The Herald

I arrived at The Martlet with an awful stomachache.  These days all my stomachaches felt driven by the Horlicks Phyllis Berrills fed me because I could taste Horlicks and feel Horlicks all through me amidst the pangs.  The ache wasn’t alleviated in any way when I stepped into the office and was greeted by those instant soup smells and the miasma of sitting coffee.  The rest of them were not bothered by those various pungencies as we were set to print the next day so they were grinding the stone with their noses, Caitriona more than anyone.  She lifted her head as I came in but it went down again almost immediately.  Some preternatural correspondence was going on between us for it was on my mind to inquire about past and potential slips of the tongue and the furtiveness of her demeanour betrayed her anticipation of this.  I would normally not have dreamed of inviting friction between us but the stomachache had me in a bad mood and I was no longer inclined to offer my routine lenity and permissiveness in the farcical hope she would one day grant me a tryst like in the films since it was quite clear to me she was long ago lost to the town’s gaping pit of matrimony.

Caitriona, by some or any chance, when you were tipsy last week, would you have let it slip to Brendan about what I told you?

Her eyes took me sharply but then flipped back to the screen in front of her.

I don’t think so, she said nervously.  I might have.  I can’t remember.

I nodded and didn’t say anything.  What could I say?  It was my own fault for telling her.  If I had been her, I would have taken advantage of my drunken state and denied awareness of everything outright.   

I went to my desk and got down to my own work.  Later, I went back to her and I said with merciful tone:  Don’t worry about it.  Even if you did let it out, it couldn’t have been malicious.

I don’t remember anything, she said, with some anger in her voice.  Before I could salvage the situation I was called away from her.  To the boss’s office, a place I had only visited a handful of times, two or three tops, the whole time I’d worked there.  There was never call.  Usually.  But today I got the call.  I didn’t even know Lavery was in.  But then I remembered he’d been coming in earlier than normal these last few weeks.  Since word of Ernie Gilgan’s final jaunt came through.  It was customary for him to float in later than everyone else. 

The office had no airs and graces.  It looked like a very worked-in place, the desk reassuringly messy, with ring binders peeking out from between metal cabinets and them so fat they might burst any minute.  And paper screaming off the shelves like a million unredeemed souls.  As well as boxes which looked to have been there long before Lavery came along; they didn’t sell those products anymore.  And there was this ancient photocopier which was older than the one he had out front for us grunts.  At least he wasn’t sequestering the good stuff.  And on the wall, there was that big framed painting of a martlet, the mythological bird the paper was named after, similar in appearance to the swift or swallow, a bird which was dropped into the world at birth and having no feet with which to land was compelled by nature to fly until its eventual fall and death, always on the wing as such.  The style of the painting was like the wild sika stag the Berrills had in their front room and I thought once the same artist might have been responsible for both.    

Well, it’s out now, Lavery said.

What’s out?  I closed the door behind me to keep private whatever was about to unfold.

Don’t play stupid now, pecked Lavery.  About the freak, you know.  And his freak of a sister.  You know what I’m on about.  Oran Berrills. I swear if I’d known before now that that’s whose muck I was printing, I wouldn’t have. 

It wasn’t muck before, was it?  Didn’t you think it was secretly me all along?

I never did.  You don’t have the imagination.

I suppose that’s true.  I can’t say that doesn’t hurt to hear.

Oh, come on now, you’re made of stronger stuff than that.  You’re a newsman.  Proper.  Dyed in the wool, as far as I see.  That’s where your talent lies.  I value you for your exceptional spelling abilities.  And your checking.  We need more checkers around here.  Too much goes unchecked. 

Well, I obviously appreciate the confidence you have in me.

So you’re valued for what you are, not what you aren’t, and you are no bloody tout.  Besides, it’s my fault anyway for trusting another anonymous contributor.  We might even put an entire ban on anonymity after this.  Even on the Letters. 

Anonymity is golden, I said.  Especially in this town.  I’d say it’s worth coveting.

You’re mad.  Who’d want to be an unknown?  Not even your chums the Berrills, I’d attest, because for all their quirks they thrive on their infamy and attention and in the end would probably want it all to be revealed anyhow.  They’ll be happy with this, for all the misery it brings them.  Brings all of us. 

I don’t think so.  I’ve spoken to them.  They are shut-ins of the highest order. 

They had better stay that way from the look of it.  You saw those Gullivers in the pub last week.  And the parents.  They’re out for blood, I swear it.  Blood for blood.

I don’t quite get why.  It was the lad’s own dumb luck.  Ah sure to hell with that.  It was a big load of stupid on his behalf.  And him just got his degree, mind. 

You know my feelings about it ---

Actually, no, I don’t!  You haven’t said much ---

And that’s how it’s going to stay.  It’s getting dangerous round here.  This vigil on Saturday is going to get them even more riled up.

You know the Berrills, don’t you?

Sadly I do.  How on God’s good Earth did you wind up hanging with them two?

I don’t know, I broke his Wolf Man cup.  By accident. 

They are degenerates, you do know that? he said.  

I do not. 

Sexual heretics.

Now hold on, Lavery.  Where are you getting that from?

I mean, I can’t say I’ve witnessed them going at it myself, but I know right well how odd that pair are, and you don’t need to think too hard to acknowledge a brother and sister holed up together like that is clearly unseemly.

I’ve been round there a great many times in the last year and I’ve seen none of what you’re implying.  But all the same I wouldn’t call either of them normal by this town’s standards. 

Not by any standards accepted by any municipality in this fine nation.

You could tell he was very proud of himself for that sentence because he snorted like some esteemed beast afterwards.

There was a strange atmosphere about the town as I walked home that evening, much stranger than the usual strange which was strange like deep fried butter; this was strange like deep fried Horlicks – something unsettling and very unsafe about it.  There was a whiff in the air like someone had been lighting matches.  As if everyone had been lighting their matches.  And blowing them out.  Lighting again.  Blowing them out.  All over town.  And a birdlessness which was peculiar for that time of day, the sun still for the most part up.  I passed one person near the old school – Dessie Tiernan – who would normally give up a Hello if he saw you but on this occasion walked by without a word. 

I cannot lie I feared for my own self now, as well as for Oran and Phyllis, but more for myself, being as I was more seen and heard than those two and so easier to be grabbed on the street should someone move to bring violence.  The stomachache had meandered off over the course of the day but now it was back.  WHOMP!

I remembered the look on Caitriona’s face as I was leaving.  I had visibly upset her with my earlier meddling.  It was plain she had blabbed.  But I had blabbed too.  Poor Oran and Phyllis.  Poor all of us.  Give me a town where no one blabs.  A town where no cretin dies.  A town where nobody dies would be good.  But let’s protect the cretins first.  Because they have cretin families.  As one should know.  And they’ll grab you.  If you’re not careful. Or have one of their Gullivers grab you.  Probably.  Still, no death is ever good, as previously stated.  Dessie Tiernan probably away home to talk shit about me now.  What did I do?  Apart from act as a go-between.  What?  A person can’t be a go-between anymore.  But at least I was valued for my spelling and checking skills.  Which was good to know.