The rushes at the lake’s edge high as your head The lane crowded with hawthorn blossoms The meadow behind the ruined abbey where the jackdaws line up on that one tree
The old haunts are just as they were Unchanged As if they have been waiting for you to return The thought makes you dizzy like the years are rising up over you Waves crashing against a sea wall higher and higher
He puts his hand on yours What are you thinking he says His voice is low and gentle
I used come here before you say
And you never thought you would come again did you Now here you are
You meet in the daytime when PJ is at school
If Dickie asks though he never does you tell him you are going for a drive It seems less of a lie that way for driving is what you do out towards the hills the forest the lakeshore waiting for the moment when from some plain little turn-off or lay-by you will see in the mirror Mike’s car appear behind yours His lights flashing up Hello
And then following you along winding byways you haven’t been down in years not knowing exactly where you are going Feeling like you are sewing the thread of yourself into the green hills Your heart racing your mind turning turning
Till you come out in a valley or on the crest of a hill in a blinding chorus of sun The gods of love Flashing up at you Hello
And in the light you both slow down to a stop
The first time you only talked About Dickie furthermore as though to prove it was all in innocence
I am worried about him you said He is behaving strangely you said Mike raised his eyebrows like he hadn’t noticed like it wasn’t the talk of the whole town
It’s that garage you said It’s his whole life and he’s cut off from it now and it’s plain to see he doesn’t know what to do
There’s plenty of things he could do he said A man of Dickie’s intelligence
Oh yes he says he’ll do this and do that but he’s at sea it’s plain as can be It wasn’t just a job for him He gave up everything for that place everything
Hmm he said frowning tapping his head
The two of you sat side by side in his car looking out at the lake
If there was a place could be found for him you said Something he could do in there
And Mike heaved a sigh I’d love to Imelda believe me The thing of it is though that I don’t call the shots I’m only a whatdoyoucall caretaker It’s Maurice who makes the decisions and Maurice unfortunately at the moment is not well-disposed towards Dickie
Nor towards me either Not these days
No he shook his head No Imelda that’s not true He has no grudge against you You’re only an innocent bystander It’s Dickie has brought this down on himself
And you got a shock at that The way he put it Is it that bad you said and he made a sort of a grimace
It’s not great he said I’ll be honest with you But listen to me Imelda I promise you this While I’m in there I’ll see to it you’re looked after You’ve no need to worry while I’m in that garage nor Dickie either
Thank you Mike I do appreciate it you said and you opened the door and went back to your own car as though that was the only reason you’d come out to see him Started the engine but then turned it off again and climbed back out and went back to him and leaned in the window
How come you’re so good to us you said just to see what he’d say
He was quiet a long spell
There were some hard times when I was a boy he said And the Barneses were very generous to us I never forgot it he said I swore some day I’d pay them back
Yes Just like you he grew up without a penny His father was a drinker Used beat us with his rosary beads he says And I’ll tell you it was divil and all Our Lady or any of the rest of them bothered to do about it
Sometimes the chain broke he says and the four of us had to go scuttling around the floor trying to gather up the beads With my father roaring down at us all the while trying to kick us stamp on us It was comical in its way I suppose he says But in his eyes there is only sadness
You couldn’t blame him he says Them times would drive anyone to drink Working as a day labourer Castrating pigs and emptying septic tanks Christ Is that how any man imagines his life will be And never enough money to feed us for all that
You are at the edge of a yellow wood Birds are singing The world seems abundant with riches
Trapped in a hovel in Piggery Lane he says My sister and I used drink mud he says We were that hungry sometimes we’d get jars of water and mix in mud and drink it We thought it had vitamins in it It’s a wonder we didn’t each die of typhus he says and he laughs Though his sister did die you happen to know though it was years later and not typhus but leukaemia
But you say only Piggery Lane that’s where Maurice grew up
It is he says But he got out
You got out you say
He looks at you with his grey-blue eyes He smiles Sometimes I wonder he says
There was one winter he says and we had nothing to eat Just nothing for days on end He laughs again To think back on it now it seems impossible like another country but that’s how it was And my father there was no sign of him and my mam sent us out to knock on people’s doors for milk or teabags whatever they might have I’ll never forget he says He looks out at the bright leaves The shame of it
Yes No you did not forget that either Going out on the beg In the van crying A few tears were no harm Daddy thought Bruises though were too much Bruises scared people They might start asking questions or call the guards
On streets you’d never been before you and Lar hand in hand while Daddy and the boys waited round the corner in the van If they ask you inside go Daddy said If you’re inside they’ll have to give you something
Strangers’ gates Strangers’ houses The clamour of strangers’ televisions behind the net curtains Getting up on tippy-toes to press the doorbell Your heart in your mouth yet you never thought of turning back for scary as it was nothing was as bad as the thought of returning to the van empty-handed How old was Daddy then Not old Not as old as you are now But he seemed like all the monsters from all the fairy tales rolled into one a wolf a devil a troll a witch a haunted castle a sea a mountain
Though also sometimes a roly-poly jolly giant who’d let you bounce on his tummy If you could only work out how to make him happy
And so you rang the bell
The people in those houses Mike says and he shakes his head God knows looking back I’m sure they had it hard themselves but Jesus they’d make you feel this small
Yes people the people the ghost of their faces twitching at the living-room curtain or there above you in a glimpse before the door slammed
Shouting from inside Don’t open it it’s the tinkers Dogs barking Stones thrown Men standing there grim-faced telling you not to come back here
Or inviting you in
Touching your arm Stroking your hair Well aren’t you the pretty miss Come inside and tell my fortune I’ve a cupboard full of good things Your brother can wait out here
Only ever giving you their garbage Sour milk Scraps Black bags of clothes that didn’t fit any of you a broken toaster a radio-controlled car with the aerial broken off Maybe you can make something of that
In the back of the van Daddy scrabbling through it would roar like he’d been gored by a bull Throw it out the window as you were driving home stick his head out to swear at the car horns honking behind
I remember very clearly going up the Barneses’ driveway Mike said They were decent Whenever we’d call to the house Maurice always made sure we’d get something Dickie was in my class of course
He closes his eyes tight
I’d rather have died Imelda that’s the truth seven years old I remember it clearly saying to myself I wish I could die right now rather than knock on this door
He looks down as if gathering himself and when he raises his head he is smiling again
Compared to those days we’re on the pig’s back he says Even with our ups and downs
But when you’ve been through something like that he says You never really feel like it’s over
And he turns to you looks directly at you Do you he says
You tell him things you never told anyone
The stories come pouring out of you like a dam has burst From him too stories Then somehow they join together into a river
You tell yourself it isn’t wrong because he’s helping Dickie though you don’t believe it
You tell yourself that it is not he making your heart rise up and fly away it’s the blackbirds it’s the forget-me-nots it’s the rye grass brushing up against the old stone wall
A pine-tree air freshener dangling from the mirror St Christopher medal stuck to the dashboard
Afterwards you drive away in separate directions
And Dickie?
You find yourself trying so hard to be nice to him that one day you give yourself a nosebleed Any time you have to talk to him for more than five minutes you think you will either punch him or scream
It’s like he’s the one cheating You don’t understand it The rage
He’s growing a beard I see Geraldine says It’s a new look what would you call it the woodsman look Palaeo
You don’t know You don’t look He comes in like some beast-man out of the mountains tries to make conversation You must come down and see what we’ve done he says or We must go up one of these days and see Cass Smelling like Victor Dirt on his hands like he’s been digging a grave Doing the dirt you think A wave of horror rises up in you and it takes everything you have to smile like a mam in a TV ad and say I’ll just go and check on the oven
You ought to be worried about him but there isn’t room in your head Your mind is like one big pile of Jenga bricks and if it gets one good prod the whole thing will come tumbling down.
Sometimes you do genuinely go for a drive just yourself as if that will make the other times less of a lie
In the Touareg you can drive for ever and stay cool Drive out to the edge of town and beyond it into the country the yellow hills sloping up to meet the blue sky Oak trees on the crest At the crossroads a shuttered pub a blackened sign Guinness Time the country gazes back at you like a mirror with nothing in it
The last time you were here it was winter Cass was a baby Burbling in a snowsuit in the car seat behind you You’d wanted to see had they Could they really have They could And they had You’d known straight away without even needing to stop the car Something about the colour of the garbage in the yard You’d known they were gone even before you saw the notice slapped on the door
Today the garbage is gone the shell of the car the mattresses all that The yard is paved over The sheds knocked The walls painted white You would think you had got the wrong place only that Noeleen still has her gnomes lined up next door
As you are looking a man comes out in a singlet with biceps like melons Foreign-looking Fierce Scowling left and right Then a little girl dances from the house after him and he breaks into a smile
She is blonde isn’t that funny You’ve half a mind to get out and tell her you were once a little blonde girl in that very same house
And when you grew up you married a prince and now you live in a castle with horses and bluebirds
The cottage is otherwise Weeds coming out the windows Branches poking through the roof Poor Rose She would be living there yet if she could Smoking and listening to the radio amidst the dandelions and the mice
You reach the turn for Naancross You wait there Another empty crossroads in the ticking sunshine
Then you turn the car around Go back the way you came
I love Joan he says I always will love Joan But she is from a different world to me
Someone who hasn’t been there could never understand he says If you’ve never seen your father beat your mother with a plunger how you could ever understand
Now I like the fine things as much as anyone he says More maybe But at the end of the day they don’t mean that to me Snapping his fingers That’s not what I was praying for when I hid up in my room When I ran down the street buck naked to escape him That wasn’t what I dreamed of What money I have now what wealth what nice things if I’d had them then God knows I’d have piled them up in front of him Take them they’re yours I’d have said Only please
Please
He sinks his head in his hands A grown man
You lift it up again push your lips against his Your tears flow down his cheeks You put your head to his The hair falls around the two of you like a curtain Hello you say Hello