Donal Ryan: A Slanting of the Sun

I can hear it already, and see it, and I know how it’s going to go. Matty, she’ll say, oh my God, how are you? And God and you will be stretched to fuckin breaking point. The new fella will stand behind her, smiling, thinking to himself Who’s this prick? The cunt’ll bristle, like a fuckin Jack Russell, but in that way only men can see. I might come out from behind the bar and give her a kiss and all, and have a grand feel of her, and a smell of her hair, just to spite him. It’s great to see you, I’ll say, all posh. You look great. Great, great. She’ll tell me I look great. Ask how are things. Great, I’ll say. Great, great. You’re still here, she’ll say, and I’ll say Sure am, shur where else would I fuckin be? Hahaha! Formerly-Fatarse will smile all fakely and let on she hasn’t a clue who I am. I probably won’t mention all the nights I seen her in the nightclub here, flubbing around the place, hoping some poor drunken cunt might take her away and try and ride her or rape her or something. Ah, howaya, I’ll say, I haven’t seen you in years, Jaysus there’s fuck-all left of you! Or maybe I’ll throw a smart dig. I’ll see how it goes. The new fella will be told This is an old friend of mine, and I’ll think to myself, Ya, old friend, sure. Old friend.

She only got cuntish on me the once. I went for my dinner one day in her parents’ house. Mossy gave me the night off especially. I was only gave short notice about the invitation. She picked out what shirt and pants I should wear and all. I arrived a small bit early. I brang you flowers, I told her mother at the door. Oh, the mother says, they’re lovely. No smile had she for me. She left the lovely flowers in my hand. I had awful trouble swallowing my food. Not enough gravy, wouldn’t please them ask for more. She cornered me after as I came back from the flowery downstairs jacks. I thought for a second she was going to tell me how I was playing a fucking blinder, that the old pair were mad for me. Brang? she said, and a right wicked puss on her. Brang is not the past tense of bring. Brought is. I got a fair old hop. I just remember going What the fuck? Thanks for the fuckin grammar lesson. And deciding there and then she was getting her cards once I’d one more ride got off her. One to remember me by. And something weird happening to my eyes for a second or two. A blurriness, or something, and a stabbing and burning pain in my stomach. But I recovered well and talked away to her oul lad about football the rest of the evening – a grand skin he was – and her mother staying in the kitchen cleaning up, and saying Nice to meet you as I fucked off, and leaving on her sudsy Marigolds the way she wouldn’t have to touch off me again.

The black lad is a gas man, alright. As fond as fuck of ones with big arses. No shortage of them around here. He does be in his element here the weekend nights, throwing his eye around the whole night long. He must go home and flog the log off of himself. I’m a kind of fond of the black lad now all the same. He makes a bags of things regularly still, but he’s generally sorry and willing to make amends. A rake more of them arrived in here one evening. He was up in an awful heap when he seen them swinging in. Happy, like, and nervous, kind of. Said they were his brothers. But most likely any of them that comes out of the same patch of jungle is called brother. They were all after getting handed student visas and they were as high as kites. Tickets to ride. They were high-fiving my fella and lepping and yoo-hooing out of them in Swahili or some fuckin thing till oul Mossy come out from his crypt and rolled back in the red carpet fair lively. Them lads are nearly as bad as tinkers, he whispered to me, once you give them a welcome the first time they’ll have you plagued for evermore. One of them boys around the place is plenty, Mossy says. Looks good, like. The brightness of the smiles of them, you wouldn’t believe.

Thinking about that day in her house, though, thinking about it, the oul lad was a funny fish too. I was so happy to be talking shite to him about the Premiership, about which I know everything, and relieved, that I never noticed one or two things properly till after. And you can’t trust the remembering of a thing. That’s why them airy-fairy cunts say you must live in the moment: it’s the only thing that’s real. Once a thing passes into history it can be twisted any which way, turned around and upside down. But there was a couple of things, for sure. He must have known I smoked: I seen him clocking the browny-yellow stain along my left index finger before my arse-cheeks landed on their rock-hard couch. But still and all he never asked me had I a mouth on me when he drew his Bensons from his pants pocket. And he got quiet all of a shot once he’d established I was a Penrose. Oh, he says, from the Villas? Ya, you cunt, I felt like saying, from the cunting Villas, what about it? But I said fuck-all only That’s right, ya, and I sank back into the old shame that shames me for feeling it. She gave me the road not long after. Off to college, she was. Wouldn’t be fair on you, she said.

She made me tall, for two and a half months. I could look any man in the eye. I was king cock. Every prick was jealous of me. I bought her a ring and all, real emerald, off some fuckin hippie at a stall in Galway. She was mad for it. Told me she loved it. Wouldn’t even wear it for fear she’d lose it. I got wicked with her a couple of times and put my hand tight on her throat just the once. I seen a mark on her one time that was after all of a sudden appearing and was certain sure it was a love bite. She made out some cunt kicked her on the tit by accident in the pool. He shouldn’t of been near enough to your tit to kick it, I told her. I got wicked as fuck. That was the time I caught her by the throat. The fear in her eyes, the look on her lovely face. I’ll never in all my days forgive myself.

I cried like a child when she gave me the road. Please, please, don’t do this to me. I fuckin begged her. Fuck it anyway, why did I beg? Why in the Jaysus did I cry? Water, bridge, milk, spilt, brokest hearts do be soonest mended. Or some shite. One summer of shifting and riding is all it was. Not even. I was her taste of badness, her little summer work experience, ticked off her list of things to do and have done to her. Like the fuckin chickenpox, she’d only suffer it once.

There was a blemish on the inside of her leg. About the size of a euro. I kissed it one time, and told her it was beautiful. I named it and all, like it was an island I had discovered, a new country. I won’t say what I named it. Oh, that’s lovely, she told me.

Aisling, her name is.

It means dream. A thing that goes on inside in your head.

A fuckin dream, a dream of fucking.

Maybe that’s all it fuckin was.

That’s all any of us can do, is dream, and then wake up and face into what’s real. The torn things and the slow wait. I’ll burn my lip on the last drag of this fag and fuck the remains of it into the bucket. And I’ll go back in behind the bar to see what kind of havoc the black lad has wreaked in my absence. And I’ll tighten myself a bit and wait.

I ATE A WHOLE half of a carrot cake last night. I felt funny after it, sugar-sick and weak. My head reeled a tiny bit. I stayed on the couch half asleep till nearly two. Joanie came in all talk from the pub and started wrecking my head so I went to bed. I had bad dreams: a huge dog outside, spiders and snakes inside; I was trapped on the landing, surrounded by barks and hisses and scuttling noises. I screamed in my sleep and woke with a long breath leaving me. I curled up again but couldn’t get sleep back. I smoked fags at the front door and watched the brightening of the sky.