The Gamal (11 page)

Does that make James good? I dunno. I wonder what has goodness got to do with fear.

Do you know what? Maybe James just wanted to fit in. The odd kick in the face sure or stab in the back was a small price. Dunno. I wonder what has fear got to do with charity? Or what has admiration got to do with envy? Or what has pity got to do with disdain?

Followed

I was followed around by people once. People and photographers. People who wrote in newspapers. People who wrote hints. Who had ways of saying things that wasn’t saying it at all. Or sometimes they’d say a lot of things so that you’d be left thinking about what they didn’t say or what they couldn’t say.

An dubh

An dubh is on me today. Dubh means black. An means the. Not too bad today but bad enough. I’m not crying like a baba no more these days. Not everyday anyhow. That’s when I started coming out of it first really. When I started crying all the time. Before that I was made of stone for a long time. Think of stuff sometimes though all the time. I mean like sometimes I can think of nothing else. Absolutely nothing else. Not even like eating or drinking or washing or dressing or answering the mother. Makes me feel like I’m dead. And my eyes water a bit still for no reason. And the nightmares. I get nightmares sometimes when I’m awake. Sorrows notice me.

People

Some people don’t care about other people.

Matches

Today I bought fourteen boxes of matches. They were three euro fifty cents. I counted all the matches. Then I did it again. Then a third time just to make sure. Then I went outside and burned them all. First, one by one. Then I did it box by box. I needed something to keep my brain occupied. ’Twas at me. And I liked watching them burn.

Sisters

Sinéad’s skin was darker than her sisters’. She didn’t look one bit like them. She didn’t act like them either. They didn’t have her spark. But sure I suppose no one I ever met did.

Whispering

Dinky and Teesh were doing a lot of whispering in her ear once. They knew she was vulnerable isn’t it? But forget about it until we come to that part.

Ice It

’Twas the first and last time anyone ever saw James cry. Except for me. But I seen more than anyone. Anyhow he was in fifth class. The second last year of primary school when you’re about ten or eleven. Master Coughlan picked the teams for lunchtime. As daft a pair of teams that was ever picked by a schoolteacher. All the good players on one team. All the poor useless lads on the other, except for James. James started to protest, ‘Ah but sir?’ ‘What?’ said Coughlan, looking at him as if he was all puzzled and all. ‘Nothing,’ was all James could say cos he realised that he couldn’t say, ‘Why are you putting me in with all the shit fellas?’ And Coughlan knew he would never have it in him to insult the useless fellas like that. Every goose that tried to play football was with James. He told them where to play, and took up the midfield slot himself. I was up on the big oak tree keeping an eye on proceedings like I always did.

James took them on. All on his own he took on the other team. Racing forward and racing back. Scoring. Stopping scores. Intercepting. Spoiling. Catching. Blocking. Scoring again. He looked like a man among boys. In the middle of the second half though he stormed off the pitch with the tears streaming down his face. The game stopped inevitably, cos no one on his team could even kick a ball out of their own way, let alone get a score. James went straight for the jacks and locked the door. Dinky and Gregory, the Master’s son, and the rest of them followed, waiting at the door asking, ‘What’s wrong James?’ letting on like they were all concerned and all, and puzzled and all, ‘James are you OK?’ they were asking. Master Coughlan stayed out on the pitch and had a smoke for himself for a while. Eventually James came out of the jacks holding his shoulder. He said he thought he might have dislocated it. But that was the greatest bullshit you ever heard. And the lads knew that. And James knew they knew that there was feck-all wrong with his shoulder. And Coughlan knew, even when he held James’ arm aloft and watched James’ fake grimaces. ‘You gave it a good jolt all right James lad. You’ll have to ice it at home. The ligaments got stretched. But you’ll be fine.’

So Master Coughlan and the lads and James himself partook in this great farce about an injury that never happened. Well an injury to the body didn’t happen anyhow. James would go on to have many injuries in his future playing career, but looking back on it, the injury that happened to him that day was the worst of them all. Up on the tree by the sideline I could hear the jibes of the other players as he lorded it over them against all the odds. But most of all I could see their faces. Their eyes. They were all ganging up. Little wolves. Brought together by something they didn’t even understand. They were out for blood. Poor James was confused that day. I wasn’t one bit confused. He’d come face to face with the animal. That made him fear for his young life. Even though that day his life was never remotely in danger. But if there was a sign of things to come that was it.

He was a quiet boy in class that afternoon. And Coughlan didn’t ask him nothing either. Just let him stare out the window for the whole afternoon without as much as opening a book. Looking out at the sun sending waves of heat spiralling off the soft tarmac. Looking out at the basketball ring with the no net. Looking at the small goals and the square with no grass left. Looking out across the road up at the Catholic church steeple rising high above the Protestant one in the distance. Looking at the faded lines of the basketball court. Looking out at the field where the smallies play football at the front of the school.

Truth is I don’t know what James saw when he looked out that window that sunny June afternoon. I don’t know cos I’m not him. All I’m saying is that he looked out there. What did he see? What was he thinking? Your guess is as good as blahdeblah. I’d say there’s a good chance he wished he was only a middling kind of a player anyhow. Or maybe he was just wishing Sinéad was in school that day. Sinéad missed a lot of school on account of her helping out at home.

After school he laughed and joked with the lads, same as usual. And explaining that he got this shock up through his arm that was the sorest thing he’d ever felt in his life. The lads nodded, looked at each other and looked away. Dinky told him he should definitely ice it when he got home.

Not So Good

I can’t remember what I was thinking about. I remember now. Hard to explain. It’s like in the nature programmes. And the cameraman watching the poor small animal being killed by the lion or tiger. The deer say or whatever. And he’s waiting the cameraman is. And he knows what’s going to happen. And he doesn’t stop it. Cos it’s nature’s way. And that’s how he’s telling the story. By letting it happen. Showing us. Except in my story it isn’t some stupid deer or whatever like. If it was a deer I wouldn’t give a fuck. I wouldn’t care cos I’d say it’s nature’s way. But if it was nature’s way that the people died that died. Then things aren’t so good. They’re just not so good like isn’t it?

Sometimes

Sometimes I think I’m like the cameraman who let it happen. Other times I know I’m not. I didn’t let nothing happen. And I did nothing. I know it. Swear to God.

Ancient History

You’d think ancient history is ancient history. It isn’t. Not in Ireland anyhow.

A Desperate Hammering

Fella in Four Crosses got a desperate hammering in the pub there one night by a fellow who was beaten up by his father sixteen years before. Fellas have a memory when it comes to blood isn’t it? When it suits them they have anyhow.

Walking

I think I might go for a walk. I walk around a lot now. It’s one of my favourite things always. It could have been along a dirty dark street or along The Long Strand. The longest nicest beach in the world. I wouldn’t care either way. I’d like it just the same.

Secondary school was a bit embarrassing at the start for me. I got a special needs assistant. That’s some grown-up who the government pays to wipe my hole and tie my laces like I wasn’t able to look after myself in school. You see they changed the law so now fellas like me had to have a hippy with them in school. And the one I had was the biggest pain in the hole anyone every met. All We fucking this and We that.

—And if we’re not engaging Charlie we don’t make progress. And if we don’t make progress Charlie we don’t reach our potential. Each child has a right under the law to reach their potential. That’s why I’m here Charlie but we must engage if we’re to succeed.

Like most people I ever met in my life, I never spoke one word to her. But of all the people I never spoke to, she replied the most. On and on and on. Only time she’d stop talking and coaching me from her bollicksology textbook was to take a bite of some fucking celery or raw carrot or a drink of water from her glass bottle with the rubbery top. Longest few weeks of my life it was with that one following me around the place in case I’d fucking trip over myself. She had a fucking clipboard with her always in case anyone would find out that she did sweet fuck all. In the end she went to the principal about me not engaging. The principal got her helping other fellas with their reading and sums but I still had to meet her once a week so she could fill in her report and lie about my engagement and progress so she’d get to keep her job and could buy her celery.

But I was left alone eventually and she was given the road after first year off to some other poor bollicks some place else. No one ever mocked me cos of James being around. I wasn’t in all of James and Sinéad’s classes cos they were doing honours English and Maths and Irish and them subjects were split up into different levels. I hated being without them. Even other girls that weren’t Sinéad made me puke with their sucking up to the boys and trying to be popular with them.

Only girl I thought was kinda nice was Julie. She liked to dance. Her mother taught ballet and music and cleaned the school in her spare time. Julie was hippyish looking and walked tall. Sinéad hadn’t really met anyone like her and they became good friends in first year. Sinéad started wearing hippyish scarves and didn’t bother with make-up. Racey and the others would be covered in make-up. They’d go to the toilet together to be touching it up. But Julie never bothered with that. Neither did Sinéad. Julie made it easier for Sinéad to be not doing stuff that Racey and them were doing.

But then before the holidays they moved away and Sinéad never saw her again. And neither did we. Cos they moved to Australia. So then Sinéad just tagged along with Racey and the other girls then instead.

I remember Dinky long ago when we were in first year and we’d get off the bus in Ballyronan after a day’s school and we’d all go home but Dinky would follow James back to the castle to be hanging around with him. James said to Sinéad that he doesn’t help him doing his jobs, he just sits there watching and talking. The castle was rebuilt by then but James always had lots of jobs to be doing in the garden and stuff.

When he was finished his jobs then Dinky would follow him in and he’d join the Kents for the dinner. His mother used to joke that they should just adopt him. James’ father would send him up to do his homework then and Dinky would have to go home. James would be glad to be rid of him by then I think. That’s the impression I got anyhow, not that James ever said it. James would ring Sinéad most nights. Until she was old enough to be allowed to call up herself. That didn’t happen until they were about sixteen. She’d call up in the evening time. Sometimes they’d do the homework together and I’d be putting on records for them. In the library in the castle. I might tell you more about it later. Yeah I will. I loved the library more than any place else ever. They had a record player in the library and my mother had tonnes of records that I used to bring up. I used to walk up with Sinéad a lot of the time. We’d just be listening to music mainly and they’d be working on songs too. They made up songs. The tunes of them and the words of them. That kind of bored Dinky so he stopped coming up then. He started hanging around a bit with the older lads. Especially with Teesh and Snoozie. Licking their holes.

Dr Quinn says I’ve to introduce my secondary characters properly before I say another word about Sinéad and James and the library and their music or anything else cos I’m making a bollicks of the story. He told me who the secondary characters are. They are Dinky, Snoozie, Racey and Teesh. This is a description of each of them and their ages. I wrote out their names ten times so you can read it out loud ten times and get to know the names and know which is which. Plus it’s words for my story. Fifty.

Dinky = a rotten cunt. Male human. Same age as Sinéad and James. Dinky. Dinky. Dinky. Dinky. Dinky. Dinky. Dinky. Dinky. Dinky. Dinky.

This is Dinky’s nose.