FICTION

By Mike Guerin

She had been off in Aus­tralia, and quare places after that, for about twenty years. She only came home for her parents’ funeral. Carbon monox­ide poi­son­ing, like the canary in the ad. There was no carbon monox­ide poi­son­ing long ‘go ‘cos there was plenty draughts in every house. They’re build­ing ‘em now so’s a mouse’s fart would heat ‘em. That isn’t good for people either. There’s a whole scheme of houses put in below the village and there isn’t a chimney on one of ‘em. I’d no-more give up my fire­place. Tis the heart of the home. Tele­vi­sion they’ll be looking at now. My cottage was a ram­bling house when I was young, people would come from all around on a Tuesday night, dif­fer­ent houses had dif­fer­ent days, and they’d sit around the fire and chat and sing the odd song. You don’t get neigh­bours like that anymore; people don’t know how to talk to each other to pass time.

She was a yoga teacher out foreign and I’d say there can’t have been much money in that because she started living in the house that was left to her without a second thought. She’d live away there after they were dead! She was an only child you see, they were very late getting married, a bit of a fixed job, long after that sort of thing was common. Well shit was their thanks for putting up with each other long enough to make her! Soon as she could get on a plane, she was off out to God knows where, she was telling me the places one day, Vietnam was one of them. Sure, that place had a war and every­thing. No thought of minding her elderly parents! But that’s the way people have gone, duty is a dirty word to them.

She’d go jogging past my place, cycling other times. I’d always come out to the wall when I’d hear the wolfhound barking. He’s not a wolfhound mind, he’s an auld cross sheep­dog that I have to keep on a big long chain because people walking the road don’t know how to hunt a dog anymore. She’d stop anyway, friend­ly like, and I’d tell her about her people going back along and she seemed inter­est­ed enough, a grand sort you’d say. And a fine-looking woman, into her forties and fresh out. Funny you’d say, that she was on her own, but I know myself ‘tis easy to stay on the shelf without putting in too much effort.

She started doing these yoga classes in the hall. Bending your­self this way and that. I asked the bone­set­ter about it a day and he main­tained it’d ruin a person’s back. ‘Twas grand at first, the women went to it, to lose their bellies, they’re obsessed with their bellies. But the men are gone as bad as the women nowa­days and she started a class for them too. That’s when the trouble started. And I know what you’re think­ing. She was a dirty jezebel, steal­ing hus­bands! Well, you’re wrong! That wasn’t the problem at all. The problem was that the lads started missing train­ing. Now I don’t know about where you live but missing train­ing is a big no-no where we are, foot­ball is the only show in town. Derry Cronin was train­ing the seniors and he went into her in the hall a night and said that he was all for dif­fer­ent types of exer­cise but that she had to make sure she wasn’t wearing them out and do you know what she asked him,

‘Why should one hobby come before another?’

Hobby! Sure, Derry was raging. GAA is not a hobby, tis the lifeblood of a place. So, he moved train­ing so’s it would clash with yoga. And fair dues to the lads they left the class. But then she puts on another class to suit them and by fuck doesn’t Derry move train­ing again! And he talked sternly to the lads too about not going to fucking yoga unless they were told to. Only she goes and moves the class again and don’t they all come back to her. She had some sort of hold on the lads.

She stopped here a day in the middle of the whole thing and I says to her,

‘I hear you’re having a spot of bother with the footballers.’

‘Well, they’re causing me no bother, I like having them in the class. Its other people seem to have a problem. I just think that they should be able to choose what they want to do with their lives rather than have one hobby that will last them into their thir­ties and then slink away to drink and rem­i­nisce for the rest of their lives.’

‘Aye. There’s a lot of them end up liking the gargle. Gam­bling too they say. That was a townies disease long ‘go, along with darts.’

‘Do you think I should let it go?’

‘I think you should be careful; the church has no sway in the place anymore but the GAA has. I’m not saying they’re going to open up the laun­dries again just for you, but they could make life awkward in some way.’

I said my bit. I was trying to help her like. But sure, she took no more notice of me than the man on the moon, only carried on regard­less. Derry even went to the priest about her, someone told him some padre up the country had warned his con­gre­ga­tion about the evils of yoga, that ‘twas wor­ship­ping false gods, or akin to it anyway. But I’d say the new priest is as bad as her. All old strange ideas and quotes in the mass leaflet that make no sense. We were better off when the whole thing was in Latin and no-one had a clue what was being said. Derry left the pres­bytery cursing and threat­en­ing the bishop on him.

Three of them went to her door a night. Asking her to ‘cease and desist’ as the one telling me put it. She asked them what right did they have to ask that. Every right they told her, they were rep­re­sen­ta­tives of a way of life that had served this village well for gen­er­a­tions. She told them the GAA was only a hundred years old and she dis­trust­ed any­thing that had started con­sid­er­ing itself sacred. Well, appar­ent­ly, at this point Derry lost the rag and told her ‘twas a damn sight more sacred than her with her pants stuck up her hole and that she’d want to be very careful or things would get right sticky for her. At that then she told them to fuck right off and that she’d ring the guards if they ever dark­ened her door again.

There was a meeting then. Not an A.G.M or even an E.G.M. This was a private affair. Derry only brought in fellas he could trust, if he opened it to the public, they’d be minutes and account­abil­i­ty and it wasn’t that sort of meeting. Every­thing was on the table. There’s a fierce blood­lust in fellas when they’re given free reign. Arson and rape and every sort of a thing was on the agenda at one point. The last time I was at a meeting like it was back in the early nineties when we had to run some tinkers out of the place. That time things got much messier than anyone really wanted.

The local shop stopped serving her. She had been doing her big shop above in the city anyway, only calling in there for a loaf of bread the odd time, so they weren’t losing much, but it was some­thing. Her water started to be turned off mys­te­ri­ous­ly below at the road. After a dry spell, the ditches on her boreen were burnt. She had rented out her father’s farm to one of the Lame Keeffe’s but he was offered another farm for a better rate and her place was black­list­ed. She still had most of the yoga class going to her. Stand­ing behind her. Derry was tied to the idea that she was somehow brain­wash­ing them with these med­i­ta­tion ses­sions. He threw in the word ‘witch’ as much as ‘bitch.’

I was playing both sides of the pitch. I was still talking away to her over the wall. Lis­ten­ing to her woes and her notions.

‘But why couldn’t they put all this com­mu­ni­ty spirit into some­thing that actu­al­ly ben­e­fit­ted the com­mu­ni­ty? If the tidy towns could inspire a quarter of that loyalty the country would be like one big garden!’

Notions as I said. She had a real bugbear with the GAA but she didn’t seem to under­stand that she was a fly on an elephant’s arse and that she’d be swatted away sooner or later.

I had to fall in line too for a finish. Derry called and he wasn’t happy that I’d be seen chat­ting with her.

‘We’re sup­posed to be driving the bitch away you dozy bollix!’

Fuck you says I, to myself like. But I have to live here too.

‘Alright, alright, alright. I’ll do my bit.’

I stayed in after that. I’d look out when I’d hear the dog barking to see her coming. She stopped outside a couple of times but I stayed behind the net curtain. I waited for a day she was cycling before I left the wolfhound off his chain. I wanted to give her some chance, she wasn’t the worst of them.

She was limping around after that for a while, and the cycling and jogging stopped. The guards called to me about the dog but I had him shot myself by then. Out of remorse I told them. They seemed happy enough with that. She didn’t hold out much longer after the run-in with the dog. Fecked off again, no one knows where. Vietnam maybe or she might be gone out to Beirut this time! Or the Congo!

I do miss her. She was a breath of fresh air in one way but she was a good blast of old air too. You’d chat away to her; there’s very few would pass the house in any­thing but a car now but she was well able to lean on the wall and talk away like people long ‘go. She had no tele­vi­sion and I’d say that was a big part of it, she wouldn’t be rushing off to watch some rubbish on the box. But you can’t come into a place and change things, when you’ve been gone for twenty years, people don’t like it. She told me that every man’s a wolf to every other man, and she’s right, but you can double it for a woman.

This story orig­i­nal­ly appeared in Stonecoast Review Issue 19. Support local book­sellers and inde­pen­dent pub­lish­ers by order­ing a print copy of the mag­a­zine.

Photo by Hans Vivek