Read Online Irish Literature - House of Mourning and Other Stories by Desmond Hogan - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Desmond Hogan
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marriage to my father—all the earnest hot-water jars in the world could not obliterate this knowledge. She was snidely suspicious of Patsy—she too had blackberry hair—and when Patsy’s denouement came along it was she who expelled him from the shop, afraid for the part of her husband he had taken, afraid for the parcel of her child’s emotions he would abduct now that adolescence was near. But the damage, the violation had been done. Patsy had twined my neck in a scarlet tie one sunny autumn afternoon in the shop, tied it decorously and smudged a patient, fat, wet kiss on my lips.
Miles
1
‘Miles from here.’ A phrase caught Miles’s car as he took the red bus to the North Wall. Someone was shouting at someone else, one loud passenger at an apparently half-deaf passenger, the man raising himself a little to shout. The last of Dublin’s bright lights swam by. What took their place was the bleak area of dockland. Miles took his small case from the bus. He had a lonely and unusual journey to make.
Miles was seventeen. His hair was manically spliced on his head, a brown tuft of it. He was tall, lean; Miles was a model. He wore his body comfortably. He moved ahead to the boat, carrying his case: foisting his case in an onward movement.
Miles had grown up in the Liberties in Dublin. His mother had deserted him when he was very young. She was a red-haired legend tonight, a legend with a head of champion chestnut hair.
She had gone from Ireland and insinuated herself into England, leaving her illegitimate son with her married sister. The only thing known of her was that she turned up at the pilgrimage to Walsingham, Norfolk, each year. Miles, now that he was a spare-featured seventeen-year-old, a seventeen-year-old with a rather lunar face, was going looking for her. That lunar face was even paler now under the glare of lights from the boat.
The life Miles lived now was one of bright lights, of outlandish clothes, of acrobatic models wearing those clothes under the glare of acrobatic lights; more than anything it was a life of nightclubs, the later in the night the better, seats at lurid feasts of mosaic ice cream and of cocktails. Dublin for Miles was a kind of Pompeii now: on an edge. He was doing well, he was living a good life in a city smouldering with poverty. Ironically he’d come from want. But his good looks had brought him to magazines and to the omnipotent television screen. He was taking leave of all that for a few days for a pilgrimage of his own. There were few signs of garishness on him. The clothes he slipped out of Ireland in were black and grey. Only the articulate outline of his face and the erupting lava tuft of his hair would let you know he worked in the world of modelling.
The night-boat pulled him towards England and the world of his mother.
2
She’d come to Walsingham each year, Ellie, and this year there was a difference about her coming. She was dying. She came with her daughter Áine and with her son Lally. She walked, propped between them, on the pilgrimage, the procession of foot from slipper chapel to town of Walsingham. Áine was a teacher. Lally was a pop star.
3
Miles was in fact late for the procession. He arrived in the town when the crowds were jumbled together. He looked around. He looked through the crowd for his mother.
4
Afterwards you could almost say that Lally recognized him, rather than he recognized Lally. Lally was discomfited by lack of recognition here. Miles recognized him immediately. ‘How are you? You’re Lally.’ A primrose and white religious banner made one or two demonstrative movements behind Miles.
‘Yeah. And who are you?’
Who am I? Who am I? The question coming from Lally’s lips, funnelled mesmerically into Miles’s mind on that street in Walsingham.
5
Miles was an orphan, always an orphan, always made to feel like an orphan. He was, through childhood and adolescence, rejected by his cousins with whom he lived, both male and female,
Miles
1
‘Miles from here.’ A phrase caught Miles’s car as he took the red bus to the North Wall. Someone was shouting at someone else, one loud passenger at an apparently half-deaf passenger, the man raising himself a little to shout. The last of Dublin’s bright lights swam by. What took their place was the bleak area of dockland. Miles took his small case from the bus. He had a lonely and unusual journey to make.
Miles was seventeen. His hair was manically spliced on his head, a brown tuft of it. He was tall, lean; Miles was a model. He wore his body comfortably. He moved ahead to the boat, carrying his case: foisting his case in an onward movement.
Miles had grown up in the Liberties in Dublin. His mother had deserted him when he was very young. She was a red-haired legend tonight, a legend with a head of champion chestnut hair.
She had gone from Ireland and insinuated herself into England, leaving her illegitimate son with her married sister. The only thing known of her was that she turned up at the pilgrimage to Walsingham, Norfolk, each year. Miles, now that he was a spare-featured seventeen-year-old, a seventeen-year-old with a rather lunar face, was going looking for her. That lunar face was even paler now under the glare of lights from the boat.
The life Miles lived now was one of bright lights, of outlandish clothes, of acrobatic models wearing those clothes under the glare of acrobatic lights; more than anything it was a life of nightclubs, the later in the night the better, seats at lurid feasts of mosaic ice cream and of cocktails. Dublin for Miles was a kind of Pompeii now: on an edge. He was doing well, he was living a good life in a city smouldering with poverty. Ironically he’d come from want. But his good looks had brought him to magazines and to the omnipotent television screen. He was taking leave of all that for a few days for a pilgrimage of his own. There were few signs of garishness on him. The clothes he slipped out of Ireland in were black and grey. Only the articulate outline of his face and the erupting lava tuft of his hair would let you know he worked in the world of modelling.
The night-boat pulled him towards England and the world of his mother.
2
She’d come to Walsingham each year, Ellie, and this year there was a difference about her coming. She was dying. She came with her daughter Áine and with her son Lally. She walked, propped between them, on the pilgrimage, the procession of foot from slipper chapel to town of Walsingham. Áine was a teacher. Lally was a pop star.
3
Miles was in fact late for the procession. He arrived in the town when the crowds were jumbled together. He looked around. He looked through the crowd for his mother.
4
Afterwards you could almost say that Lally recognized him, rather than he recognized Lally. Lally was discomfited by lack of recognition here. Miles recognized him immediately. ‘How are you? You’re Lally.’ A primrose and white religious banner made one or two demonstrative movements behind Miles.
‘Yeah. And who are you?’
Who am I? Who am I? The question coming from Lally’s lips, funnelled mesmerically into Miles’s mind on that street in Walsingham.
5
Miles was an orphan, always an orphan, always made to feel like an orphan. He was, through childhood and adolescence, rejected by his cousins with whom he lived, both male and female,
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