JOHN LYNCH
Torn Water
Table of Contents
Chapter 8 - Plug and the Big ’Ammer
Chapter 10 - The Grand Inquisitor
Chapter 11 - The Fury of His Other Face
Chapter 12 - Marion and the Aftermath
Chapter 15 - Kerry and the Fox
Chapter 27 - God Has a Flan for Us All
To Mary
He remembers when he was very young standing by water, his whole being fastened to his reflection, which rose from the depths of the pond to sit shimmering on its dark surface. It seemed as if he was peering into his soul, into the dark matter of its substance, and felt a holy hush seize his heart as if, suddenly, the unseen channels of the world ran through his body.
How he had got there or where the pond was he couldn't remember, but he can vaguely recall a hand on his and being led through high rooms, to a large garden, where bees wove dozy patterns in the air. At the bottom of this garden lay the pond, and he remembers a face bending to meet his and whispering that they would be back in a little while. So he stood where he had been left, his small feet pointing at the stonework of the pond's rim. He remembers a wind brewing in the tops of the trees and tearing at the water for a moment before subsiding, his face then coming into focus like a TV channel being tuned.
He remembers believing he felt his soul flee his body to slip into the other him that now sat on the surface of the water. He felt it rise from the wrappings of his skin like a silhouette or the moving negative of a bird in flight, and squirm through the sharp reflection of his other self, beating a glow of joy on the dark water.
How long he was there he can't recall but those moments where he stood threaded to his other self, confused as to which was which, sit like suspended portraits at the very back of his memory. He often wonders if he has left his soul in the bottom of that pond, and that it has lain in the murky waters for years like a scarred jewel, covered in moss and the sediment of decaying fish.
Death was his friend. Mr Death dwelt in the spaces between his thoughts. It held his father in its wide blank palm. He had died when James was only eight, nine years before. One day he was there and the next he wasn't, and in his place stood Death with the endless come-on of its smile. As he had grown up James began to understand that Death was the fall at the end of his dreams. He is small and skinny for his age, like a house plant that has been stowed in the darkness of a kitchen cupboard, its pale stems reaching for light that isn't there. His eyes are blue, like the brilliant stab of a winter's sky, and they drink of the world in long distrustful slurps. His skin is freckled and his nose crooked and long. He finds it hard to sit still, and even harder to listen: since his father died, he has always felt poised on the edge of some great event, some momentous occurrence, and that he must be ready at all times, ready for the truth of it all.
He lives with his mother on a housing estate just outside Newry, surrounded by the border and its many secret crossings and pathways. His mother is small like him. She drinks. He believes it is his fault that she does. He believes that he disappoints her. He is supposed to be at school today, but they can keep it. They can keep the brooding silence of their study periods. They can keep their troops of well-heeled boys. He is different. He has always been different, he is a collector of deaths, and he stores them in the cool harbour behind his eyes, calling on them when his father's absence jags the running of his heart.