Shameless Words

A New Painting

2011-07-28T19:47:00.001+02:00

A Little Musical Journey

2010-12-06T13:40:00.006+01:00

Photos of Seoul, South Korea, set to an original piano composition, "Song for Sunglim", written and performed by Seamus Kearney.

A New Short Story

2010-10-14T02:25:00.003+02:00

I watched him from what I hoped would be a safe distance, as he said goodnight to the doorman, all smiles and bonhomie from behind his tidy beard and moustache. Who would’ve thought that he could look so amiable? He had a stack of papers under one arm, most likely manuscripts, to which he would probably only devote a couple of distracted minutes before bedtime. His other arm had not yet properly found its place in his jacket, which was only half on, making him tilt to one side, like a glider in trouble, jabbing his empty sleeve towards the pavement. Then, at last, Gerald P. Cossack was ready to walk. But even when he did break into his stride, he remained terribly stilted somehow. He put his head down and made his way, as I’d hoped, towards Union Square.

Now listen up if you can hear me! Trees can cackle like old women, Mr. Cossack, if the wind is right and the leaves are brittle enough. Yes, they can. Do you hear me? And ‘that’ instead of ‘which’? Really? In this day and age, when they have become so interchangeable? Oh, you are such an old stick in the mud. Just look at you! I would be laughing if you hadn’t made me cry so raw. And so what if I had the one-way traffic in that bloody London street hurtling away from the river and not towards it. Who cares? Who really cares? Should we stub somebody out because of it? I may have carried out a little bit of literary vandalism with all of those unnecessary adverbs. Granted. But this is what I’d like to say, firmly, passionately and convincingly: nobody died because of it.

I followed him for a couple of blocks, careful to stop and stare into a shop window whenever I thought there might be a risk of him turning around and looking my way. I had actually expected someone taller, with more of a manly frame, going on the photo I’d seen in The New York Times. I noticed his bizarre gait: one of his feet turned inwards as it landed on the pavement. A child might walk like that, until his parents pulled him up on it. One would hope that any decent mother or father would force their child to straighten up the feet and always keep an eye on them. But poor old Cossack might not have had such caring parents. Actually, maybe he didn’t even have parents.

Looking increasingly clumsy and vacant, he almost crossed a busy junction where the little man (or is it a woman?) had not yet turned green. A taxi driver yelled out. A cyclist swerved and swore. A drunk laughed. It was hard to believe this was actually the same Cossack who commanded so much power, who could ruin someone’s life with the tiniest squirt of ink from his pen. Getting closer behind him, I saw long white stains across his denim jeans and jacket, the kinds of marks left behind from sloppy washing. Was there no one at home to look after him? Had no one ever told him that a man of his age should no longer attempt to wear denim? How terribly sad.

As I’d hoped, he turned into the dim, narrow bar where I’d first observed him the week before. I stood at the door and watched his lazy progress, taking the opportunity to pull the fringe of my blonde wig further down over my eyes, just in case he was good at faces, profiles, familiar roman noses. He took the same seat, over beside a display of Marilyn Munroe memorabilia. He shook hands and patted backs, and I heard his voice for the first time as he greeted a couple of people. He had a southern accent, with a deep, rumbling quality. Here he was obviously liked and he felt at ease. I heard him order the same “blanche” he’d ordered the week before, which I discovered was a very transparent-looking beer from Belgium. No simple Bud for this man. No, Sir. He made no attempt to wipe the foam off his moustache after the first sip. He closed his eyes and let his body sink down into a deep sigh. How clichéd he looked. Bereft of striking characteristics of his own, to make us want to get to know him. What bloody work this man would be to flesh out.

I took a seat a few tables away, keeping my chin close to my chest, trying not to draw attention to myself. I ordered a glass of Italian red when the barman finally came over. He briefly looked down at my stomach, and I thought for a moment that maybe he’d noticed what I’d so carefully hidden. I almost stood up in a panic. But then he walked back over to the bar, seemingly unconcerned, wiping a few tables on the way. I kept my eyes fixed on the clock on the far wall and touched my middle, making sure everything was still safely in place, and then pinched at my blouse near the bottom to make it puff up. The silkiness felt wet. Was I sweating?

I took a gulp of the wine, which was way too warm, and let it flood the bottom of my mouth. I froze the muscles in my face and let the wine slowly leak down the back of my throat. I took out the last letter he’d sent me, the one that had brought our exciting 12-month exchange to a savage halt. What I will maintain, if I am ever called upon to explain things, is that Cossack had teased me unnecessarily – cruelly, in fact. He had cajoled me into a hypnotic dance, and I’d been stupid to believe that it was safe enough to reveal my nakedness, my vulnerability. It was difficult to read the words again, but I had to be reminded of how they had cut me down. The word dearest, in subsequent re-readings, had made me violently ill.

Dearest Francis,

I am so sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Although I was
optimistic after reading your tenth (!!!) rewrite, I am still
not satisfied with how the book has developed. The overall
theme is brilliant, and once again in this latest version you
had me hooked at the start, causing me to ask: 'Could
something like this really take place?'

Sadly, however, after all these months, I didn't really care.
I feel that where you have gone wrong is that you have not
drawn your character well enough, not made him sympathetic
enough. His head is not a pleasant place for us to be in and
we are caught in his dark thoughts for longer than one can
bear. (Do we also have to have so many descriptions of things
and all those quirky observations?).

When I finished your manuscript I found that I thoroughly
disliked your protagonist. I also didn’t care about him or
what he did. Also, your sunny ending was terribly contrived
and came out of nowhere. Actually, I feel that what you have
here is a terrific short story shackled inside a novel that is
far too long and arduous. Less shade, more colour?

I regret having to write this to you because you are such a
competent, proven writer. However, I believe that you need to
accept the fact that you had a wonderful premise but just
didn’t make the most of it. Of course, not all novels should
have nice characters, but here there is not even one!

I’m truly sorry that I didn’t see all of this before, when we
asked you to rewrite those difficult passages. It’s possible
that I did spot these problems, but I suppose I just hoped
deep down that you would find a way out of the mess. This is
just my own point of view, of course, and someone else may
arrive at a different opinion entirely. However, I hope you
understand my position when I say that I am passing on this
book. I would stress, though, that I still think the world of
you as a writer.

Shall I pop the MS in the post, or should I place it in the
recycling bin? Please don’t take this too personally. After
all, honesty is the best policy.

Kind regards,

Gerald P. Cossack.

Well, even though everything else in my life had turned hazy, it was perfectly clear to me that Cossack had to pay. It was out of the question that I would let him write that, after all I’d been through, without him suffering like he knew that I would suffer. Even if he had a point or two, and I’m happy to acknowledge it, there was no excuse for that kind of devastating letter. I no longer cared about the consequences. At his expense, I would feel life fill me up again.

I’d never found the courage to show that letter to anyone. I kept it folded up inside my bag, taking it out to reread dozens of times, during my desperate drives into the countryside, when I sat in those cafés along the coast, not wanting to return home. I told the more persistent of my friends that the publishers had fallen on hard times, forced to cut back on the number of books they printed. Yeah, right.

But everyone kept on at me: when would my second book be coming out, the one that I’d been struggling with for two years, which had required me to go on expensive writing retreats and even “escapes” to Paris and then Montreal? I locked myself away to avoid the piercing inquiries. As though my whole existence depended on the publication of another damn book! No one asked how I was, or how anything else in my life was; it was just the bloody book! I referred to it as my difficult second birth. People stopped praising me on my first novel, which had sold a respectable number, but just kept badgering me about the absence of the follow-up. Do you know that I’ve taken up cooking? I asked in desperation. Italian cuisine. Traditional. I won a prize in this contest, but I suppose you don’t want to hear about that. Didn’t think so. I also play the clarinet quite well. Also, I’m learning how to arrange flowers.

‘Do you mind if I sit here,’ I said. He hadn’t noticed me cross the bar, even though my feet seemed to make horrendous thuds on the unvarnished wooden boards.

‘Go ahead. No one else is sitting there.’

I examined his face as he glanced up, to check for any hint of recognition. Nothing, though. His eyes, watery and slightly pocked, went back to a crossword. Those horrid, rheumy eyes of his. That was a line from the book.

‘It’s awfully hot in here,’ I said.

Nothing. He just gently tapped his fingers on the table, apparently waiting for a stubborn word to move forward from the back of his mind. The smell of fries, mustard and sausages filled the bar, and then I saw a plate being whisked off to someone near the back.

I had already figured that the chances of Cossack recognising me when I got up close were slim. When they published my first book they’d put a small photograph of me on the back cover, but it was a black and white, and my hair had been gelled back behind my ears. (My mother said that I’d come across as severe and unfriendly, and nobody would want to buy the book, no matter how good it was.) Also, I had only met Cossack briefly when the contract for the first novel had been signed. I’d been told that he only really gets to know his authors in person after their third or fourth babies.

I squeezed my thumb and said, ‘Are you drinking alone?’

He didn’t look up. ‘Alone is not really the word.’

‘Oh?’

He kept his eyes on his crossword. ‘The bar is full. Even if I were having this drink in my own company, it’s not alone.’

I needn’t have been surprised by his rudeness. Really. Anyone who knows even the slightest thing about him would’ve expected something like that.

I decided to get things moving. Conflict. Action. Resolution.

‘I just thought you looked like someone who could do with some company.’

He looked up at me then. His mouth opened some time before the word came out. ‘Company?’

He gave each syllable an unusual stress, with a deliberate, slow beat. Cum-pa-nee. The sound seemed to come up from deep in his stomach. It made me think of the beginning of Lolita.

‘Do I know you?’ he asked.

‘Just like we’re never really alone, we never really know anyone, do we?’

He smiled. ‘Well, if you’ve really got nowhere else to sit.’ He pushed the paper to the end of the table and looked down at my breasts, as I’d hoped he would. I pulled in my stomach and pushed both shoulders forward, slightly wiggling them; I didn’t want to make it too obvious, but just enough for him to notice.

I realised at that point that I could not go back. I had already passed the most risky moment, and I had told myself that sitting down at the table with him would be the confirmation that I would go ahead with my abominable act. I would risk everything, and it didn’t seem to matter anymore. I was now a character in my own crime novel. I knew that if I ever had to later confide in someone about what happened this would be the moment I would remember the most. Poor old Cossack was well and truly hooked, just as he’d seemed to be with my novel. No chance of getting away, the poor sod.

‘So what do you do?’ he said.

I leant forward slightly. ‘Do you mean when I’m working, or when I’m playing?’

He sat back and chuckled, shaking his head.

I pulled out the chair and sat down, careful to ensure that there was no risk of my surprise slipping into view.

He said, ‘Do you often just chat to men in late-night bars?’

‘All the time. I’m interested in people. In their stories. In how they survive this funny old life. How they see their place in the world. I like to create surprises in my life, like a twist, the unexpected.’

‘Oh.’ He looked down at my breasts again.

‘I’m really into people’s stories.’

‘You sound like a social worker.’

‘More of an artist, but I suppose it’s like being a social worker.’

‘An artist? Do you mean a painter?’

‘Kind of. I do like to portray people, work out what colours and shade and textures are needed to create them.’

He took another mouthful of beer and I could see him discreetly checking me out again. A deeper discussion about colour and light was not really what interested him, which is exactly how I wanted things to go. I tried to imagine what look would come over his face when he realised what he had coming to him.

‘So what do you do,’ I asked.

‘I ... I make people ... but I also ruin people.’

I had to force myself to stay still, to suppress the shriek that wanted to fly out of my chest. ‘Really?’

‘It’s a terrible job.’ He shook his head, but then stopped and looked me straight in the eyes. ‘But there’s also pleasure in it. A power thing, I suppose. Decisions about whether someone is somebody or nobody. Funny, isn’t it?’

I folded my arms, to stop myself from trembling with rage. I had to stay calm. Action. Dialogue. Resolution. Nobody is nobody. Everybody is somebody. I looked straight back at him and said, ‘There’s a little hotel, just across the street.’

His eyes opened wide and he tightened his grip on his glass. He looked down at the table.

‘The room’s a little bit basic, but it’s very clean,’ I said, far too enthusiastically.

‘What are you saying?’

‘Oh, I’m just trying to paint a new situation. Anything wrong with that? Am I being too direct?’

‘It’s just all very sudden. I mean ... I don’t even know you.’

‘And I don’t know you. Isn’t that exciting?’ I stood up and nodded towards the exit.

The confidence had all but disappeared from his face. He now looked like a nervous high school kid, scared of deciding things for himself. Oh, how quickly we can change. But then, how wonderful to be able to mould a sequence of new events like this, to pull someone towards a conclusion that is not of their own choosing.

He followed me, not straight away, but a few minutes later. I was about 30 metres ahead of him the whole time, and I only had to look back once to make sure he was still there. I waited inside the lift in the hotel, my finger resting firmly on the button that kept the doors open. I’d already told the receptionist that I had a guest arriving, who was just finding a park down the street.

Cossack smiled nervously as he eventually stepped into the lift. ‘I’m a married man.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘And I’m old enough to be your father.’

‘I still don’t care.’ I twisted a finger around a curl in my wig.

‘I’ve never really done this before,’ he said, shaking his head and looking at the floor. ‘But I must say that I find it very compelling. I suppose I’ll have to pay. Is that it?’

‘No. Well, not with money.’

He looked at me blankly.

‘This is new for me, too,’ I said. ‘Sometimes we have no choice, though. Sometimes we just have to go along with things. It’s just how things develop.’

I placed my hand on the small of his back and guided him into the room. He took such small steps, as though he were blindfolded, expecting to crash into some obstacle. I told him to help himself to the choice of small bottles of alcohol in the fridge, which the receptionist had made a point of telling me about. I prepared some glasses and closed the curtains. The bed was massive, covered in a brown and cream duvet with matching cushions. Above the bed was a large painting of an elderly man on a bicycle. I dared not smile.

He poured us both a whisky and coke and added ice cubes. ‘I didn’t think this could happen to someone my age. How very lucky to have stopped off for a drink tonight.’

‘Yes, how very lucky. I just couldn’t help myself.’

‘What do you like,’ he asked, sitting down in an armchair. He now looked more at ease, starting to look cocky even.

‘Everything,’ I said. ‘Your pleasure is my pleasure.’ I took a sip of the drink.

‘Everything?’

‘I want you to devour me. I want to lose myself in your heat and sweat.’

He beamed a teenager’s grin and sat back with his legs wide apart. He gulped his drink in one go.

I sat down on the edge of the dresser. It was too soon for action, too soon to reveal my true intentions. I went over again what I had planned. I didn’t want anything to go wrong. I had no back-up plan.

‘You’re intriguing,’ he said.

‘Take off your clothes. I want to see you naked.’

‘Now? Just like that?’

‘Why not? Let’s get down to it. Let’s cut to the chase, as they say.’

‘You seem in a mighty hurry.’

‘I have no time to waste. I have a whole life ahead of me, a whole life to lead.’

‘A whole life to lead?’

‘Being stringed along is not good for anyone.’

He stood up and started to unbutton his shirt, from the bottom up, which I thought was kind of odd. I’d only ever seen men loosen their buttons from the top down. The little things we notice. We can’t help ourselves, can we? Always on the look out for the dinky little details we can sprinkle throughout our cruel observations. Even at times of great stress.

‘I thought you might want to rip my clothes off me,’ he said.

My hands started shaking when I saw myself in the mirror opposite. I was actually doing it. There I was. No mistake. A dream it definitely wasn’t. The adverbs were there in front of me; there was no point in trying to stop them in their flow. He moved awkwardly. She pouted sexily, or at least she attempted to. The bed rose eerily into the air. Figuratively, of course.

He was naked. His skin was tanned, though sagging. Grey hair. His private parts crumpled up. No one could be more vulnerable. All power and pretence had left him. The eyes were less willing to engage.

I reached inside my blouse and took out the packet that I’d so carefully wrapped. I placed it on the table.

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a weapon.’

‘A weapon?’

I laughed. Loudly. I pointed. I put such effort into my laughing that it hurt across my chest. ‘Goodness. You think I might find a body like that attractive? Are you serious?’ I made it so tears mixed in with my roars of laughter.

‘What is this?’ He put his hand on the back of a chair.

‘It’s you. You are just so disappointing. Just look at the state of you. Do you really believe anyone would want you?’

‘What’s in the package? I don’t understand.’ He took a step back, his eyes scouring the room. Checking for possible escape routes?

‘Can I just say that I was optimistic after seeing you there in that bar, but I’m just not satisfied with how things have developed. You seemed so brilliant, so stunning, so sexy. You had me hooked. But just look at you! I’m sorry I didn’t see all of this before, but I hope you understand my position when I say that I’m going to have to say ... no thanks. Please don’t take it too personally. After all, honesty is the best policy.’

His blinking got faster. He went to speak, but nothing came out.

When I walked out of the hotel I still had a clear image of his bulging eyes, his trembling hands. I pictured him carefully opening the packet, still naked, and then the boom. The explosion inside his head when he realised what he had in his hands. No doubt, in the weeks that followed, he would’ve been absolutely sick watching that oh-so-familiar book rise to number one, in all its original glory, all of the culling reversed. Heavy on adverbs. The cackling trees replanted. Did he sit down and read the shiny reviews? One thing is sure: he won’t ever tell anyone the exact details of how he received his signed advance copy.

© Copyright, 2010. Seamus Kearney. Less Shade, More Colour.

A 9/11 Remembrance Poem

2010-08-08T00:07:00.000+02:00

To mark the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the US, and as a tribute to all of the victims and their families, I'd like to republish this memorial poem I wrote back in 2006: Will they just one day forget? I think it becomes more and more relevant as the years go by.

the same breathless questions
shooting out through the night
agony's very own untiring voice
fingerprints on endless websites
hit replay, hit replay, hit replay
2417 visits in three cold months

smoke, approaching, screaming,
explosion, screaming, falling
dust, panic, where is he today?
oh my God, oh sweet Jesus!
what did he say this morning?
where did he say he was going?

grainy pictures make a shrine
visitors stop their enquiries
no one answers the little boy
so what was it all for then?
who won what in the end?
is anyone else better off?

does anyone cry for my daddy?
did they know he'd be there?
why did he stay to help others?
way way up on the 92nd floor
will I ever get any answers?
will they just one day forget?

© Copyright, 2009. Seamus Kearney. A 9/11 remembrance poem.

Another Recent Short Story

2010-03-18T21:06:00.012+01:00

Norman Parker watched himself on the evening news, annoyed that he’d grinned at the camera in a way he never intended. He saw himself as an impostor, having a grand old time at playing the man of the moment, his minders hotfooting him through a crowd of frantic reporters. ‘Good to see you. Thank you for coming.’ He knew he looked ghastly. He’d become that institutional thing that flashes by on the screen: an unbreakable suit, vanishing grey hair, a round face of feverish red. ‘Kind of you to show so much concern.’ His ballooning stomach pushed his tie almost out to a right angle.

What he did like about the latest footage - filmed as he was trying to slip back into his hotel - was the image of an elderly woman cleaner in the background, just carrying on polishing the windows of the plush foyer. She stayed straight-faced, spraying and wiping in an even rhythm, chewing gum, apparently oblivious to all of the hype.

The TV journalist rushed his words. ‘Norman Parker is refusing to comment on his failure to attend the first day of this all-important conference. But senior sources tell me there is no doubt it’s due to Mr Parker’s matrimonial problems.’

Then, from nowhere, a cheap-looking advert for a new seaside retirement village filled the screen. The residents looked so pleased to have finally found happiness, playing golf under the shocking red of summer blossoms. Norman ripped out the plug.

His deodorant was starting to fail him, warmed up into treacle under his arms, giving off that half-sweat, half-perfume odour. Was it too soon after the last cigarette to have another one? The camel on the packet just kept on walking through the empty, sweltering desert. It had been with him for years, always there when he needed relief. He hunched over near the window, depressed about how quickly the darkness had arrived with a cover of frost. He persisted with a large bottle of South African whisky, even though he found it had a disagreeable aftertaste. What he desperately wanted to hear were leopard-skin drums and charging female elephants.

He also wanted rid of his clothes, as he had the feeling they were tightening their grip on his wrists and ankles. He was surprised at how easily they slid off when he tugged at them. The room spun like a fairground carousel. A madman in charge of the pedal. No chance to jump off and make a run for it. He started jumping up and down. ‘Wowayow! Wowayow!’ His snorts of pleasure were new to him, but why was that not allowed? Who said he had to restrain himself at all times? He trampled on the clothes with vigour, causing a silver button to pop off and fly across the room.

The excitement didn’t last long, though. ‘My goodness,’ he said. ‘What an absolute fall from the sky!’ For the fourth time in half an hour he checked the door of his room, to be absolutely sure it was locked.

He rubbed his thumb over a small photograph of Joyce, taken at a time when her hair fell long behind her back, before she’d needed to start colouring it burgundy to hide the grey. He poured some more whisky and supped it viciously. He got hold of his glass and fixed his face down on the rim, creating suction, his nose right inside, almost touching the alcohol. He slowly breathed it in - smelling it seemed almost important as drinking it – then cradled the goblet above his head to see his warped, mischievous reflection.

He looked down at his naked front and pretended he had an audience, his hands on his hips. ‘Heavens! Billy belly way too broad. But am I not just a little bit desirable? No? Not just a little bit adorable as I turn and show you my ass, once so beautiful like the moon?’

A tinny voice rang out. ‘Do you need something, Sir?’

Norman’s eyes froze on the black box on his dresser. ‘Jesus!’ He’d forgotten to turn off the radio link with members of his team on the next floor up. ‘Heavens, no. I mean, I’m fine. Thank you.’

‘We’re going to turn in if that’s alright.’

‘Absolutely. Please don’t stay up on my account.’

Making low-level noises in his throat, he sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed his feet together, letting the nails dig in, catching rough skin as he curled and then spread out his toes. He plugged the television back in and slumped down in front of a live performance of U2. One song in particular made him cry enough to fill a basin.

* * *

He tried his best to sound composed when he got on the phone to his driver. ‘Just a little tour along the waterfront. I feel so confined here. You don’t mind, do you?’ Norman knew the poor man was enjoying his favourite beer and a game of poker with some of the hotel staff.

‘Of course not, sir.’ The driver’s voice was mellow and reliable.

‘I hope we still have some of that Irish whisky in the car. We’re thankfully out of that South African stuff.’

Norman gathered together all of the newspapers that had blackened his hands and placed them in his satchel. He phoned his security staff and told them he needed some space: no need to clear roads or organise a singing and dancing escort.

He concentrated on his walking and got the lift down to the lobby. Everything still ached, despite the attempt to soak his muscles in liquor. Things became slightly misty as he walked, as though a thin veil covered his eyes.

The regal car pulled up in front of him, the headlights making him flinch. The two small flags at the front were folded around on themselves, the wind too icy to allow them to wave. He knocked his head slightly as he got in. ‘I need some space to read through all this stuff,’ he said to his driver.

He lay out the newspapers on the tray in front of him.

‘Anywhere in particular?’ The driver smoothed down his thick moustache, which loomed large on his skeletal face.

‘Let’s just drive’ said Norman. He caught sight of his own sullen face staring up from the papers. He wasn’t at all surprised by the media sensation: it was like a bird with only one wing had been thrown to a pack of wild dogs.

‘You’re helping sell a lot of papers today,’ said the driver.

Norman looked down at one of the headlines: PARKER SEPARATES FROM JOYCE

‘You just sit back, sir. It may be windy, but it’s a perfect night for a drive.’ He put on some melancholic Brahms.

‘They always use the most ridiculous and unflattering profiles, the ones that make me look inept and dreamy.’

‘That’s their job, sir.’

Norman knew that nothing could be done with his basic ingredients: bloated grey face; eyes underlined with what looked like smudges of ash; incredibly fine white hair, haphazardly pasted around the side of his dented head. The relationship with the media had always been a sore one, and it didn’t help when that big overseas paper referred to him as Norman ‘Porker’. He’d been promised it was nothing more than a typo, but the damage had been enormous, to say the least.

They drove past a deserted container terminal, where large stevedoring cranes stood about like docile, alien creatures. The wind slammed hard against the trees along the waterfront, pushing some of the smaller ones sideways. The sea splashed up over the railings.

Norman noticed that the headline had only used his last name, while his wife had been accorded the honour of being referred to by her first name. By simply being referred to as Joyce, she suddenly became the mother of the nation, worthy of sympathy. He read the headline out loud a few times, putting heavy stress on the word ‘separates’.

The driver looked at him with wide eyes through the rear vision mirror. ‘Do you want to stop off at the lighthouse?’

‘That would be nice.’ He remembered paddling there when he was a child, and thinking how wonderful it was to have sand, shells and changing sheds so close to the city centre. The beach was deserted when they pulled up, and the light from the moon revealed the water peeled way back from the shore. He could just make out a dinghy lying on its side in the mud, while birds with beautiful long legs were just visible, bobbing along in search of food. How could creatures like that live in such a busy place?

‘Are you going to get out, sir?’

‘Not here. Too many cars going past.’

Norman took out his diary to record some notes: the columnists, the exact phrases, the names of the papers, the page numbers. It gave him some kind of satisfaction to know he was able to gather it all together, analyse it, have some kind of control over the words. His eyes burned into the article that enraged him the most, the one that spelled out the misery of what he’d written to Joyce the Tuesday before. He’d agonised over it, and had even considered asking his speech writer to touch it up and take out the parts that were bound to cause trouble and pain. He’d battled on, though, started and restarted, made five attempts at writing it out by hand, but then finally settled on a typed version. Three hours later, with sore hands and heavy eyes, he’d finally risen from his desk, knowing there was no chance of making the final draft read any better.

With the Academic Festival Overture in C playing behind his head, Norman read through the now very public copy of his letter.

Joyce,

It is with great sadness that I type this letter to you
tonight, the anniversary of our first ever date. I asked you
about that day only last month, but you seemed unable to
recall even the slightest detail. I told myself you
were just punishing me for what has become of our lives. I
truly believed we were happy then, when we told each other the
names of all the children we were going to have. Is it so
wrong to want to remember that time, to try to understand how
that kind of beginning can lead to this kind of ending? I
realise now that having a family was something paramount for
me, a wish I thought you shared. I’ve been pretending it
didn’t really matter. I fear I’m writing this and you will
never really understand - just another missive from an over-
reactive Norman. I could go on fighting, but I know you have
long given up your corner. A few months ago you said: Love is
a word for dreamers, and I’m not going to live in a dream
world. You’re right. I cannot pretend we have a reason to stay
together. The surprising events of the past few years have
changed me, as I am sure they have changed you. It all seems
like madness, I know, to upset this life that seems so perfect
now, but you will thank me one day. I give you back your life,
Joyce. I will always love you and I will always continue to
dream.

Yours, Norman.

Tears made their way down his cheeks.

‘Not too loud?’ asked the driver.

‘Louder if you want. Let’s continue further along the coast.’

How had Joyce been able to hand over such a personal letter to a journalist? ‘One can only imagine,’ howled the paper, ‘how desperate the situation must have become when Mr Parker’s wife felt that her only remaining option was to call up a newspaper and share her sorrow with strangers.’

Norman then noticed a photo stuck to the dashboard. It showed a gracious woman and two handsome children. ‘Is that your wife and kids?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Very fine looking.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Norman felt ill. The children in the photo now frightened him, standing beside their awkwardly seated parents, with not a hint of a smile on any of their faces, the worry of the legacies they would have to follow etched on their foreheads. Somehow the little boy and girl seemed like ghosts, as if they weren’t really there.

‘Are you okay, sir?’

He told the driver to return to the hotel at once. He kept his eyes on the pavement and the cars parked along the route back to the city. He was convinced the children might disappear from the image if he dared return their gaze.

* * *

Back in his room, Norman looked around for something to keep his mind focused. But the next moment he again found himself being driven by something stronger than his own will. He lay on his back in the middle of the floor, in the shape of a magnificent star, arms and legs stretched out as far as they could go, sharp pain in his muscles and joints, his head filled with nervous, pumping blood. He couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed, but he knew he was moving; the carpet burned his arms and legs. The whole episode - complete with heavy breathing, fits of uncontrollable laughter and then uncontrollable crying - lasted no more than a couple of minutes. Then he stood up and stared at nothing with great intensity.

After about five minutes the newspapers came back into focus and he was able to dress, putting on what he liked to refer to as his armour: a black Savile Row suit. Instead of reaching into his case for his usual one-colour tie, however, he zipped open the small compartment at the side and felt around for his colourful bow ties. He found one with streaks of silver and gold. It was much more original than the fusty, traditional tie, and was something that could maintain the smile when the wearer was not in the mood. He got on the phone and asked for food and more cigarettes, plus an urgent meeting with his team.

Norman’s men arrived one by one, and he could see their septic eyes snatching glances at his suit and bow tie. ‘Who says I can’t look smart late at night?’

‘God, they have a cheek,’ said one of his staff, in reply to a query about what the tone of the media had been. ‘This is a private matter and has no bearing on the workings of the big machine!’

‘Except I fear the workings of the big machine do depend on the workings of me,’ said Norman. He pushed his fingers hard into his closed eyes.

He smoked by the window and spent a few minutes appraising the seven men before him. He didn’t like them and couldn’t trust them. He often felt as though their hands were slipping into his pockets or reaching up inside his jacket when he wasn’t looking, feeling around for something secret. He even dreamed they had the ability to slide their arms into his body, with their hands gloved and lubricated, gaining access through thin openings in his thighs, able to feel around for signs of indecision or incompetence.

He helped himself to the tapenade, chicken and blue cheese that had been brought up to his room, and then looked down at the carpet, where only minutes before he’d pretended to be a starfish. ‘We just have to keep our heads together and move forward. That’s why I’m going to the conference tomorrow.’

‘Wonderful,’ said one of the men.

Norman could only focus for a couple of minutes on the debate that followed. After a while he looked up to see the men staring at him, waiting for an answer to a question. ‘Goodnight gentlemen. I think sleep is the answer.’

All but one of them departed.

Norman pretended to be sorting through papers on his desk, his back to his most senior advisor.

‘What a bloody mess, Norman. What were you thinking?’

‘I can tell you this dream I’ve been having lately, if that’s any help. I’m at the top of this snow-covered mountain, walking along a thin path in a blizzard, with sharp drops on either side, attached by rope to these other climbers, like a row of convicts walking along an icy tightrope. If I slip, we all fall together. But it’s me I’m worried about, not the skill of the others.’

‘I see.’

‘It’s impossible to take those simple steps, knowing how easy it would be to slip and fall to a terrible death. I stay like that and there’s nothing anyone can do, because the path is too narrow for anyone to double back or go forward to help me.’

‘I see.’ The man opened his eyes wide.

‘But don’t worry about it,’ said Norman. ‘It’s only a dream.’ He went over to the window and felt the silkiness of the curtains. He wanted to pull them down and cover himself.

‘Well, that’s all very well, but the public really does need to know that you’re strong.’ The man wore slippers beneath his fleece and jeans, his ginger hair flat on one side, his eyes puffy.

‘It was something small that did it, but I’m not sure you’d understand.’

‘Try me.’

Norman turned around to face him. ‘It’s the thing about not having children. I’ve tried blocking it out. But then she wanted her own room. You know there’s been nothing for a long time. Just dry kisses, which have slowly moved away from my lips to my cheeks.’

The man folded his arms. ‘I’ve been in a single bed next to my wife for years. You just need to find other pleasures like the rest of us.’

Norman looked out the window. ‘It’s also that I’m here in the best darn position one could imagine, and yet what I’m consumed by is the need for something very basic.’

The man was gone. Nothing else shared. No attempt to console. Norman felt more alone than ever. He undressed lazily and crawled into bed, curling up into a small ball, just like he used to do when he was a child.

* * *

He came to with a start the next morning and felt considerably better. He shaved and took a shower and slipped into another one of his suits hanging behind the door. This time he put on a normal tie with stripes of mauve and brown.

He checked that his personal notes were secure in his briefcase and then rang the hotel reception to announce he was ready to be picked up. But as he placed his hand on the door handle, he suddenly felt the urge to yell out, to say something absolutely crazy. He stood there quietly, his head down towards the carpet, his briefcase feeling foreign in his hand. Then, coming from nowhere, he pictured himself walking to the conference in an old pair of slippers, shorts and a singlet.

He walked down the corridor, still enjoying his vision. He shook hands with several of his colleagues waiting down the hall. ‘Did you hear me yell out the word bugger just now?’ he asked his personal secretary. ‘I could swear that just now, just before I opened the door to leave my room, I yelled out the word bugger. Are you sure you didn’t hear me?’

On arrival at the conference venue, he had to push his way through the journalists and photographers gathered like hungry sparrows. This time he tried not to grin. He almost stopped to speak to the young TV reporter who’d been such an expert on his absence the day before, but he remembered what his team had advised him. ‘Thank you for coming.’ He closed his fists even tighter, knowing his mouth was lifting at the sides.

He gulped with relief when he got inside the warmth of the conference centre. Down a corridor he saw what he presumed to be members of the choir due to perform later in the day. They were dressed in what looked like medieval costumes, with colourful, frilly skirts that seemed to rise and move on their own. Several of the men and women got excited when they spotted him, giggling themselves into huddles. He gave them a wave. ‘Morning!’

‘Hello, Mr Parker,’ yelled a young boy with a ducktail haircut, and who must have only been about six or seven. ‘I’m going to sing you a song,’ he said, before being hushed by his mother. The small lad’s chubby cheeks rose up and covered his eyes.

‘Good for you,’ said Norman.

The chairman greeted him with a slap on the back. ‘There’s apparently a crisis, if we believe what we see on the television.’

Norman wondered if he really was expected to say something. ‘No comment. Thank you for coming.’

The chairman laughed, but Norman could hear it was forced. Above his head, along some small windows in the ceiling, he saw a tiny bird thump into the glass. A sparrow? He wondered if it had been injured, or had managed to resume its flight.

He was taken through to a large hall where special teams had started work on strategies for the coming year.

‘We’ve scheduled your speech in for eleven o’clock,’ the chairman said quietly. He had a small stain on the sleeve of his cheap brown suit, which he’d been wearing since the 80s. Big flakes of dandruff were visible along his thinning hairline.

‘I’m very much looking forward to it,’ said Norman.

The chairman coughed. ‘I don’t think it would hurt to ... to refer to this thing with Joyce as well.’

Norman looked around to see where he might be able to get an alcoholic drink. He was concerned he might not be able to cope with all the faces and just find himself reduced to flummery. He opened his briefcase to ensure his speech, mostly written by his aides, was in order. He didn’t have a clue what he could say about his separation.

He was invited to sit in on one of the committee meetings. When he entered the room the delegates went quiet and looked him over for signs of disorder. He returned his gaze to the chairman, convinced that tears would come to his eyes. He took a seat near the back of the room, still avoiding any direct eye contact with the 30 or so delegates. The chairman left Norman on his own, telling him he would come back to fetch him a little later.

His legs started to go numb and his head seemed to go cold. He could feel himself being catapulted somewhere else. This has never been this bad, he said to himself. He closed his eyes and tried to see if he could tune back into the dialogue around him. He heard nothing. He opened his eyes, but found the lights too bright to handle. How will I ever turn this around? He felt his lips shrivel, the bottom one dividing up into little individual sections, like the holes in a harmonica.

At that moment he would’ve loved a reliable, wet whisky. He tried to open his eyes again. This time, though, he couldn’t even find the energy to move the muscles in his eyelids. He remembered moments over the previous few months when people with complex problems had looked up to him for leadership and wisdom. They read his silence as the sign of a great mind engaged in the search for a greater understanding, not realising that he’d simply been chewing over some trivial matter. The intermittent fluttering of the lashes? The widening and sharpening of the eyes? The slight raising of the head? He was simply being misread.

The low hum of the delegates became audible again and then someone whispered in his ear. ‘You dropped this at the door, Mr. Parker.’ A young blonde woman, whom he recognised from previous conferences, placed a folded-up piece of A4 on his knee. She was already gone before he could say thank you. He opened the paper and saw the haiku poem he’d written earlier in the car. He read it again to check he’d counted the syllables correctly.

up the red carpet
into a cold, double life
down slippery steps

He thought it didn’t read too badly at all.

‘Any chance of a shot?’ he said to the elderly woman who seemed to be in charge of a refreshments trolley nearby. The deep hollows in her cheeks and the dark half-circles under her eyes shocked him. He wondered if he looked just as bad.

‘Of course, Norman,’ she said endearingly. ‘I thought they probably had something flash organised for you somewhere else.’ She sniggered behind a shaking hand.

He found it amusing that she felt comfortable using his first name, and he thought he’d match her cheekiness. ‘Don’t suppose you have something stronger?’

‘This hour of the day? Now wouldn’t that be nice.’ She winked and poured some coffee. ‘Here, this’ll give you strength for those pesky reporters.’

He could tell she was logging away their little chat, something she would probably tell her grandchildren: the day Norman Parker asked her for a hard drink in the morning.

Through the small glass panels in the door, he caught sight of the chairman having a discussion with a group of other officials, expressions of grave concern on their faces.

He took his place back on the plastic chair, knowing full well that eyes were following his every movement. The coffee was instant, with the taste of something that’s been sitting on an element for too long, but he hoped it would be enough to make him steelier.

The elderly woman stood over him again, three gold teeth shining out from her smile. ‘You’re wanted outside, Norman.’ There was something winsome about her, something motherly and embracing. He thought it was a shame he couldn’t just chat with people like her. When he stepped out into the corridor, with its linoleum floor polished to excess, he saw his deputy had arrived as well. He bowled straight over to them, attempting to put a bounce in his step. ‘I see the military backup has arrived.’

His deputy said, ‘You look tired, my friend.’

‘Just a little.’

‘You fell asleep in there, which is terrible timing,’ said the chairman. ‘We’re trying to tell the world that everything’s all right.’ Some of his flakes of dandruff shifted precariously and threatened to tumble onto his face.

Norman was surprised to be spoken to like that. He reached out to shake his deputy’s hand.

‘Luckily you didn’t drop your little poem outside in the street,’ said the chairman. ‘The media would’ve had a field day.’

‘Didn’t you like it?’ asked Norman. He grinned.

The chairman lowered his eyes.

The deputy said, ‘I can always give the speech in your place.’ He smiled mechanically, rolling back on his heels.

Norman froze.

‘If it’s feeling a bit hectic, there’s no problem,’ the deputy added. He smelt of soap, with his dark hair looking freshly cut and styled. He sucked on some kind of mint. ‘You could give yourself more time to let all this die down.’

‘Yes,’ said the chairman. ‘Maybe it’s best you don’t do it.’

Norman felt his chest tighten. He frantically blinked, wondering how he could make himself seem more in control. There was a split second when he thought he might pass out. ‘Actually, I think I’d rather do it.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked the deputy.

‘Absolutely.’

The chairman and deputy exchanged a dark look, as if holding their breath, waiting for the other to talk first. At that very moment, though, someone came over to tell them that the main hall was ready for the address and the delegates had started taking their seats. The bustle became louder once the large doors to the main hall were opened, like big slabs of stone being hauled back to reveal a dark tomb. People scraped their chairs as word spread. At long last, Norman Parker would be making an address. He made a conscious effort to keep his lips together, tightened the noose around his neck and then let his feet lead the way.

© Copyright, 2010. Seamus Kearney. The Drunken Starfish.

A New Poem

2010-01-19T23:40:00.009+01:00

An elderly woman pointed, shaking
Help us! Ireland’s Eye is drowning!
Her trill echoed across all of Howth
The boy! The boy! Do something!
Sleeping dogs on a trawler stirred
People hurried to the harbour wall
Hands over mouths, eyes expanded
What was that? A boy’s in trouble?
One man already imagined a wake
But still no splashing could be seen

The waves rose in anger, thumping
No sirens yet in the town. The boy!
For the sake of heaven! Somebody!
The elderly woman fell to one knee
It’ll be too late! Just throw the boy!
A Dubliner pleaded. Where is he?
You need to show us exactly where!
Quiet attempts to console her failed
A young man came barging through
We’ll just have to try! I’m going in!

The crowd formed a line, searching
Ocean debris caused a girl to scream
Soggy chips discarded, plastic bags
The elderly woman grabbed at arms
I’m begging you! She is leaving us!
Martello Tower. Please rescue her!
Seabirds landed with petty squeals
Someone gently leaned into another
Her? I thought she said it was a boy
And throw the boy? Makes no sense

Heads came together, murmuring
A frail gentleman cleared his throat
Well, I heard something quite odd
She said the island was drowning
More sore eyes came in off the sea
Someone pointed to an orange ring
Life ring? Life buoy? Ah - the boy
A young woman in white appeared
What’s all this then? Another tale?
You’ll get all these folk in a panic

© Copyright, 2010. Seamus Kearney. Panic in Howth Harbour - a poem. Photograph of Howth Harbour by Seamus Kearney.

Another Recent Poem

2009-11-06T02:37:00.007+01:00

They breathe only to conquer Europe’s heaven,
those spry souls, hungry with mad adventure
Picks on raw shoulders, lips all but vanished
Are they hostage to her beauty, or her gloating?
For all the reminders of past frozen tragedies,
pleas from burning arms and legs are ignored

Faint lines of silence, attached like convicts,
with a heaviness of feet, lightness of head
Princess Mont Blanc waves her ancient crown
Just how did she earn such blind devotion?
They can be delayed, stranded at the Midday
Needle, but only until the storm passes

Mothers know little about the Alpine Loonies
They would faint to see those sharp drops,
their babies on icy tightropes, fast melting
And do they beckon French or Italian angels?
The impossible infants are now unreachable,
only looking up, no chance of going back

© Copyright, 2009. Seamus Kearney. The Alpine Loonies (a poem about Mont Blanc)

New Photos with Music

2009-09-26T00:03:00.012+02:00

Here's a video of some of the best photographs from our summer trip to Eastern Canada: "The Charm of Eastern Canada". The images are accompanied by one of my original piano compositions, "The Return to Acadia". Make sure your speakers are turned up and click the play button below. If it stops and starts at the beginning, give it a little bit of time to download. Enjoy!

Another Recent Short Story

2009-07-01T00:51:00.015+02:00

Alex felt guilty as he rolled out from beneath his Saturday morning sleep-in, scratching and rubbing a sore shoulder. Responsibility leaves no poor soul in peace, like a cat that constantly sails around the feet. He was pleased that he’d managed to snatch a few hours away from his three younger siblings, but now the day's certain labour had to be faced. Only two weeks after his 17th birthday, Alex had no time to even think about a normal teenage life.

In the living room, he surveyed the damage from the previous night. The children had been allowed peanuts and chips and overflowing glasses of soft drink. A screening from the Top Horror Films Of All Times collection had been promised all week, and Alex had spent the last of his gardening money on the rare supply of snacks. There would be plenty of time to vacuum before the Old Man returned from his three-week stint on the fishing boat.

Alex massaged his middle and thought about lunch. Thank goodness for the unlimited supply of TV dinners in the freezer! The pre-cooked meals, wrapped in tinfoil, were given to the Old Man on a regular basis by one of his drinking buddies - stolen from the hospital where he worked, but fell off the back of a lorry, if anyone asked. The corned beef with mustard was normally okay, but the cabbage and mince was decidedly dangerous. It was always battle stations in their delicate stomachs. The pain and unpleasant aftertaste could hang around for days.

On the way to the freezer, housed in a shed in the garden, Alex heard a deep male voice. He walked to the back of the section, doing his best to avoid the patches of slippery mud among the grass. He peered through the overgrown hedge and could just make out Toby’s red jumper. The Dutch man who lived there was asking where their father was, how often was he away from home, and why they weren't going to school every day? Toby, aged nine, didn't say too much. He just shrugged and pushed his fingers into his eyes. The little ones, David and Sasha, stood nearby.

Alex yelled out, walking back a wee way from the hedge. “Toby! David! Sasha!” He pretended not to know where they were.

“That must be Alexander,” said the neighbour. He jumped up and down, trying to raise his bald and freckled head above the hedge. “I would like to see you!” The man’s voice was stilted, a bit like the ones that come out of computers.

“What for?” Alex yelled into the hedge as if it were a huge microphone. He tried not to sound too rude. “Have they done something wrong?”

“No, no. Nothing like that,” said the man. “Do you want to come around and join us?”

Alex hesitated, but he knew he had no choice. He decided not to climb through the hole in the hedge, which Toby had made a few months earlier; that would've been asking for trouble. He walked out the front and then down the Dutch family’s driveway, noticing that only half their name was on their letterbox. The last letters had been scraped away and he wondered if the young ones could have done that. It said Van den ... and that was it.

As he made his way towards the neighbour's house, the problem became perfectly clear: the large plum tree in the corner of the children's property had been the source of the morning's entertainment. The Dutch family’s lawn was covered in plums, some rotten and some not ripe. The young ones had obviously hurled them over the hedge, and not just one or two. It was impossible to count the exact number, but there had been an absolute bombardment. This was no laughing matter. The plums also littered the family’s patio, with red patches all over the glass sliding doors.

Alex ran up to his younger brothers and sister. “Bloody hell, you guys!”

The wife arrived with a bucket and cloth. She was expressionless. A tiny thing in a yellow cardigan.

“I am really sorry about this," said Alex. "They know they're not allowed to do that.”

“Yes, I've already had a chat with them,” said the neighbour. He grinned and put his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “They tell me that you're looking after them, while your father's away for work."

"It's very hard to keep an eye on them."

"I was sorry to hear about your mother."

Alex looked down at the grass.

"But we have to be strong," said the man. "We can't let that destroy us."

"I really am sorry about the plums," said Alex, still looking down.

"Let's not say another word about it. I would like to invite the four of you to lunch.”

Alex raised his eyebrows. He wondered if he had heard right.

"How about it?"

Alex tried to think of an excuse. The gap proved to be dangerous.

“Great!" said the man. "You are very welcome."

The wife cleared away the last of the plums from the patio. The young ones nervously began to help pick some up off the lawn, but Mr Van-den-something signalled to them not to bother. “Just come inside and wash your hands.”

The young ones stared at their elder brother, waiting for permission. They knew they would be in trouble when they got home. Their little brains were addled. They'd been expecting to be shouted at. But it hadn't come. Not from Alex, who was too flustered to think, and not from Mr Van-den-something.

Alex led the way. He was not sure what to expect. All he could focus on were the hundreds of plums, which lay like wounded soldiers on a battlefield. Surely a price had to be paid.

The young ones looked silly sitting in a line on the sofa. Their faces were pale and they looked painfully sheepish. Alex felt embarrassed about their stained feet. Davie also had plum marks all around his mouth, and his hair resembled candy floss. Sasha had the demeanour of a grown-up. There was an unmistakable air of guilt across her face, but also a trace of arrogance and defiance. The children’s eyes were fixed downwards.

The inside of the house was very austere, with nothing special for roving and curious eyes to rest on. Just ordinary furniture. A few nondescript pictures on the walls.

“Did you know that only half your name is on your letterbox?” asked Alex. It seemed like the best way to break the silence, but then he realised it raised a bigger question.

“Yes. We don’t know who did that." Mr Van-den-something did not look up as he put place mats and cutlery on the table.

“I only just noticed it,” said Alex.

Mr Van-den-something gave a small resigned smile. "My wife won't be long. She's in the kitchen preparing lunch."

"Thank you," said Alex.

"Our name is actually Van den Burgh."

“Really? There’s a girl named Julie Van den Burgh in my work experience group at school.”

“Yes, that's our niece,” said the man. But he didn’t look up.

Alex then remembered that Julie had been caught shoplifting. Someone had told him that she'd punched a shop assistant when she tried to get away. The police had also found cannabis in her bag when they questioned her.

Alex desperately searched for something to say, but Mr Van den Burgh spoke first. “Here,” he said, his manner somehow forced. “Come and take your seats at the table.” He made extravagant gestures towards the table and then disappeared into the kitchen.

The children looked at their brother for guidance, but he deliberately avoided their eyes.

There were only four places set at the table. Toby and David nervously slid into two of the seats. Sasha remained on the sofa. Alex stood up and hesitated, wondering why only four places had been set. The Van den Burghs didn't want to eat?

The husband briefly poked his head around the kitchen door. “What? Only two for lunch?”

Alex and Sasha awkwardly made a move for the table. He felt uncomfortable, but couldn’t think of anything to say. The four sat in silence, surveying the cutlery and napkins neatly placed out before them.

Mr Van den Burgh appeared again. “It’s a very special lunch today.” His voice sounded higher, excited. "In many homes, sitting down at the table is the time for a family to come together, to sort out their problems, to reflect on how their lives are going. It's also a time for the adults to communicate with their children."

Then, with a terrible clatter, the kitchen door burst open. The wife came charging in, and everything seemed to unfold at half speed.

Alex caught sight of two small buckets. The couple seemed to have huge hands all of a sudden, covered in what looked like blood.

The young faces had no time to react. The hands smeared and smudged.

No patch of bare skin was spared. The mush was lathered on thick. Small heads tossed about. The red flesh was smacked over their faces, smothered through their hair. The cruel juice dripped down their young pale necks. No one tried to get up. The manic onslaught was just too incredible to take in.

Alex understood then that he had been left alone. The silent witness?

Toby, David and Sasha had their innocent mouths filled up with the mushed-up plums. They showed very little resistance. Their faces were totally covered. The pulp was everywhere. No one laughed. Just humiliation. Ridicule.

Outside, the four stood huddled in silence. Their eyes were wide and shocked, their mouths dropped open. Sasha whimpered slightly, half-heartedly trying to scrape the mess out of her hair.

Alex turned and watched the Van den Burghs close the sliding door. They calmly started to wipe down the chairs and table. They did not look up. They hadn't said a single word during the onslaught.

The four shook as they made their way home, united in their shock.

Toby started to sob. "Adults aren't supposed to do things like that to kids."

"No, they're not," said Alex.

"They told us we were going to have lunch," said David.

Alex stopped and looked down at the teary eyes before him. He thought for a moment, struggling to stop himself from shaking. "When they were little, they mustn't have had a big brother to teach them how to be good."

"I'm glad we don't live with them," said Sasha. She brushed down her stained dress, lifted her head and marched towards the house.

© Copyright, 2009. Seamus Kearney. The Plum Incident - a short story.

Another Recent Short Story

2009-02-16T15:57:00.010+01:00

Naturally, I ended up being found out. But at least I did my best to shake everything I could out of that highly charged moment. What delicious drama! My name tag and crucifix snatched off me and tossed to the floor! In a totally improvised performance, I played up to their worst fears, with one hand on my raised hip and the other over my crotch. I’m not sure that any of those poor souls actually heard it, but I hissed slightly, like a deadly snake that managed to get away from Saint Paddy. It must have looked as if I really were possessed. For that glorious exit alone, though, the whole sorry affair had been worth it.

As it happened, it turned out to be my defining moment.

But to understand what took place, you need to know the background of my connection with Father Michael (I don’t even know if he had a surname). This was a man of the cloth who was seen as a bit of a maverick around Cork. Well, in the church they wouldn’t have used a word like that; they would’ve said that he was a bit of a character, and some might have even stretched their words in private to say that he was peculiar. But they would have quickly added that he was harmless and enthusiastic, which wasn’t a bad thing for an organisation struggling to keep its darker numbers in check.

When he cornered me at the end of mass one November morning, just two weeks before I was due to escape on the train to Dublin to begin a music course, I admit that I was more than perplexed. He hadn’t spoken to me for at least 18 months, not since the “little chats” my parents had set up, at which I insisted that I really couldn’t be changed. After a lot of praying on his side, and tearful stubbornness on my side, I’d been forced to accept that being “like that” could only be tolerated if my impulses weren’t physically acted upon. He told me he was prepared to accept that values in society were changing, and people like me had a right to be respected, but there would never be any comfort found in "entertaining the whims of the flesh". Yes, quite.

For a 17-year-old living on a farm, 60 miles too far out of Cork, and with parents who never let their first-born go into the city on his own, it seemed the agreement wouldn’t be too hard to keep. My thoughts and fantasies were taken care of in increasingly novel ways in my bedroom, and as long as those wicked impulses weren’t acted on outside of those walls, my parents didn’t need to worry about the risk of me standing on the terraces above hell. I even continued to attend mass, while I bided my time in peace, free of any unbearable, weepy speeches from my parents.

It’s true that I really had thought that ma’s discovery of my happy inclination had sealed my fiery end (she'd apparently fainted when she found a grubby stash of English male pinups behind the false panel in my desk). However, when Father Michael had been discreetly employed, they seemed eager to believe that he would adequately take care of the matter. Just three sessions together turned out to be enough to reassure my folks. It’s funny to think of it now, but they never even asked about the outcome, like they thought it better not to implicate themselves further by knowing the details. It had become the business of the church, a matter between me and Father Michael, between me and God, and they had seen no need to be briefed on how the matter had been resolved.

That’s why it was so astounding when Father tapped me on the shoulder at the end of mass that day, in front of my parents, and asked if he could see me in private. The expression on my mother’s face will stay with me for the rest of my life: a look of utter hurt and disappointment, as though I’d let them all down and we would have to return to those ghastly nights when no one slept. My father walked away, pretending he hadn’t heard a thing. Even though Father Michael took my mother’s hand and told her there was nothing to worry about, and that he only wanted to see me for something related to the parish youth group, the pain on her face failed to dissolve. She stumbled slightly and swayed as she went outside to join my father.

Father Michael entrusted me with a secret project, which I was told to keep from my parents, despite their obvious distress. It didn’t exactly sound like a mission from the big boss above, but Father was convinced that my presence at the seminary in Kinnercree the following weekend, where 14 new recruits were to be assessed for their suitability for the priesthood, would be indispensible. I was to be the eyes and ears of God, he said, although it did cross my mind that surely the Almighty would be pretty good already when it came to seeing and hearing things.

* * *
We settled down to dinner with Father Michael in the grand old hall of the seminary, puffed up in the black frocks we’d found at the ends of our beds. The cold stares and crude haircuts of young priests from previous years stood out on the sombre wooden walls above us, provoking an uneasy question: what had become of them all? Someone beside me said many of the pictures, now stained and yellow, dated back to the 1920s. Out of all the portraits I took in, not one seemed to show even the remotest sign of joy. How many were now in jail for unspeakable acts? Shipped off to the New World because of their love for the bottle? Happily married with children?

‘This is a great journey you’ll be embarking on,’ said Father. He took his time to focus on every single pale face. ‘This is an alliance with God, and the rewards are many. But let me say right here and now that there is no shame in admitting that this road is not for everyone. Some of us may find that we’re actually not able to devote our lives in this way. Some of us may find that although God’s voice has called us, we need to be honest about whether we are ready to follow with our hearts open and our minds at peace.’

Some of the boys put their heads down, as though deep in prayer, others nodded and beamed with enthusiasm.

‘This weekend is the time for that reflection. This is the time we get to decide whether we want to be part of God’s family, to advance only in his shadow, forgetting our own selfish needs and ideas. This weekend we must decide whether we are willing to leave ourselves behind. Our lives will be devoted to one person, and one person only. The ways of the world, of the flesh, must be put aside. Are we ready for that?’

We ate our meal in silence (delicious New Zealand lamb with a thick mint sauce, and baked potatoes and peas). An elderly woman served us, daring not to meet any of the young, earnest eyes around the table. A gale outside seemed to be making its way through the panels in the walls, creating a faint whistling sound.

‘Where are you from?’ asked a young man beside me.

I didn’t immediately turn towards him, but I’d already clocked his tightly-cropped blonde hair and bright rosy cheeks.

‘Just outside of Cork,’ I said.

‘I’m from Galway myself. Stephen Dunne.’

Very slowly, I took a piece of gristle out of my mouth, and did my best to remain composed. I waited a moment before I turned to get a better look at him.

Wham! A thousand sirens!

I swear that my heart stopped for five seconds as the piercing beauty of his eyes went through me. They were bluish grey, framed with the longest lashes I’d ever seen. I almost couldn’t speak. ‘Hello, Stephen. I’m Tim. Timothy O’Malley.’

I soon became aware of Father’s glare. Had he seen my chest freeze, and my face ignite with something magical? I thought back to that crisp conversation he’d had with me, where my “special calling” for the weekend had been confirmed. Well, he hadn’t actually spelt anything out in plain language; it had all been a bit cryptic really, though I did get the general idea that he wanted me to assess whether any of the boys shared my inclination. The Bishop had suggested that more vetting was needed, to avoid the heartache and distress threatening to envelope the church and empty out the pews! And who better to do a bit of secret vetting than someone who knew exactly what to look out for? Perfect.

‘They reckon we’ll be getting a stint at the Vatican next month,’ said Stephen Dunne, whose broad frame I’d now begun to discreetly admire.

‘Rome?’

‘We might even get to help the Pontiff prepare the Wednesday and Sunday messages.’

‘Grand.’

I didn’t want to think about the fact that he might go to the Vatican and never look back, that he would get swept up in the emotion of it all and dive blindly in. He had to be stopped. What a terrible waste! What a tragedy! I didn’t even bother to engage with the others around the table, and continued to avoid Father’s searching eyes. I’d earlier checked out the other boys, before we chose our places, and I knew straight away that none of them were of real interest. One or two of them looked like they might be like me, but it was the Dunne lad with the blonde hair and the devastating eyes who now demanded my utmost attention.

* * *
A sofa by the fireplace in the main lounge turned out to be the perfect place to chat, with me even pretending at one point to be interested in the numbing details of his small parish. We talked for hours, and I don’t think I misread things when his hand brushed up against mine at one point, when we both jumped up to contain an explosion of embers. Hallelujah for the sparks! I remained flushed, and my heart seemed to be jumping from one side of my chest to the other.

Eventually, Father brought us hot drinks and asked us whether we’d had a chance to mingle with some of the others.

‘Mingle? But the two of us are getting on so well together,’ I said.

Father was standing behind Stephen and so felt safe enough to scowl at me. ‘Mingling is part of what we’re supposed to be doing.’

This forced Stephen to his feet, all apologetic and flustered. He left Father and I alone to shuffle our feet close to the flames.

‘For the sake of heaven, O’Malley. You’re not supposed to be taking a shine. You’re supposed to be assessing.’

‘Taking a shine?’

‘I may be old and fusty, but I’m not blind to it.’

‘I am assessing, Father, just as you asked!’

He rubbed his eyes, pushing the fingers hard into the sockets. ‘Assessing and helping me, O’Malley. To decide who needs urgent counsel.’ His frown looked painful.

‘And it’s a pleasure to be of service, Father.’

‘Good boy. Now mingle! So we know who we’re dealing with. We’ll get this sorted yet, please God.’

Stephen slapped me hard on the shoulder in one of the narrow corridors that led to the chapel. ‘That sounded mighty serious,’ he said. He smirked and guided me along with a hand on the small of my back.

‘That was Father telling me off. I’m supposed to be mixing and mingling. The eyes and ears of God.’

‘Eh? But we’re all the eyes and ears of God. That’s the beauty of it. We’re all one and the same.’

‘Wouldn’t that make life easier now!’

The sound of some of the boys singing behind the closed door of the chapel was surprisingly good. We entered as quietly as we could, to hear the last few verses of Wild is the Wind, which I thought was a strange song to be singing in a chapel. Were non-religious tunes like that allowed in Catholic churches? It brought back memories of Grandma Jessie, who used to turn up the volume whenever the track came on the radio.

The pew we chose to sit down on creaked as we settled in, causing a few of the others listening to turn around and frown. The smell of burning candles, mixed in with incense, helped me to relax.

I realised then, through moist eyes, that any one of them up there on that small altar might have been of interest: the way they rubbed shoulders and swayed from side to side; the way some of them flicked their fringes out of their eyes; the little looks they exchanged when they leaned back and struggled to reach the high notes.

The lyrics spoke to me in such a dramatic way that my insides became all churned up. I felt giddy when I realised how close Stephen was sitting up against me, and that he seemed to be gently pushing himself closer and closer. I stared straight ahead at the open mouths, trying my best to memorise the beautiful lines being delivered. Our hands, palms down on the bench, briefly touched. Our knees also knocked together slightly. I felt so uplifted that I truly believed nothing would ever again be able to drag me down.

The thrill didn’t last long, however.

As we headed back to the dining hall for the promise of an evening hot chocolate, accompanied by a reading from the Old Testament, it became clear that something wasn’t right. A couple of boys stepped in front of me in the corridor and ushered Stephen to go on by, closing the door behind him. The boys had stern looks on their faces.

‘What’s this then?’ I grinned and tried to appear relaxed.

‘Someone overheard something quite troubling,’ said one of the boys, a tubby type with a heavy northern accent.

‘Oh?’

‘Something about you not really here to become a priest,’ said the other boy, who was very clearly English.

‘That’s utterly ridiculous.’ I looked back along the corridor to see if there was anyone who might serve as a distraction, someone I could catch up with or call out to.

‘So if you’re not becoming a priest,’ said the tubby boy, ‘then who are you?’

I folded my arms and leaned back. ‘I’m the eyes and ears of the Almighty.’

They burst out laughing.

I shouted, ‘I’m telling you! I was chosen to be the eyes and ears of Kinnercree!’ I hadn’t meant to be quite so loud and theatrical.

They stopped laughing and came closer, their eyes sharp and inquiring. One of them took me by the arm.

I figured that frankness was all I had left. ‘Who told you then?’

‘Someone overheard Father Michael in his office, complaining about you on the phone, about how you’re not buckling down to your secret little mission here. Vetting is the word I think he used. Homosexual was another one.’

‘Oh dear.’

I accompanied my inquisitors to the dining hall, where the others stood around with their big mugs of hot chocolate. The glum looks on their faces left me with no doubt that word had spread quickly. A traitor amongst us! That’s when one of them flounced up and yanked off my name tag and crucifix, which Father had so delicately attached to my frock with a safety pin.

‘That's not how priests are supposed to act,’ I said.

The crucifix landed face down.

Another boy stepped forward. ‘We’ll pray for you. That’s all we can do. We’ll pray that Father will also be forgiven for this shameful episode.’

Without any hesitation I started moving my hips. I tried my best to imitate the vulgar transvestite my cousin and I had once seen in a crazy American movie in Dublin. It just came to me like that, this burst of a feeling that those boys badly needed to come face to face with the irreverence they seemed to be so afraid of. If I hissed as I moved, it was only because I fell so easily into the character I’d seen in that film. Not one boy raised his mug to his lips. They looked like wax figures, their eyes bulging, their mouths prised open. One did, however, discreetly take hold of his wooden rosary beads. He looked up at the ceiling as he pressed them hard against his chest.

* * *
That was such a long time ago now that it’s a wonder I can still remember all of the minute detail. I only got it three quarters right when I retold the story at our reconfirmation ceremony in New York last month. Of course, we had the sound of Nina Simone and Wild is the Wind behind us, and I thought of those skinny lads in the chapel, producing waves of velvet with their voices. That’s really confirmed now as mine and Stephen’s anthem, having seen us through such a horde of summers and winters.

‘33 years since you defrocked me,’ he whispered after the service.

‘No one forced you to come chasing after me, Mr Dunne.’ I made a silly face and tugged on his tie, before we were thrown together for another snapshot.

Squeezing my elbow firmly, just like he’d done all of those years before in Kinnercree, he said, ‘Whatever they say about the misdemeanours of Father Michael, it’s him we have to thank for this little union of ours.’

I nodded and turned the ring on my finger. ‘We never did find out if he really understood the irony of what happened. Do you remember his last words to us?’

‘No, but I can tell you it certainly wasn’t praise for those eyes and ears of yours!’

© Copyright, 2009. Seamus Kearney. "The Eyes and Ears of Kinnercree". Short story.

Another Recent Poem

2009-01-24T18:20:00.007+01:00

My peculiar porcelain boy,
living your awkward love.
How unbearable to watch

you recoil from her touch.
Afraid of being exposed,
rendering intimate truths.

Her protests are open now,
against me, our odd ways.
Users of the brown cloth,

old bathroom modesties.
The flesh denied freedom,
our bodies golden temples.

Inhibition over exhibition,
a mother’s lasting regret.
Will your past stay present,

keeping you forever timid?
Forgive me my hapless son,
stained by the brown cloth.

© Copyright, 2008. Seamus Kearney. "The Brown Cloth".

Featured Photograph

2008-10-07T03:37:00.000+02:00

In August, 2008, this photo - Dancing In Bordeaux - won the weekly "Send us a snap" contest run by The Guardian newspaper in Britain. I won a Rough Guide for my efforts! Click here to see a collection of my photographs.

© Copyright, 2008. Seamus Kearney. This may be published on non-commercial websites and in non-commercial publications, but only when Seamus Kearney is identified as the author.

Have you also read ... ?

2008-10-06T11:59:00.000+02:00

When I entered the shop I triggered some ghastly buzzer, which made me jump like a deranged woman. My elegant posture vanished and my cheeks fell. The noise was similar to what I’d set off the day before when I walked underneath one of those security arches at the island’s main airport. Instead of wishing me a lovely holiday, the guards had got all excited about my innocent buckles and a coin lost in loose stitching. Another ear-splitting buzzer was the last thing I needed.

The elderly shopkeeper sitting inside didn’t look up, though. Madam stayed focused on some ears of corn she was dehusking with a small knife. I use the word madam, but she could very well have been a man. The dry, chubby hands were definitely masculine, and so too was the grimy woollen hat. I would’ve said mister if it hadn’t been for the stockings and red, pointy shoes.

The lady should’ve been happy, no? No one for kilometres, and then there I was, stumbling into her dingy shack. I mean, you wouldn’t exactly call it a shop. Don’t make me laugh.

‘Those dresses hanging up outside,’ I said.

‘Not for you, dear.’ She ripped the hair and skin off another poor cob, still not wanting to see my face.

‘Not for me? I’m sorry?’

‘They’re for other women.’ She kicked the pot of naked corn in front of her.

Had she wanted to force the cobs to the bottom to make more room? Or had the lashing out been a warning? ‘The white dresses outside,’ I said more forcefully.

‘Sorry, my love, but you’re not going to be wearing one of those.’ This time she looked up, pulling off her hat. Yes, a man’s face. Eyes almost bleeding. Short, scruffy grey hair. Skin that resembled pastry. A man! Except for those shoes and stockings, and a dress made of dark velvet.

‘Well, no one else is wearing them,’ I said. A dim bulb crackled overhead, swinging from what seemed to be shoelaces tied together. ‘I have American dollars. I presume yours is a business that relies on profits?’

‘It’s not about money, dear. I just didn’t make a dress for someone like you.’

‘Well, of course you didn’t! I wouldn’t expect to find something made to order.’

She laughed and shook her head, the knife looking dangerous in her hand. ‘Don’t get angry. It’s not good for you.’

‘I could just try one on, madam. It’ll take just two minutes.’ I did feel angry. I thought these island traders were the ones who had to hustle. If I hadn’t had my heart set on the dress with the fine lacework around the middle, I would’ve stamped my way out of there, slamming her cardboard door behind me.

‘We have one for a woman who will fall in love,’ she said, her eyes now fixed on the ceiling. ‘There’s another one for a woman who will fall pregnant. Then there’s one for a woman who will love another woman.’ She looked sideways at me. ‘There’s also one for a woman who will leave her husband. Plus there’s one for a woman who will make a lot of money.’

‘Eh? Come again? How on earth do you know I’m not one of those women?’ The knife changed hands, slitting the neck of another innocent cob. I stepped back away from the bulb, over towards a dusty counter, and almost fell over a box full of colourful beach umbrellas. ‘You’re not making any sense.’

‘You’re just not one of those women, my love. They told me when you came in. You need a different dress. But I haven’t anything right now. I don’t know what they want me to make yet. Next week.’ She kicked the pot again and then gave it a couple of shakes with both hands.

‘They?’

One of the white dresses moved in front of the window outside, puffed up by the sea breeze. Thin rays of sunlight came through the decorative bits.

The old woman stood up and brushed bits of corn silk and leaves from her dress. ‘Come back next week if you want, dear. But remember that they choose you. You don’t choose them.’

‘What a load of nonsense.’ I laughed, but the sound seemed to be much lower than usual, like something had altered my voice. I put my hand up to my throat.

‘If you want a dress that chooses you, that could bring you something, come back. Maybe it will offer you the very thing you want.’

I marched to the door and then spun around to face her. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. I haven’t heard anything so crazy in my entire life. Dresses that won’t be chosen? Dresses that pick out women and then change their lives? How utterly ridiculous!’

The shopkeeper lifted up the pot without any effort and placed it on a table. She smiled. ‘Take care of yourself, dear.’

Out in the street, I found my husband stroking one of the dresses. ‘So, which one did you choose?’ he asked.

I got closer and saw he'd taken a hold of the one with the lacework around the middle. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

He didn’t release his grip on the dress, though. He held it out to me, grinning like a child. ‘It’s funny, but I’ve just had a strange vision of you in this one. Barefoot and pregnant. In a field of corn.’

© Copyright, 2008. Seamus Kearney. "The Dresses That Won't Be Chosen"

And from the poems archive ...

2008-10-05T03:11:00.000+02:00

the captured rainbow

from Aotearoa's milky tide
comes peculiar iridescent life,
perhaps a testament, an atlas,
or a sparkling purse of time

a rainbow's captured in there,
a sunburnt lad screams out,
thinking of his favourite gran,
unsteady on seaweed paths

they feel warm on his chest
can the colours mark the skin?
paua shell, says a dusty book,
Haliotis Iris, species of abalone

this rainbow, caught off Raglan,
where surfers play with seagulls,
is ready to glow even further,
in a fine anniversary necklace

© Copyright, 2006. Seamus Kearney.

A Musical Poem

2008-10-04T23:37:00.001+02:00

Looking for a new experience in poetry? I've taken one of my original poems, about Dublin, and set it to one of my original piano compositions; now they are one in the same. They both share the same title: The Siren of Absence. Hopefully, the experience is something new: words, music and images. Just click twice on the play button.

© Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney. "The Siren of Absence".

A New Short Story

2008-10-04T23:26:00.000+02:00

When Alice and her old friend Kelvin stepped off the train at Amsterdam’s main station, a gust of wind swept up a mix of paper and dust, forcing them to turn their heads and cover their eyes.

She said, ‘I told you there was a risk of getting swallowed up. But what a wonderful risk, eh?’

‘I think you’ll find they call that a bad omen, Alice.’

Kelvin’s friends had tried to warn him that Amsterdam wasn’t exactly the ideal destination for someone tortured by years of impotence. Punishment, temptation and degrading were some of the words that came to their lips. He wouldn’t have minded betting, though, that one or two of them had already seen the famous lights and animated window displays.

The Amsterdam sun was on full beam; probably keeping indoors those who prefer to roam the streets in darkness, he thought. Tiger-coloured butterflies appeared beside them, making him wonder how creatures so fragile are able to survive the noise and pollution. Alice leaned into him and purred, touching his elbow in a motherly way. ‘Isn’t it just something, Kelvin? To think this has been here all this time and you didn’t know about it.’

She’d pestered him with the idea of a trip for weeks. The perfect summer break, she’d said, before starting her voluntary job at the library. He’d never been to the Netherlands, and the train specials did seem rather too good to refuse. Besides, what other plan did he have for the summer? She'd squealed with delight when he finally said yes.

‘Amsterdam the lovely, Amsterdam the depressed,’ she said. She pointed out some unpleasant-looking men sitting together on a grass verge, drinking from wine bottles, with two or three dogs lying beside them. ‘They were probably such cute babies in their prams at one stage. Just imagine that. How terrible for the mothers to watch their babies grow into that.’

Alice was the sensible woman he knew he should’ve courted and married years earlier. Her no-nonsense bob was now grey, and her square face looser, but she hadn’t lost that caring aura. He could’ve so easily avoided all the complicated mysteries surrounding love and sex that life eventually threw up. People often asked why the two of them had never attempted some kind of fusion, what with their shared interests and their tendency to hover around the edge of social groups.

They walked in silence for 15 minutes, glad not to have packed too much in their small suitcases. They crossed over small bridges, deeper into quiet suburbia, where pretty canals keep the cutest of Dutch homes afloat. Having studied a guide of the city on the train, Kelvin knew they were not too far away from the red light district. The air seemed to smell of chemicals, but he wondered if it might’ve just been his imagination.

Before long they reached the house that Alice had unsuccessfully tried to describe. It was a mix of stucco, red brick and splendid dark wood, woven together as beautifully as a tapestry. The building was round, like a fat lighthouse, sandwiched in between more conventional structures. The whole thing appeared to slant to one side.

‘Hasn’t changed since I used to come here as a little girl.’ She stepped back out onto the road to get a better view, putting her head to one side. ‘My dream home. Where I’d love to spend my dying days.’

‘Don’t be so morbid, Alice! Anyway, who said you’re going to have the luxury of dying at home?’

She explained how she’d been invited to make use of the house by some friends of the family, away on a ‘six-month jaunt’ across Asia. The key didn’t turn in the lock at first, but when she gave the door a swift kick at the base everything worked as normal. ‘They told me that would be necessary, just in case you’re wondering if I have a habit of kicking in doors.’

The walls were graced with about half a dozen drawings that featured exaggerated genitals. One of the frames, on closer inspection, bore the title ‘Unashamed Nakedness’. Perfect for Amsterdam, he thought. There was no headroom and no space for nervy arms that wanted to swing and exercise.

She said, ‘I’m going to try to see my niece while I’m here.’

He stepped back into the hallway so she could see his look of surprise.

‘You didn’t know I had a niece living here?’

‘If you’d told me I would’ve known.’

‘Oops,’ she said. She held her suitcase up in front of her and mounted the stairs. ‘I can manage, thank you.’

‘Oh, sorry. I’m just ...’

‘Surprised. I know.’

He was even more surprised three minutes later when Alice came back down the stairs and announced that she wanted to go and see her niece straight away, even before he had a chance to find out where he would be sleeping, and whether the house had a small terrace at the back that looked out over a canal.

Her voice was shaky and her cheeks had turned red. ‘She went astray. A few years ago. Making a lot of cash, apparently.’

He hadn’t left the hallway. He stood by a small cabinet and pretended to look at some shells and pieces of bark on display.

‘I’m not sure if I’m being very clear,’ she said. ‘I find it hard to talk about.’

He looked up and nodded. He had an inkling of what she was getting at, but he was worried that his mind had raced ahead and reached an outrageous conclusion. ‘You mean astray, as in ... the red lights?’

‘Yes. Absolutely. That’s what I mean.’

‘Oh dear.’

She sighed and folded her arms. ‘You were the only one I could tell. No one else would’ve been able to come with me.’

‘How awful for your sister.’

‘It’s been awful for all of us. Sorry to have gotten you over here under false pretences.’

* * *
When Alice painted a picture of her niece, Kelvin imagined a young woman the size of a cracker, flaunting her red bones in front of the curious and the serious. He’d been right of course, except she was neither the size of a cracker nor that young.

They stood in front of a spotless window, which seemed oddly close to a Chinese restaurant, and watched Alice’s niece fill a bucket with water. He guessed she was probably in her mid 30s. The likeness between niece and aunt was incredible, though he dared not say anything. He could see Alice’s neck had gone red and her shoulders had bunched up.

Lara turned and danced up to him. She wore a black velvet dress, which he thought looked very Al Caponish. She poked out her tongue and licked the glass, indicating with girly, lap-dancing enthusiasm that she wanted him to pay her attention. She obviously hadn’t yet spotted the anxious face of Alice.

He felt uncomfortable watching Lara’s tongue make circles around the glass, and looked over at Alice to offer her an expression of solidarity. She didn’t look his way, though. She’d become crisp with shock. When Lara’s lingering tongue had finished, her hand took over the teasing, stroking her crotch.

Alice banged on the door with frightening force.

‘Aunty!’ Her tongue was now not so lingering. The expression of seduction switched into one of utter surprise. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

There was something pitiful in Lara’s voice. Her sass had gone. Her shoulders fell awkwardly. Her feet turned inwards.

Alice said, ‘Please, Lara. Let me take you home.’

‘I’m on ‘til four. You’ll have to come back.’ Her inflated brown eyes didn’t blink or turn away.

He didn’t mean to, in the utterly tragic circumstances, but he couldn’t help but notice the wonderful generosity of Lara’s breasts, half exposed, creamy and soft. He looked away.

‘What?’ Alice’s mouth dropped open.

‘I can’t just go off when I like! I have to work until four.’

Kelvin thought she had a wonderful way of moving.

‘I can’t believe you’re here again,’ said Alice, her voice breaking slightly. ‘You promised us you were making an effort ... and you were finished with Cedric.’

‘Well, Cedric’s gone. And I am trying!’

Kelvin took in the smoothness of Lara’s skin, although he did wonder whether he was being duped by the effect of the lights. He was fascinated by the hook-and-loop closures that ran down the side of her dress. Her imagined there might be a pistol tucked in behind a strap somewhere.

Alice openly sobbed, her hands up around her face. ‘So this is what you do when you’re trying? You’ve got to let me help you, Lara. Can’t you see what harm you’re doing?’

Lara raised her head, her snow-white hair spiked up with gel, like candyfloss under the lights. She gave that look that drag queens make when they’re about to unleash an insult. She walked back to get the bucket and started cleaning what looked like a massage table in the corner of the room, refusing to answer Alice’s tearful attempts to get her back to the glass. ‘Come back at four if you want. You’re bad for business!’

After a strident walk back to the house, with not a word uttered, Alice and Kelvin sat on the stairs in the hallway, underneath a charcoal sketch of a woman sitting naked on a camel. She wept loudly and hugged her knees. He could do nothing but sit and try to listen to phrases he couldn’t understand. Dribbles and tears made her words frustratingly inaudible. She told the story of a stroppy niece and her life before the job in the window. ‘She always felt like she was totally unloved, no matter how many hugs we tried to smother her with.’

Kelvin thought the word ‘smother’ might’ve been the key to it. He tried to be a good listener. He nodded. He didn’t say anything. He almost took Alice’s hand. He felt enormous pity for her, and for Lara. He wished there was something he could do.

‘She says she likes to feel the touch of a stranger. Likes to feel a hand touching her in intimate places, kind of like a fantasy. She assures me she never actually does it ... just lets them touch. Helped pay for her boyfriend’s drug habit, but she also says it’s the thrill of someone taking off her clothes.’

He felt embarrassed to hear Alice talk like that. They’d never had such a frank conversation before. He pictured Lara lying naked on her massage table, mesmerised by soft Chinese music and paper lanterns with twirling lights inside, and being touched by some happily married man with dry hands.

‘Does your sister know?’

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘That would kill her. Absolutely kill her.’

He thought back to that night when he was 18, when he still had the frailty and uncertainty of an eleven-year-old, and his father had taken him to London and dropped him off in a dark street behind a brewery. His father had told him that lots of nice girls would want to talk to him and he shouldn’t be afraid to give them money if they asked for it. Kelvin, puzzled and frightened, slowly figured out what he was supposed to be doing. As he stood there in the dark, letting himself be hopelessly groped, he realised that the woman who’d taken his money was actually a young man wearing a wig. He wondered what his father would say about the cold, masculine hand in his trousers. After a long drive home in silence, with Kelvin too angry to cry, he sat at the kitchen table and decided to tell his mother about what had happened. He made no effort to soften the words. She stared straight ahead, for what seemed like five minutes, and then cried. His father breathed heavily and spread his hands over his face. That night was the first time he’d ever seen his mother hit his father.

A defeated-looking Alice stood up and said she needed to sleep. She said she had no energy to return to see her niece that afternoon and wondered if Kelvin would mind popping back to pass on a message. All the filth of the world seemed to be weighing her down. ‘I’ll go to where she lives in the morning. I’m not going to talk to her in that seedy place.’

‘It’s wonderful what you’re trying to do, Alice.’

‘Sometimes I wonder why I bother. But I don’t want to have any regrets in this life, you know?’ She let her head fall back and then stretched her shoulders upwards, causing the shape of her breasts under her thin blouse to suddenly stand out.

He hadn’t really noticed how beautiful she still was, despite the passing of the years. With her tears and heartfelt dialogue about her niece, she seemed to emit something extraordinary. He watched her close her eyes and sigh deeply, and he knew that some more profound feeling for her had manifested. He imagined that years ago he must’ve seen the outline of her breasts. He imagined, though, that in the midst of all his own anxiety and tension, they might just as well have been elbows or feet jutting out. He said, ‘You look tired. You really shouldn’t let this get you down.’

‘Yes, I need to recharge.’ She went over to a small table and began to write a note, using a pen and paper she found there.

Kelvin walked over and saw it was elegant paper with roses printed on the bottom of the page. ‘Is that scented as well?’ He laughed.

‘Yes, it is. What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing.’

‘No, tell me!’

‘It’s just a bit strange, that’s all. Roses and perfume in this kind of situation.’

‘I don’t see your point.’

‘Forget it.’

She dropped the pen and looked at him blank-faced. ‘Please tell me what I’m missing.’

‘It’s just something you can’t explain. You either know what I’m talking about or you don’t.’

‘You’re strange,’ she said. She picked up the pen and carried on writing.

‘No, it’s OK. I think it’ll probably work. It’ll probably be exactly what’s needed.’

‘I’m really lost here, Kelvin.’

‘Really, it’s nothing.’

‘If you’re lucky, I’ll make up a bed for you on the sofa.’ She walked up the stairs. ‘Take the key with you. I really do appreciate you doing this.’

He said goodnight and then took a quick look in the living room where he’d be sleeping. The room was very overcrowded with antiques, and at one end he noticed carpet went halfway up the wall. In amongst some very old European pieces – vases, china, dolls - there were modern, raw-looking objects. One carving showed a warrior with a huge penis sticking out from behind his shield; further along the mantelpiece there was a po-faced Victorian doll and a statue of what looked like a town crier decked out in splendid gold.

As he closed the door behind him, he felt tired and depressed. He continued on down the street, though, deciding that if he breathed in deeply enough the city would empower him with its passion and energy.

* * *
It took only five minutes to find that seedy place that Alice didn’t want to see again, where the softness of the red could make anybody’s skin seem silky and inviting. He passed on the perfumed message through a gap in the door, his fingers suddenly fat and grubby, the veins swollen under his grey skin.

‘Good evening,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d come back.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You have desperate written all over your face.’ She winked.

He had to concentrate so as not to stammer. ‘It’s just to give you this message from your Aunt Alice.’

‘Yeah, right.’ She laughed and sat down.

The street stunk of human piss and kebabs, which is why it was so appealing to catch a whiff of what seemed to be red berries wafting out from the shop. He stood in the doorway and tried to decide whether he should risk going in. He smiled at the insanity of it.

‘I don’t bite,’ she said, swinging a leg.

‘I’m not here for any other reason except to give you that message, and to tell you how worried your aunty is about you.’

‘And who are you?’

‘Kelvin.’

‘Pull the curtain Kelvin, or they’ll think I’m available. Unless you don’t have time for a chat.’

‘A chat?’

‘I wouldn’t dare suggest anything else.’

They settled down on chairs across from each other. Kelvin folded his legs and tried to look concerned. He couldn’t help but imagine what she might be like with a client, allowing them to touch her soft terrain, where perfect valleys rose up to magnificent peaks. He reminded himself that she was someone’s baby girl.

She kept staring at him, like the all-knowing.

‘What do you mean I look desperate,’ he asked, clearing his throat.

‘I get to know the faces.’

‘That’s a very personal thing, and you don’t know me. I don’t like to judge but ... ’

‘I know. No one likes to judge what we do. Don’t worry about it. Forget I said anything.’

He was annoyed with himself that he’d agreed to sit down. He didn’t want to be there. ‘Alice is very worried about you.’

‘I know she is.’ She stood up to rearrange her dress, grappling with the hoops and loops, which seemed to be the only things stopping the dress from falling to the floor. ‘You have a problem with sex. That much I can tell.’ She kept tugging on the top of her dress.

‘You don’t know me.’

‘I know enough about you from one look at you.’

‘That’s very interesting.’ His face flushed and he wanted to get up to leave. He almost believed that she had the power to see that he hadn’t had sex for a long time, that there was a problem with his lower region. ‘They do it then?’

‘Do it?’ She looked confused.

Her eyes weren’t the simple brown he saw before. There were many different shades in there: flecks of yellow, green and marble grey. Small, broken veins were everywhere, like a tiny spider had been crawling around trying to lay a web of glass. ‘I mean, do they go the whole way?’ He coughed to cover his embarrassment.

‘That’s what I’m here for.’ She dropped her head back and looked up at the ceiling. ‘For old men like you.’

Kelvin opened his eyes wide. ‘Old men like me? Thank you very much.’

‘Well, they’re hardly ever young and good-looking, are they?’

‘Thanks for the compliment.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No, it’s just that Alice is under the impression you never actually let them .... that you only ever allow touching.’

‘Oh, I just told her that to stop her worrying. This whole thing’s caused her enough drama, let alone tell her that some men actually do get the three-course meal.’

He checked to make sure that the curtain Lara had pulled around the bed was still in place and that no one was able to see them from the street.

‘You’re a funny man, with your bald head and round cheeks.’ She went up close to his face. ‘Nice to make your acquaintance. Are you going out with screwed-up Alice?’

‘No, we’re old friends. And she thinks it’s you who’s screwed-up.’

Behind a screen, in the corner of the room, was a packet of what looked like chocolate biscuits and a large bottle of Fanta. There was also a pile of books, the titles of which he couldn’t see. He imagined her sitting there during her breaks, reading and making a mess with her crumbs, not at all looking sexy or glamorous.

She said, ‘We’re all screwed-up though, aren’t we? I mean, when I wasn’t working here, I was having sex with men I didn’t like anyway, trying to have fun, sleeping with men because that’s the way things always ended up. Why not get paid for it? Why not get something out of it?’

He wondered if her hair was real blonde or fake. There were no signs of dark roots, as far as he could see. ‘Have you ever had a boyfriend?’

‘Yes, but they were all losers. Just looking for women to replace their mothers. I always wanted someone romantic, but he never came along.’ She searched the wall in front of her.

‘Alice is quite worried about you ... and so are your parents.’

‘They don’t really care. They just don’t want me doing this because it’s not a good look for the rest of the family. It challenges all of their values. They tried to sort me out with a job in a bakery, owned by one of their good Christian friends. Got me a nice little flat, bought me some sweet little dresses, told everyone I was doing well. It was just to keep me out of the way though, out of sight, so they could tell their friends and old relatives I was doing well. Didn’t last long, though.’

It looked like there were pearls across her head, with the light reflecting off the small clips that kept her hair tight against her scalp. Gel wasn’t enough? He could understand wanting to clip back long flowing hair, but hers had no length to it, already minimal and cropped.

He eventually said, ‘It’s a shame you haven’t found the man you’re after.’ He made some slight movement to indicate he wanted to get up, suddenly conscious of the time and the need to return to Alice. ‘It’s been nice having a chat.’

‘Maybe we could go and get something to eat?’ she asked.

‘I’d love to, but it really is late.’

Just before he left, he took in the view of Lara struggling with her dress again. He felt a surge of grief in his stomach. He realised he might just be in a place of profound truth. He wished he’d had the courage to talk to her about his problem, the desperateness that she so perceptively managed to see in his face. ‘Promise me you’ll meet up with Alice. She really means well.’

She didn’t answer. She just nodded with tiredness and pulled open the curtain. Back in business.

He ventured through the confusing, narrow streets, where the silhouettes of men skirted along in the dark, no doubt fathers and husbands who had to race back to their families, the dull pain in their loins temporarily relieved. The memory of Lara’s face made him feel incredibly sad.

He stopped off at a small food kiosk nearby and ordered a lemon and sugar crêpe. He was served by a plain young woman, whose floral clothes looked as if they’d been chosen by her mother. She took great care in making sure there were no breakages around the edges of the crêpe when she lifted it and placed it on a cardboard tray.

He said, ‘I think it’s marvellous you’re doing this, not tempted by all of this around here.’ He could see she wore no make-up.

‘What did you say?’ She had a severe, clipped accent.

‘I mean, I don’t want to be rude, but many young girls fall into it.’

‘Just take your pancake.’

‘They could probably all find some kind of job like this couldn’t they, something more honest?’

‘Goodnight, sir.’

‘Have you ever wondered about doing that?’

‘What are you trying to say, mister?’

‘No, I mean, it’s only money isn’t it.’

‘Good evening, sir.’

‘You’re a good woman. Goodnight.’

He walked briskly back to the slanting house, feeling pity for Alice and the job she had on her hands. He turned the key, but had to give the door a small kick. Luckily it opened without further bother and noise. As he crept down the hallway, trying not to make any more racket, Alice yelled out to ask how things had gone. He thought she must be in a room just by the landing, with the door open. Her voice was strong and clear, indicating she hadn’t been to sleep.

‘No problem.’ He tried to choose his words carefully. ‘I think she’ll be more open about seeing you. We had a chat. I told her you mean well.’

‘Thanks, Kelvin. Let’s just hope she phones.’

‘I’m sure she’ll call. Sleep well.’

He didn’t put any lights on. He just felt his way into the lounge, where Alice had made up a bed on a comfortable-looking sofa. He lay down in his clothes and listened for a while to the house’s low creaking. As he drifted off it seemed the noise was coming out of the drawings on the walls. He dreamed he was nervously introducing Alice to his mother and father when he was younger, telling them how she would make a perfect wife. He was then looking out of a window in a house by the sea. He could suddenly see the transvestite from behind the brewery talking to Alice, revealing the truth about his first experience with naked flesh. His father was then licking Lara’s hands, ignoring an icy glare from his mother.

A few hours later he heard a faint tapping on the door and then watched as the shape of Alice came into the room. ‘I can’t sleep,’ she said.

‘What time is it?’ He tried to find his watch on the floor beside the sofa.

‘I don’t know. Can I lie down with you?’

Kelvin was shocked by the suddenness of it, and the way she asked the question with such ease. ‘Oh.’ He struggled to clear his throat.

‘It’s not to do anything,’ she said firmly. ‘I just need to be with someone strong. Do you mind if I lie down beside you?’

He nodded, half sitting up, not sure whether he should pull back the blanket or let her find her own way. He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t actually that strong. He held his breath and waited for their positions to become comfortable. Had she heard about his lack of action down below?

Her warmth was incredible, her breath heavy and slow. She was tentative about how close she got, settling on the gentle touch of a knee behind his leg and her fingers on his shoulder. He stayed turned away from her, concerned that she may have something more exploratory in mind.

There was nothing but talking, though. Warmth and talking, slow breathing, only the smallest amount of movement. They talked about their childhoods, their families, their failed marriages. The absence of a sexual feeling made Kelvin relax. After a few hours he was so elated and energised by the experience that he knew for certain that Alice had become even more special to him. He wanted to turn and touch her face after a while, but he just stayed in his curved position, soothed by the soft, sweet pull of her voice. It came to him that he might just tell her about his old attraction for her. He felt close enough to her at that point that he almost uttered the words. Sleep overtook them, though. Deep, rich and restful.

* * *
The next morning they sat in a great waterfall of sunlight in the kitchen, with a view over a pretty canal. Kelvin turned to Alice and wondered how she was going to react when he told her that he’d been pleased to spend the night with her, even if there had been no physical contact. He would tell her about the attraction he felt all of those years earlier, about how he found it hard to understand why they’d never tried to get closer. He would even tell her about his impotence. As soon as he caught her eye again, he would tell her everything.

Suddenly, she said, ‘Sex, and our useless craving for love, have made so many people unhappy.’ Her eyes looked like they stung, the pupils dark and dilated. Strangely, she stirred their cups of coffee with a large pair of scissors.

‘What?’ He looked down at the scissors, stuck on the thought that surely there must be some teaspoons in the house. He couldn’t say anything. The only words he had in his head were no longer possible, no longer a part of anything.

‘No, I’m just starting to think that maybe I should be glad to be alone now,’ she said. ‘This whole love, sex, companionship thing really does leave me cold. It was nice to feel your warmth last night, Kelvin, but the rest of it has left me now. Do you know what I mean?’

‘I’m not sure.’ He couldn’t lift his eyes.

‘I was thinking about Lara, about what she’s doing. I think I was actually shocked by her resolve when I saw her, her total disregard for everything we say. Could it be that we’ll never rescue her, and we should leave her alone now? Could it be that on some level she’s closer to the raw truth about all of that business.’

Kelvin stood up without thinking and had to hold his breath to stop himself from gasping. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. A young girl on the other side of the canal threw a large rock into the water, scaring away some swans being fed by some other children.

Alice didn’t seem to notice his reaction. ‘Thank goodness we’re over the hill now. We don’t have to worry about all that nonsense, do we?’

He stood behind her and stared at her bare shoulders. ‘I think I’m going to head off into the city. I really could do with a brisk walk.’

Alice pretended to look hurt. ‘Without me? Without your favourite guide?’

‘You need to be here for when Lara calls.’

She sat back in her chair and looked out over the canal. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. For what it’s worth.’

He got up and went to fetch his wallet.

‘Don’t go and get lost on me now, Kelvin. Remember that this city can swallow people alive.’

The phone rang as he headed out the door, but he didn’t stop. The last thing he needed was for Alice to ask him about his tears.

© Copyright, 2008. Seamus Kearney. "Stirring Coffee With Scissors". All rights reserved.

To Be Rescued

2008-10-03T01:44:00.000+02:00

Hello? Can anyone hear me?
Yes. Hello.
Where the hell am I?
Where do you want to be?
Look, I really don’t know.
So it doesn’t matter where you are then.
I actually hadn't thought about it.
Well now. You’re on a quiet beach.
Oh. So I am. A deserted island?
You must be romantic. Or perhaps melodramatic?
Both, to be honest.
Would it matter if it weren’t an island?
I guess not.
Okay, so it is an island.
Oh. Will I be rescued?
Why does it have to be about getting rescued?
Because I’m alone on a beach. A deserted island.
That’s all it means to you? Lost and alone? Deserted?
Well, unless it was my dream island.
Maybe it is.
But would I really be alone?
Your dream island is crowded?
Well, no.
Be happy then.
That’s it?
What do you mean?
I just sit here and be happy?
What else can you do?
I could explore. Go swimming. Sunbathe.
Yes, you could.
But then what would I do?
You could just take the time to enjoy things.
And then what?
Oh dear. I suppose you’d then want to be rescued.
If this is all there is.
All there is?
Sorry, but the options are quite limited.
You haven’t experienced anything yet, and just listen to you.
Maybe you’re right.
And what if you really do belong here?
And what if I really do not?
Well, I don’t think you would’ve ended up here.
What do you mean?
If that’s the way it was, that’s the way it was meant to be.
Oh. I see.
And maybe you just need to be alone.
I’ve always been alone, even when surrounded by people.
There. So you might as well stay here then.
Do you think so? Maybe you're right.
Good. Now you’re talking.
Talking? I thought I was thinking ... Hello? ... Are you still there?

© Copyright, 2009. Seamus Kearney.

Featured Poem

2008-08-17T15:53:00.005+02:00

Out of all my poems online, this is the one currently attracting the most hits as a result of referrals from search engines. It was written especially for identical twins.

there'll be two

two moons will manifest,
medallions in a purple sky,
so while one illuminates

a country lane, the other
guides a stray fisherman
back to familiar shores.

there’ll be two willows,
laughing in the breeze,
so while one protects

delicate baby finches,
the limbs of the other
become climbing ropes.

two flowers will rise,
burgeoning with colour,
so while one is plucked

to offer some comfort,
the other willingly
surrenders to bees.

there’ll be two rivers,
forging their own paths,
so while one might slow

down to broaden and
explore, the other gives
way to vital rapids.

(This year we became the godparents of the little delights above - Roman and Simon - and this is dedicated to them).

© Copyright, 2008. Seamus Kearney. "There'll be two - a poem for identical twins." This may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, but only when Seamus Kearney is identified as the author.

A Christmas Poem

2008-08-15T14:46:00.000+02:00

Father Christmas has come to live with us,
Accepting an offer of the kids’ old room,
Keen to oblige with evening sing-alongs,
Satisfy our desire for unashamed humour.

We found the old boy wandering the street,
So alone with his tales of good tidings,
Competing with all those big neon lights,
The families galloping from sale to sale.

Some might think we’ve been horribly rash,
But we’re sold on our colourful new lodger,
Our home was in such urgent need of glee,
After those lengthy states of distraction.

As long as he stays in his red and whites,
And doesn’t ever feel the urge to shave,
We’re so ready for a non-stop Christmas,
A permanent feast of heartening memories.

© Copyright, 2008. Seamus Kearney. "A Christmas Poem - a non-stop Christmas"

A Musical Poem

2008-08-15T03:14:00.000+02:00

This is one of my poems, The Captured Rainbow, set to some original piano music and images that I filmed in New Zealand.

Photos of Rome - October, 2008

2008-08-14T22:47:00.003+02:00

The Festival of Lights, Lyon - Dec, 2008

2008-08-13T09:32:00.007+02:00

A Short Story

2008-05-27T02:11:00.005+02:00

A mighty thump, followed by the sound of scattering debris. Zaki knew straight away that another mortar had slammed into the nearby bear’s enclosure, the fifth late afternoon intrusion in less than two weeks. He held his breath, but nothing happened. No bursting in anger? A dud like the others? Thank goodness for the incompetence of those young fools!

The only warning in Kabul’s autumn sky had been a whistling sound, almost tuneful, which in happier times would’ve easily been mistaken for a zoo keeper in a pleasant mood, perhaps someone remembering an old love song. What would it take to bring back those glorious days, when families could walk freely through the grounds?

Zaki crawled out of his hiding place. He moved slowly, careful not to go too far out into the open, but enough to be able to get a clear view and assess the danger. He’d been in the middle of his prayers when the mortar fell and he wondered if that’s what had saved them. Then he remembered that at the moment of impact he’d actually been momentarily distracted from his prayers, wondering if anyone else in the world had ever been forced to live in a hole in the ground.

The mortar was grey and shiny like a large beetle. It had smashed a piece off the top of the enclosure’s back wall and then rolled in behind a log. What Zaki found amazing was that the racket hadn’t roused the bear from her slumber. ‘It’s going to be fine,’ he whispered to his friend, trying not to stretch up too high in case someone spotted him. He knew the words were more for himself. ‘I’ll come over in the safety of the night, when the gates are closed and no one can see me. Stay asleep and keep dreaming of our better days.’ He held out his cold, blistered hand and blew his friend a kiss.

Zaki’s hiding place was a simple underground chamber at the end of a narrow dirt tunnel, just below a fence that surrounded part of the enclosure. Wooden bins, which once overflowed with grain and slops for the animals, partly covered a small grill that opened above his head. The base of a large mulberry tree also provided extra protection, keeping the confines of the tunnel in constant darkness. He called it his “royal palace”.

He settled back down on his sheepskin rug, still damp from a downpour the week before, and closed his eyes. ‘Don’t go sniffing, my dear friend. Please don’t go sniffing. The beetle may look interesting, but it’s actually very nasty.’ He could only hope that the bear’s injured nose would stop her from exploring too far.

As he waited for Kabul’s orange moon to make an appearance, he prepared the long, brittle twigs he would need to remove the danger. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get any sleep, despite a tiredness that was trying to choke him to death. Stray dogs also continued to yelp, and the gunpowder on the wind was starting to sting his nostrils with increasing ferocity.

He finished his prayers and then ate a piece of the stale bread he’d earlier managed to salvage from outside one of the keepers’ huts. Crumbs got lost in his knotted beard of grey and brown, but he made no attempt to retrieve them. There was no one to be tidy for now. Just the animals.

He was also pleased to discover that a decent amount of water had dripped into his rusty mug, having followed the clever river beds he’d cut into the mulberry tree with his pocket knife. He lay back and dreamed he was sucking the soft flesh from the inside of a mango. He left it sitting on his tongue. The sensation of a real, fresh mouthful.

It wasn’t long before he wondered whether he’d made the right decision to wait for nightfall. What if his friend woke up and really did go prying behind the log? Would it not be better to take a risk now, despite the daylight? He sat on his hands and prayed for an answer. Nothing came, though. He remained where he was, the whole time urging the sun to fall faster from the sky.

The temptation of pilaf then drifted in from the run-down homes nearby, a dish that 20 neighbours had probably chipped in to make. Divine smells for impoverished noses. Zaki could make out chicken, yoghurt and raisins, which reminded him of the three years he spent as the chef in a warlord’s residence. Perhaps someone had a bottle of something strong as well, something the soldiers hadn’t been able to seek out.

He thought back to the days before the troubles: before the Russians, before the Taliban, before ‘America’s worst nightmare’, as he’d heard someone describe it on the radio. Would he ever again enjoy a pilaf picnic under the lush mulberry groves outside of Kabul? Would the roads ever be lined again with handsome, leafy trees? Would the children ever be truly free to sing and skylark like they used to?

Someone said the Americans were close to the capital and it might only be a matter of days before they conquered the entire country. What would that mean? Did Americans treasure animals, or was it true what they said on the radio? Just in front of the enclosure the day before, he’d overheard a couple of Taliban soldiers talking about their ‘losing battle’. They’d leaned against the bins and rubbed their feet with some of the balms they’d ransacked from the animal clinic. They hadn’t thought to look for Zaki there beneath the mulberry tree. They’d been searching everywhere, hauling in the keepers to help, knowing it hadn’t been a clever monkey throwing rocks at their comrades the week before. Zaki smiled when he thought about how he’d managed to hit a fat soldier on the head from a great distance, making him dance around madly with his hands on his head.

The bear shifted in her shelter, making groaning sounds, most likely caused by hunger. No sound was more agonising to listen to. He put his head up against the grill and whispered, straining his eyes to see if he could make out her worn black coat. ‘Just don’t go near the log, you crazy big lump. It’s not long to wait now.’

Vehicles could still be heard on the other side of the zoo and he knew he couldn’t risk going out into the open, not until he was certain the front gates were closed. Too many battle-weary Taliban, some as young as 16, had been regularly coming into the grounds to use the water fountains and shower in the old elephant house. Why couldn’t they just wash and leave? Why did they have to hassle the remaining animals, already malnourished and miserable?

What kind of man would bait a gorgeous, innocent bear by getting up dangerously close - an act of bravado in front of his friends - and then cut off a slice of the animal’s nose in revenge for the inevitable scratches? With people like that about, Zaki knew he had to wait for total darkness before venturing out of his hole.

In a letter to his mother, Zaki said throwing rocks at the Taliban soldiers and the guards of warlords was the very least he could do to protest against the terrible things he'd witnessed. As well as being angry about the bear’s nose, he was bitter about the injuries inflicted on Marjan, the greatest lion in the world, who’d lost an eye and part of his mouth when he tossed around something he probably took to be a toy or piece of strange food. The object turned out to be another nasty beetle, a grenade, this one more than willing to express the anger of the sender. The attack had been another act of revenge, carried out by the brother of a man mauled to death after foolishly climbing into Marjan’s enclosure.

Zaki, a grown man of 50 winters, described in his letter how he’d wept when he helped the keepers and a couple of other visitors rush Marjan over to the zoo’s deprived medical clinic. Everything possible was done to try to help, but nothing had been able to fix the damage. As well as losing an eye and his hearing, Marjan lost the teeth he needed for chewing. Someone had to help, and that’s when Zaki decided to secretly dedicate his days to the animals' well-being.

‘Our country’s curse of conflict’, he told his mother, ‘has not even spared these fine creatures who know nothing of the grievances. I have decided to live among them, as their guardian angel. I prefer their company to that of people.’

Two of the zoo’s most popular animals had been injured for the first time in years of conflict. Zaki hadn’t wept like that when news came through that some of his old school friends had been killed in military action. This new grief was over something far more profound: the future of his entire people, his entire culture.

He wondered whether his letter and the terrible story it contained ever got through to his mother, who’d been forced to go and live with her sister in the city of Ghazni. He’d placed his trust in a young Pakistani woodman who often took the trade route from Kabul to Kandahar. That had been weeks before, though, and he had no way of knowing if the letter had actually been delivered.

* * *

Zaki woke to the sound of scraping. He was surprised to learn that he’d actually managed to fall asleep, but then saw that he’d accidentally rolled over and snapped the long twigs he’d put aside. He retied his headscarf and pulled his coat tightly around his thin frame. Had his friend discovered the grey menace? Was she nudging it, and wondering why it wasn’t reacting?

He crawled out of the tunnel and hurried along to the enclosure on his hands and knees, the whole time checking the dusty paths nearby, just in case he’d missed the sound of soldiers.

‘Zaki?’

The voice came from behind. He dared not look around. The moon, now rising, seemed to be shining down just on him, as bright as the spotlight in the local square.

‘Zaki, you old camel! Don’t panic. It’s just me.’

‘You!’ He jumped up and hugged the Pakistani woodman, who seemed much lankier than he remembered. ‘I thought you were a soldier.’

The woodman grinned and handed over a parcel. ‘The dried fruit and canned fish you asked for, as well as a small amount of tobacco.’

‘You scared me.’

‘But I also have some bad news.’ The woodman turned his head away.

‘Bad news? What could possibly get any worse?’

‘Your mother.’

Zaki closed his eyes. ‘Did she not get my letter?’

‘No, I have it here.’

‘But she is in Ghazni?’

‘They said they waited for days but she never arrived.’

Zaki sat down heavily on the dust, his legs folding up as though he were beginning a traditional dance. He put his head right down, almost onto his stomach.

Neither man spoke. One seated, the other standing up. Silence. The moon bright. The wind starting to stir the dust on the paths.

After a while Zaki lifted his head and said, ‘A mortar may explode. In there with our friend. I have to protect her. I can’t lose her too.’

They both found some new twigs and then worked for an hour in silence, slowly coaxing the stubborn beetle out of a groove in the frozen soil. They prayed as they manoeuvred, hoping that the device’s inner workings had somehow been damaged and made useless. Zaki felt as if his breathing were as shallow as that of a toad-headed lizard and he may actually faint from the lack of oxygen. Concentration. Deep concentration. Both men sweated profusely, despite the cold. They kept their eyes on the beetle, willing it with all of their force to stay asleep.

The woodman asked, ‘Is this American, or from the Taliban?’

‘The Americans aren’t upon us yet, so it must be from our poor soldiers, mere babies, still practising how it’s done, still working out the distances, how to target them.’

‘They choose the zoo for target practice?’

Zaki frowned. ‘I like to think it’s not deliberate, but one has to wonder.’

Just as the bear began to groan again, perhaps threatening to start crawling in search of food, they gently rolled the beetle out of the enclosure and onto the dirt. ‘If it wanted to explode it would’ve done so by now,’ said Zaki.

They were still there. In one piece. They said quick prayers and beamed at each other. They walked in wide circles, breathing deeply, furiously rubbing their hands together to try to warm them up. Zaki attached a long piece of twine around the tail of the beetle. Then, after measuring out what he thought to be a reasonably safe distance, he dragged it delicately towards his hidden collection of unexploded and exploded munitions. He had about a dozen mortars and grenades, plus the spent shells from smaller arms. He’d moved them all into a shallow hole and covered them over with sticks and leaves.

‘It’s what I’ve collected over the months,’ he said. ‘Strays that’ve come in here, that I’ve found out in the streets, as well as what I’ve confiscated from those who shouldn’t have that kind of power in their hands.’

‘You’re going to blow yourself up.’ The woodman laughed up into the sky. ‘They could explode at any minute.’

‘Better to kill me than the animals.’

‘What’s so special about them?’

Zaki groaned as he put more leaves over his munitions dump. ‘What’s so special about us that they should die instead?’

‘You crazy old camel.’ The woodman settled down on a tree stump.

‘They represent the spirit of this country,’ said Zaki. ‘They live, we all live. Now, stop making so much noise and help me collect some meat for Marjan and the others.’

‘Don’t the keepers feed them?’

‘They do their best but they’re no longer paid. They can hardly feed themselves.’

The woodman retied his headscarf, using one end of it to wipe away the sweat on his neck. He grinned, flashing three tiny teeth. ‘Where’s your stash of meat then? Who has anything spare these days?’

‘There are people who still have too much. There always is, even in times of conflict. They don’t even know it’s missing.’

The two men crept along in the shadows to the zoo’s perimeter and then effortlessly scaled one of the stone walls, climbing up the long, flowing branches of a willow tree. They made their way to a nearby butcher’s shop, where sacks of meat were always left in an unlocked shed, ready for delivery to those who could still afford it.

‘I did look for her,’ said the woodman, ‘as much as I could. I asked around about her. I tried to follow up any leads.’

‘Thank you. I appreciate that.’

‘You know, she may’ve ...’

Zaki stopped and took hold of the woodman’s hand. ‘We need to be quiet now. The people around here are very alert to strange sounds in the night.’

Zaki emerged from the shed with two large packets of meat and handed one of them to the woodman. Half way back to the zoo, he said, ‘These smelt the worst. It’s probably a tough old goat that no one wanted and now it’s not fresh enough to sell.’

He explained to the woodman how he had to use his pocket knife to cut the meat up into very small pieces for Marjan, to make it easier for him to eat.

Then, just as they approached the section of the wall they needed to climb back over, the light from a torch further down the road sought them out, with the sound of somebody running towards them. ‘Stay there! Kneel down on the ground!’

Zaki and the woodman fell to their knees, pushing the packages of meat behind their backs. A young Taliban soldier, who appeared to be alone, shone the torch in their eyes and kicked the packets to the ground. A rifle hung from his shoulder.

‘We are just returning to the zoo,’ said Zaki, fixing his eyes on the dirt in front of him. ‘It’s meat for the animals. We’re keepers at the zoo. We have no other business in the street.’

‘Why have you not taken up arms, to fight off the Americans?’ asked the soldier. ‘What could be more important than that?’

Zaki looked up into the light, disturbed by the small gasps of fear coming from the woodman. ‘The animals need to stay strong so our children can enjoy them again, when the zoo reopens in all its former glory. Do you not pray for such a day?’

The soldier spat some chewing tobacco onto the ground. ‘You’re a liar! There are no animals left in the zoo.’

‘There are not many,’ said Zaki, ‘but I swear there are still a few. Marjan the lion is still alive. The bear. Some wolves. A few others.’

‘Marjan? He’s still alive? After that attack?’

‘He was badly injured but he is still with us.’

The soldier’s face relaxed and he almost smiled. ‘I remember visiting Marjan when I was a boy. I thought he’d been killed.’

‘He is very much alive,’ said Zaki, discreetly taking the woodman’s hand to stop him from crying.

The soldier inspected the packages, but moved back quickly because of the foul smell. ‘You ought to find some fresher food for someone as great as Marjan.’ He switched off the torch and left, leaving the two men on their knees, hugging each other in shock.

The fear stayed with them, deep in their gut, until they later came face to face with Marjan. They sat and watched the animal’s forlorn face begin to sparkle with the promise of a midnight feast.

* * *

The Americans seemed to think that any number of creatures could be living in Zaki’s long beard and so they made obvious efforts to avoid close contact. ‘We need you to come with us,’ said one of the soldiers, not seeming to care that Zaki didn’t understand English. They took him by the arm, but he noticed their touch was a lot more delicate than usual.

They led him from his cell, down the long, familiar corridors, towards the captain he despised, the one who wouldn’t believe him, who continued to insist that he must be an enemy, a fighter, a hurter of people. A beating this time? Zaki prepared himself for more ridiculous questions, hours of misunderstanding, with mediocre translators who didn’t seem to be getting his story across to the Americans.

He’d told the same story to a different translator just a few days before, an elderly woman who’d presented herself as the wife of a university professor from Jalalabad. He’d repeated, for what seemed to be the 100th time, that he’d lived in the zoo in a secret tunnel for months, acting as the animals’ protector and feeder, collecting meat for them during the night. He totally denied the charges being alleged. He’d looked up at the woman as she repeated his words in English, praying that she would get them right and he could be released. The woman’s pale, round face and long lashes reminded him of his dear mother.

Zaki had repeated his story about Marjan, the bear, the tunnel, his simple existence under the light of the moon, his relief that the animals hadn’t been harmed when the American, British and Northern Alliance soldiers arrived. He’d explained how he had no choice but to stay on in his hiding place because he wanted to be sure the animals would continue to be looked after. He’d also been too afraid to learn the fate of his mother.

It had all seemed to be just wasted words, however. The captain kept saying that Zaki had failed to properly explain his 'nice little bomb factory', or why he’d been found hiding from them, or why he hadn’t surrendered the moment Kabul fell. The captain kept insisting that Zaki must have been a senior member of the Taliban. It seemed he would stay in his cell until he confessed. No confession, no freedom.

Now, though, things seemed to be different. Zaki stood once again in front of the captain, with the same elderly woman translator seated across the room. He saw that a pot of mint tea had been prepared. The captain came around from behind his desk and actually offered him a cup, seeming to smile. Zaki cautiously sipped. Something was up.

The captain spoke and then turned to the translator.

‘He says we have some good news,’ she said.

The captain put his arm around Zaki’s shoulder and continued talking.

‘Some witnesses have corroborated your story. They have come forward to attest to your innocence.’ The translator grinned excitedly.

Zaki was worried that she’d got the words wrong again. He looked back at the captain, but he only nodded.

‘You are free to go home,’ said the translator, tears building up in her eyes.

Zaki trembled as he quietly asked, ‘But who came forward, after all this time?’

The captain offered Zaki a chair. He explained through the translator that the zoo's fragile lion had died, just weeks after being visited by veterinary experts from the West.

Zaki stared straight ahead. He couldn't blink.

The keepers and officials who’d gathered for Marjan’s memorial service had got to hear about the arrest within the zoo's grounds. When the military showed them Zaki's photo, they recognised him as someone who’d been there to help on the day the lion had been injured. Then, during further investigation, other pieces of favourable evidence emerged.

‘Who killed him? Who killed our great Marjan, our last hope?’ Zaki slipped out of his chair, wheezing and curling into himself.

The captain’s words took a while to be translated, with the elderly woman sobbing and trying to comfort Zaki at the same time. ‘It was old age. No one killed him. He wasn’t in the best of shape with his old injuries ... but he’d already reached a very fine age.’

Zaki stopped crying as the words began to make more sense. Old age? Not by a nasty beetle? Not by an evil man? He closed his eyes and tried to think more clearly about what he’d heard. The departure he and Marjan had prayed for. He pictured the lion closing his eyes and taking his last breath serenely, extinguished by nothing more than old age.

Zaki held onto the woman’s arm and put his head against her thigh. ‘And the bear. What’s happened to my beautiful friend?’

The captain said he knew for a fact that she was fine and had been given the name Donatella. She’d begun treatment for the injuries to her nose and the prognosis was excellent. The captain repeated the phrases three times. He even put a hand on Zaki’s shoulder and gently squeezed.

It took Zaki a good 20 minutes before he could stand. He thanked the woman translator for her 'beautiful choice of words' and shook the captain’s hand. He also quietly said a prayer for Marjan, acknowledging his help in winning his release. He turned to the captain before leaving his office and said, ‘Dying of old age is something we should all be able to look forward to.’ He smiled and bowed.

Outside the army compound, the air seemed to have a fresher scent to it. He spent a few minutes watching a group of children laugh and chase one another, and then he wondered which direction he should take. He thought about the hole in the ground, but figured that would’ve already been filled in.

He couldn’t get the image of Marjan out of his head. He also pictured Donatella, lying back and resting, comforted by medication. Just as he decided to shuffle off down a track to his left, realising it didn’t really matter which direction he chose, he looked up and spotted a tall solitary figure by an old cart. He struggled to make out the face.

‘Zaki, you old camel!’ The woodman rushed over, grinning and waving madly. ‘I’m glad they finally believed us.’

Zaki could hardly speak. His lips trembled. ‘You’ve been waiting for me?’

‘We have a long journey to Ghazni ahead of us,’ said the woodman. ‘There is hope, my friend. We have some positive news to chase up.’

© Copyright, 2008. Seamus Kearney. "The Midnight Keeper"
(This short story was inspired by the true story of Marjan the lion, who was injured in the zoo at Kabul during the rule of the Taliban. He died of old age after the arrival of US-led forces. Donatella, the bear, was also an animal at the zoo. But Zaki and his personal story are purely fiction.)

Au revoir

2008-05-26T02:18:00.009+02:00

I'm terrible at making goodbye speeches, and I usually avoid them, so forgive me if this one is a bit all over the place. (Is there a hanky in the house?) Yes, the above photo represents new pastures - as if I would go for the cliché of a field full of green grass!

Seriously, though. I realised recently that I really had to make a decision about this blog, which I set up as an outlet for my interest in writing and books, and which has given me enormous pleasure over the past two years. But, for many different reasons, the time has come to acknowledge that this wonderful experience has come to its natural end.

I thought I could just leave things unattended, like many people do, and dip back in every now and then. But I'm just not like that. I don't like to leave things hanging in space, in a state of hiatus, and that's why I've decided to be brave and close things down. It goes without saying that this has been a very difficult decision to make. That old issue of time has been a big factor - juggling between work, travel, relationships, projects - but, of course, it's not the only reason.

I'd just like to say that I've really enjoyed your visits and truly appreciated your interest and support. I've also thoroughly enjoyed the blogs I discovered along the way. I will still be lurking behind the scenes (even if I don't leave comments) to check up on how everyone is getting on. And, of course, I will still be plugging away with my own creative writing. There will always be time and energy for that.

I've been wondering whether I should leave all the archives up or not. What do you think? It would be so hard to push the delete button on all those words. But it would also seem strange to leave the blog just sitting there on its own, staring out into the big wide world, without someone there to stop the dust from settling.

Anyway, from Muffin and me, from our little corner of the planet, I wish you all great success and happiness and the best of luck with your personal projects.

* Oh, I almost forgot. Before I go, I thought I would leave you with the photos I had lined up to complete the Shameless Graffito series. Enjoy!

Novels, Nomads and Shadows

2008-05-14T14:48:00.004+02:00

I have my diary out, making sure there are sufficient gaps for the above literary festival, The International Forum on the Novel, which kicks off here in Lyon at the end of the month. Wow, what a great list of writers attending (the full list is below). This year's theme is: The Novel, What An Invention! I hope it will inspire me to bulldoze ahead with my own novel - if bulldoze is the right word to use!

Really, my feet aren't touching the ground at the moment, amid lots of travelling, work, visitors, sunshine. I just haven't had the time for the internet of late, which explains why it's been quiet here and why I've not been visiting my favourite sites as often as I'd like. There is so much going on, and it's all good, but I wish there were more hours in the day. I'm not home often, and that looks likely to be the case until after the summer. Just call me Mr Nomad.

I'm probably going to be a shadow member of this on-line writing community for a while, I'm afraid. I hope to be able to post the odd thing, so please do check in on me, but my non-cyber life has elbowed its way in and is refusing to budge. Something has to give. On top of everything else, like many of you, I am trying to put aside more time for my creative writing. The year is slipping by fast and I really want to make more progress!

I suppose you could say that I will be here, but won't be here ... if you know what I mean.

Here's the list of the writers attending the literary festival:

Nelly Arcan (Canada)
Geneviève Brisac (France)
James Cañón (Colombia)
Jean-Yves Cendrey (France)
Upamanyu Chatterjee (India)
Rafael Chirbes (Spain)
Hélène Cixous (France)
Karen Connelly (Canada)
Dennis Cooper (USA)
Rachel Cusk (UK)
Duong Thu Huong (Vietnam)
Rachid El-Daïf (Lebanon)
Péter Esterházy (Hungary)
Monika Fagerholm (Finland)
Nuruddin Farah (Somalia)
Nicolas Fargues (France)
Alain Fleischer (France)
Rodrigo Fresan (Argentina)
Alberto Garlini (Italy)
Xiaolu Guo (China)
Yannick Haenel (France)
Aleksandar Hemon (Bosnia/USA)
Jacques Henric (France)
Christophe Honoré (France)
Arthur Japin (The Netherlands)
Thomas Jonigk (Germany)
Etgar Keret (Israel)
Jonas Hassen Khemiri (Sweden)
Fatos Kongoli (Albania)
Dany Laferrière (Haiti/Québec)
Jonathan Lethem (USA)
José Carlos Llop (Spain)
Nicole Malinconi (Belgium)
Daniel Mendelsohn (USA)
Joseph O’Connor (Ireland)
Ludmila Oulitskaïa (Russia)
David Peace (UK)
Annie Proulx (USA)
Éric Reinhardt (France)
Pedro Rosa-Mendes (Portugal)
Olivia Rosenthal (France)
Suhayl Saadi (UK)
Elif Shafak (Turkey)
Tarun J. Tejpal (India)
Adam Thirlwell (UK)
Dimitri Verhulst (Belgium)
Anne Weber (Germany-France)
Alissa York (Canada)

Saris & Spice

2008-04-28T20:53:00.008+02:00

I am back, in one piece, with my head still awash with the sights, smells and sounds of India. Wow! Here is just a small selection of the 790 photos I took.

Suffice to say that I have fallen in love with the Indian people. They struck me as beautiful, welcoming and gracious. A smile given was always a smile received. From New Delhi to the Maharashtra region, and from Agra to Jaipur in Rajasthan, there was nothing but nourishment for the soul.

I left there knowing that I would definitely return, and not even the unpleasant aspects of the visit have put me off. My partner and I had no choice but to spend a night in hospital with food poisoning and sunstroke that left us seriously dehydrated, amid temperatures that rose to 46 degrees celsius. Also, there don't seem to be any rules on the road, which was nothing short of frightening, especially when our driver only just avoided a head-on collision at dusk in the middle of nowhere. Someone was on our side.

A mix of emotions and unique experiences made this trip one of the most memorable and rewarding so far. I'm looking forward to putting together a video with more of the most striking images I took, but that will have to wait for a bit as I'm off to a wedding in Spain on Friday. I really hope my still-fragile stomach and anti-malaria tablets don't hold me back!

Also, while we seem to be in hyper-travelling mood, I've just booked my tickets to go home to visit family and friends in New Zealand for three weeks in July. It's a 30-hour flight, and I really wouldn't be surprised if all this time in the clouds results in my brain being turned into mashed potatoes. Can I also have two weeks in the sun in France on my return? (NZ will be in the middle of winter). Would that be asking for too much? Have travel bug, will travel!

Delhi Is Calling !

2008-04-12T14:23:00.003+02:00

I got a taste of the colour and the culture when I recently saw the St Patrick's Day Parade in Dublin, but now I'm off to see the real thing!

Yes, today I'm leaving for a two-week trip to India. It's my first time and I can't wait. It's a country I've always been fascinated by: I love the people, the culture, the food. I'm hoping a new love affair is about to begin and that this is just the introductory trip.

I will no doubt have plenty of photos to share with you when I get back. I'm also going to be filming a little bit. My partner's 30-year-old cousin is Indian - she was adopted to France when she was little - and she will be seeing her roots for the very first time. Four of us will be travelling together, and we plan to go and see the orphanage where she used to live. How special will that be?

OK, a suitcase needs to be packed! See you at the end of the month.

A Pause For A Poem

2008-04-08T12:49:00.006+02:00

I watch her rolling on the parquet,
her feline pleasure uncoiled, rattling
beneath a palm on her royal markings.
But how I wish we could share a smile,
just a smudge of a grin, without the
need for the tweaking of whiskers.

Did she once have this gift but then
decided on subtlety?

Why for the sake of heaven do I
hanker for such a sign? To bury my
guilt about her quasi-imprisonment?
Because I’ve denied her the joy
of prising the head off a rodent,
or a hapless bird she’s courted?

Please, have mercy. Tell me I’m not
her terrible jailer.

If canines and apes can achieve it,
is it too much of a leap to frame her
laughing behind an excited tongue?
Surely it’s the natural step from the
diving and arching between my feet,
the motherly licking of my skin.

What did our forefathers make of
this absence of a smile?

Maybe she simpers in the night, when
the fire’s out and her life is being
contemplated: unbroken sleep, an easy
hunt, the reassurance of domestic
safety. But what rustles in her dreams?
Instincts we’ve dashed? Her family?

I guess I need more faith in those who
say she really is content.

© Copyright, 2008. Seamus Kearney.

(The photo that goes with this poem is a shot of Miss Muffin, our adorable Siamese cat. She was so well behaved, staying perfectly still while I focused!)

A Shameless Graffito (N°7)

2008-03-29T18:21:00.002+01:00

Click here to see the rest of the series so far!

More Of St Paddy's Dublin Festivities

2008-03-24T17:28:00.008+01:00

As promised, here's a closer look at the wonderful St Patrick's day parade I saw in Dublin last weekend. This is a mix of video clips and photos, taken from the window of my hotel room in Parnell Square.

Paddy, Yeats, Barbara & Chocolate!

2008-03-20T21:24:00.008+01:00

Wow, my first ever St Patrick's Day in Ireland! Dublin, to be exact. The sky stopped crying just at the right time, long enough for the traditional parade to take place without the risk of everything getting smudged. I had a wonderful view of the floats and performers, thanks to the fact that they passed just beneath the window of my hotel room in Parnell Square. Here's a taste of some of the sights, while I work on a little video presentation for later:

* * * * *
But St Patrick's Day was special for another reason: I was invited to have dinner with the poet and blogger Barbara Smith. My very first blogmeetle, which came with a delicious vegetarian meal (I am such a pain when it comes to my meatlessness)! It was a real delight to meet Barbara and some of her family. She was exactly how I imagined she would be: warm, funny and generous in spirit. What a treat it all was, and Barbara and her husband even showed me around some of their beautiful countryside. March 17, 2008, will stay in my memory for a very long time.

* * * * *
I got a fair amount of writing done while I was in Dublin: the skeleton for a short story, a poem and about five pages towards my novel. My new fountain pen was such a pleasure to use, as I soaked up all the energy and charm that my father's city has to offer. I read quite a bit as well.

There was also a great exhibition on the life of W.B.Yeats at the National Library, with fascinating copies of his drafts and notes on numerous poems. I always find it interesting to see how great poets edit their own work, to see the before and after. It was also a treat to hear Seamus Heaney and Sinead O'Connor read out some of Yeats' poems.

Just down the road, at Trinity College, I finally got a chance to see the Book of Kells. Whenever I'd gone to see these old treasures in the past I'd always been put off by the long queues; this time, though, on a Tuesday, there was virtually no one around. What a strange silence and feeling of deep awe to at last see these books up close!

* * * * *
There was some good news and bad news on my return to Lyon. The computer has been fixed and no personal data has been lost. Whew! I thought I'd lost about 15 unsaved pages of my novel. But no, they're all there. Apparently the power hub overheated.

I've also discovered there's a new little chocolate shop just opened in the street beneath our building. Mmmmmm. Handmade. Delicious-looking. I will probably give in to the daily, excruciating temptations. I mean, I've got to support local business, right?

The bad news is that we have no internet or television connection. We don't know why and they say they're on to it. It's been two days. I'm writing this post in an internet café and I won't even begin to tell you how difficult it's been to post this with the photos. So, in the meantime, sorry if I am tardy in my blog visits and my answering of emails and messages.

Two Years of Shamelessness!

2008-03-15T00:22:00.003+01:00

I was so wrapped up in my computer hassles that I forgot to mark the second anniversary of this blog. (The computer is fixed now, by the way, but I'm in Dublin at the moment and so won't have her hooked up at home until I get back next week. I'm still not sure how much data I've lost, but my fingers, toes and eyes are all crossed!)

Anyway, blogiversary! Yayyyyyyy! Yippppppeee! The anniversary is hard to pin down to an exact date because this blog got off to a "toes-in-first" start. It really took off in the first week of March, 2006, when I decided that I would invest the time and try to keep it going. If you're here reading this today, then it hasn't been a wasted effort. Like they say: without you, the reader, this blog really would be nothing. Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it. I've also loved reading all the other blogs I've discovered over the past two years and I look forward to a whole lot more of the same. Really, you are all wonderful sparks that fire a larger engine.

Now, why would I have a photo of a pen and writing books to accompany a post about my blog anniversary? Let me explain.

It's funny, but my blogging habits have evolved over the past two years. I started out posting daily, or at least every other day, but quickly realised I couldn't keep that up (there's this awful thing called "daily life" that gets in the way) and readers miss posts if they don't have the time to digest them. I now try to do about two posts a week related to my love of writing and reading, which seems to be just about manageable.

However, I also really want to have more time to do the creative writing that I talk so much about, some of which I feature here from time to time. I've had to really think about ways to guarantee that I have time for writing fiction and poetry in this age of distraction ... and that's where the pen and books come in. I decided to go out and buy a lovely fountain pen, so I can do a lot more writing away from the computer. I need to ensure that I'm not constantly tempted by all the amazing sites that dance and sing behind my computer screen. As well as a forest of superb blogs, there are deep valleys of unique information and entertainment.

A fountain pen? It couldn't just be any pen. I had to buy something that would be a pleasure to use, where the letters would almost appear by magic on the page, effortlessly, with strong, sure strokes. I've never been a fountain pen user, but my partner recently bought one and I was sold after a few tries. Now I have the tools, I just have to get on with it. I have to make sure that I switch off the computer and go and write in different places: lying on the couch, in cafes, in parks, places where inspiration is dripping. The new regime has begun here in Dublin!

* * *

Speaking of writing, the latest instalment in Grace's story over at The Shameless Lions Writing Circle is up. Bonnie has done a brilliant job at preparing the stage for the final scene. The story is about to be wrapped up after an exciting, epic journey. Do go and check it out if you haven't already done so. It's amazing how something like this was possible, with so many different writers and styles blending together. I've seen these kinds of projects fall apart after just a few contributions, and I was thrilled to see this one go from strength to strength. The next project at the circle is in the pipeline.

* * *
Someone also asked me in a mail about the Shameless Graffito series, and when the next one will go up. Wow, I'm thrilled it's eagerly awaited. There's been a slight break because of the fire inside the computer, and I'm really hoping the photos that were waiting in the wings haven't gone up in smoke. I will aim to have the next one up late next week, when I'm back from Dublin.

The Woman Who's Branching Out !

2008-03-11T00:53:00.000+01:00

This plant, given to us a few years back by some Swiss friends, has really grown into a bit of a talking point. It sits on the coffee table in the lounge, so people can't help but notice the woman who's forever reaching towards the light. In case you're wondering - or sniggering - we definitely did nothing to make the plant grow like this! She will soon have to have an appropriate name, so any ideas would be very welcome. At the moment she's known here as "The Woman Who's Branching Out". She will probably also have to have a poem at some point. I'm going to work on it.

Forums, Angels, India And Candle Wax

2008-03-07T02:57:00.020+01:00

Yes! I no longer have to resort to hopping across to the UK to get my fix of English-speaking literary events!

I'm very pleased to see that Lyon's International Forum On The Novel is taking place again this year, from May 26 to June 1. The theme is: "The novel - what an invention!" Last year's forum was the inaugural event and it attracted some big names. Here are some of the anglophone authors showing up this year:

Annie Proulx, Joseph O’Connor (Ireland), Nelly Arcan (Canada), Karen Connelly (Canada), Dennis Cooper (USA), Kirsty Gunn (New Zealand), Jonathan Lethem (USA), Daniel Mendelsohn (USA), David Peace (UK), Suhayl Saadi (UK), Adam Thirlwell (UK) and Alissa York (Canada). There are in fact some 80 writers attending.

However, I really hope the format this time round allows for a bit more discussion and improvisation on the part of the authors. There was a tendency for things to get a bit dry last year: the writers read out prepared pieces on the given theme (sometimes very academic and inaccessible) and then there was only time for the odd question from a panel of two or three "experts". I prefer more time for raw questions and answers, and more of a chance for the audience to interact with the authors. This is France, though, and they do seem to like these events to be very orderly and controlled. We'll see.

* * * * *
Oh, and there's some wonderful news about an amazing book I've just finished reading.

The Vintner's Luck, a novel about a 19th century French winegrower who has an affair with an angel, is being made into a film. This was a superb book, with writing that made me shiver, and it'll be brilliant to see it portrayed on the big screen. The author is the New Zealander Elizabeth Knox, who received widespread acclaim for this book. I found it to be a little pearl of a novel, which is very hard to fit into any category or genre. It takes a little bit of time to get into the story, but once you surrender to the strange universe and poetic prose, the experience is unique and memorable.

The cast for the film looks interesting: the Belgian actor Jeremie Renier and the French actor Gaspard Ulliel will play the winegrower and the angel, while the New Zealand Oscar-nominee Keisha Castle-Hughes (star of the film Whale Rider) will play the winegrower's wife. American actress Vera Farmiga will play another important role. Filming has already started in a vineyard in Auckland, New Zealand, and it's reported there will also be scenes shot in France and Belgium. I can't wait to see what the director, Nicky Caro, does with this.

* * * * *
A few things have kept me away from writing and reading recently, and I am so eager to get back to normal!

First of all, my computer blew up! I smelt something burning when I was downloading some video footage and I didn't figure out what was going on until it was too late. Bang! I'm praying that no important data has been lost; my last big "saving spree" was a few weeks back. This is a timely reminder to those of you who have not saved copies of your precious words or photos. Do it now! Computers, no matter how new, can go on the blink at any moment! We bought ours in 2006! (I'm writing this on the "courtesy" laptop they make available while repairs are carried out. Thank goodness we paid extra to extend the warranty!)

The other anti-writing/reading event was the flu. It hit me between the eyes and forced me to take a week off work. The last time I remember being confined to bed was about 10 years ago. A dry, annoying cough is still hanging around, but I'm trying to make it feel unwelcome. I'm now enjoying a great blend of plants and essential oils after an overdose of horrible chemicals!

The good news, though, is that my visa has come through for our two-week trip to India in April (I won't even begin to tell you about the administrative nightmare this entailed!). What should I read to get in the mood? What literary sights/activities should I seek out in New Delhi and Nagpur? Do share your thoughts if you've been there.

The other good news, in terms of trying to nail down more time for creative writing, is that I've finally managed to reduce the hours at work by about 10 percent, which will give me two weeks off every two months. Yes! It was crazy not to do this earlier. I will earn 10 percent less, but I will be happier. I will also have fewer nasty nightshifts to do! Now there's no excuse for not making lots of writing progress in 2008!

* * * * *
Oh, by the way, if you ever spill oodles of candle wax over a shiny black piano (how stupid could I be? I will blame the flu) then just remember that a credit card is your answer. No, I used it to scrape, silly ... not to buy another piano! I was beside myself, thinking I'd burnt and scarred my lovely, until good old Google gave me the reassuring advice I needed. All is well. She is still managing to reach the tricky high notes and look dazzling at the same time!

Don't Take This The Wrong Way, But ...

2008-02-20T22:11:00.005+01:00

We writers just want to be loved, don't we? We just want people to read our stuff and go WOW! Give that writer a book contract! Sadly, it can never be like that. Receiving criticism is something we will always have to deal with. Even the masters get criticised - no matter how high up the tree they are - and there's never an easy way to deal with it. I try to remind myself that criticism is healthy and good, and it can be turned around to our advantage. It doesn't have to be the big bad monster under the bed. Anyway, what's worse: getting criticised, or not getting noticed?

A little while ago I received a long email from someone who reads this blog. I was surprised to see that it was a long, detailed critique of a short story I'd written. Now, I could've reacted badly. I know some people who would've reacted badly in my shoes. I could've cried over the fact that my work had been laid out under a harsh light and dissected. I could've questioned the motives of this man, who'd never before been in touch with me. I didn't though. I saw this as a huge act of generosity and kindness. Someone who teaches English and writing (from what I gather) had sat down and actually analysed the words I put together. He had actually taken the time - and we all know how precious our time is nowadays - to offer suggestions on how the story could be improved. All this for me, without even being paid! (I hope he's not waiting for a cheque!)

I think what made this email easier to embrace was the fact that this man, whose own writing I like, made it clear where he was coming from right up front. He said he liked my story but thought there were ways to improve it. Every point he rose was backed up with a reason, and I think that's what good criticism is. Criticism that comes with a clear reason is like receiving a pot of gold. It was great to be able to go back through my story and decide whether or not I agreed with his points. As it turned out, I did agree with many of the things he brought up because the reasons were so compelling, but others I chose not to take up. I also had my own reasons for doing certain things. When I emailed to say thank you for the critique, and that I'd been very happy to receive it, the man replied by saying he was glad I hadn't taken his initiative the wrong way. (The story I'm referring to, by the way, is Little Pixie, which has recently been reprinted by Jessica Schneider on the Monsters and Critics site, in the original fiction section).

It's easier said than done, but I don't think writers have anything to be worried about when someone reacts to a piece of work with criticism - as long as it's constructive and the motive is improvement. The process forces us to ask why we have done certain things. Often the criticism will simply highlight something we ourselves had already put a question mark over. Sometimes it will show up a need to be clearer. Also, it's good to remember that the criticism is not about us, it's simply about something we produced - just one of the many things we might go on to produce. There's no need to take this criticism personally. I know, it's easier said than done!

I believe external criticism also boosts our own ability for internal criticism. We take more care about what we're writing, why we're writing it and how we're writing it. We become more confident about our own reasons and motivations. If someone questions something later, we might be able to tell them exactly why it was done like that. We can thank them for their criticism but be confident in our reasons for not taking up their advice. (It's also important to think about where the criticism is coming from: if the person criticising your poem admits that they actually hate reading poetry and books, you might want to get a few opinions before pushing the delete key).

I remember in journalism school being shouted at by a tutor over a story and photograph I wanted to submit to a newspaper. She told me the photo was wrong because the "subject" wasn't in the centre of the photo. I told her the empty space in the middle had been deliberate to show the void between a dying patient and a hospital worker struggling to get around to all of those in need of attention. My tutor talked me into submitting the story without the photo, but we included a note to say that the paper's own photographer might like to go to the hospital to get a shot. The feature was accepted and I was pleased to see it printed the following week with a photo similar to what I'd proposed: there was a mighty gap in the middle between the patient and the hospital worker. I have learnt that when we do something with a good reason in mind, we are able to confidently deal with any criticism.

Of course, there are times when we get ourselves into a pickle. We can no longer tell if we agree with the criticism or not. We lose a grip on why we did something in the first place. We feel unable to decide whether someone's criticism is valid or not. We go ahead and change things just because someone said so, without deciding whether we agree or not. We spend hours agonising over whether something is good or bad. In these situations, I think it's better to stand back. Put the criticism aside. Go back to it when everything's not swimming around. It's important to sort out in our own mind what we were trying to do, what we were trying to get across. Later, when we look at the criticism again, hopefully we'll be able to see things more clearly. Getting several opinions is also good; not from loved ones, who might just want to tell us what we want to hear, but people who are not afraid to be honest, whose work we like, whose opinions we respect.

I really would like to think that if someone felt uncomfortable about leaving a critical comment at the end of my short stories or poems, then hopefully they would consider sending me an email. I would welcome it. If the reasons make sense and I agree with them, I would be happy to edit the work. We can always improve. We can always be helped along by others. Let's just say here and now that all poetry and fiction on this blog are works in progress!

A Warning About Blog Comments

2008-02-15T15:44:00.009+01:00

This is a very funny story (albeit embarrassing) that involves the New Zealander Katherine Mansfield, who is considered by many to be one of the greatest short story writers of the 20th century. This is also a warning about the comments we leave on the web, and the growing problem of how comments that are meant to be humorous/ironic can be misinterpreted and taken too seriously. I certainly never expected that one of my recent comments on a blog would result in a false report in The Sunday Times, a national newspaper in Britain. Cripes! Let me explain.

A few months ago I entered a short story contest run by the Willesden Herald blog, which had the author Zadie Smith as the judge. There was a bit of controversy at the beginning of this month when Smith announced that the £5,000 prize wouldn't be awarded because none of the 800 entries was considered to be good enough - or to use Smith's words: "We could not find the greatness we'd hoped for". Many people left comments at the Willesden Herald blog to criticise/support this decision, but also to take issue with some of the things Smith said in her announcement. These are some of the bits that came in for scrutiny:

"I think there are few prizes of this size that would have the integrity not to award a prize when there is not sufficient cause to do so. Most literary prizes are only nominally about literature, they are really about brand consolidation – for beer companies, phone companies, coffee companies even frozen food companies."

"For I have thought, reading through these entries, that maybe the problem with this prize is that my name is attached to it. To be very clear: just because this prize has the words Willesden and Zadie hovering by it, does not mean that I or the other judges want to read hundreds of jolly stories of multicultural life on the streets of North London. Nor are we exclusively interested in cutesy American comedies, or self-referential post-modern vignettes, or college satires. To be even clearer: if these things turn up and are brilliantly written, they will not be ignored. But we also welcome all those whose literary sympathies lie with Rimbaud or Capote, with Irving Rosenthal or Proust, with Svevo or Trocchi, with Ballard or Bellow, Denis Cooper or Diderot, with Coetzee or Patricia Highsmith, with street punks or Elizabethans, with Southern Gothic or with Nordic Crime, with Brutalists or Realists, with the Lyrical or the Encyclopedic, in the ivory tower, or amongst the trash that catches in the gutter. We welcome everybody. We have only one principle here: MAKE IT GOOD. So, let’s try again, yes?"

Some British newspapers ran with the fact that Smith seemed to be criticising the very literary contests that had made her rich and famous. As well as the debate about the decision not to award the prize, some people (including me) voiced concern about how the contest had been run. I held the view that a shortlist had been agreed upon, with the various shortlisted people contacted, and that didn't necessarily need to be scrapped. This is what I said in my comment:

"This whole affair does seem very odd. I love this writing project and I love the motivation behind it (yay to no beer sponsorship), but I do have some observations to make.

The decision not to award the prize is one thing. I didn't read the stories. Maybe it is true that there was no pearl among them. I entered a story, but I'm ready to accept that not everyone will agree that it's the most fabulous story in the world and deserving of a £5,000 prize. (If you change your mind, Zadie, I'm still willing to accept the cash, OK?)

But seriously, I would suggest that a bit of a rethink is in order at the Willesden Herald on how this short story contest is run. I imagine the good people there are probably already doing this.

What a shame to have all these negative questions now about this "mystery" shortlist. It's just not good PR. It doesn't seem very open and transparent. Why not release this list? Why strip these people of this honour? The shortlist was published last year and it was promised in this year's rules. Does it follow that just because the top prize isn't awarded the shortlist should also be scrapped?

For a contest that wants to be seen as reputable and a promoter of excellence, putting up news on the website that a shortlist exists (albeit unannounced), only to then quickly take that message down seems to have been very unwise.

It is very clear that Zadie Smith didn't think much of the choices made by the readers who sifted through the 800 or so entries. Could the problem then have been with the choice/standard of the readers, and not with the standard of the entries? Is it possible that a pearl slipped through in the early reading? Nothing out of 800? Wow, that's something.

It seems very odd that a shortlist is arrived at - wouldn't we all love to read those entries now? - but the effort of the readers who chose them are dismissed. I hope the Willesden Herald reconsiders this. Maybe the anthology will go ahead?

Also, I wonder if the entry written by no other than Katherine Mansfield was spotted by the readers? Wouldn't that be something, if the celebrated work of a short story master was thrown out with the dishwater? Did it make it to the shortlist?

But, anyway, here's an idea. I reckon the shortlisted writers should get together anyway and publish their own anthology. I would definitely buy a copy."

Yes, you can see that I mentioned Katherine Mansfield. I didn't think too much about that little remark, assuming that people would know that I was just fooling around. Zadie Smith had talked about not finding any "greatness", and I wanted to make the point (with tongue firmly in cheek) that maybe, just maybe, they'd missed something. After all the controversy, the organisers decided to split the prize money with those on the shortlist. Then there was an announcement that no one in fact wanted to be publicly named as being on the shortlist of "mediocre" writers and no one wanted the money. The £5,000 went to charity instead.

The Sunday Times picked up on the row and ran this article, focusing on the fact that Zadie Smith seemed to bag literary awards:

But then imagine my surprise when I spotted this in the middle of the article:

Oh, dear! Yes, it seems my comment was seized upon by the journalist who wrote that article. But wouldn't he have contacted me to find out if I was being serious? Wouldn't he have dug a little further to find out more about this, and not just base his facts on a comment on a blog? My comment wasn't anonymous and there was a link back to my site. Did I really have to put up a flag on the comment and say THIS IS JUST A JOKE? Speaking as a journalist myself, I really think this should've been checked out. He could've run this by the organisers of the Willesden Herald contest. They clearly knew I had just been teasing, and didn't even have to check back with me to confirm that. Take a look at their response to the article on their site:

"It's not true that there was a story by Katherine Mansfield sent in, or rather that would seem to be a kite flown by one of our commenters in a teasing and jocular vein. I don't think Ms Mansfield has a workable email, under the rules, and seances are at best unreliable.

I think I have read all of KM's marvellous stories, seen and heard them performed, for example at last year's Small Wonder short story festival—a marvellous production of stories dramatised from "In A German Pension" with Andrew Sachs, the divine Eleanor Bron etc. I've read "Bliss and Other Stories" so many times that the old paperback copy on my shelf is falling to bits.

Unfortunately it is the case that the the entries from Hemingway, Nabokov, Carver, and Italo Calvino had to be regretfully disqualified on account of the authors being dead (in spite of representations that Raymond Carver's editor had cut the heart out of his work first time round). Most painfully, for me personally, Frank O'Connor too.

For next year, we will try to clarify the rule about the non-eligibilty of posthumous entries. In any case it appears that the entries in some of these cases did not represent their finest work."

I think there is a lesson here for all of us. When leaving a comment on the web about something controversial, I will now try to make it very obvious what is humour and what is not, even if that means I have to hit people over the head with explanation. Hopefully the journalist at The Sunday Times will not take things at face value. Hopefully he will take more time to check his sources and check with the people who stand to be cast in a bad light (the contest organisers). A couple of emails would've easily clarified things.

This story also touches on the whole debate about "blog wars", when people misunderstand the tone of what is being said, when humorous or light-hearted comments are mistaken for something more serious. We've probably all experienced it. We leave what we think is an innocent, fun comment, only to find out that it's been taken the wrong way and upset someone. I try to put smiley faces at the end of my comments now, just to ensure that people don't imagine any hostility or malicious intent.

Anyway, all of this has taken my mind off the fact that my short story didn't get anywhere in the contest. Never mind. Anyway, I would hate to be given the badge of "greatness". What a terrible thing to have to live up to!

A Shameless Graffito (N°6)

2008-02-07T22:46:00.000+01:00

Click here to see the rest of the series so far !

A Pause For A Poem

2008-02-04T01:07:00.000+01:00

your skirt is
rippling, light
splashes of
hibiscus, our

fingers almost
touching, but
always those
damn circles.

a madman in
charge of
the pedal,
me unable

to stand to
reach you,
so wary of
past collisions.

the moribund
carousel is
speeding up,
heads rolling

back to our
torrid youth,
amid groans
of dizziness.

© Copyright, 2008. Seamus Kearney.

The Magic Of Ireland

2008-01-30T22:46:00.000+01:00

I've finally got around to marrying up my photos of Ireland with one of my original piano compositions. I hope you like it. Click twice on the play button!

A Message From Mars

2008-01-25T01:59:00.000+01:00

And now for something a little bit different. Have you all seen that amazing NASA photo in the press? The one from the Mars rover, which has been scouting around the surface of the red planet since 2003? I just couldn't resist doing something with this. It brings out the fantasy writer in me! Click twice on the play button.

Drawn To The End

2008-01-15T15:10:00.000+01:00

Now, here's a little test. Does this photo make you curious about what's at the end of the path? To the point where you would happily go off to find out? And what if you've just been tramping for five hours and hated every minute of it. Would you still want to get to the end? If the answer is yes, then welcome to the club! I am also one of those people who always have to know how things turn out, regardless of whether the actual process of getting the answer is a terrible chore. A job started is a job finished. If your answer is no, then I need you to enlighten me. Maybe you need to save me from a terrible affliction!

Let's take the path scenario and apply it to something else. I really do envy those people who can stop reading a terrible book after just one or two chapters, or who can get up and walk out of a bad film after just 20 minutes. I have never been able to do this because of this obsession to get to the end of things. I wonder how many others share this strange desire for punishment. We are those poor souls who hang on in there until we see "The End", when everyone else has long gone and switched off the lights. Yes, we always persist, no matter how painful the experience.

I have friends who can toss aside a book that doesn't appeal to them after just a dozen pages. They don't care about the money they've spent. They have absolutely no qualms. They simply refuse to digest something they don't like. They can also get up and leave the cinema after just ten minutes, quickly making up their minds about whether a film is good or bad. They don't care about the cost. They don't care about the possibility that things might very well have been on the verge of improving. They say that if an author/producer doesn't engage the audience quickly enough, they don't deserve to get people's attention.

Maybe people like me stay engaged because we have this relentless hope that things really might get better, just around the corner, despite the false start. Maybe we believe that something can only really be judged in its entirety. Maybe it's about giving people a chance, believing that there is something good in everything, no matter how small that good is. I will often dislike a book during the early chapters but then find myself loving it by the end. Is it true that if we patiently endure cloudy spells we'll be rewarded with brilliant sunshine? Or is it really just a quirky need to finish things, the product of conditioning?

This reminds me of a story I covered for the radio when I lived in England. The organiser of classical concerts in a small city imposed a ban on a reviewer from the local paper. The crime? The reviewer had published a negative review of a concert, even though he'd only stayed for the first 10 minutes. The concert organiser argued that a proper critic stays and watches an entire show before reaching his or her conclusions. The reviewer and the paper's editor defended themselves, saying 10 minutes is often all that's needed to decide whether something is good or bad. Suffice to say that this story provoked great debate up and down the country.

So, now I'm going to go back to that bad read. I'm struggling. I'm not engaged. (No, it's not the book currently posted in my sidebar). I'll be relieved when I get to the end! But then, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

A Shameless Graffito (N°5)

2008-01-10T08:28:00.000+01:00

A Pause For A Poem

2008-01-05T17:08:00.000+01:00

a dozen gypsies are
dancing on your head,
spiriting me away

from your sensible
phrases, coercing my
eyes into a flutter

gosh, they are
so uninhibited -
did you say something?

they have their swords
out, and tambourines,
with rags tied around

their ankles, like
they only breathe
to have glorious fun

wow, they know
how to live -
did you say something?

© Copyright, 2008. Seamus Kearney.
Image made from original photo by Eric M. Crawford.

A New Year, A New View !

2008-01-01T21:34:00.000+01:00

My New Year message to you - great health, bubbling happiness and oodles of good luck - comes straight from the top of a mountain in the French Alps. Yes, I know. Abominable Snowman. Kiwi Yeti. Sasquatch. I've heard them all! You would dress the same if you were standing there in a slapping wind of -5°C (23°F)! By the way, that's Mont Blanc behind me, western Europe's highest mountain (4808 metres). We can sometimes see the top of her hat on a fine day here in Lyon. Here's a closer look at her.

I can think of no better way to end one year and begin another. The sensation of pure freedom when gliding down those slopes is something I first discovered seven years ago - my beloved comes from the French Alps and is a skiing fanatic! This latest excursion to the snow took us to La Plagne.

Every year, without fail, there is that lush layer of new snow, inviting us to go back up to the top of a new mountain and just go for it! We wobble, we sometimes fall, but the thrill and rush of vitality is always there.

Each time I go back into that magical whiteness, I feel as if I am being reconditioned, as if all I need to do is simply push off and let myself slide into the unknown. There is the reassurance that despite the height and the speed, a fall into the snow will normally be relatively harmless.

It's just about putting aside the fear. For me, each new ski season, with all its powerful metaphors of white purity and mountains being conquered, brings on a feeling of renewal. That's why a trip to the alps at the end of the year is so perfect: a new year, a new view!

Wow, that was such a discovery at the age of 32. I was actually able to experience what it feels like to fly. Fast. From the top of an awesome mountain to the bottom. In five minutes. With views that make you want to cry. And if it's not the emotions that make you weep, it's the freezing wind, which seems to have a mission to make us one with the glaciers.

One day I think I will try to write a series of novels based around a snowy mountain. Murder on the slopes! The adventures of a mountain guide! Love in the chalets. Surely anyone who likes to ski would buy them. Think of all those nights that skiers sit around after the slopes are closed, itching for something to do.

I hope Chapter 2007 closed for you in a nice, satisfying way, and that you're now eager to crack on with Chapter 2008! We no longer have last year, and we don't have the next, so let's just focus on this one and make it our year. I wish everyone all the very very best for the months ahead.

The Fish In The Phone Box !

2007-12-21T19:29:00.000+01:00

Be jaysus, Doreen! Would ya bleedin’ well listen to me now. I’m tryin' to tell ya there were fish in the phone box. For the sake of heaven! Don’t be an eedjit! Listen to what I’m tellin' ya. Don’t listen to y'ma. Of course I tried to ring y'up. Be jaysus and begorrah! I did. We’ve got photos. We’ve bleedin’ well got some photographs! I was mortified. He was all googly-eyed, see? A right bold little bugger, all cheerful, swimmin' there in that phone box like it were his own bleedin’ fish tank.

What d'ya mean have I been eatin’ some of Declan’s mushrooms? I only ever did that once, Doreen. I swear to God. I went outside to call y'up, to tell ya I'd be staying out for a pint. Well, maybe a couple. That phone box by the pub. You know the one. It’s a bleedin’ ordinary phone box, right? I stumbled there in the dark, spillin' half me pint down me trousers. A stripy fish, Doreen. Blue and green, and bits of bleedin’ orange, starin' straight out and laughin' at me, right? I blinked and blinked, Doreen. Faith and begorrah. I splashed beer in me eyes. A right waste, I know. But it didn’t get rid of them. What an eedjit!

His friends were smaller, right. Moodier lookin'. Hangin' out near the bottom. I would’ve opened the door, to get on the blower t'ya. But the water, Doreen? What about the fish? They would’ve died right there on that bleedin street. Is that what ya would’ve wanted? The bleedin’ water crashin' out? Murder, Doreen. The slaughter of innocent fish. Be jaysus! Those poor little buggers suffocatin' on the street. Murder, Doreen. Bleedin’ murder! Hello? Ya still there? Doreen? We've got photos to prove it! Don't be a bleedin' eedjit!

© Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney.

A Shameless Graffito (N°4)

2007-12-18T00:47:00.000+01:00

* * *
Oh, this also came into my inbox from The New Yorker poetry section today, after sending in five poems:

Dear Seamus Kearney,

We're sorry to say that this manuscript is not right for us, in spite of its evident merit. Unfortunately, we are receiving so many submissions that it is impossible for us to reply more specifically. We thank you for the chance to consider your work.

The Editors

Now, is that a standard reply or what? Should I be pleased that someone at The New Yorker thought the poems had "evident merit"? I don't think so somehow. A Google search shows that it's not personal at all. Also, it may just be me, but is it not slightly odd to call five poems a manuscript? I do wonder what kick the editors get out of saying "in spite of its evident merit". Ah. Unless of course there are different kinds of rejection letters, and mine was in the pile of those with "merit". Mmmmmmm.

Anyway, I'm smiling. I will let the poems marinate a little longer and then no doubt post them here. Who needs to publish in The New Yorker when we can publish here ourselves, right?

A Short Story

2007-12-14T00:06:00.001+01:00

When Thomas arrived at his usual place on the café terrace, he still hadn’t decided whether to say anything to the others about the death of his wife. Why didn’t I ever bring her here? Would it have been such a big effort? My darling, impossible Valerie. Barely able to keep a hold of his frosted-up glass of beer, he sat down opposite Paul and forced a smile. He also acknowledged Bernard, at the next table, with a clipped wave. ‘Nice day for it,’ he said. Some bold sparrows skipped from table to table, attacking plates not yet cleared away. Don’t need to worry about us oldies, eh? Too slow now to be a threat.

‘Nice day for what?’ asked Paul. He had both hands spread around his drink, as if he were hoping for some heat, with his book, keys and cigarettes neatly lined up in front of him.

Thomas sighed. Everything tidy. Everything in its place. He saw that Paul’s long grey hair remained unbrushed and greasy. Forget the tidy piles, my friend; you need to look after yourself.

‘See? You can’t answer,’ said Paul. ‘Just another silly expression people use.’

‘Well, nice day for a beer is the first thing that comes to mind,’ said Thomas. ‘A nice, cold beer in the sun.’ After taking a generous mouthful, letting it rush down in one go, he clasped his hands and let them rest on his belly. His wedding ring glistened in the sun. Was it the second or the third Saturday in August, 1952? Who would’ve thought, eh? All that time together. I always said she’d go first, though.

‘Don’t need nice weather to enjoy a beer,’ said Paul.

Thomas couldn’t help but feel regret for all those days he’d left Valerie at home. What else did she do, except fuss over household jobs that hadn’t really been necessary for years? He knew that at some point he would have to phone a list of distant people and tell them the news. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps in a week. And is it better to say "died" or "passed away"?

‘Paul’s gone all moody because he lost a big whack on the horses,’ said Bernard. He turned on his mischievous look: the little-boy-grin, the gyrating of his chin, his green eyes lost among wavy skin and a silver fringe.

‘The figures were all over the place!’ said Paul. He hunched further over his drink, his nose almost touching the beer. ‘Earlier bloody wins and losses weren’t right. How can I calculate things with dodgy figures?’

Nearby, council workers fought with the remains of the morning market, hosing away the shards of ice that still stunk of fish, scraping up rotten bits of cabbage and cauliflower. Thomas didn't think it was right that the sky hadn't turned grey. How can it remain so bright and still after such an awful event? He wanted to say something about Valerie. He really did. But how does someone just bring up something like that, all of a sudden, in front of men like this?

After a few minutes of silence Bernard said, ‘Where’ve you been the last few days anyway, Thomas?’

Paul nodded and frowned. ‘Yeah, where have you been?’

Thomas thought for a moment. ‘Been having a bit of a time.’ He crushed some leaves about his feet, this time scaring away some of the sparrows.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve found a woman,’ said Paul. ‘You cunning old devil!’

Thomas put his finger on the lip of his glass and made slow circles. ‘I’m a married man.’

‘Oh, yeah, that's right,’ said Paul. ‘Veronica, isn’t it?’

‘My little pixie,’ said Thomas. He quickly put his beer up to his lips, surprised he’d let those words slip out. That was just our secret. Not just for anyone to hear. He then heard Valerie’s light voice calling him her “unicorn” for the very first time. The pixie and the unicorn.

Bernard rolled a cigarette, folding his legs and leaning forward. ‘Little pixie?’ He squinted, suppressing a smile. ‘I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure.’

‘No, I don’t think you have,’ said Thomas.

The spray from the hose came close to the terrace. One of the council workers yelled out, ‘I can refill your drinks if you want! Hold them steady.’

The three men waved and nodded. 'Best to humour him,' said Bernard. 'Poor fellow obviously wasn’t the sprightliest of the litter, coming up with the same joke every Saturday.'

Paul put on an exaggerated frown. ‘You know what, Thomas? It’s not our fault if you never bring your wife along.’

‘I don’t think he said it was our fault,’ said Bernard. He pretended to hit Paul on the back of the head.

Thomas avoided Paul’s gaze. ‘Funny, because I was thinking about that just this morning.’ He downed the rest of his beer in one go. ‘I don’t know why I never considered bringing her along ... and it’s Valerie, by the way.’

Paul slouched back in his chair, his eyes looking red and tired. ‘I knew it started with a V.’

Bernard spat out slightly to get some tobacco off his bottom lip. ‘Better off without the ladies anyway. Better left at home, I say.’

Thomas took off his cardigan, gently touching the leather patches that Valerie had put on the elbows just a few weeks before. He’d worn it to the service that morning, on the other side of the city. Why buy a dark suit just for one day? Valerie would’ve been against it. Anyway, she loved this cardigan, having mended it so many times. He hadn’t chosen the church. He hadn’t chosen anything. Valerie’s sister, Ann, had become the efficient organiser. She'd started crying, though, when he told her that he wouldn’t be staying for the reception after the service. But he didn’t care any more about her tears; Valerie was no longer there to make him apologise. He'd ended up lying, telling Ann that his own friends had organised their own reception in his wife’s honour.

‘How long have we been friends?’ asked Thomas. Is “friends” really the right word, considering the circumstances? He stood up and signalled to the barman that he wanted another beer. His legs felt like slabs of stone.

‘Not all that long,’ said Bernard. ‘You’ve only been here a couple of years, haven’t you?’

‘Must be three,’ said Paul. ‘You came the year we got our kitchen done.’

Bernard took a hold of Paul’s ear. ‘Never seen your bloody kitchen. You go on about it, but we’ve never actually seen it.’

Thomas slumped down onto his seat again and folded his arms. ‘Suppose I should’ve introduced you to Valerie. Just didn’t think it was urgent. Seems like only yesterday we moved here.’

Paul patted him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. Retirement is a full-time job. Everything in its own time.’

The young barman arrived with the beer. ‘How are things with you lot then?’

‘Could be better,’ said Thomas.

The barman walked on, pushing in chairs and taking away some of the dirty plates. ‘You’re not going to start complaining are you?’

Thomas shook his head. ‘No, that wouldn’t do, would it?’

Bernard and Paul spotted one of their friends from the Irish dancing club. They seemed to come to life as they moved off over the road to greet him, putting on Irish accents, hitting each other on the back. They admired their friend’s new car, a Buick Electra, imported from the States, according to the talk in the pub. Now that’s a car Valerie would’ve loved. Something she never got the chance to ride in.

After finishing his beer in three quick gulps, Thomas decided to leave. He felt sick when he thought about the task that lay ahead: he’d bought large plastic rubbish bags to pack up Valerie’s clothes. The woman from the charity shop had insisted that she would take everything, as long as they were clean, but Thomas knew that Valerie would never have left any dirty clothes in the cupboards. He pictured her standing there complaining about the way he always left his clothes around the house. He didn’t want to cry, not there on the terrace, not in front of the boys, so he made for the exit on the other side of the café.

‘Tell them I’ll see them next week,’ he told the barman.

‘You haven’t had your lunch yet, Thomas.’

‘No. Having lunch with the wife today. Too much time in here has gone and made her all lonely.’

The barman nodded, looking confused. ‘Didn’t even know you had a wife.’

Thomas stepped out into the street and put his head down to avoid the direct sunlight. ‘You and me both, my friend.’ The unicorn forgot about his little pixie. On the walk back to the flat, his tears made it almost impossible to see the way. He had to stop on a bench at one point, overcome with the realisation that Valerie wouldn’t be there with a cheerful greeting when he walked in the door. He sat there for hours, just simply observing all of the couples, young and old, hurrying past.

© Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney. "Little Pixie"

Light Up My Life

2007-12-11T14:37:00.000+01:00

OK, I'm now ready for Christmas. The festive season kicks off here in Lyon with the annual Festival of Lights, which has just taken place. It's a way of breaking ourselves in gently, with spectacular light and colour. The above photo was taken in a big square in the centre of the city. A large bubble was placed over a giant statue of a former king and fake snow drifted through the coloured lights. Yes, this was supposed to be like one of those water-filled Christmas toys, where snow falls over a picturesque scene when it's shaken or turned upside down. It looked pretty impressive from a distance.

Over a period of four days buildings across Lyon were lit up with the most amazing light displays. I took many photos, but here is an automatic selection of the scenes I loved the most:

There's something nice about a city lighting itself up, with the aim of lighting up the lives of its residents.

A Postcard From The Jungle !

2007-12-08T17:49:00.000+01:00

All together now: In the jungle, the blogosphere jungle, the lion's not sleeping tonight!!

I feel like a proud father who's just received a postcard from his first-born, to say that his adventures out in the jungle are going far better than expected.

It's been a month now since I launched A Roar For Powerful Words, an award that sets out to recognize good and powerful writing in the blogosphere. As you can imagine, I've been trying to assess the impact of these pink, blue and purple lions, to find out whether the objective is being achieved - the aim is to celebrate the high quality of the writing that can be found on the Internet, despite what many in the mainstream media would have us believe.

Is it true that this award has been featured or mentioned on more than 14,000 blogs after just four weeks? What? Don't you mean 140? 1,400? My computer friend Stuart has just got back to me after doing some research using fancy search methods that leave me confused. He has left me speechless with this figure, and I'm still wondering whether his machines are telling the truth (nothing personal, Stuart, but it's always good to be sceptical of science, just as you once told me). Does anyone else have a reliable, mathematical way of checking, to be doubly certain? I've been limited to simple search engines, which apparently are not very representative, whereas Stuart has used super-duper university machines that trace and match with long, skinny fingers! Yes, he assures me, he has found traces of the award on more than 14,000 sites, ranging from a simple mention by text to a full post with photo and link. I must say I am very surprised. I am also very humbled.

I do know that my own Google alerts went bananas from the start, and they definitely weren't sending me all of the links. I quickly realised that with such exponential growth in the number of awards being passed on (every recipient hands it on to five others) I had no chance of keeping up with where the award has gone. Someone in the writing circle suggested that we keep a list of all the recipients, so we could all check out the sites being honoured, but I'm so glad now that I didn't promise to do that. I wouldn't have time to sleep!

But statistics aside, it's absolutely wonderful that this award has been able to honour blogs that are providing people with enormous reading pleasure. It is still spreading as we speak, giving a big thumbs-up to people who produce blogs that others can't live without. There is absolutely no doubt that good and powerful writing is not the exception in the blogosphere. The biggest problem for me, and for many others, is finding the time to read all of the wonderful, exciting material that is out there.

It's been a real pleasure in these past few weeks to randomly visit blogs I've never been to/never heard mentioned before, only to see a big pink, purple or blue lion staring out at me! I've seen the award on many different sites: general blogs, writing blogs and news-related blogs. I even got an email out of the blue from a guy I used to work with years ago, who saw my name mentioned along with the award on someone's site. That is what makes blogging so amazing.

So, to everyone who's taken part in this, a big thank you! The roar has definitely been heard, loud and clear, and it's still spreading along wires and microchips right around the globe! (Gosh, that's a scary thought, when it's put like that!). Let's hope it will encourage people to keep on down this new, exciting communications highway. Now, Stuart, are you sure of those figures?

A Shameless Graffito (N°3)

2007-12-05T00:59:00.000+01:00

A Crash Of Symbols

2007-12-02T16:23:00.000+01:00

Lorna sat down on the beach, failing to grasp the significance of her husband's words. I'm leaving. I want a divorce. We can talk about the kids. We can avoid a court case, can't we? She looked over at the family playing nearby and couldn't help but notice that the tide had now come in and started to demolish their sandcastle, the loving home the little girl had spent so many hours creating.

Oh yes, that complicated subject in writing: symbolism. It can make a piece of writing sail, but it can also bring it crashing to the ground! It depends how it's used, and that's the difficult part. I prefer symbolism that hides beneath the surface, stuff that we often miss on a first reading. I don't like to get the feeling that the writer has deliberately put the symbolism in. Do you know what I mean?

The above example of symbolism, featuring Lorna on the beach, is far too obvious to my liking. I wrote it especially for this post, to demonstrate how I don't like to write. (That's a sandcastle we made on the beach in Greece over the summer, by the way). Did the text strike you as grating though? I ask this because stuff that annoys me will often be described as "beautiful" by a friend who's read the same piece. Yes, my friends, the reading experience is a very personal thing.

This is what Robie Macauley and George Lanning said about symbolism in their book Technique in Fiction:

“Symbols are not bright devices to be hung on the tree of the story. Nor can they be fabricated in an attempt to give the fiction an air of deep significance. They are serious and useful only when they are born from the narrative itself, when they come from the same well of imagination as the story.”

I tend to agree with this. Look at these other examples and tell me whether you agree with me that there is a "crash of symbols". I've made up these excerpts to help illustrate my point:

1) Tina told him she felt much better about her life. The sun suddenly came out from behind the stubborn clouds as they walked into the park. Later, near the fountain, he dropped and smashed the bottle of wine he'd been carrying. She knew then what he was about to announce.

2) The terrible news of the killing had come on a Friday morning. Mr Panguy had opened the letter from the consulate with a butter knife that had been left on the breakfast table. He'd noticed the droplet of jam on the blade as he sliced open the top of the envelope, and had been careful to ensure it didn't touch the contents.

3) He didn't want to fight her anymore. He decided he needed to be with her, in every sense of the word. Yes, she was right: commitment was everything. The vines they lay next to seemed to be on top of them all of sudden, the feelers actually now wrapped around his legs, around his arms, even curling up around his groin.

So, tell me what you think of those passages. I'd be interested to see whether you think they work or not.

In the meantime, for perhaps THE BEST LAUGH you will have this month, and while you meditate further on the question of symbolism, I invite you to watch this excellent video that a journalist friend sent me a few months back. I really encourage you to watch it right to the very end! It's one of the best videos I've seen on YouTube. It puts the whole question of symbolism right into context. Click twice on the play button.

Read My Hands!

2007-11-29T22:18:00.000+01:00

It wasn't easy, but I'm finally able to say the alphabet fluently, without any mistakes! I've also cracked the days of the week, how to say hello and how to spell out my name. I can also ask a couple of basic, polite questions. Now there's no stopping me!

No, I'm not deaf, but I've decided to study sign language, which has always fascinated me. It's been on my list of "things to do" for a long time. I'm not saying that I'm going to become completely fluent, but I want to know enough for basic communication with a deaf person. What's prompted me to make a move on this? - the same thing that got me started on French back in 1994, when I was 26. I was on holiday and met some really nice people, but I couldn't talk to them. We could only smile and nod. I knew they were people I would click with, but there was no way of crossing the language barrier. I decided that I didn't want to be stuck with just one mode of communication for the rest of my life and so began to learn French ... not knowing then of course that it would totally consume me and I would eventually move here and settle for a French life!

I've often met deaf people and felt hopeless; again, there's just been that smiling and nodding. Now I will at least be able to say something. I'm learning British Sign Language (BSL), on my own at first, but I would like to do some kind of course as well. Don't forget that there are many different kinds of sign language, depending on where you live. At least 250,000 people use BSL, which was only recognised by the British government as an official language in 2003!

I love watching people sign with each other. I think there is such unique beauty in the movements and the expressions, and it's definitely something I want to experience. To see how signing can be just as powerful as the spoken word, take a look at this woman signing along to the song The Rose: (click twice on the play button)

A Shameless Graffito (N°2)

2007-11-26T19:18:00.000+01:00

Allez, Splash Me With Colour!

2007-11-26T17:18:00.000+01:00

I love it when the Beaujolais Nouveau arrives in France; not only is it a good excuse to forget about the looming winter, but it's also a chance to see something colourful and fun on a wine bottle! Just take a look at that label above, which is definitely not what we normally see on the average bottle of French wine. The labels are usually simple, in one colour. So when Beaujolais Nouveau comes out, I find it so refreshing! (Oh, that's our fridge in the background of the photo, in case you're wondering!)

50 million litres of Beaujolais Nouveau are sold every year, released in a party-like atmosphere on the third Thursday of November. The wine, made from gamay grapes, is distributed only weeks after coming off the vines (little fermentation), which is why it's called nouveau or new. Beaujolais is a region north of Lyon, where I live, so this little drop has a special place in our hearts! By the way, it has to be enjoyed immediately because it doesn't keep well. No problem!

Now, believe it or not, this leads me on nicely to the subject of books. Have you noticed how many of the front covers of French books are plain and sterile looking? Take this very popular, big-selling book, Les Bienveillantes, which is currently being translated into English - it's actually written by a bilingual American, Jonathan Littell, who decided to write it in French. I bet the cover won't look like this when it comes out in the English-speaking world! Fancy, colourful and artistic covers are not deemed necessary in France to get the public to buy them. Translations of foreign books and small paperbacks do have images on the cover, but French books printed by the big publishing houses still go for the "less is more" policy. But for how long?

Just as the Beaujolais Nouveau wine bottles are bucking the trend in terms of colourful, interesting labels, small publishers in France seem to be experimenting more and more with the idea of colour and images on covers. The latest edition of this very successful book by Jean-Dominique Bauby - printed in English as The Diving Bell and The Butterfly - is a good example of how French publishing is changing. There are plenty of other examples of smaller publishers bringing out books with images on the cover, and French people I speak to seem to be in favour. "Allez, splash me with colour!" Also, on the shelves in bookshops, it's now quite common to see books turned outwards to show the covers - before there probably wasn't any point.

So, in keeping with this whole theme of colour and fun, I thought I would buy some bright purple and yellow dye and give Miss Muffin a make-over. Here are her "before" and "after" photos. She is absolutely delighted! Or at least I think that's what she said.

A Short Story

2007-11-23T01:19:00.006+01:00

The Cry Of The Peacocks
When our family and friends back on shore started waving at us – slow, sad gestures from the older ones, a joyous scrubbing of the air from the younger ones – I couldn’t help but notice that Tom didn’t join me in waving back at them. He pretended to be busy fastening something down on the side of the boat, with that shirty face he puts on when he thinks he’s surrounded by complete incompetence. I had to wave for the both of us, mouthing ‘I love yous’ - and hoping that Tom’s mother didn’t think they were meant for her. Before we became just specks on the sea, I finished off my farewell by standing up tall and waving my white handkerchief, just as I'd threatened to do. I'd joked that I would do it in theatrical fashion, like a stuffy governor’s wife embarking on an exotic journey to Africa, to a lavish home and tea farm, where servants would rush around to make the stay as bearable as possible.

Tom’s behaviour increasingly worried me. He didn’t smile at my antics with the handkerchief, choosing instead to go inside the cabin and join the posse of four men from the Department of Nature Reserves. They were rough, dour men, there to make sure we settled in to our new posting without any disagreeable surprises. Tom pretended to be busy with plans spread out over a table when I announced with enthusiasm that I would make coffee and heat up a quiche we’d been given. He didn’t even look at me.

‘We’re on our way,’ I said, close up to his ear. ‘No going back. I’m okay about it. I promise.’

He nodded without expression and then gazed out over the waves, perhaps worried that one of the men would overhear me. His dark curls looked duller than usual, his face grey.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll stay overly enthusiastic,’ I said. I went down into the small kitchen, confused about his moodiness.

The trip proved to be speedier than I thought. Before I even had the chance to think about how I could soothe my sea sickness, I caught sight of ropes flying across the porthole and the boat bouncing up against old tyres on the side of a frail-looking jetty. When I came up from down below my attention was immediately seized by the Victorian-style mansion house we’d been told about. Set a short distance back from a sandy beach, the two-storey wooden house had a picket fence out front; a cupola high up on the main roof; and glorious, intricately designed terraces wrapped around the house on both levels. Clouds gathered across the sky, blocking out the sun we'd enjoyed since our departure, but the colours of the sea, the house and the greenery on land remained rich.

‘Looks like your kind of house, Rebecca,’ said one of the men.

I put both hands up over my mouth. ‘All of that just for the two of us?’

‘Well, until you get the visitors coming back for summer tours.’

I didn’t need to be reminded. Part of my mission was to get the place ready for the resumption of day trips from the mainland. Someone from the department had talked about the possibility that I could organise coffee and muffins; put up displays to explain the island’s history; clean up after years of neglect; rearrange the antique furniture; maybe even sand down and revarnish some of the walls. The previous ranger had been a single man - apparently an alcoholic who preferred to live as far away from other people as possible - and he'd been too busy conserving and protecting animals and plants to be worried about the state of the decaying homestead. His retirement had opened the way for something new: a husband and wife team that could magic up a new showpiece for the department.

‘Used to be a house fit for royal visits,’ said one of the other men. ‘I’m told there are 12 rooms in total, each with a different style and theme. Dusty now though. Probably needs a lot of work.’

Tom didn’t seem to be taken by the house. His eyes seemed to be focused on the dense forest that provided an overwhelming backdrop. Some palm trees close to the beach looked as if they were acting as gatekeepers for the wild belt of native and exotic trees behind. With every passing minute the clouds seemed to be coming in lower, almost covering the giant trees at the top of the hills around the bay. We all had to put on jackets.

‘House looks out of place,’ said Tom. ‘But I don’t suppose discreet was their strong point back then.’

‘Well, it’s home now,’ I said. ‘No point wishing it was something else.’

He looked at me with accusing eyes, like I’d said something wrong in front of the others.

I walked down the jetty and leapt onto the sand, leaving the men to unload the boxes and bags we’d brought with us - just a tiny selection of our things. Tom had only signed a contract for one year, to see how things went, to find out whether this specialised island work was what he had in mind.

I first noticed the peacocks when I took a small, sandy path up onto the lawn in front of the house. There seemed to be at least a dozen of them, some sauntering along with their heads pushed back, others chasing one another like excited children. The overgrown garden seemed to provide the perfect playground. I then recalled the little snippets we’d been told about the place.

The house had been built in the mid 1800s by a Scottish architect who’d bought the island for a pittance. He’d imported zebras, wallabies, deer, monkeys and peacocks - not to mention hundreds of foreign trees and plants - with the aim of creating his own “little paradise”. The island passed from one rich family to another and then eventually to the state, which ended up deciding to create a nature reserve. Sadly, the monkeys and the others didn’t fit in; too many native trees and creatures had been destroyed. The peacocks and some resilient deer were the only ones to survive a campaign of terrible culling. I still can’t bear to think about the monkeys getting shot.

After a brief inspection of the grounds, I stood outside the house and grinned, wishing the girls could’ve seen me there in front of that awesome homestead. Yes, it’s me! The governor’s wife! It was obvious there was going to be a lot of strenuous work ahead though. The enormity of the task became clear during a hesitant tour of some of the downstairs rooms. The dust was as thick as carpet in some places and the revarnishing looked like it would take years: virtually every surface was made out of wood, probably kauri and rimu. Old plastic sheets covered the majority of the furniture, with cobwebs covering the gaps.

At one of the windows, through the grime, I spotted Tom at the end of the jetty, making angry gestures at the other men, apparently over the way the boxes had been stacked up. The men, looking bemused, just shrugged and walked away. The day had now become decidely darker, and I wondered if the clouds were bringing a threat of rain. The valley of trees on the other side of the bay also took on a very unwelcome, almost sinister appearance in the dimmed light, and I couldn't help but think that the chasing away of the sun was not a good start to our new life.

I looked down at Tom again, asking myself why he'd become so hard to decode all of a sudden. For months he’d almost been at the point of getting down on his knees, begging me to reconsider my resistance to living on an island. He’d told me that a single man – or a man whose wife wanted to stay on shore - would have no chance of getting the post. The department was only interested in a couple who could work together. It didn’t want any more single men who would just become lonely, not look after themselves, turn to alcohol. He promised he would make it comfortable, our own little haven. I relented when he told me about the gardens, the peacocks and the mansion house. No more living in run-down, cold department homes. He said we would make regular trips back to the mainland and I would be free to throw parties whenever I wanted. An open invitation would be extended to the girls! In the weeks before our departure, however, he'd become uncommunicative and volatile, almost as though he regretted his decision to take on the post. I'd just put it down to nerves. The stress of having to move.

‘Bloody clowns,’ he said, bursting into the house. ‘They’ve broken the antenna off the top of the radio. Rough as guts.’

‘Was it important?’ I pretended to examine an old sideboard with lovely stained glass panels in the doors.

‘Of course it was! To keep in touch with the outside world.’

‘Oh.’

He folded his arms and looked down at his boots.

‘This will be lovely in here,’ I said. ‘Look at this furniture and all this amazing wood.’

He didn’t look around though. He checked his watch and then headed over to the window, apparently to check on what the men were doing.

‘We’ll get another radio,’ I said.

‘They cost the bloody earth.’

‘Seems to me it’s more than just the radio, Tom. You’ve been a bear with a bad tooth for days. And today ... well, you wouldn’t exactly win the title for Mr Civilization.’

‘Just leave it.’

‘Just leave what?’ I went over to him and tried to read his face, to see whether this was more serious than I thought.

‘Do you not want to be here?’ I asked.

He didn’t move, his hands trapped in his pockets, his shoulders sticking straight up. I took some deep breaths as I tried to assemble my thoughts.

‘You probably don’t want me to be here,’ I said. ‘Scared of it just being us. You and me, and all this work.’

‘Stop the psychological, Rebecca. Won’t change anything.’

He turned and went back outside. Through the window I saw a small gathering of peacocks take fright and sprint away from him. They made a ghastly screeching sound, like something I’d never heard before. Tom kept on towards the jetty, his steps heavy on the grass, his shoulders still hunched up. I stood there staring at the grass for a few minutes, while the peacocks kept up their strange cries. A dark cloud then swallowed up the sky's last little corner of blue.

I did my best to put aside the tension, again trying to convince myself it was probably the stress of the move, saying goodbye to our family and friends. You probably don’t want me to be here. I mounted the stairs to check out the other rooms.

One of the men from the department had told me about the upstairs library, which he said would be the perfect place to organise some displays on the history of the island. He said I would even find some old exhibits that had been put together back in the 70s, complete with black and white photographs and protected in glass cabinets. When I entered the room I could see that the dust was going to be the biggest challenge. Luckily I’d arranged to have the men bring over an industrial vacuum cleaner.

One of the first glass cabinets I found was waist-high, sticking out from beneath an old sheet and facing in towards the wall. I wrapped my foot around one of the legs and pulled it out towards me, so I could see some of the old photographs and pieces of card with small writing on them. I skimmed over what appeared to be general details of the island’s animals and plants; and then something else caught my eye:

The history of the island is not all joyous. A certain Captain Gordon Lambie, who was brought over from England to be the official conservator of the exotic plants and wildlife, was arrested in 1876 over the mysterious disappearance of his wife, Jane Lambie, the daughter of a doctor from Taunton. The young woman’s friends on the mainland had alerted the local constabulary to the fact that they had not heard from Mrs Lambie for several months, which was highly unusual, and the numerous letters they'd since posted to her husband had gone unanswered. When he was eventually questioned, Captain Lambie told an investigating magistrate that he had awoken one day to find his wife missing and had assumed that she had hired a boat and fled their marriage. The constabulary established, however, that no single woman had hired a boat in the entire district over the period in question. The inquiry took on a sense of urgency when a fisherman, who’d anchored his boat in the harbour about 12 weeks after the couple’s arrival on the island, came forward to declare that he’d heard a long and loud argument coming from the mansion house. He also reported that during the night he awoke to the sound of what he thought was a woman screaming for help, but then decided it was nothing more than the loud cries of the famous peacocks. The island was searched by constables but nothing was ever found. Captain Lambie was never charged in connection with the disappearance of his wife, due to a lack of concrete evidence, and he returned to England where he later died of tuberculosis. There was never any trace of Jane Lambie. However, some years later, the investigating magistrate, Arthur Shipton, revealed in some personal papers that he was convinced that Mrs Lambie had indeed been killed at the hands of her husband and her body had been buried somewhere on the island or dumped at sea. He wrote that he based his opinion not only on the testimony of the fisherman who’d been anchored in the bay, but also the testimony of Jane Lambie’s friends, who said that she’d written to them several times to complain about her increasing unhappiness on the island. Mrs Lambie told her friends that the captain had become angry and resentful of the fact that he’d been forced to live alone with her, with no one else to talk to. She also expressed her concern that her husband had developed what she called a kind of “island fever”, and over numerous weeks he became deeply depressed about his “loss of contact with the outside world”. The magistrate finished his diary entry on the subject by saying that he'd been disturbed by Captain Lambie’s “aggressive” behaviour during questioning and his apparent lack of sorrow over the disappearance of his wife. “If only it had been possible to question the peacocks,” he wrote. “Theirs are perhaps the only other eyes who saw the final moments of Jane Lambie’s life.”
Just before dusk - long after reading the disturbing account in the glass cabinet, and after the men had finished all their important electrical and mechanical checks - I saw Tom raise his hand and wave goodbye to the departing boat. He turned around towards the house a few times, probably to see why I hadn’t come down to see the men off. His annoyance was evident in the stilted rhythm of his waving. I looked over towards the palm trees, and the forest that seemed to be creeping closer, and I thought of Jane Lambie. I may’ve been wrong, but I think I also saw some of the peacocks join in with Tom’s waving, their glorious blue and green plumage fanning out in a collective demonstration of farewell and good luck. I can’t be sure though, because just as my eyes started to focus on the peacocks, approaching footsteps up on deck meant I had to quickly pull away from the porthole and hide back under my blanket.

© Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney. "The Cry Of The Peacocks"
Photograph of peacock by Adrian Pingstone, England.

Le Manifeste des Oliviers

2007-11-21T22:53:00.000+01:00

So, I was thinking to myself, what if I get the first few chapters and the synopsis of my novel translated into French? Oui! Le Manifeste des Oliviers. Why not try to attract the interest of a French publisher? What have I got to lose? I live in France. A big part of my book takes place in France. I would be here to help promote it. French publishers are famous for being more open, willing to take a punt on something, aren't they?

Well, you know what? I have taken a tiny step towards bringing that idea to fruition, just in case it's a path worth walking down. A French journalist friend who lives in Paris has offered to turn the synopsis and the first few chapters into French. He has great English, is really into creative writing and is currently translating a novel and some short stories by an American author. He says he also knows a publisher who has printed work by foreigners who haven't been published in their own countries. She also recently published a book of short stories by a dozen New Zealand authors, so it wouldn't come as something bizarre to meet my main character, who comes from New Zealand.

Of course, for now, I'm just putting my big toe into this new pool. I'm not going to get all excited just yet. But this is an option that I want to look at. It's different - and different is what we need in this business, isn't it? I've been looking hard for bites in the UK and back in New Zealand. One big publisher said my novel would be better suited to a small, independent press; a small press said it would be more successful printed by a big publisher. That's right! That is why we need to think outside of the box, explore different ways of cracking this whole thing!

* * *
Meanwhile, I've been working on my new novel, a short story and some poems this week ... all to the sounds of some wonderful music from Ireland. Has anyone else seen and been blown away by the film Once, starring Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova? This is a superb movie, full of romance and inspirational music. Here's one of the main songs, Falling Slowly : (click twice on the play button!)

If you want to hear some other great songs from the film then click HERE, where you can hear the entire album for free and on a loop. I strongly recommend these songs: If you want me; When your mind's made up; and Gold. Check out the film if you haven't already; it is quite something!

A Shameless Graffito (N°1)

2007-11-19T18:36:00.000+01:00

I'm very pleased to announce the beginning of this new series here at Shameless Words. That's right, dear reader, graffito is the singular form of graffiti! I do have a bit of a naughty, daring, irreverent side, which I want to give some space to here on my blog, to make sure there is both light and shade. Oh, the power of just a few words, in the right setting, at the right moment! It is sometimes more difficult finding these few words than filling up pages for a novel! I will post my very own piece of graffito here every week - or at least I will try to. (If you would like to borrow any of the images from this new series, please feel free to do so, but please make sure there is a credit/link back to me). Oh, and don't worry, nothing was damaged in the making of this series!

* * *
I was also very excited yesterday to receive this in the post: the new book by Bill over at View From The Pundy House. I'm really looking forward to reading this, having closely followed Bill's posts about the highways and side roads he took on the journey to publication. I must say that the quality of the book (the cover, the printing, the paper) is wonderful. The novel has been available for some time on the web as a free PDF, but there's nothing like settling down on a couch with a real book, with a nice cup of tea and the cat nearby. I wish Pundy all the best with this project.

Shameless Graffiti: The Series

2007-11-18T02:02:00.003+01:00

N°18

N°17

N°16

N°15

N°14

N°13

N°12

N°11

N°10

N°9

N°8

N°7

N°6

N°5

N°4

N°3

N°2

N°1

The Shameless Gallery

2007-11-17T23:20:00.014+01:00

This is a gallery that will continue to grow, as I keep adding my favourite photographs from among the hundreds I take every year. Just keep scrolling down to view the images, which are protected by a copyright notice at the end. Enjoy!

© Copyright, 2008. Seamus Kearney. All rights reserved. These photographs may be reproduced on non-commercial websites and in non-commercial publications, but only when Seamus Kearney is identified as the photographer. Please email me if you would like to use a photograph for commercial purposes, or if you have any other questions.

Writing Challenge

2007-11-15T02:25:00.000+01:00

I do love a nice little creative writing challenge, especially when it involves a gorgeous image. Jason over at The Clarity Of Night is running a flash fiction contest. He gave us the above photo as inspiration for a piece of no more than 250 words. Here's what I came up with:

This Lonely Hour

I suddenly notice how tightly my hands grip the wheel, and how my foot feels as if it might actually push through and touch the road. My body and mind are saying, ‘How could you be so dumb again?’

The word then changes to numb. That’s what I feel as the wind comes in through the windows and tries to cleanse me on my long journey home.

My body and mind don’t understand the hope I refuse to let go of, that some day I might not have to drive home through the pain of these red early mornings, the remains of nights cut open and left to bleed.

It’s often my own fault. Hell, the one last night even told me before we left the bar that I shouldn’t expect breakfast. I asked if I had to go before his kids got up. Before his wife returned. He stopped laughing.

I did end up slipping out before he stirred, to avoid any painful silences.

So, exactly how many times have I driven home at this lonely hour, having failed to actually pass over into someone else’s daytime? As always, I tell myself it’s over. Never again. No matter how charming. No matter how much I see in the eyes.

But later, after sleep has repaired me, I know there will no doubt be more red dawns. After all, it’s the heart that’s carrying all this hope, that’s leading me in all of this.

----------
Do go and check out all the other great entries over at Jason's site. I've entered some of his contests before and find them great fun.

By the way, I'm also working on a project that Minx has come up with: she's asking for some fairytales, no more than 900 words. Ouch! I've never written a fairytale before. But I'm going to have a go.

I'm also working on another short story that I've had in my head for a few years, and then there's that book that's appealing for attention! Tap tap tap is all I can say, especially now it's getting colder outside!

A Pause For A Poem

2007-11-12T23:35:00.000+01:00

an abundance of mist

if I remember rightly,
the spray undid my curls,
the fountain mocking us

for making it star in
our autumn wedding, for
snuggling up too close.

my dear papa hid behind
the lens, the camera
his crutch, desperate to

focus on the smiles, to
have a task away from
mama’s tear-swollen face.

now we’re back after all
this time, our own baby
happily immortalized in

the same spot, believing
our years of good luck
came from that fountain.

as my sweet man captures
the embrace, I watch from
a distance, finding myself

no longer immune to tears,
hoping with all my heart
for an abundance of mist.

© Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney.

A Roar For Powerful Words !

2007-11-06T16:03:00.000+01:00

I've launched a new project over at The Shameless Lions Writing Circle that aims to celebrate good and powerful writing in the blogosphere. The idea is for recipients of this award to also choose five blogsters they would like to honour. Despite what some say in the mainstream media, there is some fantastic writing to be found on many blogs!

Those people I've given this award to are encouraged to post it on their own blogs; list three things they believe are necessary for good, powerful writing; and then pass the award on to the five blogs they want to honour, who in turn pass it on to five others, etc etc. Let's send a roar through the blogosphere! The image above can be copied and pasted onto other blogs. Also, a small size of the award for sidebars can be found over at the writing circle site.

So, before I list who I have given this award to, here are the three things I believe are necessary for good, powerful writing:

1)Innovation: I love writing that doesn't rely on tired, easy phrases. I love a unique look at things, an attack on clichés and turns of phrase that have lost any punch. I need to see good grammar, but I love a writer who challenges me, who takes me on a journey into the fresh unknown!

2) Truth: I need to sense that there is some truth in what is being written. This doesn't necessarily mean I have to agree with what's being written, or that things have to be proven as true; but I do need to get the feeling that the words were absolutely true for the writer. I need to feel the conviction and passion that motivated the writer to choose those particular words.

3) Humanism: I need to feel that the writer has an idea about human nature, that as the author of work intended for human consumption, the writer has a grip on the mechanisms, sensitivities that strike a universal chord in all of us. The work that stays with me is often something that has enhanced my understanding - or triggered my curiosity - on the question of who we are.

And those are just a few of things I could list!

Now, I would like to give A Roar For Powerful Words to these five blogs (the list would've been much longer, if I hadn't been restricted to just five!):

Litlove at Tales From The Reading Room
Jessica at Jessica Schneider
Minx at The Inner Minx
Chief Biscuit at As It Happens
Pearl at Humanyms

Other members of the circle who want to make similar awards can get the details over at the writing circle. (Update: Different colours of the award are now available - thanks to Minx for this idea of having a choice!)

Also, don't forget there is a sidebar button available now for the Shameless Lions collective short story as well. Details are over at the circle.

I Don't Normally Do Halloween, But ...

2007-11-01T01:28:00.001+01:00

Quite a subtle disguise, don't you think? I didn't want to go over the top, but nor did I want to go totally unnoticed. This photo of me was taken in New York last year, the first time in my life that I celebrated or marked Halloween. I was there for my birthday, which of course always falls just a few days before Halloween. This year, here in Lyon, the event went by unnoticed again; the French don't seem to be all that keen on it. But I did see one or two people out in the streets in costumes tonight and it reminded me of New York a year ago. Boy, do New Yorkers know how to celebrate this day - I went to a street parade attended by tens of thousands of people!

We really made an effort to get into the mood, to throw ourselves into something that has always been quite foreign to us. There was no way, however, that I was going to dress up - I wanted to be able to go out afterwards and not have to feel ridiculous in a costume - and so the blood over the bare head seemed like the perfect compromise. I wasn't even keen to share the white face paint.

It was funny afterwards, walking down the street with that gash on my head. I had a concerned policeman rush up to ask if I was OK at one point, thinking I may have been involved in a post-parade scuffle. I suppose if I'd been in a proper costume, he wouldn't have noticed me at all. I had similar reactions for the rest of the night, even in the bar we went to. It would have been easier if I'd just worn a very loud costume!

Even in the week before the 31st, there were signs of Halloween everywhere. You couldn't escape it. Back in New Zealand, when I was little, we took part in various Halloween events, but it was nothing compared to what I saw in New York, and I guess it's similar throughout the US. Here are some of the scenes we stumbled across.

39 Autumns - And No Longer Counting !

2007-10-28T01:02:00.000+02:00

I've just blown out the number 39 on a gorgeous chocolate cake! That's right, candles shaped as numbers are far easier than having all those individual little fires on top of a cake, especially when you get past a certain age!

As you can see in the photo above, someone caught me in action at a party we had on Friday night - I know, two days before my actual birthday, which apparently is not a wise thing to do. So, yes, I'm a scorpion, born on the 28th of October, 1968. Actually, I've decided that I may just stick with that number. I think things have gone far enough. I don't see why this counter needs to go up any further. No, 39 will be just fine whenever anyone asks in the future.

Of course, news of my birth was overshadowed by this bit of news on 28/10/1968:

A woman has given birth to six babies in what is being hailed as the first recorded case of live sextuplets in Britain. Sheila Thorns from Birmingham underwent a Caesarean section early this morning during which six children - four boys and two girls - were delivered.

Apparently the singer/songwriter Ben Harper was also born on the same day as me in 1968. I wonder what he did to celebrate his birthday today. Maybe I should've invited him around to my place on Friday night. As it turned out, we had a pretty nice evening. I was anxious - as usual - that no one would show up and I would be making excuses to three people. Luckily, it never turns out to be the disaster I fear and there ended up being quite a number. Thank goodness the elderly couple downstairs was away and I was able to play the piano, on request, at two in the morning.

Parties like this always throw up all kinds of emotions and questions: where am I? what am I doing? where am I going? what lovely people! where are the people from my past? is there enough food? what am I wearing? are people getting on? I really should go and talk to so and so! where's the cat? etc, etc. Oh, I did make a nice vegetable curry, which is always good for large groups.

By the way, am I the only person who thinks of Virginia Woolf before throwing a party? Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself ... What a lark! What a plunge! No, don't worry, my parties are never as complicated as her story turns out to be. I only ever think of that first line. Hell, my parties are not even remotely like the event that Woolf describes, hosted by a wealthy, fashionable society hostess; mine are simple, wholesome affairs, to gently lead me into each new autumn of my life.

Today, on my actual birthday, after only just recovering from the excesses of Friday night, I had a birthday lunch in this lovely spot in the French Alps: La Clusaz. I forgot to take my camera but I was able to take these shots with my mobile phone. These are the first ever pictures I've taken on the phone and I'm quite surprised that they're even publishable. The quality isn't the best, but you get a general idea of the view from the restaurant where we had lunch. The weather was amazing (for the end of October) and we were able to walk around without jumpers or coats.

I then spoilt myself by buying a fancy new ski outfit for the winter - I saw photos of myself in my old combinaison (ski suit) last year and decided: "That look has got to go, preferably down a black slope, very fast!" La Clusaz in winter is a wonderful ski resort and it'll be nice to go back soon when it's covered in snow. This is such an inspiring part of France, where, during the winter, skiing becomes an important escape, necessary for keeping the creative process lubricated!

Oh, I was also given three new shirts, a token for a 45-minute massage (yes, yes and yes!), some old vinyls (bliss), a great film on DVD (La Vie des Autres/The Lives of Others), plus the French translation of Dinaw Mengestu's book The Beautiful Things Heaven Bears and Horowitz And My Father by Alexis Salatko. My birthday hasn't gone too badly at all; I'm ready to face the next year with a smile and renewed oomph!

A Short Story

2007-10-23T01:58:00.001+02:00

Something Quite Brazen
The wretched sound began on a Monday morning just before dawn. I'd been sitting up in bed, trying to decide whether I’d done the right thing by unplugging the phone the night before. It began as a scraping noise, as though someone were slowly making their way through the plaster on the other side of the wall. Every now and then I heard faint but distinctive taps. A couple of times it was more like a loud thud, which I could only imagine was an attempt by the person doing the scraping to remove a build-up of dust and debris. It wasn’t until I’d shuffled over to the window to take in the moodiness of the orange sky that the noise struck me as troubling. It suddenly came to me that the flat on the other side of my wall was supposed to be empty, the last family having moved out months before.

I immediately turned my thoughts to something rational. Maybe there were workers in there, getting an early start. Maybe the flat had been let without me knowing, and I’d missed the noise of the new tenants moving in. I checked the clock on top of the fridge to make sure it was indeed well before six o’clock on a Monday morning. I was now absolutely ready to deal with this terrible intrusion.

I took a glass and put it up against the wall, just above the photo of my dear Caroline, whose death nine years before still seemed like just a month earlier. I listened for voices, but there were none. Just that persistent noise. I took a deep breath and then rapped my knuckles on the spot where I thought the sound was coming from. I knocked lightly at first and then more confidently, but the scratching continued, accompanied by the little taps. I knocked on the wall again, louder this time, almost to the point where my knuckles hurt. It seemed absolutely incredible that the scratching continued and my knocking was being ignored.

It didn’t take long for me to start feeling upset and out of breath, so much so that I had to use my inhaler and take a couple of tablets. If I hadn’t been wearing my dressing gown, and forgotten where I’d put my slippers, then I may have just found the nerve to walk out the front door and down the hall. I may very well have picked up the courage to ring the bell on the door of the flat next door.

Of course, I didn’t. I sat there on a stool in the kitchen, resenting the fact that someone could be so inconsiderate. I also hated myself for the state of things, the realisation that I had no strength to even consider making a cup of tea. I stared at the phone again. I’d decided the night before that I no longer wanted Sally, my daughter, to get through to me. It was no longer possible to go on feeling like a burden. She had her own problems, her own life. Everyone did. I could no longer stand the fuss everyone made. I’d decided that if she came ringing the buzzer downstairs I would just refuse to answer, just like I’d been refusing visits from one or two others who felt the need to check in on me. How long had it been since my last visit? Five weeks? Six? I simply told people that I preferred to be left alone.

After two hours, with no let up in the scraping and the tapping, I finally decided to plug the phone back into the socket and fish around amongst my papers for Mrs Lubic’s number.

‘Mrs Lubic? Can you hear me?’

‘Hello, Mister Raymond, Sir.’

‘I keep telling you there’s no need for the sir.’

‘Sorry, Mister Raymond. Are you going for nice walk today? Very good morning with birds ... and good shiny sun.’

Her way of speaking almost brought a smile to my face – she’d moved to London from the former Yugoslavia in the 1970s but still had a sweet, child-like grasp of English. Then I remembered why I was calling.

‘There’s a terrible noise. Someone is scraping and knocking on the wall next door. Would you mind coming up here to tell them to stop?’

‘There is nobody, Mister Raymond. There is no one on your floor now. Just you Mister Raymond.’

I sat down on the chair by the phone, my hand shaking as I struggled to keep the receiver up to my ear.

‘Well, that’s very strange indeed,’ I said, as politely as I could, ‘because someone is in there next door doing some kind of work, scraping into the wall, as though they’re slowly making their way into my apartment.’

‘Ha! I don’t think so Mister Raymond. I have all the keys. There is no one. You are safe.’

‘Then who is making that noise, Mrs Lubic?’

I stood up, careful not to raise my voice.

‘I will come and see Mister Raymond. Don’t panic.’

I unplugged the phone, annoyed that I’d had to use it. Ten minutes later I heard her walking past my door, causing the floorboards in the hallway to moan, and then I could hear her struggling with her keys as she opened the neighbouring flat. After just a few minutes she walked back down towards my front door.

‘There is no one, Mister Raymond, Sir.’ She spoke right up close to my door, but I didn’t want to open it and let her see me.

‘Are you sure,’ I said. While I didn’t want to be rude, I couldn’t believe that she’d found nothing. ‘Someone must be there ... if there is all that scraping and thumping.’

‘It is very very empty,’ she said. ‘Maybe it’s a thing in the wall. Mouses maybe?’

‘We say mice ... mice, Mrs Lubic!’ It seemed strange to be yelling through the door, yet I really didn’t feel that I could open it. ‘No mouse would make that kind of tapping sound ... that kind of thud that I’m hearing.’

‘Is it in the roof, Mister Raymond?’

‘I may be old, Mrs Jubic, but I think I can tell the difference between a sound in the roof and a sound that’s coming through the wall.’

‘It also may be the water pipes are chattering,’ she said, obviously moving off now towards the stairs.

I figured she must have picked up that expression from the friendly plumber everyone used to talk about, the Irishman who brought her daffodils and invited her to go on holiday with him. I smiled as I repeated what she said, trying to imitate her accent. ‘Yes, the water pipes are chattering.’

‘I will bring your new groceries on Wednesday, Mister Raymond, Sir. This week you leave me just 20 pounds under the door.’

I stayed where I was for a good few minutes after she left, holding on to the latch, wanting to cry out for her to come back. Had she really checked properly, through all the rooms? I couldn’t think of doing anything else but stay there attached to the door. My feet hurt on the rough lino and I could feel the cold air in the hallway coming in under the door.

No sooner had I made my way back to the bedroom, pulling the curtains together to block out the brightness of the morning, than the scraping started up again, this time louder and faster. I took a small ruler that I’d been using for my latest calculations and hit it hard against the wall, again and again. I think I must have done this for a good 10 minutes, but still the noise continued, and I had visions then of someone standing there covered in dust, hell-bent on getting through into my flat. I think at some point I might have taken a small pot and banged that against the wall as well, hitting and hitting to try to stop the scraping. But, incredibly, nothing seemed to work.

I remember lying on the bed, my inhaler close to my mouth, perspiration turning my pillow into a small marsh. Whenever I felt I had the strength I hit the ruler and the pot up against the wall, expecting any minute to see someone tumbling through on top of me. I must have slept for long periods, waking up every now and then to hear that the noise had become unbearably louder, and then to hear it later as something quite distant.

The next thing I remember was a mighty cloud of white dust in front of me, as if someone had thrown a big basin of flour into the air. It settled over my body and through my hair, turning to mush on my lips. The low rumble of the falling plaster seemed to go on and on, echoing around me.

I stretched out my arms and moved towards what I could just make out to be a huge collapsed hole in my bedroom wall. A sudden sense of fear made me stop though; I could do nothing but wait to see who might emerge through the veil of dust. I was overwhelmed with emotion, petrified that I was about to be attacked by the person who’d been scraping and bashing his way through my wall. My dressing gown had swung open and I could feel pieces of sharp debris beneath my feet. I closed my eyes when I heard the sound of someone scrambling over the plaster and bricks.

‘Hello?’

I instantly recognised her voice. Sally’s head came through the opening in the wall, her hand up over her mouth, apparently in shock, her eyes darting all over the place.

‘I can’t believe you’ve done something like this!’ I said, taking a few steps forward, relieved deep down to see it was a familiar face. ‘Have you completely lost your mind, my child? What would push you to do something like this?’

Sally didn’t say anything. She just came forward and put her arms around me. I could hear her sobbing, which I thought was pretty weird for a woman who’d just smashed her way into her father’s flat. As I tried to get my dressing gown closed and shake the dust from my hair, I caught sight of Mrs Lubic’s round, concerned face through the hole.

Later that night, after being checked over by a doctor whom Sally had called, and then sleeping for a good number of hours, I was given some astonishing information. I’d insisted that Sally tell me what was troubling her and what all this craziness had been about, even though she said I needed to get some more rest.

She told me, in a low, steady voice, that Mrs Lubic hadn’t received my call earlier that morning as I’d explained. My phone call, which had prompted Mrs Lubic to inspect the flat next door, had actually been three days earlier. She’d left the groceries on the landing on the Wednesday, as arranged, but hadn’t been up since. It was now Thursday. A whole three days had passed since that call? I’d been putting up with that terrible scraping and bashing for all that time? I didn’t have any answer for Sally.

When she eventually took me over to the opening in the wall, giving me a seat to sit down on, I hoped that she would finally tell me why she’d found it necessary to go to such drastic measures to see her father. I told her that I understood how she might’ve been upset at not being able to ring me or see me for all those weeks.

‘Dad, take a look over here.’

She crouched down beside the hole, pointing to various bits of debris.

‘Have you not noticed which way the plaster and bricks have fallen?' she asked. 'Have you not noticed the direction of this broken plaster up here around the edge of the hole? It’s pointing outwards, not inwards. The hole was started in here and you’ve busted your way through to the next flat. It was Mrs Lubic who rang me to say you were breaking your way through the wall. You’ve taken three days, apparently using that hammer and spanner over there. I don’t know how you’ve done it, but it’s bloody amazing, considering the condition you’re in.’

It seemed absolutely silly what she was saying. I wanted to laugh. I wanted her to tell me that the whole thing was some mighty joke. Mrs Lubic came in at that point, through the front door, followed by her two teenage sons. The Irish plumber appeared next and then Sally’s husband and children made an entrance. I felt even more embarrassed when two of my old chums from The Mathematicians’ Guild appeared as well, all trying very politely to ignore the gaping hole in my bedroom wall. The boys quickly got to work sweeping up the dust and plaster and stacking the bricks into a pile.

I waited until the shock from what Sally had told me eased before I spoke. I got up and stood by the hole, and then looked everyone in the eye, one after the other, causing some of them to look down into their laps.

‘I don’t think it was me,’ I said. ‘I don’t know who it was and I can’t explain the fact there was only me in here, but I can only say to you here and now that it wasn’t me. How could I do this? Why would I do this?’

Then, before anyone had a chance to respond, my eyes settled on the portrait of Caroline, and it almost seemed as though a slight twitch was visible in her upper lip, as if she were about to break out in a smile. I went and sat down again in the chair, remembering how Caroline used to enjoy it so much when she invited people around for afternoon tea.

‘Actually, I think I need to put the kettle on,’ I said. ‘What would Caroline say if she saw me now, eh? This awful state I’m in, all cooped up here, blocking all of you out. I think she would’ve been quite shocked. I think she would’ve been capable of actually resorting to something quite brazen.’

I didn’t stop to see the looks on their faces; I had tea and biscuits in the kitchen to sort out.

© Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney.

OK, So I'm Backward !

2007-10-18T00:50:00.000+02:00

It's only recently that I noticed something very odd about my reading behaviour. I don't know whether something has shifted in my brain, but I find that nowadays I always tend to read a newspaper or magazine from back to front.

I don't know when this started, and it must have been gradual, but I now find it almost impossible to start at the front and turn the pages from left to right. I tried tonight to read a newspaper from front to back and it felt very uncomfortable, as if I were trying to write with the wrong hand, as if I were being forced to do something against my natural instinct. But don't worry; I'm not so bonkers yet that I'm reading novels from back to front!

Is my way of reading papers and magazines normal? Is my mind rebelling against years of reading from front to back? Was I Japanese in my last life?

It's not even as if I like to follow sports, which would explain why someone starts reading the back of the paper first. It might have something to do with the fact that I'm a general news journalist and I don't want to overload my mind with too much news. Starting at the back means that after I've quickly dashed through the sport, stopping at the odd article or photo that catches my interest, I'm diving straight away into columns, opinion pieces, features and "softer news".

It's true that reading a paper from front to back requires a lot of strength these days. It's no fun getting through all the hard, depressing news, only to find there is little energy left for the lighter stuff, which is generally found between the middle and the back. Maybe my mind has automatically worked out how to maintain my reading stamina, to save myself for the lighter bits that are better for my health.

Could that really be the reason? Does anyone else read from back to front? Does it matter that I'm right-handed? Is it because one side of my brain is becoming more dominant over the other? Or is it just one of those quirky things we pick up with age? Of course, it may just be further proof that I'm well and truly backward!

* * * * *
Oh, and don't forget to check out The Shameless Lions Writing Circle, where Grace's universe is being created. Instalment eight is now up.

A Shameless Review

2007-10-15T23:37:00.000+02:00

I believe it is so true what they say about how the title of a book is extremely important in terms of whether it goes on to become a commercial success. Serious thought must go into the decision about "the name over the door of the shop" and everyone involved in the process must be aware of what's at stake. The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney is one of those novels that probably found a place on my bookshelf simply on the strength of the title. Is it just me who finds it intriguing and embracing? Before buying the book I hadn't actually heard about the story or the writing. I don't even think I paid attention to the reviews I came across. The title alone - the catchiness and the warmth of it - echoed in my upper-floors and then obviously hung around. And that was enough for me to buy it. I even looked past the fact that this book is 450 pages long and is set in 1867 in Canada, a time and place that I don't consciously chase - and that's not to say there is any reason not to. The title alone drew me in.

It is funny then how the title became a bit of an issue as I made my way through this book. Call me old-fashioned, but I actually had expected to read a little bit more about wolves. I had expected to at least come across something of substance that linked wolves to the main story. An analogy? Symbolism? Something between the lines? Something at all? Was I wrong to have these expectations? Yes, there are a few scenes - like the opening scene - where wolves are talked about. But the tenderness of wolves? It almost felt as though wolves were written in as bit parts after the novel had been written, to justify the title. Did I miss something? Did something not get published in my version? Maybe this is what happens when a reader buys a book because he likes the title. He's invested in it; he wants some kind of reward.

That's not to say that I was only focused on discovering how the tenderness of wolves comes into things. The story in itself was reasonably gripping. A mother tries to prove that her son is not guilty of a terrible crime. There are many possible suspects. There is harsh, unforgiving terrain. There are mysterious twists and turns. It's actually a whodunnit when you boil it all down. The writing starts out as something quite complex and "literary" but is then snipped down to something I found to be quite ordinary once the plot took over.

But it's not just the plot that made this ordinary for me. There are so many points of view in this book that you really have to keep your wits about you. I counted at least 12 characters who are each given their own points of view in separate passages. It was very hard to keep up with everyone and to get close to them. Thank goodness there were separate sections to give each person their own space to express their point of view, otherwise the head-hopping would have left me quite exhausted. I actually started to doubt that I was following the right protagonist. Was I supposed to be considering one person as the main character? The author did try to make this clear by putting the passages of the crusading mother into the first person and the other sections into the third person. Again, there was obviously an attempt to keep things digestible, but in the end I did feel overwhelmed and dizzy. At the end of the day I spent so much time in more than 12 different heads that I didn't get close enough to anyone to care about the ending. The actual discovery of "whodunnit" turned out to be a damp squib. It was someone introduced late, who had no real role to play in the story and there was no great surprise or clever stitching of the plot.

This was a readable enough escape into the snow, for those who like trying to work out who the bad guy or bad gal is - never mind that you aren't rewarded after the search. There are certainly no fireworks and you don't want to howl at the moon afterwards. The title was great but I don't think the novel matched it. It goes without saying that I am still none the wiser about the tenderness of wolves, but then maybe that wasn't supposed to be the point; it was merely the title, after all.

Fly With Me To Venice !

2007-10-11T14:05:00.000+02:00

Forget all the stresses of the day; get a cuppa, turn up the speakers on your computer and put your feet up. Fly with me on a short trip to Venice! I have chosen my best photos from a recent trip and set them to an original piece of piano music.

Just click twice on the play button for The Mysteries of Venice:

Please feel free to pass this on to someone who might appreciate a little escape. The link to send in an email is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L01dUJyRbMg

A Poem For Identical Twins

2007-10-09T00:09:00.004+02:00

there’ll be two

two moons will manifest,
medallions in a purple sky,
so while one illuminates

a country lane, the other
guides a stray fisherman
back to familiar shores.

there’ll be two willows,
laughing in the breeze,
so while one protects

delicate baby finches,
the limbs of the other
become climbing ropes.

two flowers will rise,
burgeoning with colour,
so while one is plucked

to offer some comfort,
the other willingly
surrenders to bees.

there’ll be two rivers,
forging their own paths,
so while one might slow

down to broaden and
explore, the other gives
way to vital rapids.

(This year we became the godparents of the little delights above - Roman and Simon - and this is dedicated to them).

© Copyright, 2008. Seamus Kearney. "There'll be two - a poem for identical twins". This may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, but only when Seamus Kearney is identified as the author.

A Lucky Literary Dip

2007-10-03T22:39:00.000+02:00

We didn't manage to organise a mini blogmoot in such short notice, but I did manage to find a trace of Barbara Smith (Cailleach) in a Dublin bookshop. This poetry book of hers, Kairos, is gorgeous, with nuggets of gold behind that dreamy picture. What a delight. An explosion of something pleasant on the tongue. These are definitely for reading aloud. It has now taken pride of place in my living room.

It was my fault we didn't meet up; it didn't even occur to me that it could be a possibility. The next time I am in Dublin, maybe in November or December, we will definitely try to arrange it.

My regular visits to that charming city always involve something to do with books. I love to drink a large latté in my favourite cafés, which just happen to be close to my favourite bookshops, which all blur into one after a five-day visit. Barbara also told me about the Chapters bookshop, which was a wonderful place, with new and second-hand books. This is where I found some good bargains on new hardbacks. All in all I ended up buying ten books while in Dublin ... and I wrote a fair amount towards my own novel, even a few pages while sitting on those café terraces. The main character is from Dublin, so it's nice to visit his place and remember all the little things about our stock.

Here are the titles I bought, so you can kind of tell what mood/state of mind I'm in at the moment:

The Blair Years, Alistair Campbell
The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, Roddy Doyle (Irish author)
The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne, Brian Moore (Irish author)
This Human Season, Louise Dean
The Sea, John Banville (Irish author)
On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
Blindness, José Saramago
Mister Pip, Lloyd Jones
My Life As A Fake, Peter Carey

Now, of course, who knows when I will get round to these, given there's already a big backlog. But I do love swaying in front of the bookshelf, letting my fingers run over the spines, deciding almost at random what my next book will be. A lucky literary dip. That way I move between different authors, styles, years. I also love to read books that I've bought in a place I've visited. I write the date and the city inside the cover, so I remember the trip when I finally get round to reading the book.

Grace Takes Shape !

2007-10-01T12:28:00.001+02:00

It's so exciting! There are THREE new instalments of the collective short story happening over at The Shameless Lions Writing Circle. Wanderlust, Minx and Absolutely Vanilla have done the other members proud. Verilion at A Wanderer in Paris is the next nominated writer. What is going to happen to Grace? What's going on with this? Spread the word.

A Photo of the Vision of the Cover of the Book

2007-09-28T01:44:00.000+02:00

What a cool job that would be! Designing book covers! What fun! As you can see, I've been playing around with that photo I published in a previous post, trying to get an idea of whether it might work as a cover. What do you think? It's good to have a vision in case I go down the self-publishing road, which can't be ruled out of course. I didn't hear back from that publishing house in Australia this week. Ho hum.

I know it's futile to make a cover for a book that doesn't yet exist. But isn't there something to be said for visualising what we want? Well, every little thing helps I suppose. I was prompted to do this after seeing the wonderful covers that Pundy and LM Noonan came up with for their novels. Check out their sites.

I'm off to Dublin today for a five-day visit. I'm taking the laptop with me - even though it's a pain to drag around - so I can get a bit of writing done while I'm there. I've decided to crack on with a new project after putting another one aside. Sometimes when the writing gets hard and the plot doesn't seem to be coming together, I find it's better to just put it down and focus on something else. That something else seems strong and possible and I'm eager to get the words down. That's a good sign. But don't worry, I haven't jumped ahead and thought about a cover for this new story. Give me at least the weekend to think about it! Hey, easy tiger!

Introducing Grace !

2007-09-25T00:07:00.000+02:00

Have you heard about the exciting writing project happening over at The Shameless Lions Writing Circle? Let me introduce you to Grace, whom we will all get to know a whole lot better in the coming weeks, months. Spread the word!

I have organised a collective short story, to be written by all the members of the circle, with everyone called on to add to the developing story. My photo above was the inspiration. Who knows where the tale will lead us? See here for the basic rules. Here's the story so far:

__________________________________________________

The new watch that Grace's husband had given her the week before slipped inside the sleeve of her coat as her arm went up in the air. She felt she had no control over the movement, as though it were completely natural for her to be hailing a cab in the middle of New York. She felt as if she were being directed by remote control. 4:42pm, October 7. She made a mental note of the time, thinking it might be something she'd always want to remember.

"I just want you to drive," she said as she got in, avoiding the driver's eyes.

"Drive? Drive where, sweetheart?"

He sounded like he might be Middle Eastern, although the writing on photos and cards above his head looked like it could be Greek. She also noticed African music coming from the radio.

"I'll let you know. For now just drive anywhere. Wherever your instinct takes you."

"That is strange."

"Yes, it's strange. Please just drive. Anywhere."

"Whatever you say, sweetheart."

During the few minutes it took for the cab to rejoin the flow of angry traffic, she stared at the entrance to the subway that she'd been using to get home every night for the past 12 years. Ample time to change her mind. She turned off her mobile as the cab swung into Third Avenue. Happy trumpets played as a grainy picture of Sebastian and the two little ones faded into black. (1)

Grace sat back and tried to relax. All her muscles were tense. She moved her head a little from side to side to try and release some of the tension in her neck. She made an effort to relax her face muscles that she was sure were drawn up into a tight mask.

As the cab swooped along with the stream of homeward-bound traffic, a sudden gust of wind swirled fallen orange and red leaves into a mad dance. She found their dance mesmerising. It reflected her mood of being drawn into a wild dance, almost out of control. Where the dance would lead, she had no idea.

“Ok sweetheart?” the cab driver sounded uncomfortable with his role of just driving anywhere.

She nodded, still not meeting his eyes. She wished he would stop calling her sweetheart. She didn’t feel like anybody’s sweetheart. She looked down at her tan boots and noticed one of the toes was scuffed. She fingered the money purse inside the large red shoulder-bag sitting beside her like an obedient pet. She would have to watch the fare. After all, she only had so much money to go on. She made herself stop biting her fingernails as she tried to figure out just where she wanted the taxi cab to drop her.(2)

Authors So Far:

(1) Me
(2) Kay at As It Happens

Next Nominated Writer: Wanderlust Scarlett at from the shores of introspect and retrospect

Feel free to promote this on your blogs, putting up the photo and the new passages as they appear.

A Pause For A Poem

2007-09-17T21:24:00.000+02:00

once it’s gone

no one dares
take a knife
to the perfect
home-made tart,
too afraid of

erasing moments,
saying goodbye,
knowing too well
that once it’s
gone, it’s gone

keep it whole,
they tell their
host, make it
last, proof
of the bliss

of this night,
an immortality,
the sense that
we could never
be any happier

© Copyright, 2007. Seamus Kearney.

A Second Kiwi Booker ?

2007-09-13T01:37:00.000+02:00

My fingers and toes are crossed, hoping that next month another kiwi will bag a Booker! You probably already know that Mister Pip, by New Zealander Lloyd Jones, is in the running for this year's Man Booker Prize, and that he's even been named by the bookies as favourite to win ... above Ian McEwan! If he wins, it'll only be the second time that a New Zealander has won a Booker. So, of course, us fellow kiwis - sprinkled as we are around the world - must celebrate this literary achievement. How will I do that? I have ordered Jones' book, which is said to be a real treat. The winner is announced on October the 16th and I really hope that Jones can pull it off. Of course, I'm saying that before I've even read the book, but you can understand my bias, no? Graham Sharpe from the bookies William Hill was quoted as saying: ”We have seen an unprecedented gamble on this virtually unknown writer. In a quarter of a century of Booker betting I cannot recall as spectacular a gamble before and we could be looking at our first six -figure payout in Booker history. We are even seeing people betting on a double of New Zealander Jones winning the Booker and hot favourites New Zealand winning the rugby World Cup which currently pays odds of 7/2.” It's wonderful that this work, which also won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book in 2006, has been able to get its head above the choppy waters of international literature.

To date Keri Hulme is the only kiwi who has a Booker sitting on her shelf - I assume she hasn't sold it or binned it! The Bone People, which is one of my favourite books of all time, won back in 1985. I will never forget the experience of reading this for the first time, at the age of 18, so blown away by the style. It was so different to anything I had ever read and the characters have never left me. It is one of the few books that I have read several times. If you haven't read it then I highly recommend you do. It is very hard to describe the experience, what makes it a winner on so many levels. Of course, many people disagree, and there was enormous controversy when it won. The story of how the book was born - rejected by mainstream publishers and then taken on by a women's collective - is great. Keri Hulme herself is a wonderful, colourful character: she lives in a house she built herself; she's mad about fishing; she has been working on "twin" follow-up novels for years, living alone in a wild, coastal part of New Zealand's south island. The media often describes her as someone who's turned into a recluse, a label she flatly rejects. Yes, she does get out of the house and she does see people! I just hope that she does publish some more novels. There have been some short stories and other pieces of wonderful writing over the years since her win, but I am keen to skin and cook up something more substantial.

Double Entendre

2007-09-07T01:55:00.000+02:00

If I've been sounding a bit gaga lately - in the nice sense of the word - there may be a good explanation: we're the proud godparents of identical twins! Let me introduce you to Roman and Simon, who were born here in Lyon in February.

Aren't they gorgeous? It is becoming increasingly difficult to tell them apart and I fear that I will never get it right. Luckily the parents have decided they will be dressed differently!

As you can see, we are getting in early with the whole book thing - you may laugh, but they actually do pay attention and seem to enjoy the experience of having something read out to them.

Which brings me on to something I've often pondered. Are we taught to become book lovers and avid readers, or is it something in our genes, in our individual make-up? Will a child who is often read to and surrounded by books go on to adore them later in life? Is a child who is not encouraged to read or treasure books likely to fall in love with them when they're an adult? I'm sure there are many opinions on this. I have friends who say they don't read books because they were never introduced to them as a child. I have other friends who say they are book fanatics but don't know why: their parents didn't read, there were no books in the house and they hated reading at school.

In 2005 the National Literary Trust in Britain carried out a survey of 8,000 pupils from 98 schools in England, producing these interesting findings:

􀂃 Half the sample of pupils said they enjoy reading either very much or
quite a lot and rated themselves as proficient readers.

􀂃 The majority of pupils read every day or once/twice a week.

􀂃 Almost half the sample believed that they were reading enough. A fifth of
pupils stated that not only were they not reading enough, but they also
would not want to read more.

􀂃 Pupils generally held positive attitudes towards reading - agreeing with
statements that reading is important and disagreeing with statements that
reading is boring, hard, or for girls rather than boys.

􀂃 Pupils indicated reading a diverse range of materials outside class, which
included texts other than books. When asked specifically about fiction
preferences, adventure, comedy and horror/ghost stories were the most
frequently chosen types.

􀂃 Most pupils read in the bedroom, followed by the classroom and the
living room.

􀂃 When asked why they were reading, most pupils indicated that they read
because it is a skill for life, it helps them find out what they want/need to
know and because it is fun. Only a fifth of pupils read because they have
to.

􀂃 Pupils said that they would read more if they had more time, if they
enjoyed it more, if books were cheaper and if books were about subjects
they were interested in.

􀂃 When asked what activities would encourage them to read more, half the
sample stated that designing websites/magazines, meeting
authors/celebrity readers and reading games would motivate them.
Rating books and writing book reviews were only motivating for a fifth of
pupils.

􀂃 Over 80% of pupils reported that it was their mother who had taught
them to read, followed by their teacher and their father.

􀂃 Almost half the pupils never or almost never talked with their family
about what they were reading. Their mother, father and friend were the
top three people with whom pupils discussed their reading. Their mother,
teacher and father were also the most frequently cited reading partners.

􀂃 Pupils also believed that their mother spends more time reading than
their father.

􀂃 A quarter of pupils reported that their father never spent any time
reading.

􀂃 Pupils stated that their mother encourages them to read more frequently
than their father.

􀂃 Finally, when asked who should teach them to read and who should
encourage them to enjoy reading, the majority of pupils stated that these
should be done by both the home and the school.

So, it goes without saying that Roman and Simon can look forward to lots of books from us in the future! We also plan to always hit home the importance of reading ... in French and English, of course.

Mesmerized By The Greek Islands

2007-09-04T12:25:00.001+02:00

OK, it's time now for a little escape! Get a cuppa, put your feet up, turn up the volume, and let yourself fly away to the Greek Islands - accompanied by my own original piano music. Click twice on the play button.