Ulster University Paperclip
*Please note that the poems and prose on this page are not formatted as per the originals.
Published in Vol. III, 2023:
In Barrowlands with Big Bands
Dust falls silver
from the sprung floors
of Glasgow skies
as sling-backs quickstep
above kirk spires
and three women jive
cathedral-long nights
in the city
that never
stops dancing.
Those schoolgirl days
were forever
in Barrowlands with big bands.
Jemima, Patricia, Helen,
birl two-three and --
Shout! We are dancers.
In Barrowlands with Big Bands
Dust falls silver
from the sprung floors
of Glasgow skies
as sling-backs quickstep
above kirk spires
and three women jive
cathedral-long nights
in the city
that never
stops dancing.
Those schoolgirl days
were forever
in Barrowlands with big bands.
Jemima, Patricia, Helen,
birl two-three and --
Shout! We are dancers.
Poetry in Motion Community Anthology
Published in Heartland, 2020/21:
Dance of Cow Parsley
Scent of mother’s milk,
laced hook and eye
onto collars darned
in linen yarn, I necklace
you onto paper
and dance — dress
umbellifer --
in green fields, soundless
of the cock, bereft
of the breeze of barley.
Gorse cut back --
melancholy
saffron hemming
hedges — half-petal
embroidery birthed
after fire, like the breast.
I climb with a maternal
line over bleach greens.
Supping. Stitching. Scribing.
Published in Threshold, 2021/22:
Heart-Sore
I cradle you sleeping
Learn the rain on your lashes
Know the lull in your snowdrift
Sup your scarlet face
Place a cool hand on your cheek
I'm heart-sore
Hairt-sair
Ah haps ye weel hushaba
Lairns yer sappled lashes
Knows the still in yer snawdrift
Sowps yer brisslin cheeks
Pettles ye lown an lythe
Ah'm hair-sair
Frances Browne Writing Competition
The Wumman who birthed Seaborn
She is lang spire and witch bell,
amangst a hundret and forty
radical souls westerin. The hull
o her kirk are wuided in oak.
A September flurry tirls, rough aff Rathlin,
as paps helter and isles skelter
and mulls and rhins slink and sickle lik ghaists.
Rain lashes her cheeks. Unborn fists and futs.
She tholes a twang. A threid o watter gaithers
at the feet o elders, who clesp invisible crosses.
A man o bauld deeds climbs
intae the cradle o a sea mountain:
steidfest wi hopes an tools, he fixes the rudder.
Two bairns suckle; an oul soul gaes hame
tae his maister; the Eagle’s Wing turns
whaur Titanic held oot; hameless folk hame east
for tae mak a makkar o ‘The Grave’ poet
and paint a gothic pictur o the hard-hunted
beast slaverin undergroun
in the barren womb o naethin.
A bairn dies. She lies noo, skellying
an eye at the young, lost mither.
The flesh atween her legs is skelfed.
A hand in her creel turns the heid.
A snell schraik awaks the livin
and the deid. The efterbirth croons Presbyterian.
Seaborn —an oul name in an oul tongue,
lik Man O Bauld Deeds.
Noo, in Lough Fergus, whaur phantoms lurk
on wasted docks, whaur rudderless ships
and secular steel barren wombs are static,
I wunner wud I hae tightened my lips
aroon zeilous wirds, lik papish
and transubstantiation. Wud I hae decried the priests’
harems, thrust stuils at episcopal priests,
planned a better hame-comin
for my ain soul, lik the wumman* who birthed
Seaborn on the Eagle’s Wing in 1636?
*Wife of Michael Colvert of Killinchy
'The Wumman who birthed Seaborn' was awarded second place in the Frances Browne Festival poetry competition (Ulster Scots Category), October 2023. The poem also won a special 'spirit of the festival' award for breaking new ground.
Apsley’s Newsagents, Est. 1903
Wuiden shelves chime wi Irish lace
and linen, crystal trinkets, bare-skud
hardbacks hunkered doon like
square soldiers, words aimed
— yin day — at weans grespin
leathery liquorice laces happed
in Paisley-patterned paper, hearkenin
yarns o grannies built peelie like
The People’s Friend, ganshin, gabbin,
crackin neath yellow, striped awning.
Waater drips doon tweed caps. Scent
o Woodbine, o war, o dulse, o ale --
bachelors cowp coins, scatter tobacco,
buy news, pay for pipe dreams weighed
in siller scales glentin ahint the
coonter: midget gems sowl in
quarters, ribbons and iambs
measured by the meter —
similes settled by the score.
We sing and dance.
'Apsley’s Newsagents, Est. 1903' was the winning poem in the Frances Browne Festival poetry competition (Ulster Scots Category), October 2021
She is lang spire and witch bell,
amangst a hundret and forty
radical souls westerin. The hull
o her kirk are wuided in oak.
A September flurry tirls, rough aff Rathlin,
as paps helter and isles skelter
and mulls and rhins slink and sickle lik ghaists.
Rain lashes her cheeks. Unborn fists and futs.
She tholes a twang. A threid o watter gaithers
at the feet o elders, who clesp invisible crosses.
A man o bauld deeds climbs
intae the cradle o a sea mountain:
steidfest wi hopes an tools, he fixes the rudder.
Two bairns suckle; an oul soul gaes hame
tae his maister; the Eagle’s Wing turns
whaur Titanic held oot; hameless folk hame east
for tae mak a makkar o ‘The Grave’ poet
and paint a gothic pictur o the hard-hunted
beast slaverin undergroun
in the barren womb o naethin.
A bairn dies. She lies noo, skellying
an eye at the young, lost mither.
The flesh atween her legs is skelfed.
A hand in her creel turns the heid.
A snell schraik awaks the livin
and the deid. The efterbirth croons Presbyterian.
Seaborn —an oul name in an oul tongue,
lik Man O Bauld Deeds.
Noo, in Lough Fergus, whaur phantoms lurk
on wasted docks, whaur rudderless ships
and secular steel barren wombs are static,
I wunner wud I hae tightened my lips
aroon zeilous wirds, lik papish
and transubstantiation. Wud I hae decried the priests’
harems, thrust stuils at episcopal priests,
planned a better hame-comin
for my ain soul, lik the wumman* who birthed
Seaborn on the Eagle’s Wing in 1636?
*Wife of Michael Colvert of Killinchy
'The Wumman who birthed Seaborn' was awarded second place in the Frances Browne Festival poetry competition (Ulster Scots Category), October 2023. The poem also won a special 'spirit of the festival' award for breaking new ground.
Apsley’s Newsagents, Est. 1903
Wuiden shelves chime wi Irish lace
and linen, crystal trinkets, bare-skud
hardbacks hunkered doon like
square soldiers, words aimed
— yin day — at weans grespin
leathery liquorice laces happed
in Paisley-patterned paper, hearkenin
yarns o grannies built peelie like
The People’s Friend, ganshin, gabbin,
crackin neath yellow, striped awning.
Waater drips doon tweed caps. Scent
o Woodbine, o war, o dulse, o ale --
bachelors cowp coins, scatter tobacco,
buy news, pay for pipe dreams weighed
in siller scales glentin ahint the
coonter: midget gems sowl in
quarters, ribbons and iambs
measured by the meter —
similes settled by the score.
We sing and dance.
'Apsley’s Newsagents, Est. 1903' was the winning poem in the Frances Browne Festival poetry competition (Ulster Scots Category), October 2021
Bangor Poetry Competition
Ballysnod
We reach the summit in the inky part of day --
ready to be written — and look beyond lines
of skinny houses to giant Woodbine
puffing as the Townsend Thoresen
scissors the navy sea.
Scarlet-cheeked cousins play inside --
two score and more — and tumble and titter
and tee-hee by the hearth, where a new baby
is changed and wrapped in a white,
bobbly blanket.
Granny casts a crafty smile in the corner —
reflexive conjugation — and the clickety click
of stout knitting needles conjures honeycomb
lines in Aaron wool unwinding above
a pile of cardigans scented with barley.
Granda’s heavy hands rest on his belly --
past imperious — and he half-snoozes
with one eye on his lamb sheep huddled
close to the orange fire, where buckled,
leather belts hang idle.
Aunts rattle the golden bucket of coal --
eleven in prime — and the hiss of wet slack
unleashes a draught as children eat
a communion of squished up loaf
and sip Ribena from silver goblets.
In the parlour, uncles talk unseen —
five lost for a crown —and shake a fist
at nephews who creep through the hall, sucking
the scent of Imperial Leather as they
learn what is for men to be at peace.
Joyce’s eyes well in the window pane --
still one of sixteen children — and her cradling
voice follows a gust of wind that catches me
falling, lace-on-lace, into a bride’s
arms in infant days of summer.
Later, I step outside into the darkness and hear
the clickety click of time unwinding
and know that they will all come home --
to Ballysnod.
'Ballysnod' was placed 5th in the 8th Annual Bangor Poetry Competition, December 2020.
We reach the summit in the inky part of day --
ready to be written — and look beyond lines
of skinny houses to giant Woodbine
puffing as the Townsend Thoresen
scissors the navy sea.
Scarlet-cheeked cousins play inside --
two score and more — and tumble and titter
and tee-hee by the hearth, where a new baby
is changed and wrapped in a white,
bobbly blanket.
Granny casts a crafty smile in the corner —
reflexive conjugation — and the clickety click
of stout knitting needles conjures honeycomb
lines in Aaron wool unwinding above
a pile of cardigans scented with barley.
Granda’s heavy hands rest on his belly --
past imperious — and he half-snoozes
with one eye on his lamb sheep huddled
close to the orange fire, where buckled,
leather belts hang idle.
Aunts rattle the golden bucket of coal --
eleven in prime — and the hiss of wet slack
unleashes a draught as children eat
a communion of squished up loaf
and sip Ribena from silver goblets.
In the parlour, uncles talk unseen —
five lost for a crown —and shake a fist
at nephews who creep through the hall, sucking
the scent of Imperial Leather as they
learn what is for men to be at peace.
Joyce’s eyes well in the window pane --
still one of sixteen children — and her cradling
voice follows a gust of wind that catches me
falling, lace-on-lace, into a bride’s
arms in infant days of summer.
Later, I step outside into the darkness and hear
the clickety click of time unwinding
and know that they will all come home --
to Ballysnod.
'Ballysnod' was placed 5th in the 8th Annual Bangor Poetry Competition, December 2020.
Linen Hall Library Writing Competition
Sample of 'Lang Toon Hotel':
Robina dannered aroon the space that was yince the groon floor of the maist grand
hotel in Ireland. She descrieved the former landscape tae me, as if ah were a stranger who
didnae hae the hotel scartit tae his sowl. We began wer tour bae the oak revolvin doors that
lead intae the entrance lobby, whaur wuiden fans haed whispert ocht hame-spun and ocht
colonial aroon a laftie ceiling.
Thonner and on, we sliddert tae the Lloyd Loom double settles, whaur English fectory
folk in their Sunday bests sloucht aside wealthy, Irish eccentrics. Robina pettlet a mirage o
an elevator wi its golden gless panels. And we baith o us leuked up tae the blue sky and
thocht o the eleven o’clock sunset thirty years ago, when Robina tellt the bellboy he wasnae
needed tae operate the lift.
The short story 'Lang Toon Hotel' was placed runner up in the Linen Hall Library Ulster Scots Writing Competition (Prose category) November 2021. The story was published by the Linen Hall Library in 2022.
Robina dannered aroon the space that was yince the groon floor of the maist grand
hotel in Ireland. She descrieved the former landscape tae me, as if ah were a stranger who
didnae hae the hotel scartit tae his sowl. We began wer tour bae the oak revolvin doors that
lead intae the entrance lobby, whaur wuiden fans haed whispert ocht hame-spun and ocht
colonial aroon a laftie ceiling.
Thonner and on, we sliddert tae the Lloyd Loom double settles, whaur English fectory
folk in their Sunday bests sloucht aside wealthy, Irish eccentrics. Robina pettlet a mirage o
an elevator wi its golden gless panels. And we baith o us leuked up tae the blue sky and
thocht o the eleven o’clock sunset thirty years ago, when Robina tellt the bellboy he wasnae
needed tae operate the lift.
The short story 'Lang Toon Hotel' was placed runner up in the Linen Hall Library Ulster Scots Writing Competition (Prose category) November 2021. The story was published by the Linen Hall Library in 2022.
Novel excerpts
From Dusty Bluebells, published 2020.
(Nb. formatting adapted for website).
Maisie walked around the horseshoe bend to meet a perpendicular incline. There were no electricity cables in the village. Each tiny cottage conducted life through the clink of metal, the scent of simmering broth and turf smoke swirling from chimneys — all against the percussive echo of water falling. There was also the sound of children playing, a glockenspiel of screams rising and falling from the direction of the waterfall.
It was warm enough to strip off, despite the threat of rain, and Maisie imagined herself immersed under the cool, thudding water, away from this acute climb. She pictured Leonard standing by the stones of the waterfall as he had that spring, distracted and restless, anxiously awaiting his wife. The road rose sharply and Maisie’s heels pinched her feet. She had to be close now. How much higher could she possibly climb?
A church crowned the top of the hill, and below it, to the right, was a detached, white cottage with a new slate roof. The air was clear, the hay fields at a distance, yet Maisie’s breathing became erratic. She left her picnic bag on a wall and took deep breaths before walking the few yards to the cottage. She noted the freshly painted green of the square windows and rapped at the green door. A woman appeared with chestnut curls as wild as Maisie’s. She was smiling, her face glowing with rouge and cherry lipstick, her body relaxed and easy. Maisie had expected someone younger, but everything about Ellen, from her slight build to her long features, was a mirror image of her own person. Maisie clung to her handbag, her feet clamped together, her body erect. “I’m Mrs Gourley,” she said.
Ellen didn’t respond. She raised her eyebrows and smiled an uncertain smile.
Maisie glanced at the horseshoe on the door. “Would your husband be available?” she said, a serene confidence rising.
The expression on Ellen’s face changed. “My husband?” she checked.
“Yes, I would like to speak to your husband.”
“I have no husband.” Ellen removed her hand from her hip. “Who are you?”
“I’m Mrs Leonard Gourley.”
Ellen had one arm across her body, the other fluttering apprehensively towards her head, settling finally on her neck. There was a voice and there was a song, and Maisie was not prepared for the voice and the song. She was not prepared for the clear voice, the deep and resonant voice, the singing voice that emerged from the scullery as audibly as the waterfall that reverberated around the village. She was not prepared for Leonard’s voice singing ‘Danny Boy’ as he serenaded his lover in the hall-way of her cottage at the top of a glen.
Maisie was running. She collected the string bag from the wall as she passed it and descended into the village once again. She didn’t pause to observe who was present, but kept her head low and skipped as fast as her Sunday court shoes could carry her. She stopped at the corner, the line of cottages a white blur to her right. The road ahead was mercilessly open. She recalled what her mother had said after her first visit to the pictures. Never trust a man wi a smile on his face. How long had Leonard been smiling? He had been due to go to Glenoe that Hallowe’en night almost two years ago when Esther had brought Daniel into their home. Had he been gallivanting to Glenoe all this time?
She followed the pitter patter of the waterfall into the dark forest on the left, where the dirt path was wet and uneven, where stones and rocks were wedged into the muck. She wanted to change her shoes, but pride guided her swift movements onto the slippery terrain. Children were running towards her, screaming, holding out their hands. The rain was falling hard. The waterfall roared its tenor song. She kicked off her shoes on a large, flat, basalt rock, dropped her bags and her coat and slipped into the stream, gulping as the cold water smacked her legs. Her mind was already below the thundering waterfall but her feet held her back as they grappled the brutal stones in the shallow water.
She could hear her name. She blocked out the pathetic warble and steadied herself with her arms out to the side as her feet found a path of shallow shingle. The water was up to her thighs. She moved closer to the white froth of the fall. There was only the sound of the waterfall. No birds chirping. No children playing. No Leonard calling her name.
The waterfall pounded her head, heavy and unyielding, sending her backwards into the icy pool. She stood up swiftly, startled from the weight of it, and tried again, raising her hands above her head as an orchestra of strumming called her under. She moved through the fall, gripping her head tightly with her arms, the water bruising her skin with its heavy, violent rain. She was floating in a deep, still pond and above her and beyond her was nothing but lush foliage set beneath a deluge of silvery shards falling. She inhaled the purity of it through every pore, sucking in the mist and the sap of the trees, swimming through the music of the waterfall, sinking every thought, every pleading look, every sorry tale that had given her hope. Hope was now a wall of water thundering in front of her and she was safe from it, separate from the world, swimming in circles, rolling in bliss.
From A Belfast Tale, published 2016.
(Nb. formatting adapted for website).
THE RED SHOE
1993
Annie stopped, her head swirling, spinning in the dark. Where did all the vehicles go with their lights shining on her hand? A muted din and now, so peaceful. It was a sunny day, a crisp October day. It was Andrew’s fifteenth birthday. The Shankill Leisure Centre. Annie smiled. Jean was bouncing on the waves. The waves were red, blood waves, rising and falling, Jean drowning in blood.
Blood, was there blood in her ears? She checked.
What were the patterns, the colours on the side of the wall? There were soldiers. How many? Too many. James and his Saxons and the SA 80s. Annie reached out her hand and Jean touched it and pulled her under the water. Was she drowning too? But there was no water. There was only sunshine, blistering sunshine and clear skies casting off a cool, dusty air.
Annie laughed. Dancing through Snugville Street in the morning, holding the little girl’s hand. Hop over hop back hop back two three four, hop over hop back hop back two three four, and out hop back hop back two three four.
So young. Her little girl.
No, it was Shelley, Shelley in her ribbons and her red patent shoes.
‘Ma'am, are you okay ma'am?’
Annie Steen always looked into the eyes of soldiers. Didn’t he know? Crystal blue eyes, framed in a wide, metal helmet. And a kind lady with tea. ‘Come and sit down love, come here. Take this.’
Hop over hop back hop back two three four.
‘Little Shelley Adams will never dance again.’
‘Sorry love, what did you say? Are you okay?’
Annie, seated, looking around at lines of armoured vehicles, weeping, ‘Little Shelley Adams will never dance again.’
***
Harry walked fast and heard the crunch of autumn leaves echoing from a near past. He wanted to run, but his feet were pulled in opposing motions from his will, and as his legs accelerated, they tripped the current of his mind. Harry had to walk, his feet slain for the weight of his crime.
He had danced for the third autumn. He had danced in the bandstand, holding Linda’s hand before the distant, deadening thud that had carried him back to Linda’s house. Harry could locate the memory of the transient shift. The rusty, crackling fingers of horse chestnut leaves had tiptoed along the ground and then lifted into a soundless flurry, a whistle of a warning as he danced in the park.
Sitting on the velvet chair, clicking buttons on a remote control box, Harry knew where he was supposed to be.
‘I’ll get Annie to collect them,’ Jean had said that morning in a weary whisper through the receiver of the phone box on Cregagh Road, and then in a worn voice, ‘Come home, Harry. I need to talk to you. Please come home. Why had Jean wanted to talk?
People tiptoed along Royal Avenue like cracked leaves, pointless leaves drifting in a subdued wind of autumn’s war. Harry willed his feet to move faster. He approached Smithfield market, and he remembered. He pictured a family portrait, gold and brown and three strong smiles, but his feet dragged against the weight of the headline that had appeared along the bottom of the screen. His eyes, so strong, had been dim and weak, but there was a transient vision of being in the wrong place at the right time. Or, the wrong place at the wrong time, and two wrongs didn’t make it right.
Bomb. Shankill.
Two words, and Linda had stopped moving.
A whisper. ‘Go home, Harry.’
A pulse of voice. ‘Harry, go home.’
***
Please God, give her pain to me. Please God, give her pain to me. Shelley, Shelley, listen to me. It’s your mammy here and I can’t speak. My voice is in my hand and it’s holding you. You’ll be okay, Shelley, because I can feel it in your hand. Please God, give her pain to me. Please God, give her pain to me.
Shelley, I’m not hurting you when I squeeze your hand. I’m taking your pain away. I want you to share it with me. Remember how we share. Share your toys, girls. Learn to share.
Why should you share your toys? It doesn’t hurt anyone when you were playing with them at home by your sister’s side. It’s okay. When we get home, we won’t worry about sharing. We’ll buy you a new toy. And we’ll buy you new shoes. We’ll go to Clarkes and we’ll find the same red shoes. We’ll take a bus or a taxi.
‘Mammy, I want the red shoes.’
‘The patent ones?’
‘The red, painted ones with the bows.’
‘Patent, Shelley. Patent.’
‘Daddy, do you like look my painting shoes with bows?’
One shoe.
Please God, give her pain to me.
From Snugville Street, published 2015
THE SPRING TIDE
(Nb. formatting adapted for website).
The Île-de-Bréhat was a carnival of colour and fragrance, and it was filled with people searching out the wonders of the early July spring tide. Hannah inhaled the scent of eucalyptus, smiled at the sight of pink geraniums drooped over old stone walls, and tiptoed carefully over the craggy stones in rugged rock pools where she paddled among children and their nets. As puffins kissed on the pink rocks, Hannah relished the start of summer; she was almost nineteen, school was over and she was in
France with Gildas.
Gildas, who’d been the first to contact Hannah upon her arrival in Paimpol, spent much of the time describing the tides to her. Hannah checked her pocket dictionary for a translation of ‘la grande marée’, such was its prominence in the discussion they were having. She’d never heard of a spring tide, but realised that it involved the sea parting from the land in an extended farewell.
They were kneeling and picking mussels when Hannah asked, ‘What exactly is a spring tide?’
Gildas’ eyes came to life and he explained carefully, ‘When you have a tide, it is caused by the force of the moon and the force of the earth.’ He formed planets with his fists.
Hannah’s head moved up and down.
‘The sea is pulled by the gravity of the moon...’
Hannah disguised her scientific deficiencies with a continual nod.
The rotational force of the earth, she heard. The sea bulges, she heard. The rest of his words fell through the gaps in her intelligence. Hannah flicked the small swirls of worm-shaped sand and tried not to look Gildas in the eye. One of the first sentences she’d ever learned in French came mechanically to mind. Je ne comprends pas.
Gildas laughed, as though attuned to her thoughts. He placed three shells on his arm in a vertical line. ‘Look, when we have the earth, the sun and the moon all in a line, we have spring tide. It happens when there is a new moon or a full moon. Today we have a new moon.’
‘And I take it that means the tide is very low,’ Hannah said, her eyes narrowing to a distant horizon of water.
‘Or very high. When the moon is closest to the earth, you get the biggest tide of all.’
‘I wonder why it’s called spring tide,’ said Hannah, her head cocked to the side. Jean was suddenly infiltrating her thoughts. Listen to your man, she was saying. Is this the language of love? Hannah smiled, straightened her neck, and removed the hand that had found itself resting involuntarily on her left hip. ‘It doesn’t just happen in spring,’ she observed.
‘No, twice a lunar month.’
‘A lunar month,’ she repeated. Why hadn’t she thought to listen in geography? Or was it physics?
‘Yes, you know...the moon.’ Gildas was laughing. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘This must be very boring. You measure your day in degrees celsius and I measure mine in the tidal coefficient. Your head is in the clouds and mine is in the moon.’
‘I don’t know if that’s reassuring for me or not! You’re in charge of the boat home,’ she said, overlooking the tidal coefficient for fear of an explanation. She turned to Gildas and spoke slowly, certain that there must be a seductrice kindling within her. She just needed a little help stirring the flame, ‘What kind of things happen at spring tide when there is a new moon?’ she asked, almost gasping.
‘All types of mysteries of nature,’ smiled Gildas.
Hannah’s face reddened.
‘It’s a ripe time for planting seeds.’
She wanted to kiss him.
‘The body and the mind also change with the moon’s orbit.’
She stopped breathing. Gildas’ body.
‘Things feel different when there is a full moon or a new moon.’
Was he still talking about the moon?
‘I know people have recorded the increase in violent crime...’
Crime? Hadn’t he sensed her femme fatale?
‘But it’s not possible to record the beauty, the positive energy that occurs.’
Hannah laughed aloud. She was on unfamiliar ground. Gildas stopped what he was saying and smiled.
‘We should walk back to the boat now,’ he said, pulling Hannah to her feet.
She stood up. He was still holding her hand. She walked by his side, the faculty of speech and her sense of reality anchored in the sand.
(Nb. formatting adapted for website).
Maisie walked around the horseshoe bend to meet a perpendicular incline. There were no electricity cables in the village. Each tiny cottage conducted life through the clink of metal, the scent of simmering broth and turf smoke swirling from chimneys — all against the percussive echo of water falling. There was also the sound of children playing, a glockenspiel of screams rising and falling from the direction of the waterfall.
It was warm enough to strip off, despite the threat of rain, and Maisie imagined herself immersed under the cool, thudding water, away from this acute climb. She pictured Leonard standing by the stones of the waterfall as he had that spring, distracted and restless, anxiously awaiting his wife. The road rose sharply and Maisie’s heels pinched her feet. She had to be close now. How much higher could she possibly climb?
A church crowned the top of the hill, and below it, to the right, was a detached, white cottage with a new slate roof. The air was clear, the hay fields at a distance, yet Maisie’s breathing became erratic. She left her picnic bag on a wall and took deep breaths before walking the few yards to the cottage. She noted the freshly painted green of the square windows and rapped at the green door. A woman appeared with chestnut curls as wild as Maisie’s. She was smiling, her face glowing with rouge and cherry lipstick, her body relaxed and easy. Maisie had expected someone younger, but everything about Ellen, from her slight build to her long features, was a mirror image of her own person. Maisie clung to her handbag, her feet clamped together, her body erect. “I’m Mrs Gourley,” she said.
Ellen didn’t respond. She raised her eyebrows and smiled an uncertain smile.
Maisie glanced at the horseshoe on the door. “Would your husband be available?” she said, a serene confidence rising.
The expression on Ellen’s face changed. “My husband?” she checked.
“Yes, I would like to speak to your husband.”
“I have no husband.” Ellen removed her hand from her hip. “Who are you?”
“I’m Mrs Leonard Gourley.”
Ellen had one arm across her body, the other fluttering apprehensively towards her head, settling finally on her neck. There was a voice and there was a song, and Maisie was not prepared for the voice and the song. She was not prepared for the clear voice, the deep and resonant voice, the singing voice that emerged from the scullery as audibly as the waterfall that reverberated around the village. She was not prepared for Leonard’s voice singing ‘Danny Boy’ as he serenaded his lover in the hall-way of her cottage at the top of a glen.
Maisie was running. She collected the string bag from the wall as she passed it and descended into the village once again. She didn’t pause to observe who was present, but kept her head low and skipped as fast as her Sunday court shoes could carry her. She stopped at the corner, the line of cottages a white blur to her right. The road ahead was mercilessly open. She recalled what her mother had said after her first visit to the pictures. Never trust a man wi a smile on his face. How long had Leonard been smiling? He had been due to go to Glenoe that Hallowe’en night almost two years ago when Esther had brought Daniel into their home. Had he been gallivanting to Glenoe all this time?
She followed the pitter patter of the waterfall into the dark forest on the left, where the dirt path was wet and uneven, where stones and rocks were wedged into the muck. She wanted to change her shoes, but pride guided her swift movements onto the slippery terrain. Children were running towards her, screaming, holding out their hands. The rain was falling hard. The waterfall roared its tenor song. She kicked off her shoes on a large, flat, basalt rock, dropped her bags and her coat and slipped into the stream, gulping as the cold water smacked her legs. Her mind was already below the thundering waterfall but her feet held her back as they grappled the brutal stones in the shallow water.
She could hear her name. She blocked out the pathetic warble and steadied herself with her arms out to the side as her feet found a path of shallow shingle. The water was up to her thighs. She moved closer to the white froth of the fall. There was only the sound of the waterfall. No birds chirping. No children playing. No Leonard calling her name.
The waterfall pounded her head, heavy and unyielding, sending her backwards into the icy pool. She stood up swiftly, startled from the weight of it, and tried again, raising her hands above her head as an orchestra of strumming called her under. She moved through the fall, gripping her head tightly with her arms, the water bruising her skin with its heavy, violent rain. She was floating in a deep, still pond and above her and beyond her was nothing but lush foliage set beneath a deluge of silvery shards falling. She inhaled the purity of it through every pore, sucking in the mist and the sap of the trees, swimming through the music of the waterfall, sinking every thought, every pleading look, every sorry tale that had given her hope. Hope was now a wall of water thundering in front of her and she was safe from it, separate from the world, swimming in circles, rolling in bliss.
From A Belfast Tale, published 2016.
(Nb. formatting adapted for website).
THE RED SHOE
1993
Annie stopped, her head swirling, spinning in the dark. Where did all the vehicles go with their lights shining on her hand? A muted din and now, so peaceful. It was a sunny day, a crisp October day. It was Andrew’s fifteenth birthday. The Shankill Leisure Centre. Annie smiled. Jean was bouncing on the waves. The waves were red, blood waves, rising and falling, Jean drowning in blood.
Blood, was there blood in her ears? She checked.
What were the patterns, the colours on the side of the wall? There were soldiers. How many? Too many. James and his Saxons and the SA 80s. Annie reached out her hand and Jean touched it and pulled her under the water. Was she drowning too? But there was no water. There was only sunshine, blistering sunshine and clear skies casting off a cool, dusty air.
Annie laughed. Dancing through Snugville Street in the morning, holding the little girl’s hand. Hop over hop back hop back two three four, hop over hop back hop back two three four, and out hop back hop back two three four.
So young. Her little girl.
No, it was Shelley, Shelley in her ribbons and her red patent shoes.
‘Ma'am, are you okay ma'am?’
Annie Steen always looked into the eyes of soldiers. Didn’t he know? Crystal blue eyes, framed in a wide, metal helmet. And a kind lady with tea. ‘Come and sit down love, come here. Take this.’
Hop over hop back hop back two three four.
‘Little Shelley Adams will never dance again.’
‘Sorry love, what did you say? Are you okay?’
Annie, seated, looking around at lines of armoured vehicles, weeping, ‘Little Shelley Adams will never dance again.’
***
Harry walked fast and heard the crunch of autumn leaves echoing from a near past. He wanted to run, but his feet were pulled in opposing motions from his will, and as his legs accelerated, they tripped the current of his mind. Harry had to walk, his feet slain for the weight of his crime.
He had danced for the third autumn. He had danced in the bandstand, holding Linda’s hand before the distant, deadening thud that had carried him back to Linda’s house. Harry could locate the memory of the transient shift. The rusty, crackling fingers of horse chestnut leaves had tiptoed along the ground and then lifted into a soundless flurry, a whistle of a warning as he danced in the park.
Sitting on the velvet chair, clicking buttons on a remote control box, Harry knew where he was supposed to be.
‘I’ll get Annie to collect them,’ Jean had said that morning in a weary whisper through the receiver of the phone box on Cregagh Road, and then in a worn voice, ‘Come home, Harry. I need to talk to you. Please come home. Why had Jean wanted to talk?
People tiptoed along Royal Avenue like cracked leaves, pointless leaves drifting in a subdued wind of autumn’s war. Harry willed his feet to move faster. He approached Smithfield market, and he remembered. He pictured a family portrait, gold and brown and three strong smiles, but his feet dragged against the weight of the headline that had appeared along the bottom of the screen. His eyes, so strong, had been dim and weak, but there was a transient vision of being in the wrong place at the right time. Or, the wrong place at the wrong time, and two wrongs didn’t make it right.
Bomb. Shankill.
Two words, and Linda had stopped moving.
A whisper. ‘Go home, Harry.’
A pulse of voice. ‘Harry, go home.’
***
Please God, give her pain to me. Please God, give her pain to me. Shelley, Shelley, listen to me. It’s your mammy here and I can’t speak. My voice is in my hand and it’s holding you. You’ll be okay, Shelley, because I can feel it in your hand. Please God, give her pain to me. Please God, give her pain to me.
Shelley, I’m not hurting you when I squeeze your hand. I’m taking your pain away. I want you to share it with me. Remember how we share. Share your toys, girls. Learn to share.
Why should you share your toys? It doesn’t hurt anyone when you were playing with them at home by your sister’s side. It’s okay. When we get home, we won’t worry about sharing. We’ll buy you a new toy. And we’ll buy you new shoes. We’ll go to Clarkes and we’ll find the same red shoes. We’ll take a bus or a taxi.
‘Mammy, I want the red shoes.’
‘The patent ones?’
‘The red, painted ones with the bows.’
‘Patent, Shelley. Patent.’
‘Daddy, do you like look my painting shoes with bows?’
One shoe.
Please God, give her pain to me.
From Snugville Street, published 2015
THE SPRING TIDE
(Nb. formatting adapted for website).
The Île-de-Bréhat was a carnival of colour and fragrance, and it was filled with people searching out the wonders of the early July spring tide. Hannah inhaled the scent of eucalyptus, smiled at the sight of pink geraniums drooped over old stone walls, and tiptoed carefully over the craggy stones in rugged rock pools where she paddled among children and their nets. As puffins kissed on the pink rocks, Hannah relished the start of summer; she was almost nineteen, school was over and she was in
France with Gildas.
Gildas, who’d been the first to contact Hannah upon her arrival in Paimpol, spent much of the time describing the tides to her. Hannah checked her pocket dictionary for a translation of ‘la grande marée’, such was its prominence in the discussion they were having. She’d never heard of a spring tide, but realised that it involved the sea parting from the land in an extended farewell.
They were kneeling and picking mussels when Hannah asked, ‘What exactly is a spring tide?’
Gildas’ eyes came to life and he explained carefully, ‘When you have a tide, it is caused by the force of the moon and the force of the earth.’ He formed planets with his fists.
Hannah’s head moved up and down.
‘The sea is pulled by the gravity of the moon...’
Hannah disguised her scientific deficiencies with a continual nod.
The rotational force of the earth, she heard. The sea bulges, she heard. The rest of his words fell through the gaps in her intelligence. Hannah flicked the small swirls of worm-shaped sand and tried not to look Gildas in the eye. One of the first sentences she’d ever learned in French came mechanically to mind. Je ne comprends pas.
Gildas laughed, as though attuned to her thoughts. He placed three shells on his arm in a vertical line. ‘Look, when we have the earth, the sun and the moon all in a line, we have spring tide. It happens when there is a new moon or a full moon. Today we have a new moon.’
‘And I take it that means the tide is very low,’ Hannah said, her eyes narrowing to a distant horizon of water.
‘Or very high. When the moon is closest to the earth, you get the biggest tide of all.’
‘I wonder why it’s called spring tide,’ said Hannah, her head cocked to the side. Jean was suddenly infiltrating her thoughts. Listen to your man, she was saying. Is this the language of love? Hannah smiled, straightened her neck, and removed the hand that had found itself resting involuntarily on her left hip. ‘It doesn’t just happen in spring,’ she observed.
‘No, twice a lunar month.’
‘A lunar month,’ she repeated. Why hadn’t she thought to listen in geography? Or was it physics?
‘Yes, you know...the moon.’ Gildas was laughing. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘This must be very boring. You measure your day in degrees celsius and I measure mine in the tidal coefficient. Your head is in the clouds and mine is in the moon.’
‘I don’t know if that’s reassuring for me or not! You’re in charge of the boat home,’ she said, overlooking the tidal coefficient for fear of an explanation. She turned to Gildas and spoke slowly, certain that there must be a seductrice kindling within her. She just needed a little help stirring the flame, ‘What kind of things happen at spring tide when there is a new moon?’ she asked, almost gasping.
‘All types of mysteries of nature,’ smiled Gildas.
Hannah’s face reddened.
‘It’s a ripe time for planting seeds.’
She wanted to kiss him.
‘The body and the mind also change with the moon’s orbit.’
She stopped breathing. Gildas’ body.
‘Things feel different when there is a full moon or a new moon.’
Was he still talking about the moon?
‘I know people have recorded the increase in violent crime...’
Crime? Hadn’t he sensed her femme fatale?
‘But it’s not possible to record the beauty, the positive energy that occurs.’
Hannah laughed aloud. She was on unfamiliar ground. Gildas stopped what he was saying and smiled.
‘We should walk back to the boat now,’ he said, pulling Hannah to her feet.
She stood up. He was still holding her hand. She walked by his side, the faculty of speech and her sense of reality anchored in the sand.
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Profile & Children photographs by Bernie McAllister