the Bog

Kai whispered a secret to the tree then ran about the yard flapping his arms.  The morning air nipped his bare arms and legs.  He wore jeans that had been cut off into shorts and an oversized t-shirt that came free with a crate of Heineken.  His face and neck were white from a slathering of sun-cream not yet absorbed.  The sky was hazy with low lying drops of moisture but there was a pink and orange threat to the horizon that foretold a scorcher of a day.  Mammy came from the house with a hoodie.  He tied it around his waist and ran on the spot to keep warm instead.  Daddy grumbled and was slow to start but they were picking up John-Joe so they couldn’t be late.  They were going to the bog.

Footing turf.  Man’s work.  Kai had never been before.  Mammy had made enough sandwiches for them to live off for a month.  There was no tomatoes in them.  There were ham and cheese ones and ones with crisps and butter.  There were bags of crisps and two six packs of bars, Kit-Kats and Snickers, and a litre each of Coke and Orange.  There was a flask of tea for Daddy because he would be gasping despite the hot weather.  She was making them bring a bottle of water.  It was like the school tour only better. 

 She saw them off waving like the queen. Still in her dressing gown, it was well for her. She was working in the shop today  She wasn’t going with them to lend a hand. Kai sat in the backseat, John-Joe was getting in down the road.  He waved back to her out the side window.  But not from the rear window although she stayed on the doorstep waving until after they had rounded the bend and a maybe even longer.  John-Joe was waiting at the gate. 

 

‘Well,’ he said to Kai as he got in. ‘Fine day,’ he said to Daddy, ‘please god the weather will hold.’  The sky glimmered as the sun made its tawny ascent.  

 

The carcass of the car rattled and shook when it hit the bog road.  Kai held tight to the handle above the car window.  He minded his head off the roof as they flew over bumps.  Daddy was in good form. ‘Wa-wup!’ he said and laughed when the car snagged on the track.  Kai shunted and jerked around the back.

 

The land outside the window was flat.  The grass was tufty, yellow and uneven.  There was a spurge of purple in the distance.  That was the bog heather, the dotted white was cotton.  The yellow gorse gave off the faint smell of coconuts like Mammy’s oil for sun-tanning.

 

‘Kai’s first time to the bog,’ said Daddy to John-Joe.

 

‘Uh-oh,’ said John-Joe sucking on a mint, ‘we’ll have to warn ye about the bog holes so.’

 Kai’s ears pricked up, he leaned forward to hear better, he held the back of John-Joe’s seat to keep steady.  Daddy turned the radio down.

 

Every year,’ said John-Joe slowly, ‘hundreds of children, not just from Offaly but from all over Ireland, are swallowed by the bog.  Never to be seen again.’

 

He said the last bit slowly.  Kai screwed up his forehead, willing to believe him yet sceptical at the same time.

 

‘Bog holes,’ John-Joe continued, ‘go right down to the very centre of the earth and once you’re sucked into them sure it’s almost impossible to get back out.’

 

Daddy grinned.

 

‘Now, when I was a young lad, I had a fine stock of hair, then, one day, I was in the bog with my father and my brothers, and we were fighting and blackguarding, and my father was telling us to whist and be quiet or the bog holes would swallow us up. Well we weren’t being careful and watching our footing at all, laughing and thinking, sure it’ll never happen to us.  I turned around to my brother Phelim and all of a sudden, well, he wasn’t there!’
 

 

Kai blinked.

 

‘“Phelim, Phelim,” I began shouting.   “I’m down here,” he says and I looked down.  I could see the head and shoulders of him above the ground but the rest of his body had disappeared into it.’

John-Joe paused.

‘Well I ran around frantic.  Looking for a stick or something I could use to pull him up out of the hole.  And I was thinking jaysus me mother is only going to kill me, because he was one of her favourites.’

‘I found a branch and I lay down on me belly and he grabbed a hold of it and between the two of us we managed to hoist him out.’ 

He paused again building towards the climax. 

‘But I must have gone in too far in or something because the next thing I knew, he was out, and I was the one starting to sink!’

 Kai’s grip on the headrest tightened.

‘The more I struggled, the worse it got, the deeper I went. There was a fierce pull.’

 

His mouth formed an ‘O’.  He was concerned for the John-Joe of the story.

‘“Run!” says I to Phelim, “run and get help.”  Because I knew he was too small to pull me out on his own.’

‘I was up to me neck in bog by the time he got back and I was saying all me prayers in me head and me catechism that I learnt in school thinking this is it and surely I was a goner.  I was just starting to breathe bog up my nose when I seen my father’s boots alongside me and I heard him cursing under his breath. “For Jesus sake,” he said, and he was never one to take the Lord’s name in vain.’

‘He bent over me and there was nothing left to catch me by but the head of hair.’

 

Kai’s hand when to his own head.

 

‘The bog wasn’t giving up her grip on me so easy.  She set against him like in a tug of war.  And he muttered and cursed and the brothers gripped tight his waist to help him.  The pain in me scalp was something savage. It went down through me and I would have yelled out only me mouth’d be full of dirt.’

‘Eventually, I come loose.  I was head and shoulders above the ground now and almost home safe.  So the father gave one last and final tug something fierce and I plunged up of out of the bog and he landed back on his arse.’

‘Well he realised then he had something in his hand.  He looked down and he seen he still had a grip on the big clump of hair that was there.’

‘And that,’ said John-Joe, lifting his peak cap and rubbing his hairless pate. ‘is how this came about.’

‘An’ I never grew wisp of hair on the same spot since even though I was only twelve years old when it happen.’

Daddy laughed and shook his head. ‘You’re some man John-Joe,’ he said.

Kai was wary of the bog holes; he was glad young John-Joe had been saved, it was a great story.

 

‘Your Grandmother, Lord rest her soul,’ said John-Joe, ‘could tell you a few stories about the bog.’

 

‘Like puca’s living there!’ said Kai.

 

Daddy eyes raised heavenwards.  ‘That’s enough of stories,’ he said, ‘I won’t hear about piseogs and nonsense.’

The car left the main bog road and travelled down a dirt track.  It didn’t go the whole way to the plot because the ground was soft in parts and the wheels could sink and get stuck.   They parked it a little off, where they judged it safest.  They stood outside the car and stretched.  It was still early morning. The sun blazed baldly like a lie, its heat only beginning the journey towards to earth. Kai stretched his arms up so his fingers tipped the sun in the sky.   Daddy smoked a cigarette and sipped tea from the flask.  They had a bar each even though they hadn’t done any work yet.  Daddy screwed the wrapper into a silver ball and flicked it onto the ground.  Kai picked it back up. He put it into a plastic bag that was now their official bin. 

A lone call of supernatural distress came warbling across the bog.  It bubbled and wavered, spooky and sad. ‘That’ll be a curlew,’ said John-Joe, Kai strained into the distance without seeing it.  He jumped on the spot to shake the shivers off his spine.

 

The turf was already cut and turned.  Today they were there to foot it.  That meant starting at the end of the row and stacking it, two on the bottom, two crossways up on them and another two laid crossways along the top.  Any smaller sods would rest against the pile, tepees of turf for the wind to weave through and make dry. 

The clods were rough and scratchy in Kai’s hand.  Some were so big his fingers didn’t close about them. They were heavy, wet on the underside; and an irregular size and length.  He moved slowly along the line, back bent, making careful piles.  He copied the work of John-Joe and Daddy.  They steamed ahead of him so he raced to pick up pace.  John-Joe worked with the speed of a man of lesser years.  He stopped at intervals to stand up straight and crack and crunch his spine.  Kai didn’t break when they did for cigarettes.  His wanted to catch up so the progress through the lines was even.  He didn’t see the mountain-less plane or the cloudless sky.  He only saw the sods as he piled them, his dirty white and broken runners and the sparse grass and delicate heads of the bog flowers that grew up through the peat.

He was surprised to find people occupying the neighbouring plots when he next looked about.  His legs and arms were streaked filthy with bog and the skin of his knuckles was cracked and bleeding.  His back felt the bend even when he stood straight. He had a drink of Coke.  The sun was in the high part of the sky now.  He was famished and it was only eleven o’clock.  He had a bite of a ham sandwich but he didn’t want to eat with his hands dirty.  Daddy’s voice mingled with that of the neighbours.  He heard Theresa’s voice amongst them.  Someone had brought a radio.  There was crackle and static because of the poor signal then the voice of the DJ; his prattle was absorbed by the echoing emptiness of bog.

 

By noon the sun had reached full pitch.  Kai was roasting.  ‘C’mon,’ said John-Joe, ‘we’ll get some fuel in our bellies.’  He was taking his proper lunch now.  He made windmills of his arms but the muscles stayed heavy carrying invisible weights.  He stretched one calf muscle out and then the other like they did in PE.  John-Joe offered him a slug of his Lucozade.  Insects skated lazily across the scum surface of the ditch water. He poured water from his bottle over his hands to wash them.  It disturbed the stagnant film breaking it into drifting islands of filth. He examined his callouses, his split and bleeding finger joints and his blackened nails.  Sandwiches tasted better in the bog.

 

Daddy and John-Joe discussed the weather with the neighbours.  It was serious conversation.  He went to explore and to find a spot to pee in.  In places the ground was dry and cracked like cooled lava, it sent up dust when he kicked it.  His pee made the ground darker.  Frogs sang from the dank water of the ditches.  The air buzzed and scuttled. The pee splattered down.  His head swivelled for mis-caught glimpses of creatures moving in the bushes. 

 

He picked up an armoured insect with long black antennae and let it run along the back of his hand.  It had fierce pinchers, a long body and wings too frail for its ugly weight. 

 

‘Well,’ he said as he passed a boy about his same age on the walk back to the plot.  He couldn’t tell if he knew him with the sun in his eyes.  He must be roasting, thought Kai, because he was wearing a duffel coat.

 

The sun stirred and dizzied, the scrub grasses bristled and a skylark piped overhead.  His bare skin prickled.  He ran to make a breeze to cool himself down.  His armpits were damp.  He picked some flowers,  purple, pink and white.  John-Joe was a waving ant in the distance, time to get back to work.  He dropped the bouquet for the dirt to keep and ran back to the plot.

 

For two straight hours he moved under the sun’s glare in the drills.  Hunch backed and hypnotised.  Nothing else mattered but the turf being footed and keeping pace with the men.  Daddy’s lines were finished but he did not start at the top of Kai’s.  Kai’s head spun with sun and determination. He was thirsty but the water in the bottle was warm and did not quench his thirst.  It was almost the end of the day’s work.  John-Joe told him he was a great man, to take it handy, there was no need to kill himself. But the closer he got to the finish the harder he pushed himself.  There was no more stiffness in his shoulders or arms just a clean feeling in his body mixed with a sense of elation.  He felt for the muscles he would have in his biceps tomorrow.  He was transformed into a turf robot.

 

It wasn’t a buzz like from an insect but a waft, like a breath, on the downy ruff of his neck that turned his head from the turf.  Behind him was a butterfly, burry and fat with wide wings he could almost hear flap.  The wings were orange, marked with black eye-like ellipses, tiger wings for bog safaris, the texture of a paper lantern when lit from behind by the sun. 

 

He unfurled himself from his bog bend and looked at the butterfly.  He squinted as it flitted about flirting with the sun rays.  It was waiting for him to follow it.   He was going to cup it between his hands and feel its wing tips flicker tickle his palms before releasing it again.  He was going to examine it through gaps in his knotted fingers.   If fairies existed, their wings would be these wings.  If fairies pretended to be butterflies in daylight, this butterfly was a fairy.

 

He left the line of turf to follow the butterfly.  It flew to the edge of the plot and hovered, mid-air, wings beckoning.  He approached it on his tippy-toes, his arms were raised either side, palms flattened in readiness to close in.  It fluttered away.  To just beyond the neighbouring plot where it paused to wait again, until his steps drew close, then it flapped, zigzagging towards the horizon. 

 

It was a stop start chase. Just as it was within his grasp, his shadow, or the noise of his movement alerted the butterfly and allowed it to escape.  He chased it from where people worked to the periphery where a lone car, his car, lay parked. 

 

The butterfly perched, resting himself on the wing mirror of the car.  Kai crept softly towards him, crouching to avoid being detected. His hands were poised ready to snap closed and capture it.  Then he saw them.  Theresa and Daddy.  Through the window on the backseat of the car.  He jumped. They stared out at him through the glass.  Like he was the one who’d been caught.

 

Daddy’s eyes sparked like flints.  His face curdled in disgust. Theresa re-zipped her jeans.  The butterfly had vanished leaving Kai without an alibi. He ducked out of sight then ran from the car down the long length of the road back towards the plot.

 

‘Everything alright Kai?’ asked John-Joe, as he retook his position of ten minutes previous.  Kai looked at the sod of turf in his hand and tried to remember what to do with it.  ‘Yeah, fine,’ he replied.  ‘Take it easy now,’ said John-Joe, ‘that sun is fierce strong today.’  All John-Joes’ lines were finished.  He started at the end of Kai’s line and worked to meet him.  Kai felt funny; if he stretched his arms out his hands had a faint tremble.  He made slow and clumsy work.

 

‘I wonder where your father got to,’ said John-Joe, they drank 7-Up together from the neck of the bottle when they were finished.  It was flat and hot.

 

Kai shrugged his shoulders and sniffed. 

 

They gathered their stuff and headed back in the direction of the car.  Kai carried the litter bag. 

 

Joe Maguire’s turf had been turned two weeks previously.  It was ready to be brought home and burned.  He had a trailer hitched to his car which was parked at the edge of his plot. It had high sides but the back of it was lowered down so the men could pitch turf into it with forks. Daddy was there throwing turf with them.  ‘There you are now,’ said John-Joe, ‘we’re all done for the day.’  Daddy didn’t stop to look at them.  Kai skulked a little behind John-Joe, as if he could hide in his shadow.

 

‘Howaya John-Joe, howaya Kai,’ said Joe, he winked and continued to load the trailer. Kai wanted a go with a pitchfork.  Joe’s t-shirt was stuck to his wide back with sweat.  He grunted and heaved like centre court at Wimbledon.  There was a wheeze in his chest. ‘Do me a favour now Kai,’ he said, ‘get me me inhaler from the front of the car,’ he stopped a minute to rest against the fork.

 

Kai barely had time to nod as he sprung across the turf.  He knew it wasn’t an emergency but he liked pretending it was.  He was going to get it for Joe as quickly as possible. He went in the passenger door side and felt for it on the seat, he ran his hand over the dashboard, he went through the glove compartment.  The floor of the car was littered with straw and hay, crumbled crisp packets and sweet wrappers. There were at three half drank bottles of Lilt. He bumped his head of an air freshener in the shape of a Christmas tree and the laminated picture of Jesus and his sacred heart that hung from the rear view mirror.  The car stank from the full ash tray. 

 

Kai launched himself between the two front seats to check the pockets of a hi-vis jacket lying across the back window.  He couldn’t quite reach so he put his foot on the handbrake for leverage.  He almost had it.  His foot caught in something so he pulled it.  The handbrake let go.  He got a fright as the car lurched and rolled.  The men behind the trailer danced a step backwards to guard their toes from the wheels.  The car was parked on a light tilt of bog.  He heard them laugh.  The pockets of the jacket were empty so he wiggled and squeezed his way back to the front, in a plastic pocket on the driver’s side door he found the light blue Ventolin inhaler.

 

He held it between his index finger and his thumb and shook it listening for the noise like a ball bearing inside it. He came out the car door holding out the inhaler still shaking it in triumph.  Daddy walked towards him.  Kai was smiling as Daddy’s dig made contact.  It was a short sharp jab to the abdomen.  Close range.  Quick and unexpected.  Kai still smiled as he sprawled on his arse in the dirt.  It took a moment or two to register before it started to hurt. 

 

Daddy’s grip was tight was he hauled him up.  Kai didn’t know who had seen it but he knew John-Joe had when he saw him turn his head away. Kai cheeks were red with shame and shock.  His eyes smarted on the verge of tears. 

 

John-Joe spat some phlegm on the ground and went over.  ‘Good lad,’ he said to Kai, ‘right as rain,’ he stood between him and Daddy.  He took the inhaler from his hand.  ‘I’ll give this to Joe,’ he said, ‘you go off.’  Kai nodded.  He wanted to clutch at the pain in his stomach, to rock on the ground, to hold it so it wouldn’t make him vomit, but he couldn’t.

 

The men got on with the throwing.  Kai heard the curlew again.  He recognised its song.  He shivered, as if from cold when the sun shone on.  After a few minutes John-Joe came and stood beside him.  He didn’t say anything but Kai was glad he was nearvy.  ‘Almost done now lads,’ Daddy said.  A car pulled up beside the trailer.  It was Tom Gaffney. ‘Thirsty work,’ he said when rolled down the window.  ‘Aye,’ they agreed.  Daddy said ‘Shur we deserve a pint after the day.’  

 

They pulled into the Half-Way Inn in Borris.  ‘Ara I’m not sure,’ said John-Joe as Daddy switched off the ignition.  ‘Ah one drink won’t kill you,’ said Daddy, there was no reply, ‘I’m buying,’ he said. ‘Go on then,’ said John-Joe, ‘just the one.’

 

John-Joe was into his second pint.  They were sitting down at a table.  Kai wet his finger and ran it down the silver spine of a crisp packet he had ripped open.  Salt crystals stuck to it that he then licked off.  ‘Yeah,’ said Daddy.  ‘Sure he’s only a young fella,’ said John-Joe.  Daddy agreed. Kai pretended not to hear as he was not supposed to be listening.  His stomach still ached with the sick feeling.  ‘We’re grand aren’t we Kai,’ Daddy said, ‘he knows I’m only messing with him.’  His hand ruffed Kai’s hair.  Kai hated him.  Ice-cubes clinked off the side of Kai’s glass as his finger pushed them around in a circle.

 

The other men were sitting at the bar.  Pat Fox was giving a John-Joe a lift home.  ‘Will I bring the young fella with me?’ he asked.  ‘Sure we’ll be leaving after this one,’ Daddy waved a hand dismissively.  ‘Right so,’ said John-Joe, they shook hands, the best of friends, Daddy settled comfortably into a high stool.  The banter was kicking off.  Sports results were on the telly.  ‘That lad couldn’t score in a brothel,’ said Dan Divilly, he shook his head mournfully at the striker who had cost him his accumulator.  The men guffawed.

 

Kai chewed the straw in his drink, he was hungry.  Joe Maguire asked him if he wanted another Coke, he shook his head.  ‘Here take this then,’ Joe said, ‘it should be the price of a game of pool.’

 

The pool room was annexed away from the chatter of the main bar.  The mechanism on the coin slot was stiff, Kai forced it closed with his hip.    The chute inside the table upturned and the balls clattered and rolled out.  Kai stepped back from the noise.  He set up the balls like he had seen on the telly, inside the black triangle, only that was snooker so it was different.  He didn’t know what to do with the green felt cloth.

He picked a cue from the wall bracket.  The first one he took was long and heavy so he swapped it for a shorter one and rubbed blue chalk on its tip.  He aimed it behind the white ball and closed his eyes tight and shot. 

 

The tip of the cue glanced off the top of the white and set it on a wobbly spin the length of the table.  It just missed the triangle of balls at the bottom.  Not bad for a first shot thought Kai. 

 

For his second shot he positioned his cue to slid between his index and his middle finger before unleashing it.  The balls banged around the table. He kept shooting until one or two of them were pocketed.  It was really brilliant value for money the game was taking ages. 

 

His stomach was growling and he was getting annoyed with the balls for missing the pockets when a group of older lads came in.  They laid their money down on the table.  His shots were wonkier and failed to connect with the lads watching.  Knowing they were waiting put him off.

 

He slid some of the remaining balls down the pockets with his hand hoping they wouldn’t notice.  He laid down his cue down in the middle of the table.

 

‘Do you want to play on?’ one asked him.

 

‘No, you’re grand,’ said Kai but he hung back in the pool room to see how deadly the boys would play.  There were short candles in old glasses on each table.  A barman came in and lit them because it was getting late.  Kai picked one up then let the wax drip out to cool in a puddle on the table.  He scraped it off.  It didn’t matter because the tables were already old and stained.  Next he dripped hot wax on the back of his hand.  He wanted to see how much it would hurt. 

 

Then he sat on the stool in front of an old arcade game that was in the corner.  He thumped on the buttons that flashed and lit-up.  It was called Joker Poker.  He put the last of the coins in the slot but the game didn’t go on long.  He didn’t know the rules; he was jabbing at the buttons at random.  He rubbed his eyes.  They were tired and sore and his head was heavy.

 

‘When are we going home?’ he asked Daddy at the bar.  ‘In a minute,’ he said and he turned his back on him.  He could see Theresa sitting at the other end of the bar.  It was dark outside the window.  His body was stiff and achy.  He didn’t have a watch but he knew from the telly playing in the background it was after nine o’clock.   His stomach groused and churned.  Sick from hunger and other gnawing feelings.  He went to the toilets to wash his face but they were stink and there was no soap so he didn’t stay long.

 

He sat back down at a table and played with a beermat.  He flicked it up from the edge of the table up into the air and tried to catch it there with one hand. People were in the bar now who hadn’t been at the bog, some were dressed up and the women wore makeup.  Theresa looked over at him, he pretended not to see; he didn’t want to talk to her. 

 

The bar was noisy now and he examined the beer mats closely.  He wished had that hoodie with him.  There weren’t enough beer mats on the table to build a decent pyramid.  He kicked the foot of the table and slumped back into the couch.  He sniffed.  He put his hand to his face.  It was wet.  To his horror he saw that he was crying.

 

Theresa was coming towards him.  ‘Howaya Kai love,’ she said.  He was too choked to reply.  ‘Long day, isn’t it pet?’ she said, ‘where’s your dad?’  He didn’t look up at her.  He didn’t want her concern. She looked around the bar, as if she didn’t know exactly where Daddy was sitting.  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I’ll make sure you get home,’ she leant in and patted his shoulder.  He wanted to be angry with her but he wasn’t; he was grateful.

 

More tears fell. ‘You stay there, I’ll have a word with himself,’ her hand on his shoulder was comforting.  Kai swallowed.  ‘Jim!’ she said as she made her way to the bar.  She had a word in his ear.  Kai scrubbed his eyes with the back of his fist.  He licked the salt taste off his lips.

 

‘C’mon now Jim be fair,’ said Theresa.  Daddy was unsteady on feet. ‘I’m grand, I’m the finest,’ he said.  He took his car keys up off the bar counter.  One of his eyes closed as he tried to focus on them.  Kai stood up and looked around as if for help. He shouldn’t get in the car with Daddy but he was desperate to get home. Daddy staggered backwards against the stool.  ‘I’m grand,’ he said again though no one challenged him.  ‘The cops are on the road tonight,’ said Micky Finn, as if it were the only issue.

 

Kai didn’t want to get into the car.  He wanted Mammy.  He had no money to call her.  He would have to ask Theresa to do it for him. ‘What is it pet?’ she said as he came up to her. She was standing next to Daddy. He asked her in a whisper. ‘Of course I’ll call your Mammy for you pet,’ she said.  He swallowed back the funny taste in his throat.

 

He sat back down on the couch and swung his feet for what seemed a very long time indeed.  Daddy insisted he driving home after he’d finished this one.  There was no talking to him.  The door of the bar opened and Mammy came through it.  He could feel the heat of her irritation.  ‘Get up you,’ she said and she stood in front of him and dragged him by the hand up off the couch.  He thought she was going to slap him.  She pushed him over towards Daddy.

 

‘Come now Jim,’ she said to Daddy, ‘we’re leaving.’  She took the keys from his hands.  He had the sense not to protest.  He finished his the end of his pint with her stood in front of him glaring.  No one insisted she stay and have a drink herself.  ‘C’mon now,’ she said when it was gone.   She walked to the door.  ‘See you now lads,’ said Daddy, ‘the taxi’s here,’ and he tried to exit without appearing rushed. 

 

‘You too,’ she said and she prodded Kai.  She poked him hard in the bruised spot of his ribs, that place that Daddy had connected with earlier.  She threw him a withering look when he grimaced. ‘Thanks Theresa,’ she said, ‘for letting me know where they were.  They state of them, sure they’d make a show of you.’  Theresa smiled but not widely.  She nodded then looked away as if she had pressing things to attend to elsewhere.

Kai burnt with the unfairness.  Mammy was cross with him and thanked Theresa.  He didn’t understand.

 

Daddy sang to plámás Mammy as they made their way to the car.  ‘Cheer up,’ he said, ‘it might never happen.’  They left his car here to pick up tomorrow.  He was repeating himself when he spoke.  It took him ages to fasten his seatbelt.  Mammy was worn out ignoring him. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘no, aha, yeah.’  But she wouldn’t say anything else. ‘Fuck off and don’t talk to me then,’ he said, ‘you stuck up bitch.’

 

She stormed into the house and threw the keys down on the table.  He crashed and banged his way in from the yard.  He tripped on the bastarding rake. Kai went into the sitting room and turned the television on.  He turned the volume up.  He could still hear shouting.

 

He waited again, until he was sure it would have ended.  He turned off the television to go to bed.  The lights throughout the house were on so he went from room-to-room to switch them off.  In the kitchen, he opened the fridge.  The light shone on the same ham and cheese that had been used in their sandwiches, there was not much else there.  They looked plastic and unappealing.  Hunger had tied knots in his stomach so he shut the door and continued on to bed.

 

Daddy was asleep on the toilet seat.  The door was wide open.  His trousers were bunched about his ankles and he was slouched forward head in his hand that was propped up from his knee by an elbow.  He was snoring. 

 Kai went outside to batter the flowers with his piss.

Teenagers

Kai switched on the kettle.  The sound of the water bubbling against the element irritated him.  He took his favourite mug from the mug tree and threw a teabag in it.  The inside was stained, off-white with a brown rim that didn’t look clean.  He rinsed it under the tap, rubbing at it with his thumb until it squeaked but the stain wouldn’t shift.  He put some washing-up liquid on a scrubber and brushed it under the hot tap but it didn’t come white.  He noticed a crack on the lip of the mug he had not seen before.  He left the teabag in it to brew.  He had had to re-boil the kettle. 

The tea tasted off.  He sniffed the milk suspiciously.  He tipped a little in the sink to watch if it curdled.  It created a rainbow on the metal basin of the sink like the multi-coloured sheen of oil on water.  An image, seal pups bobbing in the ocean, oil coalescing in death-rainbows across their backs and them freezing, the oil-slicked fur not insulated against the cold, hazy before his eyes. 

He blinked and the seals vanished.  The tea was missing sugar.  He took a spoon of sugar from the sugar bowl, spooned it in and stirred. 

‘Kai,’ said Mammy, ‘the past few days have been difficult.’

He tasted the tea again but it was bitter so he added a second spoon.   He stirred.  Her presence in the kitchen had surprised him. 

‘I hope we can put them behind us, the three of us, and forget about them.’

He tasted the tea and thought it was fine for a moment, until, its aftertaste rose up his throat and poisoned his mouth. 

‘Not hold grudges. I’m sure we’re all sorry for what went on.’ 

Perhaps the teabags were different, he examined the box then set it down, they were the same as always. 

‘And we can be friends again, the three of us.’

He spooned in two more heaped spoons of sugar and stirred vigorously around and around so the granules would not stay lodged at the bottom. 

‘I hope that you are sorry too,’ she said.

He sipped it again, really wanting to be able to drink it.  Wanting to heat himself up. 

‘That you’ve thought about what you done.’

The tea was stubbornly vile.  He poured it down the drain. He didn’t understand the way she was looking at him.  It was undrinkable, perhaps from the dirt of the cup.

‘Did,’ he said.

‘Sorry?’

‘It’s did, not done,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ she said.

He looked at her.  The hair at her temples, up-close to the roots were grey, coarse and wiry. It wasn’t just her hair; it was the lines around her eyes.  Crows’ feet extending backwards as she smiled at him, some kind of fake smile.  He watched the creases around her mouth as her lips moved. 

‘Stop, smiling’ he wanted to say. ‘Stop talking.  Can’t you see the damage you’ve done to your face?’ but he said nothing.

Bridging chapter

Trying to edit a bridging chapter all morning, the passage of time is quite clunky.  Granny has just died and Kai is still innocent, but not for too much longer...

All February long the house kept itself as quiet as the hills.  No one except Daddy bothered much with making noise.  Kai was sad even when the sunshine came.  Mammy looked like a line, drawn straight with a ruler from head-to-toe.  Grown so skinny she was sore to look at.  She welcomed the spring birds back to the garden through the window over the sink.  Her rubber gloves were yellow like the daffodils that had begun to flower.  They talked of Granny and how she loved the springtime.

He was waiting, for March winds to come and blow the grief out of the house.  For a morning when he did not wake up happy to remember Granny had died.  

He checked her room every day to make sure it was the same.  Her clothes still hung in the wardrobe.  The Sacred Heart still burned above the bed.   He picked her perfume up off the dresser and sprayed a squirt into the air.  Granny was a gap in a day made longer.  She was a name that had changed columns in the nightly roll call of prayer.

Lent was easy, nothing left was difficult to give up.  On St. Patrick’s Day they went into town to watch the parade and eat green ice-cream.  Tractors with banners on their sides and lorries with trailers advertising local businesses slowly circled the square.  It was a traffic jam dipped in bunting. 

There were cheerleaders with bayonets who didn’t look American.  Kai stood on the bottom rung of the barrier rail to see if Jimmy was in the crowd.  The town was thronged.  He smelled a chip van.  

Some faces were painted, everyone wore green.  A stage was set-up in a giant trailer at the top of the square.  Mammy tugged his elbow to get down before he fell.  She was frozen and shivered in a denim jacket.  They were leaving.  Daddy was like a cat on hot bricks all day waiting to get into town.  They were leaving.  Before the parade was even over.  Daddy had disappeared, so he got to stay.  He was gone to wet the shamrock, god-knows-where.  He could find his own way home.  They were leaving.  Before the band came on stage, before he found the lads, before getting chips from the van.  She had had enough of it.   

Kai said ‘Thank you,’ for the Easter eggs.  The count was one short without Granny’s.  The stretch in the days made the farm bigger.  There were further away places to explore before coming home for the dark.  The calving was over and the lambing had begun.  There were three new calves; Kai fed one with a bottle.  Daddy got up in the night time to lend John-Jo a hand.  He was in charge now, making the decisions.  They were going to keep chickens and grow potatoes and lots of other vegetable that weren’t potatoes.  Like rhubarb and carrots, and tomatoes and lettuces that grew under glass.  They cleared the weeds and the high grass from Granddad’s old glasshouse.  Part of the frame was held together by twine, that didn’t matter.  It did the job.  

Kai hoed and weed.  There wasn’t much talking just the distant purr of tractors on a slurry scented breeze.  Warmth bounced from the soil onto his face.  Daddy rolled cigarettes leaning on a rake.  He shielded his eyes from the sun with a flat palm to inspect Kai’s work.  Kai liked the dirt. He liked discussing how the cabbages were doing and talking about the weather.  He learnt when the best time to spray for greenfly was.  He picked a caterpillar off a leaf and set him to the side.  He shook his head to scold him so he wouldn’t come back.

Granny and Granddad had kept vegetables back when they could manage.  Watching them grow was exciting.  Daddy said they would save money.  He wanted goats as well as chickens.  To whitewash the shed and mend the walls.  To make it one of those open farms, which wasn’t proper farming just taking school kids around on tours.  It was easy money with a grant for keeping old rusty machinery and planting apple trees.  Mammy wasn’t sure.  He had no experience, children drove him nuts.  But that wasn’t the point, nothing she said about it was.  

‘That’s where we found you,’ said Daddy pointing to a cabbage.  He laughed and so did Kai.  It was one of his funnier jokes. It made Mammy happy to see them out working together.  It mattered less then when he fetched messages from town and took his time in coming back.  

She sat at the table with her face in her hands, exhausted -  they’d been talking about the farm. The wind banged a door shut.  She jumped.  Daddy, waving his arms about the room, with his projects and plans, the new ideas, the ones he never stopped from having.  Her shoulders bunched around her ears.  Her feet under the table shifting.  She reached for the cigarettes.  She’d shaken her head against the talk but still she’d said ‘yes.’  Conceded and agreed as he blustered and blew.  The more animated he became the more she seemed to fade.  

The forms for the bank loan were laid out on the table.  Along with the solicitor’s letter making him executor to the changes. The big changes.  The ones that would change everything.  The loan for improvements for an open farm to get the free money from the grant.  The loan against the farm.  Her lips moved word-for-word as she read and her finger underlined the sentences.  ‘You’re sure?’ she asked him later.  Her signature scratched slowly across the line, she stopped, she looked up, ‘I’m sure,’ he said.  ‘You’ll like goats on the farm, won’t you Kai?’ he said. He winked.

‘Yay!’ said Kai to Mammy. 

She preferred the calm of letting things alone.  Of leaving the dust to settle on the farm like it had on Granny’s dresser.   But the forms had to be signed for the changes to go ahead.  ‘Yay!’ Kai said, excited about the goats.  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Daddy.  His hand on her shoulder but he didn’t smile.  She stood up from the table, ‘I don’t think…I just think…I.’  But it was too late; he’d stormed out the door.  

He stayed away a long time until the tock tick of the clock was worried.  Until the television finished saying its ‘Prayer at Bedtime.’  Mammy’s nails tap-danced on the arm of the chair.  No one told Kai to go to bed.  The door hadn’t opened, no matter how much they didn’t looked at it.  He had had a fine evening drawing pictures of the goats.  He stayed up until he could stay awake no longer.  In the morning Daddy was back and happy.  The forms had been signed so the goats were being ordered.  ‘Yay!’ Kai smiled.  Mammy’s smile was watery.  ‘Of course I trust you,’ she said. 

Daddy’s humour was as predictable as the weather.  Which meant Kai never knew if he was in good form or not.  His jokes weren’t like Jimmy’s jokes, they weren’t always funny.  Kai was learning how to tell the different jokes apart.  There were the jokes to make you laugh and jokes to make you cry.  ‘She’d never win the Housewife of the Year, would she Kai?’ as Mammy served them up the dinner.  Kai knew it was a joke because he laughed.  Kai laughed too but wasn’t very funny.  Mammy un-laughing found the ridge of the scar on her chin with her finger.   She traced the pale crescent like there was something she had to remember.  Kai ate-up the grey dinner as an apology for the laughter.  Mammy’s knife pushed the food around her plate, piling it from one side to another.  Kai wasn’t allowed play with his food like that.  They were waiting to hear back from the bank. 

Daddy’s jokes could be mean or they could be embarrassing.  ‘An arse on her like the back end of a knacker’s pony’ and Kai sniggered because it was funny picture but not a very nice thing to say about Theresa.  At least she had plenty on top.  Not like Mammy, who was ‘like two Disprins on an ironing board’.  Kai blushed eyes fixed on the middle distance.  He was in good form because the loan had been approved.

They could be warnings or threats.  ‘We’ll end-up in the poor house if she has her way,’ with a wink to Kai while he explained to Mammy everything she was doing wrong with the books.  It wasn’t different ways of doing things; it was her way was the wrong way.  She was addled by the figures.  A mind like a sieve, so she went to lie down. ‘Women eh?’ said Daddy.  Kai shrugged. They’d been fine for years before Daddy came back but he didn’t want to say it. ‘A man doesn’t want to come home to a face like a long streak of misery,’ he bared his teeth with a smile.

They were two hardworking men who had been out in the garden all day the least they deserved was a clean house and a decent dinner.  It was time for her to move on, to pull herself together.  If not for Daddy’s sake then for Kai’s.  ‘Yeah!’ Kai agreed, they were getting goats and the free money. 

Mammy looked different now he say her through Daddy’s eyes. 

Mammy’s sleeve was zigzagged with snail trails from her nose when she asked him where he’d been.  A man needed a reason to come home in the evening so Daddy went to the pub.  Kai was glad it was time to move on because he wanted bars for his packed lunch and his uniform laid out in the morning the way it used to be.  They laughed that she wouldn’t know how to cook the vegetables once they’d grown them.  ‘The mice will run away,’ said Kai because the cupboards were bare.  He and Daddy shook with laughing, but inside Kai didn’t laugh, he knew it wasn’t funny.

The next Sunday Mammy smiled and put on lipstick.  ‘We’re going to have a roast,’ she said, ‘the way Granny used to make it.’  Mammy’s teeth were lipsticked too, as if they’d bitten on the tube.

Granny didn’t use as many pots.  Granny didn’t let the spuds boil over.  Mammy transferred them from one pot to another, they were overcrowded.  She scalded her thumb, ‘Feck,’ she said and shook it.

‘Feck!’ she said again, because the oven wasn’t switched on. 

There was no tinfoil for over the chicken.  She forgot the lemons.  She put the gravy through a sieve to try to get the lumps out.  The greens were turning floppy.   Kai wished it was dinner from the freezer like pizza and chips.  It was well after dinner time.  He had set the table. Daddy sighed behind his newspaper.  Mammy’s face was shiny with steam.  It would ‘Just be a minute.’  Kai’s stomach was growling.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ said Daddy as he left the kitchen.

‘Where you going?’ asked Mammy

‘To get something decent to eat,’ he said taking his coat from the rack in the hall

Mammy’s hands dropped to her sides.  She watched his back leave.  He didn’t turn to see her watching.

The spuds were soupy in the pot and the meat bled under its black skin.  Kai picked about the chicken.  He didn’t touch the spuds.  He put six green beans on his plate for Mammy to count.  The gravy tasted good.  There was ice-cream out to defrost, lots of ice-cream because there was no one there to share it with.  Mammy sat at the table with him smoking while he ate.  She didn’t touch her dinner.  She smiled when he said it was lovely but the rest of the time she sat there her forehead was creased with thinking.  He did all the washing up until his fingers were shrivelled and smelly.  She smoked another fag and went to bed.  It was too early for Kai’s bedtime. 

He was shy to go into the bedroom since Daddy had come back.  It smelt different.  But he went in and he left her a glass of water.  It was dark with the curtains closed and she lay on the bed in her clothes.  Only her eyes acknowledged him. ‘Goodnight’ he said, setting down the water. ‘Goodnight,’ she blinked with her eyes. 

It was a treat having the television to himself and the ice-cream.  He watched Satan climb on top of a lady and they had a baby who was Satan’s baby in New York.  The farm outside was still, he drew the curtains, the quietness scared him.  She had short hair and her name was Rosemary.  He flicked the channels when the bad stuff happened with the neighbours.  He guessed how long it would be each time before it was safe to flick back.  He had to read for a long time after before he could fall asleep.

The next morning the cows were restless in the field, Daddy hadn’t gotten up for milking.  A bellow echoed the farmyard as he left for school, the cows were in distress.  Mammy wasn't up either. 

That week a timber frame was erected for the chicken coop.  Rolls of wire netting rested against the wall of the shed.  There were plywood planks in the shed to be sawed into shape for the walls.  Kai’s job was going to be painting them.  Sheets of galvanising would be screwed down for a roof. Chickens lay eggs in nesting boxes.  

Three weeks flew by. Mammy eyed it each evening for progress.   Some hinge or nail or stable was missing so he couldn’t get it done.  Mammy nodded.  She understood.  They did it all on the Saturday, the one the chickens arrived, John-Joe lent a hand.  Kai’s paint was drying on their new home when they got there.  The robin had watched him work.  The walls were crooked in places.  The chickens would have to mind the draft.  

Kai did his homework; he kept out of the way.  Daddy gave him a spin in his new car.  No goats had come.  All the trees had leaves and the flowers were in bloom.  The world was full of life again.  Mammy hardly went out anymore, only to go to work.  If the phone rang, Kai had to answer, ‘She’s just gone out,’ he said, ‘I’ll get her to ring you back.’  But she didn’t ring back and the phone rang less.  

His evenings were for birdsong and for walking.  Confirmation was coming soon.  Daddy rubbed his hands together, Kai was going to clean up.  

‘Do you remember that time we went to the beach in the summer, the hottest summer ever?’ Mammy asked.

‘No I don’t remember,’ Kai replied, he said it with a swallow.