The Kibitzers

Oran lumbered into the living room and planted himself in his big puffy chair by the window.  The chair had been sliced to ribbons over the years, the work of a snow-white mog named Sagan, long in the soil now, that had once slunk around the property, and there was one particularly wide slit on the armrest which Oran liked to slide his hand into like it was a built-in glove.  He looked real comfortable doing that and he did it now with his left hand while his right rummaged down the side for the remote control.  Once obtained, he punched a button on the remote and started flicking through the stations. 

Maybe you could bring the Martlet back, I suggested.  A safer project altogether.

He grunted and nodded, his eyes transfixed by the TV screen.  James Cagney.

Chops tonight? he then called out to Phyllis, who was folding tea towels in the kitchen.

Got and all, she said.  Adam has been and gone.

Adam was like myself, one of their outside contacts, someone who would pop round and do trips to the shops for them, the comestibles and things they wouldn’t dare to have the internet ship.  In my case, I had befriended Oran over the years and was certainly fascinated with the pair of them, but Adam was I believe the only existing relation they had, however distant he might have been – the son of a deceased cousin.    The Berrills had their helpers, but they weren’t absolute shut-ins.  I believe Phyllis attended a singing group every quarter and Oran would venture out for an early morning stroll a few months in the year.  But apart from this, you’d be lucky to see either one of them out and about. 

Oran had once been an athletic person, a cross-country runner.  He told me as much.  And the certain amount of physical bulk he carried, even now at a noteworthy age, substantiated this.  That puffy chair was not only cut to bits but also rather deflated from having to hold him every day. 

What about you? Oran enquired of me. Would you be fit for a chop?

No, I’ll be heading on.  I just wanted to let you know what was up, that, you know, there’ll be no more articles getting published going forward.  With the current mindset they have going anyway. 

Grand.

I honestly thought you’d both be more upset about this.

You don’t actually think the pennies you bring us make a difference, do you?

I didn’t think that at all, no.  It’s the . . .

The what?

The artistic creation side of things, the expression part, you know.  I thought you would miss it.

Well, if it becomes too much to handle, we’ll give you a call before we do the Samaritans.  Isn’t that right, Phyllis?

Phyllis didn’t answer.  She was at the hot drinks.

It was I who would miss it, in truth, for didn’t I enjoy all the secrecy.  Knowing something the rest of the town didn’t.  It was like being part of some underground society.  But suddenly it was becoming clear to me how little it all mattered.  How little it mattered to Oran and Phyllis.  How little it mattered to Lavery, when all was said and done.  Except now that a lad had died.

Phyllis came in with her specialty, and which she appeared to view as my weekcap: warm cups of Horlicks with gin for each of us.  I detested Horlicks as a youngster but had grown accustomed to Phyllis’s version of it which was potable if not as delicious as she believed it was.   

She sat herself down and focused on the TV.  James Cagney in One, Two, Three. 

We have this one on tape, don’t we? she asked Oran.

Aye, it’s lying about, he replied.

I often wondered what would have happened if Oran or Phyllis had ever left the town.  Something quite amazing might have occurred if the rest of the world had experienced them.  Minds might have been turned.  Songs may’ve been composed.  Great mysteries unravelled.  Because it seemed to me they had worthwhile and respectable thoughts about life and how to navigate it which, sadly, had failed to achieve wider exposure.  They were content to reduce their whole world to this house.  With their books.  And all the DVDs.  And surely they weren’t the only ones. 

I stayed and watched the rest of the film with them. 

Had another Horlicks.  And gin.  This was every Friday.

Monday morning I arrived at the office to find Lucy Colreavy waiting outside.  Usual drizzle in the air, but sure never-mind that, as these were the moments I lived for.  Only two people had keys for the place: Lavery who came and went as he pleased being the owner, and Ida Roche who was this morning evidently, mercifully, late.  Rarely did I get the chance to stand with Lucy and have a private moment.

How did things round out the other day? I asked her. 

Ah, it ended quietly, as they all do.  They went on their way about five. 

You think they’ll be back today?

It’s likely.  The Gilgans are coming in this morning apparently to see Lavery.

Oh shit.  Seriously?

Ernest Gilgan’s family might not have put their feet forward if the outraged citizens of Carrickphelimy hadn’t egged them on.  You couldn’t fault a Phelimy for commitment to obtrusion.  They were a flea in everyone’s ear.

Ernest Gilgan was the young man who died.  20 years old, he’d recently graduated from University College Cork with a degree in History . . . but what good did that do him in the end?  He’d returned to the town, was working in a clothes shop, and trying to become a memoir-writer.   Young Ernie wanted to be an author so bad he’d gone looking for Pmurehia but after reaching its ill-defined borderlands, the freshly-created Bachelor of Arts did as the Tout and his racist companion had done and walked backwards about a mile only to step blindly onto a motorway and be struck and killed by a fast-passing Scania lorry.  Talk about death by misadventure.  Inside the vehicle a driver already on the brink because of Brexit near died himself with the shock.

Could you blame that driver for this unfortunate outcome?  Maybe.  Would you have blamed the lad for it?  You could’ve.  Would you have blamed the Examiner for it?  Definitely they could and they had, the Carrickphelimys, kibitzers of extraordinary flair.

I’ve heard it said you know who this Tout is, said Lucy.  And the Martlet before him. 

She was too polite to ask me outright if I would reveal who it was.  She had a politeness about her which was most attractive, though not the most attractive thing – that was her unblemished skin and big brown eyes, and also the chest, the behind, the etcetera-etcetera, but it was a bonus having that politeness.  Colreavy was a lucky bastard, he was.  He didn’t deserve her, if you were to ask me, one who was made to suffer his goading tendencies as a boy. 

Well, I suppose it wouldn’t be a sin to tell you, Lucy.  You probably don’t know the people anyway.  They’re among the shadowy folk round here.

People?  It’s more than one person?

More or less.  Though that’s debatable because I’m never quite sure how much input either one has had. 

Go on then, she urged me.  I won’t say a thing, promise.