Gavin Corbett - This Is the Way

Only some things is certain about the story. Certain is Arthur turned up in Rath the night before Teresa Gillaroo’s wedding, he went to the bar of the hotel, he played cards, he left the hotel, his van was found in a ditch, he went to Teresa’s room, he cut off his thumb, he was found. Some lads brought him to the hospital but the doctors said they couldn’t do nothing so he was taken to Dublin where the doctors could make thumbs out of toes. Certain too is no one will know the full truth of it all. Certain things about what happened Arthur, what he did on this night, nobody now living will ever know. The one person who knew the full truth isn’t around to be asked no more, he is dead. That is what everyone thinks. You hope and some of us pray, but everyone thinks this.

Two weeks after I last seen Arthur on the road in the Dublin and Wicklow mountains Judith’s silver Ford estate car was found in the sea off the end of a pier in the south of county Wexford and the car was empty. No body was found.

Says my mother’s father but he was a wild unpredictable man, remember how he threw the stone at the helicopter at poor Aaron’s funeral. His whole life, his whole wild deeds, was all leading to this.

True I says.

But he says. If there is some good, look at us now together in this house he says.

Yes I says to him. That is true too I says.

My mother’s father did not stay long in our house. He felt strange being there and he was right to feel strange.

He says tell your father I came up when he gets back will you. And if there’s anything I can do for you before I go let me know he says.

He was nearly at the door and I says to him there is Pap yes. There is one thing you can do I says.

Oh he says.

You can leave a message with me mother I says.

Of course I will Anthony anything at all I’ll tell her for you he says. What is it.

Could I read you a letter I says.

I suppose you could Anthony yes if you like he says.

I will get it now I says.

Go and get it do he says.

This letter I kept under a jug in the television room. I brought the letter and the jug to the kitchen to my mother’s father. It is not called a jug it is called an urn, it is white and gold with a rainbow shine on it. It is not a Christian thing. I set the urn in front of my mother’s father on the kitchen table.

Before I read from the letter I said to my mother’s father one last thing.

I says my father turned out to have a very good way with words.

Sometimes I think God and Arthur are cruel in their thoughts and actions because I am back in this house I grew up as a child. Arthur told me to go here and God is keeping me here. God is hoping I will learn something here. My father learnt to read and write and he went great, he learnt so he could read God’s words but then he turned away from God and now God is being cruel. Arthur is laughing, and Arthur and Aubrey and Aaron are the flies between the curtain and the window.

The day after I found my father dead in his bed I found pearl and wood and metal burnt in a pile in a fountain, they were from crosses and pictures. There was sharp glass all over the ground. The week later I got rid of the rest of it. I went at it, cleaned the house out, I used my father’s car to get to the dump. I stripped the paper from the walls, took up the carpet in my father’s room. I bought tins of paint, I painted the whole house top to bottom. I threw Waterford Crystal at the wall, I brought the foreign man with the nerves burnt in the rain out to the wall, that was a man I was not expecting, I’d forgot about him. I broke up my father’s bed, I brought that to the dump too. I threw the wood of it in the ground, nearly fell in the hole myself, could have been a funny thing. I put Eoin O’Duffy’s bone in the bin. I caught a squirrel in the attic. When it was all finished I did not think I was finished. I did not know what to think.

Another day Mister FX came to the house. I was sitting my hands on my knees thinking what to do and I seen him come in the gate. I said to him my father was not in the house. Maybe I am a bad man for saying this. I thought for two seconds I might get a strange joy not saying to Mister FX about my father. Mister FX said it was a pity my father wasn’t in the house because he wanted to make up with him.

Your father and I had a falling out some weeks ago about some very fundamental things and I regret that he says. It’s gone on long enough now this stand off.

I was bringing trouble on myself, I knew it. Mister FX would be back and I would have to be straight with him. My father done the worst thing by a Christian man like yourself I would have to say to Mister FX. But I do not believe that, no I don’t believe any of it, I would be straight with him. I do not believe like my father did not believe. He had no faith in the end he wrote. He did not know what was meant. But Mister FX did not come back, I must have made him afeard.

I do not know what is meant neither, I only know what my life is now. It is not one thing it is not the other. It is a life of waiting what it is. When you are not moving, when you are not settled, you are waiting. You are watching. But you learn out of it. You learn many things from getting bored. You learn about yourself you do. You learn there are others are bored, people in houses all about. I learnt there were many others in that tall old house in the city of Dublin I lived in were bored the same as me. They didn’t know what to be doing with themself. I learnt there was one person in the house not keeping with the rules of the house, he was lonely and he needed a friend. How I knew was this. I was sitting in my seat. I was bored many nights in that house was the truth. I was thinking is this it, I may well been thinking this very thing. In my seat, my seat been there all I knew the life of the building. I was saying to myself these questions. What was I thinking and is this it. Is this what people do. And I heard this noise. I heard a tapping on the floor outside, a steady tip tip sound on the wood. First I thought it was rats then I knew it was a dog. I thought he might go away but he kept moving backward and forward on my bit of the landing. I could tell he was a big dog by the sound of him. He was panting with the movement like he was a heavy thing and the movement was slow though I could tell it was quick as he was able. Sounded like he was in a panic indeed. I heard him go down the stair and I thought that would be him gone. But then he leapt back up and I heard him again scratching on the bit of the landing then he went again down the stair then he came up all the way. He could not decide in his head. I heard him move right up to my door and I could hear him breathe down by the gap at the bottom pushing his nose right in. I could tell he was a very big dog now this point. The door was knocking in the frame. Then I heard him move away so I got up. I opened the door and he was moving for the door the other end and he turned soon as I opened my own door. I says how do you do to him I says. He was frozen there now curled about toward me. He was expecting a man but not that one was the thing. I took my seat and I put it beside the head of my bed so I was sitting looking out the door at him. That put him at ease. I could see the stress go out his face if that is possible. He came toward me his tail lifted and his head swinging from his collar, this easy stride on him now. I do not need to look you in the eye as I walk he was saying to me because you are now on my level was what he was saying. He came in my room and the top of his head sailed in kissed my knee is how I would put it. He was a big dog but a thin one only for a ring of fat that slid over his ribs when he moved. I patted his side and felt his ribs jump away. I thumped his back. I put my fingers in his ears and they smelt of biscuits. I left him at my seat with his tail moving slow side to side and I went to my fridge. All I had in it was some ham melted to water and some chocolate and I knew it was true that chocolate can kill a dog because I heard of it of one that that happened to. So I had a candle that was made of fat and I gave him that. I let him smell it first then he took it. I was surprised but I must have been expecting it to begin. I rubbed his head as he ate it. His hair was very smooth and it shined. You do feel sometimes that these big dogs like a firm handling. That hollow sound off them and the muscles going behind his jaw. Good lad I says to him. It did me good. And then he was gone too.