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We’re not going to stay here but I just wanted to give you a sense says Judith. She says think of all that these volumes contain. She picked up one book and dropped it on a pile of others and it made a clap.
We went out that room and we went to get water from a machine but the machine was empty. So then we went up the stair to get juice from a fridge. Then we went back to the room that was brightest and had the new books.
I want to tell you a story she says. We’ll see if this sparks something. I want to tell you about the Lambton Worm she says. The Lambton Worm is a well known folk tale from northern England. It concerns as you might have guessed a monster. Some people say this monster had many legs on the side of its body and some people say it had no legs. How do you think it might have looked she says.
I did not know.
In the tale of the Lambton Worm a boy called John catches a creature that looked like an eel she says.
Did he catch it in a river I says.
Yes says Judith.
Then it was an eel I says.
John threw the creature down a well says Judith. The creature grew to a colossal size. Years later it slithered out of the well and terrorised the towns folk of Lambton. The funny thing is how the tale has changed over the years. The reason it has changed so much is that there are more spoken versions of the story than written ones. The story has versions even in other countries. In New York there is an urban myth about a baby crocodile that was flushed down the toilet by somebody who was given it as a pet but who didn’t want it. The crocodile grew to full size even to an abnormally big size and lived in the sewers of New York for years.
Many times after being in the library me and Judith would get food in the university. We might go for a walk around the gardens of it. She said she could talk to the grounds man about getting me a job but I don’t know anything about trees. One time we stood in the gardens and looked at the outside of the library. Judith said it was a wonderful and mysterious building. She said it was a puzzle the inside of it and it was a luxury but what it done for people was not a luxury. She said it was like a shelter, it was built of rock and concrete, it was a safe place. She says to me you should never be afraid of it Anthony. You are safe here you are safe in all these grounds, enjoy them. Enjoy the music of the bells she says. We walked over cobbles she says feel the smoothness of them under your feet, you can almost feel the smoothness run up your leg.
This one time she gave me a card. She said I could use it to get in the library on my own to look at the books.
But don’t tell anyone I’ve given this to you she says.
Why I says.
It could compromise me the word she used.
I says what is compromise.
It would put me in an awkward position she says.
She gave me a book. It was a pad. She said did I have a pen and I said I’d get one. She said she wanted me to write. I was to go home. She said I did not have to go home straight away but I was to go home to the room in the house. She said she wanted me to write something down. To begin I had to think of one moment or a person. I must not try to get it all in she said. Just one moment or a person, and funny, I thought of Arthur. This is what I wrote.
Arthur has gone the furthest of anyone we know. He left in his van and he lives in it. Now I don’t know where he is. He could be in Spain. He has seen things the rest of his people has never seen though there are some of us have travelled around as far as him. He is seeing mountains. He could be in France. He could be in Africa or China. In fact he has been to those places. What he does is buy things in one town and sell them on in the next. He sells bowls. He has sold winkles though he did not buy those. He sells films and he stripped a factory after the owner of the factory told him he could have it. He took all the metal and he sold it one place, all the rubber and he sold it one place, all the gold and he sold it in the other place. He took up a railway line sold that too. He sells food and antiques. He knows about the history of the antiques and the people listen to him. He can tell them when a thing was made and they will buy it knowing it is real. Wood in antiques is the thing he knows the most. He could tell you when a chair was made. One time he took a table to the top of a place where a man lived in Germany. The man said the table was worth a lot and Arthur knew that, he had taken the table himself up the stair. One time Arthur started a war in Switzerland. He went in a forest and there were no trees in the middle of the forest. He walked there. The men and women let a slab of stone thump to the ground and they had written on it they were going to get together and fight to be together. They needed one more man to write they should fight and that moment Arthur knew how to write and he wrote on the stone. They all shook their hand and Switzerland went on to be free. He moved to the next place. He went to Russia and he met their king. He went to the sea with him. He showed a town in Scotland how to milk a cow. They were not doing it right. Then they knew. He keeps on going. There are others of us has gone as far as him I know. But Arthur is seeing different things. The others go in a circle and always go back. Arthur just keeps going though he knows the way back. There has never been anyone done it the way he is doing it.
5 (#ulink_add07d24-0d00-52ea-93a8-4eb88aaf9df3)
Arthur said the thumb was an accident what he kept saying. He said he got himself caught in a fence and his thumb came off. I said it to him wasn’t that the same story on the picture on the sheet off the doctor he gave me. He said yes it was. He said that that was why the doctor gave him the sheets to begin, because he had the same accident as the man on the sheet. Then wait he says. He got a text. I says to him who gave it you what does it say, I don’t know he says. I says give it here. It said Greetings, still some appointments on discount days, Jizelle Hair Studios, ph zero zero zero zero one one one one one.
Did you try to get the thumb back I says.
No he says. He gathered his crutches then he put them down again. Then he shifted over to the sink, put water in the kettle. He says it’s definitely getting better me foot. I can put the weight back on it and I’ll be walking again no time.
Why didn’t you try to get it I says.
What he says.
The thumb I says. It could have saved you and the hospital the bother cutting off your toe I says.
It was gone he says. Went in a ditch. Went in under the water he says.
And that was the leeches that had it then I says.
That was the leeches had it then that was it he says. Where is it you keep the tea he says. He opened the cupboard under the sink and the bag I had leaning against the door fell over and sweet potatoes I got off Judith spilt out. She grew them in her garden and I took them when she gave them. Arthur pushed down on one with his crutch.
What’s this he says.
You cook them I says. But I don’t know how to cook them. And they’re five month old, they’re rotted I says.
He got one up off the floor. But sure we’ll try it he says. There’s good eating in that.
I waited for the kettle to boil, I got up to make the tea. I waited for him to settle in the couch, me on my seat. I watched him. There wasn’t nowhere for him to go out of here. It’d be easy if I just let things.
It’s a grand enough room he says. A good bit of space indeed. Would you call this an apartment he says.
I took a sip of my tea. I will get this out of you and you will tell me you stupid fucker I says to myself.
So what’s the plan I says. Are you just going to, and though I could not think what to say I sat back on the seat and fixed straight ahead on him.
He threw one leg over the other and hit the cup down on his knee. The bottom of the cup made a pop sound and some of the tea spilt on his trouser. Have you got any biscuits he says.
I have I says, I have, and I went to get them. I have Polos I says. Listen I says to him again. I want to know what plans you have. I says you have to have plans.
Oh I have many plans Anthony. Many many plans. I’m full of plans always he says.
You are to fuck I says, and I left him to it, I left him to it, forever at the tricks he was, all about the teasing. I felt like shouting there’s no need to be protecting me Arthur, look it who is protecting who in these days, I took you in I fixed your foot I am feeding you.
I had a trick of my own. The trick was to get him when he was in himself. I seen these days and weeks sometimes he would get in a mood. I seen it usually when he had a cup of tea and a cigarette and he was sitting on the single wooden seat. He would have his legs crossed, he would have his arms crossed, he would be bent over himself. There would be steam rising one side, smoke rising the other, his head would be lowered, low as his shoulders. He would be looking at nothing. In this mood you would not get him telling you things straight but you might get him telling you stories.
One of these times I was looking at his hand with the cigarette in it, his buckled left hand. His thumb that was his toe was pointed the wrong direction, it brought out my pity, I expected it he would start whining and whimpering. This moment I did not want this beaten dog, not this thing his hand and foot buckled and broken. I says to him I’m sure you have things on your mind, you cannot be a travelling man you don’t have things on your mind the next place you’re going I says, and I said it to lift him make him feel like a man with things on his mind.
I says you must have known some stories your time on the road.
Yes he says.
How long were you away I says.
I don’t know he says.
I’ll tell you what it was I says. You were five year away. Two year before Aaron’s burial, three year after.
Was it that long he says.
It was I says. I think I says.
I says would you like a drink, I have some in the room.
What have you got he says.
I went over to the cupboard on the wall. It was screwed on the wall in the middle on its own and the latch had turned green. The only thing in it was a bottle of xeres it said on the front. I never touched it before this time. I twisted the cap and it ground on the glass with the crust the inside of it.
Have that I says, the man lived here before left it behind him, it is drink for the road.
It was the evening, it was one of them evenings after a clear day that the mist had come down catching and spreading the light wide through it. Arthur sipped at his drink and then I seen him sniffing his shirt.
I says something wrong.
He says my shirt is smelling of smoke since I came into Dublin.
I says I am used to it. Is it cars I says.
That’s what it is he says.
Cars and damp and electrical heating I says.
Reminds me he says.
Of what I says.
He says reminds me seeing Dublin years gone by standing the top of the hill of Kitty Gallagher and seeing the smoke bedding in in the evening. It was the damp of the air kept it down. The smoke every chimney would collect and the whole of the town be smothered in its smoke but you don’t get that no more because they banned the coal that smokes they did.
Have you any more stories I says to him.
He lit up another cigarette and smoked it quiet to himself, sipping slow the xeres and his eyes squinting.
He told me the story of the alms badge. This was the story.
They used give out the badges made of tin to the beggars of the city of Dublin and our people heard of it he says. But only a certain amount of badges was given out, only a small number of the beggars was allowed get a spot in the city to beg for the alms. Anyone else wasn’t allowed. So our people heard of this and in them days they were out beyond the last ditch, what they called the franchises, where the men who ruled the city every year would run out with their horses and set the limits of the land under the city and our people was on the edge of this. But one of our fellas Brackets Sonaghan took it up with one of their fellas he says why don’t you be giving out the badges to us out here. But the rest of our people says to Brackets why you saying that, we are earning a decent living working for the yeomen garrison, and it was true, we was it was said doing the work for the yeomen helping out with their tack with their utensils and their weapons. This lord who rode out he says to Brackets you have to be living in the city and you have to show yourself to be a beggar and he had a friend with him and they says sure we’ll show young Brackets here what it’s like to be poor and no shoes in the city. And they took him aside, they took him to some trees, and they gave him drink like this until it was dark and they had a fire lit and they were telling tales and getting each other spooked but it was only to get Brackets over to their side for the night. When it was midnight and Brackets was drunk and relaxed they done something terrible to him. They put the pitch cap on him and Brackets was in agony. They put him on one of their horses and the lord’s friend took Brackets’s horse and they followed in behind Brackets whose head was on fire. The horse Brackets was on knew the way back to the city and the lads were behind shouting and whooping and following this ball of fire that was Brackets. But when Brackets’s horse got near the city the fire went out and Brackets was able to concentrate on the horse not his head. He was able to turn the horse into a field and the men went on straight didn’t know where Brackets had went. Poor old Brackets fell off the horse and he cooled his head in the swamp that was in the field. When he woke up the next morning he seen that in the field was a fair being set up, all the tents, the ovens cooking the chickens. The people in the fair they took pity on him because his head was black. A man with a tent said he would give Brackets a cut if he sat in the tent and let the people come in and look at him. Brackets did this for a week and then he was off but he said he would go in the city because he was so near to it. And in the city the people there took pity on him too because of the state of his head. They gave him money though this was not allowed because he didn’t have the alms badge until one day a gentleman said to him he should go to the town hall ask for a badge. So Brackets went up to the town hall, he knocked. And do you know who opened the door to him.
Who I says.
The lord the fella set his head on fire. Course he did not know Brackets to see now and he gave him the alms badge. But what happened him then was Brackets got so good at the begging the other beggars turned on him. He got a good amount of money this one day he was able to pay a man to take him all the way out of the city back to our people. When he got back to our people he had to tell them he was Brackets Sonaghan because they did not know him to see. They said to him where he been these years. He turned out his pockets and he showed them the money he had and he said he been a very successful beggar. He showed them the badge made of tin. He said it was easy. They could make these badges easy, if anyone could it was them. He told them he had the best meals he ever had and he been taken in plenty people’s homes in the city. He said if they took the tin they got from the yeomen made up a load of these badges they could go begging instead of this skittering around the yeomen. But you know what our fellas said.
What I says.
They said they weren’t going to go down that road. There after been a barracks had been set up near enough and these fellas had taken over from the yeomen and they were from Cornwall in England. And these was fellas who worked in the tin mines and their people worked in the tin mines and these people could see the work that our people were able to do with the tin. They appreciated the skill and they made our people proud of the work they were doing because they said it. So our people said that was it. They said no to Brackets Sonaghan and fucking matchstick head was put on his way.
Fucking matchstick head was put on his way he says. Was good he says.
I says to him what would he have done. I says would he have gone along with Brackets or stood with the rest of our people.
Arthur said he didn’t care because it was only a story.
No man would survive his head being set on fire he says. He be dead before even being put up on a horse he says.
That is true I says.
He says I’ll tell you something about that story though. What’s true is them fellas from Cornwall in England know it all about the tin. I been there meself. There is tin mines the length of the place. Not too many them left open now but I met these fellas said their people worked in them. They took me in said I was their brother they told me.
Arthur threw his head back laughing the thought of the word they used.
He says they were going to march on London they said. But first they wanted to drink. I spent I say five month there. Most I ever spent in one place anywhere in England.
What kept you there I says.
I was relaxed he says. I watched the fellas on their surf boards on the water. I slept on the beach a lot. I got a batch of this sex wax they called it and I sold it to them. Then I got another batch and another. It was for their dicks on the surf boards. I could have gone on. And I was with this woman. I met this girl I had her one night on the beach.
Arthur finished off his glass the xeres one go.
No more of that he says. I shouldn’t be telling you things like this.
I could feel me getting drowsy, I could feel the heat of the lamp on my lip.
I says Arthur you’ve a gift do you know.
For what he says.
For setting out the story there in front of someone and the light and life in it is there to see. It’s a gift no doubt I says.
A thick moan blew out in the night and came in through the walls. This would happen.
Sh what’s that he says
I says that’s the boats come in on a misty night Arthur all that is. We’re only a mile or less from the port and that’s the fog horn alerting the other boats.
He went over by the window looked out as if he could see. He was stood there his good hand in his back pocket, the bad hand holding open the curtain.
Gone to see the world he says.
I says they are.
They can keep it he says.
He looked above him then, his head moving with something.
And what’s this come here he says.
I went to the window. Two strokes of light were moving through the mist. They were settled on the thicker cloud above and the spots they were making were moving ten mile across, back to touching, out again.
It’s coming from the port too I says. There’s something always going on out there I says.
We did not like to look at it too long. I poured out the last dropeen of the xeres.
And musha musha have you a story to tell yourself for your old uncle little bookaleen he says the night getting on.
I went over to put on the television.
I don’t know fuck all about stories I says.
