Hello! As I wasnt able to post yesterday, Im putting up Chapters Twenty Six to Twenty Nine of my story President Fionn. Hope you have a great weekend! Part Two 1963 CHAPTER TWENTY SIX Fionn tore off the wall the calendar that had been suspended there for the past thirty years by a discarded curtain hook. He might not know where he was going from here on out, but one thing he was sure of, in the meantime, he wasn’t going to sit in a house where all the bloody oul’ dishes and furniture talked to him of the past. Fionn’s first step was to ask Mrs Foley if she knew of anyone who could take the household belongings away. Her eyes had lit up as she first of all ascertained if he wanted any money for the items. He told her he didn’t, and she quickly set to work contacting one of her sons who possessed a van, assuring Fionn that hed take everything away. Fionn had done as he was ordered and a little later deposited everything out in the street in front of the house. It had been a strange experience. When he was inside, getting rid of the contents, it felt as if he was shedding hard skin, while outside, it was like he was standing in his underpants for all to see with all the personal items piling up out there. When hed completed his task, he started to worry that Mrs Foley’s son had let him down and what was even more embarrassing was word had got around the Liberties that there was free junk to be had in The Coombe. Fionn watched surreptitiously from inside the front window, which had now been divested of its veil of lace, as people he vaguely recognised from his past and others who were unknown to him rifled through his family’s belongings as if choosing firm tomatoes from a stall in Thomas Street. Then Mrs Foley came out, outraged it seemed that they were taking the best of the stash before her son could get his hands on it. She shooed the scavengers away with such tenacity that before long she was the soul keeper of his past until her scruffy son turned up in his rusty van. Fionn looked around the empty house. It still spoke to him from every corner. He frowned, grabbed his door key and went out; it was to be a busy day. Cleaning products, a couple of chairs, a small table, a lamp, an iron bed and mattress, dishes and plates were bought. Back and forward he went with each set of items and those he couldn’t carry were dispatched as quickly as possible, on his orders and with a large tip. By nine o’clock that night, he had everything he needed, for the time being, including food to last him a day or two. Fionn sat at the little table he’d bought; it was nice, proper wood, strong ornamental legs. He listened intently - nothing. It was his house now and had by accident given him some solace, although his final act of attrition, which was to paint the whole interior white, would have to wait until the following day. While Fionn painted the walls over the next few days, he kept thinking back to the years he’d spent in the country, a few of them with his mother. It was strange, as when he had actually been there, he’d hardly thought about anything at all and barely took in his surroundings, inside or outside the cottage. He saw himself working outside in the garden, eating dinner, sitting in a chair, as a boy and later as a man, there didn’t seem much difference, as he had conducted his business in silence most of the time and little changed over the years. After the incident, they’d tried to carry on. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. His mother had grasped at the bottle to keep her afloat, staggering from an empty one to a full one and so on in a timeless circle. He had been too physically ill to do anything more than watch from the bed she’d put downstairs for him, so that she could keep an eye on him, it became his desert island for most of the next year. It was his Auntie Mary who had suggested that they go down to the country. She’d been left a two-bedroom place a few miles outside of Westport, County Mayo, by her husband’s family. She was going to America, to her daughter and taking Margaret with her, and eventually Paul, when he got out and she’d urged her sister Kathleen to take up her offer; it would get her off the drink and be a fresh start for Fionn, she’d heard her tell a neighbour. To be fair, for a brief period after they’d arrived at the cottage, things had been better, but his mother couldn’t resist the drink for long, and all the move meant was that because they lived in such a deserted place, there wasn’t anyone to see her, even if everyone in the vicinity knew, as she had to make so many trips to town to stock up. Fionn was glad he’d been forced to make some kind of decision regarding the house, and he knew now, as he painted away the past that he wouldn’t be going back to the country, he had just as many unhappy memories there as here, only those were nearer the surface. It wasn’t an altogether unpleasant feeling to have at least one thing settled. ‘My God, it’s like a bloody church!’ Mrs Foley had commented when she’d pushed her way in a few days later to see what was going on. Fionn had grinned: that’s exactly what he’d wanted, now he thought about it, although he hadn’t realised thatd be the effect. He wanted to feel like he’d felt as a child, with Maeve, at mass. Calm and secure. In this uncluttered, serene environment, he knew he would be able to think more clearly. CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN Fionn lit a fire and put the kettle on and while he waited for it to boil he listened to the radio. He let his mind meander while the smooth cultured tones of the newsreader filled him in on the events that had unfolded so far that day in Dublin. Fionn listened to intermittent words, Joseph O’Keefe, Lord Mayor of Dublin, Roches Stores, Henry Street, escalators, first in Dublin, declared them open, first to ride up them, basement, ground floor, first floor. Fionn’s thoughts travelled to what he was going to do that day; he had an appointment at the firm of solicitors, Clarke and Ryan, who had handled the purchase of his mother’s house. He saw her then, fleetingly, listless and anaemic, leaning against the frame of the open front door. Who would have thought she would have had the wits and energy to fight for compensation for him? Fionn had been aware that hed owned his mothers house for years, but he’d never been able to face coming back to it. It was only upon the insistence of his solicitor, who apparently had an important matter to discuss with him that he, after months of badgering, had finally agreed to return. That wasn’t the only reason he’d left the west of Ireland; things had run their natural course there. He’d liked this girl; she’d lived a mile and a half down the road from the isolated cottage he’d shared with his mother. She was quite young, about twenty, he’d say, tall and slim with a paleness, both in colour and manner that made her seem unfit for country life. Fionn understood that immediately, she was him only in reverse; with his big, bold body and wild yellow hair, he’d looked out of place in a big city such as Dublin. Apart from looking after a few livestock that he’d accumulated over the years, and a good vegetable plot, Fionn had had plenty of time on his hands. Too much really, he cycled all over the place and sat by the sea, looking and looking, half expecting something or someone to come to him from over the horizon. The girl, Teagan, all of a sudden seemed to be everywhere he went. Fionn bumped into her along the road, at the nearest shop, down by the sea. She took over all his thoughts, even though they had done no more than nod, but that wasn’t too difficult to be fair, he’d pared away at most of his memories until there was only a basic framework with no filling. After months of this situation continuing, Fionn got it into his head that their meeting was no accident, it was meant to be. Without him having to do a stroke, the powers that be had engineered the scene, and the outcome. For a further few months, Fionn experienced what could only be described as a vague feeling of pleasantness as he accepted that every time he stepped out of his imposed exile, into the woods and lanes, there would be Teagan, quiet and even, like Maeve had been when she was young. Fionn’s mind went black as he recalled the moment, only a few weeks before, when he had performed, what was to him, the most momentous act of his life. He was going to speak to her, not idle chit chat, hed get straight to the point and ask her if she’d like to marry him. This was decided at three o’clock in the morning as he lay looking at the half moon sitting on top of the trees outside his bedroom window. It was another sign, two halves make a whole. He and Teagan made a whole person, for he knew by instinct rather than reason that she was suffering in some way too. He was not surprised to find her one morning, sitting by the stream that ran vertically to his own garden. She looked up as he approached, equally unsurprised at their meeting, it seemed. ‘Hello. Are you well today?’ Fionn heard his own voice say; it fascinated him. It had been years since he’d uttered more than one word at a time. ‘I’m fine, and yourself?’ she replied, without any kind of expression that you could hook onto, but that hadn’t bothered Fionn; he was hopeless at reading people’s moods from just looking at their face. Teagan turned and gazed over the stream, at what, he wasn’t sure, although he’d looked. He didn’t answer her question, he felt it was irrelevant. ‘Will you marry me?’ he asked, not at all afraid. They kept bumping into each other, the two of them must be in line to be man and wife, why else would it keep happening? She looked up at him and said nothing, and it felt like hours had gone by as the water fizzed and the birds whistled in the trees that were swaying in time to the music of the wind. He asked again, unsure if she’d heard him the first time. Nothing. Then all of a sudden she started laughing and laughing until Fionn thought she might have gone funny in the head. He was so taken aback he staggered a little, tipsy with shock. The spectacle went on and on, him lurching about as if each little chuckle was a sling shot and then, just as abruptly as she had started the whole thing off, she stopped, got up and left. ‘I’ll see youse, Mr Connolly, you’re a scream, so you are!’ It had been easy to leave after that. Fionn sighed and went over to his new kitchen table where a large, battered shoe box sat, tied up haphazardly with a piece of twine. He’d lifted the side of the lid earlier and saw that it was crammed with letters. Considering his intention to make a clean sweep of the place, it, had been remarkable that he hadn’t got rid of them. He cut the string, unbinding his mother’s past with a bread knife and stared at the contents. He was half hoping they’d state their business without him having to touch them. Eventually he devised a system as he began to recognise the handwriting on the envelopes. He put the letters into individual piles: his sister Noreen; cousins, aunts, his mother’s parents who hadn’t lived long enough for him to meet them, but who had lived in Donegal. He skimmed over the contents of these, scantily taking in the humdrum conversations that had passed back and forwards over the early years of his life. At the bottom though, he was intrigued to find two airmail letters that didn’t have a recognisable writing style. The envelopes were pinched together with an old clothes peg. Inside the first, a single sheet of paper, had one paragraph of hurried writing sprawled across it and was undated. Was this on purpose? Sorry, it said, forgive me, you’re all better off without me, signed, Brendan. Fionn looked at the name. He’d very rarely seen or heard of it when growing up. It was always ‘your father’, or ‘that oul’ fella’, or ‘your da’. He’d never seemed like a real person, one with a name that belonged to him alone. Brendan. Brendan Connolly, his father. He opened the second letter, which was dated August, 1930, and had a return address, somewhere in Brooklyn. Fionn was curious to know how he’d followed up such an exit. This letter was longer, talking about how he’d got himself into a spot of bother and wondering whether there was any spare cash to be had to get him out of his predicament, nowhere did he ask about his abandoned family and how they were fairing. Fionn put the letter face down on the table and shook his head slowly. It mirrored his disappointment in his father, who he’d always felt would turn out to be a decent enough fella. With that task over, he dressed in the only suit he possessed and left the house for his appointment with his solicitor, Mr Ryan. ‘Morning President Fionn,’ said Mr Cavanagh. Fionn nodded to his next door neighbour who was just on his way out to work and continued on up The Coombe. As he turned left into Francis Street, silken rain fell from above, caressing Fionn’s face, and he tilted his head back to feel the full impact of its touch; it was a welcome change from the sharp, sleet they’d endured of late. ‘Terrible weather we’re having President Fionn, could you not do something about it?’ Mr Lacey said, his face as ruddy as fresh steak as he opened up his butcher’s shop. ‘There’s nothing I can do about the weather, that’s God’s job.’ Fionn told him. ‘Ah, you’re right enough there, but I swear that fella slopes off down the pub more times than is good for him, the way he lets things slide down here,’ Mr Malone said, smiling compassionately at Fionn’s humourless face as he walked on without saying goodbye. Poor eejit, the face and body of a movie star and the mind of a youngster, by God, religion had a lot to answer for. CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT It appeared Fionn was a man of means. His solicitor, Mr Ryan had told him that a considerable sum of money had been invested for him and had now come to fruition. ‘Your mother was a canny woman, Fionn. She squeezed every last penny she could out of the church and then of course there was the money your grandfather left you, not a penny went to herself, a grand woman in my opinion!’ Fionn had looked at him unmoved, and he’d hurried on with his prepared speech. Mr Ryan advised him not to go mad with the money, he told him to invest it in something. Looking at Fionn’s baffled face, the solicitor could see it was unlikely he could handle anything too complicated, so suggested he put it in property. Fionn could buy a house for instance and rent it out. Mr Ryan had been met with another vacant expression as he gave out this piece of advice and decided that it was really none of his business and said no more as he finished up the paperwork. So it was with some alarm that he found Fionn back one week later asking him to arrange the purchase of a tenement block in Cork Street. Mr Ryan had asked him who was going to run and maintain the establishment and collect the rent, taken aback at his largesse. To his alarm Fionn had told him that hed be doing it all himself. As much as he tried to talk Fionn out of this action, Mr Ryan could see that his mind was made up, but he couldn’t comprehend how Fionn would be able to manage it, given hed led such a sheltered life and appeared to be in another world when you tried to talk to him. Fionn’s new purchase came with baggage: an assortment of people, who had for various reasons been unable to secure reasonable accommodation. It was like he’d bought a box full of writhing snakes, but it didn’t unduly worry him. It wasn’t that he was completely cold towards their plight, he just felt it wasn’t his business and having looked over the building Fionn had got the impression that it could carry on as it had been doing, without his having to do very much, other than change the odd tap and collect the rent. His tenants thought otherwise and bombarded him with requests for new fittings and better facilities. Fionn hadn’t really listened, there was too many of them talking at once. He couldn’t see anything wrong with the place, he’d lived in far worse conditions in the cottage and got along fine. He’d nodded and smiled faintly as their animated faces curled and stretched and seemed to say nothing of any great importance. Being hardened guests of this type of establishment, his tenants had backed off, seeing it was unlikely that he’d execute their requests, if he’d been able to withstand them all at him at once, but they comforted themselves that their new landlord could have been worse and left it at that. Fionn’s days began to form a pattern, a walk to the shops in the morning to pick up milk, bread or some such and then back home for breakfast, usually fried, before heading over to his newly acquired tenement block in Cork Street. He often walked on afterwards to Patrick’s Park or over to St Nicholas of Myra Catholic Church. It wasn’t that he wanted to recreate the past, far from it, but hed have liked to reawaken those vaguely remembered feelings of peace and security that churches had given him as a young child. Later, at home, the time dragged. In the country he’d had a couple of pigs, a few hens and the vegetables and fruit to attend to, as well as his long cycle rides, Dublin was now so busy with vehicles, he didn’t fancy his chances on a flimsy bike. Fionn contemplated getting a dog to keep him company, he had always wanted one as a child, he recalled, but as dull as his life was, he didn’t want any attachments. Around the Liberties, he quickly became a fixture and those who had known him as a boy passed on the tragic story of his past to those who hadn’t and the continuity of his childhood nickname, President Fionn remained and caught on, spreading further afield. This was mainly because he was such an arresting man with his unusual, striking good looks and many a woman in particular, lingered when they saw him go by. Fionn took it in his stride, it didn’t matter to him what anyone called him, or what they thought of him, in fact most of the time he was oblivious to it all and he had very little interest in the people and goings-on in the Liberties, but he was restless. For what, he had no idea until one day he’d nearly been run over crossing the road by a leather-clad youth on a motorbike. The boy had glanced back at him defiantly before roaring off into the wind. That was it; he knew what he needed, a motorbike, that would be his route to freedom. The Honda CA 77 Dream 305 was designed to be an all-around motorcycle, not a sporting machine like the CB 77 Super Hawk. It featured a lighter, pressed-steel frame, from which the 305cc, parallel twin engines hung. That was the blarney the salesman had given him, his hands rubbing together like two sticks making a fire when he realised that money was no problem for Fionn. He’d picked ashouting red one; it was startling, outrageous and altogether beautiful. The bike had a mind of its own, it liked to swerve and surge, and it didn’t care for other road users, it was its own man. Fionn took on its persona while he rode it around Dublin; he couldn’t have kept a low profile anyway with the red steel knocking everyone’s eyes out. Fionn had no idea why he had been so bold, it excited and frightened him in equal measures; it didn’t matter that he retreated into himself once he got off, it would have been exhausting being that much of a show-off all the time. Those who saw him hurling around Dublin would have been amazed at the disparity between the impression he gave outside to how he behaved when he was at home. Although, the fact that he barely associated with anyone in either circumstance, should have given something away. Fionn was obsessive about order in the house, it was as if he hoped by keeping rigid control over his environment, nothing untoward crept up and disrupted his life, like it had when he was a child. When he was preparing to eat, for instance, he checked the table four or five times, one knife, one fork, one spoon at a measured distance from each other and a glass of water approximately one inch to the right of the tip of the fork. Then in front of this neat little arrangement he’d place a small white plate with one slice of bread and butter on it which had been cut into four. He’d smile with a mixture of pride and relief as he went over to the pot on the stove which bubbled cheerily and then sniff the stew inside. Satisfied that it had been cooked just the way he liked it, he’d scoop out a bowlful and sit down at the table, the scraping sound of his spoon denting the quiet air until he had finished. Finally he’d lean back contentedly and sip his water, feeling calm, the meal having turned out well and gone perfectly to schedule, with no mistakes, no delays. When Fionn sat astride his motorbike, his whole demeanour changed instantly, he felt as if the whole of Ireland had opened up to him. The Honda Dream was his sidekick, his trusty friend, his family. At home at night Fionn recounted his journeys, reliving every roll of the wheels, every swerve and near miss, Fionn Connolly was king of the road. But after a few weeks, the needing something else feeling returned. He could have cried: what was it? Oh, why hadn’t the bike been enough? Fionn took to looking out into the street from the front window as his mother had done. There was so much activity out there: people passing by, neighbours talking, children playing, goods and services being delivered. It was so quiet in the house, quieter than it had been in the country, where you could hear the sound of birds, animals and nature through the open door. Here in Dublin, Fionn saw more people than he’d seen in a year in the cottage, but he felt more alone. He began to notice, with some alarm, that people stared at him all the time, especially when he was on his motorbike and many appeared to know who he was, as they shouted President Fionn after him, wherever he went. Fionn didn’t analyse why this should suddenly bother him, or why they were taking such an interest in him, but he did know that he didnt want to get involved with anyone, it only lead to a heap of trouble, he felt extremely disconcerted at having all these contradictory emotions, half of him aware that he was lonely and the other half, glad of it. One evening he went to the shoebox and took out the two letters from his father. He had no interest in him, but an idea had been stirring. Fionn wrote to him at the address on the second letter; it didn’t occur to him that he might have moved on. He was lucky, his father had roamed all around the district, but he’d had the sense to have his mail sent to the same old place, a tailor’s shop in Brooklyn that belonged to a fella from the old country. Fionn wanted to know the address of President Kennedy so he could write to him. ‘Could you tell me the exact address of President John F. Kennedy as I want to talk to him?’ Brendan Connolly had promptly replied with a scribbled note, saying how delighted he was to hear from Fionn but without giving the President’s address and signed off with, ‘Your loving father.’ Fionn had looked at these words about the same way youd examine a bus ticket. After all these years, he had no particular interest in his father, but since he’d been back in the Liberties and his old nickname had re-surfaced, he’d been thinking. His grandfather had told him time and again that hed grow up to be the President of the United States, and here he was, over forty and nothing had happened. Everyone talked about Kennedy; Mrs Foley across the road had a photograph of Jackie Kennedy sitting on a chair and the president was standing behind her, above her mantelpiece, relegating the Sacred Heart and Pope John XXIII into the alcoves. She’d told Fionn the president was gorgeous, and a lovely thing to look at of an evening, and if she lived to be a hundred, she’d never set eyes on such beautiful teeth as he had and besides which, every house in the Liberties had a photo of him, and she wasn’t going to be left out. Fionn got to thinking, maybe President J.F. Kennedy had the answers to life and if he could only ask him a few things and get his advice and all, as to what he should be doing with himself, the agitation in his stomach might stop. Fionn went out and bought a large photograph of John Kennedy and a nice dark wooden frame for it. He hung it over the fireplace, like Mrs Foley, but kept his alcoves clear of any religious paintings. Often, when the ‘wanting’ got bad, he’d get a chair from the table and sit opposite the president, trying to see into his head. He took in the thick, wavy hair, the hooded, relaxed eyes, the easy smile, the man knew it all, you could tell, and Fionn being a kind of president himself might smooth the way when he wrote. His father wrote again, a day or two later, going into a big explanation as to why, after all these years he was still having his mail sent to the same address and not his own. He had told Fionn a lot of influential people had their mail sent there, for security reasons, which Fionn could see was sensible enough. His father, Brendan had asked loads of questions in his letter, about the family, Dublin and Fionn himself. He said he missed the oul’ country and hoped to come back to visit sooner rather than later, as his luck hadn’t been too good of late. At the bottom he finished with a simple sentence, ‘I’m sorry, about everything, I wish I could have my life over.’ He’d signed off again with ‘Your loving father.’ After wading through this rambling letter, Fionn was frustrated that he hadn’t mentioned Kennedy at all, let alone given him his address. He decided to try again, sending his father the same sentence as before. ‘Could you tell me the exact address of President John F. Kennedy as I want to talk to him?’ Nothing more. This time his father got the message, his answer had been brief; he told his son that like himself, President Kennedy had his private letters sent to the tailor’s shop in Brooklyn, so he could contact at the same address. Fionn had mulled over the second letter from his father. Would the President of the United States have his mail sent to a tailor’s in Brooklyn? Well, it was possible; after all, he wouldn’t want everyone knowing his business. He sat down to write him a letter, but it was more difficult than he thought it would be. Finally, he asked him if it was a hard job being president and that was it. It was a start. Putting the letter away, he’d looked briefly at the second one he’d been sent by his father, so many questions; it had made Fionn’s head spin. The sad fact was he didn’t remember very much of what happened, after the beating, accept for the stultifying, agonizing pain in his body and mind. He didn’t recall his grandfather’s death from a heart attack either, or his Uncle Eddy taken away crying to the asylum to die some ten years later in fear and despair, nor the hurried departure of his adventurous Uncle Mickey and Paddy Rogers, with Mahoney and others in hot pursuit, never to be seen again. The loss of his childhood friends and cousins, Paul and Margaret, the first to an institution of correction the second to America with her mother, none of these events registered any longer. All of the people that had made up his life and who he’d never even got the chance to say goodbye to, were just bleached out forms that periodically drifted innocuously through his sleep, like a row of floating, dead soldiers. Sometimes he had bad nights when they came in the guise of wild animals being chased by hunters, and they seemed to be looking to him for help, their faces stricken with fear, but there was nothing he could do to save them. Even worse were the nightmares where Fionn saw himself alone in an unlit, abandoned street, aware only that he had lost something. At these times, the sense of dispossession and abandonment were so strong that he was forced in desperation to run as fast as he could, this way and that, sweating and panting, chasing shadows that disappeared around corners before he could reach them. Fionn would wake then, cold and wet, no matter what the season, with only the deep, black silence to greet him. Fionn’s father had tried again, writing back several times, but Fionn never returned his letters as they evoked in him the same feelings he had when receiving the gas or electric bill, irritation and disappointment, Brendan had stopped writing to his son for good. Then finally he’d got a response from the letter he’d written to President Kennedy. Fionn couldn’t believe it, it was to be the start of a genuine friendship that he cherished more than anything else in the world. Fionn lifted out a large cardboard box from under the table and took off the lid, he now had several letters from the president in there and, he mused with satisfaction that there can’t have been a better president in the whole history of America than John F. Kennedy; sure what fella would give his time over to helping an Irish man with all the finer details of what it took to have a happy life and then give out advice on how to be a good president? Fionn lifted out two, neatly tied with a brown shoelace, a piece of paper squeezed in under the binding read March, 1963. These were his latest, and he’d only received them in the last month or so. He avidly read both letters every day, as if something might have changed, but they comfortingly always said the same things they had said in the first place and soon, Fionn thought with relish, thered be others to replace them. Fionn took the precious cargo over to the table and sipping his tea, went through the long letters one by one, laughing again at the funny bits and sitting on the edge of his seat at the exciting parts, but what he treasured most was the advice President Kennedy gave him. Fionn would get his pen and very carefully underline all the gems of wisdom that the great man deigned to pass on to him, for he knew when his time came, all Fionn learned through the letters would come in very handy, for what, he wasn’t sure, but that didn’t stop him storing up the useful information that was passed on to him. The president had told him in his latest letter, for instance that it was as well to keep an eye out for fast women who were all over you one minute and then ran off with the barman from your favourite saloon the next. Fionn considered this advice, not sure what to make of it. He decided he’d sleep on it and have another go at it tomorrow. Also in this letter, the most important information that had been divulged was that President John F. Kennedy was visiting Ireland in June of that year. The shock of this news had sent Fionn reeling; he couldn’t believe it, he would have written back straight away to express his delight, but the president had told him that he was off to ‘Vegas’ on urgent government business for a few weeks. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE On the night of March 26th, 1963, Fionn woke hazily to the sound of banging at the door; he was sweating and disorientated, having just left the recurring dream of loss. He shook with the cold but sat up fully, letting the blankets fall as he listened, waiting for the banging to stop. ‘Fionn! For Jaysus’ sake, let me in! It’s bucketing down!’ Fionn listened keenly but still did not move. This was an unusual event: he didn’t recall having anyone knock on his door in the middle of the night before; it was wrong. ‘Fionn! It’s your cousin Paul, for the love of God let me in, I’m drowning!’ Fionn’s mind shifted. Paul? Wasn’t that the name of someone he knew? His thoughts closed down momentarily, but the knocking was incessant, he had to make it stop. Fionn got out of bed and ran downstairs in his underwear, the cold no longer affecting him, his main intention being to end the knocking and now the shouting coming through the letter box. ‘Well, look at you, man you’re at sight for sore eyes!’ Paul said, grinning and blinking ice cold raindrops away. Fionn had opened the door but hadn’t moved. ‘Are you going to let me in or am I to freeze me bollocks off out here?’ Fionn didn’t know why but he felt obliged to step aside to let the small, balding man who was wearing a shabby raincoat into the house. ‘It’s not morning time,’ Fionn told him bewilderedly. ‘What? Have you got a glass of something or a cup of tea would do me, oh, and a couple of slices of bread with something inside, I’m dropping with the hunger.’ ‘It’s not morning time,’ Fionn repeated. ‘What do you keep saying that for? I can see for meself it’s not morning! Have you a towel handy?’ Fionn took a towel off of a hook by the sink and handed it to Paul; he rubbed himself down. ‘Nothing changes in Dublin does it? The bloody oul rain, I’d forgotten that part in me reminiscences and now it’s freezing rain, gorgeous!’ ‘People don’t knock on the door at this time of night,’ Fionn told his cousin. Paul stopped rubbing and looked sheepishly at his cousin. ‘Ah, I’m sorry about that, I just took it into me head to come, and jumped on the first train from Liverpool.’ Fionn handed a cup of tea to Paul and frowned. The man had asked for two slices of bread with something inside, he probably wanted a sandwich. Fionn knew exactly what was in his fridge without even opening it; a rogue sandwich might throw things off. Fionn listed the items in the interior of the fridge in his head: a small carton of milk, two rashers of bacon, a quarter of a black pudding and a tomato which he was keeping for his breakfast that Sunday. Fionn also had six slices of ham, two each day for his sandwiches for the rest of the week and a small pat of butter. Fionn sighed and opened the fridge door anyway, but couldn’t bring himself to take anything out that would destroy the order inside. ‘Well, do you have anything to eat or what? I can see plenty in that fridge of yours from here!’ The tea was bringing Paul back to life. Fionn jolted and reached into the fridge for the ham and butter. ‘Ah sure that’s grand!’ Paul eyed the food with relish, unnerving Fionn. Fionn managed to make the sandwich though, and pass it across the table to his cousin who chatted on, his mouth gaping open as he ate, like a dust cart collecting rubbish, oblivious to the turmoil Fionn was suffering. ‘Do you remember that fella that used to wet himself in class every time he had to say his times tables? What was his name? And that other fella with the snotty nose, “Dirty Dripping” that was his name! What about that oul’ fella who used to go about the place with all the coats on him, Johnny Forty Coats, is he still knocking around? What about Bang Bang and Shell Shock Joe, the Prince of Denmark, Hairy Lemon and Nancy Needle Balls? Do you remember them, Fionn? Do you remember the laughs? Paul looked up suddenly from his sandwich, realising he was getting no response. ‘Are you with me Fionn?’ he asked, his bravado slipping away in the stillness. ‘I’ll have to go to the shop and buy more ham, I’ll have to go on a Saturday, I don’t usually get me ham on that day, I get it on a Monday.’ Fionn looked bleakly at Paul, willing him, it appeared to come up with a solution to this dilemma. ‘I see, how about this, how about tomorrow morning I go down and buy a load of ham, then if I eat any more, it won’t do any harm, and there will be plenty to cover you till next week, and you won’t have to go near the shops till Monday, eh? How’s that, me oul’ cousin?’ Paul said, desperately trying to size up the situation. ‘Are you really my cousin?’ Fionn asked bluntly. ‘I’m your cousin, Paul, don’t you remember me? I know it’s been a while, and I’m not as good looking as I was!’ He grinned. ‘You look so much older.’ ‘Yes, well life hasn’t been too kind to me to be honest with you Fionn, unlike yourself, Jesus you’ve grown into a bloody film star!’ Paul said this with a trace of resentment. Fionn digested this information, his cousin’s flattery washing over him. ‘What do you want?’ ‘Want? Me? Nothing. Well I’d like to go back thirty years and start over, but we all want that, don’t we?’ Paul looked at Fionn’s mystified face and rushed on. ‘What I came home for is the visit of President Kennedy in June. Oh I realise I’m a few months early, but I thought to meself why not spend some time with me oul’ cousin, after all these years, there’s some rare catching up to do isn’t there, be God?’ Paul felt exhausted; the exertions of putting on a brave face taking its toll on his feeble body. He sat quietly and meekly in the dark as if waiting for sentence to be passed. ‘How did you know I was back in Dublin?’ ‘Ah, I still keep in touch with a couple of fellas from around here.’ ‘Will you go away, when the president has gone back to America?’ ‘Yes, yes of course I will, I dont want to get in your way now, do I Fionn? The minute the main man leaves these shores, I’ll be off back to Liverpool. I’ve things going on there, don’t you know, I can’t be lounging about here enjoying meself forever!’ Paul held his breath as Fionn fixed him with his brilliant blue eyes that seemed to flash in the gloom, exposing his lies. ‘We must go to bed now, it’s not the right time to be down here, follow me.’ Fionn strode boldly through the darkness followed by his sick and weary cousin.
Posted on: Fri, 02 May 2014 16:40:41 +0000
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