McCormack Forensic Songs

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-84351-475-6
Verlag: The Lilliput Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

In his second collection of short stories, Mike McCormack joins head andheart in a series of tales which weave a fluid vision of a world morphing between the real and the hyperreal. Amid much hollow laughter a prisoner is drawn from his cell in the middle of the night to play a video game; two rural guards ponder the security threat posed by the only man in Ireland not to have written his memoirs; a child tries to offset his destiny as a serial killer by petitioning his father for a beating; a late night American cop show becomes a savage analysis of a faltering marriage in the west of Ireland; two men turn up at the door of a slacker to give him news of his death and recruit him to some mysterious surveillance mission; an older brother worries about the health of his younger sibling; the prodigal son returns to reveal the fear and hypocrisy which lies at the heart of his brothers life. In twelve stories McCormack's characters find themselves trying to hold onto their identities in a world where love is too often and too easily obscured.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mccormack, Mike

Leseproben

Christ, he’d always been thin, never a pick on him, but I’d never seen him looking as thin as he was at that moment, standing there in the kitchen with the grey hair hanging in his face and the rain dripping off him like a drowned dog. Not even the old anorak he was wearing could bulk him out to any size. And the little bony hands on him, as well – he’d started rolling a cigarette – I thought I could see all the missing years in the glossy sheen of his hands and the blue veins looping between his knuckles.

And yet, in spite of his appearance, part of me couldn’t help but think that he looked well for a man I had thought dead these past seven years.

‘You weren’t always so short of talk,’ he said, licking the cigarette and placing it in the corner of his mouth. ‘Are you not glad to see me, Seaneen? Your older brother? It’s not that often I call now, is it?’

He lit his fag, using that awkward stooping motion to bring the fag to the flame instead of the other way around. Small as the gesture was, it opened up a vein of bitter grievance that coursed through me like venom. He’s barely inside the door, I thought, and already he’s getting to me.

‘I thought you were dead,’ I heard myself say. It was not a good start.

‘It’s good to see you, too,’ he snorted, ‘how long has it been?’

‘Seven years,’ I said.

‘Seven years,’ he repeated wonderingly. ‘Where do they all go? It only seems like yesterday.’ He drew hard on the cigarette and thrust the tobacco and matches into the pocket of his anorak. He raised his face and took in the whole of the kitchen and then fixed his gaze on me and there we both stood, wordless and embarrassed and hopelessly at a loss with each other.

‘You need to get out of those clothes,’ I said, ‘you’ll catch your death in them.’

He turned his back to me and looked out the kitchen window. A bald patch on the top of his head glistened damp and shiny in the afternoon light. As he turned, the light flowed across his face, hollowing out the lines in his cheeks and along his jaw.

‘I’m tired,’ he said, dipping his forehead into the palm of his left hand and massaging his temples. ‘It’s been a long day; I think I’ll have a bit of a lie down.’ He bent to pick up the suitcase and I saw that it was as much as he could do to lift it. ‘Is there a bed above in the old house?’

I took the key off the dresser and handed it to him.

‘There are blankets in the cupboard,’ I said as he passed through the door. ‘I’ll call you in a few hours.’

‘Don’t bother, leave it till tomorrow, we’ll talk tomorrow.’

With his back turned, he raised his hand in a parting salute and left me standing in the silence of the kitchen once more. A small pool of water glistened on the tiles where he’d stood. Margaret entered from the hall, Jimmy draped over her shoulder.

‘I thought I heard voices,’ she said.

I stared at the little pool of water on the floor. Had I not seen him leave with my own two eyes I might have thought that for the second time in his life, my older brother, Jimmy Cosgrave, had disappeared into thin air.

They were a four-man team at the time, working out of a yard in Edmonton, covering north of the Thames in a Transit van: four men from the same parish, four men who’d grown up together, four men riding out the hard years of the eighties in the land of dope and Tories.

After breakfast in the yard, they’d load up the tools and fill two barrels of diesel; then they’d hop into the van and head out to one of the gippos’ campsites in Lewisham or along the A13 near Dagenham. They’d pull in there on the campsite and wait and sure enough, after a few minutes, the green van would draw a crowd. The caravan doors would open and all these gippos would pour out, every one of them big bastards, arms like gorillas but sound enough if you kept the right side of them. One look at the green van and they’d know the craic.

‘What part, lads?’

That’s how it was with gippos, always had to know who they were dealing with – the price of doing business with them. The lads would leave the talking to Jimmy.

‘A small village in the west, you wouldn’t know it.’

‘Tell me the name and I’ll know it.’

‘Louisburgh, south Mayo.’

The big gippo nodded. ‘I know it well, many’s a bad roll of lino I sold in it. God’s Pocket, am I right?’

‘You know them all.’

‘I’d know less, what have you got?’

The going rate at the time for a barrel of red diesel was thirty pounds. One of the lads would push it out the back of the van with his boot and a crowd of hardy-looking gasúrs would roll it away.

‘That’s one of Gaughan’s vans?’

‘Yes.’

‘Out of Edmonton?’

‘The very place.’

‘Throw the keys under her tonight – there’ll be a tonne in it for you.’

Jimmy guffawed and climbed into the van. ‘Will I fuck throw the keys under her tonight. I’ll be back for that empty tomorrow. We’ll talk again.’

‘Sound.’

When I went up to the old house the following morning he was standing at the kitchen window, looking out across the yard. He motioned into the grey light.

‘A lot of changes,’ he said. ‘All the old sheds and the hen house gone. What’s that you’re putting up in the haggart?’

‘A slatted house, we should have the roof on in a couple of weeks.’

‘So the old man left a big lump behind him?’

‘The old man left very little behind him. Any penny he left goes to looking after herself. Are you going over to see her?’

He ignored the question, turned his back and leaned into the narrow window, bracing himself on one flattened hand. ‘What time is it now?’ he asked.

‘After nine,’ I said, ‘half-nine.’

‘Half-nine,’ he repeated. He nodded out to where a van had pulled into the bottom of the yard. The doors opened and three men spilled out. Jimmy shook his head.

‘This is a strange time of day to be starting a job of work, half-nine.’

‘Leave them alone, don’t go down annoying them.’

Jimmy laughed ruefully. ‘Those lads will break no harness by the look of them. Who are they, anyway, any of them local?’

‘They’re all local, one of them is your brother-in-law.’

A broad look of surprise opened his face. ‘Which one?’

‘Frank Moran.’

He shook his head. ‘That’s not telling me much; Morans are ten a penny in these parts, or at least they used to be.’

‘Frank Moran from Roy.’

‘One of the Lollies?’

‘Yes.’

‘And they have a sister?’

‘Yes, her name is Margaret and she wants you down for dinner this evening.’

It took him a moment or two to come to terms with this piece of news. ‘Sound,’ he said eventually. ‘I’ll change into my evening wear. I’m looking forward to it.’

‘Whatever you want. And by the way, there’ll be someone else at the table.’

‘A visitor?’

‘Not a visitor, our son, his name is Jimmy.’

Thursday morning they’d drive to Archway and get the papers: two copies each of The Mayo News, the Western People and the Connaught Tribune. Then, another hour driving round looking for the manhole, Padraic calling out the directions to Sean from the A–Z.

‘Listen to this …’

As usual, Jimmy had turned to the courts pages. He always got a great kick out of reading them. ‘Let’s see what the poor people are up to’ – that was his spake every time he opened the papers from home. Settling himself on a pile of overalls, he spread out his legs.

‘Listen to this,’ he began. ‘“Man Terrorizes Punters in Public House. Late-night drinkers in The Swan Tavern, Ballinrobe, had a lucky escape when local man, Thomas Shevlin, entered the public bar at twenty past ten on the night of March 21st with a chainsaw. Witnesses reported the defendant stood in the middle of the bar and fired up the chainsaw and then demanded drink. ‘I was only trying to get their attention your honour,’ the defendant said.”’

Jimmy looked up. ‘Right enough, a two-stroke Husqvarna will get you plenty of attention in a pub.’

‘What did he get?’ Martin asked.

Jimmy shifted his back against the metal panels. ‘Wait till you hear, this is the best part. “Justice Hannigan,” ’ – Jimmy raised his head and grinned over at Martin – ‘My old buttie, Justice Hannigan, who else? “Justice Hannigan deferred sentencing pending a psychiatric report. He ordered the defendant bound to the peace and his movements confined to within a two-mile radius of the town’s Telecom mast. Leave to travel would only be granted with documented proof of gainful employment.” ’

Jimmy closed his eyes and bared his teeth in silent laughter, his shoulders bobbing. ‘Imagine that, Ballinrobe is now an open-air prison for that man.’

‘Gainful employment my arse,’ Padraic scoffed, ‘that man is rightly fucked.’

Finding the manhole, they’d lift the cover and Jimmy would suit up to go down and pour diesel into the penstock. Martin and...