Songdogs

  ‘They said memory is three-quarters imagination and all the rest is lies.’

  ‘That’s a load of codswallop, that is. That’s horseshit taught by flies. Who said that?’

  ‘Just a friend.’

  ‘Talking through his arse.’

  I sat on the edge of the bed. I surprised myself when I just summoned it up. ‘Listen, Dad, why did ya do that to Mam?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘What?’ he said. He moved a little.

  ‘Why did ya let that happen?’ I said. ‘With the photos.’

  ‘Ah, Jaysus, is that what this is all about?’

  ‘I’m just asking. Why did ya…?’

  ‘Can’t a man forget?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  He was quiet for a moment, looking at his teacup. ‘And ya know what someone once said to me?’ he said, pointing his forefinger at me. ‘Don’t know who the fuck it was, but he had it right – he said that, when you come into a rich man’s house, the only place to spit is in his face.’

  He ran his hands over his face, waiting for a reply, then said: ‘So what the fuck happens when ya come into an old man’s house, huh?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Ah, bollocks,’ he said. ‘All I’m looking for is a bit of peace and quiet. Go away. Let me sleep.’

  He turned his head towards his pillow.

  ‘You know where I was, Dad? Those first few years when I was away? You know where I was?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I was looking for Mam.’

  He sat up and stared at me with one eye closed, and the life drained away from his face, came down to whiteness. ‘What were you doing a stupid thing like that for?’ he asked.

  ‘Just because.’

  ‘Just because what?’

  ‘Because.’

  ‘Ah, Jaysus.’

  ‘Couldn’t find a trace.’

  Silence slinked its way around the room. The tea was almost finished but he was draining the last drops of it, holding it up in the air and waiting for something to come out, watching the brown runnel form along the side, licking the drop from the rim of the cup. He held it out in front of him, ran his fingers in amongst the leaves. He started flicking the tea leaves off the end of his forefinger.

  ‘For Jaysus sake, Conor.’

  ‘I’m in Wyoming now,’ I said.

  ‘What the hell are ya doing in Wyoming? Nothing but trees there.’

  ‘That’s not what you used to say.’

  ‘Ah, to hell what I used to say.’

  I told him about cleaning the swimming pools, the ski lifts, Kutch and Eliza, the fist on the tower, about how, every now and then, I take off on foot, go wandering. ‘I like it there,’ I told him. He gave me a nod and started humming ‘Hit the Road, Jack’ – I couldn’t tell if he was asking me to leave the room, or if he was just lost in his own little world. He said nothing more about Mam, just kept on humming and I was left there on the side of his bed, thinking of those words, hit the road Jack don’t you come back no more no more no more no more. I wanted him to say something more, anything, anything at all, and I stared at his face as if I could carve an answer out of that, but I suppose what he was suggesting to me is that you don’t spit any differently in an old man’s house than you do in a rich man’s house, that it all comes down to the very same thing.

  MONDAY

  leave a man in peace

  When he woke me it was still dark outside. I was curled up at the bottom end of his bed. During the night he must have put a blanket over me. It was folded all the way in under my feet, and a hot-water bottle had grown cold by my toes. He had taken a pillow and propped it in under my head. The marmalade cat was curled in with me, the saucer-ashtray full on the bedside table. He told me that he’d make breakfast for me, that I’d need something for the trip to Dublin. Rubbed his chest and went out the door. I took the saucer full of cigarette butts and went to the bathroom, flushed the fag-ends down the bowl, had a shave – my first shave all week – washed out the sink, had a quick scrub, went downstairs.

  I had to laugh when I saw the sunnyside eggs he had ready for me.

  He sat opposite me at the table, wearing a white shirt dotted with bits of egg. He was still rubbing his fingers over his chestbone, deliberating the rising of the sun out the kitchen window. And then he opened a button on his shirt and his fingers moved in further around his body. For a moment he shoved them in under his armpit, closed his arm down on them, kept them there for a moment, took them out, almost Napoleonic in the gesture. He held the fingers up to his nose and sniffed them, scrunched up his nose and chuckled.

  ‘You really think I need a bath?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose you do.’

  ‘I’m a bit on the smelly side, amn’t I?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘I noticed it last night,’ he said. He coughed deeply, went to the kitchen sink and reached across for the bottle of washing-up liquid.

  ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘No shampoo in the bathroom,’ he said.

  ‘Of course there is,’ I said. ‘I have some in there.’

  ‘You don’t need to pack it?’ he asked.

  ‘Not really, I can do without.’

  ‘Are ya all packed?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Didn’t have much time to talk, did we, really?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Sometimes you have too much time. Then you figure that too much time isn’t any time at all. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Come on up, then. You can chat to me from outside the door.’

  He walked out of the kitchen and I backpedalled in front of him, punching him lightly on the shoulder, until he told me that he’d deck me if I didn’t stop, that he still has it in him to throw a good punch.

  * * *

  Headlights swerving down the narrow road towards our house. New territory for the fire department – they had run this road many times before on fire drills for the meat factory, but never this far along the road, so that when one of the trucks tried to thread its way through the laneway a wheel got caught in a rutted ditch and it slid sideways and blocked the entrance. A chorus of obscenities rose up from the men.

  Mam was rocking back and forth on the front porch, her head into the blue crucible of her dress. The old man was trying to connect the hose to the tap at the front of the house, shouting ‘Jesus fucken Christ!’, with the hair outshooting from his pate in brusque surprise, ‘Jesus Christ!’ The hose sprayed around the tap – a tiny hole had developed in it, which he told me to hold my finger over. A rainbow spectrum arising against the wisteria on the wall. The hose was hardly long enough to reach. My father thumped himself vigorously on the side of the head – ‘Ya fucken bitch, ya fucken bitch!’ Twelve firemen in yellow jackets were using a winch to take the truck out beyond, others running down the lane, bellies jogging, one of them still in his pyjamas so that his penis leaped out from the gap in his pants. As he ran he pulled on his yellow jacket top, stuffed his penis back in his pyjama bottoms, and moved along with one hand held over his groin, as if wounded. Well into middle age, they breathed like freight trains when they reached the end of the lane and were temporarily immobilised at the sight of the low squat darkroom aflame.

  Smoke was coughing out from the bottom of the blue door, moths and midges careening in the sky above the smoke. The men quickly leaned towards my father, asking him something. He grabbed a bucket from the barn, a red bucket, swinging it around and shoving it into the fist of a fireman. ‘Where’s the fucken fire truck?’ he shouted, cursing out more against the lustrous night. He was frantic with movement, lifting his arms up imploringly, then grabbing at the bucket again. The firemen tried to calm him down, drag him back from the flames, hysteria in their voices: ‘Hey, this one’s rocking, boys, watch the bloody beams don’t crash.’ A couple of hand-held extinguishers sprayed out frugally against the power of flame
. My father was screaming about chemicals that might ignite, but the fire truck was unstuck now, coming along the lane with lights flaring like the carnival whirlywheel, red against the walls. The old man was watching the truck, waving his arms and pointing, stamping his feet up and down on the ground. I looked around at Mam clutching her blue dress, wiping her hands back and forth on the cloth, drying something off her hands.

  A sharp crack issued into the night with violent acceleration, a joist swinging down in a graceful arc, and then the whole roof came down with a huge splintering sound, sending sparks yawing out over the courtyard, ecstatically fizzling out towards the countryside, caught on the air in somersaults and plunges which extinguished them, upwards in petition to the sky, then down in greyness to enrich the soil. Other sparks lisped sideways to fade away towards the river. The boom sounded out. Maybe there was a communion of beetles and spiders in uproar in there, a chainwork of scuttle among ripples of negatives and prints and lenses and slides and paper and half-eaten sandwiches, a litany sounding with the boom, ‘Ya fucken bitch, ya fucken bitch!’ The fire truck was working now, four frenzied men at the giant hose, all of them shielding their eyes from the wild up-burn. Mam was curled like the limb of a heavy orchard tree, bent down, staring at the ground, finished with the rocking. ‘Are ya all right, Mam?’ She didn’t even look up and I noticed the fringe of her hair was singed and the wisps on her arms were fizzled down to stubs. I sat down beside her, insane with pride, but all she said was: ‘Bedtime, m’ijo.’

  I found myself drifting off towards a small crowd that had gathered, waiting, watching. A slew of cars rolled their way down our laneway for a gawk that was a million times better than any television show – ‘Oh, come quick, look, Lyons’ darkroom is up in blazes.’

  An irate fireman shooed the crowd backwards, out to the lane. Shouts rose up from the men, faces varnished at the sight. Women stood in dressing gowns and hair rollers, toothbrushes still wet in their fingers. An owl-faced man I had never seen before went down on his hunkers in front of me – ‘It’s all right son,’ he said, ‘everybody’s safe, there’s nothing to worry about.’ Suddenly a massive flab of arms came out of the crowd and negotiated its way past the stranger and gathered me in to Guinness stains and stale smoke – Mrs O’Leary, somehow aware that it was me, taking a hold of the front of my t-shirt, ‘Where’s your Mam?’ Another roar came across the courtyard – ‘Watch the sparks don’t make the house catch boys!’ Smoke was overcrowding the flames, bits of it shoaling around us so that Mrs O’Leary took out a handkerchief and told me to place it over my mouth, the waft of washing powder pouring into me.

  Doctor Moloney, young and slim as a hurley stick, broke his way through the crowd behind us and sprinted over to the firemen who were moving around the darkroom wasplike in their jackets, muttering amongst themselves, some of them looking backwards over their shoulders at Mam, who hadn’t budged from the doorstep. The old man was being held back by firemen, two of them on either side, clamping his arms, his legs moving furiously beneath him, shouting something about a Leica lens and a certain roll of film. But he was held back from the smoke-throwing building as if pinned back against the world, an insect in a tray. Mrs O’Leary bent her chest over Mam and, with soothing words rushing forth, combed her hand over the tied-back hair.

  ‘There there, Juanita, there there.’

  She told me to run to the kitchen and get some whiskey. ‘Quick, lad, before she goes into shock!’ But Doctor Moloney was suddenly hovering and holding me back with a hand on my shoulder – ‘It’s not whiskey she needs at all.’ Together they lifted Mam by either shoulder into the living room, which, after their decoration, was a commotion of colour – the vases, plants, amulets, tumultuous paintings, red coffee cans with flowers – and they sat her down in the giant armchair and lingered over her. It might as well have been a peaceful Sunday for the hush that had descended outside, except for the red light of the siren that seeped into the room in swirls from the eastern window. Mrs O’Leary had the kettle on in the kitchen, where the radio had been left on with a gospel song – Lead me on, precious Lord, through the ripening sun, lead me on, precious Lord, gonna get a glass of buttermilk before the day is done.

  Mrs O’Leary snapped the radio off brusquely. Doctor Moloney had a white washcloth held across Mam’s brow while she sat placid in the chair, staring straight ahead without even the suggestion that she had ever learned to speak, fingering at the burnt fringe of her hair. ‘Don’t make the tea too hot!’ shouted the doctor. ‘And plenty of sugar in it!’ Mrs O’Leary came into the room, feeling her way delicately. She was blowing on the tea, dolloping some extra milk and sugar in it, when the door banged open behind her. My father stood there as huge as an ancient elk exhumed from the bog, shouting, ‘Let me smell her hands! Let me smell her hands!’ and two policemen came behind him, removing their hats as they crossed the threshold. ‘Let me smell her hands, I said!’ One of the policemen reached out and grabbed my father by the elbow. The old man looked around and stared at him, pivoted again. Then suddenly, gracefully, swanwise, sad, my father, seeing Mam’s face, turned his whole body around and ghosted his way through the policemen and back out into the night.

  Outside in the courtyard the whole world had gathered to watch the darkroom stand in a shell of nothingness, hard and broken and brick-high without a ceiling and roamed around by figures quietly shaking their heads at the audacity of flame. Rumours were whispered into the palms of hands.

  ‘Isn’t it horribly sad, all the same?’

  ‘They say she burnt it.’

  ‘Torched it good-oh.’

  ‘Go on out of that.’

  ‘Well, that’s his comeuppance, I suppose.’

  Boys my age were flinging stones at the gutted structure and edging their way closer, always closer, until they were swatted back by the adults, who themselves moved in for a better look. It was the most spectacular thing that had happened in years. I muttered to myself: I will never go to school again in my life, I will never go anywhere ever again. And, at the kitchen window, I watched the old man walk his way around the building, slowly following two firemen through the kicked-down door to emerge with his hands clasped to his head. Some firemen were dragging out the filing cabinets. In the living room Mrs O’Leary was saying, ‘It’s all right now, Juanita, I’ll stay with you the night,’ and she ran her fingers over Mam’s brow, all the time still incanting ‘there there there.’

  Mrs O’Leary, withered down into herself, said to me: ‘You and your Mam are coming with me, she needs a little rest, she’s awful tired, you know. You’ll be staying with me for a few days until she’s better.’ And outside, my father, in a stained grey shirt, combing through the ashes of his darkroom.

  * * *

  From outside the door I could hear the bath running and the old man fumbling with his clothes. There was a loud bash against one of the cupboard doors and I pulled at the handle of the door to open it. It was locked tight. ‘It’s all right,’ he said from inside, ‘I’m only taking off me shoes.’

  * * *

  Mrs O’Leary felt her way to the end of the counter to pull pints for the firemen. She had set up an empty Guinness keg for me to sit on, gunmetal grey, old beer gone sticky around the rim. The men in the bar were arranged in a stonehenge of themselves, chatting darkly and seriously, one of them coming up from the ring to collect the row of pints. They wiped their hands across their brows, whispering: ‘Bychrist, I’m ready for a pint. That’d put a thirst on a Bedouin.’

  I sat on the keg and made a wigwam out of toothpicks, gazed at the names of All-Star hurley players on wall posters.

  Mam was upstairs in a dusty and crucifixed room, guided there by Mrs O’Leary, a look of curious defiance on her face as she went up the stairs. Every now and then Mrs O’Leary went up to check on her, whispering prayers as she went, following the chiselled-out track that she’d made in the wall. I sneaked in behind the counter and, with shaking hands, secretly poured myself some bee
r in a 7-Up bottle, watched the men in their circle. They glanced furtively over their shoulders at me, one of them saying: ‘It’s all right now, lad, it’ll all be grand in the morning.’ I held the bottle to my lips – I wanted to be a fireman, I wanted to be outside all of this, looking in at myself, conjuring up mutterings and sympathies and inanities.

  ‘Time for bed for you too, young man,’ said Mrs O’Leary, coming down and placing a hand on my shoulder. ‘But don’t be disturbing your Mam.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to bed.’

  ‘Come on, now, you’ll be okay.’

  I looked around at the row of bottles along the counter, sitting there like capstans on a pier, and I reached for a bottle of whiskey, took it by the narrow neck, hid it quickly behind my back and stuffed it into my waistband, untucked my shirt over it. The bottle was cold against my skin. I took a couple of steps around Mrs O’Leary and she said: ‘Don’t do that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Leave the bottle there.’

  ‘What bottle?’

  ‘Come on, now, Conor.’

  ‘I don’t have any bottle!’

  ‘Ah, now.’

  The firemen had turned around, cigar smoke above them.

  ‘I don’t have any fucken bottle!’

  ‘Give it to me.’

  ‘It’s only 7-Up.’

  ‘Sure, you’re just a bit upset. It was a bad accident.’

  ‘It wasn’t an accident.’

  ‘Ah, now, of course it was.’

  I brushed past her and my shoulder hit against her and she stumbled back a little, reached out and steadied herself against the counter. A fireman moved towards me with his arms outstretched. He took the bottle from the back of my trousers, gently, and I was all of a sudden a whirlwind of arms, my fist thumped into his crotch, he doubled over, and I was running for the door when my arms were pinned back by another hefty fireman and tears leaped from me. Mrs O’Leary came across, the rattle of her rosary beads at her neck, saying, ‘It’s been a long night, we’ll tuck you in.’

  She pursed her lips, raised her head, told the firemen that it was time to leave, kept her hand on my shoulder as she came behind me up the stairs. The door was slightly ajar, and I saw Mam sitting upright in bed, spectral, with extra jumpers over her nightdress and she was looking in a little mirror and putting make-up on her face. I couldn’t believe it. I had thought maybe she’d still be rocking, but there was a small brown circular pad in her hand and she dabbed it on her face precisely, as if with love for what she might have come to terms with in the mirror. ‘Say goodnight,’ said Mrs O’Leary, and I did, from the doorway. Mam looked up and smiled at me, said she was sorry for all the ruckus, she’d make it up to me the next day, maybe we’d take a trip together. Her voice was perfectly even.