Gavin Corbett - This Is the Way

The fish says Aaron.

The Sonaghans, the Gillaroos says Beggy.

This is it now. The Gillaroos there and the Sonaghans, the poor fish suffering from the greed the evils this farmer Dan. They was left there the bottom the lake no water, the thing it was they needed to survive. God was in no mood to help fishes this point and he went off to lie down so angry was he still with Dan. But the Blessed Mother was still looking down off the edge of Heaven. She seen the fishes on the bottom what used to be the lake and they was rolling about and they was suffocating childer because they needed the water to breathe. What are we to do about these poor creatures the Blessed Mother said to herself. She said whatever is needed for these fishes to survive let it happen because it is not their doing the sins of this crooked farmer. And she closed her eyes and she thought very hard and soon the fishes felt the power of her thoughts. It started as a warmth childer, they did no longer feel the cold air around them. Their bodies was changing see, changing from the inside. Soon it was that the air was natural for them. They found themself breathing the air the next thing. They took a breath and they thought there would be no hope because there was no water but then it was that the air came in their nose and filled their body and their body grew bigger. The scales came off them then and underneath was skin, human skin childer. They seen that their fins turned to arms and legs and their head came forward and hair grew out the top. Then one of them took it on him to stand up use his new legs. The others seen him and the rest them stood up too. And all them was standing there now the bottom this lake looking at each other wondering what’s gone on. They was people now. That was the moment the Gillaroos and the Sonaghans became people childer.

God now this time had had his lie down and was wondering what the Blessed Mother was doing still the edge of Heaven. He went back where they been earlier and there he seen her looking down on what she was after creating. Then it came back to him what he done himself, the anger that filled him over Dan. He says I am down on people Mother. But I am too tired to do much about it. It would take an effort to finish all these people off. So I am going to curse them and let them finish each other off instead what he says.

The next thing the Gillaroos and the Sonaghans were looking at one another suspicious. They could not work it out what it was they even was yet but each one knew inside themself which person came from which family. And each member of each family looked at the members the other family with something near hatred now. It came through in them this way. All they knew was that this pit in the ground they was standing in was home but because they was people there was not much room left and all of them crowded in the one space. So each family knew they would have to get rid of the other family to make the space for their own. And it was a Sonaghan struck out first. I am not saying nothing childer but it was a member the Sonaghans swung first. But if he didn’t then a Gillaroo would have. By the end that day the whole of what used be the bottom the lake in Melvin was full of fighting, the men facing up to one another in the middle and the women stood against the banks at the back. By the next morning one of the families I don’t know which made a break through the others and they went straight for the women of the other family. The women was so in fear of their life they climbed up the bank in a panic. And now it was they was out in the wider world childer. There could be enough space for the both families if they could see it. But they could not. God’s curse because of the sins of a farmer was still on them. There was blood in their nostrils and hate in their heart. They could not stop fighting now. The families chased one another over the fields one way and back ten times the distance the other way. The fighting spread from field to field to farm to farm, from county to county and then from one age to another. It kept going childer, the curse, the fighting. This awful tormenting power driving both families.

My mother stopped talking. She stroked Beggy’s head again and took Aaron’s boxing prize.

But don’t you worry Kate my chicken says my mother. This story has a happy ending. And that because of your father. Your father who was the greatest fighter there ever was, who took on all them not just the Gillaroos. It was looking like he could have finished off the Gillaroos he wanted to. There wasn’t no one could beat him and there was plenty tried be the king of the country let me tell you. Plenty looked at your father thought they could be like him. That was the sort of man your father is. He is a giant and a hero childer. What he does others do too. So he got to the point he knew he had the power to do anything. He could continue on the road he was on or he could make the peace. And you know that is what he done. And the first people he went to make the peace with was the Gillaroos. It was like the curse was broken.

Is the curse broken says Beggy.

Course the curse is broken my child says my mother. The families won’t go back to those ways no more. If they want to fight they do what Aaron does and win prizes for it.

And now childer my mother says you must turn in for the night. That is enough of the stories and I hope you sleep better now Kate.

The next morning my father was angry with my mother. I seen it myself. My mother said she went in to him after talking to us childer and she had to turn off the radio he after falling asleep the radio on. My father says was that so, was that so. He tore at the very buttered bread with his teeth.

I don’t want you telling them childer no stories he says to my mother.

How could you hear me telling them stories you sitting up with the radio on she says. You don’t even know what I was saying. I was talking good things about you. I was telling them happy stories.

He says I knew by the sound of your voice you were telling them stories. I could hear it through the wall. I don’t want no stories in this house no more. They want stories they can read books he says.

The next years then were bad. My mother left with Beggy and most the things in the house she used to want she left behind. She did not want them any more and now there was no one to clean them. My father was bent over in this mess and the things were getting dirty.

There were days them weeks with Arthur in that room that house I would think well of him and there were days I was angry the trials could have come down on me.

All I knew them first early days was this was the rest of my life. I seen it ahead of me, I seen it staring back at me. The two of us looking one another cross a room, the two of us watching television in the blue in the evening, in the gloom, a man saying the world would end, ice sliding into the sea, bad news. Years it would be. Every day, Lynx stinging my eye, every Thursday morning, this game, get out of here now before the landlord comes, I am not going nowhere he says. Friday, in the landing, in the shower singing oh solo holy lowly me oh. I would see marks of his feet on the carpet on the stair I says that is him, these marks will go black.

I would let him go off in the streets on his own. First time I says to him you don’t know those streets, he says I will find my way. First time he went he got lost, he could not find the Spar, he came straight back. I says help me, help me someone, that is what you do. I went to the Spar myself I thinks I will keep going, I will leave him in that room. Sometimes I got angry, I will abandon him I says. But sometimes we would walk the streets together, we would not say a word about troubles, walking the streets was all that we needed. We would look above at windows and see the skill of the iron worker. We would see the great barrel shafts down the back of our houses. We would walk to the maternity hospital we would see the sheep’s skulls under the eaves. We tried the sample preserved lemons in a shop for Arabs, they would make you cough and cry. We watched drunk Polish men fish the water of the old canal basin beneath the skin of oil and feathers. We watched them sway and we laughed, we watched them get caught we laughed louder. Arthur said the next warm day that came he would swim to the island in the middle, he didn’t care what no sign said. One morning we were at peace on a street on a hill. There was a fog after falling on the city but the sun was burning through, it was not a bright sun and it was pure white. We stood on a corner looking down the street, we looked at the buildings. One evening we got in a hall. We looked at the ceiling made us admire our Celtic past. We stood with our hands behind our back. It was easy to think of the richness in the world. Moments like this I would not think of the danger might have come down on us. Came to a point I had let the fear go, I felt secure was the way.