A Mad and Wonderful Thing (8 page)

‘Do you miss him?'

‘Yes,' I say. Well, I couldn't tell her everything — like that I still talk to him. She thinks I'm weird as it is.

‘So how do you know stuff? You seem to know a lot for a carpenter.'

For a carpenter
? I like that. ‘I don't know anything, Cora, not really. I have a self-service approach to education — a pick-and-mix free from medals and ribbons.'

‘How does that work?'

‘Learning isn't exclusive to schools and colleges.'

‘No, but they are good places to start.'

I consider her argument. ‘A fair point, Flannery. I'll give you that.'

‘You could go to college after your apprenticeship. You must go, if you want to or not.'

‘That's what my mother says about eating vegetables. Anyhow, that's not my intention.'

‘What is your plan, Johnny?'

‘I don't have a plan, Cora.'

‘You must go.'

‘Yeah, well, let's see about that.'

‘Will you go?' she presses.

‘Do I have a choice?'

‘No. You never know, Johnny, perhaps you'll find your own Plato's Academy.'

‘This is Plato's Academy.' I wave an arm into the air. ‘I'm not sure men cloistered behind walls ever get that.'

‘And women?'

‘That's different. Women get it. Malcolm X said that he'd put prison second to college as the best place for a man to go if he needs to do some thinking. He couldn't have been more wrong — with just one statement he was wrong twice. All a man needs to do to see the world or to do some thinking is to take a walk around the corner. If you took a slow walk around the town of Dundalk you'd meet all of existence. They think they can teach anything in colleges; they think they can bring a man to college and send him home a poet. How mad is that?'

We rest for a time and watch as slow clouds drift across the sky, and the light travels along the mountains.

‘I don't think college is for me,' I continue. ‘Many enter as lambs and leave as sheep. I couldn't do that.'

I see that Cora watches me, and I know thinking is going on in that pretty head of hers.

‘So what will you do next year, after school?' I ask, rising again and sitting beside Cora on the coat.

‘College. Belfast or Dublin. I'm not sure which yet.'

‘Does it matter?'

‘Not really. I think I'd prefer Dublin. And I could stay with Aisling; she's already in college there. I'd love to live a while with Aisling.'

‘What will you study?'

‘Irish.'

‘Irish? Why Irish?'

‘I love it. I want to teach. Don't you like Irish, Johnny?'

‘Not really. I don't know. I never really bothered, I suppose. I had that madman Hogan for a teacher, and it all left a bad taste.'

‘Well, we'll have to fix that.'

‘Okay.'

‘Let's start at the beginning.'

‘
Bonjour
'.

‘Shut up. Let's count.'

‘Okay.' I grimace in concentration. ‘
Eins
.
Zwei
.
Drei
.'

‘Shut up. Repeat after me, Donnelly.'

‘
A haon
.'

‘
A haon
.'

‘
A dó
.'

‘
A dó
.'

‘
A trí
.'

‘
A trí
.'

‘
A ceathair
.'

I reach for her, pulling her to me and taking her down onto the open overcoat. I kiss her mouth, moving my hand to the small of her back, spreading my fingers on the soft wool of her pullover, pressing to her shape. I feel her take my head with both hands, allowing me to hold her tight. I kiss her hard, feeling her slide to me, her body fast to mine.

‘Thanks,' I whisper. ‘That was much tastier, I must admit.'

‘I should hope so.'

‘So you should, Cora. That fecker Hogan was a dreadful kisser.'

After a while Cora sits up and begins to recite a poem. In our two weeks together I have noticed that she does this kind of thing. And I like it.

I recognise the verse, and repeat a line when she is finished, ‘“The silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun.” That's a fine poem, Miss Flannery. A fine poem. I never could figure out what it meant, though.'

‘Isn't it a beautiful thing, Johnny? And what's beautiful doesn't need figuring out. It just is.'

‘You are right there, Flannery. Well said,' I respond. ‘“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”'

‘Is that another Plato quote?'

‘Not Plato, no, but another of the great masters: Mary Poppins. Now I have a poem for you. Have you ever heard of the child poet John Francis Donnelly?'

‘Nope.'

‘Well, hear him now, baby. It's called “The Blackbird”. Are you ready?'

‘Ready, steady,' she says. ‘Off you go.'

Blackbird, Blackbird, cannot you see,
I left the breadcrumbs out for thee.
Blackbird, Blackbird, you are too slow,
Now they got eaten by the crow.

I deliver the lines confidently, and when I finish I turn to her. ‘There you are, Flannery,' I say. ‘That'll give your fella Yeats a run for his money.'

Cora shakes her head and laughs. ‘What is that about?'

‘That, Cora, is about the whole damn thing.'

We stretch out on the Dunn & Co together — quiet, comfortable, happy.

‘You'll make a fine teacher, Cora Flannery.'

She lies across me, her head on my chest. ‘Why?'

‘You have kindness, and that's the magic key. In the long hours of teaching, it is an impatience or temper that will linger in the mind of the child. Remember that, Cora.'

‘I will, Johnny. I'll do my best.'

‘The wonder of the child, that's the golden ticket. And the heavy cross of the teacher.'

‘You are a strange boy, Donnelly.'

‘Just an observation.'

‘Yes,' she agrees. ‘It was.' And we both laugh.

We rise and prepare to go. Cora stands and looks out to the mountains. The border with Northern Ireland is just a few miles away, and a British Army observation post can be seen peeping over the ridge on the last western hill.

‘Do you think we could build an army,' she asks, ‘and run the invaders out of Ireland for once and for all?'

‘If we could do one thing for Ireland, Cora, we should do that.'

She takes my arm. ‘Come on, Mister Donnelly. Take me home.'

We walk down the mound. We walk through the fosse under the beech trees, and down the shaded path.

‘C'mon, Flannery, we'll have a burst of a dance before we go.' I take hold of her two hands and swing her as we spiral down toward the gate, with leaves, pebbles, and two red boots flying through the dappled air.

We climb the stone stile at the round pillar and walk back into town. She slows at the corner of Castletown Cross where the country lane meets the main road. ‘Thanks for telling me those things, Johnny.'

‘What things?'

‘You know, that stuff when you were a child.'

‘Well, that was all long ago.'

‘Telling truths is a brave thing.' She stops, turns, and looks to me. ‘Shall I tell you one?'

‘Sure, only if you want to.'

‘I have dreamed about you since I first saw you. How mad is that?'

‘I'd say that's pretty mad all right.' Like I said, sometimes life is so good you just have to let out a big laugh. And I do.

‘You better come in for a cup of tea with Aisling before you go,' she suggests when we near the house. ‘What about a bag of chips?'

‘Better not. I'm dining with the Philistines.'

‘A bag between us?'

‘Okey
dokey.'

We sit in the kitchen drinking tea, sharing the one bag of chips between the three of us. Aisling wants to know where we went, and she gets it on the first guess. Cora's mam joins us and asks how we got on.

‘Johnny said I had a very fine arse.' My face immediately reddens. ‘And he kept stroking it with his little stick.'

Hopscotch

WE MEET IN TOWN IN THE MIDDAY. SHE ARRIVES IN A GREY TOP AND
a short tartan skirt over black tights, and she's wearing the red boots. She gives me that smile. There is an Irish adage I have learned from Delaney:
an rud is annamh is íontach
— what is seldom is wonderful. But I could look on Cora Flannery every minute of every hour of every day, and in all that time I could not but see and know that she is a wonderful girl.

We go to the Imperial Hotel, where Cora takes a table near the window, and I go to order coffees. An old woman stands before me at the counter. She buys a meal, and then with unsure steps tries to carry it to a table. I offer to help her, and I take her tray to a table next to ours. As she eats she coughs, and I go to the counter for water. When I return, Cora has moved beside her. I place the glass on the table, and she sips as she talks to Cora. I don't interrupt. They have settled into some sort of a comfortable exchange. I am introduced when the dinner is finished, and I return to the counter and order coffee for three. We sit and talk of family, of streets, and of Ireland. When the coffees are finished, she stands, and Cora helps her with her coat.

‘Thank you,' she says to us both. ‘That was a blessed relief from disappointment.'

‘Disappointment?' I ask.

‘With people,' she says, ‘disappointment is the only consistent.'

We walk home and, passing the school on the Castletown Road, Cora sees a hopscotch grid chalked onto the schoolyard ground.

‘C'mon,' she says.

And we do, and I stand and watch the wonderful girl in the grey top and short tartan skirt above black tights and red boots as she calls and jumps and skips and laughs.

The meaning of life

IT IS A DRY EVENING IN THE MIDDLE OF MAY. I VISIT MY FRIEND ÉAMON,
and enter by the back door.

‘Hello, Missus Gaughran. Liam.'

‘Well, Johnny,' Éamon's mother answers from the kitchen.

‘How's the boy?' Éamon's father calls from the front room. ‘Were you at the match?'

‘No. No, I missed it, Liam. What was the score?'

‘Two–two, last I heard.'

‘Off gallivanting, were you?' Éamon's mother asks.

‘Something like that, you know — places to go, people to see. There's just not enough time in this life, Missus Gaughran.'

‘God almighty. Are you listening to this, Liam?'

Éamon arrives in the hall and signals with a flick of his head that we go outside.

‘Another girl, is it?' Éamon's mother suggests as he passes. ‘Here today, gone tomorrow, this Donnelly boy, I'm telling you. A fly-by-night.' She moves a teapot from the cooker to a tray. ‘Come in and sit down with your father when you're ready,' she says to Éamon. ‘The tea is made.' She carries the tray to the front-room table. ‘Duffy's Circus, he is,' she calls to us. ‘Duffy's Circus.'

Éamon Gaughran is an only child. His father, Liam, is a tall, quiet man who moves slowly, pulling reluctant feet behind him, as if head and feet are locked in some perpetual dispute. Liam is a retired garda. He was a desk-sergeant in the town's barracks, but he suffers from poor health; he seemed to spend more time out on the sick than he did in at the desk. Liam grew up on a small farm: a cottage and five fields forty miles away in east Cavan. Éamon and I often visited the farm to help out during weekends and school holidays. Well, we called it help. Éamon's grandfather, Ruán, was a kind and gentle man; life itself sat easy around him. Ruán, too, was tall and quiet, but — unlike Liam — he was blessed with natural strength and good health. But maybe that's just a head thing, and maybe that's where it's all gone wrong for Éamon: he takes after his dad. Liam is not Éamon's natural father, as it might be automatically assumed — I mean, not in the biological way — though they don't know that we know, but we do. I worked it out. Ruán Gaughran had something else, too: he had likeability. That's a slippery thing to measure, but once you see it in someone, you know. Many times I heard others speak well of him. And here's another odd thing: kindness is infectious. Whenever people spoke of him, I noticed a gentleness and a generosity about them. And people frequently spoke kindly of Éamon's grandfather.

Ruán had married Claire Clarke, the most beautiful girl in the parish — well, that's what Ruán told us — and I watched as their ageing was neither embraced nor rejected, but carried as easily and as unremarkably as a bucket carries water. Some people can do that, and it is a great thing. Ruán managed a big farm by day, and helped Claire tend their own few acres in whatever light could be squeezed from the evenings. They grew vegetables and they fattened a few pigs in the yard. Claire grew a herb garden next to the house and Ruán planted an orchard in the far field. Geese and chickens ran free around a tall ash tree in the front yard, and a single cow was kept in the near field for milk and butter. They had three children — three sons — and the boys grew tall, and they were well schooled by Claire, and one by one they followed each other into the Garda Síochána na hÉireann — the Irish police force.