Cork Words 3: Here we share stories by three local writers...

CORK Words 3 is the latest anthology prepared by Cork City Library – the third and final volume showcasing the work of some fantastic local writers.

Cork Words 3 offers the reader a wide selection of writing – short stories, poems and extracts of longer works. While most of the writing is in English, there are also contributions as gaeilge. A number of the contributions are also set in our home county. Here are some samples of the writing...

Smoke Break, by Darragh Flemming

His ancient hands rolled the brittle tobacco into narrow paper cigarettes. I was never much fond of the taste of them, but I wouldn’t deny him here. My mother always told not to refuse anything homemade. A shaky grip extended the rollies to me, and I accepted them with the type of smile you know is being forced, like in awkward photographs. The end of his dressing gown sleeve was stained from spilled tea and such, and there was the tail of a re-used paper napkin escaping by the wrist. His hands were all colours and bone. I sort of liked the way they looked, really. They looked to be a wise pair of hands. If an owl had hands they’d look like his.

We had to be quiet. Not silent – but unnoticeable. There was noise all around us. The beep-beep-beep and the chatter of bored scrubs eight hours deep into night-long shifts. If we were too urgent about things it would likely give us away and we’d be sent back into the room like bold children sneaking out beneath the cover of darkness. So Himself made elaborate plans amid gasping breath, which percolated down to one simple axiom – we were to go for a walk.

I hid the cigarettes in the pockets of my fleece jacket. The material of which was rough from years of constant wear. Himself was uneven on his feet when he stood. The hospital turned to a ship on stormy seas, and he clutched at my elbow to steady the boat. He’d have never been caught doing that years ago.

We got the jacket onto him. A warm looking one, and I gave him my scarf as if I didn’t want to be wearing it.

“What would I be needing that for?” he jabbed, but put in on anyway. Maybe not all the pride was drawn out of him yet. I smiled and he returned one of those small ones he did out from the corner of his mouth, and I could tell from the way he held his mouth that he would have spat on the floor if he’d been able to.

“You can spit to your heart’s content out there,” I nodded towards the window and he winked back at me. He always seemed to enjoy when I could tell what he was thinking.

We took it handy. Sure there was no one on us at all. The sterile corridors lit up for us like runways. I could tell Himself was itching for a smoke. How long had it been for him? At least a few days anyway. Slightly more than frowned upon in a place like this, in a situation like his. We glided down towards the elevators at a snail’s pace.

“My legs aren’t the same as they were before.” His turn of phrase was often poetic. “These are’t belonging to me at all.” He shook his head in frustration.

“You’re grand out, sure there’s no one on us,” I returned to him. And that was quite true in the saddest way.

We were in the elevator then. There was an orderly nurse in those sort of pinky-red scrubs too, but he mostly ignored us, leaning against the mirrored wall, texting. Himself coughed hard and wet into the napkin he’d removed from his damp sleeve. It sounded like death and streaks of pain flashed in his eyes briefly. He didn’t think I’d noticed so I kept up the charade.

We were very slow moving from the elevator. The doors threatened to close once but I kept them at bay with a forearm and ushered Himself into the corridor. The elevator opened right by the front door and a fresh breeze coursed through the automatic sliders toward us. I could tell it was cold out as icy breath passed between us. We stopped momentarily and I caught him looking up at me, the browns of his eyes still holding a curiosity. I think he used to be taller. I imagine a time when he might have towered over me. I would have only been a child in that reality, I suppose.

He caught my elbow again and we took off at our steady pace. I wondered if he could sense the end, feel it in his bones. The tick, tick, tick quietly fading. Perhaps this was why there was no harm in the cigarettes now. There’s no reversing what has already been set into motion. Himself would die soon. There’s no escape from that.

We lurched through the sliding doors unseen. We were just two of many tragic stories weaving in and out of that sickly beehive.

There was no rain falling yet, and the kerb side was busy with cars pulling up to let the injured out, or to let worried visitors in to see their loved ones. It was like the anthesis to the arrivals area of an airport. There were very few people excited to be here to see the people they loved.

I could tell the cold was getting into him. His breath caught and there was an ominous rattle with each inhale. His exhales were inconsistent plumes of cooling steam. He could barely talk through the heaves, so he fidgeted at my hand trying to instruct me to hand him his cigarette before we were caught. I guided Himself to a red bench a few metres down from the door where smoking was acceptable, although still deeply frowned upon. There was clear relief in his puffed-out cheeks when his legs found space to relax, and he seemed more at ease then despite the frosty air.

“Cold, isn’t it?” I was carefully taking out the rollies.

“I’m always feckin’ cold,” he said, stuffing one of his hands inside a coat pocket while the other one lingered for his cigarette.

“Reckoned it would start getting a bit milder this time of year.” There was nothing in that remark Himself felt worth commenting on, so he said nothing. He placed the rollie between his dry lips, and I lit it for him with the lighter he’d handed me. There was silence as the click-click-click ignited his tobacco and he inhaled deep. The first drag, as ever, was a simple euphoria.

He held it in the inexplicable way that told you he’d been smoking a lifetime. So casual and understated, like it was an extension of his arm. The way I held cigarettes was clumsy and awkward, the same way childless people hold babies. Not a notion what to be doing or where to be looking.

I lit my own rollie and sipped at a drag. I never really got into the tobacco scene. I hated the way it made my finger and clothes smell.

“Where’s your sister?” He was almost shouting up at me. The wind and his dodgy ears making him think it was louder than it was.

“Oh, she’s in work still. I think she’ll be up to you later.” I hated these small lies. He’d likely forget about it again, anyway.

He nodded deeply and rapidly the way old men sometimes do for no reason in particular. I wondered again whether he knew it was all but over. I was even surprised he had the energy to be out and about the place. He was definitely in a fog about other details, but I wondered if he knew the shortness of his remaining time.

“There wouldn’t be many in your spot be cheeky enough to sneak out for a fag, hah?” I threw him a smile as I changed the subject. The way the tobacco tasted made my stomach churn.

He said nothing for a moment. Taking a long inhale, the end of the rollie a single smouldering red against the white of his beard.

“Life is for living, sure.” He blew smoke up in my direction and let out a short chuckle. Unintentionally. He had nowhere else to look. I inhaled the second-hand tang of it.

All of sudden there was a shift in his eyes. They were glassy but glaring. They told me that he knew well enough alright.

From where we were – me standing and himself sitting on the metal red bench – we could see the edge of the car park where long-term visitors left cars to spend time with patients. My own car was up there towards the back somewhere. The night sky was clear, but the glare of the city’s life blotted out most of the stars above. There were only a handful visible to us. The moon was a sliver of a crescent high above providing little to no light. If you were out walking in the countryside it would have been no help.

We finished our smokes. Mine was only half gone but I crumpled it under foot so he wouldn’t see my poor attempt. He coughed again into his sleeve napkin before extending his skeletal hand towards me.

The shadows beneath his eyes were more charcoal than grey now. We took our time, his hand clawing around the inside of my elbow, his stride staggered like each step was a rep in a set of lunges. The scent of tobacco rose from his finger and lips as Himself breathed heavy lungfuls in and out. This time in the elevator he didn’t leave go of my elbow. There were no words out of him. I all but narrated our ascent back up. “Almost there now” and “It’s not as long on the way back, really” filled the space between us. The furrow across his hairy brow never left him and I speculated about the thoughts passing behind his eyes.

When we arrived back to his room – a room Himself occupied alone – he sat slowly, and I helped him to swing his legs up and into the cot. The eyes were heavy in his head. 

I placed his jacket back on the hook of the door and then I sat in the armchair next to him, which had that red shiny faux-leather and wooden armrests. I sat there quietly until Himself fell asleep which didn’t talk long, his breath rattling gently, his face a wrinkled quilt. In silence, I put back on my coat and took my scarf from where it lay on the end of the bed. As I left, rain started to patter against the window like pins and needles.

I stopped by the nurse’s station as always on my way out. A gentle-faced nurse in purple scrubs smiled up at me as I handed her over the form. It was one of those smiles that gives you a bit of hope.

“He’s very quiet tonight,” I said.

“Been like that the last few days. It tends to happen to them towards the end.”

She gave another type of smile then – a closed mouth smile that isn’t really a smile, more like an acknowledgement of some unsaid thing.

“We’ll let the service know if anything changes overnight anyway.”

She handed me back the form after signing it.

“I’ll hopefully see ye again on Thursday so, please God,” I said, as I saluted her with the folded paper and left.

When I arrived again to the hospital on Thursday there was no talk of secret cigarettes. The ones we’d snuck on Tuesday had been his last. His bed lay empty, the room awaiting its next occupant. I was assigned another patient – an elderly lady who could talk for Ireland. She was lovely, too, but she was nothing like Himself.

Platform 1, by Siobhan Henley

The limestone walls of Cork Kent station stand unchanged, although now, the hall is all glass, ticket machines and coffee outlets.

Here on the platform, engine fumes still catch in my throat. That familiar wind whistles towards me from the mouth of the tunnel. I have waited for you here, forever, it seems.

I am nineteen again and feel the excitement and longing, standing in this same spot. Will you be on the train?

We met at the end of summer in Chandras nightclub, on the Grand Parade. I was about to leave. Suddenly, you were there, all fluid limbs, dancing in your own world, oblivious to your surroundings. I felt so drawn to you and, uncharacteristically, touched your arm. Your eyes focussed, looked at me and smiled.

You had been accepted into Trinity on a degree course. I had just started as a junior reporter with the Cork Examiner. As we left together, you tucked your arm into the crook of mine, and it fitted there without question. We walked for hours, trading stories. Outside your sister’s flat, we kissed with a certainty.

You left for Dublin. I was finding my feet in the newspaper world. Both of us were in digs with payphones, and we had exchanged phone numbers. Our calls were sporadic, never private, peppered with beeps and frantic scrambling to get the coins into the slot before the time ran out.

So it was that first mid-term. As I left work that evening, I turned the single ten pence piece around in my hand. Passing a phone box, I dived in. The now-familiar number rang and rang and as I was about to hang up, I heard a crackled hello and, by chance or fate, you were there.

“It’s mid-term”.

“Yes,” you said.

“Are you coming home?” Bleep bleep bleep. I had seconds.

“I’ll be on the platform,” and, into the silence, I added…. “waiting.”

The next day, I was on the platform to meet the first train. And the second. As the passengers alighted from the third, I spotted you, the easy fluid movement as you walked towards me. You tucked your arm into the crook of mine, and it fitted there without question.

That platform has remained woven through our lives. You worked with Iarnród Eireann and travelled fortnightly to head office in Dublin, by train of course. I would meet you on your return, and when the wind blew up the platform, and the sound of the engine echoed through the tunnel, that same anticipation and excitement remained.

Years have passed. You have fulfilled a lifelong ambition to take a trip to India. I have severe arthritis in my knees which has curtailed my movement. Our daughter travelled with you, and tonight you are returning home.

I sit in my wheelchair on the familiar platform, that feeling of anticipation rising within me. The gush of wind blows; I hear the engine in the tunnel. The passengers alight, coming towards me. Our daughter shares your grace.

She places the urn in my hands. I tuck you into the crook of my arm and you fit there without question. You are home.

They’re Always Looking At You, by Fiona Carey

There’s Always someone looking at you, oh oh!

It’s like Bob Geldof read my mind when he wrote those lines. I remember the way hissy housewives huddled at the bus stop used to look at us, a tangle of teenagers from the local convent school parading through the town. “So unladylike,” they muttered, “those skirts are way too short, they’re asking for trouble.”

Every day was judgement day back then. But frankly, we didn’t give a f**k. We were heading for Sir Henry’s, a dark, dank pub. It was covered in posters of New Order, The Clash, The Cure, and Stiff Little Fingers, already yellowed from a few weeks on black walls dripping with condensation. We used to huddle around a Superser Gas heater that emitted more fumes than heat, but we saw that as a bonus, a cheap high. Henry’s was the ‘alternative’ hang-out for those of us who didn’t wear leg warmers and headbands and who liked the type of guys Elle would call ‘f**kboys’. We really liked the music as well and the dope and the fact that we underage drinkers were always welcome and always served.

To me, it’s the most romantic place on earth because that’s where I met him, my downfall. 

I was heading to the bar when the heavy wooden doors pushed open and there he was, backlit and beautiful in faded Levi 501s, a ’50s shirt and a James Dean pea-jacket. With his peroxide blonde hair, a pierced ear and a dangerous glint in his chestnut brown eyes, he was every convent schoolgirl’s dream. I saw him and my head filled with all the words the nuns blacked out of the library books: sensuous, caress, imbibe, longing, lust.

It was a fairytale romance, he, older, cooler, sexier, actually wanted me! He said I impressed him with my panic-dotes, the funny stories I tell when I’m nervous. Ok, I wasn’t a Niamh (all Niamhs were future nuns) but I was no Madonna either, apart from the being-like-a-virgin bit. Like all fairytales, I was soon in danger of straying from the path. He wanted to have sex and so did I. I read somewhere that fear fuels desire. I think that’s true. I was terrified to say yes but there was no way I was saying no. Even though girls who got pregnant got locked up in laundries or died giving birth alone in grottoes.

I really want to talk about my moral dilemma with my best friend but she’s been off-form lately. She’s quieter, word is she’s even dropped out of Eddie’s folk-rock group. I know I’ve kind of dumped her, I’ve become that girl, obsessed with her boyfriend. But we have a pact. Knowing nothing good ever lasts in this town of ‘Thou Shalt Nots’ we agreed in fifth year to seize the moment whenever it came along and to put ourselves first.

In the end I talked to Claire. Claire, who had the number for the Marie Stopes clinic in London spray painted across the back of her leather jacket. People actually spat on her in the street. I was always trembling on the inside when I walked next to her. Oh, I’d give the finger when they called us brassers, whores, heathens, but I was genuinely scared. I believed them when they said they knew where we lived. 

I used to lie awake at night, and always had dark circles under my eyes. A worrier, said my Mum.

‘Sexy, I love the wasted look,’ said my boyfriend as he caressed me, encouraging me to liberate myself from the confines of Catholicism by shagging him.

It’s time for another timeless tune. Bob is belting out Someone’s Looking at You and I’m back on Tuckey Street trying to get to the Well Woman Clinic. I’m going to say I suffer from excruciating period pain so need the pill. Claire’s advice. My appointment is at 3pm and it’s now 2.55. I’m quaking on the corner because I bloody forgot it’s Tuesday and that’s Children’s Allowance day and all our mothers get a shampoo and set in Noreen’s Hairdressers on Tuesday. They’re installed on vinyl yellow chairs under egg-shaped hair dryers. Hard to tell who’s who dressed in identical capes, heads wrapped in gauze scarves, wads of cotton wool keeping the rollers off their ears. If I walk past now, Noreen will knock on the window and I’ll be summoned through the salon door to appear before the council of women. Mrs Foley, the chief prosecutor, will ask, “Where are you off to? Why aren’t you in school? What brings you down Tuckey Street?” The jury sitting in a row staring out the window will purse their lips and narrow their eyes in a knowing fashion. The acrid smell of cigarette smoke and perming lotion will invade my nostrils like the hierarchy of housewives invade my privacy.

Who the hell decided to place the family planning clinic opposite the local hair salon? Some vindictive prick in the planning department obviously. You can’t scratch in this bloody town. All of a sudden I’m panicking and projecting. I won’t make my appointment, I won’t get my golden ticket, a foil packet of precious pills. I will get pregnant, I will be shunned, my mother will be a pariah, I won’t be able to get an abortion because not only is it illegal, it’s also a mortal sin and I don’t want to burn in Hell, I will end up in a Magdalene laundry. I think of him, my six-foot sex god, I want him and he wants me and the whole fking world is conspiring against us.

They’re always looking at you, warns Bob, and they always will.