Colum McCann - Fishing the Sloe-Black River

Liam’s huge bicycle with the purple mudguards! Orla winning the footrace at the County Fair! You burning the pot roast the day Haughey resigned! The holiday in Bray, and Eoin walking the promenade and his hat blowing off and the seagull leaving a dollop on his head! Me oh my. Haven’t we had the life of it? And the things we remember! Him ranting and raving and effing and blinding all over the place, what with that seagull stuff all over his handkerchief! Moira, I could talk all night, but look at me here, and I still haven’t finished your eyes, not to mention the lipstick and everyone due to see you shortly. I better get cracking.

Seems like half the town went to the airport today to pick up people flying in. Shannon and Dublin. They’ll be in later today to say hello. Even young Fiachra. Him and his tulips from Amsterdam. What a scoundrel he is. Okay, now, this color is just perfect. Coal green fading out gently. Perfect. It really is. Makes you look like a million dollars. You recall Fiachra, and him hardly having a hair on his head until he was three years old? Just never grew, did it? You taking him down to the supermarket on Main Street when Ciara was down sick with the flu in seventy-six. And that old bat, Mrs. Roche, coming up to you and asking why in the world you’d allow your grandson to have all his hair shaved off. And then her whispering in your ear: “Was it your sister Eileen who gave him that awful haircut?” And you smacking her in the jaw with a cauliflower for the implication! Ah Lord, how I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall. Serves her right. Anyway, I know it’s rude to whisper, but did you know that her youngest is up the pole, as they say? True as God, Moira. Six months gone. What do you make of that?

Here we go, and we’ll get the extra smudge off the eyelashes. We’ll be done awful soon. Just let me get the lipstick absolutely right. That’s the most important thing, I always say. Get the lips right and you’ve the battle won. Launch a thousand ships, you will. Here we go. Yes. Ah-ha. Pencil first, of course. You and Sean at your wedding, that’s the funniest photograph. Him standing outside the church, all that confetti over his shoulders, a smile on him to beat the band, the lily in his breast pocket, all the people milling around and right there — smack dab in the middle of his cheek — that huge lipstick mark. Spent half the morning getting the lipstick just right and then you went and smeared it all over his cheek. Lord, woman! Those were the days! Listen to me ramble, and a hundred people waiting to see you. Mrs. Burden made the sandwiches and Tommy Farrell got a ton of whiskey for the evening, Father Colligan’s the one to say mass, and Miss Bennet, from the school, is putting together some lovely flowers. This lipstick is really something special, let me tell you, makes your lips full and really compliments you. Estée Lauder, if you don’t mind! Pale rose.

Talking like a runaway train, I am. Ah, but you were never able to get a word in edgewise, were you, Moira? Always me rattling away, no matter what. From day one on. And, sure, I’ll visit you every week. Sean has got a lovely quiet spot, not too far from where your young Liam is. The only thing is that the old factory’s going to belch up the odd bit of smoke in your way, otherwise you’d probably have a clear vision almost all the way to Dublin. A few yards away from that huge old chestnut tree you’ll be. And never lonely, what with the boys out gathering conkers and me, myself, I’ll come out there and run my mouth off as usual. Yes indeed. Now, I better get a grip of myself, because I promised myself I wasn’t going to cry. And you know when I make a promise to myself. But I’ll tell you, and here’s another promise now.

You know what I’m going to do next week? Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to buy a packet of sunflower seeds. That’s what I’m going to do. To hell with everything else. Down in McKenna’s. Going to go to McKenna’s, buy myself a little trowel and some fertilizer. That’s what I’m going to do. Wear my old clogs and my big hat. Walk out to the chestnut tree. Plant the seeds, away from the shade. Then sit back and watch them grow. Every day. And if anybody comes along with a snippety-snip, I’ll knock them arse-over-backwards into the middle of next week. And that’s a promise. From me to you. Water them every day. Now let me just take a step back here and have a look at you. Just going to step back. Water them every day. Ah-ha. Just going to stand here. Just a moment now. That’s what I’m going to do.

Moira, let me tell you something. Let me tell you. You look smashing. You really do. You really, really do. Absolutely smashing. A lovely peaceful smile on you. My God, you look smashing. Really, really smashing.

I used to love the way she painted quarters. There were many fabulous colors that she could concoct on them. Don’t ask me how she got them to stick, because she had big stubby fingers for a little woman, and she must have used a very small paintbrush. But I’d come home from work in the evenings around five or six and she’d be in the back greenhouse, which we had turned into a little studio, and she’d be bent over the table, just all caught up in making these coins look colorful. She never really let me come into the studio. That was her space. There were times that I’d watch her from the kitchen and she would just billow around in her big white apron, past all the flowerpots, like she was being blown around by that big fan. Dallas is hot anyway in the summer, but this was so hot you could fry eggs in there.

I never saw the quarters until one Saturday afternoon when she was out canoeing the Brazos with Jeanie. I was trying to fix her old Karmen Ghia, looking for a screwdriver so I could take the clips off the distributor cap. They were rusted on. So I went into the greenhouse, where I reckoned there were some extra tools, and all these coins were out lying on the table. There were rows and rows of them, all painted.

The eagle sometimes had these weird multi-colored wings. Sometimes there was a small picture — a television, a radio tower, a car — on the eagle’s chest. The olive branch was always yellow for some reason. The strangest ones were when you could see into George Washington’s cranium. I mean, here’s this guy that everyone goes nuts about, father of the country and all that, then all of a sudden he’s got a tiny picture of an apple in his brainbox, or weird animals on that big curl of hair at the back, or he’s wearing lipstick, or that little tail down the back of his wig looks like a map of Central America. Then there was always these little dots along the year. 1974 had yellow dots, 1989 had green ones, that sort of weird stuff. Then, in all the spaces, there were these psychedelic colours. She colored in the writing, and one of them said, in bright pink, IN O WE TRUST, where she didn’t color in the G or the D.

I’ve never been much into modern art or anything. I mean, I like Remington and stuff, but not that other crap. But this wasn’t crap, see. This was kind of funny, really. I liked them.

Laura wasn’t pleased when she found out that I’d been in there. “That’s my studio, for crissake.” She said the my real loud.

“It’s my house,” I said.

“It’s my work.”

“You’re my wife.”

“And you’re my goddamn husband.”

We’d been married for three years, and it was around Valentine’s Day, but we’d both forgotten. Maybe it was all the work I was doing in the labs — I was a lab assistant to a professor who was building phylogenetic trees of sparrows, breaking down their DNA and grouping them — sometimes ten, twelve hours a day. She liked to draw all the time. She was from a good family, her father was an investment banker in Houston, and I guess she spent a lot of her teenage years doing paintings.