Mike McCormack - Solar Bones

she recounted these things, lending proper weight to all the detail but careful not to linger too much and have her story bogged down while at the same time trying to rein in her enthusiasm because the tremor of excitement in her voice was obvious as was the strain it put on her trying to dampen it down, a young woman not yet so far gone in adulthood that she could not be gusted away on a sudden burst of excitement, and for the first time — out of nowhere — I found myself wondering why she never seemed to have a boyfriend or suitor of any sort, had no one ever breached that standoffishness which was her front to the world or was that just a polished shell behind which there was a lonely and uncertain young woman in her prime and despite my troubles, sitting there at the table, there was space enough within me for a wave of anxiety to course through my entire body at the very idea that my daughter might be lonely in some way unknown to herself, that so early in her life she might have mistaken her own aloneness as a type of serenity, a destiny of her own choosing which she had successfully passed off to herself as an heroic isolation while of course there was

about her also the awareness that all this stuff about her exhibition was merely background noise, a preamble to our main theme which was of course the current status of the crypto outbreak, the latest news, which in spite of my fatherly solicitude was what I really wanted to know and this was where I gave my full attention because even if her reports changed little with the passing days my own need-to-know required daily updates which confirmed that

with its engineers still unable to identify the source of the contamination, the boil-water notice would hold throughout the city for the foreseeable future so instead, much was being made by City Hall of the new treatment facility which was under construction, an ultra-modern installation adjacent to the existing plant comprised of an infrared filtration system which would supplement the existing barrier-membrane in zapping those biological particles and organic matter which managed to pass through it and all of which would ensure that the city’s water supply would far exceed existing standards of purity for years into the future, but when pressed the spokesman admitted that the commissioning and construction of such a facility presented very real engineering difficulties and the projected completion date lay at least some months into the future, a snag which took much of the gloss off the news and caused the citizenry to throw up their hands in dismay, shaking their heads in disbelief and exercising once more a wholly expanded lexicon of frustration, while the tourist and hospitality sector ground its teeth and prophesied untold damage to the city’s economy, not to mention lasting damage to the city’s global reputation as a cultural destination and

there appears to be no end to the incompetence of the city authorities

Agnes affirmed with a tired sarcasm which was new to her and not pleasant to hear in someone who till so recently had never voiced any political opinion whatsoever as far as I could remember, her having viewed with indifference every news programme that happened to be on television or radio as if the wider upheavals of the world had nothing to do with her whatsoever, which in truth they may not have because she was of that generation born to a world of plenty, never knowing what it was to do without or what it was to be frugal and thereby never having developed the coping skills to deal with any reversal, economic or political or civic like this one which must have baffled her, come as some shock to her, this dramatic instance of civil incompetence which had caused the illness of so many people and listening to her it was difficult not to feel glad on the one hand that she had finally woken up to the world in one of its less capable moods while, on the other, upset that she should be put upon in any way whatsoever — a father’s rush to protect his child from everything, even her own innocence with the

long and the short of the whole thing being

that the boil-water notice would hold for another month at least or for as long as the number of cases needing hospital admission continued to rise, not rising so steeply now but still touching four hundred, a sickening populace evenly drawn from all areas of the city, the older working-class estates north of the river across to the newer, middle-class enclaves in the south ward, which stretches along the coast road, the virus favouring no particular demographic or area, everyone familiar now with the sight of bulk water carriers pulling into housing estates and cul-de-sacs with mothers and kids queueing up to fill plastic containers, this image now an established shorthand for the whole crisis across print and broadcast media and

that was it, those were the facts as far as the crisis itself was concerned, Agnes telling them quickly but with a child’s eagerness to be as comprehensive as possible, as if a complete recital with all the trimmings might be conclusive and exhaustive, a sort of vanquishing spell set against it which would drain it of some essential vigour and displace it into some adjacent world where it would be rendered harmless, turning on itself and chewing itself into oblivion and

as I listened something in me leaked towards her and, in that awkward, faltering way of middle-aged men with mature daughters I found myself trying to assure her that everything would turn out all right, this was merely one of those things which the passing of time would make harmless and someday soon Mairead would be up and about her work with a smile on her face and a song on her lips, telling her in as soothing a tone as I could manage that

your mother is fine Agnes, don’t worry, yes she’s definitely improving, and she’s not as fevered as yesterday — she drank a small cup of soup today — the first thing she’s managed to hold down in three days so that’s a good sign and her sleep is not so broken any more, none of that awful thrashing around under the sheets which she suffered during the first days so all in all she has every sign of getting better and stronger, but of course there is no use me telling you that she’ll be back to anything like her real strength for a little while and

my sense of these words dropping into a void as they came out of my mouth filled me with despair, something so feeble about them it was hardly credible that they could be of any comfort to anyone since they would do little whatsoever but embarrass both of us, this awkward attempt at soothing my daughter which drove our conversation into a pregnant lull from which she eventually took sudden inspiration to put us both out of our misery with a bright account of what she had planned for the weekend, yet another of those awkward trips or jaunts she always seemed to be taking on her own to some small town or village in the middle of the country, jaunts which involved bus connections and waiting alone at rain-swept country stations, field work she sometimes described them as but none of which, now that I thought of it, ever sounded hopeful or fun as these excursions were always enveloped in some aura of penitence, something of the pilgrimage about them which was dismaying to hear in a way that was difficult to grasp but which lodged like smoke in my soul, nagging and anxious-making but nevertheless I told her to have a great time and I could hear her subside with relief that the call was finally at an end and that she had once more successfully done her job, fulfilled the role of the dutiful daughter so that now she would sign off with

oh, I nearly forgot

yes,

two things, first, I’ve told Darragh about Mam, I let it slip last night when I was talking to him — I know you wanted to keep it from him but

there was no point in getting him worried