Short Story:Before the March

The sky they met under was typical for that time of year. The light falling away West, pink and blue, suffused with static electricity. A slight swirling breeze and the feeling that anything might happen...

They met on Wicklow Street because it was convenient for both of them and close to where they would eat. They walked slowly, not touching and speaking as if to a third person. After skirting around some banal questions on how each other were getting along, the conversation turned to the anti war march that was to be held the following day and the likely turnout given the passion the issue had roused from people across the country.

"You know what you're like Danny," she said in the restaurant, "You'll be too hung-over to go to any march, that's if you've even seen the bed."

She said the words with the tone of scolding contempt which he hated. He felt his blood rising but given the night it was and knowing his own temper, he replied quietly, "I just think that the Irish people coming out in force to show their opposition to an unjust war is important enough to get out of bed for."

Then he added, "at least I have an agenda outside glossy magazines and clothes".

He regretted saying it immediately. She sighed and looked out the window at the couples walking by, their arms linked, bodies close together. It was a night for couples. A night to cling to loved ones. To cling to love. He followed her gaze and then looked into her face, trying to read her thoughts. She smiled – feebly it seemed – and took a sip of champagne from her glass. He hated Valentines day. He had said it every year they were together. It was merely a chance for tacky businesses to cash in on what he called, "the commercial exploitation of loneliness". Romance, he maintained, should not be confined to one day of the year. He felt this observation to be very enlightened and in keeping with his generally informed outlook on life. He felt the same of Hallowe'en and of Easter and even of Christmas. She called him a cynic; he rebutted her with realism.

It was the first time they had seen each other in three months. Through their circle of friends he had established that she wasn't seeing anyone. Weeks in advance he planned the phone call to suggest meeting on Valentines Day – not wanting to seem too eager but worried someone else would get there before him if he left it too late. He missed her, he felt, or perhaps it was the thought of spending that night alone which drove him. His own loneliness being exploited. He reconciled himself to the fact that women needed these displays of affection and this year he would make allowance for this and prove to her that his thinking was not based in miserliness. How ironic this was, he mused, now that they were no longer together he would spend what was necessary. Inwardly he cursed himself. He booked the restaurant, questioning the inflated set menu prices and later – after calling her a second time to test the waters – he booked the hotel.

All that week leading up to the march the various flailing arms of the media were full of debate. The march – or 'peace rally' as its organisers were calling it – would take place the day after Valentine's day at noon. Moral obligations and rights and wrongs were kicked from left to right, right to left and back again, like pig's bladders on a football pitch. All across the country, from Dáil Éireann to the ketchup-flecked kitchen tables of suburbia and the dark, stained bars of quiet rural pubs, everyone had a version of Justice. In the murky middle ground of necessary violence, the world fumbled through history and nothing was learned yet much was forgotten.

Amongst Danny's own group of peers an open e-mail debate had proved some distraction from otherwise pedantic working days. The left and the right presented their cases; the left quoting Chomsky and Fintan O'Toole, the right Wolfowitz and Kevin Myers. Some, perhaps without opinion, chose not to involve themselves and instead forwarded photographs of men in homosexual acts with the smiling faces of the conflicting leaders, superimposed on the heads. Danny's stance was clear. He urged his friends to attend the march. To sweeten the deal he suggested 'WPMD's or 'Well-Earned Post March Drinks' in Mulligans after they had done their bit for peace.

When she had drained the glass of complimentary champagne he asked if she would like another.

"We'll have to pay for second one," she replied.

"I'll have to pay," he retorted, immediately regretting the way it came out.

"It's grand love," he said quickly. "Do you want one?"

"No, just some wine will be fine." she said.

In silence, the waiter poured the wine. She looked around at the other tables, at the artwork on the walls. Danny looked out the window, his eyes moving through objects without registering them. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Maybe she was right. Maybe they were flogging a dead horse. The image of a horse covered in flies lying by the side of a dusty road swam into his mind. Its grey green tongue lolling out dry and flaccid. Its dead eyes staring ahead in an almost comical, quizzical expression. A burly, faceless peasant leaned over it, his sweat flying as he reigned blows on the mute lifeless beast. Blood flecked up over his arms, over his legs.

"Not much to say for yourself now that you have me here," she said and then following his gaze added, "or is it the skirts outside that have you distracted? You never did have much tact in that department."

The passing girls giggled and waved.

"I wasn't looking at them, I was just thinking of something."

"Well, penny for your thoughts."

"Trust me, you'd prefer not to know."

"Never were one for opening up were you? At least not to me."

After a moment's hesitation he replied with a practised hurt tone in his voice:

"I was thinking of that time we went to Dingle and you fell off the horse if you must know."

"Really? Ah that's sweet. That was hilarious. Remember me? Covered in shit, bawling from the shock of it. I was mortified."

She laughed. He smiled. Over the candle their eyes met and he shrugged a practised shrug that involved his shoulders and mouth and eyebrows. A shrug that insinuated absolution. A shrug which was meant to simultaneously render him vulnerable and yet stroked his ego, like a flutter of wings in the dark. A giddy relief hung about them like sweet tobacco smoke. Another bottle of wine was ordered, and then another. They were the last to leave the restaurant and the last to leave the bar next door. They were asked to leave the hotel bar.

The argument started between the lift and the hotel room. Later, neither could remember what it was about, but the people in adjoining rooms attested to its ferocity and asked for refunds which they were denied. There were tears and bitter recrimination. A mirror was punched and shattered. In a rage he left; the easiest way to win being not to face the problem. A car wing mirror and a phone box took the brunt of his rage and by the time he reached the blinking lights of the late bars and night clubs, his anger had abated enough to be soothed more by alcohol.

It was still early enough in the evening for night clubs to be open and he sat with a stranger in a dark subterranean bar and shouted his woes in the man's ear and listened in turn to the mans shouts; nodding, not really hearing. After some time the stranger produced a small plastic bag of white powder and in between visits to the toilet cubicles, they toasted the single life with successive whiskeys, the smoke from their cigarettes pooling like slow worried phantoms above their heads.

Later he realised he was alone again. Standing in a cold corridor staring at red and white stripes inside a picture frame. The night-club music seemed far away, above him somewhere. Two girls pushed by and behind him and he heard himself saying "Howayis", with ears which didn't seem his own.

Stepping back, he focused his attention on the picture – the lines becoming clear as he forced his eyes to find some definition. Their form dawned on him like a slow breaking wave of suddenly cohesive thoughts strung through his synapses like Chinese lanterns in a breeze. The Pigeon House Towers in the watercolour stood out like sentinels to something wild and forgotten deep inside him. A wave of childhood nostalgia and a photo flash of the view of Dublin from the mountains was followed by the memory of a story half remembered. Joyce was it? Or Beckett? Brothers...no... two friends who made a pact to see the Pigeon House but failed, waylaid along the way. He would not fail. He would touch the great towering red and white chimneys which kept their silent vigil over Dublin.

Slow oozing and ominous, the stretch of Liffey water looking south from Custom House Quay appeared as a rippling expanse of fresh bitumen. Valentine's night had been and gone. The battered petals were getting pasty between the cobblestones of Temple Bar. On the streets by the docks only the odd shattered rose in a cellophane coffin bore testimony to the night that had been. The moon was full – romantic and lunatic – concepts not far removed from one another. The Irish Financial Services Centre threw its moon shadow halfway across the river and beyond in the distance, the gentle rolling hills of Fairy Castle, Glendoo, and the Wicklow mountains beyond, slept in the pale light of the sun's nocturnal reflection. The slightest breeze began to roll litter towards the water.

At the river's edge Danny strode purposefully towards the sea. He pulled the zipper of his light jacket up tight to his neck and with a final inhalation of smoke, flicked away his cigarette. It arched towards the water and was caught by the breeze, defying gravity for a moment as if trying to prolong its life, before landing silently on the crest of a ripple, noiselessly extinguished. His feet were tired and the effects of the alcohol were beginning to fade but chemicals pushed him on. He drove away the thought of her waking alone in the room. The Towers were closer now and seemed to dare him, their red lights blinking at him, semaphoring, 'just a little more, just a little more, just over here'.

Past the toll bridge a Mercedes slowed to a crawl and Danny, leaning into the gathering wind, ignored the driver's lonely questioning eyes. Silhouetted against the dark, the Pigeon House Towers looked down like an immense funfair ride, a Peggie's leg on the sticky City's water line. Their clown colours seemed to change from a smile to a frown as a cloud passed in front of the moon.

On South Bank Road the wind was channelled against him and the water was out of view. All around was industry. Silos and oil vats stood silent behind barbed wire topped fences, a burnt out car sat with its door open as if the owner had run flaming from the wreck. Glass crunched beneath Danny's feet and he noticed along the roadside the large boulders, designed to keep itinerants from entering, had been dragged to the side. The looming towers seemed to slink away, somewhere to his left. Ahead a freight container was pulled up at an angle and beyond in the darkness were shapes he couldn't make out.

Something he hadn't anticipated began to take hold. He felt the warm fuzz which had propelled him down the docks drain out the soles of his shoes and onto the filthy roadway. He walked on still, slower now. His senses unclouded as adrenaline was released and flowed through his body. In the gloom ahead, a dog began to bark, then another. A stench of excrement filled his nostrils and he noticed a child's buggy on its side against a half burnt truck tyre. Nappies lay in clumps and on the fencing beside him a makeshift line sagged with sodden clothing. To his right something moved in the shadows.

In the blink of an eye, chemical bravado left. Hot reality speared itself through his consciousness. He heard the glass beneath his feet crunch and grind as he turned in one movement on his heel and began sprinting back the way he had come. Back towards the city. His breath rasped and the wind against him streamed tears from his eyes. On the two twin towers high above, the red lights blinked against the night sky, warning aircraft of their place in the world.

Nearing the hotel, his thoughts were full of the comfort her warm sleeping body would bring. His body ached for the closeness of her skin, the smell of sleep from her breath, from her hair. He felt his penis, cold and shrivelled from the chemicals, thickening now, awakening. How many times had he slipped in beside her like this? The warm sheets hiding the first light of morning from his pale tired face? Too many to remember. He loved her, he knew that now. Tomorrow he would tell her so and they would begin again. This time it would be different. This time he would make sure she knew exactly what she meant to him. The day of the march would be their new anniversary, and from that year on they would celebrate on the day after Valentines, when it was quiet and all the gaudy, rushing, clinging couples were gone.

Quietly he slid the pass card home and opened the door without a sound. He was used to undressing quietly in the dark. He knew that absolution lay in being able to wake her only with his first clutching embrace. He knew the soft moan of her waking, his heart racing as he stiffened. The flat, white expanse of the empty bed brought him to a sudden stop and in the silence a pulse registered in his temple. A memory, a half remembered line from a childhood song flitted across his mind.

"Silence in the Courtyard

Silence in the Street..."

His hand went over the hard starched sheets and piled up duvet. Cold. Outside he heard the first muffled sounds of the city awakening. A longing pain rose up inside him like a wave of nausea and he fell back on the bed. Realisation and exhaustion swept across him like a hissing wave. Soon the protestors would begin massing at the chosen locations. Well wrapped-up children would ride on the shoulders of fathers in comfortable shoes. Orders and instructions would be sung through whining loudspeakers and an air of peaceful, merry solidarity would be felt. But Danny would not be there. His nose stung and he felt two hot tears gather at the corners of his eyes, cooling as they ran down his face to the sheets. He murmured her name as he slipped into the unconscious depths of the reveller's sleep. She was gone, and not all the protest in the world would ever bring her back.

Stephen A. Bailey

Stephen A. Bailey was born in Dublin in 1976 and has lived and worked in Spain and Australia. He spent two years as Dublin correspondent for bbm magazine, as well as contributing pieces to Hot Press and The Irish Times. Last year he was runner up in the "Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award". He is currently working on his first novel.