OVER THE TOP.by David Lyons,coogUinnessmilk

 

OVER THE TOP.

 

I hear the curlew flying low over the misty bog on a late summer’s evening. The air is damp with dew and the shadows are black beneath the tall whitethorn hedges. A lone cow calls out for her calf in a field beyond view and then stops suddenly as her charge drains the pressure from her elder.

The magical sound of a flute played by a capless man in a collarless shirt and hanging braces as he sits on a three-legged stool and leans against a whitewashed wall, dances like angel dust across the final beams of evening sunlight. He is unaware that distant unknown ears are filled with the joy of his melody, nor does he care. There is a candle burning peacefully in the window now – a fresh white church candle, that sits in a cracked green jug that was once the prized milk carrier. An old sun-bleached page of a newspaper, whose sentiments have long been forgotten, sits tightly in the jug and holds the candle in place. Its pale flickering light welcomes me towards it like warm loving arms and the sight of it calms my breath, soothing my racing heart in that moment. Inside I know the turf fire is red and an old black iron kettle hangs on

 

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the crane waiting for me. I am waiting also, for that heavenly aroma of freshly baked soda bread that melts butter with a touch and the pot of stew I know will be simmering on the hot coals. Darkness is closing in fast on an evening that deserves more time. I straighten my cap and pull it down lower over my eyes as I look towards the far field where I know that fence still needs a fresh thorn bush. That ewe with the bare neck will find it for certain and eat Bridget Colleran’s greens once again. She will pretend she doesn’t mind of course, and is always very polite about the intrusion, but even a saint’s patience has its boundaries. Pat-the-boyo with a Guinness ringed mouth sat in O’Shea’s a couple of night ago said that a bath of rain was fast approaching, and everyone became quiet and listened with wide eyes. He was the one who inherited his grandmother from Boston’s antique barometer, and so was the foremost trusted authority on all changes in the weather. The ones who held their glass midway to their lips, were the ones with turf out facing the night sky, like me, and gave more heed to the warning.

A shell landed almost in my lap and pieces of shrapnel tore through my sleeve and allowed life’s blood to dye the cloth crimson. My thoughts suddenly switch to

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the grey streets of Staley Bridge, in that typical cold Manchester rain that falls heavily on my coaldust covered face. The taste of the wet coal on my lips is bitter and the black rivers that flow from my matted hair into my eyes blur my vision of the narrow-flagged path that always emitted the smell of urine and dog excrement like a poison to the sense. This is an untended and unloved back yard path worn by the dejected feet of weary hunched shouldered folk, lost in a world of poverty and despair, where only death promised the possibility of release. The weather-beaten timber door on the path side had many years previous benefited from of a left-over tin of Salford Bus red, borrowed without permission from their body shop. The door creaks as I push down hard on its rusty uncompromising latch and the bottom boards drag lines in the clay as it begrudgingly opens a few feet to allow me to pass through. My narrow red bricked cottage is at the end of a short area of tufts of abandoned grass and looks cold and unwelcoming. Over washed faded lace curtains hang too short on the windows and a pencil thin stream of mean grey smoke filters into the raindrops from a frost cracked chimney pot.

 

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Through the metal framed window, I can see my wife bathing our son in the old white Belfast sink. She doesn’t smile as she looks back at me through her sunken dark ringed eyes, and I don’t wave hello. Her idle brother’s bicycle’s lay lazily against the wet red brick near the back door, and I stand in the rain looking and tasting the coal in my mouth. It will be four for dinner again this evening.

It is only a matter of moments now to the trench whistle in Ypres. The sky is a mass of black cannon smoke that an eager breeze couldn’t blot out, as shells rain down their death at will. Every extra breath I take is a God’s send, and one that wasn’t expected. A river of cold sticky mud lies on the floor of the trench and freezes and numbs all feet and legs to the calf. My fingers hold the cold steel barrel of my rifle and the dried blood stains on the bayonet dull its shine. The strong aroma of death hangs in the air as though it were possible to grab it in handfuls and is only overpowered by regular intervention of chlorine gas. Some let tears fall onto worn over thumbed photos, as others take a little comfort from the last remnants of chocolate from Queen Victoria’s brass box. I sent mine

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home – not to Staley Bridge but to Mayo. Maybe thinking it was all they will ever have now to remember me by. That small brass box with its royal stamp is all that is left of me to give, all that can be clutched to a breast in remembrance.

The bucket of gin is passed out liberally and taken in quantities to sedate the senses but not for me. I want to see clearly until my time ticks out to the final alarm - maybe even have an edge in a place where no hope is the only constant and death the only prize. Clumps of clay the size of large sheep dogs batter the bodies of the pale faced creatures who lean against the walls of the trenches that are wet with blood and tears. Cries of pain and fear of dying men mix with gunshots and explosions to give Dante an extra circle to explore. This is hell and could death be any worse?

The dreaded sound of the trench whistle was awaited but when it comes it brings an unexpected confusion to me and to the drawn anxious faces of my friends, who unwillingly take part in this mass Russian Roulette, played out by shiny men in opposing camps, at Pless Castle in Silesia, and Montreuil. Shiny men who are brave each day with our lives and blood, as they

 

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exchanged dinner platitudes over their Chateau Margaux and their chosen gastronomic delights. Breaths become shallow, hearts pound like sledgehammers, and eyes open to their widest extremities. The ladders go up and the command “over the top” calls out in an authoritative tone, as though this were a normal command, the correct thing to do, and something not to be questioned. There is no reasoning now – no wondering why. Plenty of space left for inner regrets but no outward display of fear can save this moment from its appalling finale. I drag a foot with effort from the thick sticky mud that seemingly by instinct wants to keep me frozen to the spot. My soaking wet boot feels out for the first rung of the rough wooden ladder. I close the cold bolt on my rifle, and a bullet fills the chamber. Oozing bodies fall back over me as I climb, some dead, some not so lucky. I don’t remember the middle rungs, just the bottom and the top. I hold the top rung for as long as I dare knowing my next move could be my gateway to eternity. A commanding shout through a thick black moustache from below frees my tight grip and I am where they wanted me - over the top, in no man’s land. Lines of loose barbed wire, that I could have used to greater advantage in the gap in the far field hedge,

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stretch on forever in all direction, like it was hung by madmen from the dadaism movement. Lifeless bodies are suspended on its razor-sharp thorns as if asleep on a two-penny hangover in a back street London doss house. Men I broke cigarettes with and exchanged many a fond life’s memory, drop down around me like carcasses in khaki. Their faces now embedded in the blood-soaked mud, as life drains out from their wretched existences. I wait, hoping for the sound of the curlew, the smell of freshy baked soda bread and that pot of simmering stew in Mayo and a loving call, “Tom your food is ready”. Then I look at my wife through the kitchen window, bathing our son in the Belfast sink as the cold Manchester rain runs down the thin glass– this time we smile at each other for the last time.

About the author

 

David Lyons has two novels published to date, The Dream Voyagers (2015), and Land of Butterflies (2023). His book of eighteen short stories (82k words) titled“The Muse and Other Stories” is searching for a publisher, and he has just completed a new book titled The Hidden Village. 

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Forever Searching by David Lyons, americano

When my parents died, I searched for the memory of them in St. Ann’s Square, where each step I made disturbed the pigeons, lifting them high into the crisp bitter morning air. Faces with a miscellany of expressions abounded, with gaits and strides defying unison. Suede shoes and working boots, intermingled with red-soled ladies’ shoes and airs of hauteur usurped the standing places of humility, with attitudes of indifferent entitlement. We once had a tradition of walking its peacefulness on Christmas morning, where no soul or sound would disturb. Where serenity had for a short while reclaimed its almost obliterated heart, and gave it a temporary tranquillity far removed from the hustle and mayhem of just a few short hours previous.

Unsuccessful, I searched through onto a busy Deansgate, with its familiar architecture and flagstones. Since my last visit, a Banksy of a boy with a lollipop holding a balloon on a string watched the determined footsteps of commerce dash by dispassionately in blue pinstriped suits with eager determined faces.

I stopped by the little tweed shop on Market Street that still displayed things my parents loved. From a distance I imagined them chatting together as they walked peacefully into the smell of yarn. Left and right my eyes tried to prise the shoppers apart on Cross Street to see if they would appear through the crowds. But they didn’t. I searched until my eye’s lost focus. Enquiring faces stared at me, but I kept scanning for that break in their ranks to see if the faces I love would appear and say a thousand words with just one smile.

In Prestwich I imagined I would find them, walking up that steep leafy hill together on Sandy Lane, looking out of place on city streets. They were far removed in nature from the street wise city life that circumstances dictated they submit to, for a brief while. Later, I stood at the arched window of Acorn Antiques on Bury New Road, that was long overdue another coat of red paint, to see if I could see them inside, browsing just like they used to. Their treasured booty could vary from a pewter setter to an inkwell with so many unusual combinations in between, and the chosen item would be admired and moved about the house for days after, looking for “just that right place”. In my mind’s eye I could see Dad, in his cap and tweed jacket, and Mam in her big brown hat and long green coat. I was sure they would appear together from amongst the crowd and give me that smile that would melt my heart one more time, but that moment prized more than life itself never arrived to lighten my weary soul.

I thought certainly I will find them in Kinsale, where so many happy memories too beautiful to fade must still live in some perfect dimension of time, a place where nothing beautiful dies. So, I searched the narrow streets and coffee shops, eating cake and drinking americanos at familiar tables. On occasions I imagined I could smell Mam’s “Poison” perfume, and believed its cocooning fragrance may have been just around the next corner, but each time its presence, whether conjured up by longing or for real, was only momentary and vanished in the fresh sea air. The bench near The Blue Haven where we used to have our 99’s, that always melted dripping down to the pavement in white dots, was wet from rain, empty and unwelcoming. Boland’s wool shop with its dented brass doorknob that had greeted so many shoppers with its cool touch, surely, I imagined, they would be there. Mam looking for warm pullovers for Daniel and Jennifer, while Dad looked on, his hands filled with shopping bags, his fingers red from the strain of their strings, as he complained occasionally to deaf ears. The shiny timber floor in Boland’s was still as noisy to footsteps, as it gave off its intimate feeling of bygone antiquity. The uneven timber surface was worn by a century of those eager to peruse, but of all its splendour, it couldn’t offer me my one desire pearl.

I rambled on deflated of spirit to a deserted Garretstown beach, with its lonely cold waves and icy breeze that tore its way to my skin through my light jacket. So different now from those long heady summer days with our green deck chairs and cool box filled with ice cream and sandwiches. The sand that intimately knew those footsteps I loved, was smooth and cold now, its past memories erased by the unsympathetic tide. All was forlorn and empty here, except for the sound of the crashing waves and ireful gulls. I cast my treasured memories out onto the turbulent waters, hoping for a consoling reply, but they returned as bitter cold sea spray onto my face and mixed with tears to end my search in this place.

The evening fragrance of the Blush roses beneath the statue of Our Lady at the grotto in Ballinspittle was as ever beautiful. Even the old man with the seafarer’s complexion, who lovingly carried out the maintenance, was there with his little worn-out motorbike, but his kind eyes didn’t recognise me. My smiling hello was met with a friendly but distant reply. He would have remembered Dad and Mam though, and as always would have chatted with them for longer than I had preferred on most occasions. Sometimes he would cut a rose with the utmost reverence from beneath the statue for one of Mam’s intentions. He would delicately hold the rose out to Mam’s waiting hand, as though he were offering Our Lady’s grace and succour inside that one tiny bloom. She would then wrap the rose with equal devotion and carefully place it delicately in a box to post to her deserving cause.

The once favoured empty table and chairs by the window in The Speckled Door were unchanged and waited patiently. Its oak stained surface had endured many a hot plate attack since my last visit, and displayed the scars like a mark of culinary accomplishment. The cracked jardiniere with Renoir’s Dance At Bougival badly embossed on two sides still lived on the window ledge, and was as ever contemplating the best view of Cork. Fresh flowers for its adornment must have been that one task too many for the owner of The Speckled Door, as the dusty plastic red roses knew me all too well. That familiar smell of fresh fish cooking in the kitchen tantalised the four diners at the table by the crackling fireside. They were humourless short haired Americans, and ticked off an item from their bucket list as they passed around a single pint of Guinness between them. Their insipid facial expressions displayed no delight in the taste of Irishness as the glass churned its way round and round the table until its head went brown. The remembered sound of laughter flooded the little room that evening, but only I could hear its reminiscent melody.

Surely on Grafton Street I would find them – on an October day where the golden leaves finally let loose their grip, and nervously whirled around in circles, lost in the autumn breeze, in a new an unfamiliar world. Maybe in Marks and Spencer, Dad yet again carrying lots of bags and wearing his brown Peacock’s jodhpur boots with the long scratch on the toe that they acquired on the first day of wearing. “Let’s have a little coffee” Mam would always suggest, so it would be americanos with mushroom toasties and lemon cake. Maybe it was our luck but the brown leather sofas at the furthest end of the seating area were always empty, as though waiting for us as welcome friends. The brown leather sofas were still there, shabbier than I remembered, cracked and torn in places, after a lifetime of giving comfort to weary legs, but it seems time had taken its toll on all of us. I stared at the lemon cake, and coffee until it went white and cold, and leaving them behind, I said goodbye.

Dad and I would wait to one side by the tall glass front door, while Mam went back in for “just one last thing”. We would chat and laugh as we stood by waiting and watching the world race by. Nothing could hinder or change our perfect world then, except time, and time’s dilatory wheels did indeed grind fine, and carried out its bidding without care or concern to past sensibilities or dignities; with no recourse, fiercely ignoring the feelings of gentile lives lived. Plotting and manifesting endings so alien to past times spent. The door and that spot where we used to stand still looked the same, but the memories there are now hidden from the passing world and known only to me.

We only meet in dreams now, and we meet very often, but welcome as these nocturnal encounters are, they pale in comparison to my forever present real-life memories. I will keep searching though, and one day I will find them, walking together towards me through the crowd. Dad with his cap and tweed jacket, and Mam in her big brown hat and long green coat, and they will give me that smile that only God knows I long for more than anything in this world, and this time I will go with them, and we will no longer just meet in dreams.

About the author

 David Lyons' latest book "The Muse and other stories", a work of eighteen short stories and 85k words is currently hunting for a published. This will follow his previously published young adult novels "The Dream Voyagers" (2015) and "Land of Butterflies" (2023). He composes music, jazz and pop. 

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