Gavin Corbett - This Is the Way

It was getting lively now in this pub. I seen I was looking this one fella dead in the eye. I did not mean to be. He lowered his head and looked in my eye like a burglar looking in through a window. He had his arm around a short old woman with glasses. He walked over toward me and he dragged the old woman with him. The old woman was laughing.

The fella says this guy will tell you.

I didn’t say nothing but I was relaxed.

The fella says I’ve been trying to explain to my friend Kathy from America that Buttermilk are legends. Divil a bit, divil a bit, divil a bit he says, he was shouting it. He says to me tell Kathy now. Divil A Bit by Buttermilk was the fucking soundtrack to when we were young isn’t that right. Every day it was on the radio. Twenty times a day he says.

The fella said this and now I heard American voices all around me. I leaned back on the counter on my elbows, I seen half them were Americans in the pub. I looked at the fella again, he was an eejit. He was annoying the Americans. Some of the Americans seen me, I nodded at them. Come here to me I thinks looking at them. Come close and let me tell you. They would think great things about me. I bought one more drink I says that is it, no more, ah yes.

Outside on the street through the gate made of bricks the people came up by the river from the fire works. There were people dressed in flags and girls with springs on their head. There were people had flags painted on their face. Some of the Americans were standing at the gate of bricks talking to themself. I nodded at them again. They looked at me then they went back to talking to themself. I moved on. I did not go walking at the river, I went up the hill behind the pub. It was dark for a mile, I got lost. I went under the church where there were more people at a pub. There was a fella leaning out a window of the pub waving and there were people shouting up at him saying he was the pope. I seen they were all dressed the same, they were dressed like clowns. Some words that was said to me when I was younger was if you are in Dublin and you are drunk don’t tap into people who are drunk because they will beat you and some of them have knives. I remembered these words and I stepped around the people on the street. I came in a street where there were people gathered at a wall. They were looking at a man taking a sup from a hole in the wall, it was a font. I stayed in the group of people to see what the man was doing. He turned around to the group. He had a black mask on his face with a long nose, he was wearing dark green clothes. His mouth was hanging and water was dripping from his mouth. He said a poem about the city of Dublin’s water supply and the rivers underneath and the wells above.

The group of people moved on and the man in the black mask walked in front. We walked to the back of the building with the font. We went in a dark lane and down another lane with high walls and deep steps. The man in the black mask was stooped and he was holding up his long green cloak to stop himself tripping. In the middle of the lane he turned around all a sudden. Hisshh he says. The group got a fright. He said another poem. Hish agga gog agga goggin a doo doo he says or words like that. These were old words but I cannot remember them. I was drunk as I says. I was depressed now too. He led the group on again then he walked slower than the group. He let the people pass him then he walked beside me. He lifted the mask off his face and the marks of it were pressed in his skin. His hair was plastered to his head with sweat, he was breathing heavy and he says to me you will have to pay the full amount if you want to stay with this tour. I says you are all right. I walked slower than the man and I let him get up with the group and I seen them go around the corner the other end of the lane.

The next day I came to the centre. I do not know if it was the next day. It was the same time of the year. I was depressed all this time. I am saying it was the next day. Things were set out that I came to the centre after I did not have a story to tell the Americans and it was a time I was thinking of my own people. It was early in the year all this time, it was the six seven month after I came to Dublin. It was spring is all I’m saying. The ground was wet, the air was wet, but the sun was shining and the wet was steaming. A man said the summer would be bad because the weather was good early in the year. I walked in the streets and I didn’t know where I was going. I was low, it was bad times. I slipped on the slime on the kerb and I says break my skull. I was thinking to the boys in the road beat me up. Kill me I says. I don’t know who I was saying it to. I was going I didn’t know where, on my feet, in my head. I went through the lanes, around the square, hearing the childer screek like wild things. I went down a street past the guard station. I came back up another street. I came to the centre.

The centre looked like a church. I was not looking for a church. I think I seen a sign said something else. It said that word. The word that says it is for my people. I went around the building. It didn’t look like a place you could go in, I didn’t see windows. The walls were grey heavy stone and they were dirty. I went in the door but I didn’t go far. A lady says can I help. I didn’t say anything to her, I just read the words behind the glass. Notices was the word above. This was where I seen the note from Judith. Judith Neill said the name at the end. I am interested in hearing your stories. I am interested in hearing your stories was written in a pen. Please contact me it said. I looked at it for two minutes. My eyes went crossed and what I seen was my own face looking back in the glass. Can I help the lady says behind me. I seen my face and I seen the person I was is what I thought. I thought like this. I was a well. I thought of stories as the water. If she wants water from the well water will fill in the well. That is what I thought.

Two days after the centre I was sitting in Judith’s room in the library.

Well she says to me, her hands on her knees.

This was a new place. Giant curved watery glass. A house full of stories she said to me. It was a place to make sense of the world she said. It was a place to bring sense. I would be helping her out. She said she was glad I had come. You would think it was written.

Six month on again I was back in the same room. I did not think I would be back. I was sitting in Judith’s room again because of Arthur. I knew Judith would have problems with Arthur because he was not literate and he could not read the words of the play. But she thought he was good, she thought he was right. She said he was raw was the word, that the way he was saying the words made her think of the play The Cherry Orchard different. She had in fact changed her mind about what play she wanted to do now because of him. She said she was going to do another play with Arthur called Barry Lyndon. She said too she thought Arthur had a lot of stories in him. In Judith’s room I thought of the well again.

I says Arthur is a well. I says there is stories in him he doesn’t even know he has inside of him. He is filling up I says.

Judith sat back from her desk. She crossed her legs and smiled. She says I want to invite you and your uncle to something.

It was her Whitebrassgate theatre group she said.

She says the theatre group is only part of what we do. She says every Sunday evening I have a meeting of people in my home. Just friends of mine, like minded people. We talk about plays but we also talk about what’s happening in the world. We read poetry too. I suppose you could say we tell stories. I was thinking it would be great if you and your uncle Arthur could come along to one of our gatherings she says. Maybe next Sunday perhaps.

I says to her we will go.