John Lynch - Torn Water

His mother had slowly placed her fork on the plate and stood, carefully pulling the creases free in her skirt. Then she had walked to where he was standing. She had clamped her hands beneath his armpits and lifted him up, then slammed him back into his seat. He had landed with a jolting shudder that banged his jaw shut. She had leaned very close into his face, and had wordlessly cautioned him, her eyes unblinkingly facing his.

It is the end of the second week of Sully's return. They are on Sully time: everything his mother says and does revolves around him. She is standing by the kitchen door. Her hair is mussed; a piece of toast hangs from her lips. Sully has just left, having stayed the night. He's only back and already they're playing Happy Families.

‘Sully wants to take you see Northern Ireland play.’

‘I don't like Northern Ireland,’ James says.

‘What's that supposed to mean? You're Irish, aren't you?’

‘That's what I mean.’

‘Oh, don't start that. Football's just football.’

‘No, it's not.’

‘he's making a real effort this time, Jimmy. Come on, meet him half-way.’

‘Why are you back with him?’

‘That's between him and me.’

‘No, it's not. I live here too … or had you forgotten?’

‘Don't be cheeky or – ’

‘Or what, Mum? Or what? You'll get Sully for me?’

‘Jesus.’

He slams the door on his way out and glares at Mrs McCracken as she stands in her doorway opposite theirs, her eyes lifting disapprovingly from the untouched pile of logs to meet his. ‘Is someone going to do something about those logs?’

But he ignores her and begins to walk towards the town.

‘Here, son, this is for you …’

He can remember looking up into Teezy's eyes as he took the photograph from her. He can remember the look on her face as if it was about to break.

‘That's your daddy.’

It was a small, dog-eared photograph of a man standing against a hill, squinting into the sunlight, right hand raised playfully to his face.

‘He died for Ireland … Sssh,’ she had said, as if the world was listening.

‘Sssh,’ he had replied, cooing it up into her face. ‘Sssh.’

‘Now, no more astronauts, no more stories. They only upset your mammy.’

‘Sssh.’

For days afterwards he had wandered around, whispering it within earshot of the grown-ups. ‘Sssh,’ he remembers saying, putting his small face close to his mother's. ‘Sssh.’

‘It's our secret. It's our private story,’ Teezy had said, as she had given him the photo. ‘Wasn't he a fine-looking man? As fine as Ireland herself.’

‘Sssh,’ he had said.

‘This is your father … He died for Ireland.’

He remembers how he had looked at the worn photograph, at the slender figure that grinned at him through the fallen years. Sometimes now he would bring it out from its hiding-place and quietly gaze at it, his eyes hunting its held landscape. He would hold the photo delicately as if it was made of silk. At other times he would quietly curse the man, damn him for leaving, hate him for his absence, his fingernails digging into the photo's edge so that they left crescent-shaped marks.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

‘Watch where you're going, sunshine.’

‘Sorry.’ He looks up into the fuck-you face of Malachy O'Hare, the estate hard man.

‘IRA or Prod?’

‘What?’

‘IRA or Prod?’

James looks across at Malachy's troops, small, hard-faced boys. ‘For fuck's sake, IRA.’

‘Don't curse when you say it. Don't disrespect the flag.’

‘Sorry … IRA.’ He goes to slide past them, careful not to look any of them directly in the eye.

‘Hold on a minute, sunshine. Do us one of your deaths.’

‘What?’

‘Jimmy Lavery, the Death Machine. Do us one of your deaths.’

‘Give us a break.’

‘Do one … or else.’ He raises a large fist to the tip of James's nose.

‘OK.’

‘Good man yourself.’ Malachy's face breaks into a big, muggy smile. ‘What have you got for us today?’

James looks skywards, and after a moment he says, ‘Well, there's this astronaut … and he's lost his mother ship …’

‘An Irish astronaut?’ Malachy asks.

‘Yeah, an Irish astronaut.’

An Astronaut's Final Message

Time: 0900 hours

Location: Support Capsule

The Erin Galaxy

Date: 12 Dec 2157

Message Received From: Captain Conn Lavery.

Dear Ann and Little Jimmy ,

By the time you receive this transmission I will be dead. As I write this I am slowly suffocating. For the last hour I have been using my spacesuits reserve tank of oxygen, but even that now has begun to fail. The mother ship is ablaze, I can see it beyond, through my small porthole window, and it looks like a devil's eye, hot and fiery. All my comrades are aboard her, good strong men, with only one love in their lives: Ireland. It is strange to think that I will never see either of you again, that I will never hold you close and feel the full warmth of your bodies.

I hope you both remember me fondly, as a true Irish spaceman. We fought hard, my son, harder than you can ever know. We repelled the alien hordes three times before their greater military strength began to tell. We all die, son, we all die, and we must be grateful for the time we have had together. It is strange to think that space will be my grave; the huge black belly of space will be a mausoleum for my bones. Look after your mammy, my son. Let no one come between her and my memory. I love you both dearly, more than you can know. I have decided to leave my capsule, the oxygen has gone, and the little I have left in my spacesuit I'm hoping will sustain me on my walk to meet the face of God. I'm stepping clear of the capsule now … Air is going quicker than I thought. I love you both. Look for a new star tonight in the sky.

Love for as long as there is any, Captain Conn Lavery.

End Of Transmission.

He is following Mr Shannon, scrambling behind him, trying to keep up with his long strides, down High Street and across the Mall. The streets are full of schoolchildren scurrying for buses and with shoppers flitting in and out of stores.

‘Keep up, Lavery, keep up. You're letting the side down, old boy.’

Shannon seems to glide along on his own current of air, swaying to avoid a pack of schoolgirls, tipping his head in greeting to people he knows. James collides with a small dog, its body contracting into yelps as his foot finds its paw. Shannon comes to a halt and looks back at the dog, hopping around on three legs, and at James scurrying after it.

‘Hit it a boot in the hoop, Lavery, and look lively. Tempus fugit. Good day, Mrs O'Rourke.’

Mrs O'Rourke stares at James and pushes him away as he tries to make amends with her dog. ‘Clear off, you hooligan.’

‘I'm sorry,’ he whimpers.

‘Piss off before I take a lump out of you. Good afternoon, Mr Shannon, you're looking well this fine day.’

‘One can but try, Mrs O'Rourke, one can but try.’

He watches as Shannon struts away from him, delicately sidestepping a pushchair, full of fruit and groceries.

Mr A. G. S. Shannon is James's English teacher, ‘a force for literature’, as he likes to call himself. James can remember the first time Shannon had stood before him in classroom G14, seven years before, giving his new English lit charges the once-over. He wore moccasins and James can remember their slap on the floor as he paced, his heels making a small sucking noise as his feet travelled back and forth. His hair in those days was a Brylcreemed black with a kiss-curl that fell daintily across his wide forehead. It was his belly, though, that fascinated James: it was large; it seemed to begin at his sternum and end at his groin. James thought it looked as if it had been grafted on to his body for it seemed at odds with the relatively slender man that carried it.