Donal Ryan - The Thing About December

ISN’T IT a fright to God to say a man could end up being a bar to progress and could deny jobs to half the village and wealth to all just by being alive and that the low esteem he was held in by his fellow man could be further reduced by matters in which he had no hand, act nor part? Doesn’t that just bate all? Seemingly the whole village was all of a sudden looking out of their mouths at him to know what would he do about selling the land to this consortium of bigshots so they may get on with their plans for houses, shops, a school, new roads and what have you. And none of it for profit — all them great men wants is to give employment , according to Herbert Grogan. The Creamers and the McDermotts and Paddy Rourke had apparently all already entered into agreement-in-principle with regard to their share of this famous land deal. Johnsey wished Paddy had explained more to him about this business instead of telling him he was a meely-mawly and urging him to do impossible violence.

The box in Daddy’s office seemed like a pathetic thing now. All of Mother and Daddy’s work, the foddering and milking and calving and lambing and shearing and up and down and over and back to mart and abattoir and co-op and all of Mother’s saving up and putting away and rows with Daddy over having notions and throwing money around and all of Daddy’s long, hard, slogged-out days of laying blocks and they may as well have sat on their arses and drew the dole and watched television all their lives because the few quid that would be the realization of them bits of paper in Daddy’s box would be like pebbles inside in a quarry when compared to the sort of money the bigshots wanted to pay for the land.

Johnsey thought again of Our Lord after his forty lonesome days and nights and he famished and parched in the desert and the devil creeping around with offers of thirst quenched and hunger sated and all the riches of the world. And all Jesus wanted to do was tramp the road with his pals and tell all about His Father. It must have been great until them bitter Pharisees told on Him and the Romans got thick. It must have been brilliant having all those friends and magical powers to feed the multitudes and make wine from water and the dead arise and appear to many. What had he? A farm of land already usurped and about to be grabbed away for good and covered over with concrete and no pals to speak of and barely power enough to turn on the washing machine.

That Grogan man was finished talking. Now he was looking at Johnsey with his bottom lip shoving his top lip up towards his pointy nose like one of those men who don’t roar and shout at matches, only watch quietly with their arms crossed. Was he waiting for Johnsey to say something? At least he wouldn’t say I’ll have to ask this time. Should he invite him in? A vampire has to be invited in; otherwise they can’t cross your threshold.

Johnsey told Herbert Grogan he was going to talk to his accountant and thanked him for calling up and backed up the yard towards the front door with one hand reaching behind to guide him in. Once he had the door closed he stood still a while and waited for the sound of retreating footsteps and an engine starting outside the gate and when these sounds came he could breathe again and wonder where he came up with I’m going to talk to my accountant!

Good man, Johnsey, begod. It sure was better than I’ll have to ask!

THERE’S A POEM a fella wrote about how he’d see old men who reminded him of how his father looked when he died. He said

Every old man I see

Reminds me of my father

When he had fallen in love with death

One time when sheaves were gathered .

Johnsey learnt that whole poem off by heart in school. Now he only remembered that first verse. August is the very start of autumn. Some things ripen in August, having drunk the sunshine all summer. Other things start to die and fall away to nothing. You’d always start to feel the nip in the air in August. You’d be scalded red at a match and by the time you arrived home that evening the sun would have tired from the fight and would have let the cold, white moon chase it back behind the hills. The sun does be weaker in August, watery, not able to keep a whole day warm.

Daddy died in August. All that last summer, while all about him grew and bloomed, Daddy shrank and slowly died. He fell in love with death, like your man’s father.

MUMBLY DAVE arrived on the first day of August, and everything changed. Johnsey spotted him coming from the haggard wall. He came in the gate nearly sideways, revving like a madman and his tyres screeching their protest at his showing off, in one of them cars that used to make Daddy shout Look at that feckin YAHOO when they went flying up the road past the gate. Johnsey’s heart cartwheeled in his chest. Imagine feeling such joy at the sight of a fat little plámáser ! Mumbly Dave hugged Johnsey, like one of them Mafia lads. It felt like falling into a pile of hay that was warmed by the sun after a long day’s labour. He drew back fast for fear Mumbly Dave would sense his enjoyment and think he was a queer. Mumbly Dave was talking away ninety. No change there. He had a fine mouth of permanent falsies, so gone was the Mumbly and all that was left was Dave. He spun full circle for fear he wouldn’t see something and next thing he was gone, darting through the gap between the slatted house and the workshop into the big yard on his short legs before Johnsey could protest.

Johnsey didn’t like the big yard; it was too full of nothing now where once it was a place of running muck and beasts passing on their way to the parlour and Daddy’s hups and shcoo-ons and the smell of shit and diesel fumes. But now that Mumbly Dave had planted himself in the middle of it, it seemed more alive again, less like one of them ghost towns you’d see on a Western and more like a place that could be woken out of its sleep and put to use again.

Mumbly Dave read Johnsey over leaving Daddy’s Land Rover and Mother’s Fiesta to crumble and rot, and promised to get them going. He marvelled at the size of the hay barn and guessed you could ram twenty apartments into it. Ha? Course you could. No Jaysus bother, boy. He darted in and out of the outhouses, jabbering away all the time, for all the world like one of them chubby monkeys that swing around the trees below in Fota Island.

By Jaysus, youssir, I’ll tell you one thing, you’re the talk of the village below. There’s some maintains you’re after twenty million for this place! You’re dead fuckin right, youssir. Twenty … Jaysus … million . Dave paused to shake his head and whistle. And you know what? You’re dead fuckin right! Woo-hoo, boy! Them fuckin McDermotts and the Collinses and their big leader Herbie Grogan and the rest of the con-fuckin-sortium as they call themselves, you have ’em quare fuckin rattled , boy!

It didn’t seem fair to knock the wind out of his sails. Just by doing nothing, too afraid nearly to venture past the gate, save for first Mass on Sundays, he had the village below in uproar. Signs on he’d been getting quare looks above at the church and along the road home. He’d thought it was to do with the beating but now it seemed it was more to do with him being a money-hungry blackguard and trying to fleece all them hard-working business men and they only trying to give jobs to people and make the world a better place. He seemed to have made Mumbly Dave happy at least. He thought of Paddy Rourke and his wife the time of the wild calf and how Paddy was condemned as a man who’d beat up a woman. Mother was right. People will think and say and believe what pleases them. The truth is what’s shouted loudest and by the most. What about it? Let them all off to hell. That’s what Daddy would have said.