Beatlebone (19 page)

The tadpole kid's bike creaks on its rusted chain as he takes off again and we walk together down Bold Street in the afternoon and though I can see your lips move and I can hear your voice still I cannot make out the words anymore but for the single word—John—and it's a routine traipse or escapade, Wednesdayish, to a bun shop or a caff or the music shop to pay off an instalment, maybe, and I can see you as you turn to me and laugh and we're by the turn for the tunnel for Central station and I cannot make out the words anymore and this is very hard to do because love is so very hard to do. But I can see you on Bold Street as we move with the crowd again and there is a catch or snag in your voice—a scratch, a sadness—that tells me the way that time moves and summer soon across the trees will spin its green strands.

KEVIN BARRY is the author of the highly acclaimed novel
City of Bohane
and two short-story collections,
Dark Lies the Island
and
There Are Little Kingdoms
. He was awarded the Rooney Prize in 2007 and won the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award in 2012. For
City of Bohane,
he was short-listed for the Costa First Novel Award and the Irish Book Award, and won the Author's Club Best First Novel Prize, the European Union Prize for Literature, and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His short fiction has appeared in
The New Yorker
and elsewhere. He lives in County Sligo in Ireland.