Messages

Once for her it was all books and art.  Long talks about the rights of women and workers.  The poems of Rilke.  To be clear she wasn’t oblivious to the nationalism of the day.  I’d hazard merely blasé about it.  Would you believe in my younger days she imagined me marrying a British soldier of all things, even had her eyes on a particular one for me, a chap from Sussex who was handsome as I recall despite a mild case of lazy eye.  There was a time when we didn’t loathe every last one of them.   

What happened to mammy is what happened to many.  The Rising.  And the response to it.  And everything thereafter.  It enraged the majority and influenced her to give up most English things.  Renounced Constable and Shakespeare.  Would go hungry rather than eat any of that pre-packaged colonial swill they sold in the markets.  Out with sliced pans and back to flatbreads.  She even refused to speak their language for a time, a short-lived protest which expired when she realised it was the lingua franca at her club’s regular card evenings.  And since it was a British man that invented the circular saw tool which created the sawdust which led to the sneezing that gave the man the influenza which would later kill him, she even took to blaming the Kingdom for my father’s death: a poor victim of depraved capitalists, through no fault of his own.

I apologise I was not able to attend the service, dear.  I’ve been in a bad way the last month, worse than you are now, but I’m grand for the minute, God save us, though I’ve still a wee throat on me for my sins.  Well, I say, I hope you don’t catch anything further off me, being the way I be.  Yes, I can see.  Well, there’s a big box of hankies there at the end of the sofa-chair, if you can reach.  Down there.  Yes.  And don’t worry about the funeral, I go.  I kept a low profile myself.  It was no small affair and you know I get anxious around crowds.  Oh, I can imagine it was, she says.  He was well-liked and admired.  I bet they travelled far and wide to see him off.  They did, they did, I say. I wasn’t fit to meet them all.  I had to slip away a number of times and Patrick’s family weren’t at all pleased with me for doing so.  Ah, she says, come on, they must have understood what you were going through.  They did, they did.  But you must know they’re as set in their ways as he was.  Motivated exclusively by politics and standing.  And the fact I wasn’t always standing with them left a bad taste, I believe.  Where’d you go? she asks.  Not far, I say.  During the mass I stepped out for a bit of fresh air and lost track of time.  The mass was over by the time I got back.  They’d had communion and all. 

The door sways open all of a sudden.  Sniffle-sounds as loud as my own but significantly wetter and more frenetic.  It’s the little dog.  Coleridge.  Ah, Coleridge.  Oh no, she says.  That’s not Coleridge.  It’s Collins.  Collins, is it?  A new dog?  Same dog, new name.  He’s a King Charles Spaniel.  But more than that a republican.

                                                          *

I am walking into town.  Snow is thinly spread and crusty on the paths.  Icy tracts are scattered and lie waiting to grab the less vigilant pedestrian.  Rather misty out too.  It is quiet around.  It’s early.  And the cold has everyone indoors.  I am reluctant to meet anyone from the old days.  There is no knowing who anyone might be anymore. 

Clooney’s shop is where it always was.  Just over the bridge.  I didn’t see it last night.  I wonder if anyone in there remembers me.  They don’t.  I purchase some biscuits, sugar, tobacco for mammy.  It’s a cold one, the shopkeeper says to me.  It is, I say back.  He is a few years older than me but I don’t believe I ever saw him before in my life.  He must be one of the sons who travelled for years and has now come home to run the store.  I’m not to know who has passed away since last I was here.  Half the town might have bitten it, or fled.            

On the way back, I am met at the bridge by a military vehicle, that same Crossley thing from last night.  It is slowly moving in the fog like a turkey vulture at the end of the world.  Whereas last evening, they were inactive with only a greenhorn in the driver’s seat, now they have a bunch of them up top and they are wide awake, staring into windows of guiltless homes.  Two in front, three at the back.  An absolute nightmare upon me.  My head stays low but it is no use.  The truck stops as soon as I’m within earshot.  Here, missus.  Stop there.  And I do.  I look up warily.  I’m confident it’s the same young man from last night.  This time in the back of the truck.   Rifle at chest level.  Missus, what’s your name?  Aoife, I tell him.  Eeee-faa?  EEEE---faaaaaa!  He keeps repeating it, mocking the pronunciation.  His companions chuckle at his antics.  Eeeeeee-FA!  I didn’t think the name had a particularly odd or funny pronunciation.  Their brains might have failed if I had given my real name.  Is that your real name? he asks, chortling, and I say, yes, it is.  I don’t believe you, he goes.  Well, it is, I go.  What are you doing out in this weather?  Messages, I say.  Messages from who?  I don’t say anything, just hold up the paper bag to show I’ve been getting groceries.  Give that here, says one of the other fellows.  He looks inside.  Just sugar and shit.  Oh.  He takes out mammy’s tobacco.  Who’s this for?  My mam, I answer.  Pull the other one.  You’ve got a fenian beau around here somewhere, haven’t you, ye bitch.  I wouldn’t know any fenians, I say.  I wouldn’t know anything about that. 

Perhaps there is something in my tone of voice that particularly annoys them, especially the younger man who I’d first seen, because a horribly aggrieved face comes over him, and the expression is mixed, sometimes breaking into a snicker, then to incertitude, then back to resentment.  They throw my groceries on the ground, including mammy’s tobacco (I’m glad they didn’t rob it).  As I crouch to pick up the items, the younger man yells, Step back, fenian!  I stay crouched but don’t move a muscle.  I see that he is now pointing his gun down at me.  The other Tans are laughing.  There is a grand pop, then CLICK-CLICK, and a small cloud of smoke around my head.  I stay crouched.  I’m surprised I didn’t piss myself, and glad of it, for what glee it would have given them.  But it’s not the first time one of these geniuses has fired blanks at me.  They cackle and pat the shooter on the back.  He looks like he just won a medal.      

Ye blind bastard, ye missed! 

I look up to my side and see an old man.  I hadn’t realised he was walking behind me all this time.  He has a long brown duffle coat on him and a tweed cap and bottle-top glasses.  Ye blind bastard, ye couldn’t shoot a hairy mammoth.  Funny that the man wears goggles which give away his own visual impoverishment; in fact, the lenses are so thick he shouldn’t even be allowed out for his own and everyone else’s safety.  Watch it, granddad, says the young Tan.  It’s you that needs to be watching it, son, cause your eyes aren’t doing a top job so far, are they?  I put my arm on the old man’s shoulder and appeal for him to walk on.  I fear they will reload this time with real bullets and riddle the pair of us.  I didn’t miss, it was blank ammunition.  Blank ammunition, my hole, says the old man, folding his arms impertinently.  You want me to come down and knock your block off? says the soldier.  Give over, if you knocked my door, I wouldn’t bloody hear ye.  Hands like putty.  The others pipe up.  Go down and thrash him good, Wilson.  Go on, my man.  I will, I will.  You won’t, you won’t, says the old man.  As this is going on I’m able to pick up mammy’s tobacco and put it back in the paper bag with the rest of my purchases.  I’m not sure if the old man and I will get out of this.  But snow is falling again.  And I don’t think all of these auxiliaries are in the mood to sit around here any longer.  At the passenger side, one of the superiors bangs on the door and yells, Move it! and soon the truck is heading off.  The old man then strolls off with his arms behind his back.  Doesn’t even say good-bye to me.  You’d think this was what he did every morning on his walk.