CC 79: Young Shadows

Birdsong melted in the room, turning into a thick cloud of smoke, as Mary Jane smothered us with her reeking smaze.  As I pulled from the joint, the lovingly-crafted result of the one and only skill Geary had, I moved to brace myself, knowing it had been a long time since I’d had a smoke of the grass. And it certainly wasn’t something I had a lot of practice with in my life anyway – a few smokes here and there, over the years, but few and often far between.

‘You be careful with that,’ said Geary, laughing. 

Bastard Geary.  He had been present some years before at a different party in a different house when the smoke cast itself around us like it did now and he’d watched me as I lost control of the faculties and locked myself in the bathroom to throw up my grievances.  We’d been drinking red wine that night so I made oceans of it on the white tile and porcelain and collapsed in a heap, the like of which experienced medics in the wars still had nightmares about.  They had to break the door down and found me lying there in a puddle of dark blood, and violent streaks of it on the walls.  ‘I didn’t realise he was that depressed,’ I heard someone say. 

‘I’m grand, not going to take so much,’ I told Geary, passing the joint along.  ‘I won’t be killing myself tonight.’ 

‘Good for you,’ said Francis. 

So far I was anchored.  And vigilant.  Nothing to get shambolic about.  I measured the smoke well and was quite proud of myself for it.  Just one stretched out toke, enough to get a whack, and a couple of quick sucks to accompany, before sending the wonderful dreaded thing away. 

‘I’m deeply interested in death, but only in what it brings us closer to,’ continued Francis (I’d struck a chord it appeared).  ‘I believe it brings us a lot closer to the universe we’re in.  To fuller knowledge.  But there is a time set aside for all of us, and we have to respect that.  So I don’t like the idea of suicide.  You’re jumping the queue if you do that.’

‘There’s a natural order of things,’ Geary said.

‘Yes, I think so, but having said that, after death, I see no reason why we can’t return, or find ways to communicate with the living.  I think that’s natural too.  When you’re dead, I think you should have that privilege.  And I also think that we, the living, should have the privilege of answering when the dead feel that they have something to say.’

‘Like a psychic?’

‘Well, most of them are bullshitters, as you well know.  Spunkstains of commerce.  What I mean is, we all have the ability to communicate with the dead if we see fit to do so.  If we feel up to it.  Most of us wouldn’t bother with it at all.  But, you know, there’s a reason we have all that moneymaking crap in place too.  People naturally want to make use of their privilege.  They want to believe the spirit-world can be accessed.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Serena.  ‘Capitalism.’

‘Well, yeah.  I suppose.  I mean, there’s a market for it because we have this belief in something other than the physical world.  Sometimes we play it down though.  Get over the grief of losing our loved ones, and get on with life.  Make do with ghost stories, and frivolous occasions like Halloween, or just microwave the whole thing with religion.’

‘Nothing wrong with Halloween,’ said Serena.  ‘Don’t be a grumpyguts.’

‘No, Francie has a point,’ said Geary.  ‘Nobody takes it seriously enough.  I hate all those psychics and all that shite.’

‘But you’ve dabbled in it yourself, haven’t you, Francie?’ added Paidi, winking slightly.

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ replied Francis.  ‘I’m no fortune teller.’

‘You contacted your mother, didn’t ya?’

‘Well, I might have been close.  But it was a bad line.  Couldn’t hear so well.  It’s like trying to pick up the right station on the radio, you know.’

‘Your mother?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, she died a while back.  My father many years before her.  But I wouldn’t go searching for his spirit, the old cunt.  He’d only make snide remarks as usual.  I’ll let him torture someone on the other side.  But I’ll keep trying with my Mam.  I loved me Mam.’

‘You mean, like a séance?’

‘Ah, yeah, kind of.’   

Pollard.  Francis Pollard.

‘What was your Mam’s name, Francie?’

‘Noreen.  Noreen Pollard.’ 

Ah.  I knew the name.  I knew the tragic tale of Noreen Pollard well.  Most of us in the town did.  Must have happened when we were still at school.  I think even long before I set eyes on Emer. 

Noreen had been having trouble with a group of adolescent shadows who kept jumping into her back garden, thumping her door, and putting dead mice they’d found through her letterbox.  This was when the Pollards lived in Bay Estate.  One evening, as she was making buns and scones for Francis, who was coming home from college in Dublin the next day, the young shadows showed up again, and she went to the door to chase them away. 

‘What are yous at there?’ she shouted.  ‘Get away, or I’ll set the dogs.’ 

One of the shadows was holding what appeared to be the wheel of a car, the skeleton of it, without the tyre.  It was late in June.  That meant Bonfire Night was coming in Dundalk, so they must have been out gathering stuff that might or mightn’t burn.*

‘Ah, boys, look at her,’ said one of the shadows.  ‘She’s gonna set the dogs on us. She looks like a dog herself, eh?’ 

The shadows laughed.  CLANG went the wheel as it was dropped to the ground, and the shadow who had been carrying it began to move closer to Noreen.

‘Get out of here, ya runts,’ she shouted.  ‘I’m callin' the guards.’

‘We don’t give a fuck!’ said one of the shadows.

There were snorts of agreement.           

The shadow in front revealed a small rock he’d been holding behind his back. He propelled it suddenly and it struck Noreen on the face.

It hurt, and she got angry. 

She immediately rushed towards the shadow and punched him.

He fell, and his head smashed off the abandoned car wheel like soft plaster hitting solid concrete. 

The shadow stopped moving, and the surrounding shadows disappeared.

The headlights of a passing car caught the clearing in front of the Pollard house and the beam streamed along the boy’s body, no longer a shadow, intensifying the severed crust and dripping tissue of the head. 

‘Ah, you’ve killed one of them, missus? Good on you,’ Mr. Dillon at No. 4, on his way back from a late novena, yelled over. 

Noreen sank back into her doorway, and waited for the detectives to arrive, who not only had the body of a dead boy waiting for them, but a great feed of freshly-made scones also.  The subsequent trial was heartbreaking, and that’s just what it did to Noreen Pollard, who passed away before a verdict could be reached. 

What Francis must have gone through at the time - Terrible.  I remember reading all about it in the newspaper, detailed in articles by Ross Young, the same local crime reporter who covered John Carroll’s story for public scrutiny.  Vulture, I called him in my head; yet I had read the stories too, with a great deal of interest. 

There were plenty of shadows in our town – sometimes it was us who made them into shadows in the first place.

 

 

 

*In some parts of Ireland, and around the world, Bonfire Night is held on the eve of the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist (June 23^rd).  In Dundalk however, it is held on June 29^th.  Some believe this has to do with the sacking of the town by Edward the Bruce in 1315; others believe it to be a celebration of the Feast of St. Peter and Paul, not John the Baptist; but most will say that it relates to the Battle of the Boyne.  As it goes, the Duke of Schomberg was sent to advance his forces south by William of Orange, but was tricked by King James who made the people of Dundalk light fires in the area.  This gave the impression that a larger army stood in Schomberg’s way.  Many people believe this is the true history of the tradition, others disagree, but most maintain that the inferno lasts longer on those midsummer evenings.