INSECT!

 

This was our first sign of the year in descent.  I normally didn’t keep up with the date.  It was in my head though because of the Berrills.  The other night I had spoken briefly with Oran about his father and he mentioned it was coming up on the anniversary of their deaths.  They had both died in the last days of September within a few days of one another. 

Has anyone hit you yet? asked Kerley.

What?  Me?  Why? (Of course I knew why he might be asking.)

All the talk is you aided those Berrills in killing the boy.

Killing . . . aw, come on now!  Are people really that stupid?  We didn’t kill anyone.

So you’re admitting to it.

Admitting to what?  Okay, I was their contact with Lavery.  I submitted their Tout articles and they told me they wanted to remain anonymous.  Lavery was fine with that.  Really and truly, I hardly know the pair of them.  Ran into Oran for the first time only a year ago.  Maybe two.

            Take it easy.  I’m on your side.  I won’t harm you.  I’m half with you.  Sure they’d knife us all who work in that place if they could.  Eager for blood.  Now the kids are back to school, all the uniforms bought, and the books wallpapered, they’re free to grind their axes.  Glad we don’t have kids in our hair.  You never went down that road yourself, no?

            Indeed, I kept well away.  Too many black spots. 

            Me and Denise miles happier without them.  They’re all wee bastards, aren’t they?

            Absolutely.

The music began.  Guitar played softly, mellifluously, as though it were a harp.  It wasn’t.  It didn’t sound half as nice.  I’m no expert though.  I couldn’t say what the song was that came but it was probably an Oasis one.  To tell you the truth, I was starting to get quite bored.  I didn’t even know the young chap so couldn’t bring myself to publicly grieve for him like the others.  People were dying every day.  Only last week Bernie Clark passed and there was no candlelight vigil for him.  All he got were a few sighs outside the chip shop, then the sighers went off home to have their snack-boxes.  Certainly a bigger deal had been made of this particular deceased than I personally thought was appropriate.  Never-mind the accusations going about.  And now the bloody menace underneath it all.  So pardon me if I couldn’t give a shit. 

This fresh boredom had me rummaging around in my pockets and annoyingly I happened upon the shopping list I’d created on a piece of ripped off paper from The Democrat before leaving the house.  You might say there was nothing worse than making a shopping list to remember the things you needed, then going on to forget the shop and those things you needed entirely.  What was the point in doing anything?

 

Oil

Pies

Noodle

Sausage

Bread

Wine

Butter

Waffle

 

I could probably pick one or two of those things up in the Costcutters on the way home but at double the price than if I’d made it to the supermarket. 

What’s the point in doing anything at all, Kerley? I muttered.

            Kerley eyed me with bafflement.

            I can’t answer that question for you, sorry, he said.  It’s an odd one.  What has you asking a question like that?

            I held up the piece of ripped off newspaper for him.  I’d used my fountain pen so the ink was vibrant, if a tad smudged.

            Ah, I understand now, said Kerley.  Shopping!  Hate that shit.

            It’s the main reason I came out, I said.  Now all this.  (A lie.  I was in fact just a nosy bastard.  Probably why I forgot the shop.)

            Well, you came out.  Proves you got a pair of balls on ya.  You know, we might be the only ones brave enough to show our faces here today.  From The Martlet, I mean. 

            I see Caitriona over there.

            True.  Her fella’s a Gulliver, I think.  And wasn’t she the one who talked?

            In truth, that was me!

            Fair enough.  But you’re here today.  If that hat blows off your head, they’ll be on you like the living dead.  So good on you for showing your face.  Lavery is the one you’d think should really have made an appearance.  Big kahuna that he is.

            For sure, where is he anyway?

Out at the racetrack, I heard.  Probably shagging some young one out the back there.

            We chuckled; at the same time, we could both see it was curious that most of us thought Lavery was always shagging someone out the back of wherever he may be.   

Although I did not find conversation with Kerley uninteresting, my attention went to a figure standing in the doorway of the Ulster Bank, to the right of the stage.  The person’s clothes appeared worn and soggy like an itinerant’s but their height and manner of lurking was too bold and magnificent for any of that sort I’d seen and after half a minute of squinting hard I was able to identify the figure as Phyllis Berrills.  I should have known.  Neither she nor her brother had purchased new clothes in a decade. 

The crowd had yet to spot her, their eyes too busy with the stage.  I feared what they might do when eventually they did see her. 

Suddenly the mourners shushed.  Things were about to start.  Thank God. For the music was unquestionably dreadful.  Then there appeared on the stage a young woman with long brown hair and her funeral dress.  She had an anguished face on her and Kerley nudged my arm and said it was the sister.  Rita Gilgan. 

Thank you for coming out, it means the world to us.  It would mean the world to Ernie too.  He loved this town, as you know, and most of all: unity.  He loved unity.  If you read his work, you’ll see it’s all about unity.  He would love to see you here together now.  It is a brilliant way to remember him.  Thank you. 

Then there was a turn.  Not only in the angle of her face, but in her whole demeanour, and furthermore in the whole atmosphere of the evening.   Being on a raised level she was able to see over the heads where a decent view of that doorway at the Ulster Bank was to be had and it was in that precise moment I was brought to an even more amazing revelation. Perhaps it was the curl of her face now or the intensity of her glare, but it became apparent that this was the same young lady I had seen arguing one day with Phyllis on the street near the office, her weakling of a boyfriend struggling to hold her back as she endeavoured to batter the older woman.  And now I could see that same boyfriend was there too at the side of the stage, a few years older now, considerably more well-built.  I imagined the subsequent nightmares he’d endured concerning Phyllis had inspired him to pile on the muscle.

So you decided to come on out of your hole, did ye?  sneered Rita Gilgan from the lectern.  Her voice had abruptly changed from that of a grieving sibling to one of profound animus.   

Phyllis raised her head and I could see she was smirking in the shadows like Harry Lime in The Third Man, a detail I don’t think was lost on her either as I’d been in her company at least once when that scene was on and I knew Orson in his thirties was one of her favourites. 

The gasps were so numerous they came out as one great gale when Phyllis stepped from that doorway and all the town got a look at her.    

Rita appeared to make some gesture at Sue Ellen Deane who in response moved towards the Ulster Bank.  She made sure to take one of their unsubtle placards with her and held it high as she approached Phyllis. 

This one said INSECT KILLERS! (I’m sure they meant INCEST) 

Sue Ellen was not quite as tall as Phyllis but she was tall enough for the fairer of the town and it was reasonable to assume Rita had hired her as a bodyguard or something.  Of all the Screaming Deanes, Sue Ellen did not scream the loudest, but it was this very manner she had, coolheaded and taciturn, which made her the most fearsome. 

My concern for Phyllis was growing and I thought about maybe going over and getting in between them but my natural cowardice kept me glued to my spot watching, right hand in my pocket, rolling the unimplemented shopping list into a smaller and smaller ball.

 

Image: Wikimedia Commons