281
R. Linda:
Big sigh. I was sitting around the table in the common area at work, sipping me coffee on me break. Half the idiots who are responsible for the local sports scene in Boston were on break too it seemed, and joined me. I had been the only one there, had the place to meself, and was quite enjoying the quiet and the sunlight streaming in in bands over the table. I even moved me cup into it's light to keep the java warm.
These six are ex-jocks and the only way to spot one is the give-away clothing. They are always dressed in khaki slacks, white shirts (sometimes a light blue), stripped school colour ties and navy blazers. I mean you'd think they had to wear uniforms in that department. I don't think they even notice they dress the same, even the one woman among them.
So these six come over to yours truly when there are like ten more empty tables. With a "Mind if we join you Gabe?" they didn't wait for an answer and sat down. I got the jovial, how's the government beat -- keeping you busy? Ha ha. Yup. And so I sat there with these jokers, who talk loud like they are all hard of hearing, but I realised after a few minutes it isn't that at all, they talk over each other and thus, the shouting!
I tuned them out after about four minutes of boring jock talk about this high school athlete and that one and how great they are and wow, don't you see an NFL team salivating over the future quarterback and linebacker? Oi! I went into me quiet place and closed me eyes to blot them out and let the sunbeams warm me face, and I thought back to a similar setting, only it wasn't the ex-jocks, it was me Aunt Coleen's and me and her six children sitting around the tea-table trying to behave, not giggle and elbow each other, but act like we were high class British children, enjoying tea with their governess (which is what me Aunt used to be). The sun was streaming in the window on the left I remember, as we, dressed to the nines, awaited tea and a photograph. The photograph was special, me auntie wanted us all seated like "good little darlings" as if we had the manners of royal children. It was to be a Christmas photo she was going to send out, and since I was staying with me Mam and sissy there, we were included. Me father was stationed somewhere in Germany, we lived with me grandparents and then me aunties in succession for a number of years, until his return, so I suppose it was Auntie Coleen's turn to take us in. There is a photograph of this very moment hanging in me mam's kitchen. Every time I go home I see it and the memories come shooting back.
Ah yes. There we all sat our legs not quite reaching the floor, auntie standing behind us, teapot in hand ready to fill our wee cups, me Mam on the other side with a platter of scones. There was a fire going on the right, and over the hearth was a photograph in black and white or really tin type, of me great great grandda. He is standing on top of a trench in France somewhere, holding his gun in one hand and two dead pigeons in the other, looking proudly down on the sedate tea scene from his high place above the hearth. Now you'd think he wasn't fighting the war at all, at closer study of the old photo, he seemed more inclined to hunt for dinner, but no, no, that isn't what that photo is all about. For years we never knew what it was about, and it wasn't until I reached the age of 32 that I finally found out. But that later, first let me tell you what we THOUGHT it was about.
There he stood in his photograph, all muddy and looking like he needed a month of kip. The birds, held upside down, dripping blood and obviously dead, feathers everywhere including upon grandda's person. We children were brought up never to ask about a family member, it just wasn't done. It was 'personal' to the family member and if they wished to share something they would, but more times than not they didn't, and many family stories went to the grave that way. SO as small kiddies ourselves, we knew not to ask about the photograph, instead we let our imaginations take us. And of course when one doesn't know the true story, the object of the non information becomes an object of abject fascination.
Auntie showed the photographer out and then joined me Mam for their own tea in the garden. And, what did we do? We started a discussion on the picture over the hearth.
"Who IS that?" Amy, me cousin of 6 asked, genteelly sipping her tea.
"I tink that's great great grandda Corrigan innit?" Johnny, cousin aged 10 said.
"Nah, it's got to be Auntie Maire's hobby." Cousin Eileen, aged 7 stated as if she knew. "He's a bird killer he is."
Now really Eileen tended to drama she did, me uncle Colin did not go killing birds for the thrill of wringing birdie necks, no it was for the sport of it. What she meant was Auntie Maire's ex-husband was a hunter, and he hunted birds and was very successful at it. I remember quite a few pheasant dinners at their house before the scandalous divorce which to this day, I still don't know what was the scandal and (thanks to non-family communication), it was only at the age of 30 that I found out me auntie and uncle had been divorced for thirty odd years. Imagine me surprise to find out they hadn't been living together the entire time I knew them both!
"Nooo, that's grandda Corrigan it is." Cousin Brian, aged 8 state with equal conviction.
"Well, wot's he got there, birds?" I asked, aged 9, "Wot's so portant bout birds?" I couldn't see what he was holding from my place at the opposite end of the table. They looked like napkins, and Eileen mentioned birds, so . . .
"I tink he's posin." Said me self important herself, cousin Sally aged 9, looking at the picture through squinty eyes with a know-it-all expression on her face.
"Posin? Nah he's stanin round lookin important cause he's makin the gener'l's loonch he is." This offered up by cousin Damien, aged 5 and then he laughed at his own joke.
"All I know is it be important whatever he's about." Sally said with emphasis on the word 'important'.
"But what did he do?" Inquired Damien, "That it was so important?"
"I asked Da and he got all upset and well, I dint ask him again cuz he was all angry at me for askin," Johnny said with a shiver of remembrance.
"Ooh wot e' say?" Sally egged, her eyes big for some juicy gossip. After all gossip was hard to find.
"He said, "Don't ya bring that up in me hoose, do ya understand me boyo? I will not have discussion on that bollocky picture!"" Johnny gulped with the memory. "So I asked our cleanin girl Siobhan and she looked like she couldn't remember, like lookin up at the ceilin she could see em' up there lookin down saying DON'T YA TELL EM GIRL, DON'T YA DARE TELL EM! But she did say, "Duckie I don't know that he didn't do bloody murder the way yer Da takes on over it. I be surprised the picture stays ooup. Yer sholdn't be askin in polite coompany ya knows." Later, I asked McMickle the stable hand aboot it when he was eatin on his loonch, and he stopped in mid-bite and told me, "Ooh that was worse than cold blooded murder ya see, and don't ya talk aboot it at meals boyo, not right, no not right," and that's all I know on it."
"He murdered pigeons did he?" Susanna the upstairs maid said coming in from the other room, an armful of folded laundry weighing her down. But not too much she didn't stop for a bit of overheard conversation. "I heard," she crouched down at the end of the table and in a low voice said, "I heard he was a serial killer for sure. He started with those there birds and went on to cats and then people." She put a finger to her lips and nodded as she got back up and swept out of the room.
We all sat there silent, not daring to move. Our eyes were huge with horror and our mouths were agape. I thought I heard a burst of contained laughter coming from the room Susanna had left us for, but wasn't sure it wasn't a sneeze.
Sally gently placed her teacup on its saucer. Pressed a napkin to her lips and excused herself from table, as she wasn't "feeling quite myself and there is something I simply must take care of."
We all chanced to take a breath and breathe as we busied ourselves with scones completely losing our manners in our nervousness over this bit of shock. No one wanted to speak first, and this only confirmed the dreadful fact we all heard the same thing, grandda was a serial killer!
Sally came in with a basket of kittens and placed them gently at the foot of her chair. "I want to be sure nothing happens to them." This said as a directive to all of us, not to look, touch, or come near her wee charges.
"Serial killers do not run in fumilies." Johnny said to her sternly.
"Precautions are always a safe route," Sally quipped, taking a scone and looking down at the mewing kits.
"Quickly get them out, Mother will have a bird she sees them in the kitchen," Eileen said between clinched teeth.
"NO!" Sally shouted.
"What's the matter in there?" Auntie Coleen called from the garden.
"NOTHING!" We all called back in unison.
Eileen threatened Sally with her eyes, but Sally looked defiant.
We polished the scones off, but left crumbs and jam stains like you wouldn't believe and certainly not like well brought up children would. We were wrecks over this information and it only got worse, when Brian had the nerve to ask, "Is HE," throwing his head in the direction of the photograph, "still alive? Because if he be, where is HE?"
Sally scrambled to pick up her basket and hug it to her in fear and we all looked around, knowing perfectly well, the man in question, the serial killer, wasn't in the house, but still he might just darken the door stoop. So unnerved were we that we all jumped out of our chairs except Johnny, who looked at us like we were all a bunch of nutters got loose.
Being how we were brought up, when our respective mothers came in from their tea and saw our mess and jumpy faces, they for one, thought we were slobs, and two, had done something terrible to the bone china. Auntie Coleen made sure all of it was in one piece and accounted for, then noticed the kittens in her kitchen and had a hissy fit that only the Queen Mother could appreciate. We were all sent off to the playroom where we were supervised by of all people, Susanna. As sunlight faded and clouds came racing up with the rumble of thunder, something that never happens in late November, we huddled together thinking the wrath of grandda was about to come upon us.
"Oh we needs us a story," Susanna said seeing this. "Gather round now children."
We did, she was sitting on a low stool and we were cross legged around her looking up in anticipation of a story to take our small minds off such terrible subjects as grandfather and the unheard of phenomena like thunderstorms in November. Only Susanna didn't pick up a book from the wealth of children's stories that filled the shelves, she instead rubbed her hands together and told us a story of a boy who found himself out long after he should have been home for dinner, and how the forest turned into a threateningly dark and ugly place.
Well, none of us, no not one, slept well that night. Me dreams were of me own great great grandda, the serial killer and killer of birds and kittens stalking me through a very dark forest. I woke up screaming along with Brian and Damien. We sat up in our beds, our little chests breathing hard and looking about the room for grandda hiding in a dark corner. It took Johnny to tell us we were easily impressionable gits and stupid to boot and to go back to sleep. Reluctantly we hunkered back down that night, but I am quite sure none of us slept a wink. The rest of me stay was pins and needles thinking HE was going to show up until we finally left to move in with Auntie June, who being a crazy sort all her own, took me mind off great great grandda Corrigan. It did not occur to me or me sister that grandda Corrigan was long gone and all that angst was for naught.
It wasn't until recently I found out that me uncle didn't like me great great grandda because he objected that he wasn't marrying Coleen Corrigan, but Coleen Corrigan's money. The old man had told Coleen's daddy that and when her own father said that wasn't the case grandda dismissed his own son and went directly to the source of his accusations and they had a row out in the stable yard. Not able to dissuade his granddaughter from marrying that near 'do well Daniel O'Sullivan the marriage took place in spite of his protests even at the wedding. It wasn't a wonder that Daniel disliked the picture he had to look at in his own home while eating breakfast, lunch and dinner. Poor man! How he put up with the picture was because of it's significance to the Corrigan woman he was married to, and if we knew the story behind the picture we would have understood. I do know it was a bone of contention and you never mentioned grandda Corrigan to Daniel . . . EVER!
As for Susanna, she was not one who liked small children, actually she didn't like children at all. There are these strange women in the world, more career minded than maternal and she was one. So to scare the bejesus out us was a hobby and a delight for her. She was rather immature herself and was like a big kid at times. Yeah the big bullying girl who always seemed to never get found out because she was pretty. And she never was found out! I understand now she's a sweet old lady somewhere who hordes cats, yup she became a crazy cat lady. Doesn't surprise me. She also filled McMickle's head with that same serial killer story because she was secretly seeing him, and as her sort is known for, she didn't care about him either, it was what he could do for her. Sigh. The rest of the staff heard her story on grandda Corrigan and not knowing any better believed it.
As to the picture, the story goes thus: Seems Private Corrigan had been in that foxhole for a month and things did not improve for the British side fighting the Germans. It seemed the Germans were winning, until me great great grandfather noticed pigeons flying overhead -- a lot. And each time they flew off the Germans advanced and successfully so. With nothing to lose, grandda took aim one day and shot down two of the birdies. Yes, he was a very good shot. He was very sure to wait until they were upon him, and BLAM-BLAM and he got the two hurling dead INTO his foxhole. And what did he find? You might have guessed, these birds were no ordinary pigeons, no they were carriers and they were doing a bang up job of relaying info from one battery of German artillery to the other. Seems the Brits had wiped out all communication but didn't know the enterprising Germans were using birds. So, not only did our side put a stop to that, they got quite a few fresh dinners out of it and me relative was considered a hero, credited with turning the tide of the war in that section of France, thus the commemorative photo, thus me Auntie Coleen hanging it up there with pride.
And as for me dreaming of this memory, I opened me eyes to find I was quite alone and a note was pinned to me tie. It said, "Thanks for the chat Gabe, was REALLY informative." Prats I tell you, prats!
Gabe
Copyright © 2010 All rights reserved
R. Linda:
Big sigh. I was sitting around the table in the common area at work, sipping me coffee on me break. Half the idiots who are responsible for the local sports scene in Boston were on break too it seemed, and joined me. I had been the only one there, had the place to meself, and was quite enjoying the quiet and the sunlight streaming in in bands over the table. I even moved me cup into it's light to keep the java warm.
These six are ex-jocks and the only way to spot one is the give-away clothing. They are always dressed in khaki slacks, white shirts (sometimes a light blue), stripped school colour ties and navy blazers. I mean you'd think they had to wear uniforms in that department. I don't think they even notice they dress the same, even the one woman among them.
So these six come over to yours truly when there are like ten more empty tables. With a "Mind if we join you Gabe?" they didn't wait for an answer and sat down. I got the jovial, how's the government beat -- keeping you busy? Ha ha. Yup. And so I sat there with these jokers, who talk loud like they are all hard of hearing, but I realised after a few minutes it isn't that at all, they talk over each other and thus, the shouting!
I tuned them out after about four minutes of boring jock talk about this high school athlete and that one and how great they are and wow, don't you see an NFL team salivating over the future quarterback and linebacker? Oi! I went into me quiet place and closed me eyes to blot them out and let the sunbeams warm me face, and I thought back to a similar setting, only it wasn't the ex-jocks, it was me Aunt Coleen's and me and her six children sitting around the tea-table trying to behave, not giggle and elbow each other, but act like we were high class British children, enjoying tea with their governess (which is what me Aunt used to be). The sun was streaming in the window on the left I remember, as we, dressed to the nines, awaited tea and a photograph. The photograph was special, me auntie wanted us all seated like "good little darlings" as if we had the manners of royal children. It was to be a Christmas photo she was going to send out, and since I was staying with me Mam and sissy there, we were included. Me father was stationed somewhere in Germany, we lived with me grandparents and then me aunties in succession for a number of years, until his return, so I suppose it was Auntie Coleen's turn to take us in. There is a photograph of this very moment hanging in me mam's kitchen. Every time I go home I see it and the memories come shooting back.
Ah yes. There we all sat our legs not quite reaching the floor, auntie standing behind us, teapot in hand ready to fill our wee cups, me Mam on the other side with a platter of scones. There was a fire going on the right, and over the hearth was a photograph in black and white or really tin type, of me great great grandda. He is standing on top of a trench in France somewhere, holding his gun in one hand and two dead pigeons in the other, looking proudly down on the sedate tea scene from his high place above the hearth. Now you'd think he wasn't fighting the war at all, at closer study of the old photo, he seemed more inclined to hunt for dinner, but no, no, that isn't what that photo is all about. For years we never knew what it was about, and it wasn't until I reached the age of 32 that I finally found out. But that later, first let me tell you what we THOUGHT it was about.
There he stood in his photograph, all muddy and looking like he needed a month of kip. The birds, held upside down, dripping blood and obviously dead, feathers everywhere including upon grandda's person. We children were brought up never to ask about a family member, it just wasn't done. It was 'personal' to the family member and if they wished to share something they would, but more times than not they didn't, and many family stories went to the grave that way. SO as small kiddies ourselves, we knew not to ask about the photograph, instead we let our imaginations take us. And of course when one doesn't know the true story, the object of the non information becomes an object of abject fascination.
Auntie showed the photographer out and then joined me Mam for their own tea in the garden. And, what did we do? We started a discussion on the picture over the hearth.
"Who IS that?" Amy, me cousin of 6 asked, genteelly sipping her tea.
"I tink that's great great grandda Corrigan innit?" Johnny, cousin aged 10 said.
"Nah, it's got to be Auntie Maire's hobby." Cousin Eileen, aged 7 stated as if she knew. "He's a bird killer he is."
Now really Eileen tended to drama she did, me uncle Colin did not go killing birds for the thrill of wringing birdie necks, no it was for the sport of it. What she meant was Auntie Maire's ex-husband was a hunter, and he hunted birds and was very successful at it. I remember quite a few pheasant dinners at their house before the scandalous divorce which to this day, I still don't know what was the scandal and (thanks to non-family communication), it was only at the age of 30 that I found out me auntie and uncle had been divorced for thirty odd years. Imagine me surprise to find out they hadn't been living together the entire time I knew them both!
"Nooo, that's grandda Corrigan it is." Cousin Brian, aged 8 state with equal conviction.
"Well, wot's he got there, birds?" I asked, aged 9, "Wot's so portant bout birds?" I couldn't see what he was holding from my place at the opposite end of the table. They looked like napkins, and Eileen mentioned birds, so . . .
"I tink he's posin." Said me self important herself, cousin Sally aged 9, looking at the picture through squinty eyes with a know-it-all expression on her face.
"Posin? Nah he's stanin round lookin important cause he's makin the gener'l's loonch he is." This offered up by cousin Damien, aged 5 and then he laughed at his own joke.
"All I know is it be important whatever he's about." Sally said with emphasis on the word 'important'.
"But what did he do?" Inquired Damien, "That it was so important?"
"I asked Da and he got all upset and well, I dint ask him again cuz he was all angry at me for askin," Johnny said with a shiver of remembrance.
"Ooh wot e' say?" Sally egged, her eyes big for some juicy gossip. After all gossip was hard to find.
"He said, "Don't ya bring that up in me hoose, do ya understand me boyo? I will not have discussion on that bollocky picture!"" Johnny gulped with the memory. "So I asked our cleanin girl Siobhan and she looked like she couldn't remember, like lookin up at the ceilin she could see em' up there lookin down saying DON'T YA TELL EM GIRL, DON'T YA DARE TELL EM! But she did say, "Duckie I don't know that he didn't do bloody murder the way yer Da takes on over it. I be surprised the picture stays ooup. Yer sholdn't be askin in polite coompany ya knows." Later, I asked McMickle the stable hand aboot it when he was eatin on his loonch, and he stopped in mid-bite and told me, "Ooh that was worse than cold blooded murder ya see, and don't ya talk aboot it at meals boyo, not right, no not right," and that's all I know on it."
"He murdered pigeons did he?" Susanna the upstairs maid said coming in from the other room, an armful of folded laundry weighing her down. But not too much she didn't stop for a bit of overheard conversation. "I heard," she crouched down at the end of the table and in a low voice said, "I heard he was a serial killer for sure. He started with those there birds and went on to cats and then people." She put a finger to her lips and nodded as she got back up and swept out of the room.
We all sat there silent, not daring to move. Our eyes were huge with horror and our mouths were agape. I thought I heard a burst of contained laughter coming from the room Susanna had left us for, but wasn't sure it wasn't a sneeze.
Sally gently placed her teacup on its saucer. Pressed a napkin to her lips and excused herself from table, as she wasn't "feeling quite myself and there is something I simply must take care of."
We all chanced to take a breath and breathe as we busied ourselves with scones completely losing our manners in our nervousness over this bit of shock. No one wanted to speak first, and this only confirmed the dreadful fact we all heard the same thing, grandda was a serial killer!
Sally came in with a basket of kittens and placed them gently at the foot of her chair. "I want to be sure nothing happens to them." This said as a directive to all of us, not to look, touch, or come near her wee charges.
"Serial killers do not run in fumilies." Johnny said to her sternly.
"Precautions are always a safe route," Sally quipped, taking a scone and looking down at the mewing kits.
"Quickly get them out, Mother will have a bird she sees them in the kitchen," Eileen said between clinched teeth.
"NO!" Sally shouted.
"What's the matter in there?" Auntie Coleen called from the garden.
"NOTHING!" We all called back in unison.
Eileen threatened Sally with her eyes, but Sally looked defiant.
We polished the scones off, but left crumbs and jam stains like you wouldn't believe and certainly not like well brought up children would. We were wrecks over this information and it only got worse, when Brian had the nerve to ask, "Is HE," throwing his head in the direction of the photograph, "still alive? Because if he be, where is HE?"
Sally scrambled to pick up her basket and hug it to her in fear and we all looked around, knowing perfectly well, the man in question, the serial killer, wasn't in the house, but still he might just darken the door stoop. So unnerved were we that we all jumped out of our chairs except Johnny, who looked at us like we were all a bunch of nutters got loose.
Being how we were brought up, when our respective mothers came in from their tea and saw our mess and jumpy faces, they for one, thought we were slobs, and two, had done something terrible to the bone china. Auntie Coleen made sure all of it was in one piece and accounted for, then noticed the kittens in her kitchen and had a hissy fit that only the Queen Mother could appreciate. We were all sent off to the playroom where we were supervised by of all people, Susanna. As sunlight faded and clouds came racing up with the rumble of thunder, something that never happens in late November, we huddled together thinking the wrath of grandda was about to come upon us.
"Oh we needs us a story," Susanna said seeing this. "Gather round now children."
We did, she was sitting on a low stool and we were cross legged around her looking up in anticipation of a story to take our small minds off such terrible subjects as grandfather and the unheard of phenomena like thunderstorms in November. Only Susanna didn't pick up a book from the wealth of children's stories that filled the shelves, she instead rubbed her hands together and told us a story of a boy who found himself out long after he should have been home for dinner, and how the forest turned into a threateningly dark and ugly place.
Well, none of us, no not one, slept well that night. Me dreams were of me own great great grandda, the serial killer and killer of birds and kittens stalking me through a very dark forest. I woke up screaming along with Brian and Damien. We sat up in our beds, our little chests breathing hard and looking about the room for grandda hiding in a dark corner. It took Johnny to tell us we were easily impressionable gits and stupid to boot and to go back to sleep. Reluctantly we hunkered back down that night, but I am quite sure none of us slept a wink. The rest of me stay was pins and needles thinking HE was going to show up until we finally left to move in with Auntie June, who being a crazy sort all her own, took me mind off great great grandda Corrigan. It did not occur to me or me sister that grandda Corrigan was long gone and all that angst was for naught.
It wasn't until recently I found out that me uncle didn't like me great great grandda because he objected that he wasn't marrying Coleen Corrigan, but Coleen Corrigan's money. The old man had told Coleen's daddy that and when her own father said that wasn't the case grandda dismissed his own son and went directly to the source of his accusations and they had a row out in the stable yard. Not able to dissuade his granddaughter from marrying that near 'do well Daniel O'Sullivan the marriage took place in spite of his protests even at the wedding. It wasn't a wonder that Daniel disliked the picture he had to look at in his own home while eating breakfast, lunch and dinner. Poor man! How he put up with the picture was because of it's significance to the Corrigan woman he was married to, and if we knew the story behind the picture we would have understood. I do know it was a bone of contention and you never mentioned grandda Corrigan to Daniel . . . EVER!
As for Susanna, she was not one who liked small children, actually she didn't like children at all. There are these strange women in the world, more career minded than maternal and she was one. So to scare the bejesus out us was a hobby and a delight for her. She was rather immature herself and was like a big kid at times. Yeah the big bullying girl who always seemed to never get found out because she was pretty. And she never was found out! I understand now she's a sweet old lady somewhere who hordes cats, yup she became a crazy cat lady. Doesn't surprise me. She also filled McMickle's head with that same serial killer story because she was secretly seeing him, and as her sort is known for, she didn't care about him either, it was what he could do for her. Sigh. The rest of the staff heard her story on grandda Corrigan and not knowing any better believed it.
As to the picture, the story goes thus: Seems Private Corrigan had been in that foxhole for a month and things did not improve for the British side fighting the Germans. It seemed the Germans were winning, until me great great grandfather noticed pigeons flying overhead -- a lot. And each time they flew off the Germans advanced and successfully so. With nothing to lose, grandda took aim one day and shot down two of the birdies. Yes, he was a very good shot. He was very sure to wait until they were upon him, and BLAM-BLAM and he got the two hurling dead INTO his foxhole. And what did he find? You might have guessed, these birds were no ordinary pigeons, no they were carriers and they were doing a bang up job of relaying info from one battery of German artillery to the other. Seems the Brits had wiped out all communication but didn't know the enterprising Germans were using birds. So, not only did our side put a stop to that, they got quite a few fresh dinners out of it and me relative was considered a hero, credited with turning the tide of the war in that section of France, thus the commemorative photo, thus me Auntie Coleen hanging it up there with pride.
And as for me dreaming of this memory, I opened me eyes to find I was quite alone and a note was pinned to me tie. It said, "Thanks for the chat Gabe, was REALLY informative." Prats I tell you, prats!
Gabe
Copyright © 2010 All rights reserved
