Gavin Corbett: This Is the Way

After he seen her and everyone settled back in their seat he could not concentrate on the cards no more, he could not concentrate on anything. He heard one of the lads in the group say the Missy Elliott suite in the hotel was the best room in the hotel and that was where the bride was staying on her own this night. He asked one of the lads where the Missy Elliott suite was. The lad says on the second floor down the end of the hotel. He says to the group lads are we playing the cards the whole night I want to be meeting the others. The other lads in the group says we’ll be winding down soon, then they looked at him they says are you all right, he says I’m not all right lads I think I’m going to give up. He got up from his seat he went over to the bar. He wanted to talk to the bride but he did not, he got nerves or he got sense. He got a drink anyhows and he stayed at the bar keeping an eye on the bride. He stayed there a good while. He said to himself if anyone asked him he would say his name was Pat Gillaroo from Glasgow but no one asked him. He drank three pints standing there at the bar but he left the fourth pint abandoned because he seen the bride moving off with her mother to more whooping and kissing. She went off out the door that she came in and the toilets were out that way too so he made like to go to the toilets. He seen the bride and her mother go in the lift. He ran up the stair, he ran fast, but he felt sick. When he got to the landing on the first floor he did get sick, he went on the window ledge. Then he walked the stair to the second floor slow. At the landing there he heard voices in the corridor. He looked careful round the door, he seen the bride and her mother hugging each other. They were down the end of the corridor outside the door of a room there.

He walked heavy down the stair holding the rail. He drifted out the hotel not looking back, he was like a zombie. He planned to come back but. He just wanted time to think things on his own, time to sober up some more. He went to his van and drove off in the direction away from Rath and into the dark. He was not too steady on the road because the drink was still in him. He slid all over the road. He did not get two hundred yard and he ended up his van in a ditch. He was shook but he was okay but his van was not, his van was stuck and it would not be coming out that ditch. But this moment he did not care about these things. Last thing he did before he got out his van was he looked over his shoulder and he seen his tool box opened and his tools spilt everywhere. He found his hatchet lying on the back of his seat and he put it inside his coat. Then he scrambled out the ditch the field side of it. He walked about the field in the dark in the moon, the last of the drink leaving him but a kind of madness taking hold. He found the gate of the field and an owl flew off the gate and he walked back on the road but he did not walk back in the direction the hotel, he walked away up the road in the dark breathing deep breathing out, sometimes shaking his head in his hands. He was an hour on the road, then he walked back in the direction the hotel.

When he got near the hotel he heard rap music coming over the fields. When he was outside the hotel the rap music was very loud and the windows of the bar were flashing with red lights. When he got in the hotel the rap music was so loud he would not have heard himself think if he was thinking but he was not thinking. He moved through the people in the bar, some of them dancing some of them lying across tables drunk, but no one seen him. He went through and out the other side and this time he got the lift to the second floor. He went down the corridor and he stood outside the door of the bride’s room. His breathing was settled now and his head was calm but something was beating hard. It was the music up through the floor was beating hard he told himself. He knocked on the door but the knock was too gentle. He seen the eye hole in the door and he pressed his thumb against it and he knocked again louder.

Who’s this comes the voice the other side of the door.

He knocked on the door again he says someone here has to talk to you.

The door began to open and he put his foot down the bottom of it to wedge it. He pushed it the full way. He took a step in the room and he shut the door behind him.

Arthur says the bride.

It is me Teresa hello he says.

Teresa was panicked. Her throat was tight she could not scream. Even if she could scream the music was too loud no one would have heard.

Teresa I’ve come back says Arthur. I’ve come back for you he says.

Get out this room says Teresa.

I been in torment Teresa without you says Arthur. I been risking my life sitting in that bar because of you and I don’t care if I’m killed he says.

Arthur get out says Teresa.

Listen listen me Teresa please says Arthur. I been beating the roads of England and Germany thinking about you, I been beating me head. I could not take it no longer darling beautiful girl. I heard you were getting married to your own and I could not take it, I had to turn around.

Teresa was crying. Her breathing was a whistle she was panicked so much.

Don’t be crying girl says Arthur and he took a step toward her his hand out.

Don’t don’t she says shaking her head.

Arthur says you cannot marry that man Teresa, there isn’t no reason to be marrying that man. There isn’t no reason you shouldn’t be with me Teresa Teresa listen me listen me. There isn’t no reason Teresa. Isn’t no reason me name should bother anyone any side. We are all the same people Teresa, we come from the same. Don’t be listening to no one.

Arthur’s eyes filled up with tears themself. His voice was paining him. He held up his left hand and stuck out his thumb.

It’s just skin is all he says. Lines on a hand. Nothing but. Caused trouble too long he says.

He took the hatchet out his coat.

Does me name bother you Teresa he says. Answer me yourself now darling don’t be thinking of no one he says.

Teresa could not speak, she was stood with her back against the wall terrified looking at the hatchet.

Teresa I love you darling he says. He says do you know how much I love you darling.

He says do you.

I’ll show you he says.

He walked over to the bed. He put his left hand flat on the rest at the end of it. He brought his hatchet down on his thumb and he cut the skin and broke the bone above the bottom joint.

He did not scream, Teresa did not scream.

He brought the hatchet down again, a fierce concentration in his eyes, in his head, and the thumb came off neat at the crack.

There was blood on the sheets of the bed, blood all over them. Arthur stepped back from the bed, he stumbled. He held his wrist, he squeezed it, but his eyes were looking fixed ahead at Teresa, caught Teresa’s eyes. Teresa looked back in Arthur’s eyes, she could not look at the bed and the blood. The music beating into the room now from below was like the beat of a heart for both of them. Things were slowed. But then the beat of Arthur’s heart went slower than the beat of the music. He seen Teresa jump away from the wall and run past him. He turned and he seen her run out the room. He squeezed his wrist tighter. He went after her but he could not run. His right hand was losing its power, its grip on his wrist was weakening. He stumbled out the room, he stumbled down the corridor. He took two steps down the stair and he fell. He rolled down the stair to the feet of a group of fellas coming the other way.

This is Arthur Sonaghan they says. What’ll we do with him.

Like many the men of our people his age my mother’s father wears a hat and when he is inside commiserating he takes the hat off and holds it in his hands and when it is time to go he gets up from his seat and flicks the inside of it with his hand to open it out.