The Guard

The wood on the shelf that formed the counter of the guard room was painted a very pale blue-green, which had once been gloss. It was worn on the guard’s side of the window, where the occurrence book sat, and the edge of the counter was frayed a bit, just where he always poked his right fore finger into the hole he had let into it, fiddling and fidgeting when he sat leaning the chair backwards on just the back legs. Sometimes a sliver of wood jagged his finger, bringing him to with a start. The wall behind the chair was marked where the back of the chair had dirtied the paint. These marks were at more than one level, as on some days he could balance quite far back, and get a better position to rest. On others, his more jittery days, he could not risk leaning back so much. Those were his thinking days, and he hated those.

It was worse in summer. In winter the guard room fire would be lit, and especially when the chimney was overdue for a clean, the fog of the turf smoke helped him to slow down, and forget. But in summer the air was clear, and it seemed a shame to do nothing. So he tried to get into activity that would occupy his mind a bit, some small diversion. But since the new Sergeant had arrived, there had been less and less for Patrick to do. In the blessed period he referred to as the interregnum, he had been the senior man for over five months. That had taken him busy from winter, through spring, to the middle of June.

Back then it had been down to him to keep everything going; the code and manual amendments alone could be stretched to two days work a month. There was the station diary to keep up to date, and all the monthly returns to Headquarters, and the local expenditure and wee bits of receipts to be accounted for. He could have detailed off someone else in the party to do the firearms cleaning, and the ammunition count. But he did them himself; did not young Jimmy have an ageing mother to visit every short leave? And Michael was walking out with Clare Curley, whose father’s small bit of a farm was a full three and a half miles out of the town, and after that then there was the long boreen. Michael bicycled out most evenings to the corner where, on the right, was the oak shaded entrance to the boreen. It was there he met Clare and then walked her all over the place; gathering juicy blackberries and raspberries when the time was for them, and hazel nuts later. There was a tin still half-full of nuts under the ledger for itinerant trader’s licences right down to his right, on the second shelf under the counter. He had two or three each time he kicked it by chance, and the rattle reminded him. But the bits got stuck between his teeth, especially the skins; and he was less able to suck them out than he had been. He could not get up the vacuum needed these days.

There were other wee bits of jobs he liked. The painting of the station badge, with the colours and enamels sent out from the depot each and every spring. He liked the badge, very much. And why would he not, it was an Irish badge, with a fine harp and green shamrocks, and yes a crown. And was he not an Irish man, in love with his country. And was the King not the King of Ireland just as much as he was King of England.

He knew these things with all of himself. It was inside his flesh, and caught up in his very sinews and bones, and in the marrow of them too, that he knew these things. But others did not know them as he did, and they thought too much. Those people he sat beside at Mass each and every Sunday, and on Saint’s days too; it seemed that every month less of them had a word for him after. He knew in the pit of himself that a dark time was coming.

He busied himself again, this time with the guard room floor. It was parquet, and took a fierce good shine. He would get it gleaming for the District Inspector’s visit. When the floor was at its best he could barely lean back at all in the chair, for fear of slipping. When things get treacherous you have to watch your balance. He hated thinking, and polished some more, looking at the light catching the ridges between the wood on the floor. There would be plenty to do soon, the census was due.

Donaghadee day

A brisk walk along the seafront, a look down into grannies' corner, sloppy slope-sided castles on the beach. A "99" from The Cabin, three times around the lighthouse (anti-clockwise) for luck, a pint or two in Grace Neil's, perhaps then fish & chips, with salt and just a little too much vinegar, wrapped in last week's "Ireland's Saturday Night".

The train back home, the sweep of the lighthouse lamp catching the crinkly glass of the window, and on via Newtownards. Passing under rocky Scrabo, through Comber and then on to Belfast, and home. But first letting down the carriage window using the creased thick leather strap, releasing the half-mangled hole from the wee brass stubby stud, and sticking yer head out into the sooty smoke drifting back from the engine, the swaying rattle over the points at Dundonald, the red sky in the west a harbinger of yet another fine day tomorrow.

Through the chill linen night to tomorrow. Maybe then Portrush, and High Tea in the Northern Counties. And thereafter a wee gin.

No troubles yet.