The Callaghans Part Four. The Maiden's Prayer. Chapter 2.

 

Chapter 2

Carmel and Patrick arrived at the Liberties house early the next morning, having caught the evening boat-train at New Street Station, and the boat across from Holyhead. 'What ship were you on?' asked Finbar.

'The Hibernia' said Carmel and Finbar asked them a lot of questions about the restaurant in case they saw the waiter who fed him on the trip across. He told them he would have asked Phyllis for money but didn't think. They both loved his stories but they didn't always believe them as he was a born story teller. The big news Carmel had was that her father had died. Joe gave his condolences 'So sorry' he said 'When's the funeral?'

'There isn't one' said Carmel 'he died a year ago. Aisling wrote and told me.'

'A year!!' said Joe.

'Maybe more.' said Patrick.

'What about the quare one?' said Joe.

'Not a word' said Carmel.

Joe served breakfast: eggs, rashers and sausages with both black and white pudding, washed down with strong tea.

'Calista wrote and told us they are opening a restaurant in Birmingham.' said Patrick 'next door to the bike shop on Moseley Road, Finbar.'

Finbar hadn't met them but he heard about Calista and . . 'What was the husband's name?'

'Mateus.' said Patrick 'they'll be able to live at the back of the restaurant.'

'That's game ball' said Joe 'is it far from you?'

'About a hundred yards' said Patrick. 'Do you know what I miss living over there Da?'

'Me, I hope' said Joe.

'Of course, you' said Patrick 'but white pudding. Can't get it over there at all.'

'Someone has to bring it over.' said Carmel.

'Who's going to buying Indian food in Bermyham?'

'I think people will.' said Carmel.

'When did you friend tell you about your Da?'

'A few weeks ago, Joe. I don't suppose you heard anything?'

'Not a word' said Joe 'but it's bad bollix all the same.'

Finbar knew of his granny and grandad Wilde and often wondered why he had never met them.

'Did you call your mother?' said Joe.

'Yes, and she put the phone down again.'

'So it's no good inviting her here for Christmas dinner?'

They laughed, it was pathetic; but they laughed.

Carmel had a little present for Finbar from Sydney and she gave it to him. It was a large envelope which Finbar opened. A picture of Gary Cooper in High Noon and as soon as Finbar opened it he was delighted. To Finbar with all our love from Elsie and Syd' was on the back of the picture, and there were a couple of kisses under each name: Finbar could see that they had each put them under their names and he could see Sydney's blind scrawl.

'I'm putting it on the wall' he said and went to the chest of drawers by the piano to get some pins and went into the bedroom.

When breakfast was over Carmel and Patrick unpacked their luggage in the bedroom, that used to be Patrick's, and was used by Finbar. Carmel saw on the walls Finbar's pictures. Then she saw the Gary Cooper High Noon photo, next to ones of the films The Day the Earth stood Still and Genevieve – and then over the bed he had put up the picture that Sydney had sent over. Not a word about the duplication, no 'I've already got this'' not a whisper. She could see the older picture, without Elsie and Sydney's signature, it had been replaced by the new one.

Most of the bedrooms in Dublin had a crucifix above the bed but not this one; Patrick noticed.

Elsie and Sydney really missed Finbar, missed him terribly; he was almost an adoptive son.

On Christmas day Joe cooked a turkey with all the trimmings and Patrick went to mass. Ever since the incident with Tommy Bull after the scout camp, Finbar hadn't been to any church. Carmel wasn't about to make him go and Patrick kind of knew that the right thing to do would be to ignore it.

Finbar was delighted when Carmel told him she was going to work at his old school teaching music and history. As she was sitting with Finbar she noticed his harmonica on top of the piano.

She was told by Joe that he had picked it up, that day, but it was strange that he went from carrying it with him, everywhere he went, to ignoring it; maybe there was something more about the time he'd been poisoned, and the trouble with Tommy Bull that meets the eye; she intended to give it some thought.

Saint Stephen's Day followed Christmas and Joe said he would like to take Finbar out.

'Oh!' said Carmel 'I thought we'd take him to Trinity College, to see my alma mater – if they're open. What did you have in mind?'

'Dún Laoghaire.' said Finbar.

Carmel didn't say anything, at first, but then Patrick piped up with 'what does he want to see there?'

'He could see the ship you came on – or its sister.'

'Or Haigh Terrace?' said Finbar.

'Or Haigh Terrace' said Joe 'and why not?'

Patrick got up and cleared the breakfast things away from the table: remnants of egg, a tiny bit of rasher and maybe a crust from the fried bread, but no white pudding. That was all gone and in fact, as Finbar didn't like it much, his share had been eaten by Patrick. As far as breakfast was concerned more and more white pudding was bought together with Hafner Sausages and more rashers. The rashers must have been the best in the world but at least, better than the bacon Patrick ate in Birmingham. Each time he visited Dublin it took a long time to get used to the Birmingham bacon, which is what the English called rashers.

'What's he going to learn at Haigh Terrace?' said Patrick as he put the delf into the sink.

'What's he going to learn at Trinity?' said Joe.

'I don't mind at all' said Carmel 'it's all the same to me, but he's been here, with you, since October so why leave it till now.'

'We don't have to go' said Joe 'I just waited till yiz were here; I didn't want you to think I was sneaking him anywhere.'

'No such thing' she said 'but I don't like the fact of you going out at all.'

'I go out every day.'

'Maybe you should wait for the air to get warmer – this is bad for your chest; why don't I take him?'

That's what happened.

Carmel took Finbar on the train and Patrick took his father around to the Brazen Head pub as it was the closest. They had a slow walk around there and Patrick could tell Joe was puffing and blowing.

'How's the singing?'

'Can't get my breath any more' said Joe 'takes me all my time to walk. Young Finbar sang a few times at Mother Red Caps; he's very good.'

'He never sang at home – played the mouth organ all right, but never sang.'

'He played the tin whistle there too – very good.'

'What about the woodman's whistle?' said Patrick 'I see he still carries it?'

Patrick ordered two pints and sat down with Joe.

'Did youz two ever get married?'

'No' said Patrick 'I think I might have told ya if we did. We didn't think it important in the finishing up. Took so much trouble over here we couldn't be bothered.'

'Finbar hasn't been anywhere near a church since he's been here.'

'What?' said Patrick.

'Said he doesn't believe in it any more – won't go near the place. Won't bless himself when he passes a church - has no time for it.'

'Dear oh dear' said Patrick 'what does he do when you go?'

'I don't go any more.'

'Why not?'

'It's a long story. I never went near a church since the night Finbar was born. There was no god there to help us then – do you know Carmel nearly died that night – nearly died, she did: and when I was praying – well not praying - I just said mother of God, please help us and she said stop that bloody nonsense and kind of went into a coma.'

'And that's what turned you off?'

'I don't want to talk about it.'

'Why not?' said Patrick.

'I don't' he said and picked up his drink 'Sláinte' he said and took a gulp of the Guinness.

'Sláinte' said Partick and took his gulp but not another word was spoken on the subject.

On the train to Dún Laoghaire, as they headed inexorably to Haigh Terrace, Finbar cuddled up to his mother the way he'd done all his life. On the days, long after the initial introduction on that first school day, when Carmel dropped him off at school, Finbar made sure to kiss her, right up to the day they split up on Ladypool Road when he doubled back and went back home. He noticed that other boys shied away from kissing their parents in case other boys laughed at them. Finbar figured he liked to show the world that he and his parents loved each other, and that the boys who were scared to show their love didn't have any to show.

Nobody on the train paid him any mind the fifteen year old boy with his mammy. Carmel had missed him too and she saw by him that he was nearly back to the happy go lucky little fella.

'Do you like it over here?' she said.

'I love it' said Finbar.

Carmel noticed that a lot of his Dublin accent had returned.

'I noticed that your harmonica is gathering dust on that piano.'

'I suppose so' said Finbar. 'Granda told you I played The Maiden's Prayer on it.'

'How do you know?' she said.

'He told me he would; he did didn't he?'

'Yes – but he told you . . . beforehand?'

He nodded and smiled.

'Why did you stop carrying it?'

'No reason, really: I got to thinking it got to be an obsession with me.'

'And what about your woodman's whistle?'

'What about it?' he said.

'Are you not obsessed with that?'

'I might be; who knows? I suppose it's like my blanket or clothe – when I was lost in that 'land of unbelievability' it was like my hot water bottle.'

'Unbelievability? That's a long word for you – where did you get the whistle from?'

He smiled, as if she knew in any case 'The Land of Unbelievability.'

She smiled back and he looked through the window.

'Here we are' he said 'Dún Laoghaire.'

Joe and Patrick only had a couple of drinks before heading home. It was fairly cold as they sauntered along the street. Patrick took his scarf off and wrapped it around Joe.

'I'm all right.' he said.

'You're not' said Patrick 'just keep that chest warm' he pulled the scarf over Joe's mouth 'and this cold air is not good for you.'

'Okay son. There we go with you molly coddling me.'

'I'm not molly coddling you, you auld galoot' said Patrick 'you need to keep warm.'

'I took him out to Finglas, one of Sundays, and when we made our way down to Mellowes Road, we got the end of the street when a huge crowd came walking past – huge crowd, it was, and young Finbar said is there a football match, Granda? and then we saw a priest walking the other way – against the crowd, if you know what I mean.'

'Yes' said Patrick.

'And the priest was roaring and shouting, saying Where were all these people at eight-o-clock this morning over and over again. Finbar stopped. He had never seen anything like it and said well I'm not going and he hasn't been anywhere near mass ever since.

When they got in they sat by the big fire and drank some hot tea with a drop of the uisce beatha in it to give it warmth. Patrick had noticed, as Carmel had, the lack of any holy pictures or crucifixes on the wall and asked Joe about it.

'Finbar wanted his pictures up and I asked myself why not? They’re only craven images after all.'

'I've heard that before' said Patrick.

'I know, I know' said Joe 'it's what the protestants said about Catholicism but they are only . . . I don't know, craven images, is what they called them, and craven images they are. People seem to treat the last supper as a photograph.'

'What . . the last supper?'

'The painting' said Joe 'by Leonardo da Vinci. We were sitting here one day and Finbar asked me where God is and that he'd been looking for him and – I started to think about it and I said he's the author of everything, everything that happens. I said when you read a book, you don't look for the author, do you, and he looked at me as if he'd figured everything out and said, so we're in a book.'

Patrick was mystified 'In a book?' he said.

'That's right' said Joe, 'but you know, and you'll know yourself, he's always walking around as if he's in a story. I thought he'd be an actor, or something, he seems to see things that aren't really here and fantasises about them. He writes to a girl I Bermeyham.'

'Sofia Taboné?'

'Yes' said Joe 'They get on like a house on fire.'

'You know something: they hardly know each other. They kind of, what can I say? Have some kind of nodding acquaintance. I wonder how he'll get on today with his grandmother?'

'He's been before.'

'What?'

'Only to the house' said Joe 'I showed him where Carmel used to live; that's all.'

When Carmel and Finbar got to Haigh Terrace, Finbar pointed to the house 'there it is.' he said.

'You know?'

'We walked past it, when we came to meet you at the boat ; me and Granda Joe' said Finbar.

When they got to the house they stood by the wall looking at it.

'What are we going to do now?' said Finbar.

'I'm going to knock the front door.'

She walked up the path and stopped at the steps. She looked back at Finbar who was standing by the gate, and gestured for him to come, but he shook his head. She climbed the few steps and knocked the door hard and loud.

Not a movement. Finbar took his woodman's whistle from his top pocket and twiddled with it in his hand.

Carmel knocked the door again. Finbar blew the whistle softly.

Inside Nora Wilde could see Finbar through the window even though she was at the back of the room; she was lying on a bed which had been lifted so she could see out but so far back that she couldn't be seen. As she moved her head, she saw Finbar where two parts of the glass met and it looked like two Finbars. She stayed there as she liked looking at him like that, but when she moved her head again she could still see two Finbars.

Round the back the door was locked and when Carmel looked through the window, she could see sheets over the furniture and the whole place in darkness.

At the front gate Joseph was with Finbar, Joseph, from The Lickey Hills, the boy he met there who gave him the whistle. Carmel hadn't looked back when she went to the back of the house.

'I heard you.' said Joseph 'bet you thought you would never see me again.'

Finbar blew on the whistle and fell to the floor and started fitting.

Nora Wilde, in the house, saw this and came out of the front door. She was in a night gown and was putting a dressing gown on, to try to keep keep warm, as she approached. She was walking very slowly and could see Joseph too and was holding a walking stick which she clung to like death.

Finbar was on his back, as Nora went to him, but when she looked up again, Joseph was gone. She turned Finbar on his side till the fit subsided and she stroked his brow with her hand.

Carmel came back around the house and went to them.

'He's had a fit' said Nora 'I didn't know he was epileptic.'

'I didn't - it's never happened before – as far as I know.' stammered Carmel.

'He's okay now.' said Nora.

The fast walking straight to business woman that Carmel knew as her mother, was now a frail little old lady. She looked very rough and could hardly get up. She put her hand to the wall to hoist herself and Carmel helped her: 'Get away' she said as she swung at Carmel; not a blow but a 'get away gesture.

She struggled to her feet and wobbled when she was up 'Nothing has changed' she said 'you had your child and went away – and that's it.'

Carmel didn't want to argue with a woman she never knew. 'Thank you for looking after him; his name is Finbar.'

'I know' she said 'I know. I dealt with epilepsy – or fits – in England when we went to see the troops that time. He'll be all right.'

She struggled her way to the steps 'Take him to the doctor to get him checked out; probably a petit mal.'

'Where are you going?' said Carmel.

Nora, with her hand on the door, turned and said 'You made your bed, young lady; lie in it.'

Finbar was still on the ground with the woodman's whistle next to him. Carmel gave it to him as he sat up and as she helped him stand, Nora returned with a glass of water in her shaking hand, spilling small drops as she unsteadily walked. She gave it to Finbar who took it from her without looking up and she went back to the house.

Carmel remembered Finbar fitted at the hospital when he was found at The Lickey Hills and the doctors deduced it may have been caused by the scratches on his face from the berries or something indeterminate in the undergrowth.

'I feel okay' he said 'don't worry.'

He looked towards the house and the closed door.

'She's gone.'

'There we go.' said Finbar 'I managed so far without her.'

'She looks very ill' said Carmel.

In fact Nora Wilde had been ill for few months. A nurse visited her every day to see to her needs but the incident with Finbar was too much for her. She got back into bed and fell asleep. Carmel and Finbar didn't have any choice. They went back to the train remembering what her mother called Finbar even before he was born.

Finbar didn't want to go to the doctors, he said he was all right and it was decided that Finbar stayed with Joe. Patrick knew that Joe needed the company and as Finbar liked Dublin, what was the harm?

©2025 Chris Sullivan

The Callaghans Part Four. The Maiden's Prayer. Chapter 1.

 

The Callaghans

Part Four.

The Maiden's Prayer.

Chapter 1.

Joe was well known in Dublin, but not necessarily by name. One time on his walks he got as far as The Gut, in Ballsbridge where his lovely Mary Fay lived in one of Turner's Cottages before he married her. Even though he had never been inside it, he knew the house and when he found it he took a long look.

Was that really the house? There were a few cars parked outside, when there might have been a horse and cart before and one of the cottages had a cat sitting on the step. He loved cats and went over to it. It was just like Graymalkin, black with a tuft of white under its chin. He bent down and put his hand out and the cat sidled up to him and rubbed itself against Joe's leg. He scratched the top of the cats head with his nails as he knew Graymalking loved that.

The closer he looked at it he thought it must be Graymalkin, but no. that was years and years ago.

He looked forward to the postman every day in case there was word from Birmingham. He loved to see photos of his grandson Finbar, and knew that he hadn't been too well recently, and looked forward to him coming over. When Finbar was around five he came over that time, with Carmel for a while, as he had a really bad chest infection and he was as right as rain when he went back. A lot of what he was saying was in an English accent but by the time he went back he was a proper Dub; but for how long?

Joe knew that Finbar had an attack of consumption but the little angel fought it off for ever. Later on the hospital found a shadow on his lung which was proof of the attack.

Joe was in his early sixties but sometimes when he reached the end of his walk he felt in his eighties. That bloody war, that bloody feckin' war, the war didn't do much for him except ruin his lungs. Maybe he should have carried on smoking at least that might have finished him off - as opposed to spending his life with a pipe or two he didn't use, in either case, as nobody could ever replace his beloved Mary,

Mary and Joe's real happy home was in the tenement in Parnell Street, after they were married and before he volunteered for the army. The house in The Liberties was given to Mary by the Dublin corporation, when he was away and he presumed this was because he was a serving soldier. He never quite knew this or was it because he was injured at the Somme.

Up to the time of going he didn't know where the Somme was and still didn't as the whole experience was vague: he never knew what they were fighting for, nobody had invaded Ireland – or England for that matter – but he didn't have a job, had no money and a baby on the way; so what else could he do?

When he came back, he didn't get on well with his brothers who had fought on the other side in Dublin. He went to the pub with them and the three of them were from different organisations; one was in the IRA the other in the IRB and Joe was an ex (gassed) British soldier as far as they were concerned; it didn't stop them drinking with each other though.

And here he was now, or there he is then, walking around by himself with a life full of things he didn't understand. He never knew the reason Mary died, he was told, but he didn't understand: he didn't know what happened to Carmel when he saw that the cord was wrapped around the baby's neck and didn't understand why Nurse Theresa told him to get rid of it; 'it' she said.

'IT?'

HIM - his first grandchild? Or the first one he knew.

And why did it have to be a secret?

No baptism: in purgatory for ever. In the ground next to Graymalkin which gave him many sleepless nights.

She told him to burn something else she had wrapped in newspaper; she didn't say what it was, she said 'burn it don't open it.'

But he did open it.

He never forgot it. Never forgot what he saw.

The cat came into his life when Mary was given him by a friend when she was expecting Patrick; she knew that if the kitten had remained in that house it would have been put into a tied bag and dumped into the Royal Canal. Graymalkin's mother was a tortoiseshell cat, called Biddy, who lived across the street and once in a while would be in Joe's yard with her son, Graymalkin, when Joe got out of bed.

Maybe the cat was sent for a purpose, maybe he buried him for a purpose and maybe that purpose was to hide Joseph.

Everything was sent for a reason, as far as Joe was concerned. The Irish people had been attacked by famine, consumption and bigotry with only the fittest surviving. All the religious wars in Ireland, all the invasions by Cromwell and his armies, coming over here for target practice, being allowed to kill the Irish as long as they didn't do it in Dublin, but beyond something they called the Pale, which going beyond it was okay to do anything they wanted. The Irish got over everything which was thrown at them, the famine and the TB epidemic, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

This made the Irish strong – that and the craic.

Joe knew this and he knew the part of the bible which warned; There will be terrible earthquakes and seismic events of epic proportion that result in famines in one place after another. There will be horrible plagues and epidemics, cataclysmic storms on the earth, and astonishing signs and cosmic disturbances in the heavens” - he loved those words and loved them in that order and he looked around as he walked and said them out loud.

Oh!!!! How great that made him feel.

He half expected to be locked up every time the mood took him to speak out loud when there was nobody with him. He did that at home, as he spent most of the time by himself and when Finbar arrived with the quare one from Limerick he didn't soliloquise so much.

The harmonica was put on the top of the piano so that Finbar could see it any time. He still carried the woodman's whistle in his pocket and soon after he arrived Joe saw him sitting in a corner in the yard looking as if he had the whole world's troubles on his shoulders.

'What's that?' he said, pointing at the mound of Graymalkin.

'That's the mound of Graymalkin' he said 'and that's the Nancy Hutch' pointing at the place which used to house Nancy the ass and Patrick's horse, Finn MacCool.

When that first happened Joe said 'come on my little fella; let's go to the park.' and a big smile would interrupt Finbar's disposition and he'd run in and get the coats. Joe wrapped himself up warm with a big scarf over his chest and covered the whole of his head with a thick beret. He looked the proper French poet as they strolled out to Fairview Park before returning to a big fire of turf out of the cold dark December of Dublin.

When walking in Fairview Park that first time, the two of them were frozen and Joe said 'Let's go home and burn some turf.'

Finbar said 'they told us at school that it was called peat.'

'Poor old Pete' said Joe and each time they went there, Finbar said 'what about Pete?'

And Joe answered 'Poor old Pete.'

This was a little game they played.

The sheet music, for The Maiden's Prayer, was in the music rack of the piano and it had been there since Mary died. It was only disturbed slightly when Joe tried to play it and the time Carmel played it; playing it beautifully,

Finbar could read music but when he tried to play a few notes he found the piano way out of tune, so his hand automatically reached up and found the tune on the harmonica.

'What's that, Granda?' he said.

'That was your granny's favourite piece.' said Joe.

'I like it' said Finbar and he played the tune all the way through. When he finished he played it again with more confidence and Joe took his tin whistle out and the sounds of the harmonica and whistle seemed to know each other straight away; for there was harmony.

'Can I have a go?' he said as he picked up Joe's tin whistle.

'Sure.' said Joe.

Finbar sat down on the piano stool with the whistle and played, Deedle ap a doodle de doodle ap a doodee. Deedle ap a doodle de doodle ap a dum.

The little tune Joseph played.

'Did you see that?' said Finbar.

'I heard it.' said Joe.

Joe was hoping that Finbar might pick up the harmonica again but he didn't; he put it back in the same spot. There was something about Finbar that Joe didn't quite understand. He had been a very happy little fella, maybe stuck in his ways, but always smiling and good natured. He never lost his smile but Joe sensed a deepness. Finbar himself, was concerned about his granda's breathing difficulties and wondered what had actually happened at The Somme; but Joe was quiet about it. He told Finbar about his reaction to the Easter Insurrection of 1916, and said he had to see an officer who told him that there had been a bit of trouble in Dublin 'your country' was the way he put it. Joe told Finbar more about Dublin itself in the days before the war and when they were walking by The Quays, one day, he pointed to a drain, 'do you see that; I was standing here one day, when I was your age, and an owl-one was standing over it and I could see she was pissing.'

Of course this conjured up an image in Finbar's mind of an old woman crouching down, urinating into the drain.

'Standing there, bold as brass she was, with her long skirt just letting it go. An' you know what?'

'What?'

'She asked me if I would kindly, she said, very kindly, she put it, would I tie up her shoe.'

Finbar laughed at this 'And did you?'

'Of course' said Joe 'I got down on one knee and did it.'

'What about the smell of wee?'

'I never noticed' said Joe 'Sure the whole place smelt of piss. There were loads of smells from the horses pissing as they would stand there, shite'n as they stood. Kids would run out and scrape up the shite. Do you know there's something about a horse's diet that makes it okay to handle their shite.'

'Handle it?'

'Well you know what I mean' then he'd break out laughing miss pronouncing it 'you know whad oy mane?'

They walked on. He loved Dublin, they both did. They walked to Moore Street Market, just off O'Connell Street, where everybody seemed to know Joe and got more used to his companion of late. They knew their names at the market and people were used to Finbar's name, as opposed to the queries he got in Birmingham with the people mispronouncing it as Funbar. Then he thought of the thing that Joseph said, Fin boy. Just who was Joseph? He wasn't sure, was he a figment of Finbar's imagination, was he a figment of Finbar himself. He never could explain it and he never told anybody. The hospital told him he had been poisoned but he didn't really eat the mushrooms he kind of almost did. He did something between smelling and eating them, kind of taking them in for comfort. What would that be called a smell-eat? A smeat – there we are, he thought I've made up a word. You didn't make that word up, said the teacher, a girl wrote it for you and it's been written sloping backwards like a girl. What a gobshite. He saw his granda talking to a couple of the market traders, making them laugh. He saw the vapour from his mouth floating across and away from him, it was quite cold as was standing there and he thought what the word would be if granda swallowed his breath and what would that word be, vape-eating?

He was drinking a cup of hot tea which added to the vape ness.

'Come on' said Joe 'let's be off, your mother and father will be here tomorrow. That fella I was talking to knows your father.'

'Doesn't everybody.' said Finbar, and as they walked away the fella who knew Patrick said 'have a good Christmas.'

Finbar had been staying with Joe for a month or two, and the first night Joe told him the best place for him would be in his father's old room. It wasn't a big room but a lot bigger than his box room in Birmingham. Joe tucked him in and as he closed the door, Finbar asked him to leave it open, and that's what he did. 'I'll leave mine open too' he said 'If you want anything, just come in.'

He could see the night through the window and the wind blowing outside. In the yard was an outside lavatory, even though there was one in the bathroom at the back of the house, which was all on ground level, and that lavatory door was making a metallic noise as he settled down to sleep. It was a bit like a moan, kind urghhhhhh!!! then Clink. urghhhhhh!!! then Clink, and suddenly a bang. And that was it, no more of a moan.

He'd been asleep for an hour or two, he didn't know as there was no clock in the room, when he was wakened with a shout:

NO NO. ARGHHHH! BEHIND, NO AT THE BACK – THE BACK RUN . . . . NO RUN! ARGHHHH!

Finbar got out of bed and heard the sound coming from Joe's room. He went to the open door and could see granda on his knees, on the floor, with his torso over the bed. His head buried in the eiderdown. Then he lifted his head again – ARGHHHH!

It was the only time he heard it as both bedroom doors were closed from then on.

The next morning when Finbar got up he saw that Joe was outside in the yard. He was sitting on his bench, which looked like a park bench.

'Is that a park bench?' he asked.

'They threw it out at Fairview Park – your father brought it home when we had the cart.'

'It's cold' said Finbar.

'Well get your coat.'

'It's okay.'

He sat down next to Joe 'Are you all right?' he said.

Joe patted Finbar on his knee 'Did you see me last night?' Joe said.

Finbar nodded his head.

'I get bad nights – nightmares, I suppose, but that's all. I won't come and get you.'

He was staring at Graymalkin's grave.

'What's that?'

Joe told him about Graymalkin. It fascinated Finbar. 'Did you call the cat after yourself?' he said.

'Graymalkin, his name was. I said.'

'I got the feeling it was Joseph, you said.'

'No.' said Joe.

©2025 Chris Sullivan