Beatlebone. Kevin Barry

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СКАЧАТЬ know what I’d wonder sometimes?

      What’s that?

      If I amn’t half a blackman.

      *

      Cornelius carries with prim importance two shaving bowls and two razors. They climb to a tin-sided outhouse built into the rocks of the hill. The outhouse lacks a door and John can see down the country as the sky moves its clouds along and the sun appears and it’s trippy now in the sunburst. The fields are lit and lifting. It’s the hour for a shave and a philosophic interlude.

      A black, Cornelius?

      Is fucken right.

      I think I see where you’re coming from.

      Cornelius turns his throat and jerks the head curtly.

      I’m talking if we were to go way back, he says. I’m talking from the south.

      Cornelius rinses off the razor and shakes it dry. He slaps his face to get the blood back in. The blood comes hotly in a rush to enliven the stately face. He leans against the rock and looks out on the freshening day as if it might just about contain him.

      I’m talking about cunts off boats, he says. I’m talking about my father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s time.

      I’m losing track.

      I don’t know if we aren’t looking at the likes of 1400?

      As if it was the other Wednesday.

      You’re saying there might have been a dusky sailor back then?

      Now you have me.

      Do you hear whispers from back there, Cornelius?

      Ah I would do. Yes.

      You mean from an old life?

      Back arse of time, he says, and gestures grandly with a sweep of imperious paw.

      What do you hear?

      I think it could be a class of Portuguese.

      There’s an old tar with a monkey on his shoulder. And what do you see?

      This is where it gets good. I see a tiny window set deep in a thick stone wall.

      Yes?

      With four iron bars set hard in the sill.

      You were in a spot of bother then?

      I would think so, John, yes.

      Involving?

      Nothing fucken good. Horses, definitely. And somehow I think a plain girl but gamey and with greenish eyes.

      He calmly shaves. The burn of his jaw is a cool ordinary feeling and the afternoon is calm and bright or at least it is for a while. Cornelius considers him carefully and for a slow, held moment –

      You have the longish nose, he says. Like a particular type of dog I can’t place.

      *

      Sometimes in the black oily panic of the night when the city sent unsettling dreams across its towers and violent bowers –

      the shapes of night in the park

      the dark trees crouching

      the trees so fiercely bunched

      these creatures about to spring

      – it was then he would travel to the island in his mind, and he would quieten when he lay his sore bones down among the rocks for a while and let the water move all around and the sky hang down its cold stars – its cold, cold jewels – its stars.

      Cornelius?

      Yes, John?

      I want to get to my fucking island.

      I know that, John.

      I want a boat and a tent and fucking supplies and I want to be brought to my fucking island and then I want you to fuck off again for three fucking days. I mean that’s all I fucking ask! Is three fucking days a-fucking-lone!

      If we were to move now we’d have a pantomime on our hands. The pressmen?

      Paranoia oozes in black beads from the tips of his fingers – the day has carved his nerves up bad.

      He is fearful and dizzy and cutting off from the real again. The Maytime comes at him like razor blades.

      You’re eating the fags, John.

      Evening sidles up to the window to taunt the parlour room. He smokes and he drinks a mug of strong tea.

      Would you look crooked at an egg, John?

      You know I nearly would.

      He eats a boiled egg with soldiers of toast and at once he’s brave as a trooper. It’s a duck egg of maiden blue. He sings a bit and it’s got a yodelled twist on the line, a duck’s waddle in the quaver.

      Lovely, Cornelius says.

      He spoons up his egg – maiden? – and sups his tea. He feels like he’s moved into a nursing home. And not before time.

      Cornelius paces the stones of the floor, gravely, but now he stops up short.

      Time have we, John?

      I don’t know the time.

      We’ll chance it.

      They sit in front of the television – a tiny black-and-white with a clothes hanger stuck in – and they are just in time – Cornelius twists the set precisely to align it with the stars – because the music strikes up, and Cornelius nods in satisfaction.

      Muppets, he says.

      *

      You know they’ve wanted me on?

      Who, John?

      The Muppets.

      Ah yeah.

      They’ve made approaches three fucking times.

      Cornelius grins.

      Okay, he says.

      Honestly.

      I see.

      For real!

      Cornelius thinks about it for a bit, and shrugs.

      I suppose they had Elton John on the other week.

      No surprise there.

      He was superb, John.

      Did СКАЧАТЬ