Churchtown

Marie held it together but Liam, Liam wasn't there. He was with them all the time of it, he was talking to them all the way through it. His two daughters. He was talking to them with his head in his hands and his own private mantra. A begging, keening man and his two girls while Marie pressed the flesh and pretended to go on.

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I walked into the bar like it was Thursday, pretending to be academic.

I walked in like it was every Thursday, waiting for the simplest excuse to eschew the rows of flipping chairs for a day spent boozing and skitting with the lads. Ollie was there, Mark, a couple of the girls and a gaping hush as though they were mistaking it for a chapel. I gave Ollie a dig. A dig on the arm, playful and unreciprocated. "The lecture was cancelled," he said. "The lecture's been cancelled because Niamh was in a crash yesterday and she's dead."

"Say that again."

"Niamh was killed in a car crash last night."

"Jesus... What? Oh Jesus. I'm sorry for the dig. I'm sorry. Fuck."

"It's ok. You didn't know."

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I walked with him towards the Mango, behind the other three or four. We went to the payphone, he rang his mam, he came out and he cried on me. I hugged him. We followed the others.
Inside the hubbub was spoiled by our faces.

"What's the matter with youse?" she asked. "Youse all look like somebody died."

"Somebody did die." Deadpan.

She didn't apologise, just scuttled off to get some tea and conspire with the chef while we stayed there pulling at the plastic fucking table mats, daring each other not to speak one word.

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I phoned my dad. He hadn't heard of Niamh because of all our ten, I was the one she stayed farthest away from. Not through dislike or any kind of meditation, it's just the way it fell. Cordial, at best. Small talk, the most.

She was in a band with her sister, Anita. The two of them in the car with their friend, the third member, and the friend's little baby girl. They were putting up posters at the side of the road for a debut gig somewhere in Cork or in Limerick. A drunk driver. The car to the ditch. All of them gone. The way they fell.

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We woke in Kehoes with pints for some, vodka for others, tea for me and nothing for those that couldn't bear to sip. Out on to Grafton Street to meet those who hadn't come in that morning because they were late with the essay for Robbie. Down to Suffolk Street and into the corner seat in O'Neills. The pub our default place as ever. All drinking by now.

We took over the front room in Denise's that evening, wondering about the funeral. Taking the conversation on to the time we heard her sing. Her song and her beautiful voice in the student's union room and my disbelief that someone with her thick Cork accent could lilt so magnificently.

People from Cork were never meant for singing, I thought. My uncle Pat had taught me that and he, well, he was dead too.

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We took two cars, we met in the car park. The girls with Jason, the girls all loved Jason, and the rest of us with Owen. We stopped for Mass cards and spent the rest of the time listening to music and talking distraction, stopping for food and a pint and a piss along the road.

At Charleville we remembered ourselves, only half an hour to Churchtown and the ringing bells. The music stopped. Our chatter stopped. We passed the place where the girls'... lives... stopped.

And we kept going.

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It was still bright when we found the church wall, the resting wall, the wall for waiting and watching every sunken face pass by. Those who knew her best went to the house where she lay with Anita, returning an hour later, gaits changed, the rest of us still leaning.

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Marie held it together but Liam, Liam wasn't there. He was with them all the time of it, he was talking to them all the way through it. His two daughters. He was talking to them with his head in his hands and his own private mantra. A begging, keening man and his two girls while Marie pressed the flesh and pretended to go on but she was every bit his broken, every iota destroyed by this.

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We drove to my parents' place, not far, my mam had prepared our beds and she got up to talk and make us tea. Words like 'different circumstances' and 'so unfair' hung like smoke around the place before we took to our beds for some shade of private respite.

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Another morning and the Mass, another hour questioning, then the burial and the parting. I went to Tipperary, I stayed with Ollie. We thought of drink but we couldn't. We just sat, he on his bed, me on Noel's, two empty heads, the stereo blaring.