Donal Ryan: A Slanting of the Sun

Daddy was in an awful predicament, I also knew. He wasn’t going leaving his ninety euros to the Curleys who he couldn’t bear. Your man had the coil pack took back from the ledge. Daddy was after threatening violence and there was a witness. Kind as she was, and as like Mary Margaret, she would hardly lie to the shades for us. Daddy has a record as long as his two arms from before he met Mammy and she made him promise to be good. He nearly always kept his promise and when he didn’t it was only because he was left with no choice. Trouble found him sometimes, no matter that he done his level best always to keep out of the path of it.

There was no knowing where your man was gone or what he was doing or who he was gone ringing. There was no knowing was there shades in behind them doors, or if they were close by, bringing in clamped cars. Probably they’d have lads that weren’t shades doing that, though. But surely that hatch would be manned by shades, for the taking of the money and all off of people that was after getting towed. I knew Daddy would be having the exact same thoughts as me.

Your man arrived back and another lad with him, older and fatter and baldier with no curls. No refunds, he says, unless the part is faulty. This man said … Daddy started to say, pointing at the original fella, but the new lad cut him off, and said in a voice not far off a shout, and a little space between each word, He said he’d take it back . Ya, Daddy said, and nodded, and his shoulders relaxed a small bit. And he has it taken back, the new lad said, and he will give you a credit note in exchange, towards your next purchase. My next purchase? Daddy was all tensed up again, there was a redness rising up along his neck. My next purchase ? Shur ye’ll hardly still be here when hell is froze over, will ye? Robbing stealing lying dirty cunts is all the Curleys ever was.

The curly lad and the fat lad only stood looking, and for a finish the fat lad said, I’ll be sure to pass on your feedback to them. And they both started laughing, horrible laughs, and the redness on Daddy’s neck darkened and the burning in my belly got more and worse, like a fire had turned to explosion, like a car that was after getting torched will burn and then blow. The lady with the look of Mary Margaret turned again and lifted up her magazine and showed me a picture of a huge big fat one lying on a couch with one big enormous leg stretched bare out from her along the couch and the other on the ground and underneath the picture it said BRITAIN’S FATTEST WOMAN LOOKING FOR LOVE. The lady was smiling and holding the magazine up beside her face the very same as if there was no trouble in that room, and looking straight at me in an expecting kind of way. What do you think of her? she asked, and laughed again. Her laugh was like a lovely engine tuned perfect and just ticking over, revved nice and gentle.

And just as I kind of knew would happen without knowing I knew, Daddy went apeshit and tried to bust in through the glass of the hatch and the two lads high-tailed it and glass smashed and the shades came in all yellow and blue and when I chanced a look out of one eye they were all lying on the floor except for one shade who was standing up looking down and Daddy was roaring from underneath the small mountain of arms and legs that he was going killing every fuckin Curley there ever was. The lady with the look of Mary Margaret put her hand over mine and drew me away towards the door and we stood outside it while they held Daddy down by an arm or a leg each which was easy enough do as he had come back to himself a bit and he was going to be careful not to make his record stretch down too much farther than his two arms.

Come on, the lady said. Come on with me. She told the spare prick of a shade who did all the looking and none of the holding down of Daddy that she was with me. Daddy was cuffed and quietened and he was saying Okay, okay, go handy, I swear I’ll go and leave this place in peace and I’ll pay for the broke window and all and I’m sorry for the trouble and all and if you’ll let me go now there’ll be no more trouble from me, I swear on the dead Martins. Them shades to a man knew who was the dead Martins. Still and all they carried him off away to the paddy-wagon.

Sometimes I look at Daddy, at his side or his back or his face, and I love him so much that it feels like he’s a prize I won for doing something brilliant, better than anyone else. There’s no way in hell you’re ever going to hear them words out of my mouth, though. Thinking them kinds of words is enough. God hears all and knows all, and not all things need saying. I hated seeing him being dragged and he all upset, but he isn’t stupid, and I knew he’d behave himself once the explosion was over. The shades probably would even deliver him home to our house or back to Curley’s yard for his lorry and Mam would meet him at the door with a slap and a kiss.

The lady’s car smelt plasticky and new. Janey Mac, she said. That was scary, wasn’t it? Are you okay, love? Fear of me, I told her. She asked did I want a sweet and then something remembered itself in my head, something about strangers and sweets and never never getting into a car with a person not known to you. But she was pretty and she smelt so nice and even the shade with his hands hanging had only nodded and smiled at her as she’d walked me out past the trouble with my hand in hers. She was looking at me and smiling and she admired my Converses and I admired her hair and she asked where I lived and I told her Annaholty and she looked a bit confused and said What, in a house? And I said What the fuck else would I live in? and straight away put my hand over my mouth and asked God to forgive me for cursing, but only in my mind. Do you not live in a … have you ever lived in a … A what? I was right interested now. I’d never met a mad person before, only Daddy when trouble come round, but that’s a different sort of mad.

A caravan.

I thought of the fire-barrel in the back yard that Daddy would set ablaze the very odd night and him and his pals would stand around it and talk and shout and laugh and curse at the sky if a helicopter passed. A campfire is legit, I heard a man say once, so they can fuck off. Part of culture and custom. It’s rubbish fires is illegal. And how the fuck would they know the difference? another man said, from away up there? And the first man was lepping at his own thickness and the other man’s smartness but was trying not to show it while his comrades laughed and laughed. And Daddy done his best to keep peace around the barrel, saying Jimmy’s right, campfires is grand, and they know by the size and the smoke and the ring of men around it standing that it’s not rubbish is being burnt but wood. Them lads have special cameras to see what’s far away, even through the dark of night. My daddy don’t drink no more and so his temper doesn’t leave him as quick and he’ll only square up to a man he thinks can match him and only if that man has done him wrong. Like the lad in Curleys with his credit note. So he’s a great one now for keeping peace between people. That’s kind of his job, I think.

I thought Travellers as a rule lived in caravans, the lady said.

I heard loads of things, true and untrue, said for certain about me since that day, and never a trace of doubt in the sayers’ voices, but said in a way that made you know the person saying it believed something about you even though they had no right in all the world to that belief. But that first time pierced me sharpest and so deep. I’d never heard words said like that before. Words that took my sameness away, and left me kind of sorry to be me.

The lady put the back of her hand against my cheek where a tear I hadn’t felt coming suddenly was and then the palm of that hand on my head and I seen her look down at her hand for just a taste of a second and a flash of something like worry visited her face and disappeared again as quick. Then she rubbed the two sides of that hand against the edge of her seat and she didn’t know I seen her do it because I know in my heart and soul she didn’t even know she was doing it.