Sunday Serial: The Story Weaver and Other Tales by Sally Zigmond, white wine, A LOGICAL EXPLANATION

 

‘But forty’s young these days, Mum,’ Helen said when Lynne was having one of my ‘I’m past it’ days.

She  looked down at my shapeless skirt and Tee-shirt that had been through the wash one spin-cycle too many and said nothing.

Helen and Debbie were paying me one of their duty visits, both sprawled on my sofa leaving me the floor as Charlie was stretched out on the armchair, shedding hairs, his claws shredding the upholstery. Bless them, they both feel she needed ‘taking out of herself’ since the divorce. The first months were spent drinking her wine and eating her out of Pringles whilst they pontificated on the ‘all men are a waste of space’ debate. Since both of them still adored their father and were never without some member of the hated species somewhere in the background, she felt this was a bit rich.

It didn’t last, of course.

They’ve now changed tactics. Their latest project is clearly ‘let’s get mum fixed up whether she wants it or not.’

       This tactic started when they took her out for an outrageously expensive dinner. It was when they were all at that mellow stage, giggly and stuffed with profiteroles that Helen murmured oh-so-casually, ‘By the way, Mum. I'm having a few friends round to my flat on Friday. Why don’t you come along?’

            Discreetly undoing the top button of her skirt, Lynne said, ‘Your friends won’t want an old wrinkly like me cramping their style.’

            ‘Don’t worry,’ said Helen waving her glass, ‘there’ll be one or two people your own age.’

            ‘And, you need to get out more, Mum,’ confirmed Debbie, not altogether helpfully.

            Afterwards, Lynne couldn’t believe she’d fallen for that one. She could only blame herself when she'd found herself in Helen's flat, wedged between a sofa and bowl of avocado dip and the only person her own age in the room who just so happened to be male, who decided she needed to know the rules of crown-green bowling.

            A few weeks later it was Debbie's turn. ‘I've got a spare ticket for Les Misérables. Please come.’

             ‘Not sure it's my sort of thing’

            ‘You'll love it.’

            ‘No.’

            But again she was beaten into submission, only to find that Debbie had gone down with flu and had been replaced by a limp-wristed individual, carrying a box of soft-centres and a wilting bunch of lilies.

            ‘I really thought you and Len would get on like a house on fire,’ a miraculously-recovered Debbie sighed the next morning when Lynne phoned to complain.

            ‘Why?’

            ‘Well, because ...’

            ‘Because he's old and boring?’

            ‘Don't be silly.’

            Helen took up the challenge with a seeming never-ending supply of available candidates. Where did she find them? Rent-a-Grandad? ‘But, Mum, this one's so right for you. Mature. Rich. Architect. Designed that precinct by the bus-station.’

            ‘The one that looks like an abattoir? No thanks.’

            ‘He's an animal-lover. Keeps budgerigars.’

            ‘No.’

            ‘And gerbils.’

            ‘No.’

            ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

            Eventually, the girls got the message and the match-making attempts ended. Lynne breathed a mental sigh of relief, took up watercolour-painting and got a job in the make-up department of her local Debenhams. She enjoyed it because her customers were women. Not that she was totally against meeting an eligible man. But she wasn’t going out of her way to find one.    

            Peace at last. Every evening when she got home from work, she would pour herself one glass of chilled white wine, kick off her shoes, put her feet up on her new reclining armchair and check for phone messages. Most of her friends always seemed to forget she was a working woman and hadn’t got out of the habit of phoning her during the day.

            ‘You have three messages,’ chirped the disembodied voice. Message one. Beep. ‘Hi Mum. It’s Helen. Fancy a girl’s night out tomorrow? No ulterior motive. Honest.’

            Message two. Beep. ‘Debbie here. How's the job going? Any chance of free samples? Let's catch a meal and talk about it.’

            It would seem the truce was over. They meant well but needed to be told enough was enough. She was about to tell them both so when the last message whirred into action. Beep. A male voice filled her ear. Gravelly enough to be intriguing but warm enough to be seductive and yet, so forlorn she felt her heart tighten. ‘Why don’t you ever pick up the phone? Why don’t you return my calls? Please give me another chance. Please. I’ll be in The Grapes of Wrath at half past eight tomorrow. Please be there. I need to talk to you. I love you so very much.’ Click. End of messages.

            Who the hell was he? Not a clue. She trawled through the metal database of ‘men who were in love with her’ only to find it empty, of course. Then it dawned on her. She didn’t know this man from Adam. It was a mistake. In his distressed state, he’d misdialled and blurted out his misery to a total stranger.

            Poor soul. The hard-hearted bitch didn't deserve him. Lynne could see her clearly. A size-eight-blonde who, even as he declared his misery, was slipping into five-inch Jimmy Choos and applying jammy lip-gloss in preparation for a date with another man. And tomorrow, there he’d be in The Grapes of Wrath, wherever or whatever that was, waiting for her to appear, lifting his head eagerly every time the door opened, only to lower it when it wasn’t her, which it could never be because she hadn’t got the message ...  So what? She plunged a fork into the film lid and slammed the pack of vegetarian moussaka into the microwave. After all, if he was stupid enough to dial the wrong number, that was his problem.

            And then as she gazed upon the moussaka turning a stately dance behind the glass, she saw him again, tears blurring his vision. No wonder he’d got the wrong number. Divorce or no divorce, she still recognized a broken heart when it landed on her answer-phone.

            The moussaka tasted of cardboard dunked in a ‘rich sun-dried tomato sauce.’ She found Eastenders even more depressing than usual and opted for a good book and an early night but couldn’t sleep. She thumped her pillow. What on earth was she doing lying awake worrying about a stranger?  She’d even looked up The Grapes of Wrath in the Yellow Pages for goodness sake. It was a wine-bar in South Street. Only a short bus ride away. It wouldn't take long. It couldn't do any harm. Could it?

            Next morning, bleary-eyed and still undecided, she called Helen. Her daughter was not amused. ‘Have you completely lost your marbles? He sounds a real loser. Can’t even use a phone. You need to find a man who can look after you. Strong. Dependable.’

            ‘I’m not after a date with him. I merely want to tell him what happened.’

            Debbie was equally emphatic. ‘Don't be stupid. He might be a psychopath.’

            ‘He sounded sweet and loveable.’

            ‘I bet they said that about the Hannibal Lector.’

            Instead of putting her off, their words had the opposite effect. She'd show her daughters she could take care of herself. She wasn’t some starry eyed teenager wearing rose-tinted spectacles.

            The Grapes of Wrath turned out to be a dim and dingy cellar from which music of high decibels and low quality boomed forth. The tables were fashioned from old barrels and the seats were smaller barrels cut in half and upturned. The whole place was a hideous throw-back to the nineteen seventies, even down to Marc Bolan warbling in the background.

She took a deep breath and told herself she had to see it through. She checked her watch. Almost eight. All she had to do was find the man and explain. He might even buy her a drink to say thank you. They’d make an evening of it and then find they had a lot in common . . .

            Kerchungg! It was that quintessentially comic TV moment where the background music screeches to a halt. The penny had dropped. What an idiot! The message left on her answering machine wasn't a mistake. It was a set-up. And Lynne knew who to blame. Helen and Debbie had lulled her into a false sense of security. They were at it again. And this time they thought they were being really clever. They knew she had a stubborn streak and that she always liked to do the opposite of what people expected. They’d set up the sting, pretended to put her off, knowing she’d be bound to trot along. She had to smile at their persistence. But she wasn’t falling for it. No way.

            She swung round and made for the exit.

            What happened next wasn’t entirely clear to her. She must have collided with one of those heavy tables or skidded in a slick of spilt wine. Because there she was, seconds later, flat on her back. Even as she lay there, pain radiating from her wrist to her shoulder, she was aware of the corny nature of the situation. As  a  strong male arms gathered her up and placed her on one of the upturned barrels, she knew she he would be the right age, handsome and definitely not into crown-green bowling. He was tanned, slim, immaculately, but not over-immaculately, dressed in a pair of dark blue chinos and a beige shirt, casually unbuttoned at the neck. His hair was slightly greying at the temples and deep laughter lines framed his hazel eyes.

            Not bad, girls. Not bad. And it may have been the bang on the head that allowed her to accept a glass of very expensive red wine from him. Not only that. She downed it so quickly that he immediately bought a bottle of rather luscious Cabernet Sauvignon and led her over to a quiet, secluded corner.

            After her third glass any injury she might have sustained had melted away and the hideous wine bar miraculously transformed itself into a temple of delight. His name was Adam, divorced like her. He was an actor, currently appearing at the local theatre in the very production of Les Misérables she’d been forced to endure in the company of Len and his wilting lilies. As they swapped anecdotes, discussed the books and music they loved, chatted and laughed, the pieces began to fall into place. Helen or Debbie must have met him at a party somewhere, found out he was an actor and had concocted the plan. She knew exactly what they’d have said to him. ‘Sound pathetic. She's very soft-hearted. We’ll make sure she turns up. Give her a lovely evening. Dad’s been a total plonker. Let her know there are still some decent men around.’

            Only it hadn’t worked totally according to their little plot, had it? He never got a chance to put his acting talent to the test before she literally fell at his feet. And yet, if he was acting, he was very convincing, so she decided to play along for a while.

            All too soon, the flickering candles had melted to stubs. It seemed a shame to spoil what had been the most enjoyable evening she'd had in ages, but the time had come to tell him she wasn't fooled.

            ‘So how did you know it was me when you picked me up from the floor?’ she began cautiously. ‘After all, there must be hundreds of middle-aged women with bags under their eyes and swollen ankles.’

            ‘I beg your pardon?’

            Perhaps she sounded more drunk to him than she did to herself.  But she wasn’t drunk. She’d only drunk three glasses, well, four, she supposed if she counted the first glass he bought her. She was high on happiness. She repeated the question with difficulty. ‘Still not with you,’ he said, frowning but still looking wonderful.

            Maybe, she hoped, he was playing dumb because he liked her just that little bit, after all and wasn’t ready to end the evening just yet. But Lynne couldn’t live on dreams. She wanted things out in the open.

            ‘I don’t usually drink with strange men,’ she explained. ‘I only meant to give you the message and go home. Only there wasn’t a message, was there? No size-eight-blonde nor a broken heart. You really are a brilliant actor.’

            He looked anxious. ‘Are you really sure you’re all right? Perhaps he thought she was the psychopath or at least a pathetic case of post-divorce flakiness. ‘I’d better get you home,’ he said and get to the bottom of all this. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.’

            Just then a bearded man in green tweed emerged from another part of the bar she hadn’t known was there. He pushed past them, muttering into his mobile. ‘I’ve been here for hours,’ he moaned. ‘Perhaps you couldn’t make it but you could have let me know. I’ll be in The Noble Rot at eight tomorrow. Please be there.’

            ‘There’s an explanation all right,’ she said, hooking her arm into Adam’s, ‘but I’m not sure it’s at all logical

Sunday Serial : The Story Weaver and Other Tales by Sally Zigmond, rough white wine: BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND STRIKE

                 

The village of Cailloux-Sainte-Cecile pants like an old dog in the heat. The church clock strikes one. The cracked note hovers above the rooftops then dissolves. Thérèse appears at her door, as she does every day at this hour.

            She lives alone at the very top of the village. From her house, a narrow street hobbles down past the village graveyard that jealously guards its dead and along the grey flanks of the church that again strikes the hour. It then turns left, squeezes between dusty shuttered cottages still bearing their bullet grazes. At the bottom of the hill it sinks into a rectangle of beaten earth. Later, here in the evening shade, old men will play petanque and talk of old times.  

            Beyond, a field of maize rustles under a jet of water that wafts to and fro in lazy swathes. The maize is ripe. An army of starlings gorges on its plump kernels. Monsieur Tapis, who rents the fields from Monsieur le Maire, oils his gun and grunts into his moustache.

            High above him Thérèse shakes crumbs from her tablecloth. Three hens scuttle out from the shade of an upturned wheelbarrow. She kicks them away, takes the cloth back in the kitchen and returns with a bentwood chair.           

            In an ivy-clad mansion at the foot of the hill lives old Natalie Bouchier. She lives alone, too, but today her great-grand-daughter, Brigitte has come to visit. They have been playing a long and laborious game of bezique. The old woman's head droops over her cards.

            Brigitte is bored. She looks through the wide open doors of the drawing-room with its jumble of china figurines and photographs, through the high iron gates and the tumble of hot, scarlet geraniums in their baked-earth pots along the wall. The paint-box blue sky beckons. She shuffles. "It isn't what you think," the old widow murmurs before sinking into a deeper sleep.

     Brigitte creeps through the doors, skittering the gravel on the terrace, and slips through the gates and into the street. Once away from the shadows of the black cypresses the heat is fierce. Like the street she meanders uphill to no obvious purpose.

            Thérèse, too, has fallen asleep on her bentwood chair. She hears them coming. Tramp. Tramp. Tramp. Up the hill.

            But the boots belong to a troop of Dutch back-packers. They consult their guide book which says there is a fine monument to the Maquis in the cemetery. They reach the gates. They rattle the catch. The keys are in Thérèse`s pocket. But she sleeps on. The back-packers march back down the street and the air congeals behind them into hot stillness.

            Thérèse saw them first. She could climb higher than any of the village boys and that day she was swinging her legs in an elbow of the oldest apple tree in the orchard. Her beloved brother, Thierry, ran the farm now her parents were dead. He was in the fields cutting maize. He was too frightened to tell her he was in love with Natalie. She and her widowed mother ran the café. She was the prettiest girl in the village and Thérèse thought the family beneath her and Natalie a fool.

            The village was as still as stone. Nothing moved. Unseen, Thierry and his friends crept from the village and into the surrounding hills, leaving the women and the old men to face the enemy.

             The occupiers were more an irritation than a threat. They were there. That was all. Most of them were billetted with Natalie and her mother. Was it only Thérèse who watched them bloom and fatten while the rest of the village grew lean?

             Her contempt festered into an irrational hatred as she shouldered the burden of the farm. She wore her brother's clothes and stomped about in his boots with a defiance that suppressed ridicule. No-one, not even her neighbours, suspected it was she who passed news and supplies to her male contemporaries camped under the stars or how she yearned to join them and not have to stagnate with the likes of Natalie.

            No-one could say that the farm flourished under the occupation, but no-one starved. Natalie came up the hill once to ask for food, but Thérèse sent her packing, the little slut. The Germans took all her produce anyway. She always spat in the cans before she handed the milk over; made sure the rats had got to the grain. Her muscles hardened, her breasts shrank to nothing, her hair was short, her face bronzed and lined. She chopped wood. She mended the roof when a hailstorm shattered some tiles. She harvested what little maize was left after the German soldiers had used the field for target practice. Sweat soaked her back but she was proud.

            And even as she dreams, the starlings stab the plump kernels with their thieving beaks. But it is no longer her concern. Stiff joints and dwindling funds forced her to sell her land to the Mayor twenty years ago. Now he rents it out to old Monsieur Tapis, who is waiting for the harvester to come and curses the starlings.

 

Brigitte finds a stone as white and smooth as a sugared almond. She kicks it up the steep hill, past the church and cemetery. Then she kicks it too fiercely and loses it in a ditch. She searches for a while before losing interest. It is only a stone and Cailloux-Sainte Cecile is full of stones.

            When she looks up she sees a wrinkled old woman folded in sleep on a bentwood chair. Her hands flutter in agitation, although her eyes are firmly shut. She must be dreaming, thinks Brigitte. She can't imagine what an ugly old woman with wrinkles as deep as plough furrows has to dream about.

            She has reached the top of the village. The road ends at the gates of the walled graveyard. Brigitte isn't interested in graveyards. In a field beside the old woman's house is a gnarled apple tree, propped up by a metal rod. She picks an apple, but it is small and sour. She tosses it to some scratching hens.

            The church clock strikes. One. Two. Brigitte rubs her hands against the bark of the apple tree. It is old and gnarled. Everything in this village is old.

            The church clock strikes again. One. Two. Why does it strike twice, she wonders. Which one is the right time, the first or the second strike? They can't both be right. Does time stand still between the two strikes? Such things worry her.

 

            Yes, the old woman dreams, she ran that farm well. She could still have it now had that cow not gone into labour when it did. She had struggled with it for hour upon hour as day darkened to night. The beast was already exhausted by the time she found the birthing ropes.

            To her annoyance and shame, she did not have the strength to use them. She ran down the hill and banged on doors but no-one wanted to help proud Thérèse. In the end she was forced to try the café.

            Natalie opened the door. From behind her steamed a rich, fatty mixture of garlic and red meat, along with the sound of music and drunken German voices. Natalie looked flushed. They could have been friends had Therese known Natalie's love for Thierry and her contempt for the Germans: had she known that she cried herself to sleep every night ashamed of the way her mother indulged her visitors. But Therese only saw a pretty girl in the house of the enemy.

            "One of my cows is in trouble. I need help."

            "What do you want me to do?" said Natalie, glancing behind her. "I know nothing about animals."

            "Do you think I don't know that? Find someone who does, idiot."

            "Who?" Laughter breaks out behind her. "I must go."

            Thérèse thrusts a boot into the closing door. "If that cow dies, so do you, Slut."

            Tears trembled on Natalie's eyelashes. "I'll try."

            Thérèse grabbed her hair that slipped like silk in her fingers. "You'd better. Slut."

            "It's not what you think."

            "How dare you presume to know what I think?"

            Thérèse stomped back to the barn. From time to time the cow moaned. In the corner of the barn rats scuttled under the straw. Thérèse cursed Natalie and cursed herself for having to ask her.

            It was almost dawn when she heard the barn door creak open. "Where the hell have you been?" But it wasn't Natalie.

            "I saw the light," the soldier said in good French. "Is there a problem?"

She hadn't seen him before. He was very young. His ears stuck out at right-angles from cruelly cropped hair.

            "The calf's stuck. I think it's dead." Thérèse cocked her head towards the cow, now lying on its side, breathing in shallow gasps.

            "I can help, please?"

            Thérèse snorted.

            "I am a farmer's son. My name is Helmut."

            Thérèse couldn't imagine any farms in Germany. That country was one big factory with belching chimneys and red furnaces forging bullets to shoot Frenchmen. But she needed help. "Help yourself," she shrugged.

            Helmut placed his gun carefully across a hay-bale. Thérèse saw how he had held it as if it was something he had found in his hands without knowing who had put it there or why. He removed his shirt and went over to the cow. His pale chest gleamed in the dim light. He murmured something in the cow's ear; something Thérèse couldn't understand so it sounded like a magic spell to her. The cow staggered to its feet.

            "Bring the lamp closer," he said. He examined the cow, all the time whispering in its ear, blowing in its nostrils. `There are two calves and their limbs are tangled." He thrust his arm into the birth canal and pushed and twisted inside. Thérèse stood by, feeling as soft and useless as Natalie, who had let her down.

            It took an hour to coax the first calf out. Finally, it lay panting on the damp straw, weak, but alive. Helmut pushed it closer to its mother who began to lick its wet face. "The other's not ready yet. We wait."

            "So, you live on a farm?" Thérèse asked awkwardly.

            Helmut looked away. `Yes. It was a good farm, once. The soil is dark and rich, not stony like here. The cow stirred and his mood suddenly changed. "Quick. Quick. Put your arms round my waist. Yes, that's it. Now. Together. Pull!"

            Thérèse wrapped her arms about his naked chest. She could smell his body, a rich mixture of sweat and good, rich earth. She watched as the snout of the calf emerged. She gripped Helmut more tightly in her excitement. But he had relaxed his hold on the rope as the calf slipped out with ease, still enveloped in its soft wet membrane. Down they both went, the bloody straw greasing their feet. They still clung together, rolling about, trying to regain their balance and dignity. As the soldier struggled to right himself, he almost flattened the flailing new-born.

            Thérèse cried out a warning "No! No! Get off! Get off!"

            There was a flash and a sharp explosion that shook the rafters. Something whistled past her ear and the boy slumped in her arms. Thérèse pulled herself up and stared at the man who had fired the shot. It was Thierry. Natalie was clinging to his shirt, screaming. Behind them an angry dawn slashed a blooded blade between the sky and the land.

            "You fool!" Thérèse snarled at Natalie. "You stupid, little fool." She cradled Helmut's head in her arm. He stared back at her, a look of astonishment across his kind, dead eyes. Still Natalie screamed.

            "Shut up or we're all dead."

            Too late. The doors swung wide open. A pack of Germans rushed in. Saw Helmut's mangled corpse and Thierry with his gun. Thérèse grabbed Natalie and pulled her down. Thierry was too slow. After he fell, the soldiers went on a rampage around the village. Anyone who was unfortunate enough to step out of their doors was shot. Bullets flew from building to building pock-marking the stone.

 

Old Monsieur Tapis pulls on his boots, picks up his gun from the table and strides out into the sunshine. He points his rifle up and through the dry stems. Once, Twice. Again. Again. A volley of shots rises higher than the tower of the church.

            With them rise a cloud of starlings. Never had he seen so many together, Monsieur Tapis later tells anyone who will listen. A hundred, maybe two hundred erupt like a black volcano, darkening the sky into night before wheeling off in the wake of the gunshots.

            They settle on the village roofs, on the telegraph wires, the walls, gravestones and washing lines. They jostle on their makeshift roosts, lifting and flapping their black wings, circling the sky, landing, taking off, uncertain, bewildered.

            Thérèse wakes with a jolt. The sound of gunfire, the smell of blood and fear and hatred pounding through her old bones. She stands up unfolding like a rusty umbrella. Sees armed soldiers circling her, black as death. Sees Natalie awash with tears clinging to her dead love. "He was helping me, you fool. He was a fine young man and you killed him. Slut! You killed my brother. You shamed us all." She lifts her apron to her face and sobs.

            Brigitte watches the starlings as they whirl about the old woman. She is not afraid of them, but the old woman is terrified. She is raving like a mad-woman.

            She runs to her, places her small hand on her shoulder. "See, Madame. They are only birds. They will not hurt you. Leave them and they will return to the fields." And sure enough as Brigitte leads her back to her chair, the birds rise one by one and flap back to the maize. Soon they are filling their beaks once more.      The church clock strikes. One. Two.

            The village waits trembling between the past and the present.

            The church clocks strikes again. One. Two.

            Thérèse grunts. Afraid? Who says she's afraid? She begins to speak, but the child interrupts.

            "Why does the church clock always strike twice?"

            "It doesn't. Go away child and leave me in peace."

           

"Well, well," smiles Natalie, fluffing up her hair, as Brigitte later tells her about the birds and the old woman. `So you met the old witch of Cailloux-Sainte-Cecile."

            "She looked so sad, Grandmaman."

            "I tried to tell her. But she would never listen."

            "Grandmaman?"

            "Yes, ma petite?"

            "Why does the church clock always strike twice?"

            "It leaves time for wrongs to be righted and mistakes forgiven."

            But Thérèse only ever hears the clock strike once. She picks up her chair and goes back inside her house, locking the door behind her.

Sunday Serial: The Story Weaver and Other Tales by Sally Zigmund, SNAP DECISION, thin soup

 

SNAP DECISION

 

‘Jesus, Mary, what’s all this junk?’

      Bridie Durcan emerged, rump first, from under my bed and brushed dust from her starched apron. ‘No wonder you wheeze.’

‘That junk, Mrs Durcan, is the story of my life. Destroy that and I might as well be dead.’

She wagged an accusatory finger. ‘We’ll not have that now I’m in charge.’

In charge? She’d only entered my life the day before. She was the compromise I’d accepted when I told them I wasn’t going into a home. Me, one of the enfants terribles of the late twentieth century—in a home? Andy Warhol called me his mentor (mind you, he was pissed at the time) and David Bailey told The Irish Times I taught him everything he knew—and more.

 And Bridie Durcan itched to throw it all away.

She returned later with a plateful of something suspiciously like dog food with a side-serving of shamrock, propped me up and spooned it into my mouth, wiping my dribbles with a napkin. Oh, how are the mighty fallen.

‘So you took snaps, did you, before you took the cloth?’ she said. ‘Any good, were they?’

‘Any good? I’ll have you know I was brilliant. None of this digital stuff then, you know. It took skill, deadly poisons swilling about in trays and drying prints pegged across my dark room as stiff as nuns’ knickers.’

‘Is that so? A little less chatting and more eating, if you don’t mind then you can have some afters. You won’t have tasted anything like my rice pudding.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ I said. ‘Will I need a knife and fork?’

‘And less of your cheek.’

 

One thing I soon learned about Bridie Durcan was that she never gave up. She burst in the next day, armed to the teeth with brush, bucket, dustpan and a fistful of bin-bags. ‘Let’s blitz this germ factory right now.’

            That was it. I swung my legs out of the bed but I hadn’t reckoned on the lethal hospital corners she insisted on which welded my to the bed. They grabbed my legs as I launched a flying tackle against the offending weapons of mass destruction. ‘Over my dead body!’ I shouted.

My prophecy was almost fulfilled. I ended up on the floor, with my pyjama trousers round my ankles and one of my coughing fits.

 

We looked though my ‘junk’ after supper. Bridie was unimpressed. Not even by the series Yoko Ono had raved about in Time Magazine. She took no interest in the composition, the placing of shadow and light, the depth of field. A stunning monochrome of Marilyn Monroe elicited a pitying shake of her head and Woody Allen gazing towards Times Square, a sharp, odd little man.’

            Given her limited artistic eye, it wasn’t long before the only item left was an old biscuit tin. She spent so long prising off the rusted lid that I felt dying would have been the more exciting option.

Then. ‘Jesus!’ and a hundred unframed prints sprang free like Jack from a box and slid to the floor.

            ‘Now these are much more interesting,’ she said, stooping to pick them up. ‘Is that your mother? Oh and this must be you—weren’t you the darling boy in your little trousers and school cap?’ On and on she went. I closed my eyes.

It was the silence that woke me. I looked at her. Her face was radiant and she was praying.

            Between her trembling fingers she held a small black and white print. Did you take this?’

            ‘You’ll miss the last bus if you don’t go now.’

‘Well, did you?’

‘Of course I bloody well took it.’

‘Then, look at it, you silly man.’

I snatched it from her. My God.

 

I couldn’t have been more than twenty. I was on my way home to my flat after a particularly wild party and was probably full of happy pills, magic mushrooms and a lot more besides. It was January, well after midnight, and a mist was rising from the Liffey and drifting through the narrow streets. Anyway, I was soon lost. I staggered about for hours, slowly sobering up and feeling like Hell.

            It began to rain. I turned a corner and there he was. An old man staring into the window of a harp shop, of all places, as if selecting the model to take with him into the afterlife. He was stooped; snowy haired and his eyes couldn’t have been up to much by the way he was struggling to focus. What the hell was he doing out at that time of night?

            My Leica was in my shoulder-bag. It was my talisman then, my fetish, my religion. I couldn’t wait. I wanted that shot. I would have killed for that shot.

Nothing mattered but me and him. It was the first time I’d felt something beyond me, more important than me. He remained oblivious to me as I prowled around him, seeking the perfect shot.

I pressed the shutter once. When I looked up, he’d gone.

            I developed that photograph the next day. I watched the man emerge again like a ghost from the blank paper and take shape and I knew it was the last photograph I would ever take. I put it away with all the others and never looked at any of them again—until now.

            ‘Well?’ said Bridie.

            I didn’t have to say anything. What wasn’t clear then, was now. The man in the photograph; the man my arrogant, selfish, pleasure-seeking self had snapped, was me; me as I am now. White-haired, half-blind, arthritic. Dying.

            Bridie turned her gaze from me to the crucifix above the bed. ‘It was a sign.’

            ‘Maybe.’

            There’s no ‘maybe’ about it, Father Kerrigan. Now how about a nice mug of cocoa before I tuck you in for the night?’

            I nodded. ‘Only, this time, spare me your hospital corners.’