The Gamal (5 page)

—You better not have me in it anyhow, Cha, or I’ll break your face.

She calls me Cha. She moved away out of Ballyronan and I think it was cos of me cos I’m an embarrassment. She does love me but my existence mortifies her. She’s a lot older than me. I was an accident. A bad accident. I was carnage. She calls a lot, my sister does. Her husband does be away a lot with work. She used to come up to my room when I was in the coma but awake.

—I really hope you’re going to be OK Cha. Isn’t the same without you around. Even if you never say anything.

She used to rub my head softly sometimes when she came up. She’s kind of busy now though. She has one little girl of two and she’s pregnant now again I think. Emily is her little girl. My niece.

The Story

I’m having difficulty figuring out how to start my story. Or where to start. Dr Quinn was on about characters and character development and plot and climax and all this. If the characters are the people, well I’m one. And I’m the narrator also. Then there’s Sinéad. Then there’s James. I’ll mention others along the way, but that’s the main three anyhow. The story is mainly about people. And the things they do to each other.

Music

Sometimes music used to get me so I had to stop whatever I was doing. Sometimes it was the words as well but most often it was just the music. Or the music and words together maybe too. I washed a whole car one time in the garage cos of a song. It wasn’t even what the boss had asked me to do. He asked me to stack the gas cylinders but there was a song coming out of a car at the petrol pumps that I couldn’t stop listening to and he explaining what he wanted me to do.

—Whose fucking car is that?

—Ha?

—What are you washing that fucking car for? Who owns it?

—You.

—I do not. That’s a customer’s fucking car. It’s not for sale. Leave it alone. I told you to stack up them fucking gas cylinders. Jesus Christ.

The song I could hear at the petrol pumps was a Neil Young song and I told Sinéad and James about it and they learned it. This is the words of it. It’s nice not to have to come up with all the words for my book anyhow. A thousand a day is torture.

Did you notice that there was nothing there instead of the words of the Neil Young song ‘Out On The Weekend’? I’ll explain why there was nothing there now.

I wanted to include the words of songs but Dr Quinn was talking to his lawyer friends and they said I’d have to pay the people who made up the songs millions to put the words of them in my book. That’s a disaster and I’ll tell you why it’s a disaster now. It’s important that you know the world of Sinéad and James in order to understand my story. And the world of Sinéad and James isn’t just bridges and rivers and a castle and houses and roads and fields and rooms and places and people. It’s songs too. Songs were part of their world just as much as anything else or maybe more than anything else. And I can’t just draw a picture of a song and I can’t just describe the words of them and I can’t play them to you so that means you have to do it yourself.

And you might say the words aren’t important. Well they are. Sinéad and James learned how to make songs from words. They carved and moulded them into verses and choruses. Sinéad scribbled the words of songs she loved everywhere. The backs of schoolbooks and her pencil case and her copies and her journals cos she had journals and she learned the form you see. The forms of songs and the form of songs. Practised it and learned it.

I’ll mention the name of the songs cos the names of songs are free but you’ll have to get the words of them yourself and write them in. I’ll leave a space blank for you to do it like I did with Neil Young. And do it in neat handwriting so it doesn’t look shit. I put in lines and all for you. And listen to the songs too. You’ll like listening to them but writing in the words will be a pain in the hole but the words are important too cos they were a fairly big part of the brains of Sinéad and James cos most singing needs words. And any other sounds people sing are words too. Important words that don’t mean anything except a feeling in you. But some songs I won’t have to leave blank cos they’re Sinéad and James’ songs and they wouldn’t take money off me for using them. Other famous songs I might be able to put in cos the people who wrote them are dead ages and money only bores the dead.

It Happened

It’s an awful story and it’s a true story. It’s a sad story and it might make you cross and it might make you sad and it happened and there’s people in it. And some of them are dead people now.

Time

Time is cruel.

Pissed Off

Sometimes people piss you off. You can either let it piss you off or not isn’t it?

God

Most people believe in God. I never did, God help me.

Protagonist

I dunno who the protagonist is. Me or Sinéad I suppose. Or James maybe. I meant to ask Dr Quinn if there’s an antagonist and protagonist in stories that are true, but I forgot. He writes for a hobby. Actually enjoys it like. Said I should write down the story. That it would be therapeutic. He runs writing workshops once a week in the nuthouse in Cork. Said I could come along if I wanted. I said no. Bad enough to be hanging around with loonies. But this crew would be nerds on top of that. Anyhow I’m not doing this for therapy I’m doing it for money. Hope to God it’ll make me some. I need to get out of here.

Dr Quinn showed me some writing today from a fella in his writing class that he thought was good. This star pupil kept using the word as. As he looked at me from across the table, as the steam rose from the coffee, as he spoke about this good writer fella he had in his class, as he blinked every few seconds, as he spoke, as I listened, as he handed me this piece of writing that he thought was really very, very good, as he sat back down as the chair swivelled slightly, as he spoke to me again about the having to pay for the words of songs I wanted to put in my book situation, as he shook his head and said I should just forget about the song lyrics as he explained that people would find it boring reading song lyrics as I looked out the window and tried to imagine the kind of fucking cunts that wouldn’t want to read the words of the songs that Sinéad and James loved and learned from, as the sun broke through the clouds and found a bit of the redbrick hospital wall that was the best thing about the miserable view from his window, as I thought of all the other depressed headwrecked patients of Dr Quinn who had to look out at that miserable view and try to feel good about themselves and the lives they have, as I breathed and continued to think different thoughts as Dr Quinn tried to make me think other thoughts, as I just nodded and looked out the window and continued with my own thoughts about the way things were as the sun fucked off again as Dr Quinn stared at me waiting for me to respond to what I hadn’t listened to, as I said,

—Yeah.

—OK, then. Good. That’s good. I’m happy with the way things are going Charlie. I have to say, I’m happy with your progress. Well done. How do you feel about it? Do you think you’re making progress?

—Yeah.

This writer fella that Dr Quinn thought was great used loads of the LY words too. He used them generously and superfluously and copiously, all these fucking LY words. As he walked hurriedly to the bus stop, as he decided decisively not to get that bus which had arrived punctually, but to stroll happily and lazily over to the shopping centre indifferently and look around, as resignedly, he crossed the road, carefully, deciding to do nothing much for another hour as he waited patiently and lovingly for the next bus to come punctually or belatedly, it made no difference to him. Him being me. I just read some of this star pupil of Dr Quinn’s fancy writing over at the shopping centre and then I threw it in the bin.

Talk To Ourselves

My cousin married a Frenchwoman. She loves the Irish but she says we talk to ourselves.

School

I found school hard at first. Rules drove me mad. Mad.

Objective

Adj. 1. free of bias; free of any bias or prejudice caused by personal feelings 2. based on facts; based on facts rather than thoughts or opinions 3.
philos.
; existing independently of the individual mind or perception [14thC. From medieval Latin
objuctum
‘thing presented (to the sight)’, ultimately from Latin
obicere
‘to
present
, throw against’, from
jacere
‘to throw’.]

Only humans could come up with a word like that. I mean for fuck sake. Objective. By bollicks. Who did they think they were kidding like? Themselves maybe.

Dictionary

I read the dictionary now. I meant to say that. Only book I ever read. Big thick ancient one we have at home. Only book I ever held in my hand that didn’t have some fucking agenda. My book doesn’t have one either. And words are better than music anyhow. You know where you are with words. Words don’t take you over.

Book

I just looked at a book. I counted the words on one page and multiplied that number by the number on the last page. The answer was one hundred and twelve thousand, five hundred and sixty. And that wasn’t even a big thick book. I haven’t a hope of writing that much but I’ll do as much as I can. I might take more photographs. I could fill a lot of the pages with photographs. Would you mind? Could show you exactly where stuff happened, like I did with where the body was found. I only have eleven thousand, one hundred and eleven words done at the moment. Long way to go. But I haven’t really started telling my story yet so that’s OK.

But the main problem is that I keep remembering things in the wrong order. Dr Quinn tells me yesterday after reading the bit I’ve done that I must write the story in the order that it happened. But my brain isn’t in charge of what it remembers and when it decides to remember it. I told him I can’t help remembering some bits sometimes. I think I can remember everything exactly right but just not in the right order. Like thinking about Sinéad sleeping.

I watched her sleeping. All was on was the telly in the room. Different coloured lights dancing around her face. Looked different and beautiful all the time. Dunno if you ever looked at the sea in the changing sky but it looked nothing like Sinéad asleep in front of the telly but my eyes liked looking at the vision just the same. Dinky was asleep on the couch. Snoozie was on the floor. I’ll tell you who they are another time. But Sinéad was cradled in the arms of James, whose chest rose Sinéad softly with every breath. Snoozie with his big dopey head would start snoring every few minutes so I’d have to walk over and give him a light kick. He’d groan and turn his head.

I wondered what Sinéad was dreaming about. James maybe. But I hoped that maybe I made some appearance in there too. It’s not that unlikely you know, no matter what people say. She was fond of me you know. Fair enough, I’m not sure what she really thought of me but I know it was a hell of a lot more than anyone had ever thought of me before or since. She knew I wasn’t the gamallogue I let on to be. And she trusted me. Told me things she never even told James. ‘You’re a dark horse Charlie,’ she’d say to me. ‘But your secret is safe with me.’ There was one of them children’s shrink lads long ago reckoned I was definitely on the autistic spectrum, cos I wouldn’t look at the big stupid eejit for long enough when he was talking to me. Anyhow, had a staring match with her one time so I did. With Sinéad. I won. She was useless.

See I shouldn’t have remembered all that now cos that’s near the end of my story or maybe the middle but not near the start. I should be remembering the first time I met Sinéad so that’s what I’ll do.

Court Transcripts

I haven’t wrote a word in a very long time and Dr Quinn is cross with me cos he says I’m not interacting with people. As if I ever did. And I missed two appointments cos I went for a walk around the hospital instead. Seen people crying down near the intensive care unit. A young father was in an accident. Anyhow Dr Quinn wants me to write again and I don’t want to but he said I won’t get better if I don’t face up to the things that happened.

Sometimes you don’t want to think about some stuff. So you’ll talk about anything else. I’m like that sometimes. I’m afraid of telling you what happens cos I still can’t believe it myself and I don’t want it to be true. Like when the stuff was on the papers. Makes it real to me. Cos I’m still kinda waiting to wake up and for it all to be a bad blah. I don’t want to write it cos I’m afraid and I don’t know what of. There’s nothing else to be afraid of at this stage only myself and you can’t be going around the place afraid of yourself. Can you? Anyhow I’ve lost my way so I’m just going to shut up and tell you what happened. Been trying to put it off long enough. Am I getting a bit giddy? Did you ever want to laugh at bad news? Someone dead and you laugh. No I’ll shut up. I’ll go out for one smoke and I’ll continue with the story proper when I come back in. I’m sick of my own thoughts at this stage. Smoking is probably the only thing I was ever good at. When I come back I’ll tell you about the first time ever I met Sinéad proper.