The Closet of Savage Mementos

Praise for
You

‘...
You
deserves to find a place in our pantheon of much-admired, beautifully crafted variations on a theme.’ Arminta Wallace,
The Irish Times

‘...timeless, placeless and universal... a must read.’ Yvonne Hogan,
The Irish Independent

‘...a vivid and immediate sensory experience,...Ní Chonchúir’s ear – as you might expect of a poet – is alive to the language of her characters...it is about the ordinary, and the secret life that runs beneath it.’ Kevin Power,
The Sunday Business Post

‘The novel flows beautifully and is understated in tone...This gem is sure to win her further acclaim. Nuala Ní Chonchúir is a writer to watch.’ Sue Leonard,
The Irish Examiner

‘You
supplies a pitch-perfect voice to the estranged youngster within each of us, the result being a quietly disarming experience for the reader...It is another success from a writer who seems composed of something that literary awards like to be around... It’s all done organically, the hand of the author combining with the reader’s own sense of childhood nostalgia to create literary alchemy.’ Hilary A. White,
Sunday Independent

‘Ní Chonchúir is excellent on the shifting allegiances between children...this would not have been taken for a début.’ Tom Widger,
Sunday Tribune

‘...this novel uses plain prose, vivid detail, fresh images, and the delightful Dublin vernacular.
You
is a compelling story that brings to life complex characters and delivers hard-hitting truths.’ Ethel Rohan,
Pank

‘Her prose is both dignifying and empowering to her subjects, and it is her psychological ableness which will mark Ní Chonchúir as a writer of significance.’ Rachel J. Fenton,
Melusine

‘...lovely, heartfelt and completely engrossing...
You
might be a short and simple story, but it’s evocative – of time, of place, of childhood – and incredibly poignant. I loved every word.’ Kim Forrester,
Reading Matters

‘You
breaks through the traditionalist stained-glass ceiling with a refreshingly modern and urban splintering and scattering of shards. It emerges in the 21st century, intact and with a new way of writing, of
seeing
, which at once heralds the novel as a focal piece of contemporary literature.’ Jessica Maybury,
Decomp

Praise for
Mother America

‘...Ní Chonchúir, like Frida Kahlo, documents female lives in ripe, uncompromising detail. I was also reminded of Edna O’Brien to whose groundbreaking work most Irish women writers owe a debt. Ní Chonchúir’s precisely made but deliciously sensual stories mark her as a carrier of the flame.’ Cathy Dillon,
The Irish Times

‘...the prose is measured and graceful, rich with delectable turns of phrase and vivid descriptions that seem to paralyse time...Over the past decade, Miss Ní Chonchúir has proven herself a prolific and diverse talent.’ Billy O’Callaghan,
The Irish Examiner

‘...Ní Chonchúir...immediately arrests the reader’s attention with jolting declarations, oddities and intriguingly out-of-place ideas...A short, satisfying read,
Mother America
offers shards of humour and solace in a collection primarily concerned with the complexities of love...in the difficult task of writing about sex, the author shows particular flair.’ Eithne Shortall,
The Sunday Times

‘
Mother America
is a collection that deserves attention and praise not only for its author’s mastery of her craft, but also for its poignant language and complexity of human bonding. Reliability lies in the dichotomy between darkness and light, or revelation and obscurity that Woolf so well identified in short story language – and which is a major source of strength for Nuala Ní Chonchúir.’ Viviane Carvalho da Annunciação,
The Brazilian Journal of Irish Studies

‘Ní Chonchúir’s bravery in forcing her reader to plunge directly into dark waters of the unexpected, the taboo and the downright ugly aspects of motherhood and family, combined with the powerful intimacy of her prose, make hers a literary voice which should and will be heard.’ Susan Haigh,
The Short Review

‘...honest, uncompromising, thought-provoking and at times uncomfortable, particularly for the male reader: the [stories] may strike close to home. Each has a point, and makes it. The focus is on mothers but what each reader takes away will vary...Having finished, I put the book down on my bedside table, contemplated it, then started again from the beginning. I challenge you not to do the same.’ Dave Troman,
Orbis

‘Towards the end, ‘Moongazer’, in two pages, took me by the heart and shook me. When I read ‘From Jesus to The Moon’ I knew I would have to read more of Nuala Ní Chonchúir. Seek her out and see what she sees.’ Liam Murphy,
The Munster Express

THE CLOSET OF SAVAGE MEMENTOS

THE CLOSET OF

SAVAGE

Mementos

NUALA NÍ CHONCHÚIR

THE CLOSET OF SAVAGE MEMENTOS

First published 2014

by New Island

2 Brookside

Dundrum Road

Dublin 14

www.newisland.ie

Copyright © Nuala Ní Chonchúir, 2014

Nuala Ní Chonchúir has asserted her moral rights.

PRINT ISBN: 978-1-84840-336-9

EPUB ISBN: 978-1-84840-337-6

MOBI ISBN: 978-1-84840-338-3

All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owner.

‘Advice to Myself’ from ORIGINAL FIRE: SELECTED AND NEW POEMS by Louise Erdrich. Copyright (c) 2003 by Louise Erdrich. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing Data. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

New Island received financial assistance from

The Arts Council (An Comhairle Ealaíon), Dublin, Ireland

For Red Tui

&

for Cúán

‘Your heart, that place

you don’t even think of cleaning out.

That closet stuffed with savage mementos.’

Louise Erdrich, ‘Advice to Myself’

Chapter One

I
n the church on Ardmair Street, the Blessed Virgin has a Western European face – she is chubby and big jawed. Her form is so familiar to me that I feel comforted and safe, as if I am in the company of an old friend. There is a pink carnation threaded through her fingers, its head is lopped and barely clinging to the stem; the flower is forlorn looking and, to cheer up the statue, I want to pluck it from her hands and replace it with a whole blossom. I have come to pray for Dónal; he is soaking my dreams and I feel close to him all day afterwards, as if he is at my shoulder. He turned up again last night; he stood across my bedroom from me, not saying anything. I watched him and waited for him to speak. I said ‘Hiya Dó’, but he remained silent.

The statue’s robes are made of real fabric – a spangly gown topped with a teal velvet cloak – and tears bubble on her cheeks. She has a halo of light bulbs and one of them is unlit. The prie-dieu digs into my knees and I lean forward, trying to get some relief. I like the sweet, resinous smell in this tiny church; it is different to the incense that lingers in the parish church at home. Here there is only one Mass a week, for the few Catholics who live in the village. I bow my head, close my eyes and search my mind for a prayer. I stopped calling for godly help years ago but, since Dónal’s death, the need to pray has crept back in. If God exists, I imagine that He is considering my prayers wryly, the sinner looking for succour when it suits her. But I pray anyway: for Dónal, for my mother Verity, my brother Robin, and for myself. As my Granny King liked to say, praying certainly can’t do any harm.

I wonder for a moment if Dónal can hear me, then I dismiss the thought. He hated the church and all about it. He would laugh at me now for being a hypocrite, for being soft. I look up at a squinting portrait of Christ – he looks sceptical in it, as if he is debating something strange that someone has said. Turning back to Mary, I bring my hands up in front of my face; I can feel tears heating the back of my eyes. I push them away and breathe deeply. The statue looks robustly healthy, like a country nurse; she hasn’t got the lissom form of Our Lady of Knock. I wonder if she might be the Virgin of Scotland.

‘Help me,’ I say, not realising I have said the words aloud until a man who is kneeling at the altar hurls a vicious stare in my direction. He stands, genuflects three times, blesses himself over and over, then leaves the church, tossing angry looks at me. I get up, rub at my knees and walk under the stained-glass windows that scatter cheery yellows and blues in my path. I go outside into the welcome saline air and trot the length of Ardmair Street, back to my room in the staff house.

I lie down on the bed to think about Dónal. Missing him is a dull, never-ending buzz in my brain, even six months on. I can’t let him in during my day-to-day, but I have to bring him back to me at times. I love the nights when he turns up in my dreams, but think-dreaming him in the daytime – conjuring him up – lets me take him back from death for a while.

Dónal’s mother came over to me in the hotel after the graveyard, to thank me again for putting together a memorial board of photographs for the church.