The Children of Irl.

Tuesday, December 14th.


At the Post Office, Sean jumped when the man behind him,  gently nudged his elbow to let him know that he was next. He turned aggressively towards the nudger. These bleedin’ foreigners were everywhere.


Sean took the money from the cashier without looking at her, because it was his entitlement, and the Mary behind the counter was just one more obstacle, that officialdom put in his way. You’d think he wasn’t entitled to a living in the country of his birth, with all the answers he had to give, and the forms he had to fill. He stuffed the money down into his pocket, slipping a fifty into his sock for safety, and pushed his way passed the queue of foreigners and wasters that stretched out as far as the door. Everything had got so confusing.

Back in the safety of his flat, it was the plasma screen that filled the wall opposite the window, and once the thing was turned on, all reflection of the outside world was obliterated instantly, with great efficiency. It forced your vision to adjust to the huge size of the images, that moved around in its pool of coloured liquid. Football teams and sportsmen of every ilk lived in this world most of the time, and Sean sat slumped in front of it, with the can of Aldi beer that was never far from his hand. Shadows reflected on his watered eyes, as the dancing fire of his childhood once had; but unlike the firelight, this reflection had no warmth. The main attraction was the numbing effect of the familiar, - a visual beer if you will, and both intoxicants worked together to dull the pain of living.


There was a message on his mobile when he got back, - must have missed it with the noise of traffic. It was Jacinta. Can u colet J 4m skol  fri.   ‘Three days away! Fuck that! There was no telling if she would change her mind between now and then, and then it would be surplus Sean again. No worries, he texted back, and tossed the phone onto the bed.  He pushed the memory of his son back down into the blur, and picked up the remote. There must be something on . . . 

Wednesday, December 15th.

‘Chert pobery!’ Alexei swore silently in his native Russian. He had overslept again. He quickly dressed, taking his clothes from where they hung on the back of a kitchen chair someone had painted bright red. Study manuals littered the floor, arranged in what he called the ‘volcano method’ — what was most useful, always worked its way to the top. The hall door slammed, as he exited the house of flats and hurried, head down, toward the scheduled meeting with ‘the mother of his child’.

Alexei was a long way from Kazakhstan, but here in Ireland, everybody knew him as Russian. He had trained as a science teacher, secure in the promise of a state sponsored position at the same naval base where he had grown up. Secure that is, until everything fell apart, and the naval base was no longer a home, but a scrap yard of rusting ships, and equipment, and a humanity that was strained out from the retreating tide of an Empire.


He came to Ireland because he was told there was work there, and it looked small and safe, hanging on to the edge of the continent; more sea base than mainland. Alexei was now studying to be computer programmer, because they did not need science teachers. All the money Irish Government gave, was for technicians and people who could make things. There was no money for making minds.

They were waiting on the street outside the Post Office for him, and after he handed her over the money she had to get, he took receipt of his son.

“I still collect from school on Friday?” he asked uncertainly.


"Of course." was the answer, delivered with great forbearance, and he hoped the conversation would end there. She looked disdainfully at the notes he had handed her, and he knew it was going to start again.

“You make no money”, she complained, waving the notes in his face. “I get no holiday, no sun. All you do is study. What good it is to me that you study, ah? Your friends they work, and bring home the money for the clothes, the holidays. The nice car! You think the building site is too good for you?” 


Young Viktor looked with interest at the little old lady crossing the street, carrying a shopping bag. The bag was filled with shapes that strained against the material, - he was sure that one of the shapes was a child’s head. He squeezed his Daddy’s hand tighter but said nothing. They were shouting again.

“I do the best,” Alexei countered, “but wait till you see when the study is over; I will have a good job.” Too many times he had explained, but it was of no use. With this woman, the family was broken, again…. and maybe this time, it was his fault. And then she was gone and the very air lightened. Alexei straightened up with pride, for the love of the little hand that was holding his so tight, and together they walked away.

Friday, December 17th.

The corridors were filled with excited children, rushing hither and thither, 'round bemused adults. The atmosphere was all too familiar, but strange, since most of them had not been into a primary school since they last attended as children themselves. Now they were children in grown-up bodies. The teachers herded them from room to room. Most of the adults waited to be told where they should sit. Teachers corralled the loose ones, and escorted them to their allotted places. Those already seated, watched with interest, as the ‘pecking order’ became evident, and when the Indian couple were escorted to the privileged position of front row, there were exchanged nods of understanding. Vijay and Aahana thanked the teacher graciously, and she told them they had to sit there as ‘they were the parents of one of the main stars of the school play.’

When Sean arrived at the school, he was relieved to see that despite the bumper to bumper parking all along the street, everybody else had already gone inside. He took the opportunity to light up a cigarette, and take up position, just outside the main gate. He dragged long and deep, savouring the first cool lungful of nicotined smoke. Without warning, his shoulder received a peremptory tap, from the teacher who had been sent out on ‘roundup’ duties. He spluttered, and quickly stubbed out the cigarette, before following her down the corridor.

The assembly hall was packed, and she shushed Sean past the packed rows at the back, up past some seats that he could see were still vacant. He wanted to say, ‘look over there in the middle, there’s and empty one,’ but she shushed him along despite his silent protest, all the way to the top. He was placed firmly in a seat, in the front row, with a smug, ‘Now you can see everything from here, can’t you?’ 

When he was finally seated, Sean glanced to his right to find the white-toothed expectant smile of an Indian, that was waiting patiently for his introduction. He shuddered. The man’s bulk seemed to invade his space, no matter how he tried to ease himself away. Taking the excuse of the dimming lights, and the expectant hush from around the room, he took the opportunity to move his weight to the left, tracking his head casually to one side.




He was tall, blonde, and had high Slavic cheekbones . . . God . . . another bleedin' foreigner, - probably Russian, or even Ukraine. Everybody was dressed up in their nice new clothes, and Sean folded his right leg self consciously over the hole in the knee of his trousers. This was a grand bloody mess Jacinta had got him into! He wished again for the can he had left behind, on the table. The stage lights warmed up, and suddenly  from the wings, he saw young Johnny come dancing and skipping into the sunlight with three other children, all holding hands. He sat entranced, as his son performed with such intensity and effort, that every thought process could be read on his little face, in advance of the action.  Then the wicked stepmother came on, and Sean realised that it was the story of The Children of Lir that he had learned himself in school, and the children were cursed by the wicked Aoife and changed into four beautiful swans, destined to wander for nine hundred years. That signaled the intermission for the fund raising draw, and luckily enough he had a fiver, so he could buy a strip of ‘mauve’ tickets like everybody else.

“What a wonderful show, is it not?” he heard from his right hand shoulder, but he pretended to not have heard. He looked up at the ceiling and thought about its contrast with the busy postering, and teaching, on all the surrounding walls. He used to enjoy this, he remembered. When all the walls had been studied, and every little minutiae seen and recognised, he would transfer his interest to the ceiling, following the long Amazonian cracks on to the finest of tributaries, and back again to their source, beneath the corniced plasterwork.

“Yes, it is very good!” The acknowledgment came from his left side. “That is my son Viktor, the one beside the little girl, you know.” 

Sean continued his examination of the ceiling. He wanted to start whistling, so he could blank all of them out, but it was not something you could really do in a classroom - was it?

“Ah yes, he is very good. They are all very good, and it is such a nice story. Turning the four of them into beautiful birds. It is a like the ugly duckling story, is it not?”  Vijay leaned forward  in his effort to continue the conversation with his new acquaintance, and talk around this strange and surly Irishman, who seemed to want to ignore everybody else.

“No,” replied Alexei. The story as he had seen it unfold, now gripped his imagination. “I think it is like a story we once had in my country about where the children become the good citizens of tomorrow . . . you understand? With the guidance of the motherland they grow, and leave their homes to take their place in the world?”

“Ah for fuck sake lads, will you ever cop on to yourselves,” Sean finally spluttered, unable to ignore the cross- talking nonsense any longer. “It’s just the bleedin' story of The Children of Lir. Have you never heard it before?”

Both Alexei and Vijay both looked at him in shock. They were taken aback by his interruption, but before they could respond, Sean continued. “You see its an old Irish story from way back there in the time of a people called the Tuatha na  Danaan, who lived in Ireland nearly two thousand years ago. The father was Lir and he loved his kids so much, his new wife - the Aoife one, she wanted to kill them -  but in the end, even she couldn’t do it, so she cursed them to make the most beautiful music ever as swans, and to be exiled in hardship for nine hundred years, until a woman of the south mated with a man of the north and they heard the sound of a bell.”




He stopped for a moment to draw a breath, and then continued. “There were no bells in this country you know until the Seantians arrived. We went by the seasons, and the sun, and the moon, - no Church's gong calling everybody to order. Well anyway . . . after nine hundred years, a princess from the south was getting married to a chief from Connaught (kind o’ the north), and the woman - as usual - wanted a nice present to complete the deal. The swans were captured, but didn’t they turn back into four old people when the wedding bells rang, and that was the end of the curse, and they lived happily ever after . . . la de la de la. Right?” he concluded with a sense of satisfaction, folding his arms across his chest and waiting for the questions. There were none.

“Oh that is so sad, and so beautiful a story at the same time,” Vijay offered. “And you say it is more than two thousand years old?”

“Well, almost. You know how these things are. Now look! They’re going to start the second half . . . now you’ll see what I mean.” He sat back in the chair with a sense of satisfaction. ‘Let them equal that now,’ he thought to himself. 'That’ll show them’


.

When the play was over, and the speeches made, they all made their way to the front of the school where the parents clustered together in excited groups, and waited for their kids to get changed and join them. Sean found himself 'sort of sandwiched’ between the Indian, Vijay, and the other fellow - Alex - as they quizzed him about the ancients in Ireland, and wondered to themselves how an apparently ill educated city dweller could have so much of his countries heritage locked away in his head.

“Why do you both not come with me, to the restaurant where I work,” Vijay offered, when they had been reunited with their children. And so it was decided. The three fathers walked down the street together, each guiding their child with an outstretched hand, and Vijay carrying his princess safely in his arms. His wife followed happily behind. She was proud of how her husband made new friends in this country, even if their customs and society were so different that sometimes she just wished she would be home again. They were happy, and whatever was missing, just left more room for her husband to express his daily delight and wonder in the beauty, and the miracle, of their only daughter. 

“Salaam Alaikum!” the restaurant manager automatically greeted the perspiring Vijay as he arrived into the restaurant, like a busy bumble bee into a flower filled garden.

“Kum Salaam,” Vijay mumbled under his breath, - the expected response to the Muslim greeting.

“Is uncle upstairs? I have invited these new friends of mine to have a meal with us to celebrate my daughter’s debut on the stage. She is a wonderful star, aren’t you princess?”  he smiled as he cuddled her proudly, yet again. 


. 

“Yeah. Sure he is. He is in is office. What is it you are wanting of him?” the manager asked. These Hindus thought they were something special with their education and their connections,. but this was a Bangladeshi restaurant, and Bangladesh was Muslim. What business did this one have with the boss?

“It is a small thing, - a matter of little consequence.” Vijay ended the conversation, aware that he had not provided any further explanation, and had no intention of doing so.




There was an awkward silence between them, and Sean wondered if they were going to leave before they had a chance to have something to eat. The smells coming from the kitchen reached out and knotted themselves around his empty stomach. Young Johnny looked up at him expectantly. ‘Jaysus, even the young fellow was starving now’. The Manager was looking at him now with his smiley greeting . . . ‘wanker!’.

“Dia dhuit!” Sean called out cheerily.

The Manager’s smile widened, “Dia 'is Mhuire dhuit!” He moved out from behind the counter with one arm raised in greeting, and the other one clutching a bundle of menus. Alexei repeated the new greeting he had just learned, and had his hand shaken. He turned to his son and tried it on him. Viktor laughed. They all knew the Irish greeting from school, but he was proud that his father was able to use it to make new friends.




The children sat together at a separate table, keeping an eye on their respective parents. They did not know yet, if they would grow old together. A child’s world is a separate world, and is really only concerned with now.

©Copyright rest with Niall O Connor

Illustration borrowed from Web.

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