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At the top I says.
Where at the top she says.
At the front the top and the sun comes in I says.
Ah where the sun comes in she says. Tell me about the sun coming in she says.
I says it to her it’s good because sometimes it’s a sunny place. When the sun is out my room gets the sun. It’s good but if there be a way to keep the heat of the sun that builds up in the summer over for the winter it be better I says.
Very good she says, like this.
Came a time though. After two month she seen she wasn’t getting nowhere with me. I didn’t know about telling tales. I didn’t want to be snooping at people’s doors in the house neither. A man who owned his own church said the wages of sin was death, nearly screamed his own room down. I didn’t want to be killed, not by the Gillaroos not by no man for nothing. I was depressed all this time, it was a bad time. The air would get in on you. It was in the way things would come to you. The part of the city the house was was the place the whores were times gone by. The soldiers used come up for the whores. There were the pimps went around in charge of the whores they would lie waiting to hit the soldiers over the head who left without paying the night before. There were fellas too hid in the dark and hit the drunken soldiers on the head they knew had money because it was easy. The soldiers hid too and hit the men who hit them first. Holy men waited around to hit the pimps to get the whores off the streets. At any place you would turn you would find a man waiting to take it in hand the thing been troubling him. This is what you would think.
You could not be relaxed this time. Sometimes I would check. I would jump up I would check. I would be lying on the floor or the couch. I would be lying on the bed I would jump up. I would be sitting in my chair. I would go to the window I would check.
I watched from that window. People moved in the street, birds came up to the glass. I would see the spikes and wire, all around the roofs were forks. There were statues their face crusted in cack. Hello Saint Anthony I would say. I been told he was the saint of lost things. I did not know if it was Saint Anthony I was looking at.
This town had many corners. It was the thing I seen. The corners pushed you around but they would take you in. You would see the outsides of them, you would think of the insides of them. I had one of my own, a room hanging in the air. But you could not see it, you could only think of it. And you could only think of it if you knew it. They could not get me here if they did not know it, I said it to myself.
Other things I would think. I thought of the people done me down and of the people never done me down. I thought of the people in the library with Judith. I thought of them below where most the work got done in the library. The bowels of the building they called it, this lady Heather I met, an anorexic they called her. She said it was the bowels of the building and it was a good word. They were Protestants most them, all them, I got good at knowing. They never done me down was the way I looked at it.
I thought of the people on the street where there was a happiness was what you could see. I seen it for myself, I seen the arm chair on the road. I seen the tins of beer left about for whoever it was wanted them. I seen the childer on their bikes. There was one lad went about with thick gloves flattened all the broken glass on the tops of walls made it a safer place for the childer, I seen him. I seen the fella in the Ecclesiastical Metal Manufacturers when I was passing. He had the walls in the yard by the basement rooms painted yellow and he be sitting rags around him in his apron and the place filling up with the sun. I seen the Romanians and they were burnt looking and shamed looking people but not unhappy people, they were in fact joyful was a word that could have been used, they were a joyful people. I seen this one fella out with his trumpet on the street and he was good enough not to play it and disturb the neighbourhood but he was showing the childer. I asked him was it a trumpet, he said it was. They suited the sun the Romanians but it was difficult. The bricks in those streets were black, it was not a place that the sun could reach for long in the day.
I said I would give it a year in that house and I would see. But when my year was gone I says should I give it more time. I thought a year might cool it but I had no idea. The truth of me wanting longer though was something else. The truth of it was I was getting settled in the city of Dublin.
But you hear some things. People asking questions, people who go out in the field. The people who come to where the fields gather into streets, who follow the streets, learn to read them, come knocking on doors, going house after house, do you know this person, this person we are looking for, do you know this man.
Here are things this woman Judith Neill said to me. I was in her room in the library in the university. I was thinking of my mother, my father, my brother and my sisters. I was thinking of my uncle Arthur who was away distant places those days. I was thinking of the people been before us. Judith says you have to look at these things in detail and in whole and the story will make sense. I says is it fate you are talking about. She says it is not fate but from where you are looking it can seem like fate. Everything can only lead to where you are looking from and the more certain you are about where you are looking from the better to see what leads to it.
But I did not know where I was looking from but she said I should be glad to know where I was looking from because she was not certain where she was looking from. She was a woman sometimes you could pity and I think the Devil got in her if she had a drop. She had a man was sick with fits and was a weakness dragging her down. But maybe all these people had troubles like it I seen.
Judith gave me a cassette recorder one of the times. It was a box and it looked like a radio but it’s a cassette recorder she says. She said it could be useful for me. She was standing in the middle of her room in the library her coat on and the room was a state. There were the carts packed high and there was paper on her table. I was sitting there I had this cassette recorder on my knee. The buttons had fallen off, they were now metal. I laughed I don’t know why. It was because she had her coat on and her hands in her pockets and the room was a state. Only if you want it she says.
The cassette recorder is broken it will never be fixed but not long ago I tried buying blank cassettes for it. The man in the shop said to me I was part of a dying breed. I says to myself I am part of no breed.
2 (#ulink_44c0f814-fcd3-577c-9b54-602c1833430b)
Arthur rang me one sunny day the end of that summer one year after I landed up in Dublin. I didn’t have his number put in my phone. I didn’t even have it written down and when the phone rang I didn’t know who it was. I thought it was Judith, I thought it was the juju man come to pay the wages of sin. I was in my room and I picked it up. I heard ah. It’s your Uncle Arthur he says. Are you in trouble I says because that’s what it sounded. He was breathing heavy through his teeth. He didn’t know where he was he said. He was in Dublin and that’s all he knew. He said he was at a Spar and there was a church near him and it was white and it had the babbies with the wings and the pillars and get here quick now Anthony he says.
The Spar I was thinking was a ten minute walk from the house. He was sitting at the window, one arm on a crutch the other on a bin. The head was over one side and his legs were spread out and he had the same brown face I remembered, the same thick hair, the same fat lips made you think he was whistling. He was holding a bottle of Club one hand and he been sick but not much. The sick was on his front and on the ground. He was moaning like the sun had got to him, he was moaning like he been boxed. The minute I seen him I says Arthur I says.
He says Christ Anthony.
I says Arthur Jaysus. It’s good to see you I says.
Anthony I thought the kids were going to have a go he says.
I says who touched you.
No one Anthony it’s me foot he says.
What’s wrong with it I says.
Me foot and me head he says.
There was another crutch on the ground. The side of his feet was a dirty white sack said Mater Misericordiae on it.
He says Anthony can we go to your place.
Sure we shouldn’t be getting you to the hospital I says.
No I just been at the hospital, they’re useless he says.
They not the best people for this thing I says.
Aaah he says. Aaah. Anthony no. To your place Anthony he says and he threw the bottle at me.
Easy easy I says.
He could not hold the crutch on his left because his hand that side was in a cloth. He could not put any weight on his foot that side so I had to carry his other crutch and his sack and hold him up as we moved. Took us twenty minutes or more. I had to look at the ground the whole distance. His arm was thick and tense, it was a pain to lift my head. His hand in the cloth was up my face and it smelt and in my right ear was the sound of his hissing. I do not know how we got back to the house and up the stair. Inch by inch was the way. Counting brown metal covers in the ground, getting smaller and smoother and cracked the nearer the house, this was the way.
I got him on my bed. He let his crutch clatter to the floor. I let him lie, I threw his other crutch down, I says fucking hoor.
Where’s me drink he says.
I put it in the bin after you threw it at me I says.
I got him water from the tap. Here sit up now I says. He was stroking his head like he was protecting his eyes. I put my coat under him.
Help me take me shoes off he says.
The left shoe was a struggle to get loose and I had to twist it. He pressed into his eyes the more I twisted it, I says you all right to him. Then it slipped off. The foot was bandaged thick except for the top where the toes were sticking out. Or they should have been sticking out anyhows only where you be looking for the big toe there was a mess. It was a state. There was no toe and there was blood, black hard scab and bright red blood. It was going bad I seen because there was green too.
What happened you I says.
I got in an accident he says.
You surely did I says. How long you been in the hospital I says but he didn’t answer. I says how long you been in the hospital.
Shut up he says.
Don’t be telling me shut up I says.
Shut up he says.
Don’t be telling me shut up I’m only asking questions trying to help I says.
Shut up let me rest he says.
Shut up yourself I says. I says why didn’t you ring me sooner I would have come. To visit you in the hospital I says.
Arthur I says.
Arthur I says and I smacked the bed.
Shut up he says.
I didn’t say nothing, then okay I says.
I stepped back, I left him to it, I lifted my hands I says okay. And he was gone, spent.
It was funny, to go that quick. The things he been through I didn’t even know. The hand stayed over the eyes but the elbow went slowly then the hand slid down and he was asleep his fingers spread over his face.
And there we were.
I tried to think of the last time I seen him and it was three year before, there about. It was in Melvin. Melvin, the Sonaghans, the Gillaroos, an old story. The colour to those days was black. That is what I was thinking. Everyone was depressed. And it was green and it was white because there were people after bringing flowers. Bright yellow too with the bibs on the guards.
And in came Arthur. He appeared, came out of nowhere. We all thought he was gone for good to France and England. But he came back these few days, his nephew being buried, my brother Aaron, why wouldn’t he. The evening of the funeral mass we walked the fields around Melvin. I didn’t think anything about them, they didn’t mean nothing to me. These were the fields the Sonaghans and Gillaroos came from said Arthur, they didn’t mean nothing to him neither. There wasn’t too much praying done that night, only cursing. We cursed the Gillaroo boys that sent Aaron the threats on the DVDs. We cursed that Aaron had risen to it too. Arthur asked me where them DVDs were now, I said they were thrown in the attic. Arthur said they were evidence, I said they were not evidence sure hadn’t Aaron killed himself. Evidence for what I said. We knew that the next day would be difficult. It was difficult. A very reasonable man said we had to stay behind a half hour in the graveyard and that made it more difficult. Arthur said to me were my mother and father all right with one another these days. I said they were grand. He said he was only asking because he seen them separated by the graveside.
He says how many of those people with your mother do you know.
I don’t know too many of them I says.
He said to me he didn’t neither. He said you wouldn’t have known what was confiscated on the way in.
He tried to get talking to a guard but the guard would not say much. He asked the guard was everything okay and the guard said everything was good. The guard would not relax then because Arthur was looking about him. I was not sure if Arthur was messing or if he was agitated. He said the Gillaroos were fuckers and he kept saying it. He was jittering about, he was stupid, first time in my life I thought that. I thought Arthur you look stupid you are stupid. He was wearing a hat. I could not say if I liked it. He said it was made of felt and he got it in France. There used to be a feather in it he said. He took it down off his head and he showed me the inside.
What does that writing say he says.
He showed me his watch. There was mercury in it he said. He got it in Holyhead. He got his coat in England, his shirt in England, his shoes in England.
Where did you get your trousers I says.
England he says.
The priest said he wanted to speak again while we were waiting. He had trouble being heard over the helicopter but he got it out anyhows.
He says remember that Jesus was known as many things but one of the names he went by was the Prince of Peace. In the New Testament you will find a number of examples of Jesus greeting his disciples with peace be with you. Jesus’s life was an example to us all to live our lives in peace and harmony with each other. We would do well to remember at this time the life that our Saviour led and the message of peace that he brought to us.
I seen my father make a great show of blessing himself. Then a guard came over whispered in the priest’s ear. The priest said we would all have to wait behind longer. Ten minutes went and Arthur said he was going to throw a stone at the helicopter.
I’m going to try hit that thing and either I hit that thing or the stone drops and I hit a Gillaroo he says.
He tore a lump of tarmac the size of his fist from the edge of the path and he threw it in the air straight up. A guard stepped in and so did my sister Margarita.
Have you no respect for our brother she says to me.
I don’t even know if that was the question. I don’t even know if that is a question.
That was the last time, three year ago in Melvin, the time of my brother Aaron’s burial. There was this time now he was after turning up in the city of Dublin he was agitated and there was the last time in Melvin and he was agitated then too. It was not good in the world when Arthur was agitated.
3 (#ulink_99d690f0-0666-55ee-8994-6a459e9c1f6f)
The next morning he took a turn for the worse. First thing I woke up he was groaning. He was not asleep but not awake. He was trying to keep himself through a severe pain if that’s the way. His face had a clouded look and he was sweating. I says to him Arthur will I make you tea but he was inside himself be the best way to put it.
I went to Mr L the chemist. He had the cure when I was sick in June and he was good. I says I have this uncle and it’s like he’s in the grip of something terrible. I says he been sick and now I think he’s burning up.
Is he delirious the word Mr L used.
Yes I says.
He could have an infection he says.
I said to him yes that that’s what I thought it was. I told him his foot had gone bad. Mr L said it sounded like it was the antibiotics he needed but that I had to get him to a doctor to get those. I said to myself that that was expensive and then I remembered I had antibiotics from when I got sick in June. I took one and I couldn’t take the rest because the taste came off in my mouth. But I had them, I hadn’t got rid of them.
I found them and it said on the tube take three a day. I knew there was no way Arthur was going to take them the taste of them the way they were, I would have to sneak them into him. I said to him did he want anything to eat. He said nothing only a groan. I had ham and I made a sandwich. I ate it beside him but he didn’t react like he wanted food.
I left it a day. He hadn’t eaten all that time, that day and the day before. I knew he was pushing himself to the limits. He would have to eat something and his body would make himself eat something. Sure enough when I bought chips and I put some on a plate beside him he took them. I pushed an antibiotic in one of them. He ate them down in ten seconds.
Have you anything else he says.
I got him an orange. I peeled it for him my back turned and I pushed an antibiotic in that too. He bit into it but his tooth hit the antibiotic and he spat the antibiotic on the sheet.
What’s this he says.
I says it’s a tablet it’s good for you I says and I picked it up.
Give it here he says. Will you fill up me glass he says. How many of these a day do I have to take.
The rest of that evening he slept and most the next day he slept and the day after he was awake but quiet but together. The day after that then he was even better again, he was improved.
I was up that morning with the television on. I thought he was asleep and then I heard it.
Good to be home he says.
I turned to him. He was lying on his side, his head resting in his hand. He was looking toward the window.
I says you’re not home. You’re in my house here and it’s my rules you’re under.
And you’re back now and you got sick and you’re stranded in the city of Dublin and who am I to turn you away, one of my own, my uncle and the brother of my father I thinks to myself.
Home I says.
I says to him so what brought you back after your years of wandering.
He didn’t say nothing, he let out wind.
Did you miss the country I says.
