The Fields (37 page)
The effort of it takes me off my feet completely and makes Sarah shriek outside. I pull myself up to the end of the bed and have another look. At first it’s nothing. Just the same skeleton,
not for this world. But once I steady myself, and get the Hara plugged back in, I notice just the tiniest flicker of green in the heart chakra. I nearly crap myself. Instant diarrhoea. I leap into action, place my right hand directly over his heart chakra and my left hand over mine, and start channelling the energy up through the Hara and into Dad’s auric field.
Within seconds I see a definite green spinning motion around his chest. And within seconds after that I see yellow for the solar chakra, red for the root, and purple for the crown. Time freezes, and the knocking seems to stop. And for what could be ten hours or two minutes, I work like fury to get all seven chakras spinning fast enough to allow Dad’s auric body to jump-start his physical essence. It works, of course. And is less dramatic than it sounds. Dad just opens his eyes and takes a huge manly breath. And then, casual as anything, he props himself up on his elbows and says that he’s fecking starving.
It takes me longer to get the actual bedroom door open, because I have to make Sarah and Aunty Una and Tim Connell all to promise on a billion bibles that they’re not going to spaz out when they see what I’ve done. Sarah’s howling at this, and sure that I’ve done something completely sick and mental, and probably expects to see Dad hanging upside down from the light fixtures. But they all agree eventually not to spaz, and I slowly crank open the door to reveal the figure of Dad, sitting quietly upright at the edge of the bed, with the sweetest, softest smile there’s ever been on a human face playing gently across his lips.
We have a late-night supper, the lot of us. And we sit around the table shouting and laughing for Ireland. Mam sits on Dad’s lap for most of it, although he jokes about the weight of her on top of him, like a big heifer. The two of them are on cracking form, and fire out breastfeeding gags, one after the other like there’s no tomorrow. Claire and Susan arrive too back from Brenda Joyce’s,
which is the signal for the neighbours and the relatives to finally go home, and to leave us there, just the family, alone and together.
Sarah strolls quietly into the sitting room, dips below the line of Christmas cards hanging in front of the folding doors and puts
Hooked on Classics
on to the record player, while Mam makes extra sangers with brown-white bread. The thum-thum-thum beats in the background, and the chat goes up to ninety for hours on end. Me and Fiona tell everyone brilliant stories about life in London. Though it’s Fiona who does the lion’s share of the talking. Most of the time I just sit there and lap it all up, taking in the vision before me, and knowing right there and then that there are no secrets left. I am everything and I am nothing. I am in this world and the next. I am the universe and I am the multiverse. I am the splitting of moments into millions, and the living of those same moments in all their possibilities of all their times. I am alive in the kitchen with my beloved family, sharing in their hopes and their dreams for a new and inconceivable future. And I am back on the floor of O’Culigeen’s filthy study right now, with the blue walls and with the smell of old socks, and with a gash on my forehead and no air left in my lungs, at all.
Stuff like that never happened around our place before.
Not right in front of our eyes.
Kevin Maher was born and brought up in Dublin, moving to London in 1994 to begin a career in journalism. He wrote for the
Guardian
, the
Observer
and
Time Out
and was film editor of the
Face
until 2002, before joining
The Times
where for the last eight years he has been a feature writer, critic and columnist.
For their support, encouragement and assiduous attention to detail, a big thanks to the Little, Brown massive, including Victoria Pepe, Richard Beswick, Susan de Soissons, Stephen Dumughn and Reagan Arthur. Especially, though, to my editor, Clare Smith, who truly has the eyes of a hawk, the patience of a saint and the instincts of an impeccable storyteller.
Thanks also to my agent Jim Gill, for his consistency, enthusiasm and humour, and for the calming assurance of his ever-present baritone burr.
For the gutteral stuff of daily life, and the fuel of loving kindness, thanks to the wider Mahers: Anne, Tom, Catherine, Lucy, Sheila and bold Diarmaid Ferriter.
And finally, thanks to my three favourite teachers: Liberty, Sky and Sylvian. Everyday, you learn me.
And to Rose. There’s no book, no words, and no breath without you. You’re it.
KEVIN MAHER
was born and brought up in Dublin. In 1994, he moved to London to begin a career in journalism. He wrote for
The Guardian, The Observer and Time Out
and was film editor of
The Face
magazine. He then joined
The Times
, where he is a feature writer, critic and columnist. Kevin Maher lives in Hertfordshire, England, with his family.
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The Fields
Copyright © 2013 by Kevin Maher
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EPub Edition © MARCH 2013 ISBN: 9781443413237
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Little, Brown
FIRST CANADIAN EDITION
‘Fields of Athenry’ lyrics by Pete St John, ‘Good Morning’ lyrics by Arthur Freed, ‘Physical’ lyrics by Steve Kipner and Terry Shaddick, ‘Tainted Love’ lyrics by Ed Cobb, ‘Waiting for a Girl like You’ lyrics by Mick Jones and Lou Gramm. Lyrics from ‘Smalltown Boy’ by James Somerville, Lawrence Steinbachek and Steve Bronski reproduced by kind permission of copyright holders Jess-E-Musique Ltd, Lawrence Steinbachek and Bucks Music Group.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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