One Last Candle

pickarooney

This is, I think, the first thing I've written since I ditched my novel, so it's a bit of a throwaway (a rebound story, if you will). I haven't rewritten or even reread it and I don't really think it will go anywhere, but I have to refine my writing style before I start another book, so I need the practice. Any comments at all welcome.

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Cissie Cummins gripped the receiver, counted to five and picked up.
"Well", said a familiar voice, before she had time to gather her own and say hello.
"Pagan", she acknowledged, steeling herself. She couldn't let herself get unsettled; this could be important.
"Grand day is in it", said the sing-song voice at the end of the line.
Indeed and it wasn't. There was a big oul hoor of a black cloud hovering, waiting to drench her washing the minute she put it out. Let him come out with it, for the love of God. She hated these calls. There was a pause now. She knew it was her turn but at the same time 'twas him as called and it wasn't to say 'Grand day'.

"Well so, I suppose I'd better...", he began again.
"Now...", she cut him off, half warning, half pleading. Let him come out with it. "Will ye be dropping by? I have an oul cake neads atin'"
"Ah no, sure... you know yourself."

She bleddy well did know. Pagan Dunne was only an oul blackguard to be teasing her like this. Couldn't just say Happy Birthday and be done with it. Couldn't just come over and ate a slice o' cake and sip a hot drop of tay. Always had to be proddin' and pokin' and...

"Right", she bristled, "right so, sure I know how busy ye are."
"Grand so. I'll let ya off then Cissie."
You do that, Pagan Dunne. You leave me with the bit of peace I have left in me mind ye baldy bollicks. She wanted to slam the phone down, mash it into the cradle and Pagan Dunne's face with it. But he wouldn't hang up first. No, he'd wait for her to gently lower the phone and go back to her quiet kitchen. There was no point turning the wireless on any more since Gaybo was gone. There wouldn't be another like him for a long, long time.

Three score and ten. Wasn't it a fine how-do-you-do to be sitting here on her own on her seventieth birthday with a cake and no-one to ate it and no-one to talk to. She knew she should have been missing Brendan, but the truth was she was glad he was gone. Nearly ten years now since she'd buried the man's body but nearly twenty since she last saw the light in his soft, brown eyes. Old-timer's. For ages she hadn't picked up on it. The poor crathur was barely fifty when his mind started to slip. Even when she'd read it the first couple of times she hadn't made the connection. Old-timer's disease. She'd kept calling it that, out of spite or out of pride, until there wasn't a sparkle of Brendan left and she found herself praying for God to take him every night.

Cissie stood up, determined not to be beaten at this early hour. In the bockety drawer under the sink there was a lump of a candle somewhere. She laid her hand on it straight away and turned to grab a box of matches off the shelf beside the range. The box was gone e'er her hand got near it, as though it had lepped off the shelf onto the floor, scattering its phosphorous brains all over the hearth. **** them. She was in no mood to go foostering around on her hands and knees after a pack of bleddy matches. She kicked out at the box, sending the last few matchsticks flying.

There was a lighter in her little pipe-box, a red one that should still have some gas in it. It had been a long time since she'd smoked that pipe. Brendan's pipe. She'd only tried it the once while he was alive and a handful of times afterwards. It was only enjoyable as long as she'd felt bowld sucking on it, pulling the dirty, blue smoke into her singer's lungs. It had been a long time since she'd last sang too.

Anythin' stirrin'?
Divil a bit!

Nigh on ten years she'd had to put up with people asking her. Meddlers, the lot of them. What was it to them if she was or wasn't. She'd laugh it off in the begining, although it wasn't long till her heart was bruk chimin' out 'Divil a bit!', 'Indeed and there's not!', 'Soon, please God' when all she wanted to do was scream 'Would ye **** off and mind ye're own business!'

It wasn't for the want of trying. Brendan could be a crotchety oul **** and was never one for doin' anythin' about the house but by God did he make up for it. Every night from the moment he slipped that ring on her finger the sun couldn't go down fast enough for Cissie Cummins. She had no idea if it was the same for the other women but she was hard pressed to imagine Dorothy Lyng or Jo-Jo Maguire enjoying herself like that. Or her own mother, may the lord have mercy on her. It didn't bear thinking about. She knew she was blessed. No doubt it was the hardest thing to let go of. She wouldn't have minded so much Brendan forgetting her name (and he did, often) or putting his shoes on arseways, but when one day he just fell asleep without a word she knew something had died.

Pagan Dunne was no Brendan Cummins, that was for sure. He was a spiteful little man, truth be told but still, he had some class of a sparkle about him she couldn't ignore. Well he knew it too, the bollicks. If he'd only come straight out and say something to her, she might have been inclined to consider it. Who was she codding, she would've leapt at the chance.

Two years now, two years he'd been taunting her and teasing her. What more did he want her to do before he'd finally spake up? She'd had him over God knows how many times for a hot drop and a few scones, she'd bought a new outfit and even started wearing a bit of make-up when she knew he'd be around. She'd even offered to come down and tidy up that pig-sty of a house of his.

But no, whatever was or wasn't going to happen had to be on his terms, apparently.

She pushed the candle into the soft centre of the cake and watched as it tipped over. There was no use lighting it now, no point straightening it only for it to fall over again. She thought of Brendan, the subtle smile at the edges of his mouth as he turned off the kitchen light. She thought of Pagan and that smirk of his as he held her hand too long at the Peace-be-with-you and the way it still felt warm at the end of mass. The cloud outside began to spit down on her rhubarb and her scallions and the dried-up strawberry plants that would never yield fruit. She shivered as the window went dark and the apple trees started to sway. It was only ten in the morning but it felt as if the day was already done. She couldn't wait for the sun to go down.

Whattosell

I read this and wondered why I bother writing myself because I couldnt match this. Really excellent, shades of JB Keane and McGahern. High praise to the author!