‘Stories For When You’re Older’ by Diarmuid Hickey

The thing to know is my Da is missing

And I’m the only one trying to find him.

*

It was summer. We were going on holidays. There were passports on the table. There shouldn’t have been passports on the table because we never went abroad. But there they were.

Ma was upstairs. She always goes to bed early. She brought a book up with her and told us not to stay up too late OK? Die Hard was on the television. My brother was with me. He was older, and was allowed repeat the cool things John McClane said in his ratty dirty vest. When I did he digged me in the ribs with those coin-sized knuckles he had. Da was somewhere, working.

*

He was an ambulance man.

He is an ambulance man. Is.

*

There was a smell of boiled meat from the kitchen. From the dinner earlier. And we were getting to the bit where the black cop helps McClane and does not cry from getting shot at by terrorists just kinda takes it because he is a killer and McClane is a killer and it is all cool baby.

Da was late and he came in the back way, sliding the glass patio door and scaring the pair of us. He was an apparition. His eyes were in a bad way. I hadn’t really seen them like that before. We’ve the same eyes. Everyone says. And my eyes have never been that way and his were normally not like that. Surely, they had been before. I just hadn’t noticed. Crazy like. Fixed open demented. Like I said this was the first time.

*

Devane says he got like that a lot but didn’t want to bring it home.

*

So, I jumped up and went to him but whether he didn’t see me or couldn’t recognize me I wasn’t sure. Just those eyes. My brother looked on silently and turned his back to us. I was gonna hug him but. In his hand he had a bottle in a brown paper bag.

Without a word he poured some into a glass, downed it quickly, refilled the glass and took two others from the cabinet and filled them too. I remember thinking Ma is going to be pissed about all this washing up to do. There was more liquid in his glass. He sat down on the floor by the couch. As if to make my brother look at him. He handed me the glasses and I took one and gave one to my brother. I didn’t know what to do with it.

McClane was choking a blond giant with a metal chain. Da’s long chicken legs stretched out, the black uniform trousers flat across the floor. Boys oh boys, he said and sipped. I sipped the liquid obediently, but my brother didn’t. He looked angry. Da, he said, he’s a bit young for that.

It burned, and I could feel it in my nostrils and my throat. Da looked at my brother and said: Come here and I’ll tell you where I was this evening. There was a crash in New Inn. You know that house where the gable end faces the road opposite the church? And there was a child’s party. A fair bit younger than himself there, my good man. I think Devane said ten. Ten. And Da took another sip and I think I heard Ma get out of bed above us then. And we got a call there this evening. I’d been in the house before, the grandmother used to live there and we took her out of the upstairs bedroom with a stroke one time. Big fucking woman. Da looked my brother in the eye and said a car crashed through the gable end. Driver was fucked straight away. They needed a fire brigade for him, just to sort the car and free him. But you know the whole party was under that wall? That was the room where the cake would be served. And the whole party every single one of them cru– and Ma arrived down in her night slip and said enough that’s enough, took the glass from my hand and said to us to go to bed.

I heard shouting for a while

And in the morning

He was gone.

I was young enough to blame myself. My brother seemed pleased. Whether it was the departure or my feelings of guilt that made him so I’m not sure. Before we left in the morning Ma had removed the glass bottles from Da’s cabinet. They sat on the kitchen cabinet waiting to be emptied.

My Ma drove us, and it rained on us in a caravan in Wexford or Kerry. We went to the beach every day regardless dressed in colourful plastic ponchos and changed clothes behind rainbow windbreakers when we dipped into the freezing sea. And amusements every evening, crashing into each other head first over and over again. But the week passed in misery for me. All I remember enjoying is a movie where a blond Labrador tracked across the Rockies to get home to his farm, making friends with other animals and fighting a mountain cat.

When he came back things got better.

He didn’t sleep well though, anymore.

And when he came home from work his very features were drawn upwards in fright. Over our boiled meat and poppies Ma would try divert us away from the sources of these heavily lined brows and widened eyes and would sometimes let us eat our dinner in the sitting room watching The Simpsons. We would go to bed one by one at different set times but unlike my brother who was at the opposite end of the house, my room was divided by only one wall to theirs. And I could hear his turnings and those low low moans. Ma must have ignored all these contortions because she always woke fresh and determined.

*

I was fifteen the next time.

*

Everybody heard of it. The thing that sparked it. It was on the news. Happened very close to where my grandparents were living. A little cottage near the mountains on a quiet road. I was always envious of that house because a little stream ran through its front garden.

Now all I can see is that the same hills means it gets no sun.

I never heard the full story. Devane won’t talk about this one to me. He says some things are best left where they are. A lot of the town is the same way. 

It was a father and two kids anyway.

And there was a bit to it. It was not a straightforward case. It was not just a murder-suicide thing.

Like you heard about the guy in Cavan recently. And a neighbour or a relative goes up to the door and there is a note and says look don’t go in call the cops.

This was messier.

But Da came home. I was waiting for him by the gate. He just walked past me. The first thing he did was take a bottle of wine from the mini cellar Ma kept over the back freezer. He went to the garden.

His eyes.

He went to the garden and to the shed. He took an axe from it. He used varnish the hilt of that axe. And all of his tools. What I am trying to say is he loved that shed. He would make me varnish it. Every summer with black oil that stayed in my nose and mouth for weeks afterward.

But he took the axe from the shed and started hacking at it. I ducked for cover as splinters and wedges of wooden boards flew from the force of each stroke. He was a powerful man. His upper bu–

*

He is a powerful man.

Is.

Is.

Is.

*

I cried at him stop. He didn’t hear me. There was blood coming from his hands where arrows of debris had cut him. Sweat bloomed in his brows. Can’t you stop Da I said as the first side of the shed fell. Won’t you stop this is madness as the roof started to cave on the ride-on lawnmower. It did cave, and I heard the mower’s wheels sigh under the pressure. The interior shelves gave too. Ma at this stage came home. My brother was with her and he carried the shopping for her. He dropped them and ran to Da. He grabbed at his arms. Those strong arms. John McClane in a tank top.

Da hit him.

He did.

I was there.

I wish I could forget. But.

But the left elbow swung back and with a sick thump brutalized my brother’s face.

Red pulsed from Brother’s tongue and mouth. That was when Ma grabbed us. Get into that house quick now. Get some clothes in a bag. Come on now quick. And I ran with my brother who was holding a hand to his mouth. How long will we be gone I asked. Just fucking pack something. But for how long? Brother looked at me. I packed a pair of jeans and some t-shirts before Ma started honking the car horn. Over and over. And he grabbed me then. No time for more. Two t-shirts like. Wouldn’t last long I thought. We’ll have to come back.

As we were driving out he set fire to the shed.

Black soul smoke erupted from the hobbled mound.

The tyres in the lawnmower burst with a sweet loud ping.

He did not look back.

I don’t think he knew we were going.

Ma made it clear that this was it. She was leaving him.

My brother was happy. He said he applauded Ma and that she was standing up for what was right, and this was the right decision for our family. I asked is Da not part of our family, but he cursed me and walked away anytime I tried to talk about it.

And I desperately wanted to talk. When we came back for our stuff a week later Da was not at the house. Devane said he took all his annual leave at once and took a holiday. Nothing in the house was touched since we left. The shed was blackened and pathetic. A smoky halo lay underneath the rubble imprinted on the grass.

*

From then I saw less of him.

*

But more than my brother. Who took the separation, as well as starting college, as a chance to remove himself from our father.

It was just me who went to Da every second weekend as per rota. He told me that he was working now as much as possible. Eating up overtime he said. There’s as much as you want of it there at the moment so while the sun is shining I’m making hay. A lot of the younger fellas don’t want to know about it. He looked tired and as time went on he looked exhausted. I asked him once what happened in that house to make him go like that. We were drinking together from cans of stout out the back wrapped in coats in front of a barbecue. He looked at me and said there are some things in the world that can’t be spoken about because they cannot be understood. I see it more and more but that never makes it easier. I would never want to share it with anyone who wasn’t there because it is hard enough for those who were.

And he looked at me with those mirror eyes and we drank and hugged ourselves.

Because it was me on my own I couldn’t really put a finger on what was changing within him. But something was. He came back and settled into his grand-uncle’s cottage. It was where all his people came from, further out in the country than where Ma had permitted him to take us. It was on a lonely road in the middle of a flat farming plain. Combine harvesters and industrial giant tractors sped up and down the narrow lane all summer and autumn. Da admired the farmers around him and liked to drink outside watching them in adjacent fields.

He was trying to grow things in a little polytunnel. Tomatoes tied to bamboo shoots and onions in a patch of muck. Unsuccessfully. Nothing grows he said. Nothing will take in the land here. I found that hard to believe because all the fields were packed with growth and all kinds of things flourished. He took it hard and one Saturday I came out and saw the polytunnel ripped to shreds. A bandsaw lay nearby. The wind picked at the pieces of plastic and I went to pick up any I could to stop them polluting the fields around us.

*

This time it is different.

I hear about it from Ma who only tells me

Because I feel I have to. I know ye two are close.

Her new husband says I’ll drive you out there. They are doing a search.

It is a forty minute drive.

I don’t ask will he be staying. Or if Ma is coming.

I ring my brother. He sounds hungover.

I don’t care what he does to be totally honest with you. If he is gone doesn’t change shit for me.

Come help look for him.

Fuck off.

There is someone beside him in bed. I can hear a voice asking is everything okay.

I never got why you two were close. He’ll turn up like.

What if this time is different?

Then I’ll see you at a funeral.

I hang up. Pack some shit and my Ma’s new husband drives me to the cottage. I am polite and he is sympathetic.

Do you need me to pick you up later?

I think I will stay a while.

He gives me money for a bus. Call us if you need anything.

Thanks.

And best of luck.

There is a community group meeting at the house.

Everyone is nice and wearing orange fluorescent jackets. An old guy says your Da was

*

Is.

Is.

Is.

*

a good man. Took me in more than once on account of this. He is pointing at his chest.

Devane comes over. Says Well. Come with me.

*

Devane was always around at christenings and communions. He was Da’s work buddy or partner or whatever. He didn’t drink but would eat and eat. At those things you literally could not keep him with food. He was funny, cracking jokes and made Ma smile a lot. I think she liked the idea that this guy was the one Da had around with him in work and not some misery guts or another drinker. Because there were plenty of those around too.

*

We get into his car.

How is school and that?

Good yeah.

Leaving this year?

Yeah.

Must be beating the women away ha? Brains and looks.

Not really.

We drive around a while to get to our section. We pass hedgerows. A field where cows sit around the circular fodder holder, near a great big hollow where water makes an impromptu lake. The old church on the hill above the only pub before town. It has a long old steeple. You would get a great view from the top of it and I think maybe that is where he is taking me.

Instead he takes me to a long field that stretches forever over the crest of a hill and disappears. There is only the rising crest of land, with mountains far in the background like some obscure detail in a painting.

I’m confident he’s here says Devane. I’m nearly sure.

We walk over the field.

It is untilled.

It feels like agricultural land fallen into disrepair. The muck sinks sweetly under our steps and clogs my runners in thick rinds that grip the sides.

We come to the top of the hill.

Just over this he says. And stops and says look. Be prepared alright. He is out of breath. I say okay. Just in case he says.

The road is well behind us.

Nothing

and more nothing stretches before us, muck and weeds and strange roots gubbing out.

And Devane shakes his head and turns his back and I go on looking at the empty field.

Why here? I ask.

He shakes his head. Did he talk much about work?

Yes. No. Sometimes. Why here?

Devane tells me.

*

I go home a couple of days later by bus. Ma inspects me on my return.

No luck. None Ma no.

You look tired.

We covered a lot of ground last couple of days.

Who is we?

Devane and me.

Bang your runners outside. They’re covered in muck.

She can see into my eyes. Right to the centre of them. I am sure of it.

I don’t sleep. That night or the next few. I turn over and over again in my bed. My mind is on a skewer. My mind is a nest of things that crack out in the dark. What Devane says replays in my mind over and over.

I start to lose weight. I don’t feel it but see it.

Ma’s new husband takes me for a drive one evening. Maybe a week later. Asks what is eating you? Is it your Da? Hasn’t he always come back before?

I cannot speak so look out the window at the passing shop fronts and buildings. We stop at a chipper and get burgers. We eat them hot and steaming in the car with our hands.

You can always talk to me he says. As a friend like.

I do not share with him what Devane told me even though my mother’s new husband is a man and ready for it too.

That night I vomit up the burger, my head in the toilet.

Ma comes to me and rubs my back.

*

Devane said –

The call came on the back of another call further away. A quare easy one. An elderly man with a hanging gut and broken leg who spoke about he and his wife’s skiing trip. I had a great chat with him as your Da drove. The call came and he switched the siren on and the ambulance left the motorway and cars moved onto the verge for us. Your Da used to get this thing with the shits. And he must have felt the common feeling, the bowels scratching and itching and loosening until your Da had to clench his cheeks shut against the dropping bulge. His hands gripped the wheel at two and ten. He told me to breathe easy now good man breathe easy. I had been getting this way a while, hyperventilating when the call comes, anticipating the worst.

Sometimes though it was justified to get worked up the way I did.

I calmed by the time we hit the back road. Horses ran along in adjacent fields and the land was flat and soon we came to a field of maize with long green stalks waist high and bristling. A guard motioned us by the gate which stood by a small copse of a few pine trees and a patch of grass which soon gave away to the overwhelming grain. Can’t go further, he said, we have to walk to the patient. I looked at him from the passenger window, at the pale young head on him, and asked what do we need? And the young fella with blue eyes a little cold and dead said whatever you have.

Everything, bring everything.

The maize was thick and beat back against us and felt like little hands pulling and dragging at our uniforms. It was not long before all three of us have a sweat up, hauling the red hip bags full of gauze and different medications. We even brought the defib. The guard carried that. When we came to this hill we mount it and lost sight of the road behind us and saw in the distance another guard who is facing us looking for them coming. He could not face what he minded. I started wheezing and he felt it too, your Da did, in the lurching forward of his bowels. He’s breathing somehow said the man facing them. The patient was nailed to a cross. Circular iron heads shone, oil slick in the centre of his palms. It was a tidy job compared to his feet which were torn asunder nearly by the fire poker that kept them bound to the wooden structure. I vomited. There was no crown of thorns, and an effort had made to disguise him as a scarecrow. He had a flat fisherman’s cap on and bloodied lengths of hay stuck out from the torn shirt he wore, from the chest and from the back. Water it said. Water. Your Da had none but he gave the patient a sip from a flask at his hip. We have to take him down your Da said to me and the guards. Some of the flesh was infected looking around the holes. But we came together, one guard weeping on a vomit stained shirt, and we took him down together.

*

I am sorry.

*

Devane calls. For me.

My Ma says she cannot stop me anymore. And we go out together to a pub.

There is no sign he says.

I know.

We talk for a while. He drinks Diet Coke. I drink a pint. He watches me every time I bring it to my lips.

What you need lad, is an education. We were never educated, me and your Da. We came straight from the factory in Hull to it. An education that is what he would want for you. So put your head to the books.

I promise him I will.

He drops me home. I feel sick in the passenger seat.

Here I have something for you.

He goes to the boot. Takes a green plastic bag from it.

In it there are six tomatoes, slowly ripening.

Something grew in that tunnel would you believe he says.

I eat one. It pops in my mouth but tastes bitter, unripened.

From issue #7: autumn/winter 2017

About the Author
Diarmuid Hickey is a writer from Tipperary, currently living and working in Cork. His fiction has appeared in The Stinging Fly and The Incubator. He holds an MA in Creative Writing in UCC.