Apart from the Crowd - Softcover

Only Twenty Miles

It was a rainy afternoon in South Kerry -- driving rain reminiscent of the opening credits of a Hollywood action or end-of-the-world movie, and, if given to fantasy, one might expect a muscular, sinewy and scantily dressed male to power through the deluge with a damp and distressed girl in his arms and a gun in his back pocket. What he would do with the girl or the gun, and what the girl and gun would have to do with the rain, would be left up to the imagination of the fantasist. Still, we can all agree that there really is nothing like the image of a wet man with a purpose to brighten up an otherwise boring indoor day.

Mary sat on her window seat and pulled the curtains back to watch water hit water and slide from the decks of the boats bobbing fiercely by the pier. Mr. Monkels, her large golden Labrador, lay with his head on her lap. He was peeved because rain meant no walk and he loved his walks, despite the fact that his advanced years meant that they were little more than a series of rests. Mary smiled at her hefty old friend.

"It's not the end of the world, Mr. Monkels -- there's always tomorrow."

Mr. Monkels remaining unimpressed. He sighed and this sigh turned to a grunt, which was then followed by a low wheezing sound that often made Mary wonder whether he had a form of dog asthma. Then again, as his age in dog years was the equivalent to eighty-one, it was a frigging miracle he could breathe unaided, never mind take a walk. Mary stroked his left ear, which although deaf still retained sensitivity to touch -- as opposed to his right ear, which although in perfect working order was partly missing following a nasty fishing accident seventeen years before.

Mr. Monkels had been a present from Mary's father to mark her twelfth year. He was only ten weeks old at the time of the accident and running madly around the deck of her uncle's boat while she concentrated on taking a black-and-white photo of a dead mackerel. Her cousin Ivan was practicing casting off. Accidentally and inexplicably, the hook had found itself imbedded in Mr. Monkels's ear. Unaware, Ivan cast off. Predictably, Mr. Monkels yelped so that Mary raised her head in time to see her puppy sail through the air like a furry big-eyed missile. Ivan managed to shout out "Jesus on a jet ski! Watch him go!" before the pup plummeted paws first and with a mighty splash into the water. He rose to the surface quickly, splashing and barking. After quickly commenting on the dog's grace and agility and under threat of a battering, Ivan rescued him soon after. Unfortunately, a large part of his ear was to be what Ivan would later term "a casualty of the sea."

Now she stroked his good ear, smiling at the memory of her puppy wagging his tail despite his near-death experience. She had thought back then that her animal either possessed Herculean bravery or was Daffy Duck stupid and, as it turned out, he was a little of both. She lost herself in his big brown cloudy eyes for a minute or two. His nose was dryer than she'd like. She picked up his head in her hands and slowly moved it onto a waiting pillow. Mr. Monkels moaned a little and briefly she wondered if, in promising her dog a tomorrow, she'd led him up the proverbial garden path.

The cottage was old and quaint, well insulated and warm, with a curious homely smell of many years of log fires and home cooking. This had been her primary reasoning behind purchasing the place. She liked the feel of it. The kitchen was an extension refurbished two years previously to suit Mary's taste and yet in keeping with the old-world feel of the place. She liked pottery and had indulged herself in various lamps, vases, plates and cups in the past few years. Once, she'd made the mistake of admitting to enjoying the feel of a heavy cup and the look of a round-based lamp to her best friend, Penny, who called her a total tosser before wondering aloud as to who the hell admits to liking the feel of a heavy cup or the look of a round-based lamp. Her friend had a point and Mary didn't mention her proclivity for pottery in those terms again.

The walls were painted a deep purple but the color was only partially visible under the multitude of black-framed photographs which lined her walls. As a teenager she had been consumed by photography, taking workshops after school and saving for a decent camera and darkroom equipment. Initially, she had shown a flair for black-and-white shots, managing to inject mystique and a certain beauty into even the most mundane of subjects. She discovered her love of portraits in her late teens and hounded her friends for their faces, managing to capture their essence in expression and time despite their annoyance. It was her son who had later inspired color with his jet-black hair, his pink cheeks, red full lips, his chubby white hands and his blue, blue eyes. A boy like Ben just didn't belong in black and white. Her sitting room had a gallery feel to it; ghosts of a different time leaped from every wall. Scattered photos of the objects and the people in her life living and dead surrounded her on all sides. One photo, the one above the clock, was of the dead mackerel she had photographed the day Mr. Monkels enacted his convincing impression of a torpedo -- its shiny skin shining in the sun and its black eye staring somehow managed to either captivate or disgust the most casual observer. Ivan had often described the feeling it instilled as being "outright weird," while her neighbor Mossy had excitedly described it as "pure evidence of transcendence" without ever explaining why. Another photo of a black cart laden with freshly cut white lilies spoke of the plainest beauty -- but mostly she liked it because it reminded her of the day that she and Robert, her first and arguably only dalliance with love, had gate-crashed a Gypsy funeral to get drunk on generosity and free beer. Her favorite photo, and for no real reason, was of a crystal bowl in a window streaming light. These images were interspersed with those of family and friends. Her father bent forward in deep concentration, head in hand, glasses at the tip of his nose and paper in hand. Her Auntie Sheila, apron on, hair pinned back, left hand in her pocket, right hand stirring a stew, and a grin on her face which suggested she'd just heard a dirty joke. Her cousin Ivan, tanned, lean and boyish in shorts and an old fishing cap, casting off. Her old boyfriend Robert with his shining black hair and big eyes smiling, linking Ivan, who was pulling her friend Penny's blond hair, and Adam, Penny's giant footballer boyfriend, laughing with his head held back. These were only some of the photos she surrounded herself with. She liked to be able to look upon her wall and see someone she loved. She found it comforting.

Of course, her son had a wall all to himself. It wasn't shrinelike, indicating an unhealthy reverence or fascination. They didn't stand out, instead they belonged, as though the wall's sole purpose had always been to house them. And so the visitor was treated to a gallery of her son's laughter, his tears, his tantrums, his joy and sadness, all captured in twelve 8 X 10 photos which represented five years of life.

Although there were only two bedrooms, Mary didn't need any more. She lived alone and had done so for five years. She turned to look at her son staring down at her from the wall and holding on to a squiggling Mr. Monkels. She smiled at him, now dead as long as he lived, he in turn smiling back at her, locked in time, forever a five-year-old, and forever smiling.

She checked the time and this revealed her hair dye had been in for well over half an hour. The dye was organic and smelled like shit in sunshine, and she wasn't sure if it was its strength or the onset of glaucoma that was bringing tears to Mr. Monkels's right eye. She checked her roots in the mirror and, upon confirming that they were sufficiently red, made her way upstairs to wash the color away. Later, she combed it out in front of her bathroom mirror before slapping moisturizer on her face and attempting to rub away the black rings around her eyes, with little or no success. Oh great, I look like a red-haired panda. Not exactly the look I was going for. She had been dying her hair red since the age of fifteen and, of those around her, very few remembered her natural mousy brown color and, although her hair color was fire-engine fake, it set off her pale skin and emerald eyes even when they were tired and betrayed her twenty-nine years.

She emptied the fridge of the food that had gone off during the four days she had been sequestered in her room, having endured a particularly nasty migraine. The rain continued to pour down from an open sky, rattling her windows before hitting the ground. The rain always reminded her of Ben but for no particular reason; it's not like he had really liked the rain or that they had shared any great memories that featured rain. It was possible that it was just those lazy indoor days that allowed her the time to remember him. Maybe it was the sound -- as though the world was weeping or the way it crept down her window like tears. She walked into her sitting room with the intention of playing some music, but instead found herself staring at a framed black-and-white photo on the corner wall of Robert, then a sixteen-year-old boy, standing by a lake holding up a large fish, grinning widely and with eyes so much like his son's. She viewed this boy and felt more like his mother than his teenage girlfriend. She often wondered what he would be like if he had lived past seventeen but had long ago resigned herself to the fact that she would never know.

Cheer up, Panda Face! she thought, upon catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

"There is nothing quite as aging as morbidness," she said aloud and with a smile.

Mr. Monkels groaned in agreement. She laughed a little and put on the Scissor Sisters. "After all, Mr. M, no one does happy like homos!" She chuckled at her own joke but her dog didn't share either her sense of humor or her taste in mus...