Not Enough Towels
By Catriona Murphy
Fossilised shells with piece title and author name plus Unapologetic logo which has a drawing of a frustrated woman holding her finger to her temple
These relics I brought back from Achill into my bedroom. These strange, prehistoric
fossil shells. Could they contain spells for unmaking a punch, or incantations to fill a
fisted wall?
I sometimes think the West is alive with magick; it hears what you want.
My hands are scratched and bruised and bloodied from mending things, and even
now I still see shapes out of the corners of my eyes; a translucent ripple. I wonder if
it’s some short-circuited part of my brain, or the universe shifting tapes.
I leave my bedroom and try the car. There is no leaving today as it’s a red weather
warning. The howling wind wraps like a comfort blanket; it knows my rage and it
gales and gusts.
Storms are liberating y’know. They can promise things.
Blood, when poured from the ears, congeals like a gel to sit about a half an inch on
red carpet. It’s not run like water, like in films, all spray-like, but it puddles the same
way. And that’s how it sat midway on the stairs landing, as if it couldn’t make up its
mind to be upstairs or down.
I had tried compressions, but they didn’t work. The paramedic had pointed to his
ears and said it ‘wasn’t a good sign’.
My mother was half-standing in the doorway, with the living room lights on behind
her and the TV droning some six o’clock news.
She asked me softly, like a baby seal, if there was a ‘lot of blood’?
I didn’t answer, didn’t turn, just mopped with six towels and reached for the seventh.
Hands and arms the colour of a butcher’s shop.
I played janitor sporting a clean-up job.
The following hour was a blur where you witness it all from the end of a long corridor,
but in strict, fashionable and logical order.
You go to the hospital. They tell you there’s nothing they can do. A week later they’re
a pile of ash in your sitting room.
Boom.
The state coroner couldn’t decide if it was a brain aneurysm or the fall that killed him.
My aunt almost bargained her ring with the funeral directors to release him, since we
had scrambled for funds. We needed State money for the cremation and his step
son was nowhere to be found to sign the damn form.
I told a family friend at the steps of a church that we had to ‘nail the cunt down’.
I don’t think Jesus would see the funny side of that.
The funeral was done with a gun to my head.
All guests had come to see death in ceremony.
I read his poetry out to a room of strangers, pantomimed my role like a circus animal
in full gear and performed, jumping for the crowd like a pony.
And they roar!
I drive out into high winds and the banshees are keening to get into my ‘07 Citroen. I
bought it off a mechanic near Greenhills cause a friend told me that was the best
way to buy a ‘decent secondhand’.
I’m on a deserted road heading towards Sandymount. The wires between the poles
sway and a plastic bag flies across my windscreen.
I’m not sure what a home is anymore, but I’m Mad Max in Dublin four now.
I could see fictitious headlines running across my mind like my mate’s Sandra’s hair
rollers.
‘Ireland hit by a tsunami.’
‘According to Met Eireann, STAY INDOORS.’
‘Woman dies in a car crash for eating too much chocolate.’
I stuff another Cadburys in before Goatstown.
I’m not a thrill-seeker or suicidal. I just need some zaazz, some spice, something
alive.
Because I must function; rise for the office and catch the eight forty train to Howth, sit
at the desk and focus on creating imagery for Google and Facebook ads. Eat lunch
at one pm for one hour and write blogs for van and truck rentals in the afternoon. Go
home and eat dinner.
Repeat.
Must function. Must function. Must function.
If I continue, everyone will know I’m strong and will like me more and my boss will be
impressed - I can do this!
That was before the therapist couldn’t bear to see me come in every week, and put
me on anti-depressants and I suddenly got very happy about everything.
But now I'm sick of standing around people and feeling fifteen miles away. I’m tired
of bombing people’s conversations with my weirdness and not feeling-
-good enough. It’s a constant phantom, y’know. You get glimpses of it like people
walking under streetlights.
Death presses on me harder than an ironing board.
I had this paranoia that I was going to see his ghost after the funeral, and he’d haunt
the place. I’d hear his footsteps and a door would slam like in the poltergeist films.
My mam said she saw him floating above her bed once. He wore a suit - he never
wore a suit! - and stared out the window, looking solemn.
I hope he’s not solemn, wherever he is.
I pull up at the beach car park and spark up a smoke.
I watch a ferry roll in.
When I was in my early twenties, my mates used to go out on night rides like this.
We’d get a three-in-one from some Chinese and sit in the car and smoke and talk
shite. We’d say all the gay guys love to meet up in the Phoenix park at three am and
have a massive bang-out orgy. And the heteros do it at View Point in the Dublin
Mountains.
Now it’s me, alone.
Ageing is isolating.
A half moon sits beside the sanitation plant poles. A trickling sparkles on the water.
Wind threatens to topple my car.
The inspiration faeries have said their goodbyes, at long last.
In May I go back to Achill. Booked an Airbnb. I’ll find a place to collect seashells and
bring one back for my mam.
Maybe I’ll hear the ocean waves in them. Maybe, it’ll be a telephone to Dave.
I could tell him I tried.
“Catriona was previously awarded third place by the Dublin Sports and Cultural Council for her short story. She’s been published in the Storms journal, Sparks journal, Fresh Words International Literary journal, Literature Today and was long-listed for the Wexford Bohemian magazine. A previous participant on the Writing Foundation program at the Irish Writers Centre in 2024, she’s performed at the Dublin Book Festival and the International Literary festival.”
