Mourn or March by Niall Crowley, mocha

Light misty rain shrouds the roadside drama in damp chill, nature’s pain made manifest. The upended circumference of the tree stump is massive, rising as tall as it is broad. Still dry clay, sucked from the earth below, colours it light brown. The roots are cut clean, sheared off across the base to poke out from that pale surround as rough discs of fractured gold. Markers of the violence visited overnight, measure of the force of the storm that assailed.

The trunk stretches monumental, even as it lies horizontal. Broken branches are scattered on each side to mark out the scene. I stand silent beside the cadaver, head bowed in scrutiny of the remains. A tangled bush of leaves and timber swells up around its crown, though crushed flat on the underside. My hand rests still and light on rough bark. A mark of solidarity, of respect, of farewell. I mourn this loss. I grieve the violence of the storm even as I inwardly rage impotent despair at the human authors of such disruption.

‘It’s a tree, it’s down. We’re late. Let’s get on for god’s sake.’

‘There’s violence done here too, you know. This tree is as much a fellow being, equally demanding of our care and concern.’

‘It’s sad, agreed. It’s bad, fully agreed. But crying over it won’t do much. Never has.’

‘It’s how I feel, more and more. Not my choice, just my reality. I’m swamped by it all.’

She is impatient at such repetitive rituals, ever anxious for action and the adrenalin charged optimism that engenders. Mourning serves no purpose she insists, and I do concede that. It drains energy and leaves me unable to do more than watch on in disenchantment. Nevertheless, I am attuned to such disposition, hope ever more spent with each new calamity. She strides on towards the town centre and I trail along behind, the reluctant but obedient mutt. Roles that have become habitual are played out one more time. We are late, as she had predicted. There’s a scrum of people already seething around the bridge, unperturbed by dreary weather.

Flags of red, black, white and green are draped over the parapet on each side. Placards bob up and down across the span of the bridge, protest scrawled bold in capitals. The river below flows past in a bubbling rush, unconcerned at the melee above. Traffic builds up from both directions, irritation breaks through initial sympathy and good humour. The breeze lifts chants of dissent to flutter off to destinations unimagined. The forces of law and order move to firmly insist on passage for frustrated motorists. Phones are out, the drama streamed across the country, around the globe, along with the demand for an end to death and destruction. The drizzle of rain slows and the clouds pull back, as if to anoint our efforts with a flush of unaccustomed sunshine.

‘You’re one mournful looking fucker. Get into it. This is what matters, resistance.’

‘There’s lots to be sad about, actually, and this is hardly a celebration.’

‘God, you’d drag us down to the depths. Feel the community in action. This is going on all around the country. All of one mind and determined, there’s a power in that.’

‘I can see it working alright. An unstoppable force, I‘ve no doubt.’

I am tired of such repetitive rituals, formulae stripped of meaning in being deployed over and over. There is the analysis, the politics, the commitment and that’s not to be dismissed, to her mind anyway. She’s an activist, a radical activist by her own account, with little patience for those who fail to follow and meet the standard. I’m an activist, a jaded activist I would admit, with little spirit left to see beyond inevitable defeat. Still we are a couple, have been and probably will be, so needs must and I turn up as required. Eventually, the time set down for the protest is done, our point deemed sufficiently made. Banners and placards are packed up for the next iteration. Thoughts turn to the pub.

Mid-afternoon of a Saturday and the place finds itself struggling to cope. Normally a time for an older generation to sip quietly and watch the game on the big screens. Teeming protestors now jostle around the bar. Others thread a wary path between them to ferry sustenance to tables stretched along the far wall. A single barman toils gamely to keep pace with the demand for pints, pausing only to stretch across the bar for the tap of a card. Excited chat, scornful clamour and intense exchange echo back and forth to saturate the narrow space. Sat at a table by the far end of the room, the drink puts us at ease, serving both the firebrand and the grief-struck.

‘Is that a smile I see breaking through the glum? Ever so shy it is, but happy out with the buzz.’

‘Any credit goes to this place, ever able to cushion and cocoon. The tentacles of crisis can’t gain a hold once you’re through the hallowed portal.’

‘The modern-day cathedral. You’re onto something there. The pint as the saviour’s blood, the packet of crisps her body, and ever more disposed to heal our woes the greater our consumption.’

‘Cult-like too in a capacity to rid one of all reason, and render us unthinking adherents. Not sure I’m enthused by who that might suit, but I’m not complaining.’

The mind is stretched out in languid calm with the liquid. We reconnect in shared ritual, grateful for the disjoint of individual temperament repaired in a connection of shared release. Anxiety dissolves and an easy humour takes its place, the problems of the world reduced to background clamour. Maybe there is an alternative to that binary we function within, to march or to mourn. Disengagement doesn’t offer hope but it allows distraction, and achieves no less than all the marching and mourning. The demon drink, they cry, but there’s something to be said for it. In the times we’re in at least.

We don’t stay late, though night has fallen as we walk homeward. At an easy pace and side-by-side this time, we hold hands and dodge off the road with each new set of headlights rearing out of the dark. We’re even back in time to catch the news, each of us spread-eagled on a couch in thrall to the screen. Coverage switches from storm damage in locations around the country to a flash of far-off war and disorder, back to a car crash in the midlands with its inevitable fatalities, on to a second grisly war for some respite, then over to the latest murder trial, before an intense litany of sports completes the breathless rush. A cheerful good night tells us we’re done for the evening. A flick of the remote returns quiet to the room, as the drama of the day’s events, national and international, settles to rest.

‘Jesus, not a word about the protests. One more time. Where do they get off with their public broadcaster crap when they can ignore people up in arms around the country?’

‘Balance is all, for that crowd. They’ll say they couldn’t find anyone to stand up for the genocide.’

‘What’s the point if they can just ignore us? How are we ever going to change anything? At what point do we get heard and listened to?’

‘The only balance that newsroom ever achieves is between the gruesome global, inadequately explained, and the irrelevant national, recounted in tedious detail.’

‘We’re fucked, plain and simple. Madness prevails.’

‘You’re beginning to sound like me now and that’s not good for either of us. A couple of cans from the fridge might be called for.’

I don’t bother to turn the light on in the kitchen, feel my way over to the fridge. The open door casts a yellow light that throws my shadow up against the wall as I root out two cans. I stand back a moment in the dark, feel that customary gloom return, flow through the veins and reassert its hold. Somehow her energy and angry activism keep me afloat and alive, even if I shy away from it. The surge of discouragement I saw on her face, the look of defeat, felt like a safety line snapping. Already I sense myself adrift on roiling seas as I reach for glasses off the shelf above.

We pop the cans, pour the beer and raise our drinks to solidarity. Each lost in our own meandering thoughts, silence insists its hold as we imbibe for solace. I watch on, see that internal struggle trouble her, same as I’ve been through and lost long ago. Her marching days might be done, and we could both be confined to an enervating future of forever mourning. Not healthy in its capacity to drag us ever deeper into interdependent melancholies. We’ll not last that out, unless of course the world around decides to take a radical and unlikely turn for the better.

‘I’m gonna spray paint a shitty bank, that’s what I’ll do. They might take a bit of notice then.’

‘A bit of down time in the slammer, just what you need.’

‘You’d have us sat in front of this birdbrained screen for the rest of our days if you had your moany way.’

‘Well, if that’s how it’s going, I’ll glue myself to a Jack B. Yeats up in the city, maybe chuck some tomato soup over it. They’ll not miss out on covering that.’

‘We’ll be renting out the place for a while so.’

‘Revolution and with a profit to be made, eh? A terrible beauty is truly born.’

Laughter erupts in staccato bursts, ricochets in giddy disturbance around the room. The drink has taken hold to orient our disposition with its carefree buoyancy. We surprise ourselves with such mirth, not our habitual recourse. Maybe there is more mockery to it than mirth. Just as abruptly, silence returns to pin us down, sliding us off an exhilarating high into dank valley. We sit frozen, brooding, attention clamped to whatever trivia intrude our field of vision.

I break the spell, reach for the remote and flick the channels for relief. She grabs the iPad for diversion, scrolling furiously. Imagination flails in desperate search for a hold. The sounds of dissidence and a gleeful intensity to her demeanour suggests the protest might well be all over TikTok or other such venue. A documentary on biodiversity loss finally emerges from the flotsam I am trawling, sufficient to occupy lethargic attention. Rituals reassert and insist, minded to comfort and sustain both mourner and marcher.

About the author

 

Niall Crowley works on equality in Ireland and across Europe. His fiction is published by CafeLit, The Galway Review, Spillwords, and Pure Slush. He was shortlisted for the From the Well short story competition in 2021, 2022, and 2023, and Colm Toibín International short story award in 2022. 

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On the Spur by Niall Crowley, instant coffee

 

Matthew loves trains, the best and only way to travel. The onboard tannoy alerts, engines discharge and the carriage shudders into life. He sits back into the release, massaged by the rhythm, pleased with his decision. Once out of the tunnel, shifting terrain demands his attention, nose pressed to the window. Houses shoulder to shoulder and car cluttered arteries transform into scruffy pasture and tracery of hedgerows. There’s company at his table, though that can be a mixed blessing.

It was spur of the moment, not put in the diary as required, and not shared with anyone. He was on one of his wanders, passing by the station. Kate came crashing into his head and his heart scrambled humdrum thoughts into long-erased desires. Memories of picking her up off the train, that must have set him off. Whimsical weekends to be played out just for them. Too long. He needed to see her, be with her. The Free Travel Pass, and the few euro for a cup of coffee and the newspaper, were enough to get him on his way. That was all they left him with these days.

She has the look of his grandmother, the woman across the table. The hair done in bleached curls, the make-up generous in its application, and the disciplined order to her outfit. It’s as if it is his granny sat opposite, watching over him again. There’s that same distant strained look in her eyes, not quite in tune with an amiable facial expression. As if holding back a store of pain. An inevitable fate, pain, once time has had its say. He knows that now. His granny had gone that way early, forever mourning a soulmate taken too young.

Every summer, as soon as the school gates closed, he’d be packed onto the train. Hair blown wild in the wind as the train rattled gleefully across the country. That’s his memory of it. Granny would be waiting, dutifully to attention beside her grey Morris Minor, those sad eyes set behind the smile that drew him to her. Always in the same place, just by the station door, a woman of stoic and insistent habit. Not one for hugs, she would usher him straight into the back seat without ceremony.

He’d be swept out of the city to that special place where the sun was ever high in the bluest of skies. Beaches of warm sand spread below her house, where foaming waves would flush up and around to tickle his toes. Car locked safely in the garage, bag deposited in his bedroom, they’d head straight to Mrs Forde’s sweet shop. Purposeful and without need for discussion, holiday money to hand. That first sherbet lolly of the summer was always the best. His granny would have one too. For the occasion she’d say. There wasn’t a summer would pass before a formal letter issued to his mother, seeking further funds to maintain the supply of sherbet lollies.

He realises he’s staring at the woman now, bent forward staring, which is embarrassing. It’s an unpleasant habit, though not meant to be rude or intrusive. The eyes lock onto the subject, then the head wanders off to explore whatever has been sparked, forgetful of the eyes left fixed and that they might discomfit. She tilts her head and frowns a smile of inquiry at him. He straightens up and coughs in awkwardness. He can’t help himself then, just blurts it out.

‘You know, you’re the spit of my granny. It’s bringing me back.’

She barks out a choking laugh, startling him. ‘Well aren’t you the right playboy. All the best chat up lines.’ She chortles more gently, shaking her head. ‘That’s a winner for sure.’

He’s confused, not sure what to make of her. ‘No, no. My apologies. I don’t mean to be forward. On the contrary, I’m married. I’m actually off up to see my Kate.’

A shout of laughter physically pushes him back in his seat. ‘Well, that’s nice for you. You’ll have a lovely time there for sure.’

He reaches for his newspaper, discomfited, as if patted on the head like the good little boy. The Irish Examiner, that’s what they call it these days, but it would ever be the Cork Examiner. His granny had initiated him into its allure. They would take turns of an evening, to read the latest news to each other. A chance to explore the world around and broaden that vocabulary of yours, she used to say. The spread of the broadsheet allows a retreat now, from the intricacies of interpersonal encounter. He stares listlessly, though, at the print in front of him. There’s little of interest in it these days. Still, he could never free himself of that daily purchase.

Flowers, he should have got flowers. Kate loves flowers. There had been beds of them she proudly tended around the house. She would roam the fields nearby gathering her pick, taking cuttings for the garden. He had always brought flowers, back when they were courting, just to provoke that slow gentle smile of hers. Not the manicured bouquets on offer from the shop, but wild and messy arrangements, carefully composed from the finest those fields had to offer. That suited her style, captured her spontaneity, mirrored her untamed charm. He can feel his face beaming, gone foolish with the memory. The past is generous sometimes. He knows he’ll get an earful for arriving empty handed, though. She’s never one to hold back her disapproval, nor, in fairness, her approval on those rare occasions he had got things right enough to earn it.

A young one sits in beside him. She flashes out her phone and is immediately lost to the world around, rapt in her attention to its imperatives. Two thumbs flicker deftly across the screen. Hard to tell if she’s composing messages for transmission or interacting with distractions offered by the machine itself. He used to have a phone. He’s no technophobe, but they determined it put him at risk of fraud. What there was to defraud him of, he could not tell. He peers over her shoulder to see what has her so absorbed He had never managed such furious dexterity with his phone, nor succumbed to its attractions beyond the purely functional. Feeling that stare clicking in, he pulls himself back in behind the folds of his newspaper.

Kate and himself had to make do with the landline. Cables hoisted on poles stretching across the land to truck words of wistful passion from one side of the country to the other. An amount spent on their transport too. They had met one summer outside Mrs Forde’s. Of an age then to have inherited his granny’s house, he had still not lost his fondness for the sherbet lollies and the memories they tugged at. She was down visiting friends and out for an explore. Choc-ices were her little addiction, she had confessed. Backs to the warmth of the shop wall, watching over a twinkling bay, they chatted with, for him, unaccustomed ease. Urgent affinity had flourished in their frivolous banter.

On the spur he had asked for her number as she roused herself to leave. Unaccountable temerity had him all of a stutter. She had gently teased as to why he might be needing her number. In the absence of any coherent answer, she had thrown it out over her shoulder as she marched off on her explore. No pencil to hand, he had to recite that number, over and over and over, as he hurried back up the hill to his granny’s house. His house then, of course, that had taken some getting used to. A relationship, hanging perilously on the thread of an ever-faulty memory, had survived.

When he wakes, it is with a jolt. He sees they are four around the table now. The three of them are watching him, seems like sternly. Even the young one has deserted her phone to glare alarm in his direction. He stares back, going for dignified denial, though he knows he must have been snorting. They have him on some sort of oxygen tank by night, impossible to sleep with a mask strapped to your face. Sleep apnea, they pronounce with gravity, puts him at risk, so precautions are to be taken, like it or not. The newcomer hooks his attention, a city slicker with suit and tie, and one of those flashy computers set up in front of him. It triggers his own man of the land temper, a disposition held fiercely to counter those expectations he had failed to meet as a young man. Even as his parents had despaired, so his granny had surely rejoiced from up above.

‘You had us worried there, man, you weren’t breathing’ the newcomer said.

‘Are you alright? You’ve gone all pale on us,’ his granny interjected.

The young one was back on her phone, more urgent tasks to hand.

Disconcerted at the interrogation, despite patent sympathy. Aggravated by the dapper moniker of ‘man’. He raises his arms. ‘I’m grand.’ Lowers them to insist. ‘Not a bother.’ Palms spread for added effect. ‘Just dropped off.’ He roots around his seat for the newspaper, in search of some dignity. How long had he slept? It can’t be far now to the station. She would be there waiting, for sure. She always was, ever would be. The best moment of any journey, arriving into that embrace. He settles in behind the paper, restored by the prospect.

The station is a confusing clatter. Shrill shouts and rasping machinery. People crowd the platform, pushing their way through and out towards the barrier. He has to hold still, tight up against a steel column, just to get his breath and gather his wits. She would be up there by the barrier. There’s an expectant crowd milling around it. Watching out for loved ones and waving noisy greetings their direction. He sees her. She’s there. He caught a flash of that bobbed black hair of hers. He’s ready, all good now.

The barrier negotiated, the crowd parts before him and he strides over to where he saw her. Not a sign of her. Puzzled, he stands alert, peering intently from side to side. The crowd swirls around him. What’s she up to, not a good time for games and tricks. Maybe she spotted him empty handed. He catches sight of her red coat over by the coffee stall. Relief assails and he heads over with conviction. The woman in the red coat is not Kate, though, doesn’t even have her black hair. He’s losing it. Ah, there she is, waving frantically at him from the ticket machine. He stumbles over towards her, excitement at bay, anxiety heavy across his shoulders. Closer inspection kills hope, it’s another stranger.

He finds an empty seat, sweating with the nerves. He has to sit down. She would come. She always meets him at the station. He should ring her. He can remember her number, rare for him, but the days of the landline are gone. What to do? He’s trembling now, bent over to hold his head in his hands for calm. There’s still the Free Travel Pass and the train back south, even without the few Euro for a cup of coffee. But that way lies recapture by care, and even punishment for reckless flight. Where is Kate? He needs her, has to be with her.

‘You’re looking a bit shook there. Has something happened? Can I help?’

His granny is standing over him, lips pursed, frowning concern through those overburdened eyes. He needs a moment to decipher the question posed.

‘I’m waiting. I’m waiting for Kate. She’s my wife, I told you. Always meets me at the station. It’s fine, it’ll be fine.’

‘Hmmph. Is there a number you could ring?’

He looks in puzzlement at her. She doesn’t get it, times have changed. The landline doesn’t work anymore. She looks exasperated back at him. He shrinks at patent disapproval. Moments of distress have a nasty habit of conjuring up memories he has carefully packed away to avoid scrutiny. The past can be cruel betimes. He can almost hear the scream, see the lights of the onrushing truck, feel his paralysis and inability to react.

‘It was on the spur of the moment. Our anniversary, a fancy meal and all the trappings. We were headed over to that forest above the village for the romance of a full-moon. I shouldn’t have been driving.’ Head bowed again, he peers up at his granny, pleading for absolution.

About he author 

Niall Crowley works on equality and human rights. His fiction is published by CafeLit, The Galway Review, Spillwords, Pure Slush and The Writers Club. He was shortlisted for the From the Well short story competition in 2021, 2022, and 2023, and the Colm Toibín International short story award in 2022. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

In My Mind At Least by Niall Crowley, LBV Port

There were three of them, always had been as far back as I can remember. Meandering trunks reaching skywards, topped by a splay of green blades. Ever a source of charm and wonder. Not from these or nearby shores, they had unquestionably travelled far to be with us. Always a stimulus for interest and inquiry. Now suddenly they are two, with the third laid out on the damp morning grass. I stand solemn on the lawn before them, distracted in startled loss.

            There was no storm last night, no assault of the elements. Even if there had been, that would not explain why only the one tree has succumbed. There is no evidence of human intervention or fungal infection. The remains, on cursory examination, appear healthy if timeworn. Cause of death must be deemed unknown. A matter of time, arbitrarily allotted and eventually spent. A span used up for the one, with the other two left to wonder and worry. I await that same random fate, alone in this cold and empty place.

            Three previously indestructible companions, rendered vulnerable in being reduced to two. They had stood side-by-side with roots entwined, swaying as one with the winds. That was the secret of their survival. They habituated to cooler climates and adapted to sandy terrain, and did so without apparent loss of integrity or sense of self. That was their recipe for thriving. I stroke the weathered trunks in an admiration that is tinged with envy.

The Yucca trees overlook a narrow spread of lawn between the house and the road. As a child, I imagined them as floodlights, standing tall to splash green lighting over my stadium of sporting prowess. Ever accommodating of dreams, a constant backdrop to what was home, a resolute marker to be returned to. As a young man, I wondered at their origins and what had brought them to this far flung place. A provocation for my earlier self to explore and learn. As I grew and travelled ever further, their memory held a power to bring me back at the slightest whim. I still seek out their silent company now, in these days of older age.

Exotic novelty has been their gift and their fate. Accepted and welcomed for this, but, for the same reason, never to be at one with those around them. I feel a solidarity with them, in their evocation of my own experience of distant travels. Facility to flourish in surroundings far from their norm, has been their strength and their burden. They surely suffer the demands to hold true to identity and harbour the constant wish for return, the fate of all migrants. I feel an empathy with them, even if my bags had ultimately been packed to good effect.

Spanish Bayonets was how I first knew them, the soubriquet of the coloniser. That was before I knew better. Youthful investigation had established their true identity, and from then I knew them as Yucca trees. Their Aztec origins set our home place apart, rendering me special by association. A history was offered to enthrall, expanding the tired tales of here that I was forever regaled with. Their Mexican roots sparked early ambitions for expedition and discovery. A world was opened up to entice, enlarging the boundaries that confined me. I embrace them for this bounty, in my mind at least.

The three Yucca trees were the only constant on my return, still stood firm outside a shabby and untended house. Beyond their welcome, long absence had rendered me a stranger. Shared points of reference were long forgotten. Perspectives had shifted from earlier alignments. Of short-term interest for being a curiosity, I cannot be at one with kith nor kin for that same reason. Camaraderie is not readily offered to those who leave. I live out the days on a par with the Yucca trees, in my mind at least.

These migrants from Mexico offer safe haven in my confinement to the periphery. They challenge me in our shared grief, though, to attend to the distress of those who are confined well outside any periphery I find myself relegated to. The town hosts an accommodation centre retrofitted to corral those that would migrate or seek refuge here. That same accommodation centre attracts loud and angry remonstration from those that would have them leave. I do reject and decry such abuse, in my mind at least.

Had they arrived in these times, the Yucca trees would have found themselves quarantined in some hastily erected greenhouse. They might well have met a hostile plant life mobilised to reject them, and an angry insect world organised to drive them away, their every move haunted with hatred. That is our way now. Still, there are those in the town who stand for human dignity and seek others to join them in such solidarity. I do hold with them and offer support, in my mind at least.

 

About the author 

Niall Crowley works on equality and human rights. His fiction is published by CafeLit, The Galway Review, Spillwords, Pure Slush and The Writers Club. He was shortlisted for the From the Well short story competition in 2021, 2022, and 2023, and the Colm Toibín International short story award in 2022. 

 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

Incongruities by Niall Crowley, Aperol Spritz

He’s surprised to find himself whistling as he drives up the hill. Sentinel trees stand tall each side, reaching over to create a sun-spotted tunnel. Enough to momentarily cheer, but hardly to get him whistling. He can’t manage a recognisable tune at the best of times. There must be some more substantial change of disposition at play. A crack in that unrelenting stress of taking on a first job in the midst of a pandemic. The road narrows with deep channels cut on each side, forcing him to slow down and concentrate.

There’s only one space left for parking. The barn looms over the concrete yard, with its rutted block wall, bales in shiny black plastic peering over, curved sheets of rusted red arched above. Too many cars he thinks dolefully, not a time for crowds. He sits with the door open, face up to take in the warmth of the sun, before strapping on his mask. Rusted machinery stacked to one side, horses grazing in the field to the other, and a wilderness of Fuchsia glowing up ahead.

Around the corner, a spread of tables laid with shining cutlery, pungent coffees and teas, and an array of sweet and savoury. The intense buzz of heads bent close, laughing banter rippling through small groups, and individuals silently intent on Sunday newspapers. The ‘Kitchen’ is like a piece of the city, cut and pasted onto the back of a withered farmyard. He stands rubbing his hands awkwardly, not sure where to locate himself.

She’s swamped, brain addled with demands from all sides. Unrelenting conveyer belt one moment, dirty dishes going in, laden trays coming out. Clerk of works the next, orders taken and lodged, bills totted and resolved. Sunday morning is the tough shift, not that she has any choice. Her father dozes in the mornings, an opportunity for her to get out and earn some money. That sleep holding her father, however, is a product of restless nights, an insomnia she is forced to share. It leaves her on constant edge.

The sun caresses her in its warmth, but the mask traps the heat in a damp sweat around her mouth. It aggravates, but the patrons need to feel safe. At least she’s let serve the outdoor tables. She couldn’t take risks with bringing the virus home, with her father so vulnerable. The possibility still leaves her on tenterhooks, resenting any proximity with those she has to deal with.

She reaches a point of irritation on these busy mornings. No downtime to keep you going, little of the banter that, carefully distanced, provides the buzz. Coming away from the hatch, she recognises him, gawky and anxious, almost adolescent. He’s a looker, though, and of an age with her, but one couldn’t be thinking like that. Still, it eases the irritation. Knowing he’s nervous with the virus, she waves him over to a more secluded corner spot.

‘Well Reverend, what’ll it be today?’ She hovers, notebook in hand.

‘Morning, I think I’ll have the…’

‘Don’t tell me. The eggs benny, americano, drop of milk, no sugar, and a side of toast?’

‘Well, yes, that sounds perfect. Thanks. How is your day going?’

‘Run off my feet, Reverend, and poorly paid, so no change there either.’

‘You enjoy it though, don’t you?’

‘It has its moments, and how’s the day job going for you, Reverend?’

‘Ah, it’s busy, always busy…’

‘We should do a swap someday, experience each other’s busy, and see what that tells us.’

There’s a twinkle in her eyes, telling him there’s a smile behind her mask. He smiles in response behind his, as she threads her way back through the tables. Reviewing their exchange, he winces. A script is what he needs for these occasions. That’s how he goes about his work, the relevant texts reviewed at length and a detailed commentary assembled in advance of each service. Maybe with time he wouldn’t need the prepping, but, being on a form of probation, there’s no room for miscues.

The church is a monument of crafted stonework on the outside, a peeling dampness of decaying plaster on the inside. The congregation is of an age, last in line of families well represented under the scattered headstones that surround. Social distancing is no challenge with such dwindled numbers. Masked faces, pale and withered, stare passively as he holds forth from the pulpit in youthful exuberance. He had yet to see most of the members without their masks. While respectful of them, he struggles to understand how his mission had to start here.

‘Heard you put on a great show this morning, Reverend’. She sets down eggs, coffee, and toast.

‘Well, it’s not really theatre. It’s more…’

‘Whatever it was, they were still talking about it over their coffee and cakes.’

‘Really? I don’t dare imagine what was said.’

‘No matter, you made them think, Reverend. That’s not half bad, and much needed around here.’

She watches him as he unmasks, pokes tentatively at the eggs, and takes up his toast with appetite sparked. There was a stab of envy in her comment, along with the admiration. That was her dream, to make people think. It propelled her into teacher training. The Parish Priest had already promised her a placement year in the national school. Three years in, the study going well, her father’s lungs gave out. Her world shrivelled up to tend his needs. She was the only one left, her mother having passed early with a stroke and her sibling gone far.

She shakes herself, not a time for being maudlin, better to take pleasure in a favoured regular. The Reverend has a charm, even if that collar puts heavy years on him. Ensconced up in that old rectory, he comes from another world, afforded more authority than is good for a man that young, and exuding stylish remnants of some former standing. She savours the brief warmth of human contact he offers, more a distant memory for her now. Her father has little energy to engage. Work, most times, involves no more than brief impersonal transactions. She is stuck, life on pause.

He eats too quickly, a combination of the good food and his bad habits. Coffee requires no such dispatch. The place is busy, hard to know a pandemic rages all around. His gaze drifts to watch her, but surreptitiously, as she flits around the tables. The place is no more than a metal canopy stretching out from two converted farm sheds. The rectory has grandeur with tall rooms, comfort in heavy furnishings, and style in neatly tended gardens. The ‘Kitchen’, though, surpasses his living quarters with ease. Company, bustle, and babbling laughter mark it out. It engages him more each time, life-giving, life-saving. Then, of course, she works here.

His upbringing had been a trail of rectories, ever more palatial and lifeless, as his father rose through the ranks. A path was laid out for him with some paternal prodding, but he’d wanted to invest it with something of himself. He had not joined to minister to landed pensioners, the Bishop had persuaded him. ‘Go get the hang of your trade’ he’d been told, to his consternation. His vision was more to change and improve the world. The Bishop had bade him be patient, and he had obeyed too quickly, a habit of his. He signals for the bill, slipping on his mask. Time to go or the members will have him down as work-shy.

‘That’s decent, Reverend, but you can’t be making up for the low pay like this.’ She still gathers up the money he has put down.

‘You need to be making plans at your age, you know. There’s more for you out there.’

‘You’re going all paternal on me now, no need to be doing that.’

‘Talents are gifts to be used, not for wasting.’

‘Needs must, Reverend, needs must.’

The furrowed brow over her mask is belligerent. Too predictable. All it takes is a pair of testicles to offer judgement and guidance, even with the most meagre of knowledge to back it up. Add a collar, of any denomination, and the inclination magnifies. Pained eyes stare back over his mask. He pushes out from his chair, mortified at the silent altercation, stumbling backwards from the table. Conflict from behind masks is difficult, conflict where they are only beginning to find a way to communicate is impossible.

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be intruding like that, very rude.’

‘It wasn’t rude, it’s just …’

He’s gone. She watches him disappear around the corner of the barn. People are staring. He wouldn’t be coming back. She has no idea what she’d say to him if he did, or even if there was anything to be said. There are orders to take, tables to clear, a job to be kept. He’d be out the gate by now. She runs, ripping off her mask to call after him. Rounding the corner, she almost bumps straight into him striding back towards the café.

They step back to consider each other. Surprised and quizzical, unsure of what had happened, is happening. An uncomfortable silence grips them, in search of words to suit ill-defined circumstances, words that could match the moment. Confident realisation dawns in shared smiles, not relying on anything as clumsy as speech. A gentler silence plays over them.

‘You have a lovely smile, I never got to see that behind your mask’. He blurts it out, involuntary but heartfelt.

‘Reverend, I didn’t mean to…to…’ She flounders as his comment hits home, flushing crimson.

‘It’s Paul, my name is Paul.’ He’s laughing shyly, slightly intoxicated.

‘Paul. That’s a good name for a ... I’m June.’

Smiling again, both of them. She turns reluctantly to go back to work, glancing back at him, shaking her head.

‘Jesus, I’ll be run out of the place with all this.’

He pauses, watching after her. Maybe another coffee and a slice of that millionaire's shortbread wouldn’t go amiss.

About the author

Niall Crowley works on equality and human rights, based in Ireland. His fiction has been published by CafeLit, The Galway Review, Spillwords, and Pure Slush. He was shortlisted for the From the Well short story competition in 2021 and 2022, and the Colm Toibín International short story award in 2022. 

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Christmas Dip

 

by Niall Crowley

Amaretto

Kilbrittain mass, Coolmain dip, and a full Irish, that’s Christmas morning. Always had been, and, it appears, would always have to be. She sits stolid in the car, watching the big swim from above. The path is deemed treacherous at her age, the weather too chill. Neighbours wave and shout good wishes. None stop to chat.

A spread of dappled sand and green weed. Pasty bodies hop from one foot to the other, stretched along the lip of the sea. Disembodied voices, bursts of laughter, and an array of Santa hats. Some have taken to the water, her two among them.

Swimmers come in types, to her mind. There’s the showboat. All splash, hurtling into freezing tides, surfacing with howls of faux pain. That’s Mary, her eldest. Pure bluster, successful but alone. There’s the dawdler. Unsure, hunched over and waist deep, hands patting at the ripples. Pat, her second. Still with his childhood sweetheart, no ambition beyond clerical ranks.

Their visits are sporadic, but Christmas is obligatory. The loss was intense when they moved away, too early. Loneliness assailed, and she had curled up tight into its embrace. She knows that nastiness seeping out as she watches them, sadness turns to anger whenever they arrive. Maybe it’s just to protect. There’s the flailer, too. Arms akimbo, beating at the water, all movement and no momentum. That would be her if she still swam. Trapped and angry, a volatile mix for Christmas.

About the author 

Niall Crowley writes and works on equality and human rights, based in Ireland. His fiction has been published by The Galway Review, Spillwords, and The Writers Club. He was shortlisted for the From the Well short story competition, of Cork County Council Library and Arts Service in 2021.