Barefoot Pilgrimage. Andrea Corr
rebel. Her jilted girlfriend left, thinking she may have in fact won, and her mouth saying, on receipt of the news from her up-down eyes:
‘He has a very good-looking face but he is a bit short in the leg.’
But Jean thought that the way this beautiful man-face was looking at her more than made up for the deficit in the leg. And so they courted, he picking her up in his racing green Fiat 500 and stopping not far from McSwiney Street where they kissed and she told him that she loved his face.
‘So do ye think ye might marry me someday?’ he said, and she laughed at the irony of the man with all the words, having so few.
‘Shelling Hill’ by Gerry Corr
You’d be blessed to find it; down tortuous track
Hardly the breadth of Cooley’s fabled hero,
Not to mention Maeve’s brown bull.
From the beginning it was our private place
Our little car, almost without bidding,
Bringing us there each Sunday
One day a cow came by,
Drawn not by the scent of forbidden fruit
But by blameless apple,
Mooing an end to our caresses
Passion and laughter not a good mix.
Poor bedfellows, you might say.
We laughed again on another day
When words unbidden dropped in on us
‘Do you think you might marry me one day?’
I swear a passing dog smiled,
The ocean roared, of course,
And the Lord of sky beamed a blessing.
My lady trembled a little
As in girlish excitement
Until a giggle breached it’s frantic confine
And we took refuge in each other’s arms.
‘Who said that?’ I said, and we laughed
And laughed, and laughed.
Cupid’s cheeky chariot joined in later
Rocking and rolling us
Home to Dundalk …
22 February 2000
And all would be content ever after but for Gerry having a penchant for revealing the gap teeth.
He thought that if God, when pouring in lashings of love, had not mixed in equal measures of hope and fear, then it might not have been so delicious to go to such wicked measures. But then again, if easily won, would it have been so rewarding?
Years passed as they do in Grimm fairytales. Jean’s tummy grew and grew, again and again and again, and out came Jim Gerard Sharon Caroline and Andrea. A family band.
‘This is PG’ Grimm thought for the very first time, and hoped they’d forget the second boy Gerard. And so …
Hope, Fear and the Beetroot
One day a guttural and terrifying scream did interrupt the fledglings at their various offices above and had them racing down the stairs to see …
… their father doubled over by the open door of the fridge, coughing into a pool of blood! With mouths open and poised to join their petrified mother in this primitive and tribal chorus, they observed that the cough had morphed into a laugh … For one could not miss opportunities when they presented themselves so beautifully, he thought … We don’t cry over spilled milk … but poor Mammy does … All over the spilled juice from a jar of pickled beetroot.
Baa.
Sorry, Jean.
The Cross Pen
It must be acknowledged that the father, though terribly cuddly, was betimes a grumpy daddy.
‘You’re in a bad mood again, Daddy.’
‘I AM NOT IN A BAD MOOD!!!’
Various sounds and head-jerks alerted us to his internal weather system. Grumbles and groans, muted thunder and bolts, and the head jolting twice, three times to the left with the assumed objective of loosening an invisible suffocating collar and tie. Or a noose, perhaps.
He appeared home from work this day with the aspect of a man whose inner sky has clouded over an oppressive grey.
‘Have any of you seen my Cross pen?’
One can only imagine now the afflicted individual who, on opening his bag at work earlier, discovered to his chagrin the aforesaid missing biro. And therein the brew began …
‘No, Daddy.’
And so it was daily for approximately eight bewildered days, with the question gathering variants in meaning and expression, such as:
‘Did any of you take my Cross pen?’
And punctuated with ‘Ach’s’ galore.
‘Ach!’
On perhaps the sixth day I had found myself deeply fatigued with the Cross pen, so I decided to say:
‘No, I haven’t seen your Cross pen,’ just when he had begun the refrain, ‘Did any o—’
‘No.’
On the eighth day we duetted again, according to the scripture, except this was different.
‘Lo, what’s this?’ I remarked to myself. ‘My longest exhausted noooooooooooooo has failed to put an end to today’s song?’
‘Everyone, I want you to check your school bags for my Cross pen.’
‘Tssk, Daddy, it’s not in my school bag! I didn’t take your stupid [inner voice … as that, I am not] Cross pen!’
‘Just check it, Andrea.’ (Weather warning: Pandy when cuddly, Andrea when not.)
So poor wee me drags my school bag in with my own weather. My ochs and huffs and blows and I start to pull stuff out of my bag. I really am above all this carry-on now, when … wait … what is that shine of silver peeping out of Bran, my riveting reading book?
Oh …
I just could not understand it. I ran off crying.
‘I still feel bad about that one, Pandy. That one took a while.’
Baa.
Inherited Wickedness
And so we did it too, to each other, and admittedly I fear I was the worst because:
‘You’re boring me now, Andrea,’ was as regular as the Angelus.
Oh, the Angelus always makes me think funny thoughts. You know the visual montage they play on the TV to the sound of the dong-dongs? Random people in various jobs putting down tools, if they have any, and pausing to reflect on God (as ye do at six o’clock every day)?
The farmer turning off the tractor, looking up to the right at … I presume God, but we don’t actually see Him (oh that’s something to reflect on right there … it’s working!).
The mammy (there she is again) resting on her hoover to look out the window at the tweety birds circling … (or are they above her head, haha).
Nature, nature, glorious nature. It’s everywhere!
Babbling