Marie O’Shea is a writer living on the Beara Peninsula. Her work has been published in ‘Caterpillar’, ‘Trasna’, ‘A New Ulster’, ‘Popshot’, ‘The Galway Review’ and other places. In 2021, she was awarded a residency at the Heinrich Boll Cottage in Achill.
The New Neighbour
By Marie O’Shea
In the three panelled triptych, the lady takes centre stage. Hair swept from her brow, porcelain skin, eyes fixed on my eyes as I stand at her feet. A flash of September sunshine hits the arch of the window, bathing the room in blue and crimson. I hear the sound of my swallow, feel the tickle of a sneeze. The clock points twelve minutes to the hour, then seven. At eleven the bell rings. There are footsteps in the corridor, heels clicking the parquet floor as Shirley Gavin swings through the door of our temporary classroom.
‘Billy’ she says, her face creasing in a frown, ‘all on your own?’ Then she cops what I’m looking at and the frown softens. Projecting her voice, as the stragglers file into class, she tells us the figure in the window is Bridget, the patron saint of poets. Paudie Lynch lets out a fake snore which he turns into a cough. Two of the girls duty giggle and Shirley gives them the eye.
‘Open your books,’ she says, switching to business. Pretty soon I start doodling bog men. Impossible to concentrate on Hamlet’s lame arsed lament when the lady’s pulsing like a kaleidoscope over my head.
First thing Tuesday morning, I slip across the corridor connecting the two school buildings. Since the new extension got added on, we’re not allowed in the convent unless we’ve got official business. Not that anyone’s around to report me. Most of the nuns have either died or moved to the nursing home on the far end of town. Clearly, the few that are left are too busy saying their prayers to bother about cleaning their gaff.
The class room door creaks when I open it. Inside, the air is thick with the sort of dust which sticks to your windpipe and tastes rank. I take a look around at the crumbling cornices, the fingerprints of damp staining the walls. Suspended on a chain, like a dangling spider, is a six armed candelabra with tarnished brass.
Oblivious to her miserable surroundings, the lady gazes out from the sanctuary of her window. Thrusting my hands in my pockets, I soak in the detail of her face, her robe, her slippers. A small brown skylark soars over her head. To her left, a red eared cow is chewing the cud. To her right, a couple of beggars lads are swigging ale in a monastery yard. Seeing the two boys having the craic puts me in mind of Sid. Angling my phone this way and that, I try taking some photos to send him then the battery dies. Times up.
Speed walking back across the corridor, I bump into Cahal Brady emerging from the jacks. ‘Missing your boyfriend, Goldy?’ he says with a homophobic leer.
Goldilocks. The name transports me back to my first day at school, rolling up to assembly, hair down to my arse because Haze couldn’t bear to cut the baby curls. Miserable as sin until Sid breezed in with his rainbow sac and crocs. Even though we’d never met, I sort of recognised this kid from the community of tipis and cabins scattered across the West Cork mountainside. Sid took one look around at the rows of shiny faced lads then plonked himself down at my side. And that was that, the battle lines drawn, valley kids versus the boggers, only it wasn’t a fair fight, there were more of them.
Crazy to think that all this time we’ve been dodging bogger bullets, the lady’s been shining out the convent window. I don’t know why this makes me feel better but it does. Ignoring the class buzzer, I swing my bag over my shoulder, give Cahil the finger and head out for a smoke.
Past the office, scanning the car park like my mother’s waiting to whisk me away in her SUV. Past the stretch of railings adorned with posters of the boys who’ve made it onto the Cork minors. Up ya boyos! Ye mad doughnut spinning boggers.
Across the road, keeping an eye out for the minger from Supervalu who reported me for skating in the trolley park. Past the bookies, the branded bargains in Mr Price, then ducking into the doorway of the Peking Palace to roll a spliff. Feeling good and mellow now, I saunter past the boneyard, recalling the faraway look in the lady’s eyes, imagining she’s talking to me, whispering in my ear. ‘Take a look,’ she says, pointing to a clump of orange flowers. I take a look at the slender stems, the saffron heads bowing in the breeze. An electric blue dragon fly shimmies by, iridescent in the haze of sun. ‘No way,’ I say ducking my head and she laughs and her laugh is tinkly like a bell. The sort of laugh that invites you to join in, so I do and there we are kneeling amongst the flowers, splitting our sides, when Tipi Ray appears.
‘Hey Ray,’ I say, taking in the aviator hat, the great-coat stuck with feathers. He gives me a shifty look before he twigs who I am.
‘How’s your muvver?’ he says. ‘Still doing Bantry market?’
‘Nah. She gave that up.’
How about Sid?
‘He’s moved back to Bristol,’ I say, and my voice comes out flat as an old car battery.
‘Did you hear we’ve got new neighbours moving into Moon’s old gaff?’
‘No way,’ I say, backing away before he pumps me for any more info. ‘Gotta get back to school before Shirley blows a gasket.’
Crazy that saying her name summons her out of the office like an uncorked genie. That when she sees me mooching past, her shoulders slouch, like it’s all too much. Crazy that this bothers me.
With Sid gone, she knows I’m struggling but really I should stick it out. That’s what she told my mother the day she called to the cabin.
‘His drawing is exceptional,’ she said, rabbit sniffing the mug of chamomile tea, Haze handed her. ‘It’d be a terrible waste of his talent if he were to drop out now.’ Haze said she’s cool with whatever I decide, it’s my life, my choice. She’s not overly bothered about school herself. When she quit, nobody tried to talk her out of it. Nobody cared that much about Hazy Sky with her mad black eyeliner and her pregnant belly.
After a while I zoned out, while Shirley banged on about CAO points and Susi grants. Then, in the thicket, a stag let out this long, low whistle and the dogs went ballistic, yapping and howling so loud she had to shout to make herself heard. ‘What do you say Billy,’ she said, ‘can you stick it out a while longer?’
It was the hopeful look on her saggy old face that got me. Scooping up Jack in my arms, I walked her to the door. ‘Sure thing, Miss,’ I said. ‘I can give it a go.’
Wednesday afternoon, when Shirley’s called to the office, Cahil swaggers over to the board. ‘Paudie loves Kiera,’ he writes, then he turns to the girls with this mad gleam in his eye. Heads swivel to the mid row. Kiera whispers something to the girl beside her and they double over, hamming up the hilarity for all they’re worth. Someone pounds the table, someone else makes engine revving noises. Paudie makes a thing of cracking his knuckles before wrestling Cahil to the floor. Inured to the mayhem, I slip on my headphones and swing back in my chair as Cahil hurls a sports bag at the window.
No. The word is a slow motion scream as the skylark soars into the trees, as the red eared cow careers around the field, foam frothing her mouth, as the beggar lads hunker down and cover their heads.
As the lady braces herself for the world to shatter.
Only this doesn’t happen because Aine Crowley knocks the bag off course with a camogie twist of her elbow. My fingers uncurl one by one. I find I can breathe, that air flows in and out of my lungs, my heart continues to beat.
‘What the hell is going on?’ Shirley is standing at the door, her top lip pulled back like a rabid dog. Words shoot from her mouth like a swarm of angry wasps but I am oblivious to their sting. The profound sense of disappointment she feels is of no consequence to me. Pensive and serene, the lady continues to pulse in her window. In my head, I’m turning cartwheels.
Thursday is ‘no uniform day’ on account of the school winning the junior league championship. When I rifle through my clothes, the only clean thing I can find is a pair of drop crotch pants Haze brought back from India. No way I can turn up in this saggy arsed nappy when everyone else is wearing Superdry. Sorry Shirley.
Friday morning, I roll up early to take some photos of the Lady. I’m thinking so hard about dodging PE, it takes a moment to cop that the classroom looks different. Then Shirley flicks the light switch and all is revealed.
The lady’s been banged up like a prisoner behind bare boards.
If this was a movie, there’d be funeral music, a slow drum beat as the camera zooms into the darkened window then back to me, mouth hanging open, gob smacked. Of course nobody in their right mind would make a movie about this bog hole.
‘Good job,’ says Shirley, rummaging in her Radley bag ‘That window was an accident waiting to happen, so it was.’ I glance at the mop bucket in the corner of the room. It occurs to me, in that split second, to empty the contents over Shirley’s treacherous head. Let Shirley G melt in a heap like the witch of the east. Instead, I just slump into a chair like my own bones have melted.
Without the lady shining in the light, there’s no point hanging around. The force of this realisation hits me like a tsunami. I don’t care what I promised Shirley, I cannot stay a moment longer. Crashing into the side of a table, I lumber towards the door then stop dead in my tracks.
If this was a movie, me and Sid would be rolling around at this point, only it’s not a movie, this actually happens.
A flash of crimson flicks through a crack in the boards, casting a beam of light on a willowy figure outside the door. Dreadlocks swept from her brow, porcelain skin, pensive and lovely as she adjusts the piercing in her lip. The principal ushers the vision into the room and a match ignites inside my belly. ‘Billy,’ he says, as the vision slides into the empty seat next to my own. ‘This is Bridget, your new neighbour. Miss Gavin wants you to show her the ropes.’
Bridget laughs and her laugh is tinkly like a bell, the sort of laugh that invites you to join in. So I do and there we are, sitting side by side, snorting back the laughter, as Shirley launches into another lame arsed monologue.
END
The Galway Review 