It’s the earliest of the morning and still but for the leaves. He walks the edges of the square under the moving leaves. He goes by the sleeping grocery and the sleeping church and there’s a smug little infirmary, too – he thinks, that’ll be me. His empathy – to be old and sick, how would that be? Stout matron smells of talc and jam tarts. A last shimmer in the throb department? Ah but forlornly, yes. Okay. Move along, John. Keep it fucking cheerful, let’s. Random words appear on his lips as he walks the few and empty streets of the early morning town. Here’s a new entry – woebegone. But that’s quite lovely, actually. He doubles back to the square again. Senses a half-movement down below: the heron, as it turns its regal clockwork head to watch him now from its place by the river. Bead of eye from one to the other. News for me, at all? Nothing good, I expect. The metallic gleam of its grey coat in the cold sun. Otherworldly, the sense of it – something alien there. Walk the fuck on again. He sees a fat old dog having a snooze down a sideway. Ah sweetness. He watches for a moment and he gets a bit teary, in fact, about the juddery little sighs of the dog’s breathing – he is out in the world now – and his fat sleeping belly and he can see his doggy dreams of bones and cats and flirty poodles smoking Gitanes and perking their high tight poodle asses in the air.
The air is thick and salty. You could bite a chunk off. Sniff out the sea-bite’s hint-of-vulva, John, mummy-smell. He has a tricky five minutes but he comes through. He turns up a display board for tourists. The board has a map on and now all the names from nine years past – his last visit – come rattling again. Newport, Mulranny, Achill Island and there’s the great jaggedy bay, Clew Bay, with all its tiny islands. There are tens and dozens and hundreds of these islands. He reads that there are three hundred and sixty-five islands all told; there is an island for every day of the fucking year –
So how will he tell which island is his?
There are rustles and movements. He is alone but not – he can hear the shifting of the town ghosts. Clocking off from the night shift. He blinks three times to make those fuckers disappear. He has his ritual things. He has a fag and listens. He inhales deep, holds it, and his heart thumps; he exhales slow. He wants to make a connection with you now. He is thirty-seven years along the road – the slow-quick, slow-quick road – and he lives in a great fortress high above the plain where the fearsome injuns roam – those bold Manhattoes – and now if he whispers it, very very softly – a particular word – and if you listen for it – very very carefully –
Do you think you can hear him still?
*
The fat old dog moseys out from the sideway. There is evidence here of great male bewilderment. It’s in the poor bugger’s walk; it’s in his carry. He looks down the length of the town and shakes his head against it. He looks on up the town – the same. He does not appear to notice yet the presence of a stranger. He sniffs at the gutter – it’s not good. He has a long, slow rub off the grocer’s wall – it’s still there, and the pebbledash gets at the awkward bits nicely. He edges onto the square on morning patrol but he’s hassled-looking, weary, and the fleshy haunches roll slowly as he goes. He stops up in the middle of the square, now in a devout or philosophical hold, as the breeze brings news to twitch the bristles of his snout, and he growls half-heartedly, and turns to find the line of scent and a tatty man in denims on the bench.
Good morning, John says.
The dog raises an eye in wariness – he is careful, an old-stager. He comes across but cautiously and he looks soul-deep into John’s eyes and groans.
I know exactly how you feel, John says.
And now the fat old dog rests its chin on his knee, and he places a palm on the breathing warmth of the dog’s flank, and they share a moment’s sighing grace.
Never name the moment for happiness or it will pass by.
The dog lies down to settle by his feet and sets a drooly chin on the toe of a fresh purple sneaker.
Those are not long from the bloody box, John says.
He reaches down and lifts the dog’s chin with a finger and he finds such a sweet sadness there and a very particular handsomeness, a kind of gooey handsomeness, and at once he names the dog –
Brian Wilson, he says.
At which the dog wags a weary tail, and apparently grins, and John laughs now and he begins to sing a bit in high pitch –
Oh it’s been buildin’ up inside o’ me
For oh, I don’t know, how long . . .
The dog comes in to moan softly and tunefully, in perfect counterpoint to him – this morning’s duet – and John is thinking:
This escapade is getting out of hand right off the fucking bat.
*
A brown car rolls slowly from the top of the town. John and the dog Brian Wilson turn their snouts and beady eyes to inspect. The car has a tiny pea-headed chap inside for a driver. He’s barely got his eyes over the top of the wheel. He stalls by the grocer’s but he keeps the engine running. He steps out of the juddering car. There is something jockey-like or Aintree-week about this tiny, wiry chap. He fetches a bundle of newspapers from the back seat of the car and carries them to the stoop of the grocer’s.
Well? he says.
Well enough, John says.
He places the bundle on the stoop and takes a pen-knife from his arse pocket and cuts the string on the bundle and pulls the top paper free and he has a quick read, the engine all the while breathing, and Brian Wilson scowling, and John sits huddled against the morning chill that moves across the town in sharp points from the river.
I’ll tell you one thing for nothin’, the jockey-type says.
Go on?
This place is run by a pack of fucken apes.
Who’re you telling?
He sighs and returns the paper neatly to its bundle. He edges back to the verge of the pavement and looks to a window above the grocery.
No sign of Martin? he says.
And he shakes his head in soft despair –
The misfortune’s after putting down a night of it, I’d say.
And with that he is on his way again.
John and the dog Brian Wilson watch him go.
You can never trust a jockey-type, John says, on account of they’ve got oddly set eyes.
*
A broad-shouldered kid comes walking through the square with an orange football under his arm. As he walks he scans one way and then the other, east and west. The kid has a dead hard face on. As if he’s about to invade Russia.
Morning, John says.
Well, the kid says.
The kid stops up and drops the ball and traps it under his foot – he rolls it back and forth in slow pensive consideration.
You one of the Connellans? he says.
I could be, John says.
Ye over for the summer or only a small while?
We’ll see how it goes.
Ah yeah.
The kid kicks the ball against the grocer’s wall and traps it again and kicks it once more for the rebound.
How’s the grandmother keeping?
Not so hot, John says.
She’s gone old, of course, the kid says, and winces.
And what age are you now?
I’m ten, he says.
Bloody hell, John says, time’s moving.