Barefoot Pilgrimage. Andrea Corr
when Ireland recognised that God loves all his children and got the chance to see many of them in real life (long live the one hundred thousand welcomes, and when faced with this chance to give thanks, may we never forget the céad mile fáiltes a million of our own starving refugees needed), as Ireland grew and changed, so too did the montage …
Now we have a Chinese lady looking up from her office desk (killed two isms with the one stone there) and I’m not even on the funny thoughts yet but you have them too, don’t you?
The man pausing his unrolling of the toilet roll to look up and ponder …
What are you supposed to do if the Angelus strikes then, tell me?
Eh, hold on a second now, God.
(He made me like this … God, I mean.
Hi, have I been introduced yet? No – ye left me out, of course ye did.
I’m Guilt.)
… Toes mid-curl at bottom of dishevelled, silken and moving, two-headed monster.
Baa.
Sorry, God.
Ahhhh! Air traffic control!!
Hmm. For some, the pause for the Angelus should most definitely not be observed.
‘Ellis Island’
On the second Sunday
Annie be my guide
Liberty’s a welcome
To an aching eye
We’ll grow up together
Far away from home
Crossed the sea and ocean
To the land of hope
Kingstown to Liverpool
Crossing the Irish Sea
You gotta keep your wits on you
Where you lay your head
Six minute medical
Leaving no chalk on me
Goodbye Ellis Island
Hello land of free
Every man and woman
Every boy and girl
Sing out Ellis Island
Sing a song of hope
Sing for us together
Sing we’re not alone
Sing we’ll go back someday
Sing we will belong
When the leaves are falling
And the sky is on the ground
We will come together
And sing of Ireland
Thanking Ellis Island
Thank you USA
You gave us a home here
Crying a brand new day
Queenstown to New York Bay
Wild Atlantic Ocean
You gotta keep your wits on you
Where you lay your head
Six minute medical
Leaving no chalk on me
Goodbye Ellis Island
Hello land of free …
Did they really do it to me, though?
If I’m honest, my only memorable humiliation was thinking we were all still playing hide-and-seek when they’d forgotten me, a thumb-sucking curl that Jim had manoeuvred into the top of the hot press … Ahhh, cradled in winter smells … Yum yum.
They didn’t even pronounce me missing.
I was likely found following another ‘Where’s Pandy?’
Thank you, Mammy.
But I had a nose for under your skin that wasn’t natural in a child.
Poor Mammy, she must have been going through the Change (distant screaming far off), because she screamed at every little thing.
‘Ahhhh!!!!’ was to be heard at regular intervals, and a few petrified, hair-raising:
‘Gerry!!!!!!’s
‘Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!’
‘Gerry!!!!!!’ … I’m actually doing it again …
… I’d fall down on the ground and writhe in agony for her …
‘Gerry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’
‘Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!’ Fighting the invisible bogeymen away from my twisting, turning, don’t-touch-me! head …
‘Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!’
What could it be? I needed to be prepared for all eventualities …
So what if it was just that she saw Caroline’s scrambled egg pot from earlier still sitting yellow and curdled in the sink … She’d told the bitch to CLEAN IT NOW fifteen minutes ago. But to me, then, life was like a disowned rucksack in a train station … You never know.
Baa.
Sorry, Mammy.
Comeuppance imminent, Pandy
And Jim was … How can I put it? Addictive. Yes, that’s it.
He was packing shelves in Tesco, on parole for not sitting his Leaving Cert. You see, he actually stood it up.
(I’d tripped over his school bag too many times, on my way to Paul’s, to not understand what they were roaring about inside. And to understand why he was grounded. Then I worked out that the grounding must be elsewhere because we can’t find Jim in his room and a window is open.)
And he had a TASCAM 244 studio in his purple bedroom with all of the manuals just waiting for him to feast on and get to know intimately.
It was a very difficult time. The artist’s Tesco blue period, I could say.
I honestly can hear a violin!
Oh, forget it. That’s just Sharon in her room.
How embarrassing.
Jim was ‘not in a good place right now’, as they say, and every day he awoke to find his nightmare was reality.
Now I love everyone here, you know that? It’s just a twitch.
I’m just as God made me.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh …
There was a hand gesture (no, not what you’re thinking, but).
A hand gesture, unique. (If you have interactive, press red now.)
It didn’t have sound, mostly; for mostly, it didn’t need it. And you wouldn’t want to be relying on that, when sometimes he is already on his way, in his prison blue overall, to pack the shelves (Andrex Quilted today) and he thinks it’s over and that he has won and that I couldn’t possibly be at the window now … but look!
I’m there.
I start with a serene, otherworldly smile, as if one has passed but is at peace. I am sublime and I am prophetic.
And then one discerns a subtle hand gesture emerging from my sleeve. A gesture that wouldn’t make sense to most and was a method of tortuous teasing unique to us. Like the ghost of the bird that is cupped in one’s hand, being ever so gently rocked to sleep. And then my face, all sad, ever so sad, like it’s a raindropped window through to the deep compassion and pity for my poor