Away Day

WE DRIFTED then, you and me. Moving apart all the time. Like kids on an airbed, floating, eyes closed, to discover too late we’d drifted too far. The sun was sinking, the water grey, the certainty of solid ground out of reach. We'd set off together for faraway horizons in that summer of optimism. 

We held hands and stayed close for a time, and if asked when that changed I couldn’t have said. Hands empty and cold, I turned my head and barely made out a shape on the water that could have been you – or somebody else. Maybe that was you on the shore, a matchstick moving away, back up the beach, headed for shelter? 

Bray seafront (Image may be subject to copyright)

But we were not children and never had days of careless, thoughtless floating – on water or anywhere else – except, maybe, that day when it rained so hard on the roof we could not hear the pennies drop 

in the metal trays of the 

one-armed bandits. We’d taken the Dart out to Bray, telling ourselves once we got there we’d do the coast walk to Greystones. 

But we never made it off the promenade, trawling instead between the amusement arcade and the chipper. 

There a squared-off man with heavy hands silently counted the coins we spilled on the counter in exchange for fresh cod that was frozen and chips. Hunched on cold boulders, we wiped vinegar and grease from our chins with our hands, and silently looked out to Howth and the next bank of clouds rolling in. 

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Then you found a €20 note in your pocket and we went to the pub. Sat by a fire that wasn’t remotely incongruous in July and drank big pints of stout till the money was spent. And two bags of crisps with the last round.

We stole a ride home on the train, getting off twice when ticket inspectors got on. At Tara Street, as expected, the turnstiles were unguarded and open, so it all ended there, and we parted. 

Strawberry Squirrel

To escape the busy-sawing carpenter she went to the park to walk among the trees, and found herself eventually in the walled garden. She happened on a squirrel grazing in the strawberry patch, upright on his haunches and nibbling on a big red strawberry, held between his bony paws, like some Andy Warhol acorn.

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He looked straight ahead as intent and busy as the carpenter, but soundless. He was oblvious to the artichokes that towered above him and reminded her of southern hemisphere summers. 

Suddenly, he did a little mincing thing and cleared a row of radishes before disappearing into the lush jungle of salad leaves. She wondered if he dropped the fruit or somehow managed to take it with him .

By the flowers, a man came to stand beside and said, ‘I haven’t been here for years, the last time it was all overgrown’. For no reason, she wondered whether he’d been in prison. 

Nothing more than he was wiry, pale and wore blue jeans and a blue shirt; and maybe because they were both, just then, held within the confines of these walls – though all the barred metal gates were open. She thought, It’s a long time since it’s been overgrown though I too remember then.’

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 That was before the boom that destroyed everything, she thought but didn’t say. He probably wouldn’t go for that, might say, ‘like the boom was a personality and could destroy anything’. He did say, ‘I think they have a team of people who work here all the time. They do a good job.’

She knew he was right and replied, ‘At least somebody is getting something right in this country.’ She’d been practising keeping up a conversation with strangers – just to be a bit more friendly – but he let that go and she didn’t feel she should push it.

She walked a while longer and found herself leaving by the same gate as he. He smiled at her but once outside they went their separate ways without sharing any further  – she back towards the city and the man in the opposite direction, westward.

Two weeks later she was shocked to encounter her ‘friend’ from the garden again. This time he was slooping along the slick slates on a row of terraced cottages oppossite hers. A thunder storm was raging and his hair was sleek and wet. Trapped inside her car till the rain let up, she thought not ‘what the hell is he doing there’ but ‘be careful, your feet won’t hold, stop, get down, go back’.

The rain sluiced over his slight frame and he seemed to flinch at each thunder clap, though the storm was moving west and easing. He somehow managed to gain the ridge tiles and find himself a foothold there. He held steady for a moment and then crept along till he reached the red-brick chimney stack. He hesitated, as though contemplating and resting at the same time, then climbed up there and found the chimney pot; looked in and down.

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 She said, ‘No don’t do that, it’s dangerous.’ But silently, to herself, and anyway he could not have heard or understood. His head came clear and he looked about as though unsure of his options.

He sniffed the air in the manner of a squirrel, then dipped his head back in again. So lost was she in watching him she didn’t notice the rain had stopped. She went indoors and left him to his fate, alone in alien territory, and a long way from the safety of his walled-in strawberry patch. 

Barbara Clinton 2013©