Ghosts and Lightning (3 page)

—How many legs do moths have? I say. —This thing has loads.

—Dunno. The bastard’s fuckin trespassin anyway. Killim. It’s his own fault.

—I think it’s a moth. Fuckin huge though.

—He was in me jeans the dirty fuckin bastard. Icky icky. He’s fuckin dead Denny I’m tellin yeh. He’s gettin it sooner or later.

I toss the torch onto the bed. —I can’t get him when he’s behind there and me Cheerios are goin soggy. I’ll get him after.

I back out o the room and start down the stairs. Paula softly shuts the bedroom door and grabs her housecoat from the banisters and hurries down after me.

*

—What’s with the fuckin giant insects everywhere? says Paula.

I rinse me bowl under the warm tap and set it down on the drainin board, a token effort at cleanin up. The sun’s spillin into the kitchen, watery and lemon-coloured. Looks like it’s gonna be a pretty nice day. Cold like, but dry and clear.

—Wha giant insects?

—That moth upstairs. And that big spider yeh showed us over the back door. Probably more.

I shrug. —Dunno. Spiders are arachnids, anyway. Dunno wha moths are.

—Dirty fuckin tresspassin pervos, that’s wha. I’m gettin a spray. This place is a bug hutch.

—Spider provider, I say, smilin.

—Alien ant farm, says Paula.

She clinks her spoon against the steamin teacup and lifts it to her mouth. Takes a little sip. —I got a fuckin fright, she says. —Serious, he flew right up at me. Yeh can smile all yeh want but I’m tellin yeh it’s not nice, flyin into yer face. What’s the point o moths?

—Dunno.

—They’ve no point. They’re pointless. Kill the lot o them.

—I thought someone was murderin yeh yeh mad fuck. Or yer fuckin ghost was after yeh.

Paula shakes her head. —No, she says, like she needs to confirm it. —Just that moth. Bastard.

—I’ll sort it out after.

—Never openin them windows again. He must o flew in.

—Yill get over it.

Paula sets down her tea and digs out a lump o butter and tries to spread it on her toast but all she does is bludgeon the bread into raggedy bits.

—This butter’s solid.

—I know. We should get Low-Low next time. It’s softer.

—Yeah. We should.

Paula squashes the butter back into the tub and takes a bite o the dry toast. It’s half nine in the mornin. Nothin’s changed. She sits there, starin through the patio doors at the back garden. Nothin’s gonna change, either. Her legs are crossed and one hand’s restin on her stomach. She looks tired and sad. Her hair’s hangin limp around her shoulders. If it wasn’t for the moth she probably wouldn’t be up till after twelve.

—We have the place the way it is, Paula, I say. —We’re gonna have to do somethin. Paula says nothin.

—I honestly do think yer drinkin too much, I say.

Again, nothin. I hate when she does that. Ignores me. Makes yeh feel like a kid. Yid swear we were still in our teens, like, and I was askin her to turn off Sweet Valley High for Zig and Zag and she’d be sittin there brushin her hair, pretendin she can’t hear me. Always been that way. Sometimes things are cool, or they seem like they are, and then … ah sure who the fuck am I kiddin? She’s me sister. I’m her brother. It’s just the way things are, isn’t it? In an age when to be deeply philosophical is José Mourinho sayin sometimes yeh get three points and sometimes yeh get none, but then again sometimes yeh get one, maybe I’m overanalysin things.

—What’s the story with that … like, this under the bed stuff? I say. —Is it for real or what?

—Yeh just want me to humour yeh, Denny. I’m not gonna. Yeh know I’m not.

—Yer mad.

—Wouldn’t have it any other way.

*

I was seventeen and Paula was eighteen when she told me she was gay. She didn’t make a big deal of it or anythin, just came straight out with it.

—I’m gay, Denny.

Just straight up, like. I was eatin a battered sausage and I nearly choked. It took me a few seconds to get it down, then I skilfully re-routed the conversation:

—Eh, did yeh get these in J.J.’s or out o the van?

—Denny?

—Wha?

—I’m a lesbian.

Paula never bothered with skirtin round issues. It still sounded weird hearin her say ‘lesbian’ though. Gay was bad enough, but lesbian was a hundred times worse. It sounded like a medical condition.

—Since when? I said.

—Since always, Denny.

She took a deep drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke out through her nose. She was wearin a denim jacket and jeans, her hair newly dyed a bright, shiny purple.

—Have yeh got a smoke? I said.

—You don’t smoke.

—I do.

Me own confession was a bit less drastic than Paula’s but that was all I had. She rummaged through her handbag.

—I’ve only two left, she said, but she tossed me one anyway. I put it to me lips and lit up, inhaled shallowly. Me ma was out at me mad aunty Denise’s. She wasn’t that mad at that time, though. Me ma would’ve killed me if she saw me smokin.

—Are yeh sure? I said.

Obviously that was a stupid thing to say. It was like somethin a character on The Wonder Years would blurt out. But that was the only reference point I had, the telly. Me ma and da never talked about lesbians. Not to me, anyway.

—Am I sure? Yeh fuckin serious?

Paula shook her head and turned her attention to Richard Whiteley. There was hurt in the look, though, mixed with the nonchalance, the defiance.

—I don’t mean it like that, Paula. I just mean, like —

— Just leave it Denny.

She was still staring at Countdown. Paula hated Countdown, she said it was a show for nerds. Carol Vorderman was doin a sum. I fancied Carol Vorderman, a bit. She looks nicer the older she gets. I wanted to retrieve the situation, though. I didn’t want to fuck things up.

—Have yeh got a girlfriend?

Paula stubbed out her cigarette. The way she did the stubbin, it was a statement: she bludgeoned the cigarette butt, a tiny act of violence.

She lit another cigarette and pursed her lips.

—I’m not messin, I said. —Just wonderin, yeh know? Seriously.

Fuck. It was dead embarrassin. Me sister was a … wha had Maggit called them? Dykes? I took a drag on me cigarette to calm down. Smoke curled in front o me eyes.

—Have yeh?

—I do as a matter o fact.

Paula’s eyes were still on the screen. Maybe she was someone I knew, this girl? That would’ve been a bit weird. I didn’t know any lesbians (except Paula, of course, and it seemed like I didn’t know her at all), but maybe there was another surprise comin. Maybe it was someone I went to school with. Maybe someone off the road?

—Who?

—Yeh wouldn’t know her.

—Well go on so.

—Her name’s Teresa.

—Where’s she from?

—Town.

—What’s she like?

Paula rolled her eyes, then looked at her cigarette.

—She’s nice, she said. —I like her.

I nodded. Wha the fuck else was I supposed to do? Congratulate her? And then somethin occurred to me.

—Wha about Harry?

—Wha about him?

—Does he know?

—About Teresa or me bein a lesbian?

—I don’t know. Either.

—No, I don’t think so.

I broke off a bit o me sausage. I could feel the grease coolin on me fingers.

—Maybe he has an idea, she said. —I don’t know. I don’t fuckin care either. He’s a fuckin prick anyway.

—Took yeh long enough to say it.

I hated Harry Cummins. He was a leery bigheaded gimp and he’d taken a lend o Wrestlemania XII off me and never brought it back up. Bret Hart versus Shawn Michaels was on that one, the Iron Man match. I fuckin love that match. People’ll tell yeh it’s crap, that it goes on for over an hour and nothin happens in it, but that’s why I love it — the slow build, all the holds and jockeyin. I was fuckin ragin Shawn Michaels won though. He fuckin loves himself.

—Well it’s said now, said Paula. —I’m finished with him as of tonight. I told him. He can go fuck himself for all I care.

—Yer well shot of him.

—Yeah.

—The bleedin head on him. Fuckin knock a wall down with that head. He should hire his head out to builders, demolish a few walls.

Paula laughed.

—His head’s somethin else, isn’t it? I said. —Fuckin mallethead. It was deadly gettin to slag Harry off. Even before that night I knew Paula wasn’t really mad into him, but she’d still never let yeh say boo about him. Even down to the videos I lent him: I’d say it to Paula and she’d look at me like I had two noses; for some reason Harry Cummins wasn’t to be discommoded. Even if he robbed brand new wrestlin videos on yeh. Well, second-hand from Chapters, but they were new to me.

Paula turned to me. —Giz a bit o that sausage.

—Yeh can have it. I’m not hungry.

—Wonders never cease.

—How’ll I get me videos back?

—I think he lent them out.

—To who?

Paula shrugged. Then she laughed. I looked at her for a few seconds, then I laughed as well. The videos were gone. But fuck it, so were a lot of things. I was glad.

*

The moth — and it is without doubt a moth, even if it is a freaky fat fuck nearly three inches long — is squattin still and upside-down on the ceilin o Paula’s bedroom. Like them bats at the zoo. Paula’s resumed her vantage point behind the door. I edge closer to the centre o the room, eyes glued to me prey. I’m slidin a kitchen chair along with me hip and I have a rolled up Vogue magazine in me right hand, although I’m not gonna whack it, like … I’m just gonna give it a nudge and see wha it does. I have the windows wide open, so hopefully it’ll just fly the fuck off and that’ll be the end of it.

I manoeuvre so that I’m nearly directly below the moth and stand carefully up on the chair. The moth’s big and fat and dark brown and its legs are thick and hairy. Two weird-shaped antennae movin slightly. The wings are downy and –

—Watch it doesn’t fly into yer face.

—Shush.

—They do. They don’t know wha they’re doin.

—Just shush, will yeh?

I slowly reach up towards the moth, tiltin me wrist back for leverage so I can kind o flick the thing away from me.

—Close yer mouth, says Paula. —It might go in yer mouth. It doesn’t care if it dies. It knows no better.

—Shurrup, I say, although fuck it, I might as well close me mouth. Imagine that thing in yer gob? Fuckin sick.

Right. Here goes. Just a little tap. I plant me feet square on the padded seat o the chair and reach slowly towards the moth. The Vogue magazine is about five inches from the thing, Angelina Jolie warped and stretched on the rolled-up cover, and the moth still hasn’t budged. Well, it’s turnin slightly, in little jerky circles, like an anti-aircraft gun gettin its bearins.

—Get it!

I look at Paula. —I am gettin it, I say and turn back to the moth and out o nowhere it hurtles at me all flappin whirrin wings gigantic in me vision and I can feel it brush me face, soft and hairy and meaty and me legs jellify and I let out a stupid yelp and fall backwards off the chair onto the ground with a huge crash and the moth bashes against the window random and bat-like and Paula bolts and legs it down the stairs half screamin and half laughin.

—I told yeh I told yeh I told yeh Denny, they always go for the face ick ick ick ick!

Fuckin hell, I’ve never seen rain like this before. Hurryin along a twistin Wicklow mountain road, eight miles from Enniskerry, three soaked and stoned intruders from the city. Teemin rain and roilin grey skies and a dull flat buzzin noise like static, like the sound yeh get off the telly when it’s not properly tuned in. All around us a sodden earthy smell and behind it the faint tang o rusted iron. There’s sheep huddlin in the fields beyond, black-eyed and watchin placidly, unmoved. I take a gulp from the bottle o wine I bought at the cornershop in the village and spill as much as I get in me mouth. The bottle’s so wet the label’s peelin off and I have to press it to me chest to make sure I don’t drop it.

—I swear, yer fuckin gettin it buddy! FUCKIN BIGSTYLE!

Maggit spits the threat at the rumblin sky. His face is upturned as he runs and his eyes are half closed against the downpour; the fucker’d fight the rain if he could. Such mad fuckin rage inside Maggit, his shaven head and angry mouth, the lips pale and stretched, a lopin, cursin, tracksuited shape in the wild evenin, the tent packed high on his back. Ahead o me, Pajo is quiet and wide-eyed,
turnin in circles as he jogs, amazed and awed by the sky’s raw and sudden fury, the dozens o badges pinned to his denim jacket clackin like maracas.

Shane’s been ringin me all day, the missed calls stackin up. Fuckim. A few hours ago we were in Dublin, in Eamonn Doran’s for wha we assumed was the night, downin pints and fightin off the creepin dark and now we’re here, in the arse end o nowhere, soaked and runnin. I couldn’t face the thought o goin back to the house, the staleness and fuckin sadness of it all. Me ma’s absence weighs on yeh like a sack o sand back there. We bought a cheap tent from an army surplus shop on Capel Street and hopped on the 44 outside Trinity College, spur o the moment job. Shots o vodka from the cap at the back o the bus, rain on the windows. Unusually for Pajo he had no pills on him so he bought a handful o herbal ecstasy from the hemp store, which has BZP or somethin in it, and I’m startin to come up on the two I popped, me teeth, legs and arms all warm and tingly. Feels nice, like there’s a spell on me, protectin me from the cold; an invisible cloak wrapped tight around me.

—Didn’t I fuckin tell yeh about the rain? says Maggit. —Didn’t I fuckin say? Yeh can’t be fuckin told, d’yeh know that?

Maggit’s referrin to the fact that I said not to bother pickin up rain gear, but balls to that. Who needs to keep dry when yiv this mad stuff in yer bloodstream? Fuckin class this is.

—Fuck it man! I shout.—C’mon and dance!

I catch Maggit by the sleeve of his tracksuit top and twirl him, brief thin fans o red water springin up and fallin round our soppin feet.

—Dance yeh cunt! Yeow!

Pajo claps and laughs, the three of us beneath the swayin branches of a huge and ancient oak, raindrops fallin fat and sparse about us and ragin beyond. Red mud on the narrow road and the mountaintops wrapped in rags o mist. Maggit pulls away from me and shrugs the tarpaulin bag o tent poles from his shoulder, droppin them at Pajo’s feet.