needs to tell me, he'll tell me. I give him the space.

‘She didn't speak for three months — we were worried, Johnny, really worried — and when she did speak again, it was all, well, you know, that poetry stuff and those old stories. I was right worried. I thought that the poor wee thing might, you know, be away with the faeries. I had an old aunt who suffered from the nerves, and I was afraid Cora could go that way. But then after her own short while she was back as she always was, that darling and innocent wee cailín. But she was different, too; I just can't explain it. It was Aisling who said to leave her and give her time, and Aisling then, too, was only a slip of a thing.'

‘And Aisling?'

‘Aisling was stronger … is stronger. Maybe stronger is the wrong word — I don't know how else to call it — she accepted it quicker and dealt with it, added it all up and settled on some answer she could handle. I suppose Cora did that, too, in her own peculiar way. But it was a different answer; she is a different girl. Aisling was that bit older, and maybe that helped — I don't know.'

He pushes through the gears, and brakes, and grips the steering wheel, pulling the truck left around a long, sweeping bend.

‘Aisling was eleven when it happened; Cora was only nine. Nine is a young age for a bad thing to happen. God help us, but I still remember her wee white face, all her colour drained and gone, the sheer uncomprehending shock of it all in her eyes.'

I know the story. Every town has its tragedies, and everyone in a town knows the stories. But I ask anyhow. I ask because he wants me to ask. He wants the green light.

‘So what happened?'

‘It was a fine summer's day. I had to make a run to the west and Fionnuala had to visit her mother in hospital. There was no school, and it was too good a day for the girls to be in a lorry cab or in a hospital ward. The family next door used to look after them if ever we were stuck, and we did the same for them. Shane was the boy's name. He was fourteen. He was a lovely boy, Johnny, a shock of blond hair that had turned fair as he entered his teens, tall, and a good boy to his mammy and daddy. He was as nice and helpful and pleasant when he was fourteen as he was when he was five — he never changed in the way that boys do. Sue and Tom McEntee lived next door, and Shane was their only child. They were grand people altogether; it was a blessing to have people like that as neighbours.

‘I was away early, and as I wouldn't be back before evening, Fionnuala left them all next door in the midday. Cormac was only a wee gassun, and Sue kept him with her in their back garden. Tom was at work. After lunch, Shane took the girls for a walk. In the summer, if it was a good day, they would go for a play in the fields or a run around Cúchulainn's Castle. That day, they walked to the bridge at Toberona, and to that blasted river.'

Gerry crashes through the gears and brakes only briefly before throwing the truck fast through a right-hander.

‘The tide was on the full turn, and the river was high. They walked from the bridge along the bank — you know the way our two girls love all that green grass and wildflower stuff. They came across a small boat on the bank. It belonged to Cathal McGuiggan from Brid A Crinn
.
Do you know the McGuiggans, Johnny? Another grand family.'

I shake my head in the negative as Gerry continues without waiting for my answer.

‘Cathal had been fishing that morning and intended to return later, and so left the boat on the bank. He didn't mean no harm, though afterwards he held himself to blame and never fished again.' Gerry chokes a little and gulps for air and stops talking as we approach Mullingar. He slows the truck into traffic.

‘I suppose he was showing off a bit; it was nobody's fault. It was just a blasted accident. None of them could swim. Of Dundalk's four boundaries, north and south are rivers, and east is the sea. Surrounded by water, and yet few of us can swim — did you ever think of that, Johnny? How blasted stupid is that?'

I have thought of it, but again I shake my head in the negative, and again he continues without awaiting or checking my reply. We are now in the centre of Mullingar and turning west amongst town-centre traffic. The grey town merges with the dirt of the grey weather.

‘Isn't this the most depressing place?' Gerry asks, looking about us.

I agree. Hell is to be condemned eternally to Mullingar.

Gerry pushes through the gears and presses the pedals as the truck rolls, and we break from the town and traffic on the western road.

‘Free at last,' Gerry says, as he forces the truck forward. ‘And a straight road. We have her by the hasp of the arse now.'

He goes quiet again until the town is lost in our rear mist. Then he resumes the story as if he hadn't paused at all.

‘Shane pushed the boat into the water and got in. Only for Aisling's common sense, we might have lost them all, but she wouldn't get in and wouldn't allow Cora in, either. The current was in full flow, and the boat was quickly pulled to the middle of the river. Shane lifted one of Cathal's oars and stood up. He held the oar in one hand and saluted the girls. He was trying to look, you know, cool. Cora shouted at him to sit down; somehow she sensed the danger. But it was too late, and he fell as the boat rocked in the current. He was just doing what boys do — he was just showing off. The girls were too small and too young to help, and they cried in panic as the current pulled him away and under. They watched it all from the bank. They saw the terror in his desperate drowning. Half a mile they ran on the bank, until a fallen alder at a bend allowed the girls to grab him. Somehow, God love them, they managed to pull him out. And then the second terror of not knowing what to do. Aisling said that they tried to “wake him up'” Dear God. And then Aisling ran for help and Cora stayed with him. But the boy was dead. Sue and Tom moved away soon after.'

It is late when we get back to Dundalk. The wet day has dried to a mild evening, and I sit with Cora on the low wall that separates the front and rear lawns.

‘Did he tell you about the accident?' she asks.

‘Yes, Cora,' I tell her, and hold her close as we watch the traffic pass on the road.

The wedding

IT IS AUGUST. IT IS A BIG DAY FOR THE DONNELLYS. TODAY DECLAN
marries Shauna Clifford. Following a midday Mass in the bright, oval Church of the Redeemer in Ard Easmuinn, we retreat to a hotel where the edge of the town meets the mountains. Shauna has gone mad altogether, and a lavish reception is provided for many guests — I don't know half the people here. The whole show is a bit stiff, but then people get like that about weddings: pedantic, formal, ridiculous. Shauna has manipulated us all into wedding suits, and the wedding troupe is large — there is a full orchestra of groomsmen and pageboys, she herself is gloriously resplendent in a white monstrosity, and a long line of bridesmaids and flower girls trail her every movement. It's all a big show. The whole thing would make you sick.

It is now four months since I met Cora Flannery. Four glorious months, where time together is never enough, and time apart is too long. It is an uncommon affair, I guess: the severity of our friendship. Every evening during the break of her summer holidays she waits for me at the factory gate. It is an uncommon occurrence: the waiting at the factory gate. The men of the factory pass as she waits; a few greetings have become many, with the men making an effort to soften and to greet the girl with the golden hair.

At the wedding, I introduce Cora to everyone I know and some that I don't. She gets many compliments, and as the day lengthens so, too, do the comments — well, that's what drink does. Near the end of the night, I surprise all and appear on the stage. Conor Rafferty stands beside me, carrying a guitar. We place two small wooden stools in the centre of the stage, sit, and pull the microphones low.

‘For Kathleen Reynolds,
'
I say as Conor plucks the first chords and nods.

We sing ‘Lizzy Lindsay', and long before we get to the last verse, the whole room is with us. Oliver Donnelly sways to the tune as if swaying for Ireland, with both arms raised, and I see Mam fight tears that escape and fall down her powdered cheeks. Frank Boyle and Éamon Gaughran join us, and we deliver our rendition of ‘Sister Josephine'. We provoke laughter and abuse. We step from the stage as Cora steps on. She sings ‘
Táimse i m' chodhladh is ná dúisigh mé
.' —
‘
I am sleeping do not awaken me.
'
There is silence for the slow air. The song ends, and the room erupts with cheering and clapping. With the crowd still on their feet, we rush back onto the stage, and together we launch into ‘The Rising of the Moon'. There is cheering, clapping, and the slapping of tables as song and dance engulfs the room. ‘Have youse no homes to go to?' I call at the end of the set, throwing Liam Clancy's parting concert words across the room, and the party cheers.

‘I thought I was Liam Clancy up there,' I say to Cora when it is over. ‘It was powerful stuff.'

A mad and wonderful thing

THE DAYS HAVE SHORTENED, AND IN THE EVENING BEFORE THE LIGHT
fails we walk to the river. We stand on the bridge at Toberona and look down on water that flows east. We watch brown trout, motionless, facing the current in the shade of the bridge. We don't say much, and I don't mention the accident. Some hurts don't need to be tackled. Some hurts cannot be healed. Coming here, we have acknowledged that there is a hurt, and we let it be.

‘Setanta would have swam and washed here,' Cora says. ‘He must have learned to swim here. Isn't that an extraordinary thing?'

‘A mad thing altogether,' I agree. ‘And the water that Setanta swam in would have flowed out to the bay and then have been pushed north into the Atlantic and have been lifted into the air as vapour and got blown across Norway or Sweden, where it fell as rain or snow and then gathered in another river, where it flowed cold to the ocean and fell low, where the great current took it and it was carried to the Americas, where the sun warmed the water and it rose again and was carried west, where it was lifted as vapour and fell again on Ireland, where it gathered in a river.'

‘How long does that take, Johnny? Could this be the same water that Setanta swam and washed in, or the water into which Shane fell? Or both? Isn't that mad?'

‘A mad and wonderful thing, Cora.'

‘Just like me, you mean?'

‘Yes, Cora, just like you.'

Slime

IT IS SEPTEMBER, AND IT IS ÉAMON'S BIRTHDAY. CORA HAS INSISTED THAT
the three of us meet up early and that we go together to the Roma for chips. In the afternoon, I spend a few hours playing snooker with Éamon, and as we finish he produces a pack of Carroll's No. 1 and we take one each and smoke and chat with some other players.

‘Hey, attention,' Éamon prods me with his elbow. ‘Two class-one arseholes approaching.'

I look to the door to see Slime Sloane and Pitiful Bobby Boyd. I feel the air cool and tighten. The two arrivals see us, and stall. I am standing between the door and the booth. They need to pass me. I see Sloane's doubt. He knows we have noticed their entry, so a retreat will be a humiliation. But to proceed he must pass within an arm's length — my arm's length — and Sloane wants to avoid that. There is silence behind me in the room, and all games have paused.

‘Are you two lovely boys taking me out today or what?' Cora asks, arriving in the middle of things.

‘We sure are, darling,' Éamon answers, enjoying the whole show. ‘That is if Johnny doesn't want to hang about and beat up these two.' So Cora wants to know the whole story, and Éamon is happy to settle into the tale as we make our way out.

‘Slime Sloane,' Éamon begins, pontificating in the way he does, ‘is an enigma wrapped up in an arsehole.'

I leave them, briefly, to run back into the snooker hall to get my scarf, which I had left behind. I take a long look at Sloane as I lift the scarf from the wall peg. I know he knows I am there, but he keeps his attention to the booth and doesn't turn to me.

Sloane had been in my class in secondary school, and I disliked him from the off. He was a scammer and a dealer, supplying the schoolyard with cigarettes, hash, cannabis, porn, and whatever newest fad could be bought, smuggled, and sold. Sloane was the sort who would pimp his sister; a small-time wannabe who pushed his luck to the edge. Yet he survived. He won more than he lost.

It was our first year in the secondary school when I interrupted him in the changing-room, going through pockets and bags, helping himself to whatever could be taken, while the rest of the class was on the sports field. Flippantly, he dismissed me with a threat. I approached him without comment, and threw a loose and useless punch. Sloane caught my left fist in both his hands and laughed. He didn't see the right coming. I hit him low and hard, and I felt a burst of foul breath pass as Sloane fell. He stayed on the cold floor a long time before he was able to crawl out. I would have hurt him further but for Éamon's intervention, and Sloane knows that. If I can, I keep my violence removed from Éamon's view. Sloane and I have kept a distance since. I nicknamed him Slime, and the name stuck.