Solar Bones. Mike McCormack

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      there is something strange about all this, some twitchy energy in the ether which has affected me from the moment those bells began to toll, something flitting through me, a giddiness drawing me

      through the house

      door by door

      room by room

      up and down the hall

      like a mad thing

      bedrooms, bathroom, sitting room and

      back again to the kitchen where

      Christ

      such a frantic burst

      Christ

      not so much a frantic burst as a rolling crease in the light, flow- ing from room to room only to find

      this house is empty

      not a soul anywhere

      because this is a weekday and my family are gone

      all gone

      the kids all away now and of course Mairead is at work and won’t be back till after four so the house is mine till then, something that should gladden me as normally I would only be too happy to potter around on my own here, doing nothing, listening to the radio or reading the paper, but now the idea makes me uneasy, with four hours stretching ahead of me till she returns,

      alone here for four hours

      four hours till she returns so

      there must be some way of filling the span of time that now spreads out ahead of me, something to cut through this gnawing unease because

      the paper

      yes

      that’s what I’ll do

      the daily paper

      get the keys of the car and drive into the village to get the paper, park on the square in front of the chemist and then stand on the street and

      this is what I will do

      stand there for as long as it takes for someone to come along and speak to me, someone to say

      hello

      hello

      or until someone salutes me in one way or another, waves to me or calls my name, because even though this street is a street like any other it is different in one crucial aspect – this particular street is mine, mine in the sense of having walked it thousands of times

      man and boy

      winter and summer

      hail, rain and shine so that

      all its doors and shop-fronts are familiar to me, every pole and kerbstone along its length recognisable to me

      this street a given

      this street is something to rely on

      fount and ground

      one of those places where someone will pass who can say of me

      yes, I know this man

      or more specifically

      yes, I know this man and I know his sister Eithne and I knew his mother and father before him and all belonging to him

      or more intimately

      of course I know him – Marcus Conway – he lives across the fields from me, I can see his house from the back door

      or more adamantly

      why wouldn’t I know him, Marcus Conway the engineer, I went to school with him and played football with him – we wore the black and gold together

      or more impatiently

      I should know him, his son and daughter went to school with my own – we were on the school council together

      or more irritably

      of course I know him – I lent him a chainsaw to cut back that hawthorn hedge at the end of his road and

      so on and so on

      to infinity

      amen

      the basic creed in all its moods and declensions, the articles of faith which verify me and upon which I have built a life in this parish with all its work and rituals for the best part of five decades and

      this short history of the world to brace myself with

      standing here in this kitchen, in this grey light and wondering

      why this sudden need to rehearse these self-evident truths should press so heavily upon me today, why this feeling that there are

      thresholds to cross

      things to be settled

      checks to be run

      as if I had stepped into a narrow circumstance bordered around by oblivion while

      looking for my keys now

      frisking my pockets and glancing around, only to see that

      Mairead has beaten me to the job, she has been out early and bought the papers – not one but two of them, local and national, both lying in the middle of the table neatly folded into each other, the light glossing unbroken across their surface, making it clear she has not read them herself that I might have the small pleasure of opening up a fresh newspaper, hearing it rattle and creak as it discloses itself, one of those experiences which properly begin the day or the afternoon as is the case now, turning it over and leafing through it

      starting at the back, the sports pages, to read the headline

       Hard Lessons in Latest Defeat

      as if this were the time and the place for a sermon

      which prompts me to close it again quickly, not wanting any homily at this hour of the day with the paper showing the date as

      November 2nd, the month of the Holy Souls already upon us, the year nearly gone so

      what happened to October

      come and gone in a flash, the clocks gone back for winter time only last week and

      the front-page stories telling that the world is going about its relentless business of rising up in splendour and falling down in ruins with wars still ongoing in foreign parts – Afghanistan and Iraq among others – as peace settlements are being attempted elsewhere – Israel and Palestine – while closer to home, the drama is in a lower key but real nonetheless СКАЧАТЬ