“I’d say I’d be hungry after it,” says Mr. Cosgrove, but Mick didn’t like that.
“Come on now,” says Mick. “I’m closing up, stop wasting me time.”
“Fucking leave me starving, it would.”
“Do you want the liver?” says Mick without looking at Mr. Cosgrove.
“Go on.”
“Do you want the liver?”
“Didn’t I just tell you I did?”
“Look it, if you’re going to be thick about it, you can go somewhere else.”
“Give us fifty pence worth,” says Mr. Cosgrove.
“Break the bleeding bank, why don’t you?”
Mick reached into the tray of livers. It was fully dark outside and the cars had their wipers on. Rain clung like ivy to the shop glass. Mick dropped a bag of livers on the counter, tied with perfect red tape.
“Give us fifty pence for that, Mr. Cosgrove. And there’s an extra piece in there for you, all right? So you won’t be talking about me?”
You thought you heard Mr. Cosgrove say something like “Good one” or “Good man yourself.”
Mr. Cosgrove pulled a pile of coins from his pocket, spilling tobacco dust to the floor, and peered into his open hand, lost. Mick took a silver fifty pence.
“Right-ho,” he says without a hint of failure. He saluted Mick and noticed you. “All right, young sweepy boy.” His milky eyes washed over you, and he says, “You start out a sweepy boy, you’ll end up a sweepy boy . . . Unlucky.” And he chuckled then.
He pushed himself off the counter and went to the door like he was walking the length of a small rowing boat. The copper bell rang, and Joe reemerged from the back room.
You were closest to the door when the crash was heard. Time slowed, you’d heard how that happened, it really did, time slowed, and you were given the accident in installments. A car horn first and then, underneath, the sound of rubber dragged at great speed across tarmac. And then the sound you’d imagine a wet, heavy overcoat would make if you dropped it on a hard floor.
Mick, Joe, and you all froze like the characters in a cartoon, looked to the sound, to one another, and back to the sound. You heard the wooden brush handle hit the floor and then you were out on the wide path, in the rain, the wind.
A small van had jumped the line and sat facing the wrong side of the traffic. You could hear the put-put-put of its diesel engine gently turning over. It was perfectly intact, save one lit headlight swinging helplessly by its wire. You couldn’t find the driver’s face, just his white knuckles on the steering wheel.
Mr. Cosgrove’s misshapen body lay across the wet tarmac. His plastic bag had been flung a few feet away from him; it was burst, empty. You couldn’t help wondering where the livers might have been, when you felt a hand on your shoulder. You could feel the cold of the wet shirt pressed to your skin.
People were shouting. Joe was standing in the middle of the road, a hand raised to traffic. The driver from the van had emerged and was on his knees in front of it, his fist pressed to his forehead, and with a splash on the road he was suddenly sick.
A small group fixed themselves to the path and compared what they knew from the telly, while around the corner came the flashing blue lights of a garda car, as if it had been hiding back there, waiting for this moment. And all the while, under Mr. Cosgrove’s head, a blood pillow, rich and dark and thick, ebbed slowly from some unseen crack.
You found yourself standing over his body, bending your knees as you dipped closer. Rain collected in the pockets of his half-closed eyes, his yellow teeth bared in a grimace, and you thought if you were to touch his skin, it would feel like chicken too long out of the fridge.
A packet of ten Sweet Aftons poked from his shirt pocket, still sealed in plastic. “Get out of that, the bloody hell you think you’re doing?” Two gardaí were coming toward you. You stood quickly, but not before your fingers surrounded the cigarettes and silently pulled them from the man’s pocket.
Joe stood behind the gardaí. He caught your eye, and at once you knew he had seen you take the cigarettes. It was too late, you’d slipped them into your pocket. A garda pulled you by the elbow to the path, and when you tripped on the curb, he caught you. “Go on about your business,” he says.
You stood alone inside the shop. You’d heard the door chime shut, and it surprised you, everything in the shop unchanged. You were not sure what you thought would be different, but it seemed mean that it was the same.
You picked up the wooden brush from where it had fallen and swept the last of the sawdust toward a small pile you had made earlier. Then, using a metal shovel, scooped up the pile. You put the brush and shovel aside and began to lay fresh sawdust, big fistfuls at a time, sprinkling it like seeds across the linoleum floor.
The bell chimed behind you, and you felt the quick rush of night air.
“Sure you just never know, as the fella says, you just never know,” says Joe, tapping his boots on the doormat that only he ever remembered.
“That’s it,” says Mick.
Their voices were low and mature and then silent. They shared a glance at you and then a knowing look to each other.
“Right,” says Joe. “That’s grand, lad, that’s grand, just leave it there and go on home.”
You still held a fistful of sawdust when you got to the back room. You threw it to the floor and took off your apron. Only then, after you had put on your coat, did you notice that your hands were shaking. You felt the hard lines of the cigarette packet through the pockets of your jeans as you walked past Mick and Joe. The bell chimed, and you turned left out of the shop.
2
The light from the TV washed over the faces of your brothers. Their eyes shone in the dark room, vague and distant. Your father sat in his chair, closest to the fire, waiting to be fed.
In the kitchen the strip light flickered from time to time; it always made a humming sound. Cold water ran over your mother’s
hands as she skillfully peeled the potatoes with a small paring knife. There was an electric deep fryer she’d got years earlier. Its color was faded and beginning to crack, and grease covered the red “on” light, making it dim. The fryer made condensation drip from the wallpaper and down the glass in streaks.
Your mother didn’t say anything when you came in, though you knew she felt you there. You opened one cupboard after another, peered inside, but really you were watching her. Finally, you sat at the table. She was old, your ma. You were the youngest, and she was old.
You hadn’t decided to tell her about Mr. Cosgrove, and now, in the thick air, you knew you wouldn’t. You would save it for yourself.
“Ma,” you say. “Is dinner nearly ready?” You wanted to hear her voice, then you’d be able to gauge how it was. But you had given her a way in. She dropped the knife on the steel draining board and dried her hands in a tea towel.
“No,” she says. “Your father’s not eaten yet.” She raised her voice to be sure he heard. “I don’t know if there’ll be anything left at all.” She went closer to the doorway. “The young lad wants his dinner, and I’ve nothing for him, nothing. Another Friday, and nothing.” Then she turned back into the kitchen. “Ask your father where your dinner is,” she says.
Beyond the doorway, there was only the volume of the TV. She spoke to you then, but was only pretending to.
“Paddy Power got something, sure, the bookies got it all right, they got it all. Liar, rotten liar. I never want to hear you lying, do you hear me, Sonny? Something I can’t stand, it’s liars.”
A year earlier, when