The Wake - Table of contents

The Wake - afters (24)

We were well fed in the morning, big doorsteps of brown bread and butter and bits of bacon on them. Somebody came round too with pots of tea and we drank in turn, I think there were about twenty cups to go round the whole lot of us but it was great. I’d been living on fish and chips mostly for three days so bacon was like caviar, not that I’ve got the least notion what caviar tastes like. Aisling looked brilliant in her duffel coat and dirty jeans as we started down the road past Desmond’s factory and I kissed her again, and then again and again until she pulled back embarrassed.

“Cool it Jeremiah, they’ll be throwing us off the march.” Her face was so beautiful under the urchin hair I could have eaten it. But there was a problem and that was my feet. I’m talking about a big problem here. My heart wanted to walk with her forever but my feet were wrecked. She knew it too the way I was walking.

“You won't be able to make it to Derry,” she said. “Maybe you should try and get something for it. There’s bound to be a chemist’s open in Claudy. What's the time do you know?”

“Twenty past ten. I saw one up the street there a bit but if I went back now I’d never catch up with the march.”

“Of course you would. Sure I’ll go with you. I’ll treat your feet and then we can thumb a lift and we’ll be back with the march in no time.”

Her eyes were burning blue in the morning light. Her gaze was open and loving and she was thinking only of me. I’d say if some genie had made us the offer of being together anywhere else in the world just then she’d have come with me no matter about her politics.

“Right,” she said. “Frances, Jeremiah and me are going to get some ointment and dressings. I’d say we’ll probably only be about twenty minutes. We’ll catch up.”

The dyke wasn’t pleased. “I don’t think you should do that,” she muttered.

“Frances is right,” I said. “Yous go on. I’ll be with yous shortly.” I spoke in a mind made up way that wasn’t taking no for an answer. This was because the dust and sweat of three days marching was layered on top of a certain amount of ingrained dirt between my toes and I wasn’t going to have Aisling seeing and smelling that, not to mention touching it. It was all very well for Shakespeare to say love is not love that alters when it alteration finds but he never saw my feet.

Aisling looked up at me and I thought for a second she was going to cry. “Go now then,” she whispered. “The sooner you get it done the better. We don’t know what’s up the road.”

“Just in case I miss you,” I said, “how about we arrange to meet in Derry?”

She nodded. “Where?”

“City Hotel. What, four o’clock?”

She nodded again and then she unbuttoned her duffel coat and held me against her in a full-length arms around my neck embrace that wasn’t far off making love over again and it was as if she had me up in the air and I couldn’t feel my feet. It went on for the time it took the marchers to pass us and they whooped and clapped as they passed. One man one girl and You shall overcome and Aye ye boy ye they were shouting and hands were ruffling my hair. Then she was away and everybody with her.

I hobbled up the street to the first chemist’s I saw and got what I needed. The girl behind the counter seemed to know I was a marcher and when she saw the way I was walking she offered to treat me herself. Goodlooking girl too but I had my pride. About fifty yards down the road I found a place to sit, a low wall beside a trickling stream, and I went about fixing myself the best way I could. Then I got to my feet again and started to walk. It was agony. Whatever I’d done I’d made it worse. After a minute or two I found a hen-toed way of going that was just about bearable. But it’s funny how your feet can be nearly killing you and you can still take in certain things, like sunlit dapples I saw on garden grass under a holly tree. It was the most amazing midwinter I ever remember, more like the middle of spring. Usually the snow was on the ground at the start of the year but I’d never seen anything like this, a mild sun warming me on the fourth of January. I made my way to the bottom of the street hen-toeing along like the lame boy in the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The lame boy left behind while Michael Farrell led the wonderstruck Marxists into the mountain never to be seen again.

A car drew up alongside of me and I heard the voice asking “Are you one of the marchers?” Frisson of fear. What do I say?

“I’m okay thanks.” That should do. Walk on. Look straight ahead. I walked on and looked straight ahead. He came after me, easing up to the footpath, first time in my life I’d been kerbcrawled.

“Here, hop in.” Legs wobbly below the knees and a rush of something all the way down inside. I looked behind me. I couldn’t see anyone, not a soul in sight, it was as if Claudy had emptied. Christ.