Donal Ryan - The Thing About December

SIOBHÁN HAD blood on her teeth. She was saying oh for God’s sake, her nails were all broken! The guards had Patsy Penrose and Junior Penrose in the back of the squad. The Unthanks were standing in the yard, looking unsure of themselves. They’d seen Patsy and Junior heading off towards the Dark Road and they’d heard Patsy cursing Johnsey and knew well they were out to cause ructions and told Jim Gildea straight away. Jim wanted to know did they need an ambulance? Siobhán said it was grand, she was a nurse, she’d look after them, and sure no one was really injured. Mumbly Dave said Ambulance me hole, it’s the fuckin army we need now, before some madman kills Johnsey, how’s it ye can’t arrest them cunts that writes lies in the newspapers about him, surely there’s some law to say you can’t blacken a man like that? The young garda who was with Jim told Mumbly Dave calm down but that only made him worse, and when he called the young garda a jumped-up little bollix, the garda pointed into his face and said Once more now, boy, and Mumbly Dave said And what? And what? And what? And luckily Jim Gildea came straight over and whatever else about Jim, Himself said afterwards, he was a long time at it and he knew how to douse a flame; he took the young lad away from Mumbly Dave and the Unthanks got Mumbly Dave to go inside and when they got in, Mumbly Dave turned on the Unthanks and called them a pair of fuckin Judases and asked why didn’t they shag off back to their bigshot pals besides creeping around up here trying to brainwash Johnsey and Herself started to cry and so did Himself and Johnsey thought his heart would break in two.

THAT’S A FINISH now to setting foot outside the gate any more. A man is only safe inside in himself. There’s nothing people won’t do or say when they think right is on their side. Who decides what’s right? Is Mumbly Dave more right than the Unthanks because they had money given to Herbert Grogan and the developers and he hadn’t? They could have had that done but years, before anyone had a notion what land would be rezoned. The clean truth unspoken became a lie, the way whatever unnoticed thing was inside in Daddy went bad and grew into a tumour that spread around his body and killed him. Maybe Mumbly Dave would have gave money towards this big plan too if he’d had a penny besides what you get for not working on account of your back being shagged or falling off of ladders and a nixer here and there and borrowing money off of the Credit Union below against this big payout that’s meant to be coming from Timmy Shake Hands’s insurance. That’s a finish to it now, he wouldn’t show his face any more and they could call him every kind of a blackguard all they wanted in words fancy or plain and God would have to get over him not going to Mass and the Unthanks could take their sorry eyes and their silence that was no longer easy but loaded up with the threat of apologies and excuses and leave him to his house and the odd walk down the river field to the Callows and if the world wanted him for something they could come and ask politely and he’d tell the world politely to go way and have a shite.

If them two detectives from inside in town ever came back promising justice would be done or asking if he knew anything about what Paddy done, with Jim Gildea behind them looking down at his shoes and trying to remember every detail to take home to Mary, he’d give them no hop. If any more business people arrived up with their Alsatian smiles and their auld spiel about deeds or deals or private treaties or what have you, he’d run them. He’d pull the phone from the wall altogether: no more of that auld craic. He wondered would Siobhán still want to call in and talk about the Shanleys and her mother being an awful wagon and her sisters being a smug pair of bitches and eat her apple sandwiches now that she’d had to bite a lad’s face to stop him being killed? Would she say Ah here, this lad is too much hassle for too little in the way of bravery or looks or charm or dates in big restaurants where foreign fellas with tea towels on their arms comes over to put salt on your chips for you? Would Mumbly Dave find a new friend who wouldn’t have poison thoughts about him every time he cracked a joke in front of a girl who had no more interest in him in a romantic way than in the man in the moon? There’s too many things in the world that can go wrong. There’s too many variables , that science teacher would have said. And even if you could catch all them auld variables in time, before they ballsed things up on you, everything would go bad for a finish, anyway. Interfered with or left alone, everything eventually turns rotten and dies.

ISN’T IT A PURE BALLS, Mumbly Dave said, that a man could have such luck and to have nothing only misery come of it? He used to think Johnsey was mad to be humming and hawing about selling the land, but now he knew what it really was: Johnsey had loyalty . Why else would he defend the Unthanks, and they feeding him with one hand and trying to pull out his guts with the other? It’s a great quality in a man. He was loyal to his family, even though they were all gone from him. He wouldn’t sell the land that kept them. He wouldn’t allow concrete to be poured on their years of toil. He could see past big auld plans for cinemas and shops and matchbox houses, and sure who’d benefit in the long run only the same few fat fuckers that was running the show all along and making pure-solid fools of the whole country? It’ll all come out some day, boy, that you was the only one to call a halt to all the auld grabbing and greed and that no money would pay you to sell out your auld home.

Siobhán said nothing, only bit back her broken nails and filed them with her elbow sawing madly back and forth and tutted and cursed those stupid inbred rednecks and the anger sparked off of her and it was impossible to know was she cross with the Penroses or the newspaper or Johnsey himself for causing so much upset just by being alive. It was hard to figure anything out about Siobhán, in all fairness. She was an unknowable thing, a solid mystery, like the black pool above on the side of Ton Tenna that Daddy said goes the whole way down to the centre of the earth and if you gave a few seconds looking at it you wouldn’t be able to turn your eyes away from its still darkness and you’d feel a mad attraction to it even though it struck terror into your heart and before you knew it Daddy would be saying Come on will you, what the hell are you at, and he’d have found the auld wandering heifer for the old boy who’d rang him for a digout and twenty minutes would have passed.

SIOBHÁN SAID he’d be an island of grass for a finish. The sudden way she spoke and the words she used made his brain stall for a few seconds and his heart jump. They’ll just build around you, love. And she moved over to his end of the long couch and put her hand on his forehead and ran her fingers back through his hair that he should have gotten cut ages ago but it’s quare hard to sit in that chair below in the barbers when that lady that works there now is pushing her big chest into the back of your head and you’re afraid to look into the mirror even in case she thinks you’re staring at her and you’re praying to God you don’t strike a horn and you know your face is gone purple and all she wants to know is are you going on any holidays. Auld Mugsy Foley never gave one shite where you were going on your holidays once you sat down and shut up and listened to him telling you what he’d do if he was the Tipp manager while he sheared your head clean of hair. Johnsey could see Mumbly Dave was watching all this and he wondered did Mumbly Dave think he was a right baby for getting knocked so easy and being saved by a girl from Junior Penrose’s boots while Mumbly Dave fought like a lion to keep Patsy Penrose from lamping him with his hurley? Did he even say thanks to Mumbly Dave? What was wrong with him at all? Where were the words in him?