Minding
scenes from a work in progress

Going home from abroad was a tricky time for Aidan Mannion.
He was a journalist, spending just enough time in the sweet
centres of European capitals to make the return to his
native land a shock. It began in the airport when he heard
the first Irish voices. His neck slightly stiffened. There
was a guy who looked like a Guard but sounded like a
teacher. And a prick with a panama hat who looked Irish
too. Aidan lingered in the Duty Free shop to hear his voice.
" What'll we get ? Brandy? Port?"
" Yes, brandy and port is nice " said the Irish prick's
wife.
When he boarded the plane he found he was sitting right
behind them. The prick said " What did you like best ?"
" The light. "
The plane began its short fierce sprint down the runway,
the prick blessed himself, then with a bump they were in the
air. Aidan glanced out the window, down through a clear mile
of sky at a parquet floor of French farmland. In twenty
minutes it had turned to shining tinfoil, already they were
crossing the Channel. The prick was still talking.
" Did you like the Poussins ?"
" No, they're too cold."

" I bought a print of his Summer," The prick went on
talking as the hostess served lunch. " An interesting thing
about Poussin is how egalitarian he is. The labourers in the
corn field are given the same importance as the foreground
figures. They're all absorbed in that animated landscape."
The voice -- light, flutey, middle class Dublin -- irritated
Aidan so much he wanted to lean forward and shove the panama
hat down over the prick's face. He looked out the window
again. The coast of Wales was falling behind, then the Irish
Sea. The plane began its descent.
" What's that ?" The prick was looking out the window.
Smoke was billowing up from the Dublin hills.
" They're probably burning the heather."
" Home again. " The prick smiled." Good old Ireland."
Aidan felt his neck stiffening again.

He was behind them in the coach too. It was raining. The
coach driver wore a jazzy zipped cardigan instead of his
uniform jacket, he had a transistor on the dashboard playing
a football commentary. The Conduire a Gauche and Links
Fahren signs changed to Irish and English, the new motorway
ran out like a river into estuary marsh. They were in the
drab, ramshackle streets of North Dublin. They passed under
a railway bridge walled with a giant Guinness advertisement:

" Did you buy anything for your father ?"
The prick shook his head." Did you ?"
She reached into a carrier bag and took out what looked
like a waistcoat made of piebald ponyskin. The prick
laughed, a quiet nasal laugh that seemed to twist Aidan's
neck, forcing him to look at the blonde hair that curled
up from the collar of the linen jacket to the brim of the
panama hat, at the schoolboy mouth and delicate nose. He
was looking out the window. Aidan looked too. They were
passing a new mean terrace of corporation houses, a decrepid
row of betting-fish-and-chip-newsagent-carpet-kitchen-furniture
shops. Newspaper bowled along the broken pavement
like tumbleweed. A stunned looking woman at a bus stop stuck
out her hand. The coach jerked forwards again.
" We're a race of tinkers." The prick smiled.
Aidan stood up and pressed the bell.
In ten minutes he was in his newspaper office, at his desk
returning calls, opening letters, reading fax and E Mail.
The tricky time was over. In the morning, he knew, he would
be at home again in this slipshod city.
He was leaving his desk when the phone rang.
" Aidan ? Is that you ?"
" Mammy ? " Neck stiffening yet again." Paddy died. "
" When ?"
" I'm only after hearing." His mother went on " Would you
ring James and tell him."
" Did Daddy not ring him ?"
" Don't you know he doesn't like to ."
" Why ?" He knew why.
" Jesus, can't you ring him."

Adrian Kenny, 15 June 1999