The Forecourt

‘I don’t love you anymore.’ It escaped her lips and hovered between them. The weight of the words she had often thought but never said made the small car even smaller and made the distance between them seem even wider.

‘Is that why you brought me out here?’ He stared straight ahead, his mouth set in a hard line. She stared at his lips and remembered a time when they traced their way across her throat, as if discovering secrets, buried in her neck.

She remembered the first time he had put his lips to hers, clumsy, hurried and shy. They had been so young, so unsure, like fawns learning how to walk for the first time. She remembered a time when she would look as his lips moved and while he spoke to her she would think to herself; if he doesn’t kiss me now, I might die. It was almost unimaginable, as she sat in the beat up old fiesta, that they had gone from there to here in only nine short years.

She stared out the window at the old petrol station. The sign was crumbling so that it was almost unreadable, the paint was peeling revealing years of color changes as the station changed hands, the once pristine tarmac of the forecourt was now overgrown with weeds. Care. That’s what it was lacking, someone to care for it, to invest in it, to believe that there was a future in it. The similarities between the destitution of their meeting place and the destitution of their relationship was not lost on her.

‘Do you remember the first day we met?’ She looked at him as he stared angrily straight ahead. She continued earnestly, wanting him to remember, needing him to remember, ‘You were what? Eighteen? You were stood right over there?’ She pointed to the remnants of the second pump on the forecourt. ‘You were wearing a blue shirt and jeans, and I thought; who the hell is that?’ She laughed at the memory of it, of falling in love at first sight at seventeen.

She was lost in the memory and jumped when he spoke, ‘You jumped out of your Da’s car, all legs and elbows, this skinny girl,’ His expression softened and he almost smiled, ‘You picked up the diesel pump, it was only when I should to you that you realised the mistake.’ He looked out the window at the shadow of their relationship as it lingered briefly on the forecourt.

She saw herself as she was then, smiling at the memory of the seventeen year old girl far too concerned with impressing the boy in front of her than potentially recking her father’s car engine. ‘It’s hard to believe we were ever that young,’ she sighed.

‘Yeah,’ He snapped, the bitterness returning to his voice, ‘Time flies when you’re having fun.’

She went to place her hand on his, but thought better of it, she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her coat so they wouldn’t betray her. ‘It was fun.’ She whispered.

‘Just not anymore right?’ He looked at her, the question both accusing and pleading. He sagged slightly in his seat, defeated, ‘At least not for you.’

‘Don’t put this all on me.’ She was losing patience with his poor me act. He had a short memory, and clearly he didn’t remember his own cruelty over the past years.

‘It’s you that wants to end it though.’ His voice rising slightly with the righteous anger he now felt, ‘So I think I’m entitled to attribute blame to someone.’

‘Oh yeah, because nothing is ever your fault.’ She was losing it now. ‘You can be such a fucking child sometimes.’ She didn’t want it to be like this, she didn’t want them shouting at each other in the car, but now she couldn’t stop. ‘It’s like you don’t even remember the last six months!’

‘It’s like you don’t remember the eight years before it.’ He bit back. ‘You can’t just drag me out here, and then say your ending it because ‘you don’t love me anymore’ what the fuck is that?’ He was shouting now, banging his hand against the steering wheel, ‘What about my feelings? What about the fact that I still love you?’ She looked out the window. ‘Don’t ignore me.’ He grabbed her chin and turned her to face him, ‘I said, I still love you.’

She pushed his hand away as her eyes filled with tears. She didn’t know what she had expected, but a declaration of love was not it. ‘No you don’t. You’re just saying that because you don’t want to admit that this is over. That it’s been over now for awhile. It’s just about time one of us admits it.’

He took her hand gently, ‘It’s not over.’ He leaned gently over the gearbox, pushing his face against hers, ‘It’s not over.’ He whispered again, and then he kissed her.

It was like being thrown through a time machine. Before she knew what was happening she was kissing him back, leaning her body into his, pressing herself against him as he returned the pressure. As her sense caught up with her hormones, she pulled away.

He looked quizzically at her and then moved towards her again. She placed a hand on his chest and shook her head wordlessly. He slumped back in his seat. She traced the edges of her mouth, tingling with the pressure of him, they were swollen already and it made her remember the early days, when they would simply spend hours and hours kissing.

‘We need to end this now.’ She settled her shaking breath, ‘It’s over. I’m done. I just can’t... I can’t do this anymore.’ She looked at him, he had returned to staring out at the forecourt. ‘Are you listening to me?’ she reached out a hand to place on his shoulder, he snapped back around and she left her hand, momentarily stretched across the car. Gently, she brought her hand to his face, tracing the structure she had once loved so much, ‘I did love you. Once. For a very long time.’

He grimaced, ‘I loved you too. I still do.’

She brought her head against his. ‘I know. But it’s not enough.’

Their eyes were both filling with tears, and she knew almost immediately that if she didn’t get out soon, they would be sitting here in nine years, trying to leave each other all over again. She knew, that he could tell himself that he was still in love with her, but he wasn’t. He was in love with the ghost that hovered between them that spoke to love and future and happiness, but it was just a ghost, there was nothing true about it, it was just the lingering feelings of a relationship that died long long ago.

‘At least we’ll always have the forecourt.’ She smiled and so did he, through a haze of sadness they said goodbye, to each other and to the young lovers on the forecourt.

The Model

Marianne stood in the small back room, waiting. She could hear the rumblings next door, chairs scraping, papers rustling, muted laughter and chitchat.  She was nervous. Very nervous. She took a deep breath and down on one of the unstacked tables. This was obviously where they stored the extra furniture from the main hall. She slid further onto the table so her legs were swinging, placing her hands behind her she leaned back, taking more deep breaths she gazed up at the ceiling. The white paint was peeling off, slowly revealing the yellow watermarks, signalling damp, or perhaps just an overflow from a bathroom upstairs. It was a depressing room, that smelt faintly of old sandwiches and dust. Her fingers lightly traced the carvings in the cheap wood of the table. Still staring at the ceiling she moved her fingers along the outline of the etchings. ‘Em woz ere 06’ and ‘Tom luvs Steph C 4eva’, it made her sad. Not just the poor grammar and spelling, it was the futility of the effort. Teenagers, she presumed, unless their teachers were sneaking into the hall to carve their own names, always so obsessed with inscribing their own personal histories. 

It was odd really, teenagers by their nature were temperamental, always moving, always changing and progressing, they believed that everything would stay the same ‘4eva’ that their friends would always be their friends, that Mum and Dad would always be pricks, that they would remain with the boy or girl they loved, until the end of time. Yet, they documented it like someone on the brink of losing their memories, annotating every minute piece of information. It was as if they were in public denial that things would change, but privately they knew that the days would go in the blink of an eye, the way they had for all the adults that came before. Marianna thought briefly of her own teenage years, of the thousands and thousands of photographs taken, she took more photographs in the two years between sixteen and eighteen than she had in the last six years of adulthood. Marianne wondered what exactly that said about her, and her life now.

There was a knock on the internal door. That was her cue to get ready. Her little trip into the psyche of teenagers had done little to calm her nerves. It would be good for her, she knew that. It would be challenging, of course it would, but she needed to do it, if only to prove that she could. Mark had asked her to attend once or twice before, he told her she was interesting, that the group would enjoy her presence, that they would learn a lot from her. She had hushed him, embarrassed at the flattery and what he was asking her to do. Then it had all changed. In the blink of an eye, something she would never consider doing, became important. It was important for her to reclaim it for herself. She had taken  so much, and had so much taken, that she needed a portion of it back. She needed to keep something for herself. She needed to know she could still be something even if only in the shadow of what she had been. So she had approached Mark, and asked could she take part, even though she had changed. He was delighted and more then happy to offer up his group to her. Now, after six weeks, she was here. It was the moment of truth. She knew that she could just slip out the other door, Mark would be disappointed, but she had asked him not to tell anyone she was coming, just in case she backed out last minute.

Marianne took another deep breath. You’re here now she thought to herself. You might as well get as far as you can and then see what happens. You can do this. She pushed herself off the table and lifted her heavy rucksack onto the table. She removed the robe, the hair brush, the small makeup bag and mirror. She started by brushing her hair, usually she wore it down but Mark had asked for it up. She took the simple black hair bobbin and slipped it onto her left wrist. She glided the brush from root to tip, again and again. She wanted a high ponytail so she tipped her body at the waist and furiously began brushing the underside of her head. It hurt, when she was rough with the underside of her hair, and she could feel the tender smaller strand pulling apart from the scalp as she ran the brush, pulling it into a shape she wanted. Next she turned her attention to the clothes she was wearing. Mark had advised her to wear something light and easy. A sundress he had suggested. She had no sundresses. She always wore as many layers as possible, like an armor protecting her from the outside. She removed her jumper first, tugging it over her head and stuffing it back into the rucksack. She contemplated pulling the shirt off over her head as well, but she new it would snag, and in true fashion she would panic when she found herself blinded and trapped by her own head. She slowly began unbuttoning the small buttons, her large fingers slipped on the small buttons, but still she continued, the tremor in her hands increased steadily with each new button she opened. When it was open she could see the curve over her stomach, hidden from view by the white camisole she wore underneath, she gently slipped the shirt from off her shoulders and pushed it into the rucksack. She reached down to her jeans and popped the button, pausing for a second to slide the zip she wiggled her hips out of the jeans until they were in a heap around her ankles.

Marianne stood completely still with her eyes closed. She stood in her camisole, bra and panties. She knew they had to come off as well, but she needed just one minute to regain her composure. She wanted to cry. She looked around the room, blurred through the rising tears in her eyes. How many times she wondered had young girls stood in this same room, semi naked, with would-be lovers, running their hands under and over uniforms, tearing jumpers and skirts in an effort to reach adolescent nirvana. Maybe not that many she acknowledged, her own school days had been decidedly sexless, yet if she listened to the sex stories of her friends, everyone was at it. Marianne almost smiled, as in life, she thought, the truth lies somewhere between the two. Marianne slid back onto the table. It was uncomfortable now. The table cold against her thighs, the edge digging into the soft flesh. She kept her eyes averted from her body as she pulled the camisole over her head. She reached behind her back, fumbling with the catch of her bra and finally unhooking it. She closed her eyes as she felt the weight of her breasts without her bra. She had always been ashamed of the feeling, as if it betrayed something inside her, something weak and base, something other. She stood once more and hooked her thumbs in her panties, pulling them down and off. She bundled them quickly in with the bra and camisole and whipped the dressing gown around her. Pulling the sash tightly around her, her breath was forced from her lungs, the burning feeling calmed her, made her feel real.

Suddenly, as she stood there in her dressing gown, waiting for Mark to knock again, Marianne dissolved into tears. She bit her knuckle to stifle the sobs escaping from her chest. She felt a hole in her heart that she thought had been filled rip open again, dragging up feelings of pain and suffering, at her own hands and someone else’s. It had been four years since she had seen her own body naked. Four years. She knew it was a long time, perhaps too long. She felt disconnected from it, like she was stuck on a busy train sharing an intimate space with a stranger. She knew that her form was a part of her, she knew that it and her mind were linked in ways she didn’t even understand. Yet, it was easier to pretend that she was above it. That the base passions of the body, were nothing compared to the cerebral thoughts of her mind. She distanced herself from it. She distanced herself because the body felt pain. It was weak, it would let people abuse it, even when she lifted her own hand against herself her body did nothing to stop it. Her body betrayed her in ways she would never imagine, in getting older, getting fatter, weaker. The strange hands that ran over it, spreading heat and passion throughout the molecules that made up her being, once they were gone she was left with her mind, a mind that would gift her with shame for letting such things take place. Her mind punished her, not just for allowing it, but for enjoying it.

The loathing she felt for herself had brought her to many a dark place. She had denied herself many things, most notably the type of love that she afforded to everyone else. It was hard for her, to love herself willingly, to believe herself worthy of love, especially as those who were supposed to love her often didn’t. So she surrounded herself in her armor, laughed at jokes at her expense, reduced her self esteem to a puddle at the end of anonymous men’s beds and most seriously she had taken out her loathing on herself. It was always her fault, it was an irrational belief that there was something inherently wrong in what she was, who she was. There was a need inside her to seek validation from outside of herself, and when she received none, she purged and punished. She denied herself the very essence of self-love; respect. The memories of the things that she had done often left her like this, huddled on the floor, sobbing silently, filled with fear and remorse.

As she rose from the floor she reminded herself of the teenagers. She once again traced her fingers along the etchings, hoping that they would endow her with a love of life, something she had been missing since she stopped taking photos. She took her nail file from her make-up bag and carved into the table, a message for herself and for anyone who found themselves in this room, like her, lost and unsure, so that they would know that once there was a woman who went from hating herself, to waiting for a knock on a door. That knock, would change her. It would see her walk from this room and strip all her armor off,to leave herself naked in front of strangers who would agonise over every pencil stroke as they traced her form and shaded her in. They would take her form, and they would see something in her that she had yet to see in herself; a person. She hoped to see in their eyes a recognition that she was here, that she was real and that she was worthy of some sort of life.

The knock came and with one last look at the table, she left the little room, with the peeling ceiling and ‘Em woz ere 06’ and ‘Tom luvs Steph C 4eva’, engraved on the table, and her own mark; ‘You are here’. A reminder to those who would seek it, that no matter what, you exist. You are something. Someone. You are worthy.

The Queue

‘Next!’ Came the voice. I stared down at the letter in my hands. I was clasping it so tight the paper was beginning to rumple. This was it. My moment. So why couldn’t I move forward to the glass?

It had seemed easy; write the letter, send the letter, move on. Six months, eight unfinished letters, years of anger, sadness and hope, months of talking and talking and talking and it felt more and more like a Herculean challenge. I could not finish a single one. It was too much. I wanted to give it all up, to go hide under my bed, forever.

Somehow, after more talking and more crying, there it was. The Letter. I hardly recognised the author. Who was this calm woman? Who was this woman that was thankful for what she had and no longer obsessed with what she was missing. Who was the woman who found the strength to say goodbye and to not look back? It was my words, my handwriting, my story and my pain. It was the hope that was different and the knowledge that this woman seemed to possess, that separated her from me. She was me though, just a new version. A version that had been there all along?

‘Next!’ Came the call again. I looked up and I could see her, peering out through her glass hatch. She sounded in a hurry. Maybe I should come back later? Maybe I should turn around and walk out and forget this whole thing.

‘Missus, if you’re not sending that letter I’m afraid you’re going to have to step out of the queue.’ Decision time. I moved towards the window. Slowly. Letter still clutched firmly in my hand.

‘I need to send this by registered post.’ I said, the shake in my voice obvious to nobody except me. She gave me a price and slid open the hatch for me to put the letter in. She was impatient. There were four people behind me. She did not have time for my melodrama.

I wanted to look her in the eye and say, ‘You don’t understand what’s happening here. You don’t understand that when I send this, my life will change forever. Everything that has gone before will no longer matter and my future will not be clouded in the fog of what might have been. Please just give me a minute.’ Instead, I slid the letter through the slot and watched as she stuck the stickers on it and gave me my receipt. I stood at the counter, staring through the unbreakable glass at the letter. Was it too late to ask for it back? Probably, unless I wanted to look like even more of a crazy woman.

‘Anything else?’ She asked. Tears filled my eyes.
‘I...’ I wanted to say, be careful, that’s my past, present and future and you’re now in control. I swallowed. ‘Thanks’.

I took a deep breath and walked away. I only looked back once.

Balancing the Books

Daragh looked down over the murky black waters at the waves smashing against the hull. He thought of his childhood, of his Father and the other fishermen who would sit in pubs that stank of pipe smoke, sea air, rotting fish and the toil of a long day, they would warn of good people lost at sea, of fisherman but also landed people, the stories of coffin ships, the Titanic and something called the Bermuda triangle. When his Father was in the company of other fishermen, he would say, and they would nod wisely in agreement, ‘If you ever for a second forget that the sea is the boss, you’ll be fucked.’ Then someone would quip ‘A bit like the wife!’ and the whole place would be in stitches. When his Father would tell his Mother these stories, she would get upset, and Daragh would see the worry in his Mother’s eye and he wanted to tell her that even as big and powerful as the sea was, it would never challenge his Father who Daragh was pretty sure was the reincarnation Cú Chulainn himself.

When anyone died in the sea anywhere on the east coast they would attend the funeral. Even if they did not know the people, his Father would insist. His Mother would be so affected by the funerals. She would wipe away tears and cling onto Daragh, seeking some sort of solace from him. Often in the days after the funeral she would take to her bed. She said it was because she was so sad for the widow. ‘What if it was you?’ She would ask Daragh’s Father when he pleaded with her to get up. Daragh never heard his Father’s answer. At a funeral for Dessie, a fisherman Daragh’s Father had been very friendly with, Daragh had watched his Mother as she went to give her condolences to the widow. Her thin body had been bent with grief that didn’t belong to her. Daragh searched the crowd for his Father and spotted him staring over, watching as his Mother moved gently through the crowd wiping tears from her eyes. Daragh wondered about the look on his Father’s face, he looked sad and afraid, and Daragh didn’t know why. He put the look to the back of his mind and focused his gaze back on his Mother, her head bent as she listened to the tears and muffled sobs of the widow. 

When his Father went fishing the next day, Daragh climbed into bed with his Mother, and thought about the sea. ‘Mam?’ He had said, nudging her with his elbow, she didn’t say anything but he knew she was listening. ‘I was thinking, that maybe sometimes the sea needs to balance it’s books.’ She sat up slowly, looking at him. ‘See, I think that for all the life that we take out of the sea some of it needs to be returned.’ He glanced at his Mother before continuing, ‘So I’ve decided I’m not going to catch the crabs on the beach anymore and that way,’ He smiled at her, ‘The sea won’t need to settle up with Dad.’ His Mother had smiled her crooked smile back at him and placed a soft hand against his cheek, ‘Such a sweet boy.’ She hugged him close and whispered ‘I think the sea might need something more then a few crabs, just to be safe.’  

Daragh took a deep breath, emerging from the memory, but from where he stood, under the large and garishly painted chimney stacks billowing smoke around him he could hardly even smell the sea. The smell was so masked that he could have been standing anywhere, the only clue was the gentle dipping and rising of the boat. Daragh loved the smell of the sea and it was the reason he settled in Looe, Cornwall. In the mornings he would take the dogs for a walk on the beach and as they bounded around, digging holes and running in and out of the water, Daragh would simply close his eyes and inhale deeply and all of a sudden he would be back in his Mother’s kitchen, watching as she gutted the pollack his Father had just brought home. She hated cutting the heads off, and so she would hold her breath, turning the fish away from her so she didn’t have to see it’s eyes, and she would snap the knife down, using the edge of the blade to flick the head into the bin in one smooth motion. She always hummed to herself when preparing the dinner, sometimes if she was in particularly good form she would take Daragh’s hand, pulling him up from the table for a clumsy waltz around the kitchen. 

It was funny really, his Father was a fisherman, yet when he smelled the sea air Daragh always thought of his Mother. He was always reminded of his Father when the ships came in and the smell of the sea was clouded under a stench of petrol and energy, just like standing on the deck now, with the chimneys above him. The smell made him conjure up the day his life changed. Only a few short days after Desie’s funeral, Daragh stood in the kitchen with his Father, the smell of oil and fish radiating off the man, his hands on Daragh’s shoulder, telling him something important, Daragh had just stared at his Father’s moving lips, and had heard nothing. Daragh remembered little of the following days. Just flashes, the sympathetic looks, the murmuring of condolences, the priest standing at the edge of the sea blessing her, blessing them all, no body, no grave, an announcement carried in the Indo, the words accident, loss, Mother. Maybe it was all he cared to remember. 

It felt to him as if she had vanished. One day the house had been filled with music, laughter and warmth, the next it was stuffed with the grunting of his Father, chopping and gutting the fish as if they had done something to offend him. Later that year as Daragh walked through the town on his way home from school, he heard his Mother’s name mentioned in the same sentence as that word. Two older women stood pretending not to look at him, he walked towards them, intent on correcting them, telling them it had been an accident, but as he moved towards them, he panicked. What if they were right? So he ran. ‘What happened to Mam?’ Daragh asked as soon as he was through the kitchen door. His Father said nothing and Daragh had raised his voice to ask again. Still, his Father said nothing, he didn’t even turn around. ‘Answer me you bastard!’ Daragh had screamed. All of a sudden, his Father had turned and in one quick motion Daragh was pinned against the kitchen door. Daragh suddenly thought of the story of Cú Chulainn killing his son and the glimmer in his Father’s wild eyes, made Daragh afraid. 

Just as suddenly as he had grabbed Daragh his Father let him go. Daragh slumped to the floor as his Father spoke calmly, ‘You will not raise your voice to me in my house. Your Mother is gone. That is all that matters.’ Daragh started to cry, bringing his knees up to his chest as the sobs tore through this body. When his Father spoke again his voice was thick with emotion. ‘You remember, all the dancing, and the laughing. That’s what I want you to remember of her. I want you to think of her as happy, loving, wonderful.’ With a soft sigh his Father reached out a hand and lifted Daragh’s chin from his knees and spoke, ‘She was sick Son. We tried to keep it from you, and I thought she was getting better, but in the weeks before...’ His Father paused, clearing his throat, ‘Before it happened, she wasn’t happy. Do you remember Dessie’s funeral? It wasn’t normal, even for her. She was distraught, crying all the time, murmuring about debts to be paid, maybe I should have done more, but I thought that it would pass like the other times.’ He paused. ‘It didn’t pass though, did it?’ Daragh looked into his Father’s eyes and reached out a hand and gently placed it on his Father’s shoulder. His Father looked at him, tears streaming freely down it’s face, bending his forehead to his Daragh’s, he locked their heads together and whispered. ‘I promise, if it takes the rest of my life, I will find her.’ They had sat like that, heads locked for hours. A promise was made and true to his word his Father went out every morning and trawled the sea for her. Daragh knew it wasn’t healthy, but for years he said nothing, selfishly wanting his Father to keep the promise he made.  

Daragh tore his eyes away from the sea and his mind back to the present, looking at the people working along the deck. He couldn’t believe he was on a boat, but yet it seemed fitting considering the late night call. Daragh had stood by the harbour in Looe, where he now called home, and asked if anyone could handle an extra passenger, all he needed was to get across the Irish sea. Eventually, he found himself in an old boat that had seen better days. It was a former auxiliary vessel to the Red Cross, the Captain had boasted proudly, his eyes turned upwards to the sky. The Captain kept the painted helicopter pad, as a memory of days passed, good and bad. Daragh imagined that the Captain was searching the skies hoping that a helicopter might magically appear and wish to land, perhaps with wounded so the Captain could reprise his role as a hero. Daragh thought of the things men will do to remember better times. He thought of his Father. As the years had passed with no sign of his Mother’s body, his Father had not relented, even when Daragh begged. 

Daragh had left when it all became too much. He left his Father, a Captain on a sinking ship, afraid that if he stayed much longer he would go down as well. He had tried to explain it and his Father said he understood, he nodded and told his son to go, to live his life. Daragh had sent cards, letters, photos, anything he could think of to pull the old man back to reality. He never heard anything. He kept in touch with the publican in the town, who informed him every so often with a letter or a phonecall that his Father was still alive, still drinking, still fishing and still searching. Years passed and although he still sent the cards, the letters and the photographs, he had no expectations. He signed everything with his address, his phone number, but he stopped begging for contact. In twenty years he had heard nothing and honestly, had given up. 

Daragh surveyed the boat again. It wasn’t really suitable for fishing, at least not to Daragh’s eyes, but according to the crew the Captain meant well and as long as he kept paying them, they felt the Captain could do whatever thing he wanted, including using the old medical boat. Daragh had felt the same about his Father, he meant well, so he left him to it. The shrill cries of the seagulls and the juddering of the boat told him without looking that they had docked. It had been nearly twenty years since he had stood in this harbour. As he disembarked he moved towards the man he came to see. Daragh stood in front of the old man. His Father reached out to him, embracing him, and whispering in his ear the same thing he had said on the phone last night, the thing that had brought Daragh home. ‘I’m sorry I never found her.’ Daragh clung to his Father and thought once more of the sea and the balancing of the books.

An opening chapter to a book I never started.

Chapter One

Michael - 10 January 1920

The fog was thick and dense. Michael had left Calais in the small fishing boat four days ago. It took them two days to cross the sea to Plymouth. From Plymouth he was due to depart with the young French fisherman and his even younger crew to Dublin. Home. Michael repeated the word out loud, rolling the sound of it around his mouth, tasting the word, trying to connect the word to the image he had in his head from when he left. It was five years ago now, since he had last seen his city, his Mother, his family. The memories he had of them had been clouded, dulled after the years in France, the final year of which he spent in a hospital bed, using his pigeon french to try and understand what had happened to him. His leg itched, it would for a while the doctor with the thick southern accent had said. He would get used to the feeling, the limp, the lumps of shrapnel impossible to extract, the dead weight, the pain when it rained, he would get used to it. Just like he got used to everything else. At least you are alive, that is what the Doctor had said. Yes, Michael thought, at least I was alive. Michael had wondered, how do I explain to you that it would be better if they had killed me.

Michael stretched his leg and stood. He had to keep mobile, the Doctor had said that the pain would lessen if he kept his leg strong, and his will even stronger. His leg was stiff from the cold, a small whimper escaped his lips as he put all his weight on the bad leg. Not yet, he thought, I’m not strong enough yet. The Doctor had given him pills for his pain and pills to help him sleep. They were to help him move past his experiences, but he did not want to move past, to forget. How could he anyway? Even without the shrapnel in his leg, the images filled his mind every time he closed his eyes. It was worse at night, at night the memories would seem so real it was like being back there. The sobbing of boys too young to die, crying out for their Mothers, their Fathers, anyone to help them. Then after a few hours the crying would stop, and Michael would know they were gone to be with Him. It was only the next morning as the light reached over those high earth walls that Michael would know who they had lost. 

The young O’Connor boy, was one of the first to go, he had been frightened the first night. Michael could smell the urine off him, but he said nothing, the boy did not need to be humiliated for his fear. Fear made you strong, it heightens your senses, no matter what their commander said, fear was your friend, fear would keep you safe. Eventually after the third night as the stench of clothes three times pissed in filled their nostrils the other lads noticed. That moment, Michael was convinced, marked O’Connor, marked him as the next sacrifice for Death to collect, and collect he would, didn’t he always? The insults thrown down the line towards O’Connor, were not to force him over the top early. Of course they weren’t, but they did. When night fell that night and the signal was sounded O’Connor was one of the first over. Michael was behind him, watching O’Connor, terrified at first, but then with each step he survived the boy seemed to grow taller and taller. He glanced back to see Michael, smiling at him O’Connor opened his mouth to say something, Michael had almost even formed a smile at the look of excitement on the boys face, but then that soft sound, utterly unmistakable but indescribable, a bullet piercing through skin, the boys face changed from excitement to confusion and then to darkness. Dead, instantly. He was lucky, Michael thought it then and he thought it now. Lucky to have died instantly, lucky to have died at all. It was Michael who had sent his letters for him. O’Connor was too young to have a sweetheart, a girl back home waiting for him, his letters were to his Mother and it was to her that Michael addressed the envelope. Putting a small note that simply said: Your son is dead. I am sorry. He didn’t even sign it. Why would Mrs O’Connor need to know? Why would she want to see the name of the soldier who gave her the bad news. Why would she care what his name was? Anyway, O’Connor was supposed to write a last letter to her himself, explaining that he loved her, that he had tried to make her proud. Whatever young boys put into the letters for the Mothers that waited for them. For the Mother’s that knelt at the side of their bed each night, slipping the beads of the rosary through their hands. Pray for us, Mothers, now and at the hour of our death. Who prayed for them? Michael wondered, while they were praying for their sons at War. Who prayed for the Mothers? To have given life and to have no control over when it was taken, that must be the hardest trial He ever gave anyone.

The youngest of the crew, Michael couldn’t remember his name, approached him warily. Carefully the young boy moved into Michael’s eye line from as far away as possible and made slow deliberate movements towards Michael. He stopped an arms length away and with a tentative smile and a shaking hand offered him the cup. Michael attempted to smile back, but judging from the young boys frightened expression he didn’t quite manage it. Michael averted his eyes to give the boy the opportunity to scurry away. The fear, Michael thought, came when they had just left Calais. It was the first night, Michael went below deck ostentatiously to sleep, in reality he could not stand the questioning eyes of the young crew members, looking from Michael to the boat’s Captain, Aldrick wondering what the relationship between the two was. There was no real relationship, just a man who needed to get home, and a Captain who took pity on him. It was after midnight and the ships bobbing in the water had managed to lull Michael into a light sleep, the first since he left the hospital two months previously. Aldrick had finished serving dinner to his crew and was wondering whether to wake the young Irishman below, he decided against it and was glad he had when a red flare appeared in the sky. Aldrick mobilised his crew to turn the boat off course to help whoever was in trouble. Following protocol Aldrick ran to fetch his responding flare to let the other boat know that help was on the way. The noise of the crew running back and forth must have woken the Irishman, as he emerged rubbing his eyes to clear the sleep from them Aldrick shot the flare into the sky. As he did so he glanced at the Irishman, Aldrick saw the Irishman’s eyes follow the flare into the sky, and as it erupted casting them all in it’s green hue Aldrick saw the Irishman’s eyes go blank.

Aldrick's own brother Patrice had the same look in his eye when he came back to Calais in 1871, his Maman had called it la peur. Aldrick had only seen the look in Patrice’s eyes twice, the first time in the year after Patrice returned home when a young Aldrick had popped a balloon, as he began to cry Patrice approached him, thinking that his brother sought to comfort him Aldrick had lifted his face to his older brother and had seen the blank stare, just before Aldrick saw Patrice’s fist flying towards him, knocking him into a wall. When he woke up Patrice had disappeared. Aldrick did not tell his Maman fearing that she would send Patrice away. When Patrice returned six months later he had come into Aldrick’s room late and night and gently kissed the boys head, stroking his hair. Patrice sat by Aldrick’s bed and hummed quietly to himself. When Aldrick risked a shy glance through half closed eyelids he saw Patrice weeping with his War rifle in his arms. Aldrick had whispered to Patrice, asking him what he was doing. Patrice had wiped his tears, when Patrice, looked up, locking eyes with his younger brother Aldrick saw the blank stare, and he was afraid. Patrice left, saying nothing. The next morning his Maman wailing had woken Aldrick, he had rushed to the kitchen seeing Patrice’s feet, the rifle lying abandoned and the kitchen floor covered in what looked like tomato sauce. When Aldrick had made to step into the kitchen, to wake Patrice, his Maman had swept him up in her apron. When she had stopped crying his Maman took Aldrick’s chin in her hands, and looked into his eyes and said, that la peur  had taken his brother. When Aldrick had asked what la peur was, she had said that it was something Napoleon had given her son, like a disease.

So when Aldrick saw the Irishman emerge with the same look, he knew what was happening, what he did not know was how la peur  would affect the Irishman. When the young Alexandre, the youngest of the crew and Aldrick’s wife’s bastard nephew, had accidentally bumped into the Irishman, before Aldrick could yell out to stop him, the Irishman had the young boy by the throat, pressing him against the ships side and threatening to kill him. When Aldrick had attempted to pull the Irishman off the boy, the Irishman had with one hand flung him the entire width of the ship. It took all six crew members to tear him away from the boy. Once they had calmed both the Irishman and the young Alexandre they had helped the distressed fishing boat. For Aldrick, no harm had been done, and all the travellers should simply move passed it, but for the duration of their trip to Plymouth Alexandre would not be alone with the Irishman. It was only since they had arrived at Plymouth and departed for Dublin that Alexandre was willing to interact, however briefly. This was in no small part due to the Irishman buying the illiterate boy a picture comic book as a way of unspoken apology. The boy loved the comic and poured over it late and night when he was due to be keeping watch for Aldrick and he and the strange Irishman had made a truce of sorts since.

Michael had known nothing of the Captains past, but he found himself watching the Captain more closely, wondering how the Captain had known what to do with Michael when he was in such a state. Aldrick and his men had wrestled Michael below deck they locked him beneath. After what felt to Michael like hours but probably was only a few minutes Aldrick returned below deck with a bottle of whiskey and two cigarettes. Aldrick simply poured the whiskey into two glasses, proffering the first glass and a cigarette to Michael, Aldrick tipped the glass towards Michael, Santé he said, and Michael had clinked his own glass against the Captains and said Sláinte. As they drank to each others health they had surveyed each other quietly, until Michael cleared his throat and muttered in a mix of French and English. I’m sorry, he said I don’t know what happened, the flare just... Michael trailed off. He didn’t know what happened, never mind knowing how to explain it to a man who had never seen war. Michael didn’t know how to explain what it was like to smell death on his own hands, to feel as if he was being followed by a shadow, to feel the cold icy breath of a ghost whispering that it should have been you. Aldrick spoke then, he told Michael briefly of his brother, of the curse of la peur. When Michael asked what la peur meant Aldrick spoke in English and explained it was the fear, a fear you got like a disease from experiencing too much fear, both your own and other people’s. Michael had nodded as if he agreed, but he didn’t, he believed the fear came from not having experienced enough pain. Dying was easy, no fear, no regrets, nothing. Living though, it is living that is the very essence of fear, beginning every day wondering if today is the day you join them all.

Whenever Michael thought of that night he was ashamed of his actions, of the terror he must have instilled in the young boy. They did not talk much more after their first drink and when they finished Aldrick had simply stood and left. Since that night however Michael and Aldrick had shared something, and it had made both men mildly embarrassed in each others company. There had been no late night drinking since, and when they had landed in Plymouth Michael had simply bought Aldrick a replacement bottle of Whiskey, although not that shite he fed Michael proper Irish Whiskey, the likes of which you could only get in England ironically. Michael had also picked up a comic for the young lad, as a way of apology. He loved the comics as a kid and remembered passing them down to his youngest brother when he was done with them.

Michael looked up from the cup in his hands out onto the black sea. He had not realised that the boy instead of just scuttling off like he usually did was stood beside Michael watching out over the water. How long have we been stood here now, Michael asked. The boy looked at the sky, and shrugged his shoulders. Michael wasn’t sure if it was that he didn’t know the answer or that he didn’t understand the question. Michael sighed and stood with the boy in silence. Eventually the boy turned to Michael and asked in heavily accented English, what was it like? Michael turned his head and eyed the boy curiously. What did this young boy, know of War? Michael decided to answer with his own question, where did you learn English? From the men, the boy answered, the men that came to my village. My mother, he coughed looking embarrassed, I don’t know how to say in English, she was a une fille. A girl? Michael asked laughing, Mother’s usually are. No, the boy cried looking frustrated, she was a, unholy woman, on the streets. The penny dropped, his Mother was a whore. Michael didn’t judge, although he knew many would and they would judge the son of a whore worse then the whore herself. He put his hand on the boys shoulder and said, It doesn’t matter you know. It doesn’t tell you anything about yourself. The boy nodded, My uncle takes care of me. He’s given me a job. Maybe I will meet a girl and I will have my own sons. Michael nodded, understanding how important it was for this young boy to create a legacy that was different to the one his own Mother had left him. Michael thought about his own Father, he was dead, and Michael was glad of it. He had been a hard mean bastard to Michael, his Mother and his siblings. Thinking of his family Michael looked over the sea again and sighed, he would be home soon.

The boy was still looking at him. Wondering, Michael supposed, whether or not he would get to hear stories of the War. Michael wouldn’t tell them, he would not glory War, and he would not take credit for surviving when so many had died. He was lucky, that was all. He was as lucky as the others had been unlucky. That was the nature of War, it was a game of dice, but it wasn’t Michael and the men like him who were throwing it, no, those men sat in comfortable War rooms and spun epitaphs like ‘Home by Christmas’ what utter horseshit that had been. Michael reached into his pocket and felt the edges of the star in his pocket. He had two more medals in his kit below deck. He took the medal out of his pocket and saw the boys eyes fixate on the object. Michael took one look last look at it, hoping that the boy would understand what he was about to do, but realising in the same moment that it didn’t matter. When the boy looked quizzically at Michael he sighed and said too many bad memories. Michael looked once more at the medals, and stared over the choppy sea. The boy wouldn’t understand it and how could Michael expect him to? Resigning himself to what he was about to do, he took a deep breath and hurled the medals over the deck and out to sea. The boy leaned over desperately searching for a glint of the metal as it sank below the suraface, he turned to Michael, I don’t understand the boy said. Michael grimaced, put a hand on the boys shoulder and said, I hope you never have to. The boy nodded briefly at Michael and then rushed below deck, probably to tell his uncle what the stranger had done this time. Michael stared over the choppy sea and thought once more of returning home.

A play I entered into the ‘Tiny Plays’ Competition, it didn’t win, but I am pleased with it, given that I’ve never really written in this form before.

Joyce is Dead

Megan Smith

Eugene sits alone in a room. There are two chairs in front of an unlit fireplace. Eugene rests his head in his hands. The room is completely quiet but outside the rumble of people talking steadily grows louder. The door opens and in walks another man, Michael, in his hand are two glasses of whiskey.

Michael: (Passing the glass to Eugene)  Here get that down your neck.
Eugene: (Downing the whiskey) What’ll we do now Mick?
Michael: We’ll do what we’ve been doing forever Eugene, we’ll survive.
Eugene: But Mick, he’s dead. How do we survive that? How do we survive knowing-
Michael: It’s done, we have to accept what happened. Your brother, he needed it, that’s why we had to...
Eugene: But did we Mick? Did we really have to? (Leaning forward to Michael) Did you?
Michael: (Resigned) Yes, Eugene, yes I did. I had too, for us all, don’t you ever forget that. I did it so we could live. So we could carry on.
Eugene: But all those people out there, they think -
Michael: I don’t care what they think Eugene.
Eugene: But Joyce would Mick. Don’t you see? He would hate this, this lying. He was always telling me to be honest. To be more open with people about it all.  
Michael: (snorting in derision) Maybe he should’ve spent less time telling you to be honest and more time helping you. Then maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Eugene: You can’t blame him surely?
Michael: I blame them all Eugene. All of them, I blame for their pettiness, their small mindedness, I blame them for sapping the life out of us, for leaving us empty, and alone. They left you with nothing Eugene. Nothing, except me. I’m all you have.
Eugene: Couldn’t we have waited though? Maybe he wouldn’t have... Couldn’t we have... Couldn’t we?
Michael: Couldn’t we what Eugene?
Eugene: Explained it to them?
Michael: Explain it Eugene? (frustrated now) Explain it so they could lock you up? I’ll tell you what Eugene, if you’re so desperate to go out into confession, then go! I dare you! Go out and tell them all, stand up and tell them all the dirty little secrets we’ve been keeping for years! Go on, get out there!
Eugene: I... I... I...
Michael: I thought so.
Eugene: Stop looking at me like that.
Michael: Like what?
Eugene:  Like you’re disgusted by me.
Michael: I am disgusted by you Eugene. I am. I’m disgusted by your weakness. You would rather protect the memory of a deadman. A man you told me to-
Eugene: STOP! Just stop it Michael. Stop!
Michael: Why should I stop? It’s time you faced facts Eugene, you wanted me to do it. You wanted me to protect us didn’t you? Isn’t that what you said when you came crying to me? That you needed me to protect us? That the only way to do it was to-
Eugene: I didn’t mean THAT! I never asked you to-
Michael: You’re a liar Eugene. A filthy liar. You didn’t have to say the words, of course you didn’t, I’m part of you, I know what you’re thinking before you even say it.
Eugene: (crying) I didn’t mean for you to kill him. I didn’t. Whatever you say, I didn’t want you to kill him.
The door opens, a woman enters. Dressed in mourning clothes.
Woman: (looking around) Eugene dear? Who are you talking to?
Eugene: (staring at the empty chair) Just myself Mam, just myself.