Hello! Putting up the rest of Chapter Thirty Seven today of my story President Fionn, Maeve, his cousin who has also returned to Dublin, supposedly to see President Kennedy, tries to make him confront his past and he is slowly getting to know Bridget, a pretty widow who rents two rooms off of him. Im slowly working my way down the comments, in between working, have a great day! ‘I’ve been busy,’ he told her. ‘I’m sure you have.’ ‘I’ll do a few things now. Do you have anything needing doing?’ ‘I have, you can bloody well start with me!’ Mr O’Dwyer, who appeared to be glued to that chair, bellowed out in to the hall, his ankles protruding from the same bowl as Fionn had seen his feet in a little while ago. Fionn and Bridget looked at each other and she burst out laughing. He smiled back: was that funny, Mr O’Dwyer stuck to his chair, shouting out into the hall? Then he glanced back at the oul’ fella sitting in his vest, like a budgie on its perch, his feet lapping about in water, and decided it was funny. He turned back to Bridget and gave a genuine smile this time. Fionn stayed for the rest of the afternoon, unable to get near the empty flat, as the news that he was doing repairs in the property soon spread and before long he was being followed around as he went about his chores by one tenant or another complaining about damp, mice and one of a hundred problems that they felt they could now get a hearing over. Fionn did as much as he could, and it was helped by Bridget coming to find him every hour or so with a cup of tea. He promised to come back the next day to carry on, not even sure if he meant it and the relief of getting out of the damp, dilapidated building into the early evening air didn’t exactly make him want to go back any time soon, for the first time since he’d owned the building, he marvelled at how his tenants lived there, it didn’t make him feel very good about himself. As he rode along the streets, in Fionn’s head, crowds of people were talking at once: at first it was his tenants, wanting things from him and even though one of them was Bridget, who he quite liked, he hoped, as he sped faster and faster, that distance would put them out of his mind. Unfortunately, although this didin fact happen, the nearer he got to his own home, the voices of his family, who also wanted something from him, rose up to greet him and replace the others. Fionn tried to prepare himself mentally for the sight of his relatives, but the four of them milling about made him breathless; he felt trapped and scared. He stood in the doorwayand they grew bigger again in his eyes while the room grew smaller. Like giants they rose to the ceiling and spread out to take up any available space in the room. ‘There you are! We were just about to send a search party out!’ Geraldine said, busy cooking a meal on the stove. Fionn couldn’t speak; it was all he could do to stay in the room. He stood awkwardly by the door, helpless and anxious, and Maeve was the only one who picked up on it. ‘Fionn, I’d love to go up to the church for a few minutes, would you ever come with me?’ ‘What about the dinner? The bacon will be ready in half an hour.’ Geraldine complained. ‘We’ll only be gone a short while,’ said Maeve, getting up and taking Fionn by the arm and ushering him out. ‘Do you want us to come with you, Maeve?’ Paul joked, as he winked at Mickey. ‘I’m only going if they’ve started serving porter!’ Mickey laughed. Maeve turned back and looked at the pair of them with a mixture of sadness and pity; they shifted uncomfortably and turned away. Outside, Fionn leaned against the wall and breathed rapidly and deeply, as if he’d just been under water longer than he was comfortable with. Maeve’s eyes misted over as she looked at him. ‘Are you feeling any better, Fionn?’ she said, holding his arm as they walked down the road. Several of the older neighbours recognised Maeve and came across to talk to her; she greeted them all warmly, blessing them as she moved on. The tempo of these encounters soothed Fionn’s nerves and each time she blessed someone with quiet sympathy and dignity he felt a little better. They eventually arrived at St Nicholas of Myra church in Francis Street and Maeve stood outside admiring it. ‘You’ve no idea how much I’ve missed this place, in the worst times Id fix it tight in my mind and hold onto the image for as long as I could. I told myself no matter how bad things get I still have this, I still have the memory of something good.’ Fionn thought about those times in the church, when they were often alone. They had been good times. Fionn felt tired from thinking so much. ‘Fionn?’ Maeve looked at him with a worried expression on her face. ‘I’m sorry Fionn,’ Maeve said quietly, taking his hand. ‘For what?’ ‘For not coming back when … when you needed me.’ Fionn couldn’t speak, his mind was racing again, he made a considerable effort to bring it under control. ‘What happened to you was so soon after I left; you know Id have given anything to have been there for you, but I wasnt able to just turn around and come back,’ she said, looking at him for forgiveness. Fionn was having difficulty breathing; he wished shed stop talking, it would have made it so much easier. This was why he preferred to be on his own, you could arrange your thoughts how you liked. ‘Fionn, I think you need to talk about what happened with Father …’ ‘No!’ Fionn left her there on the steps of the church and he started to run along the road. People he knew shouted greetings as he whirled by, running as fast as he could, sweating and panting until he reached the house. Inside he heard the familiar drunken ramblings of Mickey and Paul, but this time he didn’t care, he walked straight in and out into the back garden where he had left his bike, cursing that he hadnt used the back entrance. ‘Are you off out again? I’ve hardly seen you!’ Geraldine was pegging out washing. Fionn jumped when he heard the voice and in his mixed-up mind he expected to see the girl that she had been when he’d been a young boy. What did face him was a bloated, brassy-looking woman in cheap clothes. ‘Geraldine?’ Fionn asked. She reddened under the scrutiny, humiliated and embarrassed at his obvious repulsion at the sight of her. ‘Things haven’t been easy for me you know since I left the Liberties.’ ‘I don’t want to know, leave me be, can’t you!’ Fionn cried, clawing at the side gate to get it open. ‘You can’t run away forever Fionn, and it wasn’t just you that got hurt, it was all of us!’ Geraldine was shouting at the closed gate, Fionn had already left. She stood for a moment, then let the wet blouse she had been holding drop back into the plastic wash basket before dejectedly sitting down on the smoking stool. Fionn had been right to look at her like that, she was a wreck and she didn’t feel able to do anything about it. Oh how Geraldine wished she could start again, rub out all the mistakes. She often wondered what her life would have turned out like if she’d married Jim Mullan. Geraldine pictured herself in a semi-detached in Clontarf, two children, Jim coming home for his dinner at exactly the same time every night, her greeting him, nice and slim, good clothes, hair done at a fancy hairdressers. That part was pleasant to imagine, but lying next to that dead lump in bed for evermore wasn’t so easy to stomach. Geraldine felt a violent jolt as her thoughts skipped on to Cian. Not that he was as bad as some she’d tagged onto since – after all, he’d only been a young fella himself when she’d got pregnant – it was just that he reminded her of their baby. God he was a beauty, so dark, like an Italian child. When she’d had him torn out of her arms, it had been like someone had gone into her stomach with their hands and pulled out her guts. She looked up to the sky, the clouds were foreboding as they began to join forces and blacken. She idly wondered what Joe, her lover, had made of her going off like that. Geraldine hadn’t told the whole story of her flight from London. She had been working in a restaurant, that bit was true, for a Joe Stacey, but he wasn’t just her boss, she’d been living with him for the past two years. He wasn’t up to much; she could see that now, with a whole sea between them. He gave her the odd slap and all when he’d had a few jars, but she couldn’t really be fussy, not at her age and looking such a fright into the bargain. It may of well been her fault he gave her a belt once in a while – she got on her own nerves most of the time, so God knows what it was like having to look at her oul’ face day in and day out.
Posted on: Thu, 15 May 2014 14:39:20 +0000
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