Donal Ryan - The Thing About December

THERE WAS another story in the newspaper about Johnsey in November. This time it was one of them papers that has pictures of women in only their knickers. He remembered once when he was a small boy, Mother caught him staring at one of them pictures with his mouth hanging open and she snatched the paper off of the table and rolled it up and went across to where Daddy was watching a match on the telly and she leathered him across the head with it and he got an awful drop because she had snuck up on him and she roared at him that she’d told him before about bringing that filth into the house and the child’s mind would be poisoned. Johnsey burned with shame for being poisoned and getting Daddy into trouble and he worried that the poison from the picture had gotten into his mickey because it was trying to jump out of his underpants but he was afraid to ask Mother about it, the mood she was in.

This time, the newspaper only had a small picture of Johnsey, and it was the same one as last time — the one the posh lad’s pal had taken of him real sneaky the time in the yard. But there was a big huge picture of Eugene Penrose, with a bandaged stump where his leg used be and he as white as a ghost, with a framed photograph in his hand of himself in his hurling togs from when he played under-sixteens before they gave him the road for being a bowsie. And above Eugene’s photo, the big words said: LAND WARS.

And below them words, beside and below the picture of Eugene and his stump and his photograph were a load of words about Johnsey again and how ‘the man who shot and almost killed Mr Penrose and later overdosed on prescription medication was closely linked with landowner John “Johnsey” Cunliffe, who has come to national attention in recent weeks as a key figure in a massive land deal, reportedly demanding a twenty-million fixed reserve for a parcel of land central to local redevelopment’, and Mumbly Dave said Yerra you’re nearly as well off not bother reading it, and Siobhán said No, David, let him read it, he’s not a baby, you can’t be trying to protect him from the world, and Mumbly Dave said he wasn’t, he was only trying to tell him that that sort of auld rubbish isn’t worth reading and Siobhán tutted at Mumbly Dave and rolled her eyes and Johnsey saw her making faces across the room and Mumbly Dave was bright red and Johnsey wished he’d just start saying funny things again like the last time.

Eugene told the newspaper how everyone in his home parish blamed him for beating up Cunliffe even though he was never charged with that crime as there was no evidence against him and there was rakes of townies out around here now that had plenty of form for that sort of thing and Paddy Rourke had threatened him in the churchyard that he’d get his comeuppance and he had witnesses that would back that up, but he hadn’t reported it at the time because he had great sympathy with the elderly on account of his own grandfather was old and infirm as well and he had had an awful dose of a childhood, with his father running off and his mother turning to the drink to console herself and he having been left to fend for himself. Mumbly Dave said auld Pissypants Patsy Penrose hadn’t far to run, he was tapping Bridie Fitz below in the Munster pub when he wasn’t inside in the bookies! But Siobhán shushed him before he could get going and he threw her an awful dirty look.

Eugene told how Johnsey had always acted like he was better than everyone on account he came from land and most other lads in their class were the sons of labourers and honest tradesmen and he always kept himself separate and signs on he was looking for all them millions to allow the development to go ahead, wasn’t he convinced he had a divine right to be elevated above his fellow man? He wasn’t saying John Cunliffe was behind his shooting, but he had an awful hold over people — there was plenty in the village at his beck and call, and since his parents had died, God rest them, he had lost the run of himself altogether. He was seldom seen in public but when he was, he’d walk over you. Whoever beat him up that time was probably at the end of their tether. Sometimes the have-nots lash out against the haves. That was a sad fact of life, brave Eugene said.

MUMBLY DAVE said Lookit, it could be worse — at least they’re not making out you’re a faggotyarse or a kiddyfiddler! Siobhán said Oh for God’s sake, Dave, and rolled her eyes, but she was smiling as well, and they reminded Johnsey of Mother and Daddy when Mother used be trying to be cross with Daddy but she wouldn’t be able. Why couldn’t they all live there in the house together, and Johnsey could leave Mumbly Dave off with the big idea he was always talking about with the barn abroad and all the apartments you could put into it and the knobs from the city goes mad for them, we could call it The Barnyard or Cunliffe Manor or some shaggin thing and there’d be a rake of little Polish wans too, mad looking for Irish fellas, woo hoo boy we’d be right!

There was a big pile of money in the Credit Union and more in the bank; Aunty Theresa had straightened all that out for him and maybe she wasn’t as bad of an auld boiler as she made herself out to be. Couldn’t he at least sell a few sites and feck it to hell it wouldn’t kill him to throw a few quid to Small Frank and Susan if that’s what Aunty Theresa wanted and maybe he was being a rotten yoke, depriving all them people of work and money and opportunity and maybe then the Unthanks could stop feeling like they had to explain themselves but they weren’t able and things would be easy and comfortable and lovely again in their warm kitchen with the smell of baking bread.

Isn’t it a fright that Daddy or Mother couldn’t have told him what he was to do after they died, before they died? Would Mother go mad with him if he had a woman living in the house? Would she think Mumbly Dave was very common and not a suitable pal? Would Daddy think he was an awful useless meely-mawly if he could make no fist of life at all? Would he be proud if Johnsey could tell the McDermotts to shove their lease and take back the land and tell the auctioneers and the consortium and the newspaper crowd to shove it all up their holes and let them all go and shite and if he married Siobhán and had a big dairy herd and a rake of children and while he was thinking all this an awful commotion had started abroad in the yard and when he looked out there was a wild-looking fella with black hair sticking up out of his head in tufts like a wet dog and he had a hurley and Mumbly Dave was standing in front of him pointing at his chest and Siobhán was saying Who the fuck is that ?

IT WAS Eugene Penrose’s father. When Johnsey came out the door, he had leapt forward and swung a hurley and Mumbly Dave had ducked and grabbed him under the arms and he was roaring and screaming that Johnsey was going to go down for what he’d had done to his youngf’la and Johnsey never saw the other fella coming from the haggard wall who lamped him into the side of the head and as he hit the ground he saw the edges of Daddy’s track and he thought to himself Mumbly Dave is going to catch that with his shoe now any second and all you could see was Mumbly Dave’s arse and your man’s boiling-red head like a twisted-around four-legged monster-man, roaring blue murder and swinging a hurley and Siobhán was screaming Get away from him and he realized someone was throwing kicks at him and when he looked up there was another monster, with two heads and two spare legs wrapped around its middle and one head had long blonde hair and it was biting the cheek off the other head with the black hair and it had drawn blood and the bitten head roared and the Unthanks’ Bluebird swung in the gate and the squad behind them and the sudden storm stopped.