Fourfront, page 3
He’d dragged his wellingtons over between the chair and the head of the table and was bent down struggling to undo the laces of his hobnailed boots. He looked different that way. If I had to go, I said to myself . . . If he threw me out and told me he didn’t want to see me or have anything more to do with me . . .
Right away, I recalled some of my mates and acquaintances in Dublin. The ones that were kicked out by their families when they found out: Mark whose father called him a dirty bastard and told him not to come near the house again as long as he lived; Keith whose da gave him a bad beating when he discovered he’d a lover, and who kept him locked up at home for a month even though he was near twenty; Philip who was under so much stress he’d a nervous breakdown, who’d no option but to leave his teaching job after one of his worst pupils saw him leaving a particular Sunday-night venue and the news spread by lunch-time the following Monday. The boys called him disgusting names right to his face, never mind the unconcealed whispers behind his back. Who could blame him for leaving, even if it meant the dole and finding a new flat across town? The dole didn’t even come into it for Robin . . . Twentyfour hours his parents gave him to clear out of the house and take all he had with him, telling him he wasn’t their son, that he’d brought all this on himself, that they never wanted to see him again as long as he lived. Which they didn’t. Coming home that night to find his body laid out on the bed in their room, empty pillboxes on his chest, half a glass of water under the mirror on the dressing-table, a short crumpled note telling them that his only wish was to die where he was born, that he loved them, and was sorry he hurt them but saw no other way.
The slow-rolling chimes of the clock interrupted my litany. He was still opposite me, working away trying to pull on his boots with great difficulty, his trousers tucked down his thick woollen socks. If I had to go, I thought, I’d never see my father like this again. Never. The next time I’d see him, he’d be stone-cold dead in his coffin, the three of us back together on the first plane from London after getting an urgent phone call from home telling us he was found slumped in the garden, or that they weren’t sure if he fell in the fire or was dead before the fire burnt the house to the ground overnight, or maybe they’d find him halfdressed in the bedroom after some of the neighbours forced in the door, trying to work out when was the last time they saw him, no one able to work out exactly the time of death . . .
He’d got into his wellingtons and stood there wrapped up in his great coat, holding his cap, about to put it on, the enamel milk-bucket under his arm.
He moved slowly, tottered, almost, over to the front door. My eyes followed his face, his side, his back, his awkward steps away from me as his last words of a moment ago went round and round in my head like an eel scooped out of a well on a hot summer day and set on a warm stone.
He paused at the door the way he always did on his way out and dunked his finger in the holy-water font hung up on the door-jamb. It was an old wooden font with the Sacred Heart on it my mother brought back from a pilgrimage to Knock the time the Pope was over. I could see him trying to bless himself, not even sure if it was the finger or thumb he’d dipped in the holy water he was using.
He placed his hand on the latch. Opened it and pulled it towards him.
He turned round and looked at me, head first, his body following slowly. He was staring right at me which stopped my mind racing and swept my thoughts back to their dark corners.
“Will you stand by the braddy* cow for me?,” he asked, “while I’m milking . . . she’s always had a sore teat . . .”
Footnotes
* Irish bradach: thieving, trespassing
translated by Frank Sewell
Seven Hundred Watches
Somewhere in this city is a shop – if you could call it that – and it only opens one day in the year. Naturally enough this day never falls on the same date, since each year is a muddle of three hundred and sixty five days. Of course as to this particular shop, very few are in the know and the cognoscenti keep it to themselves. They really don’t give a hoot about it and care little who does as long as they are not reminded of it. They steer clear of it.
They know what they are about, or like to believe so. They are indifferent. Maybe you are too, if you’re anything like them. I am far from indifferent. I went in there once, on an impulse, propelled by my own two feet, on a chance visit to the city. That’s why I’m no longer indifferent and if, perchance, you find yourself there some day, you too will be indifferrent no longer. I’m still there you see – I’m here: I’m waiting for you . . .
I was on a visit to the city, a walkabout. One of those mindless days with nothing grabbing my attention, not a living thing. You know the way it is. Loafing about, unsure about the universe, down one street, up another and sometimes half-way down a street that I had walked five minutes previously before the onset of vague déjà vu. You could say I was in a trance-like state with a hint of ennui. You can be certain sure that it’s easier to find yourself in the metropolitan maze than to get out of it, as a rustic philosopher remarked in days gone by. And I continued my saunterings. Now and again I would stop and stare at a window, checking a price before deciding it was beyond my reach, examine an item of furniture that I did not require, give ear to distant Muzak pouring from a premises. Such were my vacant ways on that shambolic day. My mind was free or perhaps astray, half-dreaming, halfconjuring things up and, fleetingly, in a state of no-mind.
And yet I was happy for reasons unknown to me. The world was my oyster – ay, ay, sir – until I wended my way down a cul-de-sac, at the end of which stood a shop with its small yellow door. At first I failed to distinguish its name and, pressing closely, discovered it had none, something that excited my curiosity. Nothing at all in that murky window but an old-fashioned clock that had stopped long ago, a clock you’d never find today except in a disused convent or an antique store. Yes, I said to myself, there might be something here and as I had a few hours of the afternoon to idle away, in I went. The door creaked as I entered. I’ve never liked proclaiming my entrance or attracting the attention of shopkeeper or assistant – especially if I had no intention of buying anything.
Snakes alive! Not a sinner in sight. The hovel contained hundreds of watches, crouched on shelves and counters and, when space had run out, dangling from the ceiling . . . hundreds, maybe thousands of watches . . . They were a mystery to behold and those that still functioned played their part as though in an orchestra of crickets – little twelve-eyed insects in most unnerving harmony. Each had it sown dignity and I noticed how jealously they preserved their own space, their luminous integrity. I was watching each and every one, from row to row, from shelf to shelf, up down, down up. I was in a state of total non-communication with myself for a considerable period, absorbing all within the range of my vision.
The world was a pulsing watch. The previous world had stopped. I took courage, grabbed a watch and examined it.
“It’s yourself!” I startled. I turned around to see whose voice it was . . .
He was leaning over the counter, hands propping his face. From my vantage point he appeared to be a hunchback, but he might have been different had he stood erect. He was a wizened, triangular-skulled creation, a blue-rinsed mop that was in need of a hayfork, protruding black eyebrows like some remote bramble-bush and the wrinkled face on him could only be likened to the skin of an anorexic elephant’s ears. My immediate impulse was to laugh and to ask him did his hair know what a comb was. I didn’t, of course. He was not a pleasing sight – but I didn’t inform him of this. Would you?
“Just browsing,” I said, picking up another watch with feigned interest. His face was a thousand times more interesting than that of the watch. When next I raised my head he had his back turned to me – rather rudely I thought – and appeared to be winding a watch. I picked up another watch, and yet another. I noted their shape, colour, make, weight and sound. I was amazed at how little interest he had in me, fumbling and toying with his watches, behind the counter. I spied him out of the corner of my eye. When he had wound one of them he would lay it aside, look around, pause and pick up another, and yet another and another again. He continued thuswise for quite some time. I was sure he would call me and persuade me to buy one as is the wont with his type, but strange as it may seem, I might not have been there at all as far as he was concerned as he pottered around picking watches that needed winding. This pleased me no end as I have a distaste for those callous salesmen who would persuade a corpse to buy life insurance. He might have been a grotesque figure but at least he let me alone to browse among the watches . . .
Time flew as I watched them, admiring their variety. Something, I felt, was needling me– do you know not one of them had a price-tag and, more remarkable still, no pair told the sametime. This only fuelled my curiosity. I looked again, here and there, but sure enough not one synchronized with the other. I wonder, I reflected, are they all in competition, in a race, or jealously guarding their own time and space – independent of each other? Or are they all part of a team that ensures that every living second is covered? If that be the case they’re having me on and everybody else to boot – except that it appears that anyone with a grain of sense steers clear of this place. But why, I asked myself, if they are able to keep time, as dutiful watches, why have they all gone wonky, if wonky they be? Or is it me? It’s often difficult to distinguish between the normal person and one with a question mark over him. Practically the same . . .
But speaking of time, what hour of the day is it, I asked myself and looked at my watch. Quarter to two. Quarter to shit! It must have stopped. I put my wrist to my ear. Dead as a dodo. I shook my hand. Again. The bastard had stopped, to be sure. Now what would I do, not being able to tell the time, surrounded by a flock of watches and not one of them you could trust, going by their antics. If I approached Quasimodo he’d try to sell me a watch for sure, and who could blame him? Already he was squinting at me as though he sensed I had a dilemma.
“You are bereft of time,” he muttered, putting a watch aside and taking up another. I agreed. What else could I do?
“Had you looked after it well,” said he, “it wouldn’t have let you down.”
“What looking after? all a watch needs is winding. It’s not an infant that needs its botty oiled twice a day!”
“Ah, were it as simple as that,” he sighed, shaking his head heavily and looking at another watch. “I speak you see, not of the watch, but of time.”
No, I’m not going to argue with him, I told myself. He seemed the debating type and that was the last thing on my mind. I’d think of an excuse to be off.
“What time is it anyway?” I asked politely.
“What time do you require?”
“What do you mean what –” and my hackles were beginning to rise, “what, pray is the hour?”
“Right now?”
“Yes, yes, this instant!” There was tension in my voice.
“But that depends on the time you require.”
“I do not require –”
“But didn’t you ask –?”
“I merely asked you for the time because I need to know.”
“And what need have you any more of time?”
“Is that any concern of yours?”
“Whether it is or no, I do not give of my time, gratis, to all and sundry not knowing beforehand what need they have of it.”
“Your time?”
“My time, yes. Isn’t that what you want?”
“The time is yours, I suppose.”
“If it’s not, why are you asking me?”
“Now look here, sir!” I was agitated by now and I’m sure it was clear from my voice. “I simply require the time. If you are not prepared to give it, fine – but say so. If you are prepared, give it to me now and no more shite and onions, OK?”
“But how can I give you something which you already have . . .?”
“I don’t have the fuckin’ time and –”
“Not knowing the reason you require it, since you refuse to tell me.”
“OK, why do I require it, why do I require the time . . . because my wife has an appointment with the dentist at three o’clock.”
“Your poor wife has an appointment with the dentist at three o’clock?”
“Yes, to extract a rotten tooth, if you most know and I must get home and drive her to the dentist.”
“And are you certain sure . . . that the rotten tooth is not yours?”
I grabbed an old clock from the table beside me and decided if I got hold of him I wouldn’t leave a tooth, rotten or sound, in his head.
“Waste of time trying to knock a tooth out of me with that clock,” he remarked, “since all I’ve got is plastic false teeth and not one of them rotten, as false teeth do not decay. Anyway I keep them clean, but I’ll tell you the time if you have an appointment . . .”
“My wife I told you, at three o’clock.” I put the clock aside and retreated a step or two.
He looked around, paused, and looked around again. Then he stretched out his hand and picked up a watch in front of him.
“Well then, it’s three o’clock,” he said, nonchalantly, peeking over his spectacle frames.
“What’s this well then? That watch isn’t right.”
“Every single watch here is in order,” he stated, somewhat sternly. “It’s you that’s out of order. Every watch here has the right time. Don’t insult my watches!”
“The right time, eh?”
“Be sure of it, with the exception of that nonsensical trinket on your wrist which has no time at all – except time that has ceased – and that isn’t time at all.”
I was becoming stressed out again. No, not stress; frenzy, feverish frenzy. And yet, somehow, I managed to restrain myself.
“And let us say,” said I, attempting to put this ridiculous ball into his own court, “let us say my wife’s appointment was for four.”
“With the dentist . . . the rotten tooth.”
“Never mind the tooth . . . if the appointment was for four, it would be four o’clock now according to your way of looking at things.”
“The way the world looks at things, not me. But you’re perfectly correct,” he said. “I’m glad you’re getting a glimmer of things at last.”
I didn’t answer him. What was the point? No sense arguing with this fellow at all. For the sake of peace I’d buy a watch – that might shut him up – and hightail it out of this joint.
He had gone back to his watches. In a fit I took off my own watch. I gave it a good rattle but if a million earthquakes erupted under its navel it wouldn’t come to life. I looked around once more at the watches until I picked one that looked user-friendly enough. I’d buy it if it were at all reasonable. He would put the right time on it, hopefully, and I would make my escape.
“Excuse me,” I said, to attract his attention.
“Oh, you’re still there,” he said, feigning surprise. “Thought I heard you slipping out a while ago.”
“I’ll buy a watch,” I said, handing it to him, “if the price is right.”
“No can do,” he said with a churlish shake of the head. “None of the watches here is priced.”
“What?”
“Not one; do you not get it yet? Time isn’t for sale. When are people going to stop buying and selling? They’ll never learn.” He shook his head gravely. Sorrow had invaded his face.
“You’re saying that the watches here are not for sale?”
“Oh, none of these watches will ever be sold. You don’t think you’re in some terrestrial shop, do you?”
I didn’t know what to do. I looked into his two eyes, trying to figure out what kind of a son of a gun he might be. If I’d taken a few pints I’d have smashed his face in before he knew what time it was. It was difficult to know whether to sympathize or to be angry with him but it was becoming plain that there was little point in locking swords with him.
“If it’s not a shop what is it?” I asked with as much civility as I could muster.
“Don’t you realize,” says he pretending to be astonished, “that it’s merely a waiting-room for watches, watches like you and the world.”
“Like me? Waiting for what?” I asked, while telling myself I might as well humour him if we were going to get to the bottom of this.
“Oh, that I can’t say,” he retorted; “such a ponderous question you should ask yourself, or the watches, but it’s unlikely that they would satisfy you with an answer. The whole world’s waiting and we haven’t a clue what we’re all waiting for . . .”
“I see,” I said. It was balderdash, of course. “And you can’t sell me any of these watches?”
“It’s not right to sell,” he said sombrely and sorrow had once more invaded his being. “Selling is not right and people are breaking the law ten days a week. I’m sure you’ve seen them. Advertisements everywhere. Selling, selling, selling and earmarking everyone! Some of them sell the same things twice and even three times. Others sell stolen property, or stuff that isn’t theirs to sell, and more of them sell themselves – soul and body.” He drew a breath. “Nothing to do with me,” says he, “as long as you’re not one of them . . . But there’s one good thing you can sell,” says he, and I could see he was chuffed by the attention I was paying to his rant; “your watch is kaput but you can sell it to me and I’ll only ask you for twenty pounds.”
I was nonplussed. I drew a breath. It took me a while to figure out his offer. I felt like the bird in the cuckoo-clock with a dose of laryngitis:
“I can . . . I can sell my own watch . . . to – to you,” I stammered, “and throw in twenty quid while I’m at it? That would leave me minus my banjaxed watch and minus twenty pounds. What sort of a deal is that? That’s robbery, mate – daylight robbery!”
