As if There Were Trees

I was coming home from my shift at the lounge when I saw Jamie in the field. The sun was going down and there were shadows on the ground from the flats. Jamie had his baby with him. She was about three months old. In her nappy. A soother in her mouth. A little slip of a thing.

They were sitting together on a horse, not Jamie’s horse – he’d sold his a long time ago to one of the other youngsters in the flats. This was a piebald and it was bending down to eat the last of the grass in the goalmouth. Jamie was shirtless and his body was all thin. You could see the ribs in his stomach and you could see the ribs in the horse and you could see the ribs in the baby too. The horse nudged in the grass and it looked like all three of them were trying to get fed. There’s nothing worse than seeing a baby hungry. She was tucked in against Jamie’s stomach and he was just staring away into the distance.

The sun was going down and everywhere was getting red. There was red on the towers and there was red on the clinic and there was red on the windows of the cars that were burned out and there was red on the overpass at the end of the field. Jamie was staring at the overpass. It was only half built, so the ramp went out and finished in midair. You could have stepped off it and fell 40 feet.

Jamie used to work on the overpass until he got fired. They caught him with smack in his pocket when he was on the job. He complained to the residents’ committee because he was the only one from the flats on the overpass but there was no go. They couldn’t help him because of the junk. They wanted to but couldn’t. That was two weeks ago. Jamie had been moping around ever since.

He started nudging his heels into the side of the horse. He was wearing his big black construction boots. You could see the heels making a dent in the side of the horse. I thought poor fucking thing, imagine getting kicked like that.

I was standing by the lifts and every time the doors opened there was a smell of glue and paint and shite came out and hit me. I was thinking about going home to my young ones who were there with my husband Tommy – Tommy looks after them since Cadbury’s had the lay-offs – but something kept me at the door of the lift watching. Jamie dug his heels deeper into the horse and even then she didn’t move. She shook her head and neighed and stayed put. Jamie’s teeth were clenched and his face was tight and his eyes were bright as if they were the only things growing in him.

I've seen lots of men like that in the Well. The only thing alive in them is the eyes. Sometimes not even that.

Nodding shadow
Jamie was kicking no end and his baby was held tight to him now and the horse gave a little bit and turned her body in the direction of the overpass. Jamie stopped kicking. He sat and he watched and he was nodding away at his own nodding shadow for a long time, just looking at the men who were working late.

Four of them altogether. Three of them were standing on the ramp smoking cigarettes and one was on a rope beneath the ramp. The one below was swinging around on the rope. He looked like he was checking the bolts on the underside of the ramp. He had a great movement to him, I mean he would have made a great sort of jungle man or something, swinging through the trees, except of course there’s no trees around here. You’d sooner get a brick of gold than a tree.

The ropeman was just swinging through the air and pushing his feet off the columns and his shadow went all over the place. It was nice to look at really. He was skinny and dark and I thought I recognised him from the Well, but I couldn’t see his face I was so far away.

A lot of the men from the overpass come into the Well for lunchtime and even at night for a few jars. Most of them are Dubs, although there’s a few culchies and even a couple of foreigners. We don’t serve the foreigners, or at least we don’t serve them quickly because there’s always trouble. As Tommy says, the Well has enough trouble without serving foreigners. Imagine having foreigners, says Tommy. There’s problems enough with the locals.

Not that Jamie was ever trouble. Jamie, when he came to the Well, he sat in the corner and sometimes even read a book, he was that quiet. He drank a lot of water sometimes. I think I know why but I don’t make judgments. We were surprised when we heard about him shooting up on the building site, though. Jamie never seemed like the sort, you know. Jamie was a good young fella. He was 17.

I looked back at the field and all of a sudden the sun went behind the towers and the shadows got all long and the whole field went much darker.

Jamie was still watching the ropeman on the overpass. The horse didn’t seem to mind moving now. Jamie only tapped it with the inside of his heel and the horse got to going straight off. She went right through the goalposts and past all the burnt-out cars and she stepped around a couple of tyres and even gave a little kick at a collie that was snapping at her legs and then she went along the back of the clinic at the far end of the field. Jamie looked confident riding it bareback. Even though it was going very slow Jamie was holding on tight to his little girl so she wouldn’t get bumped around.

In the distance the ropeman was still swinging under the overpass.

It was going through my head who the hell he was I couldn’t remember. People were getting on and off the lift behind me and a couple of them stood beside me and asked, Mary what’re you looking at? I just told them I was watching the overpass go up and they said fair enough and climbed into the lift. They must have thought I was gone in the head a bit, but I wasn’t. I hadn’t had a drink all day even after my shift.

I was thinking, Jesus, Jamie what’re you up to?

He was going in rhythm with the horse, slow, towards the overpass, the baby still clutched to him only in her nappy and maybe the soother still in her mouth I couldn’t see. There were a couple of youngsters playing football not too far from the overpass and Jamie brought the horse straight through the middle of their jumpers which were on the ground for goalposts. One of the jumpers caught on the hoof of the horse and the goal was made bigger and the youngsters gave Jamie two fingers but he ignored them.

That was where the shadows ended. There was only a little bit of sun left but Jamie was in it now, the sun on his back and the sun on his horse and – like it was a joke – a big soft shite coming from the horse as she walked.

Jamie went up to the chicken-wire fence that was all around the overpass to stop vandals but the chicken wire was cut in a million places and Jamie put one hand on the horse’s neck and guided her through the hole in the wire.

He was gentle enough with the horse. He bent down to her back, and his baby was curled up into his stomach and all three of them could have been one animal.

They got through without a scrape.

That was when I saw the knife. It came out of his back pocket, one of those fold-up ones that have a button on them. The only reason I saw it was because he kept it behind his back and when he flicked the button it caught a tiny bit of light from the sun and glinted for a second. I said “fuck” and began running out from the lifts through the car park into the field towards the overpass. Twenty smokes a day but I ran like I was 15 years old. I could feel the burning in my chest and my throat all dry and the youngsters on the football field stopping to look at me and saying jaysus she must have missed the bus. But I could see my own youngsters in Jamie. That’s why I ran. I could see my young Michael and Tibby and even Orla. I could see them in Jamie. I ran I swear I’ll never run like that again even though I was way too late.

I was only at the back of the clinic when Jamie stopped the horse right beneath the ramp. I tried to give a shout but I couldn’t, there was nothing in my lungs. My chest was on fire, it felt like someone stuck a hot poker down my throat. I had to lean against the wall of the clinic. I could see everything very clearly now. Jamie had ridden the horse right underneath where the ropeman was swinging. Jamie said something to him and the ropeman nodded his head and shifted in the air a little on the rope. The ropeman looked up to his friends who were on the ramp. They gave him a little slack on the rope. The ropeman was so good in the air that he was able to reach into his pocket and pull out a packet of cigarettes as he swung. He flipped the lid on the box and negotiated the rope so he was in the air like an angel above Jamie’s head.

Ropeman
Jamie stretched out his hand for the cigarette, took it, put it in his mouth and then said something to the ropeman, maybe thanks. The ropeman was just about to move away when the knife came and caught him on the elbow. I could see his face. It was pure surprise. He stared at his arm for the second it took the blood to leap out. Then he curled his body and he kicked at Jamie but Jamie's knife caught him on the leg. Jamie's baby was screaming now and the horse was scared and a shout came from the men up on the ramp. That's when I knew who they were. They were the Romanians, shouting in their own language. I remembered them from the Well the day we refused them service. Tommy said they were lucky to walk, let alone drink, taking our jobs like that, fucking Romanians. They didn't say a word that day, just thanked me and walked out of the Well. But Jesus they were screaming now and their friend was in midair with blood streaming from him, it was like the strangest streak of paint in the air, it was paint going upwards because his friends were dragging on the rope, bringing him up to the sky, he wasn't dead of course, but he was just going upwards.

I looked away from the Romanians and at Jamie. He was calm as could be. He turned the horse around and slowly began to move away. He still had the baby in his arms and the cigarette in his mouth but he had dropped the knife and there were tears streaming from Jamie’s eyes.

I leaned against the wall of the clinic and then I looked back towards the flats. There were people out in the corridors now and they were hanging over the balconies watching. They were silent. Tommy was there too with our young ones. I looked at Tommy and there was something like a smile on his face and I could tell he was there with Jamie and, in his loneliness, Tommy was crushing the Romanian’s balls and he was kicking the Romanian’s head in and he was rifling the Romanian’s pockets and he was sending him home to his dark children with his ribs all shattered and his teeth all broken and I thought to myself that maybe I would like to see it too and that made me shiver, that made the night very cold, that made me want to hug Jamie’s baby the way Jamie was hugging her too.