Gavin Corbett - This Is the Way

What have you done shouts Judith, how dare you touch and shove me like that she shouts.

Let’s see here Anthony says Arthur.

Professor Michael’s body shook all a sudden, the whole of his body jumped an inch from the ground.

He’s having a fit says Arthur.

You’ve poisoned him Judith screams that’s what you’ve done she says, and she threw herself down between Arthur and Professor Michael. She tapped Professor Michael on the face she says Michael can you hear me Michael.

Settle woman says Arthur.

He’s swallowed his tongue says Judith.

He has not swallowed his tongue he’s having a fit says Arthur.

He has swallowed his tongue quick someone says Judith. She put her fingers in his mouth but Professor Michael bit her fingers and she screamed.

Arthur got the kettle he says to Judith move out the way.

What are you going to do with that she says.

Move out the way he says.

Professor Michael’s head now was lying on a pillow of turf. Arthur moved the spout of the kettle against Professor Michael’s lips and he moved it to get it in his mouth. He lifted the kettle and hot water came out the spout and ran over Professor Michael’s lips and chin.

What are you doing to him says Judith.

Now Arthur stabbed the spout of the kettle in Professor Michael’s mouth, he pushed it right in, he lifted the kettle right up. More hot water came pouring, filling Professor Michael’s mouth, pouring out the sides. Professor Michael was not making any noise but the hot water was coming.

You beast you’re killing him says Judith.

I wasn’t sure neither, I didn’t think this was the right way to be doing it, I says the same as Judith, I says to Arthur ease up ease up you’re hurting him. I jumped at Arthur, I pulled him away from Professor Michael, pulled him on the ground with me.

Get off me boy he says.

Then we looked up and Professor Michael was spluttering, he was moaning, coughing. Slowly he stopped moaning, things were calm, he settled.

See maam says Arthur. He’s all right, all I had to do was pull away his tongue.

Judith knelt on the ground beside Professor Michael. She had him sit up, she had her arm around him. She took out her phone and she pressed it. She looked angry at Arthur, took him in, waited for the person the other end to speak. Then she turned her eyes and then her head away and she spoke.

She says hello yes does this handle mountain rescue. Yes yes Dublin Wicklow mountain rescue.

She said to the man Professor Michael was sick and she needed to get him to a hospital quick.

Where are we she says to Arthur.

The mountains above Dublin he says.

Yes yes where exactly says Judith.

Tell the man you’re not far from the mast of Kippure, you’re to the west of it says Arthur.

He got up, he brushed his trousers. He walked over to Judith and Professor Michael.

Can I just say something he says.

Judith covered the phone with her hand. Go away now she says to Arthur.

Something quick he says.

Bye she says to the man on the phone.

Can I just say something quick maam, to you maam Arthur says.

I don’t want to hear any more from you she says.

I went over too, I joined him.

Go away the both of you she says. You’ve done enough harm she says.

We sat down all of us on the wet dirty turf and we waited. No one cared about the wet, no one talked about anything. The light was dying. Judith was holding Professor Michael, petting him, thinking the helicopter will come soon we will be all right my lovely. Arthur was thinking about himself, I was not thinking about myself I was thinking about Arthur too. I looked at him his legs spread out in front of him, his bones going cold like mine, tense the feeling from the cold. His shoulders were down his head was down, his chest was heaving, he was in himself could be said, beaten he looked, stretched and laid out, but his guilt would keep him alive and ready, ready but no ideas now, no ideas.

I moved up to him, I slid my legs, my knuckles in the turf, I says quiet we’re all right, we’re all right. A laugh rose up through him like a bubble, shook his body, was gone. A noise came from the distance too, a roar and a rattle.

I thought about what trouble we could have been in, I thought about guards and helicopters. I seen spots of light in the air, discs. But I did not care about any trouble was the way I was feeling. I thought of him that other place the land was dead, the black wet land around those parts, that dead land one sunk lake one fallen mound two families called their home.

I says we are back in the country wha.

I seen it again. I seen it all and there we were. Three year before. Back. Three hundred year before, four hundred year, a thousand. Back the way it is back the way it should be. One body lowered in the ground among ten thousand more, a thousand people from two families stood above the soil, a thousand rusted rails loose in their hold. Many reasonable gentlemen telling us there will be no trouble, a priest fighting to be heard over a helicopter above. I seen the lump that Arthur threw in the air, I seen the height it got. I seen another lump in his hand, it was in his left hand. I seen his thumb that was his toe close in and his fingers tighten, the thumb and the fingers moving in a twisting natural movement like the petals of a flower twisting closing running away from each other but coming to meet in some way, I seen the lump turning to water and tiny grains and I heard the helicopter above.

And this is the way. It is funny, you would laugh. Professor Michael got lifted strapped to a man in the air by his arse. When he was in the helicopter the man in the strap came down again for Judith. The grass swirled, the hair on the sheep rose, the noise was fierce. The noise, and below it Arthur laughing, spitting now, the spit rolling across his face. The helicopter floated, Judith and Professor Michael in it, me and Arthur looking at its white and red belly. Then off it went, tipped to the side, gone. The hair on the sheep died down, the two of us, the three of us, here we were, there we were, all was quiet, nothing different only for the fire, we were stuck but what about it.

My father and Arthur did not get on. It was never the way. They thought different things, they lived lives that were different. The Cliffs was not a place I was brought. I was brought only the few times and my father did not like it. I ran wild there. I was with the other childer up among the rocks. Arthur was Buck from The High Chapparal but I didn’t know The High Chapparal. The High Chapparal was a cowboy film, I was Buck’s friend.

We went one time in our van to help Arthur. Our grand little van my father sold the vegetables and the fountains from when I think about it now. I was ten maybe twelve and I could add numbers well and I wasn’t bad with the words. We went because I said I wanted to go. My father respected education. My father always in a fit and always agitated and if I said something he listened in those moments.

Arthur had come in for some scrap from a factory had been cleaned out. He been promised it a long time and the fella dropped it himself in the lorry said it was no good to him. I remember it. Copper pipes and copper radiators, I remember helping to shift it to the back of the van. I remember it all because this was the day my father knew he was right in the way he was set. I remember the look on his face. What are you trying on was the look. It was in the feel of the radiators, the sound they made, the way the pipes packed into his hand. I do not want this was the look. I remember the look on Arthur’s face, dismissive is the word, not looking my father straight, a mocking shake of the head, a sure this is the way these things operate, this is the way it’s been done oh years filling old radiators and pipes with dirt to put extra weight on the scales in the yard. And my father with a turn of the head was a whisht was all, I don’t want to be hearing none of it.