Ghosts and Lightning (18 page)

Yes. There it is thank fuck. The little bandy wooden gate set back into the wall o bushes. The lock chatterin in the wind, a big black puddle underneath and beyond a wide uneven field o muck and horseshite and crabgrass and set right at the opposite end, smudgy and far off, me uncle Victor’s caravan. There’s a faint yellow light in the window, a beacon to vagabonds and cold, wanderin nephews. I shoulder the Adidas bag and blow into me hands and rub them together and stick me left one on the top rung o the gate and vault over in one quick and grunty motion.

*

I was about ten and me ma and uncle were sittin outside me uncle’s caravan, laughin. I was inside and I remember this gorgeous sunlight streamin in from the windows. That gorgeous sunlight and a cracked yellow mug and a bowl and spoon and oil spittin from the pan on me uncle’s stove.

Me ma and uncle talkin:

—I’ll tell yeh Kate it was dodgy for a while there but sure I sorted it in the end, no trouble at all.

—And is that it now, Victor? Finished?

A hint of amusement beneath the worry in me ma’s voice.

—Ah o course, saysVictor. —Finito. They were lucky I didn’t lose me temper.

—Blessed, I’d say.

I poked at the sizzlin fishfingers with a fork, teeterin on a low stool. There was a plate to me right and a horsefly was bangin against the window. I had to keep me eye on the horsefly — they were worse than moths for brainlessness.

—… you’ll be the one to lose out, Victor. Just be careful.

—Me? Sure I’m as careful as they come, Kate.

I forked one o the golden, drippin fishfingers and plonked it on the plate.

—… will he be OK in there?

—Ah o course, Kate. Sure it’s only fishfingers. A culinary genius like himself.

I cut the fishfinger in half with the fork. The meat was flaky and white. Steam risin. I thought I was deadly; the big man, makin the dinner. I skewered another one and placed it dead carefully beside the first.

—… a fierce-lookin fella altogether. Huge hands, he had. Yid wanna see these hands, Kate. Enormous they were, like a troll’s …

Then it was all fucked. I went for the last fishfinger and a little spot of oil hopped out o the pan and landed on the back o me hand. I hissed and put it to me mouth, suckin the scalded skin. It was burnin the fuck out o me, me eyes welled up and I lost me balance. The stool tipped beneath me and I went flyin, the caravan spinnin upside down and me head crackin against the edge o the little fold-out table.

I was knocked out for a few minutes. Away with the fairies. I had this mad dream, faces and voices and all
sorts. I felt like I knew everythin all at once. That was the sensation I had, like I was filled with knowledge. I knew it all, everyone’s stories, everyone’s lives; how things’d work out, where language came from, what was at the heart o things. It was mad. When I woke up me ma was holdin me in her arms. Her eyes were blue and young and dead relieved. Me uncleVictor was watchin me from the corner. His eyes were hidden behind the glare in his glasses and there was an empty, greasy plate on his lap.

I told them about the dream and Victor sat up in his chair, settin the plate aside.

—Jaysis, he said. —D’yeh know wha, Kate? That’s the Salmon o Knowledge all over again. He shook his head and took off his glasses and went on to tell us the old myth; told us how Finnegas the poet had sat by the River Shannon for years and years, hopin to catch and eat the Salmon o Knowledge, the flesh o which was supposed to grant the eater this deep insight and wisdom. And how in the end young Fionn mac Cumhaill bollixed it all up on him; how, one day, Finnegas had to go off somewhere and so handed over the rod to Fionn, tellin him that if the Salmon bit while the old man was away, Fionn was to cook the fish but not to taste it.
Definitely
not to taste it. So Fionn says fair enough and sits by the river and sure enough he catches the Salmon while Finnegas is away. Fionn sets up a spit and cooks the fish and it’s all goin grand until Fionn notices this blister bubblin up on the fish. Can’t have that, he thinks, and pokes it with his thumb to burst it, which o course scalds the thumb off him and what does he do but stick his thumb in his mouth and suck it and hey presto — he’s tasted the fish and he gains all the knowledge and poor oul Finnegas gets fuck all.

Me uncle Victor took off his glasses and looked at me.

—The little bastard’s after robbin me lore, he said, grinnin and shakin his head. —The Fishfinger o Knowledge!

*

I knock on the flimsy tinplated door and take a step back. I can hear shufflin and bangin inside. After a couple o seconds it goes quiet.

—Who is it?

—Denny.

There’s more commotion and then the door flaps open, clangin against the side o the caravan. Me uncle Victor’s standin there, tall and skinny in a raggedy housecoat. He squints through his sellotaped glasses and his thinnin black bootpolish hair dances in the wind. The big Village People moustache twitches and a yellowtoothed smile cracks his face.

—Ah Denny me best oul skin, I haven’t seen yeh in fuggin donkeys. Come in out o the cold and I’ll stick a suppa tay on for yeh. The bollix must be fuggin froze off yeh. Lookit the face on yeh yer blue as the dead.

—I’m grand, Victor. It’s not that bad.

Victor sets a slippered foot down onto his warped rubber welcome mat and grabs me by the shoulder and ushers me in.

—Ah no, Denny. That’s no weather to be out in. That’d freeze the shite in an Eskimo’s arse for Jaysis sake. Get in and I’ll stick on a hot suppa tay.

I squeeze past Victor and into the caravan and he slams the door shut and fires the bolt. I slump me bag onto the floor and pull the whiskey bottle out o me pocket.

—Here, I say.

Victor takes off his glasses and I hand him the whiskey. He peers at the label and shakes the bottle and grins. —Ah be Jaysis Denny yer the only man. Yer a grand youngfella Denny let no one tell yeh different. He tightens the cord round his housecoat and stumbles into the dark kitchen area. —I’ll get the glasses, he half says, half sings. —Yill have a drop yerself won’t yeh?

—Yeah, cool.

—Ah o course yill have a drop with yer oul uncle yid never refuse me.

I’m standin in wha I suppose yid call Victor’s front room, if this was a house and his whole caravan wasn’t his front room. This end, though, is a small rectangle, lined with built-in sofas and with two long windows on either side and a smaller, round one at the end. Loads o little ornaments and ancient-lookin knickknacks on the windowledges and books in huge leanin piles everywhere. Hundreds o books. I pick up a battered copy of Ondaatje’s
Coming Through Slaughter
, a book I loaned Victor a year or two ago, before I went to Wales, and set it on the windowledge beside a brass workhorse and plonk meself down. I have to hunch over to warm me hands at the little glowin gas heater beside the coffee table. Dunno how a stringbean like Victor manages in a place this small.

Victor shuffles back into the light and hands me the glass o whiskey. The thing’s near full, glintin and syrup-coloured. Victor takes a sip and sighs and slumps down onto the sofa opposite me, his long legs stretched out.

—Ah that’s the very stuff.

I take a little sip meself and it rushes to me head and back down to me belly. I take off me beanie and ruffle me
hair and Victor has another sip and then leans forward, his face suddenly serious.

—There’s no trouble at all Denny is there? Is there anyone after yeh yid tell me now wouldn’t yeh cos they’d rue the day, Denny. Oh Jaysis they’d rue the fuggin day.

I can’t help laughin. Victor’s wired to the moon. All the stories and the manic mood swings and bouts o bluster. Chap wouldn’t harm a fly, though.

—Nah, I’m grand Victor, I say. —Not a bother. I got meself a car, like. I drove up.

—Ah I see, I see. A motor. Very good. Gets yeh where yeh want to go.

—Just about, anyway.

—Beats the bollix out o walkin in this weather all the same, Denny. A fuggin yeti would shun an evenin like this.

I grab me bag and rummage through it. —I got yeh Lyons teabags, I say.

—Ah. A saint.

—And a few books.

—And a scholar as well Denny yeh always were. Did yeh know the library turned me away last week? The bleedin cheek o them I was tha near deckin yer man behind the desk, glasses or no.

—Why?

—Robbin books, he says to me. I says to him are yeh callin me a robber yid better have bleedin proof, buddy. Every book I ever got out o here was stamped officially one hundred per cent.

—Wha did he say?

—He showed me the computer thing and said here, lookit Mr Cullen, some o them books are out near
four year, they might as well be robbed as far as we’re concerned.

—So yeh decked him, then?

—I did consider it. But violence Denny, it should always be a last resort. I suppose he has a point, anyway. Could be other people wanted them books as well.

I laugh again and take a sip o me whiskey. The wind’s howlin outside and the leafless trees are bent and tossin madly. Yeh can hear a hundred tiny creaks at once in the caravan, and feel a hundred tiny tremors. Like bein at sea, almost.

—Yeh gettin on OK yerself, Victor?

—Ah God yeah, Denny. Yeh know me. Not a bother. Love me peace and quietude. Although I must say now it’s very good to see yeh Denny, sure it must be five or six year since I saw yeh last.

—I saw yeh at the funeral, Victor.

Victor sinks back slowly and places his whiskey on the coffee table.

—Ah that’s right, Denny. Sure didn’t I see yeh at yer mother’s funeral.

I look out the window and then back at Victor and gulp back the last o the whiskey. Victor’s lookin at his glass, runnin his long forefinger round the rim.

—That was a terrible pity, Denny, he says, his head downcast slightly but his eyes still on me. —That was a terrible thing altogether there’s no fairness in the world. Sure yer mother was a young woman only when yeh lookit the ages people live today. God that was a terrible shock, I do still think about her. Let me tell yeh son, fambly is very important. Yeh might not know it now but it is, sure yiv not much else in the world if yiv no fambly. Yid think
it was only last week yer granny and granda brung yer ma home from St James’s. I was eleven year old, I never seen a thing so small.

Victor looks up at me. —Are yeh copin OK yerself, Denny? Loss is a fearful thing.

—Not too bad. I go down the grave sometimes and that.

—D’yeh know I haven’t been to the grave since the funeral? Isn’t that a mortal sin? I can’t bring meself to go, isn’t that just a mortal sin against me soul?

I shake me head. —Paula’s only been up the once.

—Has she?

—Yeah. It’s after hittin her worse than she lets on, I think. She won’t talk about it or anythin.

—It’s a terrible thing to lose yer mother, Denny. Specially so young.

—I know. She was sayin there’s someone in the house and all this.

—Who?

—Paula.

—No, who’s in the house?

—I dunno. A ghost or somethin. Not me ma’s ghost. She was sayin there was somethin under the beds.

—Well, the best thing to do now Denny is get a bit o holy water and sprinkle it and say to it begone from the house in the name o –

—She’s neurotic, Victor. There’s nothin in the house. She’s out of her head half the time with drink. We had a séance, anyway. Pajo did. D’yeh know Pajo?

—Which one’s he?

—The little skinny fella. Green hair. Yeh saw him at the funeral.

—I remember, yeah. Mad fella?

—Yeah.

—And he did a séance?

—Yeah. Don’t really believe in that kind o thing.

Victor purses his lips and knits his eyebrows. —Well who’s to say, Denny?

—I’m not the one forcin wha I believe on people, Victor.

—Well. Wha happened at the séance, then?

—Well … nothin at first, like, then Pajo was sayin this stuff, like he was possessed. The lights were out.

—And yeh don’t believe it?

—I dunno. No, I don’t think so.

—Wha did he say?

—Pajo?

—Yeah, or the ghost.

—Well, the way I remember it … it’s a bit sketchy, like. It wasn’t the ghost from under Paula’s bed that was talkin, it was some other ghost that said it moved the first one on. It was a bit weird, like. A bit freaky. Even though I didn’t, like …

—Did it say anything in particular?

—Yeah. Well, it said loads o stuff. It said — or Pajo said -that Paula reminded him of a woman from years before.

—Who?

—He said, like, Emer or somethin. I think it was Emer.

—Emer.

—Yeah. I betcha I know wha yer gonna say.

—G’wan.

—Yer gonna say about Emer, Cúchulainn’s wife.

—Well Denny to be honest with yeh now it did occur to me.

—So yeh reckon we were in touch with Cüchulainn? D’yeh not think that’s a bit mad?

—Well clearly Denny now it occurred to you. I’m sayin nothin o the sort one way or the other.

I finish off me whiskey and pour another. That whole Cüchulainn thing
did
occur to me. Cüchulainn was a hero in ancient Ireland. A mythological hero, like. He got the name Cüchulainn cos he killed the guard dog o this chieftain with his hurley and sliotar when he was only a kid, and to make it up he took the dog’s place, patrollin this chieftain’s land. Cüchulainn means hound o Cullen in English. Cüchulainn went on to do all sorts o mad stuff, takin on gods and monsters and the enemies of Ulster. I learned all that from the book Victor got me, years ago. Paula does look like Emer in it, and me ma did as well, when she was younger — that was why Victor bought it — but that means fuck all, it’s just a coincidence. And Pajo might o just picked up on somethin, subconsciously even. I might o said somethin about Paula lookin like Emer years ago, when we were kids, and it just happened to surface that night.

—That’s all just … it doesn’t help anythin, Victor, yeh know? This is real life, these are real fuckin problems. I don’t know wha –

—Did yer ma ever tell yeh about the time she saw a banshee?

—Yeah, I think so, ages ago.

—I’ll tell yeh Denny there’s more to this world than yeh think. This oulwan keening and brushin her hair, she said it was. An ancient hag, her face all withered. And
didn’t our own father die not three days later? A heart attack in his bed, sure none of us even knew he was gone till the next day when yer nanny Cullen shook him and found the life all fled from him.