Seán and Deirdre were in their sixties now. He’d taken early retirement from the bank and she no longer gave piano lessons, though she went out to golf with such regularity that an elderly neighbour, Mrs Furlong, could not be dissuaded that Deirdre Brennan had a job. They were still Mass-goers, but now went to […]
MILEY CYRUS FAULT
so heavy my head feels like a bag of bricks we used to say that after a night on the town bottle after bottle of CRYSTAL line after line so high we always came down with a bang waking up with a head like a bag o bricks our dingy curtained room migraine bright let […]
Benevolence
Because time is an unfathomable thing I can’t tell you how long I’ve been here, basting in shame, under the mother’s eaves for eight or maybe ten days? I am six or seven again and beholding to her. I know not to give cheek nor answer back. Monday to Thursday it’s the dry end of […]
My Dad’s American
We go up into the grey tower of the concrete stairs and you can smell the carroty smell of everybody’s sweat. I have a drink from my canteen. Wham! Somebody punches my back – water chokes up into my nose. Stephen’s grinning, but he’s so fast he’s already back in line with Indeep and Michael. […]
Au hasard Pantomime
And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times? Numbers 22:28 I And the donkey is beaten again. It does not […]
Talking to Strangers
‘The sooner the new motorway opens the better.’ I hesitated, holding back the impulse to say something about what we were doing, something like; We can’t just arrive into the hospital without talking about it. Eventually, I said ‘Rachel’. Just that; Rachel. like she had locked herself in a room and I was trying to […]