Читать книгу Torn Water - John Lynch - Страница 9

When he was younger he was obsessed with the pictures of the Apollo astronauts. He remembers the lonely slope of their shadows on the moon's lifeless surface and the blackness surrounding them, as if on every hand there was mystery. He remembers wondering if that was where his father had gone when he died – is that where everyone went? Did they melt into the darkness that held the earth and the other planets captive?

Sometimes he thought he could hear his father's cries for help, and he pictured him spiralling like a satellite in the outreaches of space, his body slowly blackening. He would wake and rush to his bedroom window, his eyes scouring the night sky, his heart yearning to join his father in the depths of the universe.

He had tried to tell his mother that he believed his father was lost far, far out in the cosmos. He had tried to tell her one morning, years before, as she had faced him across the breakfast table. He remembers the frustration of not being able to say the words, to push them from his lips. He remembers his mother scowling with impatience, sharply telling him to eat his breakfast and to stop the nonsense. Eventually he had stood, limbs quivering with frustration. Then he had yelled it, as if his life depended on it: ‘Daddy is with the astronauts! I heard him! I heard him crying …’

His mother had slowly placed her fork on the plate and stood, carefully pulling the creases free in her skirt. Then she had walked to where he was standing. She had clamped her hands beneath his armpits and lifted him up, then slammed him back into his seat. He had landed with a jolting shudder that banged his jaw shut. She had leaned very close into his face, and had wordlessly cautioned him, her eyes unblinkingly facing his.

It is the end of the second week of Sully's return. They are on Sully time: everything his mother says and does revolves around him. She is standing by the kitchen door. Her hair is mussed; a piece of toast hangs from her lips. Sully has just left, having stayed the night. He's only back and already they're playing Happy Families.

‘Sully wants to take you see Northern Ireland play.’

‘I don't like Northern Ireland,’ James says.

‘What's that supposed to mean? You're Irish, aren't you?’

‘That's what I mean.’

‘Oh, don't start that. Football's just football.’

‘No, it's not.’

‘he's making a real effort this time, Jimmy. Come on, meet him half-way.’

‘Why are you back with him?’

‘That's between him and me.’

‘No, it's not. I live here too … or had you forgotten?’

‘Don't be cheeky or – ’

‘Or what, Mum? Or what? You'll get Sully for me?’

‘Jesus.’

He slams the door on his way out and glares at Mrs McCracken as she stands in her doorway opposite theirs, her eyes lifting disapprovingly from the untouched pile of logs to meet his. ‘Is someone going to do something about those logs?’

But he ignores her and begins to walk towards the town.

‘Here, son, this is for you …’

He can remember looking up into Teezy's eyes as he took the photograph from her. He can remember the look on her face as if it was about to break.

‘That's your daddy.’

It was a small, dog-eared photograph of a man standing against a hill, squinting into the sunlight, right hand raised playfully to his face.

‘He died for Ireland … Sssh,’ she had said, as if the world was listening.

‘Sssh,’ he had replied, cooing it up into her face. ‘Sssh.’

‘Now, no more astronauts, no more stories. They only upset your mammy.’

‘Sssh.’

For days afterwards he had wandered around, whispering it within earshot of the grown-ups. ‘Sssh,’ he remembers saying, putting his small face close to his mother's. ‘Sssh.’

‘It's our secret. It's our private story,’ Teezy had said, as she had given him the photo. ‘Wasn't he a fine-looking man? As fine as Ireland herself.’

‘Sssh,’ he had said.

‘This is your father … He died for Ireland.’

He remembers how he had looked at the worn photograph, at the slender figure that grinned at him through the fallen years. Sometimes now he would bring it out from its hiding-place and quietly gaze at it, his eyes hunting its held landscape. He would hold the photo delicately as if it was made of silk. At other times he would quietly curse the man, damn him for leaving, hate him for his absence, his fingernails digging into the photo's edge so that they left crescent-shaped marks.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

‘Watch where you're going, sunshine.’

‘Sorry.’ He looks up into the fuck-you face of Malachy O'Hare, the estate hard man.

‘IRA or Prod?’

‘What?’

‘IRA or Prod?’

James looks across at Malachy's troops, small, hard-faced boys. ‘For fuck's sake, IRA.’

‘Don't curse when you say it. Don't disrespect the flag.’

‘Sorry … IRA.’ He goes to slide past them, careful not to look any of them directly in the eye.

‘Hold on a minute, sunshine. Do us one of your deaths.’

‘What?’

‘Jimmy Lavery, the Death Machine. Do us one of your deaths.’

‘Give us a break.’

‘Do one … or else.’ He raises a large fist to the tip of James's nose.

‘OK.’

‘Good man yourself.’ Malachy's face breaks into a big, muggy smile. ‘What have you got for us today?’

James looks skywards, and after a moment he says, ‘Well, there's this astronaut … and he's lost his mother ship …’

‘An Irish astronaut?’ Malachy asks.

‘Yeah, an Irish astronaut.’

An Astronaut's Final Message

Time: 0900 hours

Location: Support Capsule

The Erin Galaxy

Date: 12 Dec 2157

Message Received From: Captain Conn Lavery.

Dear Ann and Little Jimmy,

By the time you receive this transmission I will be dead. As I write this I am slowly suffocating. For the last hour I have been using my spacesuits reserve tank of oxygen, but even that now has begun to fail. The mother ship is ablaze, I can see it beyond, through my small porthole window, and it looks like a devil's eye, hot and fiery. All my comrades are aboard her, good strong men, with only one love in their lives: Ireland. It is strange to think that I will never see either of you again, that I will never hold you close and feel the full warmth of your bodies.

I hope you both remember me fondly, as a true Irish spaceman. We fought hard, my son, harder than you can ever know. We repelled the alien hordes three times before their greater military strength began to tell. We all die, son, we all die, and we must be grateful for the time we have had together. It is strange to think that space will be my grave; the huge black belly of space will be a mausoleum for my bones. Look after your mammy, my son. Let no one come between her and my memory. I love you both dearly, more than you can know. I have decided to leave my capsule, the oxygen has gone, and the little I have left in my spacesuit I'm hoping will sustain me on my walk to meet the face of God. I'm stepping clear of the capsule now … Air is going quicker than I thought. I love you both. Look for a new star tonight in the sky.

Love for as long as there is any, Captain Conn Lavery.

End Of Transmission.