This Is The Way

GAVIN CORBETT

This is the Way

In memory of my father

In the common course of things, mankind progresses from the forest to the field, from the field to the town and to the social conditions of citizens; but this nation, holding agricultural labour in contempt, and little coveting the wealth of towns, as well as being exceedingly averse to civil institutions, lead the same life their fathers did in the woods and open pastures, neither willing to abandon their old habits or learn anything new.

GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS,

Topographia Hibernica (c. 1188, trans. T. Wright)

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Part II

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

There I was now. In a room, a tidy room, tidier than any room I been in before. The bed was hard. The walls they gave no sound. A heavy window thumped itself shut. Good I says. Peace I says. First time I been in a hotel room though I was in an apartment once in the Canary. That smelt of bleach, this smelt of paint. I took in the room, I enjoyed it I did. I felt settled after what had been. I thought of the very nice girl in the hall at the desk. I thought of her the whole time I been in the room. I might ask her I says. I went in the toilet I seen they had not built the sink well but I came out in the room again I says I like this. I could live in this room I says.

When I got the call from my cousin Jimmy I went down to meet him in the hall. My cousin Jimmy was thirteen year older than me and he was my mother’s eldest brother Thom’s eldest boy. He was a bald man with gold teeth and tattoos on his hands and neck. We sat in chairs around a glass table.

He says are you liking the room.

I says it’s grand. It’s better than grand I says.

The business is appreciated he says.

No problem I says.

You know you’re the only guest he says.

That true I says.

Did you see the picture of Raekwon in the bathroom he says.

No I did not I says.

You’re in the Raekwon room he says. Every room’s named after a rap star.

That so I says.

It is he says. But listen.

What I says.

Sorry he says.

What you saying sorry for I says.

He turned to look at the girl at the desk. The girl was watching television.

He says in a low voice you cannot stay here hear me.

What you saying to me I says.

He says some of the young lads in the town know about you here. They know you’re in Rath in the hotel. They see you come cruising into town as chastisement he says.

I wasn’t cruising nowhere I says.

Anthony he says.

I says there isn’t no way they should see it as chastisement. Do they know who me mother is.

Anthony Anthony says Jimmy. There’s no changing the way young lads’ minds work.

Who told them I’m here I says.

Jimmy looked over at the girl again. Could have been her he says. The girls is worse than the boys.

And when should I leave I says.

Now he says. Tonight he says.

That bad I says.

There’s fellas shouting your name in the town he says. We don’t want this thing starting up again.

Sounds if it’s already started I says.

Could have he says. I don’t know.

Fuck I says. Where will I go I says.

He says I was you I’d lie low for a time. Go to Dublin.

I just come from Dublin I says.

Not your father’s house he says. Go into the city of Dublin, go to a place they wouldn’t think of going he says.

Fuck I says.

Serious Anthony no one needs this trouble he says.

I did not know what to think because Jimmy could be the fool what I knew of him but later in the night my mind was made up for me. The phone in my room rang it was the girl at the desk.

Is that your car out the front she says.

Mine’s the only one there isn’t it I says.

You better come down she says.

I ran down to the hall I couldn’t believe what I seen. I seen outside my car was burning.

I says to the girl who done this.

She was still watching television she says I haven’t seen nothing.

I ran out to the car I could not get near to it the heat. I looked about I could not see anyone. The hotel was a mile out of the town, all about was dark fields. I ran past my car I ran across the road in a field. I waited behind the hedge. I rang Jimmy I says to him Jimmy you better get here and you better get me out of here.

I

1

I was thirteen fourteen month in a room in Dublin. More, even.

The landlord says to me the first day no parties no pets. The three Ps he put it but I waited for the third one and he never said it. That was the most words said between the two of us the whole time. I did sometimes think to keep him in a conversation for the mischief. He came in on a Thursday morning and you saw him hold his breath. He looked up just a glance this afeard look in his eyes and he looking at the corners where the black was spreading, at all along the lines where the walls and the ceiling met. He came in and he took the rent just got in got out the least amount of disturbance. I would laugh.

I don’t know how much the other people in the building kept with the rules. I heard great noise many times. I heard twenty people falling down the stair, I heard banging through the pipes. It was a busy house but I would not see it being busy. What I know is there was the Egyptian in the next room. There was a man from Africa in the room the other side of the landing. There was a man from Africa in rooms on the ground. He had a woman from Holland and she was on the smack. They met in Holland. There was a fella name of Donie who slept in his shoes and he was in the room the first landing and he was from near Clare and near Tipperary. I think myself and Donie and then Arthur were the only Irish in that building my time there. The fella lived in my room before me was a fella name of Mac came down from the north of Ireland Donie said. I say it like I knew Donie but I did not. There were fellas from Poland three in one room but there were others from Poland as well. I seen a couple of Chinese too a boy and a girl. The fella was very tall. His people were from the west of China. I seen them once but I never seen them again, that was the way with these folk. But a lot of Africans all the time. It was just one of them houses. Other houses on the street you saw the Indians sitting on the steps or the Romanians but our house was one of the African ones whatever it was. Every shade you’d see. The women were not friendly but they were no harm neither. A man with sore eyes was in the university in Africa but he was in a gang and he got death threats. I did not know if this house in the city of Dublin was a good place to be hiding from people who wanted you killed but I hoped for myself it was.

It was an interesting house. It was more than two hundred year old. You would get the feel for it no doubt. Going up the stair, when I heard the noise of the floor board or got the smell of the damp, when I saw the lead in the fan window or the paint come off the ceiling, I got the feel for it. My room was at the top and the walls were not high but I knew of them in other parts of the house that were high. You could see the shape of the fruits and roses in the ceiling in the hall but you would not see the shape of them in my room. There was no carpet on the floor of my room, it was wood. When I moved my shoe on the wood I felt a grit. It was like sand or dirt. It had been there over the years. A man had come in from the sea or the fields, he had not taken off his boots.

I got information about the house off Judith Neill who was a lady looked after me who worked in a library. She was a Protestant. She gave me food and the things from her garden like radishes. She would give me tomatoes, apples and gourds. And one time then she gave me information about Public John Chiffingham. She gave it to me written down and it was something I was interested in. Public John Chiffingham was the name of the man who built this house. He built the street. Some of the food that was eaten in the houses in the street was saddle of mutton, a barrel of oysters, pike on a plate, the bird called the ptarmigan and marmalade tarts. The houses were turned over many times to many different people. For a hundred year the houses were turned over to the good people of Ireland. They used the wood in the house to burn to keep themself warm. When they were not burning fires they hid carbines in the chimney.

I met Judith one day one time I was depressed. I been in the house half a year, too long on my own. I was going mad, I went wandering. I seen a notice said this lady wanted people to tell their stories. She was collecting them from people like me. But she might think I am a strange one I said to myself, she would want me to slow down is what people say. I went to meet her in the library in the university and she gave me books to write in and books to read.

She said I should collect stories myself, they would help me tell my own. Would I not make it my business to know about the others in the house she said to me. She said those houses had many stories to tell. All the lives lived in them times gone by and all the lives lived in them today came to a lot of stories. In many ways they were the same what she said, the stories went on today and the ones went on before, they were all waiting for people to tell them. She said did I know the names of any the others in the house. I said to her Mac, the fella lived in the room before me. Tell me about him she says. I did not know this fella Mac, I never met him. I made up a story about him. Anyone with a Mac their name they were the son of a son of. This Mac came down from the north of Ireland and his father was in the gutter trade. I found a picture he thrown in my wardrobe of the Republic of Korea, I said to Judith he been going with a girl from the Republic of Korea.

Good says Judith.

She would ask me about my room, where it was in the house. Where she says and she went on like this.

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

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.