Mike McCormack - Solar Bones

put her into first to

turn out onto the main road and moved her up through the gears I experienced a shameless, rising joy in my heart as if finally, for the first time in a long while I was hearing something good, something which was not of this world’s raucous tumult but which spoke of that harmonic order which underlay everyone and everything, the gentle vibrations running through my spine and up my arms so that after a few miles I was relaxed in a way I had not been in weeks, settled back with the radio on and,

it was a beautiful day

with the sun high in the sky as the road ahead ploughed through the blue air, disappearing into the day’s depth along the lower slopes of Croagh Patrick on my right and the green sea to my left, such a vivid wash of light off the mountains that I recognised it immediately as one of those startling days when the beauty of this whole area is new again, the harmony and coherence of all its shades and colours washing down to the sea which was laid out like a mirror all the way across the bay to Achill Island and Mulranny, one of those days which makes you wonder how we could ever be forgetful of it because that is what happens, driving this coast road so often from Louisburgh to Westport, my morning route to work with its mountains falling through a chroma of blues and greens into the shallow, glaciated inlet of Clew Bay, a road ingrained on the very contours of my mind and so much a part of me that sometimes I have to make a conscious effort to really see it at all which was what I attempted to do that day, concentrate in such a way as to take in all those details that have passed by me unheeded on so many of my journeys along this route but

I had no sooner resolved to do this and cleared my mind of all distractions in order to soak up everything than I completely forgot about it, let the resolution slip away so cleanly that the next thing I knew I had arrived in the middle of Westport and was pulling the car into the kerb along the mall at the bottom of the main street — ten miles driven in the blink of an eye but no memory of any of it — one of my favourite places as there is something lovely on a sunny day in getting out of the car under those elm trees and stopping in their shade for a moment to listen to the slow moving river which runs through the town — so slow you can hardly hear it at all — and after I locked up the car I headed off, thinking to myself I was lucky to get such a good spot in the middle of the day because there was a good crowd in town, a steady stream of cars passing over the bridge into Main Street with a run of sunlight glinting off the windscreens and a flow of pedestrians making their way along the pavements, this unexpectedly bright day bringing people out in good numbers to turn their pale faces to the sun as

I crossed the street to the chemist where I handed the prescription to a young uniformed woman behind the counter who glanced at me and told me with a smile that it would take five minutes so I said

fine, no rush

which was the truth but which now left me standing around feeling a bit self-conscious with nothing around me but stacks and shelves of women’s potions and perfumes, twisting and turning, conscious of being well out of place and not knowing where to look so I was a bit relieved to spot the section with the male toiletries nearby, shelves of the stuff, aftershave and body sprays and hair gels and so on

Farenheit and One and Hugo Boss and Diesel and Beckham and

each one of them with testers so I took one up and turned it over, sprayed it and smelled it and then another and before I knew it I was enveloped in a sickly mist of conflicting scents with my sense of smell hopelessly confused, feeling slightly dizzy and I almost bolted for the door in embarrassment but I saw also that there was a stand with sunglasses on it and I thought I might hide there for a few moments longer, working my way through them one by one, round ones and square ones and plastic frame and metal frame, checking my appearance on the narrow vertical mirror running up the side of the stand, thinking that if the weather kept sunny like this I might get a pair, possibly wire-framed ones with that scholarly touch, but none of them seemed to do anything for me, or rather each made me look foolish in one way or another, too comic or too odd or too obviously chasing something I no longer possessed, each of them altering my face slightly but so radically that I did not recognise the man who looked back at me out of the narrow mirror, a silly experience which vexed me and left me feeling embarrassed so that I sighed with relief when the girl behind the counter returned eventually, smiling and holding up a little package which I took, purchasing also a small tube of heartburn lozenges which were on display beside the till because I’d had this burning sensation in my chest ever since I woke up that morning, took my change and made my way out of the shop onto the busy pavement

where I stood for a moment to stow the package in the pocket of my jacket, glad to have that job done, before crossing the street to get the paper in the shop on the corner where I bought two — the national paper and the local one — plus a carton of apple juice and took them three doors further up to a small coffee shop which had a clear view of the main street as far as the clock at the top and which was just beginning to fill up now as it was after twelve and obviously some people like myself had it in mind to get in ahead of the lunchtime rush for a bite to eat — a few suited office workers, men and women from the banks probably and a few solicitors whom I recognised and nodded to along with the usual scattering of tourists in boots and Gore-Tex — where I managed to get a table at the very back which gave me a clear view of the whole place and out onto the street, so I set the papers down and ordered a cup of coffee with a club sandwich from the young waitress and while it had been my intention to scan through the papers and catch up with the world I now found myself wholly engrossed in the people who were filling up this small coffee shop which hardly had more than eight or nine tables in all, the nearest of which was taken up by a young woman sitting alone, dressed in a pinstripe suit and reading the sports pages of a tabloid which carried the story of a premiership footballer thought to be on the verge of a move from Arsenal back to Barcelona, the club which had nurtured his talent as a child and this story appeared to be holding her complete attention as she was sitting with her head bowed over the tabloid which caused her hair to fall down the side of her face as she held her soup spoon over the paper and it was interesting to see a woman so obviously lost in the soap-opera politics of English football, this woman who had about her that lush, affluent attractiveness which was so different to Mairead’s and which sometimes I found myself lusting after, a feeling which always convinced me I was betraying Mairead who was physically so different to this woman who was now turning the pages of her newspaper with no idea whatsoever that a complete stranger was having these thoughts about her while

at the table inside the window, a tourist couple with their big all-weather jackets draped on the chairs behind them were tending to a little girl sitting in a high chair, being spoon-fed from a jar by the father who was all kitted out in the regulation gear for unpredictable weather — boots, cargo pants and fleece — while his wife beside him sorted through her wallet — a woman in her mid-forties with the airy look of a hillwalker or a marathon runner, one of those disciplines that had burned away the same body fat which was so obvious in the round, comfortable girl in the high chair, so clearly relishing her food, chewing happily but with half of it smeared all over her chin and with a ready way of thumping the little table in front of her if she was not being fed fast enough, a habit which, judging by the expression of open delight on her father’s face, had great ability to charm him, and would probably do so into her adult years as I saw also that this man had about him that same, slightly dazed expression I have noticed sometimes on Mairead whenever she dealt with Darragh, that faint slippage of the critical faculties on this man too, as if he was seeing the child for the first time and not, as was likely the case, witnessing her little charm-show for the umpteenth, with all those mannerisms already gathering, which would set and refine her to the woman she would become while he in turn would gradually have a sense of himself slackening and coming apart at the same time, as