‘Richard’s Grief’ by Catherine Talbot

He steps on a syringe and a fear pervades his body. He cannot really comprehend the terror, the worry flitting through his brain. Bloody beach junkies, they don’t give a damn, this he knows, that’s how fragile life can be.

*

Richard is given the all clear by a Pakistani doctor with beautiful skin, a complexion of the Gods, flawless.

‘You got a scare, no?

‘Yes,’ he breathes out. ‘I went numb.’

Van Morrison in his head, crooning about days like this, on a loop. He will be on a loop when he begins recounting his tale of horror to Frida, and general acquaintances, for he is quite lonely, despite her.

‘Jesus, I’m a lucky fucker.’

‘Yes, it could have been a whole lot worse.’

Doctor Candy moves his glasses. Richard wonders how a man can be so handsome, it doesn’t seem fair somehow.

‘I was sure it had hit bone, the needle.’

‘No you were lucky, just felt that way, cold feet, a small prick.’

*

He spends the morning trying to interest his friends in his tale of the near miss. No one really bites. He gets through to Patrick who turns up the radio during Richard’s narrative.

‘I’m trying to catch the forecast.’

The talk turns without Richard’s say so to the mutability of wind patterns.

‘Mark is hoping for a north-easterly, gives a great level of buoyancy,’ Patrick says. ‘At the ready go, go.’

Richard can visualise them, the gang, sleek in black, high-fiving and laughing as they paddle out, eyes transfixed on the rollers.

‘What did Frida say?’

What could she say? Whatever she said would be wrong. ‘She would never have done that, not even at the height of it, just chucked a syringe away like that.’

‘Yeah she would, they’re all the same. The ones you know intimately, they’re no different.’

His messed up Frida, holding out for his proposal, always to him she appears pitiful, wan. He could break her legs in half; they are like sticks, drained of calcium.

*

He gets wind somehow about the death of his old girlfriend Susie; Patrick and Mark cannot take it all for their boards.

‘Don’t let me go.’ She grasped at his hands. ‘Do you solemnly swear?’

He solemnly swore and meant it at the time. They used to run together, at night, darkness fuelled with the bitterness of cold. He would nearly whip her into action, like a young jockey, full of bravado, snarling sweat, calling the shots. Icy nights when they should have been huddled close together in the cinema, gleaning warmth from each other’s bodies. Nights when he knew that a neat, warmed whiskey sipped in a snug might have gone down oh so well with Susie. But he wouldn’t have it, they had to keep running.

‘How about a night off from all this triathlon stuff?’ she asked, jumping from one ball of foot to another, blowing hot breath into her gloves.

‘Haven’t you heard of the slippery slope?’

‘Yes, I see one over there.’ She pointed to Church Road.

He looked up then, Church Road, steep and slippery, the evening light from the street lamps sharing their warmth onto the glistening tarmac. She was annoying him, suggesting that they go for a drink and then not letting it go. He didn’t run with her anymore after that night.

*

The morning is bright, clear, and cold as it always is with funerals, as if the landscape is more accurately shot, its lines delineated clearer, stronger. He goes back to the house, tells other mourners that he was a great friend of Susie’s. He sees them catching onto him in no time.

‘You’re the guy who made her run her skinny ass off, you tortured her.’

‘I was trying to get her into shape.’

‘She was a size ten.’

Cucumber sandwiches, and egg salad with the almighty whiff of onion suffocating him. Sweat gathers in his armpits, his tweed jacket begins to rub, his neck itches, twitches with the discomfort. He dives into the egg sandwiches for the sake of distraction, is making his way through his second one when he spots the small pubic hair, jutting out there just like that, its curl unmistakable. He puts the sandwich down; he will not be able get the image out of his head for the whole day. Shimmies his eyes around the room. Susie’s friends are tight in a corner, laughter in abundance, seems a bit coarse to him, considering the situation and all. The mother has her skirt stuck up into her knickers, with the wine.

Somebody should say something. It’s unfair, he thinks, as he wanders out of the house.

*

Frida is at home waiting for him, for his proposal, he imagines. He attempts to distract her from discussing the coffin.

‘You could have come, seen for yourself.’

‘I’m not voyeuristic. Did you do the Lotto? You were on the Northside, there’s more chance there.’

‘How so?’

‘I just feel it.’

*

He takes a bath, nice and slow, the Brazilian-inspired Radox in his nostrils. The classical sounds drift upwards from the sitting room.

*

The bath taken, he goes to the shop where he is subjected to a dirty rag stuffed in his mouth, doused in fuel.

‘Move and I’ll light you, cocksucker.’ An eejit buzzed up with the lingo spits in his face.

Cocksucker, what a laugh, is this the States? Jesus, a pissy Spar in the middle of Stillorgan, the guy must be desperate. Richard contemplates stealing something himself, just for the hell of it. It takes effort to banish the Windolene directly facing him from his mind. Then an axe is in front of his eyes, and the rest is a blur.

*

Wakes up in hospital, lucky to still have a right hand. The place isn’t bad, not like a hospice with forced hope in the walls, vending machines dotted about, acting as bullet-proof vests for conversations of any real meaning. He is high on morphine and it feels good. The doctor is handsome and smells of Pot Noodles.

‘We’ll have you right in no time,’ he says.

He hasn’t lost his hand, oh so grateful. Seems like he’s having a run of bad luck, first the syringe and now this chopping fiasco. He may have to consider the possibility of returning to religion. Last-minute renditions of prayer, all for effect. 

He remembers vividly, the Stations of the Cross in the church, heavy, mahogany frames holding up the pitiful chapters of Christ’s life. He adored these images as a child, made him study History of Art later on.

‘Hope you like Donegal Catch.’

A nurse presents him with a plate of dried up fish that looks like airplane food. 

‘Lovely, thank you.’

‘Your wife was in earlier, I didn’t want to wake you.’

‘She’s not my wife.’

He doesn’t fully know why he says this, he feels so safe. He doesn’t ever want to leave this hospital. Home seems a distant memory.

‘Pretty girl.’

He imagines Frida as she would have appeared. Decked out in her flowing orange skirt, her eye shadow; two different shades, one on top of the other, like an air hostess in the eighties. Sees her body as scrawny, unhealthily thin, wasted muscles, ribs showing.

*

Frida comes to him later, laden down with fruit.

‘Here,’ she says, tossing him a banana.

‘I can’t peel that.’

‘I’ll do it.’

It must be good for her to have to do the caring, he thinks, instead of the other way round. The beauty of her not being on the drugs.

*

Days later, he is at the cinema with Frida. He lashes into the popcorn; he cannot help it, this greediness.

‘You didn’t call me first, the day of the syringe.’

‘I called Mark, where’s the harm in that?’

‘I still think about that.’

‘I didn’t want you to have nightmares.’ He links her arm. ‘Let’s get chips.’ He knows she cannot resist the smell of vinegar.

‘Where would Ireland be without the chipper?’

‘That’s a nice coat you’ve got there, Frida.’

‘I didn’t nick it, it’s from Reiss.’

He makes a dither to the waitress to bring them tea; a place where it’s acceptable to have tea with the chips, bringing him back to the Central Café in Blackrock.

‘They never keep the good things Frida; they can’t hold onto them, it’s a real shame.’

He feels the other customers taking furtive glances at them whenever they can get away with it. In truth, Frida does look a touch like an ex-druggie; there’s something there alright, he can’t quite put his finger on it. Maybe her name, her lank hair. His mother wouldn’t approve of Frida. He’ll never allow them to meet. She would have a lot to say about Frida, running away with herself, like steam rising from dog dirt on the beach, heat emanating from cowpats on a Connemara sunny afternoon.

*

They are in Frida’s art studio flicking through her canvases, a place where Richard feels weaker than her.

‘Who is that guy in the picture?’ He points to a canvas leaning against her bicycle.

‘It’s not you.’

‘I didn’t think it was, not a bit of a likeness to me.’

‘It’s just a guy.’

‘His stomach is taut, I like that. You know, you should do something with all this art.’

‘Maybe?’

‘I’ll talk to Patrick, he has connections.’

*

‘I’ll see if I can help, it’s no trouble. I was out there on the froth with Mark today. He kept changing his mind about when to go. We missed a serious amount of waves.’

‘The sea will be there tomorrow, so you’ll help Frida then?’

‘I suppose I will.’

He feels great about himself, that he has gone out of his way with Patrick to help her. It will be good for her, he figures, if it all works out.

*

He fingers her chin, noticing the old spots from the drugs.

‘Stop, he didn’t want to help?’

‘He did, he said he would.’

‘He doesn’t know why you are with me.’

‘It’s not his business.’

*

Maybe she couldn’t cope with his attention. The pressure that he might have put her under could have contributed to what happened. Later he hears that people came forward reporting that they had seen Frida limping along the path. Many assumed her drunk, for she had that look about her: the lazy sway, gait-shuffling, almost stationary ambling. Nobody, it seemed, actually witnessed her go into the water.

It was weeks before they found her body, bloated up like a puffer fish. His Frida, once a lithe slip of a girl with bad skin, now a squidgy affair of wrinkled flesh and nibbled toes. The heroin in her bloodstream, the needle mark still visible. Her coldness shocking him, touching her hands, held together as if in prayer. Her lying there – they wouldn’t have stood a chance, it was bound to happen, explains why they had never gotten hitched. His expectation of loneliness ready to be played out.

*

Mumford & Sons on the radio, blouses the lot of them, money in hipster pocket. He’s all ready to go. He makes the collections strutting around the village taking orders for speed. He feels like he is cleaning up on his Communion day. Easy pickings, these locals. He feels strangely protective of them, with their mismatched heads of fashion. Some of the girls shave the back of their heads. They scrape their top hair up in high ponytails. Makes them feel tough, he supposes, this look. Richard thinks it’s kind of pretty, reminds him of Frida. He’s trudging around now, pockets heavy, buying up the jam tarts in the Centra like there is a war on the horizon. He’s building himself up for a sugar binge. Maybe he can stave it off if he can get these deals right.

*

It starts off with the phone call in the middle of the night, a guy looking for Frida.

‘What?’

Drugged with tiredness, the side of the bed that belonged to Frida is wet. He’s not sure what is happening to him.

‘I normally get speed from Frida, she gets it from a guy called Sharkey.’

‘Frida’s not here.’

‘Oh.’

‘She’s dead actually.’

Non-plussed; is this what happens when frail women leave the party?

‘Who are you? Who is Sharkey? What the fuck?’

‘I’ll be down in the Lion’s Head from nine tomorrow.’

‘You do that.’

*

And that’s how it takes off. He finds Sharkey, spends five hundred quid, and gets plastered later on the couch, the picture of Frida on the coffee table. Has to feel his way up the stairs, finds the light switch, does it all in the dark, likes that control, a bat out of hell and now in another hell, just a new hell. Heaving now with the agony of being pissed at half seven on a week day, the breathlessness getting in on him.

*

His neighbour bangs on the front door. Richard tries to blot it out, it will not cease. He struggles to find clothes. The neighbour talks about being bothered, screams about the music.

*

He meets the night-time caller the following evening. An angular man, hacking up at the bar. To Richard it sounds as though he is in danger of losing his tonsils, just like that, there on the bar.

‘Easy know you’re not a dealer,’ he says.

‘I’m just standing in for Frida, a replacement if you like.’

‘Here.’ He hands Richard two hundred quid.

‘Ta.’

Richard knows now that he is setting himself up to making a very large profit. No wonder Frida had nice clothes. He decides that he can do this, he’ll chuck the jam tarts into the bin. He’ll stop over-eating, take over where she left off. He feels some degree of coolness.

*

‘Any copper love?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Any copper love, I see you have a skip.’

‘That’s not my skip, it’s in my neighbour’s drive, as you can see.’

‘No answer there love, I tried.’

‘I’m sorry for your trouble.’

Trying to close the front door, he sees that she has her foot wedged in the jamb.

‘What are they getting done?’

‘So thanks for calling.’

He’s not going any further with a Traveller. He looks at her hands, mucky brown, nails bitten down to the core, orange with the nicotine.

*

The call comes in from Maria, the supervisor at the last store that Frida had been stealing from.

‘We’re pressing charges, tell her that when you see her.’

‘Well unless you have keys to the Pearly Gates, that is just not going to happen.’

‘Oh my God, I’m sorry. You’re serious?’

‘Forget it.’

‘I’m very sorry.’

He hears the trepidation in her voice, knows that he is onto something here. He is going to make her cry. She ought to grovel, shoot herself in the foot for making this call. He wants to shoot her now himself, laugh at her, let her dance around trying to avoid the bullets like the waiter in Goodfellas. He pictures her in her store business uniform, black suit, jacket pulled in against her bulky waist, ugly as sin, hiding behind her walkie-talkie, looking out for vagrants. No doubt attracted to Frida because she was such a beautiful one.

*

He gets his head busted in later that night by a Polish guy, must have Frida on his mind. Doesn’t know how it happens. Him, hunkered down trying to sell a few drugs. Things seem to be falling apart; he leaves the bar, the Pole following him with his eyes.

*

Leaves are underfoot. Fallen trees from the storm during the night. It doesn’t take Richard long to score a good, solid, firm woman since the demise of his girl. This time he trades in skin and bone for a more buxom specimen. She lies out in front of him.

‘Well, what shall we do now?’

She is pretty, he notices, in an uncomplicated way.

‘Are you hungry?’ he asks.

‘Starving.’

Music to his ears; he loves a girl with a proper appetite.

‘Do you like mushrooms?’ he shouts from the kitchen.

‘I’ll eat anything.’

Well in that case, he gets busy with the pasta, uses up the lettuce in the back of the fridge that has seen better days. He comes back to her with full bowls and some wine.

‘This is lovely, Richard.’

‘We can do it again some time, Saoirse, but right now, well I’ve just buried my girlfriend.’

He isn’t giving away anything more to Saoirse. He’s got to watch himself now. The incident with the Polish guy has put the jitters into him.

Later he says, ‘Come on, I’ll drive you into town. I have to go in anyway.’

He watches her silence on the way in. He stares as she re-applies her lipstick in the passenger mirror as though she is on the game.

‘Look it, give me your number Saoirse, I might call you, okay?’

He leaves her off at Trinity and watches her walk away. Sees how her heels wobble, studies her shoulders wrapped in a fake fur jacket. Fair dues, he thinks, she doesn’t look back at him. He scrunches the piece of paper with her number scrawled on it and lets it flitter out the window. He makes his way on down the quays, marvelling at the light on the Liffey, thinking about Dublin, how it has that feeling of warmth, solidity. He’ll get rid of the last bits that he has from Sharkey, then he’ll be back to normal.

*

He meets up with Patrick, they walk the coast road.

‘You seem grand since Frida, it’s weird.’

‘I am grand, that’s the funny thing. I thought it would be dreadful, earth-shattering, that kind of vibe. It’s okay.’

They head to the supermarket and get a whole load of cans. They go back to the pier and camouflage themselves in behind the alcos on the bench. It works a treat. Between the shouting and raving of the red-faced swollen bodies, and the raucous-goings on at the old naval cannon, they blend right in.

‘This is the life,’ Richard belches.

‘It’s grand so.’

‘I never used to knacker drink.’

‘Why not?’

‘Too bloody cold in this country, but I’ll tell you, this jumper? It’s bloody great.’

‘I suppose Aran has its part to play in our great nation alright.’

Richard has to scrunch his head. The winter sun in his face and the beer are giving him a pain. He leaves Patrick and heads up to Burger King to get his fill of grease.

*

Starts in at the back of the wardrobe tearing her clothes off the hangers. Rips them, attempts to tie a pair of leopard-print tights around his neck. Doesn’t know what he is doing. Calls up Sharkey, says it’s all over. Sharkey lets him off. Pressure gone, he can forget about his life as a drug dealer, it is going nowhere in the end except down the toilet.

*

It’s murderous out there in the torment and him in it. The holy terror of love gone, upside down, turned on its proverbial head. He waits, stalking out his chance to do something good, make up for her waste.

*

The body appeared bigger with its soaking in the water. He can feel the pull of the water, craves to wade in himself, immerse himself; feel close to Frida. Feel her weight, the heavy press of pressure on her lungs as they filled with water. His eyes close, caught in the reverie; he is trying to move beyond this grief. What he’d give now to lie down with someone and a packet of crisps, to lose himself in home comforts.

*

‘Did you ever notice that Vincent Browne has blue hair?’ he asks his mother.

‘That’s entertainment Richard, all the guests have it. Shitty day?’

‘I don’t mind it, the bit of haze, there’s nothing like a bit of haze with a pounding head.’ Remembering the bottle of sherry he had found at the back of the press the night before.

‘So you admit that you’re grieving.’

‘I’m trying not to.’

*

He knows that she wasn’t looking after herself properly, this doesn’t make it any better. He sees the men with webbed feet plunging into the cold depths searching for her, their black clothes a precursor to the pall bearers. He remembers the whole rigmarole of the hearse. The serene and muted men, paid to shake hands with a gravity that seems all the stronger on a cold day. That’s Ireland, the weather becoming drastically cold in times of loss; he’s onto it. Internment, earth going into clods of thick mud. The mud mocking the people, showing them where they will end up.

*

The snow swirls as though under some supernatural power. Energy moves Richard’s snow crystals all over his back garden. He spies the robin silent beside him. He stoops to clean the debris from the chairs, is interrupted by the priest calling him again. Richard reluctantly agrees to attend the meeting about bereavement.

*

He finds himself in the toilet pissing out the tea that is being forced on him by the woman priest-helper. He doesn’t trust her. He goes back into the room. It has high ceilings and Father Dan’s frantic clapping is getting louder by the minute. Everyone seems to be joining in; he sees no option but to start clapping himself, a twat in religious ecstasy. After the mayhem, Richard sits on a grey plastic chair that reminds him of school. He can feel his bum squishing out through the hole at the back.

‘And then he shot himself, through the brain, they had shotguns you see, on the farm.’ A woman starting the discussions, more clapping.

‘Blood all over the paint pots in the shed, the vegetable seeds destroyed.’

‘Thank you Rose,’ says Father Dan.

They are all crying now, he is caught up in it despite himself, maybe it’s the emotion from Rose, he just doesn’t know.

‘My name is Richard.’

When he hears the response of ‘Hello Richard’, together as a group, he thinks he is going to wet himself, it’s too much. He’s playing a part in a shambolic fakeness. He hears their silence, listening to him begin his tale, teaspoons clinking against the sides of cups of tea.

‘Frida, well…’

He’s struggling to find the right words, to express his confusion, his sense of loss. He has a sachet of sugar between his fingertips, bends it over and back, straining it until it breaks in two, sugar on the table.

‘What was she like?’ a lady covered in a turquoise mohair cardigan asks.

He wants to please her, provide her with a decent answer.

‘She was beautiful, thin, I’m sorry, I don’t know why that is important. She was a mirror of her fragility, breakable. I don’t know what else to say, except that she’s gone, she was strong though.’

‘But you said she was fragile,’ the woman says.

‘Contradictions are my weakness.’

He looks to Father Dan for help. Father Dan perched looks beatific to Richard in front of this bereaved group. Richard feels like his heart has stopped. He feels a pain in the exact location that his heart ought to be in. He sits down, weary, blocking out the clapping.

*

Don’t forget me, I don’t want to die.

He is awake but dreaming of her in the morning time now. He can picture her clearly, feels the haunting of her.

*

‘How are you feeling now about your loss?’

‘I dreamt that I saw her in the mirror. She looked drugged.’

‘That’s what we term a visitation; you are not ready to let her go.’

‘You’re the psychologist, you tell me. Anyway, it’s not my loss, it’s her loss, don’t you see?’

‘Sit down Richard, and mind that table will you? The glass isn’t attached to the legs.’

‘Sorry.’

He settles back down, the bold schoolboy, rapped on the knuckles. The leather of the chair, cool and hard under his backside.

‘You should try breathing exercises. Oh, and you should try and go out with other women.’

*

All is luminous in his heart. His bad luck about to turn good. He can fix himself through breathing. He looks up to the trees, counts the nests, his breaths.

*

Holy Thursday announces itself. He buys hot cross buns. A gloomy start to the day, but now interspersed with the sharp, aquamarine strips of sky. The clouds part away from each other like avocado halves ripped apart, exposing the hard, slimy stone. He cuts his hand badly trying to open an avocado. He spies the horrid, stray cat in the garden. He despises cats, evil creatures, shitting long, runny tubes of stinking diarrhoea, yellow, puce. Frida always adored cats, not surprising to him now, for strays are likely to attract each other, like with like. He views Frida now as a homeless, ghostly stray. He looks at the Easter missal announcing the schedule for the fervent Catholics up on the hill. He decides on the Stations of the Cross. Nothing like a bit of self-flagellation to get the blood up, his breathing corrected.

*

‘Richard, how are you fixed? Did you take that job with the lawnmowers?’ his mother shrieks down the phone.

‘Yes I did.’

‘You don’t sound too happy about it.’

‘It’s the way you described it, as if it is just a case of helping out at the local petrol station. There’s more to it than that.’

‘Yes I know, sure you know yourself.’

‘Actually, I don’t know myself. Did you even look out the window today, Mother? Did you witness the glory, high up there in the sky? Shocking beauty, who would have thought? On my own doorstep. All for the taking, but Frida missing out, missing out on all of it.’

‘A waste indeed, but she made her choice, Richard, do you hear me?’

‘She slipped. I’m going to miss out on all this incredible weather, when I start out with your man.’

‘Won’t you be outside? Isn’t it beside a garden centre?’

‘Yeah, the one run by the trannies.’

‘You’ve lost me there.’

‘Ma?’

‘Don’t call me Ma.’

‘Ma, lend us a bit of cash to tide me over. Tá uaigneas orm, Ma.’

‘You’ll survive, the job will do you good; out there in the elements. I suppose there will be a yard?’

‘I suppose.’

‘Best of luck with it.’

*

Dressed up wearing his old Docs from the back of the wardrobe. Clicking his feet across the yard he feels the other guys watching him. His phone rings in his pocket, the manager motions to him to ignore it.

‘Rule number one, Dick, don’t take private calls during working hours unless it’s an emergency.’

‘Point taken, but how will I know if it’s an emergency or not if I don’t answer it?’

‘Rule number two, don’t be smart.’

He gets stuck in for the rest of the afternoon, thinks of his uaigneas. Nobody really bothers with him, he doesn’t mind. He’s already given a few of them names in his head: Beefy for the fat one, Gangly for the underfed one. He spends his lunch break picking at his fingernails and smoking his newly-acquired pipe. He senses the boss isn’t happy with the smell of it.

‘Want to join us?’ Gangly asks.

‘Okay, what’s the game?’

‘Poker.’

‘Sure.’

He begins his battle.

‘Name’s Jim, the fatso over there is Derek, unfortunate name, two Kings, openers.’ Gangly sneers out the instructions.

Richard feels as if summer is coming in. Bit of heat now on his wrists, what with the poker. He takes off his jumper, revealing his tartan work shirt.

‘So what’s your story, Jim?’

‘Nothing much to report.’

A spider ambles around, he watches Jim kill it with a cigarette.

‘What do you lot do for food?’

‘There’s a fridge over there, help yourself,’ Jim says, pointing inside.

He opens the fridge. It smells of rotten eggs, sour milk. He makes himself a cup of Lyons tea, picks the little globules of sourness from the milk. He makes his way back outside to the game.

‘What’s your story?’ asks Derek.

‘I’m trying to learn a new trade, get on. I was in advertising, but I got out, too many suits.’

*

With the shift over, they go for a pint.

‘I feel different after one day, I can’t explain it.’

‘It’s the air,’ Derek gesticulates.

‘My fingers are fucked.’ Richard bites out the lawnmower grease from under his nails.

*

He meets Patrick later. The two of them talking about going birdwatching and then just going, even though it’s getting dark. On the beach with a torch, Richard shows Patrick where he had stood on the syringe.

‘They never get the pricks that drop their shit all over the place.’

‘Tell me about it, Frida didn’t care either.’

The spray from the sea, shooting in. He feels it on his face, pulls the flaps of his hat down over his ears.

‘Do you think about her?’

‘Always, but I’m not doing anything about it. Just going on, not, you know, dwelling on her drowning in dirty water. Not thinking about her, breathing in stinking swan crap. Not thinking about the beer cans and the traffic cones floating over her eyes.’

He sees a man further up the beach fixing a tripod into the sand. It is close to darkness. Richard takes the beer can from Patrick’s hands. The beer feels icy going down; he almost chokes.

From issue #3: autumn/winter 2016

About the Author
Living in Dublin, Catherine Talbot is a graduate of the M Phil in Creative Writing at Trinity College. She was shortlisted for the Fish Prize 2016 for ‘Richard’s Grief’. Her short story ‘Shrinking From Life’ was longlisted for the inaugural Colm Tóibín International Short Story Award and the Fish Prize 2015.