Ian Murray began writing in the 1980s and was one of the original writers for the children’s television programme, Bosco. His short stories and essays have appeared in a number of Irish magazines including Irelands Own and Irelands Eye as well as online with Writing.ie. He holds a BA degree in classical studies and creative writing from the Open University. For a number of years, he was founder, editor and one of the dozen writers – which included some well-known radio personalities – of an RTE in-house music magazine entitled, No Needless Noise. He also contributed articles to RTE.ie. He has recently completed two novellas and is currently working on a thriller novel set in 1960s Dublin.

The Speed of Light

By Ian Murray

I can still see Tommy Riordan running. Still see him running down the street and up the street and down the lane and across the fields. Running his own private never–ending lap of honor to a finishing line he never touched and a destination he never reached. He just ran and kept on running. I can’t recall seeing him walk anywhere. With his aquiline nose, thin lips, slanting insolent eyes that peered out of little round National Health spectacles, he looked like a diminutive John Lennon. I never liked Tommy, not then, not until it was too late.
I was new to the school. I was only there a few weeks but already Tommy had zeroed in on me with his flying punches. Every time he ran past me, he’d punch me in the arm. He never paused to do it. He’d do it on the run. His timing was perfect. I’d be walking along and suddenly I’d hear high-pitched laughing, feel a numbing punch in the arm as a dark blur shot by me, and then Tommy would be half-way down the street before I knew it – the pitch of his laughing dropping as though he produced his very own Doppler effect.
We were both ten, in primary school, but that was about all we had in common. I wasn’t exactly studious but I loved reading and was quiet in class. Tommy was the classic disruptive presence. He messed, talked and laughed his way through lessons and flicked ink at people – usually me.
And when he wasn’t in the classroom messing, he was in the Head’s office getting caned. He was never still. Even sitting at his desk, he was pure motion. He could never keep still long enough to read a sentence or do a sum. Finally, the school gave up on him. But I always had the feeling Tommy was a lot smarter than people thought.
There was yet another difference between us. In common with the rest of the boys, I would turn up reasonably clean and neat for class. Or as much as a ten-year-old boy can manage on the walk between home and school. But I noticed Tommy would arrive in the same clothes for weeks on end. I envied him that. Every day I was forced to change my clothes. Also, where I was slightly tubby, he was rake thin. I put it down to all the running. However, he didn’t seem to eat much either. At lunch time, while the rest of us went home, Tommy stayed in the school yard.
He would run to the corner shop, buy a bottle of lemonade and a bag of crisps, and run back to the yard again and wait for the rest of us to return. I wondered how he spent his time in that hour by himself. I knew he had a much older brother in his late teens, a dour looking teddy boy, with a port wine birthmark down his left cheek. I saw him once in the town trying to kick Tommy but the toe of his winkle-picker shoe never connected. Tommy had shot down the street and around the corner so fast that his brother was left standing on one leg. His other leg was raised so high he looked like a goose-stepping storm trooper with a DA haircut.
I suffered no such sibling tortures but this only added to my general feeling of isolation. I was an only child. In the Ireland of the sixties, when the average family was at least three children and in many cases lots more, to be an only child was somewhat unique. But it was uniqueness that, given the choice, I would never have asked for and would never have wanted in a million years. For, it was less unique than it was a social stigma. To be an only child denoted something peculiar, something wrong, if not with you, then with your family. You sensed it from other people. And you sensed a certain judgement. However, for me, fate had taken the unique state of the only child to a whole other level.
My father had died of pneumonia two months before I was born. Now, that’s unique. That’s the Premier Division of uniqueness. Other kids who hadn’t siblings, or kids whose dads had walked out on them, or whatever, they were only in the ha’penny place compared to me. I sometimes found it hard to comprehend. My father had never existed on Earth in my entire lifetime! Being different was bad enough but being that different was almost unbearable and I couldn’t stand it. And, of course, people who knew seemed incapable of ignoring it. Women friends of my mother would look at me in a pitying kind of way and shake their heads sadly and say things like, ‘Ah, God help him.’
It felt like the social equivalent of being a Thalidomide kid.
When you are ten years old you don’t want people looking at you with pity. You don’t want them looking at you at all. And you certainly don’t want them imploring God to help you. You want to be like all the other kids. You want to be normal. The last thing you want to be is different. To be different was to be singled out. To be different was to leave yourself open to the possible ridicule of your peers. To be different was to be seen as a freak.
Also, since I was new to the school, I didn’t really know anyone yet, and they didn’t know me, and I hadn’t yet managed to make friends. I felt like the outsider I was and I didn’t want to draw undue attention to myself. For now, keeping a low profile suited me just fine.
The only one who seemed to notice my existence was Tommy Riordan, and even then, it was just to punch me in the arm when he’d be running by. And he did that to everyone.
A few months after I’d joined the school, our teacher, Mr. Hudson, died one night in his sleep. Prior to that, he had spent his time cursing in Irish and throwing chalk at Tommy who’d avoided the white missiles with withering ease. Tommy ran to his funeral.
His replacement was Mr. Henry – young, smiling, friendly Mr. Henry. Whereas Mr. Hudson had thought that we were all hooligans, and viewed us with dark suspicion, Mr. Henry wanted to be ‘our mate.’ He called us by our Christian names and dispensed with the cane on his first day. He walked to the cupboard and threw the cane in and looked back with a big self-satisfied smile on his pink, moon face. He was full of himself.
‘Sure we don’t need that auld thing, do we lads!’ he beamed. He never threw chalk at Tommy but I got the feeling Tommy didn’t like him.
One afternoon in class a boy gave the correct answer to a question about electricity that Mr. Henry had put to him.
‘I knew that, Sir,’ the boy said, ‘cos me da is an electrician.’
‘You don’t tell me,’ smiled Mr. Henry. ‘So, your father is a bright spark then!’
This got a laugh from the class. Another boy piped up.
An’ my da works on top of poles for the ESB.’
‘So, he’s reached the top of his profession!’ cried Mr. Henry.
There was more laughter. Mr. Henry was on a roll, and encouraged by the response of his captive audience, he took the initiative. He randomly pointed to another boy.
‘And what does your father do?’
‘He’s a carpenter, Sir.’
‘So, he’s a bit of a wooden character then!’
There was another laugh but this time at someone’s expense. The boy looked nonplussed. Mr. Henry pointed across at a boy who sat near me.
I began to feel uneasy.
‘And yours?’ Mr. Henry asked the boy.
‘He’s a fisherman, Sir.
‘I’d say he’s a bit fishy alright,’ Mr. Henry grinned. The laughter was subdued. The class sensed that the game had somehow changed. Mr. Henry sensed he had suddenly lost his audience. But still he persisted. He looked wildly around. Then he pointed at me.
‘And what does your father work at?’
My mouth went dry and I suddenly felt sick. I just sat there staring back at him. ‘C’mon, now, has the cat got your tongue?’ said Mr. Henry. ‘Tell us what your father does.’
All at once I was aware that the whole class was looking intently at me. I had become what I dreaded most – the center of attention.
‘Are ye afraid of telling us, is that it?’ laughed Mr. Henry. ‘Be the hokey, boys, but this lad’s dad must be in prison! Or maybe he doesn’t have a job at all! Maybe he’s, as they say, idle. Like the others ye see hanging around the street corner. Is that it then? Is he on the dole and waiting for the pubs to open? Ha, ha. Stand ye up and tell us your dark secret.’
I stood up slowly and twenty pairs of eyes followed me. Mr. Henry stood grinning. His face looked like moonrise at evening time. His hands were stuck in his trouser pockets as he rocked gently backwards and forwards on the balls of his feet. I swallowed hard. Mr. Henry kept on grinning. I took a deep breath.
‘He’s dead, Sir.’
‘Oh shit!’ I heard someone behind me say.
There was total silence. The Roman numeral clock on the wall ticked loudly. I noticed that Tommy Riordan was suddenly still. I wanted more than anything for Mr. Henry to tell me to sit down and point to another boy and continue the stupid game as if nothing had happened. But now, he was suddenly ‘concerned.’ He wanted to ‘relate.’ He wanted to ‘empathize.’
I just wanted him to shut the fuck up. But he wouldn’t.
‘And when did he die?’
‘A long time ago, Sir.’ I stood there as the tear made its way down my cheek.
‘And when was that?’
I took a deep breath.
‘Two months before I was born, Sir.’
The silence that had descended upon the class now instantly morphed into one of shock. I stood there and realized that I had acquired a new uniqueness. In the entire history of the school, I alone had created a shocked silence.
The rest of the afternoon went in a haze and the next thing I knew school was over and I was walking home. Tommy ran past but this time he didn’t punch me in the arm. A few yards ahead he slowed down and looked back.
‘Do ya wanna come back to me house? I’ll show ya me comics,’ he said. Before I’d realized it I’d said yes. He ran off and I did my best to keep up with him. He lived in a council estate about a mile from the school. Unlike the other homes the garden of Tommy’s house was overgrown. Rubbish lay heaped at the side of the house. Dirty curtains half hung on the windows and the outside walls were cracked and grimy for the want of paint. Inside was like a pigsty with assorted rubbish and clothes strewn everywhere on the bare discolored floorboards. Cigarette butts overflowed from ashtrays. The kitchen was filthy.
But when we went upstairs to Tommy’s room it was spotless, fresh and tidy. His treasure trove of DC and Marvel comics were stacked neatly in a corner.
We spent a happy hour looking at the primary-colored adventures of American superheroes. Tommy said his favorite hero was The Flash – the man who could run faster than a speeding bullet. It seemed apt.
All too soon it was time to go home for tea. Tommy said he’d run to the local chipper for a bag of chips. He said his dad was probably out drinking and wouldn’t be home till late that night and he hardly ever saw his brother. I asked him where his mother was. Without answering he went to a small wooden box beside his bed. He picked up the box and opened it. He took out a photograph and showed it to me. It was a picture of a young woman holding a baby. She was very pretty and she was smiling.
‘That’s me ma and me. She died soon after I was born,’ was all he said. Then he took back the photograph and very gently laid it in the box again. We went outside and Tommy ran off towards the chipper. When he got to the corner he stopped for a moment and waved back and smiled. And then he was gone. And I never saw him again.
He collapsed the next day running up the road past the golf links on his way to school. He died where he fell. If souls live on then I sometimes think Tommy is still running – running across the stars. He’ll have touched light speed by now. And perhaps one day, thousands of trillions of years in the future, he’ll reach the end of the universe.
When he does, I imagine he’ll laugh and give it a punch.

The End