This Is The Way

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.

6

Here is a good one. Judith Neill tried to sink a submarine. This was a long time ago. A submarine of the Canadian Navy was pulled up in Dublin for show. Judith went along with some old friends to try gather intelligence is the word. Never again she said. She said she’d left that person she was behind in the past but she was fond of her all the same. She had a tattoo remind her of times gone by. It was the head of a fox, on the inside of her arm near the elbow. She was trouble back then she said but she was lucky because she could have been in even worse trouble, she had got away with it. I said to her I would not tell anyone about the submarine. She said to me I could tell who I wanted.

She said this the first day I met her. This was six seven month after I came to Dublin, five six month before Arthur came. The first day too she said to me questions about my mother. She said to me what was her hair like. I had not thought about my mother, I could not think what her hair was like. I could only go away and think what Judith was like because she was the last woman I seen. I thought she might have been a young person, then I seen the tattoo gone blue on her skin. But the skin sat on her softer than on my mother was what I thought. My mother had hard skin with white cracks.

I could think of my father better. I said to myself things. I said Aubrey Sonaghan was a big man, bigger than me. I said Aubrey Sonaghan had black hair, Aubrey Sonaghan had dark skin. Aubrey Sonaghan had brown eyes. Aubrey Sonaghan wore brown. Aubrey Sonaghan wore a brown shirt made of the same thing a towel is made.

In the university I bent down and touched a cobble in the ground. It was smooth and cold like the top of a skull.

Aubrey Sonaghan is still alive I says. And why wouldn’t he be alive I says.

I said it to Judith.

My father is still alive I says.

She says it too, why wouldn’t he be.

But had I not made it easy to see. This man had laid the lines in himself that would kill him.

The king with his fists, the champion of Ireland, I had written before, the picture I had of him. It could only have been a picture because I do not remember him the champion of Ireland. The picture was the dust on him in the blood. Or the muck and the steam on him, the muck of the fields, the slugs, this man standing in the middle, the mist. He put down anyone came to the fields to take him on. The McGlorys and the McInidons, Kim Jonah come over from Manchester, Driver Fournane from the west, the Saltman Vennace. And anyone the Gillaroos put up against him. He went through them all, beat through them because they came in his way, roads and paths of blood and muscle and bone. I used think it was not pride kept him going. All the others it was pride brought them to him. But I thought that if it was pride in my father he would not have given up. He would not have given up the fighting and he would not have given up his ways for the settled life. Then I thought about it there is two kinds of pride. And it was pride in his person made him stop. He backed out the fighting right at the top, he was unbeaten. And he put away the other pride to back out, to go a different road. There is a pride in your person and there is a pride in your people.

Not all of this I had said to Judith. There were certain things she didn’t want to be hearing, I learnt that early. She didn’t want to be bothered with no one’s troubles. For two month I been coming to this woman’s room the top of the library, I been getting the food, sometimes money.

Your dole has been cut she says to me.

How do you know I says.

I read about it in the paper she says.

I seen a thing on the television the couple of nights before, I didn’t want to say a thing. Damien Thresh Sonaghan Lee a fella twenty eight year of age had went missing near to Galway and they didn’t know if he been kidnapped but then they knew he was kidnapped because they found him after the week lying dead in a lane drowned with white paint that was tipped in his lung.

You look tired Anthony are you feeling well says Judith.

But of course I was not feeling well, I had not slept well the last two nights I was sick thinking. But the Sonaghans and the Gillaroos and their feuding and fighting for hundreds of years, they went on in the world this band of wise people and singers dancing in this woman’s head.

You heard of this fella Damien Thresh Sonaghan Lee I says to her.

No she says.

The fella was found dead drowned in paint in his lung I says.

Oh no yes I had heard about him she says. Was he related to you.

Only distant I says.

Oh dear she says. It is brutal what goes on she says.

It is brutal it is true you are right I thinks. And it is brutal how it all comes close. Came as close as it gets the night before. I went to bed thinking of Damien Thresh and his head held, soon I was thinking of my own head held. The doctor been around to our house when we were childer, got called in the middle the night because myself and Margarita were sick. The doctor said I must drink milk but I would not drink milk. Margarita would not drink milk neither when she seen me sick with it.

The doctor is a man knows more than you my father says. Same time he’s saying it his hand is swinging taking me by the hair, holding me to the table. Same hand that would hold my mother to the table, would hit her in the rib.

I been clicking my fingers all the night and in the morning before coming in the library.

Judith says to me you are a gentle soul Anthony.

I would not stand for it I got up out my seat I went to shout at her but I said nothing.

I sat down again I got back up. I went over to her I put out my hand I says are you okay I wasn’t going for you. I took my hand back in again. And that morning I been walking up and through my room clicking my fingers thinking how quick my father could turn, the change in him.

I was thinking foolish woman.

She says Anthony it’s okay.

I says sorry for this do you know who I’m like is what it is.

Yes yes leave it it’s okay she says but she did not look okay with it and now she would not talk.

Now we sat in the quiet until things were calm. And it was strange, sitting there now, in this room with music playing, a strange music. I heard something like it before but not this music, it was classical music she said. It was a thousand old airs at once. It sounded like wind, it was music for the mountains. I looked out the window I seen the water twinkle in the sun on the grass, I seen the clouds rise six mile, it was music suited that. It was a moment like this with music like this one of the wet sunny days I thought what my mother’s hair was like, it was like the dead yellow blinded summer grass.

But it was strange now all coming to an end, me and this woman Judith, and thinking of the danger coming. This building it was said was a safe place would turn me out I was sure. Turn me out into the streets where sure too would be my fate, I would meet it, boys with hooks and knives scraping them on the ground smiling. I was waiting for it listening to the music, listening to the people in the library coming and going. People were saying things to me. Strange types, different people, good people and friendly words, it was not real. A woman name of Melissa said her dogs were her flowers, that she would lose herself in her little puppies like falling into flowers, a man name of Roy, saying questions for jokes, a man name of Professor Michael Gregory, stopping by Judith rubbing her back, though no words were said about her back, she rubbing his back and saying to him are you all right today, is there any point in another referral, the two of them talking these words in front of me though I am there, and I knew it all now this change in the air, it is what happens before I am to go my separate way.

But I’ve just bumped into RB I had a chat with him says Professor Michael. Twenty minutes we were talking, the years just rolled off, him and me.

Judith says sometimes I think you are too old for me Michael.

And suddenly we were back in our little Tangier says Professor Michael. It was like the golden days. We said we would have a bottle of wine in the Bailey. Maybe I will smoke something illicit or maybe I will have that dinner in Jammet’s I’ve always promised myself. Senex bis puer.

Stop speaking in tongues she says.

Oh where is your Latin dear he says.

He ran back to Montevideo she says.

I listened to that music. It could hit you in the eye and take your head off. You could fall asleep to it. You could eat a very grand meal to it or it would fill you with the power to lift a weight. I looked at the clouds rise to the six mile. In front of the clouds I seen the sea gulls swirl around watching the ground. I expected one to drop out the sky make a go for it any moment. I seen a sea gull my early days in Dublin do that. He took up a slice of pizza from the street had black marks on it, he shook it like a cat with a rat, he swallowed it one go. He got forty feet in the air and he came down. There was a crowd of people looking at him on the bricks of the street and he was two blue sacks and a ring of feathers was all was left.

There was a quiet now in the music would make you do something.

I says to Judith but you know my father had ideas.

Judith looked up, this testing face on her, she was working on fixing a book.

I says he had ideas to bring up our family the best way he could, to raise us up in a house was normal.

Of course he had says Judith, everybody has that ideal.

This I thought this moment this time sitting in the sunny room the top of the library. I thought there wasn’t no one should have abandoned my father because of his ideas, not my mother the dead grass hair on her not my sisters not no one.

In a house that was normal, with settled people about I says. Our people that are in houses live surrounded by others are just the same. My father took us all into a house away from that, in among houses with settled people. People said things and people laughed at him. People hated him they did. But I can see it now he was right to be thinking this way I says.

I pressed my knuckles down on the back of the radiator, felt the heat in my hands, pressed the grille in the heel of them.

I says I see the people about me now in this city, I see the people in the university, and they are good people, my father was right.

I started laughing.

I says sure amn’t I a settled person meself.

You keep talking about your father as if he is dead says Judith. You keep saying was. Where is your father now she says.

He’s keeping on the way he was set I says. No reason to be thinking or saying anything other. He might be dead and gone and twisted to smoke but he might just as well be sitting good decent people from other settled houses around him talking about things. He might be enjoying a drink with them. He might even be living in Spain all I know, with land down there all I know.

Judith had stopped working on fixing her book now. She was looking at me, she was thinking. She said to me she wanted to help me out any way she could.

Even a little she says.

She gave me an envelope, two hundred euros in it.

Your bonus the word she used. And for all you’ve done to help me these last couple of months she says. You know my door is always open.

And this is it now I says to myself. Out now in the world again after letting her down, after showing my teeth.

Her phone rang, she was on it five minutes. She did not say much to the other person. Will you she kept saying. You will be very comfortable. I think stress brings them on she says.

She got up and she said she was going home.

I am sorry I says to her.

She didn’t say anything, waited for me to say more.

I says sorry I couldn’t be the help you wanted.

Anthony you’ve been just great she says. She put her arm around me, she pressed me in against her. I laughed, then I went cold.

At the canteen a man in black had to let me in around a rope. He said I could have my dinner but I’d have to eat quick because there was something happening later. I watched the few people were there, a priest in a grey suit, the older people it was said had come to the learning late.

Many ways I was as well to be away from Judith. I did not like that she was out to touch you, I did not like the way she put on the soft voice. It would compromise you it would. You would feel like a fucker if you said anything against this. And I did not like the feeling all I done was a waste of a person’s time. I didn’t want to be leading her think I am a person I am not, and now I was left like this. Left I didn’t know where. In this place with low ceilings Judith said were vaults. Left with I didn’t know. Two hundred euros. Left with thoughts. I thought of the things I been through. I thought about what I should do now. I would be taking the dark streets back to the tall house over the river soon and I did not think about the dark in them streets for two month because of what this woman Judith done for me.

I thought about my father. I thought about the good things in him. His ideas. I thought he was not vicious with animals. I will say that about him. There was a horse the end of a field one Sunday near the house we lived, he could not see it being hurt. It was drinking from the pipe and it was bet up. There were sores on its neck and flies were drinking from the sores. My father went in the field and he led the horse by the head out the field. The boy who bought the horse stopped him on the way says it is mine and my father said to the boy where he get this horse. The boy said he got it in the Smithfield market. My father made the boy sit up on the horse keep it in control and my father walked beside it touching the horse’s head saying kiss kiss horsey horsey. They were going to walk back to the market, there was an hour left of it. My father wanted to sell the horse to a better owner see its condition would improve. He did not care who he looked like he just wanted to see the horse was okay. People seen him and he seen them seeing him but my father walked in the roads and streets, he was not thinking about his ideas to be a settled man he was only thinking about the horse.

But I got a phone call from the guards say my father was in the station. They took the horse from him and the boy and they gave it to the horse group was what they said to me. When I got to the station my father was singing quiet no way no Botany Bay today. Outside on the road I says to him was that all you could say to them people. It was said my mother’s grandmother died in a station in the north of Ireland, they wouldn’t leave her alone. I says it to my father this would be the same men that would kick the fires and move you on. I was angry with my father. I says they wouldn’t give no reasons to interfere. You have no pride I says to him. It was true, he had no pride left, never in his people, now not even in his person. I let him go on ahead of me to the car. He had grey dirty sheets flapping from his back and his shoulders were wide as a wall. He stopped, he turned his head to the side to say something, I stopped too. He was a slow sunken beast was how he looked. I waited until he went on again. And there was nothing until we were in the house and then dominay dominay dominah started, his words to God to beat him.