Niall O\\\\\\\’Connor: Banal

Niall O\\\\\\\’Connor: Banal.

Niall OConnor ~ Dublinepost: In Search of Roots

Niall OConnor ~ Dublinepost: In Search of Roots.

Dublinepost: The End

The End

T-H-E  E-N-D.  Johnny sat back with a sense of relief and satisfaction. He read the words once more. The End. It looked so right. So perfect. He had made a good start to the story, and now all he had to do was figure out where everything else would go.

His mother would have been delighted, he knew. She loved when he wrote stories for her.  Especially when he used her name, for one of the main characters. Once he had called a five-masted pirate ship ‘The Good Ship Mary’, and it had brought smiles all round; an extra helping of love and comfort before going to bed.

Then there was the time he had written about a wonderful pig. He had called it Mary as well. This time it was because he was genuinely fond of the pig, and wanted to show everybody how much he loved it. His mother had not been amused.

— Is that what you think of me then? A pig? Is that the thanks I get, for all the years of

wiping your arse, and putting up with your tears when there was nothing wrong with you at all. Well thanks a lot!

And then she sulked. And little Johnny had not yet learned how best to deal with a mother’s rejection, so he did nothing.

Johnny looked again at the two words, and how they sat so comfortably together on the page. The End. Side by side like mother and child. Like they used to be.

After one last lingering examination, he rolled them up together, and tossed them in the bin. Maybe, some other day . . . .

©Copyright Niall OConnor

Images borrowed from the Web

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via Dublinepost: The End.

Dublinepost

Dublinepost.

Revolution

There is talk of revolution everywhere

from mouths

that have never used the word before,

except

to talk about, the poor broken countries

– bananas,

just like ours.

Will grey fields ever be returned to grass?

Will towers raised high for increased yield

be leveled, and returned to field?

Now, the babies that were sent to creche

will stay at home, with mum and dad,

and grannies man the checkpoints,

while grand-dads set up

window cleaning routes.

What new statues rise,

when old icons fall?

Copyright rest with Niall O Connor

Illustration borrowed from Web.

  Comments Welcomed

Chubb of London

“Call me Ted,” he said, after he had introduced himself as Colonel Edward Blake , —retired. He collected Eamonn from the station, together with the tools of his trade,  and a promise that whatever the fee would be, there would be no problem covering it. As usual, it was a matter of urgency, the locksmith had been told. Eamonn took this with a grain of a salt, as in his line of work, one man’s emergency was another man’s windfall.  It was a poor locksmith that did not weigh up his customer very carefully, before proceeding with the job.

 Eamonn felt very important as he was driven through the town. The car had been hired for the day, complete with driver, and it seemed to him that this job must be of great importance to the Colonel. He made a mental note to himself to add on a few more bob to the final account. The Colonel sat beside him in the back seat; the picture of military correctness and bearing. A smart brown tweed jacket pulled neatly down over sharply creased khaki trousers, one regulation size tie-knot. A pair of perfectly polished brogues completed the picture of a retired military man. If he was conscious of Eamonn’s close study of him, he did not acknowledge it.  He was a man who was comfortable with responsibility and authority.

The car approached the town’s hotel, and the old soldier leaned forward, and tapped his driver perfunctorily on the shoulder. “Pull over here, George. I am sure the young man could do with a little refreshment before proceeding to the house.”

“Yes, Master Ted,” the driver replied. He had rehearsed his response many times, and took pride in its delivery. The car pulled up immediately outside the main entrance of the Royal Hotel, and Eamonn followed his host inside.

 The Colonel, as by now Eamonn was calling him, returned to the table with two 7-up’s, and they sipped in silence, interrupted at first, only by the odd polite question   about Eamonn’s life in the city, and how he found myself to be a locksmith. The Colonel was polite and gentlemanly to a fault, but Eamonn realised that his replies were of no real interest, and he soon became impatient with the delay in getting to the job. He tentatively tried to change the subject. “Were you in the army for long then?” he asked, thinking that the old man might enjoy reminiscing.

 “Practically all my life, you know. As soon as I left school I was packed off to join up . . .  The only course of action for a second son in those days you know . . .  Only returned recently to the old home,” he faltered, and could not find anything else to say.  The story ended abruptly.

“You must see a lot of changes then?”  The young locksmith offered helpfully, in search of an opening.

 “Oh yes . . .  A different place altogether now . . .  Changed for the better in the most part, I suppose . . . ” The Colonel took another sip of his drink. Eamonn waited for him to finish, but again there was silence,  and the older man took to looking distantly out the window, almost as if Eamonn had become invisible to him, and he was once again sitting alone with his memories. Eamonn glanced behind to see what interested him, but there was nothing. The town square was practically deserted. Nothing of interest moved within their view. Their driver stood with his back against the car, importantly smoking a cigarette, while surveying the disappointingly empty square. When Eamonn returned his attention to the bar, the Colonel was already standing.  Evidently, it was time to resume their journey.

In command once more, in the back seat of the car, the old soldier regained the purpose of his sortie, and explained to the young man once again, how it was a very old safe that needed opening, and that there were no keys available. The keys had always been held in the house, he went on to explain, but over the years his brother had managed to somehow misplace them. It was imperative that the safe be opened quickly, and without any possible damage to the contents, he stressed.  Furthermore, it would not be possible for the safe to be removed from the house to the Locksmith’s workshop. This last condition was non-negotiable. This last condition was why Eamonn had been summoned. 

 That people locked their valuables up for safe keeping, and then lost the keys, was nothing unusual in Eamonn’s line of work. They did it all the time; he had even known people to lock the spare set of keys in the safe. He  wondered what could be of such crucial value and fragility, in this case, that caused the Colonel to repeat his warnings about being careful, more than once. It was obviously of immense value,  and  was now being called on, possibly as the last of reserve of an old families wealth , that had seen better days. Eamonn had seen it all before.  Probably some legal document, or property title, he thought, possibly even a Grand Master, – anything was possible, but as a rule of thumb: the smaller, the more valuable. 

 He said nothing. Instead, he reassured the Colonel that there was no safe made by a man that could not be opened by a man, if you had the knowledge and the patience. The manufacturer always left a ‘backdoor’ for the service engineer, and others who were in the know. That always made it a little easier, he thought to himself.  “There‘s always a way,” he repeated out loud, noting the close attention the Colonel was giving to his every word.

 

“Sure if all else fails, there’s always brute force,” he joked.

That was not funny. The Colonel visibly paled at the prospect, no doubt, having  images of a twenty-pounder field gun aimed at his precious safe and their contents. Eamonn quickly apologised for his flippancy, but he could see that he had genuinely offended the man.

“When was it opened last?” he queried, as if the information was of any real value to him. He hoped he could rebuild some fences.

“Oh yes . . . ” the Colonel replied vaguely. “Of course . . . a long time ago. Possibly even when I left to join up . . . you know.  The Army” he added redundantly.

“And the keys?” Have you looked everywhere?”

The Colonel looked at Eamonn as if there the distinct possibility now, that he might be insane, — or at the very least, simple. “Of course I am bloody sure I have looked everywhere. Do you think I would have called you otherwise? This job is of life, and death, importance.” After that, Eamonn felt firmly put in his place. He decided the best course of action was to stay quietly there.

After a mile or so, the Colonel himself offered an olive branch of an apology for his abruptness, but again restated the importance of getting the safe open, without harming the contents. Eamonn reassured him he would do his best, and went no further.

 The car slowed down on the main road, before taking a wide turn, and the driver eased them through what had been an impressive gateway, but was now overgrown by the roadside vegetation. The driveway, brought a chill of near darkness into the car. The trees that escorted their passage were impressively ancient, but ungrazed and unkempt, and hung so low as to brush the roof of the car, and cut out most of the daylight. Between the trees, the remnants of a silver railing ran along beside them, staggering up to the big Georgian country house, that suddenly appeared from beyond the overhanging trees.

Outside the tree canopy, the weeds and bushes encroached on both sides of the car, and Eamonn wondered, whether there would be room for his door to open, when they arrived. He need not have worried, there was a turning circle that had been recently cleared in front of the house. Another example of the Colonel’s military style planning, he thought wryly, but keeping the tempting comment to himself. 

Colonel Blake stepped out of his side of the car, impatient once more, and Eamonn hurried to keep up with him, as he bounded up the steps to the front door. The door was unlocked, for reasons that were obvious, once you entered the formerly impressive reception foyer. Plaster that had fallen from the ornate ceiling, lay where it fell, gathering the dampness to itself, and Eamonn saw that the neglect that had affected the surrounding lands, obviously originated here in the house.

The Colonel turned and apologised for the state of the place, adding that his brother hadn’t turned out to be the ideal custodian after all. Eamonn sympathised with him. He could see that it was a slight to the old soldier, that he had to pass through the magnificence of his memories, and be confronted on all sides with decay. It was a constant reminder, of the passing of his age.

As they moved through the house, Eamonn noted with sadness, the high sash windows rotting; the wide floor boards, bared and twisting; dirt everywhere. None of it sat well, with the man who had brought him here. 

 Where once you would have seen carpet and polish, now he saw dirt and decay. Everywhere; the return of a craftsman’s pride, to the elemental.  Most rooms were completely empty, stripped of their purpose, doors gaping, redundant.

Finally they came to one of the last doors in the main hallway, and the Colonel, with a theatrical flourish, produced a key from his fob packet. He opened the door and stepped back to allow Eamonn to enter the room before him. There was an involuntary gasp as he entered. Of all the rooms he had seen, only this room seemed to have escaped the passage of time. The windows were framed by full, ceiling to floor, port-wine curtains. The original nineteenth century wallpaper, in a deep unfaded blue, scrolled with gold, still covered the walls. There was a smell of freshly polished furniture, incongruous as it was, trapped in this one room.

In the corner, set against the shadowed wall, was a grand old safe, with the boast ‘Chubb of London’ proudly written in gold, on its front. The first line of defence Eamonn thought to himself — the confidence builder: ‘Chubb of London’.

He had seen a few of them before, big and impressive, made in an age of iron bridges and railways; in a time when weight, and the appearance of substance, meant everything.

“Is this it then?” he asked, crossing the room eagerly, as he honed in on its weaknesses, and gathering images in his head from previous experience. There was no way he would pick the lock easily —probably rusted — better to drill, he thought. There would be no hardened steel plates to contend with, and AEDs were unheard of in those days. He turned to the Colonel. “It will have to be drilling job, but otherwise I don’t see too much of a problem. No AEDs to contend with . . . so fairly straight forward.”

“AEDs?”

“Yes . . . Anti explosive devices . . .  Usually a pane of glass suspended with cat gut. When you try to drill, it shatters, and up to seven  bolts fall into place . . . no way back from that.”

“I see,” said the Colonel, confidence in his choice of locksmith, gradually returning. “Will it take long?”

“About twenty minutes I guess, and then a few hours for me to repair the door. It will be as good as new when I am finished. The new key will take a little longer of course, but I should have it back to you in a few days.”

“What new key? What repair? I just want the damned thing open as soon as possible, and after that I will have no further use for it. No need to repair, or anything like that. Can we just get down to it, now please?”

Eamonn shrugged his shoulders. If that was what the customer wanted, well so be it. He took out the battery-driven drill from his bag and fitted a diamond tipped bit. The Victorians had not planned for a modern day drill-bit. This drill-bit had little respect, for their best steel work. Eamonn watched with pleasure, as the bit wormed its way  through the safe door.  Like a knife into butter, he thought, — exactly at the spot he had calculated would give him access, to the locked bolt. Within minutes he had penetrated into the hollow of the heavy door. He withdrew the bit carefully and examined what was revealed, with his small battery torch. Yes. There it was, sitting just a shade below where he had expected it to be. He rummaged in his bag once more, and took out the long narrow screwdriver he favoured for no apparent reason, other than it had delivered more successes than failures when put to the task. He inserted it through the hole carefully, and up against the bolt. Then with one dramatic twist of his arm , he pulled the bolt across, unlocking the door.

Eamonn stepped back with a satisfied smile, before bending and lifting the main lever, to open the secondary bolts. He stepped back. This was his moment, but it was also the client’s moment. It was the moment when you were no longer in control. The  moment you gave back to them, what they had wanted all along— control. 

The Colonel looked at Eamonn with as much relief as disbelief. “That is it? I can open it now?”

”At your service.” Eamonn bowed jokingly. “Its all yours!”

The Colonel moved slowly across and took hold of the brass handle, of the as yet unopened door. He hesitated, and Eamonn wondered whether he should offer to leave. He was often surprised at how sensitive people were about their secrets, when he knew, he could have access to them, whenever he chose.   “Would you like me to wait outside?” he offered graciously.

“No, no, not at all. It is just that I have waited so long”. The colonel drew back his weight, and the door swung open easily, as Eamonn had known it would. 

The elderly man kneeled down, and leaned into the almost empty safe. Eamonn was a little disappointed, because he had thought he might at least get a glimpse of something of immediate interest. There appeared to be nothing of value that he could see.

When he stood up, eyes fixed on whatever he had just retrieved from the safe,  Eamonn could see that the old man held in his shaking hand a photograph. It was a black and white photograph, of a woman. She looked over her bared shoulder, with a smile of understanding; a smile that still passed between her and the person who had taken the picture, all those years before, on a rainy day when they had amused themselves indoors, for once, and had come so close.

 

“This is Norah. The love of my life.”

He spoke softly, with a shake in his voice, and the heavy silence that hung everywhere, was hardly disturbed.

“I came back for her. Now, there is nothing else left, that I need to do . . . Norah.”

©Copyright Niall OConnor

Images borrowed from the web

Comments welcomed.