Kevin Barry - There Are Little Kingdoms

‘Al?’ he smiled. ‘You remember Al?’

‘Of course,’ I said, though in truth it was vague. I remembered a slip of a child, a pale face, hadn’t he, blue-veined I think, one of those cold-looking young fellas.

‘Sure isn’t he inside,’ beamed Thomas, and he called out:

‘Al! Come here I want you!’

Alan Cremins, in chef pants and a sweat-drenched tee-shirt, with a tureen’s ladle in his hand, stepped through the swing doors of the kitchen and he smiled at me, a somewhat foxed smile.

‘Fitz?’ he said.

Grotesque! Horrible! A child’s head on a full-grown man’s body! I legged it. What else could I do? Away into the winter streets, these malignant streets, and I raved somewhat at the falling skies: you couldn’t but forgive me for that.

By and by, anger overtook my despair. Frankly, I’d had enough of this messing for one day. I raised the collars of my jacket and dug my hands into the pockets of my trousers. I hunched my shoulders against the knifing wind. The sky was heavy with snow, and it began to fall, and each drop had taken on the stain of the town before it hit the pavement. Chestnut sellers huddled inside their ancient greatcoats. Beggars whittled the dampness off sticks to keep the barrel fires stoked. The talkshops sang in dissonant voices. Tyres squealed angrily in the slush. Black dogs roamed in packs. We were all of us in the town bitten with cold, whipped by the wind, utterly ravaged by this mean winter, but we stomped along, regardless, like one of those marvellously tragic Russian armies one reads about.

Of course, yes. The obvious explanation did present itself, and as I slipped along the streets, heading north out of town, I considered it. If the dead were all around me, was it conceivable that I myself had joined their legion ranks? Was this heaven or hell on the North Circular Road? A ludicrous idea, clearly — I was in far too much pain not to be alive. I soldiered on. I began to wind my way slowly westwards and the streets quietened of commerce and became small terrace streets, and toothless crones huddled in the sad grogshops, and from somewhere there was the scrape of a plaintive fiddle. A man with a walrus moustache came along, all purposeful, and he passed a handbill to me. It announced a public meeting the Saturday coming: Larkin was the promised speaker, his topic predictably dreary.

I made it to the park, and it was desolate, with nobody at all to be seen, and it calmed me to walk there. I came across some of the park’s tame deer. They were huddled behind a windbreak of trees, and I stopped to watch them. The tough-skinned bucks seemed comfortable enough in the extreme weather, but the does and the fawns had to work hard at it — there were rolling shudders of effort along their flanks as they took down the cold air, and the display of this was a symptom of glorious life, and my heart rose.

Fawns! I was clearly in a highly emotional state, and I thought it best to make a move for home. Jesus’ sake, Fitzy, I said, come on out of it, will you, before they arrive with the nets.

I went into the northwestern suburbs of the town, the patch that I had made my home, and I allowed no stray thoughts. By sheer force of will, I would put the events of the afternoon behind me. I made it at last to my quiet, residential street in my quiet, residential suburb. I rent there the ground floor of an ageing semi, and the situation I find ideal. I have a sitting room, a lounge, a neat, single man’s bedroom, and a pleasant, light kitchen from which French doors open to a small, oblong garden, and to this I have sole access. I turned the key and stepped inside. I brushed the dirty snow from my shoulders, and I allowed the weight of the day to slide from me with the chalkstripe jacket. I blew on my hands to warm them. I went through to the kitchen area and drank a glass of water. I then pulled open the French doors and stepped outside.

I stepped into glorious summer. The fruit trees were full in bloom, and it was the dense languor of July heat, unmistakable, and I unfolded my striped deckchair and sat back in it. The transistor was by my feet and I turned it on for the gentle strings, for the swoons and lulls of the afternoon concert. I removed my galoshes and my shoes and stockings, and I stretched ten pale toes on the white-hot concrete of the patio. I unfolded my handkerchief and tied it about my head. I turned up the sleeves of my shirt, and opened the top three pearl buttons to reveal an amount of scrawny chest. I listened: to the soft stir of the notes, and the trills and scratchings of insect life all around, and the efficient buzzing of the hedge strimmers, and the children of the vicinity at play. They played crankily in the sun, and it was my experience that the hot days could make the children come over rather evil-eyed and scary, beyond mere mischief, and sometimes on the warm nights they lurked till all hours around the streets, they hid from me in the shadows, and played unpleasant tricks, startling me out of my skin as I walked home from the off-licence.

Drinks were all I was required to provide for myself. Since I had begun this lease, I found that the shelves daily replenished themselves. Nothing fancy, but sufficient: fresh fruit and veg, wholemeal breads, small rations of lean meat and tinned fish, rice and pasta, tubs of stir-in sauce, leaf tea, occasionally some chocolate for a treat. I had a small money tin in the kitchen, and each time I opened it, it contained precisely eight euro and ninety-nine cent, which was the cost of a drinkable rioja at the nearby branch of Bargain Booze. Utilities didn’t seem to be an issue — no bills arrived. In fact, there was no mail from anywhere, ever.

The phone, however, was another matter. Sometimes, it seemed as if the thing never stopped, and it rang now, and I sighed deeply in my deckchair, and I lifted my ageless limbs. I went inside to it — summoned! The power of the little fucker.

‘Uphi uBen?’ said the voice. ‘Le yindawo la wafa khona?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I replied, wearily. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. Didn’t get a word.’

‘Ngifanele ukukhuluma naye.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not getting this at all. Thank you.’

I hung up, and waited, for the calls always came in threes, and sure enough, it immediately rang again.

‘Chce rozmawiac z Maria! Musze powiedziec jej, ze ja kocham!’

‘Please!’ I said. ‘Don’t you speak any English at all?’

‘For sure,’ he said, and hung up.

The third call was promptly put through.

‘An bhfuil Tadgh ann? An bhfaca tú Tadhg?’

‘I don’t know any Tadhgs!’ I cried. ‘I haven’t seen any Tadhgs!’

I’d complained several times to the Exchange, for all the good it had done me, but I thought I may as well try again. I dialled the three-digit number and was quickly connected to a faceless agent. The Exchange was part of the apparatus of the State that seemed to be a law onto itself. I gave my name and my citizen tag-number.

‘I’m getting the calls again,’ I said. ‘It’s been a bad week, it’s been practically every day this week and sometimes at night, too. Can you imagine what this is doing to my nerves? There’s been no improvement at all. You promised it would improve!’

‘Who promised, sir?’

‘One of your agents.’

‘Which agent, sir?’

‘How would I know? I wasn’t given the agent i.d., was I?’

‘No you were not, sir. We are hardly permitted to enter into personal terms with citizens of the State. It would be untoward, sir. This is the Exchange, sir.’

‘Well how can I tell if…’

‘Please hold.’

A maudlin rendition of ‘Spanish Harlem’, on trumpet, and I whistled along, miserably. I had fallen into melancholy — the drab old routine of these days can get to a soul. But I was determined not to hang up. They expect you to hang up, you see, and in this way, they can proceed, they can get away with their thoughtlessness. The music faded out, and I was given a series of fresh options.