‘MAGUIRE: Sally (nee Dempsey). Gone to her eternal reward. Deeply regretted by her loving husband Frank, heartbroken sons Liam and Ciarán, daughters Róisín and Kate, doting grandchildren and the entire family circle. Body will leave family home at 2 Kashmir Avenue for requiem mass at St Jude’s at 9.30am on Friday, March 12. Donations to Charlie’s Ethical Circus in lieu of flowers. Saints Paldo, Tato and Taso of Benavento pray for her. Does that sound okay Frank?’
‘Yes, that sounds perfect, thanks Collette. How did you spell Benevento again?’
‘B-e-n-a-v-e-n-t-o’
‘It’s an e instead of an a.’
‘In the middle?’
‘Aye.’
‘Okay, done. Are you sure Paldo, Tato and Taso are saints though?’
‘Certain. They were three brothers. They founded the Benedictine order in the eighth century. They entered the monastery of Farfa, which is in Sabina in Italy, before the three of them cleared off together to set up their own monastery at San Vincenzo. Sally loved to think of them lounging about in the sun with their sandals off after their prayers were done. She got great solace from them in her times of need.’
‘Well, you learn something new every day. Or two things, I never knew there was such a thing as an ethical circus either. Again, I’m sorry for your loss. I’ll be up to the wake tomorrow, and don’t be worrying about the bill, I’ll sort it.’
‘Thanks Collette, you’re a star. I’ll dig you out that leaflet about the circus when I can.’
‘Bye for now.’
‘Bye bye.’
That’s that done. I can’t wait to see everyone’s faces after they’ve read the paper in the morning. ‘Saints Paldo, Tato and Taso of Benevento’ pray for you, indeed. That’ll have them diving for their prayer books and their lives of the saints anthologies. ‘She got great solace from them,’ I’ll say straight faced, ‘in between the works of Nostradamus and Mao Tse-tung.’
Although it might placate Father Gillen for a while if he falls for it. He thinks it’s desperately inappropriate that I laugh about the way you died. I told him I thought it was very rock and roll to die on the toilet. Very Elvis of you. You even had the cigarette in your mouth. All that was missing was the cheeseburger. He didn’t get it. Sure what would he know about death or humour, or what’s not proper for that matter? I told him he was lucky you were even getting a catholic burial – that if it had have been up to you, your body would be in a black bag out the back waiting on the bin men. But he knows I’d be too ashamed to go through with that. Coward that I am.
I was thinking about the time you fell in the River Slaney. Trying to pirouette on top of that boulder to music only you were hearing. It was the lichen that was to blame. Made your toes lose your grip as you came full circle. I saw it happening before it actually did, but said nothing. Went arse-over-head you did, with a great big splash. Your skirt was up to your hips and your blouse was soaking wet. And all the rest of us could do was roll about laughing. And you sitting with the water lapping up round your waist with a massive pout on your face and your hair all over the place. And then you laughed too, in a way I’d never seen before – as if there wasn’t even a reason for it, that there didn’t need to be a reason for it. Ever. And there was a bit of blood running off your lip from where you’d bitten it when you fell.
That was some week – our honeymoon. The four of us tearing around the country, soles falling off our shoes and holes in our pockets, but we didn’t give a damn as long as we had enough for a night cap and a quiet laneway where we could park the car up and have a kip. I think there were days when we didn’t eat at all. That was your idea, to bring Ray and Flo with us, as if you were afraid we’d get bored of each other too soon. Have nothing left to say. My silences always did make you uncomfortable. And look at me now, gabbling on to a corpse.
Why did we follow that river? Do you remember? I don’t. Into the Wicklow mountains, saw Glendalough first then onto the source at Lugnaquilla. All the way south we followed it, through Baltinglass, Rathvilly, Tullow, Bunclody, Enniscorthy and on into Wexford – which is where you fell. And Stratford-on-Slayney – fucking sycophants, their own wee Stratford-upon-Avon in the middle of a bog. The Glen of Imaal. I can still remember the rivers that flow into it – the Dereen, the Derry, the Clody, the Bann, the Urrin, the Borrow, the Sow. And Kildavin, where they say you can spot the goosander – not that we did, maybe we didn’t look hard enough. Or didn’t know what it was we were looking for. Why did I say the Glen of Imaal? We never made it there. It just pops onto my tongue from time to time. Who knows why?
Anyway, the point is we didn’t get to see the goosander with its brown hair all spiked up on its head like a punk and its wee ones in tow, but sure that was in the days before punk anyway, so the sight would probably have been wasted on us. But deer, we saw plenty of those – there’s some photos of them in that rusty biscuit tin I dragged out of the cubby hole. Here, do you know what else I found in it? Half a jammy dodger. Without the jam, obviously. How old could that be, like? One of the kids must have left it lying in there when they thought they were about to be caught. I couldn’t believe it had kept for so long. Shows you how cold that cubby hole gets. It crumbled to smithereens as soon as I picked it up though. But, aye, those photos I was going on about… Me posing in front of those deer with my black sunglasses and mod jacket on. I was a cool one, eh? And swans, dippers, ducks and heron. There were stacks of those about. And kingfishers. Black-headed gulls, redshanks, oystercatchers. At night when we went prowling about with torches, we spotted bats and owls and otters. I even caught a pike one day, but we had to throw it back in. Only the Poles eat those apparently.
Ah Jesus Sally, why am I talking like this? Rivers we haven’t seen in decades. Fish we couldn’t recognise if we brought one home from the market for tea. And wouldn’t know how to cook it even if we did. I was never any good at this. I’m just spouting off stuff I’ve read about and stored somewhere for the right occasion.
Like now. I’m still breathing with the rest of them, still slurping manky tea in the kitchen and wrapping good as new beads around my yellow fingers over you. I can even say things that sound like ‘love’ to the kids and the grandkids and they’re even saying things like ‘you too’ to me. And Jesus, there are arms around shoulders and lips against foreheads and cheeks and tears and I’m feeling tender instead of raw.
But I’ve decided I’m not reading from the Bible in the chapel. Father Gillen wanted me to read something from the Old Testament. He brought a choice of readings round earlier. The Book of Lamentations, Psalms one to about seventy-fucking-two, Malachi, Job and Esther, the Proverbs. He must think we’ve plenty of time on our hands at the minute. There was a few good lines in the Proverbs though, one of them went, ‘A stupid child is ruin to a father, and a wife’s quarrelling is a continual dripping of rain,’ lovely stuff for your wife’s funeral. Then it went on, ‘Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence; reprove the intelligent, and they will gain knowledge.’
Anyway, I’m not going to read any of that. The kids are going to read the prayers of the faithful and Liam’s reading something from the New Testament, something about not walking in darkness anymore. I’m going to write my own thing. I’ve started it already actually: ‘A letter from Francis the Sinner to the Sumerians…’ is how it begins. I was thinking it should be the Sumerians because of those TV shows we used to watch about the Sumerians actually being an alien civilisation who tamed lions as house pets and then had a nuclear war among themselves. It’ll add a nice science fiction feel to it all.
Ray was in today. He looked terrible. You know he’s taken to the drink since Flo went. Well, taken more to the drink than before. He was shaking. Not because of the drink I think, but because of you. He just stood in front of you in the living room, shaking and muttering something beneath his breath. I don’t think it was a prayer. I actually think he was sober. I suppose it’s brought it all back to him. Not that it would ever leave him. What was it? Seven years ago? He was so solid at her funeral. Had a firm handshake and a joke for everyone at the wake. And then he went to bits when she was buried. Do you think that’ll happen to me? Not that I have a joke for anyone. I don’t know any jokes. Well, I know a couple, but they’re Ray’s, not mine. Do you remember the one he used to tell about the doctor phoning his patient?
So the phone rings and Sean answers and it’s the doctor. ‘What’s up doc?’ said Sean, thinking he was the funny one. ‘I’m afraid I have bad news and worse news,’ said the doctor. ‘Fucking hell, well give me the bad news first doc.’ And the doctor replies, ‘There’s no easy way to say this Sean, you only have twenty-four hours to live.’ Naturally, Sean is appalled. ‘That’s the bad news doc? How could anything be worse than that?’ And the doctor replies, ‘I’ve been trying to contact you since Monday.’
That one used to get me every time. Although he did wear it out a bit. I never heard him tell it again after Flo went. Not even at the wake. Anyway, so I was showing Ray the photos from the honeymoon that I dug out. He couldn’t believe it. He’d none left himself – he’s going to get copies made of them. That’s if they’re not water damaged, crying all over them he was. And here, I was saying to him about the goosander and us not seeing any. And do you know what? He claims he saw two of them making love. Although of course, he’s no pictures left to prove it. Probably blew his nose with them. He claims he called us when he spotted them, but that you and me were off somewhere on our own. Convenient for him that Flo’s not about to confirm what he says. So I says, ‘Is that right Ray? And how do goosanders make love?’
‘What?’ he says.
‘You know, what’s the logistics of it? Paint me a picture.’
‘Away out of that you filthy old git, and you at your wife’s wake.’
I knew I had him then. He must think I’m doting. This is mad. All the conversations we ever had ended with me just wanting to be left alone and now this – I can’t wait to be alone with you to tell you all the nonsense that’s being talked over your body. Like an old granny, I am… Sorry, I didn’t mean that. Not in that way.
About this sermon. Ha! I’m already talking like a priest. This speech, this soliloquy, whatever it is. I suppose you think this is very out of character. The man of few words getting up to regale an audience and he waits until you’re dead to do it. Well, it’s not like that. I have to do it. I believe and all – you know that – but none of those words from the Old Testament would really mean anything, not knowing that you don’t believe. And people would be able to tell from my voice when I was reading that they meant nothing to me because they meant nothing to you. It’d be like making small talk in here with your pals from bingo.
Speaking of which, they were in earlier. Your bingo pals. They said they were taking a week off as a mark of respect. It must be the done thing for a fallen bingo companion, is it? A well-regarded one anyway. And all I could think of was to ask had they won anything lately. They must’ve thought I was after a loan to pay for your headstone. They hadn’t, or so they claimed.
I’m dodging the subject again, I know. This isn’t going to be easy. Because you know I believe, and I can’t stand up there and spoof in front of everyone, especially Him. And the four of them as well. They remember. They never bring it up, how could they? Too embarrassed, or angry. But it’s there, and I couldn’t stand there reading some guff out about forty years happily married and know their eyes are boring into my skull, saying nothing, maybe not even thinking about it, but feeling deep down the stinking lie behind it all.
I mean, what would I say? In forty years of marriage, she made me happy every single day? You didn’t. They know it. I know it. You know it. If I said that, it would only be for the benefit of the priest, allowing to him to sleep easy at night knowing what happy, God-fearing parishioners he has. It’s not as if your role in life was to make me happy anyway, whatever the priest thinks. Do I talk about your drinking? About the bottles of vodka hidden behind the sofa? Do I mention the flirting you think I didn’t see? And what did I not see? Do I speculate about that? Will I mention your stealing? Hiding clothes and food underneath the kids in the pram when I was out of work or stuck out in Castlereagh (there’s another good one to keep the mourners entertained, how you were the real danger to them but they being too stupid to recognise it, they took me instead). Always too proud for charity you were, no matter how discreetly it was offered.
And me and my temper? It was like what couldn’t come out through my mouth had to come out some other way – and sometimes it got out through my fists. Not that I tried hard enough to stop it. Although you were little help – you never did know how to stop that tongue of yours from hurting people. Will I say the good times outweighed the bad though? Will I say I’d be lost without you and there’s so many things I wish I could’ve told you before it was too late? Wouldn’t be much point in writing anything if I’m going to say that, it’s all been said a million times.
I’m sorry Sal. But I’m working on it. I’ve always told you I’m working on it and now it’s too late. But I’ll give it one last go, I promise. And here, Sal, I’m making small talk with the lot of them. I’m brewing tea and coffee, I’m hugging the kids and praying with the grandkids, I’m even cracking a joke or two when I’m not scribbling these stupid notes.
‘A letter from Francis, a sinner, to the Sumerians…Ah come on now, laugh if you want, but I’m being serious. I am going to read a letter, I am Francis, I’m certainly a sinner and it might as well be addressed to the Sumerians as anyone else.
‘I met Sally – or Sal as her friends called her then – at school. I was the milk monitor in St Peter’s and because girls weren’t up to being milk monitors I used to visit their classrooms as well. She is – was, Jesus, what’s the difference? – one year younger than me. I used to pull her hair in the playground because that’s what you did when you liked a girl and, when we got older and could talk with less teasing, we went for ice cream together in Rossi’s, with our pals of course – Ray, who’s here today and always has been throughout everything, and his future wife Flo, God rest her.
‘And we grew. Physically, me more than her; inside, her more than me. And so I married a woman when I wanted a wife – a silly, childish notion of a wife who could be teased and take it and had her milk provided for her but, of who, everything else was expected. And when we were married some time and had had our first child and I considered myself a man with growing entitlements I expected her to take more than teasing without complaining. My rage wasn’t blind because I saw the damage I did very clearly, sometimes even before the blood came or the bruises appeared.
‘For me to talk about loving her with all that in mind would be absurd. An insult to her, to God and to all of you in here. I’ll leave that one for myself to grapple with when we’re done here. Did she love me? Some days she did and some days she didn’t. You see, for her love wasn’t a constant, it was a struggle that had to be considered anew every single day. And while there wasn’t a day when she didn’t renew her love for our children before her head had left the pillow, I knew she would size me up while drinking her tea and make that day’s decision. I count myself blessed that there were days when she did love me. Now I do. Then I didn’t. I could compare myself to a spoilt child or a bear with a sore head but I won’t. The term to use – and one it took me until now to face up to – is thug. Demanding what wasn’t mine to take. Putting Sally down to raise myself up a little. Putting on a show of authority for an audience. Those are the things which I know applied to me. Apply to me.
‘That audience I’m referring to is here today as well: Ciarán, Liam, Róisín and Kate – children who have grown into fine adults more in spite of me than because of me. Twice she left with some or all of them and twice she came back. Not for me. Not for herself. And not for our children – they don’t deserve to be burdened with that guilt. The truth is, and it took me a while to work this one out, she came back for you. All of ye in here. And for you Father, even though you were only a child yourself at the time, and our God, who she learned to hate and, finally, to rub out, deciding He’d never been there in the first place. She came back to save you all from being scandalised. She came back to stop your blushing and to make sure she didn’t set a bad example – who knows how many housewives would’ve followed a woman like her out the door? They could’ve had their own commune. And where would that have left all the rest of us?
‘And why am I doing this? Why am I worrying my children’s wounds? Why am I shattering my grandchildren’s illusions about me – forcing them to bury two grandparents on the same day? Why am I mortifying all of them in front all of you yet again? Because I can’t hurt myself without hurting them. And why break the habit of a lifetime in being the selfish one? Using my own wife’s funeral in a desperate attempt to secure salvation – making it certain I’ll burn in a desperate attempt to be saved.
‘As I’ve said, this isn’t a declaration of love, but I will leave you with this. I knew Sally. I can trace every inch of her. I grew beside her and I put most of the lines on her face. And she was a better human being than me. And even though she’s gone and I’m still here, I could never hope to catch up with her on that one. And maybe that’s what’s behind it all. In a world where I was supposed to be the stronger one, the provider, the protector, I couldn’t deal with the fact that I sheltered beneath her strength and her intelligence all of my life. I never knew how to make all those things like strength and softness go together in the same body – and so I achieved none of them. Fell between two stools as they say. And now I’m lost.’
Do you know what our kids thought of me as they listened to this? Did they curse me for shaming them in front of everyone? Did they curse me for making them suffer twice over? Did they wish I was the one in the coffin and not their mother? I don’t know. What I do know is that when I went to genuflect in front of that stupid altar my back wouldn’t go back up the way that it came and I landed in a heap in front of the priest and that all your children came running. And they stroked the back of my head as if I’d said nothing at all.
So here, Sal, there’s no easy way out. No more. No moral. No solution. No epiphany or redemption. No conscience. But I’m feeling a bit spiritual as I lie here – well, I don’t really know where – But you, at least, had soul, Sal? Yeah? You and the goosander?