a young wan on a heavy period. Let me out of here, for Christ’s sake.
I SAW Bobby Mahon this morning, over beyond at the Height. I was up with the da, pulling weeds and letting on to be praying for the souls of the Faithful Departed. I might as well humour him another while, in fairness. Bobby was coming over the stile beside the locked gate as we came to it. He’s meant to be tapping a flaker of a wan from town that used to go with Seanie Shaper that bought one of the houses in Pokey Burke’s estate of horrors. There’s war over it. You should see his wife as well, your wan Triona – she’s a ride and a half. Bobby is a pure bull, though, so he is. He probably rides the two of them every day. Things come easy to guys like Bobby Mahon. He’s not the brightest star in the firmament, but he’s a proper man. He has nothing to prove. Kenny reckons he’s like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke; no fucker could break him. He wore his hurley off of the McDonaghs’ full forward at the end of The County Final We Nearly Won. Then he flung it away and lamped five or six fellas before Jim Gildea the sergeant and about twelve other bollocksesgot between him and the McDonaghs’ boys. I was only a small boy at the time. I wanted to be Bobby Mahon. I still do, imagine. I’m some loser. Why can’t I want to be me?
Trevor
I’M NOT SURE what time Mother gets up. I’m always gone before she stirs. I drive as far as Galway some days. I still get scared crossing the bridge in Portumna, like I used to as a child. The planks on the wooden stretch still clank loosely, as though they could break under the car. On a sunny day in Eyre Square you can sit and look at girls’ legs all day long. Some of those girls wear skirts so short you can almost see their underwear. I bought a pair of sunglasses that block the sides of my eyes so that they can’t see me looking at them. The trick is not to let your head move as you follow them with your eyes. I tried to hide my wraparound shades from Mother. She found them, though; she must have been rooting around in my car. She asked me what I was doing with them. She said they were plastic rubbish. She said she hoped I didn’t wear them going through the village. She said people would think I was gone mad. She said I’d look a show wearing those things. She looked at me and shook her head. Ididn’t know what to say, so I just looked at the ground. I saw her putting my shades into the pocket of her apron.
I’m dying. I’m sure of it. One day soon my heart will just stop dead. I sometimes have a striking pain in my left hand. It could be a blockage in an artery. Sometimes I feel light-headed, sometimes I feel a pounding in my temples; my blood speeds and slows, speeds and slows. Last night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, I started violently. My heart must have stopped and then kick-started itself again. I’ll die soon. I hope I don’t know it’s coming; I hope I’m asleep. I hope my lungs don’t constrict and burn for want of air. I hope my brain doesn’t show me scary pictures as it shuts down. I hope my life isn’t concentrated into seconds and flashed across my consciousness like a scream. I hope I just stop.
I saw that girl again yesterday afternoon. She was standing outside her house, watching a child playing on a plastic tractor. The child was shouting, loudly and almost absentmindedly; long shouts with a rising note at the end. He looked like he was two and a half or maybe three at the oldest. He looked happy. Her house is painted white and there are flowers planted in the borders of her small front garden. It’s like one good tooth in a row of decaying ones. Mother’s friend Dorothy lives in the only other house that’s occupied in that estate. She seems to think I’m her houseboy. Mother says she paid through the nose for that house, way more even than the market value at the time. She was desperate to downsize from her draughty old lodge. She got rightly stuck above in
I SAW Bobby Mahon this morning, over beyond at the Height. I was up with the da, pulling weeds and letting on to be praying for the souls of the Faithful Departed. I might as well humour him another while, in fairness. Bobby was coming over the stile beside the locked gate as we came to it. He’s meant to be tapping a flaker of a wan from town that used to go with Seanie Shaper that bought one of the houses in Pokey Burke’s estate of horrors. There’s war over it. You should see his wife as well, your wan Triona – she’s a ride and a half. Bobby is a pure bull, though, so he is. He probably rides the two of them every day. Things come easy to guys like Bobby Mahon. He’s not the brightest star in the firmament, but he’s a proper man. He has nothing to prove. Kenny reckons he’s like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke; no fucker could break him. He wore his hurley off of the McDonaghs’ full forward at the end of The County Final We Nearly Won. Then he flung it away and lamped five or six fellas before Jim Gildea the sergeant and about twelve other bollocksesgot between him and the McDonaghs’ boys. I was only a small boy at the time. I wanted to be Bobby Mahon. I still do, imagine. I’m some loser. Why can’t I want to be me?
Trevor
I’M NOT SURE what time Mother gets up. I’m always gone before she stirs. I drive as far as Galway some days. I still get scared crossing the bridge in Portumna, like I used to as a child. The planks on the wooden stretch still clank loosely, as though they could break under the car. On a sunny day in Eyre Square you can sit and look at girls’ legs all day long. Some of those girls wear skirts so short you can almost see their underwear. I bought a pair of sunglasses that block the sides of my eyes so that they can’t see me looking at them. The trick is not to let your head move as you follow them with your eyes. I tried to hide my wraparound shades from Mother. She found them, though; she must have been rooting around in my car. She asked me what I was doing with them. She said they were plastic rubbish. She said she hoped I didn’t wear them going through the village. She said people would think I was gone mad. She said I’d look a show wearing those things. She looked at me and shook her head. Ididn’t know what to say, so I just looked at the ground. I saw her putting my shades into the pocket of her apron.
I’m dying. I’m sure of it. One day soon my heart will just stop dead. I sometimes have a striking pain in my left hand. It could be a blockage in an artery. Sometimes I feel light-headed, sometimes I feel a pounding in my temples; my blood speeds and slows, speeds and slows. Last night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, I started violently. My heart must have stopped and then kick-started itself again. I’ll die soon. I hope I don’t know it’s coming; I hope I’m asleep. I hope my lungs don’t constrict and burn for want of air. I hope my brain doesn’t show me scary pictures as it shuts down. I hope my life isn’t concentrated into seconds and flashed across my consciousness like a scream. I hope I just stop.
I saw that girl again yesterday afternoon. She was standing outside her house, watching a child playing on a plastic tractor. The child was shouting, loudly and almost absentmindedly; long shouts with a rising note at the end. He looked like he was two and a half or maybe three at the oldest. He looked happy. Her house is painted white and there are flowers planted in the borders of her small front garden. It’s like one good tooth in a row of decaying ones. Mother’s friend Dorothy lives in the only other house that’s occupied in that estate. She seems to think I’m her houseboy. Mother says she paid through the nose for that house, way more even than the market value at the time. She was desperate to downsize from her draughty old lodge. She got rightly stuck above in
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