A Taster...

This is the beginning of a novel I hope to write. I would like some feedback on the writing itself, please. Is it something you would like to read and does it hold any promise?

Prologue

It was a strange feeling, being completely alone in the world. Standing there, staring into the sodden rusty earth while dirty drizzle played with wisps of her light hair and made her face look sweaty, she wondered where he was now. He certainly wasn’t there anyway, not in any real sense. She thought about the weight of the earth on top of the coffin, how it would compound once it had settled, and all of a sudden, she felt the weight of it on her chest, on her shoulders, on every part of her body. She couldn’t bear the weight of it all and yet she knew she just had to stand there. Droplets tracked through the lines of her face to her lips. She would have thought it was the rain only she could taste the salt. Staring further down, she could barely make his name out on the brass plate now. Thomas Joseph Gallagher, Died 24^th March 2014. Yes, she could say with certainty now that she was completely alone in the world. He had definitely gone and left her. She didn’t know where he was, but he wasn’t with her. Staring into the gaping hole in the earth, she felt emptier than she had ever known. The blackness spread through her and she wondered if this was something like the feeling that led him to leave her in the first place and, for the first time, she recognised his pain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One

“MARY!”

S**t.

“MARY! Get down here this instant!”

She was in for a lecture and she knew it. Her insides curdled and the heat rose up in her, all the way to her face. She was puce by the time she met her Mother in the kitchen, and so any hope she had of denying everything was gone.

Her mother was standing by the stove, lifting her glove from her hand, finger by finger, each in turn until she plucked the soft brown leather from her hand and laid it on the countertop, one of those formica ones, seen in every kitchen in the country.

“Is there anything you might like to tell me Mary?” The stony eyed stare bore into the back of her skull, and Mary felt the heat drain, replaced by a racking fear. She almost wished she hadn’t done it now…almost. She stayed silent, not out of any particular robust decision-making on her part, more because she was partially frozen with fear, and had apparently become a mute.

“I was down below with Mrs. Gallagher there, dropping up the parish newsletter to her. Very interesting things she had to say… Any idea as to what kind of interesting things she had to say Mary?”

“No”, Mary squawked. Flashes of her excitement pierced her vision. She felt his skin on hers. She felt the cold wet of his shirt, and warm wet of his mouth.

“Mrs. Gallagher says she found this in the back utility.” Her Mother opened her canvas bag, and drew out a pale pink vest. “Stuck between the washing machine and the spuds she said.”

She couldn’t help it. The edges of her lips coiled in a shy smile and she let her auburn locks fall over her face for cover. So that’s where it had ended up. She had plagued him to search again for it so this wouldn’t happen and he assured her he had scoured the place to no avail. Now their secret was out. They couldn’t hide the romance any longer, though she was sure it had been plain for anyone, who spent more than a few minutes in their company, to see.     

“No girls in the Gallagher household, and this looks uncannily like yours Mary. In fact, I think I bought it for you in Dunne’s last month. How in the name of God did it get into Gallagher’s house?”

A burgeoning pride was welling up inside her and she felt brave in that moment. She was afraid of her Mother, surely, but she couldn’t hide it any longer, didn’t want to. She loved Tommy Gallagher, she was sure of it. Of course they would try to tell them they were too young, “Sure what would you know about love?”, “Sure ye’re only children!” , but Tommy had said that he really liked her. She knew that meant love, it’s just Irish men can’t express their feelings, her Aunt Aoife had been telling her that for years sure.  

“Well yes, it’s mine,” she answered her Mother square and directly, with some conviction. Her Mother paled.

“And how did it end up in the Gallagher’s spuds Mary?” she spat the words through flared nostrils and a tight mouth.

Mary’s bravery was wielding somewhat and, a little deterred, she decided it might be best to fudge things a little.

“Ah Mammy, I just got soaking wet on the home from school and we waited in the Gallagher’s house until the rain stopped. But sure I was soaked so Tommy said I could, eh, change and he’d hang the clothes in the utility room. He gave me a tracksuit to get home in. I just forgot it, that’s all. He was very kind. I would have frozen otherwise.” She surprised herself with her convincing tone, probably helped by the partial truth in her story.

They had been soaked, the pair of them. On Fridays they met at 1.30 at the shop in between the two schools, on account of the half-day every Friday. Sometimes they went to the library in town to feign study, ending up doodling on each other’s books. More often these days they walked home the long way, through Behan’s Lane and the back fields to their road. On that day, it was warm, but the sky was heavy and they knew they’d get caught in it, but it didn’t matter to Mary. They’d grown up as neighbours, 6 houses apart. She’d always known him of course, but it wasn’t until she started in the secondary school that that ever spent any real time together. At 16 now, they were inseparable. Well, on Friday afternoons at least.

Tommy was finishing school this year. He really should have been studying for his exams, but he just couldn’t sit there for hours on end on a Friday afternoon! Thoughts of Mary would creep into his mind’s eye and a few of the other girls, if he was being honest, and just distracted him entirely. Who cared about the cosine rule when what he really wanted to know all about wasn’t in a book. Oh Tommy liked Biology sure enough, Anatomy in particular. He had vehemently promised his Mother he would stay in the library this afternoon, but he couldn’t let such an opportunity pass him by. His Mother would be in Dublin for the whole day, she wouldn’t be back until after 6 o’clock.

The fields behind their road were perfect. There was supposedly a fairy fort in the centre so nobody dared build on it. The residents would hold big bonfires there every Hallowe’en, before it was frowned upon. Tommy and Mary thought it was their place, and they had gone there on that Friday afternoon. Lying in the grass on her side, her hand propping up her head, Mary looked at the little box Tommy had placed in front of her. She recognised it instantly and blushed furiously.

“How did you get them? You didn’t buy them did you?!” She panicked. If he had bought them, Mrs. Kelly in the pharmacy could tell her Mother.

“I asked Joe. He said not to be stupid and use them. Not that we have to use them. I mean, you know, not that we have to… just if we do… then we should use them, you know.”

She knew he was right. Another reason that she was sure she loved him. She thought about him all the time, last thing at night, first thing in the morning. She loved their Friday afternoons and the way she melted into his arms when they kissed. He was skinny, but she didn’t mind. She loved the way he wore his hair long. She had heard other girls say, “That Tommy would be good lookin’ if he cut that mop” but, to her, he was the epitome of cool. He loved The Smiths, and Morrissey and read Hot Press.   

She leaned in and kissed him. A lingering kiss that made her want more. She felt the first droplets of rain land on her bare legs.

“Let’s go,” she said, hopping up and offering her arms for him. She pulled him up from the ground, and he wrapped his arms around her waist, taking her in and kissing her full on the mouth.

The heavy sky opened and the downpour that followed was the very one that had them soaked to the skin. Running through the field, through the opening in the ditch, onto their road, all the way to Gallagher’s - they didn’t stop until they got to the back door, and Tommy scrambled for keys to let them in.

And there they were, in the utility room, with the box of condoms burning a hole in Tommy’s wet pocket of his grey pants, looking at each other. They dropped their school bags and he edged towards her.

“Mam’s gone to Dublin.”

“When is she back?”

“Not until 6.”

Tommy’s hair stuck to the side of his face. She lifted her hand and moved it behind his ear, following through with a kiss that told him what she wanted. He walked her backwards to the wall, bumping her into the washing machine and holding her there.

And so, the pink vest ended up between the washing machine and the sack of spuds in the utility room.

He had been surprised at how womanly she was. Tormented for years by the thoughts of what lay underneath those school blouses, and how they lay, trying to imagine every part of her, Tommy realised now that Mary was eons ahead of him in the race to adulthood. He felt like a lanky lad beside her mature figure, ribs jutting out at ugly angles and his vanilla white skin textured only by the odd pimple, not a chest hair in sight. Yet his insecurities were brushed away by the touch of her hand and what followed was a heady mixture of hot and cold, dry and wet, soft and hard; the memory of which had been etched in his brain. Aside from the memory, the experience was something that clung to him, it formed part of the foundation of him and he could not extricate himself from it.

Years later, she had similar effect on him. A simple hand on his shoulder eased him, inexplicably. He would rather she hadn’t that effect on him, it would have made things infinitely more simple.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two

Claire had decided that it would best to have the tea and sandwiches in the Glenside Lounge rather than at the house. Tom liked the pints there on the Friday night, and when they had been married first, they spent quite a few nights there until the early hours. She couldn’t welcome everyone into their home on a day like today, especially with things as they were.

Peter English had put on a good spread for the day that was in it. “No problem Claire, don’t worry about a thing. We’ll have it sorted for you,” he had said. And he had. Peter and Tom had been good pals and Peter liked him. He couldn’t say he had always agreed with him, but Tom was a gentle sort in truth. Running a pub like the Glenside Lounge certainly opened your eyes to the world, to life in general. A messy business. The pub business had its moments too. He knew there wouldn’t be much in the way of funds coming to him for today, but sometimes, it wasn’t about that. To hell with it, he made sure there was a chicken curry and rice dish there for the funeral goers, along with the sandwiches and tea. He owed the man that at least.

He preferred to think of Tom as he was before. When Peter decided to take over the pub here, it was Tom who made him feel truly welcome. It was Tom who suggested he bring in a few musicians to play out the back bar, even loaned him a few bob to clean the place up, and only for that, Peter wouldn’t have lasted a year in business. When Tom and Claire came in, Tom was always the life and soul of the bar, and he would strum a few tunes in the later hours with Claire sitting back, taking it all in.

He was glad that he hailed from elsewhere. As a publican, it absolved him of all sins he may have committed by being born into a particular local family. He had no particular loyalties in the town and took everyone as they came to him. He had the luxury of objectivity and kept his opinions to himself. “Those splinters must be hurting your arse”, he’d been told, “that fence can’t hold you up for much longer.” He was content to sit on the fence, meddling in other folks’ business was not his style and he wouldn’t like to presume he knew anything about anyone when all comes to all. You never know what goes on behind closed doors, and less about the workings of peoples’ minds.

Peter glimpsed at Claire who had taken a seat in the corner, taking a break from the handshakes and toothless, pity-laden semi-smiles that seemed to fill a funeral. She was surrounded by her family, for now. God, but Tom hadn’t deserved her. She had always been a gem of a girl. She was pretty, too. She wouldn’t necessarily turn your head in a crowd, but, once you looked, you noticed that her eyes an unusual hazel-green and the little overlap on her front teeth endeared her to you. In her younger days, she was well admired and she had more than a few offers. In the corner, she looked worn out, as she had done for a few years at this stage, and the familiar sparkle in her eyes had long since disappeared.

 

 

 

 

Three

Thomas always had trouble making decisions, even over small things. He found clothes shopping was better handled by the women in his life, though he was particular about his music  t-shirts. Deciding what to choose at a restaurant always resulted in envy when the plates arrived. Perhaps it was just luck then that his Mother knew best, which she assured him she always did. “The blue shirt is better on you.” “Have the steak dear, you can have chicken at home. And that pasta stuff clogs you up.” He was often mortified by her prattling but when Mary was around, it was just too much for any self-respecting teenager to bear.

Mrs. Gallagher was a formidable woman to say the least. She left no stone unturned and rarely held back on her words.

“Mary, I’m telling you now. There will be no more hanging around here until after those exams. It’s for his own good. I don’t mind telling you that you caused a severe upset in the study routine here and I’m sure now you wouldn’t want to be responsible for a wasted opportunity, am I right? I usually am. Mothers are you see. Anyway, that’s how it is going to be. You can see him in the summer and we’ll leave it at that.”

She had announced this one Sunday evening in April as Mary was heading home. The Leaving Certificate wasn’t until JUNE and there was no way that he could wait until then to see Mary. It was ludicrous. She only lived 6 houses down, he was bound to see her, and his Mother wouldn’t stop him.

And so the late night outings began.

Bungalows had their advantages. A well-oiled window allowed access to Mary’s room without any hassle whatsoever. They just had to be quiet. They planned it well, not too often so as not to jeopardise it. After a time, they weren’t shy around each other at all and they knew every part of the other. Every freckle on her back became another reason to love her. Every touch made them fall deeper. Who is too say what age is too young? Was it not real because they were stuck in their parent’s homes, strapped in a routine that they had to ride out? He loved the smell of her pillows and when he returned to his own bed, her scent was still with him, lingering on his skin and replayed it all in his head, over again, until he was fully sated.

Author's Note

Be honest!

Reviews

[rickm97]

WOW! Love it! Sexy without vulgarity. You held my interest from the very beginning. You're very good with the flow of words. Good solid characters. Can't wait to read the next chapters. I'm from Texas, but I could feel Ireland. Make me feel it some more.
Send me a shout when you've got one done.
Rick.